Distiller magazine a publication of the American Distilling Institute, the Voice of Artisan Distilling; devoted to the craft spirits industry: vendors and distillers alike.
Issue link: http://distilling.uberflip.com/i/1306663
126 distiller New distilleries that make aged spirits always face the same problem: How can they build their brand and business before their own spirits are ready? Some distilleries have the patience and resources simply to wait, laying down whiskey or other spirits for years and not releasing it until it is ready. Others, especially in the early days of the craft distilling movement, sur- vived and thrived by making vodka, gin and other unaged spirits. Some experimented with very young whiskeys, often aged in small barrels. But a great number of craft distilleries, including some of the most successful, started out by purchasing aged spir- its in bulk from elsewhere until their own spirits were ready. Now, years after opening, some of those com- panies have fully made the switch to their own spirits. Brand Building with Brandy "ere's this super exciting moment when your big, bright, shiny copper stills get delivered to your distill- ery," says Joe Heron, founder of Louisville, Kentucky- based Copper & Kings Distillery, which has played a critical role in the revival of American brandy. "It's probably one of the most exciting moments in a dis- tillery's life, but can be tempered very quickly by the realization that you're actually going to have to bring a product to market that has enough volume to be practical." Unaged brandy wasn't going to cut it, so the company started sourcing aged brandy. "We actu- ally started out by calling up all the brandy distillers from the ADI directory. at's how we got into the American brandy business." Copper & Kings' initial releases were made entirely from sourced brandy, purchased from distilleries in six or seven states. But the distillery laid down brandy to age from the beginning, which proved fortuitous: Its own brandy began to mature just as aged brandy available on the sourcing market started to dry up. "After a few years, it was very hard to find any aged brandy at all, anywhere. And by then, it was no good for us buying two-year-old brandy. We already had a lot of our own." Once its own distillate reached four years old, Copper & Kings began to incorporate it into its blends in steadily increasing proportions. Deciding how much to use, and at what age, wasn't easy. "Like all barrel-aged maturation, you're trying to project volume years in advance," Heron says. "We didn't decide to stop using our sourced brandy one day. We layered our own four-year distillate in as an increasing TheSOURCING TRANSITION by Adam Polonski