Beauties and the Beasts

One of my pet peeves is when I go into a liquor store, I see someone doing a tasting, usually a good looking woman in a tight dress, and they know absolutely nothing about the product they are tasting you on. I have even seen them completely ignore customers as they walk by.

A friend said they walked by a table five times, looking at the table, before the taster asked if they wanted to try a sample. Some are so busy texting or playing on their phones, they might as well not even be there. A poster of a good looking woman and a self-serve table would be a better use of resources. There are a few exceptions to this, as I have seen the pretty woman doing a tasting and they had an intimate knowledge of the business, the products and the processes. Never assume.

Here are a few signs that the person doing the tasting does not work for the company. They have their nose buried in their phone. They are not actively engaging the customers or the staff in conversation. They have no knowledge of the product in general. They come into the store and have to borrow everything for the tasting (that one is for the liquor store employees).

 We joke that the other distilleries send out good looking women to do their tastings while we, a woman owned distillery, send out our stable of good looking men, who know about the products and the processes involved in making them, because on any given day they are part of the process. It started out that way because there were only two of us that made up the business and the distiller was doing most of the tasting demos. Our first intern/employee was Alex, a woman, who later went on to graduate school then we hired our first full time employee, our marketing guy Sam, who now does most of the tastings. It just seemed to go on from there. We chose knowledge (and rugged good looks) over just good looks because I think people want to know about what they are drinking, the company and about the people who are making it. When was the last time you got to talk to the person who actually made your Spirits? Yes, our distiller still goes out and does tastings. Cheers!

Share the Goodness

I run into people who are amazed at the quality of our products at such a reasonable price point. They gush how awesome and special it is and then they say that it should be used only for special occasions. Thank you and you are mistaken. Yes I think our products are pretty amazing, are priced so that the average person can enjoy amazingly good spirits without breaking the bank and the price point is exactly why our Spirits should be your daily Spirits, not just for “special occasions”. I also get the statement that since they are sipping smooth it would be a crime to mix them. So they will get a cheaper Spirit for mixing. Again, thank you and you are mistaken. Yes our Spirits are extremely smooth and that’s also why they make an excellent mixed drink. If you have to burry your alcohol in mixer to make it tolerable, I think something is fundamentally wrong with your concept of enjoying a beverage. Now, I enjoy sitting in front of a roaring fire, sipping on a fine Spirit, with a good friend and having an intense conversation as much as anyone else but I also enjoy an amazing Native gin and tonic (or 2) while walking through my mother-in-law’s garden. What I’m saying is, to put it bluntly, you can’t polish a turd.

The other thing I hear from people is that they are going to a party and they wouldn’t think of bringing such a fine Spirit as ours to share with their friends. They would horde it for themselves. Do you ever wonder why your friends don’t bring anything decent to drink to your parties? Again, at $23.95, our Vodka is a great value (especially when we get compared to Grey Goose at $35.95 or Belvedere at $30.95). I say to you, share the tastiness! Be the one with taste at your next gathering and bring a little Vivacity to the crowd. Cheers!

Re-inventing the Wheel

Once my wife and I decided a distillery was the way to go, then all we needed was to blaze a path to success. Everyone wants to make their own whiskey (oh, so sexy!), but a decent whiskey takes time to age. So what were we going to do in the mean time? We didn’t have the resources to put whiskey away and wait until it was ready. In a flash of brilliance, we decided that we would make Vodka and then Gin and best of all neither required aging. We were so impressed with ourselves. It wasn’t until a month or so later that we realized we had just reinvented the wheel. It would seem that for quite a few micro-distilleries, the standard business path is to start with vodka then make gin, all the while putting whiskey into barrels. This says something about doing your research. Of course, being ignorant of such things can work in your favor. If we knew “everyone” took this path, would we have balked in our resolve to open a distillery? This makes me think of one of my favorite questions for business or advertising students, “How do you enter and succeed in a market that has already been flooded with your type of product?” But that thought is for another post.

