Fair Game Beverage Company

I’m not a fan of sweet wines but Fair Game’s apéritif style wines have such complex and tasty flavors that I am now hooked. Oh and their liquors? Very smooth. Very good. Dangerously so.
A visit here is a great way to spend your «Sunday Funday» as the gentleman conducting our tasting called it. We will definitely be back

Oh man, what a hidden gem!
If the street name doesn’t give you a clue then you’re hopeless.
Excellent products, fun place to visit.

recommended to us by friends.
had a tasting: really enjoyed the fortified wines. especially enjoyed the location (really cool, hip location close to town, beside a biofuel operation). nice ambiance. best wishes for the company! great addition to pittsboro.

After trying Fair Game’s products at a handful of events, I finally decided IT’S TIME! And I planned a day trip out to their complex [it didn’t hurt that they’d handed us «free tasting» tokens upon one of our chance meetings!] The complex itself is a little off the beaten path, but not far from downtown Pittsboro. Located in the same complex as a biofuel plant [that puts on a monthly farm to table meal!], I couldn’t help but immediately falling in love! Large gardens, honey bees, colorful building, LORAX Lane, how much more delightful could this place get?!
The Sunday afternoon tour had our name written all over it, we arrived at 1pm when the distillery opens and dipped on a $ 5 beer [they have 3 – 4 taps] in the bright sunshine while we waited for the 1:30pm tour to start. Luckily we had the free tasting tokens, but typical the tour and WINE tasting is $ 10, you can pay an additional $ 5 for a taste of their spirits [they didn’t tell us this before offering the spirit tasting, so be warned, it IS an additional fee!] I recommend arriving early and grabbing a drink to sip while you wander around the complex, just make sure to be back at 1:30pm for the tour! The tour itself is quite informative and casual. You enter the distillery [an old military building built for explosions] and learn about the distilling process, FORTIFIED wines and fermentation. I will say, Rose [our tour guide] really broke it down and made the process simple enough for a kid to understand.
Once the tour is over, we sampled four of the wines, the Peach Tipper was my favorite, a perfect sangria wine and their only NON-​fortified wine, as well as the Ferris, Scuppernog Tipper and Two-​Step. Drinking a «fortified» wine just means that they’ve upped the alcohol content by mixing in spirits at the end. The actual wine that Fair Game uses comes from Saxapahaw but they brew all the spirits they add. In addition, we tried their No’Lasses Sorghum Rum, which was amazing! I think I could drink that alone, and I don’t usually say that about spirits, and the Apple Brandy, which would compliment any drink well. Overall it was a great experience and I would recommend a drive out to try out this distillery to anyone! Plus, if you time it perfectly, visit on the FIRST Sunday of the month and go into downtown Pittsboro for a fun day of exploring during their monthly First Sunday festivals! You won’t be disappointed!

Fair Game Beverage Company is cool. No two ways about it.
I’m not into the alcohol part — wish I could be — but I love their facility, down Industrial Park Road, turning onto Lorax Lane, their tasting bar, their entrepreneurial energy, the way they are creating a richer local culture with their events. Now Pittsboro has yet another attraction. Way to go Fair Game Beverage Company. Keep it coming.

While doing a little tour of Pittsboro, we stopped in at Fair Game Beverage Company. Their product line, at the time, consisted of fortified wines, and they are waiting for their liquors to age. I had never had a «fortified wine» before which is a wine with brandy added. It’s still a very drinkable wine even if you don’t have a tolerance for hard liquors. The brandy added a nice dimension to the flavor.
FORTIFIED WINES:
Very nice twist on the typical wine. Impress your friends with your unique knowledge of this wine that is unlike the wines you typically see in restaurants :) The Apple Tipper paired very nicely with Bourbon Liqueur that I had at the house. They offered 4 different types of wines — we ended up buying 3 out of the 4. The only one that we didn’t buy was the scuppernong because I don’t like the muscadine grape wines except with dessert (it makes a good dessert wine though!).
DISTILLED LIQUORS:
I look forward to trying these when they’re available!
TASTING ROOM:
The tasting room is quaint. I found the location to be a very nice hide-​away; a short drive from downtown in an enclave consisting of a plant nursery, biofuel facility, and of course the winery/​distillery. Unless, you live in Pittsboro, it might seem a little out of the way but it is definitely worth a visit. My wife and I arrived 10 minutes before closing on a Saturday but the young woman doing the pours was very helpful and friendly.

First of all: What a cool location! I smiled a bit at the address on «Lorax Lane,» but it wasn’t until we rolled down a long road, rounded a corner, and arrived at a Seussian-​looking little ‘village’ that I was smitten. The doors to these various businesses are painted in bright bold primary colors. The Lorax himself graces the buildings. There’s a nearby play area that looks like it houses Tar Tinklers and Who Hoovers. There are whimsically labeled road names. Amongst these fellow businesses is the very cool Piedmont Biofuels — turning french fries into fuel!
Fair Game manages to measure up in uniqueness and cool factor. Though their tasting room is a bit of a work-​in-​progress, and on the small side, it manages to feel very finished. The bottles have lovely themed labeling, and the adorable tasting mini snifters are a nice touch. These guys are going to be pumping out spirits in short order. But because the process takes some aging, and they’d like to be making money (and a brand name) sooner than later, they are currently offering some experimental (ish) blends of wine and liqueur. We sampled all four and came home with the Ferris — a port style red aged in bourbon barrels — and Tipper Apple — a cider also finished in bourbon barrels. Our bartender said that NC wine has such a terrible reputation, local wineries kind of have to do something to make their wines ‘different.’ And I like where they’ve landed. I think Fair Game stands out in a good way.
The gal who poured for us was really great, by the way. We arrived about 10 minutes to close, but she still walked us through the tasting at a leisurely pace and offered to open a bottle for us to enjoy outside at their picnic table. A neat, unique little spot that’s worth venturing out to. Can’t wait to see what will come out of their distillery!