Smoke And Whiskey Makes New Business For Local Grad

Even though a profitable all-inclusive whiskey smoking kit may seem like a solid “Shark Tank” pitch, Jordan Oberholtzer sees a different path for his start-up business: taking it slow.

“I’m still in college and my parents have their own jobs. … We don’t really want to have to go out there and then take on the responsibility of getting $100,000 from Mark Cuban and then having to dedicate our lives to this,” Jordan, now a junior at St. Olaf University, joked.

Although the Forest Lake grad may not be ready to take it to “Shark Tank,” Whiskey Woods – a whiskey smoking product that includes wood chips, a torch, a wood base and lowball glasses – earned him first prize from St. Olaf University’s Ole Cup this spring. The annual student entrepreneurial pitch competition at St. Olaf, which is now in its 10th year, comes with $10,000 winnings for the top prize.

Prior to winning the Ole Cup, Jordan thought he’d have to wait until after college graduation to earn more money and dedicate more time to his company Booze Brothers.

“Then I saw the Ole Cup, and I thought, ‘There’s no reason not to enter this.’ … Then I entered it and won, so that’s just the perfect way to start it up,” Jordan said.

Now he hopes that the money and publicity from the win are going to help him and his parents take the Booze Brothers to the next level. And that time may come sooner than he originally hoped, as they will be able to increase their inventory, advertise more and connect with interested buyers.

His mother, Holly, the product packager and marketing coordinator, wants to try to get the product on the Twin Cities Live Dot Com deals program, following a tripling of their inventory after the win.

“It’s just a very good advertising tool,” Holly said.

When Holly was approached by her son about wanting to start a whiskey business, there weren’t many reservations for her about if it would be an achievable goal.

“It was an easy yes, just because we know Jordan is ambitious and a hard worker. For his age he really thinks things through and he is a go-getter. … The majority of this is him,” Holly said.

But Jordan knew he would need more help from his dad, Brian, for the business, as he’d have a hand in creating all of the wooden bases, which he brands with their custom logo.

“My dad is a big part of it because he actually makes the most important piece, so I was like, ‘Can you keep making these?’” Jordan said.

The answer has been yes so far, and Holly explained he’s streamlined his process to make multiple bases at a time, which lets him move quicker through an assembly line process.

Along with increasing inventory, Jordan hopes to hire someone to help create virtual content to bolster the product’s online presence.

“What was holding us back before was getting people’s eyes on it,” Jordan said, admitting he hadn’t thought of the advertising component yet.

For the past few years, they have sold to mainly relatives and family friends, but they noticed upticks in requests for the product when someone shared the experience with guests.

“What we thought was interesting in how we know that people like it, is that we would sell to like a kid on my soccer team’s mom. … Then the dad would use it for his friends and then you get a couple sales from that,” Jordan said.

Winning the Ole Cup has also meant business owners even as far away as Florida have shown interest in the Whiskey Woods product.

“We could hopefully get some on-site demos done there, and they would have some inventory stocked,” Jordan said, adding that even getting his product in stores would help the product gain attention.

Whiskey Woods was a product of pandemic-fueled boredom combined with a gap in the market.

“[My uncle is] a whiskey connoisseur and kind of stated that he was in the market for a whiskey glass smoking kit, and he couldn’t find anything that was a full, complete kit,” Jordan said at his Ole Cup presentation.

Jordan dug a little further to see if such a product existed. But he saw the gap for himself, prompting him, his father and uncle to begin a trial of figuring out the best way to smoke a glass.

It was a little ironic, since Jordan joked, “at the time – and even now – I don’t like whiskey.”

Their product comes with all the parts needed to smoke the glass. Wood chips are placed inside a shot glass where they are lit ablaze with the torch. The lowball glass will cover the shot glass and let smoke fill it. Then the glass is ready to be removed, and whiskey bourbon, scotch or a cocktail can be poured in.

This design will prevent the wooden base from warping and allow the customer to try different wood chip flavors.

“We found that the actual activity of smoking the wood chips in the shot glass and putting [the lowball glass] over and doing it interactively, people enjoy that a lot more,” Jordan explained.

There are other methods to smoke whiskey glasses that could involve lighting the wooden base and placing a glass on top, but that degrades the wood overtime.

“We thought that the wood chips was better … being so small and so flammable, it’s a lot faster and [adds] more distinct flavor,” Jordan said.

The product altogether costs around $90 per kit but is tailored to last a long time. Their website will offer individual pieces to the set in case a glass breaks or a customer wants more wood chips.

Together, the Oberholtzer family is looking forward to seeing where the business can go from here.

“It’s one of those things where if you like whiskey, you really like whiskey, so a product like this — that actually is good and not just faking it — makes the experience better,” Jordan said.

SOURCE: Hometown Source