Welcome to the Adaptive Mindset. I'm Brett Gallant, cybersecurity thought leader and founder of Adaptive Office Solutions. Here, we don't just talk tech, we unlock the strategies, stories, and mindset shifts you need to stay secure, lead boldly, and We'll be diving into the world of brain-to-glass craft spirits with John Mleziva , founder of the State Line Distillery in Madison, Wisconsin. John isn't your typical distiller. He's a fermentation scientist trained at Harriet Watt University in Scotland, a former EMT, a baritone singer, and the creator of one of the most celebrated coffee liquors on the planet. built entirely from local Wisconsin grains and artisans' partnerships. State line spirits prove that authenticity, sustainability, and world-class quality can coexist without shortcuts. In this conversation, we explore what grain-to-glass really means, how science elevates craft, why local partnerships matter, and where cocktail culture is headed next. Whether you're a spirits enthusiast, a builder, or simply curious about the story behind what's in your glass, this episode is for you. Let's dive in. So welcome to the show, John. It's really great to have you here. Thank Yeah, so I want to dive in here and just really get a little bit more of your origin story. Could you tell our audience a little bit more about you and what excites you and what inspired you to start Stateline Distillery and Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I mean, I guess the journey really started back when I was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. I was studying biology and my grandfather introduced me to homebrewing, we'll call it, around 21-ish. And I quickly kind of fell in love with fermentation science, really the management of yeast to make interesting beers. That was kind of where I liked to spend a lot of time when I was sort of researching, making beers. And so I ended up graduating with a degree in biology. And from there, you know, like many people, my path was actually kind of winding. I spent some time after graduation as an EMT working in the Twin Cities in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And at that time, everything I was doing on fermentation was hobbyish, right? I was just kind of a hobby level. And so I spent some time working in that hospital and then my path shifted and I ended up working at the University of Minnesota and got a higher education degree in educational policy administration. And that's what led me to Madison. I moved in Madison in 2008 and was working at Edgewood College. of homebrewing on the side and kind of one toe into that world. But most of my time was really spent in higher education at that point. And then through a chance encounter with an owner of a local brewery, I started spending some weekends over the summer kind of working at this commercial level brewery and just sort of fell in love with this idea of making locally grown grains to produce something that people could enjoy. And so this kind of was my launching off point into this sort of career path that I'm on now, which is I found this program at Harriet Watt University over in Scotland, and I left my position at Edgewood, moved abroad, fully intending that I would open a brewery. But as they say, when you spend a year you know, working at the Scotch Whiskey Institute and living in an area where whiskey is the sort of prevailing passion, my focus shifted. So it was really over there kind of when the idea of opening a grain-to-glass distillery sort of came into focus for me. And so when I graduated, That's when I started kind of thinking about how do I take all this knowledge around traditional distillation techniques and the science behind that and move it to having a brand that celebrates the rich agricultural history What does it really mean to you? Like what, what, like, like, like what, what, what really juiced Like the, like the, why the mindset shifted To get into distillation specifically? I, for me, I think distillation is the continuation of a really artistic process. So the idea of making a beer, right, is this, We're taking grain, we're mashing, we're fermenting, and we've got this product that people can enjoy. The turnaround is fairly quick. For me, the idea of adding distillation is another layer of artistry that we can bring into the to the process. And there's this really interesting blend of both sort of short-term techniques where we can share a gin, a vodka with people. But then there's the long game, kind of the arc of whiskey making, which is this romantic side of distillation, right? That you can start a process that literally takes 10 plus years to finish. And to me, the balance of things that we can share with the world, share with consumers in a shorter time frame, but layered in this sort of long game maturation with barrels is really what gets me excited and where I Have you, like, tell us about just the journey, like, have there been any challenges where you just like, like, what the heck am Of course. I mean, I think every, every entrepreneur, every business owner would say, if they don't say that there were those moments, I'm Yeah. It's you know, Of course, the biggest challenge for us, but I won't dwell on this. I can talk about others, but of course, like COVID, right? I mean, we opened in 2017 and then effectively we're closed. for 18 months in terms of our production for anything on premise, you know, bars and restaurants, all of that is a period overnight. And, and, you know, we're fairly new at that point in terms of, of where we were in our business cycle. And so navigating that, finding a way to survive and come out of it on the other hand, I And thankfully, I was able to partner with the state of Wisconsin to produce hand sanitizer for hospitals and different various organizations. So it was certainly No, but we do what we have to do sometimes, don't we? Yeah, that's right. And I think coming out of COVID, we kind of saw what would be considered sort of a boom time in terms of certainly in the spirits world. And now the kind of the challenge we're navigating currently, I