A sip of something stronger: Distillery startups catch on.

By Melissa Allison and Monica Soto Ouchi
Seattle Times business reporters

Don Poffenroth quit his management job to become co-owner of Dry Fly Distilling.
Liquor distilleries often flourish where there are wineries, breweries and fruit.
California has 87 licensed by the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, and Oregon has 15.
Washington is an exception, with only two companies holding licenses to produce and bottle spirits - and neither sells a drop of liquor.
Don Poffenroth saw the gap and changed his mind about starting a brewery in Spokane, opting for a distillery instead.
"The market is much less developed than brewing," Poffenroth said, "especially compared to Europe, where there's a distillery in every city."
Dry Fly Distilling plans to start cranking out vodka and gin this summer. Whiskey will be ready in 2009, after it's had time to age.
Poffenroth and co-founder Kent Fleischmann are quitting their management jobs at Ventura Foods and Sysco, respectively, and putting about $500,000 into their startup. They also have a $100,000 line of credit.
They're being trained by their German equipment manufacturer, Christian Carl, and at seminars that are part of the nationwide resurgence of small distilleries.
After a wave of new craft breweries and small wineries, which require less money to start and have easier licensing standards, distillery startups are finally catching on.
The country has more than doubled its number of small or "craft" distillers to about 90 over the past decade, said Bill Owens, president of the American Distilling Institute. He figured California, Oregon and Michigan have the most.
Washington trails because it has no existing distillers to share their ideas and knowledge, Owens said. Fledgling distillers, such as new brewers and winemakers, need someone to call for help when they're learning.
Oregon has more established distillery know-how, including McMenamins' Edgefield Distillery, which started in the late 1990s. The company sells its own whiskey, brandy and gin at pubs in Oregon and Seattle, including Dad Watsons in Fremont and Six Arms on Capitol Hill.
In Washington, two distilleries have federal licenses. Sunny Pine Distillery in Twisp, Okanogan County, which some say used to make tinctures rather than liquor, is being turned into a cheese plant, according to a woman who answered the company's phone and identified herself as the cheesemaker but would not give her name.
Mountain Dome Winery in Spokane is sitting on about 100 gallons each of cherry and apple brandy, which winemaker Erik Manz said was a project of his father, Michael, who died last fall.
Manz doesn't have time to work on selling the stuff and, because of liquor laws, he can't offer brandy tastings.
"You can't manufacture and taste it at the same place, because it's a sin," he joked. "Sometime I'd like to tinker with it, but my hands are full and it'll last hundreds of years."
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Pennsylvania: Time no longer ripe to privatize state stores.

Source: PhillyBurbs

It's an issue that has been tossed around in the past without success, but state Sen. Rob Wonderling who covers parts of Montgomery and Bucks counties hopes to introduce legislation to privatize state-owned liquor stores.
Pennsylvania has a monopoly on the sale of wine and spirits, with sales of a record $1.6 billion in 2005-06 from its approximately 650 stores.
Such volume makes the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board one of the largest wholesale purchasers of wine and spirits in the nation, which it says enables it to pass on significant discounts to customers.
The last serious discussion of state-store privatization was in 1997. Wonderling says the time is right for a new discussion.
The arguments for and against the measure haven't changed much.
Privatization proponents believe free-market competition would mean lower prices for consumers. Some believe selling the state's retail liquor stores and wholesale operations could generate $1.7 billion. Previous plans anticipated revenue from awarding franchises to retailers. And some argue that privatizing liquor sales would end what they call the hypocrisy of a state agency trying to sell as much liquor as it can, while trying to promote responsible drinking.
Privatization opponents say it would make alcohol more accessible to minors and that lower prices would lead to increased consumption with its accompanying negative results.
The biggest opposition to privatization has been led by the labor union that represents many of the 2,200 state-store clerks, for obvious reasons.
Wonderling's inspiration to privatize the state liquor system was Gov. Ed Rendell's proposal to generate revenue by privatizing the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
But Rendell isn't enthusiastic about dumping the state-store system. He noted that the system has become more customer-friendly in recent years with Sunday sales and outlets in grocery stores
"I think we've made so much progress now that it's unnecessary," Rendell said.

I agree.

