The Vodka Ivory Tower

I've been to a couple of distilleries for artisan liquors. The equipment always seems to be this mix of practical manly tanks and something Jules Verne dreamt up. Plus some barrels. It is laid out if to say, if all of this was equally shiney and fabulous looking, we would just be buying stuff to be pretty....not creating booze. Let's distract them with wood and chicken wire. Truth is, I would be a  suspicious if there wasn't a little McGuyvering quality to the place. Too perfect would look like a someone just went on a  really expensive shopping spree.

Lately, the word "artisan" is being thrown around like last years "Kindle." It is attached to everything these days from pizza at Dominos to Bagels at Dunkin Donuts.  The literal interpretation of the word means a lot in this industry though. There are "infusers" that some aficionados tend to turn their noses up at; companies who purchase large quantities of spirits from other facilities and insert different essences into them, making them flavored. To many of these producers, there is an artistry to creating the flavors that make them unique and they consider their creation an artisan product.  However,  many distillers don't acknowledge that it is genuinely making your own product if you don't start from the basics. They find  slapping a the label on a product that originated from elsewhere, sometimes even a different state that it professes to be a proud product of, is a questionable tactic. It is cheapened to them, easier, not truly "artisan." Their equipment isn't as big and creative and pretty.

The piece that I love the best is the vodka tower.  It looks like it could have swallowed Willy Wonka's Augustus Galloop but more beautiful, more copper and brass and glass. The ceilings have to be over 20 feet high to accommodate its necessary height. It literally towers over all of the other units of equipment and has portals running up the front. I assume that these are to look in, not to look out. It reminded me of the metal art pieces that a rich friend's dad had in his New York City loft apartment. Except I understood the purpose of this. Sort of.

Besides the vodka tower and all of that lovely copper, my favorite part of the distillery is the previously mentioned barrels. Barrels are just cool. I told My Doc that maybe some day I would sell the distillery success purchased Bentley (I don't dream half-assed) and I would start a cooperage to match his booze. Then I thought about it a little harder and realized you would have to know how to do things like weld and not set things on fire in order to do this.

Barrels smell good. Some go from one type of industry to the next, sold for the next purpose. An American Barrel holding bourbon can wind up holding scotch in Glasglow. They are good to sit on and when you saw them in half you can use them to plant large quantities of basil in  for when you make lots of pesto. They aren't complicated structures and have been around for centuries because they are very very useful, even important when it comes to keeping transported food products safe. A barrel is a statement of simple ingenuity, an idea that hasn't changed because it was so good from its start. It is wood and metal. Like its brother in the artisan crafts of a distillery the whiskey, it will be here hundreds of years ago from now, relatively unchanged with the exception of the individual imprint of its maker.

I look forward to the day that the copper and the wood and the glass and the grains have all arrived. The ingredients are poured, the electricity is turned on, the hums fill the air, the smells begin the process of aging into the odor we will all associate with our family's second home and money maker and we have really begun. So much of the money is there. So close I can see it.

Soon.

Ralph Ralph Ralph

This is how "Ralph" became a swear word.

A long time ago my husband and daughter and I lived in a trailer by a barn in a teeny tiny town that bordered the small city where My Doc (aka husband)went to undergraduate school.  Down the road from our trailer was a gristmill owned by a nice man named Ralph. Ralph was a likable fellow who loved to rock climb. He had taken an old gristmill, refurbished it and began making flours and other grist things, attaching a really neat store to the whole operation. He also dreamt of using his new property to accommodate the visiting rock climbers, giving them a place to sleep cheaply via camping and other less rustic ways that weren't a hotel nearby a famous climbing spot. We loved to take our visiting friends to our cool neighborhood entrepreneurial endeavor. There was trouble in his paradise though. Ralph had a  cranky neighbor that objected to most things Ralph and successfully squashed Ralph's peace and his dream of a rock climbing haven. We watched the gristmill crumble and  Ralph decided to close the doors.

