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By John Allaire S ometimes the best-laid plans crumble, and when the dust settles, Phoenix rises and a new, much more ambitious plan emerges. Such is the case with Wolfhead Distillery. Manhertz explains, “It was supposed to be a bottling oper- ation, actually. One of the local distilleries wanted us to do some bottling for them. That didn’t really happen, but in the process, we saw craft distilling exploding in the States. When we first started this, there was maybe 200 craft dis- tillers in the United States. I think there are over 3,000 now. Just in the last four years.”
Essex County, he has been contracted to supply others in the distilling industry for years. “We have a little sawmill here. So we made pallets for them, we made minor barrel repairs. We aren’t coopers by any stretch of the imagina- tion, but they buy a lot of one-time use bourbon barrels and we reconfigure them for continued use.” Basically, Wolfhead came from the manufacturing side and ended up on the production and retail side. From a mill to a still, so to speak. Sounds like a pretty unique story of passion and opportunity coming together to create success. But Manhertz laughs that they aren’t even the first in their region to go from forestry product manufacturing to making booze.
Manhertz has his business roots planted in manufacturing. As owner and operator of Timberwolf Forest Products in
“We’re in Amherstburg, just outside of Windsor, and my daughter researched it and found out that I’m not even the
“I’m not even the first guy in Amherstburg to go from a mill to a still.”
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SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • APRIL 2018
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