Ethanology Distillation

Drew H (00:08):
Welcome to Whiskey Lores Whiskey Flights, your weekly home for discovering great craft distillery experiences around the globe. I'm your travel guide Drew Hannush bestselling author of experiencing Irish whiskey and experiencing Kentucky Bourbon. And today, sadly, it is my last day in Michigan at an amazing couple of days surrounded by people who have made me feel very much at home here. And for our last stop, I've taken a trip around Torch Lake and along the east coast of the east arm of the Grand Traverse Bay to a town called Elk Rapids. And the distillery we're heading to is called ethanol. And when you look at their website, you're going to see that they aren't necessarily focused exclusively on bourbons or single malts or vodkas or gin. They're flagship spirit, interestingly enough called Mel is made with a very unique non-grain element, yet has some characteristics of a grain whiskey, and they're also making corn-based whiskeys as well.

(01:13):
And they are dedicated to using local grains. But the thing that really caught my eye on their website was that they're also B Corp certified, which is something that I have to admit I haven't seen very much in the United States. And if you're not familiar with what that is, it's basically a third party certification that focuses on high standards of performance, accountability, transparency, and really focuses on how they work with employees, their charitable giving, their supply chain, and their sustainable practices. And this is not a cheap certification to go through and definitely time intensive. And so I'm looking forward to hearing what drove the owners, Nick and Jerry Lafe to reach for that status. Now on my way in, I realized that they weren't going to open until one o'clock, and I had left Mammoth around 1130. So I decided to drop into the town of Elk Rapids and see what it was all about.

(02:14):
And I really enjoy that Michigan small town feel. And it's definitely here. I walked along River Street and I made my way into the Happy Camper Coffee Company, got myself something to sip on and was pleasantly surprised to find that there's a really nice view of the Liberty Bridge and a little waterway with a dam that surrounds an inlet where the Elk Rapids District Library sits in a historic looking house. And so that got my curiosity up. So I decided to, after sipping my coffee, walk across the bridge and down to the bay, and this whole area is just surrounded by water. There's lakes to the east, there's bay to the west, and it's got a river running through it. And when I got out to where there's a huge parking lot, I looked over to my right and there was a beach over there with a good number of people enjoying water and sunshine.

(03:11):
And after my leisurely stroll, I jumped back in the car, drove north on us, 31 less than a mile, and then down Ames Street where the distillery was on the left. Since there was no parking in front, I decided to travel around to the backside of the building, onto the street there and parked and then walked in. And as you come in the front, there's a large outdoor seating area at the distillery. Nick came right up to me, greeted me, and we negotiated where the best place was to record the podcast. It was so beautiful outside that there was really no doubt the best spot to be was in the seating area outside. I was eager to find out about some of these unique craft spirits that they're making. But the sense I get about this place is that it's got a really cool kind of experimental side to it, reminding me a little bit of klean in Northern Ireland or Bailey and Donal, inny and Scotland or Iron Root in Texas. And so I've got a lot to discuss with Nick. And so let's get settled into our conversation. I always like giving people kind of a sense of who the people are behind the spirit. So talk about you and Jerry and how you met and how you ended up coming down here to start a distillery.

Nate (04:33):
So I originally was born and raised in Alden, which is on the east side of Torch Lake, Bella area actually. And throughout my childhood had just a whimsical childhood. I mean, we swimming in the lakes and rivers and we lived in this picturesque town of Bel Air that had a river running through it. And we were boys riding our bikes around, jumping off of bridges and spent every possible moment in the water in the summer. And eventually my dad had just a really love for the outdoors. And so we moved to up to a little town just outside of Marquette, about 45 minutes west, called AMI and fell in love with obviously the up as well. And then Jerry and I actually attended the same high school but never met. And so she was a few years younger than I was and then in college, so always had a dream to own my own business.

(05:28):
And Jerry was actually a nurse at the time or studying to be a nurse I should say, but also had a business degree, an undergraduate degree in business administration as well. And so we met and fell in love. And I guess the short story is we were either going to pursue our graduate degrees or starting our own business. And this is at the time there was 15 craft distilleries in the country. And we knew if we were going to do this, we would make our own products. We knew we couldn't compete on scale. So quality had to be our focus and sourcing everything locally would be an integral part of our business model. And it has really brought us the most joy and actually the sense of accomplishment by keeping everything local, economically speaking, it keeps the resources in your community. And we outside of California, Michigan is the most diverse agricultural state in the country. And really this corner of northwest Michigan is really integral to that. It's stone fruits and cherries and there's just a plethora of substrates to play with. And the original plan was Jerry was going to help me with the front of house.

