MarkR

I have attended both the two day Distilling 101 class offered by Bavarian-Holstein and the four day session offered by Kothe (in that order, separated by about 6 months of self study), and got a lot out of both. Of course, both are run by folks interested in selling you a large distillation system, so they tend to miss discussing the high cost of starting up a small distillery with that sort of expensive setup, so the class in Denver would be a good alternative. The B-H class had a nice, short tasting introduction which was not intended to teach but rather to introduce you to the difficulties of this almost magic subject. The Kothe class had Klaus Hagmann (who is an amazing resource, get to know him if you can) running an entire day of tasting, which left my head spinning both from an ethanol overdose as well as an information overdose. When I talked with him last, it sounds like they will split the tasting up into smaller doses, which is a good thing. The Kothe class, having a lot more time, included subjects like marketing, dealing with distribution channels, insurance, obtaining a bond, and a presentation by their local TTB rep. Very helpful when you get further along in your education. One thing lacking from these fairly inexpensive classes is a real experience running the whole process yourself. You can go to Dry Fly in Spokane and get a real immersion, for a very high price. I think even better would be if you can find someone reasonably close (I was lucky in finding a guy 5 miles from my home who was just starting up, and welcomed an extra set of hands and eyes) who will allow you to shadow them for a week, you will learn a ton from the experience.

I have attended both the 2day Distilling 101 class offered by Bavarian-Holstein at the Double Diamond Distillery in Kingman AZ and the 4day class offered by Kothe at the KOVAL Distillery in Chicago, and found both to be very helpful to me and apparently of great value to others who were attending. If you want to get a quick overview of the business with a look at how a pretty high end start-up is set up for a very reasonable cost, try the classes by Holstein. The Kothe session is better for gaining a broad knowledge of how to actually start up your own distillery, also at a very reasonable cost. I have also spoken with Allan who is running the upcoming session in Moses Lake WA and the content of their class as well as their intent to give folks a good introduction to the business. Any of these sessions will give you a pretty good understanding of basic techniques for fermentation and distillation of vodka, whiskey and some fruit based spirits, teach you some of the basics of equipment design and operation and in the Holstein and Kothe cases push their own stills, and if you ask the right questions will give you information on production numbers although probably not in a direct manner as too many variables are in play to address those numbers in a general manner. I found both sessions that I attended to be lacking in education people in the process of actually starting up your own artisan distillery. While the laws for such businesses vary by state, the planning and execution of this type of project are fairly complex, and it has become obvious that a lot of folks are jumping into trying to build their own distillery without understanding how. Sure, they can mash a couple hundred pounds of flour, toss in some yeast and ferment it, and distill it with reasonable success to make a bunch of vodka. Trouble is, how do they get to where those steps are really possible, who are they going to sell it to, how much vodka can they make in a month, how much can they pay themselves, and where did they get the $500,000 to start the ball rolling are questions that are not yet being addressed in these classes. I am working with a couple of the folks who are presenting these classes to translate my experience in managing complex projects over the past 15 years into an addition to their sessions that might be called "Reality and Planning in Craft Distilling". Developing Excel spread sheets to show start-up and production costs as well as returns, analyzing why you want to open a craft distillery and what your goals are for that business, typical pitfalls encountered in finding a location, working with local governmental agencies like fire and sewer departments are some of the topics to be included. For now I am providing consulting services for folks planning on opening a small distillery, but I think offering such information in one of these group sessions will be helpful, particularly to those folks who are early in their planning process, hopefully before they spend a lot of money.

Klaus Hagmann of Kothe is pretty sharp on fruit distillation, if for no other reason he does it himself as well as judges other products at various tasting competitions.

If North American would work, I found a place in British Columbia that builds what appears to be very nice equipment, and will design what you need. Try Doug Jones at Newlands Systems, Inc. Phone 877.855.4890, e-mail dougj@nsibrew.com .

The age verification is a total waste, there is no validation of the claim, so why put it on the website? Why DISCUS has it within their guidelines is baffling to me. Better to have them keep their adds off evening television where kids are really affected than worry about the seeing a craft distillery website.

We tried making some plum flavored spirits, and after a failed attempt followed some professional advice and included the pulp of the plums in the distillation pot, we took the pits out as they cause real problems if heated in a still. The final result was quite good, distilled to about 145proof. Not sure if that helps with berry's.

Understanding that you are going to be distilling wine to produce brandy, which is a product with a fair bit of flavor of the original wine included. Since, in general, the more reflux the less flavor in the product, and knowing that you already have 4 plates in action, I would question the use of the reflux condenser at all. Run a couple of runs through the system with no water in the reflux unit and all four plates in use. Take a single plate out, do another run and see which flavor profile you like. I both are too strong, run a very little bit of water through the reflux unit, log the flow rate and the input and output temperatures, and see what you think of the flavor profile. In my experience, very little if any reflux and an ending alcohol content of about 145proof should be good.

