Distillery 98 Santa Rosa Beach Events: A Guide to Both Calendars

At 835 Serenoa Road, the small-batch distillery known for Sunday oyster shooters and $5 lagers hosts two creative programs, run by different combinations of local organizations on separate schedules. If you've only ever gone for Serenoa Sunday or a Meat + Martinis dinner, you may not have encountered the art and literary programs. The literary program has its own audience and website.

The programs illustrate how Santa Rosa Beach's creative life brings overlapping but distinct communities together. Small venues host these programs, and local organizers sometimes work across them.

The Wall That Changes Every Month

The visual art side is called Distilled: An Artist Series, and it's a genuine three-way partnership between the Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County, Distillery 98, and Emerald Coast Storytellers. Each month, a different local artist takes over the distillery's walls for a full installation, kicked off with a free opening gallery night where the artist talks through their process and the work is available for purchase on the spot.

This year's rotation has included Renee Broxson, whose whimsical, character-driven paintings filled the space through April, and Andi Scurto, whose illustrations and portrait work took over in June alongside a hands-on watercolor workshop. In July, ceramicist Sarah Bumanglag led a Cocktails & Clay session through the Cultural Arts Alliance, guiding guests through building a custom clay planter while sipping a complimentary cocktail, with finished pieces glazed and fired off-site and ready for pickup two to three weeks later. The next opening lands October 1, when Allison Wickey takes the wall for the fall installment.

None of this is incidental programming bolted onto a bar. The Cultural Arts Alliance treats the residency as part of its broader mission to connect Walton County audiences with working artists, and Distillery 98 markets itself explicitly around local art celebrating the heritage of Scenic Highway 30A. The gallery wall changes, but the infrastructure behind it doesn't.

The Same Founders, A Different Flyer

Emerald Coast Storytellers, a co-producer of Distilled, also runs a separate literary calendar at venues beyond Distillery 98. ECS's Open Mic Nights, After-Hours Writing Nights, and Story-Pairing Dinners rotate through a rotating cast of venues that includes Grayton Beer, Palm Folly, Bayou Arts Center, Emerald Coast Theatre Company, and the SOFO Poets Society, in addition to Distillery 98 itself.

The two programs share a founding partner and, some months, a building. They do not share a genre, a format, or an audience. One is a quiet month-long art installation you can wander through any afternoon the distillery is open. The other is a scheduled evening event built around live performance, sign-up sheets, and a themed prompt. Someone who has attended a dozen Distilled opening nights may not have attended an ECS open mic, and vice versa, since the programs follow separate schedules.

Here's how the fall lineup actually breaks down by producer and location:

Read across that table and the pattern is obvious once it's laid out. Two of the three tracks stay anchored to one address. The third moves constantly, and the address it lands at any given month is close to a coin flip.

What's Actually on the Calendar Right Now

If you're trying to plan around this instead of stumbling into it, here's where things stand heading into fall. Distillery 98 has an After-Hours Writing Night on the books for Thursday, September 24, which is the quieter of ECS's two recurring formats: bring a laptop or a notebook, work alongside other locals, no performance required. Then on October 1, the distillery flips over to gallery mode for Allison Wickey's opening night, running from 6 to 8 p.m., with her work staying up through the month.

Meat + Martinis, the distillery's own recurring dinner series, picks back up October 8 and returns again October 22, November 5, and November 19, each at 6 p.m. That's four separate dinner nights stacked across two months, all under Distillery 98's own name rather than either partner program.

Anyone hoping to catch an ECS Open Mic Night specifically, as opposed to the quieter After-Hours format, should watch Emerald Coast Storytellers' own event calendar directly, since those ticketed nights have moved through Grayton Beer, Palm Folly, and the Emerald Coast Theatre Company in recent months and aren't guaranteed to land back at the distillery on any predictable rhythm.

Why the Split Is Worth Knowing If You Live Here

The programs reflect how a small creative ecosystem works in a town this size: committed organizers, venues willing to host events, and cross-pollination across calendars. The Cultural Arts Alliance of Walton County has folded ECS into its own programming as a partner. But ECS still runs its founding mission on its own terms, moving from room to room across the community rather than settling into a single home base.

For a resident, the practical takeaway is simple: the events are listed across several calendars, so checking the sources for the programs you want to follow can help with planning. The distillery's own site covers Meat + Martinis and the Distilled openings. The Cultural Arts Alliance's calendar covers workshops like Cocktails & Clay. Emerald Coast Storytellers' event page lists its Open Mic Nights and Story-Pairing Dinners as their locations change.

Taken together, these calendars cover everything from gallery openings and workshops to dinners and live literary events.

If you're already living this stretch of 30A and want more of the texture behind it, from what's opening to what's rotating through, the team at Emerald Coast Properties keeps close tabs on the neighborhood beyond the transaction. Reach out any time to schedule your complimentary consultation, whether you're weighing a move or just want to talk shop about the coast you already call home.