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Rob:
Welcome to our podcast, All About the Car, brought to you by Schierl Tire and Service. I'm your host Rob Hoffman, an auto service specialist with over 46 years of industry experience. On the ride with me today - our regular guest, Bryan Call, a 42 year veteran of the automotive industry. Hello, Brian.

Bryan:
Hey Rob. How we doing?

Rob:
We're doing okay. And Bill Schierl, a guy that's logged a lot of Wisconsin miles behind the wheel and always has a lot of great questions. Welcome back Bill.

Bill:
Thanks Rob. It's a beautiful day for a drive.

Rob:
Today we have a very special guest on the drive, Brian Cummins of Great Northern Distilling in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Welcome Brian.

Brian:
Hey, thanks Rob.

Rob:
I suppose you could say that we're your guests since you've invited us to your new tasting room, and it's beautiful. We're just loving to sit here in the nice cool temperatures.

Brian:
Oh, thanks so much. Yeah, we're very happy to be in downtown Stevens Point in our new facility finally, after many, many, many months of construction.

Rob:
Oh, glad to be here. So let's hop in, buckle up and hit the road. So distilleries are not a new idea. Before prohibition in the 1920s, there were over 2,000 distilleries across the country. Only six were allowed to remain after prohibition took place due to whiskey's medicinal value. Following the repeal in 1933, Americans were free to drink again. Today, Wisconsin is home to over 30 distilleries where you can hang out and enjoy great conversations like we're doing today. So Brian, thanks for having us here at your distillery and just, absolutely, like I said before, just beautiful, just comfortable to be here and gotta get back here for some fun coming up soon. So as far as your title goes, Brian, would you be considered the master distiller?

Brian:
Well, you know Rob, that is a term that I really take as a real term of respect that you have to earn. And I'm only 10 years into this career, so I always introduce myself as the “founder” or the “head distiller,” but never the master distiller.

Rob:
Okay.

Brian:
That takes years and years to get right and I think we're doing pretty well here, but it's certainly something that…ask me in 20 years how I'm doing with that.

Rob:
That makes sense. Actually, the founder is pretty impressive as well. So that puts a nice title underneath your name. That's pretty cool. So what was that magic moment? When was that where you said, yeah, this is what I'm gonna do?

Brian:
So that really hearkens back all the way to 2012. February of 2012.

Rob:
Okay.

Brian:
When I was over in Minneapolis with a group of friends - that actually included Bill - at a mixology bar there called the Marvel Bar, which is unfortunately closed. It didn't make it through Covid. But we were sitting around enjoying some just amazing craft cocktails.

Rob:
Ah!

Brian:
Great spirits, really well-made handmade cocktails. Something that harkens back to prohibition. And one of our other friends had just read an article in Popular Mechanics magazine about small batch craft distilling.

Rob:
Huh.

Brian:
And said, boy, wouldn't that be something fun to do? And for me it was a light bulb moment. I was in the paper industry as a chemical engineer for my whole career since coming to Central Wisconsin from Ohio in the mid-90s and had been through, I think it's six or eight mergers, acquisitions, downsizings mill closures over that time. And I made it through most of them, but ended up working at a small company in Nekoosa and just felt underemployed. Didn't feel like there was another 25 years left in that business for me to do what I wanted to do. So when this idea came up, it really set my mind going about, wow, this can combine my chemical engineering skills and my kind of good culinary palette that I've developed over years, as well as some sales and marketing skills that I had developed with the mills as a product manager, which is kind of the guy who acted as the bridge between the paper mills, the technical side, and use customers out in the field. So to make sure they had what they needed and to be able to translate engineer to printer or to magazine producer or catalog producer. So it combined really all of those things. And it also felt like unlike craft brewing, it felt like there was still opportunity there. Even back in 2012, it felt like it was just too late to be a brewer and to be successful. Whereas at that point there were only, I think six or eight craft distilleries in the state of Wisconsin.

Rob:
Oh wow. Okay. So you could really stand out.

Brian:
So it's something we could get into and feel like we maybe weren't the first, but we were in on the ground floor.

Rob:
Sure.

Brian:
So we started in Plover in 2013 and made it successful there and eventually came to our new facility here in Stevens Point.

Rob:
Nice. So you were in Plover for about nine years, is that the number?