Team Work

            Vivacity Spirits works on a team aspect. Granted, we are pretty small so it is usually “all hands on deck” at work and why our business cards read “Owners, distillers and everything else”. If you think about it any business is a team effort. The Captain of our team is Caitlin.

            In the micro-distilling world, I feel that we are all one big team. I am not as interested in another micro-distilleries market share as I am in Absolute’s or Kahlua’s market share (so much larger). There is an old adage that all boats rise with the tide, which makes us sad that Organic Nation had closed. I feel there has to be a certain mass of distilleries to make this a viable endeavor. I tip my hat to Hood River Distillery, Oregon Distillers permit #1, who helped to forge the way for those of us who followed.

            I feel that people have forgotten how to be happy for others. Now don’t get me wrong, I want to succeed as much as the next person, however, I love to see people with Oregon made products in their hands instead of the mega distilleries products. I also feel that by us supporting other Oregon distilleries makes us more attractive in the eyes of the people (no one likes a whiner). Cheers!

Dress the Part

In our everyday life we judge and are judged solely on appearance. In the Pacific Northwest we have a very casual attitude towards dress codes to say the least. Sometimes this is not a bad thing other times I think it is awful.

I have a friend who is a software engineer. At one time he was working from home; he was getting ready to code and was dressed pretty nicely. I asked why he was dressed “for the office” when he was home alone. His response was, yes, he could code in his underwear but he felt that by dressing professionally he acted and felt more professional and that it was reflected in his work.

I have taken this attitude to heart. I am dressed “for work” every day and I will admit that dressing well makes me feel a bit better (Do the clothes make the man?) and when someone drops in for a visit they are greeted by, hopefully, someone pleasing to their eyes with all the information they could want (sometimes more than they want). Dressing well also keeps in line with our image. We produce very well crafted Spirits for the sophisticated palate and to be dressed in cut off sweats and a stained t-shirt would not go over very well.  On the other hand if we produced “moonshine”, people would be more inclined to expect a dressed down person making the product.

It all comes down to personal preference but I would suggest you try it sometime. You might be surprised how your message is accepted more readily when you are dressed more professionally. Cheers!  

Babysitting the Equipment

When people tour our facilities they are always blown away by how beautiful our big still, Jules, is (so am I actually). Working on Jules is a pleasure; you load him up, make sure the valves are in the correct orientation, then turn on the steam and wait and that’s where the trouble can begin.

The theory is that while the still is warming up, anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour plus, I have free time to do other important tasks such as paperwork, washing and labeling bottles (we still do this by hand), answer emails, you get the point. The problem is that time is relative. How many of you have got so involved doing something (videos on YouTube maybe) only to realize that a couple of hours have passed? This is problematic when you have a still warming up and you don’t pay attention. I have, on more than one occasion, snapped back into focus and rushed into the back room only to find alcohol spilling on the floor. That’s literally money down the drain and I feel like an idiot too.

I hear people bragging how they can multi-task so well and, quite frankly, I don’t believe them. I guess listening to music on your i-Pod or texting and walking is technically multi-tasking and what could be easier? (Check out YouTube videos of distracted texters) I feel if you are doing 3 things at once you are probably doing 3 things poorly because you are not focusing on any one thing or you are focusing on what you are doing that you neglect the other 2 things you were supposed to be doing. For some tasks this is not super critical (doing a task and listening to music. For fun try singing the lyrics to the music and concentrate on your task).

 I have solved this problem, partially, by setting the timer on my i-phone. I have a general idea on the time available to me until I have to pay attention to the still again and I set the alarm using the claxon alarm, which you can’t miss hearing. Again the problem arises when I either forget to set the alarm or set it for too long of a time. Ignoring your equipment for too long could have some dire consequences, alcohol vapor in the air or a pump running dry. In fact just a minute ago I turned my back on the still for just a second, honest, it was just for a second to talk to my landlord and the temperature jumped about 10 degrees and started pushing Rum distillate out the Parrot, very hard. I caught it before it got bad.

