Building A Distillery - Blank Canvas / Wish List

[tl5612]

If you were in the position to build a distillery building (well, a rectifiers - gin distillery from NGS) from scratch - what would you include in the plans? 1) Necessities, 2) Luxuries, 3) Fantasies.

We're looking at 3000 to 4000 sq ft. Looking for small tasting room / retail for sure. Distillery floor, with in-house bottling. Storage etc. etc.

Would be great to hear from everyone.

Cheers

[Mash]

Big Still, toilet with a shower and a locker, Halle Berry.

[Skaalvenn]

Sloped floors leading to all the drains.

I have 5 drains in what will be the production area (not in production yet). I washed the floors the other day and it's a shame that I still have to use a squeegee with all those floor drains in a ~500 square foot area.

[TetonDistillery]

Sloped floors leading to all the drains.

I have 5 drains in what will be the production area (not in production yet). I washed the floors the other day and it's a shame that I still have to use a squeegee with all those floor drains in a ~500 square foot area.

This is VERY important and I agree. Sloped floors leading to drains is a great thing that many people don't think about when looking at places to lease.

• Boiler room is something to keep in mind when looking for locations. If possible you don't want to have to build one.
• Make sure you have sufficient power in your location. You don't want to have to pay to upgrade the power for your landlord.
• Ceiling height is always important. 25 ft ceilings are great. That will fit most stills and will allow you to use pallet racks for storage.
• Waste disposal... are you on city sewer for disposal of waste water? That has become an issue for us as we scaled up. Septic tanks won't be enough.

[rumfarmer]

Sloped floor is good. Make sure the guys pouring your pad get this right. I had to fix mine.

Have plenty of storage. You can really never have too much.

Good parking if you are bringing customers to the place, and a nice bathroom and quality retail space.

[Panoscape]

When doing the floor, you might build in a recessed area for your pallet sized floor scale so you can dolly containers onto it without ramps. This will most likely need a drain too, but it will make weighing 55 gal. drums so much easier.

Make sure to add a hard plumbed sink to your tasting room, most building codes will require it.

Design the tasting room so people can see the work going on in the back but can't enter without being escorted. This will allow the tasting person to show off your pretty still while leaving you free to do precession work.

Place your locked bottled/case area near your roll door, makes for easy loading on distribution day.

If you're doing mass amounts of GNS, you might look at an exterior storage tank and have it piped in. This will allow you to buy in greater quantity without breaking your F1 building rating. I have not done the research on this, so it might take some looking into. With an F1 rating, you can have a total of no more than 60 gallons of 190 proof in the building at one time.

Sprinkler system so you can get the max gallons of spirits on the floor with a F1 rating. Or, go for a higher rating. I heard a local distillery around us spent $1M on their building so they could have 2 totes of GNS on the floor at one time.

Start right now and build your tasting army. Get them server certified and have them though out your state. This is the most important marketing tactic that moves product. It shows the store that your product has support and gets people tasting your product.

[Salishseaorganicliqueurs]

Floorplanner.com is your friend.

[MG Thermal Consulting]

When you consider your cooling system and are using a closed loop recirculating system, even if you site the chiller outdoors, you will need to find room indoors for a water reservoir which can be quite large.

Mike

[john.g]

What about a dock? How important is having one? Does not having one require a forklift?

I am looking at a future building that is currently envisioned as not having one. The just completed companion building has a pair of them installed as in-ground ramps (bringing the truck down to ground level).

[TetonDistillery]

What about a dock? How important is having one? Does not having one require a forklift?

I am looking at a future building that is currently envisioned as not having one. The just completed companion building has a pair of them installed as in-ground ramps (bringing the truck down to ground level).

Having a loading dock is great, but I consider that optional for a distillery.

But even if you have a loading dock, there are still plenty of other reasons that you are going to also need a forklift in your distillery.

If you have any pallet racks with a 2nd or 3rd level, you are going to need a forklift.

[Dehner Distillery]

I would kill for taller ceilings! More storage!

Double or triple stack pallets of bottles..... I'd love that.

[tl5612]

Thanks very much everyone.

[Artisan Still Design]

When you consider your cooling system and are using a closed loop recirculating system, even if you site the chiller outdoors, you will need to find room indoors for a water reservoir which can be quite large.

Mike

yes cooling is key, too many get up and going without thought or budget for cooling.

[john.g]

I found a second potential location where I can get 4800 SF for what I expected to pay for 3000 SF. I would be the only tenant in the building. The location is less than 4 miles away from my first location, further from the town center and also along the same main corridor road. I would be the sole tenant in the building. There are a few other businesses in the area and a gas station at the nearby intersection to that road.

My question is how important is the location if you are not going to be downtown in the first place? Do you find that your customers will actually come out your way? (I expect to also sell product into larger stores, hopefully bars, hopefully restaurants in the area, so I am not counting on this as the sole point of sale.)