These days, it seems like a bottle from a new craft distillery pops up on the shelves at the liquor store every other day, all trying desperately to stand out from the crowd. But it wasn’t always so; back in 2004, North Shore Distillery opened as Illinois’s first small distillery and had to hustle, lobby, and work like heck just to get their bottles onto shelves. These days, North Shore is an established brand, with one of my favorite gins on the market, but let’s go back in time 20 years and learn about the history of the distillery.

The founders of North Shore Distillery, Sonja and Derek Kassebaum, both had corporate jobs back in the early 2000s, with Derek running a consulting firm working with startups and Sonja working as the global head of HR for a company. Sonja didn’t love her job, as in the early 2000s, the tech boom was ending and she spent a lot of her time laying off employees around the world. “My nickname in Canada was the angel of death,” Sonja remembers. As part of his consulting work, Derek would write business plans on the side, for fun, for potential startups (yup, it sounds strange), and the idea of a small distillery just grabbed his attention. Neither of them had any background in the liquor business, but they decided to leave their jobs and give it a try.

They formed the company and ordered their still, nicknamed Ethel, in October 2004. It’s not easy to be the first of anything, let alone the first player in a highly regulated, yet also antiquated, industry. “We were following laws from 1933,” says Sonja. For example, they had to buy all of their equipment, commission a handmade still, and set up their entire business before they could even apply for a license — which they didn’t know would get approved. It was a huge risk, but it paid off, as in May 2005, they were allowed to actually try to make liquor, and in October 2005, they sold their first bottle.

But that doesn’t mean it suddenly got easier. Sonja called every single liquor wholesaler in the state, and not a single one would return her calls; craft spirits just weren’t a thing yet, and the people who actually sold liquor weren’t interested. North Shore had to go through the process of becoming its own wholesaler, which meant that Sonja had to go bar to bar, store to store, pounding the pavement to try to sell their products a bit at a time. “I still vividly remember the first few days I went out to try to be a salesperson, I’ve never been a salesperson before,” says Sonja. “My first day I sold five cases and I was blown away.” Sadly, every day of sales wasn’t so great: “There’s a restaurant I still feel trauma walking into; the owner kept telling me he would meet me, and then didn’t show up. He would always reschedule and then he would never be there. After the third time, the people at the bar told me he did that on purpose to make fun of us.” In the early days, because of those 1933 laws, North Shore wasn’t allowed to have a tasting room, give samples, or even sell a bottle out of their offices.

Initially, North Shore Distillery made two products: North Shore Vodka and North Shore Gin #6 (named because it was the sixth gin recipe they tried). But it took a long time to get to those products. “Derek was relentless in his experimentation; we made a lot of stuff that was so-so or terrible,” laughs Sonja. “We made lots and lots and lots of iterations, and lots of stuff got dumped.”

Slowly, the business ramped up as drinkers around the region discovered their products. Sonja credits a piece in Chicago magazine (yay!) as one of the breakthrough moments for them. “The dining critic did a review of gins and said our Gin #6 was the best out of all of them,” recalls Sonja. “All of a sudden all of the Binny’s locations carried our stuff and people wanted it.”

More products followed. North Shore Gin #11 (my favorite) was originally a product for a private dining club in Vernon Hills, and it was so popular that they put it on the market. It’s named #11 as an inside reference to Spinal Tap. “We were turning the juniper up to 11,” Sonja explains. Then aquavit came next. “We think we were the first people to make aquavit in the United States,” she says. North Shore released the second U.S.-made absinthe in 2007, and have since moved onto whiskey, flavored vodkas, and lots of small batch experimental spirits, including offerings distilled from things like mustard seeds and bok choy.

Now, North Shore Distillery has a huge bar and tasting room and they are hosting a series of events to celebrate their 20th anniversary. On October 5, they are hosting a party at the tasting room with live music, limited-edition spirit releases, and cocktails. Keep an eye out for other events throughout the year, including a special spirit brewed in collaboration with Hopleaf, a party at Weegee’s, (which has a collection of all of their past limited-edition spirits), and more.

After all of these years, North Shore Distillery keeps experimenting, creating new products, and making new fans. “In our hearts, we are artists, and spirit is our medium,” Sonja says.