In this segment, host Phil Tower speaks with Ryan VerWys, the President & CEO, ICCF Community Homes
ICCF Community Homes is the oldest nonprofit affordable housing provider in Michigan.
They’ve been active in the Grand Rapids area since 1974 and engage 2,000+ households each year with housing-related services.
Ryan and his leadership team at ICCF Community Homes manage over 600 units of affordable rental housing and provide homeownership education and home purchase opportunities to hundreds of neighbors.
In partnership with local churches, ICCF Community Homes plans to develop 200 affordable homes in West Michigan over the next two to five years.
With the generosity of a $6 million lead gift, which will match every additional donation dollar for dollar up to the full $12 million goal, they are poised to make a significant impact and positive difference in our community!
To date, the campaign has already raised over $10.6 million!
Learn more about the campaign.
ICCF Community Homes
Topics discussed: homelessness and the housing crisis, housing affordability, rental housing affordability, homeownership, and homeownership education.
ICCF Community Homes is the oldest nonprofit affordable housing provider in Michigan.
They’ve been active in the Grand Rapids area since 1974 and engage 2,000+ households each year with housing-related services.
Ryan and his leadership team at ICCF Community Homes manage over 600 units of affordable rental housing and provide homeownership education and home purchase opportunities to hundreds of neighbors.
In partnership with local churches, ICCF Community Homes plans to develop 200 affordable homes in West Michigan over the next two to five years.
With the generosity of a $6 million lead gift, which will match every additional donation dollar for dollar up to the full $12 million goal, they are poised to make a significant impact and positive difference in our community!
To date, the campaign has already raised over $10.6 million!
Learn more about the campaign.
ICCF Community Homes
Topics discussed: homelessness and the housing crisis, housing affordability, rental housing affordability, homeownership, and homeownership education.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan Weekend is
a weekly programmed designed to inform and enlighten on a
wide range of public policy issues, as well as news
and current events. Now here's your host, Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It's West Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio. Thank you so much
for tuning in. I'm so glad you've joined us across
whatever iHeartRadio station you're tuned it, and don't forget this
is a podcast. After you hear this conversation on the radio,
you can get it at woodradio dot com left hand
side of the page. We always want to focus on
issues of importance, issues of impact on this program, and
(00:41):
the housing shortage in West Michigan. How did housing shortage nationally?
Is a huge issue, and we have some exciting news.
We're going to catch up with Ryan Vervoise. He is
the president and CEO of ICCF Community Homes. It's been
long time, a very long time since Ryan was on this.
We decided to get him back on because of the
(01:02):
significant news that broke about a month ago where ICCF
Community Homes announced a major campaign for expanding affordable housing
in West Michigan. This is a campaign called Building with Faith,
and we're going to get into the deep of it
so you can learn how you can support it. In
this segment. Ryan ver Weiss, it's been a while, Welcome
(01:25):
back to the program.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Hi, so thanks so much for having me on the
show today.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, I'm glad you can join us, and we need
to do a follow up because you are raising money
as we speak, and this is an exciting and impactful campaign.
Let's first of all, before we jump into the Building
with Faith campaign for ICCF, let's first of all talk
about ICCF Community Homes. You guys have been around in
(01:49):
West Michigan a long time. Give us the backstory, if
you will, Ryan, We have been around.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
For a long time. ICCF Community Homes is a community
based organization here Grand Appts Machine that is focused on
pursuing housing justice. And we see that housing justice would
mean that everyone in our community would have a safe,
affordable place to call home. And we know that that
is not a reality, and so we've had we've got
(02:16):
a lot of work to do. Our work is focused
on combating that housing insecurity through really three main strategies. First,
we know that families who have fallen through the cracks
of the system experienced crisis, the crisis of faith and homelessness,
and so we have a shelter called Family Haven that
serves six families at the time, giving them compassionate shelter
(02:39):
and support while they walk through that current crisis, trying
to help them find permanent, affordable housing as quick as
they can, so we support folks through that journey. We
also want to help people who have the dream of
home ownership, and so we have home buyer education classes
that serve four hundred people a year who are working
toward that goal of being ready to buy their place.
(03:00):
And so we do classes and housing counseling helping them
build that plan. And then we're also trying to address
that shortage you talked about it at the top of
the show. Here there's just simply not enough housing in
this community. A lot of people want to live here.
We love so much of this community. Lots of people
like it and want to move here too, and we
(03:20):
celebrate that, but we also know that when there's a
shortage of something like housing, that costs go up as well.
And for families who are unlimited incomes or don't have
assets to tap into home ownership, is a bridge too far,
and even just finding an affordable place to rent as difficult.
So we build as much affordable rental and home ownership
(03:42):
housing every year as we can. Our current portfolio we
have about seven hundred homes, so we're serving seven hundred
families right now with affordable rental, and as you mentioned,
we want to do more of that, and that's where
the building with Faith campaign came in. We want to
create new partnerships with churches, particularly in our community, to
(04:02):
bring them on board helping to address that need for housing.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah. Ryan, churches are at the front line of this
issue of the housing crisis and affordable housing. And I'm
glad you mentioned rental. This is not just about buying
a home, Ryan, this is about being able to afford
and live in a rental, which used to be something
you could do. I work with people every day who
tell me what they're paying for rent and its astounding,
(04:28):
often more than a mortgage payment. And these are not
luxury apartments they are living in. It's worth noting for
a listening audience here on iHeartRadio. The media home price
median home price in Grand Rapids is run three hundred
and ten thousand dollars. That's slightly under the national median
price of three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. But
(04:49):
a lot of people listening will say, I remember when
I bought my first home in Grand Rapids for forty
thousand dollars. You've heard those stories, Ryan, those days are
long gone. With this wonderful grow both and vibrancy that
we've seen in Grand Rapids over the last twenty years,
housing prices have really skyrocketed. We're still one of the
hottest housing markets in the state, in the country. It
(05:12):
just exacerbates the problem, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It does, And one of the things I love about
our community is we do aspire to be a place
where everyone could have a home. We just know that
given that market reality, we have to be intentional if
we want that to be true for everyone, not just
those with the means to do so. Right, So we've
got to do our best as the community to make
sure that we're looking out for people who are on
(05:35):
the margins and have a more difficult time than others.
