Being a member of any team, whether athletic or business, teaches you how to communicate and, in some cases, how to be a leader. Sometimes when an athlete’s career is over, it is time to look for another path in life, to find another passion. 

Tim Grovenburg, a 2006 New Trier graduate, knew that his football career wouldn’t go on forever. So while playing football at Bentley University in Massachusetts, he found his passion: helping small companies grow.

“I learned a lot of skillsets playing high school and college football that transfer beautifully to starting your own company,” Grovenburg said. “The first is perseverance. If you want something, go get it and don’t let somebody tell you you can’t. That’s something that a good coach teaches his athletes and a lesson I learned that I’m now applying as we grow Brass Rings (Spirit Brands). Your teammates are the most valuable resource you have. There’s a special bond I think that forms between teammates in a violent contact sport like football. Same thing in a startup, you don’t have the physical damage to your body, but your teammates are everything.”

After graduating from Bentley University with a bachelor’s degree in corporate finance and accounting in 2010 and a master’s degree in entrepreneurship and financial planning in 2011, Grovenburg took a job with a company named Berwind, an investment management company in Boston. But in January 2014, he and a co-worker, Tim Triplett, were having drinks in Boston and came up with the concept of helping small craft distilleries win the battle against big spirit brands. The company would launch later on that year.

With that idea, the two set out and formed Brass Rings Spirit Brands. 

“I always loved small companies that defied an industry and challenged a status quo,” Grovenburg said. “I think that’s something I think is very cool and resonates with me.”

Through Brass Rings, they own and operate Dark Corner Distillery in Greenville, S.C., where they make whiskey and gin, as well as Hilton Head Distillery on Hilton Head Island, S.C., where the company’s rum and vodka is made. While most of the operations take place in South Carolina, most of the company’s investors, such as Berwind, are located in New England or the Northeast.

Of all the distilleries in the country, why did they choose to work with Dark Corner Distillery?

“The team. Joe and Roxanne Fenton founded Dark Corner Distillery and they built a great team around themselves,” Grovenburg said. “They had an awesome executive distiller, who we still have, whose name is Paul Fulmer. They were and still are a great team, so we fell in love with that dynamic. And then from an operations role, we knew that Tim and I had the business acumen, so sales, marketing and finance side and they had the operational side of how to make whiskey so we had the other thing that the other party didn’t, so it was a really good combination from a business and operational standpoint.”

The popularity of craft beers has grown every year, but craft spirits account for only 3 percent of spirits sales in the market. To raise that number, the Brass Rings team feels that they need to talk to people and get the word out about what separates them from the big brands. 

“So the name of the game, of getting from 3 percent to 4 percent and higher is to continue singing our song and showing people what we’re doing and hopefully they’ll see what we see and begin to love this segment of spirits as much as we do,” said Grovenburg, a Wilmette native.  

Brass Rings is available in 14 different states, ranging from California and Washington to Texas to Georgia and states all up and down the Atlantic coast.

Grovenburg said that when looking to get into a new state, they look at a number of factors, including the size of the market and the craft spirits movement in that market. Grovenburg claims that the difference between craft spirits and the big brands is the quality of the product and the amount of craftsmanship that goes into the production process. Brass Rings and its distilleries will turn away grain if they’re not satisfied with it. In addition, there is always a distiller next to the stills all day — eight hours — with two buckets in his hands: one bucket to collect the flavors they want (which will be used in the spirits) and the other flavors, which they don’t want will go to use after being turned into cleaning supplies.

Brass Rings has encountered success in its short time of existence, something the two founders were confident would happen.

“From day one, we always believed in each other and always believed the vision we had for the company was a worthwhile pursuit,” Grovenburg said. “That helped give us the motivation to get out of bed in the morning and get it done. We also knew that what we are attempting to do is extremely challenging and that it has not been easy and we try not to let the weight of the obstacles get us down and instead we approach them one step at a time, one day at a time, just like you would any other problem, and take it down piece by piece.”