Core Values of Engineered Spirits
When I think of rugged people, the first thing that always comes to my mind are the characters in westerns. Some of the first I saw growing up were John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. I can’t forget to mention Sam Elliot; his voice alone just drips a sense of ruggedness. The modern western railroad drama “Hell on Wheels” showed the rugged men and women of westward expansion in a great tale of human vs. human, human vs. machine, and human vs. his environment. They all faced challenges. We all do today.
Challenges are relative. We all have some degree of talent to do things, but not everything we do is easy. Nor should it be. So, what makes someone rugged? Someone who will do something that’s hard, and probably fail at first, or at least not achieve exactly what they hoped. My first attempt using alternatives to sugar for molten chocolate cakes was probably the worst thing I ever made, but I kept trying. Six tries later, they were pretty good. But I don’t think just figuring out how to make sugar-free molten chocolate cake means I’m rugged.
You don’t have to be a railroad worker or a farmer, a mountaineer or an explorer to be rugged. I think that being rugged means you have a dream you are working toward that will be difficult. It will not happen overnight, and it will cost more than just money along the way. You may have to struggle. You may have to endure some hardships. You may have to fight many uphill battles. You may get knocked down and have to start over again. And you may also have to learn some things and pick up another dream along the way.
Ruggedness is continuing to try even when things get tough. Pushing yourself physically, mentally, emotionally. Working to do something that could even surprise you in the end, that you didn’t expect. And that’s what we are doing here.
Currently, we are wrapping up the purchase of the land. There’s a lot of emotion, it’s family land. We are working hard, and there’s a whole lot more work to do. Determining how to finance the distillery in this economic environment will be difficult. But we are researching every opportunity to not only end up where we want to be, but to do so in a sustainable, responsible, mindful way. That’s definitely not the easiest path for making a distillery and most people wouldn’t even consider it right now.
But that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to work with the land we have, the farm that we love and we are going to make a product that celebrates those who share those same values.
We will be rugged.