Brian:
Yeah. Yeah. We were there for nine years and had a nice tasting room there and production facility, actually the total square footage is about half of what we have here in Stevens Point. And during Covid, just like everyone, we struggled, although we did keep up with our rent and at the end of that time in 2021 our landlord… Our lease was up for renewal, and it was the option either we could take or he could take and he just wanted to use the building for other things. He built some apartments next door and wanted to utilize the building for something else. So that was really our chance to decide, well what does the next 20 or 30 years of Great Northern Distilling look like? And first and foremost it was: Boy, you know, we really feel like we need to be in downtown Stevens Point, that center of gravity for the area.

Rob:
Sure. Yeah.

Brian:
Where there's more foot traffic, more tourist traffic. Plover was lovely, but it just, we were tucked away kind of back with Mark Motors, Toyota and other things back there.

Bill:
But you had a IHOP near you.

Brian:
Well yeah, the IHOP and I did talk with a number of those employees about trading vodka for bacon, and it just never took off.

Rob:
That never works. Hmm. Well really, and getting into this kind of a business too is, there's another angle here. It's really given you a connection with the ag community of Central Wisconsin as well. Is that right?

Brian:
Oh, absolutely. And that's one of the reasons and one of the values that we have here at Great Northern Distilling is we want to source as many of our ingredients from within 150 miles of our distillery as we possibly can. And being here in Wisconsin, we are really blessed with amazing agriculture and amazing products, whether it's vegetables or fruits, cranberries, ginseng up in Wausau. I mean we have just some of the best agriculture in the country and I think we're kind of some of those humble Midwesterners and we don't really celebrate that as much as we should. So we really wanted to promote that we were sourcing almost all of our ingredients from within that radius. So of course first we started with our potato vodka.

Rob:
Potato vodka. Okay.

Brian:
In Plover.

Rob:
Yeah. Absolutely.

Brian:
And our potatoes were coming from within about two miles of the distillery

Rob:
Can't get much more local than that.

Brian:
Yeah and that is hyper local for sure. So that was our starting point and we grew to sourcing all of our grains from a small farm up in Rhinelander called Northern Tier Farms. And then all of our malt comes from Briess malts over in Chilton. So those are our kind of core ingredients and where we ferment most of those products to make the distiller's mash and then distill off the alcohol. And that's what we concentrate and put into our bottles.

Bill:
We don't wanna go down the path of how this is all made.

Rob:
No, I don't think so. <Laugh>.

Brian:
Oh, sorry about that.

Rob:
Yeah.

Bill:
No. Oh my gosh.

Rob:
Well I'm looking through the window here and I'm seeing a lot of equipment out here, which is really kind of cool.

Bill:
Yeah, I think that would be great for a tour. I mean you are gonna start tours. You had tours in Plover, didn't you?

Brian:
We had tours in Plover and we do intend to start those sometime soon. Maybe by the time this publishes.

Bill:
Yeah.

Brian:
Absolutely.

Brian:
But we still have some construction items that we've gotta tick off the list where it's not quite the best foot forward back there or the way that I want it to look. So our public tours will start once we...

Rob:
Awesome.

Brian:
Get the show dressing on for everything...

Bill:
People can learn all about the details of the chemistry and everything else.

Rob:
I'll be first in line.

Brian:
Exactly. Well, Bill knows me well and knows that I will pontificate on for hours and hours without prompting.

Bryan:
And they got the traditional copper.

Brian:
Yeah.

Rob:
I love it. Yeah, I love it.

Bryan:
Yeah, they're gorgeous.

Brian:
That's all handbuilt still. That was built for us in Germany by a company called Kothe, K O T H E.

Rob:
Wow.

Brian:
And they have really artisanal metal crafters there and it really is working sculpture to me.

Rob:
So that was built to order.

Brian:
Yeah, yeah.

Rob:
You ordered it, and they built it for you.

Brian:
Yep, yep. That was one of the things that we wanted to get right. Right off the bat. There's a lot of cheap Chinese stills out there or things that are just not…got the kind of technology you need to make a truly world class spirit. And this really combines all of those things, plus some of the old technology. You mentioned Bryan, that it's copper. Well, it's solid copper. And that's important because you get a smoother spirit out of a copper still because that copper actually catalyzes some of those bad flavor compounds to make a smoother, higher quality spirit.

Bill:
That was the one follow up question I was gonna ask is, does the still over time get better with age?

Brian:
Not really.

Bill:
In what it's making?

Brian:
We actually, every time we clean it, we dissolve a small part of it.

Bill:
Okay.

Rob:
Oh.

