The pork roast is in the oven, the kruidnoten are out, just waiting to be flung at the unsuspecting. The pasteitjes are done, awaiting the ragout. The advocaat is cooling, the stuffing, mashed potatoes and veggies are under way.
Just enough time to take a breather and wish all of you a very happy and contented holiday season!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from Gwydion & Trinity Stone!
This is the sort of “competition” that I welcome with gratitude:
“Pernod Ricard is seeking to breathe new life into absinthe by targeting its own namesake brand of the controversial spirit at the arts and fashion world.”
First of all there’s no way that I—or any other artisanal distiller—can compete with an industrial distiller such as P-R in terms of volume or marketing power and penetration. Pernod Ricard’s market share is around 27% and they own many of the most well-known spirits brands in the world. They have bottomless pockets.
But ultimately, it’s what’s in the bottle that counts. Based on that alone, I remain confident.
International director for Pernod absinthe, Jean-François Collobert says: “If this category is well-managed by the main players, then it could one day become a major category.”
Here’s hoping that they really do bring back the authentic, original, Pernod Fils formula (without FD&C Yellow #5 and Blue #2).
Full Text of I-1183
Ever since I first heard about it, I’ve gone back and forth any number of times about whether to write a post about I-1183. That’s partly because I’ve gone back and forth on how I felt about it. And that’s because it’s convoluted and vague in a number of areas, even for a legal document, and it’s not easy to suss out what it actually does.
I admit I felt complacent. I really thought that—just like last year—the public would recognize that this initiative was never about making spirits more conveniently or economically available… for the consumer. But people are lazy. They listen to the sound bytes and catch phrases and make their decisions based on marketing rather than reading the thing for themselves. Who can blame them? Legalese is BS.
My reflexive response to I-1183 is somewhat ad hominem: follow the money, who’s wrote this, who will really benefit? For those who may not know, the major supporters of this initiative ($23 million) were Costco, Trader Joe’s and Safeway.
I support privatization, but this wasn’t the way to do it. The initiative system has been thoroughly abused by well-funded corporate interests. I’m not at all happy about seeing over 900 people left jobless, some after decades of service. To be frank, as someone who has struggled with unemployment in the past (artist, no degree, go figure), watching a corporate coup like this pretty much pisses me off.
Now I see that Costco is inviting WSLCB employees to apply with them. Seriously? I think Costco, Trader Joe’s and Safeway should be obligated to hire WSLCB employees who are laid-off due to the change. After all, they spent a lot of money to put these people out of work.
I’m actually grateful that I don’t have product in the system right now. Since the WSLCB must divest itself of all assets by June 1st, it’s possible that suppliers may have to buy back their products that are still in stores at that date, and pick them up from the retail stores themselves. This plan hasn’t been fully formulated yet, so let’s see how it shakes out.
After reading other parts of the initiative that deal specifically with distillers, I felt conflicted about sales and distribution changes.
On the one hand, I can automatically self-distribute: sell wholesale directly to retailers within the state, and sell retail directly to the public by the bottle or by the case. Ironically, distilleries licensed under the “craft” license, may still be limited to retail sales of two liters per day, per person. Standard distilleries will not. That’s a bonus for me, a raw deal for them. But, they’ll still be able to do tastings in-house, I will not.
One the other hand, the current system is pretty handy: I can send shipments to the central warehouse only two miles away, and they send it to liquor stores all over the state. Only one invoice to worry about. All I have to do is generate enough consumer awareness so that folks will ask for it at their local liquor store. Under the new system, I’ll either need to hire a distributor who will buy the stock from me and take care of the rest (for a percentage), and/or I’ll need to develop relationships with the retailers themselves, which means a lot of legwork and even more paperwork, keeping track of a mountain of net-30s.
In the end, no matter how you look at it, this is going to make it harder for most true artisan distillers to stay small and stay in business. I had intended to take a middle road: keep Marteau Absinthe in the national market, but make most of the other spirits in nano-batches for local sales. I may have to reevaluate that plan. I may also have to rely more on contract distilling and private barrel projects than I had intended.
Regarding the 10,000 sq ft rule: (new licenses will be granted only to stores with 10,000 sq ft or more) Apparently, current contract stores (non-state-owned) and current state-owned stores will be grandfathered in and allowed to continue operating, with the state-owned stores’ locations and licenses being publicly auctioned off. That’s better than I had anticipated; at least there’s a possibility for some small specialty stores dealing in products besides the major corporate brands. I’m not really expecting to see a selection of Rhum Agricoles or Amaros at Costco.
A lot is in flux right now and it will get more complicated before it’s all settled. I expect we’ll find many negative aspects to this change, and hopefully many good things as well.
