Distillery owner shares her creative path

Lauren Oscilowski had just put in hours of hard work trying to get everything ready for the opening of her new distillery in downtown Whitefish. She had taken a jackhammer to the concrete floors with the intention of using acetone-based dye — a technique used to create a rustic, industrial feel — to give the floor a brown tint. But when she poured the dye on the floor, something wasn’t quite right. The color wasn’t changing like it should have.

It turned out this wasn’t the type of concrete floor you could simply pour dye onto. And Oscilowski had her first inspection coming up in less than a week.

Rather than fretting over the lost time and money, she quickly adjusted course — picking out a tile pattern and laying it down in time for the inspection.

Starting a new business always has its hiccups, but this wasn’t her first “rodeo,” she said.

Oscilowski moved to the Flathead Valley in the summer of 2011. She had been living in Missoula, and started coming up to the Glacier Park area in the summers to work for Glacier Distilling. Oscilowski was Glacier Distilling owner Nicolas Lee’s first employee.

It was a perfect fit, Oscilowski said. Lee had a background in chemistry but didn’t have the hospitality experience, and she had never worked for a distillery, but had experience in hospitality working as a bartender.

She was able to turn it into a year-round position, and her interest in distilling spirits began to form. Oscilowski worked for Glacier Distilling for four years, and had been living in Whitefish and driving to Coram for work each day when she started looking into the possibility of opening her own distillery. She even had a “romantic” idea of having a small distillery up the North Fork, she said, but that area was much more regulated.

Oscilowski already had the practical experience and she gained an education in fermentation from an online program through the Siebel Institute.

She started actively seeking a commercial space in the fall of 2014, and in April 2015 began the build out. In December 2015, she opened the doors on her distillery in downtown Whitefish, Spotted Bear Spirits.

From her time at Glacier Distilling, Oscilowski could remember that at first there had been days when the total sales wouldn’t be more than $30. But she also knew from her experience that the $30 days had gradually become several-thousand-dollar days.

This gave her a leg up starting out, she said. The hard part for her was finding the right work-life balance, and learning what her new role as a “business owner” meant to her.

At first, the title of owner to her meant that she had to put in 12-hour days. And not for the sake of productivity, but because she felt she had to, she said.

“I realized when I was staring at the same blank screen for 20 minutes that maybe that wasn’t the case,” she said. “... When you start a business, you have these expectations, you’re harder on yourself than you need to be.”

It took some getting used to, she said, but she eventually learned to delegate more and to take a step back when she needed to.

What she loves the most about owning her own distillery is the ability to get creative and play around, she said.

Oscilowski grew up in New England with the desire to someday be an author. She fell in love with the great American authors, William Faulkner in particular.

Her father worked in the tech-sector, moving through different jobs as the industry continued to grow. Her mother was a stay-at-mom for much of her earlier life but later began a career in horticulture. Oscilowski’s mother loved learning, and picked up more than a handful of degrees over the years.

So when Oscilowski decided she wanted to be an author, her parents encouraged her to have a backup plan in mind when as she considered college.

Oscilowski went to Arcadia University on the outskirts of Philadelphia, majoring in literature and secondary education. She planned on becoming a teacher.

She wrote her thesis on Sylvia Plath — the strong female writers were a passion of hers, she said.

She also took part in many slam-poetry sessions while in school, which she says helped her get out of her shell.

When Oscilowski was done with school, she knew she wanted to live somewhere near the Rockies. She loves the outdoors, and despite having grown up around the Appalachian Mountains, she said she oftentimes had to bribe her friends into doing outdoor activities.

She visited Montana for the first time in 2009 and quickly fell in love, moving to Missoula shortly after. When she wasn’t able to find a teaching position in Missoula, she worked in hospitality as a bartender.

Though Oscilowski has since switched career paths from her early love of literature, she still enjoys writing and currently volunteers as a writing coach at the Whitefish High School. She says the creativity of distilling spirits and making cocktails is not unlike that of writing.

“Creating is how you avoid getting stuck in the mundane side of it,” Oscilowski said.

It’s also an important part of being successful in a growing market, she added.

“It’s not like craft brewing where they get to invent these new products all the time. With distilling, there are generations of distilled liquors already out there,” she said. “You have to find your niche and get creative in that market space.”

Having local, Montana ingredients is part of the Spotted Bear niche, she said.

As a bartender, she enjoyed working with raw ingredients. Her biggest pet peeve, she said, was going to a restaurant and seeing the bartender make a margarita out of a store-bought bottle of sweet and sour. But the base, she added, is just as important as having fresh, raw ingredients.

“You have to get the basics down; if you don’t have a good base it’s not going to be a quality drink,” she said.

Vodka made from Montana sugar beets was the first in what Oscilowski calls Spotted Bear’s “flagship.” A coffee liqueur came next.

Oscilowski remembers tinkering around in her kitchen working on the coffee liqueur. She collaborated with Matt Cuffe from Montana Coffee Traders — the pair going through nearly a year of trials before coming up with an end product that “kicks Kahlua to the curb,” she said. What made it such a huge success, she added, was the use of organic, fair trade coffee.

She again got creative when she began working on a gin for the flagship.

Oscilowski said when most people think of gin, they usually think of pine and juniper.

“It’s that drink you keep at the back of your liquor cabinet if a guest wants it,” she said. By adding floral notes and citrus flavor “we’ve been able to get people to try our gin and bring it back to the front of the liquor cabinet.”

Also in the flagship is a limoncello made from organic lemons, and coming out this month as the last spirit in the flagship is an agave tequila.

When Oscilowski isn’t running Spotted Bear and tinkering around with new spirits, she is usually spending time with her black lab-border collie mix named Penny, riding her bike or working as a fitness instructor at Exhale Pilates. She also enjoys being a member of the Montana Distiller’s Guild, and serves on the board of directors for the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce.

Oscilowski said she enjoys being an active member in the community. She also tries to give back as much as possible, she said, donating her time pouring at events or providing gift certificates and bottles for fundraisers.

“I think it’s important we all support each other,” she said.

Though Spotted Bear is rapidly outgrowing its current space, Oscilowski said that for both her and the distillery, Whitefish will always be home.

What she loves most about the Flathead Valley, she said, is how many people are creating their own thing, and how the valley keeps the “mom and pop” shops alive.

In Montana, she said, “You put on your boots and you forge your own way.”

Reporter Alyssa Gray may be reached at 758-4433 or agray@dailyinterlake.com.