Judith Tschann, Author

Paul Werni and his son Anton created a grain-to-glass family distillery called 45th Parallel. With a production facility in Wisconsin but a cocktail room in Stillwater, they built their reputation by sourcing the best crops from a local farmers and convincing them to become suppliers. He runs a distillery production facility that has expanded into an event center, restaurant, and bar, representing half of his business. With his expertise in farming and cocktails, Paul has become a respected figure in the industry.

Stephanie [00:00:12]:

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the podcast. We are here with Paul Werney and Anton Werney, and they are the co-founders of 45th Parallel Spirits and Distillery. And they are located in New Richmond, Wisconsin. And in the meantime, they've opened a cocktail room in Stillwater, Wisconsin, and they make some very delicious products. I think the first product I ever had of yours was the vodka because obviously that's where most people start. Right. But you were like I felt like the second person that I heard use the term grain to glass, the first person being Gina Carver at J. Carver Distillery.

Paul [00:00:54]:

Yeah, we were the first distillery in the region. And at that time, I was a little naive. I thought that everybody started with the raw materials and actually made their own stuff. But that is somewhat rare with some disorders.

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Stephanie [00:01:11]:

Yeah. And a lot of people will buy product and then make something with the byproduct, not unlike you see in the wine industry. Let's face it, very few people are actually growing their own grapes. They're buying grapes and then making their wine from that. But you guys really started with that grain to glass philosophy. And tell me about that. Like, literally seeing the grains and going, this is what I want to do.

Paul [00:01:37]:

Well, because of where we live, grain is what's available. You don't have a lot of fruits here or any other type of sugar sources, so you have to start with starches from grain, break them down. Fortunately, here in the Richmond, we're in a rural area, there's a lot of farmers here, so we have access to just about any grain that we want. And we get all our grain for our products is put on fire just on the road.

Stephanie [00:02:04]:

And did you know those people? And is that like, how did the first germ of an idea of like, hey, let's start making cocktail?

Paul [00:02:15]:

Well, as far as the farmer goes, I went to the local mills. When you have a farming community, you're going to have a mill. And so I went to the mills and I asked them who's going to have the best crops? And both mills gave me the same mail. And so I was able to convince that farmer to be a supplier. He's not a very large farm, about 500 acres, just a few employees, and that's it. As far as making cocktails, the industry, we started out as pretty much a production facility, and that's really what we are. However, the industry is changing. So small Distilleries really have to make money on site. So a few years ago, we added an event center, restaurant and bar. And now that's half of our business.

Stephanie [00:03:05]:

It'S not surprising to me because I did an event with you guys, and I've done lots of events at Distilleries, but I felt like you really has a loyal clientele. They were very into what we were doing that day. We did a bloody Mary tasting and also the whole restaurant side of it. You weren't just, like, offering Shakoori plates and had a food truck outside, like a lot of folks, you had, like, a full on restaurant, and the food was good.

Paul [00:03:33]:

Yeah. Well, I think you know who Scott Davis is, and he's and he's a friend of mine. We've known each other for 30 years, and he runs the kitchen over there, and he has a lot of experience in the Minneapolis area with running kitchens over there.

Stephanie [00:03:51]:

Yeah, it was clear that this wasn't and I don't mean to say that in a negative light, but for some folks, it's kind of an afterthought, right? They're trying to get you to stay around longer. They're trying to provide more amenities, but it wasn't what they started out to do. And you guys feel like you had an intentional way of going about that. And there aren't a lot of restaurants in that area. You're kind of in the middle of a field next to the liftbridge production facility, too, so I imagine people kind of come from all over.

Paul [00:04:25]:

We offer something different than a lot of the places in a small town. We have an Italian pizza oven, and we have a chef that has experience in the downtown Minneapolis market. We're not really trying to be your average and I don't mean this in a bad way bar food. We're trying to offer something different. New Richmond is a growing co...