DULUTH – The boreal forest-inspired gin line of Vikre Distillery is made just yards from Lake Superior, a creation of a couple who knew little about liquor production and Minnesota’s archaic industry regulations when it opened the city’s first micro-distillery a decade ago.
But Emily and Joel Vikre knew they wanted to live here, and make something that was both high quality and deeply local, using flora foraged from the area. Now, Vikre gin is found as far away as northern California, and a slew of other spirits round out their growing business. In 2023, the Canal Park distillery sold more than 12,000 cases of bottled spirits, including its gin, whiskey, vodka and aquavit, all done with its staff of 40. That case count is up fourfold from its first year in business, 2014.
“I think a lot of us get into it not even realizing how complicated and dominated by huge, highly monied interests, or how tiered and regulated it is,” Emily Vikre said. “It was such a crash course.”
Vikre closes out 10 years in business as one of Duluth’s most glittering gems. But surviving as a small business here, especially one that makes artisan cocktails and liquor, has been tough, said Vikre, 41, who has a doctoral degree in food policy. The decade was punctuated by attempts to change liquor laws, the COVID-19 pandemic — wherein Vikre gave out sanitizer when it couldn’t operate its cocktail room — and an employee unionization push.

Last year, in the wake of the pandemic, she and several other female entrepreneurs in Duluth penned a manifesto of sorts that shared the pressure small businesses are under to project success and vibrancy at all times, especially on social media. If they don’t, they jeopardize sales and other financial opportunities, they wrote in a blog post, but margins are slim, business laws are tough to navigate and balance for women is “impossible” to attain.
“We enter business wide-eyed, caring so much about what we make and the community we make it in and for,” the piece reads, but passion, exposure and ubiquity aren’t profit.
“‘Buy local’ is not simply a nicety at this point,” they wrote.
Small businesses in places the size of Duluth need to make numbers align when it comes to a limited population and spending base, Emily Vikre said in an interview earlier this month. And the company’s commitment to high quality ingredients and environmentally sound production increases costs and decreases profit, she said. The company also contends with a perception that Duluth is on the periphery of Minnesota’s destination cocktail makers — most on the nation’s radar are in the metro area.