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grehorst

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Everything posted by grehorst

  1. Can anyone steer me to a company that can make 400 custom wood bottle boxes?
  2. WI. No one under 21 unless accompanied by a parent or guardian. Interestingly children can drink with their parents as well if the server is OK with it.
  3. 1. It's official. President signed it this AM. 2. I have no doubt that those who lobbied and pushed for this (brewing industry, wine industry, distilling industry) will continue to do so to make it permanent. Politicians don't often let things expire, and this reduction was very popular with both parties.
  4. The Distilled Spirits Council covered this in their annual conference. They had a guest speaker from Shipcompliant and the reality is there are only 6 states that allow spirits to be shipped in. You might wonder how all these online stores are doing it then? They are simply taking the risk- believing a far flung state is unlikely to bother prosecuting someone in another state. In most cases they are right- at least so far. In the case of my business, we have product placement at a few stores that ship- we let them take the risk. Incidentally, the Distilled Spirits Council (and more importantly their large members) seem to be in favor of getting these laws changed that would allow producers to direct ship to consumers. I recommend joining them if you'd like to help get laws changed- they have been a great ally for us in Wisconsin and with hope we all get a reduced excise soon. It's obvious distributors see the inevitable and don't want to be cut out, so the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America have invested heavily in Drizly- http://www.wsj.com/articles/liquor-distributors-invest-in-tech-firm-to-boost-e-commerce-in-alcohol-1431461864 Guy
  5. We still do this and it works out great. We first obtained written permission from the TTB and also verified legality with our state- some states require bars to destroy the bottles. We pick up and buy back (.50ea) from our wholesale accounts and consumers can return their bottles to our tasting room and get $1 in store credit for each bottle. We redesigned our labels and use an adhesive that cleanly comes off with a hot water rinse. We wash in a high temp washer (we discard anything that looks suspect- like bottles that were used for infusions) and have had no issues. I have one part time mom who does the work. We have reworked over 6000 bottles so far this year.
  6. He has been warned and many of the posts are being removed.
  7. We couldn't call our spirit made from Pumpkin beer a whiskey because there is pumpkin in the mash and pumpkin is a fruit. Whiskey cannot be made from a mash containing fruit.
  8. Absolutely. ...and it is illegal. Mostly what I hear is "we'll carry your product but how much free goods are you going to provide"? It is our policy to not even try to do business with these people.
  9. Too broad a statement as there are exceptions... here's what it says; (d) State of distillation. Except in the case of “light whisky”, “blended light whisky”, “blended whisky”, “a blend of straight whiskies”, or “spirit whisky”, the State of distillation shall be shown on the label of any whisky produced in the United States if the whisky is not distilled in the State given in the address on the brand label. The appropriate TTB officer may, however, require the State of distillation to be shown on the label or he may permit such other labeling as may be necessary to negate any misleading or deceptive impression which might be created as to the actual State of distillation. In the case of “light whisky”, as defined in §5.22((3), the State of distillation shall not appear in any manner on any label, when the appropriate TTB officer finds such State is associated by consumers with an American type whisky, except as a part of a name and address as set forth in paragraph (a) of this section.
  10. Not sure where you've heard this, but it's wrong. Read the proposed bills. It allows ALL distillers to enjoy a reduced FET on the first 100,000 proof gallons. DISCUS members (including the two companies you mention) will support this because of that fact.
  11. So, the local health department visited. They are concerned about our use of copper mugs for Moscow Mules. Basically they state that because the drink has a pH of <6 we shouldn't be using copper. But, if the level of copper is below 1.3mg per liter (the limit the EPA has set for water) they think we will be fine. So, now I need to have one of our Moscow Mules tested by a lab. I'll update this as soon as we have new info...
