Sator Square Distillery

On 6/29/2023 at 5:25 PM, Pour Decisions said:

Jason, did you get this sorted out? Curious as to what worked for you. 

Sorry for the late reply.

I provided the supplier with photos and also sent them a sample of the distillate. They told me there was nothing wrong with it. Clearly, there is a lot of something falling out of suspension at around 60%.

Anyhow, I did fix it with a few passes through a 0.5 micron absolute filter. I was prepared for filtering it, I was just very surprised how much junk appeared in this product vs literally nothing appearing in my own house-made NGS. Lesson learned.

I make a gin where the base spirit is distilled from wine from the grapes we grow here on our vineyard. It's not common, since there's more money in selling wine for the volume. But there's nothing that says you must use a grain based spirit for gin. My base spirit for this gin I wouldn't really classify as a typical neutral, since I don't go through a ton of trouble getting it close to what you can purchase as a base ethanol. But that works for me as it add something nice to my finished gin when it's distilled with the botanicals. In short, you have a lot of flexibility making gin. Just find what works for you.

On 4/21/2023 at 9:30 AM, Kindred Spirits said:

I always recommend doing a slow filtration through activated carbon, all of my clients with the same issue you are having, no longer have the cloudiness after passing though the final carbon. 

I would recommend doing the filtration after a rough proof and before your final to ensure you have enough buffer to account for the carbon absorbing some of the alcohol in your mix.

Thanks for the advice. I'll give that a go. I was just surprised that my own house-made GNS has never had this issue.

17 minutes ago, Pour Decisions said:

filtering should clear up the oils as well as the cloudiness, but you could also try aerating to help clear up. I found this works pretty well to clear too although wont remove the oils. I picked up some carbon filters and some GFC haze filters from TCW that should also work for this. 

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate it.

Here's a couple of photos. They could be clearer, but I was worried about dropping my phone in the mixing tank.

Hey all. If you purchased bulk GNS that was sold to you as already carbon filtered X times, would you reasonably assume that you would not have to do additional carbon filtration on it? I have some that went super cloudy right away adding distilled water, even after letting it sit for several days at 60%abv. There are also little patches of what look like perhaps fusel oils collected on the surface. I have not had this happen on GNS made in house. Just curious on your own experiences... whether I should just filter it myself again or if this was improperly made GNS.

Thanks

It's not exactly cheap to do, but my only suggestion would be to try to screen out some of that debris and send it out to a lab to figure out what it is.

Is it at all possible that there's a closure failure happening here? I've seen a lot of weird things but this sort of debris in a clear spirit is totally new to me.

I have a butterfly pea flower gin waiting in the wings for the FDA approval. Seems a bit unfair that we can't use it here, but it's allowed to be used in gins that are imported and sold here. But that is what it is.

When I first applied for my DSP, I was originally declined because the TTB agent interpreted any parcel of land on which there was a residence as ineligible. I had to argue that my DSP would be on a piece of agricultural farm property of 60+ acres, and that the DSP would be located in an outbuilding 100 yards away from the residence. It was a heated discussion, since clearly farms almost always have a farmers house on the parcel of land and that is not unusual. In the end they demanded that I put a fence around my DSP in case someone from the residence...? I don't really know. In the end I was approved and everything is fine. But it seems like the TTB has discretion on a case by case basis to interpret the rules differently.

On 8/25/2020 at 1:15 PM, EZdrinking said:

I don't know about varieties but I do know that they take around 7 years to produce their first crop of berries.

I figured it could be about that long, but I can be patient with it. So far all the nurseries I've spoken to only carry "male" plants that put off pollen but no berries? I'll keep looking.

Does anyone have a recommended juniper communis varietal that produces a good amount of berries? I'm thinking about putting in my own shrub/trees and wondering if anyone has any experience with choosing  a good producer.

Thanks

I've had very good results using #3 15g barrel mill cooperage with a 100% malted barley whiskey, 12 months in. Sells very well and I personally really love how it turns out.

Thanks for the input. Here's the final product. So far it's going over very well.

It took me about 6 weeks to get my account setup with FedEx. It definitely wasn't quick. The entire process had to go through a rep, so keep contacting them regularly to see where you are with it. Good luck.

On 9/11/2019 at 10:48 AM, Kurt said:

Your label is absolutely gorgeous! I love it! 

Thanks, Kurt. I'm very happy with Trysk bringing out the best in our label design. I hope you find a company that you're pleased with.

I understand that aquavit is traditionally made using a neutral that originates from either rye or potatoes. It is then infused with a predominate flavor of caraway and sometimes dill, among other botanicals. Often barrel aged, sometimes not.

To those that make or enjoy aquavit, would it be off-putting to see used a neutral derived from a source other than rye or potatoes? TIA.

I'm very happy with Trysk Printing for my labels. Great embossing and foiling.

https://trysk.com/

Within the last month I just got my own spiced rum label approved. It had to go into DSS since they said it was a flavored rum. They approved it as Spiced Rum as the fanciful name, all the same font on the same line. They also approved it "rum infused with spice and other natural flavors".

My spiced rum approval required a formula first, which had to be referenced on the COLA application. I had to correct some of the areas of the application to make sure the fanciful name was Spiced Rum, but other than that no problem.

ETA: I'm not sure whether I could have made some minor corrections and squeezed it through as a "flavored" rum. But since I didn't want to use to word "flavored" maybe that's why I didn't have as hard a time putting it through as DSS. It's a mystery to me how they figure out these approvals.

I think there's plenty of room for more distilleries. Those who make a good product and find a good niche will do well. Others may do well flooding the market through distribution. Those that don't know how to manage their growth and plan ahead will probably fail, but that's par for the course with any business. And then there will always be those distilleries that do everything right but still fail anyway.

I do sort of cringe when I hear someone refer to themselves as a 'master distiller'. To me that's an honorific that you earn only from your peers after a lifetime of work and a portfolio of products that are great by consensus.

Hey Odin, I follow Dark Sky Distillery on Instagram and saw them unpacking an iStill the other day. Looks great!

The TTB is closed during the government shutdown. I know they're not processing labels or formulas. They may not be processing or approving anything until they open back up.

I used lavender and rose petals in my gin. But I use them sparingly because if you use too much it'll obviously turn the corner into perfumey.

Florals do very poorly soaked in the boiler and really belong in a gin basket, if you're using them at all, in my own view. Building a flavor profile for a gin is really hard, as you want the aromas and flavors to layer on each other pleasantly and roll along without clanging against something else.

If you feel like you're really stuck, you could try distilling individual botanicals and then blending them together to get the flavors you want.

None of it's easy! Good luck.

It looks like shaking the tree worked. I got my approval within an hour of making that phone call. I wish I'd done that last week, but it is what it is. Thank you all for chiming in. I'd say that it's totally worth calling the TTB if things seem to be taking too long.

I called the TTB this morning to see what the holdup was. I got someone on the phone right away. I was told that there was some sort of change in the recent past which doesn't let the specialists see which permit amendments are bond transfer or other requests for changes. So they just do them as they come in in order they get them. Not sure if that's true. But they told me they'd send a request for a quicker review over to who has the request. It's been a day shy of 3 weeks for the bond transfer, that does seem like too long of a time to wait for a simple purchase order.