In Washington the state controls distribution and retail package sales of distilled beverages, which on first look would seem to be bad for the little guy. However, since WA considers craft distilling to be an agricultural product, requiring us to use at least 50% of our raw materials procured from within the state, they provide a bit of help for us, the little guy. We had the opportunity last fall to vote on opening up both distribution and package sales, and both got slapped down pretty hard. So for us, removing the divide between the three tiers is maybe not such a good idea.

In our planning one of the issues that kept coming up was the question of how we intended to clean the external surfaces of the equipment and the floor. Or friends in the wine making business out here turned me on the using ozonated water as a very powerful cleaning method with virtually no waste product downside. The only negative is the cost of the system, they run north of $10k. The wine folks use this process all over they locations, including hosing down incoming fruit in the parking lot, with the waste going into the storm drains. Turns out that the ozone which has been added to the water breaks down in about 20 minutes, with nothing but oxygen and water left. You do need to take care in using this in an enclosed space, as the ozone is not particularly good to breath in high concentrations.

Bill, When the good folks at Dry Fly in Spokane WA worked with the legislature to write the Craft Distillery laws out here, one of the items that made it work was the inclusion of a rule that anyone who opened a Craft Distillery and lived within the (present) 6,000 proof gallon yearly limit could have a tasting room, but had to use at least 50% of the raw materials from within Washington state. That made the whole enterprise an agricultural process. The 50% rule has lead to some interesting discussions about making a rum type of product from sugar beets, but I think in large has helped the growth of the small distilleries here. I have e-mail a copy of the WA law to your address, maybe it will work for you good folks in Georgia. Mark Robinson Tahoma Spirits j.mrobinson@frontier.com

Most of the more complex distillation equipment being sold these days offers the option of either placing the column on top of the pot or off to the side. If you need only 3-4 plates to achieve your desired alcohol concentration (whiskey, rum etc.), and have perhaps 15ft of overhead space, than put the short column on the top of the pot. If you require more plates for making Vodka, having a 16 place column on top of the pot will require 30ft of overhead, and a very tall ladder to manage the plates. If you just want a packed reflux column without plates, the same issues apply. The German distillery manufacturers (Carl, Kothe, Holstein) will all put columns to the side, providing piping and valve arrangements allowing the use of part or all of the system, depending on what you need for the product being worked with. Vendome (Kentucky) will probably suggest a short column with 3-4 plates mounted above the pot, with a side mounted reflux column for producing Vodka. Either approach can me used to make some very high quality spirits, given experience in the specific equipment. In the case of Vendome, they include a pump to return the reflux collected at the bottom of the column to the pot, seems to work just fine. The German folks simply mount the columns high enough to use gravity draining to return reflux to the pot. Your diagram seems a bit off, as it portrays a dephlegmator being below the top of the reflux column, with what looks like a narrow return line to the middle of the column. In my experience, dephlegmators are mounted at the top of the column, and use gravity to return what vapor is condensed directly down the column from the top, where it will be involved in the maximum amount of reflux. Also, with the blue holding tank you show this system as a continuous distillation system, which brings into question other issues regarding the need to remove by-products from the still as you feed in more from the holding tank, and the problems with the alcohol percentage in the still varying widely as new fluid is fed from the holding tank, and therefore upsetting the equilibrium situation that is vital to running a reflux system properly. Continuous distillation systems are pretty tricky to get right, not really suitable for starting out.

I have been working with Kothe Distilling to add a couple of services to their consulting business, those being project planning prior to potential distillers becoming substantially invested in a new distillery business, the other being project management of their budding enterprise, up to the time of initial production. I have in excess of 15 years of successful experience managing projects across a wide variety of businesses, and for the past 8 months have been planning for one new craft distillery in Washington, while assisting another in their quest to become profitable. I have attended distillation seminars provided by both Kothe and Bavarian-Holstein, and am comfortable in my knowledge of the industry and certainly in my ability to provide a very high value-add service to those planning on entering the distilling business in the US. It has become increasingly obvious that many well intentioned people are looking into becoming distillers with very little knowledge of what that entails, and in many cases perhaps even less ability to manage the fairly complex project that will make their endeavor a success. I applaud your new enterprise, as it appears you will be able to fill some large holes in the overall picture. I suggest we should discuss the possibility of working together to provide a more comprehensive catalog of services for those folks contemplating this fascinating business. I can best be reached via e-mail at j.mrobinson@frontier.com, or by phone at 253-225-3307 (cell). Best Regards, Mark Robinson Project Solutions Everett, WA

M. Dell borrowed $300k from his family. Jobs and Wozniak got $270k in funding and business guidance from one guy, Mike Markkula, whom I believe they already knew. Bill Gates and Paul Allen basically started their company from their own programming skills, although in the case of Gates his father had been a quite successful attorney in Seattle and would have had ample monetary support within the family. If you have $500k of your own money to start up a craft distillery without having gone through the effort of writing a business plan, then I would suggest you give it instead to a good charity, for your probability of failure is going to be very high, and certainly their are more needy people in the world then Kothe Distilling. The effort required in creating a business plan is what really counts here, although no professional investor would consider a substantial input of money without a very good understanding of the key items contained within a good business plan. If you can't figure out those items, and clearly state them in writing, who will have confidence that you can run a complex business in a highly regulated industry? And if you don't want to go to that effort, are you really capable of spending 12hrs/day, 350 days a year in starting up a new distillery? Dell, Jobs and Gates are each amazing examples to be sure, but they are very rare examples. For each of these guys, ten fail at businesses they are just as passionate about. Do the planning up front, have it down in writing, do you homework in identifying and mitigating risks. Then go out an make some people happy with what amazing spirits you can create.

