Grand Traverse Distillery

Drew H (00:08):
Welcome to Whiskey Lore's Whiskey Flights, your weekly home for discovering great craft distillery experiences around the globe. I'm your travel guide Drew Hannush, the bestselling author of Experiencing Irish Whiskey and experiencing Kentucky Bourbon. And today we are headed to beautiful Traverse City Michigan. A place I often heard about when I was a kid in Michigan, that was one of the vacation spots that people would head to, and I've never been there before. So this will be a first time. And I'm going to get a chance to head to the home of one of Michigan's pioneering craft distilleries, grand Traverse. And as I leave iron fish, I'm relying on my GPS to take me through some back roads. It's about a 45 minute drive and I'm getting kind of a late start and unfortunately my GPS is not talking to me, and so I ended up missing a turn. And of course that's going to put me even more behind in my attempt to get to the distillery on time. And as we make our way to Grand Traverse, why don't we take a moment to learn a little bit more about the area where the distillery is located?

(01:16):
Located on the south end of Lake Michigan's Grand Traverse Bay, traverse City offers a unique blend of seaside beauty and vibrant culture, making it much more than just another picturesque town known as the cherry capital of the world. The city not only celebrates its cherry harvest with an annual festival that attracts visitors from all corners, but also integrates this bountiful fruit into its local cuisine, breweries, and even distilleries, creating a cherry infused experience that permeates everything from craft beers to specialty desserts. The maritime heritage of Traverse City is another defining feature, the city's waterfront with its historical marinas and the Traverse Tall ship company offers a tangible connection to its nautical past visitors can take to the waters aboard replicas of 19th century sailing vessels, providing a hands-on way to dive into the local history and enjoy the stunning natural scenery from a different vantage point and beyond the waterfront.

(02:21):
The city's commitment to preserving its lush natural landscapes is evident in its extensive networks of trails and parks and this proximity to nature combined with the city's efforts to maintain green spaces makes Traverse City a haven for outdoor enthusiasts. Something else that makes Traverse City stand out is the vibrant local arts scene. The city Opera House is a beautifully restored Victorian era theater and a hub for the arts hosting everything from plays and concerts to lectures and community events. This commitment to the arts is echoed in the city's numerous galleries which showcase the work of local artists reflecting the region's landscapes and cultural heritage in their works. From cherries to maritime to a commitment to enhancing its natural beauty. Traverse City provides a perfect blend of relaxation and adventure.

(03:18):
So as I'm driving through all of these back streets and praying that all the traffic lights are going to work out for me, let me tell you who we are going to meet. We are meeting Kent RAs, who is the founder of the Grand Traverse Distillery is a family run distillery that goes back to the very beginnings of Michigan's craft distilling scene. In fact, they were second behind the Leopold Brothers, and you may say Leopold Brothers, I thought they were in Denver, Colorado. They are, but originally the distillery was in Ann Arbor. However, the rules were a little bit wonky, so they decided to head out to Denver, but Kent being the second decided to stay tough it out. And now this distillery is considered to be the oldest still existing in the state. And one of the other things I wanted to figure out, and I asked this question a couple of times on this trip, is about Michigan's distilling history before prohibition because I never really heard of any and I wondered whether there was or not.

(04:23):
So I took some time on my own, went through some old IRS records, and lo and behold, I could not find in the 1890s any pot still distilleries or distilleries that looked like they were specifically making whiskey themselves. But instead in the first district there were eight rectifying distilleries, which means that as a rectifier, they could have been making industrial alcohol, they could have been refining other people's grain neutral alcohol. They could have been putting additives in any number of things could have been going on at these distilleries. So I'm going to have to take a deeper dive into that some other time. But now it is time to head into the distillery. And as I came into the front office, it's a somewhat industrial looking building that you're walking into. It's actually in an industrial park, but there's a nice little tasting area inside some places to sit and there are tasting rooms around the state.

(05:22):
There's one in downtown Traverse City, Leland Mackinac City, and one of the places that I used to love going when I was a kid, it's a little Christmas village and German heritage town called Frankenmuth, apparently for Grand Traverse. That's a pretty busy tasting room. And we'll talk a little bit about that during our interview, but right now I want to jump right into our conversation is we get things rolling. I wanted to find out from Kent, first of all how he got into distilling and some of those early challenges he faced when trying to set up a distillery in a state. Really didn't have much of a distilling past.