think as an industry is sort of a natural contraction, right? This pulling back people And what does that mean for us? I mean, the bourbon industry in particular is really getting hit hard for their amount of supply versus demand. And so for us, the way we kind of solve this for ourselves is leaning into this quality over quantity, which has always been a driving factor of us for being a grain of glass. And it's messaging that helps kind of brunt the force So it's messaging, it's tightening your belt in areas and just looking at kind of general costs around the entire business to Yeah, you touched on a few things there that are really core to any business. Quality, and watching the pennies. Learned that a lot from, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Jim Rohn. Yeah, Jim shared that quite a bit. Watch the pennies. Yeah, A penny here, a penny there, and suddenly you're talking about Yeah, it adds up like little, like, you don't even see it, but it all adds up. And you just have to be disciplined and have that mindset to look at all facets of your business. Right. And especially in times we're living in now. So like, you know, where there's so many different challenges in the economy and, but I'm a person though, that also believes that there's so many opportunities. I'm curious, and I'm going off script here for a bit. What Well, I think there's always opportunity. I agree with you on that. For instance, even though the spirits in general, alcohol in general, but spirits as a category is contracting. If you look at the subcategories, the ready-to-drink cocktail movement, those are areas where there's still growth. you know, I always use the phrase that was told to me, that I that's a long time ago is, you know, be the be the red boat in the blue sea, right? I mean, the idea is you can't, you're not at my scale, and our size and our marketing budget, all these things, there are a lot of things stacked against you trying to go up against kind of a world class industry, right of suppliers, the big, big guys. And so if you aren't consistently looking at ways to solve problems that either don't exist yet or come into the market from an angle that you can be more nimble or better traction in terms of kind of your approach, you're in trouble. So when I look at the market, you can't just keep trying to come at it the same you know, we created a product and it sold really well, like the coffee of the poor, which you mentioned earlier. It's like, okay, so we have that. So now what can I do with that product that satisfies a growth model, looking at something like RTDs or something like that, that we haven't really tapped into. So it's, you know, you're effectively trying to gain market share in an area that you I wanted to ask you this, What does grained glass truly mean to you? And why was it a non-negotiable when you were building State Line? Let's Yeah, that's a really great question. If you look at a map of Wisconsin and you kind of find where Madison is, and then think This idea is, sorry, it's Let me start that over again. Just gonna ask you to jump right in. I mean, so if you look at kind of where we sit in the state of Wisconsin, you'll notice we aren't anywhere near a state line, truly. And so the name state line, uh, was born out of this idea of, of sourcing things as locally as possible whenever possible. And so for me, there, there are kind of two main things that, you know, being grain to glass truly embodies for us. as a company. One, it's community partnerships. So we work directly with farmers. We've got about six different farmers that we work with that are within 25 miles of the distillery. And so these are family owned farms. These are small organic farms that they are very focused on regenerative agricultural practices. that they use. And for us, it's an opportunity to support them in that endeavor, because I believe very strongly in being stewards of the land and trying to be responsible And so that community partnership is very, very important to me as a pillar of who we are as a company. And then the second piece of it is that I also believe that gives us a competitive advantage. So the grain that we're sourcing comes from an area in the state called the driftless region, which is a really unique area where the glacial sort of drift did not happen. And so it sort of looks like a, like, like like a sea on the country in the Midwest here where this happened. And you get some of the most interesting soil structures that you can find. And the crops that grow in those areas, you know, these are legacy crops, right, that had to adapt to those conditions. And so the flavor is different as it comes through in the process. And so for us being grain-to-glass, How do I take this really unique grain grown in a very, very particular area, geographically speaking, partner with these amazing farmers who are bringing these regenerative agricultural organic practices and pull that through so that we can highlight those flavors in the bottle of spirit? So vodka, for instance, most vodkas macro brand vodkas is how much flavor and odor can you pull out? This idea of being odorless and flavor neutral. And for us, our approach is the opposite. How much can we keep in? Yeah, I need it to still act like a vodka. I still need it to mix with soda water and be this beautiful vodka soda, right? But I also want it to have enough flavor that you would consider just bit, John? Well, I, you know, I, we try to be, I mean, that's, that's, that's the whole, you know, that's, that's a great word. We, we, it sort of ties into, we're trying to be the, the, the different colored boat in Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. So, Walk us through that journey of creating that winning coffee liqueur. What were the biggest experiments in the risks along the way? Yeah. The old crap moments Well, I mean, I chuckle because the coffee liqueur was a product that was born out of the idea of wanting to have a party at the cocktail lounge. So if your listeners are familiar with the movie The Big Lebowski, Jeff Bridges in that movie drinks white