Marketing and Opening Day
So, you’re ready to officially open your craft distillery. Now it’s time to talk about turning a profit. Unfortunately, having a great spirit doesn’t mean that it’ll sell. You need to make sure that you, in an efficient and compelling way, get the word out about your distillery – that means marketing.
Construction
Construction will be a very stressful time for you— you have looming deadlines to get your TTB permit, an endless line of delivery trucks, non-stop questions from contractors, and pallets of bulky equipment stacking up.
Regulations & Compliance
Once the plans for your distillery are done, it’s time to start thinking about the hardest part of this industry: the regulations. First off, your distillery will be regulated by the Alcohol, Tobacco, Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) on the federal level.
Design
Before you sign a lease, it’s time to think about your business and how you want to design the structure it. The big questions are “How do you want to structure the business?” and “What is your growth plan for the distillery?”.
Location
It may seem that we’ve put the cart before the horse here and gotten carried away talking about selecting the right equipment before we’ve even considered the right location. Most of our clients don’t have the time to fully know what their equipment needs are before looking for a building.
Equipment
Now that we know how much of each spirit we need to make in the worst, average and best-case scenarios, it’s time to start looking for distillery equipment to meet our production volumes.
Size
There are three different ways we can determine adequate production volumes for your distillery.
Type of Distillery
The first step in starting your own craft distillery is to decide what type of distillery you want to own. There are two basic types of distilleries and then a multitude of hybrids in between them.
Industry Overview
Before we get started, let’s take a deeper look into the craft distilling industry. According to IBIS World, the distillery industry includes any producer that “distills potable liquors, blends liquors and mixes liquors with other ingredients”.