Nothing endures but change.
~ Heraclitus
As you may have noticed, I have some strong opinions on the so-called craft distiller license in Washington State.
I am a craft distiller. I use 17th through 19th century techniques and recipes, and equipment that is literally medieval in in design. It doesn’t get much more hands-on and low-tech than this, not anywhere indoors anyway.
But aside from the foolish notion that a license can confer craftsmanship, I’m concerned about the ill-considered requirements and the misleading way the alleged benefits of this license are habitually portrayed in the media.
I know this makes me sound like the Scrooge of the local spirits scene, but nothing could be further from the truth. I just want everyone concerned to understand the facts about this issue.
I’ve been carefully considering the hindrance/benefit ratio of the craft license for a long time and in the final analysis, it didn’t compare too favorably with the standard license, at least not in my case. So I’m going to opt for a standard distillery permit after all.
Let’s compare the pros and cons exclusive to each license:
Craft Distillery License
Pros
1. Reduced license fee: $100 annually
2. On-site sales and tastings
Cons
1. Limited to 60,000 gallons total production per year
2. Must use at least 51% Washington-grown raw materials (water doesn’t count)
3. On-site sales are limited to two liters per person per day
4. Additional reporting paperwork certifying compliance with the 51% requirement
5. On-site sales are accompanied by additional reporting and compliance paperwork because technically, you’re wholesaling the spirits first to the state and then acting as a retail agent of the state by re-selling them to the consumer.
Standard Distillery License
Pros
1. Unlimited production.
2. Use of raw material from anywhere in the world.
3. Greater range of products within practical feasibility.
Cons
1. License fee: $2000 annually
2. No on-site sales and tastings
So, why am I going for the standard license? It’s a no-brainer, really.
Reason 1. The limits imposed on the distillery. Considering this: the selling points of this new tier of licensing were a) to benefit local agriculture by requiring use of local produce, and b) to encourage the growth of our state’s micro-distilling industry. It’s quite literally counter-productive to impose completely arbitrary limits on production.
51% rule: If a needed ingredient is not grown or made in Washington (such as neutral spirits or sugar cane) , one must produce it here oneself. This requires additional labor and expensive equipment not needed otherwise. It’s a whole different operation model, and one that goes counter to the traditional manufacturing practices of many spirits.
2 Liter per-day rule: Two liters are not evenly divisible by any of the common federally-approved bottle sizes, effectively making the limit actually either 1.5 liters (two 750ml) or 1.875 (two 750mls and one 375ml). Awkward.
Reason 2. I want to grow my business according to my own talent and ingenuity, not have it predestined to plateau and stagnate at a specific, dartboard-generated level determined by someone with literally no experience in the industry. The limit has already been increased by 300% (from 20,000 gallons) since the initial enactment of this license, when those who initially proposed the limit ran up against it. I expect it will be increased again.
Reason 3. I’ve been corresponding with foreign artisan distillers and I’d like to bottle some imported spirits in addition to those I make myself. If I decide to distribute them nationally, as I do with Marteau, the annual production limit will come up pretty quickly.
Reason 4. On-site sales, although fun, emotionally gratifying, and great PR, were not going to make up a meaningful percentage of my business, especially with a two-liter per day limit!
Reason 5. Aside from the on-site sales, I can still do everything I could do with a craft license, and I can do more of it! That means a thriving business for me, more great spirits for you, and more revenue for local farmers from us than from any “craft” distillery.
Remember: a license doesn’t confer craftsmanship or guarantee quality. That can only come from skill, an intimate and caring connection with time-honored processes, and the best quality ingredients available.
In the end, for me, the unfairly limited benefits of the “craft” license are a very puny carrot at the end of too long a stick.
Cheers!
~ Gwydion
I wrote about this cocktail earlier this summer, shortly after I discovered it. Now, thanks to my good friend Pete, it has a name. He sort of informed me that that’s what it was called, so I really didn’t have much of a choice.
I don’t know whether he knew of my occasional propensity to name my cocktails after gemstones and minerals—e.g. the Jasper, Imperial Topaz No. 2, and Cinnabar—but it was a big factor in my gratefully accepting the epithet.
For those who may never have seen one, a stone rose, rock rose, or desert rose is a mineral aggregation composed of sand, iron, and barite crystals (barium sulfate), as seen to the left.
Stone Rose Cocktail
2 ounces applejack
1/2 ounce lime juice
1/2 ounce G. Stone’s True Ceylon Cinnamon syrup
1/4 ounce grenadine
Shaken, strained, garnished with lime wedge.
For accurate historic information about absinthe, please visit:
