NORTHFIELD – A decade after becoming the first legal spirit producer in southern Minnesota in more than a century, Loon Liquor Co. is doubling down on its presence in Northfield with an expanded destination-style distillery downtown.
Co-owners Simeon Rossi and Mark Schiller are finalizing plans to buy the former Northfield News building along Fifth Street W., where they hope to move their entire operation to by fall 2025. Loon Liquor, now in a business park on the outskirts of town, will pay the city of Northfield $960,000 for the property.
The new building, with about 7,500 square feet of space, will be more than double the size of the business’s existing facility, where it has been distilling spirits since 2014. Rossi and Schiller estimate the new space, which will house not only the distillery but also a 120-seat cocktail room, will cost an additional $3.5 million to build out.
Among their notable investments into the facility will be an on-site flour mill for making farm-fresh pizza, and a custom Italian-made still that will allow Loon to scale up its production of organic spirits by about eight times its current output.
“Not only are we going to be able to significantly increase capacity, but the new equipment will also be a beautiful showpiece and really draw people in,” said Rossi, who heads up product creation for Loon.
The decor at Loon Liquor includes flavors the distillers experiment with in cocktails and spirits. (Renée Jones Schneider/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Loon now produces about 2,000 bottles of vodka, whiskey, gin and other made-from-scratch spirits per month, the owners said, triple what they were doing five years ago. In addition to selling products on site, the brand is in about 400 Minnesota liquor stores and a couple dozen restaurants.
Rossi and Schiller, former Northfield High School classmates who started the company with no distilling experience, said much of the growth has been driven by their pre-mixed cocktails, including an old fashioned mix released about 18 months ago that now accounts for about 40% of sales.
The business has also been intentional about keeping prices below other small-batch craft brands. Prices vary location to location, but spirits generally go for about $27 per 750 ml bottle while the premixed bottles are about $23.
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