RedwoodHillBilly wrote:Yet another good reason for being your own "artisinal" distillery. You can craft your own variation based on your tastes. Myself, I happen to like high corn rye bourbon (75% corn. 12.5% rye, 12.5% barley). No added crap, just grains. But there must be a market for the "oddball" stuff. You have to remember that a distillery is really a marketing company that just so happens to sell booze.
Im going to try this grain bill, i dont think i have run it yet.
If i have its long gone lol
Thanks buddy.
Try it, I think that you'll like it. Everybody that has tasted it says that it isn't undrinkable
My general Bourbon base starts with 75% corn. I then add malts for various flavors. I happen to like a high corn bourbon for it's sweetness, and I'm cheap frugal. The rye isn't bad, I also do a wheat that is the same except I substitute red wheat malt for the rye malt. I'm trying a new recipe (HWB) that I think will work well. it is 75% corn, 10% red wheat malt, 10% 2 row brewers malt and 5% honey malt. I tried HBB, it was OK, but I thought it too wheat heavy and kinda boring. But I did like the flavor that the honey malt brought to the party.
We'll see how the HWB (honey wheated bourbon) works out.
I may also try a HRB (honey rye bourbon) 75% corn, 10% malted rye, 10% malted barley, and 5% honey malt for a comparison.
That's a lot of the fun in this hobby, trying new things and seeing if they work as well as one thinks they will.
Here is a very interesting article I posted elsewhere on sourcing and labeling, its not exclusively the focus of craft distillers but something that needs to be sorted out industry wide. https://www.eater.com/drinks/2015/7/7/8 ... mprove-its" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.Benjamin Franklin
This is something that has been discussed to death on the ADI forums. It is unfortunately a sad state of affairs, driven by the long time to market after getting a DSP license. It's hard to get all of the equipment, facilities and licenses ready then have to burn a couple of years aging a good whiskey with no income.
The way to make a small fortune in the craft distillery market is to start with a large fortune.
This is why so many so called "craft distillerys" either start with their own vodka (no aging) or just buy GNS and repackage it as "craft vodka". An other way is to buy either GNS or someone elses whiskey (MGP or ??) and short age it in small barrels and sell it as "craft whiskey". There are many other tricks, but it is a hard business to break into. Remember that a distillery is a marketing company that just happens to sell booze.
I know that there are a few members that aspire to go legal, but they really need to crunch the numbers before jumping in. I'm not trying to be a buzz kill, just a realist.
This may be unpopular, but with all these micro/nano/submolecular distilleries popping up with 2-4 years before they can sell their oak tea — that’s SO much time to come up with an alternative. I just wish there was more creativity going on.
Don’t get me wrong, I love a good whiskey, but I also love Alize, and Jaegermeister, and some good flavored brandies. At least half the time I’m drinking it’s a mixed drink anyway, why not invent something new? You’re going to have unsold white dog anyway, get jiggy with it.
When I first discovered distilling I read an article about how it was becoming very popular with high-end chefs, and I got all excited about the new boozes that we were going to get... I guess there have been some creative gins since then, but that’s about it.
Where’s the next Jaeger? When am I going to taste a new recipe right from the bottle? There’s already an entire aisle of oak tea at my liquor supermarket.
At 83 years old Jagger is not exactly the latest thing but I get what ya mean except that is the direction the OP is posting against. That said I've mentioned this to some craft distiller friends as recently as maybe 2 months ago with the current glut of gins and variant vodkas hitting the Aussie market of late, these are tried and proven cash flow generators but with the industry growing expedentually there will be a saturation point. tastings and cellar door sales can only generate so much cash flow and so innovation is going to be needed, looking at past trends and how to revive that is one way or something completely new is another but both are risks. I see one guy back in South Aust. just did a limited online release of an under aged native seed whiskey that was really well received and sold out in two days but the cost to produce it make it a high end product so limit the market.
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.Benjamin Franklin
Unfortunately the ttb requirements to get formula and label approval for each product tend to discourage creativity. In Colorado we also have a one month wait to sell any newly approved label. Also the oak tea is what seems to be selling well.
On the labeling front, there do need to be some changes to make it more clear to the consumer. Even if a bottle says distilled by, it could simply be a rebubble and not the original distillation. We added fermented, distilled and bottled by to our labels, so there is no question where it was made.