So that's really what we're passionate about. And we know,
like I was sharing, one of our approaches to addressing
this need is providing shelter. And when we first started
that shelter thirty five years ago, the average stay for
our family there would be forty five days or less.
They would come in kind of deal with the immediate crisis,
(05:57):
and then find a place relatively quickly. And we've seen
those days last longer than one hundred and twenty days now,
simply because by coming into our shelter, finds it really
difficult to even find an apartment that they can apply
for a demand is so high, and so for us
that was really a part of the impetus. And we
(06:18):
had a family that we had the privileges serving earlier
this year, a mom with two kids who had been
in that situation been in our shelter for one hundred
and twenty days, and our team worked night and day
to try and find a place for her to get into,
and finally they did find a place, and when she
moved in, she shared with our team that it felt
(06:38):
like a miracle, and we agree it felt miraculous. As
I processed that though, I thought, it's an interesting thing
to have to say that finding a home takes a miracle, right,
And we long for a time where finding a home
isn't so miraculous. It'll be something more grateful for no
(06:59):
matter what. But we really want it to be less
of a supernatural thing for somebody to find a place.
But that's where we really found some excitement in this
building with Faith concept is we know churches, you said earlier,
on the front line oftentimes dealing providing support for families
(07:20):
and crisis who call them asking for help with immediate
rental assistance or utility assistants. And we thought, how can
we help churches take a next step? They volunteer with
us all the time helping to fix up homes. We
love that. And as we looked at the landscape and
we saw that, you know, churches in our community. We we
were on seven hundred churches in Kent County. Many of
(07:42):
them have surplus land, whether it's a extra acre of
grassy area or parking lot that is underutilized, or even
a building maybe that hasn't been used for a while.
And we thought, how can we catalyze and help them
turn that underutilized real estate into something that can help
(08:03):
meet the real estate needs for our neighbors. And that's
where this idea for building with faith emerged from. Is saying,
if we could raise twelve million dollars, we believe we
can build two hundred new units of housing. One hundred
of those will be permanently affordable rental housing units for
people who aren't ready for home ownership, but the other
one hundred would be trying to fill that gap for
(08:26):
the starter home that you talked about. If you think
about home ownership as a ladder with rungs on it,
the bottom rung of that ladder used to be that
forty thousand dollars starter home that doesn't exist today. You
can't even find a starter home for less than two
hundred and many well, actually two hundred and fifty probably nowadays.
And so we believe that with the help of churches
(08:46):
and with the help of our communities, we raise these funds,
we'll be able to create home ownership opportunities that are
closer to one hundred and seventy or around that two
hundred thousand dollars figure, so that families can get into
the market and begin their journey toward local worship.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, and a lot of these people who are without
a home, Ryan Verwiss, A lot of these people are
there are people who just really are struggling to get by.
As you said, they need helping, utility bills, a mortgage.
A lot of these are what we call our alice
households that they're truly asset limited, but they're doing their best.
(09:23):
They might be working three part time jobs, you know,
you might have two earners, but they just don't have
enough to make the rent work with everything else. So
it's a lot going on for these people and it's
not as simple. Well they all look like this is it.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
No, it's not. You're right, everyone's situation is unique, but
you named all the challenges. Is when it takes three
jobs to simply afford your house, yeah, other things in
your family situation or life situation probably are being sacrificed.
And we want housing to be something that can help
launch people and to not success in career or stability
(10:02):
for families, but real thriving where people can be in
a place where they're doing well, they're connected to their neighbors,
they're contributing to their neighborhood and community. Place is so
important place, you know, think about home for for us
is the place where we retreat to at the end
of the day and where we launch from in the morning.
And we want that to be something ot of stability
(10:24):
for neighbors so that people can experience that truth thriving. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Ryan Verwie is with us on West Michigan weekend. He's
president and CEO of ICCF Community Homes. You can learn
more about the Building with Faith campaign at ICCF dot
org forward slash BWF ic c F dot org. That
will get you there. You're well on your way to
(10:48):
that twelve million dollar goal, Ryan, we're talking here in
mid June. You're closing in on eleven million dollars as
we record this conversation. Where are you as we are
having this conversation.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Well, so, we started the silent phase of this campaign
last fall, and I have been just moved by the
generosity of our community. I'll confess when we started out
there's a little bit of a fear that I had
or anxiety around a goal the size of twelve million dollars,
But I have just been so blessed by the outpouring
(11:22):
of support from people in our community. People in our
community care. Like I mentioned earlier, I think we aspire
to be a community where everyone can have a home
that's affordable and stable, and that takes intentionality, intentionality in
the form of generous giving, and so we've been so
moved that where where we're at, As you mentioned, we're
(11:42):
nearing eleven million dollars toward our twelve million dollar goal,
and we need the help of the rest of the
community to close that gap, and we are hopeful, we're
very excited to get started. We have several churches already
that have expressed interest in building on there. We're working
with one church here in the city right now that's
(12:03):
got three city lots that are buildable and ready to go,
and we want to get started on that, but we
need help from the community to continue that. We're looking
forward to continuing support from our community. The way that
people can get involved is they could go to our
website at ICCF dot org Forward Building with Faith. If
(12:23):
they go there, they'll find more information about our campaign.
There's a great video that's been produced that tells the
story of some of the experiences we've had in the
recent in the last five years of partnering with a
couple of churches specifically that made us believe that this
is possible. The first is here where we're located at
the corner of Madison and MLK on the southeast side.
(12:46):
Madison Church the South Hill campus was gifted this building
by a local developer seven years ago. There was a rundown,
blighted old building, old school building. They had a vision
for using part of the space for church and child care,
but they had extra square footage and as they listened
in the community, they heard that housing was in need,
(13:06):
and so they partnered with us and we've been able
to bring forty one units of affordable housing in this
building that also is home to a church and the
LIONCA early childhood work. That's been a great experience of
seeing affordable mental housing come to fruition. And the other
example wid shares with Tabernacle Church, which is a church
down in Alger Heights on the southeast side. They had
(13:29):
occupied two buildings on an old school site be able
to see more Christian school building. Their church is located
in the north building on that campus and the south
building on that campus was empty and they were looking
for a different use and we've been able to convert that.
