Andrew

An update if you're interested but I haven't emailed you: We're currently looking at about a 15-20 distillers for this meet-up. Plus a lot of booze. A world recognized spirits noser will also be on hand, which sounds like an exciting opportunity for us to learn a bit more on how to sample spirits. We are going to be casual with this meetup. You are welcome to spend both Friday and Saturday outbound at distilleries, you can spend both days at the Corsair tasting room working through the spirits tasting, or split the difference. That said, the "official" meet Weird Spirits meet and greet will be Saturday the 31st at Corsair Nashville from noon to 4:30 pm. There will be a Nashville to Louisville carpool Sunday.

I've been asked how much spirit to send. Sorry to forget such a thing! One 750 mL will more than do. The Nashville get-together will be the 30th and 31st, so if you are shipping and will miss the 27th, the 29th is the last realistic day of arrival.

One more thing. Email me to let me know you shipped something! andrew at corsairartisan dotcom

Folks: If you would like some peer feedback on your weird, prototype, or otherwise interesting spirit from the folks participating in the Nashville Pre-ADI get together, please mail your samples to the below address for arrival by March 27th. We have between a dozen and 15 industry member whose taste buds will be available, including Bill Owens and an expert spirits noser. Feedback, as has been mentioned elsewhere, won't be formal and can't be guaranteed to be cogent, given the amount of product we may have to go through. However, the feedback will be honest, low pressure, and from your peers. Without the pressures of a conference we should be more deliberate and descriptive. You are welcome to submit either under with full info on the label or with a minimal label if you'd like to be more covert. I will insist we know the proof, the main ingredients, and the style you're going for (if such a thing exists) so we can taste in a more informed way. Covert labels should have some sort of ID for the product so Bill or I can get you your feedback back. Also let me know if it's OK to bring leftovers to ADI proper. Mail samples to the below. Label boxes as Commercial Samples, No Commercial Value, and of course Glass Enclosed. Corsair Artisan LLC c/o Peer Samples 1200 Clinton Street Suite 110 Nashville TN 37203 615-200-0320

Michael: This is only my experience, your mileage may vary. 1) If you withdraw a label and replace it with a similar modified one you are starting over. The only time you remain in queue is when you have a rejection and do corrections. If you are pressed for time, you can request an expedited review but there will be a fee and you need to demonstrate the need for the expedite. I'd recommend a COLA lawyer if you go that route. 2) Yes, they can and will pull labels in active use. We submitted a modified version of an active label, and it got rejected for using the word "refreshing" (the rejection was that refreshing is a medical claim). I pointed out the word was on the then-active label and had passed a number of COLA submissions. No dice, I was given a use-up allowance to burn through our existing stock of printed labels for that product but the label was otherwise revoked. Best, Andrew

Both our gin and absinthe botanicals (post-distillation) are in high demand by local gardeners to compost. The resulting compost is apparently amazing stuff. The juniper berries are usually so stripped that they don't really have much distinct scent or flavor.

Folks: I've been asked whether it's ok to send spirits to our get-together if attending is difficult, and whether we can bring the spirits we don't finish up to ADI. Yes and absolutely. If you'd like some peer feedback on your experimental/oddball spirits and cannot hit Nashville pre-ADI, we'll certainly take and drink your stuff. No promises on the quality of the review - there looks to be a high bottle-to-distiller ratio - but the participants will give everything friendly and open-minded feedback. Experimentation is the best part of any craft boom, and that's what the tasting/shoptalk will be about. So if you're blending tequila and scotch then infusing with durian fruit, bring it down or send it. Just label well so we know what we're getting into. Best, Andrew

Folks: March 30-31, the Friday and Saturday before ADI Louisville, we're having a very informal get-together in Nashville for distillers. March 29th is on the table if it's needed. There are two goals: 1) To have an informal, low-pressure forum for active producers to get peer feedback on some of the non-traditional products they're fooling around with. Or, to be less diplomatic, a place where we can try each other's weird shit without the pressures of the conference hanging over us. 2) To let people who are interested have a launching point to hit the TN and southern KY distilleries that ADI won't be able to hit. Please email me at andrew (at) corsairartisan.com if you are interested in the get together. We can get good room rates for downtown Nashville and, if we have a few participants, can look at some vans or a bus to get up to Louisville. Details: ----- Our plans for the "tasting" are to line up bottles on the spirits room bar at Corsair Nashville and just mingle, taste, and chat. The goal is to talk shop, get feedback from other folks trying unusual stuff, and to be able to try experimental spirits that might inspire new directions. Simple feedback sheets can be included, if wanted. The facility is in walking distance of plenty of food, and a few blocks from the downtown honkeytonks, so post-tasting needs can be well taken care of. Corsair will have 30-odd different weird whiskeys on the bar (hopped, alternate grains, botanical infusions, smoked). Paul at MB Roland has offered to have a healthy selection of his whiskeys (smoked) available when we visit him. To keep things casual, the weird-spirits drinking-and-shoptalk event will be open only to active producers and startup distilleries already prototyping. No vendors, press, distros, etc. so we can feel comfortable pulling out things not ready for primetime. The craft distilleries you can hit from Nashville include: o Corsair's Nashville location (the get-together host site) - whiskey mashing facility o MB Roland (southern KY) - Paul smokes his corn in a traditional tobacco smoke shed o Collier and McKeel (Nashville) - Mike makes his own sugar maple charcoal to make a charcoal mellowed sour mash o Short Mountain (middle TN) - *ground* to glass, they're growing their own grain! o Prichards (southern TN) - one of the first craft distilleries; rum and whiskey out of an old schoolhouse o Smokey Mountain (east TN) - one of the top tourist focused distillery designs in the country o non-craft, Jack and George - if you really want to Best, Andrew

