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My experience with Corson Distilling


jo-el-eo

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48 minutes ago, richard1 said:

Personally I am not surprised they have closed doors and no I do not wish them well.  But to the comment, this I feel was an assisination job by competitors.  This is the gist of the comment.

I'm not sure what you're reading in this thread but the people who have been hurt to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollar are people who trusted Corson.  Perhaps Paul could/should have stayed out of it but he was the only vendor/competitor in the mix.  I have no idea how you do business in South Africa but up here we have vendors that are for real and others that are fakes.  Without this community a perspective buyer could not tell one from another.  Frankly, Paul deserves a pass on this.  Although he's always pitching Affordable Distilling he has helped many people where he has no chance to sell them anything.  IMHO

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I am in agreement with all and 100% support removal of Corson.  I had prior read in another topic and within this forum a massive unwarranted attack on another vendor and this left me with the view that it must be controlled.  This is how I feel.  Lets leave it at that.

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17 hours ago, richard1 said:

Personally I am not surprised they have closed doors and no I do not wish them well.  But to the comment, this I feel was an assisination job by competitors.  This is the gist of the comment.

i am the only competitor on here who has commented.  I have because their behavior really gets under my skin because I always work very hard to put myself in my customers shoes and do the best that I can for them, while these guys just destroy their customers lives.  I have dealt with at least 10 of Corson's customers directly, either to help them to get their equipment working properly and or selling them equipment.  It's horrible how these people have been affected.  The only reason that people are still purchasing from them is because they do not know about them.  If this topic is removed like you suggest then even more people will be robbed of their hard earned money.  If you don't like what I have said here then you are welcome to ignore it and read only the posts from people who have been directly cheated by them.  As far as character assassination: You cannot assassinate someone who has already shot themselves through the head.  

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I Have to put my 2 cents in here although I'm still on my business plan  about 35 pages and lurking on here  for a few years  Learning and yet more learning I have yet more to learn ...I"VE HEARD HORROR STORIES ABOUT CORSON BEFORE I even found this site...Yes sometimes Paul's Rant's Go on too Long lol......But What I have seen on here is lots of good info  from Paul and many others..And Hats off to you Paul  for having some Balls to  call an Ace to an Ace...TIME TO  PUT AN END TO THE RIP OFF'S

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7 hours ago, frost021 said:

...I"VE HEARD HORROR STORIES ABOUT CORSON BEFORE I even found this site...Yes sometimes Paul's Rant's Go on too Long lol......But What I have seen on here is lots of good info  from Paul and many others..And Hats off to you Paul  for having some Balls to  call an Ace to an Ace...TIME TO  PUT AN END TO THE RIP OFF'S

+1, Yes Paul and others are right.  Everyone needs to look out for each other.

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This sounds crazy, but Monday a guy emailed asking for a quote and stated that he needs a still really quickly because the company that he ordered from had just notified him that they are going out of business and that they will not be able to fill his order.  He said that he is hoping to get his money back from them but he is not sure how that is going to turn out.  I replied and asked him if the company was Corson and he said yes.

It's unbelievable that they are still doing this.  Their web site is still up.  You would think that the Idaho AG would have shut them down by now. If you google distillery equipment, my site is normally number 1 in the organic search inclusions and Corson's site is number 2, but every once in a while Corson's site is number one.  I believe that they are getting business from people who just do a google search and they like the look of the Corson stills and are just buying from them without doing any due diligence.

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31 minutes ago, Southernhighlander said:

If you google distillery equipment, my site is normally number 1 in the organic search inclusions and Corson's site is number 2

People click on the link to your website, take a look at the ugly site design and think "these guys cant be for real."  They then open the Corson site and say "ahh, yes, this is what im looking for."  You need to get your website spruced up Paul; right now your just making Corson look good. ;)
 

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1 hour ago, Southernhighlander said:

This sounds crazy, but Monday a guy emailed asking for a quote and stated that he needs a still really quickly because the company that he ordered from had just notified him that they are going out of business and that they will not be able to fill his order.  He said that he is hoping to get his money back from them but he is not sure how that is going to turn out.  I replied and asked him if the company was Corson and he said yes.

