Exclusive Interview with Marc Edward Christensen, Salt Lake City Distillery, LLC (dba Dented Brick Distillery)

by ,

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

Marc Edward Christensen

Managing Member

Salt Lake City Distillery, LLC (dba Dented Brick Distillery)

3100 South Washington Street

South Salt Lake, UT 84115

Q: What was your inspiration to open and operate your own distillery?

I grew up in the Snake River AVA wine region of Idaho. My father loved wine, made a bit of wine in the basement, and also owned an agricultural supply store. We sold pumps, pipe, plow shares, hydraulic hoses and other agricultural supplies to farm stores in the region. As a result, we got to know a lot of farmers, and in the late 70’s and early 80’s some of the farms began to grow grapes and make wine. This was about the time drip irrigation started, and my first job was in my dad’s warehouse. In Idaho you could get a drivers license at 14 years of age if you were working, so I worked in the warehouse and made deliveries of dripper systems and hose to some of the wineries in the region.

In about 1983 my parents moved from town out to the Snake River AVA. They built a little home on the riverbank, just below Ste. Chappelle Winery. A couple of years after moving there, two young men from Ketchum, Idaho purchased a property just up the road and built a distillery! Unheard of! They used fruit from the local orchards to make Austrian style Eau de Vie in Cherry, Pear, Grape and others. I was rapt with the beautiful Austrian still they installed. I was in college at the time, and was working on a career in another industry, but this experience definitely planted the seed!

To this day I am still friends and get inspiration from many of the wineries and vintners there, including Steve Robertson at Hell’s Canyon Winery, Greg and Andy Koenig at Koenig Winery and Distillery, Greg and Mary Alger at Huston Winery, and one of my dad’s dear friends, Beverly Williamson at Williamson Orchard and Vineyard.

Q: Is there a story behind the name “Dented Brick”?

Yes, a really good one. When we first organized the entity and started fund raising, we called ourselves Salt Lake City Distillery LLC, our legal name. Pretty boring. Trying to find a property in Salt lake City, Utah to build a distillery is a bit problematic. Federal law requires a distillery property to be at least 500 feet from a school or a church. I don’t know if you‘ve ever been to Salt Lake City before, but there is a church or a school every 500 feet across the valley! I had hired a real estate agent to assist with this seemingly impossible search, and we’d been working together for about 8 months. The only properties we could find that were zoned, or could be zoned for a distillery were very far from the city. We really wanted to be close to downtown Salt Lake City. Finally, early one morning, George called me and told me to meet him at a property immediately, he had found the site! We needed to make an offer! It was only about 7:30 in the morning, and I complained that we couldn’t even start a closing until 10 am, but he’d have none of it, texted me the address, and told me to meet him immediately. I did as commanded, and when I arrived found a property sized to meet our need, with a cute brick house, and well drilling rigs all over the property. Turns out the owners were well drillers and had been officing out of the house. Even more interesting was that Grandpa was a water Witcher and would locate water with a switch from a Cherry tree, telling the sons where to drill. These guys had been drilling for several generations and had drilled artesian wells all over the city! They had even drilled an artesian well on site! Eureka! Our property has an artesian well with 28 ft of head pressure, drilled nearly 300 feet deep, that provides us with chemical free pure water which we utilize in every bottle! The mineral content in the water is very agreeable to fermentation, and creates very interesting esters and body.

Of course, we made our offer first thing that morning, we had our construction plans and contractor ready to go, so we had a few weeks to wait for city and country permits and approvals. While we were waiting, we decided to go to the house, go through it, see if there was something to salvage in it. During this visit we noticed the bricks in the front of the home were damaged by bullets. There were several bullet holes sprayed across the front of the home. Doing some cursory researched revealed that one of the well drillers was involved in a shootout on the front porch of the home and was killed! When we found this out, we really thought it needed to be part of our history. We also had a deep respect for the family that drilled this amazing well as it is such a part of our success, our brand, quality, and uniqueness. We decided to bring some of the bricks into the new distillery, build them right into the walls of the new facility. We also have the entry gate from the chain link fence that surrounded the property at the entrance to the distillery. Finally, we came up with Dented Brick as a way to describe these bricks chipped by flying bullets. Hence, Dented Brick distillery.