If the drain on the gin basket goes to the condenser (like ours) rather than to the pot (like some other Vendomes) make sure you have the drain closed when you use the vapor basket and open it post-distillation to clean. Vapor will condense on the botanicals and leech color from them (basically a hot masceration) especially at the start of the run when the basket is cold. We see color on our gin distillations only 1) when the drain is open and 2) at the very last bit of the run, which we redistill. -A

In KY, we bump up a couple bucks over the top price charged in local stores, for the reason you stated. In TN, we can only sell "commemorative" bottles so there's no real comparison to retail.

Sorry John, I didn't mean to be a wet blanket! I'm firmly convinced that it's well worth experimenting with all the wonderful grain preps that brewers have embraced and traditional distilleries have ignored. I would advise that you pull sizeable (200+ ml) samples from your new bourbon's barrels across time. We've found that with certain alt-grain whiskeys, blending in some very young whiskey into fully aged gets the grain notes we want back into the product while getting good barrel character. Having a set of samples across time may be handy for trying to back-blend if your favored notes get muddled. Obviously, you can also see if the notes you want do diminish over time and can make a judgement call about pulling the entire product young, or seeing that all is well and having the confidence to let it go long. We have a production whiskey we pull young to retain the flavors we want before they disappear.

We have been using a lot of prepared malts. In our experience, lighter preparations of malt, crystal especially, alter the flavor of a white dog only subtlely. These do not stand up to our barrels. Heavy roasts do make a notable difference. To us, these flavors can stand up to barrels. We use a lot of chocolate rye and chocolate malt. New barrels are cruel to the difference in flavors we get from using different malt preparations. As well, the heavier the barrel char, the quicker our mashes with alternate grain preparations move back to the flavor baseline set by plain old two row. Some of our most interesting white dogs when placed in new 4 char taste very much like a vanilla two row malt after being barreled for a bit. There remains more complexity, but the specific interesting flavors that excite us in the white dog are difficult to pick out; they can get muddied and subdued. Given that traditional whiskeys are so similar in their base preparation, though, even a subtle flavor nudge can (in my opinion) significantly differentiate a craft whiskey. Used barrels are obviously kinder; it's my unresearched opinion that this is from the char being "used up" as an activated carbon filter more that the barrel flavors already being stripped. We haven't tried toasted barrels for alternate grain preparations, they may be a good idea. I was unimpressed with the new toasted barrels we fooled around with for (otherwise-)bourbon and rum aging so haven't gone back to them.

The mashes we've done with 100% rye (with rice hulls and beta glucanase) take about 1.5x to 1.8x as long to lauter as the 100% 2-row runs we've done, providing the lauter doesn't stick. When they do stick, well, it's a long day.

Pete, we've found that when lautering a 100% rye mash, even a handful of rice hulls make a huge difference. That's probably not an option for you, but if you have some manner of neutral, safe chaff to add to the lauter tun when mashing in, you may have a much happier time. Being able to wash more sugar out of the rye-concrete is a potential bump to your yield. We use only malted rye, so I haven't done my homework but 20% malt feels a bit low given rye's different mix of amylases than barley.

For run sizes of 100 bottles or less, you may need just an Enolmatic, the Enolmaster's baby brother. We have both Enol sizes, and an old xpressfill. The Enolmaster and xpressfill are both more rugged and fill faster, but for small runs the time savings from multiple heads and faster pumping is really not much until you have several people helping. At $350 a pop for Enolmatics, you can (and should) buy two so you have a spare. We reach for the little Enol for our small runs. As Brian pointed out, you can get glass for the Enolmaster, but not for the Enolmatic (I think). The plastic catch tank and filter housing on the Enols are only good up to something like 115 proof, which may influence your decision.

