{"id":3140,"date":"2020-07-26T12:55:47","date_gmt":"2020-07-26T12:55:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fx5.com\/en-gb\/?p=3140"},"modified":"2021-07-01T13:59:52","modified_gmt":"2021-07-01T13:59:52","slug":"client-spotlight-eastern-kille-distillery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fx5.com\/en-gb\/client-spotlight-eastern-kille-distillery\/","title":{"rendered":"Client Spotlight: Eastern Kille Distillery"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Getting Started<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Steve VanderPol, co-founder and distiller at Eastern Kille Distillery<\/a>, found his love of craft distilling in the same place FIVE x 5 Solutions found its start \u2013 Stranahan\u2019s Colorado Whiskey, in Denver. \u201cI drove past Stranahan’s every day on my way to work and eventually stopped in to take a tour,\u201d Steve recalled of his time in Denver five years ago. \u201cThat\u2019s where I fell in love with the concept of craft distilling and thought maybe if I move back to Michigan that I could bring that concept with me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he moved back to Michigan a few years later, he and business partner Brandon Voorhees found the local distilling industry still in its infancy and seized the opportunity. With their shared background in project management, they laid out some plans, found a location that was big enough to house both production space and a cocktail bar and, like every other distillery, it was smooth sailing from there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adapting for Long-Term Success<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s not how it happened, of course. As every distillery learns, the process to production and opening is never predictable. \u201cIt was about a two-and-a-half-year process from the point that we decided, yes, we are going to start a distillery before we turned our still on for the first time in December of 2015,\u201d Steve said. That included navigating financing, permit applications, and securing and completely renovating their building, which had been vacant for some 15 years after its life as a wheel manufacturing plant for the Big Three automakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of their grain-to-glass process for making whiskey, Eastern Kille initially planned to do everything on-site, including milling grain. Trial and error lead to them learning that milling thousands of pounds of grain each week was not only time consuming but also very messy; sourcing milled grain, rather than milling themselves, was one of several shifts they made in getting started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another transition was moving away from manually tracking production and attempting to put together reports themselves. \u201cI built everything into spreadsheets to track, but at the end of the month I would find things that didn\u2019t add up and was constantly having to go back,\u201d Steve recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[DISTILL x 5]<\/a> saves me ten hours a month between compiling the data and filing the reports. It\u2019s freed up so much time in entering data at the end of the day… and then when it comes time for the first of the month [for TTB reporting] it’s just a copy and paste [to Pay.gov]. It has been really, really nice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Million Things<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

When asked what he\u2019s done with those ten hours a month that he gained back, Steve\u2019s answer was quick. \u201cA million things! It\u2019s freed us up to expand new product lines, to focus on marketing, to focus on all the things it takes to run a business that you never think about,\u201d he said. \u201cInstead of sitting around filling out spreadsheets, you get to run your business. \u2026 [I]t\u2019s a big chunk of time each month that has helped out with. And there is that peace of mind in case we get audited.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With more time available to focus on the business, one of the first things the distillery focused on is what is now a robust cocktail program. On a normal (pre-COVID) Thursday night, the cocktail bar is a bustling place, though it came from humble beginnings. Originally, the tasting room featured seating from an old Papa John\u2019s; once the neighborhood caught on, though, they had to upgrade to \u201clegitimate furniture to sit on and rolling out a legitimate cocktail program,\u201d Steve joked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll of the bitters, all of the liqueurs, all of the vermouths we make on-site here to have a proper program with about 30 cocktails on our menu. About half are classics that everyone would know, and the other half are unique to the area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Removing the pressures of operations tracking and reporting also gave Eastern Kille time to focus on their product. Our visit to Eastern Kille was also just over four years after their first whiskey distillations, a big event for the team. When planning the distillery, Steve and Brandon wanted to focus on what they love most \u2013 American whiskey, specifically bourbon and rye \u2013 and the whiskey ready to bottle would be their first bottled-in-bond product release. DISTILL x 5 gave Steve and the team the ability to spend their time on what matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFocus on what your goal is and what your competency is going to be, like in our case hopefully making really good bourbon,\u201d Steve explained, \u201cand then [remove] everything that is distracting from that\u2026 focus on what you\u2019re good at.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Focus on Strengths<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a truism of starting a small business that you\u2019ll inevitably be pulled in all directions at once, and the urge to manage everything yourself \u2013 especially in an effort to minimize recurring costs \u2013 is strong. It\u2019s a hard lesson to learn that the investment in the right tools is often the best choice for the team, and for the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was a lot of stuff we did where we thought \u2018we\u2019re going to save a lot of money by doing it ourselves,\u2019 like not getting [DISTILL x 5] right away just trying to save a few bucks a month,\u201d Steve recalled. \u201cBut you find that the cost in your time is so drastic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ultimate test of that theory for Eastern Kille was when they decided to purchase \u2013 rather than rent \u2013 their ice machine, to eliminate the recurring monthly expense of the rental. The purchase did eliminate the monthly cost, but Steve soon found himself cleaning, maintaining, and fixing the ice machine \u2013 all tasks taking away from the time he had to spend on vital business operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet someone else handle your ice machine or your software for tracking your TTB reporting,\u201d Steve concluded. If the expense is an investment in your business, it\u2019s one worth making.<\/p>\n\n\n\n