Glenlyon

It would depend on the offer. Right now, I'm enjoying what I do, I'm good at it and I'm very profitable. But, I might be inclined to accept because I'm getting on and my health ain't great. However, I would be more open and would probably get a better offer once I've completed at least five years in the biz. The other problem is, I might take the winnings and try again - fixing my original mistakes. Sorta like house building.   

With Kveik you can under pitch and cold or hot, it doesn't care - once it get going, it will wipe out every last bit of sugar it will relentlessly track down. 

We started with a bit of liquid culture we scavenged from a home brewing store and built it up, basically using the same techniques as the home brewers would - a small batch, then a larger one, etc. My mashes ferment dry in approx. 50 - 55 hours so it allows me to keep up the pace with less fermenters because I can turn them over faster.

I didn't look that deeply. I would suspect though for those numbers you would have to pay.

You can also pay the liquor board for very detailed market and sales information in your market area.

Statscan say they have reviewed 95% of all distilleries in Canada - so, I guess that means the aggregate of everything including big commercial operations right down to us small fry.

This information is the latest on the statscan website so I would assume 2018 numbers. I would also assume most of this information is collected through the tax department. Although based on these metrics, I'm pretty pleased - as we're beating the numbers by a wide margin,  we were profitable in our first year and we are trending to even better results as we wind up our second year. Yep, I'm liking this business!  

Here are some Canadian distillery numbers according to statscan - 42% of distilleries operating in Canada today are profitable. So 57% aren't or aren't yet. 70% of the cash flows to the largest commercial distilleries and everyone else lives on the scraps. An overall margin of 48% is the average.

Looking forward to such a conversation. Look us up if you even make it back to the Sunshine Coast!

It sounds great. But - let me pose a question. If indeed you do have extensive international connections and you can build markets in these places - why bother spending two million bucks building a distillery, which will gobble up loads of monthly overhead? Instead, here in BC we are awash in craft booze. Much of it is probably not the world's greatest, however there are enough who have produced seriously competitive beverages, yet the vast majority of them probably know nothing about how to shift them outside of BC.

You'd make way more money, way faster brokering existing booze with way less risk, debt, labour and their associated headaches! 

We started with the hornindal but after fifty or more generations we just call it our house culture.

Grain and honey.

We use this exclusively. Its great.

Additionally, I would vote against investors. Anyone who has read my writing will know I don't much care for them. (Unless you are a big guy with millions and the eduction to know what you are doing.) So, I know, this advice is more often than not ignored. But, inevitably, tears are shed. If you need money - go to the bank, do the hard graft and be happier for it in the long run.

I suppose if you have a million variables, the answer is always going to be the helpful - 'It depends...' 

Rather than looking at the per case marketing cost, rather look at the cost per customer. So, how many customers can you expect and how much did it cost you to get them to buy your product?

If you've already been operating for three years, you'll know you kinda top out on your revenues, so your growth desire is more tied to your ability to get out there and bring in the business than it is a fictional percentage point.  Its likely what you've done abroad is what you'll do at home. Other factors might be location, if you are on main street the cost of the customers might be low but the cost of rent and taxes might be high, etc., etc.

The best marketing money I ever spent was on my street sandwich boards. Those things haul in customers all the time and the customers tell us so.  Radio is loads of fun, but you need to invest in at least two years of slogging to get any traction. Newspapers are useless. Editorial is king. Get stories written about you in newspapers and magazine and you will see results. I'm lukewarm on social media.

We do have some sediment in some of our products. We tried all kinds of ways to clear it up, but we're so small some of the tried and true filtration systems are a bit beyond our current financial capacity. We've found gravity and racking gets rid of most debris and then we tell our clients that we produced a natural product with limited filtration and they have no problem with that. In fact, sometimes, they prefer that idea.

We sum up the rules as:

If we want alcohol we have to make it ourselves using 100% BC produced mashing grains, fruits, honey, etc. But nothing that comes from away, so no Sask/Euro barley. Sigh.

