First Crack 117. Paul & Scott from 45th Parallel Spirits

A couple years back Scott Davis and Paul Werni founded 45th Parallel Spirits, a distillery in New Richmond, WI – just a quick 45 minute drive from northeast Minneapolis. While there are number of craft brewers in the region, 45th Parallel is the only still I know of. Paul, Scott, and I talk about the distilling process and the benefits of sourcing locally.

[33 min].

First Crack 115. Chad Gillard on Aebleskivers

Chad Gillard lives a few houses down from me – and little did I know that his side project is making and selling tasty, tasty Danish apple treats under the Aunt Else’s Organic Aebleskiver brand (Aunt Elsies on Twitter)

It started with a goal so many Minnesotans have: sell food at the Minnesota State Fair.

While he’s still on his way to reaching that goal, we cover the conflicting aebleskiver recipes and the local food producers he’s met while selling at farmers markets and town festivals.

[35 min].

First Crack 114. Kurt Schmidt on Old School BMX Freestyle

Twenty years ago, while BMX freestyle was a favorite hobby of mind, Kurt Schmidt rode for Haro Bikes. Then he co-founded the infamous Standard Bike Manufacturing.

He retells the story of:

  • breaking his ribs on his first big pro contest
  • stalking photographers to get in magazines
  • Rad – starring Bill Allen
  • starting a high-end BMX bike company, not in California, but a house in Iowa.
  • starting Props video magazine
  • Riding backwards.

Here’s a great timeline of Kurt’s BMX career.

[49 min].

First Crack 111. Patricia Cumbie’s ‘Where People Like Us Live’

From the unpublished First Crack archives, I bring you a conversation I recorded in July 2007 with Minneapolis novelist, Patricia Crumbie on her then – yet to be published – young adult novel, Where People Like Us Live.

As you can tell from the links above, her book is now available. 🙂

In our conversation, we cover the book itself – a pretty tough topic that makes me uncomfortable, and how a course at the Loft Literary Center helped her change and polish the book to help it find a publisher.

[9 min].