Kent (06:00):
I got interested in this. I got a biology and chemistry degree. I grew up farming. I worked 25 years in pharmaceuticals and I was bored to death, just didn't enjoy it any longer. Visited a distillery out west out in Bend, Oregon and I thought, why can't we do it here? This is 2001. And there was nobody then at that point in Michigan. So anyway, did a lot of research. What do I want to do? Went to the A DI meeting out in Alameda, met Arnold Holstein, the manufacturer, the stills that we have, and we decide to pull the plug and let's go ahead and do this. My wife and I. And so we had a building built in oh six. The equipment came in in oh six, we were all ready to go. Got our final license in January of oh seven, and we are up and rolling. But yeah, I just needed a career change. I wanted to make something again, I was a middleman when I was in pharmaceuticals and at the end of the day, I mean the pay was good, the benefits are great. You just walked away with not a lot of job satisfaction.

(07:08):
I'm saying it just, I didn't like being that middleman and this one here, I don't feel like a middleman anymore.

Drew H (07:14):
Yeah, you can kind of control your own destiny and absolutely take it in the direction you want to take

Kent (07:19):
It. Yeah.

Drew H (07:20):
So what were you drinking back then?

Kent (07:23):
What was I drinking? Well, I've always liked good beer and thank God Michigan excelled in craft beer. In terms of spirits, I'm a vodka guy. I mean, we were polish and it was all about a, you always had a bottle of vodka on the table and a little juice glass, and you had your beer and you played cards and you talk to your family and friends. So I was more about vodka than anything. Drank a lot of scotch back then, but I did not have a great palate. I drank what I could have afford when you're younger, but I was mainly vodka. I didn't like gin. I think I had a bad night once early on in my life with gin. I thought, I'm not going backwards. It was mainly vodka.

Drew H (08:06):
Okay. It's kind of a progression it seems though with distilleries, if they're going to do vodka, they're going to jump in and do a gin early on.

Kent (08:17):
Well, I mean, number one, we're a grain to bottles. So for me, I can have grain coming in one door and about three months later I've got vodka done bottle and I could be selling it. And literally gin's just one extra step. I mean, gin's pretty much a, we let it macerate 24 hours, then we distill it. So it's pretty quick. So you could be brand new and at least have vodka and gin as an offering where you have a distilled in bottle buy on your bottles.

Drew H (08:50):
Yeah, it's a Michigander to Michigander question. What was the card that you played the most back then?

Kent (08:57):
Oh, everybody ere.

Drew H (08:58):
Ah, there you go. Yeah, that's how you can tell a Michigan tradition.

Kent (09:02):
Yeah, yeah. We spend time in Florida now in the winter and anybody from the Midwest knows what ere is, and anybody from down south on the east coast just look at you from.

Drew H (09:13):
Yeah, absolutely. So you actually had some experience, as I understand, with a whiskey element earlier in your life. Can you tell that story, something you stumbled upon?

Kent (09:32):
Yeah, and this is actually a true story. My grandfather had a farm. He had eight sons and the youngest son took over the farm and I lived next door to the youngest son. My parents did. So I worked on the farm, I worked for my alcoholics and he had an old barn. We built a new tool shed. We used to have cattle there and we got rid of the cattle and he winded the barn gone. So I was given a job one day. I came up to school as pitching straw from the roof over where the cattle were in the winter, and I ran into some jugs and I'm thinking three sons, they're buying moonshine. And I mean that's where I would've hid it. As it turned out, my uncle told me, no, that was my father. And for a little extra cash, I'm sure it was corn whiskey, but he not age. There's nothing age. It was just kind of moon dog corn whiskey. But it apparently gave the family a little cash. So anyway, I never even thought about it until after I decided I'm going to start this company. And I thought, well, there is a backstory, although there are no secret recipes, there's none of that nonsense. It was just something a lot of farmers did for some, a little extra cash to help 'em through.

Drew H (10:46):
Yeah. So you're going to get in and you're going to start a distillery, but you don't have a distilling background other than seeing it still. How do you get started? What steps did you take? Did you find mentors to work with you or hire people, or how did that go?