(06:35):
She had some hospitality experience and my family was in the bar and restaurant business for 50 years. So I had some experience there. I grew up basically in hospitality and working with people, and we started doing preliminary research so we could interview, well, right, this is over a decade ago now, probably 20. I was still in college actually when I wrote the business plan for ology. And we just started chipping away at the technical side of it, getting a greater knowledge of all the chemistry, the biochemistry, all of the equipment needed and process. And so we really started looking at everything from a critical thinking perspective. And our approach was we always questioned why did the Scottish whiskey industry Lauder as an example, why do they use only limbic or pot stills? Why our continuous column stills used for low wines in Kentucky? So we started piecemealing all and their approach to flavor and how they build flavor, and we kind of just took pieces from each of those industries or those regions around the world and even brandys Howard Brandys made and what types of steel were they used. And Jerry would really take a deep dive into the chemistry and we built the business from the ground up. Like I said, we met in college and decided if we're going to do it,

(07:59):
These are the pillars of the business, providing good jobs year round, but also we'd make our own product and we would make the best product we possibly could with the current skillset or knowledge that we had. And then we basically designed a whole process around that and started developing. And Jerry has over 12,000 hours worth of research into her craft, and I kind of took over the front of house and Jerry drifted towards back of house. And eventually we had a few interviews with potential distillers. She looked over at me and very succinctly said, I know more than these people, I can do this. Mostly what was most concerning was everyone was following recipe. They were a lot of cooks, there were no innovative chefs. And our approach is single origin, single varietal, single season. And it's really, we make decisions really at the start of what is a local substrate we can utilize, whether it's a fruit, whether it's a grain, or really unique substrates like our honey distillates that we're utilizing. So due to the agricultural diversity of our area, we have a multitude of different substrates to work with and really paying respects to those farms or apiaries, those orchards, those fields and those people that make 'em, and the region itself. So I think regions spirits with a profound sense of place

(09:27):
That are really terat driven is really our focus.

Drew H (09:30):
It's always fascinating to look at the path that distilleries take and what their interest is in, because a lot of distilleries will start out by trying to see what's popular in the market or what has been done successfully. And they will look towards doing a bourbon because bourbon is just the king of whiskey in the United States.

Nate (09:52):
It's a play. Yeah,

Drew H (09:54):
During my trip here, I've seen a lot of people getting into reinvesting in rye whiskey, which Michigan has a history of, but that history's kind of been lost over time. And so it's fun to see the development of that. But when you come from a scientific background, depending on your curiosity, it definitely can lead you into some different directions. So what was the discussion as to what should we make here first? What should we maybe even be known for down the road?

Nate (10:27):
So grain-based distillates, whiskeys, bourbons rise, we're always part of the plan. Really what we try to do is we look locally and say, okay, what has grown in our area that's unique to our area? That's truly something that will differentiate us in the marketplace, not only from a flavor and an aromatic perspective, but also just from a marketing perspective. And so we always knew we would make those products, but as an example, our bourbon is a blue corn. The blue corn took me almost a year to source the seed. This particular seed company had over 30 years of organic crossbreeding between yellow dent corn, na and heirloom blue to get the grow time down to a 90 day maturation time that would work in this region. And we were the first ever to grow it. And we have proprietary rights to distill it and had the honor of naming it. But that type of an investment, if we can't as an example, we could probably just buy a commodity corn up the road. It'd still be local, it would still be, but it would not be as unique from a flavor and aromatic perspective, from just a differentiation.

(11:40):
And also we want to push the envelope of what is possible and what substrates are considered to be what we would consider to be unique and different. To me, a spirit, its quality is purely subjective, but its interest or what makes it different or really what I believe makes a world-class distillate is that it has all of the attributes of quality, flavor, aroma, mouthfeel, finish, but it really is about how it's different. Is it interesting? Does it peak that part of your brain that says, Ooh, I've never smelled or tasted anything like that before. And the quality and the exclusivity and the rarity of it are also baked into that. But at the end of the day, I think for us it's about is it an interesting spirit? Am I interested in not only enjoying it, but does it provide me something that something else can't?

Drew H (12:42):
It's interesting to look at like blue coin. The only whiskey that I've had with blue corn is made in Waco, Texas, Balcones. And at a year it is a very drinkable spirit.

Nate (12:56):
Yes.

Drew H (12:57):
Where did you discover blue corn, first of all, and what was it about? This is the thing, if you're going to be growing it in Texas and then you're going to be growing it in Michigan, very different. It is going to be a completely different thought process. And you have the worry of when it grows here, will it yield the flavor and personality that I want it to have?

Nate (13:21):
And these are risks that we believe is a stellar we should be taking. I think the industry is not going anywhere unless we take these risks. And if the public is interested in trying these unique and different spirits and blue corn is not novel, right? I mean it's, people have done it, but the way we do it is very different and growing it in our region is very different. So the answer to the question is the substrate. I love bourbon. And so Jerry is our head distiller and my life partner and business partner, her style and her, the spirits that she enjoys and she enjoys making are more subtle than nuanced, more similar to brandy. So Calvados is really fine, or unpeated single. And so she said, if you can find a blue corn that'll grow in northern Michigan, then I'll distill it.

