joe 0:47

Hey everyone, welcome to a new episode of Who's Who in Lake County. I have here with me Fred Wiesen from Lake Erie Distillery. Welcome, Fred. Nice to be

Fred 0:58

here, Joe. Thanks for coming out, man.

joe 1:00

So, uh, I hear we're here to talk about some

Fred 1:04

whiskey. Well, we're talking about more than whiskey. We're talking about vodka. We're talking about whiskey. We're talking about rum and dill chipotle vodka. That's

joe 1:10

right. You gotta tell me all about that. Um, so, tell me a little bit about, uh, your beginnings.

Fred 1:16

Well, you know, the way this occurred is 40 years ago, I started an industrial sales company. And I'm an outside sales guy. I like talking to people. I like interacting and solving problems. And, uh, we get to 2016, uh, my son's been with me about 20 years. I find I'm sitting behind a desk, I'm answering emails, I'm pushing paper. Uh, I'm not enjoying myself anymore. And I've told everybody that's ever worked for me, when you wake up in the morning and you don't enjoy your job, you need a new one. So I woke up and decided I needed a new one. So I went in and said, uh, you know, I need to take some time off and just kind of figure out what I want to do, uh, with where I want to go. And my wife wanted to go to Florida, so I said, well, why don't we drive down? Uh, now my wife's a non drinker. So the next part makes a lot of sense. We decided to do a distillery tour. So we did the Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. It took a week and a half to get to Florida. Okay. It was amazing. Uh, I had a wonderful time. Uh, so we get down here, we have good time. We come back up here and, and I'm a bourbon drinker and I went to some of the locals and, and it just, I couldn't find that high quality bourbon that should be up here. And people kept saying, if you want bourbon, you got to go to Kentucky. You got to go to Kentucky. And, and it was one of those that bothered me a bit. So I was whining and complaining, and I don't know if it was my wife or my daughters. They said, you know, Dad, I want you to make your own. Well, there's my, my next adventure in life. So that's how we got into the, uh, the distillery business. was we wanted to make something that was, I thought, drinkable to me.

joe 2:48

That sounds like a good idea.

Fred 2:50

That was it. And from there, uh, you know, it was supposed to be a hobby. Uh, so we made some stuff and put it out on the shelf. Strictly gonna sell for the bottle shop. And people kept saying, where can I buy it? Where can I buy it? And they were coming in from Mansfield, Toledo. Where can I buy it? So we started to put it in the stores. We're in 42 stores now. Uh, and growing, and it's become now, uh, uh, basically a large business from what was a hobby. Wow, that's pretty

joe 3:19

cool. Um, so now how long have you been

Fred 3:22

in this business? Well, we, we started the distillery in 2016. Okay. Uh, it takes a while to put the, make the whiskey, put it in barrels, wait for the barrels to age. So we were ready to release it in February of 2020. But there was no place to release it to in February of 2020. So our two year bourbon became a four year bourbon, which is now going on five years with some of the barrels. So April of 2022 is when we really... opened up the business, opened up the bottle shop and started to distribute. And then at this April, we opened up the uh, lounge area that we have with the distillery. So now we're doing cocktails and beer and some real light appetizers.

joe 4:03

Definitely have to stop out for that one. Absolutely. Um, so how does your business look, I guess,

Fred 4:11

from when you first started to now? You know, the difference between then and now is, is volume. Uh, that has increased the, the pride, the care, the quality we had in the beginning with each bottle stays true today. Uh, if you open up a bottle of mine today and a bottle a year ago, there's very little difference between any of those bottles. So consistency is something that we look at. That was always my biggest problem with a lot of craft breweries, distilleries type things is the inconsistent product. My background is engineering. I love data. So we chart and, you know, bell curve everything, uh, to make sure that each one of those bottles is exactly the same as the bottle before it. You know, worst thing in the world is you buy a bottle you love, you go to get the next bottle, and it's completely different.

joe 5:00

Right. So, that kind of sets you

Fred 5:02

apart? Well, what sets us apart is a couple of things. One, the quality of the product does. The fact that 80 percent of everything we do is sourced right here in Ohio. All of our grades come out of Asheville County. All of our grains go back to Ashtabula County as feed for the animals. It's one that we are very cognizant of the quality of the product we put out. We also, our community, I mean, it's all about doing things for other people too. So we're very community oriented. We support a lot of different organizations around. Uh, it's about giving back too. That's,

joe 5:36

that's cool. What, uh, what'd you find has been your hardest, uh, most challenging issues

