History, hustle and heart flow through Little Water Distillery
As Little Water Distillery enters its 10th year in business in the Northeast section of Atlantic City, co-owner Guy Zompa Jr. says that the keys to their success are hustle and heart.
“The only thing that has led to our success is constantly attempting to improve, expand sales and enlarging our footprint throughout the region in liquor store stores as well as bars and restaurants,” Zompa said. “Every day we have to get up and go to work and hustle so that the business grows and expands.”
LWD, a family-owned and operated craft distillery that opened for manufacturing and production in November 2016 and got its tasting room up and running four months later, is basically running two businesses under one roof.
Overseen by Zompa and co-owner Mark Ganter, the facility is humming Monday through Friday during typical business hours, strictly in full production mode. Their head distiller and only other full-time employee, James Stanche, oversees the manufacturing of their vodka, gin, rum, whiskey and bourbon along with three ready-to-drink Atlantic City 48 Blocks cocktails (espresso martini, chocolate martini and old fashioned). The “48 Blocks” name comes from the fact that Atlantic City is 48 blocks long.
All of Little Water’s products are available in liquor stores and bars throughout South Jersey as well as a few select bars in Philadelphia. You can also purchase their products online (www.lwdco.com) or by visiting them in person in A.C.
Thursday, Friday (5 p.m. – 9 p.m.), Saturday and Sunday (1 p.m. – 9 p.m.) is when the space inside Little Water Distillery – a mix of factory, warehouse, bar and lounge with outdoor seating when the weather cooperates – comes to life and is open for tastings of all the spirits and cocktails they produce. It’s a great place to start a night out in A.C. You can also ask about hosting private events in their facility.
While you’re there, you can also get a tour of the facility, learn about the distilling process and, if you’re lucky, you’ll get some Atlantic City history lessons from Zompa, Ganter, or LWD’s head mixologist Mortimer, an A.C. icon from his time tending bar at Studio Six (a place frequented by many A-list celebrities in the 1980s and 90s). Mortimer also appeared in the HBO series Boardwalk Empire, which, of course, was set in Atlantic City at the dawn of prohibition.
Speaking of Boardwalk Empire, the site where Little Water Distillery sits, at the corner of Baltic and Delaware Avenues (the facility’s official address is 807 Baltic Avenue, Unit B), is believed to be the original site of what was the Tumble Inn on the show. It was an actual prominent speakeasy during prohibition times in town.
As LWD recently celebrated its nine-year anniversary in March, it generated a special release of its original Rusted Revolver Gin (April 2019). This new limited edition is created with local honey that came from bees foraging blueberry blossoms in Atlantic County. The honey was then stored in oak barrels that were previously used for aging Little Water’s Prosperity Rum. Rusted Revolver Gin got its name from the discovery of a .38-caliber snub nose revolver – popularized in the late 1920s and early 1930s – that was unearthed on the grounds of the distillery during construction of LWD’s cigar patio in August 2016. It’s just another piece of lore that makes this South Jersey small business special.
Another interesting bit of history, albeit recent, occurred inside the walls of LWD during the COVID-19 pandemic. Obviously, like most small businesses across the country, Little Water was on hold just as it celebrated its third anniversary. The tasting room was closed, but they adapted by creating and selling hand sanitizer. The ingenuity and creativity helped keep them afloat, allowing them to keep some momentum until things stabilized.
Along with their mix of award-winning spirits, the thing that truly makes Little Water special is the pride that the entire staff – seven part-time employees join Zompa, Ganter and Stanche – takes in the history of Atlantic City. When you sit down at the bar in the tasting room, Zompa’s enthusiasm for the shore town bubbles over when he discusses it.
“I have a deep and genuine love for Atlantic City,” Zompa explained while looking for just the right bottle of LWD’s Prosperity Rum to pour a taste. “My great-grandfather came here as a baker from Italy and worked at the famous Traymore Hotel. He even opened one of the first donut shops in town.
“My grandmother was the first in our family born here and lived nearly her entire life on the same block on Georgia Ave., just about a mile and a half from Little Water Distillery. Eventually, she started working at Boardwalk Hall and was there for 40-plus years. She raised her children on that same street, which was also famous for having the Philadelphia mafia run out of that block.
“My daughter is the fourth generation of my family to be baptized at Saint Mike’s [Saint Michael’s Roman Catholic Church in Atlantic City]. So, for us, Atlantic City isn’t just a shore town to visit, it’s home.”
Zompa and Ganter have embraced Atlantic City, its heritage and its seaside location by integrating many of the little nuggets of the town into the names of their spirits.
Released in late spring of 2025, 16 Knots Bourbon is a true grain-to-glass Jersey bourbon. The name comes from the speed of the wind in which storms will form along the coast. Created with locally sourced grains from the region, 16 Knots brought home a Silver Medal from the prestigious Finger Lakes International Wine & Spirits Competition last summer.
White Cap American Whiskey is 90 proof and is a blend of sweet corn, wheat and rye that truly makes its mark in a classic Old Fashioned but is easy to enjoy on its own. Of course, its name comes from the big waves that occur along the coast.
Rum, which was actually used as a form of currency or substitute for currency in 17th and 18th-century America, was a critical, high-value commodity. At LWD, it’s still held in high regard and the names of its two versions of the spirit – Liberty Rum and Prosperity Rum – are named after the two women on the NJ state flag. In December 2020, Prosperity received the gold medal at the East Coast Craft Sprit Awards. Meanwhile, Liberty Rum earned the People’s Choice Award.
For Zompa, the awards are nice but he and Ganter see so much more to their business. They truly love the community they’ve built inside the walls of LWD. They also cherish the interaction with their customers and the stories their products become a part of.
“It’s really nice to get recognition for things like that, but in all honesty, we don’t really put much thought into if something wins an award or not,” Zompa explains, glancing around the tasting room. “Something like that is sometimes really more important for people buying it – they may need to see that.
“It sounds cliché, but I really find more satisfaction in getting positive feedback from customers that they love the product or that they thought enough about it to buy it for someone as an important gift, something like that. Lou Nolan, the Flyers public address announcer, was gifted bottles of our stuff for his 50-year anniversary with the team and hearing a story like that is just way cooler to me than any medal.”
