Are Micro-Distilleries Abusing the Title of Master Distiller?

by Charles K. Cowdery,
http://www.bourbonstraight.com
First published in The Bourbon Country Reader,
Volume 11, Number 1, February, 2008.

We don't know where it started, probably Scotland, this use of the title master distiller.
What does it mean?
In the crafts guild tradition of Europe, the modifier "master" before the name of a craft, like "master builder," meant a person who had passed through all of the developmental stages, had become established and known in the field, and was operating at the highest possible level. It meant the person was fully proficient at the craft.
Every guild had its own rules but, in general, one became a master by being acknowledged as one by those who already bore the title. It primarily was an emblem of peer recognition.
The dictionary says a master is, "a worker qualified to teach apprentices and carry on the craft independently."
But master can also mean employer, any person who has control over others. So the idea that a master distiller is a distillery manager is not out of left field, but a plain reading of the whole term has to include the traditional crafts guild meaning too. A master is a person who is qualified to teach in a field and to practice in that field, unsupervised, independently, and at the highest level.
In the contemporary whiskey-making business, master distiller has generally come to mean "boss distiller," both a supervisor and trainer of other distillers, and a supervisor of all persons involved in distillery operations. It also has come to mean, in very recent usage, a whiskey producer's chief quality control officer. That role makes sense too.
Most master distillers today also have a marketing role. The master distiller is more than a brand ambassador. The master distiller is the brand's personification. Today, most master distillers at the major producers oversee distillery operations. A few are primarily tasters and barrel-pickers. We have co-master distillers. It means something a little different at each company. But isn't there some expectation that regardless of what else the term connotes, it will continue to have the traditional crafts guild meaning of a person who, after long training as an apprentice and long practice as a journeyman, has earned the right to be called master by mastering every detail of the craft? Isn't there also, in that crafts guild tradition, an expectation that master designation requires recognition from your ostensible peers, the people who already are acknowledged as masters?
Which brings us to the people who call themselves master distiller because they bought a still and have started a business they call a distillery, the proprietors of the new micro-distilleries that are popping up all over. Who made them master distillers? What are their credentials? Who taught them? Where have they worked? What have they made?
What have they done other than write a check and read an instruction manual?
No names will be named here. There is a case to be made that if you operate a distillery you are, ergo, a master distiller. But if we accept that, don't we lose something important? Also, there is nothing wrong with the title "distiller," without the modifier.
Many of these new master distillers are experienced brewers or winemakers, so they have some relevant skills.
This publication has expressed reservations before about the often juvenile behavior of this young movement, in which people who say they want to be taken seriously as professionals act more like hobbyists, or like little kids pretending to be cowboys or astronauts.
The really sad thing is, we would love to get excited about micro-distillery projects and products, but when we look, to quote Gertrude Stein, there is just no there there. People who read this publication would love to support a good, honest, well-made micro-distilled American whiskey. We just haven't found one yet. So, our question is this:

If you're a master distiller, how come we've never heard of you?
Charles Cowdery
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Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey to be Featured on The History Channel

Modern Marvels "Whiskey" Program

DENVER Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey, based in LODO (Lower Downtown), will be featured on The History Channel's Modern Marvels program entitled "Whiskey" on March 17 at 8 p.m. Mountain Standard Time.
On St. Patrick's Day, The History Channel's new Modern Marvels program entitled "Whiskey" will take viewers on a tour around the world revealing techniques and idiosyncrasies of distilleries in Ireland, Scotland, Kentucky, Japan and Colorado - via Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey, cultivated in Colorado's first ever micro-distillery. The program promises to provide insight into production methods, storage conditions, and the personalities of the distillers themselves.
"We're excited to spread the word about our distinctive, small-batch straight Rocky Mountain whiskey that sets a new classification for whiskey," said Jess Graber, founder and majority owner.
Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey embraces the true pioneering spirit of the West using unique distilling techniques (patent pending) that blend the processes used to make both Scotch and Bourbon whiskeys. The result is a spirit with a traditionally Bourbon amber-red color, but with a lighter, smoother taste than other whiskeys on the market.
Stranahan's Colorado Whiskey is the collaboration of whiskey enthusiast Jess Graber and liquor connoisseur George Stranahan. Because the whiskey is entirely handcrafted, production is limited, with Stranahan's producing in a year what some distillers make in a day.
Bottles are currently on sale in select markets and are also available at the distillery. A 750 mL bottle retails for $54.99. For more information, visit
www.stranahans.com
or call 303-296-7440.

