This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Lucy Rieger, 37, the cofounder of distillery J. Rieger & Co. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I originally wanted to be a doctor, until I figured out I don’t really do math or science. Once I ruled those out, I found my way into PR and marketing, quite the opposite of my now husband, Andy, a math finance major who worked in private equity.
We’d moved away from his hometown, Kansas City, to pursue our careers, but after getting engaged in 2013, we started kicking around a wild idea: What if we moved back and revived the prohibition-era distillery his family had owned three generations back?
The family business had been passed down for decades until it closed in 1919 due to prohibition.
Fast forward to 2014, and the idea of quitting our stable corporate careers for this dream was frowned upon by our family and friends alike. “What are you doing?” both sets of parents asked us.
In particular, we had on our hearts Andy’s dad, who died of cancer in 2010, but had always said, “Don’t move home unless you have a real good reason to.”
This felt like it just might be that real good reason.
We couldn’t do it alone
Andy, always conservative in life choices and not prone to emotional or rash decisions, began analyzing the feasibility of the idea.
We were only 26, but he was convinced we could make it happen. We officially opened in 2014, got married in 2015, and had our first son in 2017. Our pipe dream had become our daily life, with a baby in tow and all.
I know we couldn’t have done this alone. Instead, an amazing nanny saved us and gave us the flexibility to mesh our work and home lives together.
She and her wife are like family to us; we even hosted their wedding at the distillery. I see it more as co-parenting than a nanny role. When we had our second kid in 2020, we learned we really couldn’t do it without her.
During the pandemic, the distillery transformed into a hand sanitizer production plant, and days blurred into nights as we tried to produce sanitizer to keep up with demand while parenting.
Our nanny sometimes slept at our house, brought the kids to the distillery, and realized there are no “working” or “off” hours — it’s all one big endeavor. I remember her saying, “I’m just going to be here, and you come home whenever you can.” So she moved in.
It was a whole team effort, resulting in 250,000 bottles of sanitizer produced in six weeks.
My husband and I are a team
Sometimes I hear people talking about having to convince their husbands to do something, and I’m grateful to say I really can’t relate.
Andy is a business-minded man and a fabulous dad. We’re both working all the time at home and at the distillery. He cleans the kitchen. He doesn’t need to be told what to do with the kids or ask basic questions like where to find their socks when I’m traveling for work.
Having a team approach means that while I’d never say I can have or do it all, I’m able to be involved as a parent and business owner, and in that space where both merge.
For example, we hosted our school auction at the distillery, and I’m able to be a class mom at my kid’s school.
On top of that, I make time for Pilates, playing Mahjong with friends, and needlepoint. This is all possible because my husband and I are a team, and I genuinely like him.
Being raised in the distillery
There are worse places my kids could spend their afternoons — after all, the distillery has a fun slide to get down from the second floor. When we’re closed, they can run around, ride their bikes, and even throw a football on the production floor.
They don’t love it when we’re open because they have to actually follow the rules. Though they aren’t quite old enough to bus tables or officially work, at 5 and 8, they love to help me with projects. Over the holidays, they helped me decorate the distillery.
They get to see what goes into running a business day to day, and that you aren’t too good for any of the work. If I ask them to pick up the trash, and they ask, “Why us?” I teach them, “Who else is going to do it?”
But it’s not all work. They were elated when Travis Kelce recently mentioned J. Rieger & Co. on a podcast. Kelce and Patrick Mahomes’ steakhouse in Kansas City now serves products from our distillery.
We also prioritize a big spring break trip every year, where they do see us still running the business on the phone and laptops, but at least we are traveling together, having fun, and still building our business together. This year, we’re heading to Hawaii.
I don’t expect the kids to work for us when they’re teenagers or beyond. I think it’s important they work for other people. In a perfect world, maybe someone will show up and offer us millions of dollars for the distillery before the kids have to decide whether to take over.
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