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Separating tasting room from the rest of the distillery, is it required?


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Hello all, happy new year.  

We are a starting distillery in southern California area, planning to open in a small space where every square foot matters.  We are planning to have a tasting room, our business plan rely on having a tasting room.  However, due to space limitation we are looking into ways that we can have a tasting room but still use this space for other reasons when the tasting room is not open to public.  My main question is: are there any regulations, particularly TTB concerning bonded and non bonded areas, or local regulation that goes against this?  Second question does tasting room need to be completely enclosed or separated from production area, again a TTB regulation?

 

Sincerely

 

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On 1/5/2022 at 1:39 AM, Geoman said:

Second question does tasting room need to be completely enclosed or separated from production area, again a TTB regulation?

Separated is a YES, Enclosed is a NO.  You must have a floor to ceiling wall separating the two.

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  • 1 month later...

even Ballast Point, before sale of distillery, etc., etc., only had chain link fence (8 ft high?) separating "distillery" from the brewery, not all the way to the ceiling.  It seemed to be enough for the feds and Calif state.

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Since you have conflicting opinions to your original post, you need to ask the TTB or a beverage attorney.  My understanding of the regulations is a complete separation is require (floor to ceiling) and the door between the two must be locked with TTB approved locks.  This is information provided to us via a former TTB examiner that acted as a consultant for us in the application process.  What you don't need to do is have a visit from the TTB and find out what you should have done in the first place.

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On 2/27/2022 at 7:08 PM, Thatch said:

Since you have conflicting opinions to your original post, you need to ask the TTB or a beverage attorney.  My understanding of the regulations is a complete separation is require (floor to ceiling) and the door between the two must be locked with TTB approved locks.  This is information provided to us via a former TTB examiner that acted as a consultant for us in the application process.  What you don't need to do is have a visit from the TTB and find out what you should have done in the first place.

Thatch is correct here. I submitted my TTB application 2/24/22 and this was definitely listed as a requirement, including the approved locks. I specifically stated those details in my "plant security" plan and description of doorways etc. 

 

Since this topic has come up quite a bit, I've attached a pdf screen grab of the transcript from my TTB application. This should clear some things up and answer this question for future inquiries about it. 

Tasting Room Separation.pdf

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Also note there IS a slight difference in wording from the actual application to the application help located on the TTB website and document linked above.

  From Help Document:                                                                                               From the ACTUAL application:

image.png.75cbc11a2aa359a50574737cd42f28a1.png                                     image.png.81b95654caf5baa73bc11d598cc97b97.png

 

 

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