Behind the Bottle: Local Rising Starts in Craft Beverages

Behind the Bottle

Local Rising Stars in Craft Beverages

By Erin M. Cowser

To say they have poured themselves into their work is no exaggeration. Zac and Cari Caramonta have mastered the art of craft beer with Gnarly Barley Brewing in Hammond. Paul Kelly Kennedy has found the sweet spot of craft vodka with Pontchartrain Distilling in Bogalusa. Monica Bourgeois and Neil Gernon have put down roots as vintners at Wild Bush Farm + Vineyard in Bush.

According to the Brewers Association, Louisiana is home to over 40 craft breweries. DistilleryTrail.com is an online magazine dedicated to the distillery and craft spirits business across the U.S. Its list of Louisiana distilleries points to only 25 in operation. Vivino’s Guide to Louisiana Wines purports that Louisiana’s foray into the winemaking industry is minute compared to other states with only “about 10 wineries” located within its borders.

How lucky that several of these bastions of adult beverages call the Northshore home!

GNARLY BARLEY

What started out as “brewing a batch in the garage for fun” turned into a calling and career for the Caramontas who met as undergrads at Southeastern Louisiana University.

Fast forward 10 years and the young couple now own and operate one of the fastest-growing breweries in Louisiana and even the Gulf South. Over that past decade, the Hammond brewery has produced 2.5 million gallons of beer.

“Our customers are definitely thirsty,” says Cari with a laugh. “And we’re so grateful for it!”

Zac adds that on any given day, there are 12,000 cans of Gnarly Barley beer consumed.

Flagship styles include Catahoula Common, Jucifer, Korova Milk Porter, Skater Aid and Marg Haus. With production of a core cadre of beers and a seemingly never-ending supply of fresh, fun new styles brought into rotation, current South Louisiana distribution covers the Northshore, Baton Rouge, the Greater New Orleans region, Lafayette, Alexandria, Houma and Lake Charles.

Not only have their beers won bronze, silver, gold and platinum medals from such prestigious entities as the U.S. Open Beer Championship, USA Beer Ratings and the Great American Beer Festival, but two World Class and one Exceptional beer ratings are also among their honors. Even the brewery’s can and bottle designs have garnered national Craft Beer Marketing Awards.

Both Beer Connoisseur magazine and New York International Beer Competition recently recognized Gnarley Barley as Brewery of the Year. The Hammond brewery is also no stranger to the Brewers Association’s “Top 50 Fastest-Growing Craft Breweries” lists, having been included for multiple years beginning in 2017.

Zac and Cari’s contributions to Tangipahoa and the neighboring region have also received accolades in the form of a Louisiana Lantern Award from Louisiana Economic Development, which honors those who practice excellence in manufacturing and outstanding service to their community.

What started out as a warehouse with 14,000 square feet now boasts a brewery complex that spans city blocks. The full Gnarly Barley property now features a tasting room, the DineGnar Restaurant, merch shop, plenty of picnic tables and grounds that host countless community festivals, inflatables for the kids, bands, singers, impromptu hacky sack tourneys and any other number of entertaining engagements and exhibitions. In fact, these events have become so insanely popular that Gnarly Barley won the 2023 Louey Award for Attraction of the Year from The Louisiana Travel Association.

The brewery’s online events calendar is jam packed with performances, trivia nights, teacher appreciation specials, brewery tours, open mic nights and the like. On certain days, one can even get a new professional headshot or take family Christmas photos at the brewery (with or without Santa and/or beverages for Mom and Dad in the pictures).

As the sign that greets those exiting the premises reads, Cari and Zac encourage everyone to “Stay Gnarly!”

1709 Corbin Road in Hammond; www.gnarlybeer.com

PONTCHARTRAIN DISTILLING

Paul Kelly Kennedy is relatively new to the craft distilling scene. His previous career in planning and risk analysis included assignments that had him living in China, Japan, Saudi Arabia and North Africa.

During his time in the Middle East he began to dabble in distilling. It was only upon his retirement that Paul Kelly Vodka came to be.

“I’ve been around the world 25 times, but always knew I wanted to come home to the South,” said Paul Kelly, whose family is originally from Mississippi.

It’s that magnetic pull and essence of the South that he set out to capture in his sweet potato-based vodka. Using nutrient-packed sweet potatoes straight from the fields of Garber Farms in Iota and raw cane sugar from Central Louisiana, Paul Kelly Vodka is master handcrafted in a distillery that was once the C.A. Stewart Milk Bottling Plant in Bogalusa. When they’re ready for harvest he hauls the sweet potatoes himself in a trailer that twists and winds its way through country backroads to get to Bogalusa.

“In every sip, we tell the story of Louisiana,” he says. "It’s vibrant, complex and subtle with a hint of sass; just like Louisiana.”

