Leaderboard

Very interesting find here. Some good points and I would have to agree with the side that says there is plenty of room for growth. The way I see it, is this is a changing industry as growth continues. No offense, but if you are sing an end near, then you have already given up. I get it, people are afraid of change, but change is constant and an opportunity to do things different with added knowledge. Time for people to embrace change and evolve with the business. The same thing happened in the craft beer segment and that is exactly why I am here. Rather than opening another brewery and trying to adapt with the saturation I saw a chance to get into and industry that is years behind craft beer. Most distilleries before me have focused on the mass production and distribution model. I have decided to follow the craft beer model (as mentioned before) and go with a tasting room forward and innovative model. Were are slated to open by the end of the year and have a 2500 sqft tasting room with another 3000sqft outdoor "drink garden". Our production will be based on laughter with clean/closed fermentation and 1 stripping still and 2 spirits stills, one for botanical and one for flavor positive starches. We will produce about 30 different labels a year, some seasonal and one-offs. All small bath on a 10bbl brewhouse yielding about 60 gallons per batch. Intentions are to sell as much in-house and whatever is left over to liquor stores. Rather than trying to flood all liquor stores we will have a product that will only be on certain liquor store shelf's who are brand loyal ensuring that our product has proper pull-through. One comment I found interesting was the 1000g for beer at $8 a glass. In my area its more like $7 a glass, but non the less that is about $56,000 on a 1000g batch. On the same 1000g system with a 10% yield you get $170 $68,000 assuming you sell a 1.5 oz shot for $8. Now get your yields up to 20% and sell your drink for $10 (comps in my area) you get $170k. Sounds pretty good, right. I might be a little ambitious, but I've been in the beer industry long enough to know that if you work hard and produce a quality product for a local market building a loyal brand all while being innovative, then you will be successful. I am not afraid one bit at all and I am excited to be a part of the upswing of a budding industry.

Hi Jake Norris here, I am available for consulting on your distillery project. I specialize in whiskey, but can help with distillery design, equipment selection, process flow, recipe development, marketing and most things distillery related. Please drop me an email and introduce yourself. DistillerJakeNorris@gmail.com Jake

Hey all, Quite a few of the MT distilleries re-use their bottles. The issue is Federal, per Jedd's response above. You need to get a letter from the TTB allowing you to reuse your packaging. Once you have that letter, you're good to go, but they do require that you ask and receive permission...otherwise, they're probably willing to throw the book at you. On the topic of actually doing it, it can be a hassle, but makes good sense, especially if you're pouring from your tasting room. Reuse those bottles saves a lot of money. However, on the whole, we don't really do it....just too much work. Cheers, McKee