delaware_phoenix

Two or three years back, TTB put out a call for comment regarding nutritional labeling for alcoholic beverages. It was a very long document. Some of the majors have been asking to put such information on their labels so they can use that as a marketing ploy. CSPI (Center for Science in the Public Interest), a lobbying group has been pushing for this for years. They're also the ones that got calorie information at the fast food places. None of this will help the people that are overweight since all the foods will still have their HFCS, dextrin, "natural flavor" and other insidious ingredients that corporate processed food contains.

Some of you may be getting calls from your "friends" at the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers Association. I got one yesterday from them wanting me to spend money on a listing in their Annual Catalog (or some such thing). When I asked if this was a sales call, if it cost money to have this listing, the answer was "Yes". I said that I didn't have money to spend on such a thing. "Not even $395?" No. The person immediately hung up. I didn't even get a "Thank you for your time" or a "Perhaps in the future you'll consider us." Just click. Only later did I remember that these were the folks sponsoring HR5034. I just checked the House of Representatives bill status for this. As of mid-June, it's been referred to the Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy, a subcommittee of the Committee of the Judiciary. It might be worthwhile to contact one of the representatives if they're in your state, and inquire on the status of the bill. Think I may give the Hon. Maffei's office a call today.

Any more word on what styles are available and what sizes? (My guess is that this warehouse is meant to supply KY bourbon distilleries, and little distilleries are an aside. Sorry for the cynicism. Maybe someone should start a small bottle business to meet the need of the small craft distillers. Hint. Hint.)

A reason to suggest to the political powers that be, that it can be done without causing drunken mayhem in the streets. It's just that in the US, pre-Prohibition, a lot of the ills of poor whiskey quality were attributed to sales of whiskey by the barrel, and it's subsequent adulteration and dilution.

Of course, Ralph is right, the Federal regulations specify specific sizes of BOTTLES that are allowed to be sold. However... There's nothing to say you can't sell the contents of a barrel in BOTTLES with all the proper labels from a single barrel. I know Four Roses does this. You get to sample say 8 different barrels, go through a tasting with their master distiller about each one, and pick which barrel you want. The producer bottles it all up and it's sold through a retailer. You probably get a special price for buying 150 bottles (or more) at a pop. Buffalo Trace also does this. I know of at least one bar in NYC that uses BT juice as their well whiskey and they "buy by the barrel" when they can. It arrives all in bottles, everything is legit, and they get a free empty whiskey barrel for display purposes, signed by the master distiller. Plus, because the distillery has already determined that the barrel is ready to be bottled (and will get bottled regardless) you don't have to worry about how much is in the barrel, it'll be what it will be and the customer will pay for what they get, and all will be right with the world.

Definitely off premise beats on premise by a wide margin. Sales to bars are very nice addition. But unless your product is in their "well" of the standard spirits used for cocktails and drinks, you won't sell a lot. A supportive bar with supportive staff can help; they'll make your product more visible or more often recommended.

If anyone can change legislation Ralph, it's you. Not that you have more influence, it's just that you have well reasoned arguments and communicate well with legislators. My state assemblyman was supportive, my state senator not (because he seems very anti-alcohol). I'm sure you can bring about some kind of reasonable improvements in NY, Ralph. Of anyone can do it, it's you. Without your efforts there wouldn't even be a NY micro-distillery category in the state law, so we all in this state owe you a debt of thanks!

Is there any possibility of doing an infusion based pear flavored liqueur?

I almost hate to get political here, but what Rangel did is simply business as usual over at Congress. And it doesn't matter which flavor of corporate owned political party is in office/power. Until We the People decide to elect representatives that actually represent our interests rather than the corporate interests that fund the campaigns, nothing's going to change.