Fred 5:41

that you had to deal with? Time. I just don't have enough time. It's, business has taken off. There's a lot of things that we can do. There's a lot of opportunities that are being presented to us. Time. Uh, that is the, the biggest problem we have. Yeah. You just gotta take it one day at a time. uh, you know, we try to fit more hours into a day than there are. I hear you there. What's your favorite part of doing this? People? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I said I'm an outside sales guy, like interacting with people. So when we, when we do the tasting room, And now with the lounge area, just interacting with people coming in, we have such a diverse group. I have guys that are CEOs of large companies coming in to, uh, one of my, my favorite guys is Animal. who comes in on his, uh, his bike, uh, and, and drinks there. It's, it's a really cool thing. It's just a very diverse group of people. They all feel welcome, which is what it's all about. Um, you know, we treat people like people. And you're located in Willoughby, right? We're in Willoughby off of Hammond Parkway. Okay. That's, uh, across the street from the new Aldi's and the fire station right in between the two, right down the street. So how

joe 6:57

long have you been doing sales type?

Fred 6:58

Business, the sales business itself? Yeah. Yeah. That started in, uh, 1970. So

joe 7:05

you've been around for a while,

Fred 7:09

been around a long time. Yeah. You know, it's one that I've always right outta high school, uh, you know, the engineering thing was of interest. And then we did an, an engineering sales person. Uh, and I did that all the way up until 1995. And then we got into selling the pieces parts with the other business and that continued to 2016 when it just needed, uh, needed to get back out again.

joe 7:36

So biggest challenge, what's your biggest challenge that you've had in this role? Not so much like sales, but I guess what's your biggest challenge that you've had in this role getting this off the

Fred 7:46

ground? Suppliers. Supply chain. That has been the biggest, the biggest hurdle we've had. Everything is delayed. Um. Was that it, like, starting

joe 7:56

or it, because you said you started, what, 2016?

Fred 7:59

Right. Well, 2016, uh, it was still one that, with what we were trying to do, our still came from Europe. Okay. Okay, so we had a problem in, in logistics and transfer and all of that. Um, so the, the supply chain was an issue there finding the right suppliers here because we're particular about the kind of corn we use, we're particular about our barley, so we just didn't want to go and buy anything that was out there and we were looking for relationships and partnerships with people who had a product that I could continue to use that product year after year after year and know that it was going to be consistent. You know, the biggest problem you have when you make anything is if you have raw material that varies in quality, right? But your end product varies in quality too, so that's something we wanted to stay away from. So the, you know, with the supply chain and then finding suppliers that could be reputable and, and be there on a regular basis and give us what we needed. That was difficult in the beginning. We locked in with some, they've been with us since the beginning. There's no reason to change. How did

joe 9:06

COVID affect

Fred 9:07

you? It actually helped us.

joe 9:11

I imagine people are staying home more.

Fred 9:14

Well no, we weren't selling them because we were ready to sell when COVID hit. But what we did is we went back and we looked at our labels. And we redid our labels. We redid our bottles. Uh, my Jamaican rum formula, we went back and we redid it to really develop the flavor and taste of a Jamaican rum. So we took that time to reinvest back into the product, looked at our procedures, fixed those a bit, and then when it came out in 2022, we were ready to go. Product had the right label, it had the taste it was supposed to, and we're off and running. So COVID

joe 9:47

wasn't too much of a bad thing for you? No, it

Fred 9:51

wasn't. Now, I will tell you that had I not have had the other business to rely on, COVID would have killed us. Because you're, you're making the product, you're buying the raw material, you're buying the equipment, you're putting it in for storage, and then you've got two years of no place to sell it. So unless you've got some kind of cash flow or high capital, you're done. So the benefit that I had was, with the other business being around for so long and being successful, I literally piggybacked this one off of that. Smart move, man. I think so. Did

joe 10:26

you always want to, uh, well, did you always want to be in sales? You've been in for a long time. Is that something that you say, Hey, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't a conscious

