There are easier ways to open a speakeasy than spending a decade bouncing between reality television, custom motorcycles, whiskey production, and a succession of temporary homes. But then, nothing about the path that led to The Baldwin has been especially straightforward.
When The Baldwin opens July 18 inside the former Baldwin Vineyards tasting room in Pine Bush, it will mark the latest chapter for the team behind Liquid Mercantile Distillery and Speakeasy Motors Whiskey Co.—partners Mark Chiancone and Evan Favaro, joined by what they jokingly describe as the operation’s third partner, Mac, the distillery dog.
The story begins in 2013 on the set of CMT’s “Orange County Choppers.” Favaro appeared on camera while Chiancone worked behind the scenes as part of the production crew. A shared fascination with craftsmanship eventually drew them away from television and toward spirits.
In 2019, the pair teamed up with Gardiner distiller Gable Erenzo, founder of Liquid Mercantile, to launch Speakeasy Motors Whiskey Co., an extension of Favaro’s Wallkill-based custom fabrication business. After Erenzo’s death in 2021, Chiancone and Favaro gradually assumed stewardship of Liquid Mercantile itself, eventually taking over full operations last year. Today, Speakeasy Motors serves as the whiskey brand, while Liquid Mercantile remains the parent farm distillery.
That winding history helps explain why The Baldwin feels less like a conventional tasting room than the latest evolution of an ongoing project.
Liquid Mercantile’s previous tasting room occupied just 450 square feet inside the production building. Functional, yes, but hardly a destination. When Baldwin Vineyards closed in 2024 after more than four decades, an opportunity presented itself. Chiancone and Favaro approached the owners about taking over the former tasting room, expanding into roughly 3,000 square feet while keeping one foot planted in the property’s history. They even borrowed the name.
“We’re calling it The Baldwin to pay homage to them and the land and what’s been there for 40 years before us,” Chiancone says. He also acknowledges the arrangement is temporary. The property remains for sale, making the new venue what he describes as a “long-term pop-up” while the company works toward something more permanent.
That permanent future is already taking shape. Just before our conversation, Chiancone had received conditional approval to construct a new 5,000-square-foot distillery, barrel house, and tasting room in Wallkill—a long-awaited home after several moves over the past few years.
For now, though, the focus is on making The Baldwin an experience. Visitors will first enter what appears to be an ordinary room, complete with an old television playing vintage films, cartoons, and broadcasts from the first half of the twentieth century. The real bar lies beyond a custom-built bookcase that swings open to reveal the speakeasy itself.
Inside, antique furniture, Victrolas, gramophones, vintage music machines, and carefully collected curiosities create the feeling of wandering into someone’s meticulously assembled cabinet of Americana. Much of the décor was built or fabricated by Favaro and friends, continuing the hands-on ethos that runs through the company’s whiskey labels, branding, and even its bottle artwork, illustrated by a tattoo artist collaborator.
The drinks aim for the same blend of old-world inspiration and contemporary technique. Alongside tasting flights and bottles to go, The Baldwin will operate as a full cocktail bar featuring New York-produced spirits, including Liquid Mercantile’s own whiskey, vodka, liqueurs, and apple brandies, supplemented by bottles from fellow Empire State distillers. The cocktail program will venture beyond the classics into clarified milk punches, foams, and other modern bar techniques while maintaining a distinctly local focus. As a New York farm distillery, Liquid Mercantile sources its grains from within the state and builds seasonal releases around regional ingredients—from cherries grown just minutes away to black walnuts foraged from the distillery property.
Food will rotate just as frequently. Rather than installing a permanent kitchen, The Baldwin plans to host a changing roster of food trucks and local chefs each weekend, beginning with Potenza Pizza and Poppy’s Barbecue during opening weekend.
Music will be another defining feature. Chiancone spent two decades working as a television sound mixer, and both partners want live performances to become part of the venue’s identity. Expect DJs, original local bands, and performances that move beyond the familiar acoustic-cover-song formula that often dominates tasting rooms.
Taken together, The Baldwin feels like more than a place to sample whiskey. It’s an expression of the founders’ overlapping interests in fabrication, design, music, antiques, local agriculture, and handmade things. Like the custom cars that first brought the partners together, every visible detail seems intended to tell a story.
Whether that story unfolds in Pine Bush for two years or 10 remains to be seen. But beginning July 18, visitors can step through the bookcase and experience the latest stop on a journey that has already taken this unlikely whiskey company through television studios, motorcycle shops, distilleries, and now, at least for a while, into one of the Hudson Valley’s more intriguing new drinking destinations.
The Baldwin will be open Fridays 3pm-9pm, Saturdays, 10am-9pm, Sundays 11am-7pm.