Russians the whole way through. And so in Wisconsin, at the time, this is actually no longer the case, but at the time, to serve a product in our cocktail lounge or tasting room area. It had to have been produced by us. So you couldn't buy anything, you just had to make it. And so I wanted to have this party, and we had our vodka, we had gins and the rest of it, but we didn't have a coffee liqueur. So I kind of On an off comment, I was talking to a guy that I know that owns a coffee shop, Kin Kin Coffee, and that led to an eight-month collaboration of R&D going down the rabbit hole of how do we create a coffee liqueur that is better than what's on the market currently, all to be able to have this party. It was interesting when you say like the, oh crap or aha moments. I mean, it was such a, you know, the old adage, fail cheaply and fail quickly. I mean, had I not been able to create this, it wasn't an expensive lift for me to do that as a company. This was started as a fun side project for a one night event. And so the risk was very low for us to get into this. Then we spent all the time and created this beautiful product that was never built, never meant for distribution, and had the party. The response to it was phenomenal. That's when the risk came. To really make this a product that was commercially viable, we needed to invest in some tanks and some equipment because all by hand, soaking the grounds and separating it out with chinois. It was a mess, right? So for this to actually scale up and be anything different than that, we had to kind of jump off the cliff, so to speak, and get some investment in equipment. And, you know, it's an amazing product for us. It started back in the day, less than one, when I went to distribution, less than 1% of our total sales to now it represents about 56% of our So it's- And you didn't even see that coming. You didn't Not at all. And I think about business in general is for me is one being willing to pivot in the- Yes. and then to seeing opportunities when they present themselves, right? I mean, if you see the opportunity and then pivot into it, I mean, coffee liqueur was not in my business plan. I mean, we wanted to be really, really focused on whiskey and still do, but whiskey is very, very expensive. And so you can only grow your whiskey program so quickly. And when this opportunity presented itself, we thought, well, let's approach it the way we approach everything else that we do is make the best possible version of this thing, talk about why it is the way it is and why we think it's a really good product and Isn't that interesting? I just think that's so amazing. So many times entrepreneurs, we get stuck in that moment of this is the way it's always been. Yeah. And someday, like Brian Tracy says, someday I'll take that chance. But you had the opportunity right in front of you. You saw it. You weren't scared away from it. You saw it. You went after it. And Oh, absolutely. I mean, it helped us grow you know, it led me to this winning double gold, which just means, you know, at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, a group of 42 or 50 judges, I believe, gave it a gold medal on a blind taste testing and that happening three years in a row to become platinum status, then that led me to meeting Drew Brees, who helps, who is a part of this company as a part of the coffee liqueur story, which then helped open up distribution in California. So there's these things that all kind of came from the coffee liqueur being what it is. And, you know, definitely a learning curve in terms of trying to take a product, up until the coffee, our sort of trajectory was pretty Wisconsin focused. Like we are in Wisconsin, we weren't really looking outside of our walls for distribution and that has So how far, now that you've embraced Well, hopefully at some point, you know, nationwide, right? We've got distribution partners lined up in California, Tennessee, like Nashville area and Texas, Austin. So same company in California statewide there, although they have statewide distribution opportunities, but we're focused on San Diego. So we're really, we're kind of like within each of these markets, We're not trying to be everywhere all at once. We're being pretty strategic about Well, it's interesting you said that, and I think it goes back to what you said earlier. If you do that, you can actually pivot and make the direction or So earlier we were talking a little bit, you talked about local partnerships, you know, the farmers and Kin-Kin. What have you learned the most from that? And why is it important for people to really look in their own backyard, like in your mind, like what, and what should people be thinking You know, probably the biggest benefit for me is that I've found myself within a community of people passionate about what they do and they bring expertise to the process in their specific areas. And they also, as we kind of build those relationships within the community, the networking opportunity, you know, there's some ancillary benefit that I hadn't really even thought about, but it's, you know, people who are passionate about what they're doing also know other people who are passionate about their own industries, and suddenly you're getting introduced, you're being networked, and things present themselves I think more often, right? I mean, it gets us from only being inwardly focused on who we are as a company, but also we are now thinking about growth in a different way in terms of our community partnerships. And it also just provides me another sounding board for problems that I'm trying to solve when I'm talking to people that are that have moved from being a simple commodities broker to someone who I'm friends, I've known for years, I'm friends with, they're business owners. So if I'm running into problems, there's someone I can bounce an idea off of, they're trusted friends, even though they're not running It sounds like what I have with the gentleman I meet with every Friday, accountability partner and your own version of peer group. I can't say how important that is to have another