In the back of his mind, Ricci Hull always knew he wanted to own a business, but it wasn’t until he met his wife, France native Natacha Krzesaj, that a newfound passion sparked the inspiration for Baton Rouge’s first microdistillery.
As Business Report details in the new Entrepreneur feature from the current issue, Krzesaj introduced her husband to the resurgent world of craft cocktails, and in the process Hull discovered a keen interest in distilling.
After a trip together along the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, Hull—an electrical engineer with an MBA from LSU—realized he could essentially design and build the same equipment. In mid-2013 he set out to start his own distilling operation and Baton Rouge Distilling was born.
While Hull and Krzesaj initially expected to produce bourbon as their first product, the opportunity to connect with Henry Amato of Independence-based Amato’s Winery earlier this year took them in a different direction.
After completing a lengthy and complex permitting process, Hull sourced and tested Amato’s strawberry wine and distilled it into Louisiana’s first locally produced brandy.
“In Europe, traditionally, fruit brandies are made of a variety of plums, pears, apples and wild blueberries,” Krzesaj says. “I’ve never really seen a strawberry brandy, but we figured why not try it and see if it tastes good.”
The experiment paid off. Their strawberry brandy officially hit the market in late May, and five months later Hull had moved the last two cases out of the distillery.
With plans for a final production run of the strawberry brandy, the couple’s focus is now shifting to the research and development of bourbon and other whiskeys to expand their portfolio. Their goal is to grow the business slowly and organically.
“This is all of our investment, so we can move at our own pace,” Hull says. Krzesaj adds: “Then when we reach a certain level, it will allow us to start focusing on this 100 percent.”
Along the way, Hull also wants to work toward uniting Louisiana’s growing distilling community. “Other states have craft distilling guilds where you can get together to share information,” he says. “That is something I’m going to try to work on because in the end, we are not all competition. We are complementing the state spirits.”
Read the full Entrepreneur feature. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
