It's little known outside the food and beverage community that when the "Surly Bill," which allows breweries to sell pints of their beer on site, became law in 2011, a companion bill dramatically lowered the fee for opening a distillery in Minnesota.

The fee dropped from $30,000 to around $1,000.

What does that mean for you, dear reader? That the craft-spirits boom that has been sweeping the rest of the nation is coming here, and fast.

A few distilleries are already in the works, and more are sure to follow.

Unfortunately, current laws don't allow distilleries to offer more than a half-ounce sample of their products. They also can't sell bottles of their liquor on site.

Distillers are pushing for the ability to sell drinks and bottles of their alcohol (similar to what wineries and breweries do), but for now, liquor stores will be the only places to purchase local craft spirits.

Here we profile all the startups we could find in Minnesota. Sure looks like craft spirits are off to a solid start.



Details: 300 E. Pike St., Osakis, Minn.;

Spirits: White Water (unaged) whiskey, apple liqueur, gin, eventually aged whiskey and bourbon

Background: Colorado businessman Adrian Panther started the first distillery in the state last year after noticing the lack of craft spirits in Minnesota, despite a booming industry elsewhere in the country. His distillery is ahead of the game; it has nearly 800 barrels of whiskey and bourbon aging.

Master distiller Brett Grinager worked with a master distiller at Maker's Mark before coming to Panther.

The site of the future 11 Wells distillery at the old Hamm&#8217;s Brewery on St. Paul&#8217;s East Side. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)
The site of the future 11 Wells distillery at the old Hamm's Brewery on St. Paul's East Side. (Pioneer Press: John Autey)



Details: 704 E. Minnehaha Ave., St. Paul;

Spirits: Gin, whiskey, rum

Background: When partners Lee Egbert and Bob McManus met, each was already planning to start a distillery. The men merged visions and teamed up to create 11 Wells.

Egbert is an avid mixologist who has his own line of bitters, tinctures and cocktail salts called Dashfire. McManus is the science nerd. He has a degree in microbiology and an interest in the history of distilling in Minnesota that borders on obsession.

The pair are busy gutting the old blacksmith and pipe shop at the Hamm's Brewery site on the East Side and hope to begin distilling in a few months.

The name of the distillery is a nod to its location -- apparently, there are 11 wells beneath the site that supplied Hamm's. Egbert and McManus also will make Minnesota 13 whiskey, based on moonshine that kept parts of the state fed during Prohibition. The moonshine is named for the type of corn used to make it, and the first crop is harvested and now drying.



Location: Likely Roseville (TBD);

When he opens Bent Brewstillery in the Twin Cities, Bartley Blume plans to make spirits that are based on grains used in beer. (Pioneer Press: John Doman)

Spirits: Whiskey, bourbon

Background: Bartley Blume, a home-brewer and former aerospace engineer, quit his desk job to do what he loves. He is brewing and bottling beers out of the Pour Decisions brewery while he looks for a space of his own. He'll add spirits to the mix when he gets the proper permits.

He'll be making spirits that are based on grains used in beer, like a smoked pure malt whiskey that's unaged but will be filtered through a charred oak barrel to give it more depth than a white whiskey. He also promises a gin that's full of botanicals and aromatics and a bourbon "like no one's ever seen before."

Blume says using craft-brewery-quality grains will improve the taste of his spirits and drastically reduce aging time.



Location: Twin Cities (location TBD);

Spirits: Gin, vodka

Background: Jon Bohlinger and Jesse Griffin are childhood friends who used to joke about starting a company. Bohlinger is a business-school grad; Griffin went to law school. When the fee for distilling was reduced in 2011, Bohlinger -- who says he's "the kind of nerd who reads through those things" -- saw the change and thought distilling would be "fantastic to do for a living."

The pair are in negotiations for a lease on a building in the Twin Cities and are busy studying (they are scholars, after all) how to make "diverse gins" and a vodka.



Location: 2045 220th Ave., Hallock, Minn.;

Spirits: Gin, spiced rum, rye whiskey

Background: Husband-and-wife team Michael Swanson and Cheri Reese are self-described "corporate refugees" who moved back to Swanson's family farm to start a distillery.

The grains are grown on the farm, and every step -- milling, mashing, fermenting, distilling, packaging -- will be done on the farm. The idea started when Swanson was getting an MBA at St. Thomas and wrote a paper about a craft distillery.

