417 Magazine Whiskey Fest 2012
Distillery Continues Ozarks Tradition
WALNUT SHADE — Just off the beaten path in northern Taney County, one man is continuing one of the area’s oldest and richest traditions — legally.
“We’re the first legal distillery in the Ozarks since Prohibition ended,” said Jim Blansit, owner of Copper Run Distillery, sitting at the bar in his tasting room last week. “There are plenty of illegal stills in the area, but we’ve got no legal competition.”
And Blansit may have all the required legal documents in place, but he still doesn’t shy away from calling his signature product — corn whiskey — “moonshine,” a term primarily associated with any kind of illicitly brewed alcoholic drink.
He said moonshine has long been a part of Taney County’s history.
“During the Great Depression and Prohibition, many families in this area opened small stills just to have a little extra income,” he said.
That includes Blansit’s own family. He said two of his great-uncles, who were also from Walnut Shade, brewed corn whiskey moonshine for decades, using the same techniques he still uses today, though he never got the opportunity to try their recipe.
“They were early moonshiners,” he said. “Unfortunately, they were old men and I was a young man back when we were hanging out together, so I didn’t get to learn from them.”
Blansit said that he has been interested in brewing alcohol since long before he could legally drink it, which really should come as no surprise, considering that both of his grandfathers were also in the business. They were both winemakers, which inspired his first foray into brewing when he was 13.
“My brother, John, and I grabbed a gallon of Mom’s grape juice and some of Mom’s bread yeast and put it under our bunk bed to try to make wine,” Blansit said with a laugh. “We really didn’t know what we doing, but it tasted good to us. We didn’t know any better.”
Blansit grew up on the family farm where he now lives, and where Copper Run Distillery was built. The land has been in his family since his great-grandparents, he said.
“We were fortunate to leave the city life and live off the land. We didn’t go to the store for ketchup, we made ketchup,” he said. “My parents taught me at a young age that quality products come from making them yourself.”
He’s incorporated a lot of those lessons into his distillery, which opened to the public in 2009. His products, which include corn whiskey, corn vodka, rum made from blackstrap molasses and an as-yet-unreleased bourbon, are made in small batches over a process that can take a couple of weeks — not counting the aging process some spirits require.
Blansit may use some new equipment, but his techniques are centuries old. He said he considers it a privilege to continue to educate the public about the skill and ingenuity of the men who comprise a significant part of the heritage of the Ozarks.
“The old-timers really knew what they were doing,” he said. “The techniques they used make a really clean, smooth whiskey.”
The process involves making a mash by grinding corn, mixing it with water and allowing fermentation to break down the existing starch into sugar. The mash is then double-distilled in a 150-gallon copper pot to produce a clear whiskey, which Blansit dilutes with water and bottles at 80 proof.
The grains, water and oak barrels Copper Run uses are all sourced locally, and for good reason, he said.
“The oak trees we have here in the Ozarks are famous for making the best whiskey barrels,” he said.
The limestone-infused water that can be found here, too, is “perfect” for making spirits, according to Blansit. He said that’s because it’s high in calcium and magnesium content, and doesn’t contain any iron.
“For some reason, iron is known to react with alcohol to make a terrible taste,” he said. “And it’s really rare to find limestone water with no iron.”
Despite Blansit’s fascination with brewing alcohol, he readily admits that he also saw Copper Run as a promising financial opportunity. After spending more than a decade in the microbrewery industry—mostly in California—he got into the real estate market just before it crashed in the recession.
“I noticed that looking through history, alcohol was something that seemed to be recession-proof,” he said. “People drink when times are good, and they drink when times are bad.”
The Copper Run tasting room offers a menu of $5 cocktails, including a moonshine margarita and “moontini,” as well as more traditional drinks. Also featured on alternating Sundays is live music, courtesy of talented local musicians Mark Bilyeu, a founding member of bluegrass band Big Smith, and Cindy Woolf.
In addition, Blansit plans to begin hosting music festivals at the distillery next summer. Copper Run is open daily from 10 a.m.-7 p.m., after which it can be reserved for private parties.
It’s About Quality, Not Quantity! – OzarksFirst.com
Copper Run Distillery produces whiskey, rum, vodka, and moonshine. Making the spirits in small batches might be better than mass-production.
