Kansas City returns to its craft-distilling roots
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Bluestem bar manager Andrew Olsen stocks some 250 different spirits. They crowd the shelf above the bar: some familiar faces, quite a few that are perhaps not as well-known. Olsen has memorized them all.
For some — his favorites — he has a story to tell. Ask him about the first time that he met James Russell, the founder of Wild Turkey, and why he’ll always stock that bourbon. Or get him talking about the epic dinner that he had with Ron Cooper, founder of Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal. It’s the small stuff, the details, that have Olsen pulling bottles from the high shelf, brandishing the products as proudly as if they were his own.
“The thing that I like the most is that the smaller craft distilleries come with the story,” he says. “Everybody knows Tanqueray and Beefeater and Hendrick’s, but when somebody says, ‘Make me a gin drink,’ I’m like, ‘OK, cool, here’s J. Rieger gin,’ which is my well gin. I can talk passionately about something like J. Rieger. I can talk passionately about a lot of things, but I feel personally attached to this bottle, and part of the reason is because I got to meet Tom Nichol [Tanqueray’s former master distiller, who developed J. Rieger’s gin recipe] when he was here, and we got to laugh together and tell jokes.
“There’s something down here” — Olsen gestures to his heart — “that I can talk about versus something up here” — Olsen gestures to his head — “and it makes me feel good. And if I can speak very highly about it, then my guests can speak highly about it. They’re going to remember: ‘I was at Bluestem, and the bartender was really nice and knowledgeable because of the way he talked.’ And the reason why I talk the way I do is because I know people who are doing great things, and that’s what’s really cool about what’s happening in the industry right now.”
The picture that Olsen paints is what most craft distillers like to envision. And, according to Brenton Engel, the founder and head distiller at Chicago’s Letherbee Distillers, it’s one that’s becoming commonplace.
“Bartenders today don’t have to convince someone to try a craft gin versus, say, Beefeater,” Engel says. “The culture is changing. People are kind of flipping from only buying the brands that they know they like to — when they have the opportunity — trying something new. You think about the old curmudgeonly guy who comes in, and he only drinks vodka martinis. That attitude is dying.”
It’s dying at the same time that the craft-distilling industry is booming. The American Craft Spirits Association (ACSA) — an organization dedicated to small distillers — estimates that as of 2015, there are nearly 800 craft distilleries in the United States. That’s more than 10 times the number in 2003. By 2020, 1,000 distilleries are anticipated, with craft spirits making up 8 percent of total liquor sales.
Missouri has approximately 25 craft distilleries, not including three upcoming additions in the KC metro: Tom’s Town Distilling Co., opening in December; Restless Spirits Distilling, expected to launch in February 2016; and Lifted Spirits, slated to open to the public in April. The number of distilleries in the Show-Me State has grown more than three times since 2011.
“As an industry, there’s so much interest in distilling — just like beer and wine, they’re at a focal point right now,” says ACSA spokeswoman Alexandra Sklansky. “With the advent of the Food Network and the millennial generation, consumers are interested in what they eat and what they drink and the stories of the brands that they gravitate toward.
“And we’re seeing producers who have unique stories to tell, too,” she continues. “Many of them come from families that were distillers, and they feel they are returning to their natural calling, and many of them are scientists or chemists who wanted to do something different. Some people are just passionate about food and drinks, and this is an expression of that.”
And we’re seeing that here in Kansas City.
J. Rieger & Co. Distillery’s East Bottoms production facility has no tasting room, or even a very clearly marked entrance. The small office where Andy Rieger keeps his binders of data, logged away in file cabinets and backed up on his computer, is purely utilitarian.
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There’s a shelf lined with respected whiskeys and bourbons, another for glassware, and there’s a whiteboard scrawled with a to-do list in a scratchy shorthand. A glass partition looks out onto the distillery floor, which features a 750-gallon still for whiskey and vodka and a 120-gallon still for gin. This space welcomes the occasional visitor, though it’s not really a place for them.
Rieger, of course, is the great-great-great-grandson of the eponymous Jacob Rieger — one of Kansas City’s primary distillers from 1887 until 1920, when Prohibition knocked down his business. (The J. Rieger & Co. label lapsed in 1922.) Thanks to his background in finance, Andy Rieger is J. Rieger & Co.’s de facto numbers guy. He never meant to get into the craft-distilling business.
