About us 

Altered State Distillery is a small, family-owned and operated business and long-time dream of owner/distiller, Deadhead and music-lover, Gavin Maus. 

An Erie native, Gavin spent two decades as a business engineer in the local manufacturing industry. But as an avid homebrewer, he often quipped about opening his own brewery one day. By the time an opportunity for a career-change arose, Gavin’s interests in brewing had gone a step further into the world of distilling.  So, with very little money, no location, all  of the confidence and a fraction of the knowledge he would need, he decided to just go for it and embarked on the very large and daunting task of building a distillery from scratch.  With the help of his wife, Heather and two business partners who joined him along the way (one silent partner and one partner who has since moved-on), Altered State Distillery was born and flourishes today thanks to a passion for his craft, an amazing staff and a lot of love from the Erie community who has been so wonderful in supporting our dream.  For that, we are very Grateful.  

Our pledge to you, the customer: we will never sell you a product that we do not thoroughly enjoy ourselves. We consider our craft spirits and craft cocktails to be just that: our craft. We pour our heart and soul into everything on our menu and take a lot of pride in everything we produce. It's important to us that every bottle we make, every product we put-out, and every cocktail that passes over our bar and every dish that comes from our kitchen is our very best, or we'll replace it. Like anyone who strives to be exceptional at their craft, we will never stop working to improve.

Ultimately our hope is that by sharing our favorite things with you; from our spirits,  food and cocktails to the music we enjoy the most, we can begin to foster a comfortable place for people with similar interests to gather and build a community that will harbor great friendships.

"WITHOUT LOVE IN A DREAM IT WILL NEVER COME TRUE" - Grateful Dead

In their free-time Gavin and Heather enjoy traveling, camping, attending concerts and music festivals and supporting live music whenever and wherever possible. A nod to their love of live music is engrained in just about every aspect of the distillery from the bottle labels to the tasting room walls.   With the production space in such close proximity to the venue, we like to say that all of our spirits are "infused with  music" and that's what makes them so good. 

Gavin works at the distillery full time: mashing, distilling, infusing, barreling and bottling, along with running sales & distribution, keeping the books, and all the fun businessy things that go on behind the scenes. 

Heather continues to serve the Erie community as registered nurse case manager while performing different roles within the business, including (but not limited to) booking and promoting events, running the webpage and social media and writing this absolute Masterpiece  

The family currently resides in Fairview and has three children, one college graduate and two who are currently enrolled in the Fairview School District.

The Distillery

 The custom-built production space houses a 600-gallon mash tun, 500-gallon copper hybrid still with a 6
plate column, a 500 gallon pot still, (2) 600-gallon fermenters, a 25-gallon copper hybrid still with a 6 plate column, and (2) 75-gallon holding tanks.

Call ahead or email us to schedule a tour