Fred 10:34

thing. Um, I just enjoy talking with people. Uh, and, and the thing that I, that I found when I first got into it is everybody thought that a salesperson is somebody who comes in and, and they just beat you up and beat you up and beat you up until you say yes. And I found that not to be what it should be. So I got into the engineering side, the capital equipment side, where it's more about, let me present the reason why you should be buying this or using this. And then you make the decision, instead of trying to force it on somebody. So I find that to be the thing that I enjoy the most. Let me present what I have, and then you make your decision as to whether it fits or not. And we do that with the alcohol. If people come in for a tasting, it's one of those, it sells itself. I don't have to sell it to you. Because if I sell you one, and you don't like it, you're not coming back for the second, well then I don't have a repetitive business and I'm out of business because there's only so many people you can sell to. So it's, it's about, uh, giving people options and letting them make their own decision.

joe 11:36

What's, uh, what's one of the things that, in, in this field here that you're in, the industry that you're in, that some people don't agree with you on? You know, it's, people tend to

Fred 11:51

think that in this industry that I'm in, that we spend too much time on the development of the product. I mean, we're one of the few that actually barrel ages our bourbon. Uh, there's a lot of rapid aging that goes on. There's a lot of different tricks and things that people do trying to cheat time. Ours goes in a barrel. It sits in the barrel. Uh, we do the flavored whiskeys. Our flavored whiskey is whiskey that's been in a barrel for two years before we add the flavor to it. And we're not trying to overpower the whiskey. I mean, I've got a great whiskey with two years in a barrel. All I want to do is compliment. So you should taste the whiskey, you should taste the flavor, and the two of them should go parallel together.

joe 12:31

What's your, uh, favorite productivity hack that you have?

Fred 12:39

Okay. So we, we use limestone water for our mesh and we were able to find a way to, instead of buying limestone water to make our own, and it's a proprietary thing and I'm not going to tell you how we do it, but we were able to take and reduce the cost of the water dramatically just by making our own, uh, you know, my opinion is if you're going to make a bourbon or a whiskey, it should be as traditional as you can possibly get. Okay. Mashes should always be in limestone water, in my opinion. Interesting. Never understood

joe 13:16

that. I love bourbon, but I just

Fred 13:19

love to drink it. It has to do with how the grains interact with the water, and how the yeast interacts with the water. So there's a whole... Chemical reaction type. There's a lot of things that go on. in the mashing process that the people don't understand. It has to do with temperature, it has to do with enzymes, it has to do with starch content, it has to do with sugar conversions. There's a lot of different things going on, which I guess is the part that I find the most enjoyable from an engineering standpoint, is we can data point everything. And I enjoy drinking it too.

joe 13:51

So if it doesn't taste bad when you buy something, you know that somewhere in the process that they've kind of, that something's different? I guess not yours, I'm just saying it's bourbon in general, I

Fred 14:04

guess. Well, you know, when you look at alcohol, and this is something that comes up a lot, is people come in and, let's say our bourbon is a 90 proof bourbon, right? And, or the vodka at 80. And people, when you give it to them straight, they go, I can't drink that, I don't drink straight liquor. And you ask why, and it's well, because, you know, it burns and it's rough. Well that's, that's poor liquor. That's all that is. Um, I have at the distillery a bottle of 190 proof ethanol. No taste, no smell, no burn. So pure ethanol doesn't have any of that. Where you get the burn and you get the chemical smell and all of that is because the distillation process wasn't as tight as it should be. So you got too much up front or you got too much at the back end mixed into the middle which is the good stuff. And that's where you end up with these odd flavors or this, this burn that you get when you drink alcohol. Never

joe 15:02

knew, man. Mmm. I just stay away from it. I only drink the ones I like, which are nice and smooth.

Fred 15:07

That's how you should do it. But you know, it's one of those people talk about getting a hangover. But you get a hangover not from the alcohol you drink. You get a hangover because they put the front end, which are the lighter alcohols, the acetones and things, were mixed in with the alcohol. to increase the volume. So if you drink high end alcohol, you're not going to feel well the next morning, but you're not going to wake up with that massive hangover. IV

joe 15:34

works too. I've got a few

Fred 15:38

nursing friends. There you go.

joe 15:42

So what would you think, what would you be doing if you had a choice or if there was something else, would you be doing anything else besides that?