(14:18):
So the process, even to get seed in the ground took about a year and then six to eight months I should say. And then we had to convince a family owned farm to grow it. And then we had to figure out how to grow it. In northern Michigan, our first initial test plot, I first had to convince the seed grower to sell us enough seed for a test plot because they only co-opt, meaning they sold the seed, grew it, and then they owned all the, but then they would pay the farmer a per bushel grow rate because of all the intellectual property they had tied up into it, 30 years of ip. So I said, listen, we would love to make a whiskey out of it. They sold us in US seed for five acres, and we had 31 bushel acre yield. Horrible.

(15:00):
So the farmer, I just made a deal with the farmer. I said, listen, so the other puzzle piece for us is we're such an agriculturally driven and committed company that I just told the farmer, what do you need to make on the ground? Let's not even, I'm not going to buy it by the bushel. I'm in this for the long term. And anybody that's in our industry that makes their own product is our strategic planning is a decade long. We plan in decades and generations, not in years. It's not a quarterly plan. And so I said, listen, we're in this for the long term. And we figured out over the last six years, not only how to grow it, so we're somewhere in the 70 to 80 bushel per, which isn't for anybody who farms is still really, really low.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
But

Nate (15:45):
For where we started and we also figured out how to dry it, and we've had our failures along the way. But for us, that's what matters. I mean, if you're not, I think the story about spirits and all spirits really come from an agricultural origin. That's where they start and that's where we believe we should be telling that story and showcasing our little corner of the world and what it can offer.

Drew H (16:18):
So when you started distilling it, were you doing a hundred percent corn or were you

Nate (16:25):
Up to date? Every single spirit we've made is from a single substrate, and we do not mix our mash bills. So we do not use malts, at least for enzyme conversion. We actually only use exogenous enzymes or malt. And that allows us to showcase each field, each farm each season, and the subtle nuances from each of those. And then if it's a barrel aged spirit, it's a single barrel. If it's a batch spirit, it's a single batch. And so we don't have any mixed mash bills. I should have answered the question earlier about the corn. Jerry's Scientific, the blue corn, the impetus for that and why she chose that is because blue corn has the same anthocyanins and tannins that are found in a red wine.

(17:17):
And those actually, the free acids make their way through the distillation process. So you can get very unique flavor in aroma. And again, so keeping it local, finding a local farmer, but also really experimenting with, if we really honed in on single barrel single season, and then the subtle nuances. And there's barrels back there from originally when we started not only Jerry's skillset, but how you notice the corn, the drying, the quality of the raw material got considerably better, and Jerry's skillset got considerably better. And so there's a nice progression back there from some of the older barrels into the new one. They're all spectacular, but they all have each their own subtle characteristic changes.

Drew H (17:58):
It sounds to me like you could almost slip into the vintages.

Nate (18:02):
Yes, exactly.

Drew H (18:03):
Direction. Is that kind of where you're headed?

Nate (18:04):
That is exactly how we are going to approach when we release. Mostly the brandies will be sold as vintages. But yes, the older distiller series products will be sold with a statement of age and a vintage. Correct.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
Okay.

Nate (18:18):
So the year in which the corn was grown and it was distilled and the age at which it is today will be on the bottle.

Drew H (18:26):
So what's your oldest barrel that you have right now?

Nate (18:28):
So the oldest barrel, a bourbon is six and a half. We have a single malt, which is actually, it's a single varietal barley that is seven, I think six and a half, about the same age as the bourbon. Again, we opened in June of 2017 and then just started laying, I mean, to give you an idea of our size, we just filled our hundredth barrel a couple months ago.

Drew H (18:54):
Wow. We are

Nate (18:55):
Super small and that allows us to really focus on quality and focus on producing spirits that are unlike any other in the world.

Drew H (19:05):
So you told me that you actually have not bottled any of that. So do you feel like you're getting very close to a sweet spot on this bourbon?

Nate (19:15):
We are. There's a barrel back there that I really, really like that I've been because we keep an eye on 'em and there's only 35 barrels in our tiny barrel room. And then we have another rick house that we just completed. But it is very much stone fruit. There's these beautiful rock candy, caramel notes, date almond, the blue corn gives it this kind of brandy, kind of grapey sweetness on the nose. And then we double oak our bourbon. Our current recipe is a double oak finish and our honey distillate barrels, which is our own proprietary spirit, which we're going to try here in a little bit. So it gives it this nice kind of sweeter finish like you would get on an armac or cognac finish bourbon

(20:06):
Or like a Sherry Finish bourbon, something like that. But it's much more us. It's all vertically integrated. So we're using our own barrels to finish our bourbon. We are literally contract growing the corn, we're doing everything inhouse as we always have milled mash, fermented, distilled, bottled and barreled since day one. Every single drop here in Elk Rapids. And then, yeah, it's close. It's really, really close. We're probably, our plan is to release a six year, because that barrel that I really like, it's in the industry. It would be called like a honey barrel. It's just exceptional. It's really, really good. And it'll be six years old, may of 25, and we anticipate releasing it on our eight anniversary, which is June 1st of this coming year.

Drew H (20:50):
Wow. Exciting times. Yes.