“It fell into my lap,” he says, “in the sense that I was sitting in Manifesto one night, and Ryan [Maybee, co-owner and partner of Manifesto and the Rieger Hotel Grill & Exchange] said, ‘How cool would it be if we restarted the distillery?'”
At the time, Rieger was living in Dallas, working at an investment bank. He moved back to Kansas City in April 2014, seven months before J. Rieger & Co.’s launch.
“It didn’t fall into my lap where Ryan said, ‘Hey, do you want to run it? Here are the keys,'” Rieger says. “Ryan will be the first to admit that I sort of looked at it like this is his thing, and I was just going to help with it — not ever move back here. But that switched up to me realizing that I would pretty much have to do everything to get this going and run it. This has been way more work than I would have ever thought.”
At this point, Rieger says, Maybee is “less than 50 percent” of the business. He likens him to a brand ambassador. J. Rieger & Co.’s head distiller, Nathan Perry — formerly a microbiologist with Boulevard Brewing Co. — calls him “an asset.”
“It’s almost like having another adviser,” Perry says. “He knows cocktails and bartending. When we’re doing something, he can tell us how the shape of the bottle is going to influence a bartender. He has an influence on the proof we put something at because he knows what’s going to work better for the bar. That’s where he comes in, and that’s where I really think he’s invaluable, to have that aspect.”
Maybee is fine company in his advisory role. Dave Pickerell, the former master distiller at Maker’s Mark and an in-demand consultant in the craft-distilling world, helped develop J. Rieger & Co. Kansas City Whiskey: a blend of straight rye, corn and malt whiskeys sourced from various regions in North America, and featuring the addition of 15-year-old Oloroso sherry from the Williams & Humbert solera. Tom Nichol personally taught Perry how to make gin. J. Rieger & Co.’s Midwestern Dry Gin is Nichol’s recipe.
“It’s pretty crazy who we’ve gotten to work with,” Rieger says. “Dave Pickerell has helped us with everything since the beginning, and he’s told us that we are by far the most organized distillery he’s ever seen. He even says that over Maker’s. Which is good because this” — Rieger gestures out to the floor, where a handful of employees are bottling J. Rieger & Co.’s Midwestern Premium Vodka — “doesn’t satisfy us.”
As the craft-distilling industry crowds with new producers, each new business must set itself apart. For J. Rieger & Co., that means eschewing the retail side — no tasting rooms or event spaces — in favor of production and distribution. (J. Rieger & Co. distributes in Missouri, Kansas, Illinois and Nebraska, with two states to be added next year.)
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“Our philosophy and the way we look at business,” Rieger says, “is if you focus on retail, the money there is good, especially when you’re making what you’re selling — you keep costs low that way — but you never actually get that what you’re doing is your main thing, your main business. When you start thinking about retail, you don’t think about your product or what you can do to improve your process. It’s just different sides, whether you’re retail first or production first. There’s no right or wrong answer.”
“I enjoy interacting with people when I’m doing tastings and stuff like that, but it’s a completely different business,” Perry says. “Every time I pour at an event, I have to explain, like, ‘I’m sorry, I’m a really bad bartender.’ Because I’d rather be making the stuff.”
In early November, J. Rieger & Co. had its first anniversary. Rieger and Perry say they hardly took a moment to toast the milestone.
“The account rep at our branding firm, Liquid 9, she always gets on me because she says I don’t ever cherish the ‘champagne moments,'” Rieger says. “That’s because a champagne moment to the public or a branding firm is to us like, ‘Oh, thank God, that step is complete.’ It’s in the bigger picture now.”
Also part of the bigger picture: a J. Rieger & Co. Caffe Amaro, produced in partnership with Thou Mayest Coffee Roasters, and a limited-run Black Label whiskey, aged in 100-year-old, 130-gallon sherry botas (barrels) pulled from Williams & Humbert. Both products are expected in 2016.
