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CITY OF KATY (Covering Katy News) – MKT Distillery’s five-year run making hard liquor from locally grown rice ends tonight.
Nick and Nici Jessett opened MKT Distillery on Oct. 6, 2018, in a First Street rice dryer, and on Friday, they made the decision to close.
“Well, it didn’t work out the way we had all hoped,” said a post on the MKT Facebook page. “MKT is going to be closing and liquidating everything after we raise the tree in honor of our hometown—Katy—one last time.”
On the ground floor of one of Katy’s historic First Street rice dryers, MKT has made several varieties of whiskey, moonshine, vodka, gin, and aquavit. Using locally grown rice as the base for their products was a hat tip to Katy’s rice-farming heritage.
MKT is hosting a goodbye party from 5 to 9 p.m. tonight, Saturday, Dec. 2, 2023, when they will light their Christmas tree for a final time.
In 2018, the Jessetts restored the tradition of lighting a tree atop a rice dryer during the holiday season. Covering Katy was there when they held their first tree-lighting ceremony in 2018 and again in 2019.
Restoring the tree-lighting tradition symbolized the company’s desire to promote and celebrate Katy’s history. The distillery’s name comes from the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, also known as the MKT.
Over the years, the Jessetts have supported the community by hosting numerous fundraisers. They even turned their distillery into a hand-sanitizer production facility for law enforcement when the product was in short supply during the early days of COVID-19.
Tonight’s tree lighting happens at 7 p.m. Food, drinks, and cigars will be available earlier.
“We’ll have Daddy Duncan’s serving up its amazing BBQ,” the MKT Facebook post said. “We’ll have Eric and Ash Central selling the best dang cigars in Texas.”
Below are 2018 photos Covering Katy took showing the original tree lighting, the bar, and the distillery. There is also a video Covering Katy shot from the 2019 MKT tree lighting.
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