How Chicago-based Ezra's is helping craft liquor reach its potential online

by Emerson Dameron
November 3, 2014

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Since they hit legal drinking age about 10 years ago, twin brothers Parker and Adam Newman and their pal Scott Reich, all from suburban Glencoe, have watched Chicago's tastes in adult beverages evolve.

“We saw how everyone around us went from drinking Bud Light to Blue Moon and then suddenly only drinking beer from small independent breweries,” said Parker Newman. “We started scratching our heads thinking, 'why are people still drinking Jack and Coke alongside Three Floyds? There had to be something better out there.”

[ibimage==41976==Medium==none==self==ibimage_align-right]The friends set out on an exploration of artisan distilleries that has resulted in Ezra's, a new retail store and e-commerce platform selling small, regional spirits that can be hard to come by without good tips. “We couldn't believe how many cool independent distilleries were out there, let alone in our backyard,” Newman said. “Few Spirits up in Evanston, Letherbee in Chicago, and Journeyman in Michigan were all producing amazing spirits. So we sat down to figure out how to better tell their stories.” All those brands and several dozen more are now available online through Ezra's.

Ezra's couldn't find an out-of-the-box e-commerce solution that quite worked for it, so it built its own, from scratch, using Ruby on Rails. The startup uses easypost.com for real-time shipping quotes and various third parties for its design and fulfillment needs – that saves it the trouble of wrangling with interstate liquor laws.

“It's always amazing to hear from small distilleries about how they love what we're doing and want to be involved in some way,” Newman said. “Distilling whiskey and vodka is hard enough, let alone having to build a brand and interact with customers. We like to look at ourselves as a partner to let them continue to do what they love.”

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