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Just a quick note to invite you to check out a newsletter on beer, wine and spirits: Lyke2Drink http://Lyke2Drink.blogspot.com
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Mike Sherwood admits to creating "kind of a tease" with his artisan vodkas.

His two expressions of Sub Rosa vodka -- one saffron, the other tarragon -- are head and shoulders above most assembly line infused vodkas, many of which use extracts and chemicals for their flavorings. But the fact that he makes them only one 50-case lot at a time in rented quarters is both their blessing and their curse.
The blessing: "These infusions are made from fresh herbs and spices, hence the true flavors and natural colors. I don't use extracts or a flavor house to obtain the delicate flavors in my tarragon. Each of eight spices are infused separately for the saffron, then blended."
The curse: Because manufacturing is severely limited, the two vodkas are available only on the West Coast or through vendors located there. Last month, California joined Oregon, Sherwood's home state, and Washington as his market. Luckily for consumers, he's in talks with a Washington, D.C., distributor to break into the East Coast.
In his Tasting Notes he said this in addition to the blog post above:
Limited production and limited distribution may be the only thing keeping these vodkas from being the Next Big Thing. Each is 90 proof and infused with fresh herbs and spices, creating true flavors and natural colors.
http://dowdtastingnotes.com/
Jamie Boudreau of the Vessel bar in Seattle liked 'em : Since the bottles say that they are vodka, I guess I've got to believe it, but I'd want to give these spirits a different classification altogether, as they are that unique.
http://spiritsandcocktails.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/sub-rosa-the-magic-esdragon/
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Distill life in Wisconsin

A Minneapolis man is distilling his own vodka in a small town in Wisconsin, part of a national trend of high-end liquor.

