Chicago’s Koval Distillery is tucked into a warehouse space next to a microbrewery, one of those happy accidents of location that makes both businesses’ lives easier, and seems to be a fairly common story among craft distillers. Robert and Sonat Birnecker started the business just a few years ago, the second craft distiller in the state (after the excellent North Shore Distillery), and are building it into something unique even among the idiosyncratic world of craft distilling.

Their products, for a start, are strikingly unique. They lead with a range of 100% single-grain white whiskeys – Rye, Wheat, Oat, Spelt and Millet – most of which are all but unknown in the States as grist for distillation. They make a pear brandy similar to an Austrian classic, a rye-based vodka, a bierbrand, and a range of liquors infused with flavors like fresh ginger, rose hips, coffee and jasmine. Everything is rigorously organic, down to the processing of the staves in the custom-made barrels they’re using to age their whiskey.

They’re also the U.S. representatives of Kothe Distillationstechnik, one of the most prominent still-makers in Germany, and twice a year or more Robert and Sonat offer classes aimed at helping people start and run a craft distillery.

We’re now a few weeks back from their spring session, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. We had chosen this class because of its focus on business and legal aspects, in addition to simple hands-on distilling time. And they delivered, with guest speaker on insurance, trademark law, federal licensing (you’re going to screw it up, but don’t worry — just don’t try to cheat), distribution, and even barrel-making.

Robert and Sonat talked about their own choices: locating the business in Chicago, selecting raw ingredients and developing products, choosing a distributor rather than self-distributing, how to make sure your neighbors don’t make the business impossible to run. The insanely knowledgeable Klaus Hagmann of Kothe led the class through the chemistry of fermentation and the physical aspects of still design and operation.

All this was in addition to the making of a wheat-whiskey mash, and the distillation of another run of the wheat whiskey.

A big reality-check, in short. This is a difficult business. And a snowballing one—around the country, dozens or maybe scores of new craft distilleries are being born. It’s not clear that there is room for them al in the market, but I think this is a matter of time. The demand is not yet there, because people don’t know of their existence. We did a small sample of cocktail- and liquor-friendly bars while travelling, and found craft distillery products in only a few. That will grow, as microbrewing did; give it five years, and people will know to ask for Koval’s Chicago Rye or House Spirits’ Aviation Gin by name.

It will be a while before we get to the point of actually setting up a commercial operation. The book comes first, as part of our campaign to make fruit brandies A Thing in America. But until then, a big thanks to Robert and Sonat and Klaus for helping us and dozens of other get started in an inspiring way.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 at 5:05 pm and is filed under distilling, travels. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.