Nate (20:51):
And so that gives you a testament to how committed we are to not sourcing one, because we believe that it's important that if you come to a craft distillery, you get a true craft product made by that company. And number two, that it is of the highest quality. And so this will be our first whiskey ever barrel age whiskey ever released, and it'll be eight years in. So

Drew H (21:15):
Yeah, I have to say that when I've traveled around Scotland, I have seen certified B court companies before. I have not seen it. I'm trying to recall where I've seen it in the United States. But you do promote that on yourself. What does it take to become certified

Nate (21:34):
A lot? It took about a year of vetting and verification, and it's been a goal of mine to be a sustainable company. That's why our supply chain is so for a multitude of reasons, we source everything local for showcasing the regions agriculture, but also keeping your resources local economically, but also supply chain and carbon footprint, all of those things. But yeah, it was a very intense process. It took us about a year, or I should say me about a year. And it was a goal of mine to be that we are the first B Corp certified distillery in the state of Michigan. And we're very proud of that. And I think one of only 14 or 15 in the States, in the

Speaker 3 (22:15):
United States.

Nate (22:17):
And it was important for us. So providing high quality jobs, wages, retirement, all of the things that a company we believe should provide and doing it in a sustainable manner was an important part of the business that we wanted to create. And for us in a society, a capitalist society, I believe if the power is with corporations and businesses, we're a tiny little company of 12 employees, but it should be a catalyst for good. A company should do its part to do what it can to mitigate its environmental impact, as well as to promote its community and provide good jobs.

Drew H (23:02):
So I took a drink of water. It reminds me because I was born in Michigan, I moved to the mountains of North Carolina and I would not drink the water

Speaker 4 (23:12):
Because

Drew H (23:12):
I was like, there's something wrong with this water. I don't know what it is, but I've gotten used to that water now and now I come back up here. And that heavy mineral content that turns your clothes yellow and definitely gives a taste of the water, does that create any special issues in terms of distilling, proofing, so on

Nate (23:33):
And so forth? So one of the reasons we chose All Rapids is the village. We had a contingency on the building if they would allow us to have our own water source. So we have our own type two, well, outback and all of our mashing when we mash in, we do not remediate our water at all, providing or making spirits with a profound sense of place and water other than the raw material, the raw substrate grain or fruit or whatever it is, is the number one ingredient. So very hard, very high in calcium. It's medium to low iron mag. It's a very hard water. And actually it provides our spirits with just another depth of character.

(24:21):
And really a lot of people in the spirits region or spirits world will market their water. I mean, limestone water in Kentucky is not better or worse than our hard mineral water up here. It's different. It provides unique characteristics to that region. And that's the same thing that we're trying to do here as provide a using local grain, local water to have our own kind of character to the distillate. But yeah, on the RO side, on the proofing side, no distillery is going to proof with unfiltered water, but we run ours through an RO system, so it's completely neutral. We don't want to impart any more flavor, aroma, or particulate in the spirit. So everything is in reverse osmosis filtered before it's back sweetened or back watered. Pardon me for proofing.

Drew H (25:08):
Yeah. Now people may be saying, well, if we're going to go visit this distillery and they still have their bourbon aging in the barrel, what am I going to get to taste? But you've got a lot of spirits that you've been working on that don't necessarily need aging, but some that are doing some interesting aging that's not really been done before, as I understand.

Nate (25:25):
So anybody who enjoys whiskey, we have a multitude of products that they will enjoy. We have, and I'll grab a bottle of that as well. Barrel aged gin, that's spectacular. It sips more like a rye. It has a nice cedar on the nose. So in order to let our whiskeys age, we just got creative. We started barrel rusting gins. We created our own proprietary spirit called Mel. MEL is Latin for the word honey, and it's one of the rarest spirits in the world. It's also one of the finest, and it's a honey base. So we in this region, Northwest Michigan grow 45% of the world's tart cherries. And every single cherry in the middle of May when the cherry orchards are in bloom is pollinated by a bee. And so these large apiaries exist strictly for pollination. If you've ever been to the almond fields in California, pollination is an integral part of any flowering crop. And so Jerry and I, we actually live on the edge of one of the cherry orchards and every May before the distillery, before it was really a reality, and we decided to move forward with it, started really just discussing what a honey distill it would taste like and what type of EEA stream we would use and what colored would it need to be. So it needed to be barrel rested, and we really created our own proprietary spirit from ideation to fruition. So we basically take raw Northern Michigan cherry blossom honey, we ferment it

(27:02):
With a wine yeast similar to a mead. We ferment it all the way dry. We distill that particular solution of ethanol and water, you could call it mead. And then we rest that high quality, high proof distillate on a new American white oak barrel, similar to a bourbon, but it's a lower char and it gives it some color and some character. The distillate is unlike anything you've ever had. It's aromatically has Japanese single malt notes. So you get these really nice cherry blossom. It's more floral. There's a hint of banana, which is a volatile called isoamyl acetate. And then the palette is more medium bodied like a brandy or a single malt. It doesn't have that big viscous kind of characteristic from the fusel of a bourbon, but it's more medium bodied and it has this long kind of sweet finish. It's just an exceptionally rare spirit. It's what we're known for now. And when we came up with it, we made one barrel. We had no idea if it could sell.

