Driftless Glen Featured on All American Whiskey
Owner Reneé Bemis and distiller Nathan Mahinski were both interviewed by All American Whiskey for the “Mash Bill” segment. Read portions of their interviews below!
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Renee Bemis – Owner
“Reneé Bemis may be the only sculptor/distillery owner in the known world. Bemis is a busy artist, sculpting large-scale animals and people. But she’s also part-owner of the Driftless Glen Distillery in Baraboo, WI turning out award-winning bourbons and ryes.”
If you weren’t making whiskey, you’d probably be . . .
I’d still be sculpting. I do large monuments—I just finished a piece for South Carolina. It’s three life-and-a-half-sized bobcats, otters, and fish, all going into Boyd Island Park.
Give a quote from a movie you obsess over:
“Failure is not an option.” -Apollo 13
Besides making whiskey, what do you do right?
I treat people right.
Sum up the essence of great whiskey with a single word.
Complex.
Name the single most underrated or overlooked distillery in your state.
45th Parallel
What was your most embarrassing mistake making whiskey?
Flavored rye whiskey to bring it to a younger generation. Like a shooter. We did four flavors. Rock and rye. Cherry cola, root beer, spice, and orange. To get there we had to do a distillate of rye and our still is pretty big so we did 9 barrels to send off to a flavoring company. So we stuck it in the rack house. So they lost the barrel so we did it again. The flavors weren’t good. So we had to do a third run so now we have 27 barrels aging in the rack house. But we didn’t continue the flavors. The 27 barrels, we tasted them about two years later and it was amazing and now it’s what we call our 51 Rye because it’s a Maryland rye and it was really just a mistake that failed into a success.
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Nathan Mahinski – Distiller
“Sometimes you get a read on someone and can’t quite put into words where it came from. When I interviewed Nathan Mahinski from Driftless Glen, I got the distinct impression his mind was only halfway in the room. It was mostly down in the distillery, watching over his mash. If I were to choose a single word to describe Mahinski, it would be studious. He is a whiskey nerd and a hard-working distiller of the highest order, blessed with an internal mental library of classic literature, the audacious spark of a capable amateur chef, and the deep nerdish commitment to evoking the soul of whiskey into every bottle he makes.”
If you weren’t making whiskey, you’d probably be . . .
Stay-at-home dog dad (I have a huskie shepherd mix and a basset hound).
Give a quote from a movie you obsess over:
“Nope” -Nope
Besides making whiskey, what do you do right?
I do peach salsa, peach avocado bruschetta.
Sum up the essence of great whiskey with a single word.
Nuanced.
What moment during your process strikes you as perfect?
Making the cut in the still for the final heart’s cut when it hits—especially the bourbon. There’s a point where it’s pure cotton candy.
Name the single most underrated or overlooked distillery in your state.
A little distillery on the east side of Madison called Old Sugar Distillery.
Name a whiskey you think our readers never heard of.
Northern Waters Distillery.
What was your most embarrassing mistake making whiskey?
It involved a forklift and a garage door track.
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You can read Reneé’s entire interview here and Nathan’s entire interview here.