I remember when you went to a state store, and you stood at a counter, told the clerk what you wanted to buy, and he or she went into a back room and brought it to you. Also, they had a very limited variety of wines for sale.
Having moved from New Jersey, I thought the Pennsylvania system was archaic.
But in the last decade or so, the PLCB has modernized its stores considerably. You can actually shop at a state Wine and Spirits Store now. You can browse through a wide variety of labels, and Sunday sales are a big convenience.
Ten years ago I believed privatization was a good idea. Now that the PLCB has revamped its stores, I'm less inclined to favor their demise.
The agency obviously listened to what customers wanted and took the necessary steps to give it to them.
That turned out to be probably the best argument against privatization - and self-preservation - the PLCB could have done.
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Moonshine for sophisticates

Matthew B. Rowley's new book tells what to do when your fruit basket overflows: make grappa, peach brandy, bourbon and rye.

By Charles Perry, Times Staff Writer

Spirited approach
FRESH fruit is a glorious thing. But what do you do when the markets are overflowing with it and you bring home more fruit than you can possibly eat? Force it on your neighbors? Learn how to can? Turn it into compost?
In Europe, berries, stone fruits and apples are often distilled into elegant fruit brandies called eaux de vie. There's also a tradition of home-distilled spirits in this country, but here we might call them by a more poetic-sounding name: moonshine.
Unfortunately for anybody with too many peaches or plums, you can't legally operate a still in this country without jumping through a lot of regulatory hoops. In fact, if your kid wanted to distill alcohol for a science project, the school would have to get licensed as an Alcohol Fuel Plant. (Remember to submit application 5110.74 to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.)
Nevertheless, Matthew B. Rowley wrote "Moonshine!" just to encourage us to jump through all those hoops and try our hands at distilling.
Making small-batch spirits has the potential to be a connoisseur's pursuit parallel to home brewing. And as we know, the home brew movement of the '80s led directly to the wide variety of microbrews and craft beers available to us today.
Rowley, a food writer and a former board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, points out that home distilling isn't inherently an outlaw thing. At the time of the American Revolution, most families distilled all sorts of things for their own use, and the lady of the house was the one in charge of the stillroom.
Still, the cover of his book is a bit misleading - it shows a stereotypical hillbilly and his dog and promises "drinking songs, knee-slappers and tall tales." Rowley does include that sort of country corn, but this book isn't the liquid cousin of the white trash cookbooks that had a vogue in the '80s - it's about the world of home distillation, legal as well as illegal, urban and rural, past, present and possibly future.
Much of the story he tells is familiar: the frontier farmers who took to selling corn whiskey because they couldn't transport their corn crop on the bad roads of the time; the wars with revenue agents; Prohibition; the daredevil moonshine haulers who later became some of the top NASCAR drivers.
It will come as a surprise to some people to learn that moonshine is not dead - far from it. There's big money in supplying disreputable bars with cheap, headachy 'splo (short for "explosion") distilled from sugar and cattle feed.

Home distillers

WHAT has come close to dying out is the old-time country moonshiner who took pride in the quality of his sippin' whiskey, Rowley says. But he sees a countervailing rise of quality-minded home distillers. Many of them, he says, build their own stills (in some cases, just possibly because the government requires companies that sell stills to report the names of buyers). They cull recipes from rare book collections to re-create old-time whiskeys or they make brandy, rum, cachaça, grappa and other spirits.
It helps his credibility that he has clearly tasted a lot of moonshine, good and bad. This may be the only book you ever read in which you can find, in effect, tasting notes on liquor that came in unlabeled fruit jars.
Rowley has an enthusiastic taste for the good stuff, but he makes no bones about the fact that a lot of commercial moonshine is shoddily made or even poisonous. It may contain lead because the stills have been cheaply put together with lead-based solder, and there's a chilling list of additives some moonshiners resort to for more "kick," including lye and embalming fluid.
In cheering for a revival of home distilling, Rowley is careful to say that he's not advising anybody to bypass any of the convoluted federal and state regulations on distilling - the Feds alone can hit you with a $10,000 fine and five years in prison. (By the way, he gives some links to the Tax and Trade Bureau's website concerning those regulations, but the links no longer work, so you should just go to its home page, http://www.ttb.gov , and hunt around for the link you want, such as FAQs.) On the contrary, he expresses the hope that the more people practice home distillation legally, the more the government will be pressured to relax those laws, just as it decriminalized home brewing in 1978.
Having whetted our appetites with his picture of the home-distilling world, Rowley proceeds to give 70 pages' worth of detailed instructions on how to do it yourself. How to build a still out of a three-foot square of copper, a bunch of copper tubing and some reducing couplers. (It certainly looks doable, though the seams do have to be brazed with an acetylene torch, so it might help to have connections at a sheet metal shop.) How to brew a mash from grain or fruit. How to distill it, in 12 steps.
Then he gives 23 recipes for home-distilled booze, ranging in complexity from the elementary white sugar 'splo that commercial moonshiners make to home versions of bourbon, rye, grappa and even East Asian rice brandy. He seems particularly keen on split brandy, which is made from a mixture of corn and peaches.

