Hidden Spirits Cocktails finds larger home in First & Main

by John Benson

Pam Davis had no idea she had become a bootlegger until her husband, Darnell, reminded her about the illegality of selling liquor across state lines. From this realization, the engineer at a Fortune 500 company started down the road that led to the creation of Hidden Spirits Cocktails, which recently moved into a bigger location on First Street in Hudson.

“Tequila was my drink of choice, but after two babies I couldn’t throw back the shots the way I used to,” said Pam, a Streetsboro resident. “So I came up with some homemade lemonade. I mixed it together and it was like, this kind of mellows out the taste of the tequila. Then I became this mad scientist trying to get it perfect.”

Once Davis’ friends and family caught wind of her tasty concoction, everything changed.

“It got out of control really quick at our house parties,” Davis said. “People were like, ‘Can I take some home?’ So I would put it in mason jars and sell it.

“Next thing I know I had an order for three cases from Michigan. My husband was like, ‘You know it’s illegal?’ I said I had no idea. He said, ‘Whatever, Al Capone, I’m not coming to get you out of jail.’”

Shortly after making the delivery, Davis admitted her crime to the state of Ohio, which put her on the path to getting a liquor license 16 months later. This led to opening up a 350-square-foot facility in downtown Hudson for production while Davis still worked her day job.

Interest in the Hidden Spirits Cocktails label, which produces lemonade, strawberry and apple spice flavors, continued to grow with 25 stores stocking the product. Then earlier this year with expectations to expand to 100 stores, Davis left corporate America and moved the ready-to-serve cocktail company into a 1,650-square-foot facility at 89 First Street.

“We have a showroom and a tasting lounge,” Davis said. “It’s where we bring our distributors and customers in to try the product and showcases other cocktails you can make with our product.

“We also try to do events once a month just to let the local community know about the product, because a lot of times people walk past our stuff on the shelves and they don’t know what it is. So the tasting room is kind of for the local Hudson community that’s always been really good to us.”

Davis learned early that any thoughts of turning the Hidden Spirits Cocktails venue into a bar with regular hours was problematic due to the lack of a full kitchen.

“It was happy hour all the time, so it becomes difficult trying to have normal hours,” Davis said. “That’s when we pivoted and decided to go event based. You can schedule a private party, or once a month we host some sort of event. The best way to find out is through our social media pages and website, hiddenspiritscocktails.com.”

 

Featured image photo caption: Pam Davis, president and CEO of Hidden Spirits Cocktails, says community members can sample her infused alcohol concoctions in a tasting room at its new First and Main headquarters. Photo by J. Stringer