Hi from Australia

[blond.chap]

Hi everyone,

Like many others, I'm in the very early stages of looking into starting a small distillery. I'm keen to read everything I can about your experiences. I live in South Australia, so the tax business is a little different, but it looks like there are plenty of universal concepts to read up on.

[NorthStar]

Only just joined myself, but welcome! Minnesota is a long ways from Australia but I bet we have the same headaches.

[PeteB]

Welcome

Northstar and blond.chap

What are you guys going to be distilling?

blond.chap said " the tax business is a little different" The words TAX and LITTLE should not be used in the same sentence here in Australia. Have you seen how much excise tax we have to pay? and there is GST on top of that as well.

Hope you can help us get it reduced

[blond.chap]

Cheers for the welcome guys, yes I've seen the tax rates. I'm mostly baffled about how the bigger guys can pay $21 per bottle of tax, and retail at $32...

I'm thinking of starting with Gin and vodka, then potentially moving on to brown spirits once I have the flexibility. I've dreamt of making malt whisky but it's just not realistic to start with (and the climate in Adelaide may not be suitable).

I'd love to help get it reduced, there seem to be great concessions for the wine and beer industries for small business, but not for spirits. Guessing it comes down to having the numbers to lobby the relevant people.