Toronto’s Gooderham & Worts Distillery, an oft-used Toronto filming location, will officially reopen under the name of The Cooperage Gooderham & Worts Historic District on May 22.

@Wallace Studios and Cityscape Holdings closed the deal on the 13-acre, 41-building property in late 2001. The distillery, at the ripe old age of 171, has been empty for the last decade, and will be relaunched as an arts/media complex, while retaining the same historic exteriors which have attracted some 800 film productions in the last 10 years, including Chicago, Bulletproof Monk, Death to Smoochy and Don’t Say a Word. But Lillyann Goldstein, head of @Wallace, very aware of the complex’s history and further potential as a film location, saw the old still as more.

‘The concept behind it was to take this heritage property, which has so much character, and extend it past the film location,’ says Goldstein. ‘There is only so much you can do with it and maintain the property if it’s only going to get its income from one source.’

The distillery will feature restaurants, art exhibits, theatre production and even its own brewery. But, Goldstein says, it will continue to be used for filming as needed.

Goldstein says the distillery is already being marketed to producers, adding there is a healthy number, who don’t even know it’s there.

-www.thedistillerydistrict.com