By Garrett Ruhmann, Wood-Mizer
February 17, 2026
Hollerhorn.
The word itself means nothing; you won’t find it in a dictionary, a thesaurus, or an encyclopedia. It’s a made-up term, one word made from combining both “holler” and “horn”--two methods of drawing attention. And despite its location in the tiny northeastern town of Naples, New York, Hollerhorn Distilling speaks loudly, its name an appropriate moniker for the waves it’s created throughout the community.
Hollerhorn is a distiller that focuses on local harvest. That means, as a family-owned business, they produce small-batch harvests of spirits: Single Barrel Bourbon, Empire Rye Whiskey, American Single Malt Whiskey, Rye Vodka, Gin, and a few others. They host an event space, an outdoor concert venue, and have been featured on CBS Morning News.
“Hollerhorn,” indeed.
The distillery has its roots in the Finger Lakes area. A popular vacation spot for city folks looking for a weekend retreat, the Finger Lakes is a region consisting of small towns, quaint farming villages, and all the charm in the world.
For Karl Neubauer, founder of Hollerhorn Distilling, it’s where he calls home. Karl grew up in Naples, moving away just long enough to meet his future wife at university (the esteemed Alfred University School of Art & Design) before returning home, the prodigal son without all the baggage.
At the time, Karl thought he’d follow the family tradition. “I come from a long line of carpenters and home builders. [...] I was designing and building energy-efficient homes, primarily doing a lot of custom builds in the Finger Lakes region. I had my own business for over 25 years and had an amazing time, met incredible people, and had the opportunity to work with the material that I love the most, which is wood. So that’s what I did on top of making sculptural work and studying distillation.”
Ah, wood. For someone living in such a lush forest area, it runs in the blood.
“Some of my earliest memories are just adventuring in the woods. I think that was a big part of me realizing the sort of power of the forest and of trees. They’ve always been an inspiration and have tied me, in some way, like an umbilical cord, to the earth. It’s not just a material, it’s creating everything that we have. It’s heating our homes in the winter. It’s providing the air we breathe. Trees inform all of my sculptural work, and are a sort of representation of our environment.”
But the family trade wasn’t meant to be. Karl continued to grow interested in distilling, and he pursued it purely as a hobby for nearly fifteen years. All the while, his wife Melissa was honing her cooking skills–”The best meals of my life have been made by her hands,” says Karl–and between the two of them, a seed was planted.
“I had talked about just a small little farm distillery. We got pretty excited about the idea of maybe a small restaurant, small farm, small distillery, and we are definitely dreamers. So once that seed was planted…things just kind of escalated,” recalls Karl.
For some, a seed would remain just that. But for Karl and Melissa, it began growing quickly and steadily. “I drew the building three different times from start to finish. Redesigned it. Melissa and I would look at the plans and try to envision it in the best possible way. We planned it for about five years.”
The final design was settled in 2017, but Karl began the work long before that. As barns in the area collapsed due to old age, weather, or whatever else, he would ask the owners to salvage the timber. He’d do the same for area backwoods. From there, he’d saw and trim the lumber to his own design.
After a year of building, Hollerhorn Distilling opened its doors. Business was good. Over its first four years, Hollerhorn saw steady growth of 15-20% each year. The locals loved the live music, distinct spirits, and elegant food offerings. Almost immediately, expansion was required. The kitchen was too small, so they took a downstairs space and made a second prep kitchen. A large outdoor stage was in the process of being built. Naples, New York had a successful distillery to put its name on the local map. Then, in 2022, disaster struck.
THE FIRE
“We were woken up by a state trooper in the middle of the night,” Karl recalls. As they jumped in the car and drove the short distance down a hill and into town, they could see the flames from three miles away, the sky awash in orange and red hues.
When they arrived at the scene, multiple fire departments were trying, unsuccessfully, to put the fire out. It was of no use.
The entire building was lost to the fire.
“The reality was devastating,” describes Karl. “It was heartbreaking to lose literally years of work not only in the building, but all the barrels of spirits that were aging that I lost.” The building was empty at the time of the fire, fortunately. But so much equipment was damaged and destroyed. To see the kitchen melted to a pile of steel and barrels turned to ash was a devastating sight to the family, the staff, and the entire community.
THE REBUILD
Though it left nearly nothing but destruction in its wake, there was a silver lining to the fire: the major distilling equipment had survived due to the quick thinking of its owners. From first light the morning after the fire, Karl and a few others hustled to build a wall in support of the ridge that supported the equipment. So when the ridge fell, the equipment was still supported by the wall and came away intact.
That was all Karl and Melissa needed to make the decision that they were going to rebuild. The community rallied behind the Neubauers, starting a GoFundMe page for the distillery and donating through funds, materials, and even timber. “I get pretty emotional about it,” says Karl. “Without that support, we could not have retained our staff.” Locals would drop by and give little hollerhorns to the family in an act of encouragement, cheering them on in their decision to rebuild the distillery.
The original build was done mostly by Karl and his friend Max. Due to their big dreams and short schedule, the Neubauers weren’t able to contract any of the local builders, each of whom was scheduled 2-3 years into the future. The rebuild was different. Karl’s friend Jonathan pulled together his construction friends and they re-arranged their own schedules to help construct the new distillery.