Here's an old thread from these boards on the topic: http://adiforums.com/index.php?showtopic=73&view=&hl=master&fromsearch=1 -A

Using a flavored base or a mash is fine via the BAM, as long as you have juniper dominant, and it's historically appropriate too. http://www.ttb.gov/s...am/chapter4.pdf (Type) Spirits with a main characteristic flavor derived from juniper berries produced by distillation or mixing of spirits with juniper berries and other aromatics or extracts derived from these materials and bottled at not less than 40% alcohol by volume (80 proof) DISTILLED GIN Gin produced by original distillation from mash with or over juniper berries and other aromatics or their extracts, essences or flavors REDISTILLED GIN Gin produced by redistillation of distilled spirits with or over juniper berries and other aromatics or their extracts, essences or flavors

Welcome, Christian! I was excited to see your referendum passing a couple nights back, a big congrats. Great work keeping on pushing. Best, Andrew Corsair Distillery

We do lauter many of our mashes to wash. Our wash pot has no agitator and a small manway so we've been cautious with grain in the still. A column still and a powerful pumping system would make the stuff a cakewalk, I imagine. Beta glucans like to bind together like gluten in dough when you work a rye mash, turning a liquid grain soup into an thick oatmeal. Reducing stirring, adding a heap of rice hulls, adding malted barley, and simply accepting that the mash will lauter slowly all have helped. We've also done a couple test batches with beta glucanases, which do wonders for liquifying the mash but requires its own temperature step and conversion time, so it saves time by taking time.

Coop: Rye whiskey is "from a fermented mash of not less than 51 percent rye", so the mash bill is pretty open. A lot of ryes use a very healthy portion of barley for better saccrification - malted rye's mix of amylases aren't as ideal as barley malt. This is stolen from a brewing site, but it sums up the most notable bits of our rye experiences: "Like wheat, rye comes in hulled form. The lack of a hull, combined with rye's high water retention capacity, can create a very sticky mash prone to setting. These and other considerations behoove the brewer to both carefully consider the form of rye to be used (some forms, such as grits, are more troublesome and trouble-prone than others) and to make adjustments during the brewing process. One important factor to consider is rye's high beta-glucan content. beta-glucans -- starches made up of long strands of glucose molecules -- greatly increase wort viscosity. A slow runoff and sparge time can be expected; given rye's high beta-glucan and protein profile, filtration problems and a set mash are typical problems." The stuff sets. We've done a 100% rye mash and an 80% rye mash; both have been our most challenging mashes. Best, Andrew

So *that's* how you get your absinthe so green.

When we were just beginning to scale our production to distribute regionally, we entered one of our products (our gin) in one of the larger spirits contests. We wanted to get our feet wet and learn the process. Unexpectedly we took a gold. Distributors we were talking with immediately became much more comfortable with bringing on an unproven product line, and we saw a significant increase in distributors contacting us out of the blue. While everyone still wanted to taste our products and judge for themselves, the award was seemingly an important independent qualifier that gave companies confidence that we were worth talking with. There are other benefits and a lot of drawbacks to contests, but from the "I'm a new company" perspective you mentioned, this was the least expected and most immediate benefit of taking a medal. -Andrew

We sometimes describe our tours as a marketing expense that just happens to cover its costs (and then some). I would continue to offer tours even if they weren't a financial net positive. To me, focusing on the financial side (while important) misses the core business value of tours, at least to us as a small craft company with a small craft marketing budget. People come into our facility curious and leave as evangelists. They talk about us, blog about us, send their friends to our site, bring their relatives by the distillery for another tour, stop in with their dinner party to see what we're working on next, and so on. Then the people they introduce start coming by with their friends. Out-of-town visitors start asking their local haunts if they'll pick up our products. Further, being open to people coming through the distillery has led to news articles, tv spots, solid information on potential accounts, partnership opportunities, and so on. Marketing majors will happily put a valuation on this stuff, but I'm comfortable calling it intangible. Tours can be very disruptive if handled by staff with production duties, and the best visitors - the ones who become evangelists - can spend hours at the distillery asking questions if you have an open format, like we do. For us, it's entirely worth it. -Andrew

Spent grains get stinky quickly.

If you happen to live near a college/university with a business school, stop by and ask one of the entrepreneurship profs if they have any students that might be interested in helping you. It's something that students can often get credit for, and they'll be able to help you get your hands around organizing a business plan. I wouldn't recommend cribbing, unless you're just using the document for fund raising. The process of figuring out the plan organizes your thoughts and forces you to think through details you'd otherwise gloss over to your later regret. The journey is more important than the destination. -A