A E N I F E D O T HOW H G U O R H T Y R DISTILLE INFORMATION Disclosures, Good Writing, and Consumer Education vs. Rules and Guidelines WRITTEN BY CHRISTOPHER CARLSSON
T
his piece is a result of a long discussion on what defines craft distillation (at a bar with distillers, of course). After a full day of hearing lies, obfuscation, and innuendo about numerous products and their representatives who knowingly or unknowingly were trying to pass off mass-produced commercial products as handmade or craft at a liquor store trade show, I decided to write this proposal in an attempt to cut through some of the smoke and mirrors that are rife in the industry now. This could have also been alternatively titled “How to Write a Press Release” or “What to Stick on Your Website” or some such. Rather than depend on regulations, guidelines, labeling, and fairy stories, I propose we use information and disclosure to inform people about craft distilling and how a distillery and its products can be defined or identified as craft by a consumer. Below is a list of questions or talking points to ask yourself and use by listing them on your website, company information handouts, or other PR materials to inform and promote your company and products to the public. These questions or talking points will rapidly distinguish a real craft operation (or degree of craft at least) from the Potemkin
W W W . ARTISANSPIRITMAG . C O M
village-type operations that cannot answer these questions. They should be used by both the industry to write better profiles and also be asked of distillers by consumers, journalists, and authors, and should be answered as fully as possible to show what you are about. Now some of these questions may seem like they border on proprietary information, but most of the information outlined here can be found through public records or direct observation, at least in terms of equipment, so why not be forthcoming and educational on most points?
MATERIALS Are you farm to flask or tree to bottle? Do you grow your own raw material? Is your feedstock grown locally, or at least in your state? What percentage is it of the total? What kind of water? Source, and characteristics, e.g., reverse osmosis, well water, limestone, deep aquifer, glacial melt, lakes or tap water.
PROCESSING Do you process your feedstock yourself as in malt, grind, press, macerate, mash, or otherwise prepare?
FERMENTATION Do you ferment material in-house? If so, what is the fermentation time? Special yeasts?
Music played? Agitation? Special sugars? What other unique aspects to your fermentation? Do you buy already fermented products, e.g., beer or wine type material, and distill it? If so, what types, origins, ABV, etc.?
STILL Who is the manufacturer? What about size, type pot, column, pot column hybrid, alembic, charentais, custom, hand-built etc. What type of material (copper, wood, and/or stainless)? In the case of column types, what about the number of plates, height, etc.? In the case of pot stills what about Lyne arms, shape, reflux, thumpers, etc.? Type of firing (gas, coal, or wood; direct flame, steam, electric, water bath, oil bath, etc.)? Any other points that make your distillation equipment interesting or unique is illuminating and appreciated.
DISTILLATION AND BOTTLING METHODS Any unique points? Continuous or column still? Do you have a “one-of-a-kind” still? Use direct fire? Do you hand bottle, or utilize an automated line?
AGING Barrels used for aging, what are the different finishes? Length of time, type of storage/ warehouse? 43