Prep Roundup – Week 6
October 11, 2016
TPSO earns high marks in mid-week stand-off case; suspect in custody
October 11, 2016
On Barrow Street in downtown Houma, Jacob Aucoin and Knickolas Turner are hard at work turning a shared dream into a reality.
The two friends have been working with contractors to renovate the old Lee’s Education Center building, turning the old school supply store into something quite different. The location that once prepared kids to begin their school years will soon help adults end their workdays.
Gone are the shelves stocked with pencils, notebooks and backpacks, replaced by dining tables, extensive hardwood bar tops and an iron staircase for a second level of entertainment. The building also features a kitchen, dozens of televisions, more than 20 beer taps and, perhaps most importantly, a small brewery on the first floor.
Soon, Aucoin and Turner’s hard work will be ready for business in the form of Spigots Brew Pub. The pair said they want to open their new venue sometime in November, so long as they can put the finishing touches on the building and clear the final regulatory hurdles in short measure. Turner, who will oversee brewing at Spigots, has already brewed a few batches, now waiting in cooling tanks to be enjoyed by customers on that opening day.
Almost all of the material and decoration inside Spigots comes from local suppliers and artists, according to Turner and Aucoin. They said they want to provide a unique, authentic experience for local diners and drinkers, and hope buying local will foster that community investment. According to Turner, he has already seen hints of that relationship as the project has developed.
“It’s like helping the community, but really, the community’s been helping us. Everybody’s like, ‘Let me know what I can do for you.’ And it’s not out of desperation. People believe in us,” Turner said.
Spigots will be the latest in a line of Bayou Region businesses selling localized libations to the public, with Terrebonne Parish recently making it easier for those companies to set up shop in the area. The Terrebonne Parish Council approved changing a zoning ordinance to allow microbreweries and microdistilleries in certain business districts during its Sept. 21 meeting. Now, those small-scale businesses can come to Terrebonne and create their own takes on the drinks many use to take the edge off.
Because Spigots qualified as a “brew pub,” with most of its business coming from food sales, it has been able to buy property and develop well before Terrebonne changed its zoning ordinance. However, the regulatory change already has local entrepreneurs eyeing the drinking market themselves. Noah Lirette helped push the ordinance change, motivated by his own desire to bring craft liquors to his native South Louisiana. While he has not found a location for his business yet and has no set date to open, Lirette can now work on bringing Good Earth Gulf Coast Whiskey Company to downtown Houma.
Inspired by his great-grandmother’s moonshining along Bayou Terrebonne during Prohibition, Lirette hopes to bring small-batch whiskey to Houma, focusing on an unhurried process and quality ingredients to make a product that resonates with the rich Cajun culture in the area.
“I want this whiskey to be a testament to the people around here,” Lirette said.
While Houma is just hopping on the craft beer and liquor craze taking hold across the country, Thibodaux has established vendors selling their own beer and liquor across the state and the nation. Mudbug Brewery, which received the go-ahead to brew in November 2014, has its beers available on tap in barrooms across Louisiana. For those wishing to have some Thibodaux-specific brews but avoid the bar scene, the brewery has been able to stock grocery store shelves with their products.
Just a few miles away from Mudbug, Donner-Peltier Distillers focuses on the harder stuff. The distillery, started by the Donner and Peltier couples in December 2012, has continued to expand, with customers from New York, New Jersey, California and other states in between joining a strong buyer base along the Gulf Coast, according to co-owner Henry Peltier. The business has grown its infancy of selling rum to now making three different rums as well as vodka, gin and whiskey.
Peltier said its vodka and whiskey, the first barrel-aged whiskey to be made in Louisiana since Prohbition, are currently his company’s most popular products. Peltier said developing the different liquors, with the appropriate tastes he and his co-owners desired, did not happen overnight.
“It was a collaborative process of working with the owners and distillers to come up with the flavor profile we were looking for and get it kind of dialed in. It took some time, actually,” Peltier said.
That process has reaped rewards, though, as Donner-Peltier products have won multiple awards at different liquor competitions, including the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Those victories are both affirmations of the work being put in at their distillery and help in one of their main challenges, which Aucoin, Turner and Lirette will soon face in Houma: shouldering one’s own brand into a market with established entities.
“Any industry when you start out with new products, new brand names, with zero brand recognition, you have to build your brand. It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort, and it’s getting there,” Peltier said.
Peltier also spoke about the bureaucratic challenges his company faced when starting up and still deals with to this day, describing state and federal regulations as “tremendous.” Lirette said he has begun the arduous work of applying for state and federal permits to still liquor, noting he hopes to get regulatory approval in about six months. Aucoin, who already went through the process for Spigots, said six months is the ideal turnaround on those processes. He stressed the importance of having all information ready up front, noting the booming craft alcohol industry means the overburdened regulatory agencies do not have time to go back and forth with applicants.
“There are thousands of other businesses across the country waiting in line behind you to get their permits, so if you mess up and they send it back, you’re going to get lost in the shuffle and it’s going to take longer. As long as you get everything in order the first time, you should be all right,” Aucoin said. •
