Traverse City Whiskey Co.

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, the bestselling author of experiencing Irish whiskey experiencing Kentucky Bourbon and the historical epic, the lost History of Tennessee Whiskey. Today we're going to be heading west of Traverse City, Michigan, not too far from the shores of the west arm of Grand Traverse Bay in an area that has quickly become one of Michigan's major hubs for both outdoor adventures and great wine, beer and whiskey. I'm looking forward to catching my first glimpse of the bays just north of town. But before we do that, I'm going to be heading over to meet one of the founders of a distillery that has helped put Michigan whiskey on the map, Chris Frederickson over at Traverse City Whiskey Company. And having just left the Grand Traverse Distillery feeling a little bit more relaxed, I had to rush quickly between the Iron Fish and Grand Traverse, but got a little bit more time to make the 11 mile drive over to Traverse City Whiskey company's production facility.

(01:15):
Now, I could probably do this in about 20 minutes normally, but there's all sorts of construction downtown and it's leading to some significant backups. So I'm going to test the recalculating of my GPS and see if I can avoid sitting in traffic for a long time and instead maybe drive some of these back roads to get to the distillery. So as I navigate these side roads and try to get to the distillery on time, let's take a moment to learn a little bit more about what we can experience both north and west of Traverse City. The west arm of Grand Traverse Bay is a picturesque and lively spot in northern Michigan, offering visitors a mix of stunning waterfront views, outdoor activities, and a vibrant local scene stretching north along Michigan State Road 22. You could soak in all the waterfront charm of the west arm, whether you're stopping for a picnic, walking along the marina, checking out the nearby shops and restaurants, or simply watching the sailboats.

(02:16):
Float by the Bay is perfect for kayaking or paddle boarding with plenty of spots to rent gear if you're feeling adventurous. And for those wanting to relax, you could enjoy a leisurely stroll along Clinch Park or even catch a boat tour to see the bay from a different perspective. If you head directly north of downtown Traverse City, you'll find the old Mission Peninsula, a scenic drive through vineyards and cherry orchards that eventually leads to the historic old Mission Lighthouse. In summer, the Traverse City waterfront is bustling with locals and visitors alike for beach goers soaking up the sun to those enjoying the vibrant downtown filled with artisan shops, restaurants, and the local scene and make sure to catch Traverse City Whiskey company's downtown Stillhouse Tasting room. The waterfront scene both north and west of Traverse City is an ideal place to spend the day before or after your visit to the distillery.

(03:16):
Well, I think I outwitted the GPS sort of. I decided to kind of take a turn down the road that I wasn't supposed to go down, so I had to backtrack, but did get to the distillery on time, and it's an interesting looking building. There is not a lot of signage, so if you're going to go on the tour, you're going to want to check out their website, tc whiskey.com to get the actual address of the place and then put that in your GPS and moments after walking in the front door. Chris f Fredrickson, one of the distilleries founders greeted me as he was walking up the stairs already for our meeting and they were about to have a tour commence. So Chris and I headed downstairs to where the offices are. He brought out a few bottles for us to go through. All the bottles with cherries were making me very interested. And the other thing I was interested in was how this particular distillery got started and how it's different from the other Michigan distilleries in that it is reaching out far beyond Michigan's borders. So as we got started, I decided to let Chris tell the story of how Traverse City Whiskey company was started. Our

Chris (04:29):
Story started when my father and I were riding in our family's cherry farm, which is about eight miles west of wherever we're at right now, here at the production facility. My dad is a third generation cherry farmer. He had been farming his whole life, and I've always supported him in his endeavor really until I went off to school at Michigan State and he always leaned on me for support. And this particular part of our journey on the farm 12 years ago was kind of a cleaning and optimizing exercise, and we were cleaning out some of the old buildings that different family members had their old historical artifacts in, but it was broken down by room, and we came across my great grandfather's room and there was just a handful of just only a few boxes, and my father and I found a set of his old distilling patents that he had patented during the US prohibition. So he worked for Dow Chemical and he was both a distiller and a chemist and an engineer working in tandem for Dow. And we just found these patents. Now at the same time, I was a whiskey lover, whiskey nerd, and I shared these patents with my current business partners, Jared Moti, and we started tinkering and exploring ideas of what fun we have with these patents.