A simple setup

JUST to make the idea seem more real, Rowley describes a kind of still that you could improvise out of ordinary household utensils: a stockpot, a bowl, an electric hot plate with a temperature control and a wok.
(The wok has to be the old-fashioned type with a round bottom, not the flat-bottomed type designed for using directly on a range burner. And it has to be made of shiny stainless steel, because an iron wok apparently will give a bad flavor.)
First you have to make some home brew out of fruit or grain. When it's fermented, you strain off the liquid part (called the wash or beer) and put that in the stockpot, which sits on the hot plate. Then you float the bowl in the pot, set the wok on top and turn on the hot plate.
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WESTON, Mo.-(Business Wire)-April 30, 2007 - McCormick Distilling Company, Inc., a pioneer of producing spirits in the United States, announced the introduction of "360 Vodka," a Super Premium Brand," designed to compete with the world's finest vodkas, and an All American Spirit.

According to Ed Pechar, chairman of McCormick Distilling Company, located near Kansas City and the oldest operating distillery west of the Mississippi, is crafting 360 Vodka using the highest standards in distilling an 80-proof vodka along with a unique, eco-friendly packaging program that will allow his company to support environmentally friendly groups with a "360 Close the Loop Program."

360 Vodka uses only the finest American grain in the distillation process to ensure that the sensation delivered to the palate is an exceptionally smooth experience with no aftertaste. What sets 360 Vodka apart from all other premium spirits is its commitment to producing and marketing the product in the most ecological friendly manner possible. In the distillation packaging and marketing disciplines 360 Vodka strives to have a "green state of mind."

360 Vodka will be packaged in a strikingly clean bottle design using 85 percent recycled glass with a unique closure, and a green-friendly packaging. McCormick plans to set aside $1 for every closure returned to the "360 Close the Loop Program" to recognized environmental organizations. All packaging and print materials associated with 360 Vodka are produced in an environmentally friendly manner.

"We are proud to introduce a totally All American product that will be distributed in a totally environmentally friendly package," Pechar said. "And we will be able to give back to the community. American consumers no longer have to go overseas to enjoy a Super Premium Brand Vodka."

McCormick was founded 1856, by Ben Holladay here, who wanted to take advantage of the natural limestone springs ideal for a distillery. Four years later, the enterprising businessman turned over the operation to his brother Major David Holladay who continued to produce the fine premium whiskey and distributing it to hotels and saloons from Deadwood to Abilene. Ben Holladay went on to establish two other companies famous in American folklore, Overland Stage Line and Pony Express.
McCormick portfolio of products includes nationally and internationally distributed brands such as McCormick Vodka, Tequila Rose and its new flavors Tequila Rose Java, Tequila Rose Cocoa, Tarantula Tequila, McCormick Irish Cream Liqueur, Wiser's Deluxe Canadian Whisky, Polar Ice Vodka, Tarantula Azul, and Tarantula RTD's.
Additional information on the privately held corporation at www.mccormickdistilling.com or on 360 Vodka at www.vodka360.com.
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Artisan distilleries helping stock Oregon bars 04:45 AM PDT on Monday, April 30, 2007

By SARAH SKIDMORE, Associated Press Writer Thirsty? Come to Oregon.

