Written by Jason Barrett
Photography by Brian Christensen
TEN YEARS OF CRAFT SPIRITS Adapting to Growth
L
ast year, Black Button Distilling celebrated ten years of crafting grainto-glass craft spirits. This year, we embark on the next decade of our craft spirits journey with the opening of a new and expanded tasting room and distillery, which will more than quadruple our physical space from 5,000 sq. ft. to 28,000 sq. ft. With our upcoming expansion, our average annual spirits production will increase from 1,000 barrels of spirits per year to as much as 4,500 barrels in the first few years. And our retail tasting room space will grow from 700 sq. ft. to 4,900 sq., allowing for significantly increased seating capacity, private event space and expanded hours of operation for the public. As the size, scale, and scope of our operations has increased dramatically, we have had to learn and adapt to changes in the way we work.
Getting to this point — a decade of not only survival, but growth — in the craft spirits industry hasn’t always been easy. Here are some of the challenges we’ve faced, how we’ve adapted to them, and what we look forward to in the next ten years...
SCALING A BUSINESS: We have experienced a huge amount of
growth in ten years — not only in production, but in staff. What works for three people does not work for 15 and doesn’t work again for 50. We now have 87 staff members. A lot of the processes that we used when we were small are now a contributing source of a lot of stress. And we are growing so fast that often by the time we iron out a process we have to start to update it again because something else has changed. This can range from how we order grain, to how we train salespeople to how we recruit. As the size, scale, and scope of our operations has increased dramatically, At 87 staffers, it’s a whole difwe have had to learn and adapt to changes in the way we work. ferent situation. 66
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