Tag: values

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Ingenuity

Engineered Spirits - Papa’s Workshop

Core Values of Engineered Spirits

I believe that ingenuity is a skill that can be learned. 

Having ingenuity means you have the ability and the desire to question. For most of my life, I have been notoriously annoying for asking lots of questions. I always want to understand why something was done a certain way. When someone says “because that’s the way we’ve always done it,” I see opportunities for improving. Asking why and exploring what has changed in the last ten years or so can lead to exciting things that may be able to drive the idea, process, or product to a new place. 

I’m not saying tradition doesn’t have its place. It always helps to remember where we came from and why things were done the way they were, so we can always look back on what we have learned. And sometimes that chocolate pie recipe just can’t be made better than Granny made it.

I grew up watching my family solve everyday problems on the farm and it was almost always something different. A different day, a different problem, a different solution. From figuring out how best to lay out a fence, fix a hay baler, or how best to preserve our produce from the garden, we were always thinking about the solutions to these everyday problems, since there was so much work to do. 

When I was fifteen, I had to put up a fence by myself and run a quarter mile of wire. So, I did what I was taught and looked at what I had. I had a six-foot tall steel post, three 40-pound rolls of sharp, barbed wire, and a pickup truck. I could have carried those rolls of wire by hand, walking or rolling them, as I had been taught to do, but I had an idea. I tied the post across the bed of the truck, put the roll of wire on it, secured the end to a post and took off driving. That wire unwound itself and it was a lot less effort, a lot less time, and I ended up with the same result. 

I use that same approach to many things I do now, from fixing light switches to cooking. What do I want as the end result? Who am I serving? Whatever it is, it has to be good, not just to me, but to them. 

At Engineered Spirits, we will put this thought process into every product. We will stick with tradition by having good, locally-grown ingredients. We will use those as simply and efficiently as possible to make a product that we want you to love. And we will look to the future and other innovative ingredients we can use to make beverages we hope you’ll love just as much. 

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Rugged

Engineered Spirits - Limestone towers above the Berry Road

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.

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Mindfulness

Engineered Spirits - Road to the back field

Core Values of Engineered Spirits

I did my share of farming when I was a young man and it is hard work. Farming, though, is not a talent for me. I discovered one talent I did have, though: cooking. I learned to cook by necessity, since my mom and dad had to work and I liked to eat. 

And not just eat. There is a way to cook that I have to equate to music. A person can play music, but a musician can make magic. I ate well.

Thus, I learned through my grandmother, aunts, mother and my dad, how to prepare food. And not just from the grocery store. We raised hogs, beef, chickens, and we hunted. That’s a plethora of things to eat,  along with a half-acre garden that produced enough green beans, tomatoes, okra, cucumbers/pickles, etc. for 12 people to eat throughout the year. And since I was the oldest grandchild, I was there helping with all of it.  

Working daily with the women in my family made me understand how hard they worked while my dad and uncles were away. It was from those ladies I learned there is no time to sit around, waiting to be told what to do. There is a lot of stuff to be done, so we all have to work together. 

They made me think beyond myself and they taught me how to be polite. I knew they’d be there for me if I needed them, but they’d also teach me a lesson if I didn’t act like somebody.  Selflessness and caring about others and their well-being was something I witnessed first-hand everyday. The women of my family taught me to think of others, to be aware of unspoken needs and, in general, how to live a life that helps others see they are appreciated and how they can give of themselves as well.

So, here’s the start of being somebody. A way to put those cooking skills to use, to be with family and to share experiences. Working with your family is a bond difficult to describe. No one is getting paid at the end of the day, but you have food canned, so you can have green bean casserole at Christmas, wood in the wood pile so you’ll  be warm, and lessons you’ll take with you to share with everyone you meet on the road back home.

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