The state has been home to some of the nation's finest wineries and innovative craft breweries for decades. And recently, a small but growing number of artisan distilleries are putting down roots here.
The distillers are largely pushing a local craft-style product.
At Clear Creek Distillery in Portland, the business started with pears from the owner's family farm in Hood River. Bendistillery got the inspiration for its gin from the juniper berries that grow in its Central Oregon region. And several wineries and breweries are simply extending their existing work -- using their brews for whiskey or wine grapes for grappas or eau di vie.
"Our goal is to take good things grown in Oregon and make them better," said Stephen McCarthy, considered one of the founders of craft distilling in Oregon.
McCarthy, who still uses his first still -- a copper Willa Wonka-ish looking thing from Europe -- is fiercely adamant about the best of local products. The result: a pear brandy that tastes like taking a bite of the state's most popular pears.
American Distilling Institute founder Bill Owens says Oregon is one of the hotbeds for the industry, which he says has more than doubled nationwide in the past five years or so.
"Oregon will lead the way, as it has in wineries and breweries," Owens said.
The total number of craft distilleries in Oregon remains small. The American Distilling Institute estimates there are only nine true "craft" distilleries (those that make products solely from scratch) in the state, even though the Oregon Liquor Control Commission says there are 30 licensed distilleries here.
Don't expect moonshine from the state's cottage business. Craft distillers say they are focused on a hands-on level of quality -- some monitoring distilling by taste and feel, and even labeling the bottles by hand.
"The science of it is pretty simple," said Jim Bendis, founder of Bendistillery. "The art of it is the challenge."
There is even some elitism, or competition, depending on whom you talk to, among the distillers -- between those who start from scratch and those who work with the less labor-intensive and less-expensive option of starting with neutral grain spirits.
Some distillers are coming together to form an Oregon Distillers Guild. But there's little conformity in the Northwest market.
The makers run the gamut from family owned Brandy Peak Distillery in Brookings (which the owner describes as "just sort of lost in the rainforest") that produces its brandies, liqueurs and other spirits over a wood-burning fire because there is no natural gas line available to the more stylized House Spirits located near downtown Portland that is capitalizing on a national cocktail craze with its gin, vodka and other sleek products.
In some ways, it builds upon the work laid by the earlier pioneers of the wine and beer industry. They made the state's products known nationwide in the past few decades. And they were part of a larger movement that changed the consumers' palate.
"It's part of the general renaissance in culture -- beer, food, wine have gone to higher-quality products," Owens said. "People are tired of bland mass-produced products."
Distillers liken the change to evolving tastes -- craft beer instead of Budweiser, goat cheese instead of Velveeta -- that is growing nationwide.
"I see a lot of parallels with the microbrew industry and the distilling industry," said Lee Medoff, co-founder of House Spirits and a former brewer. "The same feel is there, the same sort of people -- entrepreneurs, they have no money but a lot of inspiration."
Some distilleries say they are just starting to see a profit after years in business. Many are reinvesting in their business, betting on continued growth: Clear Creak recently made a move to a larger facility and Bendistillery recently added a new 1,000-gallon still.
Ty Reeder, a distiller for McMenamins, which is largely known for its beer, says the company's distilling business has seen 400 percent annual growth over the past several years.
And nationwide, industry groups report consumer buying continues to trend toward premium products.
"The big brands will never go away," Medoff said. "But there is a huge undercurrent in the country of people wanting some flavor."
Lee says hard alcohol is no longer just about half-naked women and fast cars; there are options.
He and other distillers say spirits can be an accompaniment to food, a cocktail component and more importantly, a small delight to be savored.
"We will change the way the spirit industry works in the country probably pretty substantially," McCarthy said.
On the Net:
American Distilling Institute: http://www.distilling.com/

