Great Northern Distillery
Plover, Wisconsin
Though it only opened to the public in April, Wisconsin’s Great Northern Distillery is already making waves with its hyperlocal products, including a medal at the San Francisco Spirits Competition for its potato vodka, made from spuds that come from two miles up the road.
While sipping craft cocktails at the latest “it” spot in Minneapolis with friends, founder and distiller Brian Cummins heard about an article in Popular Mechanics on the craft distilling trend. He’d long been looking for a new way to combine his chemical engineering background with his love of all things culinary without opening a restaurant, and a year later, Great Northern Distillery was born.
The combination of local food and craft cocktails is nothing new in Wisconsin, but Cummins takes things a step further, making sure that all raw materials for his alcohols come from within 150 miles of the distillery.
“We had a hard time sourcing some of the gin botanicals that are more tropical in nature, so we’ve worked with [farm co-ops] to plant some things and found creative substitutions,” he said. “We hand harvest fresh spruce tips for the lemony-limey character.”
On arrival, groups are greeted with handcrafted cocktails at the mixology bar before proceeding on a distillery tour, a mixology class or a combination experience. Just off the interstate, the distillery is both easy to access by motorcoach and well equipped to accommodate motorcoach parking.
