Gray Skies was founded by two friends trying to build a business they love and create spirits they are proud of. Steve Vander Pol and Brandon Voorhees have known each other since grade school and after decades of friendship they purchased a dilapidated building in 2014 which eventually became Gray Skies Distillery.
We feel great spirits are a reflection of where they are made. The same Great Lake responsible our namesake wintry gray skies provides the water we use to craft our spirits. An image of Lake Michigan is printed on every bottle we manufacture. Gray Skies spirits are a distillation of the Midwest, Michigan, Grand Rapids and our neighborhood. We are a small batch distillery sitting in Grand Rapids North Monroe industrial district, a place with a long tradition of making things. We chose this area to continue this tradition. We make spirits simply because we love doing it and we hand bottle everything we make in Grand Rapids because we love being here. Our grains and malt come from Michigan farmers.
There is a motto at Gray Skies: good hooch made local. Our only goal is if you try one of our spirits you agree this motto fits. We spoke to the Co-Founder Steve Vander Pol about what makes whiskey made in Michigan so rich and complex.
Steve, tell us about yourselves. How did you find yourselves in the world of spirit distillation.
SVP: Gray Skies is a collaboration between my life long friend Brandon Voorhees and myself. We both come from families of entrepreneurs and were hoping, individually, that we could start a business that we were passionate about someday. I became interested in craft distilling while I was living in Denver Colorado and toured Stranahan’s Single Malt Whiskey Distillery. I loved everything about the whiskey making process and reached out to Brandon to see if he would be interested in collaborating to start our own distillery. From that point, it was an multi-year intensive process of learning how to craft our own unique spirits and doing all the work of taking a distillery from dream to reality while keeping our day jobs.
Tell us how the Gray Skies Distillery come about. Tell us about the name.
SVP: Gray Skies Distillery is situated in Grand Rapids, MI. Recently, this winter, Grand Rapids went an entire week without a single minute of sunshine. Lake Michigan routinely creates a gray atmosphere for long stretches in the winter here. We wanted a name that was evocative of where our spirits were made. We initially had this idea in January and nothing was more reminiscent of our corner of the Midwest at that moment than gray skies.
As with any new business, what challenges did you face when starting your distillery. What were some of your proudest moments.
SVP: There are a laundry list of challenges specific to starting a distillery that range from meeting city ordinances and fire codes to finding suppliers for equipment and sourcing local ingredients. I think our biggest struggle was converting our rundown warehouse into a functioning distillery that met fire code and fit our budget. It was a lot of work and collaboration between our selves, the contractor and the city but I am very proud of the finished product. Running a distillery can feel like a series of small battles that range from your floor pump breaking down to running the fork truck out of fuel at an inopportune time.
Day to day there are lots of small victories that we feel proud of. Big picture I think two of our proudest moments were the day we installed the still (placing a 6500 liter pot and rectifying column is no simple task) and recently we our first barrel of bourbon turned 1 year old and we tapped into it to taste our progress. We are very proud of making our bourbon from whole grains on-site and waiting years to release a designated straight bourbon so tasting our progress one year in was very gratifying but also makes me anxious for when we will be able to share it with the public.
What does your role entail?
SVP: In a small company you must wear a lot of hats but my primary roles involve running production and handling the business management. My partner Brandon focuses on distribution and running our tasting room/cocktail bar but we collaborate on almost everything.
What whiskey expressions do you currently produce:
SVP: We make what we call “Michigan Single Malt Whiskey” that is mashed from a grain bill of 100% malted barley from the state of Michigan. This is the only whiskey we have release so far. We have laid down quite a bit of Rye Whiskey and Bourbon Whiskey which we hope to release when it is about two and a half years old depending on how it matures in the barrel. Long term we hope to be known for our small batch straight whiskeys.
Why did you start production? Did you see a gap in the market or was it to fulfill some passion?
SVP: A little of both. We definitely wouldn’t be in this business if we didn’t love making whiskey and feel passionately about it. I love coming to work every day but this is a lot of hard work. Grand Rapids is called Beer City USA around these parts and is known for its excellent craft beer scene. Founders brewing company is the most prominent brewery in the area and seeing the local support for it and all the craft breweries is inspirational. We felt that Grand Rapids is clearly a town that supports well made craft libations and we wanted contribute to the craft movement here in our own unique way.