 On the other hand though, due to providence perhaps, on rare occasions forgetting to turn off a piece of equipment, say a filtering pump, can result in something pretty darn good. Outcomes like these are very rare; someone has to win the lottery. Some people would say I am being paranoid. I say I am being cautious because of the potential consequences. Either way, I keep a close eye on my equipment. Cheers!

What's in a Name?

In our lives we have a tendency to name inanimate objects. As we spend more time with said objects and learn their particular quirks we tend to anthropomorphize them, thus giving them names, how many of you have names for your cars? There are various ways for naming your equipment, some are related a quirk or noise it makes, it could be based off a descriptor of the object itself or it can be theme based. There are no rules here. I believe one of the reasons to name something is to differentiate one piece of equipment from another. As an example, our first two small fermenters, that are somewhat egg shaped, instantly became Mork and Mindy (younger people don’t get the reference) and we were tempted to name the next fermenter Mearth but instead chose Heckle and Jeckle, our delivery driver suggested this one. I am thinking the next two will have to be Fred and Ginger (sorry Flintstones fans). Other equipment we have named include our first still (25 gallon capacity) T.S.Elliott, the TS stands for tiny still and our large still instantly became Jules, for Jules Verne because with the off-set column it reminded us of something out of “20,000 Leagues under the Sea”. Our labeler is just the labeler and the bottle filler is also just the bottle filler, not everything gets a name; although, if you see me hauling boxes with a hand cart just remember it’s not a dolly it’s an action figure.

 

Quiet the Noise

This post is about slowing down a bit and really enjoying the good things in your life (Mainly your family and friends, preferably with a nice Vivacity Spirit at hand). In our everyday life we are surrounded by so much noise. Some of it is internal (the noise in our heads). The other is external noise. Today I’m going to write about the external noises that distract us from simply being and do not afford us the luxury of enjoying the simple things in our life. I am amazed at how connected everyone is, they have friends all over the globe and can tell you about anything happening in the news. They have their smart phone and are happily plugged in texting, youtubing funny cat videos or perusing Facebook and yet, when was the last time you actually sat face to face with one of your friends or family and just talked? Heaven knows how busy we all are and the distractions are all around us but if you don’t stop, once in a while, and look up, you will find that a lot of life has passed you by.

So, here’s my suggestion:

Turn off the TV

Turn off all the distracting electronic devices

Gather a good friend(s) or family member(s)

Pour each of you a nice cocktail made with Vivacity Fine Spirits or sip it neat

Find a nice comfortable place to sit and have a conversation

Because that’s why we made Vivacity Spirits so smooth. So you could sit around and enjoy them with your family and friends.

Cheers!

People

When I am doing a tasting at a liquor store I get different responses from people coming into the store.

The first is the “Determined Person”; they charge into the store with their head down and their blinders on. They know what they want and don’t have a second’s time to waste. When I greet them with a jovial “Good Evening” some are startled. Where did I just pop up from? (Even though they almost walked right over me to get to their destination.)

The second type of people are the “Happy People”; they come in, see me, head straight over to see what I have and greet me like a friend who is going to offer them some delicious free booze. Don’t we all like those friends?

There are the “Cautious People”; they are the ones who look at me like I have two heads and if they talk to me I just might try to get them to join my cult. Oh how right they are; The Cult of Great Spirits.

There are the “Curious People”; they want to be educated about Spirits, in general, and yours, in particular. They also want to know the back story of you and your business.  I feel like a Zen master dropping pearls of wisdom.

Next is the “Neophyte”; they know nothing about the Spirits world and would like you to give them a comprehensive education about everything Spirits related.

The “Expert” (the polar opposite of the “Neophyte”); they know everything about Spirits (some do some don’t) and they want to quiz you on your knowledge. It usually starts off with, “So, tell me about your (insert Spirit name). Usually this is the person, who knows beyond a doubt, written in stone, that Vodka is only made from potatoes. Wrong! (That is for another blog post).

