ADI Conference 2023
By Devin Ershow
This month we take a break from the distillery features to share with you our experiences at last August’s American Distilling Institute Craft Spirit’s conference. It was the 20th anniversary of the conference and it was held at the Mirage Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. We met a lot of wonderful people, connected with several distilleries you will soon read features of on this site, and learned a lot about craft whiskey and its ever evolving future. We’re going to release this article in two parts. This article will focus on some of the larger takeaways, panels and workshops we attended. Later this month we will release a second article that covers more of the science of the craft that goes into making incredible small batch whiskey.
To start, let’s go back to the beginning for the American Distilling Institute, or ADI. ADI is the oldest trade association dedicated to the spirits industry and the first of its kind in the United States since prohibition. It began back in 2003, a full decade ahead of its national counterpart, the American Craft Spirits Association (ASCA) which launched in 2013.
Now, we feel compelled to highlight one major difference between the two organizations. The ASCA is a non-profit, member owned and member run trade group. The board of directors is democratically elected by the members of the association. ADI is a for profit organization that was founded by one individual and for the most part is still run by that individual’s family. They both serve to support the craft spirits industry, but as transparency is important to our company we wanted to be clear in how each one is operated.
ADI was founded by Bill Owens, an accomplished photojournalist, author and brewer. It was the latter that led him to the creation of what has now become the largest spirits association in the world. In the early 80’s Bill, a self proclaimed “beer enthusiast” dreamed of opening a brew pub like the ones across the pond in England. At that time, California laws prohibited the joint operation of a brewery and a pub, so there were few options out there for consumers besides the watered down commercial beers of the time. Bill authored a book in 1981 titled, “How to Build a Small Brewery,” a book that would go on to be updated several times throughout the years. When the laws changed in 1983, Bill jumped at the opportunity to open Buffalo Bill’s Brewery in Hayward, California. Bill continued to lobby for better legislation around breweries, not just in California but across the nation. He started Amateur Brewer Magazine which he produced and published at the brewery, just one of several periodicals he would create to jumpstart the craft beer movement.
Bill started ADI to “promote and defend the enterprise of craft distilling.” The first annual conference was held at St. George Distillery in Alameda, California in 2004. They began a spirits competition in 2007 and in 2008 introduced their Bubble Cap Award for Distillery of the Year. At the time of its founding there were less than one hundred distilleries in the United States. Today, thanks to the easing of state legislations from around the country, there are now over two thousand distilleries.
This year’s conference opened with the Whiskey Summit. The keynote speech was given by the 2023 Bubble Cap Distillery of the Year award winners, Dan and Nancy Garrison from Garrison Brothers Distillery in Hye, Texas. The name of the speech was “Building a Fanatical Cult and Cause-Marketing.” Garrison Brothers, which was founded in 2005, has certainly done that. A pioneer of both the craft whiskey movement and Texas style whiskey, Garrison Brothers is motivated by the ethos that “good bourbon can change the world.” People camp out for days and line up for miles for their specialty releases and their charity organization, “Good Bourbon for a Good Cause” has donated millions of dollars to philanthropy. This includes $400,000 they raised to aid the hospitality industry in the wake of the Covid pandemic.
AMERICAN SINGLE MALT
The big buzz at this year’s conference was American Single Malt. At the time of publishing, American Single Malt is still not recognized as an official category of whiskey. For decades producers have been making products they call American Single Malt, but with no legal definition there is a wide variety of products with this label. You have producers using different kinds of cooperage, different kinds of grain and even blends of malted grains. In 2016, a group of nine American Single Malt producers (including three that we’ve previously featured: Few Spirits, Virginia Distillery Co. and Westland Distillery) got together to form the American Single Malt Commission, a member based organization with the mission to establish a set of standards for American Single Malt. To quote their website, “Category recognition starts here, at this moment. We cannot share our vision for what American Single Malt Whiskey (ASMW) can be as a category if there is no consensus amongst ourselves as to what it is that defines us.” What started as nine distilleries has grown to over one hundred, and the commission recently succeeded in the TTB (Tax and Trade Bureau) taking their proposed standards of identity for ASMW into consideration to become a new official category of American whiskey. The proposed standards for ASMW are as follows:
Made from 100% Malted Barley
Distilled Entirely at One Distillery
Mashed, Distilled and Matured in the USA
Matured in Oak Casks Not Exceeding 700 Liters
Distilled to No More Than 160 Proof
Bottled No Lower Than 80 Proof
At this point we are just waiting on the TTB to make their decision, but in the meantime there was a panel at the conference that discussed everything that ASMW is and can be. The panelists were Justin Aden, Head Blender for Stranahan’s Colorado Whiskey, Jason Parker, Co-Owner and President of Copperworks Distillery and Christian Krogstad, former Founder and Master Distiller at Westward Whiskey. As some of the premier producers of ASMW in the country, they all agreed that getting an official classification would do wonders for the category. Having a set list of standards that are easy to explain to consumers makes ASMW more accessible, and while some might complain that the standards are a bit too constraining (including the author of this article) they do still leave a lot of room for producers to differentiate themselves.
