Meet Your Makers: Koval Distillery

Koval was the first boutique distillery located in Chicago. Founders Robert and Sonat Birnecker left academic careers to bring the distilling traditions and techniques of Robert’s Austrian grandfather to America. Certified both organic and kosher, Koval holds itself to the highest standards of purity and craftsmanship. They are viewed as one of the pioneers in the craft distillery movement in the U.S. and many other small distillers around the country look to them as a model business. Provenance carries a rotating supply of their Lion's Pride Whiskeies, Vodkas and Liqueurs.

What do you hope to accomplish through providing quality products?
First off, we hope to make people happy and be a part of their celebrations! Second, we want people to learn that spirits can be a lot more interesting and creative than what the big companies churn out. We were one of the first to offer white whiskey in the US and we are the only company in the US to offer such a wide variety of spirits made out of so many different grains. We want to provide quality as well as creativity - something a small distillery can do a lot better than a huge brand pusher. We hope that we will get people interested in craft spirits, just as people started to become more aware of craft beer a decade or so ago.

Do you personally know the farmers that produce your products?
Not all of them but some. Due to organic regulations our grain has to be milled at an organic certified mill and many of the farmers, even those who use organic practices do not always get their grains milled at an organic certified mill. We have to abide by these strict standards of organic purity and thus we do not know all of the grain farmers, save that they are in the Midwest, since their grain goes to an organic mill and we buy from the mill that acts as a broker for organic grain farmers. This approach however allows farmers with both small and large organic crops to gain distribution easily. We know the fruit farmers and have good relationships with the distributor for our herbs. Often times for the volume we need, we have to go through a distributor who buys everything a farmer has and then sends it where it needs to go for the farmer. We could not buy our ginger direct even if we wanted to, since it comes from Hawaii part of the year and Peru the other half. The organic ginger farmers in both places sell all of their ginger to the ginger distributor we use and he sends it on to the companies needing organic ginger, it is just how business is done.

What is involved with working with the farmers to get a product to market?
When the apples leave the farm for example, we part ways with the farmer. For our apple brandy we had about 7 tons of apples at the distillery that we had to inspect one-by-one, core, and clean (cut off) any bruises. We then mashed them (basically turned them into apple sauce) and let the mash ferment until it was ready to distill. We make seasonal brandies every fall, always a pear and every year we plan to work with a new fruit as well, this past fall was apple and our apple brandy just hit the market after aging nicely in our whiskey barrels.

Is there anyone else on your “team”?
When we started, Robert and I (Sonat) were the only ones at the distillery save my parents on occasion and Robert’s grandfather, who flew over to make sure Robert was carrying on the family tradition with aplomb. Now, three years later, we have an operations manager and distiller, Mark, an Assistant Distiller, Danny, a Distillery Ambassador, Meg, an office manager, Jason, and a Brand Manager, Jen. We are however, a real family business. My mom did all of the artwork on our labels and is a frequent ginger peeler, my father did some of our photography and despite being 80 can make 150 boxes in a sitting (which he does often), siblings and cousins have all been involved in getting out shipments. We now also have team Chicago as volunteers often help us with the hand labeling and packaging, as well as peeling ginger.

How often do you come out with new products? Are you working on anything new?
We are always working on new products and currently have over 20! Chicago is the only place that all of our products will be available and our most recent additions are the Lion’s Pride aged whiskey line (10 different single barrel, single grain varieties), our Apple Brandy and Orange Blossom Liqueur. Keep an eye out for an interesting brandy in the fall…

How did you get into this “line of business”?
We wanted to have a different quality of life than we had in Washington DC, where we had “careers.” We wanted something different, we wanted to live in Chicago, be close to family and friends, work together, have our children close at hand, actually make something of high quality; so it became clear that we had to start a family business. There are not that many people who grow up, like Robert, learning how to make brandy and other spirits, so it seemed like a good bet.

What did you do before this?
Before we turned to making liquor, I was a tenured Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and German Cultural History and Robert was the Deputy Press Secretary for the Austrian Embassy.

Are your products sold anywhere besides Chicago?
Yes, we are available in WI, IN, MO, KY, MD, DC, TN, CA, and NY.

