Exclusive Interview with Colton Weinstein, CEO and Co-founder of Liba Spirits

Q: What is your full name, title, company name and company location?

Colton Weinstein, CEO and Co-founder of Liba Spirits, headquartered in Ithaca, NY

Q: Could you tell us a bit about Liba Spirits, I understand that the word “Liba” has a special meaning, correct?

Liba Spirits is a nomadic distilling company started by myself and my business partner, Devon Trevathan. It means we have no brick-and-mortar facility but instead rent time at existing distilleries, using their equipment to produce our spirits. This grants us access to the unique agriculture of each location and allows us to distill spirits with flavor and character that we would not be able to achieve if we stayed in one place.The word Liba comes from a diminutive of a Yiddish word meaning ‘love’ or ‘beloved’, and honestly no other name could better represent our company. Liba captures so succinctly our sense of passion for the process and spirits we produce, love for the people we meet, and wonder for all the places we get to explore. Also, this endeavor wouldn’t have been possible without help from my late grandmother, who used to read the newspaper in Yiddish, so we’re happy that we can tie that in and honor her that way too.

Q: Prior to your involvement with Liba Spirits, you were the Head Distiller for Corsair Distillery.  Is this where you gained your knowledge about rum or does your experience in the field go further back?

I’m one of the lucky ones that found my calling from a very young age, as young as you can reasonably be when your calling is adult beverages. It started in my early teens making beer in the kitchen with my dad. I think the first batch went okay, but the second one was terrible. I decided I needed to learn everything I could about how fermentation and alcohol work. 

I managed to get my first ever job, which was as a vineyard assistant at Six Mile Creek in Ithaca, New York, and of course peppered the winemaker with as many questions as I could think of. From there I bounced around between vineyards, breweries, and hard cideries, picking up what I could about the differences and similarities in the production processes of these varied categories. Eventually it dawned on me that you could actually go to school and get a degree in this sort of thing, so by the time I was applying for colleges my choices had already been whittled down to the three with fermentation science programs: Cornell, UC Davis, and Oregon State, which is where I eventually ended up. 

At Oregon State is where my interest in distilling started to grow. There was something fascinating about going through all the steps to fine tune the fermentation process, and then capture the concentrated essence. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the good part of a spirit run is called the heart. When I got to Corsair, which is known for being experimental and playing around with their recipe formulations, that’s where my knowledge and understanding of all the different spirit categories really deepened. Through Corsair I was connected to the American Craft Spirits Association’s judging competition which was a big help in expanding my knowledge of how wildly contrasting flavor profiles could exist within the same category – in particular rum. 

Rum opened up yet another obsession of exploring all the different regions and styles. It provides such a clear view of how closely terroir affects a spirit. With whiskey you have subcategories like bourbon and scotch that, while varied, have a lot of consistency among individual expressions; rum is a wild landscape full of extremely different variations in flavor, and I always find those distinctions relate right back to the processing and traditions of the regions where an individual rum is made. It’s all sugar but there is an overwhelming spectrum of flavor. I read every book on rum I can find, and every time I see a new bottle I make sure to try it. Eventually I realized the only way I was ever going to really understand the world of rum, along with other spirits, was to get out of Tennessee and start traveling the globe to visit these distilleries and talk to the distillers firsthand. This realization was one of the foundational ideas that helped lead to the creation of Liba Spirits.

Q: At Liba Spirits, you have a very unusual business model.  Can you tell us about your approach and about the inspiration behind it?

The inspiration and what guides the approach to all our products is based in place and agriculture, more specifically the concept of terroir, which is not often applied to spirits. When Devon and I were brainstorming Liba and what spirits we wanted to make it became clear to us that within our core values was devotion to respecting the elements that make a good spirit—raw materials, water, facility setup, tradition, cultural inspiration, etc. We wanted to make sure we could capture the essence of the base materials we were using to make our spirits as well as the elements of the place where it was made that we find influential, and the only way to ensure that was to go to the source versus bringing the materials to us. We wanted the bottles – everything from distillate to packaging – to transport the consumer back to the cane fields of Louisiana, or the valleys of the Austrian Alps.

Q: What rums do you currently have in your portfolio?

Right now, Lafcadio Botanical Rum is the only rum in our portfolio. Lafcadio is made from a Louisiana molasses base with a botanical build of bay leaf, fresh orange peel, cardamom, white peppercorn, and cherry bark. The rum draws its inspiration from the New Orleans culinary culture. The base rum is kept present and relevant, working in tandem with the botanicals instead of being swept into the background like the base spirit in a gin might be. The bay leaf, cardamom, and peppercorn combine to give the rum a savory characteristic, while the cherry bark brings overall structure and backbone to the spirit, and orange peel brightens and lifts the whole profile. It’s a spirit that, with each sip, has a new flavor jumping out at you that you may not have noticed before. With Lafcadio, we made a botanical rum that is still very much rum first and foremost.

Q: I doubt anyone has ever tried a rum like Lafcadio before.  Can you describe people’s initial reaction to it?  Is it a hard sell or do consumers embrace it readily?