(05:59):
And this idea was birthed around that time over a few whiskeys, of course, to start a distillery and a brand called Traverse City Whiskey. Very

Drew H (06:13):
Nice. So when you started this whole concept, did you have a favorite whiskey that you were kind of thinking, Ooh, I'd like to pattern this, but maybe put a Michigan spin on it?

Chris (06:26):
Yeah, so the genesis of my own palette, I was always kind of into bourbon, specifically. My palate had not yet evolved toward scotch or other foreign spirits. My aha moment was with a bottle of just stag Junior, and it was higher proof, and I had never tried something that high proof, and I was out and about and somebody offered me a pour, and I said, sure. And I ended up just sitting with this glass and just nosing it for an unusual amount of time to the point where people, are you going to drink that? I said, I'm just really enjoying the aromatics. It's a beautiful bouquet of flavor in the nose. And that's what started my journey.

Drew H (07:11):
Well, it's interesting the connection, because I remember when I was sitting in Edinburgh, Scotland and I was nosing a peed whiskey, and I was just sitting there for 30 minutes nosing it, and the guy next to me goes, are you ever going to drink that? But it didn't push me to go look to getting into distilling whiskey, which of course I wouldn't be able to distill scotch in my neighborhood. But this idea to What were you doing at that time as a career?

Chris (07:42):
Yeah, I was living on the road working as a management consultant. You'll hear Ala ALA's, our distillery dog. Nice. Yep. I like the name. She's the enforcer. The greeter. So yeah, you'll hear the barking in the background. But yeah, I was working in management consulting based here in the Midwest and living on the road fixing problems for much larger companies for several years and kind of just getting burned out. And I was really looking for a ticket back home here to Traverse City, and this idea kept flirting with us, me and my partners pretty hard, and we just kept, the more we pushed, the more it gave.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
And

Chris (08:26):
Eventually we started this brand and then that kind of snowballed into finding our home place, the still house.

Drew H (08:34):
Well, you were not in a distilling center at that time. You look at Michigan now and you go, wow. I mean, how many distilleries, there was a brewing industry here, which is step one to making whiskey, but did you jump in and try to learn it yourself? Did you go look for people to try to come in and help you put it all together?

Chris (08:56):
We did, yeah. We didn't try to do much on our own along the way. And that principle holds true for almost the last 12 years. The one thing with whiskey is you can't really guess. I mean, you could, but that might not be the best business decision. So we've always asked for help along the way, and the first person that we asked for help was Dr. Chris Bergland at Michigan State, who's helped incubate brands and distilleries like us and teach process and safety and technique and really educate younger people in the trade how to operate a distillery and what that really means. And so he was extremely supportive at the beginning of our endeavor. Also, our mutual friend Ari Sussman was a huge help at the beginning of our journey. And truthfully along the way, that is one thing we have not been shy about is seeking counsel, especially when a big decision is in front of us.

Drew H (10:01):
You've probably found I have that the whiskey industry is a very friendly industry. There's not too many distilleries out there that are clamping down on their distilling secrets.

Chris (10:12):
Right, the trade secrets. Yeah.

Drew H (10:13):
Yeah.

Chris (10:13):
No, everybody is pretty supportive generally across, not just across the state of Michigan, but I found across the country,

Drew H (10:21):
Yours is the first Michigan brand that I saw on a shelf.

Chris (10:26):
Oh, yeah.

