I went through this exercise recently. Most fire marshals do not know anything about distillery requirements and, therefore, go for the most conservative solution (for their own protection). You need to educate them on the actual requirements. I did two things: hired a consulting engineer to work with my architect on the code and hired a fire suppressant engineer. The consulting engineer said that sprinklers will do nothing (except reduce insurance rates) because fire is not the problem...there will be an explosion before a fire ever takes hold. Also, while most states and municipalities have been adopting the International Building Codes, some overlay their own, more stringent, requirements. For instance, in Massachusetts, any building 7,000 s.f. or greater requires that the entire building have sprinklers - not just the distilling or aging warehouse area. Also, the water pressure for was not sufficient for a my building size but if I eliminated about 2,000 s.f., it was. The other option was a pressure booster pump at a quoted price of $30,000, $50,000 installed. At one point, the town was talking about 'remediation' - me paying to upgrade the water line coming to my building - estimated cost: $300,000. Was not a pleasant exercise.