The upshot: New DSPs are now registering at a pace of two for every working day, suggesting a crowded field that shows little sign of thinning. In the opening session, Michael Kinstlick, CEO of Coppersea Distilling, also provided a snapshot of craft dis-tilling today, as he has done every year since 2011. And all this was set against the background of a booming industry fueled partly by entrepreneurs looking to hop on a train that’s picking up speed as it continues to leave the station. “If we don’t advo-cate for the change that we want, it is likely that we will get the change we do not want,” he said.Īmong other themes explored over the course of two days were passion vs. But he urged the industry to continue to work together to ensure that legislation and market structures championed by the larger, legacy brands don’t steamroll craft. “Craft spirits as an industry is here to stay,” he said. And more com-mon pay-to-play stipulations (sellers of liquor illegally requesting payments or goods in order to stock products) have presented another hurdle for small pro-ducers, Seestedt said. Liquor distribution is increasingly cen-tralized, meaning that it’s harder for the smaller distributors-who tend to be more attuned to the needs of craft dis-tillers-to raise their voices above the big-marketing thunder. (Ransom Spirits also has a winery, so Seestedt knows from paperwork.) ![]() “That mentality of Prohibition still exists,” and spirits tend to be demonized more than wine and beer, manifesting in far more paperwork for producers of the former than the latter. Among them, the reduction on the federal excise tax that passed last year and, more broadly, the rise of social media, which offers a low-cost platform that allows distillers to be as creative with their messages as they are with their spirits and the ability to reach thousands of potential customers at a fraction of the cost of paid advertising.īut Seestedt added that the changing economic (and social) landscape for spirits was a consistent challenge. In his keynote, Tad Seestedt of Ransom Spirits in Oregon, hailed the successes of the industry and noted some of the advantages that have surfaced since he launched his distillery in 1997. Nearly 2,000 attendees came to Portland to learn about the state of distilling from a host of speakers and 180 vendors offering up everything from bottling lines to turnkey still operations. ![]() ![]() Holaday, a co-founder of Vermont Spirits and Dunc’s Idea Mill, was one of several to offer opening remarks at the 15th annual American Distilling Institute conference, held March 27–28 in Portland, Oregon. I watch because this is the source of what we are now calling craft distilling.” “These people are trying to solve an impos-sible problem-like writing a great opera or solving a Rubik’s Cube in 10 dimen-sions. Holaday has seen this affliction arise and spread, but he holds back on the impulse to inter-vene. It’s an affliction whose symp-toms include the conscription of every household vase and pot as a fermenta-tion vessel and spouses hollering down the cellar stairs to ask why their pressure cooker now has a hole it. Duncan Holaday is pretty sure he’s diagnosed what ails many ADI members.
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