1. 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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St Croix
CHRONICLE ST. CROIX INSIDER
45th Parallel Spirits’Recent
Expansion Marks a Soaring
Spirits Industry

2. 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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St Croix
CHRONICLE
just the facts
45th Parallel Spirits LLC
1570 Madison Ave.
New Richmond, WI 54017
715.246.0565
info@45thparalleldistillery.com
Established 2007
7 employees
To schedule tours,
held on Fridays and Saturdays, visit
http://45thparalleldistillery.com/tour-taste/