Clear Creek Distillery
http://www.clearcreekdistillery.com/

House Spirits http://www.medoyeff.com/

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Hello Mr. Owens

Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Vivian Watts (Vivian in my case is a male name - it creates confusion in the US). I have studied Chemistry and Mathematics in South Africa (undergrad) and then I did my PhD on Cognac and California alambic brandies at UCDavis (completed 2003), working with Profs. Roger Boulton and Christian Butzke at the Department of Viticulture and Enology. During my research years there, I also produced brandies with a miniature Cognac pot still and at my current employer, KWV, I am involved with large-scale distillation, maturation, experimental distillations, research with GC-MS and more.
The reason I am contacting you is that my wife (US citizen) and I are looking to move back to the US, and I am therefore looking for employment there. I just came across your name on www.distilling.com and I was wondering if you know of any employment opportunities or leads for someone with my type of experience and expertise. I am open to both research and production positions. I must say that I have always thought my dream-job would be to be involved with small-scale distilling somewhere but such opportunities are of course scarce. It sure must be a great way of earning one's living though.
I have attached my latest resumé for you to look at would really appreciate to hear your advice or opinions.
Sincerely
Vivian Watts
Dr. Vivian Watts
Chemist (KWV SA)
P.O. Box 528
Suider-Paarl
7624
South Africa
+27 (0)21 807 3379 (W)
+27 (0)83 654 6096 (Cell)
+27 (0)21 863 1149 (Fax)
====================

ON THE ROAD
I'm currenly traveling across the USA photographing distilleries for a book. If I haven't contacted you send me an e-mail to come by and photograph your distillery

bill@billowens.com
My cel is 510-566-9566.
I prefer to be contacted by e-mail.
I you just want to meet for coffee...let me know. And if you have "big" houses with a guest room would be happy to stay one or two days.
Bill
Cities to be visited
Hayward, CA 94541
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Los Angeles, CA 90012
San Diego, CA 92101
Los Angeles, CA 90012
Las Vegas, NV 89044
Flagstaff, AZ 86001
St. George, UT 84770
Salt Lake City, UT 84111
Palisade, CO 81526
Denver, CO 80205
Colorado Springs, CO 80906
Santa Fe, CO 97505
Liberal, KS 67901
Dodge City, KS 67801
Emporia, KS 66801
Kansas City, MO 64108
Lee's Summit, MO 64064
Weston, MO 64098
Atchison, KS 66002
Omaha, NE 68102
Muscatine, IA 52761
Cedar Falls, IA 50613
Dubuque, IA 52001
Chicago, IL 60626
Bloomington, IN 47404
Louisville, IN 47150
Kirkwood, MO 63112
St. Louis, MO 63139
Nashville, TN 37219
Memphis, TN 38103
Kelso, TN 37348
Baton Rouge, LA 70801
New Orleans, LA 70122
Mobile, AL 36602
Panama City, FL 32401
Tampa, FL 33605
Miami, FL 33179
Key Largo, FL 33037
Key West, FL 33040
West Palm Beach, FL 33401
Cape Canaveral, FL 32920
Homeland, FL 33847
Atlanta, GA 30303
N. Charleston, SC 29405
Asheville, NC 28801
Wilmington, NC 28401
Buxton, NC, 27920
Elizabeth City, NC 27909
Durham, NC 27701
Sperryville, VA, 22740
Culpeper, VA, 22701
Mount Vernon, VA 22121
Morgantown, WV 26505
Pittsburgh, PA 15122
Washington DC, 20001
Annapolis, MD 21401
Baltimore, MD 21201
New York, NY 10001
Providence, RI 02903
Boston, MA 02130
Portland, ME 04101
Boston, MA 02130
Burlington, VT 05401
Utica, NY 13501
Rochester, NY 14603
Buffalo, NY 14209
Cleveland, OH 44103
Detroit, MI 48203
Holland, MI 49423
Muskegon, MI 49440
Sheboygan, WI 53081
Green Bay, WI 54304
Milwaukee, WI 53202
La Crosse, WI 54601
Sioux Falls, SD 57103
Rapid City, SD 57701
Lead, SD 57754
Sheridan, WY 82801
Cody, WY 82414
Canyon Village, WY 82190
Livingston, MT 59047
Idaho Falls, MT 83401
Twin Falls, ID 83301
Boise, ID 83702
Baker, OR 97814
Seattle, WA 98116
Portland, OR 97210
Chico, CA 95926
Loomis, CA 95650
Hayward, CA 94541
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http://distilling.com/backissues.html
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--To obtain a distilled spirits permit go to: http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/index.shtml

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--To obtain TTB list of DSPs go to: http://www.ttb.gov/foia//err.shtml

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--To obtain TTB statistics on distilling go to: www.ttb.gov then scroll down to "spirits" and then the "year".
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--To obtain Distilled Spirits Laws and Regulations go to: http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/spirits_regs.shtml

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--To obtain label regulations go to: http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/bam.shtml distilled spirits manual circular.
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