High-Acid Fermentation, Solera Aging, and Worker Ownership: Inside the Launch of Chicago Cane Cooperative
In November 2019 I received an interesting reply to the 19th edition of the American Rum Report newsletter.
An aspiring distiller in Chicago named Daniel Regueira told me he planned to start a worker-owned rum distillery in the next couple of years. It’s always interesting to see someone try an unconventional business model in a notoriously difficult industry like craft distilling, but the timing of his email was downright spooky. Only three days earlier, New Belgium Brewing had announced its sale to a subsidiary of the Japanese beverage giant Kirin, effectively ending the most widely known and celebrated example of an employee-owned company in the booze business.
If a brewery made it work, why couldn’t a distillery have a shot?
Then COVID came. I assumed it would, at best, put a temporary halt to Daniel’s planning. Even fairly successful craft distilleries were reeling. I couldn’t imagine trying to start a distillery in that environment—particularly one with a seldom-seen business model.
But over the next few months, emails from Daniel kept trickling in. He was working with a lawyer on bylaws. He was dreaming up rum-based amaros. He was experimenting with dunder and high-acid fermentations. He was connecting with other American rum distillers and asking smart questions.
So when I came across the following approved label while scrolling through the TTB’s public registry last month, I knew it could only belong to one person.
Daniel confirmed it was not only his label, but that he and his partner Sean Hussey planned to launch the rum (along with an aged expression) at Chicago's Rogers Park Social in February (you can get details on the launch party here).
With the rum finally set to arrive, I had to get the full story. Not just about the business model, but the rum itself. I’d heard way too much talk of dunder and high-acid fermentations to think this would be ordinary stuff.
We spoke on the phone and I sent Daniel a lengthy list of questions. He obliged with the following answers, edited for length and clarity.
You could have chosen to distill any type of spirit—what led you to rum specifically?
Well, I got into rum because I’m Cuban haha. My love for rum has only grown over the last decade but the way I got into hobby distilling was reading Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba. As soon as I read the section describing Facundo Bacardi’s rum process, I was hooked and immediately wanted to take it up as a hobby. (Disclaimer: I do not advocate or endorse readers doing this, as it is a crime to do so.)
Over time, I became obsessed. I absorbed distilling info like a sponge from any source I could get.
Pretty serendipitously I ran into Karen Hoskin of Montanya at the Chicago Rum Fest and ended up talking her ear off there. Eventually, both Karen and you (Will!) put me in touch with other folks in the American Rum/Craft industry, which fueled my fire even more.
When the pandemic hit I was laid off my day job (graphic design, which I’d done basically straight out of college), and decided to put all this research I’d done on starting a distillery into practice.
Two years later here we are. 🥹🥲
I know you did quite a bit of experimenting before arriving at your rum recipe. What were you going for stylistically? How do you describe your rum relative to other rums?
I did so much experimentation. Ask my wife. 🫣🥴
Stylistically, I’ve landed on a process which works well for my tastes and the tastes of the Chicago bartending scene (aka my friends). I describe it as parsing the difference between the traditional Jamaican style and Cuban style while putting my own twist on it.
Production wise what that means is starting with great quality molasses, a focus on dunder and high-acid fermentation, as well as single pot/hybrid distillation and maximizing flavor output. The Cuban influence comes in with the maturation. What makes Cuban rum great is their aging stocks and blends. Our take on this is a solera aging method to maximize oxidized, rancio notes and create a lovely blend of stocks.
How did you go about selecting the molasses and yeast for your rum? Did you learn anything interesting along the way?
The way I selected molasses was straight up just Maggie Campbell (shout out to her and Pete for being awesome). We’re using a *fantastic* baking molasses she recommended and it is just splendid.
The way I selected yeast was trial and error. But, we arrived on a couple yeast varieties from Omega Yeast here in Chicago that we currently love. We’re also considering trying out new yeasts by them, including some CRISPR edited yeasts that sound super interesting.
Can you give us an overview of your production process (fermentation time, still configuration, etc.)?
High acid, dunder fermentation, our lovely yeast works its magic for 7+ days, then moves to a pot still where we use 2-5 plates depending on the marque we’re making that day (our Silver or Gold).
From there, the gold is introduced into our solera system. Unlike some brands, we’re doing a true solera system identical to what is used in the sherry wine and sherry brandy (AKA Brandy de Jerez) industry. This means our rum doesn’t have an age statement.
You're going straight into 53-gallon barrels for aging, and decided to use a solera system. How did you arrive at that decision, and how does your solera system work?
5-gallon barrels oxidized the rum a touch too fast for my taste, and we found that the full “distiller’s” barrel worked best. That’s how we arrived at doing standard barrels.
The solera itself was both a stylistic and logistical choice. Logistically: many craft distilleries can have issues with consistency between barrels (and therefore bottles) and having a solera that’s constantly blending between barrels mitigates that big time. Stylistically: over time we want to cultivate these rancio, oxidized notes in our aged rum.
The solera has three layers. If you imagine the barrels stacked in a pyramid from top to bottom the three layers are: the sobretablas, the criadera, the solera. The bottom layer, the solera, is used for bottling. You always leave a certain, predetermined amount in the barrels (Each producer specifies a certain amount of spirits to be left behind in the barrels like ⅓, ¼, etc). The spirit drawn from each layer is blended together and treated as one unit. So, you draw from the bottom layer (the solera) to bottle, then the layer above it fills in those gaps, and this process continues until the top layer (the sobretablas) has space to take on your new-make.
This is a true solera system that is used in the sherry wine and brandy industry. Many rum brands say that they do solera but really they just do complex blending (which is fine, but we like to be transparent & stick to the letter of things here at CCC).