Considering the first build took 5 years to source all the lumber needed for construction, Karl knew they couldn’t take the same approach of waiting for old barns to collapse. Fortunately, another community member showed up. They purchased some 1800s-era timber from the family of one of their restaurant employees, saving an invaluable amount of time.
With plans in place, they were now able to rethink the building design. It was a second chance at building their passion project. And though the process still isn’t truly complete three years later (“I still find bits of debris and ash that have been tucked under things,” Karl tells us), the new Hollerhorn has taken several large steps through the rebuilding process.
In the first year, they were able to get the tasting room and the distillery operational. Exactly one year after the fire, they opened to the public and began bottling spirits again, starting the stills back up and producing in a small way. Once October 2024 rolled around, Hollerhorn fully reopened to the public, bringing the full crew back to work.
THE PASSION
There’s a feeling one gets when they love what they do, whether it’s sawmilling, distilling, creating, or anything else. It’s a feeling that can be fleeting at best; elusive at worst. Yet, for someone who has found their passion, a whole life can be spent chasing it.
“I love every aspect of distilling,” says Karl. “I’m the most happy and I’m the most excited when I’m in that spot. Many times I’m alone; I’m the only one here distilling late nights. It’s kind of my happy place. It’s what I love.”
For Karl, it’s the collaboration of it all. He takes a raw material that someone else grew and he celebrates it with his craft. He gets to know those who grew it. He embraces the challenge of the annual change in opportunity: did watermelon grow well this year, or did grapes? Which grains have the best yield? How does the fermentation smell each day? How long to age the whiskey? What kind of wood should the barrel be that the whiskey goes into?
Wood. There’s that word again.
Much of the distilling process comes down to four elements: yeast, a grain/fruit, water, and wood. These are the threads that pull the fabric together, each essential in their own way.
In the same way, trees and wood have been the threads that have tied Karl’s life together. “Trees have informed me and what I do, and as a distiller, it’s carried through,” he says. “I love every aspect of what trees have brought to my life and I love honoring them and celebrating them and working with them in multiple ways.”
“It’s how I got into distillation, fermenting maple sap, and then distilling it feeling like that was a unique thing…it’s very direct. There’s no fruit to harvest. It’s directly from the tree. It’s all of the land. It’s telling you where the tree grew and what the year was like and what the minerality and composition of the soil is. That was why those tree spirits were the first thing we ever released. It felt right.”
He describes the experience of climbing trees as a child and tasting the sap straight from the bucket of his neighbor’s tap. Those experiences have shaped the man he is today.
THE SAWMILL
Twenty years ago, when Hollerhorn Distilling was still a glimmer in Karl’s eye, he knew he wanted to build his own home. After knowing friends who owned Wood-Mizer sawmills, he became intrigued in the idea of owning one himself. The thought of being able to create his own material, whether it was hardwood for furniture or timber framing or anything else, was too tempting to pass up. It was a decision that paid dividends, as Karl now describes his Wood-Mizer LT15 Portable Sawmill as the central tool in his world. “I cut all the siding on our house and all of the timbers in the building, and then as a builder building custom homes, it allowed me to do things that no other builder in the area could do,” he says.
Upon finishing a new build, Karl would leave a unique gift for the new owners: a custom piece of wood cut on his Wood-Mizer. Sometimes it was a breakfast bar, other times it was an island. It was a way to make each home precious and meaningful both to Karl and to the customer.
Through his building, the distillery, and the rebuild, Wood-Mizer has been with Karl every step of the way, and he tells us he hopes to still be cutting on it thirty or forty years from now. It’s become somewhat of a therapeutic process for him. Karl’s mill is manual, meaning there are no hydraulics. But that’s the way he likes it. “I love walking with the mill. I’m looking at the log the whole way and forced to slow down. It’s great exercise. Yeah, everything is done the hard way. But I love that, you know. I love the speed of that.”
THE MISSION
The Neubauers recognize that their little restaurant in their little town holds a much larger significance than simply being the local watering hole. It’s become a community hub; a place to be connected with others and form bonds that are rarely found elsewhere.
Karl says this: “Our ethos is very much community mindedness. Being true, genuine representatives of the community of the Finger Lakes region. It’s like a family. We support one another. We really try to have open, honest, communication. There is no corporate hierarchy…Because for us, the most important and beautiful parts of our lives are when we travel places and find this amazing little gem of a place, a little town, a little restaurant, a business where people care and they’re truly producing something that is from that area with care…We want to be ambassadors of goodwill for the Finger Lakes. That’s why we’re doing this. It’s about filling people’s cups.”
Hollerhorn Distilling has come a long way since its humble beginnings. No one, except maybe Karl and Melissa, could have predicted the success they’ve had. “It’s not a selfish thing anymore. You know, the dream maybe started as a selfish dream. ‘I would really love to have my own distillery and distill the spirits that I’m most passionate about.’ But I think why we’re still here is our staff; they are our family. I think it’s the community support and the community space and what it’s become,” he says.
“That’s kind of what I think the purpose of art is: to challenge and raise awareness and inspire. And I think that’s why we love seeing people leave here so inspired and filled. And we feel that.”