Meet Northern Michigan’s Alchemist, Geri Lefebre

This article first appeared in Traverse Northern Michigan. Find this story and more when you explore our magazine library. Want Traverse delivered to your door or inbox monthly? View our print subscription and digital subscription options.

The Alchemist

It’s 2017 and Geri Lefebre and her husband, Nick, are opening Elk Rapid’s first distillery, Ethanology. Lefebre, a native Yooper and a nurse at the time, says the business checked a lot of boxes: they could stay close to home, make a living creating something they’re proud of and support their community. Their business plan was meant to be, essentially, a retirement project.

Becoming the head distiller of their operation—not to mention the first female head distiller in the state—was not on Lefebre’s to-do list. But that’s exactly what she did.

“I came to distilling more or less by necessity; it’s not even a super romantic notion,” Lefebre reveals. “Now that I’m there, I can’t imagine doing anything else.”

Necessity, it turns out, was the mother of reinvention.

The couple wanted their distiller to take stock in environmental issues and agricultural sustainability, and simply put, to be passionate. But Lefebre didn’t see that trailblazing vision in the one-recipe, one-grain mindset some interviewees were bringing to the table.

So, she called off the search. She threw herself into studying distillation, clocking 12,000 hours of study even while continuing to work as a nurse and helping transform the Ames Street space that would become their production facility and tasting room. It was a slow learning process—she pieced together documents from the early 1900s, poring through pages of textbooks on molecular biology, chemistry and mechanical and electrical safety, and over time found mentors in the industry.

“I’m the type of personality that once I commit to something, I don’t back down until I’m successful in that commitment,” she says.

Today, the 35-year-old alchemist champions Northern Michigan’s farmers and foragers through her craft, utilizing only hyperlocal ingredients sourced from within a 33-mile radius of the distillery to create all of their spirits, and the colorful cocktails imbued with them. You’ll find their producers listed on each bottle: vodka made from red winter wheat from Valley View Farm in East Jordan, gin using the same wheat (but with foraged botanicals from Bear Earth Herbals in Kingsley), whiskey made from Frumentum blue corn from Vermeersch Farms in Central Lake, and their own proprietary creation, Mel—distilled honey from Cherry Ke Farms in Kewadin.

“Our goal has never really been to be the biggest or to be available on every shelf,” Lefebre says. “It’s to take the local harvest and turn it into something beautiful and share that with as many people as we feasibly can.”

Despite the obstacles their business model presents, they’ve been able to keep their commerce within their own community.

“I want to see small farms survive and thrive in Michigan. I know things are tough. Competition is deep, [not to mention] the effects that are being felt from climate change,” Lefebre says. “We can grow wonderful fruit and grain on the 45th parallel, and it just makes sense to support the infrastructure for farming that already exists here. We have this really extraordinary opportunity to create our own self-sustaining industry, right in our backyard.”

Meet All 7 North Stars of Northern Michigan

These women are connecting the dots, bending the norms and lighting the road ahead. Get the March issue of Traverse Northern Michigan magazine to view our full International Women's Month feature, or view all 7 stories separately at the links below.

Get to know more Northern Michigan North Stars:

• Meet the Protector of Northern Michigan, Kira Davis
• Meet Northern Michigan’s Liaison, Beatriz Moreno
• Meet Northern Michigan’s Joy Creator, Heather Spooner
• Meet Northern Michigan’s Alchemist, Geri Lefebre
• Meet Northern Michigan’s Conservationist, Liz Petrella McKellar
• Meet the Dream Believer of Northern Michigan, Laura Galbraith
• Meet Northern Michigan’s Anchor, Jennifer Shorter