Owner Jim Blansit says distilleries are a new trend and he expects them to be popping up in different parts of the country, as well as in Missouri. He says people are fascinated with the valor of moonshine and the history. “It seems as though everyone has a story of a grandfather or an uncle or somebody that was making moonshine in the day.” Even he has one. “Back in the 70’s as well, when there was a gas crisis my father did a small batch — an experiment batch of corn whiskey on his stove — and I saw him make a small batch to run his car and so ever since then I’ve been fascinated with the idea of making corn whiskey.” And that’s their number one product that they make. “We also produce rum from black molasses and we make vodka and we also age our corn whiskey into a bourbon sour whiskey.” And they make their moonshine from corn. “The recipe is actually 80 percent corn and 20 percent wheat.” They have a very traditional way of making corn whiskey that produces a unique product and flavor. “We do the old-fashioned sour mash process and we double distill a copper pot.” Then they take corn and wheat and grind the raw grains into corn meal and then mix it with water. “And allow the natural sour mash process to break the corn starch down into corn sugar.” Then they ferment that with yeast. “We can produce our corn whiskey in less than two weeks from the raw ingredients to the finished product.” There are two reasons why producing whiskey here in the Ozarks is so special. “One, the water that we have here — the limestone water — is perfect for making whiskey with the calcium and the magnesium,” says Blansit. The other is the white oak trees that grow here. “They’re world famous for making the best whiskey barrels.” He says they char the barrels and catch them on fire to cook the sap inside of the wood. “And caramelizes those sugars into flavors like vanilla, butterscotch, toffee, and burnt marshmallow.” So they add their whiskey to those barrels and through that aging process the whiskey picks up a lot of the flavor from the barrel. “It goes down smoother!” And the color gradually becomes darker the longer the whiskey is in the barrel. But what makes this distillery’s spirits better than what you would buy in your local store? “I think our spirits here are made with a lot more love,” says Cindy Woolf, a Copper Run employee.
And the ability to make small batches. “It’s a knowledge,” says Blansit. “An awareness of how things can be made compared to how they’re mass-produced.” He says the hands-on ability to make one small batch at a time allows them to make something really unique. “We’re not focusing on quantity; we’re really focusing on the quality.” Copper Run Distillery always offers a tour of the facility and a sample of each product it produces. It retails all spirits along with t-shirts, logo glasses, and handmade gift boxes. It is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. It has live music every Sunday starting at 1:30 p.m. featuring local singer/song writers like Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu. Cindy Woolf and Molly Healy will be performing this Sunday, December 11.
Copper Run is also available for private parties from 7 p.m. to midnight.
You can enjoy a moonshine margarita, hot apple pie, rum punch or a whiskey hot toddy in their sample room.
Their logo and labels were designed by Creativore in Springfield.
Copper Run Distillery: It’s About Quality, Not Quantity! – OzarksFirst.com.
Missouri Life
“When you see this moonshiner half-drunk and asleep, the fact is he was working,” Jim says. “I have a tremendous amount of respect for them. I know how much work it is with electricity and pumps. One old moonshiner I talked to—his job was to carry water up a hill and pour it on that coil for eight hours.”
When the age of the revenuer came and the demands of prohibition increased production, the process changed again. Moonshining became an enterprise. Clandestine methods took on new twists. Technology and enterprise found investors and collaborators.
In the Ozarks, it nestled up to ranchers and bakers. These legitimate businesses could acquire the corn, sugar, and yeast in quantity without raising suspicions. Often they got paid in moonshine for their trouble. This is the era that lingers in our cultural memory. These are the stories swapped by old-timers, who still wander into his shop, wondering what Jim is up to and willing to share their tales.
“I’ve always been fascinated by it, and I always listen,” Jim says. “They want to see if I’m doing it right. They want to taste mine, and I want to hear their stories.” Today everything is legal, resulting in a mountain of paperwork. Because of varying alcohol content within the spirits, the accounting can be a bit of a hassle.
Now they use a hydrometer to check the strength of the spirit. In the old days though, they used fire. The term “100 Proof” refers to the fact that at 50 percent alcohol content, the liquid would sustain a combustion of gunpowder, offering assurance that the alcohol was there.
Even at Copper Run, the romantic notion and whiff of the historic illicit activity lingers and draws people from miles away. Dino Neis, a tour-bus driver from Minnesota, made a side trip while transporting a tour group. When he heard there was a place to get genuine Ozarks Moonshine, he left a load of ladies at a theater in Branson and scooted back up the road for a visit.
Dino has toured all the big distilleries, but Copper Run offers a connection to spirits that a large distillery just can’t match. “For one thing, the barrel room here is nine barrels,” Dino says. “You have a much more hands-on experience. When you have millions of barrels going, you can’t test all of them. I like the craftsmanship of it.” The popularity of the product has created something of a production bottleneck.
When people hear about Copper Run, they stop. When they stop, they buy. Jim’s plans to age his whiskey into bourbon have been hampered by the fact that he can sell the moonshine and whiskey a lot faster than he was expecting, and expansion is under way. A new deck and shop are planned, as well as space for increased production. A vodka product is on the horizon for Copper Run as well as a fruit-flavored moonshine using local fruit.
You can also age your own spirits with the Copper Run Barrel Guild. You can purchase one-gallon, three-gallon, five-gallon, and 10-gallon barrels to start aging your own bourbon directly from Copper Run.
“Sippin’ History At Copper Run” by Sandy Clark, photo by Mark Scheifelbein.
The Road to Ozarks Moonshine – Springfield Business Journal
Alcohol artisan Jim Blansit taps into the budding micro-distillery industry
Jim Blansit, owner of Copper Run Distillery in Walnut Shade, often gives tours of his two-year-old plant, which is only the fourth of its kind in Missouri.
Copper Run Distillery specializes in corn whiskey, aka moonshine, but also produces molasses rum and vodka.
Branson native Jim Blansit is an artisan by heritage.
