rich phillips

I would love to have someone do that job for me. anyone want to do it for free?

I agree with this. We looked at how many bottles it would take to break even and what we thought the market would bear. Sales forecasting is always going to be like looking into a crystal ball

Funny, I just received a letter like this saying that my cousin was stranded in London. I got concerned only to call her and she was in New York, just fine. Can you say scam?

Yo. Are we doing anything at distillery row? We'll need to organize...

We just use a pump to recirculate it for awhile and then let it rest overnight.

They do the same thing in Portland, OR. We use a DI filtration system from Siemen's

Good luck with that. My experience has been that none of them do as much as what you would want: Tastings, boots on the ground etc., because distribution is very labor intensive. If you add the factor of three tier laws that came out of the repeal of prohibition, you also find (Or maybe it was just me), that there seems to be a situation where the control is slanted toward them. If you go with the bigger regional houses, you can get buried if you don't have POS or a big marketing budget. I f you go boutique, you may get more work out of them but they don't have the resources... Six O one, half dozen of the other.

We start with this bit o math: Known volume x known proof divided by desired proof = desired volume But you have to adjust for temperature as hydrometers are typically calibrated at 60 degrees ferenheit.

In the case of fresh citrus, Cold stabilizing is a necessity (Like lemoncello), but I agree that most of it has more to do with solubility in ethanol versus water. You might want to up your proof and see what happens. I had to re-do 60 gallons of gin because the oils dropped out of solution. That's probably also the case with the historic high proof points found with absinthe. Our Gin is at 90 and our absinthe, 120.

We started with ID Branding and they were great but their designers moved on. The guy that oversaw bottle design is with a company called Cinco Design. he is an animal. His name is Jared Milam. Google him. rich www.integrityspirits.com

It's like a dysfunctional marriage. Tread carefully. Many expect $40,000 to $100,000 in a marketing budget. Smaller boutique guys may be better, but beware of the terms. Why is it that we pay up front for everything and they don't? Three tier laws from the '30s.

There is a group (ANSI?) that approves glass moulds depending upon whether they are for still wines, sparkling wines, beer or spirits. It has to do with effervescence and/or ABV levels. If you consider the difference in expansion of vapors under heat via ethanol, CO2 or water, different spaces can mean the difference between corks popping off on a hot day or not for example. We learned the hard way with that one.

Where is your site located? We're in Portland as well and do business with Gales Creek. How far along in the process are you? Rich Phillips, integrity spirits

We had a design group do our neck labels. It's the way it is. If you find an Avery label that is the right size, you have to wonder how your ink will hold up. Plus, Do you want to emulate a tax stamp on it? You could call ID Branding in Oregon...

We have been fighting these issues in Oregon as well. The legislators in their "Wisdom", levied a "Temporary" increase of $0.50 per bottle on the retail price across the board (It's amusing that it doesn't matter the size of the bottle: 50ml, 750ml or even 1.75ltr.). They also have called for a 30% reduction in inventories at the warehouse and liquor stores as well as a 25% reduction in the compensation to the owners of the stores. Many of them have retaliated by shortening the hours of operation, layoffs and the like. We have approached the legislature several time as a guild and I don't think I should hold my breath for a better outcome...

I guess from our experience, you get a lot of oils and crap in a pack; harder to clean

When we were faced with this, their questionnaire asked about how many products we anticipated producing. By my answers, our fee was $1500. I paid it begrudgingly because I feared there could be problems with the prefix had I not... I chalked it up to yet another fee or charge or tax.

Scary stuff. What's the solution? Better ventilation? This seems to be a fluke or one would hear about it more often

We use both but more copper. I don't know but it seems that I have noticed a difference. I know that there are a lot of other variables that affect flavor profiles. It seems though maintenance is an issue, it's something you have to live with. Heck, even Dave Pickerel from Maker's Mark told me that he's tried both and stayed with copper.

I know. eventually, I'll know what I'm doing! We blow our bottles out with compressed air. Watch out, however, that you get a compressor that doesn't spit oil out that's not so good.

Well come by our place in Oregon and you can try the stuff we make. We do the best that we can, and make both of the things you're interested in. Rich

Falling asleep while sitting or standing works too. Welcome fellas

Fine you go ahead and buy a facility three stories high and toot your horn. If I re-distill and taste everything and worry about my cuts and flavor profile and aging, but buy GNS am I cheating? do I not look at the Merck index or other things? Do I succumb to this petty argument yet again? If you have your mother raking the grain across the floor is the quality better simply because her feet walked upon the malted grain?