It's unbelievable that they are still doing this.  Their web site is still up.  You would think that the Idaho AG would have shut them down by now. If you google distillery equipment, my site is normally number 1 in the organic search inclusions and Corson's site is number 2, but every once in a while Corson's site is number one.  I believe that they are getting business from people who just do a google search and they like the look of the Corson stills and are just buying from them without doing any due diligence.

Would you mind giving the customer my contact info? I'm the reporter who has covered Corson, and I've continued to follow the story (small update from Monday here: https://twitter.com/audreydutton/status/1095086846420209664). My phone is 208-377-6448 and email is adutton@idahostatesman.com -- thank you!

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HedgeBird,

 

Here is what I have discovered.  If I build a front area of a site using HTML code myself, then I go to the number 1 non paid inclusion on google within a few weeks.  However if I have  someone else build me a site like http://moonshine-still.co then it never ranks even on the 2nd or 3rd page after 5 years.  I have found this to be true time after time.  I don't know why it is the case and search engine experts tell me it does not work that way but it has for me time after time.  In my opinion, it does not matter how pretty your web site is, if no one sees it, then you get zero business.  Being in the number one position on the first page is far more important than a pretty site with all of the bells and whistles. I do over $1,000,000.00 per year in direct catalog shopping cart sales through the distillery-equipment site and I do around $4,000,000.00 in other sales, most of which comes from that web site.  My moonshine.stills site only does around $120,000.00 in direct sales from the site and I pay google add words $500.00 per month to get that.  

 

You might say look at Corson's web site.  They rank very well.  A company that improves search engine placement called me 1.5 to 2 years ago and they said that they had a program that would greatly improve the ranking of my moonshine still site but it would cost around $15,000.00 per year  They said that Corson had been one of their customers and that they had improved Corsons ranking from 3rd page to the number one position on the first page within 4 months.  They said that Corson had dropped there service and that my company was selected because it was in the same category as Corson.  At that time my distillery equipment site was number 2 and Corson was number one.  

  It was too much money and my distillery equipment site had been number one for years before Corson suddenly came out of nowhere and took the number one position.  

I had another web site that sold Cedar closet linings that I built in 1999.  That site was number 1 on the first page of most search engines for over 10 years for the search terms cedar closet lining and cedar closet linings.  That site did around $500,000.00 in sales per year.  In 2010 I let a new IT guy I hired build me a great looking new site to replace my old ugly dated HTML site.  All of the text was the same, same url and meta tags.  Within a few months cedar closet linings.com was on the 2nd page and the sales from that site dropped by over 90%. Finally I had him replace the new site with my old ugly original site and it went back to the first page within a few months  As a matter of fact i sold that company for a great price and they are still using that ugly old site because it is still on the first page of google listings when you search cedar closet lining.  

All of the above shows me that I am doing the right thing.  My daddy always said "if it ain't broke don't fix it".  I know I do things differently than most, but it works and until it starts not working, I'm sticking with it.  Anyway, it's not really ugly it's just plain and dated looking.  I believe that the people going there are more interested in distillery equipment than a flashy website with all of the bells and whistles.

 

 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, idahoreporter said:

Would you mind giving the customer my contact info? I'm the reporter who has covered Corson, and I've continued to follow the story (small update from Monday here: https://twitter.com/audreydutton/status/1095086846420209664). My phone is 208-377-6448 and email is adutton@idahostatesman.com -- thank you!

Idaho reporter.  I have had 2 of Corson's customers contact me in the last 2 weeks or so.  I will give them your contact info.  Thanks for the great expose (noun) that you have done on Corson.  I think you have saved a lot of people from getting ripped off.

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18 minutes ago, Southernhighlander said:

Idaho reporter.  I have had 2 of Corson's customers contact me in the last 2 weeks or so.  I will give them your contact info.  Thanks for the great expose (noun) that you have done on Corson.  I think you have saved a lot of people from getting ripped off.

Thanks, I really appreciate that. Also, my name is Audrey Dutton -- forgot to include that!