Drew H (10:26):
Okay. And I was in Franklin, Tennessee at my favorite little liquor store, and I walked in and I live in South Carolina. It's a control state, and we just don't get a wide variety of spirits because it's harder to get it into our state. So whenever I'm out of state, I'm always going to look. And it was like a moment of pride when you look up on the shelf and you go, wow, my birth state actually has a whiskey now. Sure. What did it feel like for you the first time you saw your bottles starting to show up on the shelf?

Chris (10:57):
That was a really, really exciting time. And back in that day, back in 2013, when we initially saw distribution outside of Michigan, I think our first state was either Indiana or Illinois. That first placement was exciting, but what was more interesting to us was at the time, traverse City wasn't a very well-known place. I think in the last decade it's really gained a lot of clout and recognition nationally. But back in 2012, around that timeframe, our brand name Traverse City Whiskey Code didn't carry the same weight that it does today because Traverse, we grew with Traverse City in the past decade. So a lot of times there was just a much deeper, loud explanation of where Traverse City is, what is it? What makes it special? Who are you, where are you from? Why should I care? We had to be that much more creative with our brand. But man, the excitement that the first placement on state was so cool.

Drew H (11:58):
Well, I'm sure the Chamber of Commerce probably loves the fact that there's a whiskey and it's a good whiskey. That would be the tragedy of it if it ended up not being a good quality whiskey, and it's got Traverse Cities, so there's that kind of sense. But when I bought it, I bought it and I had not tasted it, but I said, you know what? I have to taste this because it's from my home state. And so do you get stories like that when people come on the tours that they're like, wow, it's great to see Michigan doing something. They've moved somewhere else, because there's a lot of people who migrated out of the state, but they hold Michigan close to their hearts, so

Chris (12:40):
They sure do. And I mean, the amount of customer feedback we get from out of state saying We're out here in the middle of nowhere California, or we're in Utah, we're in Montana right now. Traverse City Whiskey is distributed in 35 states. So we get a lot of Michigan folk that are traveling around the country and say, Hey, guess where I saw your bottle? A fun

Drew H (13:05):
Thing. Yeah, that's great. That's great. So talk about the first whiskey, because when I saw it on the shelf, I was a little confused because I saw the three Xs.

Chris (13:15):
Yes.

Drew H (13:15):
So it says on there, it says straight bourbon XXX whiskey. So now this is not,

Chris (13:23):
It's not X-rated,

Drew H (13:24):
And it doesn't go, does it go back to the old jugs

Chris (13:28):
Of whiskey? It goes directly back to the old jugs of whiskey. And we had initially, when we launched the DRA bourbon whiskey, the XXX, which is paying homage to the jugs from back in the day when we initially launched this, we were launching the straight bourbon whiskey. But because the XXX lives in the same label, it very quickly became what is now referred to as the Triple X straight bourbon.

Drew H (13:56):
Nice.

Chris (13:57):
Yeah.

Drew H (13:57):
Yeah. So did the TTB have any qualms about sometimes they get a little picky about extra things on a

Chris (14:05):
Label? No, we haven't heard a thing about it. That's

Drew H (14:08):
Good.

Chris (14:08):
Yeah, it wasn't an issue and hasn't been to

Drew H (14:11):
Date. Yeah. So what was the goal? Because you talked about Stag Junior, which is going to be a high proof whiskey, and this one comes in at 43%.

Chris (14:19):
Yep.

Drew H (14:19):
So what was your thought process behind this? And the bottle I have at home actually is less than four years, but it seems like you've settled on over four years now.

Chris (14:29):
So when we launched, our age statement was four years, and we went through, so the bourbon took off, and then we launched a cherry whiskey, and that took off and then ended up depleting a lot of our inventory. So we had to drop our age statement from four years to three years, and that lasted for probably three or four years. And in the last two years, we've rededicated back to the four year age statement, and the reason behind the 86 proof is approachability and versatility. Stag junior is not a

Drew H (15:03):
Starter whiskey.

