We started in the basement of my home on a hill known for bootlegging in East Moline IL. After a 23 year career as a banker my small community bank was bought out and began my 7 year career as an independent recruiter. I was not satisfied recruiting being on the phone and my laptop for at least 12 hours a day. I was a home brewer learning how to make Mead also known as honey wine. Hundreds of people encouraged me to open a meadery professionally to make Mead. Our area the Quad Cities several cities in Iowa and Illinois on the Mississippi river lacked a meadery. Our mead is gluten free with no added chemicals or sulfites. It doesn’t give you a “wine headache” or a hangover the next day. I started loving mead when I went on a gluten free diet and lost a lot of weight.
I had a vision to form the meadery and throwing caution to the wind decided to follow my passion started the meadery in 2013 a after receiving support from my special education school teacher wife for 42 yeas. My soulmate love at first sight wife noticed my calling was to make mead. We remodeled out 1931 Bungalow o accommodate our meadery. After receiving permission from all of our neighbors Bootleg Hill LLC was formed. We could have called it Acorn Hill since the hill we lived on had a lot of oak trees A friend and neighbor invested some capital to launch our company.
We spent over a year obtaining all the government and state licenses. Our first sale was December 10, 2013 at a Hy-Vee grocery store in Moline IL. I then started selling wholesale to our local grocery stores then expanded to all of Illinois from Dekalb to Springfield. Making mead and hand delivering it was a real challenge however we did not have a tasting room and selling from my home was prohibited. After doing this for several years in 2017 two developers contacted us who wanted to buy commercial real estate in
Downtown Davenport. We looked at several building in downtown Davenport and found one building we determined was ideal. After 6 months of negotiations and 11 months of construction we foolishly signed a 10 year lease because we really wanted to move into the building and move out of our basement. This was a foolish move for the amount of the lease. We could never expand and have a tasting room in our home. The developers became members of our LLC and borrowed money to remodel and purchase new equipment. We opened our new production facility and tasting room at 321 E 2nd Street Davenport on November 15, 2018. My son joined our company as Manager and everyone was excited about our future.
April 2019 we had an historic Mississippi River flood and the temporary Hesco barriers to keep the river from flooding the downtown area collapsed. Our building was ground zero. We saw the flood wall collapse and barely made it out of the building. The flood took over the downtown and made our building only accessible by boar. We manned the building with 5 people 24 7 protecting our business and the restaurant next door along with 7 apartments on the second floor. We setup generators, drilled holes in the floor to manager the water that was in our basement along with many pumps. Eventually after a month the water starred to recede and we opened after being out of business for 2 months. During this time we where known as Nelson Island after our building name. We received no assistance except a few small grants. The entire downtown was vacant and smelled like the river for several months. Business was killed however we survived. And started to distribute mead to Iowa and Illinois utilizing a distributor.
COVID hit us hard however this time the government provided assistance in the form of grants and SBA PPP and EIDL. The assistance allowed to survive and have modest growth. We also continued expanding into the Farmer Market. At this time our developer members decided to attempt a hostile takeover and convert us into a sports bar. We fought this since we have controlling interest and our developers left our LLC along with our friend who helped us start the company. That left us and our neighbor. We had another small flood however the temporary flood wall held and we did not have flooding like the first time.
The summer of 2025 we left 321 E 2nd Street and moved to 226 W 3rd Street Davenport ll in the historic Beyer Building for less than half the previous rent and utility cost. We had a toxic relationship with our developer former members of our LLC Our former space appears to be vacant. In hindsight we should have started in a smaller building with less overhead. My special education school teacher wife after 36 years of teaching finally retired this summer.
The mead we are making also know as honeywine is the best ever receiving praise from all our loyal fans. Currently we are selling from our tasting room and Farmers Market wanting to expand back with internet sales. We also want to advertise and have better signage that has not been possible due to lack of capital and the tragic circumstances. Demand for our mead is extremely strong
After working literally 7 days typically ten hour days per week except for major holidays we want to transition the business to the next generation my son Bill and his two wonderful daughters. We have supported the business in addition to my donated time with money from retirement funds including recently my social security. We want to spend time with my recently retired wife including travel since I have not had a vacation since forming Bootleg Hill LLC.
I have followed my passion and devoted my life to mead now is the time to turn over the business to my son Bill and ultimately his two daughters who shares the same passion. I will work less and spend more time with my soulmate wife for the last of 43 years. WE REALLY NEED YOUR HELP OTHERWISE WE WILL HAVE TO CLOSE THE BUSINESS AND END OUR DREAM IN A NIGHTMARE. I BELIEVE IN WHAT WE ARE DOING AND WANT TO PASS ALONG THE BUSINESS TO THE NEXT GENERATIONS. Thank you. Literally you will support us allowing our dream to continue and passing it along to the next generations. Thank you for your support!
Rick Harris owner and Founder Bootleg Hill LLC d/b/a Bootleg Hill Meads check out our story on Facebook.