Fred 15:50

Uh, this was my choice. I, I would do something. I don't know. I mean, I didn't know I was going to do this until I did. Yeah. So it's, uh, you know, if I wasn't doing this, you know, maybe I'm selling popcorn. I have no idea. At what

joe 16:09

point would you consider your business a success?

Fred 16:16

I don't know if you ever considered the business a success. Because what is success? It's different for everybody. It really is. It's different for everybody. I mean, people say my, my other business is wildly successful. Okay. I mean, we have a building, my employees are happy. My employees get paid. Uh, you know, we do things in the community. If that's how you count success, we're successful. But to me, it, it's, you know, it's not about business success. It's about what do you do as a person? That's, that's where success comes from. Are you, do you have a decent life? Are you involved in the community? Do you do things to help other people? My wife and I are very big into the, you know, you gotta give to get. And I think a lot of people forget that part. It's more about what can I get, what can I get? And not giving back. Yeah, and I see

joe 17:11

that too. Yeah, it's

Fred 17:13

a sad thing. It's one of those, we find that with the liquor we sell. You know, we have people come in and say, you know, why aren't you selling it for more? It's worth more than what you're selling it for. Because I don't need to. You know, we, with our bourbon, uh, we compete with those that are in the 55 to 65 dollar bracket. And we will match or beat them every single time. I'm at 39 dollars. Could I charge 20 bucks more? Probably. But why? You know, the idea with us was I wanted to have a high quality product that everybody could enjoy. Because there were years and years and years ago where for me to spend 65 on a bottle of bourbon, uh, it means somebody in the house isn't eating. You know, and there's a lot of people who are like that, where they, they need a decent drink. And not, not saying that you should drink all the time, but, you know, where you want to have a nice drink, but you can't afford that, so now you're buying something that's bottom shelf. And that's just not right. There's no reason for it to be that. So we market ours where, you know, normal people can buy a bottle of bourbon. It's, I like to call it a daily drinker. You know, you got your car you keep in the garage when you drive on the weekends. That's where your high priced bourbon goes. Put it up on the shelf. But you, you know, you come home in the evening, you're after dinner, you're watching TV, you just want an old fashioned, you want something. No reason you should sacrifice your taste.

joe 18:38

Yeah, leave the, uh, high stuff for, uh, special guests. Or keep it hidden for yourself when, you know.

Fred 18:44

I like to keep it up on the top shelf. Yeah, I

joe 18:50

mean, I, I drink for the taste. I don't, you know, I guess to me, I don't look like, oh my gosh, I'm buying a 300 bottle of bourbon. That must be the greatest thing on the planet.

Fred 19:00

Yeah, you know, price has nothing to do with that. It really doesn't. I mean, I've had bourbons that were 140 a bottle that, uh, I could use for drain cleaner. I mean, they were that bad. Uh, so the price has nothing to do with what's in the bottle. It has to do with the quality of the product in the bottle and your taste. So, uh, you know, I don't want to sound pompous, but you know, I have people that drink my stuff that say, why was I standing in line at Giant Eagle to get that limited release? Yours is as good as that. Uh, and it's, you know, 40 bucks cheaper. I'm

joe 19:35

around patting yourself on the back. So, uh, tell me where the listeners

Fred 19:42

can find you. Okay. Uh, well, there's a couple of ways they can do it. They can certainly come to the distillery. over on Hammond Parkway. Uh, the other thing, we are located, as I said, in a number of stores. If you go to OHLQ. com, you find our distillery name, you click on the details, it'll show you a map in the state of Ohio, and it'll show you all the stores we're in. And if we're not in a store, they should ask for it. Uh, what people don't understand is the, the state liquor stores are consignment stores. Yeah, I did not know that. Yeah, it's a consignment store. Uh, they're not paying for the liquor, it's owned by the state of Ohio. So if you go in and request something, it doesn't cost them anything to bring it in, but they won't bring things in that people aren't asking for because there's limited shelf space. There's over 4, 000 products in the state of Ohio that can go into an agency store. So they're going to bring in only what's being asked for. So what happens if it doesn't sell? Uh, then they take it out. What do they

joe 20:40

do with it though? Take it and do what?