If you're a drive past that today, it's right near
the old goat on Eastern near Alger. That old school
now is coming back to life as twenty seven condominium
(13:51):
units which will be forced to low income family and
the fourteen of Rose units are going to be sold
at one hundred and seventy thousand dollars. Switch is a
well the most attainable housing terms of home ownership I
know of in town right now.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I think everybody hearing this conversation just said, hey, how
can I get a contract for one hundred and seventy
thousand dollars? Hey, Ryan, we're closing in on our time here.
You just I know churches, so many churches have pieces
of property that they are using for you know, long
term planning, but they could be a part of this
(14:28):
really important campaign, So they would be somebody you'd like
to speak to too. If there's some church elders listening to us,
church leaders, pastors, leadership team members, you certainly want to
get in touch with Ryan and his team at ICCF
because land is a critical part of this. But again,
(14:50):
go to ICCF dot org. There's a great video there
you can watch for building with Faith. I've got less
than a minute left. Any final words you want to
leave with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Well, first, want to express again gratitude to the community
for the support that we've had over fifty years right
this have an organization know that the housing crisis is
not solved by any one organization alone. I said, YEP
is not going to do it. I'll tell you that
we need lots of help. We have great housing partners
in town. But it also really we rely on the
(15:20):
generosity of people in this community and we've been really
grateful for that. So I want to express my gratitude
to the community. And also, you know, I'll take a
momentary to thank God for the opportunities that we have
to serve here too. There's something really special about being
able to meet the needs of our community members. And yes,
it's been a boxing so I just want to express
(15:41):
that too.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I want to celebrate you and your team, Ryan Verwis.
You have blasted West Michigan for a long time, and
I know our listeners appreciate what you're doing. This is
a huge stepping out in faith venture and the campaign,
but the community has already answered the call and will
continue to answer the call. So congratulations. Let's do a
part two of this down the road, maybe at the
(16:03):
end of the year, just so you can update our
listeners on this. I'm sorry it took so long to
get you back on the program. We will not do
that again yet. I just I love speaking with you.
I love what you're doing, and we are so fortunate
to have ICCF Community homes here in our backyard. Ryan Verwiss,
president and CEO of ICCF Community at homes online at
(16:27):
ICCF dot org. Our guests on this segment of West
Michigan Weekend stick around. We have more coming up in
just a moment.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Smoking the bar.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
After eighty years of learning his wildfire prevention tips, Smoking
Bear lives within us. All learn more at Smokeybear dot
com and remember only you can prevent wildfires. Brought to
you by the USDA for Service or state poster in
the AD Council.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
This is West Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio, and thank you
once again for tuning in. I'm your host, Phil Tower.
We are on location and I'm excited that I get
to talk about one of my favorite places in Michigan.
We try to focus on made in Michigan stories on
West Michigan Weekend, and this one will be familiar because
several months ago you heard our conversation with Richard Anderson,
(17:12):
co founder of Iron Fish Distillery and beautiful Thompsonville, Michigan.
You might have read about their mad Angler bourbon, another
great made in Michigan story, one of several products made
at Ironfish Distillery distilled there, and there's a lot going
on at Ironfish Distillery. I'm fortunate to catch up with
(17:33):
Troy Anderson, the marketing director for iron Fish Distillery, and
I'm looking smack dab Troy at a bottle of the
mad Angler, which it's got a great backstory, as a
lot of your product does. First of all, thanks for
joining us for a couple of minutes. Yeah, thanks for
having me. So let's talk about the bad backstory of
(17:53):
mad Angler. This is a bourbon, but it's got a
lot of things going on. Do you have a what
are we going to come up with?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Next?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Team? At Ironfish. As the marketing guy, you probably want
to steer some of that so they don't go too
far off the deep end. But talk about the development
in the background of matt Angler if you would place.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah, absolutely, So it really starts with our name. So
Ironfish was inspired by the Steelhead. So we're on the
Betsy River watershed in northern Michigan and Steelhead. Ironfish kind
of a fun little player at words there and then.
The name matd Angler was inspired by a series of
(18:33):
books written by Northern Michigan writer Michael Delp. And Michael
Delp was the director of creative writing at interlock In
School for the Arts for many years and his books,
the themes of them revolve around fly fishing, watershed preservation,
and we thought it'd be a perfect name for our
(18:54):
estate line of whiskey. So anything our matt Angler bourbon,
matt Angler bottled, and Bob mad Angler rye, anything under
the mad Angler name has one hundred percent Michigan grain,
including grain from our own farm in the mash bill
that makes up the spirit.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
So one of the first things that caught my eye
Troy Anderson, was mad Angler bourbon, which is aged over
six years ninety two proof. It's a combination of Michigan
yellow corn, Michigan winter weeks, Michigan malted barley, and a
state grown hazlet rye. And here's the cool thing. If
you tour Ironfish in Thompsonville, Michigan, you can see these
(19:35):
fields and they'll tell you what's growing in those fields,
which is great. And I saw that in the dead
of winter in January, which was kind of fun to see.
I bet those fields are coming to life here in
May and June in the summer in northern Michigan. But
you've got Bourbon and you've got mad Angler bottled in
bond for those uneducated, curious bourbon types, bottled in bond
(20:01):
versus bourbon.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
So our bottled in bond is actually a weeded whiskey,
but not all whiskeys that are bottled in bond have
to be weeded. So bottled in Bond was an old
essentially act from the government around the Prohibition era to
ensure that the consumer was consuming something that was safe,
(20:24):
because back in the day people were putting all sorts
of crazy stuff in whiskey was making people go blind
or making people go get sick, and so what bottled
in bond was was essentially a stamp of approval from
the government that this is going to be safe. And
the requisites for bottled in bond it has to be
aged at least four years bottled that one hundred proof
(20:47):
from one distillery and one distilling cycle, an age in
a federally bonded warehouse. So when we realized our wheat
whiskey met all of those criteria, we decided why not
call it matt Angler bottled in Bond And you mentioned
our farm right now, there's our hazlit ryde growing on
(21:08):
our farm, and are bottled in Bond also has grained
from the Upper Peninsula as well, So both of our
bourbon and bottled in Bond have one hundred percent Michigan grain,
and the bourbon in particular actually has a really fun
West Michigan tie to it. So the barrels that we
age are mad Angler Bourbon and come from Crow's Nest
(21:29):
oak barrels in Grand Rapids. There's very few Coopridges in Michigan,
and I believe Joe at Crow's Nest is one of
the only barrel makers in the state, So it is
one hundred percent Michigan made product.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I love the story and I had never heard of that.
