Beachwood Distilling Verified listing

Beachwood Distilling’s varying cocktail menus—headed by Long Beach bartending veteran and simply-great-human-being Sarah Foss—beautifully amalgamate the space’s desired evolution and its customer base. Focusing entirely on in-house ingredients but also playing to the taste of its growing patronage, it is one of the most distinctly unique drinking spaces not just in Long Beach, but in the region.

After all, this is Long Beach’s first attempt at creating a grain-to-glass model that makes every aspect of your drink in-house. Though the craft is solely contained in the space in Bixby Knolls, its ambition and scope are much larger than the confines of its tangible home.

Fern’s (before it became The Hideout). Clancy’s. Crow’s (before it was returned to its carpeted glory). Federal Bar (when Ordinarie manager Clare Le Bras headed the space) as the onsite cicerone, for which Sarah is now working on her Level Two certification. The 908 on the Eastside. Starting the industry night art Exhibition Room at Roxanne’s. James Beard-recognized and Spirited Award winner Strong Water in Anaheim.

These are just a few of the spaces that Sarah has worked in while building up her cocktail career in Long Beach and beyond. As with all creatives, there was an itch that pushed her to look beyond the confines of dives or the boundaries of devolved managers.

“I would come into some of those bars with my clams of blackberries and bundle of mint,” Sarah said, laughing. “This was all behind the owner’s back because… Well, few understood. And when I saw this job, I cold-emailed them.”

Sarah saw precisely what Beachwood was doing with their distillery. And it was unlike, well, pretty much anywhere else. Beachwood Distilling quietly took over the old Liberation Brewing space in Bixby Knolls back in 2022—and while their initial presence as a taproom added even more beer muscle to a neighborhood already spoiled with spots like Ambitious Ales, what we were waiting for was this: the distillery finally stepping into the spotlight.