We can use botanicals etc, but anything used for flavouring must be 100% natural;

We can produce up to 50,000L per year;

We keep the money save for excise 13%, provincial sales tax 10% and GST 5%;

We can sell direct, online, to restaurants/private liquor stores and through artisan/farmers/craft fairs;

No RTDs.  

I just did a quick search of the government website and I don't see anything specific. Most of the regulations we live by are found in our contract with the province so there might be some privacy issues with respect to a general online list.

It's not allowed under craft regulations. If you have a craft commercial licence on the other hand, then you could use those products.

We used to use Distillimax MW. Easy to find. However, after the costs started to rise, ($90CND/pkg), we switched to cultivating our own yeast. Now our yeast is readily available, cheap and more suited to our environment and we get much better results.

Chitosan. However, a problem we are encountering with the fining is now we have sediment on the bottom of the tank. Of course with the tanks being stainless, it's hard to see inside to avoid sucking up the sediment - this tends to leave product on the table. So, the jury is still out. 

We use those filters - not so good with fine particulate matter. We've taken to fining some of our spirits to get that nice bright look.

We did a Blackberry Vodka this summer and had colour stability problems right to the end. Red is a very difficult colour to work with. Any ideas (that are as natural as possible), would be well received.

Adding sugar to grapes to enhance fermentation is called chaptilzation and is sometime used by home wine makers dealing with poor quality fruit. Professional winemakers and distillers would never use the technique and any spirits derived from it would not be - really - anything other than some mediocre spirit. You should really be directing your questions to the forum on Homedistiller.org which is more open to this kind of exploration. 

I apologize if I was sounding negative. I tend to think very practically.

Urban Distilleries in Kelowna does a 5 day workshop. I've taken it, it's not bad.

Also, the Sons of Vancouver Distillery in Vancouver offers a 5 day version that is smaller in class size and very hands on. Quite good I'm told.

We spent five years developing our distillery concept. Two years thinking about it seriously and then  roughly two and a half years to get the zoning, licenses, build the distillery, etc. We've been open now for about a year and a half.

We love the lifestyle and find it very satisfying and we get lots of local enthusiasm.

It is important to mention - your spouse has to be in 100%. If she isn't - that's going to be hard to reconcile as this work is very all encompassing.   

Collection of random thoughts...

Note: My comments pertain to small a farm based distillery, not a mid - large urban enterprise.

I love the farm distillery lifestyle. The commute to work in the morning is a  2 minute saunter past the chicken yard, coffee in hand. Very idyllic. But, it also cost me a million bucks.

As a customer, when you arrive that's what you see. And, you immediately begin to imagine yourself in such a situation. That is what I'm selling - a fantasy of what could be... if only...

So, as you contemplate the idea of building your own distillery, the first question you need to ask yourself, are you up for building, presenting and sustaining that or a similar/unique image/idea? For many years?

Next. As a farm operation, traffic is going to be a problem one way or another. Not enough or too much, either way, issues will abound - but the sad fact is - no matter what your business plan says, you will never sell enough bottles through your tasting room to sustain an operation. Therefore, you need to be very clear about how you are going to move your product. 

Next. Even if you have a great product - your clients will always opt for the liquor store 90% of the time for the cheap stuff. So, you are catering to a very small market and you have to know how to nurture it carefully.

To that end, there is an old adage in this business - "Win Your Backyard." This is incredibly important advice and the distilleries that fail to heed it are often very sorry, when upstarts like us start biting their ankles.

This is an extremely competitive business. Sure people are the best of buds, but they will soon sour on you when you knock them off the local store/restaurant shelf.

The other key point you need to consider is - Do you understand what an alcohol company is? Trick question.

Answer: Its a marketing company that sells alcohol. If you don't understand marketing inside out and back to front, you are at a disadvantage. 

And finally, how are your taste buds? If you are not producing quality over quantity in a farmgate environment you won't attract the loyalty you'll need in the dark winter months.

And finally, my consultant was quite surprised when I mentioned my impending long weekend bottle sales - (in the many hundreds) - he pointed out that a lot of distilleries although surviving, are not thriving like we are. This is a tough, expensive business - so make sure you are well armed before going into battle.