A Cooperist. Is that what you said?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Cooperridge?
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, Coop Bridge a place that makes bourbon barrels. Correct,
and that's right here in Grand Rapids.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Joe is never known this place existed.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
Yeah, it's a really small operation, but Joe handmakes his barrels.
He has a very light machinery to help him out.
It's not a commercial operation as far as mass productions,
so we use a Chart three level on our bourbon barrels.
And we've been working with Joe for years, so he
does really great work and it's reflected in the quality
(22:20):
of our bourbon.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I love the story and such a great Michigan tie
in in multiple areas. Ironfish Distillery in Thompsonville, Michigan. And
it's important to note you guys have been around how
many years now, Troy Anderson.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
So we're coming up on our ninth anniversary. That'll be
on Labor Day weekend, which is pretty young for distillery.
But in that amount of time, we've been able to
grow pretty rapidly while maintaining all of our core values.
And nine years is nothing in distilling years, but we've
(22:56):
been able to grow and host a lot of people
at the distillery. We got about one hundred thousand visitors
per year, which is awesome, a lot of them from
West Michigan.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
A wonderful pure Michigan success story and Michigan's first farm distillery.
You can learn more at Ironfish Distillery dot com. Mad
Angler was released on the trout open a day April
twenty six, but we're talking in early June. It is
available wherever your spirits are. I know myer stores have it.
(23:27):
Is this something that goes pretty fast? I'm assuming it's
a limited edition every year it is.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Yeah, So all of our mad Angler releases have sold
out to date. Due to the nature of being a
craft distillery, we're dealing with decisions that were made six,
seven and eight years ago by our distilling team. So
we have about one hundred cases of our mad Angler
bourbon that are in stores around the state of Michigan.
(23:54):
And get your hands on it while you can, because
it has sold out every time that we've released sitting
we're anticipating the same this year.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, and again. Ironfishdistillery dot com to learn more about it,
or you can certainly go into your favorite corner adult
beverage store or as we said, Meyer and hopefully they'll
have it. If not, you might have to make a
special drive up to Thompsonville. But in the summertime, there's
nothing wrong with it at all. I think that's worth
getting a day pass from work if even if you
(24:24):
have to do it during the weekday. We're talking about
the mad Angler bourbon release. The mad Angler in bond
as well. Talk real quickly about the differences of tasting
notes on the mad Angler bourbon versus the bottled in bond.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Yeah, absolutely, So if you think about like a corn
bread versus wheat bread or rye bread, you get some
of the sweetness from that corn bread and that actually
translates to bourbon as well, So the bourbon's gonna have
some some of those sweeter notes. You're also gonna get
a nice oakie char from the char three level crow's
(25:02):
nest oak barrels, so you're gonna get some sweetness a
little bit of char to it as well. So it's
a really smooth sipping bourbon. And there's just a little
bit of rye in the mash bill, so you might
pick up just a touch of spice to it. And
bottle that ninety two proof, it does have a nice
bit of heat to it as well. And then the
(25:23):
difference between that and are bottled in bond, the bottle
in bond being a wheat wis heat that's going to
be a little more delicate on the palette, if you will.
And even though it's at a hundred proof, it drinks
very very smooth.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I know you and your Dad and your leadership team
at Ironfish also have a strong desire to give back
charitable causes, and you've got some interesting tie ins with
some of your other bourbons. Tell me about the one
that relates to Indigenous people here in Michigan and river.
(25:59):
I don't know if restoration obviously you're on the Betsey
River in Thompsonville. Talk about that if you would, And
just the importance of giving back to charitable organizations.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Absolutely, So that's one of our core values is to
have an impact on our immediate community, and in our opinion,
our greatest resource in Michigan is our fresh water. So
we support organizations that support the preservation of watersheds around Michigan,
and we've done that in a variety of ways. So
we have our Kentucky Derby Party every year, which just
(26:31):
happened a couple of weeks ago, and we pick a
different nonprofit to support. In this year, it was the CRA,
which is a Conservation Resource Alliance and they do a
lot of preservation work around cold water trout streams and
throughout the state of Michigan, but especially in Northern Michigan.
We've also supported trout unlimited groups throughout the state of
(26:54):
Michigan with private label bourbons. And then our longest standing
I guess spirit that supports rivers in general would be
our Arctic Grailing Rye, and our Arctic Grailing Rye supports
research to reintroduce Arctic grailing to Michigan waters, which actually
(27:16):
a huge step just took place this week. The DNR
and the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians put eggs
for the Arctic grailing into rivers throughout the state.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Incredible and especially in northern Michigan.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
So Arctic grailing went extinct in Michigan in the early
nineteen hundreds. I believe nineteen thirty something was the last
recorded Arctic grailing that was caught in the state. Since then,
there have been numerous attempts to reintroduce the species unsuccessfully,
but the state done some great work to come up
(27:50):
with a plan to reintroduce Arctic grailing to Michigan waters,
and we thought, why don't we create a whiskey that
supports that, and so we've released that a number of
times and most recently in March and has sold out today.
We've raised around thirty or forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I have sort I love that story and it gets
released every year to support the campaign. Is that right?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Yeah, we've released it periodically, so I believe four times
in the last five years we've released it, and that
is a distillery only release.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
What Troy is saying is there's no guarantee that's all right,
it comes out. You better get a bottle of the
Arctic grilling and there's a wonderful backstory there. I know
you have some links on your website at Ironfishdistillery dot com.
