In a small building on highway 162 in Pontoon Beach, Illinois is a booze business getting bigger by the minute. A clear liquid that started filling Carl Levering's mind back in 2008.
"It was three years in the kitchen, you name it he tried it," explains Travis Mcdonald, the manager, janitor and a man who does just about every other job around here.
He eventually ended up using corn.
"This is how we start with ground corn," Levering says picking up a jar.
By November of 2011 he was bottling his hand crafted vodka.
"So every bottle you've ever seen on a shelf, at a restaurant, has come from this small location in Pontoon Beach," Mcdonald adds.
So far that's more than 70,000 bottles.
"We have kind of a cult following with our vodka which has been a nice surprise," he goes on to say.
So have all the ribbons and medals.
"In 2012 we won the San Francisco World Wine and Spirits competition we took a gold medal home there. There was over 1,200 competitors from 62 different countries," Mcdonald explains.
Not only did this team set out to create a clean, crisp vodka.
"You can make a martini with it, you can make a vodka Red Bull with ours, you can make a vodka cranberry, we're not pretentious we want to you to enjoy our product how you want to enjoy it."
They wanted it to be 100 percent American made and that's exactly what Mastermind Vodka is. The bottles are made in Park Hills, Missouri, the corks come from Detroit.
"The plastic sealant that we dip our bottles in comes from Montana," Mcdonald points out.
And every single bottle is hand filled, hand corked, hand taped and hand dipped. It is a small spirit company growing one sip at a time, a drink made in Pontoon Beach with pride.