Brian:
Because that is one of the things in our production cycle about every two weeks to a month, depending on what we've been making and how we've been making it, we need to reactivate that copper. And that's a clean-in-place system where we have sodium hydroxide that strips out all the organic material, the oils and other things. But then we follow that up with citric acid, which actually removes all of the scale from inside of the still with the copper being exposed and it becomes like a shiny penny in there, after. And at the end of that cycle, when we've run a number of batches, it's almost black because so much of those flavor compounds have been tied up with the copper.

Bryan:
There's that chemistry education.

Brian:
There you go.

Rob:
Well, let's talk a little bit about your location here. You've been here how long?

Brian:
Yeah, we opened really the 1st of May.

Rob:
First of May. Okay.

Brian:
So it was a long construction process and with so many supply chain issues and I'm sure people have experienced that in getting cars.

Rob:
Sure.

Brian:
It's tough to get new cars for a while, so boy, you know, we gotta take care of our used cars to make sure that they keep running. But yeah, we waited on steel, we waited on windows. The last thing was doors We couldn't open...

Rob:
Really?

Brian:
For almost three weeks because we were waiting on three doors that just were back ordered and not showing up. But yeah, so we started here at the beginning of May and got some history here on the site.

Rob:
Yeah that's what I thought. I read something about that, so I'm excited to hear about this.

Brian:
Yeah, yeah. So this site was originally it, it was a number of things, but most of the locals will recognize it as the Belke Lumber building that was here. And unfortunately that building, it was a wood-structured building and kind of a little cut up and just not structurally able to do what we needed it to do. So when the city purchased that, before we even thought of coming to Stevens Point, they decided that the building had to come down and they did recover some wood from there and things like that, but it just wasn't going to be able to be redeveloped on site. So when the site was bare and I started talking with the city, they're like, boy, you know, we would really like a manufacturer to be on this historic manufacturing site. So it kind of continues that tradition of Belke Lumber.

Rob:
Interesting.

Brian:
But before that, there were all kinds of things here. There was a bicycle shop.

Rob:
Really?

Brian:
At first, and then a guy named Charles Cabela purchased it and started the Polsky Hotel, the Cabela's Polsky Hotel, which became a kind of rooming hotel for a while. And then attracted… let's say ladies of the late afternoon to it after that.

Rob:
What'd they call that? The house of…ill-repute?

Bill:
Ill repute.

Rob:
Yes. Yes.

Bill:
Or the yes, the Un-Gentleman's...

Rob:
Yeah.

Bill:
Gentleman... Something... yeah.

Rob:
And you're right on top of that.

Brian:
We are, and there have been some reports here on site of some questionable maybe ghost activity.

Rob:
Interesting.

Brian:
So we, we have had a couple of weird things happen and actually a photo showed up strangely enough, that - we found a photo. It was in the construction site and we asked every construction worker, where'd you find this? Or where did this come from? And no one could explain it. And it looks like it's from about the twenties. So it was a strange occurrence. And my distiller John said, well that's the ghost of Charles Cabela dropping stuff off.

Bill:
I'll be looking for this history in your names of cocktails since...

Brian:
Oh! Sure!

Rob:
That's a great idea.

Brian:
I'm taking a note.

Bill:
Yeah. Uh-huh.

Rob:
Oh, for all of our ghost lovers out there, if you wanna know where this is located: just across the street from Pffifner Pioneer Park. I mean I can almost see it from where I'm sitting right here. And if that big building over there wasn't here, you could see the river.

Brian:
Well one of the things that was such a nice surprise is during Riverfront Rendezvous we found that our front patio is an ideal spot to watch the fireworks. We really had a lovely view.

Rob:
You had a perfect, yes, you did. Absolutely.

Brian:
And getting back to the historical side of things, the Portage County Historical Society is doing a pub crawl and we are the final stop of that pub crawl. There's one at the end of July and there's one at the end of August as well. So people can sign up, pay a few bucks, you get a good story and drink at each of the locations. I think there's three or four stops.

Rob:
Okay. Right in Stevens Point?

Brian:
Right in Stevens Point. It's a walking tour. So John Harry has been doing a great job over at the Portage County Historical Society with that,

Rob:
Did you have a grand opening?

Brian:
Our grand opening. That's kind of a strange thing. You know, we certainly were waiting a long time to open and we had a friends and family night with kind of our need for revenue. We're like, well we're just going, we're not gonna have any kind of big ribbon cutting or things like that. We'll probably celebrate that next year when we've got a full year under our belt.

Rob:
That makes sense. Yeah.

Brian:
It won't be necessarily a grand opening, but it'll be an annual anniversary party,...

Rob:
An event.

Brian:
That we'll have.

