Capital at Play September 2016

2ND ANNUAL ALCOHOL EDITION

CA

Andrey Medvedev

Russian Chapel Hills Winery p.20

at ITAL

Teetotallers,

BEWARE

Tim Ferris

Defiant Whisky p.74

LAY

The Free Spirit Of Enterprise

Map of all Wineries, Breweries, Distilleries and Cideries in Western North Carolina p. 36

Water of Life: Moonshine in the Mountains p.54 Second Chance Wines p.16

Volume VI - Edition IX complimentary edition

capitalatplay.com

video intervie w with tim ferris

capital atpl ay. com

September 2016

The BMW X3

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“...WE GIVE THIS SPORTS ACTIVITY VEHICLE OUR HIGHEST RATING FOR A REASON: IT’S ONE OF THE BEST.” - Edmunds

Perform on any and all surfaces. Make room for both function and luxury. Drive with confidence and curiosity. With up to 300 horsepower1 and 63.3 cubic feet of cargo space,2 the BMW X3 turns challenges into possibilities.

Special lease and finance offers will be available by BMW of Asheville through BMW Financial Services.

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Experience the Difference.

1 X3 xDrive35i.

X3 sDrive28i, X3 xDrive28i, X3 xDrive28d, X3 xDrive35i. ©2016 BMW of North America, LLC. The BMW name, model names and logo are registered trademarks.

2

2

| September 2016

B:11.375”

S:9.875”

T:10.875”

The choice is yours.

As a school teacher, principal, wife, mother and daughter, Bonnie Johnston had gladly dedicated her time to improving the lives of others. After the passing of her mother, Bonnie caught her reflection in the mirror. The woman staring back at her wasn’t who she wanted to be. Tired of feeling tired and struggling to shed those extra pounds, Bonnie wanted to be well and regain something she had lost – herself.

After attending Prime, a Mission Health education event for women, she enrolled in the My Healthy Life program and began setting concrete nutrition and exercise goals. Now 23 pounds lighter, healthier and stronger than ever before, Bonnie didn’t just find what she thought she lost – she created the vibrant person she wanted to be.

Whether you’re trying to be well, get well or stay well, Mission Health’s My Healthy Life offers you and your family access to the best people, resources and advanced technology to help you achieve and exceed your goals.

To hear more personal stories like Bonnie’s , visit:

mission-health.org/BonnieCAP

Be Well. Get Well. Stay Well.

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com

3

$2,250,000 125StoneBrook.com 125 Stone Brook Trail, Black Mountain, NC

$1,950,000,000 820laurelridge.com Laurel Ridge Country Club, Waynesville, NC

Editor’s Thoughts

T

en or more years ago, it was not uncommon to open up a local newspaper in Western North Carolina, turn to the Letters to the Editor section and spot yet another reader bemoaning the burgeoning booze obsession that seemed to be gripping, with ever-tightening tentacles, the area. Alcohol—in all its variants, be it beer, wine, spirits, or hard cider—apparently was still viewed by a small but vocal segment of the population as ye olde demon rum, Satan’s elixir itself, placed upon the Earth for the express (no pun intended) purpose of lodging all us sinful imbibers upon a hellbound train.

What a difference a decade makes.

$1,130,000 410dancingwindlane.com French Broad Crossing Wild River Preserve, Marshall, NC

As you’ll note when you examine the brewery, winery, distillery, and cidery maps that appear on pages 38-45, in the region there continues to be a profound expansion of activity related to the production of alcoholic beverages, activity for which craft beer breweries, as one might expect, play a key part. Just compare this year’s brewery map to the one we published in the September 2015 issue of Capital at Play for a vivid illustration of the changes that have taken place over the past 12 months. All indicators are that upticks in the wine/spirits/cider sectors are inevitable as well.

Welcome, then, to our second annual Alcohol Issue. We hope it will be sinfully delicious. In addition to the map, you’ll encounter profiles of a successful winery owner and an equally successful one who operates a distillery, along with columns written by experts in the field of beer and wine. And don’t miss our special feature on the history of moonshine—you don’t have to be a drinker of ‘shine or a devotee of that classic 1958 Robert Mitchum film Thunder Road to appreciate how ingrained (also no pun intended) moonshine culture is with the larger mountain culture.

None of this is intended, of course, to impugn values or offend sensibilities for anyone who declines to partake of, or offer support to, the regional alcohol industry. But the overriding point can’t be ignored: This is a major industry in Western North Carolina, a significant economic engine that impacts, in one way or another, the bottom line of pretty much everyone who lives here. Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.

Representing the Finest Properties in Asheville & Western North Carolina 4

MarkFields.com | 2016 828-253-2491 | September

Sincerely,

Fred Mills

WHERE YOUR SON CAN BECOME...

WHERE YOUR SON CA A SCHOLAR

A SCHOLAR

AN ARTIST

AN ARTIST

AN ATHLETE

AN ATHLETE

Learn Mandarin or Arabic. Study Biotechnology andLearn Engineering.

Mandarin or Arabic. Study Biotechnology and Engineering.

Get individualized college counseling beginning in the ninth grade.

Get individualized college counseling beginning in the ninth grade.

Join the choir. Perform in a play or musical. BecomeJoin a broadcaster the choir. on Perform in a play or musical. Become a broadcaster on the Christ School Network. Display artwork in a digital media gallery. the Christ School Network. Display artwork in a digital media gallery.

Find a competitive place on one of our teams.

Or try out disc golf, skiing, and fly fishing.

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Or try out disc golf, skiing, and fly fishing.

AN OUTDOORSMAN AN OUTDOORSMAN Kayak the rapids of the Green River Gorge. Bike theKayak hills ofthe rapids of the Green River Gorge. Bike the hills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Hike the Appalachian Trail. the Blue Ridge Mountains. Hike the Appalachian Trail.

A MAN

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Who puts others before himself; who entertains Who puts others before himself; who entertains differences of opinion but stands firm in his differences of opinion but stands firm in his convictions; who learns from his challenges convictions; who learns from his challenges and failures, yet still holds himself accountable. and failures, yet still holds himself accountable.

Christ School is a place where your son can grow Christ School is a place where your son can grow into a dependable, tolerant, and confident adult. into a dependable, tolerant, and confident adult.

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com

5

The Free Spirit Of Enterprise

publisher

Oby Morgan associate publisher

Jeffrey Green managing editor

Fred Mills briefs and events editor

Leslee Kulba copy editors

Dasha O. Morgan, Brenda Murphy contributing writers & photogr aphers

Chall Gray, Anthony Harden, John Kerr, Emily Glaser, Jennifer Fitzgerald, Roger McCredie, Joe Rowland gr aphic designer

Bonnie Roberson Caroline Rains Intern marketing & advertising Roy Brock, David Morgan, Katrina Morgan, Pat Starnes

Information & Inquiries gener al advertising inquiries

e-mail advertising@capitalatplay.com or call 828.274.7305 for subscription information

subscribe online at www.capitalatplay.com or call 828.274.7305 for editorial inquiries

e-mail editor@capitalatplay.com

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Editorial content is selected and produced because of its interest to our readership. Editorial content is not for sale and cannot be bought. Capital M M ed ed is financially sustained At Play ia by advertisers who find value in exposure ia alongside our unique content and with the readers who follow it.

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Capital At Play is protec ted through Tr ademar k Regis tr ation in the United States.

The content found within this publication does not necessar ily ref lec t the views of Univer sal Media , Inc. and its companies. Univer sal Media , Inc. and its employees are not liable for any adver tising or editor ial content found in Capital At Play. The ar ticles, photogr aphy, and illus tr ations found in Capital at Play may not be reproduced or used in any fashion without express wr it ten consent by Univer sal Media , Inc.

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| September 2016

this page :

Wine Grapes Growing on the Vine, photo by Anthony Harden on the cover :

Popcorn Sutton the king of moonshine, photo courtesy Popcorn Sutton Distilling

F E AT U R E S vol. vi

20

GOING TO THE CHAPEL ANDREY MEDVEDEV RUSSIAN CHAPEL HILLS WINERY

ed. ix

74

SHEER DEFIANCE TIM FERRIS DEFIANT WHISKY

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com

9

C ON T EN T S s e p t e m b e r 2 016

companies

are

growing

a

ocal talent allowing them ou need a resource that can help in the following

Something Wicked This Way Comes - V04ED10 photo by Anthony Harden

36

lo c a l i n d u s t r y

Teetotallers, Beware

54

2nd Annual Brewery, Winery, Distillery, & Cidery Maps

l e i s u r e & l i b at i o n

Water of Life:

Beverage, medicine, currency, contraband, and liquid history: You know it as moonshine.

colu m ns

insight

briefs

16 S econd Chance Wines:

12 M ark Fields &

32 Carolina in the West 50 The Old North State 70 National & World News

They may be more grown-up than you.

Written by John Kerr

44 Financial Column:

Financial Irresponsibility

67 The Intangible Connections:

Lovers of craft ales may take their brand loyalty as a given, but there’s far more that goes into branding than just what meets—literally—the eye.

Written by Joe Rowland

10

| September 2016

Associates Mark Fields

Apeiron Center for Human Potential Dr. Dan Stickler & Dr. Mickra Hamilton

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September 2016 | capitalatplay.com

11

nsight

MARK(R) checking out land for investors in Patagonia, Chile, with his Chilean business partner Leon Cosmelli. photos courtesy Mark Fields & Associates

An Exclusive Niche Since 2014, Mark Fields has been deeply involved in the regional luxury real estate market.

H

e is, as the saying goes, “the name above the title”: Mark Fields, president of real estate brokerage company Mark Fields & Associates, which is one of the most respected businesses in the Western North Carolina region. It’s the only Asheville-born boutique real estate firm whose exclusive focus is on luxury properties, working primarily— and personally—with buyers and sellers of luxury properties, farms, and ranches.

“What stands us apart from competitors in the luxury market,” explains Fields, “is our unique high-end marketing and the money we invest in selling our clients’ properties. When we believe in a luxury property, we do not mind investing in marketing for it. When you consider that on a $1,000,000 sale our firm is looking at a $30,000 to $60,000 commission, I believe our clients deserve the best available services when paying that kind of money—and that is what we do.”

F ield s fou nded Ma rk F ield s & A s sociate s (Markfields.com), in January 2014, going on to finish the year with his business ranked #87 in the region, sales-wise. Cut to the end of 2015: “I was ranked #8 for individual production, while also achieving the highest average residential sales price in the region,” says Fields,

“My company will only be as great as its people, and getting the highest quality people in place in time to keep pace with the company's growth is my greatest challenge.”

12

| September 2016

proudly. He adds that he has continued to break sale price records for high-end homes, citing that his primary hurdle is just keeping up with his company’s rapid evolution. “My

MARK WITH WIFE, LINDA, daughter, Ana Cristina, and son, Cole.

company will only be as great as its people, and getting the highest quality people in place in time to keep pace with the company's growth is my greatest challenge.”

Fields, incidentally, is bilingual and bicultural, with strong family and business ties to Costa Rica and Chile. Starting in 1977, in Costa Rica, he assisted his father with the business ventures Swiss Travel Service and The Rio Colorado Lodge, going on to spend four years as assistant to the president of the Costa Rica Tourism Institute and special advisor to the Minister of Economy on Tourism. He was also a founder of the Costa Rican Sport Fisherman’s Conservation Association.

Currently, in addition to helming Mark Fields & Associates, he is president of Patagonia Land Company, a broker for Fortune 1000 clients seeking real estate investments in Central and South America. He has also pioneered a number of other organizations that reflect his interest in conservation and indigenous cultures: “A Far Away Place,” an export/import business and a leading retailer of world music and indigenous art in the United States; Mark Fields Events, which produces concerts and cultural events in Asheville; and The EarthDance Institute, a nonprofit (501C3) that trains high school students in environmental issues.

Western North Carolina continues to inspire him, of course (he lives just outside Asheville with his wife, Linda, and children, Cole and Ana Cristina), and he plans to eventually have Mark Fields & Associates satellite offices throughout the area. “I believe we currently have the best real estate marketing department in our region, and I intend for it to continually be refined and get better,” says Fields. “My goal in the coming years is to see our firm grow to 24 of the best realtors in [the Western North Carolina] market. I am also launching a new firm, Niche Real Estate, that will be working in all levels of residential and in commercial. Niche will be able to provide the same quality of services that we do for our high-end properties.”

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September 2016 | capitalatplay.com

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insight

High Quality, Affordable Health Care.

Sometimes, it really does exist.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina selected Pardee as a Blue Distinction Center Plus for total knee and total hip replacement.

That means that in addition to demonstrating expertise in knee and hip replacement surgeries, Pardee is on average 20% more cost-efficient as compared to other hospitals.

APEIRON STAFF photos courtesy by Apeiron

Lifestyle Choices Apeiron Center for Human Potential wants to help clients optimize their lives.

I

pardeehospital.org 14

| September 2016

t’s been called a “new prototype” for medicine: the human potential medicine movement. Asheville-based Apeiron Center for Human Potential (ACHP) is at the forefront, helping clients establish healthy physical and mental lifestyles that in turn will allow them to utilize all their inner resources. The company’s mission? ACHP states on its website (Apeironcenter.com) that it is “committed to optimize consciously aware individuals using their genetic blueprints to create a plan for lifestyle modifications that alter genetic expression and transcend the limits of human potential.”

In essence, Human Potential Medicine is what Apeiron terms “a human systems approach,” examining the needs of the whole person rather than just an isolated set of symptoms. Treatment is intended to tap into the latest genetic and epigenetic science along with current research findings in physiology, psychology, biochemistry, and brain/peak performance.

Apeiron was founded in 2015 when Dr. Daniel Stickler, M.D., and Dr. Mickra Hamilton, Au.D., decided to merge their respective practices. (Dr. Stickler is also an author, speaker, blogger, and host of the weekly internet radio show/podcast, The Ironman Executive, while Hamilton is a colonel in the USAF Reserves with 25-plus years of experience in the field of acoustics.) A number of people in the medical community claim that humanity is on the verge of a new frontier in consciousness, and that such a frontier will require an accompanying new paradigm in medicine. So Drs. Stickler and Hamilton propose to shift the focus away from the current Western disease (“sick care”) model in order to take a holistic

LEFT: Dr. Daniel Stickler, M.D.,

and Dr. Mickra Hamilton, Au.D.

approach in addressing health issues that include sleep, nutrition, weight loss, detoxification, supplementation, and athletic performance.

Explains Lynn Howard, an Apeiron physicia n a s sist a nt a nd hu ma n potential coach, “When people focus on symptoms/disease, they get stuck in the ‘victim’ mode, which limits their beliefs that they can get better.

In this process, I see that most all disease is created by stress and lifestyle—back pain, anxiety, headaches, GI complaints, and insomnia... the list goes on. When the body has a symptom, it is asking for a shift/lifestyle change. When people focus on healthy lifestyle and optimization, the symptoms and diseases get better. Life gets better.”

The approach Apeiron takes is linking health consciousness to lifestyle choices and improving quality of life, with the company listing several key elements: personalized attention (approximately 10-15 hours per year, compared to the typical five-to-eight minutes); individualized care (taking into account patients’ preferences, genomics, and responses to interventions); precision nutrition plans (based on genomics, food preferences, individual response, goals, and meal patterns); peak cognitive performance (by helping clients take charge of cognitive function a nd control subconscious programs); and “subconscious reset” (working with clients to subjectively and objectively map emotions trapped within the subconscious and providing tools to help them bring these into conscious awareness).

Apeiron pledges to combine proven, successful aspects of traditional Western medical practices with “alternative/integrative” medicine, employing evidence-based therapies in order to establish a baseline for each client. At that point, healthy lifestyle choices related to sleep, stress, nutrition, human movement, hormones, cognition, and inner balance can be put into place. “Our goal,” states Apeiron, “is to assist each client to move beyond his or her limited condition to a limitless state of human potential.”

In addition to the medical programs offered, Apeiron has specialty services such as acupuncture, bioenergetics digital homeopathy, movement coaching, massage, neurofeedback, biofeedback, and psychoacoustics. There are physicians, assistants, and coaches who specialize in these areas on staff.

“Our goal,” states Apeiron, “is to assist each client to move beyond his or her limited condition to a limitless state of human potential.”

Why go anywhere else?

pardeehospital.org

Blue Distinction Centers (BDC) met overall quality measures for patient safety and outcomes, developed with input from the medical community. A Local Blue Plan may require additional criteria for facilities located in its own service area; for details, contact your Local Blue Plan. Blue Distinction Centers+ (BDC+) also met cost measures that address consumers’ need for affordable healthcare.

Each facility’s cost of care is evaluated using data from its Local Blue Plan. Facilities in CA, ID, NY, PA, and WA may lie in two Local Blue Plans’ areas, resulting in two evaluations for cost of care; and their own Local Blue Plans decide whether one or both cost of care evaluation(s) must meet BDC+ national criteria. National criteria for BDC and BDC+ are displayed on www.bcbs.com. Individual outcomes may vary. For details on a provider’s in-network status or your own policy’s coverage, contact your Local Blue Plan and ask your provider before making an appointment. Neither Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association nor any Blue Plans are responsible for non-covered charges or other losses or damages resulting from Blue Distinction or other provider finder information or care received from Blue Distinction or other providers.

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com

15

column

Second Chance Wines They may be more grown-up than you.

I J

john kerr

is the co-owner of Metro Wines located on Charlotte Street in downtown Asheville.

16

’ L L BE T T H AT YOU H AV E N ’ T GI V E N ON E

thought to the wines you enjoyed as a young adult. Most of us started off with wines that were almost as sweet as the soft drinks we grew up on. If you’re over 50, you were probably enticed by the ad campaigns for Boone’s Farm or Bartles & Jaymes. They were fun wines, but as the years passed, many of us leaned towards drier or more complex wines.

You shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. America was in love with sweeter wines back then. And it wasn’t just the cheaper stuff—California winemakers left a hint of sugar even in a number of their better wines. Robert Mondavi was among the first to break from this trend by releasing “Fumé Blanc.” Before this, most domestic Sauvignon Blanc was decidedly sweet. Mondavi used this name to signal the public that his Sauvignon Blanc had a hint of smoke and no sugar. Mondavi still produces this wine to this day. If you’re a bit of a history buff, you can pour this ground breaking wine at your next meal for about $18.

Yes, those wines of your youth are long forgotten.

But while you weren’t looking, several of these wines grew up, too. And they deserve a second chance, not only because they are delicious, but because they are a great value. When you buy a Chardonnay or a wine from Napa Valley, you’re often paying something for the wine’s popularity beyond its actual worth. Great value can be found in relatively unloved wines, which nearly always sell for a price far lower than their surprising quality.

If you’re feeling adventurous, here are five second chance wines worthy of your consideration.

| September 2016

We’ll start with possibly your worst nightmare: Lambr usco. During the 1970s and 1980s, commercials for Riunute on ice (That’s nice!) were everywhere. Many of today’s versions still show some sweetness, but it drops off just before the finish so that you’re ready for the next sip or bite of food. Last year, the new style of Lambrusco was the hot wine in Manhattan for pairing with pizza or charcuterie. And we’ve seen its popularity picking up here, too. One great example is Monte Locco Lambrusco Emilia, at about $13. You’ll see it in several of the better restaurants and wine shops in Western North Carolina.

If you want to try something really different, uncork a bottle of Opera '02 Secco Lambrusco. This is not soda pop, but a dry, earthy wine with a long finish that shows a hint of bitterness only found in the best Italian reds. The vintner created this well-structured wine by making it predominantly Grasparossa, a tannic, full-bodied grape, and including just enough of the fruity Sorbara to add the high note. Our importer calls it Lambrusco for adults. You can’t go wrong pairing this wine with creamy or oily foods, such as a mayonnaise-laden

J sandwich, cream pasta dishes, or antipasto like prosciutto. You’ll find it around town for about $21.

Be honest, your first thoughts about Spumante are not good. Like Lambrusco, Spumante endured a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign.

To achieve popularity, the Spumante backed by this campaign had to meet the lowest common denominator. So mass-produced Spumante became a sweet, over-bubbled concoction.

Spumante enjoyed outside this country still has a little sweetness, but the sweetness is light and balanced with the wine’s acidity. Spumante such as the Col Mesian Cuvée meets these standards, and you’ll find the accolades for this crowd pleaser on European websites. The white sparkler shows flavors of peach and pear wrapped in

BACK IN COLLEGE, THE CHIANTI WE BOUGHT USUALLY CAME IN A BOT TLE WITH A WICKER BASKET WEAVED AROUND THE BOT TOM HALF. THE WINE WAS BARELY DRINK ABLE, BUT IT DID TASTE ITALIAN AND GOT THE JOB DONE.

a round, full texture. The label says it’s extra dry, which actually means it's slightly off dry. The French created the categories so ask them to explain.

