Copper Run considers sale, contract distillery model

Over the last 12 months, spirits maker Jim Blansit has been working on a new recipe.

It’s not the next whiskey to trickle out of the still at his Walnut Shade-based Copper Run Distillery. It’s the future plan for his business model, and it may involve selling to Upland, Calif.-based branding and marketing company Wicked Tango LLC.

“We’re working on it right now, the details of it as far as percent ownership,” Blansit said. “I will either retain a small percentage or sell it entirely. If that’s the case, I’ll stay on to help promote and produce new products along with the Copper Run brand.”

Under the basic terms of the new plan, Wicked Tango, owned by Blansit’s brother-in-law Jim White and business partner Larry Bross, would expand its production to cover contract distilling for the new owners’ other brands. That plan includes the Wicked Tango brand of whiskeys that retails in eight states, as well as distilling private label batches for clients. White and Bross could not be reached for comment by Springfield Business Journal’s news deadline.

Anyone worried the operation would make a run from it’s home in the hills can rest easy, Blansit said.

“Copper Run stays here in the local market and we continue doing business as usual,” he said. “The company will also be producing other brands as well. So, we’re becoming a contract distillery – if you want a brand, we’ll produce it for you.”

In working through his business plan to enter Springfield, Blansit eventually considered taking on a partner-investor with marketing experience.

“I was very open to that possibility, but it required a partnership that fit, and that just never came to fruition,” Blansit said, declining to disclose the parties he met with or the possible deals that were bandied. “There were two different directions to go in and neither one of them came together. So I chose a third option.”

The idea to uproot for Springfield also came with some alarm from distillery visitors that a move would undo some of the down-home, backwoods charm Blansit learned is integral to the brand he’s built, batch by batch, since 2009. In the new markets Copper Run would enter, originating from the hills of southern Missouri buys the product some credibility.

“Imagine you’re in the music industry in L.A. and you want to put your name on your rock star whiskey, ‘made in Springfield, Missouri’ doesn’t mean anything,” Blansit said. “Our branding has been based on our location here in the woods. So it helps us with future growth in the areas outside the Ozarks.”

Contract distilling is familiar territory for Blansit, who late last year boosted sales through smaller contract orders, such as producing house whiskey for liquor stores in the Macadoodles chain or one-offs for groups like Highland Springs Country Club or GeoEngineers Inc. and O’Reilly Automotive to send client gifts.

Declining to disclose company financials, he noted contract distilling recently has made up less production compared to filling supply and demand of the Copper Run brand, until the deal with Wicked Tango came into play.

“It’s the same thing we were interested in doing, but now we’re going to have a connection with a much larger clientele base,” Blansit said.

With space maxed out on the current property – west of U.S. Highway 65 between Springfield and Branson – Blansit said he’s seeking land within a five-mile radius of the headquarters so the company can expand production and construct a barrelhouse for aging spirits. Production volumes, he said, are still to be determined.

On the distribution side, a new deal with Heartland of America Beverage Co. would expand the distillery’s retail sales, Blansit said. Previously, Copper Run self-distributed product. Calls to Heartland officials seeking the number of locations where Copper Run is available were not returned by deadline.

At the distillery, Blansit is building a larger stage to accommodate weekend live music performances.

Hosting local artists and private parties as well as taking visitors on tours remains on the menu.

“With this location and utilizing it for its highest potential as an events center – everything that makes it a fun and unique experience – it would be hard to capture that unique feel on asphalt somewhere else,” Blansit added.