Boyan Kalusevic grew up spending summers in Serbia and Croatia where he learned the family tradition and process for making apricot brandy or "rakia." When he was able, he opened Dorćol Distilling + Brewing Co. with the goal to make the best fruit distillate in the United States and great beer as well. The brewery has become an anchor for the revitalization of an entire part of San Antonio. Join us to hear his stories and learn more about his products. Their current awards include: 2018 Top 100 - Best Distillery - San Antonio Express-News 

2017 Best of San Antonio - SA Current

2016 Gold Medal, Best of Category - LA International Spirits Competition - 92 pts - World's highest rated brandy

2015, 2017 Best of the City - San Antonio Magazine

2014 Critics' Choice Award - Best Local Spirit or Beer - San Antonio Express-News

2014 Gold Medal - Chicago's World Spirits Championships - 90 pts; Exceptional. Highest rated American brandy of 2014.

Transcript:

Justin Hill: Hello, and Bienvenidos, San Antonio. Welcome to The Alamo Hour, discussing the people, places, and passion that make our city. My name is Justin Hill, a local attorney, a proud San Antonian, and keeper of chickens and bees. On The Alamo Hour, you'll get to hear from the people that make San Antonio great and unique and the best-kept secret in Texas. We're glad that you're here.

[applause]

All right, welcome to this episode of The Alamo Hour. As promised, it's going to be a good one. Boyan Kalusevic is with us. He is-- I was going to say head distiller and brewer but I don't think that's true. You're one of the distillers at Dorćol Distilling & Brewing.

Boyan Kalusevic: Correct. I'm one of the co-founders and one of the distillers.

Justin: Thank you for being here.

Boyan: Thank you for having me.

Justin: I wanted to get you on. I've met you a while back from one of your-- I feel like it would be overstretching to say a business partner, but a business partner and a friend of ours introduced us a while back. What you all do, I think is a work of passion, and I'm a sucker for that. Also, what you all have done for the part of town that you all are involved in, has really been transformational. I wanted to get you on here to talk about a whole part of town that a lot of people probably don't even know what's going on. A whole project and a passion that you're involved in that probably a lot of people don't know about as well. To start, I do a top 10 list, so I'm going to walk you through this. I did not warn you or tell you what I'm going to ask you, but it's all fun.

Boyan: Let's do it.

Justin: As we're doing this, we're enjoying some of your fruit of your loins.

Boyan: How about that?

Justin: Your Kinsman Rakia gold medal-winning--

Boyan: Multiple gold medal winners. Just let me talk about it. [laughs]

Justin: You need to update the website because I only saw one gold medal on the website.

Boyan: That was the world's highest-rated. We left America's highest-rated from a year before.

Justin: Okay, all right. You all have even been in Playboy, I think, right?

Boyan: Can you believe that?

Justin: Yes, [chuckles] well--

Boyan: It's impressive.

Justin: [chuckles] I've seen some of the things in Playboy, but you all is the best of the things I've seen in Playboy. [crosstalk] Okay, Boyan, when and why did you move to San Antonio? We're on our top 10 list now. This is a little color commentary, and then we'll get into some stuff you all are doing.

Boyan: Let's do it. Mom and dad moved me down. I was in high school and dad's job got him relocated to San Antonio.

Justin: Where'd you move from?

Boyan: Seattle.

Justin: What year did you move down?

Boyan: '98.

Justin: You've been here a while.

Boyan: A little bit.

Justin: We are currently in the time of COVID, the time when branching out is harder for us to do. We're making a conscious effort to try to do a lot of takeout and try to support some of our friends. Are there any restaurants you're currently trying to order to-go from or try to support?

Boyan: Absolutely. We'll start with the immediate neighborhood. Il Forno does an incredible pizza.

Justin: Let's limit this to 10. I feel like you're going-- [laughs]

Boyan: Hold on, that's not possible. I plead the fifth then. We got to plug everybody in that's a supportive--

Justin: Il Forno's fantastic.

Boyan: Il Forno's fantastic.

Justin: [unintelligible 00:03:08] restaurants are all incredible.

Boyan: Clementine up in Castle Hills is incredible. The guys at Outlaw Kitchen, Chef Paul does an incredible job and Peggy's awesome. You've got Cherrity Bar, you've got folks over at-- Who else am I--? Dakota East Side, that's another remodeled project on, was at Hackberry, I think-- [crosstalk]

Justin: One of your really good friends, Jody Newman, was talking about how Dakota East Side is one of her favorite places going right now.

Boyan: How about that?

Justin: Yes.

Boyan: We have something in common.

Justin: Yes. You actually just listed a bunch of places that I have not heard listed on the show. I've never been to Clementine's.

Boyan: You need to change that immediately. You're not going to get there today but you can do to-go order. They do a Feed Me, that's absolutely incredible.

