BUTTE — A Butte businessman who proudly uses Montana grains and products to produce a variety of whiskey products says the tariffs imposed on Canada are impacting his ability to enter a new market for whiskey sales, even as a 30-day pause has been placed on implementation of the tariffs.
"We have about $10,000 barrels on site right now. We’re shooting for, this year, another 3,000 and every year after this to make 3,000 barrels every year. So, it's a couple of swimming pools of whiskey that we make up here," says John McKee, the owner of Headframe Spirits, a spirits distillery that opened in 2012.
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Over the years, Headframe Spirits has expanded from a tasting room serving local customers to a manufacturing business that utilizes an abandoned mine yard to store thousands of barrels that serve customers across the state and the nation.
"We’re a big market share in the Pacific Northwest and it turns out, Chicago. We’re really big in Chicago," says McKee.
Not counting the illegal bootleggers in the early 1900s, Headframes is the first legal distillery in Montana and one of 4,000 distilleries nationwide.
McKee says expanding to international markets has been part of his plan for years, but he says planning for business growth depends on future market projections because his product must age before it reaches the consumer.
"One of the things that you’re doing when you’re making whiskey at this scale is, you’re sort of always looking ahead about three to four to five years," says McKee.
On Feb. 1, President Donald Trump signed off on 25% tariffs to be imposed on Canada and Mexico. Several Canadian provinces responded by yanking American-made booze from their shelves.
As of Feb. 3, implementation of the tariffs is on hold pending negotiations but it is unclear whether American-made alcohol will return to the Canadian market.
"Who knows what the end looks like but right now we’ve had to pause our plans to move into Canada until we can just let the dust settle and see what comes," says McKee.
In the meantime, McKee and his 30 employees will continue to make whiskey while they search for new markets for their Montana-made product.
"Who knows what’s going to happen? And that’s a real hard way to do business. When no one knows what’s going on and it can change overnight at a whim, that makes it really difficult to do good business and it makes it real difficult to take care of your people."