(28:02):
And kind of back to what we said earlier, it's kind of full circle. We don't make products that we think the consumer that's already out there. That's a safe bet a but also we started this business to take risks to do things that no one else had done them and to produce products that get us up in the morning that are interesting. And so this product, we had no idea if it would sell. And it has become our bestselling spirit by far. And it has also allowed us to age our bourbons longer because of the appetite and really the quality. And any whiskey drinker that comes in here is like, this is just exceptional. And so it's really allowed us to experiment even further into the honey product. So we have a smokier version of that called Vesper Mel, which we just process the honey a little differently. We distill it more like a whiskey. It's dirtier on the distillation side. We distill it more like a whiskey would not as clean of cuts like you would on brandy like the Mel.

Drew H (28:58):
Well, I was kind of wondering in terms of trying to determine what your cuts are going to be, those congeners that come in late in the game, trying to figure out how much of that do I let in, how much do I not when you're not doing what everybody else had been doing with whiskey and now you're working with a completely different animal.

Nate (29:16):
Yes. So Jerry completely came up with the whole entire process and recipe for the spirit. I mean, again, it's not like at the time, and there's still only a handful of distilleries worldwide that make a barrel rested honey distillate. We were the second distillery ever in recorded history. And the only one we could find, and this is over a decade ago now, I think 10 or 12 years, was in Germany. So we couldn't just buy a bottle and they weren't going to share all their research with us. So we kind of just created a process based on how do we want the spirit to taste? We really reverse engineer everything. We take what is local, what is unique and different, and then we just kind of build the product and reverse engineer it to what we think it should smell and taste like. And then that goes down to fermentation, temp yeast protocol, yeast strain, distillation method, all of the things that go into making world-class distillates.

(30:13):
So yeah, again, it's exceeded our wildest expectations. It was kind of one of those things. It was like, this is interesting. This is local. Why isn't anybody else using it? And cherry products in this region if you've ever been to Traverse City, everywhere, everywhere. And so we didn't want to do that. It was just overdone. And so we said, all right, let's look throughout the agricultural byproducts. What are byproducts of the cherry industry? And honey is a large one. And so that really started our path to that. And then these barrels, which are so well seasoned and beautiful, finish our bourbon. And so it gives our spirits a very unique finish, very similar to a cognac or an armac. It has those sweet kind of, not overly sweet, I mean it's an 80 proof distillate, but it gives it this rock candy or these caramelized honey notes on the finish, and it just adds another layer of complexity and depth to the bourbon. And so it allows us to really create and ties right into what we're doing, which is vertically integrated spirits.

(31:17):
So we get to have our own barrel finishing. We get to be sustainable. We're not getting rid of these barrels, we're using them again. So there's a lot of other benefits to the product. And over the years that has brought us a lot of more creative ideas. And with the success of it, it's also embolden us to take more risk, to do more things. And so the sper is another example of that. And we're going to release the only in the world, to my knowledge, 4-year-old honey distillate this November to my existence. It is the rare spirit on planet earth. There is not another one in the world. And it is incredibly, the only thing I've ever smelled that's similar to it is like a very, very fine cognac or armac old. I'm excited for the world to be able to try it.

Drew H (32:03):
I sense that the thing that gets you up in the morning every day is that idea that we're doing something very different.

Nate (32:10):
Yes, that's it. This is our seven year. Jerry and I still work the business 10 hours a day. We are here every day, and it is a labor of love, but those are the things that keep us going, that just doing something in the world, putting something out there that has never been done that we truly put our heart and souls into, and everybody in this building does that is we believe is of the highest quality.

Drew H (32:40):
I must say that normally I gravitate towards saying, let's start with the whiskey, but you've got me interested in this honey spirit.

Nate (32:49):
We'll actually start with the blue corn, white whiskey. I think just tasting neutral. Oh, okay. So the blue corn white whiskey, we never intended to make a unoaked version of it. This was a product and a result of the bourbon. Once we got into the hearts of our first bourbon run, Jerry and I immediately looked at each other and said, we have to make a clear spirit from

Speaker 4 (33:17):
This.

Nate (33:18):
It's so different and so unique. Aromatically, I think it has these basey or earthy or undertone similar to an agave based spirit. So it has what I get, like river rock or gardener's dirt. And the blue corn provides this unique depth to the distillate, so it's very creamy. And it'll have a butter scotch on the finish, more full bodied, and it has this little white pepper up front. So it's basically three ingredients, which is local fermento and blue corn, which is our own proprietary blue corn, our own water from our own aquifer, outback, unremediated or filtered. And we use red wine yeast. In this particular,

Drew H (34:02):
I think what's interesting about this right off the bat is that it has a nice mouthfeel,

Nate (34:08):
Very viscous.

Drew H (34:08):
Yeah.