Chris (15:04):
It's not a starter

Drew H (15:05):
Whiskey, even though it impressed you.

Chris (15:07):
Yeah.

Drew H (15:08):
But it led to you doing higher proof whiskeys.

Chris (15:11):
Yes, it did. Yep. We, in 2015, launched our barrel proof bourbon, which is higher strength

(15:19):
Now in the course of the last 12 years, have never, because of our climate here, have not yet opened a barrel greater than 122 or 123 proof. Okay. It's not a thing. With the Michigan climate, you have two compounds in the barrel. You have water and ethanol, one of the two is going to evaporate. And in our case, the ethanol evaporates leading to a lower proof most of the time. Yeah, not all the time. It's all the humidity probably. Yes, exactly. The high relative humidity being right here in Lake Michigan. And it's a very unusual thing in Michigan, specifically here to find a whiskey at a higher proof like that.

Drew H (16:02):
Now, you started with sourced whiskey, correct?

Chris (16:05):
Yes.

Drew H (16:05):
And then have you migrated this bottle to your own spirits at this point?

Chris (16:09):
We at one point had migrated almost all the way,

Drew H (16:13):
And

Chris (16:13):
That was around 2017 ish.

Drew H (16:15):
And

Chris (16:15):
That was right around the time that the cherry whiskey took off.

Drew H (16:19):
Okay.

Chris (16:19):
Unexpectedly, yes. Our American Cherry Edition depleting your supplies, again, depleting most of our supplies again. So we had enough stock to reintroduce a higher age statement, but our lower age statements, it just depleted. And then we also have, it's not just the cherry whiskey, it's what we call our fruited series, which is the cherry, the apple, and the peach. Those rely on a younger bourbon, a two to three year bourbon. So we ran a lifecycle where we had been distilling a lot at our still house downtown. And then fast forward several years, we had to reengage our reliance on our friends down in Indiana.

Drew H (17:04):
Okay. So it works for a little while, but the ultimate goal is back to a hundred percent.

Chris (17:11):
So right now we distill in the three seasons. We don't distill during the summer because the groundwater is too warm, you can't properly condense, but we are pushing, but we just can't make a big enough dent. And I'll expand on that more when we get into talking about TC three, our future facility, we're bringing up 24 inch column online, so that'll take our, it's like a 2020 or 23 x increase in our capacity,

Drew H (17:39):
So

Chris (17:40):
Then we will become fully self sufficient.

Drew H (17:43):
So let's talk about the cherry whiskey. And it says infused.

Chris (17:48):
Yes.

Drew H (17:48):
So talk about the process of infusing whiskey with cherry.

Chris (17:53):
Yes. So the difference between the bourbon that we're sipping on right now and the cherry whiskey is there are three major factors. One the age, so the bourbon's age for four years, where there's, the cherry whiskey is age for closer to three years. The bourbon is bottled at 86 proof, whereas the cherry is bottled at 70 proof, and the cherry whiskey is infused with mount morenci sour cherries. So we batch them. Similarly, we're hand selecting barrels, tasting every barrel, but with the cherry whiskey, we're only diluting it down to about 75 to 78 proof, and then adding the fruit, so it's like a teabag sort of. And then we'll steep several hundred pounds of fruit into the bourbon, which there's a lot of water and fruit. So we always err on the side of caution and keep the proof a bit higher, 75, 78 proof, and then steepen the fruit until we have achieved both food and character, flavor sensor, everything we're looking for, and then pull the fruit out, proof it again, and then we add water as necessary. So that is the process for both our American cherry edition and our barrel proof cherry.

Speaker 4 (19:11):
Okay.

Chris (19:12):
Barrel proof. Cherry is kind of a special project that we, it's a once a year project and it just happened, so that's why I wanted to talk about it with you.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
Yeah.

