Transcription of Luke Davidson for the show Eat Maine #181
Dr. Lisa: It’s always a lot of fun to bring the pages of Maine Magazine to life in a different way. Today, we have with us an individual who is featured in the food issue of Maine magazine, which is our March 2015 issue. This is Luke Davidson. Luke is the Chief Distiller and owner of Maine Craft Distilling in Portland. He was raised in a self-sufficient, agrarian Maine community, sustained by a barter economy between neighboring farms. He’d always wanted to combine his sense of the Maine community, his love of agriculture and his desire to make Whiskey. On October 2011, that dream was realized when he opened Maine Craft Distilling. Thanks so much for coming in.
Luke: Thank you for having me.
Dr. Lisa: It’s interesting that your dream was to bring with you very different but also similar elements together. Not a lot of people would think, “Oh I want to do all these things and I want to be a distiller.”
Luke: There’s a lot of history around that for sure. Agriculture often grains were unable to be stored in a way through the winters and they would do that by distilling them or maybe fermenting them into beers of other things. There’s always been a close tie to that. It was a way for me to do both. To be involved in the food community and also in the real Maine agricultural community. It was fun to be able to try to put those together. There’s also a lot of figuring and wrench-turning in the process between the two that I was really drawn to so that was exciting for me.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me about growing up. You were raised in a self-sufficient agrarian Maine community, which was sustained by a barter economy. Not many people have that experience.
Luke: My parents were involved in or drawn to the whole back to the land movement of the late 60s, the nearing movement in that and the good life, a book that inspired them both. They moved to Maine during that time. They settled in the community that was very much old school name. It was beautiful. We call it, stone walls and field that were still full of hay instead of trees. It was a really neat place. A lot of people were doing the same thing. Like-minded at that time. There were hippies and they were back to the landers. My parents were kind of in-between there I’d say. They were short haired hippies, maybe it was the way to look at them.
We had a big community of the back to the land folks. There’s a lot of pickup softball games in the summer and potlucks and the Belfast coop was definitely a big piece of our life in that time.
That was in Jefferson. From Jefferson, Washington up into Camden, was a very unclave of this movement. We were involved in that but also my father and mother were both very drawn to the simple life of the indigenous, let’s say, Mainers. We had in our little community, we had probably 6 or 7 old family farms that were still in existence with an old barn out back and barely any running water. In fact we’re the only ones who had hot water on our road and our road rolled out to nowhere. It was really, really an interesting time.
It wasn’t an easy thing for sure, definitely, most of the people that were drawn to that time, a lot of them after found other ways to move. They stopped heating with wood and whatever and moved into the easier times. Even the people that lived there did the same thing. That’s why it was interesting to me is to watch that change as I grew up and move on and come back to visit and actually both my parents have move from that area as well.
But a lot of that simple and interesting life had disappeared. The farms fell down. I was also looking at why that happened. I was trying to figure out in some way to see where that piece fell apart.
A lot of things happened. I think large box doors and inexpensive food came in. It was hard too. It was a hard lifestyle. As easier ways came about, people were drawn to them and that makes sense too, but a lot of that whole piece disappeared. What’s been really fun is to watch it come back, actually, in a different way but very earnest and solid as the, obviously, MAFTA is a big scene now in a good way, there’s a lot of the local food. I don’t know that it ever died for sure but it’s really the rebirth of it has come and it’s really exciting to be part of that. I saw that activation. My father especially still is involved in that piece.
He lives in Brooks now and he’s full of a lot of that. Still been able to watch, see him be continuous with it. Then, I’ve watched it come through inaudible new way, in a youthful way and wanted to be a part of that again. Originally, I was a carpenter throughout this process and build houses and barns and things. I’d lived out of the state and came back with my wife 18 years ago. It’s very hard work and it’s not always prevalent in Maine. Making a living in Maine especially outside of Portland is not an easy thing.
I was always looking at different things. My wife and I had tried farming for sure. We had a milk delivery business for a while. With other things like foods and what not, local foods and things. The great recession put a nail in that coffin. But kept looking at other avenues and one was to malt and grains, because Maine has a lot of grain grown in the state. It’s not really that well-known. A lot of it is a secondary crop to potatoes.
