Muskegon Distillery Answers Call

14 | www.MiBrewTrail.com Muskegon Distillery Answers Call for Help During Public Health Crisis

Jon Becker MiBrew Trail

A new Muskegon distillery with a deep connection to Michigan’s Great Lakes and abundant natural beauty demonstrated an ability to pivot on a dime as it adjusted to opening just as COVID-19 reared its ugly head. Wonderland Distilling Company, whose spirits are born and blended in-state, retrofitted its entire operation to answer a plea from the FDA to help produce hand sanitizer during the public health emergency. The distillery, owned by longtime food and beverage professional Allen Serio, opened on October 19, 2020, only to be forced to shut down on November 18, 2020. It resumed operation on a limited basis in February of this year. Talk about an inauspicious debut. “We remained closed until February,” Serio said. “During this time we had to pivot quickly and restart our model. Within 72 hours after the FDA called, we became a medical supply company producing hand sanitizer. We were not alone. Every distillery got that call.” Serio managed to keep his retail operation afloat (and employees earning a paycheck) through merchandise sales and cocktails to go. “It played pretty well but it wasn’t the same as people coming in and staying for awhile,” he said. All of the equipment the distillery has for making spirits couldn’t be used for producing hand sanitizer. A national shortage of plastic and the chemicals needed for the hand sanitizer posed additional challenges. “We had to be very creative to build a supply chain,” Serio said. “Fortunately West Michigan has a lot of dairy farms. County Dairy stepped up and provided us with semi trucks full of milk jugs that became the containers for the hand sanitizer. A local chemical company only 2 miles from us provided us with chemicals. We had to help our backyard.” Once word got out that Wonderland’s production facility was churning out hand sanitizer instead of their hand-crafted gin and whiskey recipes, their phones began blowing up. “We were getting 100 calls a day,” Serio recounted. “Doctors, nurses, firefighters, police, nursing homes, childcare facilities… we heard from them all. Our story is not uncommon. We’re not even open but we’re mass producing hand sanitizer.” At the time, the company was in the initial stages of constructing a cocktail bar and tasting room in Muskegon’s Lakeside business district. That had to be halted, but the company’s production facility went into overdrive making gallon-sized jugs of the alcohol-based sanitizer. “It’s pretty surreal what COVID has made life look like for us,” he said. “That was a weird ying and yang year. We couldn’t build because retail is non-essential but our production house is essential so that remained open.” Serio and his Wonderland Distillery co-founder Mark Gongalski began talking about doing a distillery together in 2018. Serio met Gongalski at Unruly Brewing Company, a craft brewery located in downtown Muskegon. “Mark was one of the partners at Unruly and a production facility became available that year,” Serio said. “Our shared love of Muskegon and the sense of community in our industry spurred our desire even further to open a distillery and focus on distilling craft spirits that are second to none.” The two realized their dream by opening their cocktail bar in October of 2020. It has 3,800 square feet of space that can accommodate up to 149 people, though it has been operating at 50% capacity. “We’re doing well,” Serio said. “We’re quickly getting a reputation for being a great cocktail bar. We’re excited to get our name out there.” The Distilling Company’s cocktail bar features a variety of gin, vodka and whiskey drinks, all handcrafted from Michigan ingredients and meticulously combined with fresh Lake Michigan water. Serio said the Wonderland team is working on some new offerings as well, including a single malt whiskey, a Michigan Maple Finish Whiskey and a Turkish Coffee Liqueur. So when your sense of adventure takes over, see what all the buzz is about by enjoying a visit to the lakeside town of Muskegon and its new craft distillery.

MI Brew Trail | Summer 2021