Let Helpers Take the Lead

A Look Back at 2020, A Look Ahead to 2021

At last, the most anticipated New Year’s Eve in memory has arrived.  

2020 began like any other. We made big plans. You probably did too.  

After years of work in an underground distillery, we were ready to surface with new things. A new design for our whiskey and brand. A new home. A new cocktail room sanctuary devoted to emulating a rebel monk and capturing the untamed flavors of the North Country. A first-ever cold-peated whiskey unearthed from the deepest layers of Minnesota’s ecological past.

Then, the pandemic hit. Then, the killing of George Floyd. Powerful protests. The boiling over of rage. Helicopters overhead. APVs in the streets. Pulling garbage cans into garages to take away hiding places for IEDs. Death threats against neighbors with Black Lives Matter signs. Night watches. Curfews on top of quarantines. Things we couldn’t have imagined happening in our city a year ago.  

Then, as bars and restaurants were being rebuilt, and we were preparing for our grand opening in time for the holidays, a massive spike of cases, full ICUs, and an economy-wide hospitality shutdown order.

In 2020, each of us lost so much that was precious to us. Family members. Friends. Businesses. Favorite places for eating, drinking, being together. Familiar routines. We lost time with people we love. We lost trust in institutions and leaders. All these losses grieved over at a physical distance from others feeling the same pain.

On the plus side, we lost some things that needed to get lost. The innocence James Baldwin condemned—the kind that keeps us blind to our neighbor’s suffering and how we might be implicated in its causes. The complacency that lets us accept wrong because doing right seems too hard or too risky.

What didn’t we lose? Hope. Together, we persevered. Together, we looked for ways to help. Together, we created new opportunities and uncovered new connections. As a community.

We teamed up with our incredible colleagues at Tattersall and Du Nord and made hand sanitizer by the tankerload, getting emergency supplies to hospitals, nursing homes, homeless shelters, domestic violence shelters, childcare centers, and first responders. Over 100,000 gallons to over 3000 different organizations on the frontlines of the pandemic.

We joined the food and grocery drop networks and cleanup crews that sprung up spontaneously in neighborhoods across the city. Neighbors with little giving to neighbors with nothing. Hard facts of love and self-determination destroying false narratives of hate and helplessness in the press and online.

We opened our new distillery, just not the way we planned. After 6 years of it being just James, Craig and me in a basement, we ecstatically welcomed Alexa, Jonathan, Lisa, Alec, Ally, Carly, Emmaline, Graham, Brian, and Taylor to the Brother Justus family. And we were privileged to partner with Chef Jametta Raspberry and her creation, House of Gristle, to create transporting eating and drinking experiences. Instead of serving you inside, we served you curbside. A foretaste of what is to come. More of you came that we could have imagined. We are so grateful. 

We’re using the extra time provided by the shutdown to do extra work preparing a place for you in the sanctuary. Thinking through every piece to make our space a kind of place we believe our community needs: a place that is fun and safe, a place full of flavor, joy, justice, and peace.

All that lies ahead in 2021.

I want to look behind to 2020 one last time to one of my most powerful memories. 

One of my tasks during the hand sanitizer work was reading through the requests that came in every day and triaging them according to public health impact. Reading those requests was humbling beyond words.

Here is what I learned.

Every day across Minnesota, from Red Wing to War Road, Pipestone to Grand Portage, Edina to Eagan, Minneapolis to St. Paul, people get up and go to work helping others. They care for the most vulnerable members of our families and communities. People in the extremities of illness and injury, old age, mental illness, disability, addiction, cycles of violence, the revolving doors of incarceration.  

They are the helpers.

Our community is full of them. The hidden heroes who hold everything together. You might be one of them.

May 2021 be the year we let the helpers take the lead. May 2021 and beyond belong to you.

Let Justus Flow,

Phil | Founder