NEW RICHMOND, WIS. In his knee-high rubber boots, Paul Werni doesn't look like a trend-setter. But every morning he says goodbye to his wife and three kids in Minneapolis and drives an hour east.
In a steel-skinned shoebox of a building he built behind the New Richmond Wal-Mart, Werni goes to work distilling his own vodka.
"Sometimes I wonder what the heck I got myself into," he says. "But if it works, it will be fun."
Werni's 45th Parallel Vodka is part of a national boom of small, start-up, batch-by-batch distillers making top-shelf spirits. In stores and bars for only a few months, Werni's hand-crafted vodka will make its first big splash this weekend at the 14th annual Twin Cities Food & Wine Experience -- a 250-exhibit, $65-a-ticket gourmet fair at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
"The micro-distilling industry is precisely where the micro-brew business was 20 years ago," said Bill Owens, president of the American Distilling Institute in Hayward, Calif.
As a brewmaster and photojournalist, Owens was credited with sparking the micro-brew craze. Now, his www.distilling.com site is trumpeting what Time magazine last month called "a renaissance of high-class hooch and hand-crafted artisanal American spirits."
Only a handful of these mom-and-pop distilleries were in business in 1990. Now there are more than 100.
"It's happening in the coastal towns of Oregon and New York and is just starting to hit the Midwest," Werni said.
Owens stopped by Werni's operation recently and liked what he tasted -- amid the Willy Wonkaesque-factory of copper stills, stainless steel fermenting tanks and buckets of finely ground corn from his neighbor's farm.
"I'd rank him one or two in the nation in having his act together," Owens said. "He planned and built a free-standing building from scratch and Werni's got the vision of a craft distillery entrepreneur of the highest level."
Unique but not alone
Not that Werni, 42, is the only Minnesotan making vodka. Among others are farmers outside Benson, who helped retrofit an ethanol plant in 2003 and poured their wheat into the wildly successful Shakers vodka.
Owens, however, scoffs at any comparison.
"In Benson, there's a half-dozen workers and the cooling towers roar like jet engines and everything's automated," he said. "When you walk in Werni's door, his dog is sitting by him at his desk."
Werni has two employees, including his father. After 27 years as a telephone repairman and a short stint owning Paul's Pub in his hometown of Merrill, Wis., Paul Werni Sr. has come out of retirement to stir his son's mash, liquefy his yeast and add enzymes to the concoction.
"I work cheap," the elder Werni said. "I thought it was a great idea until I realized how much work was involved. But it's pretty interesting and I hope he makes it. He's got a lot of IOUs but he's paying his bills."
His son sold his share of a landscape business three years ago, pumped nearly $700,000 into his heavily mortgaged dream and did his homework.
Father and son attended distilling seminars in Kentucky, visited startups in New Hampshire and went to Germany to buy the top stills and rectifying towers. There were tedious federal and state permits to obtain in the richly regulated world of vodka-making 75 years after Prohibition was repealed.
Becoming a vodka geek
Werni picked the 45th Parallel name because New Richmond, a western Wisconsin town of 7,000, sits just off the line that runs halfway between the North Pole and equator.
Over time, Werni has blossomed into a full-fledged vodka geek. He jots down notes in a spiral notebook for each batch and orchestrates the whole process, from fetching his corn at neighbor Arlen Strate's farm to bottling the stuff one bottle at a time with a pair of unsophisticated vacuum-pump bottle fillers.
He climbs a ladder to dump the corn into a swirling, steel mash tank. As it runs through tubes and up into a 22-foot fermenting column, the alcohol is carefully heated and cooled so the yeast isn't stunted.
The result is a 95 percent alcohol liquid that is blended with water until the alcohol content is 40 percent. A carbon filtering process absorbs impurities and minerals.
"If you do too much filtering, you're left with a vacant spirit with ... more of medicinal smell," Werni said. "The craftsmanship comes when you try to make sure each batch is similar in taste. Knowing when it feels right and what's acceptable for the market."
U.S.-made vodka has grown into a $10 billion market thanks to the ultra-premium brands. All told, the spirits industry is worth about $58 billion, but big brands such as Smirnoff outsell the small distilleries such as Werni's in a week.
Each bottle sells for about $30, and Werni is elbowing his way onto the crowded shelves. He has been selling about 600 bottles a month and hopes to boost production to 1,000 bottles a month.
"There's a plethora of vodkas," Werni said. "The only thing that makes us different is we are truly, 100 percent hand-crafted. That's our niche and that's what we're banking on."

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Looking for 50ml bottles, glass preferable but plastic would work too. Any amount up to 500.
Call Mary @ Cascade Peak Spirits
541-482-3160
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The Scotland whiskey tour will be May 6-10th. 2008.
--To request a schedule of the event e-mail Bill@distilling.com
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To read back issues of DISTILLER newsletter?
Go to:
http://distilling.com/backissues.html
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The link to DSP permits is: http://ttb.gov/foia/fri.shtml
Over 300 DSP licenses with 127 being craft distilleries. The rest are industrial distilleries and importers. Check their websites to see if they really distill.
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--To obtain a distilled spirits permit go to:
">http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/index.shtml

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--To obtain TTB list of DSPs go to: http://www.ttb.gov/foia//err.shtml

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--To obtain TTB statistics on distilling go to: www.ttb.gov then scroll down to "spirits" and then the "year".
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--To obtain Distilled Spirits Laws and Regulations go to: http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/spirits_regs.shtml

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--To obtain label regulations go to: http://www.ttb.gov/spirits/bam.shtml distilled spirits manual circular.
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