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Any " Orwellian " style editing of the true past or otherwise attempting to supress this kind of information should be resisted Violently and Definitely. This is exactly the kind of thread that should be drug out into the clear light of day where everyone can see it, no matter what kind of negative emotional challenges it creates for any oversensitive " ego."  Anything else is censorship of the facts which everyone has a right to know, no matter how unpleasant any happens to find them. Removing " anything  " from public record is a very dangerous affair with attendent consequences of attempting to suppress free speech.

When things happen to go this way, people simply have to man up. Full stop. The only true purpose of any censorship of any kind is to protect children from things that are grossly debased before they are old and mature enough to make an informed decision. We are seeing the exact opposite thing going on in this country and the world at large which should tell everyone involved that the people setting those agendas have thing backwards and its by design.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Has anyone reported CORSON DISTILLING SYSTEMS and their owners to the fraud division of the FBI?  As a victim of theirs, out thousands of dollars we borrowed to buy equipment... I want to see them pay us all back. I have heard murmurings of them having foreign bank accounts where they have diverted all of our money so that it cannot be traced or collected for legal penalties, but the FBI should be able to do more than our flimsy legal system. I am ready to report to the FBI but, it really takes notice for them in numbers.....

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  • 1 month later...

This is a sad ending to what might have been a nice addition to American manufacturing... a sector that has been about destroyed by bonehead economic policy that has basically given away hard-won American inventions and production to China. 

There is a lesson here.   I think one of the primary lessons is that every business needs to really know what they are in business for.   I call this the business mission.   If you define your business mission as making a return on investment, then unless you are an investment banker, you will likely make mistakes and fail.  Returns are secondary to strong execution on the mission.  I purchased from Paul Hall after considering Corsons.   Paul's mission is to make affordable equipment that works well, but most importantly is safe to operate.  This last past of the mission should be a primary one for any company making distilling equipment.  IT NEEDS TO BE SAFE TO OPERATE!  Also, it needs to work well.  And if making distilling equipment, your mission should also be to help your distillery clients be successful in their business. 

Corons failed to execute on most of this.  There were certainly trying to sell affordable distilling equipment, but it often did not work, was not safe, and they showed a disregard for the damage they caused to their clients' business.  I am sure they were desperate for capital to fund their explosive growth and this led to some poor business practices that eventually doomed them.

But I certainly don't feel good that they failed.  It is sad. 

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On 4/3/2019 at 11:46 PM, Aux Arc said:

I have been encouraging people for well over a month to do this someone needs to do it so Denise you be the first

Actually, I did report this to the FBI, as should everyone else who was ripped off, so they take it seriously coming from multiple companies. From what I keep being told is that the chances of anyone getting their money back (even with a win in the court), is likely never going to happen. So the way I see it, if the FBI does their investigation and sees the total fraud that was purposely done, maybe at least these Corson brothers will pay a price in another way. They stole a lot of money from us, so I don't feel sad for them one bit.

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  • 6 months later...

Hi Everyone,

My current company didn't get the promised steam traps with their suite of Corson equipment. We have the 300 gal sized system (300 gal Mash Tun, 300 gal pot still, and 4x300gal fermenters). Our condensate return outlets on our mash cooker and still kettle jackets are 3/4" NPT. Would anyone know what exact spec steam trap was supposed to have been supplied?  I'm thinking a 3/4" parallel trap is what we should be using. Am I missing something?

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While you are likely good with this choice, here is a Tech paper dealing with Steam Trap sizing and what to be aware of. You are dealing with capacities.

http://www.interflow-th.com/information_Product(more)/Technical/best practices no.25.pdf

As an aside, I like Spirax products and its always a good idea to have a spare FT head and gasket in your parts stock. That assembly has a heavy dudty cycle and a limited service life.

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On 12/5/2019 at 5:07 PM, AdriftDistillers said:

@MMDC We were supplied Watts Regulator WFT 3/4" steam traps. Max differential pressure 15psi, SN: 1547. The same traps were on our 400 gallon MT as well as our 100 gallon still. 

Thanks so much @AdriftDistillers & @starcat.  You're the best!

 

On 12/5/2019 at 5:07 PM, AdriftDistillers said:

20171108_135527.jpg

 

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