Kent (11:04):
No, what we did, I was at the first American Distillers Institute meeting out in Alameda and I can't think of the year, but it was their first one, maybe 2002 or right around there, 2003. Anyway, I met a supplier there, Arnold Holstein, and back when I was looking at buying equipment, we didn't have the American manufacturers doing what I needed, which was I needed a still with the rectifying columns, I wanted to do vodka.

(11:37):
There were places I could buy a whiskey still, but I wanted to do more than just whiskey. So Arnold Holstein, Christian, Carl, two German companies, were basically my choices. I met the Holstein people, they set me up once I decided to buy equipment them, they set me up doing some rotations around, and I spent some time in Northern Arizona up in Flagstaff, and they had a still close to what I have, and I'd go out there and work a week or two with them, come home and go out there and spend another week with them. So I kind of got my feet wet doing that. And then when the equipment was here and ready to go, they sent their chemical engineer, Volcker Deidrich came in and he just sat down and goes, whatcha going to do? I go, well, I want to do this and this. He goes, how are you going to do it? And I kind of scratched my head and go, well, here's what I'm thinking,

(12:32):
What I learned out there. So he opened up his, come here. He goes, well, he goes, let's talk this over. There's really no recipe kind of a thing. But it was more about technique. How are you going to do this? How to kind of prepare for the future. So he got me going down basically the right path, and they want me to be successful because I mean, if you came here and you tried our products and you go, oh my God, this is awful. It's not the equipment in the back, it's the distiller, it's how we do

Speaker 3 (13:04):
It,

Kent (13:05):
But they don't want me to not succeed and have people come and go, holy God, Arnold Holstein still, this is horrible. Plus the other thing is as I grow, I want to buy another one. And we did. We bought it still twice the size of the first one. So there's a lot of reasons that they want me to be successful too. Yeah, business reasons. Good.

Drew H (13:24):
Did you have a particular spirit in mind for the first thing, of course, gin and vodka are easy, but what was your ultimate goal with what you wanted to do?

Kent (13:33):
We wanted to do a com polish. I wanted to do an old school. I wanted to do a 100% rye vodka, and we did, it's 90% just local grain and 10% malted rye. So we wanted to a hundred percent rye, and then we did a hundred percent wheat and we came out with a cherry vodka because we're Traverse city and then we needed to do a gin. I do not trust my palate for gin because I didn't like gin, and the only thing I ever had was the big juniper, London dry, and I probably had a bad night in college on that, and I thought, I'm done. So for gin, I basically got my friends, I got a little five, five gallon toy still. We would do five gallon batches, we did a number of 'em, and then I'd pick what I thought maybe were our best three. I got my friends in, we had two ringers, what I considered my competition globally, and we just started doing tastings and we did about 30 different batches until I finally scored higher than what my baseline was going to be, what I had and I thought we're done.

(14:42):
But I didn't do it with my palate. I did it with gin drinkers because I don't trust my palate with gin.

Drew H (14:48):
Yeah, that's the hard part is if it's not your thing, I wonder with distillers who may be distilling rye, but maybe they're not big fans of rye, what steps they have to go through to make sure that they come up with, because I hear some people when they start a distillery, it's like I just want to make stuff that I like, but then there's also that you have to sell it to somebody, so depending on other people becomes something you really, really do have to.

Kent (15:16):
And we want to do an old school rye whiskey, a straight rye, and we went with a mash bowl of a hundred percent rye, and our first year doing that, back in oh seven, I only made two barrels of rye whiskey and two bourbon. We didn't know if we were going to like it, plus the other one is everything's about money and what can you afford? And it sounds silly, four barrels in a year, but we did everything in 53 gallon barrels, so we didn't do the little guys where you got quick aging. So after about a year, we decided, look, I think like this. And you're always tweaking it. You're always doing things a little bit different as you roll along. You always make one change at a time, and if it's better, you keep doing it.

Speaker 4 (15:56):
If

Kent (15:56):
It's not better, we don't continue doing it. But that's how we started it. We just started slow and taste it and just kind of worked it along the way. Did

Drew H (16:07):
You ever experiment with potatoes for

Kent (16:09):
Your vodka? Yeah, we actually got approached about five years ago from a potato farmer over in the Kalkaska area, and so it's under his label, but we do it all. He brings us the seed potatoes, got a contraption right over here. I'm pointing, no one can see me. We grind it, so we do it all North shore, it's their product, but it says distilled and bottled by grand driver's, distillery driver city on the back, and we sell it. I'd like it because we get somebody come in with a gluten thing, Hey, hey, be happy. Here's potato.

