March 2024
Building
Check out Derek’s current open-concept office where he’s been busy talking with the architect and civil engineer about bringing the floors down to street grade. The conversation is going well, but no official progress to report yet.
We do have patio plans though! We have to refinish some new-to-us picnic tables, then we’ll put them on the loading dock on the Town Pump side of the building. We’re going to purchase some gardening grow bags, fill them with dirt and hops rhizomes, and train the hops up twine and t-posts then across to eyebolts we’ll attach to the building. Hopefully, this creates a living wall and ceiling of vibrant green hops plants, providing both shade and a striking visual feature for our outdoor space (plus, who knows what fun we might have with hops in cocktails?).
Business / Community
Katrina talked to the Beaverhead Trails Coalition In Town Trails group this month. She presented our plans for a walk-up window and our hopes to make the walking and biking approaches as safe and accessible as possible. For example, for customers who want to walk to the distillery from downtown, they’ll have to cross busy Helena Street. Or, if anyone wants to walk to or from the Taco Bus (it’s only three blocks away!), that stretch of N. Idaho isn’t very pedestrian friendly (though it is quieter than N. Montana Ave.).
Distillery
Katrina is moving into shrub taste tests. Shrubs are drinks made from macerating fruit with sugar, draining off the syrup, and combining that syrup with vinegar (usually apple cider vinegar). As flavorful non-alcoholic drinks, they are both sweet and tart, in the same way a homemade lemonade is. The recent blind taste test among in-town friends was a straight strawberry peppercorn in Option A with orange bitters added for Option B. Taste testers generally preferred Option A, and multiple notes came in with how well it paired with gin. Upcoming fresh fruit season will mean many more shrubs to develop and perfect recipes for (rhubarb, cherries, plums, honeyberries, blueberries… can you tell we’re ready for spring and summer?). While shrubs are delicious on their own or with some sparkling water, we also like adding spirits to them for an easy, delicious cocktail.
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