Swanson, who has a minor in chemistry and will be the head distiller, has trained with distilleries around the country, including 45th Parallel in Wisconsin. Reese has a marketing background.

They are farther along than some others on the list -- their gin will be available for sale next month and they'll have a spiced rum ready in time for Christmas.



Location: 4242 285th Ave., Isanti, Minn.;

Spirits: Rye whiskey, bourbon, gin

Background: Rick Schneider is a college art professor (he teaches glass blowing) who grew up in Rochester, Minn., but lived in Virginia, Maryland and Alabama before coming back to the state to start living his dream -- distilling.

He and his wife looked at 70 hobby farms before settling on one just outside Isanti. Their distillery will be located on the property.

Originally, Schneider wanted to grow the grain for his whiskey, but it turns out he doesn't have enough acreage. No matter, he has organic farmers growing for him "within two miles" of his future distillery. "You can't get much greener than that," Schneider said.

Schneider might be the most well-trained of the state's startup distillers. He attended a weeklong hands-on workshop at Dry Fly Distillery in Spokane, Wash., and also worked as an intern in Michigan State University's distiller program -- the only collegiate alcoholic beverages program in the country.

When he was there, he created a rye whiskey that is now aging in barrels, ready to be sold as soon as he opens.



Location: 525 Lake Ave. S., Suite 102, Duluth, Minn.;

Spirits: Aquavit, gin, a "peaty single malt," rye whiskey and bourbon

Background: Emily and Joel Vikre were living in Boston and working at desk-based jobs when they made a trip to Duluth for a visit. Emily's parents, who live in Duluth where she grew up, had just attended a Swedish whiskey tasting. The four of them started thinking: If the Swedes can make whiskey, why not Minnesotans?

"If anyone in the world has great grain, peat and water, it's Minnesota," Emily Vikre said. "It just kind of stuck."

She describes their gin line as "boreal" -- based on forest and terroir -- with juniper, spruce and cedar as the bases.

Some traditional aquavit ages in barrels that travel in ships from Norway to Australia and back, and the Vikres hope to send some of their barrels out in ships on Lake Superior.

Emily Vikre is working on a Ph.D. in food policy and nutrition and has a cooking blog ( Joel Vikre has helped start several nonprofits and is versed in the business end of things.



Location: 2610 E. 32nd St., Minneapolis;

Spirits: Gin, vodka, apple whiskey, eventually bourbon

Background: Chris Montana is a longtime home-brewer, and when the law changed, he and his wife, Shanelle Montana, began planning a distillery.

Grains will be sourced from Shanelle's family farm in Cold Spring, Minn., and other farms in the area.

The Montanas believe, like many other local start-ups, that Minnesota is the perfect place to have a distillery because of the climate and agricultural and freshwater resources.



Location: 1101 Stinson Blvd., Minneapolis;

Spirits: Vodka, gin, eventually whiskey and rum

Background: Scott Ervin was a St. Paul architect when his brother-in-law convinced him to tour 45th Parallel Spirits in Wisconsin. 

He was hesitant to go, but when he saw the process, he was instantly hooked.

“A few months ago, I quit my job to do this full time,” Ervin said.

Ervin toured some distilleries in Oregon, which he says is “a different world,” before starting his operation in Northeast Minneapolis

Norseman Distillery is fully licensed and already making spirits and should have vodka and gin on local shelves sometime in November.

Its vodka and gin are grain-based. The gin will be flavored with juniper, coriander, mint and rhubarb.

Ervin is testing batches of whiskey right now and will eventually make rum from a special Jamaican sugar.



Location: 1325 Armstrong Road, Northfield;

Spirits: Loonshine white whiskey, MetropoliGin, eventually an aged whiskey

Background: High-school pals Mark Schiller and Simeon Rossi started thinking about making their own liquor after a white Russian party during which Rossi, a bar manager at Harriet Brasserie in Minneapolis, made his own version of Kahlua. Both men live in the Twin Cities, but since start-up costs would be lower in Northfield, they settled on a building there.

That location is also closer to the farmers, which fits with the pair's vision of keeping their carbon footprint small. They'll be using locally foraged and grown botanicals -- such as spearmint, wintergreen and sarsaparilla -- in their gin. The base of their gin will be a white whiskey that has been distilled a second time, and they envision having a line of gins in different styles.

Rossi is a bar man who has an organic chemistry background. Schiller, who works at Best Buy, will be the business manager and marketing guru.