Troy Anderson, I love talking about the story that is
Ironfish Distillery and congratulations on the release of the mad
Angler would probably be gone soon as we're talking around
(28:47):
Father's Day, so I'm just saying that's a no brainer,
you guys. Troy Anderson, marketing director with Ironfish Distillery and
Ironfishdistillery dot com. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Cheers, thank you, cheers.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Indeed, he's been our asked on this segment of West
Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio. That's our program. Thank you so
much for listening. Let's do this again next week right
here on this iHeartRadio station.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan
Weekend is a production of Wood Radio and iHeartRadio.
This is iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan Weekend is
a weekly programmed designed to inform and enlighten on a
wide range of public policy issues, as well as news
and current events. Now here's your host, Phil Tower.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
It's West Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio. Thank you so much
for tuning in. I'm so glad you've joined us across
whatever iHeartRadio station you're tuned it, and don't forget this
is a podcast. After you hear this conversation on the radio,
you can get it at woodradio dot com left hand
side of the page. We always want to focus on
issues of importance, issues of impact on this program, and
(00:41):
the housing shortage in West Michigan. How did housing shortage nationally?
Is a huge issue, and we have some exciting news.
We're going to catch up with Ryan Vervoise. He is
the president and CEO of ICCF Community Homes. It's been
long time, a very long time since Ryan was on this.
We decided to get him back on because of the
(01:02):
significant news that broke about a month ago where ICCF
Community Homes announced a major campaign for expanding affordable housing
in West Michigan. This is a campaign called Building with Faith,
and we're going to get into the deep of it
so you can learn how you can support it. In
this segment. Ryan ver Weiss, it's been a while, Welcome
(01:25):
back to the program.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
Hi, so thanks so much for having me on the
show today.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Well, I'm glad you can join us, and we need
to do a follow up because you are raising money
as we speak, and this is an exciting and impactful campaign.
Let's first of all, before we jump into the Building
with Faith campaign for ICCF, let's first of all talk
about ICCF Community Homes. You guys have been around in
(01:49):
West Michigan a long time. Give us the backstory, if
you will, Ryan, We have been around.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
For a long time. ICCF Community Homes is a community
based organization here Grand Appts Machine that is focused on
pursuing housing justice. And we see that housing justice would
mean that everyone in our community would have a safe,
affordable place to call home. And we know that that
is not a reality, and so we've had we've got
(02:16):
a lot of work to do. Our work is focused
on combating that housing insecurity through really three main strategies. First,
we know that families who have fallen through the cracks
of the system experienced crisis, the crisis of faith and homelessness,
and so we have a shelter called Family Haven that
serves six families at the time, giving them compassionate shelter
(02:39):
and support while they walk through that current crisis, trying
to help them find permanent, affordable housing as quick as
they can, so we support folks through that journey. We
also want to help people who have the dream of
home ownership, and so we have home buyer education classes
that serve four hundred people a year who are working
toward that goal of being ready to buy their place.
(03:00):
And so we do classes and housing counseling helping them
build that plan. And then we're also trying to address
that shortage you talked about it at the top of
the show. Here there's just simply not enough housing in
this community. A lot of people want to live here.
We love so much of this community. Lots of people
like it and want to move here too, and we
(03:20):
celebrate that, but we also know that when there's a
shortage of something like housing, that costs go up as well.
And for families who are unlimited incomes or don't have
assets to tap into home ownership, is a bridge too far,
and even just finding an affordable place to rent as difficult.
So we build as much affordable rental and home ownership
(03:42):
housing every year as we can. Our current portfolio we
have about seven hundred homes, so we're serving seven hundred
families right now with affordable rental, and as you mentioned,
we want to do more of that, and that's where
the building with Faith campaign came in. We want to
create new partnerships with churches, particularly in our community, to
(04:02):
bring them on board helping to address that need for housing.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah. Ryan, churches are at the front line of this
issue of the housing crisis and affordable housing. And I'm
glad you mentioned rental. This is not just about buying
a home, Ryan, this is about being able to afford
and live in a rental, which used to be something
you could do. I work with people every day who
tell me what they're paying for rent and its astounding,
(04:28):
often more than a mortgage payment. And these are not
luxury apartments they are living in. It's worth noting for
a listening audience here on iHeartRadio. The media home price
median home price in Grand Rapids is run three hundred
and ten thousand dollars. That's slightly under the national median
price of three hundred and seventy five thousand dollars. But
(04:49):
a lot of people listening will say, I remember when
I bought my first home in Grand Rapids for forty
thousand dollars. You've heard those stories, Ryan, those days are
long gone. With this wonderful grow both and vibrancy that
we've seen in Grand Rapids over the last twenty years,
housing prices have really skyrocketed. We're still one of the
hottest housing markets in the state, in the country. It
(05:12):
just exacerbates the problem, doesn't it.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
It does, And one of the things I love about
our community is we do aspire to be a place
where everyone could have a home. We just know that
given that market reality, we have to be intentional if
we want that to be true for everyone, not just
those with the means to do so. Right, So we've
got to do our best as the community to make
sure that we're looking out for people who are on
(05:35):
the margins and have a more difficult time than others.
So that's really what we're passionate about. And we know,
like I was sharing, one of our approaches to addressing
this need is providing shelter. And when we first started
that shelter thirty five years ago, the average stay for
our family there would be forty five days or less.
They would come in kind of deal with the immediate crisis,
(05:57):
and then find a place relatively quickly. And we've seen
those days last longer than one hundred and twenty days now,
simply because by coming into our shelter, finds it really
difficult to even find an apartment that they can apply
for a demand is so high, and so for us
that was really a part of the impetus. And we
(06:18):
had a family that we had the privileges serving earlier
this year, a mom with two kids who had been
in that situation been in our shelter for one hundred
and twenty days, and our team worked night and day
to try and find a place for her to get into,
and finally they did find a place, and when she
moved in, she shared with our team that it felt
(06:38):
like a miracle, and we agree it felt miraculous. As
I processed that though, I thought, it's an interesting thing
to have to say that finding a home takes a miracle, right,
And we long for a time where finding a home
isn't so miraculous. It'll be something more grateful for no
(06:59):
matter what. But we really want it to be less
of a supernatural thing for somebody to find a place.
