Local liquor and gourmet snacks recipe for Milford's easySpeak distillery and brewpub

Beachgoers and Sussex County regulars may remember Zack King from the Delaware Distilling Company he opened in 2012.

King made a name for himself at the Rehoboth Beach restaurant and distillery by combining specialty liquors distilled on site with sometimes quirky foods. 

The lover of all things liquor found his passion was geared more toward the distilling side of the operation, so he sold his share in the popular restaurant this past spring to follow that passion.

Come December, that dream will become reality as he and his girlfriend Marissa Cordell will open and manage easySpeak Brewpub, Restaurant, and Distillery on Milford-Harrington Highway in Milford.

The couple saw Milford as an area that was missing a social atmosphere and outdoor/indoor kind of area with a wide variety of spirits and unique foods and built the operation around that need.

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King said the easySpeak will be similar yet different to DDC. In this endeavor, the distilling operation will be king and the 60-seat indoor/outdoor restaurant will serve as a complement to the booze distilled there and the local beers served in the brewpub.

"We found after a little while that what we were more passionate about was the distilling side of things, so this building was designed to be smaller on the restaurant side and larger on the distilling side so we can focus on the wholesale business and perhaps expanding that down the road," King said.

King believes growth on the distilling side is almost infinite as far as production is concerned. There is distribution available all over the country and there are a lot of smaller distilleries that are getting into international distributing, he said.

King also believes there is potential for his distillery/brewpub concept to work in other locations.

"This is being built as the main distilling operation and that could feed and fuel other locations if this concept works well," he said. "Ideally, this would work to a point where it would be feasible to open it up in other towns. Not just big cities, but in small towns like Milford and other areas of Delaware that don’t have huge populations or high incomes. Just regular towns."

As for the products that will be made at easySpeak Distillery, King thinks the sky is the limit. He and Cordell don’t necessarily want to be like a Skyy vodka or a Pinnacle where they have 40 different vodka flavors, he said. They want to focus on items that sell well and that are popular. King said liquor would be made to pour onsite as well as products made for distribution.

"Our orange vodka is something we will sell here and we’ll make drinks with it and sell bottles of it, mainly because we don’t want to use other companies’ flavored vodkas," he said. "It’s not something we’ll distribute right away. But if there is enough call for it, we may in the future."

As far as the distillery/pub goes, King says easySpeak – which derives its name from an illicit liquor store or nightclub from the Prohibition Era – is in the same vein as the Dogfish Head brewpub or that kind of business. He believes the benefit to his joint is being able to sell beer and wine and other spirits, as well as spirits made on site.

"Unlike going to a brewery that may only sell its own beer, we can sell beers from local breweries plus our spirits," he said. 

Passion begets action

King always knew he wanted to open a restaurant because of his love of food. The 29-year-old entrepreneur started working in the food service industry as a teenager and later went to culinary arts school before he changed his major to restaurant management.

He later left school to work outside sales for business services and credits that move for providing the tools to open DDC and now easySpeak.

"I got training in almost everything from cooking in a kitchen to learning some restaurant management in school and then learning the business side of things," he said. "That all kind of prepared me for opening a place and being able to run it. Being able to know a little bit about everything in the restaurant is important. I’m not an expert in any of them, but being able to jump in is important."

Because of his diverse background and leanings toward culinary arts, King believes the food served at easySpeak Brewpub, Restaurant, and Distillery will be a big hit, too.

He and Cordell have been planning the menu for months but knew they wanted it to be tapas-style shareable food.

"It’s actually been coming together for a little while now," said Cordell, 22, who worked with King at DDC. "We definitely have some input from family members friends who are willing to give input and ideas."

The restaurant will offer two different levels of food, King said. The first is homemade “gourmet bar snacks” which is everything from custom-spiced and baked Goldfish crackers to homemade jerkies to pickled vegetables, popcorn and things like that. 

"Everything will be unique from that side," he said.

In addition to the bar snack side, easySpeak has a wood-fired oven and a smoker, so pizzas, quesadillas, meats in the smoker like ribs and brisket, all will be served in a tapas style, not necessarily served in a sit-down dinner format, King said.

"You won’t get a slab of ribs and two sides," he said. "It will be a half rack of ribs for the table to share. It’s all designed around communal dining experience." 

Cordell says tapas style is pretty popular all over. She and King want to make it a little bit more social than a tapas environment and want people to be able to mingle around the restaurant, the patio and even back in the distilling area.

"We’ve definitely done our share of exploring and finding places that we feel work," she said. "Some of our favorite places have played a huge role in what we want to do here."

As for his ability to make liquor, King says he was self-taught. After first making beer, he graduated to making the hard stuff. King said there were no schools unless you went to Europe or got a chemical engineering degree to really make an alcohol product. 

"We’ve been making liquor for five or six years now in different forms and have played around with vodka, brandy, whiskey, gin, rum, bourbon," he said. "It’s a trial and error, mess up as you go, with a lot of taste testing."

As for the distillery/brewpub, King believes the model he and Cordell will follow when they open easySpeak next month is tried and true and has been successful for King. It's a place for everybody, he said.

"We’re open to whoever wants to come and hang out," he said. "We’ll have construction workers and doctors, and we’ll have teachers and local first responders and a good mix. We hope it will be the place where everybody can come to hang out, feel comfortable and we’ll have something for everyone."

Reach Jerry Smith at jsmith17@delawareonline.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JerrySmithTNJ.