Ben Oxley wants to start a revolution—and he’s doing it via fermentation.
Oxley (S’19) and his partner, Shobhana Panuganti, are in the process of opening a unique business known as a fermentory in Chicago. Similar in many ways to a traditional brewery, a fermentory uses fermentation to produce alcoholic beverages like beer and wine as well as nonalcoholic drinks and fermented food.
Their goal? To bring back third spaces.
Third spaces can be anything outside of one’s job and home—a library, a coffee shop, and now a fermentory. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, these places changed from in-person locations to online bubbles where people gathered to find a sense of belonging.
Oxley and Panuganti are on a mission to bring that feeling back into the real world—to revive the physical third space in a digital world. To achieve this, they’ve envisioned a sit-down place where patrons can come in, enjoy a drink, and be a part of a community through classes and events.
“Our goal is to create a space for people to go that’s not a bar or a club,” Oxley says. “We want to be a place where you can just come to learn something new, have a drink, and hang out with your neighbors.”
The fermentory is named Ekaloka, which in Sanskrit means “of one realm.” As Oxley and Panuganti workshopped names for the business, they found that “Ekaloka” fit perfectly with their aims. They are both inorganic chemists who have experience working with all the elements on the periodic table, so they wanted to bring what they’ve learned in the lab to the table.
“We want to demonstrate the personalities of the elements in our food and drinks and tie into this idea that we’re all part of the same place, made up of the same materials, eat the same food, and evolve the same way,” Oxley says. “We’re boxed up in our phones and in these little worlds we’ve created for ourselves, but we’re social beings, and community is how we’ve evolved to live. We want to be as local as possible so that we can enhance our neighborhood, grow our local economy, and support everyone.”
Oxley and Panuganti currently have a production space housed in a neighborhood restaurant, but they hope to open a tap room of their own very soon. The menu at Ekaloka is based on the elements and features items made only with plant-based ingredients and seasonal and local produce. Their current selection consists of beers, fruit brews and hard ciders, and nonalcoholic options.
They also want to show everyone how easy it is to ferment.
“Humans have been fermenting for as long as we’ve been around, and there are many cultures that have really rich fermentation practices,” Oxley says. “We want to preach the message that it’s all easy if you understand a few basic things.”
For the past year and a half, the two have been experimenting with various ingredients to develop their menu—a fun process that resulted in some interesting combinations. Oxley recalls a cider they made solely from cantaloupes.
“It was like a nice sour beer with the essence of cantaloupe, and it had this really beautiful pale-orange color to it,” Oxley says.
Oxley got his first taste of home brewing during his undergraduate years at Purdue, where he majored in both chemistry and planetary science—while also finding the time to take part in the Purdue Varsity Glee Club and serve as a College of Science ambassador. Oxley continued to home brew while he pursued his doctorate in chemistry at Northwestern University.
Oxley met Panuganti at Northwestern, where they were in the same research group. After becoming friends, they began dating—and bonding over home brewing. Soon enough, a revolution was born.
“We really clicked, and we’ve been together more than three years,” Oxley says. “The idea of building a business based on our home brewing started as just a joke between us, but then it became real life. As more people have become interested in craft beverages and being health conscious, fermentation has gained popularity around the country.”
Unfortunately, the realities of the job market were also a factor in the decision to open the fermentory. When Panuganti received her doctorate, she had difficulty finding work that felt right for her. Oxley, who received his PhD the following year, realized that he didn’t want to go down that same road.
“Grad school was eye-opening,” Oxley says. “We found that working in academia or in national labs was not for us, and we didn’t want to go corporate. It was a major change of direction for both of us, but the fermentory was the option that felt right.”
Oxley and Panuganti are still in the early stages of getting Ekaloka off the ground. The business had its first outing at a local farmers market in February, and they hope to officially open their doors this August.
“There has been a lot of learning—this whole process has taught us to find people we can trust and genuinely enjoy being around,” Oxley says. “Honestly, it’s not too dissimilar from college or graduate school. My time at Purdue and then at Northwestern taught me a lot about how to process information, manage my time, and learn on the fly. Education also gave us the confidence to try something different, and we’re very excited to keep learning and build this business together.”
—Keagan Slocum