But that's where we really found some excitement in this
building with Faith concept is we know churches, you said earlier,
on the front line oftentimes dealing providing support for families
(07:20):
and crisis who call them asking for help with immediate
rental assistance or utility assistants. And we thought, how can
we help churches take a next step? They volunteer with
us all the time helping to fix up homes. We
love that. And as we looked at the landscape and
we saw that, you know, churches in our community. We we
were on seven hundred churches in Kent County. Many of
(07:42):
them have surplus land, whether it's a extra acre of
grassy area or parking lot that is underutilized, or even
a building maybe that hasn't been used for a while.
And we thought, how can we catalyze and help them
turn that underutilized real estate into something that can help
(08:03):
meet the real estate needs for our neighbors. And that's
where this idea for building with faith emerged from. Is saying,
if we could raise twelve million dollars, we believe we
can build two hundred new units of housing. One hundred
of those will be permanently affordable rental housing units for
people who aren't ready for home ownership, but the other
one hundred would be trying to fill that gap for
(08:26):
the starter home that you talked about. If you think
about home ownership as a ladder with rungs on it,
the bottom rung of that ladder used to be that
forty thousand dollars starter home that doesn't exist today. You
can't even find a starter home for less than two
hundred and many well, actually two hundred and fifty probably nowadays.
And so we believe that with the help of churches
(08:46):
and with the help of our communities, we raise these funds,
we'll be able to create home ownership opportunities that are
closer to one hundred and seventy or around that two
hundred thousand dollars figure, so that families can get into
the market and begin their journey toward local worship.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, and a lot of these people who are without
a home, Ryan Verwiss, A lot of these people are
there are people who just really are struggling to get by.
As you said, they need helping, utility bills, a mortgage.
A lot of these are what we call our alice
households that they're truly asset limited, but they're doing their best.
(09:23):
They might be working three part time jobs, you know,
you might have two earners, but they just don't have
enough to make the rent work with everything else. So
it's a lot going on for these people and it's
not as simple. Well they all look like this is it.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
No, it's not. You're right, everyone's situation is unique, but
you named all the challenges. Is when it takes three
jobs to simply afford your house, yeah, other things in
your family situation or life situation probably are being sacrificed.
And we want housing to be something that can help
launch people and to not success in career or stability
(10:02):
for families, but real thriving where people can be in
a place where they're doing well, they're connected to their neighbors,
they're contributing to their neighborhood and community. Place is so
important place, you know, think about home for for us
is the place where we retreat to at the end
of the day and where we launch from in the morning.
And we want that to be something ot of stability
(10:24):
for neighbors so that people can experience that truth thriving. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
Ryan Verwie is with us on West Michigan weekend. He's
president and CEO of ICCF Community Homes. You can learn
more about the Building with Faith campaign at ICCF dot
org forward slash BWF ic c F dot org. That
will get you there. You're well on your way to
(10:48):
that twelve million dollar goal, Ryan, we're talking here in
mid June. You're closing in on eleven million dollars as
we record this conversation. Where are you as we are
having this conversation.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Well, so, we started the silent phase of this campaign
last fall, and I have been just moved by the
generosity of our community. I'll confess when we started out
there's a little bit of a fear that I had
or anxiety around a goal the size of twelve million dollars,
But I have just been so blessed by the outpouring
(11:22):
of support from people in our community. People in our
community care. Like I mentioned earlier, I think we aspire
to be a community where everyone can have a home
that's affordable and stable, and that takes intentionality, intentionality in
the form of generous giving, and so we've been so
moved that where where we're at, As you mentioned, we're
(11:42):
nearing eleven million dollars toward our twelve million dollar goal,
and we need the help of the rest of the
community to close that gap, and we are hopeful, we're
very excited to get started. We have several churches already
that have expressed interest in building on there. We're working
with one church here in the city right now that's
(12:03):
got three city lots that are buildable and ready to go,
and we want to get started on that, but we
need help from the community to continue that. We're looking
forward to continuing support from our community. The way that
people can get involved is they could go to our
website at ICCF dot org Forward Building with Faith. If
(12:23):
they go there, they'll find more information about our campaign.
There's a great video that's been produced that tells the
story of some of the experiences we've had in the
recent in the last five years of partnering with a
couple of churches specifically that made us believe that this
is possible. The first is here where we're located at
the corner of Madison and MLK on the southeast side.
(12:46):
Madison Church the South Hill campus was gifted this building
by a local developer seven years ago. There was a rundown,
blighted old building, old school building. They had a vision
for using part of the space for church and child care,
but they had extra square footage and as they listened
in the community, they heard that housing was in need,
(13:06):
and so they partnered with us and we've been able
to bring forty one units of affordable housing in this
building that also is home to a church and the
LIONCA early childhood work. That's been a great experience of
seeing affordable mental housing come to fruition. And the other
example wid shares with Tabernacle Church, which is a church
down in Alger Heights on the southeast side. They had
(13:29):
occupied two buildings on an old school site be able
to see more Christian school building. Their church is located
in the north building on that campus and the south
building on that campus was empty and they were looking
for a different use and we've been able to convert that.
If you're a drive past that today, it's right near
the old goat on Eastern near Alger. That old school
now is coming back to life as twenty seven condominium
(13:51):
units which will be forced to low income family and
the fourteen of Rose units are going to be sold
at one hundred and seventy thousand dollars. Switch is a
well the most attainable housing terms of home ownership I
know of in town right now.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I think everybody hearing this conversation just said, hey, how
can I get a contract for one hundred and seventy
thousand dollars? Hey, Ryan, we're closing in on our time here.
