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Our Story, How we built it.

SpikeWorld Enterprises Inc. began building MannCave Distilling in 2016, and that was a result of the prompting of friends and co-workers that had tried Stephen\’s hobby made whiskey. Since starting Stephen and Wendy have put over 2.5 million dollars into the project consisting of the development of 3 artesian springs, the building, pot still, equipment and interior build out, and many other things to numerous to mention.  Water and gas come from the property onsite. The property has been in the Mann family since the 1960’s and Stephen has always wanted to find a suitable use for the amazing and abundant spring water there, that use is now the cornerstone of some of the best spirits and whiskey available, in and out of WV.
 
SpikeWorld Enterprises Inc. (doing Business As) MannCave Distilling Inc., started as an IT company but changed due to pressures from friends and co-workers.
 
On December 15, 2018, SpikeWorld Enterprises Inc. opened the doors of its first Distillery under the name of MannCave Distilling Inc. in Weston, WV. Currently it sells top shelf spirits on location, and in WV stores. MannCave Vodka (80 Proof) and MannCave Moonshine (129 Proof), both of which made from Corn and are very smooth unlike those you would normally find with Vodka and MoonShine. The distillery also makes MannCave Whiskey, which on the first submission to the fourth largest international competion in the world, won a silver medal!  The Distillery is open to the public on Saturdays from 9am to 7pm, offering Tours of the distillation area and explanation of the process, and Free Tastings and Sales of our 5 Star products. Gin by Summer 2020 Updates and information regarding the distillery can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/spikeworld. Make sure you like and share our page! 
 
Our products are made from Artesian spring water that comes out of the back of currently 2 hand dug coal mines that had been buried since the 1940\’s. The mines were discovered under 9 feet of dirt, uncovered and emptied of water, and plumbing installed to capture the water. The mines were found while attempting to put a spring box in to harness the water. Instead of just a spring box, a concrete structure, 15×30 and 12 feet tall was put up to protect the mines, and to protect the water from freezing and critters, and to capture the water. At the time, no one knew how to harness the water from these mines effectively, but Stephen figured out how to do it.
 
Tours of the water source are not currently available but may be added in the future. The two current springs produce anywhere from 6 gpm to 160 gpm which is more water than the distillery can use as of now. The overflow/unused water from the spring flows past the distillery into the valley stream. The crystal clear flowing water comes out of the spring at 51 degrees and a PH of 6.8 which is perfect for use in distilling, the minerals in the water (to include fluoride and other minerals that generally need to be added to city water) is perfect for the yeast to flourish in the fermentation process. The water comes out of the mountain, near the top, flows by gravity into our holding and sediment tanks, from there, it flows further down the hill into the valley where the Distillery is located, for the water we use in the distillery, the state of the art water filtration system makes sure the water is perfect for use in the distillery. We are not aware of any other distillery in the world that uses water from a coal mine in their product, and the taste is unmatched.
 
SpikeWorld Enterprises is a Veteran owned small business with expertise in areas of IT Security, and, in the process of going into the beverage manufacturing industry producing spirits in addition to its expertise in Programming architecture and software development. The company was founded by a software architect and a security architect. Before incorporating SpikeWorld Enterprises built and maintained networks for small to medium companies that did not have staff or expertise to do it themselves, SpikeWorld as a corporation continues to build and maintain small business networks today but not as much.
Our Story
Nov 2016 We thought we had found the source of the water, where it came out. However we found we were completely wrong, and things were about to get expensive. This is where our budget went wrong.

Nov 2016

We thought we had found the source of the water, where it came out. However we found we were completely wrong, and things were about to get expensive. This is where our budget went wrong.
Dec 2016 The Water is crystal clear coming out of the spring, And its REALLY cold! Love the fact that we had plenty of water to drink while working on this.

Dec 2016

The Water is crystal clear coming out of the spring, And its REALLY cold! Love the fact that we had plenty of water to drink while working on this.

May 2016

We had an idea and a location.  Nothing was built, there was an old barn, a plot of dirt, a really wet spring, and an idea, there was no formal plan and we were at a loss as to how we would pull off building a distillery.  Who knew what we were getting into.. We sure did not.

Oct 2016

Oct 2016

The Spring, Many challenges but great water!

Our water was flowing, out of the ground and over the hill, it was surrounded by mud that was so deep you could not walk to the source without being up to your waist in mud.. This project would take months to dig through.

Dec 2016 You can see the flag showing where the head of the Spring is.. Amazing how much this area will change as we get going on construction.

Dec 2016

You can see the flag showing where the head of the Spring is.. Amazing how much this area will change as we get going on construction.

Apr 2017

This is where things started getting out of hand.. Found Mine #1 and realized our budget was not gonna cut it.

Inside Mine #1

This was a total suprise, we never expected to find this!  Now we had other issues to think about, how to protect this mine from freezing and collapse, how to protect the water, how to prevent animals and people from going inside..  The list went on.

Mine #2

As we were cleaning up from Mine #1 we found Mine #2, and at this point we had no idea what to do to protect these mines.  Fun fact, This is the picture that is on the bottle labels, it is truly the Mann Cave (yeah thats where the name came from.. We just yanked the space out.

Mine info

The mines were hand dug in the 1930\’s or so, based on the bottles we found in the mine.  Mine #1 is approximately 300 Ft deep into the mountain, and Mine #2 is approximately 500 Ft deep.  Only one person has been to the end of both mines, and no one has explored the entirety of the mines, as there are many branches and hazards.  Hopefully future will hold more info.

Our Story

April 2017

So we were almost a year into working on this project to develop the water supply for the distillery and we had several issues.  

  1. How to capture the water with no electricity
  2. How and where to store the water
  3. How to protect the water from contamination
  4. How to prevent the mines now exposed to the weather, from freezing and collapsing
  5. How to prevent animals from getting into the mines and the water
  6. How to get the water to the distillery building site, 1500ft away in the valley.
  7. How to get this all done before winter, and how to pay for it all.. 

May 2017

Here is what the distillery looks like in May 2017, not a whole lot.. Barn is gone, getting ready to call in TKS in Buchannon WV.  They are the ones that got us back on track. Highly recommended by the way!

Our Story
Our Story
Our Story

Distillery Site prep

So it begins, the long process of working on the distillery, all the while still working on the water system up the hill.  Even TKS with all their expertise had no idea how we would pull this all off.. Took a lot of negotiation and patience on the part of Tom Shaw, but we pulled it off in the long run as you will see.