Patrick:
If all goes according to plan—and the TTB concedes to our appeal of its recent denial of our Certificate of Label Approval application—you and I will officially join the venerable community of American craft distillers. Given all the logistics and legalities and commercial concerns occupying our recent conversations, it’s important we take a moment to be excited! After all, our soft launch this November (in advance of our formal launch next summer) is the culmination of discussions which began in the early days of 2016. That’s half a decade ago, brah. Incredible to think of all that’s happened in our lives since then….
Anyway, I’m bringing a couple resources to your attention, so that you can join me in refamiliarizing ourselves with the dynamic craft distillers we can proudly call “colleagues”. It’s an estimable bunch, to be sure.
First, here’s one of many resources listing distilleries in our New York home state. DistilleryTrail.com’s listings omit some key players, but it’s a good start.
For a more comprehensive list—and one which focuses on our upstate NY neck of the woods—then you need to head over to the Capital Craft Beverage Trail. Dude, if you haven’t touched this site in a minute, do so now; there are so many new players in our Area of Operations, and I’m glad to see that everyone is surviving all the restrictions and impositions attendant to the COVID-19 response.
Then, check out Esquire’s list of the best whiskey companies in America, compiled last year. It awarded 50 distinctions of “best-in-state”, and a lot of these are the “usual suspects”. But there were also some players of whom I was ignorant. Finger Lakes Distilling came out #1 (in their list) for New York.
I’m soon to return from a pretty surreal 7.5-month deployment to Afghanistan; reviewing this list is a reminder of what about America I miss so much. It bespeaks a creativity and camaraderie that shouldn’t be taken for granted. I wouldn’t be in this industry if it weren’t for you, bud, so cheers to our 30-year friendship and all that it’s produced.
—Jesse