You know in all honesty as the spirit was first coming off the still, I was thinking, “man, I really love this, but boy is it different than anything I’ve tried before. This might be a hard sell.” Of course, to my pleasant surprise it has been very well received. It is more of the spirit geeks and cocktail enthusiasts that tend to jump at it versus a newer rum consumer who is just coming out of their Bacardi and coke phase (also everyone should try a Lafcadio and coke, it is such a beautiful and layered cocktail with only two ingredients). You could compare it to many of those higher ester rums coming out of Jamaica in the sense that they are all made to be bold; as a rum drinker, once you go down that road it’s hard to go back to a more neutral profile. For the past few years I have been getting deeper into high ester rums myself, so that bold character has become the one that I appreciate most in rum.  

One of the beautiful things about rum is there are so many different regions that produce the raw materials used to make it, and so many styles, that our options are endless. We found that of all the different spirits categories, rum fans in particular are already primed to be interested in trying new products from faraway places. So yes, you can expect to see more rum in the Liba portfolio.

Q: In addition to your rum you also have a Gin in your portfolio.  Can you tell us more about your Gin?

Our first product was 1643 Alpine Gin. It was made in the southern Austrian Alps using the facility at Kuenz Naturbrennerei in Gödnach, Austria. Like Lafcadio Botanical Rum, we focused on the character and flavors of the local area and its culture. The town is only a short but winding 45 minute drive from the Italian border, so we decided a combination of Alpine herbs and spices and classic Italian citrus fruits would create a beautiful depiction of our surroundings in the bottle. The star of the show, and the gin’s largest botanical component, are the fresh Italian juniper berries that very much capture the verdant but brisk flavors you find in that part of the world. Because we are able to use the berries fresh instead of dried, they impart a highly drinkable citrus character that harmonizes with the spicy backbone we added via our botanical blend. The lemons and oranges we picked up from a fruit market in Verona (and spent days hand peeling) bring a brightness that again would be unachievable if we had tried to produce this gin back at our headquarters in upstate New York. Finally to help build out and balance the gin we incorporated the Austrian side of the botanical build, using locally grown rosemary and ginger, along with the more traditional ingredients like coriander, cardamom, allspice, and nutmeg.

Q: Where are your products currently available for purchase?

Liba products can be found in both New York and California markets, as well as online at https://www.curiada.com/.

Our company was established in late January 2020–perfect timing for a travel-based brand to get off the ground. We were in the Austrian Alps working on our gin through February and early March of 2020, and eventually cut our trip short by a month as the extent of the pandemic began to become clear. I remember we took a short trip in late February to the United Arab Emirates to go to Abu Dhabi’s first craft beer festival, and three of the five hotels in the cluster where we were staying shut down to quarantine their guests after someone tested positive. We weren’t sure if we were going to even be allowed to leave the country to get back to Austria and finish our gin run (luckily we were). Eventually once we got back to our headquarters in Ithaca, New York we had to sit down and figure out how we were going to change our travel-based business model to adapt to a new way of life. Initially our plans never included any American-based spirits, but with borders closed down and the long quarantine requirement times we knew we had to focus stateside. That is when the idea for a New Orleans botanical rum began to take shape. I think in the long run I’m glad we were made to reassess. There was a lot that we needed to reconsider as a company and we were given the opportunity to do so in a way that most young businesses typically aren’t. A bit of a silver lining statement but a lot of good definitely came out of it. 

Q: You are quite a busy man, because in addition to your time you devote to Liba Spirits, you are also one of the Board of Directors for the American Craft Spirits Association (ACSA).  What is your role as a board member?  How long have you been in this position?

The ACSA has been a really empowering and wonderful experience for me. I strongly advocate anyone within American craft spirits to join and participate. The passion from everyone involved is incredible and inspiring, and I’ve been able to see many of our projects, like the push for federal excise tax reduction, succeed.

I was elected to the board around three years ago. Through the board I participate in a variety of advocacy and resource outreach to help our members, and the craft spirits industry at large. One of the most rewarding, and important areas that we focus on as a group is helping to build the community of distillers and suppliers and connect them to each other. I also chair the Safety committee where we provide education and resources on how to operate a distillery safely. 

Q: What have been the biggest challenges ACSA has faced, as well as, its biggest accomplishments?

I think one of the biggest but less obvious challenges ACSA faces is their relationships with the other beverage sectors. People, especially politicians, assume that wine, beer, and spirits are all essentially the same thing, so they must have the same goals and their trade groups are all interchangeable. That, of course, is very far from the truth. Since craft spirits is fairly new, many of our advocacy projects are centered around finding parity with the tax and compliance benefits beer and wine producers already enjoy. One of those big pieces was relief of the federal excise tax, or FET. When I first joined ACSA, spirits paid $13.50 per proof gallon (and that was just at the federal level). Through a lot of outreach and hard work from members of the industry and ACSA we were able to see that burden reduced to $2.70 for the first 100,000 proof gallons. I’ve heard countless stories from distillers all over the country who would have had to shut down their operations and close their doors if we had not been able to get that reduction passed. 

Q: If people want to contact you, how may they reach you? 

I am always available via our website:www.libaspirits.comvia our Instagram: @libaspirits, and of course by email colton@libaspirits.com

Q: Is there anything else you would like to share with our readers?

As I mentioned earlier, Liba is a term meaning love, and we always feel that in our travels and while out sharing our story. I just want to stress how important the community – both producers and consumers – is to that idea. Without the people and the passion that they bring, we might as well just be rocking a normal desk job. It is hard work, but well worth it for us in the end because the community makes it so enriching.

Again Colton, thank you so much for this opportunity and I wish you and your entire team all the best of luck.