You’re currently contract distilling at an established distillery in the Chicago area. Do you have plans to build a production facility of your own, or are you waiting to see what the initial rollout looks like before thinking that far ahead?
The current vision and business plan is using this manufacturing agreement as a pilot stage. We are very confident in the rum and the brand, and so wanted to get them both out into the world ASAP.
The plan is to use the cashflow and excitement around the Chicago Cane Cooperative going forward to find interested investors and lenders to make our vision & dream of a community distillery somewhere in the city a reality.
We’re currently in a good position. We can get our recipes and products out to folks, while looking into starting our own space and taking our time to find the right partners to make it a reality. Whether it takes 6 months or 5 years, however long it takes, we’re in a position to take our time and do it correctly!
What pushed you to make the distillery worker owned rather than going with a traditional ownership structure?
So, I don’t know if I’m allowed to say the dreaded s-word here… But suffice it to say my politics are… of the left haha.
As I started thinking of starting this distillery effort with my partners, from the jump I wanted it to be this worker cooperative structure to put my beliefs into practice. Part of the ethos of the project is to not only make fantastic rum & spirits, but to prove that we can not only survive under a worker cooperative model, but thrive. It’s an extra ambition or goal on top of creating a successful distillery.
What we’re trying to do is prove that worker-cooperatives are not only possible, they can be better than traditional, top-down owned & run companies that are the norm. Not only that but our goal is to also support union shops and other worker cooperatives with our purchases as best as possible, to spread this phenomenon of worker control and worker ownership even further.
On top of that we’re trying to pay homage to Chicago. Not many people know that Chicago was the birthplace of the American labor movement (and arguably important for the global labor movement). And so we want to do what we can to bring consciousness around that history and heritage back. It’s our way of acknowledging the past while bringing that past into the 21st century.
The only example that comes to mind when I think about employee ownership and the booze business is New Belgium Brewing. Were they an example you looked to, or do you see any long-term similarities between how they ran things and how you're planning to run things?
No, they were “employee owned” the way a lot of top-down controlled enterprises do it. They were an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan). Basically, they only offer SOME employees those shares, and those shares are simply a form of profit sharing—not democratic control of the workplace. The way it's run is still top down. That's a key difference between simply “employee owned” and “employee run,” right? ESOP is better than nothing, for sure, but it's not nearly enough in my opinion.
How will ownership work as you add employees? I assume it will get more complex as you incorporate people who aren’t founders.
In simplest terms, worker-cooperatives have to be 51% or more owned by the workers. People will start with us as regular employees for a period of about a year and then from there, will be invited to be worker-owners. They’ll receive a voting share in the company and will also be able to take advantage of any profit sharing we do.
It’ll definitely get more complex once we start adding people. As it stands right now we have the worker-cooperative structure ready for any sudden growth, and as we get bigger we’ll have to likely tweak operational specifics and outline those logistics further as we go.
What additional challenges or obstacles (if any) come with the worker-owned model?
Starting up a distillery that neither exists yet nor has any cashflows was already impossible as it was, which led us to start out with a manufacturing agreement with an existing distiller. Yet, the worker-cooperative model made that even harder. The amount of times I got scoffed at or patronized for going after this model is hard to count.
That said, we have a great working relationship with some cooperative specific folks in the space and found a cooperative specific lender that will likely be a great partner going forward, so it also has its own community for support.
What rums do you plan on offering upon launch (and when/where will you be launching)?
On launch we’ll have a Silver Rum and a Solera Aged Gold Rum! We’ll be launching here in Chicago on February 24th at Rogers Park Social, a bar that has been a constant neighborhood spot for our friends, family, and network in the area. The rums will first be available there as well as their adjoining retail shop (Rogers Park Provisions and Provisions Uptown) and we’ll be working on getting cases into many beloved Chicago establishments around that time as well.
Besides launching, what’s the next step? Are you currently working on distribution?
We’ll be self-distributing in the beginning but we’re in talks with distributors in Chicago and then looking for distributors elsewhere (currently talking with one in LA). Tentative list of cities we’re considering outside of Chicago are Madison, Louisville, LA, NYC, & Houston. If you’d like to see our rum in your city and know any distributors we’re more than happy to hear from you!
Aside from moving and producing bottles we’re developing other products as well!! First on the list is a Spice Rum. The recipe is more or less complete, we're just fine tuning it before release in 2023. On the docket after that is refining our Amaro recipe, and working on a Shochu inspired distilled product using koji. We’re suuuuper excited about all of these releases. Fun & creativity are a big part of our ethos as people and a brand.
Other than your own rum, what’s an interesting rum you tried recently that left an impression on you?
I’ll give you two:
I just came across Equiano Dark rum and I very, very much like it. If I remember correctly it's a blend of Foursquare and a distillery from Mauritius. It has dried fruit notes in spades and reminds me of Cuban rum to some degree, actually. Particularly something like Havana Club 7, but with perhaps more spice notes and a lovely barrel char to it.
I also got my hands on a sample of the Holmes Cay, Fiji Single Origin Blend and holy hell do I love it. I actually find a lot in common with my rum with a lovely dried fruit, apricot & papaya in particular, and, like, trail mix note to it? UGH… So good!
(Disclosure from Will: My Rumcast co-host, John Gulla, and I collaborated with Eric Kaye of Holmes Cay to select the the rum that became the Holmes Cay Fiji Single Origin Blend.)
If you'd like to get more info on Chicago Cane Cooperative, you can check out their website here.
You can also find the details for their upcoming launch party in Chicago here.