Neurologist Albert Marano
with business co-owners Chris
Morgan and Matt Resnick.
in October of 2016. “There wasn’t really a plan
to open a distillery, but when the opportunity
of having a small space came up, we had conversations
for a month or less and decided to
give it a try.” Now, just a few years in, they’ve
already doubled in size.
White Dog Distilling started out making
unaged spirits, including corn whiskey, gin,
white rum and moonshine. The distillers
graduated to aging whiskey in barrels, including
the Cornucopia whiskey, which is aged
and spiced, and bourbon, aged in new American
oak barrels. They also make limoncello
based on Carlo’s late aunt Lella’s recipe from
Italy. The team has a fifty-gallon still that they
use to make everything. They create one spirit
at a time during the distilling process, hold
the liquor in totes, then switch it up.
White Dog Distilling has a system for keepawtucket
is the unofficial craft beer and spirits capital of Rhode Island. One of the latest local
liquor companies to launch is White Dog Distilling, a bar and distillery located in the historic
Lorraine Mills on Mineral Spring Avenue in Pawtucket. “White Dog is slang for moonshine,” says one
Pof the four partners, Alecia Catucci.
“Every spirit starts out as moonshine. It’s
the recipe that determines if it’s whiskey, bourbon,
gin or rum.”
The distillery’s tasting room opened in April
of 2018 in what is now its current production
room, a 350-square-foot space that had bar
seating for four people and a standing-roomonly
floor plan. As of September 2019, the
distillery moved production to a 950-squarefoot
space in the same building, which allowed
for a bar plus lots of lounge seating where they
serve cocktails and tastings.
White Dog Distilling’s four founding partners,
affectionately called “the pack,” include
Alecia and her husband, Carlo Catucci, Eric
Sylvestre and Vincent Greene. All four partners
have careers in different fields, and three of
them devote part of their time to the distillery.
Carlo Catucci is a physics teacher and chair of
the science department at Scituate High
School, Silvestre works for the VA and Greene
is a lawyer. Meanwhile, Alecia’s main focus is
the distillery. Making spirits started out as a
hobby for her husband, Carlo. He is a big rum
drinker and was making whiskey and rum in
their basement with an alternate fuel license
that allowed him to make it, but not sell it.
Three years ago, Carlo and Alecia went on a
date in Pawtucket, hopping around to some of
the breweries, including Bucket Brewery (now
Smug), Foolproof and Crooked Current, also
in Lorraine Mills.
They were inspired by Crooked Current’s
up-from-the-bootstraps story, and booked an
appointment to see the space where the brewery
first started. Once they saw where Crooked
began (and before Crooked, it was Bucket
Brewery’s first location), they signed a lease
78 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l OCTOBER 2020