grehorst

Update 2 1/4/08

Still haven't found a written policy, but google does locate a partial quote that I'm trying to track down the version of. This wine journal article ( http://www.ajevonline.org/cgi/content/citation/32/1/86 )looks like it quotes just the item I've seen somewhere else. It specifes in part 'as many overfills as underfills' i think the rest of the paragraph quotes has the tolerances - but i can't find the original.

Numerous clips from treasury decisions on beer and wine list +/- 0.5% tolerances, without specifying an underlying reg or decision.

Ok, take a look at 19.386 http://tinyurl.com/2kk7rn

B (2) iii states that fill tolerance is .15% of alcohol. On a 750ml bottle at 80 proof that means (Doug did a quick calc -so accuracy is questionable ) tolerence is about 1.13ml! I think I know why they told me gravity fill won't be accurate enough.

Don, thanks for the info- wow, almost seems too easy! I will check with our Specialist and see if he agree's we should do it that way. Really appreciate the info and I'll report back with more info soon as I have some.

Verified! We just confirmed with our TTB specialist that Don's method is the acceptable method of recording a transfer from a brewery to a DSP.

Guy,

We do this on a fairly regular basis. The brewery we work with mashes for us, and ferments our whiskey products. Our wheat mashes, which he also does, we ferment onsite.

On his reporting form he notes a transfer to a DSP - there is a line for this on the brewers report. On our TTB report, we note it as a "raw ingredient - other" coming in. We note volume by wine gallon, proof gallon and alcohol percentage.

This is how we were told to do this by our regional TTB person.

Don, thanks for the info- wow, almost seems too easy! I will check with our Specialist and see if he agree's we should do it that way. Really appreciate the info and I'll report back with more info soon as I have some.

We just ordered our 6 filler bottling machine from St. Paticks of Texas online. Don't know how it works yet but the service was good, so far. Nice to chat with you today about Thomas McKenzie. Thank you and Good luck! Diane Paulson, President, Cascade Peak Spirits email

Diane, thanks but I don't think my coworker Doug will let me order from St. Pats again. He called them ready to spend a few thousand last fall, asked evidently one too many questions (this was a five minute conversation) and the person on the order end told him it was their busy season and she was too busy to answer any more of his questions and hung up! We've had better luck with GW Kent.

Aside from that, I think all St. Pats sells is gravity fillers, and some TTB field agents have not found those acceptable for spirits. In theory they are not as accurate as a volumetric filler. While fine for wine, spirit fill levels are very tight on the tolerences and I was told by our field agent that we couldn't use a gravity filler. I have a 4 head volumetric filler that never worked as advertised, I'm sure the gravity filler you bought will be more accurate than my original filler- can't get any consistency with it, thus I'm looking for a replacement. I may put my old one on Ebay soon.

This is an awkward question because state/local will be so variable, but:

Is there a good rule of thumb for the amount of time to budget for getting permits - from federal to local - for a small DSP?

TTB's stated target is 60 days from receipt of a perfected app, and recent articles on micro-distilleries mention 18 month to 2 years of permitting. I'm in the process of doing my homework on this disparity as well as state/local requirements and contacts for my area. While I figure things out more accurately, I was wondering if there was a "general" time expectation useful to plug into a business plan.

Regards,

Andrew

Andrew, welcome to the board! Here's my timeline-

After a year of research, I ordered my still in Dec 2004, needed a place to install it so I rented space in January 2005. While waiting for equipment to arrive, I did the buildout and started dealing with the local goverment issues- occupancy, inspections, etc... Not sure where you are but I can tell you that here when you mention you want to open a distillery most people in local government picture a fuel refinery and it scares the heck out of them- they try to find a lot of reasons why you can't open one. Be vigilant.

I submitted my application in Dec 2005 and we had our first field inspection in March 2006, had a few changes to make (plant security issues) re-inspected in April 2006 and had the federal permit in May (I think). My state permit took another month, we spent some time doing test batches, submitting and resubmitting label approval applications and finally began selling product in September 2006. Now, the TTB won't inspect until you have your distillery ready to go- equipment set up, buildout, etc... so while it may only take 60 days for them to get to your application you will likely spend a lot of time in preparation. All in all took me about 20 months not including time spent researching beforehand.

Good luck and keep us informed of your progress.

Looking for a source of edible flowers that will ship. Anyone know a good source????

Good article on the importance of holiday sales to the industry.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22329431/from/ET/

Don't know about you but getting distributors attention when they are getting major holiday spiffs from the big guys is a real challenge.

Here's an article snippet from the Chicago Tribune.

The Great Lakes Olde World Syder Competition is unique in several ways. It's organized by homebrewers and craft brewing advocates. It has both non-commercial and commercial divisions. It focuses exclusively on the products of apples and pears - or cider and perry.

For distillers, it welcomes 'intensified' ciders, like pommeau (an apple dessert wine that could be made as a liqueur, rather than a fortified wine), eau de vie, and wood aged apple and pear brandies. I think that may make it the only competition with a specific place for (and appreciation of) eau de vie.

If you check the Tribune link, you'll see that a pommeau won a gold. Last year, I think a pear eau de vie took a gold.

--------------------

Oregon vineyard takes top honors at cider competition

--------------------

By Robin Mather Jenkins

Tribune staff reporter

December 19 2007

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- An Oregon vineyard and orchard took highest honors in the third annual Great Lakes Olde World Syder competition, held here recently. Tulip Valley earned best-of-show and a gold medal in the commercial common cider class with its Burro Loco cider.