  12. As I previously pointed out; I do not have the time to fairly police reviews. I know many have great ideas on how to do this, but they don't address the time issue. The ADI cannot devote a full time person (or more) to investigate claims about suppliers. Other sites exist for reviewing businesses. Just the other day someone decided to give a bad review of a supplier. A link was posted to Yelp reviews for the supplier. Use Yelp.
  13. Actually you haven't paid one cent for the forums. The fact is I have paid for 95+% of the cost since I started them 5+ years ago. In addition I have been the sole administrator for years. I have kept a huge amount of spammers off these forums and volunteered a tremendous amount of time. What have you done? You have had free use of them to plug your products constantly. You have asked me to delete comments from other members who produce stills and ban people who ask you questions with no proof of their ulterior motive offered other than your word. I have nothing against you Steve, but if I were to write a review I'd say as a potential customer of yours you're not a very grateful person and you don't have all the facts nor a clear understanding of the situation, just a selfish point of view.
  14. Charles, Both. I have noticed a considerable number of one sided critical posts on vendors and even on individuals that I have removed. Interestingly no one seems to miss them except the posters. I have also been contacted by ADI who has received several complaints. This is also a potential liability problem for ADI and myself. You are correct, the policies are not well documented. I will work to change that. Until recently common sense and politeness seemed to prevail. I do not want to see this become one of those review sites where anyone can rip on anyone with no accountability.
  15. Exactly. I understand the desire to keep the forums open to any responsible and balanced vendor review. The suggestions for criteria are all good, but the fact is who has time to judge that? Sorry, Not me, I have a distillery to run and there is just too much potential for abuse.
  16. First of all by saying vendors can respond you're assuming they have the time/interest to spend their days monitoring these forums. The fact is a lot of suppliers sell into more than just our industry. How many industry forums should they be forced to monitor? How long should potentially false information be allowed to stay posted? Every one of us has had a bad experience or two, and when you talk to suppliers they too can tell you of bad experiences with customers. Should they start posting reviews of customers here too? If you want to review a business please do it elsewhere.
  17. There has been a noticeable increase in the bashing of various industry suppliers. This is a forum to share knowledge, not review suppliers. There are other sites where you can review companies and express one sided opinions. This is not one of those sites. Please keep your supplier (and for that matter competitor) discussions polite. Posts that do not follow this recommendation will be removed. Repeated bashing will result in account deletion.
  18. Breakout sessions are included in your registration. No signup, just go to the room where the session you want to attend is being held.
  19. Here is the current state of general solicitation for investors (from an attorney who is starting a crowd funding site for small craft producers) as of today... The JOBS Act contained 2 parts. First, it lifted the ban on general solicition. Second, it allowed companies to crowdfund up to $1M online from general public. While we are still waiting on the crowdfunding piece to go into effect, the ban on general solicitation was officially lifted in September of last year. What this means is that private companies are now allowed to speak publicly about and advertise fundraising efforts (billboards, twitter, etc). However, if you take advantage of general solicitation then you must verify that every investor is an accredited investor. The inclusion of a single non accredited investor will blow the whole deal. This will require more than simple check the box self certification. Bottom line: Although general solicitation is now legal, companies should understand the implications prior to any solicitation.
  20. Please feel free to restart these threads- I can't recover them.
  21. Hmmmm. Unfortunately I can't find them either. I know they were spammed and I removed the message from the spammer. I fear I may have screwed up or a bug in the software may have resulted in the entire threads removal. VERY unfortunate as I was following them as well. Feel free to start them up again, I will see if there is any way to recover them.
  22. Since so many distilleries are now offering distilling classes and these announcements tend to get cross posted to many of the forums, I have created a new forum called "Education". This is a unified location where all forum visitors can look or ask if they are offering or seeking educational opportunities. Posts about classes in any other forums will be moved here or deleted from all other forums.
  23. I wouldn't worry about wind chill. I'm guessing your bottles won't be exposed to any wind...
  24. Just upgraded the forums software to the latest version. Please let me know if you're still having an issue....
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