A PA Distilling Legend And His Wife Are Back In The Game!

Folks, never say never. Erik and Avianna Wolfe won't be kicked down and defeated. After the folks at the current day Michter's in Kentucky forced them to give up their Bomberger's name, there was some regrouping. And through that, Stoll and Wolfe whiskey was born. Stoll? Yes! THAT Stoll. No other than Mr. Richard Stoll himself. 26 years after padlocking Michter's outside Schaefferstown one last time, he's back. I am honored to say I know all of them, Dick's wife included- Elaine was a tour guide at Michter's and that is where she met Dick. Right now Stoll and Wolfe has sourced some excellent barrels to blend as their first release- under the direction of Dick. They are currently having more product distilled for them and they've been actively involved with the distilling and barreling process. Even the mashbill is of their own creation. What's next? A still is on order and space is being readied for a small distillery. Rye whiskey is of course going to be the main spirit. But I have it on good word that there may be some brandy and other typical American spirits coming from the still too. Folks, look forward to these products. Rye whiskey coming from the historical birthplace of what we now know as American whiskey (PA, NOT KY!) being distilled by and under the expertise of Mr. Stoll.  It will be good. No. It will be great. I promise. Watch for the launch of Stoll and Wolfe in Lititz, PA.

Below is a Q&A with the Lancaster Newspaper as printed April 5th 2016 and written by staff writer Chad Umble. I've copied it here in case it expires on the website...

Direct link: http://lancasteronline.com/business/local_business/q-a-dream-of-distilling-whiskey-in-lititz-takes-winding/article_f9275888-fa8a-11e5-a080-a322023817cc.html

"Erik Wolfe has had to give up on his dream of distilling Bomberger’s Whiskey in Lititz.

But a year and a half after a trademark dispute forced him to pull the plug on reviving that historic distillery, Wolfe is still making a name for himself in the craft whiskey world: his own.

Having partnered with a former distiller Dick Stoll, the 38-year-old Warwick High School graduate is now blending Stoll & Wolfe whiskey and bottling it in Lancaster.

And, within six months, Wolfe expects to actually be distilling Stoll & Wolfe whiskey at a new distillery in the rear of 35 N. Cedar St. in Lititz. A tasting room is also planned at the site.

“If you would have told us it would have been this route when we started, I probably wouldn’t have believed you, but it’s worked out well,” Wolfe said.

Wolfe and his wife Avianna were initially drawn to the idea of reviving Bomberger’s Whiskey, which had been made in Shaefferstown from the 1860s until Prohibition. That distillery eventually reopened as Michter’s, where Stoll was the master distiller until it closed in 1989.

In October 2014, Wolf, Stoll and their respective wives, Elaine and Avianna, released Bomberger’s whiskey.

But their use of that name was challenged by a company that filed for unused trademarks of Michter’s.

After a six-month halt to the business during which they re-labeled all their bottles, the partners returned with a new label with their own names.

Stoll & Wolfe is now distributed in several states and can be ordered online in Pennsylvania through the state Liquor Control Board’s website.

Wolfe declined to estimate sales so far, but a first bottling of Stoll & Wolfe produced 1,150 bottles. The product is available in five states.

“Our names may be on the bottle, but the amount of support that’s gone in to getting that there, you almost feel guilty that it’s just two people’s names,” Wolfe said.

Why did you leave a good marketing job you had in New York City?

I was in New York working Internet stuff and then Sept. 11 happened. I saw the second tower come down a quarter mile away. I watched it with my eyes. A lot of people were like, “What am I doing with my life. If it all ended tomorrow, what would I have to show? What have I done?”

For me I wanted to do something I could point to, that I could touch, that I had left a presence in some way.

So what did you do?

I left all that stuff and started working in food and hospitality. I was a director of marketing for a digital agency. By the time I left I was doing Fortune 100 campaigns and I went to being a busboy in a night club.

I was in my early 20s when I started doing that and that’s how Avianna and I met. As I was in that world, the local food movement really started to grow in New York and so much of that was so evocative of what I’d been surrounded by growing up.

How do you turn the inspiration about making whiskey into a reality?

With Avianna, we were actually coming home from visiting family. after one Thanksgiving break and talking about it. Within that car ride it went from “Wouldn’t that be cool” to by the time we were getting back to NY, it was “OK, let’s figure out how to do this.”

What were some challenges about starting out?

The hardest thing about getting in the distilling business is you can’t legally practice being a distiller. As a brewer, I could homebrew all day, I could invite you over to try my homebrew. As a distiller, that’s illegal.

Whiskey is (also) different than brewing where if I brew in a week, I have beer to sell. With whiskey, by law, to have straight whiskey, it’s a two-year process.

Another joke in the industry is that if you want to make a small fortune in distilling, it’s really easy. You just have to start with a really large fortune.

We’re very fortunate in that my wife had a house in Brooklyn that she was able to sell. It is through the proceeds of that plus the whiskey sales that we have made thus far that are funding this.

For us, we had to self fund because it was the only way. Nobody believes in us as much as we do.

How is your whiskey produced now?

Right now we’re sourcing whiskey that’s made in both Indiana and Wisconsin. Blending is a very proud tradition pre-Prohibition and in Europe with cognac and wine. That said, in the U.S. there’s been some pushback in the industry because folks in the industry are tempted to make it seem as though they’ve distilled the things they’re sourcing.

Even though we initially wanted to produce ourselves right out of the gate, because of the time it took to realize we were going to have to fund it ourselves, it did enable us to have proof of concept with the blend and to also really start to get that story out into folks minds.

Did you consider fighting to keep the Bomberger’s name?

We were advised that we could win but it was a lot of money. The reason that we got into this was to make whiskey and do preservation through production. So for us it made more sense to change the name.

How did the trademark suit affect you?

We had to stop in our tracks. We had been going about eight months. We were just getting traction. We were on menus at Robert De Niro’s restaurants in New York. We had all these amazing things happening. It’s like you just get started on your dream, and then the rug gets pulled out from under you.

For us there was never a question of stop, it was just how do we best preserve what we’re trying to do and continue. So for us it was always preservation through production.

What’s your attitude toward all your obstacles?

For us we come from a restaurant and food world where there’s not a question of, is there going to be an emergency? Is something going to go wrong? It will. How do you react to it? And I think in life in general it works that way too."

Also, Sam Komlenic wrote on March 25th on the Whisky Advocate blog about Dick and Erik doing distillation runs in Virginia:

Direct link with picutures: http://whiskyadvocate.com/2016/03/25/the-man-comes-around/

Sometimes life takes us down strange paths. And sometimes it's amazing where they lead. Who knew that Dick would get another shot at doing what he does best!


 Obligatory Michter's Picture: