Charbay Distillery

Charbay Distillery is the Karakasevic family's craft spirits operation that traces its distilling heritage back 13 generations through a single Serbian distilling family lineage — making Charbay arguably the longest continuous distilling family in modern American craft spirits, with the current 13th-generation distiller Marko Karakasevic representing the unbroken family line that began with Miloslav Karakasevic distilling brandy in Serbia in the 1700s. The Karakasevic family emigrated to the United States in the late 1970s, and Miles "Mile" Karakasevic founded the modern California distillery operation in 1983 — predating St. George (1982) by months and making Charbay one of the very first modern post-Prohibition California craft distilleries. The Charbay operation has historically run across two California locations: the original St. Helena (Napa Valley) facility associated with the Domaine Charbay winery operation, and the larger production facility in Ukiah (Mendocino County) where the distillery's main production has been concentrated through the modern era. The dual-location structure reflects the broader Karakasevic family business that combined wine production at the Napa property with brandy and spirits production at the Mendocino facility — a Serbian-distilling-tradition integration of wine and spirits production that's rare in American craft spirits. The product range is genuinely unusual in the broader American craft scene. Charbay Whiskey Release I — distilled f…