What’s it like competing with the mass-produced, mass-marketed spirits industry?
What would you like to see emerge in the U.S. liquor industry in the near future? Well, I think we’re on the right track. I don’t have any problem with these guys buying vodka in a drum and putting it in a bottle with a cute label and then calling themselves distillers. Some of them are going to make a whole lot of money quickly, and that seems to be what mainly concerns them. But then there are people making vodka from scratch — from potatoes, from grapes. We’re experimenting with vodkas here now, not because we really want to sell one, but just because we’re interested in learning how to make them, and how to make them good. You want a robust group of independent, reasonably financially stable people making distillates with increased understanding and sophistication about marketing. So we don’t know exactly what a good, healthy distilling industry is going to look like in 15, 20, or 30 years. The majors will still be there — you know, the Seagram’s and Smirnoff. Global consolidation
