Michele Hobbs was looking for a place where she could more easily unload semi-trucks for her pet food business in Cincinnati, but instead, she ended up founding a distillery. Being the innovative businesswoman that she is, Michele started looking at delinquent pieces of property. She found an ideal location in Over-the-Rhine that was $32,000 in arrears, but didn’t yet have a tax lien filed against it. She drove by the property and couldn’t figure out why it hadn’t been snatched up. Not only did it have the loading docks, but it had parking space, and was a beautiful, historic property that could have been used in many ways. In 2013, Michele contacted the bank and was able to purchase the property (worth more than $1.4 million) for only $225,000. “It was a unicorn property,” she says. Michele realized that instead of using it for her Pet Wants business, she decided to turn it into a distillery, bar and concert venue. Knox Joseph Distillery was born in 2018 and opened its doors until 2022.