Justin: I haven't been to Outlaw either.

Boyan: Oh, my God.

Justin: I know. I consider myself like a-- [crosstalk]

Boyan: It's literally down the street from here. The chef used to teach at The Culinary Institute. He does a great job.

Justin: Is it over off the strip?

Boyan: No, it's on the--

Justin: It's by the theater.

Boyan: North forest. Yes, right up from the theater.

Justin: They had something going the other day and I wanted to go but I didn't.

Boyan: Get there real quick, man.

Justin: Okay.

Boyan: Great food.

Justin: We did Soluna yesterday, we're doing SoHill tonight.

Boyan: Excellent.

Justin: We keep trying to help out.

Boyan: Don't forget to order the HighWheel that comes along with it.

Justin: Will they deliver that?

Boyan: Of course, they will.

Justin: Did you deliver any tonight with your interview?

Boyan: I didn't. I heard that it was already here. [crosstalk]

Justin: We have Kinsman here, which I purchased retail to support local.

Boyan: Excellent. Thank you. [crosstalk]

Justin: We support our local friends. Hidden gems in San Antonio. This is the off-the-wall places you tell people that are visiting San Antonio, "You got to go do this. This is not going to be in your guidebook."

Boyan: I agree.

Justin: What are some of your hidden gems?

Boyan: Wow.

Justin: Second Saturday, for sure.

Boyan: It has to be.

Justin: Even people that live here I think-- [crosstalk]

Boyan: I don't know how they don't know about it.

Justin: A lot of people don't know about it.

Boyan: It happens every Second Saturday of every month.

Justin: [laughs]

Boyan: It's an awesome little art walk. It involves a couple of square blocks on South Flores and Lone Star. There's a set of double tracks. There are probably a dozen and a half, maybe more studios, some live in spaces. There are great galleries, all artist-owned and operated, so-- [crosstalk]

Justin: I'm not going to say hit or miss but it's kind of a different mix of people every single time. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

Boyan: Indeed, yes. It depends on the opening. I think it depends on the month in the year kind of thing. Christmas is always a little bit slower, but Contemporary Art Month is every March and that's always a time to schedule a Second Saturday in the neighborhood. You got your Ruby City right up the street, out Camp Street and Flores. There's a ton of really nice stuff that's happening.

Justin: We haven't covered this. You all are on South Flores at the tracks, probably down from South Alamo, about half a mile?

Boyan: Maybe even less, yes.

Justin: That whole area has this big Second Saturday celebration. It's a party. Dorćol is the anchor to this party every single time. There's a bunch of artists that open up their shops and open up their galleries for people.

Boyan: It's a lot of fun.

Justin: That's your hidden gem.

Boyan: That's our hidden gem. We'll take it.

Justin: All right. You were very kind to open up your distillery to my law firm, one Fiesta. We shut down our office one afternoon, every Fiesta and we try to just go enjoy. We Fiesta, we eat and drink, and get to know each other.

Boyan: That's right.

Justin: You opened it up and you really showed us how it all works, and the passion about it, and how you got into it, and how it works. I consider myself kind of well read and I didn't know a lot of these things. What is the hardest part of distilling? Because I know brewing, people talk about getting in and getting all the old spent grains out and how big of a pain that is. What about distilling?

Boyan: That's a tough question.

Justin: Don't blow up.

Boyan: 10% of your job is the distilling, the 90% is attempting to run the business and clean. I think ultimately, peddling a very nichey product. We've got an ODV of a brandy of fruit distillate on the Southside of San Antonio. We obviously didn't look at demographics or attempt to figure out, does San Antonio need a $60 bottle of a fruit distillate? It turns out, like you said, in 2016, we won a double gold in LA. It was the world's highest-rated brandy. Playboy wrote about it. These are things that, how do you spread the word and get the support from the home crowd? That's probably the hardest part.

Justin: I love how I feel like we're talking on different worlds. I meant literally what's the hardest part of distilling and you talked about owning a distillery?

Boyan: Physically?

Justin: No, it's a fine answer. I asked a bad question. I should be a better lawyer.

Boyan: [laughs]

Justin: What is the moment that you knew that you all were really onto something with this Kinsman? I'm not a liquor drinker.

Boyan: I'm still trying to discover that, man. I'm still trying to discover that.

Justin: I mean, there had to be-- Was it the gold medal? Was it the Playboy? What was the moment where you're like, "Shit, man, we're onto something here."?

Boyan: It's funny. We opened Friday the 13th, December of 2013.

Justin: Okay, ominous.

Boyan: That was entirely coincidental.

Justin: Did you say December 13th?

Boyan: Yes. Friday, December 13th.

Justin: My sister's birthday.

Boyan: Aww. Make sure you bring her down for her next birthday. Hopefully, we'll be back and open.