Q: Other than fermentable sugars, Water is one of the most valuable resources for any distiller. You have an interesting story about water and how that determined the location of your distillery. What can you tell us about this?

Our water is amazing. We like to say this years’ snow is next year’s whiskey. Our artesian well supplies us with amazing clean water full of mineral. Our water starts as snow, and after the winter, as it begins to melt, travel from the high Wasatch mountains thousands of feet down to the valley floor of the Great Salt Lake. This water disappears through the salty playa of the valley floor, penetrating the Great Basin’s porous alkali loam, and traveling to replenish a deep aquifer filled with minerals from the historic Lake Bonneville. These minerals are priceless for fermentation, and form some of the unique esters and textures that are present in our spirits. Our well allows us to make spirts that are unique only to our facility. Priceless!

Q: What is your daily routine at the distillery?

Unfortunately, I am no longer involved in the day to day production and distillation processes. My role as Founder has pushed me into administration and sales. Day to day I am managing the sales and production teams, distribution, marketing, and finance. As we are growing into more states, I find myself traveling to meet and pitch distribution teams and accounts.

Q: How did you acquire the initial knowledge to get started with fermentation and distillation and what have you done since then to improve on your techniques?

As mentioned before, I grew up around several wine

makers and the wine business. My initial fermentation knowledge came from the wine industry. My father also made a few gallons of wine each year when I was a small child. I think it is in my blood. So I had a bit of knowledge from an early age. When I moved from Idaho to Utah to go to college, the craft beer boom was just starting, and one of my acquaintances from the frat row started a very successful brewery, Uintah Brewery. I watched Del Vance and Will Hamill grow Uintah into a national brand and power house. Very inspirational. Once I decided to found a distillery, I went to several schools to learn fermentation and distillation. I took a nice class at Heritage Distilling in Gig Harbor WA, and also took a class I would recommend as a starting point from Allan Peterson at the Artisan Craft Distilling Institute as a start. If you are young and are serious about a career, I would recommend attending class at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh. I also traveled extensively through Kentucky, meeting a ton of distillers, famous and new, who were all very supportive, informative, and happy to pass advice and training.

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

Antelope Island Rum has won multiple gold medals, Best in Class, and many 90+  ratings for its tropical aromas and flavors of roasted nuts, “coco-nutty” body and banana leaf finish. Sounds confusing but if you take it straight over ice or in a long tall cocktail you will know exactly what we mean...a pleasant yet robust rum that tickles your tongue with our secret mix of organic molasses and green sugar cane juices. White rum, made with dehydrated cane sugar and a touch of molasses from Lu La Sugar Farm in Louisiana, and our Artesian well water make this a unique expression of Utah rum!

Antelope Island Red is unique as a barreled aged rum. After we’ve made our premium award winning Antelope Island White Rum, we store it in a used Cabernet wine cask specially prepared for us by Steve Robertson at Hells Canyon Winery in Idaho. This rum has a color both red from the wine and brown from the barrel as the spirit works its way through the wine and into the wood, extracting rich vanillin and wine esters on the way out.

Traditionally, rums originated in the West Indies and Jamaican islands. Antelope Island, like our regionally sourced raw materials, provides the local inspiration for our island rum (and by the way, we even have a parrot).

As you sail for Antelope Island, in the southern part of the Great Salt Lake, watch for natural fresh-water springs and a land-bridge that emerges when the lake is extremely low! Land ho! The island is a natural refuge for all sorts of wildlife including: bighorn sheep, mule deer, pronghorn antelope, coyote and the state bird, the California seagull.

