Hey folks, It's been too long, for the following reason:
Em's grandma came to visit. Just kidding - it's the baby! Espen was born on September 12th - just squeaked by there. Espen is the name of the ashlad from Norwegian folklore - the plucky young boy who outsmarts the trolls by asking the princess what to do. His middle name is Noah, because we hope he'll become a project man - you know, taking on big ideas and trying to make them happen. You can visit Emily's blog if you want the details of just how magnificent and exhausting it has been, plus a recipe for cherry tomato cobbler with bleu cheese (the french kind) biscuits. As dad, I'll just say: I'm proud of both of them.
We've been sleeping not much, and getting visits from lots of wonderful people, and been well taken care of by family and friends. Meanwhile, the distillery has been going great guns.
Examples:
The vodka column was raised by lowering a cable through the roof from a crane on Lake Ave.
The boilers were installed.
Steam lines were fitted.
The kitchen was installed, mostly by screwing together some stainless tables.
With the invaluable assistance of my awesome dad (who also did an epic amount of painting, cleaning, assembling, etc. during a visit to meet Espen. Come back dad!), the stills were set into final place.
I started working on the vapor and water lines for our stills.
We endured some mild dangers.
There was a little extra steel work to do for a new wall requested by our regulators, the TTB.
And the floor off of Lake Ave was ground smooth-ish for your impending visit ;)
And this is not even to mention our appearance on television (I think that's some sort of antiquated device for watching netflix?), and in print, some important regulatory approvals, and our ongoing brand work.
Oh yeah, Espen's getting into the game too.
Cheers,
Joel & the gang
p.s. Bonus quasi-factual Duluth joke: Given how plumbers in Duluth wear their pants, now that Jim Carlson is in jail there's truly no crack in Duluth.
