Montville — They started with vodka, moved on to bourbon and rye, then whiskey, followed by a German liqueur and, next up, Kevin Clang and Carl Brown are planning to open a craft distillery.

The two men behind Kra-Ze LLC and Brang Imports had other careers before they shared some of Clang's father-in-law's homemade lemon-infused vodka about eight years ago and decided to try to make some for themselves and, perhaps, as a business venture.

"The whole idea for this product came from me and him drinking it one time. I went to his house, and we drank a whole bottle," said Brown, the chief executive officer and co-founder of the two companies that now develop, produce, import and market various alcoholic beverages from their headquarters on Cedar Lane in Uncasville.

"We drank that first bottle, and I asked him, 'Have you got any more of this?,'" said Brown. "I had just never consumed anything quite like it before."

Clang explained that it was his wife's father's homemade liquor and the two decided to survey the marketplace and see if there was something similar and, if not, then perhaps they would develop a recipe, produce it, and change careers.

"My father-in-law is from Poland and what he would do is make lemon sugar water, boil it down, strain it, and throw the alcohol in it. That's how it all started," he said.

That was 2009, and by 2010 the first Kra-Ze vodka liqueurs were in liquor stores, available for purchase.

They concocted their recipe in Brown's kitchen, experimenting with various fruits and combinations. Along the way, Brown, who was recently retired from the state as a civil engineer, built their own state-of-the-art filter system, to remove the heavy particulates from the different fruits they experimented with.

Clang, who had worked in food services and has a culinary arts degree from Johnson & Wales University, said they began with lemons, but soon branched out to all kinds of other fruits to flavor the grain alcohol that they started with.

"Basically, it was us figuring out flavors, and blending it, and creating recipes," said Clang, adding they experimented with raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, papaya, limes, and whatever other fruit they thought might be tasty. They perfected the lemon vodka and started work on a lime version, that, well, just didn't work. But rather than toss the lime, they blended it with the lemon to create one of their most successful products, the vodka and lemon lime liqueur.

"We went from lemon and ran the gamut of every fruit you can imagine," said Brown. "And during that time, I'd say it was a good eight months, we got inadvertently snockered every day. It wasn't on purpose, it was like, 'Hey, let's try papaya today.'"

He said when they boiled the fruit to pasteurize it, and added the alcohol, vapors would rise, "so you were breathing alcohol without even knowing it."

Once they perfected their recipes, they contracted with what are called "flavor houses" in the industry, to take their recipe and make it shelf stable with fruit extracts.

The flavor house got the lemon and lemon lime vodkas quickly, but it took 42 tries to perfect the flavor of the berry blend.

Kra-Ze, the parent corporation of Brang Imports LLC, doesn't produce liquor in Uncasville. Instead, they work with what are called "co-packers," or large spirit manufacturers, in their case, LiDestri Spirits in upstate New York.

"We give them our formula, our specs, we design our labels, we pick the bottle, the cap, all of it, and then we hire them to actually mix the product and assemble it," said Clang.

In addition to the vodkas, which are sold in six statea, they have developed Bower Hill bourbons and whiskey. The Bower Hill name and bottle motif pays homage to the site of a major battle in the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, where 600 farmers faced off with 30,000 troops sent by President George Washington. The bourbons and rye sell in 22 states. And now they have plans for a flavored whiskey, which is still in development.

They've also developed a light whiskey, called Eco-Oak, which is aged in a used whiskey barrel. And they're well along with plans to import a German liqueur, called Friesengeist, that Brown first discovered while serving with the armed forces overseas. Not too long ago, when a German exchange student that he and his family had hosted for a year came back to visit with his family, Brown was reintroduced to Friesengeist, which they brought as a gift. Now he and Clang are talking with the German manufacturer and expect to begin importing it here shortly.

And by summer, they hope to have all the pieces and permits in place to start work on their own craft distillery, where they plan to distill vodka, whiskey, rum, bourbon and more.

"The craft movement is on fire, and what fueled that is government regulations relaxing a lot," said Clang.  

Brown said the pair have looked at several possible locations, and hope to pick one soon, possibly in the Stonington/Mystic area.

"We don't want to be a distillery only, we want to be a tourism magnet," he said. 

Visitors would be able to watch the distilling process and sample and buy the goods, they said.

"In the first six years, we've learned an immense amount about this business," said Brown, adding they're ready to share some of what they know with the public at their planned distillery.

a.baldelli@theday.com