Whistling Andy gets ready for a little more elbow room

Montana’s oldest distillery is getting ready for their first expansion as they prepare to move into the former Flathead V-8 Ford Museum in Bigfork. Whistling Andy has been bursting at the seams for sometime and Owner Brian Anderson said the former museum has ample room for the company to expand production of their many different spirits.

The V-8 Ford Museum has been owned and operated by Lyle Aklested for many years. Anderson said he heard “through the grapevine” that Aklested was selling some cars. He looked at buying the building years ago when they decided to start Whistling Andy, which opened in 2010. They were able to put in an offer and close on the building at the beginning of May.

“It just checked a ton of boxes for us. It has lots of parking, easy semi-access, great road frontage and it’s still right here in Bigfork— which is really important to us,” Anderson said.

Maybe most importantly, the building has a ton of storage space for barrels. Anderson said their oldest barrels are currently 12 years old, adding that aging spirits requires a lot of room and time. At their current location off of Highway 35, they’ve been playing “a mix of Jenga and Tetris” with their barrels, shuffling them around to optimize space. The new building will offer an upgrade to 25,000 square feet from their current 6,000.

“We’ll have a lot of room for production and barrel storage. We can really increase our production. Then, we're looking at a production kitchen as well, to do some value added things like barbecue sauces with our whiskies, or mustards— things that feature our spirits and give people an opportunity to try many different things,” Anderson said.

Anderson’s wife Lisa Cloutier, who owns The Raven and Montana Bonfire, is set to help develop a menu of salads, sandwiches and more for the bar area at the front of the building. Anderson said they will have expanded seating inside as well as seating outside between the two buildings on the property. They are also teaming up with the Crown Jewel Concert Series to bring performers to the distillery for small shows.

He said they plan to hire 10-15 more people once they get moving in their new location. Those jobs will be for the kitchen, the bar area and production. Anderson said distilling is a messy process and they anticipate more bottling and a lot more cleaning.

“We keep it pretty clean and pretty contained. But, we are cooking 2000 pounds of grain at a time then fermenting that out. So yeah, everything has to be very clean and sterilized in between,” he said.

With supply chain issues and a strained construction industry to contend with, Anderson said it hasn’t been easy. Head Distiller Gabe Spencer said it’s still been challenging to order things like glass and Anderson said it’s been difficult to order supplies for the construction at the new building. But, the rain has been working in their favor.

“Ironically, the weather's kind of helping us. Because all of the contractors and everybody that's really good in construction right now are so busy, there have been so many delays on projects just because of all the rain and all the weather. So, we actually have people that are able to come in and help us get things figured out,” Anderson said.

Permits, and the timing of their approval, is the biggest wild card for their estimated opening date, said Anderson. He’s submitted 12 permits so far and expects to submit more. They expect to be done with construction by the first or second week of July. He said they are slowly chipping away at what needs to be done before they can open.

“It just takes a little bit to get health department approval, for everybody to sign off on their respective parts. Building inspectors have been really great to work with, so has the Fire Marshal and everyone else,” Anderson said.

Distilleries are relatively new to Montana, but Anderson said he’s been pleased with how lawmakers have worked with the industry to make things easier on business owners.

“We've had several really nice legislative changes. One thing being that we can now directly deliver spirits to local liquor stores, or any liquor store in the state. That really helps out, because originally when we started, if the liquor store here in Bigfork would run out, we would have to ship it to Helena. That would have to get checked in and processed and then shipped back. So in the middle of summer, they could be out for two weeks of our product … It was really nice that they changed that around and let us be able to do that,” Anderson said.

Despite its limited space and oftentimes difficult parking, he said he will miss a lot about their current building. He remembers when the community pitched in to help build out their tasting room area, most of which they won’t be able to transfer to their new building.

“All the wood on the back bar there that came from the original Sliters Mercantile over in Somers, which they think was installed like the 1890s. These are old beams from a historic grain elevator outside of Glasgow that was torn down because it was too dilapidated. All the wood on the front panels came from the original Bait and Tackle shop that was where The Raven is now … The community has been just absolutely amazing. Everybody came together and helped us with construction and sourcing all the different materials,” Anderson said.

Now, they focus on what’s next— which they hope is more international shipments of their spirits. Currently limited due to storage capacity, the expansion means they will have more room to focus on selling their products at a global scale.

“We have a lot of international interests. So we've got another shipment heading out to Taiwan here very soon and hopefully the UK at the end of this year. In spring of 2020, we were getting ready to launch into South Africa, Australia and had to put a little bit of a hold on that,” Anderson said.

Despite some of the challenges, Anderson said he and his team are excited for what is on the horizon.

“It’s all part of growth— I don't think there's ever an easy way to do it. I think every time we get into something that's a little scary, that's where the good stuff lies at the end of it,” he said.

Keep an eye on Whistling Andy’s social media pages and their website for more updates on when they will be opening in their new location. He said it’s a little sad to move on from their tasting room, most of which they won’t be able to transfer to the new space. He remembers when the community came together to help build much of what is in their tasting room area.

A previous version of this article stated that the 10-15 jobs Whistling Andy plans to hire after their expansion would mostly be in production. It has been updated to reflect that they will hire in other departments including kitchen and bar staff.