“You look at Boulevard,” Rieger says. “If you’re a bar in Kansas City and you don’t serve Boulevard, something is wrong. We want to be that with a distillery. There are lots of little breweries that are Kansas City craft breweries that lots of people who aren’t in the industry have never heard of, and we want to be the opposite of that. We want to be the Boulevard of craft distilleries here in Kansas City.”
Walking into Tom’s Town Distilling Co. feels like stepping onto the set of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Elegant, metallic art-deco wallpaper covers the hallway and the Red Room — an overflow and private-event room, where a grand piano will soon be placed. Handsome, chartreuse leather upholstery lines half the walls in the tasting room, where sculptural light fixtures hang from the high ceiling.
The still — a 660-gallon hybrid, manufactured by Artisan Still Design to produce whiskey, vodka, rum or gin — is visible through a glass partition in the tasting room.
When I visit in late November, construction is still under way. The second-floor event space is unfinished. Still, the effect of the renovated building at 1701 Main (the former home of The Pitch) is striking.
Founders and co-owners Steven Revare and David Epstein are not shy about their Prohibition-era inspiration. They’ve lifted the distillery’s name from legendary Kansas City political boss Tom Pendergast, with whom they each share ties. Revare’s great-great-uncle Maurice Milligan was the U.S. attorney who sent Pendergast to prison in 1939 for tax evasion. Herman Epstein, Epstein’s grandfather, was a competing Kansas City bootlegger.
“He was one of the unlucky ones on the opposite side of Tom Pendergast and was driven out of business,” Epstein says with a laugh. “So my mother’s line was always, ‘If you can make a dollar off of Tom Pendergast’s name, do it.’ “
Tom’s Town’s three debut spirits carry Pendergast’s mark. There’s McElroy’s Corruption Gin (named for Henry McElroy, KC’s first city manager); Eli’s Strong Arm Vodka (named for Elijah Matheus, Pendergast’s secretary and bodyguard); and Pendergast’s Royal Gold Bourbon, a 10-year-old bourbon that the distillery has purchased, bearing Pendergast’s “royal gold” trademark, which expired in 1936.
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“Pendergast would basically pick Tennessee bourbons that he liked, bottle and sell those,” Revare says. “Obviously, we haven’t been in business long enough to have a four-year-aged bourbon or a 10-year-aged bourbon, so we picked the best one we could find and put the Royal Gold label on it. We’re still going to be making our own, but that won’t be available yet. The gin and the vodka will be ours.”
Tom’s Town’s head distiller, Robert Vossmeyer, who has worked with GrandTen Distilling in Boston and studied with Clay Smith of Corsair Distillery in Nashville, has developed both of those recipes. The gin, Epstein says, is a new, Western-style gin — fewer juniper and floral notes than your London Dry, heavier on the citrus. The vodka is rye-based, similar to Polish vodkas Chopin and Belvedere, and somewhat unusual for an American vodka.
Epstein and Revare sit side by side on a plush leather banquette in the tasting room. They, too, look like Gatsby characters, in tailored vests and smart haircuts. This is a new venture for them, though it isn’t their first partnership: The two founded digital media company BlairLake in 1995 and ran it for five years before selling it in 2000. Each has worked in the advertising and media industries in various capacities since.
“Steve and I are not distillers or mixologists,” Epstein says, a wide grin on his face. “We’re drinkers. That’s what we bring to the table: years and years of drinking. We knew what we wanted to do, and we knew we wanted a world-class product, and the only way to do that is to have our fingers in every aspect of it. That’s where Rob [Vossmeyer] comes in.”
“We’re smart enough to know what we don’t know,” Revare says. “We wanted to hire to fill in the gaps in our knowledge, so we hired people who are smarter than we are.”
Something else that Revare and Epstein aren’t sure about: distribution. Tom’s Town products will be sold exclusively at the distillery, by the drink — at the bar, which will have regular hours starting in January — and by the bottle.
“We want to wait to get the product out until we have nailed down the process and the ingredients, so we don’t find any surprises down the road,” Epstein says. “And down the road, we see local, regional and national branding.”
Epstein and Revare eagerly discuss their interest in becoming part of what they refer to as a “Kansas City renaissance.” The week before Thanksgiving, after living in New York for 18 years, Epstein permanently relocated to Kansas City. He and Revare speak with a bubbling affection for the local arts, food and craft-cocktail scenes.