You just I know churches, so many churches have pieces
of property that they are using for you know, long
term planning, but they could be a part of this
(14:28):
really important campaign, So they would be somebody you'd like
to speak to too. If there's some church elders listening to us,
church leaders, pastors, leadership team members, you certainly want to
get in touch with Ryan and his team at ICCF
because land is a critical part of this. But again,
(14:50):
go to ICCF dot org. There's a great video there
you can watch for building with Faith. I've got less
than a minute left. Any final words you want to
leave with our listeners.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
Well, first, want to express again gratitude to the community
for the support that we've had over fifty years right
this have an organization know that the housing crisis is
not solved by any one organization alone. I said, YEP
is not going to do it. I'll tell you that
we need lots of help. We have great housing partners
in town. But it also really we rely on the
(15:20):
generosity of people in this community and we've been really
grateful for that. So I want to express my gratitude
to the community. And also, you know, I'll take a
momentary to thank God for the opportunities that we have
to serve here too. There's something really special about being
able to meet the needs of our community members. And yes,
it's been a boxing so I just want to express
(15:41):
that too.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
Well.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
I want to celebrate you and your team, Ryan Verwis.
You have blasted West Michigan for a long time, and
I know our listeners appreciate what you're doing. This is
a huge stepping out in faith venture and the campaign,
but the community has already answered the call and will
continue to answer the call. So congratulations. Let's do a
part two of this down the road, maybe at the
(16:03):
end of the year, just so you can update our
listeners on this. I'm sorry it took so long to
get you back on the program. We will not do
that again yet. I just I love speaking with you.
I love what you're doing, and we are so fortunate
to have ICCF Community homes here in our backyard. Ryan Verwiss,
president and CEO of ICCF Community at homes online at
(16:27):
ICCF dot org. Our guests on this segment of West
Michigan Weekend stick around. We have more coming up in
just a moment.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
Smoking the bar.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
After eighty years of learning his wildfire prevention tips, Smoking
Bear lives within us. All learn more at Smokeybear dot
com and remember only you can prevent wildfires. Brought to
you by the USDA for Service or state poster in
the AD Council.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
This is West Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio, and thank you
once again for tuning in. I'm your host, Phil Tower.
We are on location and I'm excited that I get
to talk about one of my favorite places in Michigan.
We try to focus on made in Michigan stories on
West Michigan Weekend, and this one will be familiar because
several months ago you heard our conversation with Richard Anderson,
(17:12):
co founder of Iron Fish Distillery and beautiful Thompsonville, Michigan.
You might have read about their mad Angler bourbon, another
great made in Michigan story, one of several products made
at Ironfish Distillery distilled there, and there's a lot going
on at Ironfish Distillery. I'm fortunate to catch up with
(17:33):
Troy Anderson, the marketing director for iron Fish Distillery, and
I'm looking smack dab Troy at a bottle of the
mad Angler, which it's got a great backstory, as a
lot of your product does. First of all, thanks for
joining us for a couple of minutes. Yeah, thanks for
having me. So let's talk about the bad backstory of
(17:53):
mad Angler. This is a bourbon, but it's got a
lot of things going on. Do you have a what
are we going to come up with?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Next?
Speaker 2 (18:03):
Team? At Ironfish. As the marketing guy, you probably want
to steer some of that so they don't go too
far off the deep end. But talk about the development
in the background of matt Angler if you would place.
Speaker 4 (18:13):
Yeah, absolutely, So it really starts with our name. So
Ironfish was inspired by the Steelhead. So we're on the
Betsy River watershed in northern Michigan and Steelhead. Ironfish kind
of a fun little player at words there and then.
The name matd Angler was inspired by a series of
(18:33):
books written by Northern Michigan writer Michael Delp. And Michael
Delp was the director of creative writing at interlock In
School for the Arts for many years and his books,
the themes of them revolve around fly fishing, watershed preservation,
and we thought it'd be a perfect name for our
(18:54):
estate line of whiskey. So anything our matt Angler bourbon,
matt Angler bottled, and Bob mad Angler rye, anything under
the mad Angler name has one hundred percent Michigan grain,
including grain from our own farm in the mash bill
that makes up the spirit.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
So one of the first things that caught my eye
Troy Anderson, was mad Angler bourbon, which is aged over
six years ninety two proof. It's a combination of Michigan
yellow corn, Michigan winter weeks, Michigan malted barley, and a
state grown hazlet rye. And here's the cool thing. If
you tour Ironfish in Thompsonville, Michigan, you can see these
(19:35):
fields and they'll tell you what's growing in those fields,
which is great. And I saw that in the dead
of winter in January, which was kind of fun to see.
I bet those fields are coming to life here in
May and June in the summer in northern Michigan. But
you've got Bourbon and you've got mad Angler bottled in
bond for those uneducated, curious bourbon types, bottled in bond
(20:01):
versus bourbon.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
So our bottled in bond is actually a weeded whiskey,
but not all whiskeys that are bottled in bond have
to be weeded. So bottled in Bond was an old
essentially act from the government around the Prohibition era to
ensure that the consumer was consuming something that was safe,
(20:24):
because back in the day people were putting all sorts
of crazy stuff in whiskey was making people go blind
or making people go get sick, and so what bottled
in bond was was essentially a stamp of approval from
the government that this is going to be safe. And
the requisites for bottled in bond it has to be
aged at least four years bottled that one hundred proof
(20:47):
from one distillery and one distilling cycle, an age in
a federally bonded warehouse. So when we realized our wheat
whiskey met all of those criteria, we decided why not
call it matt Angler bottled in Bond And you mentioned
our farm right now, there's our hazlit ryde growing on
(21:08):
our farm, and are bottled in Bond also has grained
from the Upper Peninsula as well, So both of our
bourbon and bottled in Bond have one hundred percent Michigan grain,
and the bourbon in particular actually has a really fun
West Michigan tie to it. So the barrels that we
age are mad Angler Bourbon and come from Crow's Nest
(21:29):
oak barrels in Grand Rapids. There's very few Coopridges in Michigan,
and I believe Joe at Crow's Nest is one of
the only barrel makers in the state, So it is
one hundred percent Michigan made product.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
I love the story and I had never heard of that.
A Cooperist. Is that what you said?
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Cooperridge?
