Introduction

A perfect storm is a situation where multiple unfavorable circumstances converge. Imagine big waves, hard winds, a cold front, and the darkness of night all conversing on that one ship, in the middle of the ocean. The craft distilling industry is facing its own perfect storm. But with perfect storm comes perfect opportunity. Let's investigate what is going on!

Unfavorable circumstances

Energy and grain prices are at all-time highs. This puts a strain on craft distillers' input costs. In plain English: the costs of goods produced rise significantly. In even plainer English: it costs more to produce a bottle of spirit at the expense of profit.

Labor is hard to get by. This results in rising staffing costs, that - again - make the costs of goods produced rise significantly. Or, if the owner is both the sales person and the distiller, it results in less attention and focus on sales and marketing, hurting revenue streams.

Inflation, interest rates, and uncertainty are on the rise. This makes it harder to come up with a business plan that shows a profit. New entries to the market may postpone their plans, existing distillers may decide to hold-off on further investments.

Components are in short supply. This makes setting up a distillery take longer, because the parts and tools you need might take longer to acquire. With shortages come higher prices. More people fighting over the same limited resource? That results in this resource becoming more expensive.

Favorable perspective

Consumers are looking for adventure, for a story rather than a one-liner. And local beats global each and every time. The trend of localization - as a counter-weight to seven decades of globalization - is here to stay.

So there you have it: looking at our industry, there is both an amazing perspective as well as four major threats. What do we need to do, to turn that perspective into the prefect opportunity? Here's what we need to do: we need to simply take counter-measures for the threats of input costs, labor shortages, uncertainty, and component shortages. Each and every threat needs to be dealt with.

Curiously enough, that is exactly what we have been doing at iStill. Curiously enough, iStill has been preparing the exact counter-measures you need in order to turn this perfect storm into a perfect opportunity.

Creating a perfect opportunity

iStill unfortunately cannot help with lower grain prices, but we do offer a solution for the energy part of the peaking input costs. iStills use 70 to 75% less energy. The savings you make on energy will offset the rising energy costs and most of the higher substrate costs as well.

iStills are designed to take care of the repetitive tasks associated with distilling. As a result, they help save 1,0 to 1,5 FTE on the work floor. Investing in an iStill basically makes your additional staffing costs, as far as production is concerned, go to zero.

Starting a distillery comes with many uncertainties. Spirit quality and equipment longevity can be added to the list discussed above. Can I make great enough spirits, drinks that make a difference, have an impact? Does my production equipment support the products I want to make? iStills are the most versatile machines on the market. One unit can make any spirit. Our controls ensure the highest spirit quality. Longevity? How about our 10 year warranty!

Do you want to hit the market sooner rather than later, tapping into the huge commercial potential offered by local drinks production? A less component-dense still at a more affordable price-point supports this move. The all-new iStill "Essential"-series is designed to achieve just that: lower priced units that can be delivered quickly, yet still take the guessing out of distilling.

Prediction and conclusion

The only craft distillers that can turn today's perfect storm into a perfect opportunity are the ones choosing for our amazing technology. Sorry for the copper fetishists, sorry for the romantics and nostalgics, but 1870's technology no longer cuts it. Not in the 21st Century.

Outsail the storm with iStill ...

www.iStill.com