Drew H (16:47):
When I was in Ireland traveling around, of course Ireland famous for potatoes and there were distillers who were distilling ine out of potatoes. There are challenges though to distilling potatoes. What did you find the challenges to be?

Kent (17:05):
Well, they're very low in starch. It takes a lot of it. The challenge is viscosity, and that was the same thing with rye. You hear people have a stuck batch of rye where it turns into it turns solid where it shouldn't be solid. So you learn, you start off with a smaller amount of grain. You work it up until you feel we're probably about there, but the starch content in rye is quite a bit less than corn. So we use 1200 pounds of grain per batch, and we got 2,400 liter fermentors. So you think 2,400 pounds of grain. So for a rye whiskey, we only get one barrel at about 125 proof out of 1200 pounds of grain. Now if I do bourbon, our bourbon is 60% corn, 30 rye, 10 malted barley. I get a barrel in half.

Speaker 3 (17:56):
Okay.

Kent (17:57):
Same pounds, just more starch obviously in corn.

Drew H (18:00):
Yeah. So you are sourcing your grain from the local community. How far away do you tend to go in terms of getting your grain in?

Kent (18:13):
We pretty much buy from two farms. One of 'em is within 10 miles of the distillery, and the other one's probably about 25, 30 miles. So that's my wheat R corn, and we get great product, and I like having, I don't just want one supplier. If something happens, farming is a crop and you've got your wheat field and a big storm comes and knocks it all on the ground, you're done. I got nothing and the farm has nothing. So we like having a couple suppliers. I used to have to get malted barley and malted rye. We got it from breeze. Well, now three miles from here is Great Lakes malting. They buy local rye and local barley. So I buy all my product from them now to the point where the only grain I can't get. We have a whiskey that has ped malted barley, and that's coming from Scotland. I don't know of anybody doing that in Michigan or any place else I've seen because it's not a big deal here,

Speaker 3 (19:11):
A

Kent (19:12):
Pea and malted barley. So we are 99, probably 0.9%, all Michigan grown agriculture.

Drew H (19:20):
How did you come about the idea of using using the pea in Oriah, I believe

Kent (19:25):
Yeah, it is. And we thought we did an experiment and we thought if we like it, great. If we don't, and it's an oddball whiskey, you're probably going to love it or you're probably going to hate it. But we're small. I mean, we don't have to be everybody's best friend on every product. So it's interesting. I like it. It's got the spiciness with the rye. You've got that. It's only 20% pea and malted barley, so it's not like you're beating people over the head with that flavor. I'd like it, but you know what? That's something I'm going to drink neat and just leave it alone. I would not use it to make any type of a, I wouldn't do an old fashioned or I wouldn't do those kind of cocktails with it. It's more just a neat, or an ice cube

Drew H (20:07):
Something or something that needs a smoke note like that.

Kent (20:11):
It's

Drew H (20:11):
Interesting to see, I was in Lake Tahoe, I went to a speakeasy there and he's taking Woodford Reserve and Lare mixing them together for a cocktail. So those guys will figure something out that they could probably do with it. But it's just really, do you find with the whiskeys that you're making, you're making them to be consumed neat or are you thinking of cocktails when you're making them?

Kent (20:36):
I can tell you this, at our house, I bring a lot of bottles out when people come over. If I see somebody grabbing a can of Coca-Cola and a glass of ice, I'm going to run and grab Canadian whiskey because I mean, there's nothing wrong with, but that's what it's for. I don't want to see somebody grabbing a good bottle of bourbon, but if a customer comes in and wants to buy our bourbon and mix it with Coke, more power to you. But at our house, I'm going to grab that bottle out of your hands and give you, I mean, I think Canadian whiskey is absolutely wonderful, but it's great mixing to me, that's what it's for.

Drew H (21:11):
Yeah, you have close competition there. They're right across the border from you.

Kent (21:15):
Yeah.

Drew H (21:17):
Do you get any influence from what they're doing? They have a very interesting way of distilling where they basically distill all the grains separately. Have you ever thought of doing that and maybe doing some blending and trying

Kent (21:31):
Out, you get doing what you're doing, and it seems to work, and I haven't wanted to play with it, but I do know exactly what you're talking about, where all these separate batches, they'll do all their aging and then at the end of the aging, they'll start blending the different profiles together.

