Company Description
We are conjuring a time when spirits roamed cobblestone alleys lit by flickering gas lanterns; an era when intoxicants were being concocted on homemade copper stills hidden behind secret doors. Here, Dr. Tumblety still travels by horse and carriage peddling his elixirs and patent medicines. This is our world; a world Inspired by Spirits.
We are looking to the past to build our future. We are excited to have you with us on this curious journey; a journey we believe Pittsburgh deserves. Thank you!
Inspired by Spirits provides guests with an opportunity to step back in time. We have 5,000 sq. feet of connected space that currently includes Dr. Tumblety's Time Inspired Specialty Shop (Phase 01), where curious guests will find hats & fragrance, tonics & trinkets, grooming & cosmetics, cures & curiosities, novels & novelties, oils & elixirs, vintage goods, local artisans, spiritual charms & apothecary products. Dr. Tumblety traveled the world in his horse-drawn carriage led by 2 greyhounds. He was impeccably well-dressed while selling and collecting his high-quality goods & patent medicines (mostly made with alcohol). We have conjured his spirit and his apothecary for everyone to enjoy.
Management Team / Advisory Board Bios
Jesse Mader
I am a product of the 80s, born from working-class, creative DNA in the Allentown neighborhood of Pittsburgh. My mother was a part-time hairstylist & provided a solid foundation for discipline, while my father was a union foreman & gravedigger who encouraged wordplay, music, individuality & athletics (to stay busy & out of trouble). I am the middle child, between 2 talented & beautiful sisters.
Since a young age, I have been independently active in the worlds of music, sports, art, commercial design & retail. As an indie musician, songwriter, producer & recording artist, I have released 6 full-length albums since 2003 & headlined stages across Western PA with my band, Jesse Mader & The Urban Rock Project. As a visual artist & designer, I became a founding partner of the multiple award-winning design agency, ocreations llc in 2007 after receiving a bachelor's degree from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 2006 (RIP AIP).
After years of maneuvering through a changing music industry, a devalued design industry, & executing other people's dreams, I started paying more attention to the itch to build a world of my own. A world that truly inspired me & tapped into all of the things that have truly inspired me since I was very young. Those things are history, haunts, time travel, & escape.
In 2014, I reunited with Amanda Rok, my kindred spirit & soul mate since we met in 2002. In those years leading up to marriage, we hunted ghosts in Gettysburg, sipped Seelbach cocktails & over 50 bourbons in Louisville, sipped Ramos Gin Fizzes in the French Quarter & explored our shared vision of reincarnation. We were playfully convinced that we must have existed in a previous century due to our infatuation with the aesthetic and texture of the Victorian Era through the Roaring 20s. During this time, my good friend and long-time creative collaborator, Mike, was coincidentally experimenting with building copper stills & making moonshine whisky. I sipped his unaged brandy for the first time and I was blown away.
Amanda & I got married in 2016, and our elaborate, prohibition-themed wedding in New Orleans became the inspirational launchpad for Inspired by Spirits LLC. The wedding was very wet with Mike's authentic moonshine. When Mike & I sat by the bayou with our ties and our inhibitions loosened, we joked, "Ay, man... we have to do this for real. Let's make this a business."
The rest is history... we were truly Inspired by Spirits™
