Our foodie friends over at Eat.Drink.Dish MPLS gave us a writeup on their blog. If you’re passionate about food and drink and live in the Minneapolis/St Paul area you should follow them.
As of about 10:30AM today, on the 21st of April 2015, the state of Minnesota completed the final approval for Skaalvenn Distillery to start operations!
This has been a long, stressful, expensive yet fun process for us. Skaalvenn Distillery has officially been a business for over a year, we’ve been paying rent in our commercial space here in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota since July of 2014. We have been approved by the feds, the state of Minnesota, the city of Brooklyn Park, and all other agencies.
What’s next? We are starting up our fermenters, then we will be distilling, bottling and sending our Vodka & Rum to the distributor (Vinocopia) so that they can be distributed to Minnesota liquor stores, bars & restaurants.
What does the future hold? In the near future we will be starting tours. In the far future the sky is the limit. Since we at Skaalvenn actually ferment and distill our own products (many micro “distilleries” simply purchase bulk commercially made alcohol and call it handcrafted gin/vodka/whiskey) we are able to play around and experiment with new recipes as much as we want.
Do you like our microdistillery and want to help us out? Like us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram & Twitter @skaalvenn and like/share our statuses. Want us to see something? Just tag your post with the hashtag #skaalvenn
All combined we have some Norwegian, German, Cambodian, Chinese, and a hint of Native American.
However…
Above all else. We are American. We were born and raised here in the USA. If America didn’t exist, Tyson’s ancestors wouldn’t have come across the Atlantic from Norway and Germany. If America didn’t exist Mary’s family wouldn’t have come across the Pacific from Cambodia. If the United States never existed, Mary and Tyson would have never met.
So it’s fitting. Before we brought in anything else, we brought in the United States flag.
Buckle your seat belts and hang on. It’s going to be a fun ride!
Today, we took the plunge and signed the lease for our commercial space!
This is incredibly exciting (and scary) for us. It’s the first big step towards opening up. We don’t have investors, big bank loans or rich friends helping us out…It’s do or die trying!
We’ll follow up with pictures of the space and our progress as it comes along!