Rifino Valentine on distilling alcohol, day trading, and doing things the right way

Hungry for More : an Epicurean's Dilemma

A bar napkin and a plan. That's how Rifino Valentine says his business, Valentine Distilling Co. was born. Of course there was a lot of work and thought that came later, but Rifino says he was ready for something different. He was day trading stocks on Wall Street at the time and quite successful, but he says it wasn't enough and he was really getting tired of what he calls the "mass production" of liquors. He moved back to his home state of Michigan in 2007, specifically Detroit, to open a craft distillery, one of the first in the nation at this time. He talks about the long list of challenges he faced, the successes in creating bourbon and vodka the way it used to be made, and why that's so incredibly important for him. He says it was never really about opening up a distillery, there was a much deeper meaning.