Right before we moved to Massachusetts, we recieved an email via the gristmill mailing list announcing Ralph's intentions to open a distillery. A distillery! We said. Who the hell opens a distillery in this century by himself (turns out it wasn't so much himself....he had attain a partner...but that's a story for Ralph to tell, not me)? No one was doing this. I didn't even know it was legal. I just knew Ralph was doomed to failure. Poor Ralph. He was such a nice man.

Flash forward six years. Thanks to people like Ralph and some changes in regulation/tax laws, small artisan spirits distilleries began to take on a new light. Like other micro versions of an ingestible product businesses, they emerged into the public conscience because attention to the craft and the details applied to the process was unique to them and more often than not from high quality products. They used local agriculture and special techniques developed with creative minds and lower budgets. The products were excellent and as individual as the people creating them. They cared about what they were doing. By the time the Two Doctors became a valid idea, the artisan spirit distillery had taken hold in the minds of liquor afficianados everywhere. And it seemed like so many of the ideas that they put out in their innovative a-ha moments when mulling over alternatives in production, Ralph had already done.

Poor Ralph my fat aunt Fanny. Ralph was a raging success. Ralph became a battle cry and an utterance of frustration. Small barrels to speed up aging? Ralph was doing it. Who just got worldwide distribution as a small distillery from an enormous name brand distributor? Ralph. Hey! I have an idea to make gin. Not a lot of people are doing....damn you, Ralph. There's Ralph in the New York Times. Isn't that Ralph on the cover of the national artisan whiskey convention's website? Ralph Ralph Ralph. The man I wrote off as doomed. The distiller who paved the way for so many other artisan spirit makers. The person, who at every turn, was there before us like the perfect older sibling.

We use his name enough to make me wonder if there was ever an innovative artisan named "Fuck!" I love to scream it when he periodically does something so freakin' wonderful that it is yet another moment to prove our point that all roads of success lead to Ralph. We admire you, Ralph, and we thank you. You are our great example of why people should invest in a whiskey distillery, the end result of your leap in faith, now a place people wished they could put their money. And for this I will always use your name to emphasize my passionate reactions to all things in the land of hootch.

RALPH!!!

Mama Wants A New Somewhat Adequate Used Car

I've been poor too many years to shoot higher than a 2009 Prius in my head when I think of a luxurious expense. It sounds downright snazzy, even. Bills paid. Car under your posterior that has low gas mileage, less than 40K on the odometer and isn't to come crashing down from underneath you. Maybe a home that you don't have to pay rent to live in. A garden maybe?

This is the dreams of a woman who has lived the life of a wife to a PHD student in a complicated science.  You exist waiting for the education to be over and then when he gets out, you wonder what is next. There are choices but all of them involve dedicating long hours and rearranging the family because once again he will be the bottom of the totem pole. We probably wouldn't seem him as much and have to move to an unknown place. It is the end of the education, the beginning of possibilities with precarious stipulations.  I just couldn't picture us in the scenarios that kept popping up for some reason. Academia. Consulting. Anything with a briefcase and an office schedule or a corporate boss in a lab seemed out of place.

Then this idea came along. And it made so much more sense. The two of the boys are like a combo Scientist Martha Stewart meets booze. They were already in a constant state of what combination of organic things can they put together with what process to make something that they really loved. It was so right that one of the professors actually said, "Why don't you two just forget about academia and make this for a living?" about three months into their covert process of doing just that. I breathed such a stream of relief when this brilliant idea shone into our lives. It was that "But of course. This is what was missing" moment. He never was supposed to be a scientist. He just needed to know the science. He is a Moonshiner. A fancy legal Moonshiner.

It started with such a bang. The first large chunk of money investors came to them almost immediately. The Two Doctors had a reputation amongst their peers for their passion and knowledge in the hootch making area. The trend in the liquor business was really hot for artisan spirits, especially whiskey. The more they began putting together the business plan and listing the details to initiate and pull a profit in a relatively short time, the more word got around that there was this original thing brewing in the works.  From the outside, it almost looked a little too easy at first. Now the money coming in is slowing down a little bit. They still need more. They are becoming more cautious with whom they tell. The realization that their business plan really is good enough to copy during this renaissance of artisan spirits is dawning on them.

