Will County Gazette

The Monee village board recently voted to support a new cooperage and pub development in the community.

During the April 26 Monee village board meeting, officials issued their support for Loren Buchmeier and his son, Holden, who run the Crozehead Cooperage. Loren and Holden are reviving the dying art of barrel making and whiskey aging, an increasingly rare craft. So rare in fact, that Loren is the only fully-experienced cooper in the state, although his son is well into his apprenticeship and plans to take up his father's trade. 

According to The Vedette, cooperage is the art of making barrels to distill and age liquor in. The craft has less than 30 estimated craftsman left in the US, with potentially only 2000 in the world. Buchmeier left his job in Chicago a few years back to pursue cooperage full time, teaching his son and others the art and perfecting his own spirits and barrels. While he works with a few select artisans, he doesn't want to be a production based cooper, preferring to have no limitations on how he conducts his work.

The village board supported a $26,000 payout to Buchmeier for the improvements and development that he has done to the area around his cooperage. Buchmeier e-mailed board members a list of invoices and receipts as proof of his expenses and said that he could also provide hard copies or a consolidated version to the village, if necessary. The village supports his work on the new beer garden and retail liquor space that will be open to the community soon, along with farm tours and cooperage lessons.

"We've been making quite a bit of progress," Buchmeier said at the meeting. "The Crow's Nest Pub is coming close to completion. We'll be replacing the existing barn doors with solid oak doors and windows for entrance and egress. We will be putting in a poly floor and then the bar will be finished. My concrete contractor is ready to start the first or second week of May to pour the slab for the beer garden, and we expect to have a beer garden completed before May's end. We also expect to complete the road work as well as the landscaping prior to May’s end. We're hoping to be able to open with our retail liquor license and our bar and beer garden before June."

After providing a progress report on the building and business, Buchmeier assured the village board he knew that there was still a lot of work to do, and that he would be working with inspectors to ensure that everything is done correctly. Buchmeier will likely have a smaller opening first, while much of the construction continues in the area. 

At the end of discussions, the village board voted to approve supporting Buchmeier's continued work.