Enjoy this Spumante alongside light snacks, such as vegetables and dip.

And at about $13, you can pour this as a well-priced alternative to toast your wedding or the New Year.

The

Most Important thing in your

Attorney’s Briefcase...

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Providing experienced legal representation for over 30 years One North Pack Square | Ste 421 Asheville, NC 28801 828.281.1940 | jchlawfirm.com September 2016 | capitalatplay.com

17

column

Back in college, the Chianti we bought usually came in a The Chianti of today is no fiasco. The dip in quality largely bottle with a wicker basket weaved around the bottom half. occurred around World War II. At that time, the Italian The wine was barely drinkable, but it did taste Italian and government banished a lingering form of feudalism, decimating got the job done. The old the vineyard workforce. We Chianti’s most redeeming endured low-quality Italian quality was that the bottle wines for decades until ARGUABLY THE MOST made a great candle holder this problem was resolved UBIQUITOUS WINE OF for romantic nights. and Italy began exporting As an aside, the bottle and quality wines again. One of YOUTHFUL BAD CHOICES WAS wicker basket are called a our favorite examples of a THE PORTUGUESE ROSÉ IN A fiasco. The name has nothing great, well priced Chianti is CER AMIC BOT TLE. IT BECAME to do with the quality of Vallone di Cecione Chianti SO POPULAR THAT AT LEAST ONE the wine inside. Fiasco Classico, at about $19. This originally meant bottle. It Chianti pays homage to ROCK ALBUM COVER SHOWED A was Italian theater slang that the old school style with BOT TLE IN THE BACKGROUND. changed its meaning. Much a bit more fruit to meet like the phrase “break a leg” international tastes. came to mean “good luck” A rguably the most in American theater, “make a bottle” or “far Fiasco” came to ubiquitous wine of youthful bad choices was the Portuguese rosé mean a performance flop in Italian. The word “fiasco” is now in a ceramic bottle. It became so popular that at least one rock associated with a disaster of any kind. album cover showed a bottle in the background and one second tier

18

| September 2016

airline offered it complimentary with every meal. Its presence was so pervasive that to this day, people regularly decline rosé, saying that they don’t like sweet wines.

Today’s rosé is anything but sweet, and increasing sales indicate that the popularity of rosé is about to explode. If you want to be among the first to try the new Portuguese rosé, you can pick up a bottle of Nunes Barata rosé for about $12. The wine is great for an afternoon on the porch, but is so versatile that it will pair with just about any meal you serve through New Year’s Eve. Our last second chance wine is probably one you didn’t even know you enjoyed. After Prohibition, Charbono was the work horse red grape blended into California bulk wines like the infamous jug “Burgundy.” But several years of vintner abuse led to its decline. Now, less than 100 acres are left in the United States. Domestic Charbono has achieved cult status, and the wineries which give it the care it deserves sell out each vintage within weeks.

Like Malbec, Argentina put Charbono back on the map. For some reason, Argentina named the Charbono grape Bonarda.

Multiple names for grapes are common in the wine world,

but we’ll save the reasons for this confusion for another day.

Argentinians drink almost as much Bonarda as they do Malbec and don’t understand why this grape hasn’t caught on in the United States.

If you’d like to try one of Argentina’s favorite reds, one good example of Bonarda is made by a woman winemaker at the Zolo winery. Her Bonarda is a fleshy, fruity wine bursting with brambly fruit and a note of toasty vanilla from oak. Best to serve this Bonarda with foods like a dry Jack cheese, lamb with rosemary cream, or any meat dish with a bit of fat. You’ll find this value wine in shops, at about $14.

If you’re feeling a bit nostalgic, you can return to your old wine choices, if only for one night. One of our more inspired friends decided to throw a “then and now” party. Each guest had to bring a bottle of their favorite wine from their youth, as well as its counterpart they drink today. The party brought back a flood of memories. But the most common comment was, "How did we ever drink this stuff?". Throw your own party to see how much your old wine and you have changed over the years. And give the new version a second chance.

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www.jpspa.com ASHEVILLE | 828.254.2374 • BOONE | 828.262.0997 • MARION | 828.652.7044 September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 19

GOING written by emily gl aser photos by anthony harden

20

| September 2016

TO THE

CHAPEL Andrey Medvedev left his native country in order to establish the Russian Chapel Hills Winery in North Carolina. He planted more than just grape vines—he established a community.

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com

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FROM BIBLICAL CONVERSIONS OF water to wine, to goblets of mead tossed by the sea into hungry gullets of Vikings; from sweetened port nipped over cigars, to the bottle of Pinot your aunt likes to pass around the Thanksgiving table; wine has united humanity for several centuries’ worth of libations. It’s the sweet honey that turns teetotalers into chummy winos, a tannic and tantalizing refreshment that guides enemies towards friendships. It’s what is surreptitiously sipped in business meetings and on first dates, sealing deals and cementing bonds. It is the communal building block of home dinners and international commerce alike.

There’s something about wine that, simply put, brings people together. It’s that inherency of community that first drew Andrey Medvedev to wine, and, in 2010, ultimately culminated in the gentleman’s greatest ambition: Russian Chapel Hills Winery, located in Columbus, North Carolina, about 20 minutes southeast of Hendersonville.

Medvedev’s journey had begun a number of years earlier while touring the vines-blanketed hills of Italy and France. He’d studied the culture of the illustrious local industry: the smiles that emerged from the pull of wine glasses; the sharing of bottles, recipes, and knowledge of craft; the quiet similitude of a life of agriculture.

And those travels through Western Europe, those vineyards and wineries, sparked something in Medvedev’s soul. Eventually, through the unique uniting of communities across countries and continents, creeds and cultures, and even friendships and love— including a chance encounter with his future wife, Mai—and all melded with the fruity glue of wine, those sparks would turn into a glowing flame as warm and steady as the belly-heat of a cabernet.

“It was my dream to grow grapes and make wine,” says Medvedev.

“I found the right place to realize my dream.”

In the Beginning, There was Wine The story of Andrey Medvedev is as long and winding as the very road that leads to his winery. It begins across oceans and vast lands, in the icy plains of Russia. Or perhaps it begins in an even farther-flung locale, in the dry and dusty windstorms of Afghanistan. It was here, in 1985 and as a soldier in the Russian army, that Medvedev’s life took its first hairpin turn. The 1979-89 Soviet-Afghan War brought Medvedev to Kandahar, the secondlargest city in Afghanistan; he was a member of a special forces unit responsible for destroying convoys of ammunition and supplies being shepherded by rebel forces.

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On a relatively routine day, Medvedev and his companions prepared for an ambush in the hills. He shouldered his pack, slid into ranks, and felt a hand pull him back. The hand belonged to a superior-ranking soldier, who ordered Medvedev to return to camp and noted that he would take Medvedev’s spot in the mission. Medvedev hesitated, protested, and finally obeyed his orders, watching his troop fade into the scorched horizon. Within hours, ten of the soldiers on the mission would be dead.

This chilling brush with death, and the sacrifice of his compatriots, inspired Medvedev. “I wanted to build something in gratitude for what those guys did, and in honor of them,” he quietly remembers. “I always wanted to build a chapel, but I didn’t know when.” That tenacious devotion to his friends, and to honor, is indicative of Medvedev’s dignified steadfastness in all things.

After he finished his time in the army, Medvedev returned to his native Russia, trading in his barracks for libraries and classrooms at Moscow University. With that signature perseverance, Medvedev buried his head in books and emerged with a law degree. He found success as a

corporate attorney, a field as disparate from his former profession in the army as the career that lay ahead, and thousands of miles away, in America.

Medvedev’s prosperity in law afforded him myriad opportunities, including the European trips mentioned above. “When I was an attorney, I was traveling through Europe—France and Italy—[and I] saw all these beautiful places and tasted wine,” he notes. It was these experiences—the travel, the tastings, the families, and communities—that developed in Medvedev his self-proclaimed passion for wine “culture.” He grapples with the perfect words to describe his ardor for the industry: “It’s not only wine. It’s complex.” After exploring those vineyards and wineries, and the unique bonds that sprouted in their soils, Medvedev knew he wanted to stake his own claim in the wine industry.

Another trip, this time to America, afforded him the introduction he would need to make that dream a reality. Medvedev, who was already fostering fantasies of a move to the United States, boarded a plane for Florida, and it was there, while indulging in his equestrian interests, that he met a September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 23

group of friends from the North Carolina mountains, forming tentative ties that would later turn out to be fortuitous. “In 2007,” he recalls, “I met some good friends from Columbus and from Asheville. I met them at a horse camp in Florida, and they invited me to visit them [in North Carolina]. The next year I came here and fell in love.”

Medvedev’s introduction to the mountains was not one of chance, and his befriendment in Florida was with no ordinary horse enthusiast. His new Carolinian contact was Ginger Cecil, of Biltmore breed and fame, who oversees the equestrian center of the Biltmore estate. (Her husband is Bill Cecil, Jr., president and CEO of the Biltmore Company, and it was the Cecils who established Biltmore’s own vineyard and winery over 25 years ago, their venture into the wine industry proving to be one of the estate’s greatest markers of modern success, as it now ranks in the top single percentage of United States wine makers.)

Call it luck or fortune, but of all the vacationing Carolinians for Medvedev to stumble upon and become friends with while down south, Ginger Cecil was a rather propitious compatriot.

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Winery Dreams Medvedev’s travels—first through Europe, then to Florida, and finally to Western North Carolina—confirmed his resolve to one day own a winery, and while the scenes and history of Italy’s wine region were appealing, the quiet simplicity and kindness of the Carolina mountains hearkened to him even more. It was here that he felt at home.

“I feel more comfortable here,” he says, when asked about his decision to start a winery Stateside. “Nobody cares about my accent, plus it was in my budget—many reasons.” Medvedev was determined to trade in his Russian roots for American soils, and his chance to do so arose in 2009.

According to Medvedev, the Cecils heard that an existing vineyard in Columbus was for sale, a verdant property called Green Creek Vineyards, and knowing of his interest in establishing a winery, they quickly alerted him. The land was essentially perfect, its rolling hills and established vines the very hallmarks of Medvedev’s dreams. “It’s very well built,

it’s very good for grapes, and it’s a nice climate,” he says. “And of course, I asked advice from Biltmore Estate—people who really know it.” Without considering any other properties in the region, Medvedev extended an offer to purchase Green Creek Vineyards.

Despite the seemingly serendipitous events leading up to Medvedev’s purchase of this particular piece of land, the process of actually doing so was anything but easy. The vineyard and winery were owned by the two Pack brothers: Marvin, who established the vineyard in 2004 when word of Western North Carolina’s fertility for grape vines began to spread; and Alvin, who forged the Green Creek Winery on a section of acreage nearby.

By 2009, however, Marvin had resolved to sell the vineyard, although his brother opted to retain ownership of his winery.

Haggling, offers, and counter offers flashed back and forth between Medvedev and Marvin, who had taken note of Medvedev’s intriguing history and his perceived association with Asheville’s elite. But later that year, the two finally agreed to a sale: $340,000 for nine acres of vast and fertile vineyards.

Even as Medvedev began the lengthy transformation that would turn Green Creek Vineyards into Russian Chapel Hills Winery, including additional acres of vines and a new tasting room, Alvin Pack maintained Green Creek Winery on his neighboring parcel of land. Despite the potentially confusing misnomers, the two businesses operated separately, and Pack’s winery, located about five and a half miles from Medvedev’s, continues to this day as a popular stop for wine tourists.

By the time Medvedev was finalizing the sale in 2010, the vines of Green Creek had actually gone unused for years, the sweet fruit wasted on the vine rather than bottled into dark bulbs of glass. “He didn’t make wine anymore, for a while, for five years,” Medvedev says, of the vineyard’s previous owner.

But that was all about to change.

In Vino Veritas—And Amat As Medvedev settled into his new home, he began to learn the intricacies of his land—the vines, the farrows, the sun,

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 25

and shade. He also became acclimated and attuned to nearby towns like Hendersonville.

He explored local shops and restaurants, finding favorites like Umi Sushi, where he became a regular. But it wasn’t just the food that brought Medvedev back again and again—it was the eye-catching visage of the restaurant’s co-owner, Mai. When asked about the woman who became his wife, Medvedev blushes. “It’s a fun story,” he says with a laugh. “I was her loyal customer for a long time…” His voice fades, culminates in a smile. It’s the quiet kind of romance that words don’t quite capture. Mai’s work ethic and success, and her passion for the community and local culture, inspired his own work, and his love. Through meeting, dating, and eventually wedding, one person’s inherent persistence and drive seemed to feed off the other’s. Together, they decided to pursue their disparate passions, which included expanding the existing winery for Medvedev and opening a second restaurant, in Asheville, for Mai, Red Ginger Dimsum & Tapas. Though their endeavors stretched them in different directions, both literally and figuratively, the couple found encouragement in one another’s work.

“When I met her I had the vineyard, but no wine, only grapes,” remembers Medvedev.

But with Mai at his side, his visions grew. He planted an additional four acres, bringing the vineyard’s holdings to 17 acres. As he awaited the new vines’ profitable production (a three-year timeline), Medvedev dove i nto re sea rch a nd education.

Viticulture classes at Surry Community College in Yadkin Valley (the Carolina’s most esteemed wine region) formed the foundation of Medvedev’s know-how. But it wasn’t simply a course for Medvedev; once again, it was elements of community that served as his true education. He befriended his professor, Gill Giese, a renowned local expert in the wine industry. As his friend and mentor, Giese became instrumental in the establishment of Medvedev’s own winery.

Three years after discovering Western North Carolina, Medvedev’s life certainly

looked different. He’d swapped his native Russia for the hills of Carolina, his bachelorhood for marriage, his theories of law for knowledge of grapes and vines.

Even his estate looked different: Those tenderfooted vines he’d planted in 2010 were a spirited green and ripe with fruit.

In 2011 Green Creek Vineyards LLC was officially registered with Polk County as a commercial vineyard. It was finally time to begin production on the wine.

Making Water into Wine Medvedev didn’t cross continents to produce ho-hum wine; he wanted to cultivate the finest vintages within our Carolina soil—which is why he recruited winemaker Jay Adams. With a lengthy legacy in the local wine community, plus a previous tenure with Green Creek Vineyards and a familiarity with the very same soils, Adams seemed to Medvedev to be the perfect accomplice to help make his wine great. “I always joke, he can make alcohol from any liquid! And

“We are trying to do our own style of wine, and it looks like we got it!” Medvedev says. “People like it, and I’ve gotten very good reviews and awards. Most importantly, it’s local wine from this soil.”

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it’s true,” Medvedev laughs. “He’s pretty well known in this area with wine workers.”

For a few days every month, and overtime through the harvest season in September and October, Adams roams the vined hills of the vineyard, lending his expertise to the growth and fructification of Russian Chapel Hills.

Together, Medvedev and Adams refined the recipes and techniques to create some of the tastiest tannic vintages in Western North Carolina. “We are trying to do our own style of wine, and it looks like we got it!” Medvedev says. “People like it, and I’ve gotten very good reviews and awards. Most

ANDREY MEDVEDEV

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 27

importantly, it’s local wine from this soil.” When the first bottles of Russian Chapel Hills wine were opened and their contents poured onto inquisitive tongues last year, the response was the same from connoisseurs and novices alike: pure adoration.

Medvedev and Adams clinked their own glasses in celebration.

So what makes Russian Chapel Hills wine special? For one, their wines are entirely estate wines, meaning every piece of fruit that makes its way into a bottle was grown and harvested on site. And those plump grapes are handled with the utmost care and consideration; rather than trust the blind claws of machinery, Medvedev hires help to hand-harvest and handsort every piece of fruit. “It’s kind of better too, because when you pick by hand, you can see good fruits and bad fruits.

Machines just pick everything,” he explains. The benefits of hand-harvesting don’t end there. “Machine harvesting has to use more chemicals. Small wineries have their advantages, and hand-picking and hand-sorting every single fruit, that’s why we can use only the best fruits for our wines.” It’s a more expensive alternative to complex, clunky machinery, but Medvedev trusts in the process, attributing the wine’s flavor to the delicate and choosy hands that sort the fruit. There’s also a somewhat quirky but telling touch he applies during the processing of the grapes: In the winery’s production building, in a room beside the giant steel fermentation tanks, are a few dozen oak barrels, and during the aging process, Medvedev pipes classical music into the room, essentially serenading and soothing the wine as it rests.

He’s clearly proud of his product, noting, “We got some awards from the Wine and Food Festival in Asheville—gold medals, silver medals, and this year we again got several awards at North Carolina Wine Fair—so it makes sense.”

Russian Chapel Hills Winery isn’t producing wine en masse— only about 3,000 cases every year, with a capacity of 5,000 cases—but Medvedev maintains that’s another reason for their success. When asked if he plans to grow their production any time soon, he says he’d prefer to keep things small. “Keep this quality. Maybe in 10 years we’ll grow, but for now, it’s my goal to make a stable quality of wine every year.” It’s that old-school prioritization of quality over quantity, perhaps gleaned from that wine culture he fell in love with back in Europe, that sets Medvedev and Russian Chapel Hills apart.

“You have to have the temptation to do this work,” he says.

“If you don’t like it, you can’t do it. It’s not about money. It’s about passion.”

A Modern Winery Like most modern wineries, Russian Chapel Hills is so much more. It’s not, as Medvedev said, just about wine; it’s about cultivating a community that finds its stable roots in a wineglass. This means the vineyard sometimes serves as a dreamy backdrop for brides decked in white and their nervous grooms. It’s an event space for bachelorettes and ladies LOOKING UPWARD in the chapel

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GR APE VINES blanket the property

who lunch. Tourists and locals alike stop in for tastings on Thursdays through Sundays, from 1PM to 6PM. And it’s an integral destination on the new WNC Wine Trail, which was started by the French Broad Vignerons to support and promote local vineyards and wineries. The winery also hosts a slew of annual events, including a Harvest Festival in August with an I Love Lucy-style grape stomp, and a Veterans Day lunch and service in honor of local veterans.

All of those offerings are fairly common among modern wineries, but there’s an aspect of this one that is completely unique, too; in fact, it’s the impetus for the winery’s very name. Set atop the vineyard’s peak stands an actual Russian Orthodox chapel, St. Anna, lending the land the title, Russian Chapel Hills.

Medvedev’s promise, made three decades ago, to build a chapel in honor of his fellow soldiers, never left his heart.

Through careers, across oceans, united with other passions and new loves, Medvedev’s intentions always rang true. When he purchased the lands of Green Creek Vineyards, with its picturesque sweeping vistas and lushly cloaked hills, he knew he had finally found the place to realize that promise.

St. Anna Chapel is an ode to Medvedev’s fallen friends and to his heritage. The initial construction, which took a year, was performed in Russia by a company called Severnoe Zodchestvo,

professional woodworkers whose expertise stretches back generations. (“They definitely know what they’re doing!”

Medvedev says.) Then the pieces were transported to North Carolina, where they were puzzle-pieced together, without nails, over the course of the following year. The entire construction of the church adheres to traditional Orthodox standards, including orientation with the East. With the help of members of his local parish, St. Nicholas Church in Fletcher, Medvedev chose the name: The Chapel of the Righteous Anna. The final touch came from Prince George Obolensky, of Greenville, who donated his family’s 17th century icon depicting the Entrance of the Most Holy Theotokos into the Temple and, most suitably, Righteous Anna.

When construction on St. Anna Chapel was completed, Medvedev officially changed the name of his business from Green Creek Vineyards to Russian Chapel Hills Winery. And in a sense, the Chapel has also permeated the very soil and soul of the winery.

Though Medvedev’s personal favorite of his wines is the Cabernet Sauvignon, the most popular is their Kagor, which is a Russian Orthodox Communion wine. “Now it’s my best-selling wine; people really like it as a dessert wine. It’s very sweet and pretty high alcohol,” Medvedev explains. “I’m very proud. I’m the official supplier of [numerous] Russian churches on the September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 29

East Coast! All these Russian churches buy my communion wine.” It seems almost implicit that the winery supplying the communion wine of dozens of churches across the East Coast is also home to the region’s only Russian Orthodox chapel.

Continuing Community When Medvedev toured Europe’s wineries all those years ago, it was the culture and community that grew around the vines, as much as the vines themselves, that inspired him. And today, it’s a similar feeling that inspires all aspects of Russian Chapel Hills, a reflection of generations of winegrowers everywhere.

