culture
distilling John McKee lay in bed in Butte, Montana one winter night in 2010, wondering what was next. He was about to be laid off at a company he helped pioneer and build the technology for. It was already a very difficult time for his family. His wife Courtney always encouraged him to dream and think big. “What the hell are you going to do with your life?” she asked, going out on a limb.
Twenty-three months later, in March 2012, they opened Headframe Spirits, the first legal distillery in Butte. Despite their fondness for whiskey and a good cocktail, it was love of the city and its people that kept the McKees in Butte. They could have chosen to move when John was laid off. “It was absolutely not going to happen,” Courtney said. “We want to be here, it mattered a lot less what we were doing, it mattered more where we were doing it.” Butte has a friendly, supportive community, they say.
He didn’t know. “You know how to distill and you like hooch,” she said.
“There hasn’t been a day I can really think of in the last year we’ve been inside this building that we didn’t have friends stop by and grab a paintbrush” or help in other ways, John says.
John got quiet. L: Lemp Saloon in uptown Butte circa 1900. This back bar was in the Pioneer Bar in Virginia City, Montana and was purchased by Les Skyles of Nevada City for $75. Photo courtesy of the World Mining Museum. R: Headframe Spirits is currently located in uptown Butte. Photo by Ryan Dorn
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