The big question at the panel is whether or not American Single Malt could eventually replace Bourbon as America’s spirit. The true answer to that, only time will tell, but there is a situation in which supply and demand could work in ASMW’s favor. Bourbon hit a big slump in the 60’s and 70’s as people turned towards lighter alcohols. It wasn’t until the late 80’s that things began to turn around for Bourbon. Distilleries found themselves sitting on large reserves of extra premium aged Bourbon and started to release high priced “small batch releases” to make them feel special. Consumers liked this and thus the Bourbon boom began. Today, Bourbon is king once again and prices for these premium aged specialty releases have gone through the roof as supply dwindles. We have already seen some of the bigger brands remove the age statement from their labels, unable to keep up with the demand. In response, the legacy producers have been ramping up their production over the last decade or so. In addition to that, the craft whiskey movement has introduced thousands of new distilleries across the country that are also making Bourbon. The potential issue here for Bourbon is that we may be over-producing the spirit, which may force producers to lower the price of their product if the supply/demand balance starts to tip in the wrong direction. If this happens, and as American Single Malts continue to mature and gain in popularity, it is possible to see a future in which ASMW could take the place as the premium small batch whiskey consumers flock towards just as they do with Bourbon today. Whether that happens or not, the one thing we know for sure is that with the impending classification of American Single Malt, we are living in one of the most exciting moments in American whiskey history.
WORKING WITH INDEPENDENT BOTTLERS AND AMERICAN BLENDED WHISKEY
Speaking of exciting moments in American whiskey, there was also a lot of focus paid towards the emergence of Independent Bottlers and American Blended Whiskey, something that is close to our hearts. Independent Bottlers are companies that source whiskey from other distilleries and bottle those whiskeys as their own. It is a common practice in places like Scotland, but until recently was looked down upon in the U.S. Mostly due to a lack of transparency in the process. However, newer Independent Bottlers, like Lost Lantern Whiskey and dare we say, American Mash & Grain are changing that perception and using the process to help shine a light on America’s small producers.
Why would a distillery sell their whiskey to an independent bottler? There are a few reasons. They may be sitting on a surplus of whiskey and are looking for new revenue opportunities. They may be interested in collaborating with other distilleries to use each other’s networks to expand each other’s brand awareness. Lost Lantern works only with distilleries that they have been able to visit in person, and for the most part they focus on buying casks from these producers and selling them as single barrel offerings. They put the distillery's name on the front of their label so everyone knows where the juice comes from and they have a nationwide reach that helps people in other states taste whiskey that they may otherwise not have a chance to. Here at American Mash & Grain, we launched our Borrowed Page American Whiskey project. We only work with distilleries that we have previously featured on our website, so that we know we are working with producers we truly believe in who are doing unique things in the right way. We also buy casks from these producers, but we blend multiple casks, of a variety of styles (bourbons, ryes, malts, etc.), from multiple distilleries together to create distinctive American Blended Whiskies that not only challenge the concept of what American whiskey can be, but also draw attention back to the producers we worked with. We feature their logos on the front of the label, so like Lost Lantern, everyone knows where the juice came from.
As this practice becomes more prevalent in American whiskey, it can only serve to help promote craft whiskey producers and the larger craft whiskey movement. It’s a win-win-win for the independent bottlers, the distilleries and the consumer. American Blended Whiskey has had a bad connotation for a long time. This goes all the way back to prohibition, when bootleggers were rectifying whiskey with gasoline and turpentine and continued into the 70’s when producers tried to appeal to the lighter palates of the day by diluting whiskey with cheap neutral grain spirits. Today, we have the opportunity to change the story on American Blended Whiskey, and at American Mash & Grain we are dedicated to just that.
NANCY FRALEY’S NOSING FOR FAULTS
The very last workshop that we attended was Nosing For Faults, led by the incomparable Nancy Fraley. Nancy is one of the country’s top blenders and has helped a number of whiskey brands find their flavor. We aren’t going to share any of the specifics of the workshop, but I will highlight how Nancy walks you through the sensory process for identifying faults and why you should sign up to take this course if you have the opportunity.
First and foremost, Nancy and her Co-Presenter, Steffani Scheurich made it clear why understanding where faults in a distillate or aged product come from is such an important part of the process. It’s one thing to be able to pick up an off-note, it’s another thing to be able to identify what that off-note is and where it likely came from, so that you can figure out how to fix that part of the process. In the long run, this will save a distillery a lot of time and money and help them create higher value, more consistent products.
They walk you through the right glassware and conditions for sensory analysis. To give you a sense of how serious this is, we were all asked not to wear any strong perfumes, deodorants, colognes, etc.
No coffee or food was allowed in the room either … and this course started early in the morning and lasted a few hours. Step by step, from raw materials through packaging and post production they broke down how faults may occur and how to avoid them. We nosed through over twenty different samples over the course of the class and by the end we definitely felt much more adept in sensory analysis. As blenders, we found this course to be invaluable and we know that we are moving into the future of American Mash & Grain and Borrowed Page with a much bigger tool belt. If you can, take this course. You will not regret it.
We had a blast at this year’s ADI conference. Over the last three years we have learned that the distilling and specifically whiskey community is a very warm and welcoming place. The whiskies that are out there are amazing, and possibly only rivaled by how amazing the people are that produce them. The future for American whiskey is bright and ever changing. We look forward to the American Craft Spirits Association conference in Denver, Colorado in February of 2024. We hope we get to see you there!