“I liked the idea of building a crazy distillery that’s also kind of an amusement park,” Davis explains. This is his newest dream factory: Lost Spirits Las Vegas, which could be equated to an adult Disneyland where you can sip high-end hooch on the rides. “It’s my favorite room,” says Davis, a man who’s been likened to a rum-and-whiskey Willy Wonka enough times in various publications that he should probably have it inscribed on his business card by now. Leonard Cohen’s subterranean-baritone plays in the background, his voice as deep as the ocean itself. “Welcome to the Nautilus, if you will,” says Bryan Davis as he heralds guests into a re-creation of the submarine from the aforementioned science fiction adventure novel.Īnthropomorphic sea creatures swim outside the vessel’s portals the candelabra casting a dim glow from above sway in unison, as if the submarine is being pitched about in the depths of a roiling sea.

It’s all part of entering the “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” tasting room. And, of course, there’ll be a moment when the lights go down and ’90s novelty relic Big Mouth Billy Bass serenades us with Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”

In a nondescript warehouse space just outside the Area15 arts and entertainment complex, we’re about to be submerged in a faux-aquatic fantasia of fish with human faces and 105-proof whiskey.

(Chase Stevens/Las Vegas Review-Journal) Jules Verne of booze leads the way. The '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' tasting room is designed like the submarine Nautilus from the science fiction adventure classic.

Lost spirits distillery