Hard Luck Candy establishes vodka distillery in St. Clair Shores

A small group of friends began selling flavor-infused vodka at their Grosse Pointe-based bar, the Hard Luck Lounge, a few years ago. That little experiment proved profitable with patrons asking to buy their own bottles of flavored vodka, giving birth to Hard Luck Candy.

"We saw such a demand for it that we started thinking, how can we get this into other bars and stores?" says Chris George, vice president of Hard Luck Candy. He co-founded the craft-liquor firm based in St. Clair Shores with Mike Mouyianis and Rob Nicholl.

Today the 3-year-old company produces 50 cases of flavored vodka a week for hundreds of locations across Michigan. Its products primarily consist of Red Fish (a berry flavor) and Root Beer Barrel. It will premiere two more flavors called Orange Dream (orange and vanilla) and Lemon Drop (sweet and sour) in May.

"We've had really good growth and really good support for our Michigan-made products," George says.

Hard Luck Candy vodka is distilled in Temperance, a 45-minute drive south from Detroit. It's sold at 700 locations (liquor stores, bars and restaurants) across Michigan. George and his partners plan to expand into six other states and Canada over the next year. That should prompt them to add two more employees to their team of five people and a couple of independent contractors.

Source: Chris George, vice president of Hard Luck Candy
Writer: Jon Zemke

Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.

Hard Luck Candy establishes vodka distillery in St. Clair Shores

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