[Columbus] Ohio heartland now home to distillery and winery

Congratulations to my Facebook friend, Brady Konya

clipped from nky.cincinnati.com Ryan Lang is a fourth-generation distiller and proud of it. Do the math, and somebody in that family line must have run into the long governmental arm of Prohibition. "My grandmother Nellie was a rum runner and went to jail for a while," Lang says of his family then in Williamsburg, Pa. "They made everything - apple jack, white lightning. I learned a little bit (about distilling) from my grandfather - and where he hid all the stuff." Michael Elmer (left) says he has achieved his dream job at Via Vecchia Winery. Now settled in Columbus, Lang continues the family business with his partner in vodka, Brady Konya. But it's all legal, sanctioned by a rare license from the Ohio liquor board to both manufacture spirits and sell them onsite at Middle West Spirits. Brady Konya (pictured) and Ryan Lang carefully distill the tastiest vodka they can at Middle West Spirits in Columbus. Middle West Spirits has renovated an old transmission repair shop into its distillery. Plans are to add solar panels. "Ryan brings street cred to the business," Konya says. "And that long line of distillers was part of our inspiration." Middle West is just one reason to raise a toast in the capital this summer. The distillery is joined by a relocated Via Vecchia Winery in Columbus' historic downtown Brewery District. Middle West Spirits Lang and Konya launched Middle West on July 1 in a converted transmission repair shop on the north edge of Columbus' Short North district. They sold out their inaugural run of OYO vodka at $34.95 per hand-numbered, hand-waxed bottle that first weekend. Now they're encouraging drinkers to request OYO in their cocktails and at liquor stores. Both men are transplants to Ohio, Lang from a career in engineering and industrial manufacturing in North Carolina, Konya from work in advertising and product development in Seattle. They jumped into the local foods movement with gusto: they use soft red winter wheat from northeast Ohio farms; applied a stylized state tree, the Buckeye, to their bottles; and christened their brand a version of the Iroquois name for Ohio, OYO. They pronounce OYO as "Oh WHY OH," which pays homage to the Ohio State University call and response cheer, "OH - IO." Beyond the initial run of vodka, Middle West is looking toward infused vodkas this fall, "where we can highlight regional fruits and produce," Konya says. "We can have local supply chains." One secret to their streamlining production to eight days is a sparkling new Kothe pot-and-column distiller from Germany, which Konya says is the first vodka-specific distillation system in the U.S. Middle West's new still can do the equivalent of 37 distillations in one run, preserving flavor along the way. Even so, Lang selects only about 10 percent of each batch to be bottled, rejecting the rest. "We go for the hearts of the run, the nectar in the middle of the batch that's sweet and pure," Konya says. The resulting OYO, Lang claims, is a vodka that "you can sip - alone - and not add anything to it." Via Vecchia Winery Via Vecchia in Columbus' old German Brewery District is where wine meets beer. Partners Michael Elmer, Marty Huster and Paolo Rosi have renovated an 1880s brick brewery warehouse into a multipurpose fermentation area, events center and weekend wine-tasting spot. They'll pour the four Via Vecchia vintages they've been making since the pals stomped their first grapes in Rosi's basement in Powell, Ohio, in 2005. Via Vecchia is "the old way" in Italian, and that's precisely what the trio wants to preserve. They buy grapes from California, then blend in the minimum amount of sulfites. The urban vintners add no yeast, sugar, coloring, enzymes or preservatives, relying on the sediment in the wine and the phases of the moon to filter the wine naturally. "We get a lot of push-back from wineries in Ohio because we bring in grapes from out of state," Elmer says. "We tell them we're an Old World winery that just happens to be in Ohio." The four Via Vecchia wines tend to follow natural progression of the seasons: Adamo is spring-light, from a blend of sangiovese and cabernet franc grapes. Trovato is a summery light red wine from sangiovese and pinot noir grapes. Autumn is represented by Jorro-ma, a rich syrah, and winter by Trouve, a full-bodied cab blended from cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot whole grapes. All the wines sell for $24.99 a bottle; reserves are $39.99. The partners will pour their wines in tastings set for 6-10 p.m. Friday and Saturday evenings. Tasters can pair the wine with antipasto from Sidari in Cleveland, then round out the mini-meal with Columbus' own Crimson Cup coffee and Sugardaddy brownies. The winery is a no-debt, pay-as-you-go proposition, so the owners and their families scrub, paint and tile as part of their sweat equity. Brick peeks through old plaster on the barrel room wall, and a disco ball from the warehouse's nightclub days still hovers over the studio. . They painted and tiled around the original limestone foundations and cast-iron pillars, but "we want to keep it somewhat raw, because it is a warehouse," Elmer says. "It's got to have that industrial feel." Their space went from 1,400 square feet in Rosi's basement to 8,300 square feet in the old Hosters Brewery warehouse. The new digs will allow Via Vecchia to double production to a projected 10,000 bottles this year. The Via Vecchia partners intend to paint over the scarlet-and-gray Ohio State colors on the outside, but they're working on the inside for now.