Chris (19:20):
But the cherry whiskey was our second launched expression back in 2013, and being that we have so much rich family history in farming, and of course Traverse City, the cherry capital of the world, we really wanted to debut something that honored that. And at the time, in 2013, when we launched it, this was right about the same time that the flavored vodka scene was at its peak. There was the salted caramel vodka, the orange vodka, just everything. And so we think that a lot of people mistook the cherry whiskey for being another synthetically flavored spirit. So a lot of people connoisseur and newbies alike turned their nose to it and said, no, thank you. I don't need another flavored vodka. Like this is not flavored in the same way, and it's not vodka. Let's talk. This has kind of helped define what Traverse city whiskey has become known for

Speaker 4 (20:25):
Cherries.

Chris (20:27):
We make the American Cherry Edition, we make the barrel proof cherry. This is once year release, and we also make cocktail cherries.

Drew H (20:33):
Okay. Well, the big question of course is going to be, do these cherries come from the family farm,

Chris (20:40):
The cherries that go into the whiskey, do the cherries that make up our premium cocktail? Cherries do not.

Speaker 4 (20:48):
Okay.

Chris (20:48):
They're from a neighboring farm, but it's a different variety that we don't or have never grown.

Drew H (20:52):
Okay. Yeah. So let's talk quickly, because you're going to take me on a little excursion here, but let's talk quickly about when people come to Traverse City, how they can engage with your whiskey between your different facilities.

Chris (21:08):
So we have our still house downtown on 2 0 1 East 14th Street. That's our original brick and mortar location that has been part of our history for 11 years. That's primarily a cocktail bar. And we also distill whiskey, gin, and brandy on site. We're not running the still right now because it's too warm out. We'll start it back up in September-ish. So that's the cocktail sampling experience. Right now we're here at TC two, our production facility, and the way to engage with us here is via our website. You can book tours, tastings, group events, and cocktail classes, and it's all done on tc whiskey.com. And then our next facility, TC three, which is going to be, it's our campus that's under development right now, which is where we're headed next.

Speaker 4 (22:05):
Yeah.

Chris (22:05):
We're going to head to our Rick house, but that experience is just through customer inquiry on our website, and we typically just host barrel picks there in the Rick House.

Drew H (22:17):
Yeah.

Chris (22:18):
Yep.

Drew H (22:18):
Very good.

Chris (22:19):
Yeah.

Drew H (22:19):
Well, let's move on over there.

Chris (22:22):
Yeah, let's do it.

Drew H (22:22):
Okay. Alright. So through the miracle of modern technology, here we are, what, six miles away from where we were at.

Chris (22:40):
You got it. Six miles.

Drew H (22:41):
And describe the place that we're standing in.

Chris (22:44):
So we are on the first structure of our new whiskey distillery campus here in Leon County. Our first project was to erect a 20,000 square foot Kentucky style barrel warehouse, which is the first of its kind in Michigan. It took about 18 months after it was built to get it online because it's the first, our local municipality had no Michigan code to reference or look after to make sure that we were doing things properly. So we kind of pumped the brakes a little bit with the activation to make sure that we set a good standard for our Rick house and future Rick houses around the state, because if we do ours right, then other distilleries in Michigan have something to copy off of as opposed to overbuilding over engineering, whatever that could look like. So yeah. Anyway, last Thursday, we loaded our first barrel into the warehouse. We had a little event with our staff to celebrate being not just the first Rick house in Michigan, but loading the first barrel and celebrating what we've been through and where we're headed.

Drew H (24:03):
So the first thing I noticed when I come in here after being in many rick houses, it does not smell like the angel share. This is all fresh wood. Fresh

Chris (24:13):
Wood.

Drew H (24:13):
Yeah.

Chris (24:14):
Not yet the angel share in due time,

Drew H (24:16):
It will be here in time. That'll be a fun moment when you first realize, oh, there it is.

Chris (24:22):
Yeah, exactly. And it's also quite bright compared to any other Rick house. I always joke when we have guests here, and I say, I'm sure you've been into several Rick houses, but you've never been into an empty rick house.