Rob:
Makes sense. Well, as with every, all about the car podcast, we always break away and do an interesting Wisconsin Road trip. And as we were talking about just the local feel of Stevens Point, we started to talk more about supper clubs and how Wisconsin is really well known for supper clubs. You know, you're from the Midwest when you know what a supper club is. So it's really Wisconsin's claim to fame. So we're gonna talk about several supper clubs that we might have had experience with. I haven't been to too many of 'em. Maybe just a couple. So Google tells us that the oldest continually running supper club is the Red Circle Inn right here in Nashotah. Do you know where that is in Wisconsin? It sounds like a Wisconsin name, but I'm not sure I'm saying it right. They opened back in 1848 and as a matter of fact, Wisconsin has over 260 supper clubs today, which is more than all the other states combined. So our claim to fame here in Wisconsin.

Bryan:
Fish fries and prime rib.

Rob:
Oh you said it.

Bryan:
Don't get no better baby.

Rob:
You said it.

Brian:
Don't forget about the old fashioneds.

Bill:
Yes.

Rob:
Absolutely.

Bill:
Do you happen to serve one here at the distillery?

Brian:
We do! We do. And it's a combination of the kind of classic old school East Coast Old Fashioned, which is just sugar, bitters, and some spirit - either brandy or whiskey, stirred over ice and that's it. Or the Wisconsin Style Old Fashioned, which is, was developed in the supper clubs and is a combination of muddled cherry and orange and bitters and then topped with soda. So our old fashioned, we do muddle a cherry, we use local tapped maple syrup as the sweetener.

Bryan:
Oh there you go.

Brian:
Our Vanguard whiskey, which is our bourbon. And stir that over ice and pour that over a big giant clear ice cube. And then our…top with just a little bit of seltzer and then flame an orange peel over top of it to give kind of some of that orange…

Rob:
Wow.

Brian:
Yeah. Smoky caramelized orange flavor.

Rob:
I'm not leaving here today.

Bill:
So just one other question because the name Old fashioned in the books that we're gonna refer to, I mean whether people order “old fashion” or “old fashionED...”

Brian:
Yeah.

Bill:
Is two different things.

Rob:
Oh.

Bill:
But also, where does that name really come from in the history of cocktail?

Brian:
So there's not a clear line to that. And I heard some people say the Old Fashioned is the original cocktail that it was back in the early- to mid-1800s when whiskey was kind of terrible and most spirits were terrible. And kind of that rot gut whiskey you see in Westerns.

Rob:
Yeah.

Bill:
Right.

Brian:
So what they would do is they'd add sugar and bitters to it just to make it more palatable. Well, as time progressed and we got to the late 1800s, whiskey was a lot better quality. But some of the old timers would say, “Yeah, gimme that whiskey in the old fashion.” And that's where that argument of, well is it an “old fashion” or an “old fashioned?” That's a question kind of lost to history. What would be correct. Both are acceptable. We'll give you a cocktail if you order it. Well, we won't GIVE you a cocktail, we'll... we'll SELL you a cocktail. But that's kind of the history of where that came from. The thought of why does Wisconsin love brandy in the old fashioned versus the whole rest of the country, that's primarily bourbon or rye whiskey is… Some thought is between the German immigrants coming and Polish immigrants that the type of liquor they predominantly drank was never whiskey. It was always...

Rob:
Sure.

Brian:
Brandy. And there was also some thought that that came up the Mississippi River from New Orleans, which is primarily French. And that was the port for brandy coming into the US.

Rob:
Interesting.

Brian:
So that's another thought of where the brandy preference in Wisconsin came from.

Bill:
Fantastic.

Rob:
Wow. I know a lot more about that today than I did yesterday.

Bill:
Yeah. It's interesting.

Brian:
I'm a fountain of useless information.

Rob:
I love it. I love it.

Bill:
And there's also all sorts of food things at supper clubs too.

Rob:
Oh yeah. Bryan, you just started with that list, but there's so much more.

Bryan:
Back in the day it started with a relish tray.

Rob:
What's relish tray?

Bryan:
Oh you got pickles and dips and crackers and…

Bill:
Celery.

Bryan:
Celery was on there.

Bill:
Yep. Liver paste.

Brian:
Yeah, that's the one that I wish would come back. I need to talk to Chef Thad over at Michelle's, 'cause Michelle's relish tray when I came to town in the mid-90s was just fantastic. And they would always have this little thing of prime rib pâté, the liver pâté, which was just delicious. And I bet he's still got that recipe.

Bill:
He does.

Rob:
Not letting it go either probably.

