opening a legal distillery in the U.S.

[HookLine]

Sweeeeet. Seems like you gotta have the patience of Job to get a legal distillery up and running.

[evilpsych]

holy crap. I can't believe I just read all that.. took you what.. 2 years to get it setup and running..

Also.. from one of your posts about... oh.. 10 pages ago..

Organic Certification? Seriously now. What's more organic than a brewery or a distillery..????? You don't use any additives, ****cides, etc in the manufacture. I can only wonder what the process to get organic certified was like.. Tell us how THAT went..

[fatbloke]

The Fire Marshall for the City of Chico came by today to inspect our operations. He has to look up the maximum amount we can store on site given our sprinklers and so on, but he gave me the nod to start working on my 10 gallon still "Old Tippy."

So, this weekend I will be running my first batch of legal spirits! Now I can do my final recipe development on the 10 gallon still.

Well done Uncle Jesse. That sounds excellent.

Are you going to build a website to accompany your new found business ?

regards

fatbloke

[Blind Eye]

Would be really cool to see a small "you-tube" tour of the new facility U.J., congratulations this is quite a step !!

[Uncle Jesse]

Thanks for the kind words guys. We're into recipe development on the 10 gallon still now.

I've got a web page but during the storms a bit ago the hard drive died so I've had to rebuild the entire thing. It's 90% finished and I hope to have it more presentable today. As soon as I fix a few things I'll post about it.

Been a long time since I had a hard drive fail like that.

[violentblue]

I'd like to know when you're ready to sell, I'll be in line.
Hopefully there'll be no issue sending it across the border.

with all the hoops you have to jump through to be legit, I'm sure you'd be suprised to hear that its 10x harder to be legit north of the 49.
but on the positive side, if you're not interested in going legit here, they refuse to prosecute unless you're selling it.

[Uncle Jesse]

Ok guys if you want to get on the mail list for our distillery follow this link and sign up:

http://pioneerspirits.com/mailman/listi ... ouncements

If you signed up previously, please sign up again. The hard drive crash killed my old user list!

This list gets regular updates regarding our progress at the distillery.

[Butch50]

Excellent web site, very professional. Congratulations again, you are an inspiration.

[hounded66]

so how much did the entire operation cost you to setup ... including equipment and bonds and everything. What would be you guess UJ?

[3rd Duke Boy]

good job on the start of the wheels turn'in

i hope you are open soon i'll be the first one in line

to take the tour and see how the real professional

distill the spirts

[OldManP]

any new updates UJ? Wondering how things are going and what kind of success you are having so far?

[Uncle Jesse]

We're licensed and doing recipe development. We're just about ready to start producing marketable spirits. I'm about to put away 150 gallons of corn whiskey to age in two 60 gallon casks and one 30 gallon cask. Still only about 90% proficient with all the new equipment, and there's a pretty big step to go from 10 gallon mashes to 300 gallon mashes but we're well on our way.

[Sandhusker]

That's got to be a lot of fun. I sincerely with you and your buddies all the luck in the world. I hope this project pans out as you want it.

[OldManP]

Sure wish i was closer. I'd volunteer my hard labor services just to be around a company like yours as it grows and builds up...I'm pretty good with a broom you know, first two jobs i was a "sanitation technician"!

[MountedGoat]

I have to give you a hearty congrats to you!

[violentblue]

so whats the latest? are you producing yet?
Looking into buying some farmland and starting an orchard, hoping to apply for a licence to do small batch brandies, but that would be some years down the road, since the trees havent even been planted yet.

[trthskr4]

so whats the latest? are you producing yet?
Looking into buying some farmland and starting an orchard, hoping to apply for a licence to do small batch brandies, but that would be some years down the road, since the trees havent even been planted yet.

As much as UJ had to go through you may want to start the paperwork now...

[MyDBear]

Hey Uncle Jesse I wish you the best of luck in your new venture. I am sorry that i havent been contributing to the forum like i used to, but i felt that i wasnt adding anything usefull any mor so i stoped coming. Plus my pc died and i just got a new one and while i was getting things in order tater gave me a holler in a PM and told me what you were doing so i thought i stop in and wish you the best of luck . Ill stop in from time to time to see how things are going.

Bear

[Uncle Jesse]

MyDBear, good to see you man! Contributing or not you're a valued member of the community so keep in touch.

Yes we're into production. Just got 5,000 bottles and we're very pleased with how the corn whiskey is coming out now. We plan to age some but first we're going to try to sell some which is unaged. Our label is going for approval and we're figuring out exactly how we're going to handle proof determination and so on.

It's been a real challenge but it's also been fun learning to adapt and make our equipment adapt to the proper processes.

Soon we'll have something available on the market and I'll let you guys know so anyone who wants to try a bottle can get one. I'm a bit nervous having all you experts try my swill though! Crunch time. Kinda like the first tour I gave...40 members of the local brewing club showed up which was a bit of a challenge for my first public tour. Those guys know their stuff pretty well.

[Tater]

Soon we'll have something available on the market and I'll let you guys know so anyone who wants to try a bottle can get one. I'm a bit nervous having all you experts try my swill though! Crunch time. Kinda like the first tour I gave...40 members of the local brewing club showed up which was a bit of a challenge for my first public tour. Those guys know their stuff pretty well.

Put me down for 2 1 to drink 1 to keep number it sign it and Ill toast ya every drink.

[pintoshine]

When I visited Celebration Distillation in New Orleans, They had a party and invited all the new graduates of the current Bar Tenders class. If you have one available you might do the same. Get the name recognition out there.

[violentblue]

Pint, you'r doing something similar arent you?

[oldfart69]

didnt anybody ever wonder where you learned to distill? i mean just kinda funny in my mind how you can be just an average joe and then apply for all the permits to become legit but where did you get the skill from?

what does it matter?

Tell them South Island New Zealand - where its a tradition

cheers
OldFart

[Uncle Jesse]

We're just about ready to bottle our first corn whiskey. We've put about 180 gallons of bourbon into barrels and we're working on some corn whiskey for sale now. Our first corn whiskey came out good but not great and one subsequent run was awful! So we went back to the drawing board. What can I say, it's a steep learning curve going up to 300 gallon mashes. We've still got room to improve but we're pretty happy at the moment.

Here's our corn whiskey label my pal did for us, hope you guys like. The TTB approved this label in about 4 hours after I submitted it.

[Husker]

Nice label. Barley, corn, and cousin Erney, bringing the batch down outta the hills at sun up , LOL

Any way this will be able to be ordered by people from the forums? A trip to CA to get bottles would be beyond my resources. I would like to have a plant tour at some time (and I still think getting a group from the forum to 'visit' at the same time would be a NICE time). But flying out to CA to grab a couple bottles is more than I want to spend.

H.

[DrTorque]

I had no idea this thread was here...

My mom lives a little over 2 hours from there, and we fly out there every once in a while. I'll try hard to do it next year.

Wife and offspring aren't going to want to drive 2.5 hours to visit a still, but I sure do. Anything else in the area that will get them to want to go - zoos, state parks, anything?

[Hack]

Nice label. Is it sunrise or sundown?

[Uncle Jesse]

Well if you need an excuse to go to Chico, how about going to see Mt. Lassen or Mt. Shasta?

It's the sunrise, not the sunset. I got the idea from a picture done by a Japanese guy, I forget his name. Very talented guy who did a cool piece of the BSD Beastie facing the rising dawn. I always heard it referred to as "The Dawn is Breaking" but that may not be the original title for it.

It's large so here is the URL:

http://freebsd-image-gallery.netcode.pl ... 0x1440.jpg

[Godstilla]

Nice label, and I also like your Pioneer website! Is there a train station near there? I'm up north of you and would take a train down to pick up a few bottles.

[OldManP]

UJ, you've been added to my short list of lifetime heroes. Like many here, I envy your success even thus far. We appreciate everything you're doing for the hobby and all you've contributed. I would love to support your endeavor into this market, (many of us are living the dream through you via this forum/topic). I will purchase many'a'product from you and hope to give a tour someday. Just a note--a Google search had over 2 1/4 million searches for "pioneer spirits"...thought that was pretty cool

OMP