“A lot of things that are getting crafted in Kansas City are getting national attention,” Revare says, “and we thought it’s time to put liquor on the map as well. The other part is that we wanted to be the clients for a change. One of the things that I’ve always been jealous of our clients is that they can hold up a product that they made. That’s part of why we wanted to get into this business, where at the end of the day, you have something tangible.”
On a drizzling, gray September day In North Kansas City, Mike Shannon throws open the door to the brick-faced Restless Spirits Distilling, located across the street from Cinder Block Brewery. He’s a tall man with a friendly face, and he’s eager to show me around the space, even with the unfinished construction.
Shannon is proud Irish: His great-great-great-grandfather came to Kansas City during the Great Famine, he says, and his family has been here ever since. It’s no surprise, then, that with Restless Spirits, Shannon wanted to do a spin on Irish whiskey.
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“We’re not really making an Irish whiskey — we’re not in Ireland — but we’re making an Irish-style spirit, with 100 percent barley, which is traditional,” Shannon says. “We’re going to follow some of the similar processes, and we’re going to create a category which doesn’t really exist. We’re going to call it Irish American whiskey.”
One of the perks of adopting Irish distilling practices, Shannon says, is the still that he’s bringing into his space. It’s a custom 500-gallon wash still from Vendome Copper & Brass Works in Louisville, Kentucky — the same company that provides the stills for Maker’s Mark and Jim Beam.
“The difference between Irish-style whiskey and some of the bourbons and ryes you see in the craft space now is in the still,” Shannon says. “They use what’s called a pot-column hybrid still. You’ll see a column on top of this still, with plates separating out the various types of alcohol. You get very precise cuts that way. But with an Irish-style whiskey, you want a lot more flavor coming off — we don’t need all those plates separating anything, so our still gives the whiskey a richer flavor.”
In addition to whiskey, Restless Spirits will produce its own gin and vodka, and a seasonal Irish cream. (There’s a separate still for gin, Shannon adds, to avoid cross-contamination of flavors.)
Shannon has made booze a family affair: His wife, Benay Shannon — a former high school science teacher who, with her husband, has attended seminars and classes through both the American Distilling Institute and White Labs, a California firm dedicated to fermentation research — is the head distiller. Their son also plans to join the business.
Converting the warehouse space into a distillery has gone fairly smoothly because Shannon’s brother is in commercial construction — “We’ve got a whole bunch of family that likes to volunteer,” he says — which follows a thread back to his Irish heritage.
“When the Irish came over, a lot of them were stonemasons and stonecutters,” Shannon says, “so our first product will be called Stone Breaker Irish American Whiskey.”
The Shannons began production in early November. Last week, they began barreling their whiskey.
“We’re still calibrating equipment with very small batches at this time but expect to be in full production [of whiskey] by Christmas,” Mike Shannon says. “We’re ready to go with both vodka and gin, but we’re awaiting label approval at the federal level, followed by a state review. We likely won’t have clear spirits available for sale until mid-February.”
February will be a big month for Restless Spirits. That’s when the tasting room is slated to open to the public; distribution is shaping up for that month as well.
“Our target for the whiskey is to do something by St. Patrick’s Day,” Mike Shannon says. “The way we’ll do that is we’ll be aging our first product in small, 10-gallon barrels. We can age whiskey faster in 10-gallon barrels than when we age the larger, 53-gallon barrels, which will take two to three years. But you can get a good aging in six to nine months in the smaller barrels. It’s not as refined a spirit that you get with a larger barrel, but it’s still a fine whiskey, and that’ll allow us to get something out there by March.”
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Benay, a petite woman, interjects with notes on flavors for her recipes and an occasional side-eye glance at her husband, who keeps a cheerful pace.
“For me, this business combines a lot of of experiences I’ve had in my life,” Mike Shannon says. “I like working with my hands, and I have an incredible passion for branding and driving brands into the market, and I saw this industry as a huge opportunity. You don’t see many places anymore in the business world that we’re in where you can get in on a new and emerging space and build a brand that has some equity in the market. That, to me, is huge.”
