Los Poblanos farm shop brings gin tasting room to downtown Santa Fe

Nov. 8—The Los Poblanos Farm Shop Norte, which opened this week, essentially is three shops in the remnant of a 1930s gas station at Washington Avenue and Marcy Street in downtown Santa Fe.

There's the wood-clad tasting room, which inspired Albuquerque's Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm's expansion to Santa Fe.

There's the floral-tile floor beyond the entrance that serves as the base of the market and farm foods area.

And there's the body products and gifts room, with wood flooring that looks original to the building but was milled from Los Poblanos farm pine trees that fell victim to a nearby acequia getting lined with concrete.

Los Poblanos Farm Shop Norte sells lavender gin that Los Poblanos started distilling just a couple months ago. The shop also sells goods derived from the lavender, herbs and produce grown on Los Poblanos farm in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.

It's the sort of place where you can find something for that person who has everything.

"Our retail buyer said, 'What would be the most delightful gift? What would give you that experience of unexpectedness and delightfulness?' " said Sarah Sheesley, Los Poblanos's marketing director.

Candles crafted for Los Poblanos by Christa Obuchowski, founder of the AromaBotanica Institute in Santa Fe, fill a couple window shelves. Teas blended for Los Poblanos by tea.o.graphy fill a nook in another room.

"Everywhere you turn there is something beautiful," said Victoria Mueller, an assistant store manager. "There is nothing like this in Santa Fe that I'm aware of."

Traditional talavera coffee mugs bear the artistry from a potter in Puebla, Mexico.

Los Poblanos collaborated with the Southwest Grain Collaborative for the newest products (aside from the lavender gin): a Sonoran white wheat flour, Sonoran white wheat berries and Mexican June corn.

"It's the elevated pantry concept," Sheesley said.

Los Poblanos has branded lotions, conditioners, shampoos, salves and body scrubs. They come in travel kits or gift boxes.

"The handmade soaps we make ourselves," Sheesley said.

The Santa Fe farm shop is one of three gin-and-gift shops spawned from the coronavirus pandemic as the hospitality sector was stifled. The original farm shop is at the historic inn in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, and the third is Town & Ranch, which opened in early October at Los Poblanos' Albuquerque warehouse, where the company started distilling gin this year.

The distilling license allows three tasting rooms.

Los Poblanos Executive Director Matt Rembe personally outfitted the low-ceilinged gin tasting room with muted lighting via wall sconces created by architect John Gaw Meem's tinsmith, acquired from Bishop's Lodge, and lamp balls suspended from the ceiling.

"I wanted to create a speakeasy bar of the 1930s through the lens of Santa Fe," Rembe said. "We wanted to honor the history of the building."

He created a barrel tongue-in-groove black grain ceiling, acquired from the Plaza Hotel in Las Vegas, N.M. Paintings in round frames originated as Mexican and New Mexican portraits from the 1880s to 1930s.

"I wanted to create a cave-like feeling," Rembe said.

Low leather bank seating, round tables and rounded upholstered chairs set a scene that Rembe observed in Mexico City and Amari bars in Italy.

"We wanted to transition from retail and transfer you to another time, another mood," Rembe said.

The pandemic sidelined much of Los Poblanos' hospitality business through its 45-room inn and Campo restaurant.

"We developed a sanitizer that allowed us not to lay off staff," Rembe said. "We realized we needed to be more diversified."

Sheesley said all employees, from bartenders and chefs to the owners and retail workers, brainstormed on how to create revenue in a pandemic.

"What do we have?" she said. "We have a farm. We know how to distill things [lavender oil]. How do we pivot to keep as many people employed as we can? We sent our lavender head distiller to learn to distill gin."

Los Poblanos will start with two variations of gin, lavender and a botanical blend with lavender — all distilled from plants grown at Los Poblanos, she said.

From the brainstorming, more retail products emerged with yields from the Los Poblanos farm and other regional partner farms.

Los Poblanos has had an eye on Santa Fe for a number of years.

"We were waiting for the right building to come up," Rembe said in an earlier interview. "We have a love for historic preservation. We love old buildings. We love the idea of adaptive reuse."