Emily Vikre was raised in Duluth, while on a trip back to Minnesota to visit family, her parents told her about their experience at a spirits tasting. A key takeaway they had learned was that you need good water for good spirits, which is exactly what Duluth is known for.  The idea was born to start a distillery in Minnesota after hearing about this. Neither Emily nor her husband came from backgrounds in distilling or manufacturing, however, curiosity and connections allowed them to forge a new path.

A  few weeks later, when Emily and her husband found themselves back in Boston, and as luck would have it they incidentally met individuals in the industry and were able to check out how the distillation process worked. Six months later their family packed up a U-Haul and moved to Duluth to start what is now known as Vikre Distillery. The passion for founding the company came from celebrating the natural resources we have in Minnesota and wanting to be good stewards of our natural places while bringing people together. Emily loves that Vikre can be a place where people can find community and that acts as ‘a 3rd space’ for the people of Duluth. 

Talk to us about the manufacturing side of distilling.

Distilling uses inputs and creates outputs, and we try to be very conscientious about how those inputs and outputs impact the environment around us. Because our founding inspiration was Duluth and Lake Superior, we have a passion to be good stewards. The process of distillation uses a lot of water because we’re using steam to heat things and we’re using cold water to cool things down. We figured out a way to close the water loop. After the process water is heated, we send it off again outside where it’s generally cool and are able to use our  “natural resource” of the cold air to cool that water back down. Then it circulates back inside and goes back into the system to repeat the cycle without using any additional water. 

How do you prioritize being a good steward, locally?

We use as many local ingredients as possible and partner with local farms to get our grains and some of our botanicals, sourced from an organic farm in Wrenshall. We set up a compost for the building. All of our waste that isn’t being reused goes there.

How does your focus on sustainability and caring for our places impact your parenting?

I have two boys, and so much of how I focus on sustainability with them is through ongoing conversation and integrating thoughtfulness about how you make your choices. Through the constant conversation, we are coming at it with curiosity, learning, and a place of love for our shared natural places. We talk about how we can be conscientious about the choices that we’re making and how those impact all of the things that we love. 

We seek to run our business in a thoughtful and sustainable way, and we try to run our home in a thoughtful and sustainable way, by making a lot of small decisions every day that we hope to add up, and then also talk about it and advocate about it in our business and community.

What’s Your Upstream Story?

We share stories of stewardship written by and about Minnesotans like you! Share your story here.