What you put into the still dictates what comes out. If you put grapes in, you get very cooked grapes out. If you put grains in, you get very cooked grains out. Also some percentage of dead yeast (quite small, but larger than you put in). If you don't distill on the grape/grain, you get very cooked grape juice/grain juice out. One change will be in pH, tends downward. So if the municipal system can't handle the quantity of liquid at that pH you may need to bump it up towards neutral. You may want to do that a bit anyway as your pipes will be happier. From the still your stillage will be HOT. So you'll need to cool it, and have a big enough basin to put it.

I'd agree pretty much with what Ralph says, though I don't think Ag & Markets is much better equipped or knowledgeable than SLA. Tax and production reporting is handled through Taxation and Revenue, not the SLA. Current tax rate in NY is based on liters, irrespective of proof. If NY were to change their tax rate to be based on proof gallons rather than liters, higher proof products would pay more tax than lower proof products. So I'm not sure such a change would be for the better. Certainly the state operation reporting can be simplified, but currently I'm not required to report to the state the different kinds of spirits I produce as we do for the Feds. The taxation and reporting should be simplified to one page and be based on total products sold. Either the state needs to grant automatic approval to TTB license holders once they obtain their Federal permits, or they need to get involved in the beginning and grant preferential processing to distillery/winery/brewery licensees so we're not waiting months on end after having Federal approval. My expectation of change is limited in the current political climate in Albany. New York seems to be developing quite a good little micro-distillery industry in spite of the current obstacles, and they could help the economy out by supporting it.

Selling 150 gallons a week, I'd love to have that much sales a _month_! I'd be peachy if that happened. One thing is to trade expenses and equipment with labor (yours, or other free labor).

I wasn't able to get increased coverage. I was told the insurance underwriters look at these things like a loan. Even though it's not. But they want to see that they're able to come after you for the $25K in case of a claim. They don't want to be 3rd or 4th in line on some equipment in case they need to collect. The more debt you have, the greater the problem. The local agency was somewhat understanding, but certainly didn't want to work hard to increase the bond with another agency. I had to stay with my existing bond coverage and adjust my product mix to stay within it. Maybe I'm not in touch with reality, but $15K withdrawal coverage seems like a lot to me. That's enough for over 5500 bottles at proof twice a month (about 1111 proof gallons). Seems to me that's a lot of booze.

From this link at the NY ABC law you can get to the consolidated laws, which as all the info. Paragraph 61 describes distillers licenses. I'd actually forgotten that distillers can only sell bottles of less than one quart. The wholesalers can sell in any legal size. http://public.leginf...53+&TARGET=VIEW For Distillery Class A (a big distillery) For Distillery Class A-1 (a micro distillery) For Distillery Class D (a Farm distillery) Notice it's always not more than one quart each. Wholesaler licenses do not have any such stipulation. So according to these laws, wholesalers can sell liter or more sizes to retail licensees, while distillers cannot. At least within the state of New York. Much of the ABC law in NY is unconstitutional as it deprives citizens of their rights without due process, grants special privileges to other citizens, as well as citizens of other states (no one says a wholesaler must be a resident of NY). But unless you have the millions of dollars necessary to fight the state, the State Liquor Authority, the attorney general (who will certainly side with the state), the wholesalers and their lobbyists and lawyers, and the years it will take to make it's way through the courts, there a snowball's chance in hell of it changing any time soon. And the SLA will immediately threaten to revoke your permit, so whatever little profit you may have will be consumed in lawyers fees. Chuck, the state isn't setting sizes, as they say at another place in the law that the only sizes that can be sold are the ones listed by the Feds.

Then plain Jane (non-farm) micro-distilleries should be allowed to give tastings and have direct sales as well. I think it shows the complete silliness of the NY ABC law that a distillery needs to get like three different licenses. That's a joke.

Remember that in normal operation you'll be collecting multiple mash runs into one spirit run anyway. And with your experimental still being small, you may well be able to make multiple runs quickly.

