Paul Werni, owner of 45th Parallel Spirits with Jack

By Brenda Bredahl

Paul Werni, the owner of 45th Parallel Spirits, in New Richmond, Wis., has become the go-to guy for all things craft distilling. Since he launched his grain-to-glass distillery in 2007, he’s watched the industry grow from 40 small artisan distillers to more than 900 nation-wide.

On a recent sunny afternoon, Paul talked to a reporter from Twin Cities Business Journal, which had just sponsored a forum featuring Minnesota’s craft distilleries. Werni had originally wanted to locate in Minnesota eight years ago, but permitting fees were 30 times that of Wisconsin’s $1,000.

Fees in Minnesota were recently lowered to $2,000, spurring a nascent industry in the neighboring state. The reporter asks Paul if there are restrictions on bottle sales at his craft distillery, as Minnesota has proposed. “There are no restrictions,” he answers. “People can buy what they want. You can buy for yourself and friends and family and not have to worry about not buying a gift for someone over someone else.”

As with any new industry, there are kinks to work out. Distillers at the forum talked about some companies that brand product as “hand-crafted” or “artisan,” but in reality do not create their products from scratch but instead from

bulk-purchased ethanol. Craft distillers advocate that a true craft distillery mashes and ferments its grains on site to create ethanol and then blends and bottles, as does 45th for the almost all of its products. The craft distilling industry is bubbling, and that’s good for Werni and his neighbors in Minnesota.

Expansion Plans

The recipient of the St. Croix Economic Development Corporation’s Small Business of the Year, 45th is in the final stretches of a 6,000-foot expansion. It will house an automated bottling room plus a new 24-seat tasting bar with a dozen pub tables for the 120-plus visitors on any given Saturday who come to taste and tour.

Werni’s friend and former landscape design colleague, Jeff Timm, is creating the bars tables from white oak, the same wood used in the company’s aging barrels. For tabletops, he’s repurposed millstones and is using old bowling lanes for the bar surfaces plus a shuffleboard. A

second phase of expansion will add a U-shape to the current configuration and create a courtyard for outdoor events.

The bottling room will soon have a custom automated bottling system designed by John Hirsch, a retired engineer who worked at Doboy. “He just wandered in here one day for a tour,” said Werni. “We’re thrilled to keep it local and work with John, who lives in New Richmond, to design a system specific to our needs. And we are having it made right here in New Richmond, too.”

In addition, the company has added a dedicated milling grain room housing a mill and auger that allows the milled grain to be released directly into the mashing kettle. Previously, corn, rye and

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45th Parallel Spirits’ Recent Expansion Marks a Soaring

Spirits Industry

wheat grains were milled by a farm just down the road. This automation will greatly reduce time to kettle, manual labor and dust.

A second copper still from Germany is on order, and an additional, bigger boiler system will provide increased capacity. Four more fermenters are waiting to join the two that are constantly in production. “We now have the second largest craft whiskey inventory in the state,” says Werni. The company has its hand in on the largest craft inventory, too, contracting it for another Wisconsin company. It is the first small-batch whiskey distillery in the region.

Back in 2007, 45th started out producing the company’s signature 45th Parallel Vodka, a top-shelf spirit that has consistently earned numerous awards, including most recently, the 2014 Double Gold Medal, a first-place unanimous, blind taste test award from the San Francisco World Spirits Competiton. It’s the highest honor for a spirit in the world.

Because vodka does not have to be aged, it was a good product to start with, Werni said. The company now produces other grain-to-glass products, including Border Bourbon, New Richmond Rye, a seasonal whiskey called Wisconsin Wheat plus Madison Avenue Limoncello and Orangecello. In addition, 45th produces a mid-shelf line called Midwest that includes gin and vodka.

The company also is a contract distiller, creating private branded craft spirits for a handful of select

companies. Contracted products include Aquavit in three flavors and Referrent horseradish vodka made for the restaurant Moscow on the Hill in St. Paul as well as vodkas, whiskeys and other spirits.

The 45th Parallel Spirits web site includes an illustration of the full circle of production and grain-to-glass process. While the grain comes from the Arlen Strate’s Rusmar Farm, which has dairy cows, the leftover mash is fed to local beef cattle at the Ken Herink farm. “Because the contents of the leftover mash can vary, depending on what we are making, beef cattle are less picky about what they eat than the dairy cows on the Strate farm,” Werni says. “I guess dairy cows are more finicky.”

The Future of Spirits

With the next phase of expansion planned as the current one is being finished, 45th Parallel hopes to offer more tours and expand product lines like gift baskets. While competitive challenges such as the authenticity of other brand’s claims of “hand-crafted” or “artisan” are being contested in court, tax equity is another challenge. For example, small distilleries pay the same percentage of alcohol manufacturing tax as huge distilleries, compared with the state’s small beer breweries, which pay less alcohol tax than their giant brewing counterparts do.

The spirits industry is now growing like the microbreweries and wineries that have cropped up over the last couple of decades and continue to grow. In June, Barley John Brewery will open

just north of 45th Parallel. “The owners are our friends who have a brew pub in the Twin Cities but couldn’t expand there, so we told them about New Richmond,” said Werni. “We’re very excited to have them as our neighbors.”

When 45th hosts its 6th annual Bourbon and Bluegrass open house in September, it’s likely there might be a little beer there too.

Brenda Bredahl is a writer, editor and content specialist who lives in Hudson. She can be reached at 715-821-8000 or

brendabredahl@gmail.com.

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just the facts

45th Parallel Spirits LLC

1570 Madison Ave.New Richmond, WI 54017

715.246.0565

info@45thparalleldistillery.com

Established 20077 employees

To schedule tours, held on Fridays and Saturdays, visit

http://45thparalleldistillery.com/tour-taste/