The complete article can be viewed at:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/foo...0,4190895.story

Visit chicagotribune.com at http://www.chicagotribune.com

Charles, you're too modest so I'll add this in; "Aeppeltreow Winery in Burlington, Wis., earned a gold for its Barnswallow common cider and another for its perry, or pear, cider".

Congratulations!

Guy,

This may or may not be helpful to you, but I ....

(Stuff deleted for brevity)

§

Well, for what it was worth, that was his take on the issue. Let me know if it works out any differently than that assessment!

Eric Watson

PS: Your distributor's truck wraps for your products rocks!

Eric, thanks for the sections- now if I can ever get a call returned I at least have a starting point in the books! Thanks for the compliment on the trucks.

I use Waterloo Container (www.waterloocontainer.com) out of NY. A decent selection and I've had good luck with their customer service. They even helped arrange freight for equipment that I ordered elsewhere. If you're flexible on the timing, they'll coordinate with other orders to reduce shipping. I tend to order three pallets at a time - but mixed and matched. I've ordered as little as 30-40 cases of some bottles.

On a side note, Vitro stopped producing one of the bottles I use most (W106 punted champagne). Saint Gobain makes one that is supposed to be the same spec - but the breakage in my corker suggests that it's not quite the same. I've also had to adjust packaging as capsule producers have gone out of business. Loosing suppliers is very frustrating.

Charles, do they carry liquor bottles? A lot of wine bottles don't have enough head space for spirits.

Guy,

Did you try Four Star Packaging? Scott Morris there can get short run and odd lots of spirit bottles. 610.788.2740

Eric

I've purchased stuff from Scott before but forgot he sells bottles. Thanks!

I don't have a complete copy of 27 CFR 25 handy to do a complete search, but it's not nearly so clear for beer as it is for wine. BS to DSP transfers are clearly laid out in 27 cfr 19 and 24. Beer isn't. I found 27 cfr 25.186, which deals with transfers to another brewery, and a section for transferring unfit beer to a _fuel_ DSP (specifies part Y of 27 cfr 19). <shudder>. On the other hand, it looks like there's a fair amount of leeway in section 25 for research and testing, with the permission of the Bureau.

On the DSP side, I found 27 cfr 19.312, which deals with receipt of distilling stock from a bonded wine cellar or a _contiguous_ brewery. Well, that puts a damper on things. So if you were planning on doing things like this routinely, you might tape off a section of the floor and register it as a brewery. Then transfer BR to BR and then BR to DSP across the tape line. But doing it on the fly looks tougher than I might have hoped.

Ugh.

Did Saver offer a list of distributors that you could contact? I would think someone would have some of those bottles available.

I wonder if there is a way to create a CO-OP where we can purchase as a large group to help bring done the cost of products that we need and make it easier to guarantee that things like bottles are avaiable when we need them..

A stellar idea! I know for a fact that several companies are using the Arianne. I've often said maybe I should have gotten in the liquor bottle business instead of the liquor business. Saver did give me a couple distributors, unfortunately none are stocking bottles- they seem to just funnel orders to Saver. I would have pressed for the names of customers who purchase and try to work out a deal with them, but I discovered Bruni (Thanks Crafty!) and quickly made a deal to get some from them.

As for small orders of bottles, I did buy a small order of 375ml's from a supplier in Canada, I'll post their contact info soon as I come across it again.

Are you trying to contact your specialist in Cincinnati or your field inspector. You should ask your field inspector or contact the regional office. I would think that you could use the Transfer in bond form.

I've been trying to contact the specialist in Cincinnati since I'm also trying to find out the status of a bond revision from back in Sept. I got it back rejected in Nov, turned it same day and still haven't seen it (so much for increasing bond before the holidays!).

I'm under the impression the specialist in Cinci is suposed to be the point of contact for all these things- maybe I'll give our field agent a call. If you were refering to TTB 5100.16, this seems to only address the transfer of spirits.

We are in need of an accurate bottle filler that can be easily operated by monkees Also interested in a powered bottle labeler- must be able to apply a 7"x10" partially transparent label. Contact me if you have one you are trying to sell or if you know of a good supplier.

I am exploring the possibility of purchasing beer from a brewery (or possibly getting it free as it is waste) for the purpose of creating a Bierschnapps. I have called, left voicemail and emailed my TTB specialist several times over the course of two weeks and have gotten no response. Anyone know what I would have to do to transfer beer from a brewery to my distillery and keep the goverment happy?

I like many others am having trouble finding suppliers of small quantities of liquor bottles. We purchase container loads for our main products (vodka and gin) but I am about to release several small batch products and am looking for small volumes of unique shapes. Some I may only want a few hundred of. Does anyone have any resources they could share????

On another note, our main supplier Saver Glass couldn't supply our large volume bottle (Ariane 750ml) for several months. Fortunately I found Bruni Glass offered an almost identical bottle and was able to supply it when we needed it. Contact Richard Richmond at Bruni if you are in a similar situation. Their catalog is online at www.bruniglass.com

Hello all, I am Guy Rehorst founder of Great Lakes Distillery in Milwaukee Wisconsin.

I am also a volunteer administrator on these forums. Hope you all find them useful!