Odyssey Spirits

For the record - the question was meant to be read as "how much do you use" period. How much currently do you use, if any, regardless of what you happen to use it for. Restaurants know on average how much cooking oil they are going through at a given point, if they don't then it would be a good idea to address their inventory systems so they do.

Where are you working now Rob? I called Balcos today and they said you no longer work there. Have you reestablished yourself at another insurance company?

You can call your products anything you want - which will become that product's brand. If you want rights to use your distillery name (for any purpose such as on merchandise) you will want to seek a trademark for it both with your state (relatively easy on your own) and federal (uspto.gov - up to 2 year process involving lawyers). That way you can prevent someone from infringing on your brand names (stealing your business by using a name too similar to yours for the same product classification) Often artisan distillers will brand their products the same as they brand their company - such as Dry Fly up here in Washington State. Hence Dry Fly Distilling (company name) produces Dry Fly Vodka, Dry Fly Gin & Dry Fly Whiskey. In their case "Dry Fly" is the brand and they have appropriately trademarked their brand. Dry Fly Brand Design Trademark: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4006:jtvpln.2.5 Dry Fly Distillery Brand Trademark: http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4006:jtvpln.2.4 Interestingly enough Dry Fly did not trademark just Dry Fly as a word mark, which is usually the first step to take because it doesn't require you to have the design, merely a claim of first use in commerce (which means some documented form of sale across state lines using the mark - which often use of a website may satisfy/ Note: if you're trademarking a product name inspectors often want to see a photo of the label on the bottle.) Thus you can go this route or have your distillery be one name and your products other names. One example of that is Heaven Hill Distilleries - while they have Heaven Hill Whiskey, they also have a large number of other products that only mention Heaven Hill as the producer rather than their brand.

Andrew & Guy - perhaps you're looking for something like this: Chef's Forum Post on Fruit Peelers Manual Apple Peeler Antique Mechanical Apple Peelers Potential Commercial Zest Options: Lemon Zest Orange Zest

In determining the size of distillery building we're aware that our building size need will be based upon the amount of equipment necessary for a given production volume. Is there some type of "ratio of case production output to still capacity" that would could use to work backwards from a finished case output level so as to determine the size and quantity of stills we will need to achieve the desired output? [i.e. X liter still will produce Y case of 750ml bottles of spirits of Z type spirit per shift/run]

Excellent News Charles - thanks for sharing! Please keep us posted in this thread if you hear anything new. Now if we can prevent the tax increase on alcohol and sweet beverages before the Senate we'll be in better shape to whether the downturn in the economy.

Anyone heard how the passage of the bill HR 2749 presently up for a vote before the US Senate may impact distilleries? The Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 I've heard very little in the news about this bill, despite it having already passed through the House and is up for vote by the senate. The only reason I came to know of it was when I happened to hear a small farmer here in the Pacific Northwest bring up his opinion that this bill could severely impact the viability of small farms. "The bill imposes new requirements on food processors while not specifically targeting the industrial food system and food imports, where most food safety problems commonly occur. Small farms and local food processors are part of the solution to food safety, yet HR 2749 takes a one-size-fits-all approach subjecting local producers to the same regulations as industrial firms. The bill gives FDA much more power than it has had in the past." Link to Frequently Asked Questions Alarming Provisions contained within the bill Your thoughts?

MUDPUPPY ~ We're a pre-product company as well, and here's our two cents which we are happy to share with you all based on our past experience and current research on dealing with distributors: We agree with Timoteo that the most basic requirement is a bottled product; while it's nice to have a great idea, even nicer to have a licensed distillery - without a product and demonstrable demand distributors will likely still not take us seriously. We unfortunately disagree that having an impressive product is necessary (as there's plenty of evidence that less attractive or tasty products still get distributed) - the challenge in producing a higher quality product is that the product then requires a higher retail price, which in most cases means lower demand, thus lower sales, thus lower interest by distributors who make their money off products that sell. Packaging does help though it is by no means a distribution clincher; while it helps in capturing customer attention it really means nothing to them unless the packaging is so unique that it drives sales. Distributors want to know what we've done to influence "consumer demand" for our products that will drive continuous sales - technically their job is to distribute our product to retail outlets where the products will be sold (caveat: some distributors will establish accounts for our products - for a fee, though will rarely if ever serve as our marketing team) Distributors will also want assurance that we possess the ability to scale our inventory quickly in the event our product starts selling well so as to prevent them from needing to inform accounts of supply shortages - which can often lead to retailers cutting back on future purchases due to uncertainty about supply. In lieu of high consumer demand (in which case distributors will be calling us for product making this question moot) in all likelihood they will require us to provide product marketing support to help in attracting consumer interest to drive demand (store displays, coupons, press mentions, advertising etc.) And once we are signed to a distributor, the less marketing support we offer them the more discounts they will seek from us to hedge their risk in carrying our product - their ideal situation is for our product to arrive at their warehouse and be immediately or within a very brief amount of time, transported out to accounts vs. being forced to hold our products as inventory in their warehouse until enough demand is achieved to get our product out of their warehouse (which adds storage costs, thereby cutting into their distribution profit margins). Thus our focus right now is split evenly between: [A] getting our distillery up and operating so we may have bottled spirits to show and share with people establishing relationships with our target customers as much as possible and in every way possible so as to establish pre-demand for our products. Our goal in taking this two-tiered approach is to test our theory that when we debut our products our fan base will rally to support us by showing up at stores expressing demand for our products - which we then would like to result in a few distributors calling us to negotiate terms rather than us being required to call all of them and deal exclusively on their terms. Our assumptions above are based on our previous experience as owner/operators of a specialty food manufacturing business and we have theorized that distribution tenets in that industry likely apply to this industry as well. We're sure there are other unique aspects to liquor distribution and look forward to seeing what other people have to report about this fact of doing business.

