We often talk about contract whiskey distillers as a homogenous group providing similar services. Much of this is attributable to the rapid expansion of the contract market over the last several years, particularly during and shortly after the pandemic. It seemed easy and profitable. Produce whiskey for others while you create your own brands. Hire a former “Master Distiller,” build a rudimentary facility, crank out barrels, and you’ll be off to the races. This approach, coupled with a get-rich-quick mentality, drove rapid growth and expansion in the contract market.
New contract distilleries were built, while others expanded their existing production. Some acquired competitors to try to corner the market by creating massive capacity. All of this seemed to happen at break-neck speed. Then the market changed and exposed so many problems. By now it should be clear to everyone – – all contract distilling is not the same. Not only does the contract whiskey market have its own unique dynamics, but the distilleries, operational teams, services, experience level, and quality of production are all vastly different. In fact, there are many misconceptions in the market.
Let’s start with a very basic one. Many people think building a distillery is the hard part. While it certainly isn’t easy, operating it is an entirely different animal. To do it well requires incredible experience. To do it exceptionally well takes something else – – something that did not exist in the market until recently. A facility designed from its inception to produce the highest-quality custom whiskey, while enabling incredible flexibility and consistency.
To understand this, let’s explore a fundamental principle. The large, legacy distilleries produce the highest-quality whiskey for the lowest cost. Why? Because they run one to four different mash bills through a massive system and keep complete consistency across the system without disruption. Consistency through a massive system produces exceptional distillate.
For contract production, the ultimate question is, can you achieve the same consistency of production of the large legacy distilleries, while having the flexibility to run numerous mash bills though the system without any disruption? Process disruptions not only create inefficiencies, but they also impact quality.
We solved this engineering challenge Whiskey House of Kentucky, which is now the most advanced distillery in the world, designed from the ground-up for custom whiskey production. We took the best practices, programs, and advanced technology from the contract food industry and applied them to distilling. Thanks to our design, sequence of operations, automation, fully closed-loop system, and AI backed technology, Whiskey House can achieve the quality of production from a massive system, while having the flexibility to cycle through multiple mash bills, as many as fourteen at a time. There is simply nothing like it in the industry.