It takes much more than just Medvedev’s mind to make these wines a reality; it’s the combined contributions of many. He has sold grapes to Biltmore at points in the past. Then there’s Jay Adams, of course, who lends his heart and head to the award-winning wines. Medvedev also receives a lot of assistance from a church member, Abraham Cluxton, who now lives on the property and takes care of the handy, hard working tasks.

(Cluxton, an entrepreneur in his own right, was profiled in the October 2015 issue of Capital at Play, talking about his business Cluxton Caskets.) Medvedev also still leans on his old mentor, Giese, for occasional advice. And even the wine bottles’

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designs come from a recently-made friend and neighbor.

“That’s another funny story!” laughs Medvedev. “He’s a local artist, and he’s Russian! I had never met him before. He came to me just to ask, ‘Could I put my art on your walls?’ and I said, ‘Yeah sure, but could you make me some labels?’ And he did it!”

Additionally, although he’s realizing his own dreams—of owning a winery, of consecrating a church, of living on the land—Medvedev is also supporting the dreams of others. His new passion, which he’s cultivating daily, is the promotion of North Carolina as a wine region. “We’re not competitors here; we send our customers to the other wineries,” he says. “We have to show people that North Carolina could be on par with California, like Napa. They have everything to do it—we just have to work on it. This is my goal.”

Medvedev is intentionally, incrementally, encouraging the creation of that kind of community he had initially found in the vineyards of France and Italy—but on an even larger scale. “My goal is not only wine tourists. I want to develop agritourism. That’s my goal, because I want to show them this beautiful agriculture—wineries, sheep, horses. This is a great area to bring kids to show them how farms work and what agriculture actually looks like. It’s not only about wine, it’s about the environment.”

Medvedev’s words and work always thread back to the most important community of all: family. Wife Mai’s dream of opening a restaurant in Asheville was realized in January with the opening of Red Ginger Dimsum & Tapas. Now, their separate endeavors are finally able to coalesce. “For

Medvedev continues, “When customers ask me, ‘Can you recommend some good destinations?’ Red Ginger is my first pick. And it’s mutual. She sends lots of customers to my place!” (Red Ginger’s wine list, of course, has plenty of Russian Chapel Hills’ vintages.)

And the couple find themselves inherently connected to the community at large. “It’s a great idea, and it’s our slogan: From our vineyard to your table.

Local wine and local food. It’s a great concept to show tourists the flavor of the Carolinas.”

And flavor of the Carolinas it is: Honeyed ambrosia, so to speak, tapped from our own soils, but also holding the blackberry sweetness of Italy, the tart bite of Russia, and even the dusty charcoal of Afghanistan. Corked in blown bottles and swirled in tender-stemmed glasses, the flavors—and the communities that made them—become one.

both of us, it was separate dreams; it was her dream to have this [restaurant], and my dream [to have the winery]. It’s good now, because both of us have realized them, actually at the same time.”

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“We’re not competitors here; we send our customers to the other wineries,” he says. “We have to show people that North Carolina could be on par with California, like Napa. They have everything to do it—we just have to work on it. This is my goal.”

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The Brevard Chamber of Commerce held a ribbon cutting for Elk Haven Wellness Center, located in the former Brevard Elks Lodge. Building co-owner Belinda Roberts is the director of the center, which specializes in acupuncture. Other alternative healing services include massage, yoga, and Chinese medicine.

Less mainstream practices include: cupping, where low-pressure cups may leave suction marks on the back to cure any number of maladies; moxibustion, the thousand-year Chinese practice of burning fluff made from mugwort on the skin; and gua sha, the practice of stimulating healing by rubbing the skin with a coin or spoon to the point of bruising and sometimes bleeding. The faint of heart

]

might prefer a class or consultation in the center’s programmable space, which includes exercise classrooms and a commercial kitchen. Educational opportunities range from routine yoga stretch classes to a recent three-day course on gently reprogramming eating habits. It has been two years since Roberts, a licensed acupuncturist herself, and her husband, Bruce, first asked the city’s permission to convert the building to professional space. Bruce runs his own investment banking business, Carolina Financial Group, on the premises.

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Selee Corporation, an award-winning manufacturer of ceramic foam for filtration applications, has been

strategically working with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to zero-out its waste stream. Their efforts have been successful enough to warrant a visit from DEQ executive officers Donald van der Vaart, John Evans, and Tom Reeder. About a year ago, Selee partnered with the DEQ in a Lean and Green workshop to raise awareness about waste in terms of material, labor, and capital; $122,000 in potential savings was identified. In addition to repurposing waste, the program encouraged not generating it in the first place and reducing the toxicity of necessary by-products.

With the Waste Reduction Partners, a coalition of multidisciplinary volunteers, the DEQ prepared a comprehensive solid waste reduction assessment that identified alternative markets for 544 tons of Selee’s annual waste. Twenty-six percent of the company’s total waste, a mineral powder slurry, now goes to a composter, saving the company $20,000 in landfill costs a year. Less substantially, the company now composts cafeteria and restroom waste. One waste item that has been hard to house has been scrap filters. So, the Environmental Stewardship Initiative of the DEQ, in conjunction with the North Carolina Marine Fisheries, is now researching how they may be used to build artificial reefs.

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When construction started on the hill off Patton Avenue in West Asheville, it could only be assumed another fish restaurant was coming. The site was previously Fisherman’s Quarters II, and before that, the Fish House. But this time, the site will be home to the third branch of the United Federal Credit Union in Western North Carolina. Lee Beason, vice president over offices in North Carolina, says the need for a new office is a sign of a strong economy, as are the hundreds of small businesses in Asheville. The branch will open with $10 million in deposits and $100 million in loans because a lot of clients already living or doing business in Asheville will no longer have to drive to Fletcher or Hendersonville. Beason says people who choose credit unions as their financial institutions prefer their smaller size and the perception that they’re less “corporate.” Banks distribute profits among shareholders, while credit unions view profits as cause to lower interest rates for borrowers. Credit unions also serve populations deemed too risky for many banks. United Federal Credit Union is headquartered in St. Joseph, Michigan, with 23 branches in 6 states, and membership totaling 130,000. Its

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Park Ridge Health has signed on to Cornerstone Health Enablement Strategic Solutions (CHESS) of High Point. CHESS specializes in population health management, a strategy of targeting care by collecting and analyzing data from a broad base of patients. With the move, Park Ridge will become the focal point for a new Accountable Care Organization (ACO). ACOs are groups of physicians who track outcomes against Medicare spending.

The data-driven ACO model seeks to promote health through prevention and early intervention, and emphasizing quality over quantity of service. When ACOs achieve certain levels of care with appreciable cost reduction, they “share in the savings” with Medicare. Other benefits of belonging to an ACO include being able to offer more comprehensive care options for patients and being better-positioned to keep up with rapidly-evolving healthcare reforms.

All 140 Park Ridge providers will now collaborate with numerous local independent practitioners in a network of over 2,300 CHESS members statewide. CHESS’ chief

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business development officer, Dr. James Hoekstra, said the population health management organization seeks membership from quality providers, and Park Ridge fit the bill because it scores among the best in the state in patient satisfaction. One of CHESS’ clients, Cornerstone Health Care, performed so well, it was one of only 21 ACOs nationwide to advance to the Next Generation ACO model.

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Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort has finally broken ground for its new Bowling Entertainment Center. The Tribal Council of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians recently approved a request from Principal Chief Patrick Lambert to start work on a project that had been in the planning stages since 1998. The 50,000-sq.-ft., $13 million facility will be 2 stories high. The first floor will house 16 lanes, an arcade, and food and beverage service. The second floor will have 8 lanes, a bar, and potential for food service. All will be built debt-free, with the burden shared roughly equally by the Eastern Band and the Tribal Casino Gaming Enterprise. The investment is consistent with one of Lambert’s top priorities since assuming the role of chief:

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economic diversification. At the opening ceremony, he explained, “That’s why I’ve directed our team to do everything they can to bring the best food, the best retail, the best entertainment right here into our town.” Lambert said the tribe’s shared vision of economic diversification “makes good business sense, respects Cherokee culture, creates new job opportunities, and provides family-friendly attractions that will entice our visitors to visit and stay longer.” The amenity, while the passion of many tribal elders, will help Harrah’s Cherokee continue to stand out among the many other Indian Country casinos.

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In a day when post offices are closing and consolidating, enthusiasts in Penland are fundraising to keep theirs. The Penland Post Office and General Store is more than a paper processing plant. It’s a piece of hometown charm and history.

Postmistress Rebecca Davis, who has been serving in that capacity since stamps were 15 cents, still greets customers from an old-fashioned teller’s window. Alicia Swaringen describes the post office as that place where neighbors can run into each other, essential for small-town cohesion. She is spearheading the campaign to restore the decrepit building, owned by the nonprofit Penland Post Office Project, which has raised $50,000 to date. Now, a crowdfunding campaign is attempting to raise $10,000 more for repairs. Back in 2013, the post office was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Though caught knee-deep in floodwaters from concurrent hurricanes in 1916, the post office is one of very few buildings in the formerly booming Bailey’s Station to have survived the flood, fire, development, and neglect of ages. Built in 1900, the building has housed a lumber company, a furniture store, and a ladies’ apparel shop.

The post office moved into the building in 1934, bringing from the old location Smithsonian-caliber artifacts.

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In early August it was announced that Asheville’s HomeTrust Bank’s stock will be sold on the NASDAQ, a move that HomeTrust Bancshares, Inc. president and COO, Dana Stonestreet, said would raise money and allow growth and expansion. Noted Stonestreet, “We are the largest hometown bank in Western North Carolina. What this means for the future of Asheville and Western North Carolina is more jobs, more economic growth, more economic vitality, and the ability to provide credit in the way we have in the past, and even more so in the future.” HomeTrust is the 11th largest North Carolina-headquartered bank, and through its BancShares stock holding company will now have $360 million in operating capital, although existing customers have been assured they will not experience any notable changes in how they do business with the bank.

HomeTrust has 300 employees and also operates several other regional banks: Tryon Federal Bank, Shelby Savings Bank, Home Savings Bank, Industrial Federal Bank, Cherryville Federal Bank, and Rutherford County Bank.

Get Outside on a Dime buncombe county

Ryan Lansche describes Western North Carolina as an “endless playground” for mountain sports enthusiasts.

Unfortunately, many people who live here can’t afford a good kayak, mountain bike, or paddle board to enjoy the playground. To help out, Lansche has opened a membership business called Gearu, named after the urban-dictionary expression for a guru of all things gear. Gearu’s slogan is, “Get outside, and we’ll handle the rest.” Gearu caters to locals, offering memberships that give holders access to an assortment of topof-the-line, professionally-maintained, and safely-stored bikes, kayaks, and

stand-up paddleboards. Passes are available in denominations of $50/day, $60/3 days, $75/month, and $600/year payable in monthly installments. Extra days are available. Pass-holders may check out only one item at a time, and the threeday pass is only for people wanting to rent a bike one day, a kayak another day, and a board the other. Reservations are recommended for members wanting to guarantee a particular item. No deposits are taken; credit card details are sufficient to recoup any loss, and coverage for normal wear and tear is built into the pricing.

Curtain Call watauga county

Shannon’s Curtain, Bed and Bath announced it will close after 31 years. The local, family-owned and operated store offered quality, moderately-priced home décor, and was the only store of its kind in the High Country. Problems started with the collapse of the housing market in 2008. Owner Shannon Russing has since, never seen a full recovery. The days of people coming in to furnish 5 rooms at a time for their second homes were gone.

As older customers disappeared with downsizing, younger ones would come into the store to view merchandise they bought cheaper online. Those losses were then compounded by a general reshaping of the supply line. Russing used to go to New York twice a year to purchase from the showrooms of textile mills. She did the same more regularly in the Southern states. Then, manufacturing consolidated, moved overseas, and integrated design, manufacture, and retail vertically.

Russing used to work with local manufacturers to take advantage of economies of scale by piggybacking off the orders of large department stores. Now, she can’t provide the assortment she would like.

Other trends standing between the store and profits are a general preference for disposable décor and a cultural de-emphasis on forging loyal relationships in the business world.

Friday

SEPTEMBER 16, 2016

Ballroom at Crowne Plaza Resort, Downtown Asheville

$75 • 6-10PM

Tickets On Sale Now

Visit www.mowabc.org or call 828-253-5286 The dress is casual, but the night will be extraordinary! Bid on vacation packages, local artwork, handmade jewelry, children’s toys, and a variety of gift certificates and services generously donated by individuals and local businesses who support our cause. Complimentary beer, wine, and heavy hors d’oeuvres will be served throughout the evening and a cash bar will be available. 100% of net proceeds will benefit Meals on Wheels of Asheville & Buncombe County in its mission to care for the homebound elderly of our community.

MEALS ON WHEELS

of Asheville & Buncombe Co. September 2016 | capitalatplay.com

35

local industry

Teetotallers, Beware “It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.”

- Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlett by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

by the editors

A

/

compiled by jennifer fitzger ald

year ago in this space, in the September 2015 issue, we published a map of the 18 counties of Western North Carolina, listing all the then-current breweries, wineries, distilleries, and cideries dotting this corner of the state. All totaled, there were 71 separate entries, of which the breweries numbered 42. Twelve months later, it has become clear that our statement “the region is home to a growing number” of such businesses was accurate—prescient, even.

Indeed, if you scan through our updated map and do a quick count, the tally now resides at 92; the breweries themselves clock in at 61 total, a 45% increase. That’s hardly a nominal figure, although it should come with a caveat: It’s highly unlikely that growth like that can be sustained, and even though practically every week one hears of another small town that’s finally gotten or will be getting its first brewery, a saturation point is inevitable, and we’ll probably see a degree of consolidation taking place as well. One thing’s for sure, however, people in Western North Carolina do like their beer, wine, spirits, and hard cider, and in 2016, it’s definitely an interesting time to be in the alcohol industry.

For our updated map, we decided to expand it, data-wise, to include some additional and highly relevant information. First of all, we wanted to know if the company had an on-site taproom or tasting room rather than just being strictly a manufacturer. With only a very few exceptions, the answer was “yes,” which is significant because a business can definitely boost its profitability by selling direct to the public in addition to operating as a wholesaler.

Next, we asked how many barrels or bottles 36

| September 2016

they produced, on average, per year, as a measure of size and productivity. The ranges were striking—beer production, for example, dipped as low as 140 barrels annually (for some of the microbreweries), and as high as 500,000 (those with a national presence), and there was a corresponding low-high range for the wineries, distilleries, and cideries. Finally, we wanted to determine the number of fulltime and part-time employees the companies had, as a general indicator of how the alcohol industry directly impacts the regional employment outlook. This also yielded a range, as one would expect, but the bottom line is, yes, the alcohol industry is a major economic driver for Western North Carolina.

We should note that we accumulated our data points the old-fashioned way: traditional journalistic inquiry, calling and emailing the principals, and consulting publically-available online resources. Many other such surveys typically arrive at their data not by direct polling/querying, but by utilizing algorithms, which if you think about it, is akin to looking at the forest but not at the actual trees. In some instances, for the purposes of clarity, we averaged out or estimated the published figures; feel free to take a look at the map and data on the Capital at Play website for a somewhat more detailed breakdown. (Note, also, that some respondents were unavailable when we reached out to them, but we’ve still attempted to be as complete as possible.)

Got all that? We intend to keep the online version of the below information updated on a regular basis, so please let us know of any corrections or additions we need to be aware of. See you in this same space next year.

KEY a l l l o c at i o n s h av e ta s t i n g r o o m o n s i t e

p t : pa rt - t i m e f t : f u l l- t i m e

5 6

Western North Carolina

m it

BREWERIES

ch

7

ell

2 1 3 4

g tau wa

avery

8

7 madison yancey

swain

20 22 21 20 19

27 26 25 23 24

graham

31

h ay w

mcdowell buncombe

jackson

17 18

28 29

32 cherokee clay

1. Appalachian Mountain Brewery Boone appalachianmountainbrewery.com 2. Lost Province Brewing Co. Boone Barrels Made Per Year: 580 Employees FT: 21 PT: 29 lostprovince.com 3. Booneshine Brewing Co. Boone booneshine.beer 4. Blowing Rock Brewing Co. Blowing Rock Barrels Made Per Year: 5,000 Employees FT: 18 PT: 37 blowingrockbrewing.com

macon

15 14

ood

16

he

nd

er

11 10 1312

so

rutherford

9

n

polk

30

tr a

nsy

ni lva

a

5. Beech Mountain Brewing Co. Beech Mountain Barrels Made Per Year: 300 Employees FT: 3 PT: 5 beechmountainresort.com/mountain/ brewery

8.Dry County Brewing Co. Spruce Pine Barrels Made Per Year: Nanobrewery Employees FT: 1 drycountybrewing.com

11. Southern Appalachian Brewery Hendersonville Barrels Made Per Year: 1,100 Employees FT: 2 PT: 9 sabrewery.com

6. Flat Top Brewing Co. Banner Elk Barrels Made Per Year: 700 Employees FT: 4 PT: 3 flattopbrewing.com

9.Winding Creek Brewing Co. Columbus Employees FT: 6 wcbrewco.com

12. Sanctuary Brewing Hendersonville Barrels Made Per Year: 500 Employees FT: 4 PT: 3 sanctuarybrewco.com

10.Stag's Head Brewing Hendersonville Barrels Made Per Year: 4,500 Employees FT: 4 PT: 4 stagsheadbrewing.com

13. Basic Brewery Hendersonville Employees FT: 2 PT: 2 basicbrewery.com

7. Blind Squirrel Brewery Plumtree & Burnsville Barrels Made Per Year: 900 Employees FT: 25 PT: 5 blindsquirrelbrewery.com

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 37

a

local industry

14. Blue Ghost Brewing Co. Fletcher Barrels Made Per Year: 300 Employees FT: 2 PT: 2 blueghostbrewing.com

24. Heinzelmännchen Brewery Sylva Barrels Made Per Year: 300 Employees FT: 2 PT: 1 yourgnometownbrewery.com

15. Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. Mills River Barrels Made Per Year: 500,000 Employees FT: 360 sierranevada.com

25. Sneak E Squirrel Brewery Sylva Barrels Made Per Year: 200 Employees FT: 3 PT: 10 sneakesquirrel.com

16. Oskar Blues Brewery Brevard Barrels Made Per Year: 90,000 Employees FT: 52 PT: 9 oskarblues.com

26. Mountain Layers Brewing Bryson City mountainlayersbrewingcompany.com

17. Brevard Brewing Brevard Barrels Made Per Year: 1,000 Employees FT: 1 PT: 4 brevard-brewing.com 18. Ecusta Brewing Co. Brevard facebook.com/ecustabrewing 19. Tipping Point Brewing Waynesville tippingpointtavern.com 20. Boojum Brewing Waynesville - 2 locations Barrels Made Per Year: 2,500 Employees FT: 10 PT: 25 boojumbrewing.com 21. Frog Level Brewing Co. Waynesville Barrels Made Per Year: 500 Employees FT: 2 PT: 2 froglevelbrewing.com 22. BearWaters Brewing Co. Waynesville Barrels Made Per Year: 200 Employees FT: 4 PT: 2 bwbrewing.com 23. Innovation Brewing Co. Sylva Barrels Made Per Year: 800 Employees FT: 5 PT: 6 innovation-brewing.com

38

27. Nantahala Brewing Co. Bryson City Barrels Made Per Year: 5,000 Employees FT: 20+ nantahalabrewing.com 28. Lazy Hiker Brewing Co. Franklin Employees FT: 13 lazyhikerbrewing.com 29. Currahee Brewing Co. Franklin Barrels Made Per Year: 3,000 Employees FT: 5 PT: 2 curraheebrew.com 30. Satulah Mountain Brewing Co. Highlands Barrels Made Per Year: 500 Employees FT: 1 PT: 3 satulahmountainbrewing.com 31. Andrews Brewing Co. Andrews Barrels Made Per Year: 150 Employees FT: 1 andrewsbrewing.com 32. Valley River Brewery Murphy Barrels Made Per Year: 300 Employees FT: 4 PT: 4 valleyriverbrewery.com

| September 2016

Buncombe County

BREWERIES 1. Lookout Brewing Black Mountain Barrels Made Per Year: 1,000 Employees FT: 4 PT: 3 lookoutbrewing.com

9. Hi-Wire Brewing

2. Pisgah Brewing Co. Black Mountain Barrels Made Per Year: 5,000 Employees FT: 10 PT: 6 pisgahbrewing.com

10. DOWNTOWN

3. Whistle Hop Brewery Fairview Barrels Made Per Year: 100 Employees FT: 2 PT: 2

4. Highland Brewing

Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 47,500 Employees FT: 50 PT: 20 highlandbrewing.com 5. Sweeten Creek Brewing Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 150 Employees FT: 3 PT: 6 sweetencreekbrewing.com 6. Hillman Brewing Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 1,300 Employees FT: 8 PT: 4 hillmanbeer.com 7. French Broad Brewing Co. Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 250 Employees FT: 4 PT: 4 frenchbroadbrewery.com

