Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Iott.
Hi Chris, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
North River Vodka is distilled in Traverse City by Grand Traverse Distillery from potatoes grown in Kalkaska by Iott Seed Farms, the farm I grew up on. The Iott family has been farming in Michigan since the 1800s. My family has been farming in Kalkaska since 1974. The farm was formerly owned by my dad, Ralph Iott, who died more than a decade ago. My two brothers, Dennis Iott and Greg Iott, and one of our nephews, Bryan Fischer, now own and operate the farm.
Iott Seed Farms grows about 27 million pounds of potatoes each year. They store the potatoes through the winter and then ship them to other farms to be used as seed. Those farms grow potatoes from those seed potatoes to be made into potato chips.
I just always thought it would be a cool thing to make vodka from potatoes grown on the farm. The name North River Vodka is a hat tip to my family’s place on the Manistee River. My dad lived on the river — his place there and the farm were his two favorite places in the world — and his home and the grounds surrounding it remain a key gathering place for our family. July 4th weekend is the highlight of the year there.
This is much more a labor of love and a hobby than a career at this point. We are a small brand. But I’ve always said that if we make vodka and stay in business for five or ten years and break even — and if I can hold on to Batch 1, Bottle 1 — that I’ll consider it a success.
We launched in 2018 at Grand River Brewery in Jackson, which is where I live. The owner of the brewery learned about our interest in starting a vodka brand and connected us with a distiller, then sold our vodka from the restaurant for about a year. We went into statewide distribution in late 2019.
We had a couple distillers for our early production runs but quickly settled in with Grand Traverse Distillery, which is located about 30 minutes from the family farm. We are biased, but the vodka is really, really good. It’s clean. It doesn’t have the burn that many vodkas have. We don’t distill or filter the heck out of it, so it retains a bit of the sweetness and earthiness from the potatoes rather than featuring the alcohol burn that most vodkas have. We also earned a silver medal in the American Distilling Institute’s International Spirits Competition. There are a ton of tasting competitions. We chose that one because it was the most legitimate one we could find.
Our vodka is currently available at all of Grand Traverse Distillery’s tasting rooms as well as about 100 stores, bars and restaurants from across the state. (If you can’t find it, please ask for it!) We are excited to be carried at Northland Food and Family Center and Twin Birch Golf Course in Kalkaska since that’s the vodka’s hometown. We are also available at all Polly’s Country Markets stores (located in southeast Michigan), Mega-Bev stores and a handful of Meijer’s small format “market” stores. We are also currently on drink menus at Mason Jar Cafe in Benton Harbor; Klavon’s Pizzeria and Pubs in Jackson and Mason; Freighters Eatery & Taproom in Port Huron; and Smoke ‘N Fire, which is located in Firekeepers Casino & Hotel in Battle Creek.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It would have been a rough road if this were my only job! Most craft spirits brands have a distillery and a tasting room that is a destination for people. They do a tour, taste some spirits, buy a bottle or two and some T-shirts, then head home and (hopefully) pick up replacement bottles at their local store. We’re just a single-SKU brand with no tasting room of our own, so it’s a challenge getting attention and developing brand-loyal customers. We also have just one product since we don’t have our own distillery, which obviously limits our growth.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My full-time job is running Social Sound, a social media/marketing company that helps small businesses who don’t have someone on staff to handle those things. I don’t have a niche, but my work with agriculture-related businesses is growing all the time. I do social media work for two farms. Our goal is to educate our friends and neighbors who live near the farms but also across Michigan about what goes into modern farming. I grew up on a farm, so I have a special place in my heart for farms and farmers. They are caretakers of the water and the land and care about the environment. People don’t know enough about the advances farmers have made in the past several decades when it comes to the efficient use of water, fertilizer, etc., so it’s important to me that I help get that word out.
Prior to starting Social Sound in 2016, I spent more than 20 years in journalism, the majority of them as a sportswriter. My final job in journalism was covering the Detroit Tigers from 2010 to 2016 for MLive.com and the eight newspapers across Michigan that are affiliated with MLive.
A friend who I met through my work covering the Tigers and I have a podcast called The Michigan’s True Spirit podcast that we use to (lightly) promote North River Vodka. (North River Vodka’s motto is “Michigan’s True Spirit.) We interview people from Michigan about what they do and what they love about Michigan and discuss all things Michigan: food, drink, culture, travel, music, etc.
How do you think about happiness?
Spending time with friends and family, attending concerts, traveling and playing poker.
Pricing:
- $32.99 is the state minimum price for North River Vodka
Contact Info:
- Website: https://northrivervodka.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/northrivervodk