If sales and demand are any indication, he has succeeded. Having been picked up by Champagne Beverage as a distributor, Paul Kelly Vodka can be found in Acquistapace’s, Rouses and Total Wine stores. Santeri Distributors also recently opted to carry the brand, expanding its reach across the remainder of Louisiana and into Georgia.

He adds that although vodka is usually intended to be tasteless and used as a mixing agent, he designed Paul Kelly Vodka to be a sipping vodka. Apparently, the judges at the national Craft Distillers Spirits Competition liked what they sipped because they bestowed him with a Gold Medal.

“There’s a heck of a lot of chemistry involved in the process, but it all comes down to taste,” he says.

That chemistry part of the equation is something he hopes to share with local students and potential future apprentices. Having built the equipment himself, he can also add some engineering instruction into what he hopes will be future Pontchartrain Distillery tours and facility visits.

Of course, one doesn’t need to schedule a tour to come check out Paul Kelly Vodka in person. With a tasting room and front patio, which features live performances when the weather is “less lethal,” Paul Kelly invites guests to stop by and taste for themselves.

“And, we’re steadily scheduling more and more tasting events across the region,” he adds. “Once it hits your lips, I promise you won’t put up with vodka status quo ever again!”

515 West 7th Street in Bogalusa; www.PaulKellyVodka.com

WILD BUSH FARM + VINEYARD

According to Neil Gernon, he and his wife Monica Bourgeois are in the business of making “not snooty” wines. The couple is devoted to making wine that brings forth the flavors of Louisiana’s landscape including such ingredients as honey, native muscadine, blueberries, and eventually mayhaws, crab apples, persimmons, and pears.

He describes their labels as serious wines that cater to the people of Louisiana. Fun names like Up Jump the Boogie and Absolutely Cuckoo grace the bottles and refreshing flavors flow from within.

Monica jokes that it’s “all Neil’s fault” and that he made her “an expensive date.” He was a wine buyer at Brennan’s and she was the first-ever female bartender at Mr. B’s. “Let’s just say I was accustomed to more budgetfriendly wines until Neil came along and started impressing me with fine vintages,” she says. “It was so sweet. He used to send waiters across the street with love notes for me when I was behind the bar.”

Twenty years later, the couple awaits their first harvest of grapes grown in St. Tammany soil. In the meantime, their current vintages are fermented and bottled in Louisiana using grapes imported from organically-farmed vineyards in California.

It’s an appropriate transition as the Stag’s Leap region of Napa Valley is where the couple cut their vintner teeth and enjoyed their first foray into wine production with a small-batch line named Vending Machine Wines. While it isn’t actually sold via vending machines, it did establish the Brother Martin alum and his Baton Rouge native wife as respected winemakers.

When the pandemic hit, they, like so many others, took stock of their lives and began to feel the tug of their Louisiana roots. “As soon as Pontchartrain Vineyards went up for sale everyone I knew started sending me the real estate listing,” Monica says smiling. The sale was finalized in 2021, and Wild Bush Farm + Vineyard came to be. The 13 acres of rolling hills that were cultivated as Pontchartrain Vineyards for nearly 30 years were all theirs.

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s also the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” says Monica, who tends to the farming with the help of her Dad, Larry Bourgeois, who once owned Covington Nursery.

His background in the horticulture business comes in handy considering Louisiana’s harsh climate, which is not easily conducive to growing grapes. Varietals are faced with the extreme Louisiana heat, potential mold and mildew threats from the tropical rains, plenty of local pests, and, of course, the bluster of possible storms and hurricanes. “You can add in drought now, too,” Monica says. “That’s one thing we never expected we’d have to deal with in the South, but last year proved we could.”

Neil and Monica have some serious agri-science, distribution and event production considerations at play. An experimental Walker grape that a University of California at Davis geneticist has been working on for nearly 20 years was just released last year. It’s special because it’s highly resistant to Pierce Disease, which decimates many grape crops and can destroy entire vines over time. Monica considers it a privilege that the vineyard was afforded the opportunity to be one of the first in the U.S. and the only vineyard in Louisiana to plant them.

“We’re truly on the cutting edge of a winemaking revolution with this. We try to limit chemical contact as much as possible and so far, so good,” she says. “Overall, we’re optimistic about all the varieties we’ve planted thus far. We’re focused on strengthening the trunks first so the fact that some are already producing grapes is lagniappe.”

The couple credit the burgeoning craft brewing industry across the state and nation with paving the way for a wider audience of modern wine aficionados. “Consumers are younger, more educated and savvier than ever before. There’s no pretense and they don’t wear blinders that make them believe wine must only come from California, Italy or France.” In other words, there’s no such thing as geographic wine snobbery anymore.

While Neil says his favorite wine is the one in his cup at any given moment, Monica laughs and says, “They’re our children. We love them all equally.”

81250 Highway 1082 in Bush; www.wildbushfarmandvineyard.com