What do you actually do at a craft distillery cocktail room on a Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis?
That’s the question worth asking before you walk into Du Nord Craft Spirits on 26th Avenue South in the Longfellow neighborhood. The short answer: you sit down, you order a cocktail made with spirits distilled forty feet from your barstool, and you stay longer than you planned. The longer answer involves some history worth knowing.
Du Nord is the first Black-owned craft distillery in the United States. Chris Montana and his wife Shanelle opened it in 2013, and it has quietly become one of the more meaningful small businesses in the city — not because anyone markets it that way, but because of what it actually does and how well it does it. During the 2020 civil unrest following George Floyd’s murder, the distillery shifted production to hand sanitizer and converted into a mutual aid distribution hub, giving out thousands of meals to neighbors. That’s the kind of thing that sticks with a place.
The cocktail room itself is calm and well-proportioned — exposed brick, natural wood, good lighting that doesn’t try too hard. It seats maybe fifty people comfortably, with bar seating up front and tables toward the back. On weekends it fills up, but not so fast that you can’t find a spot by early afternoon. Weekday evenings are quieter and, honestly, better for conversation.
The drink menu rotates, but the house spirits stay consistent. Their App Vodka is made from apples — genuinely different from grain vodkas, with a clean sweetness that doesn’t need much dressing up. The L’Etoile du Nord gin is floral and dry, good in a simple tonic. But the real standout is the Fitzgerald Bourbon, named after F. Scott, a Saint Paul native with Minneapolis ties. It’s smooth and approachable without being boring, and it holds up well in an old fashioned, which you should order.
Cocktails run roughly $10 to $14. They also sell bottles to go, so if something clicks, you can take it home. There’s no food kitchen, but they sometimes have local food vendors on site — worth checking their Instagram before you go.
The crowd skews local and intentional. You’re less likely to find people killing time between tourist stops and more likely to find Longfellow regulars, people who drove across town specifically for this, and the occasional out-of-towner who did their homework. The staff knows the spirits well and will talk through the lineup if you ask, without making it feel like a lecture.
Parking on the street is usually available. The space is accessible. Dogs are welcome on the outdoor patio, which gets good afternoon sun in the warmer months and is worth prioritizing if the weather cooperates.
If you’ve been defaulting to Northeast breweries every time someone suggests a Minneapolis drink stop — and there’s nothing wrong with that — Du Nord is worth the deliberate detour south. The cocktails are well-made, the story behind the place is real, and the room has a steadiness to it that a lot of newer spots are still working toward.
