It Starts With a Trickle

A trickle indeed! Distilling for essential oils is indeed a workshop in patience. Each batch requires scrubbing the equipment, assembling the raw product, balancing the still perfectly to allow the phase separator to function properly, applying low and slow heat, and waiting for the beautiful drip, drip, drip, of the oil when it all works as it should. Though it is not physically demanding, it is a slow process.

We are excited to be shipping our first products sold via the website today, as traffic to the site has been steady and growing. Word of mouth has also been working in our favor, with sales of product among folks who have heard about the products and just had to give them a try. This week we have plans for our Houghton/Keweenaw sales tour, introducing our products to the wide variety of shops in our area. We are very optimistic they will catch on in this area in the retail setting.

On deck today is the first batch of balsam in the still. We have a huge amount of balsam in our woods, and will be pleased if it results in products anywhere near as wonderful as our Northern White Cedar. High bar to reach! I am estimating pricing it a bit lower than the cedar products, as there are more vendors of these products out there on the net. But as with the cedar products, we still are offering wild sourced, hand picked, and small batch production.

Finally, I'd like to close with a comment about walking in the woods. That, of all the nice aspects of starting this business, is the most fulfilling part. Each batch requires a journey into our woods, and is allowing me to become familiar with areas of the land I have little explored. Becoming familiar with a piece of forest is a wonderful thing. It rapidly comes to feel like home. You begin to see things you'd likely not notice on a stroll through. You find features you could find no other way but in wandering. That is still the best part, the walk in the woods.