Glenlyon

Also, the customers have been at home making cocktail for the last 10 months. So, the people we are seeing now are way more tuned in and educated. They want quality and will pay for it.

Also, another note on building a distillery now. When the pandemic ends - and, it will end. Business will boom. The distilleries that are going to thrive are the ones that can provide the best visitor experiences. Gone are the days you can open in an old industrial bay and impress people. A quick scan of the happening distilleries that are operating today will show you that you must have: A great product, a great environment and a great customer experience to even get into the race. And then, you'll need to compete!

800 sf is pretty small. Our place is a self standing 1000 sf and we are jammed to the rafters after 2.5 years. In fact, our distillery's need for storage has expanded to overwhelm our house (3000 sf), which - we now call the warehouse as we hide out in the last remaining bedroom. We are seriously considering converting the house to 100% distillery use AND and doubling the size of the original distillery building. (All of which will cause nothing but angst at the local planning office.) Assuming some modicum of success, make sure you have room to grow! Such small digs, again assuming any success, will never allow enough production to do whisky well. You'll be too busy just keeping up with basic demand. Even in the pandemic we are growing relentlessly at around 30% a year and we are perpetually short of alcohol. Something to keep in mind as you create your business plan.

Your distillery corporation will always 'lease' - simply because it's much better tax position. However, you do (if possible) want to be the landlord. That way if the distillery corporation does have investors, they have no part of the property ownership. Realistically, though - if you are opening in the downtown core of any mid to large size city - ownership is likely not going to be an option. I understand that - but my advice tends towards smaller farm/small town family ventures.

You still need calcium to achieve complete success.

It means "Good luck selling sanitizer to distillers." That's kinda like try to sell sand to somebody who lives in a desert.

`Excellent developments! Now if we could just convince the BC Gov't to let us do RTDs!

The reason the scam works is that there is a time difference from when you are paid by the buyer to when the CC company reviews the transaction. So, the buyer's money is in your bank - you are happy and so you are inclined to pay the shipping company. The buyer is stressing time is of the essence and so you are inclined to hustle to make them happy. Meanwhile 10 - 24 hours later, the CC company realizes they have been screwed with a stolen credit card and they take the money back from you. The difference - the cost of shipping (usually $4000 - 5,000) is the score for the scammer. And because you accepted a stolen credit card, another whole pile of shit develops because the CC company doesn't care about you they care about the credit card holder. And so the loss is ultimately yours. The only upside is that you won't likely actually lose any product.

We called the scam - The Shipping Scam. The way it worked was.... The foreign buyer would order a shipment that would require some packaging - on a pallet or some such. Of course, you are interested in the order because of the size potential and because the buyer suggests further sales. You negotiate and agree on the cost of the goods. Then the buyer says they have a shipping company they use and who knows them. OK. As per the client's request you send the aforementioned shipping company the shipment details and they will respond with two quotes - a slow trip and a fast trip - the difference between the two quotes is not that large - and so you inform the buyer and the buyer will respond that they want the fastest shipping possible - so, the higher amount. And, the shipping company wants to be paid up front via wire transfer. So, if you send the (fake) shipping company the money - it's gone in a heartbeat. The only reason we survived this experience was the buyer foolishly used a stolen credit card to 'pay' for he overall order - but by then, we had already sent the shipping funds. Fortunately, the wire transfer failed and we were able to recover the funds. Dumb luck really - but it opened our eyes and we are relentlessly vigilant these days.

These are scams. We were hit with one of these last year. We figured it out in the nick of time or we would have lost over $11,000.

Mine - no. Although I do have controllable tanks, I don't use them. We do a wheat/barley mix often replacing the wheat with rye. I let the process run its course. It'll start slow for the first 10 or so hours, then it will wind up to about 40* - 42*C (too hot for most yeasts) and then gradually slow down. I distill when it hits room temp - usually the morning of day 4. Average take is about 8.5%.