Drew H (21:47):
Yeah.

(21:49):
So when you start, we'll go back towards the beginning here. I always kind of like to know if there's a personality to the state in terms of their whiskey and whether there historically was a personality to their whiskey. Because when we think of Pennsylvania, we think of rye whiskey. When we think of Kentucky, we think of bourbon, Texas, we think of aggressive bourbon, but we don't really think of it historically. We just know that the weather creates that kind of a personality. Did you kind of dive in at all to try to figure out maybe what they were making in the past in this state, or was it more kind of you just wanted to define or maybe define it yourself?

Kent (22:34):
No, we didn't look at what was going on in the past. I don't think there was a lot. There wasn't a lot in Midwest. I mean, from what I could see, other than just, like I said, farmers used to have excess grains and they'd make moonshine for a little bit of cash on the side. But to me, it goes back to where the immigrants came from. So in Michigan, we had large populations of Germans, poles Irish, and you think about that influence coming in here and people like to drink what they can probably consume before they move. So they're looking for a whiskey that was similar to what I drank when I was in the homeland or a vodka. I drank rye vodka or whatever it was. So I think that has something to do with it.

Drew H (23:22):
I think that's something that unless you've grown up in Michigan, I know the Detroit area, you had Greek town, Polish area, German area. I mean, just the mix of ethnicities creates, it's almost like Michigan is its own melting pot within the great melting pot of the United States.

Kent (23:43):
Well, that's what we all are. And then now it seems like immigration's a dirty word, but it's like both obviously. Well, my father was born here in the United States, and obviously my mother was, but their parents were immigrants coming in, and we all were Native American, but the rest of us all came in at one point and made this our home.

Drew H (24:07):
Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the concept of tasting rooms, because I've been to a lot of states and I've not really seen that many, but distilleries here in Michigan, there's a handful of them who have tasting rooms throughout the states. How did that evolve and how did you come to the decision to move in that direction?

Kent (24:29):
Yeah, when we started, every drop had to go through the Michigan Liquor Control. So it went from our house to the state of Michigan. Then distribution system back to restaurants. We call 'em at party stores in Michigan. I know every state's got a different term for it, but restaurants, hotels, et cetera. When I first started, that's how it was. Within two years of becoming a business here, I'm guessing in oh eight or nine, the state of Michigan said if you distill it, you can sell it on site. So we became retail.

Speaker 4 (25:06):
You

Kent (25:06):
Could come into our place and you could try products, sample products, and if you like it, buy it. If you don't, that's okay. And we do also tours. And within a year or two after that, they said you can open up remote tasting rooms that could do the same thing. So we've got five now, and that's wonderful because I don't have the budget to run with the big dogs. I can't advertise like Jim Beam and Jack Daniels. We have no budget. So for us, it's tasting rooms. Come try it. If you like it, we're happy to sell you a bottle, and that's okay if you don't. I mean, we have a nominal charge for a tasting, and we just like to have people come in and try it.

Drew H (25:45):
You shocked by the growth of the whiskey industry in Michigan?

Kent (25:50):
Well, yes and no. I mean, the craft brew, I thought we would follow craft brewing. So we opened up in Traverse City here, obviously we're the first, there are now 14 craft breweries in Traverse City, a town that's not that big, but we have a lot of tourism and that's what supports it. The locals could not, we're not going to have 14 distilleries, but that I think is what's happening. You're getting distilleries that are basically probably going after a certain market, their market, their hometown or their bigger area. There's just not enough room on the shelves in the stores. And that's the problem is that there's just a lot of products competing for very little shelf space.

Drew H (26:35):
So in terms of Traverse City, when people are coming here, what are the big draws? Of course, you got the lake, so a lot of stuff is going to be associated with the lake.

Kent (26:46):
I think it's still, well, tourism number one, it is the water. It's golfing, it's skiing in the winter, et cetera. Number two, it's agriculture. We have probably 50 wineries in the area, all growing their own grapes on Lee Long County and Old Mission Peninsula. You've got the breweries, you've got the food scene in our town. When I moved here in 1980, to be honest with you, the food scene was non-existent. And now because of tourism and everything else, we've got fabulous restaurants. So it's all changed and the tourism is pushed and helped these other industries grow as well with mine.