Fred 20:41

Give it back to you? Well, it, it depends on whether it's a broker. Uh, a craft distiller like me in the state of Ohio or somebody international as to what occurs with it. But if it doesn't sell in the stores, it gets removed from the store. First off, they go to what they call last call. Where they drop the price on it and they put it in the cart in front of the door. Yeah, I've seen those. Yeah, that's the stuff that's, uh, you're looking at the last bottles of that there's ever going to be. Okay. Good to know. Uh, you know, sometimes you can get some really decent deals out of that with good high quality stuff where people just didn't know about it. And it ends up there, uh, which is why we are very aware of the fact we need to get people to know about our stuff so it doesn't end up in that cart. Right,

joe 21:24

right. So what we didn't talk about was, um, your line that you have

Fred 21:29

of product. Well, there you go. Now you're going to turn me loose. All right. So let's talk about

joe 21:33

that.

Fred 21:34

Let's, let's start with the big one. Let's start with the, uh, the bourbon. Okay. So our bourbon is, uh, as I said, Made from mashed limestone. All of our grains are local. Uh, it is barrel aged for four years in a Char 4 American Oak barrel. Barrels are from Speyside, uh, Cooperage, which is down by Dayton. They sit in our, quote unquote, Rick House outback shipping container, uh, for four years. Some coming up on five now. It's a very true, traditional bourbon. It's one that if you take mine and you go to Kentucky and you sit the two beside each other, they're identical. I could call mine a Kentucky bourbon if I was in Kentucky. It's that close. Uh, then we have our vodka, which we make from whey. Great benefit of making vodka from whey. The bite that vodka normally has drops down dramatically. The viscosity goes up, so it has a little creamier, silkier mouthfeel to it. It is sustainable, water positive, and carbon negative. So it is a green. So every bottle we make, we do our part to save the earth. Every bottle you buy, you do your part to save the earth. And you can mix it in a glass, you can turn to the person next to you, take a sip, and say, I'm doing my part to save the earth. Okay? So then our third product is our Jamaican Rum. And our Jamaican rum is a true Jamaican rum. It is made from molasses. It's the third run of molasses, blackstrap molasses, sugarcane, the yeast we import out of the Caribbean. It comes out of Trinidad. We ferment it at a high temperature for two weeks before we put it into the still. So it has all of the characteristics of a Jamaican rum. And what's important to note here is Jamaican rum and Caribbean rum are not the same things. Each one of the islands does a different thing with the sugarcane. And that translates into a different kind of rum. So if you get into, um, some of the outlying Korean islands, you're getting into a sweeter type rum. This is a molasses based. Taste that comes up front with it is going to be caramel or butterscotch. And then we have our dill pickle vodka, which is the number one selling dill pickle vodka in the state of Ohio. Uh, here you got to be thinking Bloody Mary. You got to be thinking pickle martinis. Those kinds of things. And then we do the seasonals. Right now our seasonal is a maple whiskey. So that's our two year barrel aged whiskey, uh, with maple syrup. Everything we do is all natural. Nothing artificial in any of my products. I wonder how that would taste with coffee. It's amazing. It's really great with pancakes. Dip the pancake into it.

joe 24:07

Do you put a little syrup in there too or no?

Fred 24:09

No, no, just the maple syrup whiskey. I mean the maple whiskey and dip your pancake in. A little bit of sausage. You got breakfast. Nice.

joe 24:19

What else you got? What can I tell you?

Fred 24:22

Um, you know, we

joe 24:24

just, uh, As far as the lines go, that's what you have. Yeah, that, that's, that's what we have.

Fred 24:29

Um, people ask about tequila. We don't have a tequila. Okay. Uh, and the reason behind that is to be tequila. It has to be imported out of Mexico from a certain state in Mexico with a certification that says it's tequila. Interesting

joe 24:41

stuff, man. We're learning lots of stuff. You know,

Fred 24:44

I have a good time with this. Sounds like it. Yeah, I really do. I enjoy this. This is, this is a lot of fun. There's a lot of misinformation out there. Uh, I spent a lot of time researching things out, checking things out, making sure my facts were right. Um, because it's one of those people should know what they're buying and what the differences are. So what

joe 25:06

keeps you up at night?

