It’s About Quality, Not Quantity! – OzarksFirst.com

Copper Run Distillery produces whiskey, rum, vodka, and moonshine. Making the spirits in small batches might be better than mass-production.
Owner Jim Blansit says distilleries are a new trend and he expects them to be popping up in different parts of the country, as well as in Missouri. He says people are fascinated with the valor of moonshine and the history. “It seems as though everyone has a story of a grandfather or an uncle or somebody that was making moonshine in the day.” Even he has one. “Back in the 70’s as well, when there was a gas crisis my father did a small batch — an experiment batch of corn whiskey on his stove — and I saw him make a small batch to run his car and so ever since then I’ve been fascinated with the idea of making corn whiskey.” And that’s their number one product that they make. “We also produce rum from black molasses and we make vodka and we also age our corn whiskey into a bourbon sour whiskey.” And they make their moonshine from corn. “The recipe is actually 80 percent corn and 20 percent wheat.” They have a very traditional way of making corn whiskey that produces a unique product and flavor. “We do the old-fashioned sour mash process and we double distill a copper pot.” Then they take corn and wheat and grind the raw grains into corn meal and then mix it with water. “And allow the natural sour mash process to break the corn starch down into corn sugar.” Then they ferment that with yeast. “We can produce our corn whiskey in less than two weeks from the raw ingredients to the finished product.” There are two reasons why producing whiskey here in the Ozarks is so special. “One, the water that we have here — the limestone water — is perfect for making whiskey with the calcium and the magnesium,” says Blansit. The other is the white oak trees that grow here. “They’re world famous for making the best whiskey barrels.” He says they char the barrels and catch them on fire to cook the sap inside of the wood. “And caramelizes those sugars into flavors like vanilla, butterscotch, toffee, and burnt marshmallow.” So they add their whiskey to those barrels and through that aging process the whiskey picks up a lot of the flavor from the barrel. “It goes down smoother!” And the color gradually becomes darker the longer the whiskey is in the barrel. But what makes this distillery’s spirits better than what you would buy in your local store? “I think our spirits here are made with a lot more love,” says Cindy Woolf, a Copper Run employee.
And the ability to make small batches. “It’s a knowledge,” says Blansit. “An awareness of how things can be made compared to how they’re mass-produced.” He says the hands-on ability to make one small batch at a time allows them to make something really unique. “We’re not focusing on quantity; we’re really focusing on the quality.” Copper Run Distillery always offers a tour of the facility and a sample of each product it produces. It retails all spirits along with t-shirts, logo glasses, and handmade gift boxes. It is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. It has live music every Sunday starting at 1:30 p.m. featuring local singer/song writers like Cindy Woolf and Mark Bilyeu. Cindy Woolf and Molly Healy will be performing this Sunday, December 11.

Copper Run is also available for private parties from 7 p.m. to midnight.

You can enjoy a moonshine margarita, hot apple pie, rum punch or a whiskey hot toddy in their sample room.

Their logo and labels were designed by Creativore in Springfield.

Copper Run Distillery: It’s About Quality, Not Quantity! – OzarksFirst.com.