Governments Crack Down on Copper!

The issue of copper contaminated spirits

What we have predicted for some time now is starting to happen. Governments crack down on copper poisoning. As you all should know, copper is a heavy metal. There are strict rules about how much copper foods and drinks may contain, to prevent consumers falling gravely ill by an overexposure to this toxic substance.

Many distillers still use copper distilling equipment to produce their spirits. The choice for a copper still results in copper contaminated drinks. Craft distillers are more prone to producing copper contaminated drinks, because they usually run their stills less often than Big Alcohol. Longer times between runs result in the oxidation of more copper rust. More copper rust results in higher contamination levels in the spirits one is producing.

To prevent copper contaminated drinks from poisoning consumers, governments have put strict rules in place. And governments employ inspectors to make sure food items are (relatively) free of copper particle contamination. But what can you do, as a craft distiller, to prevent that your spirits are prohibited to be distributed, sold, served, or consumed, because of too high copper concentrations?

Solutions

Here is some advise:

• Do not use a copper still, but choose a stainless steel still instead;
• Well-controlled fermentations are a better solution to elevated sulfur levels than copper stills;
• So invest in high-tech fermenters and stainless steel stills, instead of low-tech fermenters and copper stills;
• If you still want to use copper, use it as low in the (stainless steel) column as possible;
• Never ever use copper in the downward trajectory and/or after the final gas-to-liquid phase-change.

We hope this information helps you make better decisions and produce better, healthier spirits. Healthy spirits precede a healthy customer base, just like a healthy customer base precedes a financially healthy business.

Real world recall of craft distilled spirit

Here's a link to a recall by the Canadian government:

https://recalls-rappels.canada.ca/en/alert-recall/taynton-bay-spirits-brand-pickle-vodka-recalled-due-elevated-levels-copper?fbclid=IwAR06aQ0BGZdbcfABTl0odqcEpj8s0J7U0iEwLxzCsG_b9xIWw5tnr4mu-qg

It concerns a craft distillery that uses traditional copper stills to manufacture - among others - vodka. The vodka has too much copper contamination and is recalled in order to protect public health.

My struggle

Please understand that I have struggled with how to approach this. On the one hand I do not want to damage the reputation of even one single craft distillery, where it feels irrelevant if this is an iStill customer or not (of course they do not use iStills).

At the same time I feel a responsibility to inform the craft distilling industry about the associated hazards of producing copper contaminated spirits, as they can result in sick customers, recalls, and business closure. Producers of copper stills won't tell you, so I guess it is really up to me. And the distillery that saw its vodka recalled did break the rules and this has been publicly announced by the Canadian Government already ...

How iStill helps

What we did is approach the distillery, inform them that we have solutions, and are willing to prioritize them to help solve their issues. After that, we have given them a few months to clean up their act, which they might or might not have done. As our message of help was not followed up on by them, we simply don't know what they did.

But they did screw up. And you shouldn't. The craft distilling industry deserves a good reputation. If for no other reason that you, one of our 1200 customers out there, chose to invest in equipment that counters copper contamination! Our customers, more than anyone else, went the extra mile, and therefore deserve a future without a copper-smeared reputation. That's why this iStill Blog post needed to be written. The short-term fall-out I'll get from publishing this is less important than the long-term fall-out that copper infested craft spirits will have on the industry's reputation and viability as a whole.

At your service,

Drs. H.E.J. (Odin) van Eijk, MScBA, etc.

Founder, owner, and CEO of iStill.