Little Water opens as Atlantic City’s first legal distillery

Many folks may think of gambling as the defining characteristic of Atlantic City, but if brothers Eric and Mark Ganter have their way, another aspect may come to mind in the near future: Locally made booze.

The pair on Wednesday opened up their long-awaited Little Water Distillery in A.C. (807 Baltic Ave.) after receiving a license from the city this week. The opening, as South Jersey publication Route 40 points out, makes the company Atlantic City's first-ever legally operating distillery.

Little Water celebrated that development with a tweet announcing the distillery's low-key opening on Wednesday:

The distillery plans to release Whitecap, an American whiskey, around Dec. 15, with a couple rums — dubbed "Liberty" and "Prosperity" — also scheduled for release, as Craig LaBan reported earlier this year. The company takes its name from nearby Absecon Island, with "absecon" deriving from a Lenape word for "little water."

While the distillery opens legally Wednesday, Little Water wrote on social media that they would be holding off on a public preview until TEN, formerly Revel, has a chance to "catch up." Currently, the casino plans to open in the first quarter of 2017.

For fans who can't wait, though, the distillery wrote online Wednesday that they would "gladly show you around our operation and give a preview."

That ribbing of the former Revel casino continues what appears to be a social media pastime for the distillery, which immediately began taking shots at TEN (and the now-defunct Trump Taj Mahal) on Twitter after establishing an account back in August:

With its opening this week, Little Water becomes the latest in a swell of New Jersey distilleries to open in the last few years, including Cooper River Distillers in Camden, Fairfield's Claremont Distillery, and Lazy Eye Distillery in Wildwood and Richland, among others. Jersey Artisan Distilling, the state's first distillery to open since Prohibition, set up shop in 2013.

For more information on Little Water Distillery, check out the video below: