Distilled and Bottled by...

[woodshed]

As a home distiller I enjoyed comparing myself to the craft distillers who are out there. As a Licensed Distiller I still do.

But how do you tell the difference between a true craft distiller or one who buys premade and ages it or worse yet one who just buys it outright as a finished product then slaps a local craft label on it?

By law a true craft product must say Distilled and Bottled by... on the label, either front or back.
The kool aid makers cannot claim that. It may say bottled but not both.

Thought some of you may like to know.

[moosemilk]

Good lesson, thanks shed. Nothing says "pride" like doing it all yourself, "distilled AND bottled by...". Any plans for your product hitting minnesota in the near future? Closest state to me.

[bearriver]

I find this information to be very useful.

Store bought happens in my house for two reasons. I want to expand my palette, or I want to try some gimmick before emulating it. Either way, buying booze that has been produced from NGS or similar methods is a waste of money when trying to fulfill those two purposes. Money around here isn't parted with lightly these days.

I will be looking for this when trying commercially crafted spirits. It means much more to me than some sticker saying "10 gold awards, 14 silver... blah blah..." Thanks Shed.

[cranky]

I find this information to be very useful.

Store bought happens in my house for two reasons. I want to expand my palette, or I want to try some gimmick before emulating it. Either way, buying booze that has been produced from NGS or similar methods is a waste of money when trying to fulfill those two purposes. Money around here isn't parted with lightly these days.

I will be looking for this when trying commercially crafted spirits. It means much more to me than some sticker saying "10 gold awards, 14 silver... blah blah..." Thanks Shed.

That's funny, you made me think about when I was considering giving away some of my scumble to certain people for Christmas one time. Every year I give away wine at Christmas and even the ones who don't want the wine look forward to my email about it. The year I thought about the scumble I wrote this

Our very special Scumble took 1st place at the My name deleted regional wine and spirit competition in the “Harder than cider – apple” division. Sure it was the only entry and My name deleted again (Head of My name deleted again wines and cider mill) was the judge but we are still very proud of winning this prestigious award.

If for some reason I find the need to drink commercial I will also be looking for those words on the label. Thanks Woodshed.

[thecroweater]

Last week my Girlfriend bought two bottles of red. One was for cooking and one for drinking. My father was here and is a discerning tippler of red, he also offered to cook raised lamb shanks that evening hence the cheaply red. Anyways one bottle was made up the road and cost 4 bucks the other had won awards and was expensive, it was also almost undrinkable. Man who gives out these awards

[skow69]

I've had similar experience, more than once. At some point you gotta wonder about graft and corruption with those awards.

Thanks, woodshed, that's great information.

[Brutal]

This is a subject that is extremely important to me. I have spent trips to the likker store searching many times. I really have a hard time finding anything that I see as good. Since beginning this hobby I have narrowed the field of aftermarket (commercial) stuff that I can recommend to someone as a distiller. I am honestly baffled at this time as to what to endorse. I honestly think everyone is insane. Honestly. At least if it's really distilled locally from a mash made local it would have that going for it. Being actually from my area. Not a big plant somewhere. An ok reason to endorse it.

Commercial swill doesn't mean much to me anymore. At this time I am resentful toward it. I need to find a real good whiskey.

[woodshed]

An endorsement of spirits should only be made if the product is actually worthy. I only point out the label reqs so those wanting to support the true crafty can do so.

[DeepSouth]

There is a lot of obfuscation in the distilled spirits industry. A lot of times you'll see "Produced By" on the label and that is usually an indication that the brand is simply someone else's product repackaged. The awards for all these spirits are a joke. There are very few awards that carry any weight to me. Most of the competitions are set up so that if you pay the competition organizer the couple hundred dollars for an entry, you'll win something. It isn't like there is only one gold, silver, and bronze medal for each category. There will be 20 silver medalists in the vodka category for example. Everybody gets a trophy.

[woodshed]

Very true deepsouth. Woodshed has received 11 invites to various comps since the first of the year. They all want 2 to 3 hundred per category to enter. And a minimum of 3 bottles per entry.

With so many comps the whole idea of medaling meaning anything is greatly diminished. Its turned into a business for most.

A friend who is a judge for GABF and other beer comps says the results could change from one day to the next. Even the order you come up for tasting greatly influences the outcome and your odds. It can however boost sales as the General population buys into the whole game.

[Jimbo]

Very true deepsouth. Woodshed has received 11 invites to various comps since the first of the year. They all want 2 to 3 hundred per category to enter. And a minimum of 3 bottles per entry.

