If you don’t know where to look, it’s easy to miss the turn for Cisco Brewers .

A tiny painted wine casket is the only visible indication that you’ve arrived. The rest of the operation is hiding behind grassy overgrowth

and large, looming trees.

You’d think an all-in-one brewery, winery and distillery would be pretty easy to spot from

miles away. But that’s all part of the magic of Cisco Brewers,

which collectively consists of

Triple Eight Distillery, Nantucket Vineyard and the eponymous brewing company. It’s a

“happy place” on an already happy place— Nantucket, the famously picturesque island

that sits 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod,Massachusetts. While Nantucket has gained a reputation as a preppy oasis for the rich and famous, Cisco is an outdoor beer garden full of kids, dogs, and patrons who don’t adhere to a dress code.

“Nantucket only just started getting the rep as this preppy, rich place,” says Tyler Herrick, Cisco’s bar manager and social media director (or as he prefers, ‘Fluid CombinationTechnician’). He’s wearing a Hawaiian shirt,

surf shorts and a backwards Cisco snapback.

“But Cisco never followed that. We’ve stuck to old-school Nantucket, back when there were a whole lot of hippies running around on the island.”

Herrick grew up on Nantucket and started working at Cisco Brewers in high school, as

an intern. He slowly worked his way up the ranks, becoming a bartender (ahem, FCT)

back in 2008.

Herrick insists that he has his dream job, and he’s probably not lying: it’s actually impossible to catch the guy without a grin on

his face. To hear him tell it, he starts every day in the summer with some surfing, then

heads behind the bar to serve beer, wine and liquor , all of which is brewed, fermented, and

distilled literally steps from his post.

One of those guys is distiller Bryan Jennings. Jennings has quite the eclectic background—

he’s worked at the University of Arkansas in genetic engineering and molecular genetics, and he spent a few years traveling the world as a surf/ski bum. Back in 2009, Jennings was visiting Nantucket and frequented Cisco for his post-surf session beer.

“One day they needed a beer order delivered into town and asked me to do it. The next

day, they said I was an employee and didn’t have to pay for beers for a few weeks,” says

Jennings, “Then someone didn’t show up for a bartending shift, and I stepped in behind the

bar. Then they asked if I could do that every Monday. Then they heard I had a science

background, and asked if I wanted to do some

distilling.”

Today, Jennings spends his time distilling rum, vodka, liqueur and tending to Triple Eight Distillery’s Notch Whisky, whose 12-year batch was named best single-malt whiskey in the world in the 2015 International Spirits Challenge. Jennings’ distilling helps to produce the main ingredients in Cisco’s signature cocktails. But of course, there’s a lot more to these cocktails than meets the eye.

Kunjan Joshi’s main job at Cisco is to use the ingredients from their garden that surrounds

the outdoor beer garden and create cocktails.

“I essentially come up with cocktail ideas based on what we have in the garden,” Joshi

said, “Using the resources that we have in our cocktails is our main priority.”

This is Joshi’s first summer at Cisco. He spends much of his time travelling and

playing music. He says his dream job would consist of playing music. “But this job is a

close second,” he said.

Cisco Brewers never intended to become the most popular brewery on the island. But it’s

evolved into something of an oasis for all walks of life on the island. (It’s also a literal oasis— you can actually hear the ocean, if you’re quiet enough.) Once guys find themselves at Cisco’s, they have a pretty hard

time leaving.

“I tell the owners every day, ‘You’re stuck with me,’” Herrick says, laughing. “But really, I’m never leaving. I have the best job in the world.”