Fred 25:10

Keeps me up at

joe 25:11

night. This is kind of one of those deep questions. Yeah. You know,

Fred 25:20

I guess the one that keeps me up now. Yeah. It's how big do I want to get? How much do I want to spend and invest? And how big do I want to get? And it's one of those, I'm not a young guy anymore. Uh, so you know, I know that you're looking down at the end of the road here.

joe 25:36

Not that much risk left in the tank,

Fred 25:39

right? No, I got risk. That's not an issue. Um, my wife doesn't have risk. I have risk. That's the thing about her and I. She is very risk avoidant. I tend to follow risk. To me, let's roll the dice and see what happens. She's gotten used to three meals a day and a roof over her head. It's just, I don't know. But no, that's it. It's one that, you know, I don't know how big I want to get. Um, you know, there's, there's a couple of problems that come into play. It's people. It's very difficult to find people now, uh, employees. We have it on the other business. I have it on this one. So you get to a certain point where you exceed the capability of what you have for infrastructure, and now a couple of things are either going to happen. You become this big mushroom that you fall over and the business disappears, or you start making an inferior product. So we're, that's a thing that keeps me up. How can I, how can I grow this? How can I expand this? But do it correctly.

joe 26:40

Right. So, uh, here we got, uh, Big Fred and we got Little Fred. What does Big Fred say to Little Fred as he's going through his years of growing up?

Fred 26:53

Trust yourself. Perseverance. Keep moving forward. Don't stop.

joe 27:01

Action. Take action.

Fred 27:03

That's it. It really is. It's one, and I tell people, you know, they come in and we talk about, you know, they want to start a business. And I say, well, do you have a plan B? And most people say yes. I say, go with plan B. Because if you have a plan B, you've already determined you're going to fail. Yeah, I mean... You've already, you've already had your failure plan in place. Everything I've ever done, I've never had a plan B. I don't have a plan B now. If you don't have a plan B, you've got to make it work, because there's no other options. I

joe 27:38

think Arnold Schwarzenegger said something

Fred 27:39

about that. Something along that line. Very philosophical. Uh,

joe 27:43

I wish I knew what he said because I tried to

Fred 27:44

do it. But it really is. It's one that, you know, people, and particularly now, they don't tend to trust themselves. You have to trust yourself and you have to know you're going to fail. I mean, I, I, with my first business, I can't tell you how many times we came really close. In fact, twice we did of just an absolute failure. But the next day we open back up and we try again.

joe 28:16

So, uh, now those two questions that I had asked or I had asked you to pick out. Do you remember those two

Fred 28:26

questions? Well, the one you already asked me. Okay. And that is, uh, what question do I wish somebody would have asked me? Yep. So we covered that. The other one is, what do I think is, what's success? Yeah, we did cover that. We covered them both. Yeah, success to me is, I got a great family, I got good friends, I got a decent business, um, we help people, um, you know, we're involved in the community. I think

joe 28:54

sometimes people think too hard on that. I know I have.

Fred 28:59

They do. You know, when, when I was younger, I mean, if you asked me what success was, it was about dollars. Yeah. You know, and when I first got into business 40 years ago, it was about chasing dollars. And then I realized, uh, maybe 20 years later that, uh, if you quit chasing dollars, the dollars will find you. Yeah. As long as you're chasing the dollars, you continue to chase the dollars and then treat people like people. Good stuff, man. It's good stuff. It's what makes life go around.

joe 29:32

I appreciate you coming out today. Is there anything else that you'd love? Would like to have the listeners know about

Fred 29:38

you and your business? Come see me. Come see what we're about. Yeah, we're going to do

joe 29:42

that. Uh, I want to come out there. Um, maybe do a couple of minute video.

Fred 29:47

Okay. Well, you're more than welcome. More than welcome.

joe 29:50

All right. All right, I'll, I'll have to bring my sidekick and, uh, they can hit record and, uh, we'll have a good time. There you go. Well, thanks for it. I appreciate you, uh, coming out here and, uh, we'll have you on again. Very good, Joe. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. See how things are going, uh, down the road. They're going to keep going up. Oh, that's good. Thanks again, man. Appreciate you. All right.