Jan Stephenson Mango Flavored Rum. Not only our inspiration, but one of our owners, Jan Stephenson inspired a generation of female golfers by helping bring the game into the mainstream in the 1970s. After 3 major championship wins and 16 LPGA Tour events, she’s sharing her secret recipe for winding down and enjoying the beautiful sunsets of her Australian home with this premium flavored rum — a taste of the outback.

After we’ve made our awarding winning 40% ABV Cane-to-Glass Premium Rum, fermented and distilled from turbinado cane sugar and molasses, we blend in rich Philippine golden mangoes. Fresh cane juice aromas are evident on the nose and are uplifted by a sweet tropical fruit finish on the palate.

Jan Stephenson Passion Fruit Flavored Rum. We blend our Premium Silver Rum with the highest quality Passion Fruit juice we can find. smooth, velvet and Passion Fruit. Molasses and bright tropical fruit esters dominate over a finish of rich passion fruit and brown buttery notes. Most flavored rums, like Bacardi or Malibu, contain artificial chemical flavorings. Jan’s Passion Fruit Flavored rum is an 80 proof premium rum made by blending green sugarcane and molasses, both from Lula- Westfield in Plaincourtville, Louisiana, and then adding high quality passion fruit juice blended with our artesian well water.

Jan Stephenson Pineapple Flavored Rum. Yes, pineapple rum, but not from Meyers. This is handcraft at its best, our Premium Silver Rum and the best pineapple juice we can find. (There wasn’t any in Utah!) Rich, dark caramel notes and tart fresh pineapple are balanced with subtle grassy, vegetal characteristics in this dark rum expression. 

Dented Brick Well Rum. Dented Brick Well brands are really Premium Craft Well. It’s not just words, it’s our own category. We’ve hand crafted our Premium Rum, saved our heads and tails, and redistilled and blended to make a swell well price.

We were inspired to create a Craft Rum, handmade, with premium ingredients that could be priced at a point where fine Craft cocktail bars could afford to purchase it for their well. Consumers win, by getting a high quality well cocktail, the bar wins by getting a Craft quality well that is economically priced for resale, and Dented Brick wins by getting happy and loyal customers, like you!

Q: Do you produce other spirits?

Great Basin Bristlecone Gin is fermented and distilled in house from Cache Valley Red Winter Wheat and Pumpernickel Rye grown by Jake Burtenshaw in Idaho Falls, ID. It is then cold-macerated with tips of evergreen, juniper, fennel, angelic root, coriander seed, and citrus peel. An aromatic bouquet made for a classic martini. Our inspiration for this gin, the Great Basin Bristlecone Pines are remarkable for their great age and ability to survive adverse growing conditions. In fact, it seems one secret to their longevity is the harsh desert stretching from Utah to California, in which most Bristlecone Pines grow. A testament to time and tradition, we use bristlecone tips to back our grain- to-glass gin. Great Basin Bristlecone Gin defies the test of time and reaches for new heights in quality and flavor.

Hugh Moon White Whiskey. Hugh Moon’s 100% Rye White Whiskey is a rare find these days not only because it’s as clear as the water from our very own artesian well, but it’s the only white whiskey known to use the same recipe nearly 170 years after Hugh Moon first made it. With Brigham Young’s blessing, Hugh built his distillery on land with an abundance of grain and pristine water from an artesian well. There, he made a distillate of such high regard he would sell all that he could make to the “Good satisfaction” of all who drank it. Hugh Moon White Whiskey is still made on that very same land and it is our hope that you enjoy this white whiskey to your “Good satisfaction too.”

Q: Where are your products currently available for purchase?

Our brands are available in most state liquor stores in Utah, and over 700 accounts in the state. We are distributed by LibDib and Phenix Wine and Spirits in CA, with celebrity chef Quinn McKenna at China Live in San Francisco featuring our Great Basin Bristlecone Gin. You can purchase the Antelope Island Rum at Raley’s grocery stores. We are distributed by NW Wine and Spirits and Prime Wine and Spirits in WA, Revel Distribution in NV, RNDC in CO with retail sales at Total Wine and More in Denver. Full Clip distribution is launching our brands into TX, and we are available from Total Wine in FL with 11 stores. LidDib carries us in NY and in WI. You can buy consumer direct from our link to West Coast Craft Spirits on our home page and from Big Fish Spirits online in IL.