8. Catawba Brewing Co.

Asheville 2 locations Barrels Made Per Year: 14,000 Employees FT: 20 PT: 20 catawbabrewing.com

Asheville 2 locations Barrels Made Per Year: 10,000 Employees FT: 21 PT: 7 hiwirebrewing.com

A. Bhramari Brewhouse Asheville Employees FT: 3 PT: 3 bhramaribrewhouse.com B. Lexington Avenue Brewery Asheville lexavebrew.com C. One World Brewery Asheville Employees FT: 13 PT: 2 oneworldbrewing.com D. Wicked Weed Brewing Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 20,000 Employees FT: 106 PT: 86 wickedweedbrewing.com

11. SOUTHSLOPE E. Ben's Brewery Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 200 Employees FT: 2 PT: 1 benstuneup.com F. Burial Beer Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 1,500 Employees FT: 9 PT: 8 burialbeer.com G. Funkatoriuim Asheville For Barrels and employees see Wicked Weed info above wickedweedbrewing.com

B

C ve Patton A

40

D 1

12

18 22 21 19

2

11 10 9 8

7

240 Broadway

6

40

4

5

9 E Coxe Ave

Asheland Ave

G

A 13

17

13

re Ave Biltmo

14

buncombe

e on Av

26

t Lexing

16 15

13 20

I H F

3

14 26

23 id

hs

t ou

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S

H. Green Man Brewery Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 15,000 Employees FT: 15 PT: 15 greenmanbrewery.com

13. Asheville Pizza and Brewing Asheville 3 locations Barrels Made Per Year: 8,500 Employees FT: 60 PT: 100 ashevillebrewing.com

I. Twin Leaf Brewery Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 650 Employees FT: 2 PT: 4 twinleafbrewery.com

14. Thirsty Monk Woodfin and 2 Asheville locations Barrels Made Per Year: 300 Employees FT: 30 PT: 16 monkpub.com

12. Habitat Brewing Co.

15. Zebulon Artisan Ales Weaverville zebulonbrewing.com

Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 300 Employees FT: 2 PT: 2 habitatbrewing.com

16. Blue Mountain Pizza and Brewpub Weaverville Barrels Made Per Year: 140

Employees FT: 1 PT: 1 bluemountainpizza.com 17. UpBeat Brewing Asheville upbeatbrewing.com

18. New Belgium Brewing Co. Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 500,000 Employees FT: 120 newbelgium.com

19. Wedge Brewing Co.

Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 1,400 Employees FT: 3 PT: 28 wedgebrewing.com

20. Open Brewing Asheville obrewing.com 21. Oyster House Brewing Co. Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 500 Employees FT: 15 PT: 3 oysterhousebeers.com 22. UpCountry Brewing Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 400 Employees FT: 7 altamontbrewing.com 23. Mills River Brewery Arden Barrels Made Per Year: 300 Employees PT: 4

millsriverbrewery.net

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 39

local industry

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You’ve got the small stuff covered. Let us help you make a greater lasting impact. We’ve been helping people put their money to good use, with socially responsible investments and customized financial plans, for more than 16 years.

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1.Banner Elk Winery Banner Elk Bottles Made Per Year: 2,000 Employees FT: 4 PT: 9 bannerelkwinery.com 2. Grandfather Vineyard & Winery Banner Elk Bottles Made Per Year: 42,000 Employees FT: 3 PT: 3 grandfathervineyard.com 3. Linville Falls Winery Newland Bottles Made Per Year: 14,000 Employees FT: 2 PT: 5 linvillefallswinery.com

440 Montford Avenue, Asheville NC, 28801 | 828-285-8777 | 877-285-7537 | www.starksfinancial.com Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services, Member FINRA/SIPC.

4. South Creek Vineyards & Winery Nebo Bottles Made Per Year: 9-12,000 Volunteers Only southcreekwinery.com 5. Belle Nicho Winery Nebo Bottles Made Per Year: 4,200-6,000 Employees FT: 1 bellenichowinery.com 6. Parker-Binns Vineyard Mill Spring Bottles Made Per Year: 12,000 Employees FT: 4 PT: 2 parker-binnsvineyard.com 7. Overmountain Vineyards Tryon Bottles Made Per Year: 26,400 Employees FT: 4 PT: 4 overmountainvineyards.com 8. Mountain Brook Vineyards Tryon Bottles Made Per Year: 4,800 Employees FT: 1 PT: 5 mountainbrookvineyards.com

www.peabodyswineandbeer.com 828.264.9476 | HWY 105, Boone NC

40

| September 2016

9. Russian Chapel Hills Winery Columbus Bottles Made Per Year: 50,000 Employees FT: 3 PT: 2 russianchapelhill.com

KEY w i t h o u t ta s t i n g roo m on s ite

p t : pa rt - t i m e f t : f u l l- t i m e

1

Western North Carolina

m it

WINERIES

madison

ch

ell

avery

2 watauga

3

yancey

16

15 14

4

haywood

13

5

mcdowell

12

swain buncombe

11 10

graham

18 19 21 20

che

ro

kee macon clay

hen

jackson

tr a

n

der

rutherford

6

son

a ani s y lv

polk

7 8 9

17

10. Burntshirt Vineyards Hendersonville Bottles Made Per Year: 48-60,000 Employees FT: 10 PT: 3 burntshirtvineyards.com

13. Biltmore Winery Asheville Bottles Made Per Year: 1,800,000 Employees FT: 11 PT: 1 biltmore.com

16. Fox Hill Meadery Marshall Bottles Made Per Year: 6,000 Employees FT: 1 foxhillmead.com

19. Cherokee Cellars Winery Murphy Bottles Made Per Year: 8-10,000 Employees FT: 2 PT: 2 cherokeecellars.com

11. Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards Hendersonville Bottles Made Per Year: 72,000 Employees PT: 16 saintpaulmountainvineyards.com

14. Addison Farms Vineyard Leicester Bottles Made Per Year: 10,000 Employees PT: 5 addisonfarms.net

17. Eagle Fork Vineyards Hayesville Bottles Made Per Year: 8,000 Employees FT: 3 PT: 3 eagleforkvineyards.com

20. Valley River Vineyards Murphy Wine Made Per Year: 400 gallons facebook.com/VRVWinery

12. Bee & Bramble Fine Meads Fairview Bottles Made Per Year: 9,600 Employees FT: 1 beeandbramble.com

15.Fontaine Vineyards Leicester Does not process grapes on the premisesvineyards only. fontainevineyards.com

18. Calaboose Cellars Andrews Bottles Made Per Year: 6,000 Employees PT: 1 calaboosecellars.com

21. Nottely River Valley Vineyards Murphy Bottles Made Per Year: 10,000 Employees PT: 2 - 24 during harvest nottelywine.com

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 41

local industry

KEY d i s t i l l e ry w i t h o u t ta s t i n g r o o m o n s i t e p t : pa rt - t i m e f t : f u l l- t i m e

a l l c i d e r i e s h av e ta s t i n g r o o m o n s i t e

watauga

Western North Carolina CIDERIES & DISTILLERIES

m it

ch

ell

avery

madison yancey

3

3

2

2

4

1

mcdowell

haywood

swain

buncombe

4

graham

1

6

he

jackson

rutherford

5

nd er

polk

so n

cherokee macon

clay

1. Black Mountain Ciderworks Black Mountain Barrels Made Per Year: 1,000 Employees FT: 2 PT: 1 blackmountainciderworks.com 2. Urban Orchard Cider Company Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 968 Employees FT: 10 PT: 6 urbanorchardcider.com 3. Noble Cider Asheville Barrels Made Per Year: 2,500 3,000 Employees FT: 6 PT: 3 noblecider.com

42

4. Bold Rock Hard Cider Mills River Barrels Per Year (at full capacity): 600,000 case equivalents Total of 100 employees in various facilities around the East Coast boldrock.com 5. Three Sisters Cidery LLC Hendersonville threesisterscidery.com 6. Flat Rock Ciderworks Hendersonville Employees FT: 1 PT: 2 flatrockciderworks.com

| September 2016

tr a

nsy

i lva n

a

1. Blue Ridge Distilling Co. Inc. Bostic Bottles Made Per Year: 102,000 Whiskey (Defiant Whisky p. 76) Employees FT: 5 PT: 1 defiantwhisky.com

3. Howling Moon Distillery Asheville Bottles Made Per Year: 20,000 Moonshine Employees FT: 3 howlingmoonshine.com

2. Asheville Distilling Co. Asheville Bottles Made Per Year: 300,000 capacity Whiskey (Troy & Sons) Employees FT: 5 PT: 2 ashevilledistilling.com

4. Dalton Distillery Asheville Bottles Made Per Year: 3,000+ Rum Employees FT: 3 PT: 2 addistillery.com

in western north c aroli na There are approximately:

1150

f u l l- t i m e j o b s i n b r e w e r i e s , wineries, and distilleries

A solid plan IS THE FOUNDATION

FOR SUCCESS.

590

pa rt - t i m e j o b s i n b r e w e r i e s , wineries, and distilleries

1.25M

It is never too early to evaluate and plan for your future.

Let the advisors at Webb Investment Services guide you in determining the right strategy to build and maintain your wealth.

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barrels of beer p r o d u c e d a n n u a l ly

2.15M b ot t l e s o f w i n e p r o d u c e d a n n u a l ly

45,500 barrels of cider p r o d u c e d a n n u a l ly

349K

VE

STMENT

S

An Independent Wealth Management Firm

B •

CES

WEB

VI

B

RA

TING 20

Y

Laura Webb, CFP® President & Founder

LE

EA

CE

RS

•

Source: Data derived from Capital at Play 2Q of 2016 Note: Some respondents did not respond by time of press.

N

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We realize that our hard and true numbers are lower than those touted by others, but our desire to arrive at a clear idea of the rate of growth in this industry required that we avoid the application of any overly optimistic multipliers, or the assumption that there has been a significant rise in the employment of accessory industries (distributors, attorneys, and accountants to name a few). It is clear that, despite the tremendous growth in the number of alcohol producers, our research shows most of them working with the same attorneys, accountants, distributors, and other local service providers in their supply chain. These are, as Joe Friday put it, “just the facts”.

I

b ot t l e s o f s p i r i t s p r o d u c e d a n n u a l ly

828.252.5132 | laurawebb.com 82 Patton Ave., Suite 610 | Asheville, NC 28801

Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services, Inc. Member FINRA/SIPC.

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 43

financial column

Financial Irresponsibility

T $

joanne be ar

Financial Consultant Asheville Savings Investment Services www.ashevillesavingsbank.com colin s . l arsen

Director of Personal Financial Strategies Colton Groome & Company www.coltongroome.com l aur a c . mccue

CEO/President White Oak Financial Management, Inc. www.whiteoakfinancialmanagement.com If you have any questions you’d like to hear answered in such a column, please email us at editor@capitalatplay.com.

44

| September 2016

HE C A PITA L AT PL AY FINA NCI A L Column, of which this is the third installment (previously: “Young Money” and “70 is the New 50,” financial suggestions for younger and older investors, respectively), is intended to offer our readership timely advice while opening the doors to an ongoing conversation that we hope will be relevant to your lives. But let’s face it, discussing financial matters can be perilously dry at times. So this time around we thought we might loosen our ties and lighten things up a bit—not in a flippant sense, but simply to keep the aforementioned conversation lively and, well, conversational. Let’s talk, then, about financial irresponsibility—what is it, and how to avoid it, which is something anyone who’s ever gone out and blown a financial windfall on extravagant new “toys” or frittered away savings by placing risky bets on the stock market can probably identify with.

Capital at Play: How would you define the (admittedly vague and subjective) term “financial irresponsibility”? colin : “Financial irresponsibility” might be defined as taking actions with money that are counterproductive to a balanced pursuit of one’s lifestyle and financial goals.

Some examples of frivolous or “irresponsible” spending might be: using excessive credit, spending money to impress or attempt to acquire status, failing to “pay yourself first” (i.e. save) before making expenditures for immediate gratification.

$ In what key areas should I first have my financial house in order before I decide to spend some of my money purely on “toys” (high end tech gear and vehicles), self-improvement (that long-overdue nip/ tuck on my butt, a meditation getaway with my guru), or sundry recreational pursuits (hang-gliding, African safaris, reservations on Mars shuttles)? l au r a : The first things to consider before you start spending money on “toys” are your emotional values that are most important for you to experience. Values fulfill and satisfy you. They are all about being. Examples are security, freedom, good health, time with family, choice, sense of accomplishment, helping others, making a difference, leaving a legacy, etc. Your goals describe what you will achieve and accomplish in order to experience those values. They are about doing and having. Your values are your reasons for everything you are committed to achieving in life. Once you know what your most important values are, then you can define the measurable goals that need to be met or satisfied to fulfill those values. You should be successfully working your investing and savings plan to meet those goals before you start thinking about spending money on “toys.” If you know that you have money available above and beyond necessary emergency savings and investment, then go for it!

GET IN TO THE HABIT OF SETTING ASIDE A PERCENTAGE OF YOUR MONEY—A “PAY YOURSELF FIRST” STRATEGY TO AVOID THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE “SHOULD’VE, WOULD’VE, COULD’VE” REGRETS. joanne : While it is important to have fun and enjoy the finer aspects of life, you need to make sure it is not at the expense of having your financial house in order. Time marches on rather quickly, and if you’re too busy “playing” and not paying attention, you may find that you wake up one day and regret the fact you didn’t take the time to prepare for your golden years. Get in to the habit of setting aside a percentage of your money—a “pay yourself first”

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column

strategy to avoid the consequences of the “should’ve, would’ve, could’ve” regrets. Key plans to contribute to would include a savings account for any unexpected bills or emergencies. Just how much is enough? I recommend having between three and six months of living expenses readily available in cash for emergency purposes. You should also be consistently contributing to a retirement account. Annual limits for individual retirement accounts in 2016 are $5,500 ($6,500 if you’re aged 50 or older) or if your taxable compensation for the year was less than the maximum contribution amount. If you are lucky enough to have an employer that offers a match on their 401k, then be sure to take advantage and invest at least the minimum amount to receive your employer’s full match percentage. colin: Areas to focus on before spending money on “toys” include: (1) having a reasonable cash reserve (three to six months of living expenses); (2) a protection plan in place to cover the “Oh-oh’s” in life, including life, disability, auto, and homeowner’s insurance coverages; (3) prudent debt levels (prudent debt would entail debt taken on for long-term investments or assets—such as an education that reasonably expects to yield an income sufficient to pay back the debt, or a long-term appreciating asset such as a home or business); and (4) a savings/investing plan that has you on a trajectory to attain your long term goals (such as educate kids, support your favorite charity, secure your retirement income, etc.).

I recently received an unexpected windfall that is equal to one-half of my annual income. What percentage can I spend frivolously, and what percentage should I save or invest?

laura : Unexpected windfalls are nice! It's easy to get excited about spending found money. Before you do, be | September 2016

Friends, relatives, and associates frequently approach me with potential investments. Naturally they assure me that their proposals are sound. What are the main factors I should be considering when looking over these pitches? colin: First, start by asking the proposer, “So, how much are you committing to the investment yourself?”. Then, dig deeper. Does the investment seem “too good to be true”? If so, there’s a good chance it is. Does the risk-return tradeoff make sense within your overall investment portfolio strategy? If it is a high risk investment, can you afford to lose 100% of your investment without it impacting your financial future?

ANYTIME YOU FIND YOURSELF HEARING A “PITCH,” YOU SHOULD SEEK A SECOND OPINION FROM YOUR FINANCIAL ADVISOR. DON’T ALLOW YOURSELF TO GET CAUGHT UP IN THE “BUY HIGH, SELL LOW” PHENOMENON OF CHASING THE WINNERS ONCE THEY’VE ALREADY PEAKED.

joanne: Receiving a lump sum of money is an unexpected gift. First, you must assess where you are in your retirement plan objectives and timeline. This could be the perfect chance to address one or two of the worries that are possibly keeping you awake at night. Can you use some of these funds to perhaps ease some of those worries? Using the funds from an unexpected windfall is a great way to eliminate or at least relieve some of the concerns you may have—possibly setting you on the path to a more secure financial future.

Once you are confident you are on course with your individual financial plan, I would say only then you should take a small percentage and have some fun.

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sure that you are comfortable with the amount of money you have in emergency savings, and that you are saving and investing enough to meet your financial goals. If thinking about whether you have enough emergency savings has been keeping you awake at night, or you have not even started investing to meet your longer term financial goals, or if you don't even know what your goals are, then hold up on spending that windfall and put some thought into these things first.

joanne : Well-meaning family, friends, and neighbors often share their enthusiasm about investments. Ask yourself the following questions: Does the investment align with your current investment strategy? Can you afford it? Are you emotionally investing? Anytime you find yourself hearing a “pitch,” you should seek a second opinion from your financial advisor. Don’t allow yourself to get caught up in the “Buy High, Sell Low” phenomenon of chasing the winners once they’ve already peaked. This will help you to have an opinion that is not based on the emotion of euphoric highs, and in turn may help you to avoid devastating lows.

$ My spouse recently passed away, and as a result I am the beneficiary of a $150,000 life insurance policy. I do want to spend some money on myself, but how can I make sure than I am not spending too much, too fast? laura : Hopefully you knew about

the $150,000 life insurance policy before your spouse passed away and you two had discussed the intent of having the policy death benefit. Is it intended to replace the earnings income of your spouse? To pay off debts such as the home mortgage?

To pay final estate expenses? To help children pay for college? To fund possible long term health care needs? To create a lump sum to be used to fund some other goal or your retirement? Are these things already taken care of? If not, then it would be smart to talk with a financial advisor to determine what steps would be necessary to use this money to meet your needs. joanne: The passing of a loved one is a very traumatic and emotional event. Being too emotional can sometimes lead to bad financial decisions. I generally recommend waiting for at least six months to a year before making any big decisions.

Typically, when a spouse passes away, there tends to be a reduction in monthly income —and while it may be very tempting to spend some of the insurance proceeds on yourself, the better strategy may be to wait so that you have time to figure out what your monthly income and expenditures look like.

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financial column

Every 10 years or so, it seems my wife/ husband and I get the urge to move to a bigger home. But after the 2008 market crash, we realized we would have to take a 20-30% loss on our home if we decided to move again. The market seems to have stabilized somewhat, but we’re now worried that our pattern of regular “upsizing” is a risky one. joanne: Upsizing for real estate returns can be an effective way to increase your portfolio. As you stated and experienced, there have been times when the outcome did not turn out positively. There are many things to consider when using this type of strategy as part of your overall investment plan. Doing your homework and making sure that the area where you live has a healthy real estate market is key. Also, how close you are to retiring should be a big consideration.

Markets of any type, whether it be real estate or stock market-based, may fluctuate. I recommend that clients only participate in certain types of investments if their time frame for when the assets are needed will accommodate a recovery period if one becomes necessary.

IN MY OPINION, RESEARCHING WELL-ESTABLISHED COMPANIES AND THEN BUYING THEIR STOCKS DOES NOT MAKE YOU A GLORIFIED GAMBLER. INVESTING IN STOCKS AND GOING TO THE CASINO TO GAMBLE ARE VERY DIFFERENT.

I love to go on gambling junkets to Vegas twice a year. I don’t limit the amount I’m willing to lose, as that tends to mute my enjoyment.

Should I be imposing a money limit? colin: You bet ya! Vegas doesn’t prosper because the house always loses! Revisit the answer to Question 2, if it hasn’t sunk in.

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laura : Las Vegas style gambling is for your play money.

This is money that you can afford to lose. Before you go, you

栀愀渀搀挀爀愀昀琀攀搀 漀渀攀ⴀ漀昀ⴀ愀ⴀ欀椀渀搀 猀漀甀琀栀攀爀渀 氀甀砀甀爀礀

should determine what that amount is and stick with it. You should be doing this to have fun and not to make money for achieving important things like retirement or other goals that matter to you.

I have never gambled—no Vegas, no regional casinos, not even a poker game. However, I do think of myself as a semi-successful amateur stock market player. Does that make me just a glorified gambler? laura: Yes, you are a glorified gambler. We are not supposed to tell you this, but the stock market is one big gambling game and you are playing with the big boys who know a lot more than you do. So without a reliable, proven system to help you to make good, tactical decisions and to help you know what is happening (not what is going to happen... no one knows that), you put yourself at risk of succumbing to your base emotions of fear and greed—two emotions that can be your undoing on the market roller coaster and that the media talking heads count on to keep you listening and watching. There are many systems available to help you manage investment decisions tactically so that you can remove much of the emotion from affecting your decisionmaking. I highly recommend that you find a system or an investment advisor who uses one successfully. colin: Depends on how long you are holding your stocks—if less than five years, then “yes,” I’d say you are a gambler.

