Sausage artisan and entrepreneur

COEUR d’ALENE — Otto von Bismarck was credited with saying, “There are two things you don't want to see being made — sausage and legislation.”

Ben Drake chuckles as he refers to that not-so-famous quote.

“I am completely the opposite,” he says.

Which is what one might expect from the owner of Gentleman Sausages that recently opened on Fourth Street in downtown Coeur d’Alene.

Drake is an exception to von Bismarck’s comment. He makes and sells retail and wholesale sausage, fresh or frozen, in coils and by the pound.

He welcomes customers to stop by and watch him in action.

“It’s become a passion,” Drake said.

The butcher paper on the wall highlights the day’s specials: Benny Brat for $8 a pound. the Krakow, the French, the ATNT and Cheddarwurst, going for $8.50 a pound, and Pamplona, $9 a pound.

Drake won't disclose his secrets, but he uses ingredients like fresh habanero, hickory smoked gouda, fresh veggies, lager, garlic, parsley and chili sauce to give his sausage that special flavor.

Drake said just the good stuff like whole cuts of meat and chicken breasts.

"We don't use scraps," he said.

With help from employee Palmer Rakes, Drake turned out 220 pounds of sausage the other day in a little under four hours — from cutting, grinding, mixing, tubing and packaging.

He’s learned to do it a bit faster since he initially made sausage years ago. Then, it took nine hours to produce five pounds, or two small coils, of garlic kielbasa.

“I’ll forget that,” Drake says, smiling.

The influence of Gentleman Sausages stretches out the door and across the street to Crown and Thistle Pub, which is owned by Drake and wife Jennifer. It opened in 2019.

The menu includes Drake’s sausage, like the Benny Banger, Bounty O’ Bangers, Beer Battered Banger and Bangers and Mash. The Scotch Egg is a soft-boiled-egg wrapped in housemade pork sausage.

They are popular.

“People come from all over for the sausage,” he said.

There is a story behind the name, “Gentleman Sausages.”

Drake said in 2016, he and his wife were in London and she bought him a black notebook. On the cover, in small, gold letters, it read, “A Gentleman’s Notes.”

Drake wasn’t sure how to use it until June 2017 when he started making sausage at home for family gatherings and friends.

It was then he opened that book and on the inside page wrote, “Gentleman Sausage,” with an elementary drawing of linked sausages snaking around the page.

“Ever since then, this has every recipe of sausage I ever created,” he says, retrieving the book from a shelf and flipping through it.

It contains about 100 recipes, which Drake guards closely. They are for his eyes only. In that little black book are the keys to his success.

Drake said his introduction to sausage came when he visited Germany as a 16-year-old exchange student. It seemed to be a staple of every diet, including his host family's.

“When I got there, sausages abound,” he said.

He couldn't forget the taste, the smell and how people enjoyed it.

It sparked a dream to own and operate a sausage shop. But like most dreams, it seemed unlikely to ever become reality.

“I never actually thought I’d have a sausage shop,” Drake said.

His wife was a believer.

In 2017, Jennifer was wondering what to buy her husband for his birthday. It came to her: The Megaforce 3000 meat grinder.

Hubby was pleased.

“Pretty good little grinder, and I destroyed it," Ben Drake said, laughing. "I used it for a year and a half straight and stripped every gear in that bad boy."

Jennifer also bought Ben a book, “Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing.”

It, too, rests on a shelf at Gentleman Sausages.

Making more sausage came about in part because of COVID-19 when restaurants were forced to close to dine-in customers.

Takeout was OK, so the Drakes decided to sell sausage out the door. Soon, Ben and crew were cranking out 300 pounds a day.

“It just took off,” he said.

When COVID restrictions lifted, Crown and Thistle reopened. Sausage demand remained and people kept coming for it.

So good was business that Drake ran out of space in the Crown and Thistle kitchen. When he saw that Abi’s Ice Cream Shop across the street was closing, he leased the 900-square-foot space.

He's a happy man, doing what he loves, living that dream.

"We're going to keep chugging along and having a good time," he said.

Drake is confident even better days are ahead.

He uses the example of the popularity of craft beers, which they sell at Crown and Thistle, to what he believes will be a similar rise in the popular of craft sausage.

“I’m kind of like a craft sausage maker," he said. "I’m making sausages I just don’t think people have had before."