In Chippewa legend, the crow is a guide. Unable to find his purpose, he communes with other animals, only to discover his true role in the world: guiding others.
Copper Crow Distillery
Curt Basina, a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, thought his vocation was law enforcement. He spent 17 years as a highway patrolman, but an injury forced him into retirement in 2001. That’s when he and his wife, Linda, discovered a new purpose.
In 2017, the Basinas opened Copper Crow Distillery, the first Indigenous-owned distillery in the United States, on the Red Cliff Reservation in Bayfield, Wisconsin, 235 miles northwest of Minneapolis. Naturally, the Basinas named their distillery for the animal that led Curt from the police force to making spirits on his ancestral land.
“The crow is a very intelligent animal,” Linda explains. “They teach their children how to hunt and to use the tools that they’ve learned to use.”
Alighting in Red Cliff
Curt and Linda moved to Red Cliff in 2001 to manage the Buffalo Bay Store, a gas station owned by Curt’s father. Providing for the community gave them fulfillment, but in their travels, the Basinas had fallen in love with America’s burgeoning craft distilleries. They decided Red Cliff needed a distillery of its own.
At the time, distilling on reservation land was illegal. But Curt had a loophole: He owned private land within tribal grounds. He knew the federal government would approve his distilling license application; he just had to convince the tribal elders.
The Basinas insisted that Copper Crow would create jobs, drive tourism, and produce a high-quality product. Red Cliff Tribal Council vice chairman Richard Peterson was immediately supportive of Copper Crow, calling Curt “an entrepreneur” with deep roots in Red Cliff.
“We had someone willing to invest their own money into an idea, and it was good for the community,” Peterson says. “Not only for the economic influx, but also as a role model for other tribal members.”
A year after Copper Crow opened, the law banning tribal distilling was overturned. Since then, Indigenous-owned alcohol-makers have popped up in Washington, California, Missouri, and soon Oregon—and they’ve all looked to Copper Crow as a guide.
Made in Dairyland
Many of Copper Crow’s 13 spirits are distilled in the traditions of classical spirit-making. They have a single-barrel rye, a Caribbean-inspired spiced rum, and an apple brandy the caliber of any in central Europe.
But Curt was challenged early in his career to think beyond the standards. After all, he was already abolishing distilling norms. It was Rusty Figgins, a craft distilling figurehead, who suggested distilling from whey.
“He said, ‘You’re from Wisconsin; you need to look at doing something with dairy,’” Curt remembers. “So, I accepted his challenge.”
Whey is a byproduct of cheesemaking that is formed when milk is curdled and filtered. Often, farmers turn whey into feed, but Basina liked the appeal of repurposing the lactose-rich permeate for booze, so he developed a process for making it Copper Crow’s trademark.
About half the products Copper Crow makes use whey from Burnett Dairy Cooperative in Grantsburg, a specialized whey yeast from Lallemand Biofuels, and a process Curt refined with the University of Wisconsin. Copper Crow now makes whey vodka, amaretto, aquavit, and an ADI bronze-winning gin.
“There’s a little bit of underlying sweetness and a different mouthfeel than a traditional alcohol,” Curt says. “That’s one of the things that we specifically like about it.”
Despite nine years in business, Copper Crow is still a small fixture of Lake Superior’s south shore. Its 1,500-liter capacity makes it one of the smallest distillers in America. Copper Crow intends to grow the distribution, eventually into Minnesota, but the Basinas’ immediate purpose is guiding people to Red Cliff to discover what they’ve built.
“We’re doing this not only to provide jobs for people in the community, but as a destination,” Curt says. “Rather than just people cruising on through, we look at this as an opportunity to get people to stop and stay.”
