Quirk

Hi all, Does anyone here use an analytics or metrics package on their distillery or product websites? I am in the process of building our site, and was just curious if anyone here was willing to share some engagement percentages for different site sections (e.g. Visit Us, Products, Company History, etc). I always like to build sites according to what people are actually using rather than what the company wants them to see. Thanks, Adam

Anecdotally, the former method has worked well for Tito's vodka. His name is literally on the bottle, and even at a larger scale he has managed to maintain quality and the image of a craft product.

Heard back from MDP this morning. They are sold out of Rye except for 1yr old. Bourbon is still available, and is approximately $1,000 per barrel.

You may have already done this, but the SBA publishes a list of their state boards here: http://www.sba.gov/districtoffice From there you can find your state's office and contact information for the key players at the SBA. With any luck, you can find someone there to take a personal interest in your plan. We are in the process of doing this too, and things are going well. So startup funding is not impossible, regardless of what Debbie Downer says.

Update: We were able to successfully get this law amended to allow anyone with a DSP by the end of this year to be "grandfathered" in, so they wouldn't need 3 years operating history. So if you are in Indiana and starting a distillery, you need to get your application started very soon.

Thanks to everyone for these comments. Guy, do you happen to know what percentage of those 600 people make a purchase? Indiana just passed a law allowing us to sell from the distillery last week, and it's going to the Governor's desk soon. So we are revising our projections and plans a bit to account for tasting room sales.

Hello, My partners and I are interested in buying quantities of aged whiskey, either rye or bourbon. We have already contacted MDP (Lawrenceburg) and are waiting to hear back. I am curious if anyone cares to share how much they have paid per barrel for whiskey, any type or age. Thanks, Adam

Hello, I'm writing to ask if any of you would be willing to share with us a completed version of their TTB application, with redacted sensitive information. We are going in front of the state senate for a hearing on an important bill on Wednesday, and feel that it would be a great visual statement to show them the length of a fully completed application, with all appendices and documentation. I know this is a lot to ask on short notice. For your reference this is bill 1293, a bill that would give distilleries, wineries, and breweries the ability to sell retail, but demands that they have been in business for three previous years. We feel that this gives unfair advantage to existing businesses and will prevent distilleries from starting up in Indiana. We need to show the legislature that the hoops we have to jump through at the Federal level are significant enough already. http://www.in.gov/apps/lsa/session/billwatch/billinfo?year=2013&session=1&request=getBill&docno=1293 Thank you, Adam

Hey folks, reviving an old thread here to ask if any of you would be willing to share actual sales figures. We have been lucky enough to have some transparency from the guys at Dry Fly, who through various news articles have disclosed that in 2012 they sold 8,000 cases with $1.8 million in sales, a 38% increase in volume from 2011. I believe they launched in late 2007/early 2008. They are marketers by trade, so it could be assumed that their growth is above average for our industry. Anyone else care to share? As Chuck mentioned earlier in this thread, I don't think the big brand numbers are particularly relevant when projecting sales for a micro-distillery. Thanks, Adam

I'm interested in this as well. We are purchasing a still with a much larger capacity than will be used in the first three or four years, with the idea that the marginal cost of a larger still is not as high as the cost of a new still when we're ready to grow. Where are you in Indiana?

Hi all, I just made a form for potential customers to tell us what they want in a whiskey: http://blog.cardinalspirits.com/whiskey-builder I'm curious if any of you have tried involving the customer in your product development decisions, and if so how it has turned out? Thanks, Adam

I'm inspired. We have some pretty absurd laws here in Indiana, but there is hope.

Without ponying up for expensive trade reports, it takes a bit of digging to find good numbers. One option is to pull numbers for the industry as a whole, then extrapolate the figures for craft spirits based on the percentage of the market your particular category represents. It's more of an art than a science, and I would also love to hear from everyone else about their market research tactics. If you want some general "liquor is a good business" articles to pull from, lots of national press archives to search: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/business/bourbons-all-american-roar.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203824904577212393750116120.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-30/spirits-sales-steal-share-from-beer.html

That's amazing Lenny.

I just backed this project on Kickstarter (a crowd-funding platform): http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/liquoriste/liquoriste-botanical-barmaids Looks like these Kansas gals are making some really nice mixers to complement the craft spirits you all are making. I've run a successful Kickstarter campaign in the past, and have to say it was a great experience. I think there is probably an opportunity to use their platform to raise money for a startup distillery, or possibly just to buy a piece of equipment. I assume there are some regulations about who can invest in a distillery that may get in the way, but technically the Kickstarter platform is not an investment opportunity, it's simple a donation mechanism. I'm going to look into it.

Good point Bullington, I went in and tried to edit that default message but couldn't find where to do it. I'll dig around and figure it out. Thanks!

We're still a good few months away from opening our doors, but I wanted to start collecting email addresses of potential customers early so I can let them know when we launch. I found a great Wordpress theme called Launch Effect that makes this really easy to do: http://launcheffectapp.com/ I think it works really well for a distillery or bar. Here's ours: http://www.cardinalspirits.com/ Anything else you all have done to get people interested early?

I know Breucklyn Gin is distilled from grain in house. I used to live down the street from them, and meeting Brad and learning his process was a huge inspiration for me.

Yes I think I'm talking about different things in the same topic, sorry. The class 3 flammable liquids requirement came from a commercial distiller in Ohio that I was talking to about GNS, and told me that we would need to be rated for class 3 flammable liquids if we were to accept shipments of their organic bulk GNS. We have decided not to go that route anyway. The co-location question was related to the general legalities and hassles involved with having a production facility, retail store, and office in the same building. I know that is a question for my local zoning board, but I'm glad I asked here because I had no idea it could take as long as Jedd said. So thanks for that, I'm going to get working on that next week.

I've read that we will need to be zoned for class three flammable liquids. Does anyone have experience with the co-location of distillery production facility, retail store, and office space?

I'm sure many of you have seen this, but a new documentary by Ken Burns came out this month about Prohibition, called... Prohibition: http://video.pbs.org/video/15393956 It's a great history lesson for those of us too young to have experienced it first or second hand. It has made me grateful for the relative sanity of our liquor laws now, which is something I wouldn't have thought possible before. It's also full of great lessons on marketing and lobbying. The "dry" lobby used every trick in the book to get the law passed, then when the inevitable backlash came, they were too obstinate to budge on the specifics, leading to the eventual overturn of the entire constitutional amendment.

Pete, can you explain the boiler system you're using that can use both waste oil and wood? I would love to have those options. A photo would be awesome if you have one.

Interesting. Could you share what those costs were, and what kind of return you saw on the spend?

Has anyone ever tried forcing oxygenation? Maybe hook a tank of O2 to a bubble line in the bottom of the holding tank and run it for a bit?

An agitator is one of the things we've gone back and forth on, so for us it will probably just come down to cost.