With so many comps the whole idea of medaling meaning anything is greatly diminished. Its turned into a business for most.

A friend who is a judge for GABF and other beer comps says the results could change from one day to the next. Even the order you come up for tasting greatly influences the outcome and your odds. It can however boost sales as the General population buys into the whole game.

yup wise words them. Instructor at a distilling class said the same, told us its all BS. He advised to enter the cheapest one you can find to get a sticker for your bottle and help sales. Public doesnt know the 20 entry small fry comp from the big dogs, and aside from helping sales with a gold star on your forehead, er..bottle, its meaningless.

[S-Cackalacky]

You mean there are people out there who would actually deceive the public? Well I never ...

[DAD300]

There is a term "Bottled in Bond." It came from the Bottled-in-Bond Act of 1897. The U.S. Government was trying to eliminate counterfeit booze.

"To be labeled as Bottled-in-Bond or Bonded, the liquor must be the product of one distillation season (January to December) and one distiller at one distillery. It must have been aged in a federally bonded warehouse under U.S. government supervision for at least four years and bottled at 100 (U.S.) proof (50% alcohol by volume). The bottled product's label must identify the distillery where it was distilled and, if different, where it was bottled."

Only the big boys seem to use the term and for the craft distiller, the four years aging that kills it.

The Craft Organizations are wrestling with this. They want such a designation, but don't want to chase off those that are just bottlers.

However, a Craft Distillery could still have a label that says, "Fermented, Distilled and Bottled at ABC Distillery!"

[Jimbo]

You mean there are people out there who would actually deceive the public? Well I never ...

No ones deceiving the public SC, maybe deceiving (taking to the cleaners) the distillers tho. The public has nothing to go on, so if there's an award sticker ont eh bottle, they're more inclined to buy it.

The awards themself arent deceiving either, its just too damn subjective to mean much. A beer judge friend of mine said the same beer wins gold at one competition, and is spit out by another judge a different day. So the award is really meaningless in that sense.

Problem now is there are competitions aimed at reaching in distillers pockets, because folk know they will pay to enter competitions to get a gold sticker.

[WhiteDevil504]

Maybe I should start a separate thread for this, but out of curiosity what are the awards that consumers should take seriously when they see? Are the ADI pleadings worth taking into consideration?

[woodshed]

From my perspective the burden should be on the kool aid makers to own up to their sins.
Riding the wave but not standing up on the board. If you are just blending, aging, or bottling someone else's booze step up and say so.
A little less leeway and a little more honesty in labeling is what we need.

A true craft distiller lives the definition, the rest are just riding on coattails. I couldn't do that and still be able to sleep at night.
A lot of these misguided efforts will fall by the wayside and disappear. So we got that going for us

WD, none of them really.

[bearriver]

I didn't mean for my award quip to derail your thread Shed... My bad.

Only been to one distillery in my area that performs every task in house. It's all too common to see spirits made in piece work. I don't have anything against people that do it that way, but I just don't want to spend my hard earned money with them either. It's better to support the folks that have a personal relationship with every part of every bottle.

[rad14701]

From my perspective the burden should be on the kool aid makers to own up to their sins.
Riding the wave but not standing up on the board. If you are just blending, aging, or bottling someone else's booze step up and say so.
A little less leeway and a little more honesty in labeling is what we need.

A true craft distiller lives the definition, the rest are just riding on coattails. I couldn't do that and still be able to sleep at night.
A lot of these misguided efforts will fall by the wayside and disappear. So we got that going for us

WD, none of them really.

Some folks will do anything for a buck, whether scrupulous or not... Riding the wave is a good analogy... I guess lying about being a craft distiller sounds better when bragging to friends than saying you're just a blender/bottler... Unfortunately, John Q Public neither comprehends nor cares about the difference...

[LWTCS]

To be clear however, there are dozens upon dozens of true blue craft spirit makers that started out in the trenches in places just like HD and the like.
Often times their products are in a state of change as they struggle to learn how to scale from the miniscule amount of hobby sized yield to the much larger commercial yields as they gain traction and simultaneously suffer growing pains.

They may at times cower under the pressure of fulfilling an order when the whiskey is simply not ready. But they have to pay the bills because they have children and mortgaged everything to live their dream (or insert obsession ). They have to have cash flow to keep it going.

Don't be so holier than thou to doubt that many of these guys can make a wonderful spirt and put their heart and soul into doing so.

