Photograph By Shane Van Boxtel/Image Studios
After 23 years as a chiropractor in Freedom, Jim Ver Voort found himself at a crossroads — take over his father’s bottled old fashioned mix business or let the family tradition fall to the wayside.
He made a gamble on the beloved old fashioned mix and took ownership of Gary’s Premium Cocktails — along with his two brothers and two business partners — in 2017. This ultimately led to an unexpected partnership with Appleton-based New Morning Coffee Roasters in support of domestic abuse survivors around the world.
Insight: What inspired you to leave your longtime career in health care and take ownership of Gary’s Premium Cocktails?
Jim Ver Voort: My dad, Gary Ver Voort, started making an old fashioned mix because he thought many old fashioneds were subpar. He made it for himself, and then friends and family wanted bottles, so he decided to make a little business out of it. He began bottling and distributing his mix in 2010. A few years later he was looking to retire and sell the business. My brothers and I said, “Wait, let’s see if we can do something with this.” We did some math and bought the business from him in April 2017. It’s my two brothers, myself and two family friends who own Gary’s. When we first took over the business, we were doing it part time. We knew that we couldn’t keep doing it nights and weekends. We had to either do it all the way or not do it at all. I was at a point in my career where I was ready to make the jump, so I sold my practice and my business partner quit his job. We bought Great Lakes Beverage in December 2021 and took over Gary’s full time.
How has Gary’s grown since you and your partners took it over?
During COVID, Amazon sales went through the roof. Right before COVID, we got accepted into Walmart. That’s been a huge growth for us in the last year. We were able to develop new products, so now we have not only the old fashioned mix, but we have two bloody mary mixes, two margarita mixes and Gary’s bourbon barrel aged coffee. In five years, we went from distributing old fashioned mix to 19 locations to being in over 1,500 locations and have sent bottles to five different countries — which is crazy, when I think about it. Ready-to-drink cocktails are the next venture we’ve been working on. It’s neat to see what my mom and dad started in our kitchen growing into what it is today. My dad takes incredible pride in it. He never in a million years would have imagined the scope of what it is now.
Why buy Great Lakes Beverage at the same time you took over Gary’s?
Owning Great Lakes Beverage has given us all sorts of advantages for Gary’s. For Great Lakes, we sell soda systems, juice systems and coffee systems, and bag-in-the-box sodas. I’m in these bars and restaurants every day, so it’s given us an opportunity to have someone on the front line doing sales that we really never had before.
How did your partnership with New Morning Coffee Roasters form?
Through Great Lakes Beverage, we distribute New Morning Coffee. They are an Appleton-based coffee roaster doing it right. It’s really nice to be able to partner with another local company. They’re as driven as we are — the sky’s the limit for them. We sat down for a meeting a few months into our partnership and one of the owners, Paul Wisneski, told us this fantastic story of Caferoz and the woman-owned coffee farms the beans are sourced from.
Tell me more about the Caferoz line and the cause it supports.
The Caferoz line is a collaboration between New Morning Coffee Roasters and Great Lakes Beverage. Paul had been invited to judge the National Honduran Coffee Championships. While he was in Honduras, Paul came across a farm that was completely owned and run by women, many of whom were victims of domestic and sexual abuse. He was really inspired by their story and how strong and courageous they were to do this. He made a mental pledge that he was going to figure out how to buy beans from them. He wanted to pay a fair price for their beans and then get them into retail locations in the States. He came up with Caferoz — “feroz” means fierce in Spanish and “café” means coffee. The line debuted in October and it’s 100% Arabica coffee that comes in three different varieties: Breakfast Blend, Vanilla Kiss and Dulce’s Blend, which is named after the founder of the farm in Honduras. And now we’re in the midst of getting it up for distribution. A portion of profits from every bag goes to the National Coalition for Domestic Violence. Unfortunately, it’s hard to not know someone who’s been impacted by sexual or domestic violence. This is a way we can try to advocate a little bit.
Coffee that supports these survivors seems like a win-win.
You are going to have your morning coffee anyway — why not have coffee for a cause?
