We recently connected with David Weglarz and have shared our conversation below.

Hi David, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

We have a strong sense of independence and firmly believe that this is our one life to live and we are hellbent on living it to the fullest. This manifests in many ways at StilL 630, but specifically in our gin production. Rather than using the typical gin botanicals used globally by most gin producers, we looked at the idea of gin-making and realized that the more botanicals you source, that means you have more colors to paint with and we could achieve our goal of making truly unique, incredible gins. So we promptly set out on a mission to build the largest botanical library we could. We are proud to have an unrivaled Botanical Library that boasts over 400 different individual botanicals from which to build our gins.

We use this amazing resource to build gins that truly evoke a sense of place and flavor. In our Confluence American Gin, for example, we utilize horseradish because right in our backyard is the “Horseradish Capital of the World”(Collinsville, IL) and so we set out to make a savory and herbal gin. The pink peppercorns and galangal root balance the earthiness and bolster the citrus notes brought by coriander and juniper. The resulting gin was named the “Best Craft Gin in the Country” by the American Distilling Institute at their 2023 International Spirits Competition!

David, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am an English-major, turned white water river rafting guide, who became a Futures Trader before giving up a lucrative financial career to make the best damn spirits possible. I started my own business, StilL 630 Distillery in an old Hardee’s building downtown St. Louis. A mostly self-taught distiller, with the help of our Head of Sales, Andrew Spaugh, we’ve grown StilL 630 into the most award-winning distillery in the state of Missouri and one of the top five in the United States. We are the ONLY craft distillery to have been named the “Best Craft Whiskey in the Country” by the American Craft Spirits Association… TWICE. And now we’ve just been named the “Best Craft Gin in the Country” by the American Distilling Institute for the SECOND time also!

We make truly incredible whiskeys, gins, rum, and apple brandy. Many of the recipes have grown out of our Experimental Spirits Program, which is our search for awesome new recipes. We release one brand new experimental spirit per month and we’ve been doing it for over 5.5 years now! Every Friday night we’re open for cocktails, pours, and flights from 5-9pm and any Friday you come in, guests can receive a free sample of our latest experimental spirit!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

We’d had our best year yet in 2019 and we’re poised to continue a great trajectory of growth in 2020, until, like countless other small businesses, we were hammered by the pandemic and government shut downs. Our business literally dried up over night. Even though people were drinking more during the lockdowns, they immediately shifted down the value ladder in order to get more booze cheaper. We were at a loss on what to do and how to contribute to help our community during this unprecedented time.

So I looked around, I saw that some other distilleries had started to produce hand sanitizer and that the government had created exemptions for smaller producers like ourselves to jump in to help in this time of emergency. So we marshalled our resources and our tiny team of three people started churning out hand sanitizer. It was staggering the amount of people who flooded in to get this (at the time) precious resource. We sold it to construction sites, law firms, and any business that needed it to help their people stay healthy. In doing so, it allowed us to donate it freely to nurses, doctors, hospitals, fire fighters and police precincts. We ended up donating over $50,000 worth of hand sanitizer to our local First Responders! It felt so good to be pro-actively contributing rather than just sitting around hoping my family business didn’t die.
A couple months later, the need totally dried up as the global supply chain kicked back in. But looking back at that time, I know it gave our team a sense of mission and pride knowing we were helping our community in a time of need!

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Easily, the most effective strategy for growing our clientele is getting our product into peoples’ mouths. All the fanciest marketing in the world ultimately fails if the end product doesn’t deliver. But if your end product is fantastic, then there is nothing else that comes close. Getting people into our distillery, you can literally watch them light up as they look around. They are instantly drawn to the staggering number of bottles on our library shelves (we have over 2,500 sample bottles lining shelves all around the tasting room) and it unmistakably exemplifies the level of nerdiness we have for our spirits. They see the hand-made pot stills and the numerous awards and they feel that they’ve walked into a mad scientist’s lab. Leading a tasting through our incredible line up of spirits, in the very room they are made leaves a lasting impression and everyone leaves here a fan of StilL 630!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.still630.com
• Instagram: @still630
• Facebook: facebook.com/still630
• Twitter: @still630
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl5H1GKqfG0h8R6rpxo0XuA
• Yelp: still630