Brian:
Probably not.

Bill:
And there's also some possibly Jell-O involved.

Rob:
That's right. Some

Bill:
Some type of gelatin.

Bryan:
Radishes.

Bill:
Yep.

Bryan:
They were on there.

Brian:
Oh sure.

Rob:
Yep, yep, yep. What are some of the experiences you guys have had at supper clubs? Which ones do you visit?

Bill:
I like to go, and I will enjoy the adventure of supper clubs in that there's the books about this by Ron Faiola. So they are great resource to just go on road trips. I mean just take a road trip for an evening or a day and go to a supper club and then have your meal and come on back. Or stay overnight if you've had too many old fashioneds. Always safe to be good.

Rob:
Yeah. It was a supper club down in Racine called the Hobnob. And I kind of read up on that 'cause that name kind of caught my attention. And they're known for their, well they have the old retro carpets, colorful carpets, the mirrored walls and the leather chairs. But they're known for their steak, seafood, lamb shank, fish fry and wiener schnitzel.

Bill:
Oh!

Rob:
I think we're going pretty deep back into history there.

Bryan:
Good old German restaurant.

Rob:
That sounds German all the way. They opened back in the 1930s. So they've been around a long time. Still going strong. They ended up being one of the top supper clubs in Wisconsin.

Bill:
And we cannot forget about the salad bar.

Rob:
The salad bar.

Bill:
Because that's classic.

Brian:
Oh yeah.

Bill:
Where many of those relish things you get to eat them again if you so choose. And the fifties, Google tells us that our own local Sky Club was the first entity or restaurant to bring up...

Rob:
An actual salad bar.

Bill:
Salad bar that was designed by that. Designed for a salad bar.

Bryan:
They just reopened it here recently.

Bill:
Yeah.

Bryan:
In the last month or two.

Bill:
Which is fantastic.

Bryan:
And it's awesome.

Bill:
Yeah.

Rob:
So you can go back and experience the original salad bar.

Bryan:
That's right.

Rob:
Wow. And there's a supper club down in Wautoma called the Silvercryst. And Brian, you and I were talking about that earlier. They're known for their salad dressing.

Bryan:
Yep. You can but 'em in a lot of local grocery stores.

Rob:
The Silvercryst Supper Club dates back to 1894. So that's really going back in time. And they've had a large black bowl that stands out front, a big statue that's been greeting guests since 1965. So you can't miss it. You can't drive by this place and not notice that big bowl. So just a lot of interesting supper clubs. Like I said, over 260, The Branding Iron in Wisconsin Rapids...

Bill:
Oh it's very good.

Rob:
Not too far...

Bryan:
Fabulous.

Bill:
Yep.

Bryan:
On the south side of town.

Rob:
Well let's come back to Stevens Point, to great northern Distilling. And again, we're sitting here with Brian, founder of the distillery. And let's talk a little bit about planning and design of the new facility here. Was that you all by yourself or did you have a team?

Brian:
Oh gosh no. I'm not that talented.

Rob:
You can take credit. It's beautiful.

Brian:
Well I like to say I may not be able to do it, but I know it when I see it.

Rob:
Okay.

Brian:
So fortunately, we were able to work with a really great local builder, Wanta & Son Construction out of Hatley. And they specialize in steel buildings. But the “son” of Wanta & Son, Ryan Wanta, he has a background in, actually, the fashion industry, and has a really great design eye. He was educated at Pratt in New York and Paris, had his own fashion line out in LA and then moved back to town a number of years ago to work in the family business. And at that point they had been putting up these steel buildings that were primarily warehouses and other more industrially-focused commercial buildings. And Ryan kind of said, well, I've got this design sense, let's start doing more design build and finding how we can dress these steel buildings up into something really special. And be economical construction, but still really have a nice polished finish. And that's what we have here. Our space is actually two steel buildings backed up to each other that look like a whole, one taller than the other. And we've got like a little coop at the top with some windows on that top course. But that gives us really great open space in our tasting room. We've got 28 foot ceilings and lovely...

Rob:
Beautiful.

Brian:
…design and wood and you had mentioned supper clubs previously and that was kind of the base idea that we had. We wanted to design, kind of have hearkening back to that mid-century supper club but a modernized interpretation of it.

Rob:
Ah. Okay.

Bryan:
Yeah, you can see that now as you're describing it.

Rob:
Yep. I can see it.

Brian:
Yeah we've got some materials in here that are classic, like the bar stools and the bar front are padded with kind of nice vinyl hand-built chairs that were actually built for us by Les's upholstery here in Stevens Point.

