Buttermilk wants to sell specially-branded bourbon at its Naperville restaurant but needs city approval for a variance and a code amendment before it can proceed, city staff say.
Owner Katie Kouvelis took the first step last week when she broached the concept at a meeting of the Naperville Liquor Commission.
“I love bourbon, I love cocktails, and I’d just like to incorporate cocktails in the restaurant,” Kouvelis said in an interview this week. Once Buttermilk can officially sell the specialty spirit, she’d like to start offering a “featured cocktail” with the liquor.
Kouvelis has been thinking about adding specially-branded liquor to the restaurant’s repertoire since 2021, she said.
The product is the result of a partnership between Buttermilk and Journeyman Distillery in Three Oaks, Michigan, she said. The liquor itself is Journeyman Featherbone Bourbon Whiskey, which will be sold in glass bottles etched with the name “Buttermilk.”
When the opportunity to partner with Journeyman arose, Kouvelis traveled to Three Oaks, took a private tour of the distillery and sampled the spirits they produce, she said. Out of those, “you pick out which one you like and which one you think tastes the best, and then that’s your barrel,” Kouvelis said.
“They bottle it up for you, and they put your label etched on the side,” she said. “So it’s your own private barrel.”
Buttermilk took home 19 cases with six bottles apiece, Kouvelis said. Ultimately, the hope is to sell the bourbon at not only Buttermilk’s Naperville location at 1715 Freedom Drive, but at all of its cafés. That includes Buttermilk’s original location in Geneva, which opened in 2015, as well as a Vernon Hills location that opened in 2020 and a soon-to-open café in Downers Grove.
Buttermilk has already started to sell the etched bottles in Vernon Hills, according to Kouvelis. A liquor license was granted by the Vernon Hills Liquor Control Commission in December, Vernon Hills Community Development Director Andrew Jennings confirmed in an email Monday.
Buttermilk, a breakfast and lunch restaurant at 1715 Freedom Drive in Naperville, is seeking a liquor license that will allow it to sell its own brand of specialty bourbon for customer purchase. (Erin Hegarty/Naperville Sun)
In Naperville, Buttermilk will have to go win the approval of both the Liquor Commission and the Naperville City Council for the Class S1 “Specialty Food and Liquor Shop” license it requires. That license allows for the retail sale of craft beer, wine, craft distilled whiskey or small batched whiskey in its original package for off-site consumption, code states.
Buttermilk will need a text amendment to city code increasing the number of available S1 licenses, currently capped at one. The existing license is held by Tasting deVine Cellars in downtown Naperville, according to city staff.
They also need a variance in the on-premise requirements stipulated in an S1 license, which state that “not less than 40% of the premises shall be designated for the sale of specialty foods.”
While Buttermilk pursues approvals, Kouvelis is already thinking about where the restaurant can go from here.
“I actually had dinner with my liquor reps (last week), and I was like, so what’s next? What can we do?” said Kouvelis, who is also considering nonalcoholic products.
“We’re hoping to get into a lot of retail, not just with liquor,” she said. They may branch out into selling “swag,” she said, and could “get into manufacturing as well.”
As they head into their 10th anniversary, “we’re going to start pushing franchising and hopefully (start) expanding outside the Midwest,” Kouvelis said.