Kyle Claypool, Michael Stuckey and Darren Unruh signed a lease at 1734 Cherry in April, but construction on the future home of Lifted Spirits didn’t begin until November. When I arrive in early December, the building is without heat. Claypool greets me in a jacket, hands shoved in his pockets. He guides me through piles of rubble, pointing out the destinations for his stills, fermentation tanks and whiskey barrels.
“We’re going to have our big, 1,000-liter still here,” Claypool says, gesturing to a two-story area of the main floor, “and it’s going to have a 12-inch glass column on top that goes up 18 feet, plus two other columns and a gin basket on the end. So when we’re doing a gin run, for instance, the spirit would go through all 20 plates and three columns, and then it passes through the basket where we’ve got our juniper and other botanicals.”
When Lifted Spirits launches in April, the distillery will offer two gins and a vodka made from locally sourced red wheat.
“I love botanical spirits in particular,” Stuckey says. Wearing elbow-length black-rubber gloves, he’s crouched by a small test still. Claypool has introduced him as the in-house mad scientist, and Stuckey looks the part.
“I like whiskey,” he says, in a tone that makes it clear he doesn’t love it, “and I’ve learned a great deal about it and I’ve learned to appreciate it, but I started with gin, and my interest grew from there.”
Stuckey has a theology degree, and he has been a youth minister and a real estate agent. For him, distilling offered a new challenge.
“I’ve been practicing for a long time and was looking for something new to learn,” Stuckey says. “I loved spirits and I loved how they brought people together, and I wanted to learn how to make them myself.” He gestures to the Mason jars cluttered on a table in the warehouse. “We were doing some herb experiments. I’m breaking down my gin by botanical and distilling each botanical by itself, just to get a feel for how it comes off the still. So we’re tasting it piece by piece, and then I’ll go from there.”
Claypool opens a couple of the jars. The juniper spirit smells like a highly concentrated Hendrick’s, and the Madagascar vanilla bean conveys notes of toasted almond and even cocoa.
“It’s amazing how, for example, chamomile smells one way as a dry herb, but when it comes through a vapored distillation, it changes,” Claypool says. “To understand that on the individual level for each herb is going to really allow us to put together something great.”
To that end, Lifted Spirits is also planning on launching an original absinthe.
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“I’m really passionate about absinthe because it’s a complicated spirit,” Stuckey says. “The way it’s made is very particular. You have to follow a complicated process to do it correctly. And the tradition behind it intrigued me. And also, it got a bad rap. There’s a lot of things said about absinthe that aren’t true. It’s really a community drink — something that people went to the cafés to enjoy together. It wasn’t something that they went to trip on. I really appreciated that about it and wanted to share its roots and put a Kansas City improvisation on the recipe that was still traditional and reflected our values here.”
Community is the key word for Stuckey and Claypool — it comes up several times in conversation. They see it inherently linked to distilling. As Claypool shows me the in-progress upstairs event space — up a flight of treacherous stairs that, he assures me, will be replaced — he references the pre-Prohibition prevalence of stills.
“Distilling was a part of our American culture and our heritage,” Claypool says. “There was a still on every farm and gathering place. It was part of the community, and that was kind of taken away by Prohibition and never came back.
“After Prohibition, it totally became commercial — big factories with liquor,” he continues. “You lost the local aspect, and we really want to bring that back. We’ll have local artists doing installations here. We’ll have local music. You can have your wedding here and come in and actually make the spirits for the wedding a few weeks in advance. We just want to bring that lost part of our culture back.”
Lifted Spirits will use a 30-gallon still to make small batches and limited runs (for such special events). Downstairs, the Lifted Spirits tasting room will function also as a bar with regular hours, but it will have a few amenities for the curious hobbyist.
“We plan on having an infusion counter,” Claypool says, “something with recipe cards and Mason jars and spices and ingredients, like lemongrass and apricot and all sorts of things. So you can throw something in a jar, grab some spirits and take it home and make it yourself. We really want to let people come in and get their hands dirty.”
Claypool and Stuckey are full time with Lifted Spirits; Unruh has a corporate finance background and functions as the company’s CFO. I ask Claypool how he feels about putting all his chips in with such an untested, burgeoning industry.
