Whiskey makers bet on technique that cuts aging time

TOM HENDERSON

Judges at the 11th Denver International Spirits Competition last April awarded a silver medal to the whiskey made by a edgling Port Huron business called Renaissance Man Co. at wasn’t unusual. Most of the whiskeys at the competition do.

What was unusual is the RenMan whiskey was made not in six or seven or eight years, like other winners, but in eight weeks e whiskeys weren’t competing against each other. ey were being judged against set standards on a variety of taste and smell characteristics. ose totaling 90 points or more got gold, with 85 the threshold for silver and 80 for bronze. RenMan’s whiskey was scored at 89. e patent-pending rapid-aging process is based on a Japanese wood preservation technique called yakisugi, which company co-founder and CEO Aaron Weideman learned as a Marine sergeant stationed in Iwakuni, Japan, during his ve-year tour of duty.

Now, the company is aiming to open its distillery this spring, as a tenant in 2,700 square feet in the Wrigley Center in downtown Port Huron, selling bottles and individual drinks to customers.

But it’s the process by which the whiskey was made so quickly that company founders are really betting on.

Yakisugi has been used for centuries. It involves charring Japanese cy- press to make it more durable and pest-resistant for use in building fences, walls and ceiling cladding.

After getting out of the Marines in 2017, Weideman got his nance degree, but after three months in the corporate world decided he wanted to make his living another way.

“My Marine Corps ways didn’t t in with o ce work,” he said.

Weideman had been a wood-working hobbyist. In 2019, he started a formal wood-working business out of his home in Metamora, focusing on very labor-intensive, expensive tables, using the yakisugi process on his wood.

He says he sold the tables via various social media outlets for between $2,000 and $10,000. He said he made $15,000 the rst year, $40,000 the second and $50,000 the third before deciding to concentrate on making whiskey.

“ e only table building I do now is personally and for the tasting room,” he said. ey began experimenting. Instead of putting their raw liquid into the traditional 53-gallon oak barrel, they ipped the script. Instead, they put a small stave of charred oak into a glass container holding a fth of a gallon of raw liquid. eir rst trial was in March 2021. e put a piece of wood in a bottle of white whiskey, the liquid that comes from boiling corn mash for a few minutes and collecting the evaporated liquid that condenses during the process.

A whiskey enthusiast, Weideman thought he might be able to adapt the Japanese charring process to American white oak, traditionally used to age whiskey.

He is a 2007 graduate of Lapeer West High School and RenMan co-founder and COO John Fitzgerald is a 2008 grad. ey had talked for years about someday going into business together.

Making whiskey seemed cool, but they didn’t have the time or money to start a company that would take seven or eight years to start generating revenue.

Traditionally, whiskey distilleries store their barrels in warehouses known as rickhouses or rackhouses.

Barrels are stored horizontally, usually stacked three high, with plenty of room for air to circulate.

Weideman says that is the key. As temperatures uctuate from day to night and back to day, the oak contracts and expands. Whiskey is absorbed into the oak when the temperature is higher, then expelled as it cools. e process of being absorbed and then expelled imparts the buttery taste of the oak while at the same time trapping impurities in the wood.

After eight hours, it started changing color. “‘Holy crap, this is going to work,’” Weideman said, recounting their thinking. “After six weeks, we opened the bottle and it was the best whiskey we ever tasted.” e company led its patent application in August 2021 and began a crowdsourced funding campaign in January 2022, raising $127,000 by that April, the same month it led for ve trademarks for various business terms.

At the beginning of this past February, RenMan got an investment of $100,000 from the Community Capital Club, an angel investment group based in Port Huron. It has also got an investment of $50,000 from Michigan Women Forward, an investment group co-based in Detroit and Grand Rapids, and a U.S. Small Business Administration loan of $120,000 through Huntington Bank. ose investments came after whiskey fans who doubted such a quick process could work had a taste or two.