Oregone wrote:I saw an interesting article recently (LA Times?) on the profusion of west coast micro-distillers. My own, limited, experience with them is that none are taking the years necessary to really age their whiskey before release. The author of the article claimed that some of the samples would cause us to rethink the notion of aging -- I rethought it, all right, for about 10 seconds.
The economics of microbrewing worked, because turnover between production and consumption was so short; it's the reason most of them made ales rather than lagers.
Jeff, this thread has gone nowhere fast, but you're right in that you've got ot have some cash flow to survive.
I have local orchards and could distil Apple Jack & Peach brandies without a doubt. That's a quick turn around. you could also follow Heaven Hill's lead and offer a white dog whiskey a la "Georgia Moon" only my white dog would taste far better than theirs. Then mellow it out a bit in used cooperage for a couple of years. I'd like to do the same with a Maryland style rye.
All of this goes on while the whiskey ages to the point of becoming bourbon. You also get to build brand awareness as you go so that when you do bottle and release the bourbon you will have more buyers than bottles.
I'm thinking a straight eight year old would be close to perfect. I'd like to go the Bottled-In-Bond boys one better with each batch being bunged daily. Being a true micro-distiller you're talking maybe ten barrels a day max, or roughly 400 proof gallons (after the angles have their fair share) a day to be bottled and sold. If you've built your brand then you should easily be able to sell it all quickly at a reasonable profit.
Now you're on the gravy train, but it'll take eight years to catch that ride.
You'll want to do some single barrels as well as leaving some barrels to rest further.
It can be done, but how much will it take? One Million, or Two
imanotamillionaire