“Starting any new business is a risk, for sure,” Claypool says, glancing around at all the work yet to be done on the building. “Starting a new business with giant metal vessels and buildout and piping and all that is a bigger risk, but there’s so much growth right now. The craft-spirits industry has grown 40 to 50 percent year after year for six years running. People are just really excited to try something new and connect with something local. We all felt like this was the right thing at the right time.”
In mid-November, McCormick Distilling Co. announced a deal to buy Broker’s Gin, which produces London Dry Gin, marking McCormick’s first foray into the premium-import category. (It will be one of McCormick’s most prestigious brands: In 2010, Broker’s London Dry Gin became the first gin to score 97 out of 100 in the distinguished Ultimate Spirits Challenge.)
McCormick also announced that, beginning this month, it will begin producing bourbon at the original, historic distilling site in Weston for the first time in 30 years. Holladay 1856 bourbon, named for founder Ben Holladay and the year of establishment, should be available by 2018. In April, the Weston location, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is slated to open for public tours for the first time in 20 years.
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McCormick Distilling president Mick Harris says this isn’t so much in response to the recent flurry of activity in the local craft-distilling scene (“We certainly welcome the newcomers,” he tells me over the phone) but more as an adaptation to the growth of the industry.
“We’re certainly not huge in the scheme of things,” Harris says. “We’re a fairly small, American, family-owned company, and where do we fit? Those new folks certainly have some interesting offerings and some quality stuff, but we’re doing things on a little bit different scale.”
He goes on: “We have the production capabilities and facilities to do things on a scale where a lot more people will be able to enjoy our products. We have space for 25,000 barrels to age. We’ll be using formulas that were produced on this site for the last 150 years. We have a natural water source on the property that is the reason why whiskey was ever made here in the first place, and we’re going to be using the same sources that we’ve always had here. What we’re offering is all the benefits of craft with the capacity and reach to do a lot more.”
Dark Horse Distillery in Lenexa is facing a different adjustment in 2016, as a two-year trademark dispute with E. & J. Gallo Winery comes to a close — and mandates a name change. As of January 1, Dark Horse Distillery will become Union Horse Distilling Co. In the first quarter of 2016, bottles bearing that new name will hit shelves in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
“For the most part, everything is going to look and remain the same,” says Damian Garcia, Dark Horse’s director of sales and marketing. “It’s just a matter of getting the message out there that this is who we are now.”
Parkville’s S.D. Strong Distilling, founded in 2012, celebrated the release of two new products in 2015: Pillar 136 Gin, which launched in May and won top honors at September’s Washington Cup Spirits Competition in Kansas City (a national craft-spirits contest, founded by Doug Frost, master sommelier and master of wine), and a limited run of Straight Rye Whiskey. The latter is nearly sold out, founder and owner Steve Strong says.
Strong is also in the process of barrel-aging bourbon, and he’s counting on the market’s continued growth. (S.D. Strong distributes in Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska, and Strong hopes to add Texas to that list.)
“The more small craft distilleries there are, the more awareness that there is about it,” he says. “Most of the business is being done by the large, large brands. There’s four companies that control 90 percent of the business out there. So I think that it’s a good thing that there are some new options, where people can try new things and where you can actually go to the distillery and meet the people making it.”
Andrew Faulkner is the managing editor of Distiller Magazine and vice president of the American Distilling Institute, an organization similar to the ACSA but a decade older. The role of ADI, Faulkner says, is to aid and guide small-batch, independently owned distillers across the country.
“If you go back a hundred years, before World War I,” he says, “go back to the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, and before that, by all estimates, there were about 7,000 distilleries in the country. Then the Pure Food and Drug Act came out, and people had to say what they were actually doing, and stores had to go out of business.”
Faulkner laughs. “But this country, at that time, had fewer than 100 million people, and it had 7,000 distilleries. Fast-forward to now, and we’ve got more than 300 million people and fewer than 1,000 distilleries. So, yes, there is ample room for growth. This is a return to normalcy.”
Corrections: This story originally reported incorrectly that Michael Stuckey’s degree was in geology; it is in theology. And Union Horse Distilling Co.’s new name will appear on bottles in the first quarter of 2016 rather than next October, as stated in the print version and an earlier online version of this story.