Drew H (24:35):
Yeah, absolutely.

Chris (24:37):
Yeah.

Drew H (24:37):
So how many barrels will this hold once it's actually completed?

Chris (24:41):
Yeah, so it's 20,000 square feet, and when it's full, it'll fit between 17 and 18,000.

Drew H (24:48):
Yeah. And the difference, you could call this a Michigan style Rick house because it has some extra space in it just because the regulations are a little different in Michigan than they are in Kentucky.

Chris (24:59):
Yeah. Michigan building code did require us to overbuild or build in a different way, I should say, which unfortunately throttled down the capacity of barrels that we could store,

Speaker 4 (25:11):
But

Chris (25:12):
That was a fight for a different day. It was our goal just to get the sun line and make it happen.

Drew H (25:17):
Yeah, absolutely. But it does allow you to say it's Michigan style because Amen. Kentucky doesn't have any like this.

Chris (25:23):
Yes. Not like this.

Drew H (25:25):
Very good. So what's happening next door to this?

Chris (25:28):
Yeah, the rest of the campus here, it will be dedicated to both production and a visitor center. So are at the site of a 30,000 square foot building, which was, it was a former cherry processing facility. It was both a receiving facility and a processing facility. And on the front of the building, we're also adding a 10,000 square foot visitor center, which will include a tasting room, cocktail bar, a restaurant style kitchen that will have small plates, a museum and another tasting room. But yeah. Yep.

Drew H (26:09):
What are you going to focus the museum on?

Chris (26:12):
So it's interesting, being a distillery in Michigan, the focus of the museum will be highlighting history. Well, rather even what is distilling. So it is a newer thing to operate in. This type of capacity in Michigan is not really done anywhere else. So our goal is to educate and talk through what is distilling, here's the history of distilling, and then here's our history and where we're going.

Drew H (26:40):
Yeah, it's exciting times. You got a lot going on and I'm sure it's keeping you busy, but it's got to be great seeing where you came from and where you're at now.

Chris (26:49):
Yeah. You asked about vibe earlier in our stillhouse downtown. It is a very, quite a humble, very welcoming, lower key vibe. Our facility, the still house in cocktail bar downtown is only 2200 square feet, so it's quite small compared to this. Rick House alone is 10 times the size of our first facility. Just the Rick house where the building that we're looking at right now across the way is programmed to be more than 50,000 square feet in addition to this Rick house. So there's a certain scale issue, and the vibe here is also going to be very approachable, but just a little more industrial than your traditional craft operation.

Drew H (27:35):
Yeah. Well, you have a pot still over here. I know you're putting a big column still in

Chris (27:39):
Just the 24 inch column for now, which was manufactured by Ven do.

Drew H (27:43):
Yeah.

Chris (27:44):
Yep.

Drew H (27:45):
Very nice little extra touch of Kentucky in there.

Chris (27:48):
Amen. Yep.

Drew H (27:50):
Well, Chris, thank you so much for taking the time today and going through and telling us the past and the future because it's great to see Michigan whiskey really getting into what could be a golden era for an industry that really, we don't know where it was in the past, but if there are ghosts back there, we'll have to seek them out.

Chris (28:11):
Yeah, absolutely. And one thing that's probably worth noting about where we're standing is we're surrounded by cherry orchards. So our goal at Traverse City whiskey is to find that harmony between the traditional distilling and kind of honoring that local, the cherry, the cherry theme that is so prevalent in northern Michigan.

Drew H (28:32):
Very good. Well, I wish you all the success in the world with this, and congratulations on where you've come so far. Thank you, drew. Cheers.

Chris (28:40):
Cheers.