What is your definition of the American Single Malt Whiskey?
SVP: There is no official definition in place but mine is pretty simple: First, the whiskey must meet the TTB definitions for Malt Whiskey: “Whiskey produced at not exceeding 80% alcohol by volume from a fermented mash of not less than 51 percent malted barley and stored at not more than 62.5% alcohol by volume in charred new oak containers.” Second, the whiskey needs to be made in America by a single distillery.
What three words do you want people to associate with your whiskey?
SVP: Robust, flavorful and unique
Walk us through the distillation process. From grain to glass? Is there a flavor profile you’re looking for before bottling the whiskey?
SVP: We bring in whole grains and mill them onsite. We mash in 500 gallon batches and ferment for 5-6 days before we strip the mash to low wines. We typically do stripping runs Monday – Thursday and then redistill the low wines from the stripping runson Friday in our finishing run. Our still is a compound fractioning still from Artisan Still Design which can be set up as a pot still for our stripping runs and then use the fractioning column for our finishing runs only. We collect and blend the hearts from four finishing runs and then barrel every four weeks.
Depending on the whiskey we are looking for different characteristics. Specifically with our bourbon we are looking for floral notes and a depth of flavor that can only be created through time and interaction between the spirit and a barrel. With our Michigan Single Malt whiskey we used smaller barrels and a shorter aging process to keep the flavor profile more grain forward and highlight the unique specialty malts we used in our grain bill including a propriety malt from a local malt house called peanut butter toast. The PB Toast malt added a distinctive peanut butter and chocolate taste to our whiskey.
Name a few other distillers or distilleries who inspire you.
SVP: From branding to the juice in the glass the distillery that inspires me the most is St George Spirits in Alameda California. They do a wonderful job across a diverse array of spirits from Single Malt to Gin and Fruit Brandy. For bourbon and rye whiskey I look to classic distilleries in Kentucky for inspiration and flavor profiles that I love.
Your favorite thing about going into the distillery each day?
SVP: I tell people that the distilling process is really making a giant mess and then cleaning it up day after day. My favorite moment is towards the end of the day when we finish cleaning all equipment and we can log our production for the day. Making great whiskey is a marathon and its nice at the end of each day to reflect for a moment that we are one step closer to our goals.
What – in your opinion – makes the spirits produced at your distillery unique?
SVP: Each of our spirits is unique in its own way and this is by design. We try to put our own spin on each spirits category. This is inspiration taken directly from the craft beer industry. The advantage of small batch distilling is being able to push the envelope where possible and hopefully delight our customers with the twists we add to established spirit categories. For example we use hops in our gin botanical load and barrel finish it to create a spirit that stands our among other gins while maintaining its juniper forward flavor. Another example is our apple brandy which we aged in used rye whiskey cooperage to add a little bit of spicy rye bite to compliment the clean, crisp apple flavor.
What led you to start your own business?
SVP: A desire to make excellent craft spirits, love what I am doing each day and be proud of the finished product.
Where do you see your distillery 5 years from now?
SVP: I hope we are recognized for excellent small batch straight bourbon and rye whiskey as well as the uniqueness of our other spirits. I hope to expand our distribution across Michigan and hopefully into neighboring states and continue to build a well regarded cocktail bar and tasting room on site.
Do you source the ingredients locally? If so how important is that?
SVP: Our goal as a local small business is to support other local small business whenever possible. We source ingredients locally whenever we can so long as we are not sacrificing quality in doing so. Some ingredients aren’t available locally, like turbinado sugar for our rum wash, so we source that from a family farm in Louisiana. Other ingredients, like corn and rye, we have in abundance locally and it’s a high priority to use those ingredients. Even though we are a small company its still amazing to see how diverse the supply chain is for everything that goes into our products.
Is there anything in the pipeline for 2017?
SVP: We released 6 spirits and 1 liqueur in our first year of operation and we anticipate adding rye whiskey to that line up this fall. Keeping in line with our other spirits we are partnering with a local company to add a unique twist to this rye that we are really excited about sharing with our customers.
Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
SVP: Thanks for taking the time to learn more about Gray Skies Distillery. If you want to learn more about our products and process check us out at GraySkiesDistillery.com and reach out with any questions at [email protected]