Justin: I'll tell Natalie the party is for her.

Boyan: Entirely. It won't be our 7th anniversary. It'll be her birthday party.

Justin: 42, I don't know. I don't know how old my sister is-- [crosstalk]

Boyan: You don't ask a lady how old she is. [laughs]

Justin: I'd say. The moment you knew you all were on to something.

Boyan: The moment we knew. We opened on that Friday and a couple of days behind the bar were actually Don Marsh who's the barman and the proprietor at 1919 and Nick Kenna, who was formerly of 1919 currently over at the Blue Box group. He ended up being our first employee. We opened on that day to a great reception and a ton of folks. We looked at it and said, "Oh, my God, people are here."

When folks asked, "Is this a soft opening?" Or "When was your soft opening?" We'll say, "Well, this is it." We're 250 deep and we've got two professionals behind the bar. The next day was Second Saturday. The idea that folks actually showed up to this thing we put together was a testament, I think, to their willingness to try something new and different and us going, "Wow, people responded."

Justin: The whole time I've lived in San Antonio, which is only 12 years, at this point, I have consistently heard, "Yes, but not in San Antonio," and then it succeeds. That, "Nobody will buy that," and then it succeeds. "No one will live there," and then it succeeds. It's been this weird-- It's a city that has a hard time moving forward but when it's in, it's in.

Boyan: We're an underrated community. It doesn't help-- I've got a cellphone that's a 512 number from my college days. People always ask, "You're in San Antonio, why? It's like, "Because it's hometown," right? "Why not?" I think there's a ton of transformation, citywide that's led to this San Antonio today.

Justin: Yes, and you all are a part of it, revitalizing a part of town. We're going to talk about that some more. The next question, number six question. One thing you all do, which I think is fantastic, and I'm sure so many people appreciate it that you all don't even know, but you all have like a rotating gallery of artists that you highlight within your tasting room and your brewery every 30-- You corrected me, in a very terse way earlier, about how it rotates every 30 days. Who picks the art and what's the idea behind that?

Boyan: A ton of focus on local. I think we've had one, maybe one or two artists over the last seven years that are out of the San Antonio city limits. Curated by Nina Hassel. She's the director at the Contemporary Art Month. CAM is a big part of what we do, not just around the month of March, but which is the contemporary art month, but instead, she does an awesome job of highlighting local talent in all kinds of mediums, and we get to just kind of give up our walls and let them showcase their art.

Justin: That's great. Some of the art in our office comes from an artist that I got in contact with who was at your place.

Boyan: Awesome. [crosstalk]

Justin: I was looking at the art and found him on Facebook. I didn't go through the right channels, I'm sure and then it dawns the walls now.

Boyan: That's exciting, man. We've never made a dime off of an exhibit. We've processed everything for the artist and in the name of the artist that we're--

Justin: Very cool.

Boyan: We appreciate their participation.

Justin: Again, it just makes you so much better than our mutual friend, that's also one of the business partners of you. What--

Boyan: [laughs] We was friend loosely apparently.

Justin: [laughs] Well, he knows we love him.

Boyan: He knows. [laughs]

Justin: You're a small business owner which comes with its own set of complications. You opened a distillery at a time when that was difficult to do, it was not as accepted as it is now, and you opened in a underserved part of town. You have a unique perspective, so what do you think is maybe one of the biggest challenges facing San Antonio as we grow and we are pulled forward?

Boyan: Maybe focus is one of those things. We got to make sure we retain, if it's in a certain area of town, or a certain neighborhood, or certain projects, there's a ton of competing interests. Attention span for folks is sometimes short. Obviously, the earning potential, the employment component right now is an interesting time just because of the pandemic, but long term, if we were to focus on the infill projects that getting that downtown redeveloped, getting a little bit of that footprint, widening it out both sides of the river. You've got the projects on the--

Justin: Salado Creek helps a lot.

Boyan: The creek, right, the expansions. I think they broke down on Phase 2. Phase 2 is-- [crosstalk]

Justin: I think that's right, yes.

Boyan: I think it's going to require a lot of people coming together, the bond being successful, the projects moving forward, and some of the developments actually come into fruition.

Justin: It was funny, I had somebody on the show and I said, "What's one of the things that makes San Antonio different?" They said, "San Antonio still votes on bond projects." A lot of cities have turned against them but San Antonio still wants to spend money out of pocket to make our city better, which I think that's unique and it's great. Do you do any Fiesta stuff and how long before Dorćol has their own event?

Boyan: It takes a minute. It's a few years ago and probably would have been maybe '16, we did our damn best to participate as one of the official beers in the German [unintelligible 00:13:57], because the Kölsch is a very classic German beer from Cologne. It turns out that large distributors, one in particular that has that contract,-

Justin: They did not