If “no,” then you may in fact be a successful investor. But remember, everybody thinks they are “smart” when markets are rising, when in fact, they are more than likely just lucky.

Don’t let past successes lull you into “betting the farm” on a single company. Diversify your holdings because even “great companies” run into trouble—think Kodak (missed the digital revolution) or BP (the Gulf oil spill).

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joanne: Clients often enjoy the autonomy of picking and following stocks, and today’s technology has certainly made it easier. In my opinion, researching well-established companies and then buying their stocks does not make you a glorified gambler. Investing in stocks and going to the casino to gamble are very different. The basic definition of both terms reveals the principle differences between them. The dictionary defines “invest” as follows: to put (money) to use, by purchase or expenditure, in something offering profitable returns, especially interest or income. The definition of “gamble” is to play at any game of chance for stakes. Gambling is typically for entertainment; investing is business.

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THE OLD

NORTH

STATE [

news briefs

Consistent with Reality, Reason, Productivity winston-salem

Citing reduced volume and narrowing margins, Branch Bank & Trust (BB&T) resolved to exit the equity research business and pull out of institutional sales and trading. Bank analysts had been preparing research reports for more than 300 companies as a service to investors and a means of drumming up more business.

The announcement followed record second-quarter earnings, made possible by a number of acquisitions; however, chair and CEO Kelly King is focusing on trimming expenses. BB&T is but the latest regional lender to scale back equity operations in response to the very low number of initial public offerings this year and a shift toward less conventional forms of investing. The

]

company’s securities unit will now focus on debt capital markets, mergers and acquisitions, and private consultation.

The restructuring will scale back 61 jobs, mostly from the Richmond, Virginia, office. BB&T is working to place affected employees elsewhere in the organization, severance packages and outplacement services being the default position.

been the largest independently-owned in the state and one of the largest in the South. Fourth-generation president and publisher, Charles Broadwell, gave short notice when he announced the conclusion of negotiations that had been underway for a year, and no terms were disclosed. Although GateHouse operates newspapers in hundreds of markets in 35 states, CEO Kirk Davis said his company appreciates and plans to continue the Observer’s “heritage of delivering rich, local content” to the 10 counties it serves. Other businesses included in the sale were Fayetteville Publishing Company’s Target Printing & Distribution and Liberty Point Media.

Publications transferred include Iwanna, The Sandspur, Acento Latino, and Fort Bragg Life.

Indie Media Institution Sold

Very Multimodal

fayetteville

Nor th Carolina Por ts and CSX announced they will begin providing rail service between Wilmington and Charlotte in September. The Queen City Express will then be the only train running between Charlotte and a Southeastern port. It will haul cargo

The Fayetteville Observer, the state’s oldest newspaper, is no longer independently-owned. Fayetteville Publishing Company is selling all its businesses to GateHouse Media, LLC. The 200-yearold, award-winning newspaper had

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nonstop overnight in double-stacked containers provided by North Carolina Ports.

The news came on the heels of another big announcement: The City of Rocky Mount had agreed to become home to the controversial Carolina Connector (CCX).

CCX is a state-of-the-art station planned for transferring cargo between trains and trucks. When the Port of Wilmington is complete, CSX will haul containers between ocean freighters and the CCX daily. Both projects will help shippers realize logistical efficiencies while diverting truck traffic from highways. Not only will the progress link CSX’s inland terminals in Greensboro and Charlotte to world markets across the sea, it is being built with no taxpayer subsidy. Instead, port activities now account for $700 million a year in state and local taxes and support 76,000 jobs statewide.

A Game of Red Light, Green Light

70

carolina in the west

national & world

maximum an organization could raise through crowdsourcing from $1 million to $5 million, while the latter increased the number of investors allowed to contribute to qualified venture capital funds from 100 to 250. Both bills were sponsored by Patrick McHenry and Kevin McCarthy as part of the state’s Innovation Initiative. The federal Jobs Act of 2012 legalized crowdfunding; but Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) guidelines, established subsequently, complicated the procedure beyond the reach of many small-scale entrepreneurs. With the new statutes, North Carolina joined about thirty other states in taking advantage of an SEC rule that allows non-accredited, small investors to purchase corporate stock under certain conditions. The legislation allows entrepreneurs who don’t want their businesses to go public to raise up to $2 million every year, provided they file audits.

hickory

Transportation Insight, a third-party logistics provider, has rebranded its expanding transactional division.

BirdDog Logistics™, the name of one

the old north state

of its recent acquisitions, was selected because it resonated with Transportation Insight’s goals. CEO Chris Baltz said the name projects a sense of “intelligent, well-trained, disciplined, and loyal” professionals who BirdDog’s vice president and general manager Clay Gentry said, “don’t quit until the job is done.” besides hauling, the parent company provides custom integration of manufacturing, distribution, and retail operations to realize cost savings and reduce cycle times.

BirdDog's vice president of operations Randy Abernathy says the company now serves almost 1,000 clients in “every single” North American industry. In addition to scheduling hauling by regular trucks, BirdDog integrates shipment via land, ocean, and air, additionally arranging for temperature-controlled, less-than-truckload, intermodal, and flatbed shipping solutions.

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The Fix Crowdfunding Act and the Supporting America’s Innovators Act passed the North Carolina General Assembly by landslides with bipartisan support. The former lifted the

32

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Representatives of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill denied rumors that the school intends to privatize some of its student housing. Vice Chancellor for Finance and

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Administration Matt Fajack says he is frequently approached by representatives who claim they could handle outsourced real estate management.

Fajack says he discusses the prospect at least twice a year with EdR—the group that manages the university’s Granville Towers at a cost savings for students of about $300 per semester in spite of a healthy menu of amenities—but nobody has been serious enough to talk about numbers. A steady barrage of inquiries from cold callers produces no outcomes, either, because none of them are interested in providing residence advisors, counselors, and programming. Last year, the campus bookstore was privatized following a hard-dollar offer from Barnes & Noble Education.

The contract was expected to lower textbook prices 10% while allowing students to price-match. Bookstore profits, which fund academic scholarships, were projected to increase from $400,000 to $1.6 million.

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A North Carolina State University collaboration concluded business and research have great potential to interact more meaningfully. Researchers, led by assistant interdisciplinary professor Jeff Pollack, found that both groups harbored little respect for each other’s vocation and consequently lacked the initiative to find out what the other was doing. The paper, “Management’s S cience -Practice G ap: A Grand Challenge for All Stakeholders,” published the results of surveys of 929 businesspeople and 828 researchers in business fields and a number of interviews with high-ranking professionals. Without any prompting, both groups indicated interest in remediating eight common problems: pay inequality, workplace discrimination, unethical business practices, limited opportunities for continuing education,

technological limitations on quality job creation, sagging employee morale, excessive carbon footprints, and inferior customer service. Recommendations included improving communications via academic information officers, a new journal of pragmatic research, and extended use of social media.

Kickin' School cary

North Carolina’s first soccer school will open in August at WakeMed Soccer Park. To be known as the Accelerator School, the facility’s curriculum is designed to develop World- Class abilities. The school’s director, Chris Mumford, says American players need enhanced schooling to be able to compete globally in college or professionally.

Typical American soccer players train only 8 hours a week, compared to their counterparts in South America and Europe, who train 15-20. Middle school kids attending the Accelerator School will receive 400 hours of soccer training each year, with training worked in before and after a normal academic day.

The first cohort will consist of 18-20 students and 2 teachers. The coaches will be borrowed from the Carolina RailHawks pro soccer team.

Why Suffer When You Can Buy a Barometer for $19.99? durham

Cy tex Therapeutic s publ ished advances on lab-grown cartilage in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers manufactured hip cartilage with material grown from stem cells. In practice, the cells would be harvested from recipients and genetically-modified to fight inflammation and resist corrosion. The fiber is grown as a three-dimensional, woven textile and shaped around dissoluble plastic scaffolding in the form a knee or hip

joint. The work is significant because damaged cartilage does not heal naturally, but instead degenerates, leading to osteoarthritis. The sad news is the technology is years away from advancing to clinical trials in humans. Researchers must first demonstrate to the FDA that the materials and procedures are safe and effective for implantation in animals. The hip replacements are being developed for patients who develop arthritis before age 65. Upon implantation, Cytex’ products would provide immediate functionality as longer processes work to eventually restore natural tissue.

Putting All the Pizzas Together yadkinville

New Jersey-based B&G Foods will close its operations in Spartanburg, South Carolina, that are responsible for the manufacture and distribution of Mama Mary’s ready-made pizza crusts. At the termination of the plant’s current lease, 125 jobs will be cut. Production of the Mama Mary’s line will be transferred to another B&G facility in Yadkinville, North Carolina. No disruptions in supply are anticipated during the transition. Only minor retooling and retrenching will be required, as the Yadkinville plant is equipped with ovens and already outputs products under B&G’s New York Style and Old London brands.

The move is part of a corporate-wide effort to “reduce excess production capacity.” With low expectations for employee interest in relocation, B&G is providing severance packages and re-employment support. B&G is a food conglomerate selling, among dozens of brands, Green Giant, Cream of Wheat, and Ortega. The company purchased the 25-year-old Mama Mary’s line with its acquisition of Spartan Foods of America from Linsalata Capital Partners last year.

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53

Water OF

Life

written by roger mccredie

Beverage, medicine, currency, contraband, and liquid history: You know it as moonshine.

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| September 2016

leisure & libation

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com

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leisure & libation

“Alkihol has and will be around as long as time, whether it is for medicine or to get drunk as Hell. I hope I will be there to help them in one way or the other.”

—Marvin ‘Popcorn’ Sutton, 1946-2009

I

n the 1890s, the Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer published The Golden Bough, a sort of catch-all history of the “old religions” that had their roots in the practice of magic. Several of these old traditions had a common thread: a legend of a sacred grove where the holiest of secrets were kept, watched over by a semi-divine priest-king who stayed in office until he was eventually murdered by another priest-king who took his place.

Frazer focused his attention on the sacred grove of Nemi, a few miles outside Rome. Presumably he didn’t know that in his own time, and long before, and down to the present moment, people with special powers were and are guarding sacred groves, thickets, gullies, and caves all over Appalachia. They guard a common secret that combines history and tradition with chemistry and, some would say, magic. What goes into these sacred places is wisdom, experience, and cunning, along with grain, sugar, and fresh spring water.

What comes out is moonshine whiskey.

Now, to prevent you from going immediately to a place already staked out for you by Hollywood and the funny papers, and populated by somnolent hillbillies holding jugs of something marked “XXX,” it’s probably best to get the semantics lesson out of the way early. Whiskey (or more universally “whisky,” the addition of the “e” being an Irish/American anomaly) is an alcoholic beverage made from distilled grain.

Moonshine is whiskey that is manufactured (a) illegally, without a license or the payment of taxes; and (b) in secret, usually in a highly concealed place and frequently at night, so as to avoid the consequences of (a). “The word ‘moonshine,’” Wikipedia primly tells us, “is believed to be derived from the term ‘moonrakers’ used for early English smugglers and the clandestine nature of the operations of illegal Appalachian distillers who produced and distributed whiskey. The distillation was done at night to avoid discovery.”

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The “moonraker” theory, even with its allusion to a secret, illegal activity, has always seemed an overreach to me; I doubt if many bootleggers on either side of the pond know what the hell a moonraker is unless they’ve read a lot of Victorian novels. As for “moonshine,” the origin of the term is self-evident, though it was coined not by “Appalachian distillers,” but rather by their centuries-gone ancestors.

We know, because Encyclopedia Britannica (kind of a pre-internet Wikipedia, but in bound book format) tells us, that distillation—the process of turning a substance into a purified liquid through alternate heating and cooling; or, if you will, evaporation and condensation—was practiced by first-century Greeks. They were using the method, though, to turn aromatic herbs into liquid perfume. We also know that by the ninth century, Arabs were using distillation for similar purposes. Crusaders were probably responsible for bringing the methodology back with them to Europe, and by the 1200s, wine was being distilled in Italy, mainly in monasteries. Monks, discovering the happy properties of their end product, began using it to treat, or at least relieve the symptoms of, such diverse ailments as colic and smallpox.

Fruit or fruit-based wine, when it is distilled, yields brandy.

Hence the liqueur called Benedictine, made by Benedictine monks, and Christian Brothers brandy, made by friars who drank it and got fried. Distilling spread like a brand new gospel within the monastic community until it finally reached—wait for it—Ireland and Scotland. There, somebody towards the end of the fourteenth century reasoned that what could be done using fruit could also be done using grain. And there the substance those old monks had referred to as “aqua vitae” (literally, “water of life”) eventually became known by its Gaelic equivalent: uisque beatha: whiskey.

In the year 1405, according to the Gaelic chronicle Annals of Clonmacnoise, an Irish chieftain died from drinking “a

MOONSHINE BUST group with confiscated liquor, photo courtesy State Archives of North Carolina

surfeit of aqua vitae” over Christmas.

This should have served as an object lesson for holiday partiers down the centuries, but it had rather the opposite effect. By 1494, James IV of Scotland was ordering uisque beatha in case lots, and the City of Dundee had a standing order with its Guild of Surgeon Barbers, who had managed to corner the market. But it was Henry VIII who was most directly responsible, albeit unwittingly, for turning whiskey loose upon the masses. As part of his war on English Catholicism, Henry dissolved the monasteries. When that happened, a lot of distillation-savvy monks found themselves on the streets.

They became the first bootleggers, running off small batches of hooch in exchange for their daily bread and even sharing the secrets of distillation with enterprising laymen who knew a money maker when they tasted it.

Inevitably, so did the Crown, which did what governments always do when

TROY & SONS' barrels, photo by Linda Cluxton

they see a money-maker: They slapped a tax on it, together with penalties for evading same. And thus was born the ancient yin and yang of moonshining: private enterprise versus government regulation. Individual rights versus bureaucracy. Snuffy Smith versus Sheriff Tait. An old adage holds that “the power to tax is the power to destroy.” Not so in the case of making whiskey. All the power to tax did in that case was drive whiskey-making underground, where, nurtured by ingenuity and fueled by defiance, it has remained and flourished to this day.

When waves of Scots and Irishmen left the old country—where “moonshine” had become a widely used term for generations before they stepped on the boat—and set up shop in the New World, they found that it wasn’t long before they were having to play hideand-seek with the colonial authorities.

By the time of the American Revolution, whiskey had become such a demand

THERON EDWARDS at the old family still photo courtesy Howling Moon

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 57

leisure & libation

product in the colonies that in some cases it was even used as a medium of exchange: Farmers found it easier and more practical to convert their corn to whiskey and sell it as a cash crop than to try to haul the corn itself overland. Whiskey had, literally, become money.

Whiskey Rebels So when, in 1791, the fledgling Republic levied an excise tax on whiskey, trouble started brewing right along with ‘shine. Many veterans of the Revolution saw this as taxation without representation, the very issue they had fought a war over. Moreover, it became a class thing: George Washington maintained a high-volume commercial distillery at Mount Vernon, and he could afford to. The small farmer who was paid in whiskey couldn’t. And so in 1794, when the gummint added a further excise tax on liquor, it was all too much and the United States had its first rebellion on its hands. Several hundred armed men in Western Pennsylvania marched on the home of General John Neville, the tax inspector.

The Feds won, of course. They directed government emissaries to deal with the rebel leaders, sending 13,000 men personally commanded by Washington—the distiller—to surround them and force surrender. But as far as the whiskey rebels themselves were concerned, might didn’t make right, and if they couldn’t make the government see that, they would simply go home and continue to make whiskey, this time and from henceforth in secret. The government won the battle but effectively lost the war, and, as successful moonshiners will tell you, has been losing it ever since. Moonshiners make moonshine. Some get caught, but the fact is, most of them pay the fine or do a little time and promptly resume ‘shining as soon as practicable.

“Moonshine,” Wikipedia also says primly, “was especially important to the Appalachian area.” Boy, howdy.

Scots-Irish family traditions and virtually impenetrable forested mountain terrain have combined to make the Appalachians the epicenter of American moonshining for generations. Even an elaborate still setup takes up comparatively little space, so every rocky outcrop, every fold of ground, every laurel thicket, is a potential still site so long as it’s accessible to one of two moonshining essentials: pure, cold mountain spring water. And springs abound in Appalachian woods.

The other essential for producing moonshine, genetically encoded in mountaineers, is sheer physical toughness. There is no such thing as a lazy moonshiner; ‘shining is backbreaking and dangerous work. It involves lugging mass quantities of raw ingredients—hundred-pound bags of sugar, corn, and grain (and that’s not counting bottling supplies and food)—through deep woods, and then lugging crates of product back out again.

It involves dodging snakes, bears, and the occasional wild hog.

It involves infinite patience in maintaining a fire at just the right level, troubleshooting leaks and the hundred other potential 58

| September 2016

POPCORN SUTTON photo courtesy Popcorn Sutton Distilling by Andy Armstrong

hazards of controlling an extremely volatile substance. And it involves the tremendous stress of doing all these things while operating on unflagging sensory high alert, listening for the least unfamiliar sound, watching for the slightest flicker of unidentifiable movement through the trees. It’s being the fox in a woodscape full of hounds.

Mountain moonshining and moonshiner hunting both reached epic levels with the dawn of prohibition. While clueless urbanites were killing themselves with “bathtub gin” and unscrupulous hack distillers were poisoning people with stuff run through old car radiators, skillful ‘shiners came into their own as purveyors of quality spirits to the bootleg trade. (The universal headgear for men at this time was the fedora, which is why many modern shiners sport well-worn fedoras as a badge of occupational pride.) Revenue agents stepped up their game as well, busting huge homemade liquor operations and getting themselves in the newfangled newsreels. But as always, for the most part, revenuers seemed to get to a still site a hair too late. They might find and wreck the apparatus, and even smash a few barrels of product, but the ‘shiners themselves would have vanished, wraithlike, into the wilderness.

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POURING moonshine into funnel, photos on this page courtesy Discovery Channel

CHECKING creek water to use for moonshine

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A story that’s probably more than half true concerns the revenue agent who follows a dirt track through the woods and into the hardpan “yard” of a suspected moonshiner. On the steps of a ramshackle house is a boy who seems to be about twelve except for his eyes, which are ancient.

“How do, son,” the revenuer says affably. “Is your daddy home?”

“He’s up at the still,” says the boy.

“Is that a fact?” the agent says, blandly. “Tell you what, I’ll give you a dollar if you’ll tell me where that is.” And he reaches into his pocket and produces a greenback, which he flourishes in the kid’s direction.

The boy looks from the agent to the dollar and back again. “Well, sir, you’ll have to leave your car. You go around the side of the house and down the hill on into the woods. They’s a path. You take it and you’ll come to a branch. Go crost the branch and then turn left and follow it about half a mile. You’ll cross a little field and they’s some more woods and you go on in there and down a little gully and that’s where it is.”

The resourceful agent commits all this to memory. “Thank you, son,” he says.

“Well, gimme the money,” says the boy.

“Oh,” says the revenuer, “I’ll give it to you when I get back.”

The boy’s eyes are very deep. “Mister,” he says, “you ain’t comin’ back.”

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September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 59

leisure & libation

Thunder & Lightning Inevitably, Hollywood discovered that there was this other side to the Snuffy Smith coin, turning the moonshiner into Robin Hood and the unlawful liquor trade into a morality play of clueless bureaucracy versus individual rights. Such films as Thunder Road (1958, which starred Robert Mitchum and was filmed in and around Asheville and Lake Lure), White Lightning (1973), and Lawless (2012) gave audiences a sympathetic and sometimes even three-dimensional view of moonshiners, along with fantastic car chases. (Note: It’s fair to say there would be no NASCAR if there had been no mountain moonshine runners; that organization was founded on the backs of dirt track stock car drivers, who had learned their skills by evading the law while transporting ‘shine on snaky mountain roads.)

Television eventually followed suit.

The advent of “reality” programming, which has brought us real-time fare ranging from romance (The Bachelor) to people-running-around-in-survivalmode-with-no-clothes-on (Naked and Afraid) has been the driving force behind the wildly successful Discovery Channel series, Moonshiners. The series, which just completed its fifth season, follows the fortunes of several teams of ‘shiners operating from Kentucky to Louisiana, but mainly in Southern Appalachia: Southwestern Virginia, East Tennessee, Northwest South Carolina… and Graham County, North Carolina. (The county seat of Graham County is Robbinsville and your obedient servant happens to be married to the president and salutatorian of her graduating class at Robbinsville High. Thus, watching an early episode of Moonshiners, Spouse sat bolt upright and began an excited recitation: “That’s… his sister is… and that’s… they were the ones who…”)

W het her a nd to what extent Moonshiners, which shows liquor—or something—actually being distilled, is fakery has been hotly debated. But 60

| September 2016

both the show’s producers and its cast of moonshiners flatly deny any video sleight of hand and say the show’s integrity hangs on the fact that everything’s for real. They point to the crew’s obsessive attentiveness to legal details and a significant loophole in the law, as expressed early on by one of the show’s first stars, Virginia ‘shiner Tim Smith.