Drew H (27:28):
So when somebody's coming here to tour, what will they taste on a tour?

Kent (27:32):
Yeah, we bring people in and we'll do about a half hour tour. We go all through production. We go through vodka, whiskey, gin and rum. How do you make it? We go through the whole thing. They can ask questions. Then we come to the barrel house and we talk about whiskey, about aging whiskey and what types and all the rules. We try to educate people on, okay, if it's a straight whiskey or bourbon, this is how we have to do it. And when you buy that bottle, there's nothing but water, yeast and grain and what happens in a new charred barrel. So we just try to educate 'em a little bit on the TTB and the different terminology. We also try to educate 'em on distilled versus produced by, and I've got bottles here, and we'll just pick 'em up and show them saying, if you want to support craft distilling, look for a distilled by. And we tell them why. And then what is the produced by mean? So we try to educate more than anything.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
And

Kent (28:23):
Then we go back to do a tasting. And once again, if they enjoy it, if they see something they like, we'd love it if they buy a bottle, but we just want to get people to come.

Drew H (28:36):
So it would be a rye and the bourbon and like a vodka and gin or how

Kent (28:41):
We will give them about five different, we do little quarter ounce pores, so they're going to walk out of here an ounce, ounce and a half at the very, most people have, most people are pretty definite like I'm a whiskey guy. Or you get people come in, no, I don't like whiskey, I'm clear spirit. Okay, try these. And we have a lot of rotating products where especially with the whiskey line, we'll have some just kind of experiments we'll play with. And we will always have probably six or eight different brown spirits, but we probably got 15 to 18 out here, aging when they're ready. So we always try to have, if you come here now and if you come here in six months, we should have a couple different products for you to try. So it's not the same thing every time.

Drew H (29:27):
Yeah. Fantastic. Well, Kent, thank you so much for walking us through the history of Michigan whiskey. It's a short history of craft distilling here, but you've seen it from the beginning to where it is now, and it's great to get that.

Kent (29:42):
Yeah, I mean, it's been a great experience. And the one other thing that I like about the craft distilling as a local business, and I'll give you this, a quick example. So we buy our grain from a local farm. It comes in here, we suck to starch out and make booze. What's is about 15% protein? So we go through 1200 pounds of grain a day. What are we going to do with it? It can't go down the sewer system. So we have a dairy farmer that picks it up daily. If you give cows more protein, they make more milk. So it's called boomer's ice cream. They pick it up daily, they go feed the cows, the cows make more milk, they make more ice cream. And then of course, cows do what they do after they eat this stuff, drop it on the ground, then it goes back out in the field, says fertilizer now. It's not the farm we're getting the grain from, but I'd love the cycle of it.

Drew H (30:30):
Yeah, absolutely. All supports Michigan agriculture and

Kent (30:35):
We get free ice grow

Drew H (30:36):
And ice cream on top of it.

Kent (30:38):
Yeah.

Drew H (30:38):
Fantastic. Well, thank you, Kent. I appreciate it.

Kent (30:40):
Cheer. Hey, thank you. Take care, drew.

Drew H (30:43):
Well, I hope you enjoyed this virtual flight, the Grand Traverses Distillery. If I picked your interest in traveling to the distillery to make sure to head to whiskey lower.com/flights where you can view the profile of Grand Traverses Distillery and the growing list of worldwide distilleries that we're featuring on the show, the Dig Deeper into Whiskey LO's Online Distillery Travel Guide. Use the heart feature to show your favorite distilleries love, or log in with a free membership and bookmark your favorite distilleries to add them to your very own whiskey lore wishlist. The site features, planning tools, maps, tour dates, and booking links for over 300 distilleries worldwide. Start your journey@whiskeylore.com slash flights. Now stay tuned because in just a moment, I'm going to have some closing travel tips if you plan on visiting Grand Traverse Distillery. But first, it's time for this week in whiskey lore.

