38°

We ended up having a local welder modify a few regular ones and make some for us.

We are on propane. The only drawback is making sure to find a reliable supplier and having the boiler converted cost us a little bit extra.

Our prices are set the same for all distributors with the exception of Libdib because thier cost model is different (we eat shipping, extra packing costs, etc).

I'm interested in hearing what other do as well.

We do a bourbon product that has honey as the sweetener and hover between 3-7 % by volume. 

I think it greatly depends on your local distribution facility and drivers. For us, GLS is a no show on pickups at least 60% of the time. The drivers are knuckleheads. FedEx is a nightmare at out distribution facility with constant lost packages. Even the drivers hate working there, although they do try. We've got a great relationship with our UPS resources. 🤔

UPS is by far the most reliable for us where we are at in Norcal.

We make a Bierschnaps. From a reception standpoint some people love it, some hate it. Beer fans almost always try it. We always put some oak age on it, either wine or whiskey barrels. In our experience the best bierschnaps come from minimally hopped dark beers. They usually turn towards a scotch flavor profile. If you're using a variety of beers, you're going to end up with a variety of products/flavor profiles.

I'd be afraid the hoppy bitterness will translate into your neutral if you go that route.

End of the day it's a small batch corner product for us that allows interesting conversations about our brewery partnerships.

At Hinterhaus we make a Krauterlikor (similar to Amaro) from our wine based neutral.

Ok, now that makes sense to me! Like I said, a little slow on the uptake over here haha

I must be crazy but I still don't see how you empty or fill or sample a barrel in the middle of a brick of barrels. I am not saying it isn't a great solution or we'd not want to build our own. But I just don't see it.

https://www.justinpagedesignco.com/

Here is our guy. Super creative and easy to work with.

If a production designer or actor or producer wants your brand in a movie or TV show it will happen, in our experience usually without you paying anyone. Not saying these guys aren't legit, but, when we were contacted by them a few days ago and told him we've been in movies without paying....he was pretty excited to get off the phone with me.

Hi There. Feel free to shoot me a DM to discuss. If not us, I may be able to point you in the right direction.

Best

We only want to remove yeast to satisfy our local water district. They don't have science behind it, they just don't want us dumping yeast. Right now we rack and that works ok, just messy, hard to deal with, and the slurry left over still has some liquid which could be distilled. If we can find a better method of removing yeast (before or after distillation) I feel we can get better yields and have an easier byproduct to deal with.

For now this is our only issue, however, with expansion our water co will likely not let us dump anything putting us much closer to your situation. 

I'd love a good answer too. We're in the same situation. Trying to find a way to filter out yeast before distillation has been a challenge as well.

We use UPS as GLS have not been reliable in our area and FedEx is hit or miss as well.

I'd chat with Tank Space out of Sacramento. They do alot of wine canning and cocktail development.

We have open top low fermenters so it isn't really a problem. I don't think you could attach it to anything as the gravity readings would be off possibly? We do use the sheets logging feature but only really to confirm feemtation is complete and see the progress.

We really like how easy it is and that's the use case for us.

We use Tilt Pro to monitor our fermentation. Our tanks are open and 500 gallons. Much larger than that might not work but we like them for our process.

https://tilthydrometer.com/products/tilt-pro-wireless-hydrometer-and-thermometer

Just saw the new Jack Daniels release here in California and they are in 700ml. 

Point taken. Mostly the concern is in our very immediate area. There is only one other place you could buy it and that is 5 minutes away at the only grocery or liquor store within another 30 minutes drive. 

We can't really go to distribution without them for various reasons but also are concerned they could negatively impact our onsite sales.

As a vacation community convenience and one stop at the local grocery might be attractive and obviously margins are much better onsite.

It may be unfounded concern but it's a consideration anyways.

Good advice, thank you. It's quite a balancing act to get this right and we are making it up as we go here.

Does anyone out there have any advice or thoughts on pricing for off-premise retail vs in-house retail? Our distributor is worried that retailers will react negatively to the gap in off-premise retail prices charged vs our tasting room retail. On the flip side, we don't want any way for a retailer to undercut us, especially locally. As an example, we would see our bourbon in the tasting room at ~$45 vs ~52 at off-premise retail. Thoughts?

On 1/19/2022 at 9:04 PM, daveflintstone said:

Seriously?  No one producing or selling in CA going to chime in with an answer?  wowza

If it has distilled spirits in it, it is taxed as distilled spirits on a wine gallon basis. That is what we were advised by CDTFA. So, exactly the same as your Vodka. It's a total rip...

1 hour ago, BuffaloBink said:

Hey all,

Curious on when you all implemented a software program? We are not yet producing (nearing end of planning) and wonder if it would benefit us to get used to the software early. As a startup, are we better off going the spreadsheet route for awhile or jumping into software ASAP to familiarize ourselves with the system? Thank you for any/all input.

We started with the system as soon as we had recordable transactions and equipment. I think it has been incredibly helpful to be set up from the start. We hit the ground running and wouldn't have time to devote to a proper implementation if we tried to do one now.