person or persons to network with to talk about, Hey, I got this challenge. And then they have another lens on that, that. that they can see that you may not have been aware of, but they can see your blind spots. So that's Yeah. And frankly, coming from a background in higher education, I mean, there's so many committees in community building that I was involved in there. I didn't expect to have as much as I do. outside of that world. So that was really refreshing. It's like, oh yeah, I'm finding other people who love what they do, are passionate about what they do, and are also just good business people. So some of them have been in business a heck of a lot longer than I have. So just getting little nuggets So right now, what would you say to a business owner right now? What are two or three of the biggest things you've learned right now that shaped your mindset and what you believe is possible and what you know you need to build your community and have people you can trust and lean on in terms of bouncing ideas off of, right? I mean, they don't operate in a silo. You're gonna drown. You're gonna have a really hard time of it. So I think finding people you trust, and they don't necessarily have to be business owners or owners in your business. They can just be people that you sit down with and really open what the challenges are and where you're trying to go. In my world, it's capital, capital, capital. It's capital intensive, right? So when you're kind of starting a business, I think it is easy to make spreadsheets. It's easy to look at numbers. It's easy to think about growth in a way that is a bit rose-colored glasses. So try to take those off. Catastrophize, I guess, is the right way. Think about what you're gonna do in business and divide it in half, at least, for the first year. And if you can Otherwise, try to adjust. And then the third, for me, is more So when you are, you know, if you're one person shop, that's where you start, right? That's where a lot of people start with you. Yeah. But I think, I think letting go of ego and hire people that are better at doing the things that you're not very good at doing. better than what you could ever do. And then get out of your own way and let them do their job. Your, your job as a, as a business owner and founder at some point becomes setting the mission, building community within your staff and providing kind of that, that culture arm, right. Is to make sure that everyone's moving in the same direction and has buy-in. And there comes a point where. If you can't let go and get out of the way as a business owner of people that are going to help grow That resonates with me, but I know what I learned from scouting and I seen this and it's in one of the, one of the troops that I associate with. They have a saying, which I've adopted now in my own business, train them, That's right. So much, I should start saying I loved it when I, I just captured that. And when I finally started to embrace that, everything changed my life. Yeah. You know, and you know that because it has for times I've talked with some other business owners, when I'm, you know, I'm going on a two week vacation to, to my cabin or my parents cabin, I should say up in the North woods over winter break. And I hear like, I don't know how, how could you possibly step away? And I, you know, for that long of a time, and, and of course, I'm not completely off the clock, right? I'm there's emails I'm checking, but from is the business running 100%? Like I, like I know exactly what you mean, John. I used to say I had a business that runs me, now I have a business that I run. Yeah. Yes. Right. Yeah. You get it, don't you? I do. Yeah. And we're all on this different path on our entrepreneurial journey, but you've figured it out. And it's great that you're sharing this because some people of what you said that some people will listen to what you said and maybe do a little self-reflection because a lot of times entrepreneurs are on an island. Yeah. And we were isolated. Sometimes we don't reach out and build those peer groups and and like what you've developed with your partnership, which is pretty incredible. It's nice. You know, you're very fortunate to have that. I am. Absolutely. I do not take it for granted. I guess the other thing you could say to that is at some point then you're at peace. If things are outside of your control and the business doesn't go the way you want, at least you tried it, you did it your way, and you tried to be successful in all the ways that you can to make a business move. Yeah, you showed up and you did the work. Yes. You did the work and you tried to do it in a way that was the right way to you. And that's all So that leads me to the next question to you. John, how do you personally define success as an entrepreneur and as a maker? What Much of what we've already talked about, right, in terms of being true to our ideals, in terms of how coming at an industry committed to being grain to glass is not the easy way to be a distillery. I mean, if your listeners don't know you know, the vast majority of distilleries in the United States, at least, purchase Spirit from, you know, maybe one or two producers in the country, and then they do something as simple as add water to it. Once you proof that spirit down to bottle proof, that is now yours and sell it. And so you skip out the farming, the mashing, the fermentation, the distillation, started distillery with just tanks, which is totally fine. But for me, one of the defining pieces of our success has been staying true to this idea of wanting to have a green glass distillery to be able to have a pathway through the kind of jungle of distilled spirits that represents the best of agricultural practices in Wisconsin. So that's one area of success in terms of the integrity of how we make the product. Another metric of success, a pillar, so to speak, would be that the community that I'm building within the walls of this business are as strong as any of the partnerships outside of the wall so that I've got my key people in place to do the job, to move the needle. For