The potato farmers are finding that it’s profitable and actually desirable than grains and so they’re starting to really build that piece up. I was looking at ways of, there aren’t any malt houses on the East Coast for sure and was looking at different ways of trying to turn that grain into some more value-added product. As I looked at closely, I’d work with CEI and some other organizations around that and did some business planning. There wasn’t a lot of margin, very, very small margin. As you look further down the line, you’ll see it being the value-added comes later, much later either in the beer or whiskey, I would say. I was drawn to that piece. It’s a desirable product. There’s a lot of lure around it. I feel like Maine has a really interesting lifestyle. We’re talking earlier about that whole mystique of Maine and the character of Maine. It’s got a national draw. I saw that as a good way to actually add value, to even more, to what I wanted to do. It’s a very similar and even kind of people to the Scottish realm. The type of whiskey we make is really Scottish style whiskey. It boiled that all up and distilled it and here we are.
Dr. Lisa: Having read the good life at a time in my existence where I had small children and there was something really appealing about that, the simple way of living. But when I started to incorporate some of these things into my lifestyle, they’re very time-consuming. In its simplicity, it can often become complicated. I think this idea that you are trying to pull in the things that have worked from the past and learn lessons from them and make them into something that might work in the future, is really appealing to a lot of people.
Luke: It’s very exciting to be a part of that. That piece, it’s actually like you said, watching the simplicity turn into hardship has been an interesting place. People are drawn to the simplicity but the hardship is definitely … They’re drawn to the bigger story. To be able to pull pieces from that and apply them to making it a little bit easier and still be able to experience that story and more. It’s definitely a big responsibility. I think it’s a big piece of what is making us interesting to people. Is that, we are, and genuinely not in some sort of propped up or façade type way, we’re actually applying a lot of those pieces of Maine that people that they enjoy and are making something really neat with it.
Your point is interesting. I think everyone is drawn to that simple life and that the book was a very much an example of that. Everybody, my wife and I included, we jumped in very deep into that spot. I had grown with it but actually it’s a very similar process because I watched my parents do the same thing. At that time I didn’t really know it but now I look back after having experienced it myself. It just wear out. You say, particularly now, we actually have to have light outside of that place. That’s where it’s really hard. But I get to live in both places by doing this and that’s what’s really fun.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. You were talking to me about your children who are both in high school now. They enjoy living, you live in Freeport. They enjoy some aspects of suburbia but you also get to live on a farm and you also get to have a job that you like and you get to work with an authentic product and authentic Maine people. That really is pulling together, not just saying, “I’m going to be over here doing the good life back to the lander thing.” Or, “I’m going to be over here and be in suburbia.” You’re saying, “I’m going to create my own thing out of this and make it really work for me and my family.”
Luke: It’s, for sure, a piece of that that I’ve always carried with me is that I love what I’ve been most drawn to in the Maine story, is there’s a Yankee can do quality to a lot of Mainers. This still persist kind of thing. There’s a lot of pride around that. It’s definitely a piece that I have taken from the people that I grew up with. I’ve seen, make literally, vehicles out of seven different vehicles and things like that, I’m drawn to that place.
Also, some sort of a provincial quality that is not entirely enjoyable or easy to live in. We’ve definitely taken a silk purse in terms of, or as I was here I should say and trying to make a silk purse out of it in our little in Freeport and keeping the more … Like you just said, allowing my family, it’s a balance point to be involved in the world in a way that is modern and involved. But still try to keep exposed to some of the interesting points of what I think is important which is a. Hard work and b. Understanding the world around you and being a part of the bigger picture in the system and of farming and agriculture and life systems and things like that. It’s been really fun. Definitely, have been ups and downs in that process. There are days where it’s harder than not doing that but it’s been fun.
If you ask my kids, I think there’s a piece of them in there that would definitely agree with me but a lot of them would be still arguing that it’s better to go to the mall and get a cellphone.
Dr. Lisa: I, currently, have two teenagers and a 21-year-old so I feel for you because I think that we all struggle with that. It’s also, having interviewed your father for the radio show, he goes by a different name.
Luke: [inaudible 00:43:35]
Dr. Lisa: [inaudible 00:43:37] and he also is in the feature of Maine Magazine. He took a different path entirely. What’s nice for me to see is that you totally respect that. He has a different life that he’s chosen, you value that, you give him credit for that, you’re choosing this life and you’re trying to figure it out and being authentic yourself but also, a situation your children are growing up, you’re giving them the space to try to understand how they fit everything together as well.
