Great Jones Distilling Co. was founded by Proximo Spirits and the passionate vision of owner and 11th generation spirits maker Juan Domingo Beckmann. The idea was born from the belief that the best spirits should be the embodiment of their origins, threading the history of bourbon in New York to the present day. To celebrate the best that New York has to offer, the whiskies are made exclusively with grains grown in the rich ebony soil of the Black Dirt region less than two hours north of Manhattan in Upstate New York.

To celebrate the new distillery, Sébastien Léon was invited to create a permanent experiential installation evoking The Great Jones Distilling Company’s utmost mastering of their craft. Léon named his project “Alchemy” - from the Ancient Egyptian word “keme” meaning Black Dirt - as a reference to the mystical practice of transmuting common elements into gold, both literally and philosophically. The unique geological conditions of Upstate’s dark soil resulting from the Ice Age become under Léon’s hand rich sedimentary murals, punctuated by two mirror prisms which infinitely reflect ice-like blown glass sculptures. The artist further interprets corn distillation as a field of organ-like copper pipes, playing an abstraction of the Earth’s soundscape from the Big Bang to today, composed with sound designer Stephen Dewey (Thompson Twins).