People are passionate about their hobbies, and Ben Wolfgram, co-founder of BenShot along with his dad, built the business around helping them celebrate and showcase what brings them joy.
Appleton-based BenShot makes glasses for spirits and beers embedded with items including bullets, golf balls, guitar picks, propellers and fishing lures. One of its products, a pint glass tricked out with a tiny aircraft propeller, recently beat out some huge competitors to make it to the Top 8 round in the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and Johnson Financial Group “Coolest Thing Made in Wisconsin” contest.
The venture brought Wolfgram, an engineer by trade, back to his home state after leading and co-founding a robotics company on the East Coast. “This was a way to bring my dad out of retirement, and it brought me back here to Wisconsin,” he says.
The business began in 2015 in New London before moving to Appleton. The first offerings were bullet-embedded glasses — an ode to Wolfgram’s hunting passion — that father and son sold at gun shows. From there, the products gained traction, and the company began creating more varieties. BenShot now employs 40 full-time workers, holds 14 patents and operates out of a 50,000-square-foot facility that features more than 100 glass furnaces.
The glasses, available in several varieties including shot, whiskey, pint and rocks, are sold mostly online. Its bullet glasses are still the biggest seller, followed closely by its golf glasses, which feature a Titlelist golf ball. The propeller glasses also were a big hit at EAA AirVenture in July.
Wolfgram knows the ideas will just keep coming. “There’s definitely a creative energy around here.”
benshot.com
