Rye Frenzy

We're considering selling an "age at home" kit which would consist of 2L barrels and 2 bottles of new make spirit in an effort to help sales and put our whiskey in the hands of consumers while our core products age in our own barrels. Right now I'm just trying to find a reliable source for the 2L barrels. I've found a few places selling them online, but most seem geared towards consumers rather than distilleries and the reviews aren't stellar. Any tips and recommendations are appreciated. Thanks.

I am not a lawyer. I too was looking at this for a quick cash raise. What I was considering was selling a voucher for 1 single barrel, bottled. The assumption being that I'm not selling the barrel, but the voucher and the voucher would be exchanged later. Like DrDistillation brought up, it's hard to know how something is going to age. I was planning to sell 4 barrels, then as I was tasting the barrels for final vatting, I would choose several that were quite well and then have the 4 people come choose their barrel. You could still bring them in, and show them how the whiskey is aging in general terms. Just be up front that these are representative tastings and they would get to choose their specific barrel at the end. While I'm not everyone, as a consumer I would much rather pick my barrel at the end, knowing that it's been curated than have to pick the barrel at the beginning and hope it's good. Edit to add the rest of my thoughts: I think the rest of your incentives are good. Keep the barrel, custom label, etc.

No. I will be having whiskey produced under contract, then transferring the barrels in bond to my location where they will age, and then I will bottle and sell it.

Hello everyone. I’ve been lurking and browsing the site for a while as I was figuring out how I wanted to start my operations and now that I’ve got most of my basics and am ready to apply for my DSP, I’ve finally made an account to post some remaining questions. First up is a question about DSP approval for a location I’ve found. Quick background: my current business plan is to contract my first batches of whiskey while I establish my brand and look for additional funding to set up my full distillery. So for right now I only need to establish a warehouse DSP, with the potential for doing warehouse + processing - I won’t be bottling for at least 2 years, so I’m focusing on locations that are quick closure for warehousing purposes instead of more robust with utilities to do processing/bottling. While not ideal, I’m willing to re-address this in 18 months after our economy bounces back (hopefully) and more locations are available. My LLC is currently registered using a local co-working space as our physical and mailing address. I have a promising location for warehouse operations picked out, but it’s sort of non-conventional. The owner of a multi-acre plot of land is building a mini industrial park. Right now it consists of a fenced/gated area that holds storage warehouses as a mix of self-storage + 20x40 standalone business warehouse facilities. At the front is a 3-bay shop/office building, where each bay has a true public entrance outside of the fence. There is currently a winery and 2 construction companies using those 3 spaces - the winery also has a standalone warehouse on-site. The three units up front are the only ones that currently have official mailing addresses, but every interior unit has a dedicated “Unit ###” designation at the street address for easy identification. While there is a gate, it is exclusively for vehicles and there is a pedestrian entrance that a TTB agent would be able to walk through 24/7 to reach our warehouse if necessary. My question is, do you think TTB will approve this setup? It seems logical to me, especially considering it’s just a warehouse DSP. They have unfettered access to the location, the site owner actually reached out to me, so he’s on board, and AHJ is so far on-board with the plan so long as I’m not distilling on this site - which I likely wouldn’t even do processing in this space as it lacks a drain and other utilities. Assuming this passes muster, would having my primary address at a co-working space and my warehouse down the road be considered non-contiguous locations? I think it would, but maybe they only count actual DSP locations toward this? For those who are considering asking, I have already considered trying to get set up in a more robust location and do a vodka, gin, and even sourcing aged whiskey. But I’ve done extensive market research and sourced whiskey is a non-starter, and I’m not big into vodka or gin and don’t have the desire to maintain a product I couldn’t be enthusiastic about. This is a lot to unpack, and the mini industrial park might need more clarification, but I’d rather be succinct and answer direct questions later than try to answer everything in a short novel.