In walked Barley, a small pug dog, into the taste room of the new Yankee Distillers where a throng of reporters waited for a ribbon cutting ceremony. It was the embodiment of Sir Isaac Newton’s Law of Gravity: where the force that explain how the small apple that ultimately bonks Newton on the head actually pulls onto the much larger Earth, this cute, aptly named lap dog was drawing attention from the news conference at Clifton Park’s newest business venture.
Yankee, too, is that pug in the room when compared to the mega craft distillers out there. It’s a lucrative market where the size of the product doesn’t necessarily translate into bigger revenue. Two years ago, the U.S. Drinks Conference in Orlando, Fla. stated that 9.4 billion gallons of beverage alcohol were consumed in 2012, second only to 13.5 billion gallons of soft drinks. By measurement of volume alone, spirits comprised of only five percent of those 9.4 billion gallons, with beer taking an overwhelming 87 percent of the pie chart. However, when measured by revenue dollars, spirit sales closed the gap, measuring 36 percent to beer’s 49 percent.
Americans spent $197.8 billion on beverages, $72.1 billion of which was in spirits.
“People care about it more,” said Yankee co-owner, Matthew Jager. “Twenty years ago, if you tried to put a beer on tap for $8 or $9 a pint, people would have laughed at you. Now, I go to my neighborhood dive bar, and they’ve got 20 lines and more than half of them are pricy, craft beers. … Now, we’re just trying to do the same thing. For me to pay $8.50, $9, $10 for a pour of a really fine whiskey or $12 to $15 for a great cocktail made with a fine whiskey, it’s totally worth it. But, we have to get more people to think that way.”
In the competition between wine and spirits, wine has long been the prevailing victor. In 2012, wine still out-produced in quantities of gallons (745 million to spirit’s 490 million). But in terms of revenue, spirits earned more than double that of wine in the United States ($28.9 billion in wine revenue).
“[The television show] Mad Men did us some favors by reinvigorating the interest in some of these classic whiskey cocktails like the old fashioned Manhattan,” said Jager. “I shouldn’t say they fell out of favor, but people are coming back to the classics. We’re trying to remain very traditional here in our techniques and our approach.”
Yankee represents New York’s newest craft distilling company, and opened the doors to their nearly 9,000 square-foot facility last month in front of family, press and local dignitaries. By square-footage alone, Yankee Distillers is already the largest distilling facility in the greater Capital District. A 2,000 liter still will produce whiskey, vodka and rum. The overall cost to launch the company off the ground was approximately $1 million, with $35,000 coming from the New York regional economic development council 2014 funding competition. Nearly half of the funds came from Chase Bank.
Fellow co-founder and co-owner Walter Kleemeier said the company started with an agreed commitment to three principles.
“We’re three guys, who decided two years we wanted to make whiskey, said Kleemeier. “We love whiskey. We love the idea of making something. … We agreed two years ago to commit ourselves to three principles: The first that we would make the products ourselves, with our own hands and our own equipment. We would use only the best products, 90 percent of which we get from local and New York state farms. And, the third principle is we would make traditional American products, using traditional techniques. I think we managed to stick with that.”
Jager and Kleemeier co-founded the company with Scott Luning three years ago, and placed a footprint in Clifton Park’s Fairchild Square Business Park, across the street from Shmaltz Brewing Company.
“Since New York allowed for farm-based distilleries such as Yankee to open in the past decade, craft spirits and their producers have become destinations to attract spirits enthusiasts and tourists to areas across the Empire State,” said Kleemeier.
Among the first dignitaries to welcome Yankee to the region was a representative of the Adirondack Craft Beverage Trail, an entity of the Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce that consists of 24 area brewers. The trail is evidence of a tourist trend that has spun off from the recent craft-brewing boom. Schoharie County only just opened a similar trail earlier this year.
“We are thrilled to have Yankee Distillers as one of the newest members of this trail,” said Greg Chanese, president and CEO of the Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce. “It’s a fantastic addition. I think [Yankee] makes a fantastic product. It’s an attraction I think people are going to be psyched to come to.”
Each of Yankee’s co-founders hold degrees in physics. Kleemeier and Luning have worked in the nanotechnology sector, while Jager has co-founded the Albany Distilling Company, the first licensed distillery in Albany since the beginning of the Prohibition.
Introducing Yankee to the local business community served as a win-win situation for Clifton Park Town Supervisor Phil Barrett. Agriculture is a key commodity to the area’s economy, he said. According to SaratogaFarms.com, the county boasts at least 650 active farms.
“One thing that I don’t think we should overlook … is the fact that they are supporting the farming community and local crops,” said Barrett. “We have a thriving agricultural sector within the Town of Clifton Park, but throughout Saratoga County agriculture is a driving force of the economy today. And, I don’t think that is something we should ever overlook.”
For more information about Yankee Distillers, visit yankeedistillers.com.
