Editor’s note: This article was published in the Record-Eagle’s Momentum ’22 special publication. For more stories from northern Michigan’s economic engine, click here to read Momentum in its entirety online.
TRAVERSE CITY — To say time stands still in the whiskey-making business is an understatement.
Heck, the calendar lays back and takes a nap like Rip Van Winkle himself.
But where Washington Irving’s friendly fable has its lead character napping for 20 years, whiskey needs but a five-year snooze, give or take a few months or so, to awaken as a tasty and tantalizing marketable product.
“In the whiskey business, (we have to plan that far ahead),” said Mike Brunner, Director of Retail Sales at Grand Traverse Distillery in Traverse City. “We’re making products today that will be ready four to five to six years from now. The stuff we’re going to be bottling this year generally was made at the end of 2017, or the beginning of 2018, before the pandemic.
“We’re making all of the whiskey from grains (grown) right here in northern Michigan, we’re not picking up the phone and telling some distillery to drop us off a truck load of whiskey; we’re actually making it from grain, so that’s a four- to five- to sometimes six-year process to take it from grain to aged finished whiskey products.”
Where many edible and drinkable products are replicated over and over again on massive spinning machines seemingly driven along on turbo-charged assembly lines, Brunner said the key to running a successful whiskey-making business is to be patient.
“That’s huge,” he said of whiskey’s be-patient aging process. “The actual making of the ethanol is about a week-long process and then it goes into the barrels, and we hold our breath, cross our fingers and think happy thoughts for the next five years,” he said.
While the aging of whiskey is a time-honored process that includes the most basic of ingredients — fermented grain mash taken from wheat, corn, rye, barley and other grains — despite centuries of mechanized modernization and other innovations, it cannot be hurried along. And the old-world process of storing the whiskey-to-be in wooden casks — preferably oak — for years on end remains a standard in the industry to this day.
So what’s left that can bring something new? The answer is self-evident: taste.
“We’re doing a number of different things, with different barrels, in finishing our whiskey,” said Brunner. “We’ll have some surprises that I can’t really elaborate on for the semiquincentennial anniversary of our country in the distant future (2026, when the United States will turn 250).
“But for now, very nice, new innovations on our whiskeys and the grains that we are using should be ready by the end of this year — possibly — or by the beginning of 2023. We have some innovative, new products coming out — we have a strong base of products that we work off.”
In looking ahead, Brunner took a few moments to look back, especially at the pandemic drought that closed down so much of the world. But while so many businesses — big and small — suffered financially during the COVID crisis, sales at Grand Traverse Distillery continued in an upward direction.
“We’re coming off a tremendous sales year, and I hope to see that grow even more going forward as we further distance ourselves from the pandemic,” said Brunner.
“We showed very nice growth through the pandemic and I think with all the trends I see that should bode well for packaged liquor sales — and specifically craft packaged liquor sales — and we hope craft packaged liquor sales that are made in Michigan.
“If you think about it, everybody was staying home (during the pandemic), they weren’t going out as much, they weren’t taking vacations, fly-vacations were off the table, as were cruises — folks basically stayed home and entertained themselves.
“From our sales numbers, they entertained themselves quite well with our products,” he said. “We’ve talked to a number of different retailers and hopefully they’re going to be bringing in our product and making it much more accessible to the public.”
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