One January evening in 2011, Mark Schiller raised a glass of a homemade White Russian to his lips and tasted opportunity. The cocktail, and the coffee liqueur in it, were the creation of his Northfield High School friend, Simeon Rossi.
Recognizing Rossi’s talent for mixology, Schiller proposed they go into business together. That same year, they quit their day jobs and established southern Minnesota’s first legal distillery in a hundred years.
Today, Loon Liquors has more than 20 employees and is eyeing Midwest and national distribution in the next year.
Here’s to organic spirits
From day one, the distillery remained true to its mission: crafting spirits using locally sourced organic ingredients in a sustainable, environmentally friendly way. The use of organic ingredients not only aligns with the company’s commitment to sustainability but also delivers a more flavorful product,
Schiller notes.
“When a crop is grown organically, it grows in a tougher environment,” Schiller explains. “It is under greater stress, and that produces a more
intense flavor.”
Loon Liquors brand spirits include whiskey, gin, liqueurs, aquavit, rum, and vodka. More recently, the distillery began selling bottled cocktail blends, including Old Fashioneds and Cosmopolitans.
Before this latest line of products could be launched, however, Schiller and Rossi had a problem: the color of their cocktail blends faded the longer the bottles stayed on the shelf. AURI helped resolve this issue by identifying natural ingredients that stabilized the color of the blends.
As the company’s distribution expanded, the distillery needed to increase its production volume. To that end, Loon Liquors relocated its distillery and cocktail room. Today, in addition to drinks, they also serve organic pizza. And just as its spirits are made onsite, so too is the organic flour used for the pizza dough. In fact, from the cocktail room, both the still and flour mill are visible behind a glass wall.
“Everything is transparent, and we offer tours of the entire operation for those interested in learning more about the different spirits and how they are made,” says Schiller.
What’s Next for Loon Liquors
Loon Liquors has two new products currently under development. The first is the organic flour used to make the pizza. Because Rossi only needs to run the mill a few hours a week to meet his needs, the idea is to offer organic wheat and barley flour to the public and other clients, possibly via a bakery, to use the mill’s full capacity. Here again, AURI is helping Loon Liquors identify markets and tap into industry expertise in larger-scale flour production, commercialization, and packaging.
The second project involves crafting a new addition to its spirits line: peated whiskey.
“In Scotland,” Schiller elaborates, “peat is used to smoke the malted barley, and after it is mashed, distilled, and barreled, that smoky flavor comes through.”
Loon Liquors began experimenting with this idea about five years ago and created peated whiskey made from Minnesota barley, smoked with Minnesota peat, and barreled in
Minnesota barrels.
“We are launching our peated whiskey product right now, just by the glass, at our spot,”
says Schiller.
But the plans for peated Minnesota whiskey do not end there. Loon Liquors has teamed up with Carleton College to scientifically demonstrate that different types of peat produce distinct smoke molecules that result in unique flavors.
Minnesota, Schiller notes, has twice as much peat as Scotland. This research, therefore, could open up a whole new flavor palette for Rossi’s creative imagination to take flight.