The “Story Teller” and the “Talker”; I have mixed emotions about these ones. I love to engage in conversation, but after 15 minutes of listening to a story about your uncle Bobo’s fishing trip to Florida, I have to ask you to move on, please.

Last but not least is the “Jerk”; this is the person who doesn’t like what we have to offer and loves to expound, very loudly, how horrible our products are. (See below)

Some people will taste and some won’t. It’s all good. One of my pet peeves is that on occasion someone will try one of my Spirits and not only will they not like it they will tell me what a low quality piece of garbage it is and they yell it to the whole store as if it is their duty so warn the other customers. The first time this happened to me I was mortified! I recovered and asked, “So what you are saying is that my Spirits are not your cup of tea?” Bewildered, they responded with, “Well yeah, that’s what I just said” “No”, I reply,” You said my Spirits are of poor quality.” I explain that there are a lot of different Spirits on the shelves and if you drew a line and said that above the line were good Spirits and below were bad Spirits then there would only be one bottle on the shelf for every type of Spirit and that if you took that further and said that anything above and below were good and bad then there would only be one bottle on the shelf and wouldn’t that be boring. Our Spirits aren’t bad quality, you just don’t like them. At this point they seem to understand what I am saying, give a befuddled nod and move on.

In my experience I have found that there is no Spirit out there no matter how amazing, that someone doesn’t hate it. Conversely, there is no Spirit out there that is so bad that it’s not someone’s favorite. That is why there is more than one bottle on the shelf and isn’t that a wonderful thing! Cheers!

Trying New Things

The other day my niece (age 8) was over visiting with her family and as we sat down for dinner she looked at the food being served, pointed to a dish and stated, “I don’t like that!” Of course she hadn’t tried it and didn’t even know what the dish was. So, today’s topic is

Trying New Things

Now oddly enough you would think that attitudes such as this would fade over time but I can assure you that is not necessarily the case. Many people have preconceived notions of how something is going to taste and are not willing to try a Spirit because they once tried that type of Spirit a long time ago and they didn’t like it and nothing ever changes and there is nothing ever new. I find it interesting that some people will do incredibly dangerous things and are incredibly adventurous except for their food and drink choices. Then they are that belligerent 8 year old again. Saying this, I also get people who tell me they have tried a type of Spirit and they didn’t like it but are willing to try mine because they might like it. I love these people! I’m just saying, if someone is offering you a sample of free alcohol, you owe it to yourself to at least try it. You never know you might just get your world rocked a bit.

Just Because You Can Make It...

One of the fun things about owning a distillery is that we get to make really good alcohol and express our creativity in doing so. One of the interesting things about owning a distillery is that people all of a sudden become experts in the alcohol business, usually expressed as “You know, what you should make is …” and this brings us to today’s topic:

Just because you can make it, should you?

When we set out to come up with a new Spirit, for Vivacity Spirits, (How about: A Liver and Onion flavored Vodka!? Or a spirit made from melons?) we first look to ourselves. Is this something we would like to drink? (Oh hell no and maybe?) Is there a market for the Spirit and how big is it? (Highly unlikely and very small if it does exist and Unknown and unknown) Does this new Spirit already exist in one form or another or are we introducing it to the world? (No and Unknown) Will there be a steady supply of the ingredients and will it be at a decent price point? (Probably and the ingredients are seasonal) These are just a few questions we have to think about before we can take a step forward.

Coming up with a new Spirit is a fun and daunting task. The fun part is that we get to create something new and exciting. The daunting part is coming up with something new and exciting. When we first started, we were keeping bees and Caitlin noticed that there were very few Spirits made with honey. She saw an opportunity and started thinking of all the cool Spirits we could make. In less than two months it seemed that every major distillery came out with a honey flavored something or other. Caitlin was devastated. You have to remember that there are very few truly new ideas out there.

