Before Twisted Tap opened tasting rooms in downtown Grand Rapids and Kentwood, Caledonia brothers Quentin and Greyson Hunderman were spending their winters hauling sap and burning the midnight oil over boiling kettles, building a maple syrup business during Michigan’s brief maple season—the narrow window of warm days and freezing nights that coaxes sap from tree to bottle.
Quentin, now 20 and armed with an engineering eye from West Michigan Aviation Academy, lives in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula through the heart of the season, tending 30,000 taps across 750 sprawling acres of forest. He rigs the pumps and keeps the sap flowing through lines to their sugar shack. Greyson, a junior at South Christian, jumps in where school lets him. Together, the brothers lit the spark that would become Twisted Tap. Their younger brother Preston is just getting started.
What began as a maple syrup operation quickly evolved into something more. Under the Twisted Tap Sugar Shack name, the family expanded beyond traditional syrup, experimenting with flavors and products that found their way into coffee, desserts, glazes, and cocktails. As demand grew, so did the family’s interest in new ways to showcase Michigan maple.
That creativity found a new outlet when the Hundermans purchased Wise Men Distilling and reimagined it as Twisted Tap Distillery. Today, the business operates two tasting rooms: one in downtown Grand Rapids at 146 Monroe Center NW, just steps from Rosa Parks Circle, and another at its Kentwood location on 4717 Broadmoor Ave SE, Suite F, Broadmoor Avenue SE. The Broadmoor Avenue space pulls triple duty—serving coffee sweetened with signature syrups during the day and inventive cocktails in the evening—while the downtown space offers a more intimate tasting room experience in the heart of the city’s entertainment district.
Maple vanilla lattes have become a local favorite, and the cocktail menu often nods directly to the family’s roots, with maple-infused takes on classics such as sours and Old Fashioneds. Syrup that once moved from tree to bottle now finds its way into mugs and cocktail glasses across West Michigan.
From local coffee shops to tables in all 50 states, Twisted Tap’s reach is wide, but the work remains deeply rooted in family. “It wasn’t planned,” Nicole says with practiced humility. “We were just blessed with the right circumstances.” What began as two brothers tapping trees has become a distinctly Michigan success story—one that lives on in syrup bottles, coffee cups, and cocktails alike.