Luke: It’s actually, I hadn’t put that all together until right now. It’s a neat thought. I will say that in that pursuit, a lot of it is genesis, is definitely in my parents’ pursuit. Their exposure for me of that time and their excitement about it definitely affected me in a good way. To watch my father move through his life and still maintain a lot of that in is path exactly as you said, it’s been helpful to watch him make his path. His activation and support for mine, has been really nice too. We all have taken something from that is what I’m trying to say. Now, I can only hope that, to my children would be in the similar vein. They are definitely excited about what we’re doing. There’s a lot of fun in our space even though it is spirits and something that my children aren’t actually enjoying right now. There’s a culture in our community that’s being developed that they definitely feel.
Right there under the very simple things like my son will hop right to grand and my daughter will help wash dishes or what not in the distillery. My son plays and he’s always contributing to any kind of event we have in that way. There’s been a lot of family community around this and then the bigger picture community. For me, the most rewarding thing that’s been happening is the community they’re supporting us in what we’re doing has been really, really helpful and exciting. We’re feeling it in all kids of ways right now.
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Dr. Lisa: I know that you wanted to make whiskey, that’s what your product is. Tell me a little bit about that product itself.
Luke: My original goal and I’d say dream or desire was to make a whiskey because I’m drawn to that. I like the story of whiskey. I like the product of whiskey. It’s a great way to illustrate the region. It’s like a concept in wine especially when I was coming to in the food world. Whiskeys are very regional, much like cheeses and, like I say, wines and all that. They’re very specific to a region. That’s why I really as drawn to the whiskey piece because we could really apply a region to a product.
In our whiskey, for example, we use Maine grain, before malt on premise which is very rare there’s only 5 other distilleries in the country that do it. They still do a fair amount in Scotland. That’s really a process of allowing the grains to activate the grain a little bit, to allow some of the enzymes to come out that makes it usable for us to convert starch in the grain to sugar.
It is done in a really large scale out in the Midwest and in Canada. On a small scale for the farmers that we use here locally, it’s hard to get that kind of specific grain. Also, when you do it on premise and in small scale, it changes the grain in a different way and makes it very, very regional, we found. We use a Maine grain, which is different, for sure, when we’ve noticed that because sometimes we do run out of Maine grain or can’t get a supply. There are certain times we have to bring in other grains and the product is definitely different. We have to blend it in in different ways. It’s not bad it’s just different. It doesn’t hit the mark of our profile.
We also use some peyton seaweed from down east and we smoke some of the grains and apply that flavor to it as well. We’re putting a really regional quality to our product. That’s what the whiskey piece, it’s coveted in the Whiskey world to have uniqueness to it. We really feel like we’re able to showcase that Maine quality throughout this product. That was my original draw. The lure and mystique around whiskey felt very parallel to Maine story that I was trying to tell. It was a great to showcase that product. But the problem with whiskey is that it takes long time to age. You put in the barrel and let it sit until you have all this capital sitting on a shelf, some other rack. You need to do something else while your rent checks, bills, keep coming in and insurances and all that. We knew that but it became very, very clear that that was something we needed to not have on the shelf.
We could leave that or she’ll be able to figure something else out. We started to make some other products. We call ourselves a farm to flask distillery. We were looking at other things that were fermentable and made a good spirit product that could go out of market much faster than what we wanted to do with the whiskey. We came up with a few different products that were definitely not whiskey and much more put on the shelf of it quickly kind of product.
We got excited about it. We had a couple of new ideas. We keep coming up with some other stuff so now we have nine products. They’re all being received really well. They’re all unique that’s the best part. The part that’s really exciting is we use Maine grain for all of them. We [inaudible 00:50:28] only the whiskey grain. We have found a supplier that does segregate the Maine grain, one of the malt houses does in Canada and sells back to us in Maine. It’s a little different than our malted grain. But we’re able to use it in all of our grain products.
We use Maine blueberries for our blueberry moonshine. We use Maine maple syrup. We’re really adding Maine, Maine, Maine, to this whole thing and really playing that story out. It’s coming together really well. All the products are very unique and we feel that is because of the regional quality of them.
Dr. Lisa: What I’m often struck by is this idea that you can be dedicated to creating something. But in Maine, unless you actually know how to market it and unless you know how to get it distributed and unless you know how to be really a business person, a small business owner, it is going to just sit on the shelf. How did you gather all of these skills and all of this knowledge? Is it something that you, it just came along?
Luke: In some ways, yes. I will say that, I definitely was just, I would say just a carpenter but I mean, I was a carpenter with a small crew that build houses prior to this. I’ve been drawn to the concept of marketing and design and things like that. I’m an artist on the side in a lot of ways. I’m just a closet artist in some ways or just drawing and painting at home thing.