The problem for a small distillery, such as ourselves, is that  coming out with something truly unique also means that you will have to educate the drinking public to its virtues and why they should drink your product rather than one of the thousands of other Spirits out there that they are more familiar with, a daunting task indeed. Of course you don’t have to come up with something completely new. You can always make a variation of an existing Spirit. This can be easier. In our case, we wanted a gin (lots of those out there) that was based around the native botanicals found in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest (a variation on a new twist) particularly hops (definitely a new twist). It met the criteria for the first questions we ask ourselves. Would we drink this? (Oh yes please!) Is there an existing market for this type of Spirit and how large is it? (Yes and pretty darn large) Will there be a steady supply of ingredients? (Also a big yes and the price point was going to work too) So we moved forward. You can get people to try something new at least once. The trick is to make something so good that they will buy it again.

I guess it really just comes down to whether it is worth it to make something, just because we can. We could build an automobile that is fueled by 30 year old Scotch, too, but I don’t think the market for that one is very large either.

Winter is Coming!

Winter is coming! And that means its Turkish Coffee Liqueur season. The impetus for our Liqueur was to have a beverage that you could sit down and enjoy with a friend, while having a nice discussion and preferably in front or a roaring fire. In my opinion there is nothing finer than to sit with friends and talk. No TV, no texting, no distractions; just sit and talk to your friends face to face, while enjoying a great beverage. That is what community is about. I personally like to mix our Turkish Coffee Liqueur with a nice Bourbon (50/50) and an ice cube. To me it harkens back to the days when I would go to our local coffee/tea house and hang out with my friends. I feel that, today, everyone is in such a rush to get somewhere or to be in touch with their “friends” that they forget the people sitting right in front of them. Slow down and enjoy life. It goes by fast enough. So my suggestion for the Holidays is to get together with some special friends, crack open a bottle of Vivacity Spirits Turkish Coffee Liqueur and have a great discussion! Cheers! From Vivacity Fine Spirits!

Good News/Bad News

For those of us old enough to remember the days before there were 8,000 channels on cable TV or before there was any cable TV, there was a show on one of our local stations called “Hee Haw”. One of their regular skits was the good news/ bad news skit so in that tradition, I give you Vivacity Spirits news:

The good news is: Our first batch of rum is ready—Yay!

The bad news is: We don’t have the correct filtering device yet—Oops!

The good news is: We know which one we want and it ships quickly—Yay!

The bad news is: We also found a mistake on our label—Excuse me???

The good news is: We ordered new labels and they are on their way—Whew!

The bad news is: We missed our expected release date and we ran out of coffee—Aargh!!

The good news is: The new labels, the filter and coffee arrived. We start filling bottles—At last.

The bad news is: Our new filter doesn’t work so well using a gravity feed. Stop bottling—Darn!

The good news is: With a little ingenuity, it is a simple fix. Start bottling—Dodged a bullet.

The bad news is: By sheer luck, we find another mistake on the label. STOP bottling!!—CR*P!

The good news is: We can use part of the original labels to fix the problem. Start bottling!--Yay!

The bad news is: We already bottles and boxed 50 cases of the rum—Hrmm.

The good news is: There was enough rum left in the tank to send a full palate to the OLCC and it is now for sale—Oh Yeah!

The bad news is: it’s not in the warehouse yet.

The good news is: I know a guy with a truck and you can purchase it at our tasting room--Yehaw!

The bad and news is: It will take a week or two to get it into your local liquor store so come by  and visit us and buy your bottle today—Timing is everything!

The good news is: Today, 9-06-2014, our tasting room is open for business—Oh thank goodness!

Vivacity Spirits traditional rum is a limited run for only $29.00.  When it’s gone it’s gone (until another batch is ready).

Through adversity character is developed.

If it was easy, anybody could do it.

When you do something you love, you will never work a day in your life.

I live at the distillery, I have never put in so much time on anything, I love what we do and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Cheers!

Hello World

Welcome to Vivacity Spirits new and improved web site. On this blog we will try to keep you informed of all  things Vivacity! Along the way we hope to give you a glimpse of what really goes on here, behind the scenes. So pull up a seat, pour yourself a nice gin and tonic, because it's so darn hot, and enjoy the ride. Cheers!