Montana Whiskey is ALIVE

[absaroka]

Greetings! We have been on this board for awhile, participating where we could and asking questions as they come up to further this boards' content. We met some of you at this year's ADI Whiskey conference and hope to meet others as time progresses.

We just changed our name from "Cold Smoke Distillery" to "RoughStock Distillery" this week due to a trademark issue we were not willing to deal with anymore. As soon as that name change is processed through the proper channels, our DSP and State permits will be active.

We are located in beautiful Bozeman, Montana just an hour north of Yellowstone National Park in the southwestern corner of the state. We will be making our Montana Whiskey from start to finish. Our barley is grown in Montana, malted in Montana, and milled/mashed/fermented/distilled/aged in our Montana Distillery by us (just the two of us: Bryan & Kari). We are the first of our kind in the State, and are poised to hold the first legal Micro Distillery License the State has ever issued. We are also proud of the fact we will only be using locally grown and malted barley for our product. This is truly a regional classification that we think is a great representation of our strong agricultural and rural roots.

So, in the coming months, we should be operational and slowly adding our barrel-aged whiskey inventory to our facility. Our tasting room is slated to be open this spring/early summer.... so stop by if you're in the area if nothing else to take a peek at our beautiful Vendome still and buy a t-shirt.

[Robert Cassell]

Wow, I can't believe you actually got a call back from Vendome to be able to make the still for you! Year after year I have approached them on projects. And year after year I buy from somebody else......because they can't return my calls, emails, I've spoken to them in person at conferences.....

[absaroka]

Wow, I can't believe you actually got a call back from Vendome to be able to make the still for you! Year after year I have approached them on projects. And year after year I buy from somebody else......because they can't return my calls, emails, I've spoken to them in person at conferences.....

I was just down in Louisville for the Bourbon Festival and stopped by Vendome to talk with Rob Sherman (I'm assuming that's who you dealt with). He had over 100 voicemails on his office phone, his cell phone was ringing every 5 minutes, and he said he has around 20-40 requests for quotes from small distillers almost weekly. Add that to the fact of the millions of $$ that the bourbon industry is pumping into their facilities right now and you may be able to see why Vendome is hard to get ahold of. Persistence pays off.... they've been very good to me.

[Gverseityillery]

Can you tell me how you are getting your grains malted? We in Michigan have grains available but no one here is malting. Any information you can give us would help.

Thanks

Kent

[absaroka]

Can you tell me how you are getting your grains malted? We in Michigan have grains available but no one here is malting. Any information you can give us would help.

Thanks

Kent

ADM Malting (now MaltEurope) has a state-of-the-art facility they opened up 150 miles north of me outside of Great Falls, Montana in 2005. It is in the heart of what is known as the "Golden Triangle" in Montana for grain growing. Nearly 1/3 of all grain for the US is grown in this region and is prime land for barley and wheat. I am very fortunate to have this facility nearby and they get a kick out of seeing where their malted grain goes. I can spec grain variety, particular farms, and check stock on growing season characteristics with a phone call or visit. It's very cool.....

Aside from that, it is very cost prohibitive to malt your own barley in mass amounts. I believe a few companies (in Canada and Germany) were selling small-scale malting "facilities", but were EXTREMELY pricey.

[Andrew]

Congratulations, Bryan! I'd love to make a field trip to that part of the country when time allows.

As a quick aside, I dealt with Rob Sherman of Vendome for one of our stills and had a great time working with him. Within reason (he does spend his days managing the floor of their facility), he was very responsive to both phone and email. The older guys may not be too responsive but Rob's definitely into what we're doing.