I, originally, was a furniture maker, early days. I’ve always had that maker piece in me. I guess lots of things happened is that once you realize how expensive all of those things are, and applying the Yankee can do quality that is in me, I’ve found that we need to do something to get the stuff noticed. It’s became, it snowballed, we learn a little bit as we went and build upon the ideas of marketing. Very early days, actually, Kep Goldberg was really, really, one of my partners. I was friends with them. We were able to do some really nice early work with them in town. Great marketing firm in town. They gave me some ideas to step, live and then we snowballed, built on that. I had a great designer in town Scott Whitehouse who is an amazing designer, graphic designer.
We have a still at work called the FrankenStill, which is a bunch of different parts from the food industry that we’ve welded together and made it really usable and very wonderful still. Because actually there another piece in the same vein is that equipment is scarily expensive. Instead of spending $480,000 on a still we spent $9,000 and we weld it together ourselves and it’s a wonderful still. Much to the same avenue, we took a lot of marketing ideas and Frankenize them and made our own little story. If you come by the distillery you’ll see that is not very polished but ti tells the story for sure and there’s a lot going on in this space, there’s a lot of story being told that’s in this pace.
It was a matter of need that we came up with our design that why I learned of it is, need. Panic almost sometime.
Dr. Lisa: I think it’s very interesting that distilling just transforming, some creating something from a variety of things has become your life’s work in many different ways. In the distilling ideas, distilling spirits. I do think that there’s a Maine aspect to that but I also wonder if there is even a generational aspect to it. I see a lot of people in our generation who have taken some of the great things. Maybe it’s every generation, maybe it’s every successive generation, that we can take some of the greatest things from here and there and here and there and be open enough to make the right connections and create something out of them.
Luke: It gives meaning to what we do. Some tied to our history and some betterment of it, I think that lose sense of purpose. I think there’s a lot of that problem. It’s not just modern times, it’s always been that way. Without building upon what we have from our past, let’s say or community or around us, a lot of people lose sense of purpose, it feels like. I definitely feel like I’m gaining sense of purpose by that combining of those things.
I think that’s why people are drawn to our story is that there is some of that happening. I feel most rewarded and energized by not just the act of distilling which is, it’s definitely there’s a craft to it and there’s a lot of learning involved in that. But it is not the most exciting part of our process for sure. Basically, it’s a waiting process. Basically in essence boiling water in some ways. That’s not really what we’re doing but that’s the same process. It can take 9 hours to do that.
I have some great help now, people that really are right hand people, women and men there that are really, really helping the process. But that isn’t the most exciting piece of what we’re doing. It is about the community. It’s about building the brand and the story. That’s another thing that’s really important we really want people to know about what we’re doing. We’re not making alcohol delivery system. We’re applying a region and the quality of a product. It’s a cultural piece. We want people to enjoy this and not actually just, we’re not even marketing as something that you have a lot of. It’s not something that we’re interested in being. It’s more about the story and like you said, the distilling of many things and experience piece of it, community and a region, that’s really what we’re pushing.
Dr. Lisa: Luke, I encourage people to go to Maine magazine and to read the article about Maine Craft Distilling. I know that they’re going to want to learn more about the work that you’re doing. Do you have a website?
Luke: We do. It’s maincraftdistilling.com.
Dr. Lisa: If you’re listening and you want to hear about the spirits, the actual, literal spirits that are coming out of Maine and being created from Maine Grains and the work that Luke Davidson is doing, then go to his website or go to the March Food issue of Maine magazine.
We’ve been speaking with Luke Davidson who is the Chief Distiller and owner of Maine Craft Distilling in Portland. Luke it’s really been a pleasure to talk to you today.
Luke: Thank you for thinking of us. Have fun.
Dr. Lisa: You have been listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 181, Eat Maine. Our guests have included Kate McAleer and Luke Davidson.
For more information on our guests and extended interviews, visit lovemaineradio.com. Read more about Bixby & Co. And Maine Craft Distilling in the March Issue of Maine Magazine. Love Maine Radio is downloadable for free on iTunes. For a preview of each week’s show, sign up for our e-newsletter and like our Love Maine Radio Facebook page. Follow me on twitter and see my running travel, food, and wellness photos as Bountiful One on Instagram.
We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also, let our sponsors know that you’ve heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. I hope that you have enjoyed our Eat Maine show. Look forward to our conversations next week with Anna Lair and Deborah Hefernon, both of whom had survived heart transplants. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a Bountiful life.