Thursday, April 16, 2009

I-search Search

I thought there would be more information about this on the Internet than I would be able to sort through, boy was I wrong. I tried every different type of search I could conceive of. I got a lot more out of the interviews that I conducted than I did from anywhere else. It was really cool getting the inside scoop from the people that do this everyday. I have however decided that this is a good thing, the fact that there is little information available specific to making meat or savory flavored alcohol means that no one has done it yet. If I’m the first and this sparks interest in even a small percentage of bars I could do enough business to keep this interesting.

The first searches I did on the Internet were all about equipment. This was pretty helpful when it came to making alcohol and finding alcohol making supplies in general. I learned about pot stills and micro stills and turbo yeasts. I saw stills in all sizes, little stove top ones all the way up to giant barn sized ones. I also was able to find a lot of videos of people actually making alcohol. When it comes to making booze and finding the places to buy the stuff to make it, there is plenty of information out there.

Then I did some searches on companies that make alcohol. I was looking around to see if this was possible and if it was I wanted to know if it was cost effective. I found out that there are websites for several different companies that make alcohol that are looking to sell it to the highest bidder, sort of like EBay. Almost all of these manufacturers are Russian but I did find some from India. I was intrigued by this whole process and I was surprised to find what seems like no manufacturers in the US that participate in this bid type process.

Next I looked around for flavoring manufacturers. It turned out I was looking specifically for water based liquid savory flavorings. It took a lot of searching to find out that I was even looking for this. I checked out the International Food Technologies website on a recommendation from my mother, a food science professor at UMO. I found an army of flavoring resources here and several companies that made exactly what I was looking for. Almost all of them had a very easy to fill out form to request samples of there concentrates. I filled out several sample request forms and already have samples to try some first step trials and some very preliminary testing.

Then before I went to interviews I went to compliance. I toured Maine.gov and Janus (also a state website) and began to poke around with some key words like Distillation, small brewer, wine production. I tried Google and I tried searching Maine’s websites and still couldn’t find all the information I was looking for. Not to be that guy, but this was the least helpful area to search. It’s very hard to find exactly what you want on the states website. Additionally, when I tried to reach out to state employees that I know in the field it took a very long time to get a response if I got one at all.

Lastly and most beneficially I looked to consulting with contacts that I had in the business that produced liquors for the masses. There are two distilleries in Maine, White Rock, and Maine Distilleries which makes cold river vodka. I was able to arrange tours of both facilities and was able to talk to the plant managers about the entire process. Between these two experts and the others that work for these companies that I was able to talk to, I found out more than I did anywhere else. It became real clear to me that the internet is no substitute for talking to a subject matter expert.

1 comment:

  1. Mike--really really topnotch and excellent. Most people treat this section as an annoyance; you really give it a wonderful ride. I can't say enough....

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