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EZdrinking

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Posts posted by EZdrinking

  1. On 2/29/2020 at 7:15 AM, AndrosGold said:

    I will already have fresh cane juice and could easily make rhum agricole.

    I know this doesn't address your question but having access to fresh cane juice is not that common in the US so I would definitely explore that as an options for its relative uniqueness and as it would reduce your time and expense of processing the cane juice into syrup.

    It is possible you will not like the spirit profile your cane and environment creates but as you may know not all agricole has a pronounced herbaceous character like the French rums from Martinique etc. there are some coming out of Mexico that have a very rich, fruity profile with a strong flavor or fresh cane.

  2. As with anything related to TTB their guidance needs clarification.

    I think I agree with @Jedd Haas's reading of the guidance that the addition of water to bring a spirit to labeled bottle proof does not constitute processing. So proofing NGS or other purchased spirit with water to bottling proof with no other filtering or processing would not count as "processing" for the reduced excise rates.

    But the guidance seems to indicate the addition of water in other circumstances could be considered processing.

  3. I don't know about consultants but I do know that besides your Federal DSP you will at least two licenses from California. One for your still, and one for the type of distillery you are going to operate. If you are going to buy neutral spirit and redistill it with your gin botanicals, and that is all you are doing, you may not qualify for the type 74 craft distillery license, but you will have to check with some others to make sure.

  4. There is also a whisky called Virginia Highland that blended US whiskey (malt?) and Scotch. The Scotch association went after them claiming the Highland portion of their name was geographically misleading. 

    Since Scotch has to be bottled in Scotland you may have to be creative with how you describe the spirit. And in terms of class/type it might just end up as just whisky, blended whisky or whisky specialty. 

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  5. Before the recent change in proof variation I spoke with a distiller who would run Smirnoff 100 proof through his TTB approved benchtop machine from Anton Paar because it would always come out precisely at the lowest point of the allowable tolerance which at the time I believe was 49.85% ABV. It would not surprise me if there are other large distillers were doing the same thing but 1% under is obviously outside the expanded 0.3% tolerance so there is a calibration issue or some are cheating the expanded tolerance.

  6. This company The Tierra Group sells a bulk agave spirit made from an agave concentrate (not syrup) created in Jalisco and distilled in the US. I have not tried the product so I cannot vouch for its quality though I have heard some initial positive reports.  

    https://thetierragroup.com/agave-spirits/

    As for USA distilled 100% agave spirit from whole plants, I only know of two California distilleries that have tried but I do not think they have produced enough to sell in bulk.

  7. An Oregon distiller I know runs direct fire stills off of propane that comes from a big tank on the property because he is out in farm land. He said that some of the up sides for propane were that it burns cleaner and hotter than natural gas.

  8. I don't remember hearing anything about ginskey becoming a class/type. With the new update to the labeling and advertising laws all spirits except for vodka are allowed to have an age statement including gin which was a round about way of allowing aged gin without creating an additional C/T. The new rule also extended the bottled-in-bond labeling rules to gin and since its announcement last summer there have been 3 or 4 gins released as BIB because they were distilled in a single season, aged in new charred oak for at least 4 years, bottled at 50% ABV etc. 

  9. Of the two US distilleries that say they are fermenting Hemp and Corn to make vodka they both say that it took them years of trial and error to get the mash right, so my guess is they are not going to be very forthcoming on how they make their product. Also, one nutritional source I looked at says that only 1-2% of hemp seeds are carbohydrates. That seems like a really poor substrate for making spirits unless you have an incredibly large and cheep source. And, unless the data I looked at is wildly wrong, it sounds like the two distilleries that are making these hemp vodkas that the corn is really doing the heavy lifting in terms or alcohol production.

    It seems like if you are really committed to the idea you could probably make it work but at what expense in terms of time and final cost to the consumer? If you get it to work, for a commercial product, I would definitely be interested to see what it tastes like. 

    Good Luck.

  10. Last I heard was the next best bet is the annual tax extenders bill that will get passed at the end of the year. Similar to last year. At this point I think it is safe to say that nothing of substance legislatively is going to happen until after the election is over and settled. 

  11. TTB has defined distillation as "a single run through a pot still or a single run through a column of a column (reflux) still." Title 27 §5.42 (b) (6). They do not provide a definition for rectification but its meaning can be inferred from its usage in Title 27 to mean something like a production process that changes the class/type of a spirit (so not vatting/blending of two spirits of the same C/T and not proofing etc.).

    That being said, in the UK rectification has a different meaning closer to the re-distillation of a spirit. i.e. the head of the Gin Guild is know as the Grand Rectifier, Most but not all gin made in the UK re-distills botanicals with purchased neutral spirit either on a pot still or a column.

    Historically in the US circa early 20th Century, rectifiers were sometimes considered those who took neutral spirits and treated them with coloring, flavoring and extracts. These became know as imitation spirits. Or they would take purchased bulk straight whiskey often from Kentucky and blend it with neutral spirit, water, coloring, flavoring, and extracts to sell as whiskey and extend their profit margins.  

  12. Yes. High West is a good example of this practice. They have been buying straight bourbon and rye from Indiana and Kentucky distilleries then they blend and proof them to their target profiles.

    If you use the same type of spirit from two states i.e. an Indiana Straight Bourbon and a Tennessee Straight Bourbon then you can blend them together and the label will read either A Blended of Straight Bourbon Whiskey or Blended Straight Bourbon Whiskey. If you were to mix the bourbon and the rye I think it would just be labeled as Blended Straight Whiskey or A Blend of Straight Whiskeys.

    When you are blending whiskies from two different states you do not need to put a state of distillation like you would if your were sourcing whiskey from one state and then proofing and bottling in another. 

  13. I know a distiller that used cucumber water in the proofing process to add the fresh flavors without getting the stewed characters that can come over in distillation. 

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