What did you want to do as a kid, "when you grew up"?
Both of our parents raised us to want to be happy, so that was the goal…not any particular career. I did always want to be a mom when I grew up, so I am thrilled to have two lovely boys.

What was the spark that led you to working with spirits?
Around the time we were looking for a lifestyle change we happened to have spent some time in Austria with Robert’s grandparents, who have a distillery and brewery. When we would talk about the great spirits Robert’s grandfather makes and how it would be great of one could get such things here, my sister started pushing us to stop talking about it and start distilling. So we did.

Where do you find the inspiration for the products/flavors you select for your portfolio?
A lot of inspiration comes from the small distilleries in Austria and Germany. We also come up with a good bit ourselves.

How do you plan to grow your portfolio, horizontally or vertically, and why?
We just make what we like and enjoy trying new things.

What do you see as the biggest benefit (s) you offer to your retailers and consumers?
We offer the highest quality and most unique organic and kosher spirits in the US. Where else can you find an oat or millet whiskey? Orange blossom or rose hip liqueur?

Other than financial, what risks did you take to get your product(s) to market?
Personal risks galore...but what most people do not realize is that the liquor industry is full of “common industry practices” that we were NOT going to engage in such as buying finished alcohol from an industrial factory and flavoring it (much cheaper than making it from scratch) or give in to the pressure to give kickbacks (free product) to bars and restaurants so that they will carry our brand (something that some in the industry have grown to expect).

Of all the millions of food products you could have specialized in, why these?
Family tradition and a market aching for unique hand crafted spirits.

What is your favorite story/anecdote that occurred along the way in creating your product?
In the beginning we did not have a good rhythm down as to how long certain aspects of the packaging process would take us and we had a flight scheduled to leave the evening of our first shipment to visit Robert’s family in Austria. So, to get our first shipment finished we had worked 72 hours straight with our 6 month old in tow. After about 48 hours and much parental help, my sister and brother (who were not in Chicago) started calling their friends in Chicago to ask if they would help us. An old friend of mine and a friend of a friend of my brother’s were there all night long hand labeling Rose Hip liqueur and so many more...I think the saying is “it takes a village”…well, we really saw this in action.

Describe your a-ha moment that made you say, "I'm going to do this!"
After much encouragement from my sister, we read an article in Time magazine about craft distilling and we said to each other…you know, we really could do that!

Who's your all- time favorite band/singer?
We listen to so many different kinds of music. During my last ginger peeling session I listened to some German pop (Wir sind Helden and 2-raum Wohnung), the soundtrack to Amélie, some Swedish pop (The Wannadies), a bit of Franz Ferdinand, The Shins, and John Lennon.

If you could have supper with 3 people (living or deceased), who would they be and why?
My great grandfather Manik Loewenherz who earned the soubriquet “Koval” (it means blacksmith, but in this case, it means the Yiddish slang, black sheep, as in black sheep in the family) after leaving beloved Vienna to start a business in Chicago in the early 1920s. Aside from the namesake connection he helped so many people in my family as well as numerous unrelated children escape Vienna and certain death at the hands of the Nazis. He was, according to my great uncle Siegmund, “a rare kind of a gentleman, one who would without question take off his hat to greet someone passing by during an extraordinary blizzard.” Much of my academic work concerned Vienna from the turn of the century until 1938 and I would love to be able to speak with Manik about his experiences. My aunt Susan Loewenherz: a sculptress, bon vivant, cosmopolitan ex-pat Italian from Winnetka, the life of the party until she succumbed to complications of breast cancer in 2007; because I miss her dearly and she would have gotten a lot of pleasure out of me leaving academia to make whiskey and be a mom. My great grandmother, Ida Ganzoff, who left Pinsk for America - all alone - at the age of 14 after going on a hunger strike to convince her parents to let her go. She worked day and night as a seamstress to put three children through college and graduate school, while taking care of a sick husband. She was wise and intuitive, she had sechel [smarts], an early advocate of organic food and natural farming methods, and the strongest woman I have ever been lucky enough to meet. When asked in her mid-90s what she would have changed if she could, she stated, without missing a beat, “it would have been nice to own a factory.”