Spirits Age in Distillers' Minds

Some whiskeys need to age to attain their best taste, but the owners of Lake Bluff’s North Shore Distillery let some of their best creations age in their minds before they are ready for customers.

Owners Sonja and Derek Kassebaum, a husband and wife team, started out in 2004 with North Shore Vodka and Distiller’s Gin No. 6 and have added four other brands since. Those took more time by design.

Earlier: North Shore Distillery Tucked Away in Lake Bluff

One of the newer items is Sol, a chamomile citrus vodka that incubated three years in the Kassebaum’s minds before reaching retail shelves, restaurants and bars in 2011. They credit patience as one of the reasons for success.

“If we do something unusual we want to let it sit and come back to it,” Derek Kassebaum said. “We want to make sure it’s right.” He likes to tinker with his creations striving to make them better and better before the public gets its first taste. “We want it just right.”

Derek Kassebaum learned how to distill when he was in college but that education had nothing to do with alcohol when he studied engineering at the Colorado School of Mines. He became a chemical engineer.

“Distilling is a big part of petroleum refining,” Sonja said. “The science of it (distilling) was part of his education.” That education enabled her husband to fuse their passion for fine spirits with his professional training as an engineer.

That took care of the production end of the business but the best drinks in the world will not sell unless people know about them.

That’s where Sonja Kassebaum, an attorney with an established practice, came in. She gave up her practice to handle the marketing and other business elements of the company. She did not have a marketing background but figured it out quickly.

“It was a lot of grass roots,” Sonja Kassebaum said of her initial efforts. “We got experience with partners (customers like retailers, restaurants and bars). “They want to experience it, try it, before they commit.”

The Kassebaums also got some help from the State of Illinois when the law changed allowing small distillers to operate and open a tasting room. Now anyone who walks in the door from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday or 2 to 8 p.m. Saturday can sip the vodkas, gins, aquavit or absinthe and come to their own conclusion.

Once the North Shore Distillery spirits reach a shelf or bar, people like Donna Orsi of Highwood’s Nite N’ Gale Restaurant bolster the marketing effort. “I’ve had people try this (North Shore Vodka) in a blind tasting and they prefer it to Kettle One,” she said.

The business also lets the Kassebaums satisfy their entrepreneurial nature. “We control our own destiny,” Sonja said. “We’re not as wealthy as we could be but we have a lot of fun.” They have also figured out how to work together all day and live together away from the distillery.

“He has his strengths that are his and I have my strengths that are mine,” Sonja Kassebaum said. They confer on major decisions but otherwise stick to their specialties. And, they have developed a life away from the still.