Rob:
Oh nice.

Brian:
And they did a great job for us and our banquettes as well. So that kind of gives you that retro feel with a padded bar front. And then the combed plywood, that's called Weldtex. You probably have seen that in old 60s houses a plywood that has kind of this striation to it. We're actually the first one to use it again in the Midwest. A guy out in California decided he's gonna start making this again. It had been out of production since the 80s. So we were the first to use that material here in the Midwest.

Bill:
And all the wood has a local history too, doesn't it?

Brian:
Yeah, yeah. So because it's such a big space, we wanted some way to warm it up and to not feel cavernous or cold. So Ryan, we work with Dombeck Custom Cabinetry and some others in the area to utilize white ash everywhere. And we have just tons of white ash in this building. But the, the local story of that is much of this was recovered from emerald ash borer… trees that ah, that had to be taken down. So it was not only a beneficial reuse of that, but also a nice local wood.

Rob:
And now you, also you're open for events too, yeah? People can rent your facility. How does that work?

Brian:
So in Plover we never had the ability to host private events without closing our main bar and closing to the public. So we really shied away from that and only would do that on days when the bar wasn't open. So what we've done now is we have an almost 2000 square foot event space that is separate from our main bar. Has a private bar and back that's staffed for private events and we can host up to 130, 140 people back there. So it's great for those mid-size weddings and birthday parties and corporate events that people wanna use. Stevens Point has a lot of venues that are under a hundred and several big ones.

Rob:
Mm-hmm.

Brian:
300...

Rob:
Right.

Brian:
…for some events like you can have out at Sentry. But really that 100-150 range I felt like wasn't really well served. So that was kind of our target to hit. And we've not really promoted hosting events and we have a bunch of bookings going into the fall. So we're really...

Rob:
Oh exciting.

Brian:
…pleased with that so far. And we've actually got a concert coming up. There's a group called the Jazz Coterie. They're actually based in Waupaca but they bring top-notch jazz performers to Stevens Point and the Fox Valley and they're back-to-back gigs. But they've done them at the country club, they've done them up at Mosinee Brewing, but we're a new spot to host that. So Benny Benack III, who's a trumpet player and up and coming jazz singer will be performing here at the middle of August coming up.

Rob:
So a little bit more on the functionality of your building. So you have really high ceilings like you talked about. I gotta believe you have to have that because of the still.

Brian:
For sure.

Rob:
And your production.

Brian:
For sure.

Rob:
As we look out through the window here and see that, tell us a little bit more about capacity. Now, has your capacity increased here in this new building versus Plover?

Brian:
Our capacity for serving people? Absolutely.

Rob:
Absolutely.

Brian:
But our capacity for producing spirits is just about the same.

Rob:
Okay.

Brian:
We never really hit the full running capacity of what our still can produce, which if we were running it 24-7, we could produce 150,000 bottles a year, something like that. I don't think we ever sold much more than 25,000 or 30,000 bottles because we are distributed statewide a little bit out in California and a little in New York. But it just never really got that kind of volume production that we had hoped for with our original business plan to go out through distribution and be on every store shelf in every supermarket and every backbar. That's just a really hard row to hoe these days. So the idea behind the new facility in Stevens Point is to concentrate more on site revenue. So to bring people to us, have it be more of a tourism location, a nightlife location an event location where we'll consume most of that here on site. Although we do still sell throughout the state of Wisconsin on store shelves and are very happy to do that. It's just not our main concentration.

Rob:
Speaking of distribution, how do you get that product out there? How is that happening for you? You can't be doing it all.

Brian:
No, no. And that is the case. Only for a number of reasons. One, I'm only one person but the other is the three-tier system in Wisconsin, which is manufacturers can't sell directly to bars and restaurants, at least not yet. There is some legislation going through the Senate and Assembly right now to make some changes to those laws. But we have a distributor in the center and our distributor is General Beverage in their Oshkosh, Madison and Milwaukee houses.

Rob:
Okay.

Brian:
That purchase our product at wholesale and then deliver that to our bars and restaurants and retailers throughout the state.

Bill:
Something that you had said about having a banquet room and kind of a gatherings, but do you also have food?

Brian:
Yeah. Yeah. That was a new addition to this location in Stevens Point as well. In Plover, we just did not have the facilities kind of back behind the bar to do any kind of food. And here in Stevens Point, we do have a nice prep area that allowed us to put in one of those rapid cook ovens and we've got some real basic kind of shareable items. We've got a couple of flatbreads, we've got a smoked whitefish pâté, which is really delicious. That's one of my favorites. Some chili dip, you know, things you can just share with people. Our clients’ before or after dinner place.