It's true in can be expensive to attend some of the judging events. And there can be room for partial judging I suppose. But for the most part, I would say that many of the judges at the larger events really are quite knowledgeable and really are trying to find and identify the very best entries. These large events are an excellent way to meet some great people, network, gain knowledge, ,,,,,,,,and have fun. But all of this does cost money.

Many of the medal winners totally deserve to be recognized as top of their craft.

[LWTCS]

This here is the after judging where all of the entries are laid out on tables and the actual distillers go up and taste everybody else's entries including the medal winning spirits.

A good way to gauge one's measure of progress and also I guess stomp off into the dark all pissed off........

This was the whiskey catagory. There where some good whiskies here for sure.

[LWTCS]

This is the Gin table.

That Rouge in the front is pretty good in my estimation. Not too juniper forward. More of a well balanced gin. The barrel aged is even better imo.

The "head" at the end of the table is Jeff. He is a gin lover and was pretty much in hog heaven. Smile never left his face for the couple hours we lingered at this table.

We tasted all of them and I would say by the end of the night the Gin table was one of the most interesting places to be at because the diversity of gins is amazing compared to the more structured confines of the whiskey categories.

[LWTCS]

My point is that every one in this room that was a distiller was clearly passionate (if not skilled) about making real craft spirits imo.

[raketemensch]

It continues to amaze me that with all of the flavors in the world, it's still all about whiskey, vodka and gin.

Although reading through this thread, it'd be worth $200 just to get to a couple of those tasting tables. Talk about an educational experience...

[LWTCS]

It continues to amaze me that with all of the flavors in the world, it's still all about whiskey, vodka and gin.

Although reading through this thread, it'd be worth $200 just to get to a couple of those tasting tables. Talk about an educational experience...

At this particular event, you would have definitely got your money back. Here's what happened:

About a half hour or so before this tasting event was to end, the event coordinator comes in the room a politely announces that it would be time to leave soon. And that if any one wanted a bottle of whatever was on the table to please take one.
Well we were all engaged in the evening of great company, amazing spirits and our own personal buzzes. We mostly ignored the announcement due to the a fore mentioned and perhaps also out of modesty to not want to seem too,,,,,lecherous or what ever.

So we continued on sampling and discussing the virtues of likker and so forth. So about twenty minutes later she comes back into the room, and with a far more assertive quality to the tone of her voice she says (I am paraphrasing) "OK LOOK,,,,,IN 15 MINUTES WE HAVE TO BE OUT OF THIS ROOM. I HAVE NO WAY OF MANAGING ALL OF THESE BOTTLES OF ALCOHOL. IF YOU ALL DON'T TAKE THESE BOTTLES WITH YOU,,,,,I AM JUST GOING T THROW THEM IN TO THE GARBAGE".............

It was like a god damned movie. This time the room fell instantly silent (maybe 100 people in the room). Everybody started looking into each others eyes as if to help themselves understand exactly what they thought they just heard. But then immediately everyone broke out into a mad scramble to find their personal favorite spirits. And as the really good ones would get snatched up quick, it was interesting to note the body language of folks moving on to find the next best spirit they were looking for.....it was a bloody free for all and was arguably the most fun I think I ever had.

I ended up with 7 bottles of some pretty good stuff. 3 of which were medal winners.

One of the whiskies was not a medal winner but man I enjoyed it when I got it home. Not the best whiskey ever but damn respectable. Eleven Wells out of Saint Paul Minnesota. 90% spring wheat and 10% barely. I would drink their whiskey any time.

[buflowing]

...the diversity of gins is amazing compared to the more structured confines of the whiskey categories.

Isn't that the truth. I love playing around with gin recipes. As you say: endless possibilities.

[raketemensch]

Ha, you know, THAT was the true judging -- what went first, and what was left...

[LWTCS]

Ha, you know, THAT was the true judging -- what went first, and what was left...

Well,,,I was part of the mad scramble too. So I could only see so much during my excitement. But since Jeff and I spent so much time at the gin table, I immediately tried to zero in on the Rogue barrel aged gin. It won gold.......It is really delicious.
God damn it was snatched up in a split second.
I was able to pick up the Rogue whiskey (silver medal) however.

Sorry, to answer your question. The medal winners absolutely were the first targeted spirits. But as to what was left for the pick down is just too hard to really know? I was too busy with my own predicament.

[LWTCS]

So this is where I met the Blaum Brothers.
They are out of Chicago.
Thus far, they have the best "moonshine " I have ever had.
Can't recall their grain bill but it is just some good damn white whiskey

The reason I mention this is that there is no doubt in my mind that there are folks here that make better spirits than any of the participants at this event.

I don't know that for fact but I just feel that there are.