me, I see success when the vision I have is permeated through the entire organizational structure. people are talking about who we are as a company and where we're trying to go, I can hear it from everybody. They might say it a little differently, you know, when it comes to crafting the cocktails in the cocktail house, using syrups that they make in-house and fresh juice, like, that's my ideals, right? And all the kind of ways. And then, of course, the third is that we can Kind of grow in a way to hold on to those ideals and still be profitable as a business, which is the art. But it is hard. Um, but like, it sounds like to me, like you've set, you've set the standards, you know, um, you know, standards of personal and professional. Do you want to share a little bit, go in a little bit more, what personal professional standards that you won't count Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, I think this, products that we're making. And that is our North Star, right? I mean, if you don't have something to look at and guide your decisions, when the times are tough, you can run into trouble, you become rudderless. So for me, this idea of, you know, who are we as a company? true to the kind of ideals that we set forth. That to me is the number one thing guiding decisions. And frankly, once you've identified that sort of, you know, North Star truth statement about who we are, then any decisions become easier. You know, it doesn't make them, easy to implement, don't hear that, but it becomes easier to make the decision, right? There's a little gray area. There's not as much ambiguity to say, well, if we did it this way, a lot faster and quicker and cheaper, it's like, well, no, that's not who we are. And it starts to erode. It's an interesting thing for me, because if you start to do that, not only are you putting in jeopardy your what, I guess, how you're seeing as a company and business out in the community, but you're also eroding the community within your building, right? Like if I'm, I've set the standard for eight years, suddenly I'm changing that. Now the foundation of who we are starts to come under question for Yeah. Yeah. No, I've heard that said so many times in different ways and you, you set it up quite nicely. Um, um, where Well, ideally that we will have grown, grown from a company that's selling and, you know, the majority of our sales are in Wisconsin still, and we're seeing kind of our next biggest progress in California, but we, we moved from a company that is now kind of known at the national level from our products. And it doesn't necessarily have to be just the coffee liqueur, but that's kind of the tip of the spear for us. And so I, in the next five years, would like to see us at a national, as a national brand, still doing things the Yeah, I think you can see that coming. So, John, what's the best way for people to reach out Me, personally, they can certainly send an email. It's just my name at jm, I should say, at statelinedistillery.com. That's, They can find you on LinkedIn. Okay. And then do you do Instagram as Yes. So, right. You can reach, you can follow us, state line distillery. I highly recommend our audience to follow the journey. Everyone follow, get to know John and reach out and ask questions. We're going to make sure we have show notes, but I wanted to thank you, John, for being here today. Everybody has a story. And we're all put on this earth to help and share people. And your story can help our listeners. And it has. And I want to thank you. Oh, and I never... One thing we forgot. We I even did it a little bit. Yes, you did. First of all, thank you for having me. This has been a lovely conversation. And you know this as an entrepreneur. It's easy to get caught up in the 10,000 things in front of you at all times. And in any moments we can have to stop and slow down, I guess that's, that would be one parting piece of advice is find space to slow down and zoom out and get out of the rat race. That is the the million things Because then you'll get perspective and enjoy life because That's right. Part of that is singing in the How long have you been doing that Gosh, 10 years at this point. I sang my whole life. I've been a singer and now I'm blessed enough to have two young, and just because they love it. But I sang at the University of Wisconsin in the concert choir and the Singing Statesman, which was an all men's choir. And then I moved to Madison and I kind of thought my time singing in informal groups was over. And then this professional choir called the Madison Choral Project started and I tried out and got in and I've been singing with them ever since. So actually I'm I have rehearsal tonight. I have a request. I want to see some social media Sure, I will. If you go back far enough, there was a post once of me giving a tour wearing a tux, and that was my tux that I Love it, love it, John. Before we go, I want to ask you a couple, I love doing this with our guests, we'll do some rapid fire questions. Just first thing comes to your mind or your heart, okay? All right. Ready? Yeah. Grain or glass, what matters most? Grain. Okay. Gin Gimlet. Okay. One that it's not a lot of cleaning. Coffee or cocktail? First drink of the day? Oh, coffee. Scotland or Wisconsin. It's a close second though. Scotland's right Most underrated spirit category? Best music to distill to? We all want to Well, it goes back. So I'll say we listen to public radio out of Seattle because my production manager is from there. So it's a wide range. It could be anything from Dolly Parton Baritone singing or distilling? What's the harder discipline? Baritone singing. There you go. One word you hope people feel when they taste your spirits? John, I want to thank you very much for being here with us today. And everyone listening, please reach out to John and the links in the state line. Share the journey and let's continue to lift each other up. Appreciate you being Thanks for tuning in to The Adaptive Mindset. If you found value in today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who's ready to thrive in the digital age.