(31:39):
It was a century and a half ago this week that an ominous shadow was cast over the New Orleans distilling scene. As the Behan Distillery and the Napoleon Avenue distillery became targets of nefarious attempts to destroy their facilities, the drama unfolded on a seemingly quiet Sunday evening at Bean's Excelsior Distillery intruders apparently exploiting the Watchman's lack of visibility, forced their way through a back gate. They planted a sinister device, a tin can, packed with kindling sawdust, saturated with turpentine, and a resonance substance meticulously designed to ignite. After a delay discovered just in time, the fire was extinguished narrowly saving the building from devastation. Merely hours later, a similar fate awaited the Napoleon Avenue distillery located some seven miles away. Around two in the morning reports said a watchman smelled smoke and spotted a suspicious figure who upon being discovered, fired a shot and fled, leaving behind only a hat and a sack full of combustibles.

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These incidents weren't isolated. They echoed past attacks like the burning of the Thomas Distillery in Carrollton, Louisiana just 10 months earlier. That was another deliberate act of arson that occurred just before the commencement of distilling operations. A historical pattern suggest that these attacks were part of a larger conflict within the whiskey industry. Some thought rectifier from Cincinnati and other Midwest towns were targeting New Orleans distillers after accusing them of using deceitful practices to fool the government and gain a financial advantage. But other rumors suggested that business rivals driven by jealousy and unable to compete fairly, might've been the instigators of these attacks. But there was also a rise in temperance forces targeting distilleries with flames. Considering the destruction of such facilities as a righteous act, a reward of $2,000 was advertised for any information that would lead to a conviction. Within two weeks, a culprit was placed under arrest for the first player because a man named Frank Murphy, who just happened to be the private watchman at the Behan distillery, eyewitnesses reported seeing him carrying cans out of the distillery when the fire began, he would claim that the buckets were full of water, but one witness, Mr. Jonathan Shepherd, said the can had black oil in it and Murphy was also carrying pine cotton and a long string attached to the bucket.

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It would be over a year before Murphy would stand trial, but the result was a hung jury. Four months later in March of 1876, the case was abandoned by the prosecution and Murphy went free. The real story behind those fires would remain a mystery. Learn more about the hazards of fire and distilleries in the book, the Lost History of Tennessee Whiskey, available on Amazon or through your favorite bookseller.

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Well, as we prepare to leave the Grand Traverse Distillery and make our way to our next distillery destination. If you're interested in exploring more of the local food and drink scene around Traverse City, might I suggest to you that you stop off at the Grand Traverse tasting room downtown, then later make your way over to the Village of Grand Traverse Commons. It's a historical site that was once a state asylum that has been transformed into a vibrant community hub with restaurants, shops, and more. It's a unique place to experience the best of Traverse City's culture and cuisine. And as we close out our trip to Grand Traverse Distillery, if you are still on the fence about visiting here, let me give you my three reasons why you should have this distillery on your whiskey lore wishlist. First, this is a great way to engage with the oldest distillery in the state, while also visiting a beautiful community with its founding in the early days of the modern craft whiskey boom.

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There are plenty of stories to be told at this true pioneer of Michigan craft distilling. Second, there are plenty of unique spirits on hand. To give you a taste of Michigan, my favorite is called Aisles of Rye, a hundred proof bottled in bond rye whiskey with a percentage of Scottish peated barley. In the mash bill on the nose, you're going to get that meaty smoked note without the medicinal character of some Isla whiskeys, while also getting hints of herbal mint and a little bit of a Play-Doh scent. Yet on the palette, you'll get caramel, rye and an ashy node that make it perfect in pairing with the cigar. By visiting during the tasting, you'll get to try a variety of other unique spirits. The third, because Grand Traverses isn't really available much beyond Michigan borders, this will give you a chance to taste those local ingredients, support Michigan agriculture, and bring back a bottle to your home state for a unique slice of Michigan.

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I hope you enjoyed today's episode. One more stop to go on this busy day of discovering Michigan distilleries. We're off to the distillery that opened my eyes to Michigan. Distilling we'll embrace some of the local area's, history with cherries. We'll also get to see the first Kentucky style Rick House in Michigan. Join me next time as the Midwest Great Lakes Tour 2024 rolls on. Make sure to subscribe to the Whiskey Lore podcast so you don't miss any of the great whiskey flights to come. I'm your travel guy, drew Hanish. Until we meet again, cheers and Slava the transcripts and travel information, including maps, distillery planning information and more. And to whiskey lo.com/flights. Whiskey LO is a production of Travel Fuels Life. LLCI.