Nate (34:09):
To me, mouthfeel, especially in whiskeys is of very high importance. So we chose specific yeast strains that produce glycerol actually. So a lot of your larger mass market products will add it back for sweetness, but also viscosity. We don't, our yeast actually produces it naturally. To me, a whiskey should be chewy. It should have that nice kind of coating, silky palette. And that's an integral part, I think, to crafting or at least an interesting worldwide distill.

Drew H (34:49):
Interesting. The peppery note. And then

Nate (34:52):
Sweet finish though, would love

Drew H (34:53):
The sweet finish. It reminds me slightly of Tennessee moonshine.

Nate (34:59):
Yeah,

Drew H (34:59):
It has that bit of the corn is coming through, it's definitely coming through.

Nate (35:04):
And

Drew H (35:04):
That's one of the things that as it's aging in the barrel, you finding that is dissipating the corn flavor?

Nate (35:10):
Yeah, it actually gets more, it gets sweeter. Like I said, I think it's more the bourbon, again, distilled very differently. We pot distill the bourbon.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
Yeah,

Nate (35:22):
Same mash bill and mash protocol actually. But the bourbon is just the barrel influence gives it more of those stone fruit, more sweetness. And yes, the corn kind of backbone is more understated, I would say.

Speaker 3 (35:42):
It's

Nate (35:42):
Still bourbon. When you taste it aromatically, it actually smells more. You can tell it smells like bourbon, but it just much more soft and rounded. And then the palette is unlike anything I've ever had. The blue corn is really, really nice. So this is Mel, our flagship Mel. And so this is an 80 proof spirit, and then it's lightly rested on new American white oak. And then it's just so spectacularly, it's just subtle and soft. It has the sophistication of a brandy is what I always say. It's got this softer floral

Drew H (36:17):
Note to it. What's interesting is it's got a floral note, but I pick up almost like a leather kind of note to it as well, which is a interesting combination.

Nate (36:25):
And so actually I think it has that some characteristics of a Japanese single malt, like a hibiki or really well aged, well-made Japanese single malt. It has some of the sweetness on the aromatics of a cognac or an armac of a French great brandy. But it has this nice banana note that it's very hard. I've never smelled the spirit that has anything close to it. I mean, it's very hard to articulate what you're smelling and tasting its own animal. It's its own unique distillate, and it is extremely rare.

Drew H (37:02):
And that's the experience that I had with Japanese whiskey when I first started tasting it. I could not pick out what is it that makes this so different? Because as drinking scotch for the longest time, you get used to certain flavors and this doesn't necessarily come out with a heavy honey note to

Nate (37:25):
It. So actually because of the honey, what people associate honey with is the sweeter components. We are fermenting all of the sugar out, obviously,

(37:33):
And then distilling it. So the only sweetness residual sugar that's left is coming from the hemi cellulose in the barrel from the barrel sugars. So yeah, it's really unique. It's what we are most proud of is the spirit because it proves that you can produce a product from your region that no one's ever heard of that is truly exemplary, and that is as unique as the region you come from. I mean, at its core, our truest belief is in that we should be talking about the agricultural starting point of distillates. That's where spirits are made. It's in the field or it's in those hives. And then we can start making products from that. And so this to us, allows us to tell that story. It tells the story of our region, it tells the story of what we make here and what is possible in distillates. It's a completely proprietary distillate and we hope people enjoy it.

Drew H (38:39):
I mean, again, this is one of those that you really kind of have to sit there and work through your catalog of flavors. I get a little hazelnut on the nose on the palette. It's like it reminds me without being as sweet of, I mean, it's weird. It's like there's a grain note in there, so it tastes kind of like waffles with a little syrup on them. Just a hint. It's really interesting that there's really no grain involved in this.

Nate (39:08):
And this is barrel 30, so to give an idea since we've opened, but this product is very well bottle conditioned, so it'll get increased in viscosity. It becomes more viscous and syrupy like a whiskey. But yeah, those subtle characteristics that they're not identifiable in any whiskey that I've ever had or any brandy. It's its own unique and really special spirit.

Drew H (39:38):
Well, this is fascinating. So what is the third that we're going for here?

Nate (39:41):
Alright, so the next spirit is actually an interpretation of our flagship Mel, or a deviation I would say. So with Mel, I love single malts more unpeated or lightly peed single malts. The flagship really appeals to a lot of bourbon drinkers. It has those sweeter floral notes to it. This is distilled more like a processed differently. So we actually process the honey very differently and then we distill this more like a whiskey and to accentuate are what add smoke to your favorite barbecue brisket or any barbecue or your favorite single malt. It's slightly phenolic. It has this resonance kind of bees wax on the nose.

Drew H (40:26):
I was going to say, this has much more of a honey character to it than the

Nate (40:30):
Other. Correct. So we take a deeper tails cut to give it more fusel, more body, but also to give it some more character. It's just such an exceptional spirit.

