March 2023

Building

Katrina visited the Beaverhead County Museum last week. With the help of Director Candi Whitworth, she looked through Hazelbaker Insurance papers from the 1960’s and 1970’s. Our building was on Dillon’s original townsite, Block 6, Lots 11-14. While the Montana Cadastral says our building was built in 1920, the insurance paperwork had it listed as built in 1910. 

That old receipt book we mentioned last month, from 1914, was from the Olmstead Stevenson company. We’ve done a bit of research in historic, digitized newspapers. Here’s a section from The Dillon Examiner from December 10, 1913 that talks about the Olmstead-Stevenson Company: 

Business

To keep you updated on Senate Bill 209, the House Business and Labor Committee passed this amended language on March 21 and sent it to the House, where it is currently listed as pending. The newest language aligns hours with those of breweries, maintains bottle sales at current levels, and increases the amount of alcohol that could be provided on premise (from 2oz per person per day to 3oz per person per day). It’s not clear when the House will vote, but we’re hoping the increased bottle sales might get added back (that would positively impact our tourist and holiday sales).

Distillery

At the end of this month, Derek visited the Black Swan Cooperage in Park Rapids, Minnesota. A woman-owned small business, Black Swan crafts barrels from regional trees. Derek saw the entire process from start to finish: from where they receive logs, how they cut them up into staves, shape the staves, assemble the barrels, toast the barrels, use sawdust from the process to char the insides, pound the rings on, put the lids on, and stamp each one. He was incredibly impressed with the setup, craftsmanship, and friendly people he met. 

Katrina has been working on a Bloody Mary Mix to serve in the tasting room. A bit of this, a bit of that, a spicy version, a mild version, tinkering towards the ‘just right’ recipe. So far, folks have been giving rave reviews - if anyone in town wants to do some taste testing as she keeps refining, please reach out.

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