The State of Artisanal Brandy (Fruit Spirits) in North America?

[Jonathan Forester]

As you know, this years topic for the 2009 ADI Conference in April is Brandy. To be more specific Artisanal Fruit Spirits including brandy, eau de vie, grappa, etc. in North America. Bill has asked me to do a round-up of what's going on in all things brandy for this years 2009 ADI Resource Guide. I'd love your help with this, I'm on a very short deadline and asking everyone, everywhere, for their thoughts. You can post here or contact me through private message or email. I'm looking at it from several perspectives: General Public, Ancillary Fields, Distillers, Marketing, Distribution, Retailers, and Bars. Please add anything you feel is important or unasked.

Thanks, Jonathan M. Forester

General Questions:

What is important about artisanal fruit brandy and spirits made in North America and what do I need to know?

How many North American fruit based spirits have you tried or are you aware of?

What do you think are the best ones available?

How much does the general public know about them?

How well are they selling?

Who are the top experts on them?

Distillers Questions:

What is it like for you to make them?

How is your distribution and marketing?

What are sales like?

What works and doesn't for you?

[Paul G]

I don't know if this is too location specific, but I'd like to know why the State of California has separate permitting; one for brandy and one for all other spirits. Do other states have this distinction? Why should it even matter?

Thanks,

Paul

[Westford Hill]

As you know, this years topic for the 2009 ADI Conference in April is Brandy. To be more specific Artisanal Fruit Spirits including brandy, eau de vie, grappa, etc. in North America. Bill has asked me to do a round-up of what's going on in all things brandy for this years 2009 ADI Resource Guide. I'd love your help with this, I'm on a very short deadline and asking everyone, everywhere, for their thoughts. You can post here or contact me through private message or email. I'm looking at it from several perspectives: General Public, Ancillary Fields, Distillers, Marketing, Distribution, Retailers, and Bars. Please add anything you feel is important or unasked.

Thanks, Jonathan M. Forester

General Questions:

What is important about artisanal fruit brandy and spirits made in North America and what do I need to know?

How many North American fruit based spirits have you tried or are you aware of?

What do you think are the best ones available?

How much does the general public know about them?

How well are they selling?

Who are the top experts on them?

Distillers Questions:

What is it like for you to make them?

How is your distribution and marketing?

What are sales like?

What works and doesn't for you?

[Westford Hill]

This may be coming too late for your Resource directory, Jonathan, but I'd like to offer some feedback to your questions.

We've produced artisinal fruit brandies exclusively for the past 11 years. In the world of spirits I believe this is an important category because it's made from pure fruit. With the interest in supporting local farms, as well as the awareness of what goes into foods, we emphasize to consumers the origin of these spirits, and the purity of its ingredients. The wide variety of fruits that are used in our brandies is also intriguing to consumers--their assumption is that all wines come from grapes, so brandies must as well.

My sense is that consumers don't understand spirits in general: their ingredients, the distillation process, aging, or most of the terms. Because I genuinely believe folks like to understand more about the foods and beverages they enjoy, I think there's a great opportunity to educate folks about what they're drinking. Because the same principles that make for great winemaking carry over to fine brandy production, the story is compelling to discerning consumers. Customers truly appreciate that there is quality and care in the artisanal production of eaux-de-vie and brandies, and especially like to know where the fruit is grown.

The aged brandies are more familiar with customers, and the appreciation for small-batch Scotches and Bourbons carries through to an eagerness to try artisan aged brandies. Besides, aged brandies are brown--Americans have a tougher time with the concept of dry,clear brandies. And again, the notion of brandies from a variety of fruits is a new concept for most. There's a challenge with the eaux-de-vie in marketing partly because of the name. One restaurant GM pointed out that folks won't order something they can't pronounce throughout his beverage list because of the fear of looking foolish. We encourage restaurants to overcome that by calling eau-de-vie something consumers won't fear ordering, such as clear brandies from fruit.

In our market we've met resistence from restaurants and bars with implementing cocktail usage consistently. Part of that is portion cost of ingredients, I believe. Yet the restaurants who market the artisan nature of our products see great interest and support from their consumers. Another challenge with restaurants is staff training: the constant churn of bartenders, waitstaff and beverage managers makes relationship-building a challenge

Distribution for artisan-distilled spirits is a serious challenge. We self-distribute here in our home state of Connecticut, but have distributors in three additional states at this point. Artisan spirits take more work on the part of distributors to understand, and to sell in (at least they think so) because they're not big, nationally-supported marketing names. The volume in any niche product is smaller, and therefore it's difficult to command distributor sales' attention. For this reason, I believe that "fine wine" distributors or divisions are often a better fit for brandy sales because our products more closely align with boutique, small-batch production wineries than mass-produced spirits. Fine wine salespeople understand that the unique details of small producers is what discerning restaurateurs and high-end wine shops are seeking.

Retailers have been great supporters, and good shops are always eager to learn more about the products we offer so they can serve their consumers with informed updates about the products they sell.