Rob:
Okay.

Brian:
Typically...

Rob:
Yeah.

Brian:
People aren't coming here to eat dinner because we never had food before. And we've got great restaurants here in downtown Stevens Point for people to enjoy a cocktail and an appetizer here and then you can...

Rob:
Make a weekend of it really.

Brian:
Well we'll just keep trading people around down there. It's always good for me.

Bill:
Are you available to bring in catering, then?

Brian:
Yeah. Yeah. So in our event space, we encourage people to use local caterers. We do prefer that they're licensed caterers.

Bill:
Right.

Brian:
So there's not a food safety issue or something that could hurt their people or their guests or our reputation as “Everyone got sick at this event at Great Northern” that would not be good advertising for us. But yeah, so, and we've got some really great caterers in the area that some restaurants that do catering like Michelle's and Rockman's Catering is standby and really does fantastic work. So we've also had Chef C from Father Fats and, and Chef's Kitchen do some catering here as well. So, but yeah, we're open to people bringing that in and arranging that separately and we don't take a cut of that like some facilities do. So that's a separate contract with others and you negotiate that with them and we don't stick our nose in it.

Bill:
Got it.

Rob:
What's your most popular drink?

Brian:
Yeah, that's tough.

Rob:
You've gotta, there's gotta be a number one here

Brian:
And it varies but certainly the old fashioned rules.

Rob:
Okay.

Brian:
And we typically are selling that at least one and a half to one of any other cocktail. But there have been some over the last few weeks that have challenged it. One that just is coming off the menu - so people will be disappointed they can't get it when they hear about it - is a drink called Come on Barbie, Let's Go Party. We had all kinds of people with the Barbie movie.

Rob:
Sure.

Brian:
Coming in and wanting that drink. It's kind of hot pink because we use a Dragon fruit powder in it and with blue sprinkles so it looks like something right outta Mattel. But it is certainly not meant for the kids. Although we do a non-alcoholic version of that as well. So you get all the fruit flavor and that without the alcohol.

Rob:
I know, Bill, you mentioned earlier to me that you've been here to this facility and really have enjoyed some relaxing evenings and afternoons. You talked to me a little bit about the hand soap in the rest room.

Bill:
I was just gonna say there is one design feature...

Rob:
What's with the hand soap?

Bill:
That, do you talk about that or just let people experience?

Brian:
Well it is something for people to experience.

Bill:
Okay.

Brian:
But that was actually something that Ryan Wanta and I came to separately. I saw these hand soaps that were from, I think their origin is in the underground of Paris though. So the subway of Paris has these really hard-milled, good quality French soaps on like a little stick that comes out of the wall and you wet your hands and rub your hand over it and that's how you get the soap. It's not a dispenser. And Ryan brought that up as we were planning what goes in the bathrooms. He's like, you know, there's this weird French soap that I wanna use and I'm like, oh my gosh, I saw this in 2012 in New York City at a bar, a French bar there, and always thought, boy, I'd love to have that in Great Northern. And we just weren't able to do it in the Plover location. So when he brought that up and reminded me of it, I'm like, we are doing this. It might make people a little uncomfortable, but it's a unique and special thing.

Rob:
Bryan, we gotta check the bathrooms off before we go.

Bryan:
I'm intrigued.

Rob:
One at a time. No...

Brian:
We are running into some issues because I think there's some people that, you know, you get a couple of drinks in them and they just can't figure out how to work it. I had one of my contractors on our friends and family night come up to me and say, “Hey, the soap dispenser isn't working in the bathroom. I keep hitting it on the end...”

Bill :
That's right. Cuz the old ones...

Brian:
And nothing comes out.

Bill:
The old powder ones had... Looked that oval and had like the little...

Brian:
Yep, yep.

Bill:
…metal knob that you pressed up and got powder in your hand.

Brian:
And we also have had, during UWSP graduation weekend, that's our busiest night we've ever had. It was a huge crowd that night.

Rob:
Wow, nice.

Brian:
But we must have had some younger college folks that had many drinks and they ripped it right off the wall.

Rob:
Oh no. Oh no.

Brian:
So I’d gotten out my tubes of JB Weld as I'm sure many amateurs use on their cars.

Rob:
Of course.

Brian:
And shouldn't – you should take it to Schierl Tire and Service. But getting my JB weld out to reinforce the plate and to also anchor into the tile rather than just into the sink fascia, which was a little less stable than I would've liked it to be.

