“I always say this place started on apricots,” said Scott Miller as he glanced around the storefront shared by The Lil’ Ole Winemaker and Amber Floral—two downtown businesses that have been staples of Grand Junction’s Main Street for more than 40 years.

Scott and his wife, Malinda, own and operate this unique combination of florist and beer and winemaking supply shop located at 516 Main St. Even at 40 years old, the wine and beer making portion of the store is younger than the floral shop, with the homebrew store holding the distinction of being the oldest single-proprietor homebrew shop in the U.S.

But before the apricots came the floral shop, which Malinda’s mother, Mary Galba, opened in 1956.

“Daddy taught horticulture at Colorado State University (CSU), and then he and two other partners came over and started the greenhouse out on Orchard Mesa by the cemetery and needed an outlet so Mom goes, ‘All right, I’ll go learn floral,’” Malinda said.

Her father, Joe, got into winemaking as a matter of necessity when, after the family moved to the Redlands in 1964, he had a bumper crop of apricots.

“You can only make so much apricot jam,” Scott said.

Malinda started working at the flower shop when she was a little girl.

“Mama had me making tufts when I was about 5 years old and she paid me a penny a piece,” she said. “I got faster so it was two for a penny, and I got faster and it was three per penny. When I got up to 10 for a penny, I said, ‘Give me something else to do.’ So that’s when I started making bows: a penny a piece, two for a penny…”

Though Malinda had wanted to continue to work in the floral shop after she graduated high school, her mom insisted that she go to college—and that’s where she met Scott.

Taking on homebrew

Even though they had good jobs in Denver, the Grand Valley called the Millers home in 1978 and they joined the family business. Malinda integrated into the floral shop and Scott worked at the wine shop on the weekends until he took early retirement from his state job as a pollution control specialist and joined the wine shop full time.

In October that same year, Jimmy Carter signed a law legalizing homebrewing.

“He started this whole revolution," Scott said. "I thought, ‘I like beer,’ so I learned how to make it. Now I do as much wine as I do beer anymore.”

Scott generally favors Belgian-style beers, but like many craft beer and wine connoisseurs, his preferences change with the seasons.

“I always do a wheat, but the Belgians are still my favorite, whether it is a Belgian white, or a double or a tripel,” he said. “In the summertime, I like lighter style beers and the light crisp style white wines. In the wintertime, I tend to go darker. So I drink more red wines and porters or stouts and dark Belgians.”

The Millers have become very familiar with the equipment and supplies they sell, but their many years of winemaking expertise is one of the things that truly sets their shop apart from many other homebrew shops in the state.

In fact, many of the state’s winemakers have been customers at one time or another, including Parker Carlson and Eames Peterson of Carlson Vineyards and Alfred Eames Cellars.

“I’ve found that if Malinda likes the wine, I have a hard time keeping it in stock because she’ll sell the heck out of it,” Scott said.

The homebrew shop predates all of the wineries in the state, and all but two breweries. Coors started in 1873 and Boulder Beer Company was established in September 1979, just weeks before Lil’ Ole Winemaker’s brewing store.

Life is beer and baseball

Besides wine and beer, the Millers also share a passion for skiing and baseball. When they take their annual hiatus from the shop in January, their most likely destination is a ski trip.

“I was actually up at Powderhorn the first day it opened,” said Scott. “[Skiing is] just a fun sport and beats the heck out of sitting around the house all day long.”

They’ve been season ticket holders to the Grand Junction Rockies since the team moved here, and they attend a couple Colorado Rockies games each year.

“As long as they still have Dirty Hippie at the [local] baseball games, I’m happy,” Scott said.

But even more so than either baseball or skiing, family and community are what make the Millers tick.

“Family is my first priority,” said Malinda, who raves about their two children: Amanda, a teacher at Clifton Elementary, and Ryan, an engineer like his father. “We’ve always been community minded. Mom and Dad belonged to every organization.”

It was Mary Galba’s influence as head of Chamber of Commerce Women’s Division that led to the establishment of the free day at the Mesa County Landfill (then called Punch at the Dump), Spring Cleanup and the annual Parade of Lights.

Scott and Malinda’s generosity and volunteerism span decades. Scott is the past director for the Powderhorn Racing Club and former president of Monument Little League and Greenbelt (the forerunner of the Colorado Riverfront Commission) and just recently resigned from the Mesa County Air Quality Advisory Committee. Malinda is past vice chairman and district education chairman for Florist Transworld Delivery and was also president of the Colorado Floral Association and the Womens’ Division of the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce.

Together, they support the Grand Junction Lions Club and donate the flowering plants for their annual carnival. Presently, they sit on the board of directors for the Redlands Community Center Foundation, helping prepare for the building’s upcoming 100-year anniversary celebration in 2020.

It was largely Scott’s doing that led to the creation of the Bookcliff Homebrew Club. When founding club president Tyler Frye came into the shop one day and asked where the local homebrew club was, Scott said, “You’re starting it.”

After he started a little club with his fellow teachers from Bookcliff Middle School, Tyler said, “Scott started giving out my phone number.”

Since then, Scott and Malinda have been the club’s biggest supporters, from hosting the club’s annual Bockcliff Day at their Redlands home to fully sponsoring the application fee for the club to become a 501(c)3 educational nonprofit and donating supplies and gift cards for various club events.

Love like wine

Celebrating almost 45 married years together, the Millers’ love and commitment to one another as spouses, parents and business partners is like a fine wine that gets better with age.

Showing up to run their store five days a week, it’s no wonder why they’re frequently asked how they manage to live and work together, day in and day out.

“We don’t get too upset at each other,” Scott said. “We have our own work areas, although I help her out and she helps me.”

“I don’t do keg parts; he doesn’t do flower arrangements,” Malinda added.

And it’s been that way forever.

“I guess that’s what happens when you marry your best friend,” Scott said.