Drew H (40:43):
You know what this reminds me of in a way is kind of like a lemon honey, kind of what you would have in a vapor when you get a cold and you kind of take the

Nate (40:55):
Honey. And so I get more like space hide single malt like oban or like a bude, like a really unpeated, but it has none of that grain bite. It's got this big viscous body

Speaker 4 (41:08):
And

Nate (41:08):
You get this resinous kind of slightly smoky nose, sweeter. You're right, it has more of those caramelized honey notes to it.

Drew H (41:16):
Yep.

Nate (41:16):
Banana flan.

Drew H (41:18):
Oh, definitely. And I'm getting a little peppery note on the finish.

Nate (41:21):
You do. We just bottled this two weeks ago. And so normally we will not release the spirit until it has two to three weeks minimum in a bottle. But that will soften over time. But a little interest I would say on the pallet for sure.

Drew H (41:35):
It just creates a heat is what it is. It's not really even overly peppery because some people will hear peppery and they'll think, oh, well, I mean it's going to, but

Nate (41:43):
No. Yeah, no doesn't just a nice interest on the pallet. I get more mid palate pepper. You

Drew H (41:46):
Feel heat. Yeah, you're just feeling

Nate (41:48):
Heat. And that will also soften too over time. Again, just this is

Drew H (41:52):
Fascinating,

Nate (41:54):
Isn't nice.

Drew H (41:55):
You have a very interesting logo. What's the story behind the logo? Because you have the upside down question mark.

Nate (42:01):
It's a good question. Jerry had come up with a name and if anybody who started their own business from an idea would know that there's a lot of really horrible names you'll go through before you find the right one. So once we knew the name, so ethanol is the base molecule in all beer, spirits, and wine. And it's the intoxicating agent in all of those libations. Ology is a study or a branch of knowledge, so if you coalesce the two, you get our name. And so about a week prior, Jerry came up with the name and we were actually, before we worked 70 hours a week and owned our own business, we were wine tasting up old Mission Peninsula because we have some wonderful wineries and two great wine regions in northwest Michigan. Old Mission in Luna Peninsula. We love old things. And so to give you a visual of where we're doing this podcast, there's old eclectic pieces of, I've refurbished old semi break drums to make a cool fire pit.

(43:01):
And there's all types of, I love old things. They tell a story, they have character. And so we went antiquing in the basement of a barn. There was these large lead type sets and I'll let you see 'em too as well. And they immediately, when I picked them up, they were in the basement of this old antique barn. They connoted a time when things were made to last that very industrious. I mean, these are solid lead blocks. They would be used on the top of a newspaper article. And they were just incredibly well made. And they had this feeling to them, they had this industrious aesthetic that I came up with the design for the building. All of these design ideas started coming to me and I started picking out the E and the T and the H and the A. And you'll notice on our logo that it's a mix actually of typeset.

(43:53):
It's uppercase and lowercase. And so that basically, I came to a g and over this antique barn is probably a hundred plus years old. And over the years people had been moving these large typeset, which you'd use on an old print press. So the a's worth a Z. And they're all mixed up. And I couldn't find a g. And after me in my muse down in this corner of this dusty, musty antique barn, Jerry yelled from upstairs said, Hey, I'm hungry, we got to go. So I grabbed the G, or pardon me, the question mark turned it upside down, walked up, and I was going to just digitize and make a copy using the same design type set and make a G. And my dear friend Audrey Bruning, who was a marketing major during undergrad, I called him and I told him the whole story about how we came up with the brand and the logo. And he's like, why don't you just use the upside down question as your brand mark? And so that's how it became our logo.

Drew H (44:57):
Beautiful. What it signifies to me as we're sitting here talking and I'm listening to what you're saying is it's basically encapsulating that you're asking questions, but you're also going in a different direction.

Nate (45:09):
You're right. I mean it happened to be a logo and a brand mark that had self-fulfilling prophecies about how we approached everything. And we do, we question why are distillery, why is this used this way? We're always questioning the status quo and saying, Hey, can we do it differently or better? So yeah, it became one of those things that was kismet meant to be.

Drew H (45:31):
So you're a er.

Nate (45:33):
Well, I am. You're not

Drew H (45:35):
Aer, but you were okay, but you spent time up there As a kid, we would go to Wisconsin by that route and we would pass by pasty shops all the time. We never stopped at one. So I have never had a pasty.

Nate (45:49):
Well, you got to stop.

Drew H (45:50):
So when somebody's going to the upper peninsula, is there a specific pasty

Nate (45:57):
Shop? So there's two things when you're in the up culinary wise, you have to try, well, I'll say three. So Jerry's family still lives up there and we visit them quite frequently. They live in West. So if you go to the up, you obviously have to hit pictured rocks and TWA Falls and all the beautiful parts of the up. The up is just such a beautiful and rugged place, but as you're eating and drinking your way through, you got to stop. And all the pasties are wonderful and they're all different. It's like pizza shops.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
So

Nate (46:32):
I am not going to say one's better than the other, but always get the classic. And it is probably a, I would call it a battle of the two, whether ketchup or gravy, but I like both as your condiment. I'm going to lean

Drew H (46:49):
Gravy probably. Yeah,

Nate (46:51):
Gravy's good. I prefer a nice crispy, buttery, flaky, pasty with ketchup. But there's no wrong way to eat it.