I support this concept in general, but we need to keep the cost/effort to a minimum. Would it be possible for ADI to create a sub-group for the real artisan distillers, who produce less than say 30k pg per year, based on a reasonable review of the business, perhaps including the data they have provided to TTB. ADI simply registers the brand "Registered Artisan Distiller" or something like that, and allows all members to use the brand as they see fit. Use it on you label if you want, ignore it if you so desire.

Sit down with all parties who will be running the production operations, and walk through all of the processes that you expect to happen when in full production mode. Diagram them on a sheet of paper, with dotted lines between the bonded and un-bonded steps. Take that diagram and convert it into a floor plan, following the process steps with as little movement from one step to the next, and avoiding crossing over steps. I have visited a number of small distilleries, and am convinced this would have saved them a lot of hassles down the road.

One thing that I keep seeing on distillation systems powered by steam is an almost universal lack of insulation on any steam or condensate return pipe. Unless you are trying to heat your work space with the boiler, you are just wasting energy and money without insulation on those lines. If in fact you are only wanting to heat the still, or perhaps a mash cooker, with the steam, insulating those hot pipes (touch any lately? Not real safe having 110C pipes where your hands go) will allow controlling the steam demand at the still, where you want the control to be. A couple of rules work here (1) Supply has to a fair bit more than demand, or you will have an overworked and poorly working boiler; (2) Avoid if at all possible feeding cold municipal supply water into an operating boiler, as it will drop the supply pressure immediately; (3) Keep the supply lines as short as possible and insulated to avoid losing energy to ambient cooling and slow reaction of the supply to changing demand. (4) Keep in mind that pressure equals temperature in low pressure systems, and if you are running a boiler that has the relief valve set at .4bar and is putting out saturated steam at that pressure, the temp at the start of the pipe is about 110C, and there is 100ft. of 1 in uninsulated black pipe between the boiler and the still the temp is probably closer to 102C. Not much extra energy there to heat a couple of hundred pounds of stainless steel and copper and a bunch of mash. Open the steam valve suddenly, and the supply can't keep up with demand and no wonder the system drops in temp until the boiler can catch up. At the other end of the system, the condensate return should also be insulated to avoid cooling the boiler expansion/header tank too much.

Andy, I would like to speak with you about this topic. Let me know when you can talk on the phone for an hour or so. Mark Robinson 253-225-3307

You might get in touch with Keith Barnes over at Bainbridge Organic Distillers in WA state. He uses a Vendome still with a Vodka column and is producing some very nice products.

As I understand the laws as they stand, it is the federal TTB laws that prohibit anyone from owning more than one step in the distiller-distributor-retail chain. I was told that if you own, or your spouse owns, a distilled beverage distributor or retail outlet (including bar, tavern etc) license, you would not be allowed to have a distillery license. As most of the laws are, this is left over from the end of prohibition where the federal government did not want to see organized crime control the liquor business from one end to the other.

I have been wondering what the difficulty would be in having a small still, say 5 gallons or so, to run experimental batches. Can TTB live with that approach, as long as they know of it?

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We are working on plans for a new distillery, and have some friends in the wine making art who are providing some advice. They do their final cleaning, both equipment and floors, with ozonated water. Kills most bad stuff, kind of expensive equipment, but the ozone goes away in minutes and leaves just pure water. Best value on equipment I have found is at McClain Ozone, their website has a ton of info about the value of using ozone. Worth looking into.

Ryan, Hey, you are right up the street from me. We are working on plans for a new craft distillery in Tacoma, although right now I live near Mill Creek. Let me know where you guys are located and I'll stop by. j.mrobinson@hotmail.com

We are also new to the business, planning on opening a craft distillery in western Washington next spring. We just spent an afternoon with the local government folks, who are all enthusiastic about our joining their city, and leaned a lot. Check with your city/town folks about: Zoning requirements Parking Water Sewer Electrical power Hours of operation Other users of any building you want to be in. Generally can't share with residential uses. Other businesses close by who share customers Fire dept. This is a tough one, they have federal guidelines to live to. We are spending a ton of time on the business plan, partly because the exercise forces the right thought processes, partly because we need to attract investors. Check with local SBA folks, usually there are mentors in the area who are very helpful. We went to a two day class by Bavarian/Holstein, pretty good info if you have studied ahead of time. I think Kothe also runs them, but farther from CA. A lot of the processes are similar to those in the wine industry, we are getting a lot of information (cleaning, pumps, fermenters etc.) from our cousins who work with grapes. Anyway, good luck and keep the head up. There will be plenty of roadblocks, just keep good notes, a positive attitude, and plenty of patience.