SafSpirit™ C-70

MULTIPURPOSE STRAIN, VERY POPULAR WITH RUM PRODUCERS

• Produces very high quality alcohol with subtle congeners from a variety of substrates

• Excellent option for low- and medium gravity grain mash fermentation impressive distilleries and gleaned number of insights on how to be increasingly effective in achieving our various legislative agendas.

Lastly, we’re partnering with Binny’s, DISCUS, and the United States Bartender’s

Guild (USBG) to bring back the much-anticipated Distillinois event on June 13 at the Binny’s flagship store in Lincoln Park. It will coincide with the DISCUS conference in Chicago to showcase the amazing variety of spirits being produced throughout Illinois. The following evening June 14, DISCUS will be hosting a Chicago Cocktail Hour featuring Illinois craft distilleries for its members at the Marriott Marquis Chicago.

Ari Klafter President, Illinois Craft Distillers Association Head Distiller, Thornton Distilling Company

New York New York State Distillers Guild

The New York State Distillers Guild held its annual meeting in the state capital for the first time this year. We took advantage of the Albany venue to execute our first-ever coordinated Lobby Day, for which we scheduled nearly 30 meetings for the 60+ distillers we had in attendance.

Our distillers met with legislative leaders and many of their own elected state senators and assembly members. They made the case

— both objectively and passionately — for the need for public policy support for the industry, just as the state has provided to other beverage sectors in recent history. The guild’s major priorities this year are direct-to-consumer shipping and an alcoholic beverage production credit, an important parity bill. The production credit language made it into state budget legislation, which is nearing a vote as of this writing.

The guild continues to fight for parity with other beverage producers and recognition of our special role in support of Empire State agriculture, tourism, and small manufacturing. Distillers deserve the same production credit treatment and market access as our peers in other beverage sectors.

The guild meeting also provided fantastic access — featuring extended Q&A — with our top regulators at the New York State Liquor Authority, and education on marketing and agricultural opportunities from our partners at the State Department of Agriculture and Markets and Empire State Development. And we enjoyed robust trade show participation by our sponsors.

Teresa Casey Executive Director

North Carolina Distillers Association Of North Carolina

The Distillers Association of North Carolina (DANC) held its Annual Business Meeting on March 20 at Cultivated Cocktails in Asheville. We had 55 people attend the meeting, including representatives from 24 distilleries and nine vendors who showcased their services and products for distillers. Representatives from the NC ABC Commission and the NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services also attended.

During the meeting, principal members voted to elect four members to DANC's Board of Directors to serve for the 2023-24 term. Per the bylaws, the board of directors then elected officers.

Thanks to Richard Chapman of Bogue

Sound Distillery for his service as vice-president and board member for the past four years, and thanks to Jonathan Blitz of Mystic Farm and Distillery for his service as a board member during the 2021–2022 term!

PRESIDENT

Leah Howard

Cultivated Cocktails, Asheville

VICE PRESIDENT

Bruce Tyler

Weldon Mills Distillery, Weldon

TREASURER

Ashlee Ellis

Old Nick Williams Company, Lewisville

DANC's initial 2023 legislative agenda was presented during the annual business meeting. The legislative priorities were based on the survey responses received from DANC distillery members. Our priorities include taxation reductions, distillery regulation, and further parity with

SECRETARY

Rhonda Glass

End of Days Distillery, Wilmington

Shannon Childress

Bogue Sound Distillery, Bogue

Angelique de Buhr

Southern Distilling Company, Statesville

Matt Simpkins

Oaklore Distilling Company, Matthews

Chad Slagle

Two Trees Distilling Company, Fletcher

Pete Barger

Immediate Past President

Southern Distilling Company, Statesville (Ex-Officio) breweries and wineries. The North Carolina General Assembly will be in session through July, and DANC will be working with legislators to get our priorities enacted into state law.