(46:58):
You got to have a coupee at Ralph's if you're going through an ing. And then for life-changing pizza center, part of the up and really all over the Up has not only a finish, but a really Italian heritage from immigration years ago. But Congress, pizza and downtown ing is life-changing. Thin crust pizza, the first thing when I get into town, if that night we are ordering Congress pizza, so you got to check it out. It's this beautiful historic in downtown is Spring, which is a mining town, right? The iron ore mines are just a stones throwaway, a lot of history, but the pieces there are amazing.

Drew H (47:37):
I think the story behind the pasties is basically that's what the miners used to take down for their meal for the day.

Nate (47:44):
Yeah. So it's you can, lots of things to eat and do in the other.

Drew H (47:51):
I hate that I'm just passing through, but I definitely am going to stop off. You'll

Nate (47:55):
See enough past shops again and there's no bad pasties. There's a great little shop in ENE as well, but there's great little places to eat and have fun anywhere in the ep.

Drew H (48:08):
Yeah. Nick, thank you so much for the conversation and sharing your spirits and really thank you having me. Honestly, it's fun to see somebody who is really trying to dig in and do something very different from the norm. I mean, the norm is great because we're going to have lots of people who are just going to really enjoy a corn-based bourbon or a rye and as do I, as do I. But to see pushing the boundaries, the people who were distilling years back, were probably trying to find ways to save not just their corn crops, but many different things as well.

Nate (48:46):
And there's so much room for people that are reinvigorating old world grain and genetics to people that are really revitalizing old still techniques like Todd Leopold and in Colorado, there's just so much room for innovation and creativity. It doesn't matter what direction you're going, whether you're revitalizing the past which few people are doing or you're pushing towards the future, there's plenty of room for everybody. And that's the beauty of the industry is that there's always going to be unique people making unique products. And so for us, it really comes back down to what can this place provide for us? And we can't wait to have you come back and try the bourbon.

Drew H (49:34):
Absolutely. I'm looking forward to it.

Nate (49:35):
All right, sounds good. Cheers. Cheers. Thank you.

Drew H (49:38):
Well, I hope you enjoyed this virtual flight to ethanol. And if I piqued your interest in visiting the distillery, make sure to head to whiskey lore.com/flights where you can view the profile of ethnology and the growing list of worldwide distilleries that we're featuring on the show. Then dig deeper into Whiskey Lord's online distillery travel guide. Use the heart feature to show your interest in a distillery or log in with a free membership and bookmark your favorite distilleries to add them to your very own wishlist site features, planning tools, maps, tour dates, and booking links for over 300 distilleries worldwide. Start your journey@whiskeylore.com slash flights, and for fans of this week at Whiskey Lore, unfortunately a little long on the episode today. So we'll have a new edition coming up later this week. And as we close out our trip to Ethnology and head up to the upper peninsula and then over to Wisconsin, if you're still on the fence about a visit to ethnology, then let me give you my three reasons why I think you should have this distillery on your whiskey lore wishlist.

(50:43):
First, if you love visiting distilleries that march to the beat of a different drummer, just to remember that upside down question mark in theology logo, as Jerry and Nick are dedicated to finding the flavors of Michigan, and they're not necessarily stuck to traditional styles of whiskey, vodka or gins. So if you're into flavor and unique spirits, then this is a great stop. Second, if you're planning on visiting a couple of distilleries in the Traverse City area, then I highly recommend adding ethanol into the mix. This is not a distillery that's afraid of being small, and it gives them amazing flexibility and their commitment to their employees, customers, and the local community through their B Corp certification is definitely impressive. And third, it's just a beautiful part of Northwestern Michigan. And for those wanting to stay in a spot that's a little less busy than Traverse City, well this will give you all of the access to the area along with the beauty without all the traffic.

(51:45):
And ethanol is a distillery, fits beautifully in with that feel. It's a great place to sit outside and enjoy a cocktail and a casual atmosphere. Well, I hope you enjoyed our tour. Through Michigan's great diversity of distilling, I am back on the road again heading north across the Mackinac Bridge into the upper peninsula, across US two, and on my way to Escanaba for the evening. And then on my next distillery stop, I'm going to be in central Wisconsin, the distillery that is bringing back the old Wisconsin Supper Club feel. We'll learn what the difference is between a Wisconsin Old fashioned and one that's made elsewhere. And I will gaw for a few minutes. It's some cool entertainment equipment that they have in the building, something I haven't seen in the restaurant for many a year that's coming up here on whiskey lore as the Midwest Great Lakes Tour 2024 rolls on. Make sure to hit that subscribe button to secure your seat for our next episode. I'm your travel guy, drew Hanish. Thank you for riding along with me. And until next time, cheers and Ava for transcripts and travel information, including maps, distillery planning information and more. At to whiskey lo.com/flights. Whiskey lords of production of Travel Fuels Life, llc.