Business Spotlight: The Entrepreneurial Spirit

It seems fitting that an entrepreneur who produces spirits such as whiskey and bourbon has the last name of Shotts.

Scott Shotts founded Missouri Spirits House LLC on March 4, 2011, but the journey to entrepreneurship was kicked off by a series of job losses.

A career marketer who built his resume at Clear Channel Radio and Noble, Shotts was one of the first marketing department casualties in a 2008 mass layoff at Bass Pro Shops, where he worked as corporate brand manager.

After a three-year run with his own agency and in St. Louis advertising work, Shotts connected with Jim Blansit, who had established a small-batch distillery back in the Ozarks. But a few years into sales and marketing work for Blansit’s Copper Run Distillery, Shotts was back on the job trail. He says Blansit shifted his business model, which eliminated Shotts’ role.

“I was kind of tired of making everyone else money. I wanted to create something on my own,” Shotts says.

Shotts teamed up with business partners Matt Graif, a Springfield graphic designer, and Cory Collins, an attorney with Husch Blackwell LLP. A fourth investor owner is a silent, un-named partner, Shotts says. With 30 percent of startup capital coming from the partners, Shotts says the group secured a $120,000 U.S. Small Business Administration-backed loan through Metropolitan National Bank to finance the remainder.

Eight months after securing city, state and federal licensing to produce craft spirits, Missouri Spirits House this year began making unaged whiskey, aka moonshine. The company shipped its first two pallets of product this summer to a private-label client with distribution in Oklahoma and has since sold 2,688 cases, or 16,000 bottles, through August, Shott says, declining to disclose the early revenue tally.

Missouri Spirits House’s core products are corn whiskey, bourbon and vodka, and Shotts says he’s releasing a rye whiskey in October. In the month of August, the trio of spirits was exclusively sold at area Brown Derby stores, though Wil Fischer Distributing Co. has agreements in place with Hy-Vee and Price Cutter, says President Jeffery Gower.

“We’re just getting started, just getting them into the market,” Gower says, noting strong on-premise interest at such places as Mudlounge, Flo Eatery and Wine Bar, and Kremer’s because Missouri Spirits House is a local brand. “We’re going to have a pretty wide distribution.”

The brand currently is Wil Fischer’s only spirits product, and it reflects a growing portfolio, Gower says. Just three years ago, Anheuser-Busch was its only supplier, and now Wil Fischer distributes tea, milk, water and wine.

Gower says the Missouri Spirits House product is a unique sell.

“With spirits, it’s little more difficult. There’s not a call for it,” he says. “You’ve got to really hand-sell it. We’ve got to take it kind of slow and make sure we’re educating the bar staff so they know the product. That really makes a difference. There’s not a real way to display the product, like a tap handle, for instance.”

Private-label client Mark Weaver of Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas-based MBW Brands LLC says he was introduced to Shotts two years ago through a mutual friend. A 25-year beverage business veteran, Weaver had been researching distillers to make moonshine.

“We wanted it produced in the Ozarks, and we wanted someone with credibility,” he says, noting he struck an agreement with Missouri Spirits House to produce, bottle and ship his Backwoods Moonshine brand.

“I’m in the process of launching it nationwide,” Weaver adds.

Already selling in Oklahoma liquor stores, Weaver expects Backwoods next month to hit shelves in Missouri, Texas and Arkansas. He’s working on gaining penetration in two to three states a month.

Missouri Spirits House makes Backwoods Moonshine in peach, strawberry and green apple flavors, which retail for $22 to $25, as well a 100-proof heritage line priced at roughly $28, Weavers says.

An eight-year home brewer, Shotts says his experience with distilling at Copper Run and a lot of trial and error in his South Scenic Avenue bottling and packaging space has got the main products right where the partners want them. “You’ve got to be able to make beer well before you can make whiskey,” he says. “It’s like cooking. Once you know how to do the basics, you just apply those to different techniques when you’re making spirits.”

Missouri Spirits House currently contracts with three companies for distilling services. Shotts says in an effort to keep overhead low, the company is waiting to invest the roughly $200,000 to purchase a distillation system.

“We’d love to be a regional distillery,” he says. “We’ve got great beer in Springfield. Now, it’s time for a spirits distillery. All the parts and pieces are in place.”