Veterans and bourbon combine for all-American product

What do bourbon barrels and military veterans have in common? If you take the comparison at face value, it might seem like these two things are polar opposites. But if you’re like Chris Cruise, you look below the surface and see that there’s more in common than one might think.

They’re both American as can be, and can get a little beat up along their journey—not to mention the fact that both can serve for a number of years.

But most important, at the Cruise Customs shop in Shepherdsville, they’re both given a new purpose.

“I knew we had something there.”

In 2016, Chris Cruise and his wife were looking for some type of home decor project that combined her Kentucky roots with his military service. Cruise, a veteran of the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, settled on making a handcrafted American flag out of used bourbon barrel staves. A unique gift to be sure, but there was one slight problem: by his own admission, Cruise had no woodworking experience.

“It was a lot of trial and error, and it still is,” he laughs.

Through that trial and error, he also found peace in the project, stating it was a therapeutic way to help with PTSD and anxiety. Once Cruise completed his first flag, he thought others who shared a military background would appreciate one as well. So, as Christmas rolled around, Cruise completed two additional flags for two people in his life.

“My dad and my father-in-law are both veterans, and I wanted to give them something unique instead of exchanging gift cards like many men do,” he explains. When the two men saw their handmade bourbon barrel flags, their reaction told Cruise all he needed to know. “I knew we had something there.”

A new sense of purpose

In 2017, Cruise set up shop and established Cruise Customs in his garage, with a few guiding principles.

“We would only hire veterans to handcraft the flags,” Cruise explains, “and I wanted them to have the best tools we could afford, and for as many of the tools to be made in the U.S. as

possible.”

Big name brands soon came to assist Cruise, with DeWalt partnering and supplying tools, and Keen Footwear supplying every veteran with a pair of boots.

“Those were two brand partners early on that were pretty strategic, because we wanted our veterans to have good, American made [products],” Cruise says. Cruise, like many business owners, knew that hiring veterans would benefit the business in a variety of ways. He believes the veterans benefit as well. “The whole reason I started this business was to help veterans,” Cruise explains. “They miss the camaraderie they had in the military, and they miss the sense of purpose. A regular 9 to 5 just doesn’t cut it after you’ve served in the war. The veterans in the shop feel like they’re serving something greater, because someone will be proud of [their product]. It gives them a sense of purpose working on these products.”

Expanding their reach

In 2020, the business’s reach rapidly expanded when they sold handmade flags with an engraved heartbeat, a tribute to frontline healthcare workers during the pandemic. Profits went toward local health care centers such as Norton and the University of Louisville Healthcare. In all, 5,000 flags were sold the first week, prompting the team to come together after showcasing their product on national television. “We were like, ‘How are we going to do this?’” Cruise says.

But for him, he knew the solution was in his workforce.

“Having that mission mindset [that comes with] being a veteran, that’s a beautiful thing. I would never hold any- thing back from us selling a bunch of products, because we’re going to figure it out.”

The process for crafting these unique flags starts, naturally, with an empty barrel.

“You have to empty the barrel before we can get our hands on it,” Cruise says. “We just challenge people to keep enjoy- ing good ol’ Kentucky bourbon.”

They purchase the spare staves and barrels from a used barrel cooperage. Afterward, the wood staves go through a great deal of cutting and sanding, a crucial process that gets the material ready for assembly.

“We have to make them worthwhile for someone to hang in their home or business.”

The products created by the team at Cruise Custom are indeed worthy of display. Several local businesses have ordered special flags for their offices, and custom barrel flags were even made for former President Donald Trump and the White House. A flag found at a nearby distillery is an unofficial world record holder. At 12 feet long and 7 feet high, the custom bourbon barrel flag and challenge coin holder weighs 500 pounds and took several months to complete.

“It’s the largest flag we’ve made to date,” explains Cruise, “and we’re challenging other distilleries to up that if they choose to do so.”

Cruise and his team have come a long way from their roots in 2016, but even as their reach and catalog of products grows and changes, their mission and purpose do not.

“I envision a shop full of veterans, having that camaraderie, having that sense of purpose … providing therapy along with an [awesome] product.”