They want to attach a non-disclosure agreement with the business plan. I argued with My Doc that it would limit the ability to pass a very attractive proposal to invest around at will.  Then again, one lady stated that she was interested in starting her own distillery. This could make life a lot less complicated for her if she was serious and had a bad sense of ethics.  Or maybe if she wasn't clear on what needed to be done, she could use it as a road map. They could be creating their own competition.

 Can you ask a person that you are asking to give you money as an investment for the favor of signing and returning a contract before they even look at what's in it for them?  Will it deter the potential investor from even getting far enough to read the damned thing? And will it stop non-investors who know a friend who would be perfect to invest from reading it themselves so that they are informed enough to, in turn,  ask the potential investor to do the same if they have that extra homework to do?

I say screw it. Go for it. Get it out. Let potential investors know they exist as fast as possible because they will come when they see the potential. Don't complicate it. The process of starting a distillery has a lot to do with licensing and meeting regulations. A whole lot of hurry up and waiting insinuated by various levels of government agencies. Fortunately, much of that homework is already in place and they have a lawyer who is knowledgeable in small businesses, even the booze ones. The faster people know, the faster they invest and those last funds needed to begin operations will be in hand. 

But then again, look which practical mind is talking. I dream of owning a used car that isn't going to fall apart some day. Imagine my shock when I get a new one. I know I will. The business plan is that good. The market is wide open for the products these guys are dreaming up and they are unique enough versions to stand out. I will be comfortable someday.  I own a copy of the business plan. Maybe I will just buy two used cars....

Bourbon Is The New Wine Cooler

Many years ago, I worked in the restaurant industry in New York City. First I was a hostess, then a waitress and, finally, a bartender, the coolest job of all of the service industry gigs. So I would like to preface by saying, I  do know how a wine cooler is viewed but it was loved at one point. I have witnessed many trends in booze. For a moment, Bartles And James had a following  as did big bowls of fruity low budget hootch in the form of sex on the beacheses and bahama mamases. Eventually the cosmopolitan made its way in, combining the fruity with the more sophisticated look. Then came microbrewery beers and the more respectable martini often with snooty infusions of whatever the mixologist...all of the bartenders are locked in the closet now with the janitors, secretaries and stewardesses.... can throw in to make it taste less like gin. And, now, artisan spirits. Or as I like to think of it, God's most expensive disinfectant and husband tranquillizer. 

I have to say, I ain't a big drinker. Hell, I ain't even a little drinker.  Which has turned out to make me a very handy guinea pig with a raw untouched palate. There is no bias in my mouth. I don't drink it but I can taste discerningly. In fact, due to early years of drinking anything that had alcohol in it dumped in fruit punches, I was under the false impression that bourbons all tasted alike. Boozy. Sort of like varnish.

Before the connoisseurs get their collective panties in a bunch, I admit that I was wrong. In fact, there is indeed a huge difference in quality spirits in general. First I smell it to see if it has that odor I used to associate with old drunks.  Then I put my lips up to the glass, tip it so that touches them, then let it slide onto my tongue where I let it generate the sensations in different areas of my mouth, noting which parts are being effected, the type of tastes and after tastes. Some taste more watery. Some leave a bitterness sitting there. The good ones leave a pleasant sensation, you can sense where they came from, which grains, the storage that facilitated its aging. The lesser ones may have pretty packaging but it is like a bad looking woman with a good make up job. The make up might cover some of it, but, underneath it all, it is what it is. Usually some one didn't put the same effort in to cut costs, speed up production, decided to ride on a nice bottle and a spiffy label.

In essence, I still am not a drinker but I can appreciate the difference. My husband and his partner are adamant about maintaining that integrity in their product because they know at  the end of the trend,  the good ones will keep thriving. I will keep tasting so that I can tell the differences, identify the qualities, tell them if I think they are slipping, applaud their greatness, boast to others. LOUDLY. And make car payments with the results many years after the ones with the pretty labels riding the trend are renting out their distillery spaces to autobody repair shops.

A Lawyer And A Realtor Walk Into A Bar

At first I took it as a Lucy moment. The man is a genius. He comes up with great ideas that rarely get acted on because of practicality or lack of real passion. I should have known better.

