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Where to start?


JohninWV

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Earlier this year, my business partner had the crazy idea of starting a distillery after reading an article in Time. After some research, I found American Distiller and then attended the Distillery conference in Louisville this year.

I meet some great folks there that were willing to help me out, especially Kent and Don @ Dry Fly, but a great deal of the conversation was over my head as I had little preperation time before hand. I have no experience in this industry in any capacity.

I have gone through some preliminary financials with Eric Watson and I'm scheduled to attend a workshop at MSU (part of Christian Carl group) the end of this month. But, I'm still in the early/dreaming stages at this time.

I'm not sure of the next step (or steps) to take. I can't quite get my arms around where to go from turning this from a dream into something real.

A few questions if you don’t mind:

1. Are there any books that you would recommend reading to better understand the distillation process, from beginning to end? I'm in the process of reading Kris Berglund's Artisan Distilling.

2. The TTB paperwork and processes seem very daunting. Is there a place to start that might get me headed in the right direction? I think this may be a big push toward getting my ship "righted".

3. What’s the reality of spending some time at another artisan distiller to see the process and spend some time watching the process?

Thanks for your time. We want to do vodka and whiskey...maybe rum.

John

Also...a big thanks to Guy Rehorst at Great Lakes!

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2. The TTB paperwork and processes seem very daunting. Is there a place to start that might get me headed in the right direction? I think this may be a big push toward getting my ship "righted".

The TTB Expo a few months back was well put together and worth attending for both prospective and young companies. Their sessions' handouts are available online now:

http://www.ttb.gov/conference/session.html

While somewhat spare on information relative to attending the talk, the handouts from sessions covering permitting, formulation and labels may be useful.

Reading law is not too fun, but I found that reading through the raw regulations several times over a period of months, as we were learning generally, to be very helpful in ultimately understanding expectations and the permit paperwork. The packet, while intimidating at first, was almost entirely straightforward for us to complete ourselves when we were far enough along with our business preparations to be close to application submission. It's really not that complex. There are consultants who are former ATF/TTB agents, as well as lawyers, listed in the ADI directory who are also happy to help with the app.

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