We had a run of these kind of problems during our first year. Likely what is happening is that you are not getting the right kind of conversion. Too many of your sugars are complex. The reason it ferments fast up front, is the yeast is eating all the simple sugars but as soon as it encounters more complex sugars it quits. So you need to review your fermentation temps and I notice you don't have any gypsum in your mix. That is required for the conversion and required for the health of the yeast. We also quit fermenting on the grain. Too much hassle and mess. And finally, we swapped out our yeast. Now we get quick clean ferments that dry out in about four days. We do use Fermaid K and we also add the gluco just before we add the yeast as kleclerc77 suggests. And finally, we tend to mash at lower temps - which seems to do a better job of creating simple sugars.

We ferment off the grain and always collect the yeast for re-pitching. We find after about 20 or so generations it tends to start falling off and so we'll re-buy a fresh pitch from our supplier and start the process all over again. We're clean, but not super clean and since we started using this system we've had zero problems with unwanted bacteria. It is a very economical way to go and we find the results batch after batch are very stable.

Great point. We went with a very minimalist look that does stand out from a distance because it's a calm spot for the eye to rest (thank you art school) in a sea of activity. We gave them an elegant feel with the judicious use of gold foil, bold colours very simple imagery. When our liquor stores line them up they are easily recognizable as a branded block. We also get a lot of positive reviews. You can check out my packaging on my instagram acct: @bruinwooddistillery

I would also add: Keep your labels simple yet elegant. Go to a liquor store and spend some time just looking at the over all the products. Look wide, look close up. You'll soon notice a few labels stand out. These are more than likely, the big brands you are used to. You'll also notice that these labels are all very classic and they never change. So choose you labels carefully, you may be using them for a very long time. Also, your labels define your brand and so all other marketing & advertising and corporate image all have to interconnect to give your brand a unified and professional feel. (Even if you have to bootstrap a lot of it.)

We're pretty small as well and we are currently selling about 1200 cases (6x750) a year. Our biggest limitation is that demand far outstrips supply and even though we've increased output considerably, we still struggle to keep up.

Just did a batch with the Voss - the ferment smells just fantastic! The whole distillery is enveloped in a rich creamy wheaty fruity atmosphere!

Interesting! I might give that a try. But, what are "Blessed Distal Herbs' (sic)?

You sound extremely full of yourself.

Even though we started small, it was still very expensive. We had to re-zone the land, build the building, equip it and ultimately, figure out how to actually make a product somebody would want to buy. In the end, it cost us about $700,000 to open the doors. Our rule was, if we couldn't write a check, we couldn't buy it. So, when we opened our doors, we had no debt or significant overhead. So, it was easy to re direct our early earnings to quickly upgrading our equipment and most importantly, winning our backyard. Both of those turned out to be good choices because when the covid thing hit, we were very well positioned to weather the storm.

I don't know. We've been finding this business to be nicely profitable from the very beginning! Your startup size matters - it has to be right for the market you intend to service and it has to be manageable with the labour force at your disposal.

We're pretty guarded about what our spirits actually cost to produce. This is because, they all wind up roughly costing the same - but, we sell them at a variety of prices. Including, some pretty high price points - those beverages are super profitable for us and yet some of them are very inexpensive to produce. So we like the mystique - and I think, so does the customer. It makes what we do seem out of reach and therefore, desirable.

Maybe they were thirsty! I believe only licensed importer/exporters can move alcohol across borders. Interestingly in Canada, private citizens cannot send alcohol via post or courier. Theoretically, we're also not supposed to ship inter-provincially but may distillers do anyway.

Ironically, you could conceivably sell more cases in Alaska than NYC! It all boils down to a few questions really: How good is your product? How engaging is your establishment? How good are your sales staff? Do you have effective marketing & advertising in place? And, what is your brand reputation? We are well off the beaten track and it takes work to find us - yet, we consistently outsell local more easily accessed competitors and people will actively travel quite a long distance to visit us.

I've never come across smokey or savoury flavours - although I have also not consumed very much Kveik made beer, I'll admit. However, I find for spirits it gives a nice clean profile with wheat and citrus overtones. It makes great vodka, but if I were making whiskey - I might make other yeast choices depending on what I wanted to achieve.