About Us

OUR PHILOSOPHY

We love Wisconsin*. We love that giant fiberglass statue of a musky up in Hayward. We love the big ‘M’ in Platteville. We love Taliesin East and the Milwaukee Art Museum. We love the Geneva Lake Shore Path, and we love the Ice Age Trail. We love a little bar on Water Street that was once called “a dive” by The New York Times.

Wisconsin is where we provide our industry and pay our mortgages. It’s where our standards for time and distance were established, and where we learned to tough out the winter. It’s where our temperaments were fashioned and our values were forged, and it’s where our vote matters.

Because we love Wisconsin, we believe it’s our job to cultivate its bounty, preserve its beauty, and enrich its culture. We source our grains from local fields and our botanicals from local gardens. We’re headquartered in the capital city. You can buy our spirits from Siren down to Darlington and up to Sister Bay.

At State Line, we bottle the best of Wisconsin. Pour our spirits out, raise them up, and commemorate a life well-lived in a beautiful green country.

JOHN MLEZIVA
Founder & Distiller

State Line Distillery was founded by a man named John Mleziva. Muh-LEZ-i-vah. We can blame his Czech heritage for that preposterous last name. John attended UW-Eau Claire and Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland. He’s worked as an emergency medical technician, a salmon fishing guide, and a speaker salesman. He’s left-handed. He’s pretty hairy. For the past six years, he’s sung baritone with the Madison Choral Project. He once went skydiving in the Swiss Alps. In high school, he had frosted tips. He’s an excellent swimmer. His daughters’ names are Chloe and Elsie. His childhood home was haunted, sort of. He once survived a dreadful fall down a flight of wooden stairs because he was wearing a humongous sombrero. At age 17, he organized a pay-to-play squirt gun game called Assassination for several hundred of his classmates that consumed their daily lives for almost a month. Each year, he rides his bike from Duluth to the Twin Cities to raise money for MS research. It rained on his wedding day. He and his dad watch Packer games in tense, focused silence. He’s a speedy walker, a clumsy bowler, a snore-y sleeper, and a gifted booze maker. Oh, and his favorite Enya album is “Watermark.” Easily.

MARK ANUNSON
Head Distiller & Production Manager

Mark moved from small farm to big city to even bigger city, pushing pixels around from an office desk and dreaming of fermentation. He reconnected with John after a few years of production work at an Illinois distillery, and became an indispensable member of the team. When he’s not at State Line, he’s biking, reading sci-fi, pretending to know Linux, or pursuing hobbies he has no time for.

MIKE MCDONALD
Bar Manager & Mixologist

Mike’s no ordinary bartender. At Bittercube, he created cocktails, crafted bitters, worked in R&D, and presided over the Milwaukee chapter of the U.S. Bartenders’ Guild. Mike’s been with State Line since day one, but since then he also founded a craft ice and bar consulting company called Wisco Ice Co. We use (and sell) his crystal clear ice in our cocktail lounge, and rely on his expertise as we develop new products.