In an interview with Bourbonblog.com, Smith said, “With the laws in Virginia, and I’m pretty sure around anywhere else, you must be witnessed and physical samples of the product you’re producing has to be taken and analyzed—and all of this has to go to a court of law, and then that arresting officer has to testify in a court of law that he did that.”

(2009) of Maggie Valley, North Carolina, the patron saint of unreconstructed bootleggers.

Popcorn, who earned his nickname because in his youth he beat the hell out of a honky-tonk’s popcorn vending machine with a pool cue, was a hereditary moonshiner; he had had the craft handed down to him by generations of Haywood County kin. Popcorn Sutton was among the first of his ilk to be discovered by the media, and he used his notoriety to proclaim his and everybody else’s right to produce whiskey unfettered by federal control and taxation. In his trademark flannel shirt, bib overalls, and sweat-creased fedora, he starred in a self-produced

Popcorn Sutton was among the first of his ilk to be discovered by the media, and he used his notoriety to proclaim his and everybody else’s right to produce whiskey unfettered by federal control and taxation.

W hatever skepticism that may have greeted Mooonshiners has been overshadowed by its audience’s enthusiastic acceptance. Apart from its sheer entertainment value (the footage is by turns suspenseful, informative, and sidesplittingly funny), viewers overwhelmingly identify with its underlying message: That ‘shiners ‘shine for profit, sure, but also out of sheer dedication to preserving their heritage—something so precious that the protection of it justifies even defying the law and risking the consequences.

Saint Popcorn Hovering in the dusk near every still fire in Southern Appalachia is the bent, bearded, and benevolent spirit of Marvin “Popcorn” Sutton, born in 1946, late

video, which he sold at his Maggie Valley junk shop along with copies of his 1999 self-published autobiography, Me and My Likker, which garnered a mention in the New York Times.

Popcorn led a charmed life—he had several run-ins with the law but managed never to serve any jail time—until 2007, when a fire at his place led to the discovery of several hundred gallons’ worth of his inventory he had stashed in an old school bus. The next year, frail and ill, he was sentenced to serve eighteen months in federal prison. There was a public outcry; petitions were circulated demanding clemency on account of Popcorn’s ill health, and calling into question the whole legitimacy of taxing homemade whiskey. The authorities were not impressed, and Popcorn was told to report for incarceration on March September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 61

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6 Now go buy a “carboy”—a large glass jug with its own airlock. Do this unless you want to make your own air lock , which involves sur gical hose , another container, and a lot of extra work. Just do it.

Using a funnel, pour your mash into the carboy and seal the air lock. Walk away and don’t come back for at least a week; 10 days is better.

Run out and get 10 pounds of dried whole kernel corn and put it in a burlap sack.

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1

2 5

Now put the sack in a tub or bucket full of tepid water, put the whole thing in a dark, warm place, and leave it alone. After about ten days, check the corn; the kernels should have grown sprouts by now..

3

4

Using a large dowel (about like a broomstick) or a rolling pin, proceed to beat hell out of—er, crack—the cor n ker nels. Crack, don’t crush. Every single kernel. Don’t complain; you signed on for this.

Remove the sprouted corn, rinse it thoroughly in a colander or something similar, and spread it on a flat surface.

Dump the cracked corn into a large pot and add 5 gallons of boiling water. Using a kitchen thermometer, check the water temperature as it cools. When it reaches 86°F (30°C), add one cup of champagne yeast starter. Mix everything together. You now have mash, and here begins the fermentation process.

Because, let’s face it , you were going to ask , r ight?

moonshine

How to Make Your Own

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9

There are two ways to legalize your distilling operation. One is to obtain a Federal Distilled Spirits Permit, which is what the big, commercial guys operate under. This permit is prohibitively expensive and difficult to get; unless you’re planning from the get-go to make booze in quantity for public consumption, it’s pretty much out of the

Then there are state laws, and they differ widely. In North Carolina, you’ll also need a state fuel alcohol permit, and some states prohibit distillation equipment altogether, no matter what federal law says. So check.

question. The second option, a sort of nod-and-wink solution, is to get a Federal Fuel Alcohol Permit, which is easy to apply for and has the advantage of being free.

You’re basically telling the government that you intend to make your own engine fuel or something similar. Advocates of this procedure say they’ve never heard of anybody being denied this permit, or of federal agents arriving on your doorstep to make sure your alcohol is going in your lawnmower. But there’s always a first time and we’re not counseling you to do something even potentially illegal, so don’t come running to us if the Feds come running to you.

Siphon your whiskey of f into bottles or jars. After that, you’re on your own.

For a really authentic experience, don’t get a permit and perform these steps in the deep woods, after dark, with all your senses on high alert. No? Didn’t think so.

Start your fire and slowly (like, over thirty minutes to an hour) bring your beer to a boil. As it boils, watch the thermometer near the condenser on your still; when it reaches 120 degrees, start running cool water through the condenser. Place a container under the condenser pipe because it’s going to start to drip. Then the drip will become a trickle. You are now making moonshine.

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Retrieve your mash, which has fermented and become wor t or “beer.” Strain it through cheesecloth into your brand new still. Assemble the rest of the still. Now comes the fun part.

Throw out the first quarter cup or so of your ‘shine. That’s called the head, and it contains the methanol coming off the mash; hence, it’s very bitter. Get rid of it..

Let’s get this out of the way first: Few things on God’s green earth are as regulated as the manufacture of beverage alcohol. One of life’s little ironies, for instance, is that it is perfectly legal to own a still. You just can’t use it to make whiskey. At least not without a permit (see below). You can distill water, aromatics, and stuff like that, but don’t even think of running a single fluid ounce of unpermitted ethanol unless you think you look good in stripes.

DISCLAIMER:

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Check the proof using a hydrometer (one probably came with your still). You’re probably going to end up with something that’s about 75% alcohol (150 proof). That’s stout. You may want to add water until you get your desired strength.

(Or not; have you had a liver scan lately?) A professional ‘shiner can tell new whiskey’s proof by putting some in a jar, holding the jar horizontally and shaking it, then holding it still. The larger the beads that form on the surface, the higher the proof. You do not have, and may never acquire, that kind of expertise. Use the hydrometer.

8 While you wait, go buy a still. They’re available in a number of sizes and models online. Be prepared to spend upward of $300. Copper is recommended, but stainless steel works fine.

leisure & libation

16, 2009. He never did. That morning he ran a garden hose from the exhaust of his ancient Ford into the interior and took his own life.

And on that day he became a folk hero, the rugged individualist who would die rather than submit to a greedy and oppressive establishment that sought to penalize him for not allowing it to pick his pocket.

His obituary was carried in The Wall Street Journal. He is now mentioned in history books and encyclopedias. A new folk festival, named for him, celebrates his life and times. And a year and a half after Popcorn’s death, Hank Williams, Jr.—who had attended his funeral—and his widow, Pam, unveiled plans for the creation of Popcorn Sutton Distilling, which would manufacture whiskey based on Popcorn’s own recipe. The distillery, based in Newport, Tennessee, even hired away the master distiller at the revered George Dickel distillery to supervise its operations.

Going Mainstream It was bound to happen. Romanticism, tradition, craftsmanship—they’re all powerful marketing tools and they have helped bring moonshine, or at least something approximating

Moonshining is a referral-based business; ‘shiners are reluctant to deal with folks they don’t know unless the prospective customer has been vouched for by an existing customer. Word of mouth (usually spoken very softly) is the way business is conducted. it, out of the backwoods and into the liquor store. Investors with sufficiently deep pockets can purchase the licenses and fees that moonshiners can’t or won’t pay, the credentials that alone make the difference between a legal product and an illegal one, and the consumers—in my observance, primarily

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yuppies with a hankering for “edgy” stuff—are out there waiting.

Tim Smith, who had yearned from the beginning to take his father’s treasured moonshine recipe public, finally managed to do so after years of scrimping, saving, and sacrifice; his Climax Moonshine (for Climax, Virginia, his home town; the company is headquartered in nearby Chatham) is now on ABC store shelves.

Craft distillers are springing up at the rate that craft breweries did a decade ago, and flavorings such as peach and “apple pie” are being injected into basic moonshine formulas so as to appeal to more delicate tastebuds.

Somewhere, Popcorn Sutton is probably smirking at all of this. Moonshine is by definition handcrafted in small quantities, and ‘shiners and their clients alike maintain that no mass production process, even based a traditional recipe, can begin to match the flavor and quality of the real thing.

That being the case, you ask, how can you score some? The real thing, that is.

Well, it’s complicated. Moonshining is a referral-based business; ‘shiners are reluctant to deal with folks they don’t know unless the prospective customer has been vouched for by an existing customer. Word of mouth (usually spoken very softly) is the way business is conducted. Find somebody who knows somebody who knows a source. You’ll be told when and how to

make contact. Sometimes this will result in an actual meeting to exchange money for goods; more often than not it involves leaving cash at an established and carefully hidden drop point and returning later to collect the product.

"There’s an old hollow tree ‘round the corner from me Where you put in a dollar or two.

Then you go ‘round the bend and you come back again And it’s full of that old mountain dew."

(The above is from “Mountain Dew,” a popular bluegrass song performed by, among many, Flatt & Scruggs and “Hee-Haw” star Grandpa Jones.)

That’s pretty much the way it still (no pun intended) works.

But you didn’t hear it here.

Moonshine is far from extinct. There are fresh faces blowing into the furnaces of new stills. In quiet country coves, tendrils of smoke are still climbing up to the sky. Urbanites are now ordering moonshine cocktails in upscale bars, and suburbanites are beginning to experiment with things their granddaddies did. In Popcorn’s own words: “Alkihol has and will be around as long as time, whether it is for medicine or to get drunk as Hell. I hope I will be there to help them in one way or the other.”

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J

column

The Intangible Connections

Lovers of craft ales may take their brand loyalty as a given, but there’s far more that goes into branding than just what meets—literally—the eye.

T

HROUGHOU T THE M A N Y Y E A R S I SPEN T

working in the marketing and design industry, I honed my creative talent to create and execute meaningful and effective campaigns. I had the opportunity to work on household brands, including Phillips, Miller Brewing, Smirnoff, the National Football League, Major League Baseball, and a long list of others, allowing me to expand

J

joe rowland

is co-owner of Nantahala Brewing Co. in Bryson City and a member of the Asheville Brewers Alliance board of directors.

my skills well beyond the drafting table. Ideas such as “concept to consumption” and measuring new brands and campaigns by asking, “Is this own-able?” helped me forge a point of view beyond critical thinking; it became a way of life.

Now, all these years later, with my marketing firm days long behind me, these lessons still resonate.

After seven years, I moved on from a high-pace marketing and design firm and began an outfitting company that I ran for over a decade. Then in 2009, I co-founded a small craft brewery in Bryson City, North Carolina, and within five years we were looking to make the leap beyond large format 22-ounce bottles and into packaging 12-ounce sixpacks. With this jump, our product would join the hundreds of other packages already on the bottle shop and grocery store shelves.

But we found ourselves at a crossroads, between sharing a product we love, and determining the most effective way to convey that message both to existing fans and to those who had never experienced our liquid. It was time to reach back to my marketing days and take a hard look at who we were, what we represented, and how we connected to our consumers. We needed to understand how consumers experienced our brand, and how conveying that message with the right packaging design might influence them to choose our products over other options.

This process was frequently painful, but it was always insightful. I found that it was an opportunity to look at how other brands in our industry tackled the same challenges. Oftentimes, their solutions inspired our own.

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 67

column

Here are some of the key points we learned from the process.

1. Know your brand and what it means to your consumers.

Starting a design project without an in-depth understanding of the brand is like tossing darts at a dartboard to see what sticks.

When we moved to Bryson City, we did so to get away from the big city and enjoy all the amenities of the National Park. After some market research and a bit of soul searching, we determined that the millions of people who came to the area each year visited for the same reasons we had moved there: whitewater paddling, mountain biking, and hiking, as well as the incredible views, abundant wildlife, and slower pace of living. The National Park was the glue that not only held our city together, but also was the foundation for our new lives and our brand.

2. Cohesiveness makes concepts easier to understand.

Many craft breweries had the foresight to build a brand around a singular concept and use that idea as their foundation.

Tampa’s Cigar City Brewery, for example, connected themselves

with their community and represented its rich history and culture. From the design of their labels (made to look like a cigar label) to the names of their beers to the actual cigars handmade in their taproom, each element reflected their brand’s core concept. All this upfront legwork ensured that, despite the enormous growth of the beer industry in the Tampa area, where over 25 breweries now reside, Cigar City is still considered Tampa’s original and most recognizable craft brewery.

3. KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid).

Labels, six-pack carriers, and case cartons with lots of images and complexity could be viewed as attention grabbing, but more isn’t always better. New Belgium Brewing, based in Fort Collins, Colorado (it also has a location in Asheville), recently re-branded their packaging, and instead of an elaborate design, they chose to focus on one graphic or photo to represent each beer’s identity. This simplicity was intentional, as graphics don’t just end up on labels—they are incorporated into merchandise, point of sale items, sales sheets, banners, koozies, and a plethora of other marketing materials. Breweries that do incorporate a complex element on their label, such as an ornate background, should make sure that simple graphics overlay or complement the complexity to avoid busy, distracting, and unreadable labels.

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4.

6.

In addition to graphics; a thoughtful use of color can help define a brand. Choosing a striking color to represent each brand can set the individual beer brands apart from each other. Denver’s Great Divide Brewing does a great job of incorporating a vivid color to identify each brand. This color is also used on the carriers, case cartons, and other marketing materials for each brand. To a consumer, color-coding your brand portfolio can make it easier to identify the product they are searching for and can result in higher sales.

Naming a beer is an important task, especially when it is going to sit on a shelf alongside a dozen other brands of the same style. While everyone can appreciate a great pun, product names that reflect the core brand create stronger product recognition and provide cohesiveness within your portfolio.

Many successful brewers have chosen to just go with the style names, including Sierra Nevada, who started simply using names such as Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and they continue to do so with many of their core brands today. This path is a great way to get beer on the shelves without having to worry about complicated and messy trademark issues.

The correct use of color can make all the difference.

5. Get the logo right.

At our brewery we established branding guidelines early on.

Our logo, for example, represents the nature that surrounds us, including three of the most popular animals that live in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park: the black bear, the bald eagle, and the reintroduced elk. Those elements were then pulled from the logo and incorporated into case cartons, carriers, and labels. Repeated use of these elements helped to create continuity and reinforce our branding, making it easy to pick our products out of the crowd.

You’re nobody without a name.

Ultimately, it is important to know your brand and what that brand means to the consumer who interacts with it from concept to consumption. Great design is significant, but it can’t solve the big problems that every brand will face at some point in its lifetime. It can, however, create and reinforce the intangible connections we make with the brands we love.

photo by Misha Schmiedecke

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NATIONAL WORLD [

news briefs

Leveraging Economies of Scale monaco

One in three residents of Monaco is a millionaire, according to a study conducted by WealthInsight in partnership with Spear’s Magazine. The other top five cities for high concentrations of millionaires were Zurich (24.3%), Geneva (17.7%), New York (4.8%), and London (3.4%). For the sake of the study, millionaires were defined as persons holding more than $1 million in assets on top of their main home. The climate and glamor of the Riviera are magnificent attractors, but so is the beckon of a tax haven. It is not unusual for the rich and famous to rent a small Monaco apartment to establish residence and avoid paying taxes in Monaco and elsewhere. Then,

]

almost by definition, Monaco should have a high concentration of millionaires because one of the few requirements for citizenship is a minimum deposit of anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million in a Monaco bank.

spending dedicated to modernizing the nation’s atomic weapons systems. The latest missile upgrades occurred in the 1990s and 2000s, but some of the infrastructure has been around since the 1960s. The current Minuteman III missiles have a 20-year useful life, and they are judged inadequate for the “active anti-access, area denial environment” anticipated for the 2030s and beyond. Last year, the USAF estimated research, development, and production of 400 modernized missiles, including command-and-control systems and infrastructure, would cost $62.3 billion.

Putting this in perspective, the United States is expected to spend just over $20 trillion on defense over the next 30 years.

Evolution for Changing Environment

Flash in the Pan

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berkeley, ca

L ock heed Mar tin, B oeing, a nd Northrop Grumman are responding to a request for proposals (RFP) for a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles issued by the United States Air Force (USAF). The contents of the RFP and supporting documents are classified “secret.” The RFP marks the beginning of a new era in military technology

A University of California-Berkeley study claims to debunk the thesis of Michael Lewis’ bestseller, Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt. Lewis claimed that, with more real-time data, traders could seize narrow windows of opportunity created by advance notice that stocks were going “stale” and thus drain liquidity from the market. High-volume

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players could thereby trade essentially risk-free. The study, “How R ig ged Are Stock Markets? Evidence from Microsecond Timestamps,” by professors Robert Bartlett and Justin McCrary, discredits claims that market data delays are substantial and that anybody is profiting off them. The study examined 9 months of data on the stocks that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average and found traders using the slower Securities Information Processors were actually faring slightly better than Flash Boys. The study was made possible after the Securities and Exchange Commission ordered data from Securities Information Processors to be time-stamped to the microsecond.

Negative Carbon Footprint chicago, il

Researchers at the University of Illinois, Chicago, led by Amin SalehiKhojin, have filed a provisional patent application for a new form of solar cell described as being photosynthetic, instead of photovoltaic. Whereas plants use sunlight and carbon dioxide to produce sugar, these solar cells would

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carolina in the west

the old north state

use the same ingredients to produce synthetic gas. The syngas, then, could be converted to hydrocarbon fuels combustible in traditional engines. Previous attempts to catalyze the conversion of carbon dioxide to syngas had proven inefficient and costly. Salehi-Khojin and Mohammad Asadi experimented with less expensive catalysts and found nanoflake tungsten diselenide, refreshed with a special ionic solution, caused the reaction to proceed 1,000 times faster, and at one-twentieth the cost of the other researchers’ setups. An artificial “leaf,” just like PV cells, could be assembled on panels and scaled-up as needed.

Conglomerates Consolidate as Indies Proliferate st. louis , mo

Anheuser-Busch InBev is progressing on a merger with SABMiller. The last major hurdle was procuring the approval of Chinese regulators, on the condition that SABMiller sell its $1.6 billion stake in Snow, the world’s best-selling beer. The merger had to be approved by regulators in 23 jurisdictions. Other regulators required Anheuser-Busch’s commitment to sell SABMiller’s interest in MillerCoors

national & world

to Molson Coors Brewing for $12 billion; at one point, SABMiller was facing selling its interests in several Eastern European countries. SABMiller now wants the approval of its shareholders before proceeding with the acquisition, valued at almost $105 billion. A successful merger would give Anheuser-Busch 30% of the global beer market and substantially increase the brewer’s presence in Africa and Latin America.

What Now? tokyo, japan

Last fiscal quarter, Sony finally moved into the black with an overall profit of $205 million. About $42.5 million of that amount was from changes in foreign exchange rates. The bulk of the turnaround, however, was attributed to downsizing. Sony realized a profit in its mobile phone division with sales down, a third in terms of dollars, and well over a half by volume. Among other cost-cutting measures, the company has pulled out of a few markets and delayed the release of its Xperia X Performance phone after dismal sales of the Xperia X. But just as things were looking better for the faltering technology giant, the Kumamoto earthquake damaged Sony’s sensor factory,

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eating into an estimated $1 billion in profits. Sony’s latest move is replacing sales with branding to forge emotional connections for customer loyalty. The interactive space, Sony Square NYC, opened August 4 to begin collecting data on potential customer preferences.

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John Hanke, CEO of Niantic, the developer of Pokémon Go, shared that some of the game’s most popular tools may be going away. On the chopping block are fan-made tools including PokéVision, PokéRadar, and PokéNotify. Hanke indicated his company’s development priorities did not include ensuring compatibility with apps made by others. Explained Hanke, “People are only hurting themselves because [the cheats] take some fun out of the game. People are hacking around trying to take data out of our system, and that’s against our terms of service.” Pokémon would be well within its rights to, at any time, turn off tools constructed from hacks; but users have argued they needed the fan-made tools because Pokémon’s own tracking system, Pokémon Nearby, had been broken for two weeks. After Hanke’s comments were made public, his Twitter account was hacked by OurMine, the mischief-makers claiming responsibility for the problems with Pokémon Nearby in the first place.