He comes from a family of wine makers and farmers, and he was raised on the ideals of homemade goods.
For Blansit, that meant dabbling in beer making as a hobby and later in commercial wine and beer production. Now, he’s applied his Old World style to whiskey, running Copper Run Distillery on the former family farm in Walnut Shade.
“We truly ate off the land,” Blansit says. “We raised our own food.”
The two-year-old small-batch distillery on five acres specializes in corn whiskey, aka moonshine, but also produces molasses rum and vodka.
Last month, Copper Run began selling alcohol by the drink in its on-site tasting room to add to its bottle sales, which comprise 95 percent of revenues, which Blansit declined to disclose. He’s now positioning the young company to tap into the wholesale business.
“We’re going to get into wholesaling to bars and restaurants,” Blansit says, noting that early distribution points are at the Brown Derby International Wine Center in Springfield and Palate Wine Shop in Branson.
Copper Run holds one of the nearly 300 distilled spirits plant licenses nationwide and is among four in Missouri, according to the American Distilling Institute. In 2003, ADI says only 63 distillery licenses were issued, and the group projects more than 400 within five years.
“It’s an exciting time in the spirits world,” says Blansit, whose Missouri peers are in Kansas City and St. Louis. “I’m a little ahead of the curve.”
Capturing the spirits
Blansit was schooled first in the wine business at Stone Hill Winery, at age 19, and then in craft brewing in the early 1990s in San Diego and San Francisco. A move back to the Springfield area sent him working at Rye Bread & Apple Core.
After a stint in real estate that fizzled with the market, Blansit in 2007 began to research microdistilleries and was hooked on the idea of introducing the first in the Ozarks since Prohibition’s end in 1933. A year later, he began lining up his liquor permits through Taney County. In April 2008, he tapped Regions Bank for a $90,000 home equity loan to fund construction and started building the distillery a month later.
Once licensing was approved and with help from his father, Jim, and friend David Alviar, Copper Run Distillery began production in May 2009. The first batch was bottled for sale by the end of the year.
Blansit says the flagship moonshine, made from locally sourced corn and wheat, can be ready for sale in two weeks, start to finish.
The No. 2-selling rum is made with blackstrap molasses and aged in sherry casks used by Stone Hill Winery. “I go down there as fast as I can to pick them up and fill them full of our rum,” he says.
Copper Run’s 80-proof vodka is diluted with Ozarks mineral water, a boon to the process because it is without iron. “The criteria for vodka is that it’s flavorless, odorless and colorless,” Blansit says.
Next on Copper Run’s docket is bourbon whiskey, which requires two years of aging. Blansit says his bourbon barrels will be ready to open and sell by fall 2012.
“We’re maxed out around 100 gallons of spirits per week,” Blansit says, noting he and his four staff members produce about 60 gallons, or one barrel, of moonshine and 40 gallons of vodka per week. “It’s easy to experiment with small batches and create these whiskeys that no one’s tasted in hundreds of years. It’s going back to the way people used to distill and using the local ingredients they had at the time.
“If you were a wheat farmer, you made wheat whiskey. We’re looking at having a family of whiskeys, each one using a different variety of corn.”
Barrel club
He says Missouri is among the few states to permit a spirits producer, wholesaler and retailer under one roof, and he’s taking full advantage.
Earlier this year, Blansit borrowed against the equity in the business for a $75,000 second note, allowing for completion of a self-described speakeasy tasting room. Regions Bank again provided the financing.
Branson branch manager David Kean says Regions accepted the loan risk for three reasons: Blansit’s industry knowledge and strict adherence to distilling laws; real estate was used as collateral; and niche industry such as distilling are appealing.
“Regions has a big appetite for small-business loans,” says Kean, noting his branch signs about one small-business loan a month and lends $150,000 per quarter.
Along with sales by the bottle and by the drink, Blansit sells by the barrel, and has amassed a club of 44 barrel owners, who age their whiskey at home.
“The clear moonshine takes on a beautifully deep amber color and absorbs flavors,” he says of the six-month process that produces hints of vanilla, butterscotch and caramel, as well as leather, tobacco and burnt marshmallows from the charred oak barrels purchased from Gibbs Bros. Cooperage in Hot Springs, Ark.
He says the trick to aging the bourbon at home is only pouring out half the barrel every six months and topping it off with new whiskey. “The old whiskey tells the new whiskey how to taste,” he says.
Blansit buys the larger, 55-gallon barrels, from Independent Stave Co. in Lebanon.
He’s tabbed Springfield marketing firm Creativore LLC to develop Copper Run’s identity off the farm.
“Jim’s best asset is Jim,” says Whitney Corliss, his strategy partner at Creativore. “It was our job to bring him to life, bring the same intimate passion he has without him there.”
Creativore designed Copper Run’s logo, bottle labels and brand identity. Last week, Blansit filmed a 30-second TV commercial to air on KSPR.
“We’ve been word of mouth. It’s been friends of friends supporting us,” he says. “We’re just getting to the point now where we can begin advertising.”
by Eric Olson of Springfield Business Journal (linked)
First Friday Art Walk, August
