StGeorgeSpirits

They guys in Petaluma, who I know very well, are right. Current law does not allow tastings in the distillery to the general public. Industry members are allowed a private tour and taste. You are correct, there are a couple of distilleries that do tastings and I beleive I know exactly who you are talking about and I too wont mention any names. As for Hangar One, I think they have a brandy manufacturers license under their parent company, St George Spirits which allows them to do the tastings, but then I think they would only be able to offer the brandy for tastings. Im pretty sure they offer tastings of all if not most of their spirits and they charge for it, just like a winery. Good for them, but would love to know which license allows them to offer tastings of the vodka, rums, etc. I would for one the next day!

It is legal to have a tasting room at a California distillery:

23363.1 - (A) A distilled spirits manufacturer's license authorizes the licensee to conduct tastings of distilled spirits produced or bottled by, or produced and bottled for, the licensee, on or off the licensee's premises.

Note - we do not charge for the tastings - we charge to purchase a glass which the customer keeps. We offer a complimentary taste of any spirit without purchase of the glass.

By law, you need to physically gauge your barrels at the end of every calendar quarter. At that time you will record the loss on your storage operational report. The TTB knows there will be a loss from evaporation. You will also record losses at any other time of gauging - such as when transferring into or out of barrels. You do not need to reproof every quarter - calculate based on the change in wine gallons at the original barreled proof. You will then reproof when transferring from storage - either out of your bond or to processing and record any additional losses at that time.

-Lucy

We've run into this same problem with some of our taller bottles or wider bottles. We've had custom made packaging - without styrofoam. The inserts are rolled up corrugated. We have boxes that fit one or two bottles, and boxes that fit up to six bottles - with separators for empty spaces, and three bottle carriers that convert to shippers. On the West Coast we used Box USA/International Paper which had some creative solutions. I'm sure there are similar box companies all around the country. If you have custom made boxes, you'll need to order enough to bring down the unit cost. We also bought pre-made packaging (with styrofoam inserts) from Coastal Products in Sonoma, CA when we suddenly had a bottle that didn't fit our other boxes.

Please add St. George Spirits, Inc. / Alameda, CA 94501 to the list, in support of your petition.

-Jorg Rupf, President