The idea that the small craft distiller can compete with the major industry corporation is foolish and anyone that follows down that line has much higher chances of failing. The spirits industry nearly completely switched to large scale, continuous stills soon after the Civil War due to one factor: price and cost of production. No one here can compete on the cost efficiencies of a 60,000 gallon capacity continuous column whiskey still. Also, some states may restrict sales of certain bottle sizes to certain license holders. In New York, only the large high dollar distillers, rectifiers, and wholesalers are allowed to sell in sizes of 1L or larger.

A smallish standard alembic still is currently quite reasonable with the exchange rates. And a small still is quite useful for a distillery. In the big picture, the extra cost is not that much. But also, you can always redistill something if it didn't come out like you want. Plus, the typical whiskey grains are relatively cheap. With a 50 gallon still, you might be able to get three or four 25 gallon barrels of whiskey a month; maybe a little more, depending on your industriousness and availability of free labor. And that still could be your spirit still if you later expand with a larger spirit still.

Now that everyone knows these are scams, does anyone have experience with exporting to Canada as well as the export paperwork for TTB? I looked a bit at the TTB website and it seemed that there was a bit of paperwork involved. I wonder also about approved bottle sizes and any labeling issues. Links to Canadian sizes with the info welcome. Are there any particular cautions to be aware of when exporting in general, as well as exporting to Canada. I ask because I've received a request from a Canadian liquor store in a province where the gov't purchases the alcohol, and the stores purchase from the gov't. It seems quite legitimate as I'm to ship to the gov't receiving warehouse.

There's a lot more to figuring out how to make whiskey or brandy (for example) than how many runs of the still you need. And how well you devote yourself to your newly chosen craft will determine the length of time and your success.

Wow! I can only imagine what sales like this would mean! But on topic, I'm a firm believer in direct sales. I'd like to be able to do that across state lines too, but that means that BT, FR, JB and all the biggies would get the same chance and that might not be as much fun nor as profitable.

500 ml is not a legal size to sell spirits in the US since June 30, 1989. Check out the standards of fill, Chapter 6, at TTB. http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/bam.shtml

I know Waterloo Container has been mentioned before as shipping pallet orders. I've used them in the past and continue to do so, but the price certainly isn't under $2 a bottle. But their selection of spirits bottles from Saver is limited. And I'm sure everyone that has ordered 750's of a particular style has tried to get 375's of that same style. Usually the answer is to buy a half container worth. And that ain't going to work. Small producers need to be able to get the bottle styles they use in both 750's and/or 375's (or another smallish size, but not 50 ml as it's a waste of time to bottle and a waste of time for the consumer). That way the regular purchaser doesn't have to pay extra for the small size, and potential new purchasers don't have to pay full price to try it out. Will Waterloo be able to get 375's in pallet quantities? Will those of us who are current customers of regional distributors like Waterloo be able to direct order pallet quantities of smaller bottle sizes in the styles we currently get from our distributors? And when it comes to credit we're treated almost like lepers. We we be able to get 30 days? The only reason for this semi-rant is the onslaught of advertising and promotional pitches that seem to pervade the forum and the ADI magazine. The last issue was practically all ads. Are you here to help us grow our businesses and create a new industry, or are you here to take our money?

I just thought of something. It seems from the way HR5034 is talked about, that it wants to strike down or make ineffective the Constitution itself (at least in this one area). I didn't think you could pass a law to override the Constitution. I thought that's what constitutional amendments were for.

I don't think it's a hoax, but it may be the way the system is set up that creates such a system. At least in the NY spirits law it talks about licenses for producers, licenses for wholesalers, and licenses for the various retailers (bars, restaurants, wine shops, liquor stores, etc). It then stipulates who producers can sell to, wholesalers sell to, etc. So if you're an out of state producer, you can't sell in the state of NY, so you have to sell to a wholesaler (or rectifier or Class A distillery). That's my simplified understanding of it. Interestingly, Taxation and Revenue, the agency that collects taxes of all kinds in NY, has it's own alcohol distributor license system that seems to completely subvert the SLA's wholesaler system. It seems mostly for wineries, but I don't know why an out of state distillery couldn't register and then start to sell direct to license holders in NY.