Distilling whiskey was something that his partner had a great deal of knowledge about, trading secrets with my molecular biologist when commiserating about beer brewing and wine. I had heard about the amazing grappa and corn whiskey that found their way into the hands of my husband, been told about the details of attaining the ingredients and unique processes that had cultivated an envious admiration in my husband. My biologist and I both exhibit severe Martha Stewart tendencies (as mentioned in the previous blog, we make soaps and skin creams too). I should have known that the post doc was handing the junkie a fresh new needle.

The wife of the post doc (herein shall be referred to as Post Doc) had a client who was a lawyer specializing in small business. He liked the idea so much that he invited Post Doc and my husband (My Doc) in for a free consultation. The lawyer sat them down told them  how to set it up, what kind of paperwork needed to be done, what kind of business they should declare themselves to be, advised them how to set up the investors vs. owners, told them about federal and state laws regarding distilleries complete with paperwork references and told them how much it would cost to retain him. It was a lot of bang for a non-existent buck. He had faith in their concept and ability to execute it.  He is now a first name in our daily references.

Post Doc also knew a Realtor. She gave them advice on where would be a best place to set this new business up, possibly with or without a tasting room and retail area.

The boys started on the business plan. Three potential investors popped up immediately. Then more. Very quickly I began to realize that this was real. That it made sense. That things were falling into place without drama. New investors are being sought out. They will be found. It is too good not to in an industry this hot right now with a good product.

They were experts at researching in minutiae, literally. Finding thumpers and mashtons and types of stills and all of the new nouns that have invaded our lives because of a passionate obsession. Tweaking what can be McGuyvered in their scientist hands at lesser cost, what forms of alcohol they wanted to fashion at first and then down the road. Ideas were tossed out day and night, at home and together in the lab. My husband now had a new other husband. I understood.

We went to visit a distillery close to where we used to live in NY State called Tuthill Town. We moved just when Ralph, the owner, had announced that he was closing the gristmill on his property and would be starting the first distillery in New York since the prohibition. I thought, "I think Ralph is doomed." I had a picture of a closed kettle thing, like in Hawkeye's tent in "Mash." I was stunned upon revisiting his property to witness an enormous success. His company just picked up world wide distribution. He has created a bourbon that is selling for 80 bucks a bottle. And it is worth it. He is that good at all things distillery. It doesn't take a genius to see that this man has got to be rolling in it. He is beyond success.

The projected numbers if sales in this industry that others in similar situation claims to be having trouble meeting demand in are good enough to  give me chills.  The education of My Doc to give our family a better life has been going on almost as long as my daughter going into puberty has been alive. That's a helluva long time to be poor as an adult. These numbers are awesome and attainable. And it feels right, like love. It is interesting and profitable all at once.

So the fad never passed. Instead, it married us and moved in, taking up most of the space in the bed. I've yet to meet the Post Doc's wife. Our children don't know each other yet. But, when we do, I know we will be spending a large part of our lives together from that moment on. Out there, there is another family hearing the other side of this conversation, the plans and commiserating and excitement and worries. Another half to us.

Soon. Lots of things are going to happen soon.

Artisan Whiskey Enters The Room

 My husband had been in college for over a decade when he proposed that he open an artisan spirits distillery with his partner, a post doc in the same molecular biology lab. I was in no position to argue with him, having gone through a bad spell in the marriage recently and, truth be told, my gut told me that this was a far better fit than our family being attached to corporate America or another year tethered to university life. We were the same people who were slowly becoming comfortable with each other partly by learning to make soap together and playing Journey songs at our daughter. He was a homebrewer and wine maker. He applied his knowledge in biology and chemistry to almost everything we were getting our hands into and the creation of spirits was a cocktail of that knowledge applied to grains and yeasts and all of the other parts that I have yet to understand but am sincerely trying.

So instead of yelling, "Forget it! Ten years of poverty for this!" I said, "Of course." And despite the fear of what my family is going to do to us when the molecular biologist defends his thesis and then walks away from it, I have seen the business plan, begun my education of life in the artisan distillery industry and am certain that we will be happier and wealthier in the end.

This is our story. It will have a happy ending if it kills me.