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Apple is developing an electric car. Until it is released, details will necessarily be under wraps, and so work is proceeding under the code name “Project Titan.”

Following are a few “leaks,” for which Apple is notorious: The vehicle looks like a minivan, and it is being developed in a secret laboratory in Berlin, Germany.

There, Apple’s Bob Mansfeld supervises a team of a thousand hired from sundry automotive companies. Apple has also hired a number of experts like Dan Dodge,who founded QNX, the premiere car operating system company, and Marc Newson, who designed a concept car for Ford. For the last 2 years, the company has been acquiring property with driving range potential in California; it is on record for shopping for an 800,000-sq.-ft. facility expressly for developing autonomous cars. Consistent with its tradition of outsourcing its manufacturing, it is likely Apple will shift its automotive activities to focus strictly on developing software.

Following the Money zurich, switzerland

Credit Suisse Group AG is creating an investment banking group especially for billionaires. The group will provide consultation for lending, capital markets, and mergers and acquisitions. Credit Suisse seeks to cultivate relationships with the ultra-wealthy and entrepreneurs with near-billion-dollar stakes in industries like oil and gas, biotechnology, and telecommunications. The move is part of CEO Tidjane Thiam’s refocusing of operations on wealth management, with special emphasis on Asian markets. Although Credit Suisse exited the United States in 2014, it will now reenter with the concept that is playing out successfully in Asia. The bank also intends to start a private, elite banking club in the United States for dealing in auctions, facilitating investments and financing, and brokering transactions for luxury items like yachts, art, and wine.

Re-Burgering Fast Food lancaster, oh

Chipotle Mexican Grill set out to “change the way people think about and eat fast food.” Its dishes are classically cooked using quality, naturally-grown

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ingredients. And so, Chipotle is going into the hamburger business. The first Tasty Made restaurant, in what is to become a chain, will open in Lancaster, Ohio. Building on the longlost McDonald’s model of selling only burgers, fries, and shakes, the fast-casual burger joint promises “high-quality ingredients that are grown and raised with respect for the animals, the land, and the farmers who produce them.”

The beef will be free of hormones and antibiotics, buns will contain no artificial ingredients, and shakes will be made with milk, cream, sugar, eggs, and natural flavors. Pitches aside, analysts speculate the diversification may have been nudged by plunging sales following the recent tainting of the main brand by an outbreak of E. coli.

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The International Arbitral Tribunal of the United Nations ruled overwhelmingly in favor of the Philippines when it decided China does not have exclusive economic rights to the waters around the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea. China had built up underwater reefs, in essence creating de-facto military bases in internationally-fished waters. If the land masses were natural and capable of supporting human life, China would have exclusive rights to all oil, seafood, and any other resources within 200 nautical miles of their shores. Reefs with a permanent presence above water get a 12-nautical-mile radius of fishing and mineral rights, but those that submerge during high tide have no claim on the surrounding waters. The court ruled the bases did not qualify to claim exclusive economic zones, and further that the boundary drawn on Chinese maps, known as the nine-dash line, had no legal basis. The ruling set a precedent that could cost other nations millions of square nautical miles of exclusive economic zones.

Mountain Paint & Decorating, Inc. mountainpaintasheville.com

Charlotte Street 180 Charlotte Street Asheville, NC 28801 828.785.1940

Sweeten Creek 76 Sweeten Creek Rd. Asheville, NC 28803 828.258.5385

West Main Street 120 West Main Street Brevard, NC 28712 828.884.2285

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 73

LOOKING into a tank of distilled spirits

SHEER

DEFIANCE written by chall gr ay photos by anthony harden

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Tim Ferris launched an underwater salvage company and turned it into a success.

Barely coming up for air, he then turned around and started a distillery for fine whiskey— literally, from the ground up. video intervie w

capital atpl ay. com

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 75

W

hat do you do if you’ve spent the last decade and a half learning and perfecting the dangerous but lucrative trade of underwater salvage diving, and suddenly get the itch to switch gears and try something different?

If you’re like most people, “open up a distillery” is not the phrase that springs immediately to mind.

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CUSTOM MADE still

But then, Tim Ferris isn’t “most people.” By his own admission, Ferris, the 40-year-old founder of Defiant Marine and, more recently, spirits company Defiant Whisky, instinctively veers from the expected path. As he puts it, “More conservative people would see the way I operate as irresponsible, but I’ve always had this almost reckless belief in serendipity.”

It was in 2010—a little less than a year after he’d started Defiant Marine and roughly 15 years since he’d embarked upon his career, learning the trade of salvage diving while working for others—when Ferris was busy with the buildout of a large building with plans to use it as equipment storage for his fledgling company. However, he soon realized that Defiant wouldn’t actually need the building, and that he would have to figure out what to do with it since it was already under construction.

Defiant was already en route to becoming a prominent name in the salvage diving industry; Ferris has appeared on the History Channel show Billion Dollar Wreck, and his company was the one that got the call in 2012 when the city of New York needed someone to clear out its flooded subway tunnels after Hurricane Sandy. (See accompanying sidebar.) But on this day in 2010, shortly after he’d started breaking ground on the storage building, it had become obvious to Ferris the types of jobs Defiant did required such a large array of equipment that it didn’t make sense to own and store it. Clients wanted his expertise and network, and didn’t care if he had the equipment.

“I was working on the building during the day and then drinking whiskey at night, messing with my little hobby still, and trying to figure out what to do with the place,” says Ferris. “And then it just clicked. I decided to start a distillery.” It didn’t hurt that on his family’s property where the building was being constructed (located in Golden Valley, North Carolina, southeast of Marion and near Bostic), they had found the remains of numerous illicit moonshine stills over the years. He decided to maintain the same spirit of his dive business and call his new idea Defiant Whisky.

Ferris wasn’t deterred by the fact that the spirits industry is one with notoriously high start-up costs, a steep learning curve, and a tricky road to profitability. As if in response to those unmentioned obstacles, he’s quick to add that he previously had no relevant experience in the industry and had never considered it an obstacle. “I didn’t go to business school, or grad school, or anything like that. I went to dive school. And to [then become] a salvage diver, you have to have a certain advanced level of problem solving, of asking the questions, and I tried to apply that to making whiskey.” To hear him tell it, the pivot from salvage diving to craft distilling entrepreneur wasn’t all that improbable—it was almost a natural extension of a lifestyle he already knew.

With some working capital from dive jobs and additional investment from

THE OAK SPIR ALS that make Defiant stand out

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 77

TIM FERRIS and wife Lauren on the porch of their camp

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his siblings, Ferris jumped in headlong, immersing himself in irresponsible; and during our conversation, he relates a constant learning about the craft of making whiskey, and thinking about stream of anecdotes around this theme, stories of the company what type of product he wanted to bring to market. barely having enough cash on hand to pay for deliveries or “Divers work hard, play hard, and drink hard,” he says, payroll and the phone ringing at that moment with a lucrative “and as I think back over my life, every great experience was dive job that would pay to fix the problem. But Ferris also complemented by a spirit. I decided I wanted to be a part of notes that he appreciates the marketing power of a good story. making this spirit. I wanted to be intimate with the knowledge Defiant certainly has a good story, one that is only made better that it took to make whiskey.” Ferris often naturally speaks in

by Ferris’s seeming loose cannon image. bombastic witticisms, like an ad executive. When asked to define Ferris had never had a taste for bourbon, the archetypal the ethos behind Defiant Whisky, he American whiskey, but he did learn does so succinctly: “Our philosophy how to get it down (“You have to be is what comes out of the still.” able to hold down a shot of whiskey How did he come up with the to make it in the dive world”). name in the first place? “I was in Then one day he tried Macallan’s the process of starting the [salvage] 12-Year-Old Single Malt scotch, company, and it didn’t have a name. and everything changed. “There You can’t go a whole lot of places yet were these worlds of flavor I had when you don’t know what you’re never known existed,” he recalls. going to call it. One of the guys The experience convinced him on the crew mentioned something that Defiant, still in the process of about ‘defiance’ and ‘defiant” and I repurposing the not-yet completed thought, ‘Wow, that’s perfect—that’s storage building into a distillery, it!’ I knew it the minute I heard it. would also make a single malt.

There’s one side where ‘defiance’ is The idea of making single malts used to describe a kind of rebellious anywhere in America was a fairly state: ‘in defiance of authority.’ That radical one until recently. At the wasn’t what I was going after. What I time Blue Ridge Distilling—the was more after is ‘to defy the odds; to name Ferris gave to the parent defy the elements; to fight the good company of Defiant Whisky—was fight where the risks are present, incorporated, there were less than and if you’re not on your game, ten spirits companies making you can get hurt pretty badly.’ To single malt in the United States; defy gravity is kind of the spirit in that number is now closer to two which we were looking at the word dozen. But making it in rural TIM'S diving helmet sits ready in his office ‘defiant.’ And the use of it for our Rutherford County, in the heartland whisky: People expect you to break of moonshine country, verged on tradition, and be innovative—What ridiculous. Ferris, of course, paid makes you defiant? no mind and even opted not to “Well, our whole story, our whole lineage, of what’s gotten hire anyone with direct distilling industry experience when us here, is defiant.” putting together the initial Defiant team. Instead, he brought in a fellow experienced diver friend and the two studied distilling recipes together, essentially trying to hack the process through Reckless Belief a combination of ingenuity and determination.

Every idea for a new business comes together at a certain Ferris didn’t actually hire a distiller until much later than moment, whether through a slow period of discussion and normally done, after they were already well into the product research, or in a moment of inspiration. Yet what comes next development phase. When he did hire someone, it was in true is usually fairly standard. Hiring people who have industry Defiant fashion, another of those serendipitous moments that experience, making projections and forecasts, finding consultants could just as easily have never happened. to help navigate unfamiliar laws and regulations—the list goes “It was the next to last day of work for the electricians,” on and can be found in plenty of standard business school Ferris recounts. “Joel had worked on the crew and did a lot of textbooks. Ferris followed none of these typical startup paths. the wiring in the building. He came up to me on his way out, It’s true that, on the surface at least, his comment above, as he was packing up his tools, and said that he was a home about harboring a “reckless belief in serendipity,” does seems brewer, and that if I ever needed help here to give him a call.”

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 79

Head distiller Joel Patrino has been a key part of Blue Ridge Distilling ever since. While he didn’t have any experience distilling, he was very familiar with brewing and possessed the same natural curiosity and drive that Ferris has and prizes in others. Another great story for Ferris, and another bit of serendipity for the company.

Into the Bottle Ferris had confidence that if he got the best equipment and used high quality ingredients, Defiant could make a spirit that would pass his litmus test, the one whiskey to stand out against a line of others.

A trip to Germany was taken and a hand-made custom still from Kothe Destillationstechnik, a high-end distilling equipment manufacturer in the southern part of the country, was procured. The natural spring water on the Defiant property was tested, evaluated, and approved.

Ingredients and process adjustments were made, trial batches were created, and an entire run of whiskey was dumped in the field, just beyond the distillery’s gravel parking area. Adjustments were made.

The conclusion of distillation is the point in the process where Defiant really breaks from whiskeymaking orthodoxy.

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Another batch was dumped. And then another, and still more.

Slowly, Defiant Whisky began to emerge. (In the process they dropped the “e” in “whiskey” as an homage to the scotches that had first inspired Ferris.)

Like all whiskies, Defiant has only three ingredients: cereal (the term for the grains used, encompassing corn, barley, rye, wheat, etc.), yeast, and water. Some people argue that the wood of the barrels used for aging is the fourth ingredient, but it’s an argument best left to the enthusiasts.

The final process used to make Defiant has several unique aspects. The first thing that goes into the mash tun—the container used for the fermentation process—is malted barley, which isn’t peated or smoked, the common process for scotch.

Next is a custom yeast strain they developed at Defiant, and water from a well on the property. In fact, the processes for making beer and whiskey are the same up to the point of distillation, but one key difference about Defiant’s production from most other whiskey producers is that, like brewers making a beer, they separate the solids (the used barley) from the liquids while still in the mash tun, as opposed to during distillation.

This avoids any harsh flavors that may come from the husks of the barley.

The conclusion of distillation is the point in the process where Defiant really breaks from whiskey-making orthodoxy.

After being distilled three times, the spirit is put into 1,000-liter September 2016 | capitalatplay.com

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stainless steel holding tanks, and the company’s name becomes a literal embodiment of their attitude towards traditions. For hundreds of years it has been the accepted wisdom that whiskey is aged in oak barrels. And not just among those enthusiasts we mentioned earlier, but by, well, pretty much everyone.

Except for Tim Ferris.

Defiant Character One of the reasons that distilling whiskey is regarded as such a difficult industry to get involved in is that once you finish the distillation process, the spirit comes off the still as high proof, clear liquid, or “white dog,” as it’s often called in Appalachia. All of the color comes from the wood of the barrels the spirit rests in while aging. Most decent quality bourbons spend around 8-10 years in the barrel.

Scotch often spends 10 or more years inside the cask, with many high-end labels aging it longer than that. Because of this, it’s not easy to decide to get into the whiskey business and then have a product on the market in a few months’ time.

In most cases, then, an exorbitant amount is spent on start-up costs, and then you have to wait for years and years until, eventually, there is a product to sell. In the bourbon world, there are even distinct legal guidelines for what can be marketed as single barrel, or small batch, with specific emphasis on the amount of time in barrels.

Ferris, though, who has the energy of someone who is accustomed to nearconstant motion, had no desire to wait that long, so Defiant eschewed barrels and put their distillate into the aforementioned steel tanks and subsequently adding oak spirals. The advantage of spirals, which look like a charred piece 82

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of wooden dowel with a series of small saw cuts in it, is that there is a much higher surface-area-to-liquid ratio with the wood. Detractors say the downside to the Defiant method is that, regardless of the oak spirals, the product isn’t actually aged in a barrel, making the process feel more commercialized and less individual.

As the craft cocktail renaissance has helped a younger generation of consumers achieve a new appreciation for whiskey, demand has outpaced supply. After all, a side effect of the product having to rest for 10 years in a barrel is that it’s hard to forecast sales that far in advance. Consequently, distillers have increasingly relied on new releases that often come without an age statement. Traditionalists have, unsurprisingly, scoffed. Instead of attempting to subvert these criticisms, Defiant took the extremely novel position of promoting them. They’ve utilized their lack of age as a selling point—with Ferris even saying in an interview last year with Food Republic, “When other people brag about how old their whiskey is, we just say that they are bragging about how inefficient their process is.” And as both Ferris and head distiller Patrino point out, once someone actually tastes some of their whiskey, they’re usually quick to shed any reservations they may have about its provenance.

Onto the Shelf

EVERY BOTTLE hand labeled and reviewed

But zeal, serendipity, and reckless faith only go so far in an industry known for being secretive, complicated, and less than welcoming to newcomers. Ferris was shocked at the constant onslaught of hurdles and opinions. He also became familiar with the byzantine North Carolina Alcohol Beverage Control (NCABC) system. North Carolina is one of 17 remaining control states, meaning that all spirits sold here are done so under the purview of the state. In this system, producers such as Defiant send large shipments of their product to a central warehouse in Raleigh. Local ABC boards order from the state, then the local boards pay the producers directly for only the amount they order. “So we sometimes have seventy or eighty checks coming back to us for one shipment we’ve sent out,” Ferris notes, with a mix of annoyance and resignation.

He has at times been a fairly outspoken critic of the NCABC, especially in regards to tasting room sales. Until last year, spirits producers were only allowed to conduct tastings, with no sales of product allowed whatsoever. The law has now been loosened slightly, allowing distillers to sell one bottle per person, per year, at the conclusion of a tour of their facility. “It’s at least a step in the right direction,” he says.

After Defiant finally made it to market in December of 2012 (the actual date was, interestingly enough, 12/12/2012), the real work began. Word of mouth was the core of Defiant’s marketing strategy from the outset—that, and leveraging September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 83

All photos on this page courtesy Defiant Marine

Divers LOW Down The underwater adventures of Defiant Marine have taken the men from sunken ships at the bottom of the ocean to the flooded subways of a post-Hurricane Sandy New York City.

Salvage diving is an esoteric industry, and the jobs run the gamut from dealing with shipwrecks, treasure hunting, removal of hazardous materials, or even clearing flooded underground tunnels. In short, if you have a job that is fairly dangerous and takes place underwater, you probably need a salvage diver. They don’t necessarily come cheap, however; Tim Ferris estimates that for Defiant Marine, a typical job can cost a client anywhere between $100,000 and $900,000.

During his salvage diving career, Tim Ferris has done all of the above, and much more. Earlier this year he was featured on the History Channel show Billion Dollar Wreck, in an episode about treasure hunter Martin Bayerle’s quest to retrieve the cargo of luxury cruise liner RMS Republic, which sank to the bottom of the Atlantic in 1909. During our interview, Ferris also told Capital at Play about a recent job in which Defiant Marine went inside a sunken tanker, removed all oil, gas, and other hazardous materials, and then towed the ship from where 84

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it sank in about 300 feet of water, to a point farther out in the ocean that had a depth of 1,500 feet, then dropped it there for its final resting place.

One of his more high-profile jobs had Ferris and his team going to New York as Hurricane Sandy was finishing wreaking havoc on Manhattan. They camped in Battery Park, arriving as the city was still darkened from power outages, and spent eleven days of near-ceaseless work, pumping hundreds of millions of gallons of mud and water from the flooded L and N subways between Manhattan and Brooklyn.

It’s a high-risk business, in which every decision must be thought out carefully beforehand, and the divers must maintain their calm in an extremely harsh environment. But it’s also a business where a certain type of intense, focused individual will thrive. As Ferris puts it, “Blue Ridge Distilling makes me question my sanity every day, and Defiant Marine answers the question.”

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 85

the narrative of the improbability of the whole enterprise. It is a strategy that has served them exceedingly well. Despite his home-spun telling of it, it becomes clear relatively quickly after talking to him that Ferris is a gifted marketer, and Defiant has given him a great vehicle for that talent.

He started Defiant at an ideal time to enter the craft spirits industry. That segment of the market has grown from less than 90 craft distilleries in the country a decade ago to nearly 1,000 now, and their market share currently represents over seven percent of total liquor sales in the United States. While the craft spirits industry as a whole is still an outlier, the larger industry conglomerates have definitely taken notice. As with the craft beer industry (where the larger, macro-producers dismissed the smaller craft movement for years, and subsequently lost more market share than they had predicted possible), it is the smaller, nimble producers that take the most daring chances—such as making a single malt in Rutherford County, North Carolina.

The Future During the interview, after he detailed some of his dissatisfactions with the NCABC’s progress, we asked Ferris—who

owns Defiant Whisky with his wife, Lauren; they recently had their first child, a daughter—if he had ever considered starting or moving the business elsewhere. He said yes, that he had considered it once. A few years back, not long after launch, he had looked at an abandoned distillery that was for sale in Kentucky. As he assessed it, and liked what he saw, one of his investors asked if it was the best possible place for their long-term growth. “I thought about it and said there was only one place that would have been more perfect: the Girl Scout camp, but that’s not for sale.”

He was referring to Camp Golden Valley, a 550-acre retreat directly across the road from Ferris’s family property, where the distillery is located. His investor happened to know that the property had just come onto the market the previous week.

Ferris immediately flew home from Kentucky, looked at the camp, and upon consultation with Defiant’s investors, promptly purchased it.

He envisions turning Camp Golden Valley into a fully immersive Defiant Whisky experience. The property features numerous 3-bedroom lodging houses, a 17-acre lake with a movie-set-worthy dock, various administrative and communal buildings, and basketball and tennis courts. The courts are

24/7/365 24/7/ 365 Service Available

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where he plans to relocate the distillery. One of the buildings will become a small restaurant, and guests will be able to rent the cabins.

Singapore. They also won the award for Best New Spirit of 2013 in the Drammys, a whiskey-industry awards ceremony that’s been held annually for nearly four decades. With projected sales for this year of $1.4 million dollars, and a distribution footprint that is steadily spreading across the United States, things continue to look good.

But do consumers really care about age statements, and does it matter if the vessel the whiskey ages in is rounded on the sides and made of oak or stuffed with oak and made of stainless steel?

One thing that’s for sure, is that Tim Ferris doesn’t care. He’s making a whiskey that can be picked out of a lineup. And he’s making it in a beautiful valley, surrounded by mountain peaks and sometimes a light fog above the pond, in true Defiant style.

