TetonDistillery

Correction. I have 4 of these Stainless Steel transfer barrels available. One of the reservations changed his order amount.

I have 28 of these SS barrels ready for shipping next week. 26 are already reserved by other distilleries. The last two are available with no waiting. Email me. $895 each, FOB Driggs Idaho SUS 304 Stainless Steel Capacity 55 Gallons Wheels with brakes Handles Lid Ideal for moving vodka/whiskey around the distillery. (see more pictures higher up in this topic) James Morrison : james@tetondistillery.com Grand Teton Distillery New Equipment For Sale: Stills, Fermentation Tanks, Stainless Steel Barrels http://www.tetondistillery.com/distillery-equipment

I don't think it is possible to do a distillery with $100,000 or less and be successful long term. Yes, you might be able to open and produce something, but I question the long term viability of the operation. Besides just the equipment and other items needed to get started, you need working capital to fund your bottles, ingredients, and all of your inventory. Just as an example, If you are really hurting for cash, then you are likely buying your bottles is really small quantities. If you are buying your bottles in small quantities, then I suspect you are paying a really high price per bottle. That same lack of scale is hurting you in every part of your business. It all adds up. Just my opinion. I am not trying to discourage anyone from getting into the distillery business. But I think anyone doing this would be better off working with partners or investors with deeper pockets. I would not consider starting a new distillery without $300,000.

We just burn the heads in the ethanol fireplace. I don't think my brother (head distiller) does anything else.

You don't need a CPA to do the daily transactions. If you don't know QuickBooks enough to do it yourself, you can likely find a bookkeeper to do a few hours per week on your books. There are many people that make a business out of doing multiple local businesses. They just spend 2-3 hours per week with each client. That is often enough for a small business that does a few hundred thousand dollars in sales per year. You have a CPA do your tax return once per year. A bookkeeper can do everything else at a fraction of the hourly cost.

I only have 4 of these stainless steel 55 gallon transfer barrels remaining. To everyone that has reserved barrels in this batch, we are within about 3-4 weeks of these being ready for shipping. I won't have any more ready until the September/October time frame.

I have about 10 of these barrels remaining. 20 have been reserved. Estimated delivery will be late June. Email me if you are interested. james@tetonvodka.com

We just pass along whatever the shipping quote is. We get quotes from 4 different shipping sources and pick the best.

About half of the next batch of 30 SS transfer barrels have been reserved. Our ETA is late June for shipping. Please email me if you would like to reserve one or more.

$20,000 seems crazy expensive to me for a startup to raise money. I wouldn't pay that. I have had lawyers involved in fundraising ask for that also. They are also claiming they will put you in touch with other investors. But they want their $20,000 upfront before they do anything. Then their promises are really just, "best efforts". But your $20,000 retainer is already in their bank account. No thanks. Most lawyers are worthless scammers. We found it much easier and less complicated overall to just deal with angel investors and local wealthy people that want to be involved in the local distillery. Our documents for the subscription agreement are very boilerplate. We have not had any problems. We have also turned down a few investors that seemed like they might be troublesome.

We did an S Corp for the first two years. We started with about 20 investors, however our close family members held more than 60% of the stock and all of the super voting stock (B shares). Then we switched to a C Corp after two years because we had some venture capital types interested in our distillery. We turned down the venture capital group and decided to just stick with rich individual shareholders that don't want majority control. The Chip Tate / Balcones situation was a big factor for us avoiding any single outside investor obtaining a controlling interest outside of our family. We now have about 40 shareholders. One of our investors recently loaned us money (are a good rate) to fund our building expansion. Much easier and quicker than dealing with a bank. When we were a paper business plan in late 2011 we sold shares at $1.00 per share with a minimum investment of $10,000. Our most recent shareholder paid $11.00 per share. It was difficult to raise money when it is just a paper business plan. But after you have a real product and sales revenue, it is much easier. Investors start knocking on your door.