Drew H (28:41):
Well, I hope you enjoyed this virtual flight to Traverse City Whiskey company. If I piqued your interest in traveling to the distillery, we'll make sure to head to whiskey-lord.com/flights where you can view the profile of Traverse City Whiskey company, and the growing list of worldwide distilleries that we're featuring on the show. Dig deeper into the whiskey lore online distillery travel guide. Use the heart feature to show your interest in the distillery, or log in with a free membership and bookmark your favorite distilleries to add them to your very own wishlist. The site features, planning tools, maps, tour dates, and booking links for over 300 distilleries worldwide. Start your journey@whiskeylord.com slash flights. Now, stay soon because in just a moment, I'll have some closing travel tips if you plan on visiting Traverse City Whiskey company. But first, it's time for this week in whiskey lore.

(29:39):
It was 17 years ago this week that Bardstown Kentucky celebrated its 16th annual Kentucky Bourbon Festival with this one having an added element of interest. That being that it's the first one that was hosted during National Bourbon Heritage Month, thanks to a US Senate resolution passed by Kentucky's junior Senator and Hall of Fame, major league baseball pitcher, Jim Bunning. Now, at that time, the festival was annually drawing around 52,000 visitors from 37 states. The Kentucky Bourbon Trail had also hit a milestone seeing half a million visitors to their seven distilleries. Now, astute historians have noted that the 2007 resolution incorrectly claims that in 1964, a joint resolution of Congress declared bourbon America's native spirit. In reality, the 1964 resolution simply declared that bourbon was a distinct product of the United States. Now, as bourbon fans have become wise to this fact, tour guides and other whiskey fans will hear clearing throats whenever someone says that the government declared bourbon America's native Spirit.

(30:47):
But a little known fact is that as long as they aren't referring to the 1964 Act, they would actually be correct. In the last line of that 2007 resolution, the Senate did officially resolve that bourbon is America's native spirit. Now for this and more great myth busting stories from whiskey history, watch out for my new book coming this Christmas, simply entitled Whiskey Lore featuring my distinct Whiskey Storytelling Style Details soon to come, and as we prepare to leave Traverse City whiskey company and make our way to our next distillery destination, I've got a suggestion that while you're in the area, you might want to head over to Black Star Farms, the Chateau Grand Traverse, or some of the other excellent wineries that line the old Mission Peninsula. You can enjoy wine, brandy, and stunning views of the vineyards in bay, and whether you prefer red, white, or something sparkling, it'll add a little bit of a Napa field to your time in Michigan.

(31:50):
And as we close out our trip to Traverse City Whiskey Company, if you're still on the fence about visiting, let me give you my three reasons why I think you should have this distillery on your whiskey lore wishlist. The first is that if you love cherries like I do, then you're going to love the way that Traverse City whiskey company infuses their cherries subtly into their whiskeys. This is much less a flavored spirit and much more of an inspired sip. Second, the distillery itself may feel a little bit cozy, but it gives you a sense of how this distillery continues to grow. You can see everything from barrels aging to stills and the bottling line. You may also get a chance to see how they put cherries into their jars. And third, watch out for a chance to see their new Kentucky style Rick House done Michigan.

(32:39):
For those that live in the Midwest and haven't had the chance to get to Kentucky yet, well, you'll get a little bit of a sense of it here. For me, it was kind of like standing outside one of the Bardstown Bourbon company Rick Houses. Well, I hope you enjoyed today's visit. It's the end of a busy day for me. Time to rest up at my b and b provided courtesy of the distillery that's behind my next destination, the Rosen Rye Rebirth Project on South Manitou Island, a project that's being conducted by Michigan State University and Mammoth Distilling Company. Join me next time as we learn more about the historic return of this unique rye grain as the Midwest Great Lakes Tour 2024 rolls on. Make sure you've hit that subscribe button so you secure your seat. I'm your travel guy, drew Hanish. Thanks for riding along with me. And until next time, cheers and slung of ah, for transcripts and travel information, including maps, distillery planning information and more@thewhiskeylord.com slash flights. Whiskey Lord is a production of Travel fuels Life, LLC.