Speaker 2 (21:48):
Yeah, Coop Bridge a place that makes bourbon barrels. Correct,
and that's right here in Grand Rapids.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Joe is never known this place existed.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
Yeah, it's a really small operation, but Joe handmakes his barrels.
He has a very light machinery to help him out.
It's not a commercial operation as far as mass productions,
so we use a Chart three level on our bourbon barrels.
And we've been working with Joe for years, so he
does really great work and it's reflected in the quality
(22:20):
of our bourbon.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
I love the story and such a great Michigan tie
in in multiple areas. Ironfish Distillery in Thompsonville, Michigan. And
it's important to note you guys have been around how
many years now, Troy Anderson.
Speaker 4 (22:35):
So we're coming up on our ninth anniversary. That'll be
on Labor Day weekend, which is pretty young for distillery.
But in that amount of time, we've been able to
grow pretty rapidly while maintaining all of our core values.
And nine years is nothing in distilling years, but we've
(22:56):
been able to grow and host a lot of people
at the distillery. We got about one hundred thousand visitors
per year, which is awesome, a lot of them from
West Michigan.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
A wonderful pure Michigan success story and Michigan's first farm distillery.
You can learn more at Ironfish Distillery dot com. Mad
Angler was released on the trout open a day April
twenty six, but we're talking in early June. It is
available wherever your spirits are. I know myer stores have it.
(23:27):
Is this something that goes pretty fast? I'm assuming it's
a limited edition every year it is.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Yeah, So all of our mad Angler releases have sold
out to date. Due to the nature of being a
craft distillery, we're dealing with decisions that were made six,
seven and eight years ago by our distilling team. So
we have about one hundred cases of our mad Angler
bourbon that are in stores around the state of Michigan.
(23:54):
And get your hands on it while you can, because
it has sold out every time that we've released sitting
we're anticipating the same this year.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Yeah, and again. Ironfishdistillery dot com to learn more about it,
or you can certainly go into your favorite corner adult
beverage store or as we said, Meyer and hopefully they'll
have it. If not, you might have to make a
special drive up to Thompsonville. But in the summertime, there's
nothing wrong with it at all. I think that's worth
getting a day pass from work if even if you
(24:24):
have to do it during the weekday. We're talking about
the mad Angler bourbon release. The mad Angler in bond
as well. Talk real quickly about the differences of tasting
notes on the mad Angler bourbon versus the bottled in bond.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Yeah, absolutely, So if you think about like a corn
bread versus wheat bread or rye bread, you get some
of the sweetness from that corn bread and that actually
translates to bourbon as well, So the bourbon's gonna have
some some of those sweeter notes. You're also gonna get
a nice oakie char from the char three level crow's
(25:02):
nest oak barrels, so you're gonna get some sweetness a
little bit of char to it as well. So it's
a really smooth sipping bourbon. And there's just a little
bit of rye in the mash bill, so you might
pick up just a touch of spice to it. And
bottle that ninety two proof, it does have a nice
bit of heat to it as well. And then the
(25:23):
difference between that and are bottled in bond, the bottle
in bond being a wheat wis heat that's going to
be a little more delicate on the palette, if you will.
And even though it's at a hundred proof, it drinks
very very smooth.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I know you and your Dad and your leadership team
at Ironfish also have a strong desire to give back
charitable causes, and you've got some interesting tie ins with
some of your other bourbons. Tell me about the one
that relates to Indigenous people here in Michigan and river.
(25:59):
I don't know if restoration obviously you're on the Betsey
River in Thompsonville. Talk about that if you would, And
just the importance of giving back to charitable organizations.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
Absolutely, So that's one of our core values is to
have an impact on our immediate community, and in our opinion,
our greatest resource in Michigan is our fresh water. So
we support organizations that support the preservation of watersheds around Michigan,
and we've done that in a variety of ways. So
we have our Kentucky Derby Party every year, which just
(26:31):
happened a couple of weeks ago, and we pick a
different nonprofit to support. In this year, it was the CRA,
which is a Conservation Resource Alliance and they do a
lot of preservation work around cold water trout streams and
throughout the state of Michigan, but especially in Northern Michigan.
We've also supported trout unlimited groups throughout the state of
(26:54):
Michigan with private label bourbons. And then our longest standing
I guess spirit that supports rivers in general would be
our Arctic Grailing Rye, and our Arctic Grailing Rye supports
research to reintroduce Arctic grailing to Michigan waters, which actually
(27:16):
a huge step just took place this week. The DNR
and the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians put eggs
for the Arctic grailing into rivers throughout the state.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
Incredible and especially in northern Michigan.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
So Arctic grailing went extinct in Michigan in the early
nineteen hundreds. I believe nineteen thirty something was the last
recorded Arctic grailing that was caught in the state. Since then,
there have been numerous attempts to reintroduce the species unsuccessfully,
but the state done some great work to come up
(27:50):
with a plan to reintroduce Arctic grailing to Michigan waters,
and we thought, why don't we create a whiskey that
supports that, and so we've released that a number of
times and most recently in March and has sold out today.
We've raised around thirty or forty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
I have sort I love that story and it gets
released every year to support the campaign. Is that right?
Speaker 4 (28:15):
Yeah, we've released it periodically, so I believe four times
in the last five years we've released it, and that
is a distillery only release.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
What Troy is saying is there's no guarantee that's all right,
it comes out. You better get a bottle of the
Arctic grilling and there's a wonderful backstory there. I know
you have some links on your website at Ironfishdistillery dot com.
Troy Anderson, I love talking about the story that is
Ironfish Distillery and congratulations on the release of the mad
Angler would probably be gone soon as we're talking around
(28:47):
Father's Day, so I'm just saying that's a no brainer,
you guys. Troy Anderson, marketing director with Ironfish Distillery and
Ironfishdistillery dot com. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
Cheers, thank you, cheers.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Indeed, he's been our asked on this segment of West
Michigan Weekend from iHeartRadio. That's our program. Thank you so
much for listening. Let's do this again next week right
here on this iHeartRadio station.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio's West Michigan Weekend. West Michigan
Weekend is a production of Wood Radio and iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.