I will have 30 more of these Stainless Steel Transfer Barrels (55 gallons) in June. 6 of them are already reserved. 24 remaining for reservation. Please email me if you are interested. james@tetonvodka.com

All of these 14 barrels are reserved and/or sold. I should have another batch ready by June. Send me an email if you would like to reserve any for that time frame.

That is a very good point to stress. Having a direct to consumer sales option is critical. If you can somehow capture the distributor and retail profit margins for some of your sales, that is the key to having a solid foundation for your business. If you have to survive with 100% of your sales being to distributors at that wholesale price, then you are in an uphill situation. So it really depends on your state laws. For example, in Idaho we have to sell everything to the state liquor division. Then they sell through the state stores and smaller contract stores. We operate a state authorized contract store from our distillery in Idaho, but the margins are very thin with that process. The state of Idaho keeps the bulk of the markup above the wholesale price. Other states have it MUCH better than we do in Idaho.

4 sold. We have 10 remaining.

Give me your daily number of likely walk-in customers and I will give you a range of revenue estimates. I would estimate that 90% of the people that walk in the door buy something. I know our average sale, which would likely be similar for you. So the only thing we need to know is how busy your location is. Some distilleries are in the middle of nowhere. Others are in prime tourist locations with hundreds of walk-ins per day. Some are in seasonal locations where it is good only a few months per year. Others are steady all year. What is yours?

We have 14 of these stainless steel transfer barrels available for sale. These are all brand new and ready for shipping later this week. We use these in our regular production process and they are incredibly useful to have in the distillery. $895 each, FOB Driggs Idaho SUS 304 Stainless Steel Capacity 55 Gallons Wheels with brakes Handles Lid Ideal for moving vodka/whiskey around the distillery. James Morrison : james@tetondistillery.com Grand Teton Distillery New Equipment For Sale: Stills, Fermentation Tanks, Stainless Steel Barrels http://www.tetondistillery.com/distillery-equipment You can use the barrels to collect when emptying a whiskey barrel, then transfer the liquid to the next steps prior to bottling. Or collect vodka coming off of your still, then easily move everything over to filtering, proofing, bottling.

Having been through the TTB process with two different distilleries, I have my doubts that they would approve it. They require some really solid documentation about the building, the lot, the zoning, the lease with the landlord, etc.

That makes sense for a variety of reasons. Having multiple products can require a much larger range of different types of production equipment. So startup capital costs are more affordable focusing on one product, one label, etc.

I heard that Square pricing was much higher on a percentage basis than other payment systems. True or False? What have others found? Are you getting extra functionality that makes it worthwhile? What is better?

I have seen quite a few fail in just the planning stages. They just don't get off the ground during the planning stages and we never hear about them again. Quite a few people contact me about buying stills or fermentation tanks. So during those discussions I hear about the issues they are having in their process. Quite often it is just lack of capital. Or the building location they were planning on doesn't work because of zoning issues or a variety of reasons. Personally, I think there will be a lot of failures in the next few years. There are quite a few small distilleries operating where the owner has another day job and is working for free at their craft distillery. That can only go on for so long before the owner gets burned out and quits. These operations are likely breaking even so long as the owner works for free, but not profitable enough to allow the owner to really devote 100% of their time to the operation. That type of operation won't have the capital to expand even if the product is good. Making a good product is easy. The key to a successful distillery is figuring out how to market, distribute and sell your product.

Has anyone gone through the process of getting authorized for a second production location under the TTB? Is it like an amendment to the existing permit? or is it an entirely new DSP process?

We are starting to have too many moving pieces in our tasting room and elsewhere. What are you guys using for inventory management tracking? There are really two different types of inventory I think we should track. There is the retail side of the business with the tasting room and all of the various products sold through there. Then there is also the manufacturing side of the distillery where we need to track all of the misc aspects of the materials that go into the products that we make. What is your system for all of this? Thanks

The 36 months of profits buyout is what is so bizarre. There are so many ways to make that number artificially higher or lower. You are going to get screwed there. I can guarantee it.

That sounds like a crazy contract. I have never had anyone propose such terms to me. We have distribution in more than a dozen states. Does their contract guarantee that they will purchase a certain minimum amount on a regular schedule?