Bixby Gin Distills the Central Coast
San Luis Obispo’s Trevor Peterson Grows and Forages for Regional Ingredients
Bixby Gin creator Trevor Peterson really did try to walk the buttoned-up professional track, working as an aeronautical and medical engineer and then in software sales after college. But when he’d run into his Cal Poly buddies who’d gone into winemaking, he eyed their jeans and torn T-shirts with envy from within the confines of his collared existence. “I totally screwed up,” he recalls thinking during one such meetup at a wine party in Beverly Hills.
On top of that, said Peterson, “I just like being around fermentation.” So, around 2006, he started developing his own equipment and messing with his friends’ rejected fruits. “I started distilling everything people didn’t want,” said Peterson.
In 2011, he got official by licensing Lloyd Distillery, named after his grandfather, who was born in San Francisco and hailed from an old California mining family. “He was a bit of an adventurer,” said Peterson. “When I got to try my first whiskey, I realized that was the odor of my grandpa.”