It has been just over three and a half years since Defiant got their first bottle onto retail shelves, and they’re now in 24 states, plus Canada, Malaysia, Estonia, and Singapore.

Is there a big enough market for that? Do people really care enough about American single malt to spend a weekend on the distillery grounds? “Within 18 months of launch, we had distributors calling us asking to sell the product,” says Patrino. It has been just over three and a half years since Defiant got their first bottle onto retail shelves, and they’re now in 24 states, plus Canada, Malaysia, Estonia, and

THE DIARY OF

ANNE FRANK SEPTEMBER 8 - 25 Presented By: Brig. Gen. Frank Blazey with Community Partners

NC

VisitHendersonvilleNC.org September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 87

People Play at

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1. LEAF headliners WAR perform on the Downtown Stage. (DS) 2. A WAR fan gets the opportunity to sing with the band. (DS)

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3. Adama Dembele performs.

4. International Costa Rica Indigenous Song & Dance on the U-LEAF Community Stage. (SA) 5.A Unifire Theater member puts on a display. (SA)

6.The AJ Ghent Band performs on the Downtown Stage. (SA) 7.Putting the finishing touches on the main stage. (DS)

2nd LEAF Downtown Asheville July 30 -31, 2016 | Photos by David Simchock - www.davidsimchock.com (DS), Steve Atkins (SA) - www..foxcovephotography.com (SA), & Jon Fillman (JF)

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8. Fans crowd the Downtown Stage as WAR perform. (DS) 9. Mosse-Kan, featuring Barakissa Coulibaly, (SA)

10. Kids painting with clay at the Arts Flow Zone. (DS) 11. A family emerges from the ever-entertaining Arts Flow Zone. (SA)

12. Downtown Stage and crowd at sunset. (JF) Extra: unnumbered photos of WAR by David Simchock September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 89

events

september

EVENTS september 1, 9, 15 , 22 , 29

> 828-239-9250 > magnetictheater.org

Concert in the Park

6:30PM Robbins Amphitheater Tate Evans Park, Banner Elk, NC

> 828-898-8395 > bannerelk.org september 1-3, 8 -10, 15 -17, 22-24 Magnetic Theater 375 Depot St, Asheville, NC

> 828-697-4557 > ncapplefestival.org september 3

Lynyrd Skynyrd 7:30PM Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort Event Center 777 Casino Drive, Cherokee, NC “Free Bird”! ‘Nuf said. Consult the aftermarket.

september 2 - 5

Thursday evenings, the public is invited to chill on the lawn and take in the ambience of a pink Carolina sky framed by nature’s deep green offerings as the sun goes nappy-bye behind the misty mountain silhouettes. Summer sounds will waft over the audience, provided by a number of professional acts.

Off The Rails

Take one Hollywood actress, add her tech mogul fiancée, then stir liberally into an antique train—you’ve got the Magnetic’s first original farce, written by managing and associate artistic director Lucia Del Vecchio and directed by company artistic director Steven Samuels. Expect plenty of slamming doors, mistaken identities, and terrible misunderstandings.

North Carolina Apple Festival 10AM-8PM Downtown Hendersonville 145 5th Ave East, Hendersonville, NC For the 70th year, Hendersonville will host activities “honoring the apple.” The best way to do this is to bite into the crisp and refreshing fruit and savor the juicy-sweet tang. Hendersonville, however, does it with a King Apple Parade.

They line the streets with artists and crafters and play music as long as the sun shines. There will also be baskets of all kinds of apples and lots of apple products for sale.

> 800-745-3000 > ticketmaster.com september 3 - 4

RockFest 2016 9AM-9:30PM Emerald Village 331 McKinney Mine Rd, Spruce Pine, NC Emerald Mountain is the home of 12 historic gem mines. This event includes kids’ treasure hunts, lectures described as “380 million years of geologic history in fifteen minutes,” guided hikes to hidden mines, and rappelling demonstrations by rescue teams. The keynote address will be delivered by Lowell Thomas, author of

ADVANCED BUSINESS SKILLS FOR ARTISTS SIX SEMINARS BEGINNING ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6 Create More Value for Customers by Using Fewer Resources (Part 1) Tuesday, September 6 (Part 2) Monday September 12

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Run the Numbers Instead of Them Running You Monday, September 19 Tell Your Money Where to Go Instead of Wondering Where it Went Monday, September 26

Marketing with Purpose Tuesday, October 4 Elemental Sales Techniques for the Entrepreneurial Artist Monday, October 10

A-B TECH AVIATION

SPACE IS LIMITED!

APPLY TODAY!

$60 EACH SEMINAR $300 ENTIRE SERIES

LEARN MORE AT WWW.ABTECH.EDU/SMALL-BUSINESS-CENTER/ADVANCED-BUSINESS-SKILLS-ARTISTS or call 828.398.7951

> 828-765-6463 > emeraldvillage.com september 3 - 4

Mile High Kite & Craft Fest 10AM-4PM Beech Mountain Town Kite Field 402 Beech Mountain Parkway, Beech Mountain, NC What’s it like to fly a kite in the rarefied atmosphere of the highest city in the Eastern United States? Two big-time kite teams have some serious stuff they want to teach. The first 150 kids in the door each day will get a free kite to decorate with tails and stuff. Kites will be available for sale to late-birds and big people.

Kids can learn about aerodynamics and kite history. This year, there will even be a drone competition. Fun and games will abound all weekend.

> 828-387-9283 > www.beechmtn.com

september 5

Tour d’Apple Bike Ride 8AM-12PM Blue Ridge Community College 180 West Campus Drive, Flat Rock, NC There will be rides of 100, 62, 45, 25 miles, and a special 3 miles kids’ ride that includes a bicycle safety clinic, skills training, and a campus tour. All races are named for apples and tour through glorious orchards and other Western North Carolina amenities, like waterfalls. All routes but the kids’ offer at least 1000 feet of net vertical challenge.

Proceeds will benefit charities sponsored by the Four Seasons Rotary Club.

> Registration: $55 > tourdapple.com september 6 ,13 , 20 “Master the Art of Speaking” Learning Lab 5:30-6:45PM MindSpring Consulting 966 Tunnel Road, Asheville, NC A 4 week Speaker’s Learning Lab (starting in August) for Asheville and Buncombe County area professionals, hosted by professional speaking coach Barrie Barton, of

56% of Americans have no idea how much they’ll need to retire.

Stand and Deliver, who will help participants overcome phobias related to public speaking and gain self-confidence. This Lab will be limited to 16 participants.

> 828-712-9654 > standanddeliverasheville.com september 8 -10

Music Fest at Blue Bear Mountain 9AM-11PM Blue Bear Mountain Camp 196 Blue Bear Mountain Road, Todd, NC This is a chance to camp out with friends on 150 acres of mountain splendor with a music backdrop provided by the Larry Keel Experience, the Acoustic Syndicate, Sol Driven Train, the Jeff Little Trio, Melissa Revers, the Carter Brothers, and more.

> Passes: 1-Day $20-$40, 2-Day $70, 3-Day $80 > 828-406-4226 > musicfestatbluebearmountain.com

september 8 - 25

The Diary of Anne Frank 2, 7:30, or 8PM

The answer can be as simple as sitting down with me.

Even if you haven’t saved much already, I can help you set a reasonable goal. I’ll show you all the ways that life insurance and annuities can help make your money work harder.

A good plan, and a good life, starts with someone you know. Call me to learn more.

Bill Shytle 828-684-8582 100 Julian Ln., Ste. 140 Arden, NC 28704 billshytle@allstate.com Life Insurance • Retirement Savings • Mutual Funds • IRAs • Annuities • College Savings Plans Life insurance offered through Allstate Life Insurance Company, Northbrook, IL; Allstate Assurance Company, Northbrook, IL; Lincoln Benefit Life Company, Lincoln, NE; and American Heritage Life Insurance Company, Jacksonville, FL. In New York, life insurance offered through Allstate Life Insurance Company of New York, Hauppauge, NY. Securities offered by Personal Financial Representatives through Allstate Financial Services, LLC (LSA Securities in LA and PA). Registered Broker-Dealer. Member FINRA, SIPC. Main Office: 2920 South 84th Street, Lincoln, NE 68506. (877) 525-5727. © 2015 Allstate Insurance Co.

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Mines, Miners, & Minerals of WNC. For a nominal fee, visitors can enjoy extras like the venue’s normal rock hounding, gold panning, gem digging, and latenight black-light mine tour.

September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 91

events

Flat Rock Playhouse Mainstage 2661 Greenville Highway, Flat Rock, NC This is a story of innocent relationships of youth, a search for belonging, the forging and dissolution of friendships in a small circle. It isn’t all that different from the stories of other kids, except this one was written while Anne was hiding from the Nazis. She was eventually arrested with her family, for being Jewish, and died in a concentration camp. The story is worth repeating because it puts a heart and soul on the statistics of World War II, with the hope we will never repeat one of history’s worst mistakes.

>Tickets: $15-$40 > 828-693-0731 > flatrockplayhouse.org

FREE

> 336-973-2344 > wilkesquilters.org september 9 -18

North Carolina Mountain State Fair 3-11PM(Mon-Thu) 9AM-12ish (Fri-Sun) WNC Agricultural Center 1301 Fanning Bridge Road, Fletcher, NC

T.H. Broyhill Walking Park 945 Lakewood Circle, Lenoir, NC

This is North Carolina’s third largest fair. It features big rides, animals, competitions, and fried whats. (That’s what it says.) See website for a listing of promotions, discount days, and specific closing hours.

The Caldwell Arts Council invites artists to bring up to three sculptures to compete in various categories for cash from a prize pot totaling $11,000.

Artists set their work up in the park Friday before the Sculptors’ Welcome Dinner. Saturday begins with a continental breakfast free to sculptors. The exhibition opens to the public at 9AM.

> Registration: $80; FREE to wander > 828-754-2486 > caldwellarts.com september 9 -10

Wilkes County Quilt Show 9AM-6PM(Fri), 9AM-4PM(Sat) The Stone Center 613 Cherry St, North Wilkesboro, NC This year’s theme, “Quilts Warm the World,” speaks to the Freon-afflicted joints. Over 100 handmade quilts to be | September 2016

> Admission: Adult $4, Child (0-11)

september 9 -10

31st Annual Sculpture Celebration

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displayed are sure to reflect the skill and passion of the members of the Wilkes County Quilters guild. Door prizes will include a new Janome computerized sewing machine. But the very best part is proceeds will fund the making of even more quilts for local hospital patients, veterans, and orphans.

> Admission: Senior (65+) $5, Adult

$9, Child (6-12) $5, Infant (0-5) FREE

> 828-687-1414 > wncagcenter.org september 10

Kidfest at Grandfather Mountain 9AM-4:30PM Grandfather Mountain 2050 Blowing Rock Highway, Linville, NC This annual event will take the little darlings back to nature through hands-on activities led by park rangers. Fun stuff includes looking for animal trails and other signs of animal life, catching butterflies in the Butterfly Garden, and learning more about local bears. There will also be opportunities to learn about folk art and make fun crafts.

> Admission: Senior $18, Adult

(13-59) $20, Child $9, Infant (0-3) FREE > 828-733-4337 > grandfather.com

september 10

8th Annual Rock Academy Fundraiser for Give to the Music 7PM Orange Peel 101 Biltmore Avenue, Asheville, NC Featuring former Asheville busker Lyric, this is a fundraiser by the Rock Academy tunes for Give to the Music, a nonprofit corporation that provides funding for music lessons and gear for children in need of financial assistance.

>Tickets: $15 adv./$20 d.o.s. > 828-398-1837 > theorangepeel.net september 10

Hendersonville Symphony Orchestra Presents America the Beautiful

“ Eat the bread with joy, and drink the wine with a merry heart.”

-Ecclesiastes 9:7

FROM WATER TO

WINE

CUSTOM BUILT POOLS, SPAS, SAUNAS, WINE ROOMS AND LOCKERS!

1200-C Hendersonville Rd. Asheville, NC • 828-277-8041 • waterworkswnc.com

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7:30-9:30PM Blue Ridge Community College Conference Hall 180 West Campus Drive, Flat Rock, NC The HSO accompanies Scott and Sarah Whittemore, most famous for singing and acting at Disneyworld, in a variety of patriotic songs sourced from Broadway, the Great American Songbook, TV, and the silver screen.

The most rousing number may be Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait.

> Admission: $40 > 828-697-5884 > hendersonvillesymphony.org

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RESTORATIONS CUSTOM CREATIONS CUSTOM PAINT KIT CARS

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www.bealandco.net 5522 Willow Road, Hendersonville, NC September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 93

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events

september 10

Car Seat Headrest 8PM The Grey Eagle 85 Clingman Ave, Asheville, NC The prolific (11 albums in 6 years) Will Toledo hails from Virginia but relocated to Seattle a couple of years ago, where he formed a band so he could actually tour his musical vision rather than sit at home recording all day. His self-styled lo-fi approach to music is creating quite a buzz this year.

Opening act: Lemon Twigs.

>Tickets: $15 > 828-232-5800 > thegreyeagle.com september 12

Pan Harmonia Season 17 Kickoff At Carolina Day School, At Carolina Day School, our inclusive community, our inclusive community, inspiring faculty,

inspiring faculty, and innovative program and innovative program combine to create combine to create the ideal balance the ideal balance for transformational for transformational character development character development and intellectual growth. and intellectual growth.

94

...yields a lifetime of value. ...yields a lifetime of value. | September 2016

6:30PM Haen Gallery 52 Biltmore Avenue, Asheville, NC The chamber musicians’ season opener will showcase selections from Gary Schocker, Frederik Holm, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Ernesto Nazareth on flute, bassoon, and guitar. Wine will be served at 6:30PM, and the music will start at 7:15PM. The performance will repeat September 18 at 3PM at the Haen Gallery in Brevard.

>Tickets: Door $20, Advance $15, Student $5 > 828-254-7123 > panharmonia.org

september 16

Downtown after 5 5-9PM North Lexington Avenue, Asheville, NC This will be the 2016 season closer of the downtown street party. It’s a great way to unwind and mingle with other

professionals in the urban outdoors after a stressful week at the office. Many local food vendors will be in attendance for subsistence. Music will be provided

by Cracker, with opener the Dirty Badgers. There will be more local craft beer than you know what to do with.

> 828-251-9973 > ashevilledowntown.org september 17

Monarch Butterfly Day 10AM-4PM North Carolina Arboretum, 100 Frederick Law Olmsted Way, Asheville, NC This event seeks to raise awareness about the plight of the monarch. The population of the orange king of the butterflies has dropped precipitously since 1990. It started as insecticide-resistant crops allowed farmers to spray their fields with chemicals that seriously destroyed the butterflies’ milkweed habitat. Butterfly lovers will make butterfly crafts, observe live butterfly tagging, and be able to purchase the right kind of milkweed. Proceeds will benefit Arboretum youth programming.

> Admission: Personal Vehicles $12, Motorhomes $50, Buses $100 > 828-665-2492 > ncarboretum.org

september 17

43rd Annual American Girl Scout Day Celebration 9AM-6PM Grandfather Mountain 2050 Blowing Rock Highway, Linville, NC Girl Scouts and troop leaders will be admitted free with proof of membership.

In addition to accessing the park’s hikes and views, visitors can enjoy a number of programmed activities focusing on local flora. Admission for family members will be discounted.

> 828-733-4337 > grandfather.com september 17

Burntshirt Vineyards Grape Stomp 1-5PM Burntshirt Vineyards 2695 Sugarloaf Road, Hendersonville, NC Some people really get their jollies standing in a box and jumping on grapes. You won’t need to drink anything to get in a good mood, though; the music is going to be super good, with classic covers from the ’60s and ’70s performed live by Vintage Vinyl. This year, the event has an I Love Lucy theme. The Luciest dresser will get to take home 3 bottles of prizes.

> 828-685-2402 > burntshirtvineyards.com september 17

Foreigner

7:30PM Harrah’s Cherokee Casino Resort 777 Casino Drive, Cherokee, NC Lou Gramm may no longer be leading the band, but Foreigner continues to tour. The musicians sound the same, and the new lead singer, Kelly Hansen, does not disappoint, being just as strong, with more on the melody and less on the turbo. Some of their classics str “Juke Box Hero,” and the worldwide number-one hit “I Want to Know What Love Is.”

> Venue Tickets: $34.50-$175 > 800-745-3000 > ticketmaster.com september 18

Asheville Outdoor Show 12-4PM Highland Brewing Co., 12 Old Charlotte Hwy, Asheville, NC

Lower School Lower School Grades Pre-K to 5

Grades Pre-K to 5 Critical foundational skills and Critical foundational skills and exceptional enrichment program exceptional enrichment program including STEM, Art, Spanish including STEM, Art, Spanish

Key School

Key School Grades 1-8

Grades Model school 1-8 for bright Model school for bright students with language-based students with language-based learning differences learning differences

Middle School

Grades 6-8 Middle School

Single-gender classrooms, peer Grades 6-8 group program,classrooms, expedition learning Single-gender peer

group program, expedition learning

Upper School

Grades 9-12 Upper School

Full-time professional Grades 9-12 college counselor working Full-time professional with students to prepare for college counselor working college and beyond

with students to prepare for college and beyond

Asheville’s Pre-K/12 Independent Asheville’s Co-Ed Day School

Pre-K/12 Independent A Balanced Approach to Building Co-Ed Day School

Character and Developing Intellect

A Balanced Approach to Building

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Character Developing Intellect CarolinaDay.org/Apply

APPLY NOW FOR 2016-17.

828.407.4442 CarolinaDay.org/Apply 828.407.4442 September 2016 | capitalatplay.com 95

EILEEN FISHER

CELEBRATING 20 YEARS

events

This year’s Asheville Outdoor Show pledges to “bring the finest outdoor brands and latest trends in recreation directly to our friends and neighbors.”

Makers and retailers known for quality, variety, and uniqueness will be abetted by music and outdoor games—and attendees will no doubt be able to avail themselves of discounts from their favorite brands.

> 828-771-4761 > diamondbrand.com/ashevilleoutdoor-show-2016

september 22

2onCrescent

828.274.1276 • 2oncrescent.com Open Everyday 11am - 5pm 4 All Souls Crescent, Biltmore Village

UNC Asheville Visiting Writers Series: Ben Fountain 7PM UNC Asheville, Reuter Center 1 University Drive, Asheville, NC Fountain will read from his book Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. This work of fiction is a satire that takes place in Texas during the War in Iraq. It won the National Book Critics Award and placed in the National Book Awards. A movie based on the novel is set to be released in November.

> english.unca.edu

Feather Your Nest

CONSIGNMENT SHOP

Specializing in upscale one-of-a-kind furnishings, housewares, home decorative items and vintage & fine jewelry.

New items arriving daily!

Come see for yourself!

Tuesday through Saturday | 10am to 4pm 1215A Greenville Hwy. Hendersonville, NC

828.693.3535 Accepting Quality Consignments

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| September 2016

september 23 - 25

Asheville Greek Festival 11AM-9PM (Fri & Sat),11AM-4PM(Sun) Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church 227 Cumberland Ave, Asheville, NC In its 13th year, the church recreates the ancient agora “where friends and family come together to enjoy fellowship, food, dancing, and all around good times.” What’s more, they want to invite you into the family to be “Greek for a day.” All kinds of delicious food will be available for sale.

> 828-253-3754 > holytrinityasheville.com

september 24

David Nagler—Sandburg Sonata 7-9PM Flat Rock Playhouse - Downtown 125 South Main St, Hendersonville, NC The esteemed New York conductor David Nagler will put 16 of Carl Sandburg’s poems to orchestral arrangement. He will also explain why he finds this poetry particularly musical. Nagler’s new album will celebrate the 100th anniversary of Sandburg’s “Chicago Poems.”

> 828-693-4178 > friendsofcarlsandburg.com september 26

MANNA FoodBank’s 15th Annual Empty Bowls 11:30AM-1:30PM& 5-7:30PM Doubletree by Hilton Biltmore 115 Hendersonville Road, Asheville, NC Participants choose a bowl from a selection handcrafted by local artisans.

They then get a serving of soup in it, some bread, and a dessert. They hang out, meet their neighbors, and listen to music—and then they take the bowl home as a constant reminder of children around the world who don’t get anything in their bowls. Proceeds go toward feeding the hungry in Western North Carolina.

>Tickets: $35 > 828-299-3663 > mannafoodbank.org

If your organization has any local press releases for our briefs section, or events that you would like to see here, feel free to email us at events@capitalatplay.com.

Please submit your event at least six weeks in advance.

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ASHEVILLE DOWNTOWN 828-252-1735 | LEICESTER HWY 828-251-9254 SOUTH ASHEVILLE 828-687-7450 97 September |2016 | capitalatplay.com

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