Haines is set to have a third spirits tasting room when “The Northmen,” a locally made hard cider, soda and mead tasting room, opens later this year.
“We’re setting it up to look like a mix between an old Viking mead hall and a fishing tavern,” co-owner Chris Thorgesen said. “We’re using the old dock beams on the inside for structural support and ambience. We’re reutilizing some of Haines fishing industry (gear): old rope, block and tackle. We’ll have lit torches, a gothic door. It’ll be an interesting mixture that is different from what else we’ve got around here.”
His partners, Jeremy Groves and Chad Clark, have been dialing in their recipes for mead, a wine fermented with honey, along with hard ciders and hard sodas with flavors including cranberry pomegranate, devil’s club and vanilla apple.
“We’ll have hard sodas such as ginger beer, birch beer, lemon drop, stuff like that,” Thorgesen said. “We’ll probably have a couple options for nonalcoholic beverages, too.”
The trio recently secured its license for the establishment, but need to have each recipe for their drinks approved by the federal Alcohol Tax and Trade Bureau, he said.
The Northmen will be subject to the same requirements that distilleries and breweries are subject to: no live entertainment, restricted hours and no seating, among others. Thorgesen said patrons will be able to taste the beverages and purchase them in large quantities.
The tasting room will be located in the old King’s Store across from the Haines Sheldon Museum. Thorgesen said it’s been tough to get certain ingredients to Haines due to supply chain issues caused by the pandemic, but they’re working to have enough product on hand when it comes time to open in the next few months.
“Cruise ships or not, we’ll be open in the spring,” Thorgesen said.