Thanks for sharing your recommendations Sonja! Very timely too as we're presently in the process of establishing relationships with distributors (in advance of product) and your discussion topics will definitely come in handy during our preliminary discovery discussions. * Just in case anyone wonders why we would talk to distributors without product, we feel that often it works best to start a relationship with someone when we are not asking them to provide us something. We have done this with our government contacts with great success, as they are more forthcoming with suggestions when they do not feel they have to regulate our actions. I too look forward to learning more about other distiller's distributor experiences.

Bill ~ Curious if you have any idea why after 5 years Sarticious Spirits went out of business?

Pretty sure that Rusty Figgins of Ellensburg Distillery was working on such a program - so you may contact him for more info. http://www.theellensburgdistillery.com/12.html We're investigaging something this effect, though will be structuring is a bit different due to Washington forbidding craft distilleries from doing "contract distilling".

I randomly discovered the Xpressfill system online prior to seeing this post on ADI. In the process of my research I happened to call the company and talked with the owners and there is what I have learned thus far: The Xpressfill technology was invented a few years back by a guy with a good idea though without a background in engineering which resulted in a nice looking machine that suffered issues of calibration and accuracy of fill - both essential traits in any bottling system. The result was many frustrated customers lured by the promise of something more technologically advanced. The Xpressfill technology is now in the hands of NEW owners Randy & Judes Kingsbury who gutted and reworked the Xpressfill system with new technology. The new owners, despite being aware of the negative history accompanying their purchase, saw potential in the system and set out to improve on the original design so as to deliver the ease and accuracy originally promised. Fortunately Randy's mechanical engineering background allowed him to overcome the issues of accuracy of their Xpressfill bottle fillers such that they claim the bottlers now achieve accuracy within +/- 1 ml off the factory floor AND are GUARANTEED to achieve accuracy of fill within 2/10's of a ml (within in 1.5 ml) out of the box (the difference being due to jostling during shipping). To view a demo of the system go to XPRESSFILL.COM, and you reach them directly at (805) 541 - 0100 or info@xpressfill.com Randy & Judes also state their commitment to customer service (which is obviously essential, especially to overcome the hesitancy caused by issues of the past. To their credit, since taking over the company and technology they claim to have racked up pages of positive testimonials on the quality of the products they sell and their customer service ~ which I believe they should post on their website for all to see. As long as the Xpressfill system achieves the accuracy claimed it would seem this bottling system could save craft distilleries on labor costs over the more manual gravity fill bottlers. Of course the Xpressfill system will definitely need to achieve the accuracy promised to be valuable enough to justify the added expense over traditional gravity filler. *Note: we plan to evaluate the Xpressfill machine during a live test amongst several Washington distillers. After our test we'll post the group's individual and collective impressions of the system.

Sarah - I suggest you call the new owners, Randy and Judes Kingsbury, to discuss your situation to see if there is anything they can do to help you resolve the calibration issues you have been experiencing with your Xpressfill system. I've heard since taking over the company they are committed to delivery a greater level of service to their customers and even though you purchased from the former owner perhaps it's worth a shot to see what they might do for you that you may reclaim your investment in the Xpressfill system. The contact info posted on their website shows their number to be (805) 541 - 0100 and email as info@xpressfill.com

Here's the latest on this topic as of June 3rd (it's good to see we're not in this fight alone, seeing how this tax will also apply to sweetened beverages as well): "New Drink Tax Widely Opposed" Note that a tax on sweetened beverages will also have a direct impact on any spirit that is mixed at bars - hence, a double whammy tax on consumers should they decide to order a Rum & Coke! Pass the following link along to your friends and customers and encourage them to click the TAKE ACTION tab to send an automatic email to your state legislators to oppose these progressive taxes on their livelihood as well as ours: Official Stop Hospitality Taxes Website