Leah Howard President, Distillers Association of North Carolina CEO, Cultivated Cocktails

Ohio

Ohio Distillers Guild

Currently, the Ohio guild is working hard on planning another notable guild event this fall. The event, created in tandem with Helmick Farms, is positioned to raise funds for the guild and our activities and efforts overall. Situated on dozens of beautiful acres, the event will undoubtedly be memorable. More than a thousand spirits lovers are expected to be in attendance.

We also continue to work hard on House Bill 86. This bill, once passed, will allow us to increase our production to one million gallons. What that means to all of us is that, once passed, the bill will allow Ohio restaurants to continue to house and expand distilleries inside of their locations — and will impact such brands as Midwest, Watershed and more. These are big hurdles, but we’re confident we’ll be able to overcome them.

We’re proud to announce we were very successful in launching our new bottle in conjunction with 451 Spirits, Cleveland Whisky and Echo Distribution. In fact, we’re currently distributing around the entire State of Ohio. This, for sure, is the crown jewel for our guild.

As well, we’d like to announce that we’re working hard to put together another powerful event in Greater Columbus in August 2023. Although our location is still undetermined, the event will essentially be a local spirits event, one which we know will be a big win for spirits brands throughout Ohio. More details will follow on that, shortly.

In Ohio, we’re investing, we’re growing, we’re hiring, and we do pay our fair share of taxes. The problem of course is that there’s a cap on our growth, and that, quite frankly, doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Under current law, once we exceed production of 100,000 gallons, we automatically lose our rights to sell bottles at our facility. That would change the financial equation as it pertains to any distillery tours or on-site events. When people visit our distillery, whether local or more than often out-of-state, they want to buy our bottles, it’s part of the customer experience.

And for anyone who’s ever been on the Kentucky Bourbon Trail, it’s expected. If we can’t do that, we lose money, we lose customers, and the State of Ohio loses tax revenue. It’s that simple. It's an artificial cap on how we do business, an artificial cap on how we grow. House Bill 86 would fix that.

The second part of HB 86 is repealing the fee that customers have to pay when sampling our spirits at an Ohio liquor store. If you sample wine and beer, there’s no fee. If you sample a spirit, there is a 50-cent fee.

Finally, we’d like to celebrate just how much our guild has grown. Currently, there are 100 distillers licensed in the state of Ohio. Each year we grow by leaps and bounds, which in turn, of course, positively impacts agriculture in the state of Ohio. These farms deserve to be recognized alongside the Ohio Distillers Organization. They’re truly amazing.

Oklahoma Oklahoma Distillers Guild

The single biggest issue Oklahoman distilleries are facing at this time is with HB1682. This is a bill which, broadly speaking, would

South Carolina

South Carolina Craft Distillers Guild

The South Carolina Craft Distillers Guild (SCCDG) has been thinking of more ways to help all members in different stages of their distillery journey. In order to expand allow distilleries to:

1) have offsite tasting rooms

2) sell their spirits as cocktails in tasting rooms and at offsite events/festivals (rather than just as a sample or neat pour)

The bill has passed out of the House and is headed to a floor vote in the Senate. The bill was written with emergency measures so that if it passes in the Senate, the Governor’s signature would make it effective immediately.

Jeffrey Alan Cole Spirits Director/Distiller, WanderFolk Spirits

guild resources to more potential members, SCCDG has introduced two new membership opportunities, Distillery-in-Planning and the Emerging Distillery Scholarship. The Distillery-in-Planning membership was created for distillers planning to start the distillery process but who may not know how to begin. For $400 per year, member benefits will include an invitation to the annual meeting, weekly policy updates during the SC legislative session, invitations to guild events, and much more. The membership will remain effective from the date of signing up. Our guild looks forward to offering this membership tier as a way for more distilleries to open across South Carolina, thus increasing our economic impact statewide.

When discussing how new distillers in need of extra funds can receive help from the guild to advance their distillery journey, the Emerging Distillery Scholarship was created.

Each interested distiller will be required to submit an application, and the recipient will be selected by the SCCDG Board of Directors.

Campbell Mims Executive Director South Carolina Craft Distillers Guild

WRITTEN BY DAVID SCHUEMANN