Rob:
Kinda live and learn as you go, huh?

Brian:
Absolutely. That JB Weld it can do anything.

Rob:
It can. So you mentioned earlier a little bit about some of the laws that might be changing when it comes to distilling. What do you see in the future? I mean, how do you see this twisting and turning and where are we gonna end up?

Brian:
Yeah that's a great question. I'm on the Distillers Guild Board of Directors, or just ended my term with that. And really for the last eight years we have been negotiating to get a modernization of the liquor laws in Wisconsin. Our Section 125 was really cobbled together since prohibition. One law gets put in and then another, and then another and another. And it becomes a patchwork over time. For example, distillers as manufacturers, we don't have a defined closing time. So versus a bar, I could technically by the law serve 24-7 here and be a late night bar. Not that I'm gonna do that 'cause I don't wanna work that hard.

Rob:
Right.

Brian:
But, and in contrast to that, the wineries in the area, those manufacturers, well, they're very clearly defined in the statute that they have to be closed by 9 PM and when they say closed, they mean lights off closed.

Rob:
Oh wow.

Brian:
It'll be a violation. It's not last call at nine. So just a lot of these inconsistencies. So we've been negotiating with the Tavern League, the distributors and other kind of interested parties there to come up with a common sense rewrite of Section 125. And that has passed the assembly now, and we'll have some benefits and some challenges for everyone, but it's in committee in the Senate and hopefully to be passed very soon.

Bill:
It's good to know that there's change afoot.

Rob:
Absolutely.

Brian:
Yes. Absolutely.

Rob:
Yep. There's a group of people working on it.

Brian:
Yep.

Rob:
So what do you see as the future? What's the next step for Great Northern Distilling? You had nine years in Plover from sitting at somewhere with a drink and some buddies and now you're here. What's the big picture? What's way out there?

Brian:
So the way out there I think is, I'm just turning 50 this year. So I am starting to look in that 10, 20 year forward, what does the future of Great Northern look like with or without me? I think one of the things that's high on my list is doing some sort of employee buyout down the road. So it can be an employee owned business here on site and also the real estate. So we'll see. It's certainly a goal I have, when we first started, it really was a group of friends and family as investors. And we, some have left and some have come in during those previous 10 years, but there's a lot of those people that are looking, you know, what's my time horizon for exiting my 2% or whatever of Great Northern Distilling? And I want to give them a light at the end of the tunnel as well. Especially now that we're here in downtown Stevens Point, we've been successful with the volume. We're hitting our projections that we had made and I worked with the UWSP Small Business Development Center to come up with, well what does that look like? What are the projections? What are the future - can it cash flow? All of those kind of business technical things, which I'm not always the strongest at. And to give them, those investors, kind of the “here is the exit plan.” So that's really what I'm working on along with all the day-to-day things.

Rob:
So in your free time.

Brian:
Exactly. Well, and they often say, you gotta take time to work on your business and not in your business. So hopefully getting more and more of that time as more and more of the things get ticked off our punch list. I've definitely been the maintenance man for the last…because so much of the equipment we purchased for the back bar or the prep area or food, it was all used equipment. So we tried to scrimp and save on our budget because construction costs were so much higher than we had projected to use some, find some used equipment at restaurant auctions or Facebook Marketplace was definitely my friend for a while.

Rob:
Oh yeah.

Brian:
But you sometimes never know what you're getting and even when you got it up and running just fine, you don't see the weak link until it's really an operation. So I've been working on a lot of those punch list things as well.

Rob:
I think as downtown Stevens Point continues to evolve on a positive note, I think you're sitting in the right place.

Brian:
Thanks.

Rob:
I think this was a good move and you could really just do almost a walking tour and really have a good time. And you go sit in the park.

Bill:
Yes.

Brian:
And it's also something that kind of connects the north side to downtown for so many years. The mall was kind of a giant wall that kind of prevented that. And with...

Rob:
Right.

Brian:
Former Mayor Halverson, you know, really pushing the redevelopment of that mall site that really opened up the north side of downtown to grow and to serve that community of individuals on the north side.

Rob:
Well, we've learned a lot today about a great new social opportunity located in the heart of historic Stevens Point, Wisconsin. Great Northern Distilling. Thank you Brian for hosting this episode of All About the Car.

Brian:
Thanks for having me.

Rob:
We hope to have you ride along next time on All About the Car. To listen to previous episodes, find additional resources, or to simply send us a message, head to AllAboutTheCarPodcast.com. We'll see you next time.