So many things

Hello! There's a lot happening. Behold:

First, we're open now from 12-6, Wednesday through Sunday.  There are two lovely folks here now chatting with Chelsy:

You can take a tour any of those days at 2 and 5, or you can do some self guided learning with our helpful infographics:

You can taste all three of our Boreal gins, plus smell all the different botanicals we use to make them so delicious:

Not to mention our aquavit!:

And in case aquavit's a little unfamiliar, or you just want more ideas for what to do with gin, you can pick up some post cards with cocktail ideas.  (Surprising fact: aquavit makes kind of astonishing cocktails, especially in the place of whiskey):

All this, and you can learn a little bit about the history of distilling in Duluth. We have artifacts from Duluth distillers and bottlers of yore:

And we have what we believe to be the control panel from the old Lake Superior brewery:

Of course you can always just curl up with a book about whiskey:

Or rest your elbows at our valhalla-esque table, at which I'm currently writing (see: mess at front corner):

Sounds fun, right? This is not even to mention the fact that once the city grants us a license we'll be able to serve cocktails made with our products. Cocktails typically have several ingredients, and often several types of alcohol, but we can only use alcohol we make, which is a sort of funny limitation that we've decided to embrace. So we're only going to use things made in house - juices, vinegars, bitters, fortified wines, etc. Everything will be from scratch. It's like a haiku - the constraints of the form encourage creativity. This is our theory at least.

Also, of this writing our products are available in 195 places in Minnesota, from Rochester to International Falls, and Duluth to Park Rapids. You can search the map here: https://goo.gl/maps/MXwbu. Also our aquavit is available at one bar in Denmark. I am not making this up.

You can also buy it online at South Lyndale or at Merwin's.

Also, we're all over the news thanks to the amazing Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, who says: "I adore their cedar gin, which just has that great wet North Woods smell, because of the toasted cedar wood. It just smells like the wind over the Temperance River in the fall." You can listen to one of the stories here.

There has been one factual inaccuracy in these stories. Our gin is not made with rye from Far North Spirits, though we're flattered by the connection. We're actually partners with Bent Paddle Brewing Company here in Duluth, which brews up an all malted barley distiller's beer for us. Lately they've been infusing casks of blonde ale with some of our botanicals, making perhaps the hottest beer in the Northland. You can spot me at the far right (so jaunty) at their 1-year anniversary, better known as the "festiversary," which was epic in every way.

For example, it was attended by someone named "Mrs. Delicious":

This post is becoming epic itself, at least in length, so I'll just leave you with just one more fun tidbit - our ribbon cutting a few weeks back (look how huge Espen is getting!):

And let the mayor, Karen, Bryon, Colin and Laura take us out:

Cheers!

Joel (and Emily, Kevin, Ted, Chelsy and Squid)