April & May 2022

Building

In April, we bought the grain elevator and attached warehouse in the middle of Dillon, Montana. Since then, Derek has been cleaning and setting aside everything we might be able to reuse. See below for one of the many cool signs he’s found.

We’ve also been learning about the history of the building. Montana Cadastral says that the warehouse was built in 1920. The Williams Family told us that it was used as a buggy shop (which explains the wide ramp Derek recently uncovered in front of a closed-up garage door). The Williams’ bought the warehouse in 1947, built the grain elevator in 1952, and renovated in 1980. This summer, Katrina will be digging into the Beaverhead County archives to see what else she can uncover.

The week after we closed on the building, Dillon’s city-wide water main project started trenching along our street. This was lucky timing - we were able to have them install a 4” water line to the building. Now we have the setup we need as they were doing the work anyway!

Business

There is extensive paperwork to start a distillery, and we’ve taken the first steps by establishing our LLC with State of Montana and working with Stockman Bank for sound financials. Much more to do as we gear up for local, state, and federal licenses and permits (and their associated timelines).

A local artist, Birdie Hall, is helping us design our logo, signs, and bottle labels. We are thrilled she’s taken on our project. Updates next month!

We’ve started small with marketing. Our website is live - terminusdistillingcompany.com - and we’ll be adding more to it over time. We’re on Instagram at @terminusdistilling and will be setting up Facebook soon.

Distillery

Now, to the good stuff!

We’ve been researching stills: our most important piece of equipment. Continuous still? Pot still? How many gallons? What configurations for which spirits? Regardless of setup, we’re seeing volatile prices and long manufacturing timelines (often a year out).

Another early step has been to research and purchase essential equipment. Our first fermentation tanks just arrived from Idaho.

A few weekends ago, we took a Research Trip (I know, tough life) down to Idaho and Wyoming to visit three distilleries: Grand Teton Distillery, Jackson Hole Still Works, and Cowboy Country Distilling. All three were very different and all had excellent spirits to offer - we highly recommend checking them out. We learned even more than we thought we would and will be bringing lessons and ideas straight into our design for Terminus.

We’re so grateful for your support as we step into this exciting adventure!

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