Q: I understand your hobbies include skiing, cycling and fishing. Do these hobbies inspire your life as a distiller or is it the other way around?

That’s a tough one. I certainly get re- energized after a day on the slopes, or an evening mountain bike ride in the woods, but I love to finish a day of recreation with a cocktail made from one of my spirits brands. Nothing like a flask of Hugh Moon while standing in the middle of a river with my fly rod. I do think these hobbies inspire me to not only run a quality craft distillery, but motivate me to be involved in my community. I think community involvement is an incredibly important part of our brand and what we stand for.

Q: What is your “go to” rum cocktail for a nice relaxing evening?

I've been drinking Rum-a-rita a lot lately. I know, tacky and not a Ron Abuelo 12 year, but it is sure refreshing on a hot summer night. Usually I use fresh lime, but I’ve found a mixer call Durty Gurl Margarita that really works well with our white rum.

Q: Do you plan to add new rums to your portfolio?

Yes. We are working on barrel aged versions of Jan’s Rums as well as wine and sherry cask aged rums. The category is open to new styles and interpretations of many of the rums coming from the islands. We’re having fun with it, but I also think discovering some really excellent flavors and styles that have not been produced before. Rum from Utah!?!

Q: Do you offer tours of your distillery as well as tastings?

We offer tours and tastings weekly. Tasting is $5 for 5 1⁄2 oz pours, tour is $5. Both $10.

Q: Are reservations recommended/ required?

Reservations are recommended, but not required. If we know you are coming, you will get a better tour. If you book on Groupon you can get some cool shwag.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about what a customer will experience when they arrive at your distillery?

During our tour, we not only tell the story of the history of the facility, but also the story of the brands, and the historical ties of the brands to the distillery. Don’t want to give it all away here, but there were some pretty amazing ties to Utah history and our facility that we’ve discovered along the way. We’ll show you how each product is made, and finish with a tasting. You can also buy bottles to go from our retail store.

Q: You offer a program called “Adopt a Barrel”. What is this about?

You can literally buy your own barrel and materials and make your own barrel of whiskey. You will be highly supervised by my production team, but you’ll learn the process, and be able to taste the barrel as it ages 2 or 3 years until maturity. It is really a great way to understand distilled spirits and barrel aging.

Q: So this program is geared towards whiskey, but do you have plans to extend it into the rum world?

I hadn’t until you asked me this question! Yes! Do you want to buy the first barrel? Great idea.

Q: What advice do you have for people who dream to own a distillery?

Well, I’d say, if you want to make money and not just have a hobby distillery, you need to do a lot of homework, raise a lot of capital, and be ready for a battle. This industry is not for the faint of heart. A hobby distillery can be fun, and you can make really nice craft spirits with very little investment. Just be sure you’ve gotten properly licensed!

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

marc@dentedbrick.com

801-918-0100 

Or stop in and say “hi”. 3100 South Washington Street, South Salt Lake, UT 84115. We really like visitors and running tours. Not many people have visited a production distillery before. We like the jaw drop when we open the door to our distillery.

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

We’re really trying to make the best product possible at the most reasonable price that we can. We love ideas from consumers, and we love introductions to distributors and retail level accounts. We can’t do it without fans, brand ambassadors, and finally sales.

Please link with us on FaceBook, Instagram, Linkedin. We’re always hosting community events, so watch for something going on in your town. Let us know if we can help you put on your event. We’ll be creating some awesome new concoctions and we don’t want you to miss out.

Margaret:  Again Marc, thank you so much for the opportunity to interview you. I wish you and your team much success.

Cheers!

Margaret