They're sourcing local ingredients, looking to promote tourism and creating innovative ready-to-drink products.
Historically, spirits were viewed as more dangerous due to their higher concentration of alcohol.īut a new wave of distillers is setting up shop in Vermont. "And what I've heard over and over, since 2017, is a desire to have parity," she said. Knight served as the commissioner of the state's Department of Tourism and Marketing from 2017 to 2019. Vermont's statute, Title 7, lays out very different rules depending on whether people make wine, beer or spirits, noted Wendy Knight, who was appointed deputy commissioner of the DLC in April 2021. However, beer and wine are distributed by private-sector wholesalers and available at almost any gas station or grocery store - currently some 907 locations throughout Vermont. To this day, the state's Division of Liquor Control - part of the Department of Liquor and Lottery - is responsible for the sale of hard liquor at the wholesale level, contracting with 78 agency stores and setting prices. Alcohol was illegal in the Green Mountains until 1902 - hence Vermont's robust history of smuggling. In 1853, nearly 70 years before Prohibition started in 1920, Vermont became the second state in the nation to outlaw alcohol - following Maine, where the temperance movement began. Vermont opted for a stricter approach, which was unsurprising. Most opted for a license-state model, which leaves sale and distribution to the private sector.
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When the Volstead Act was repealed on December 5, 1933, the states had to figure out how to sell booze. Vermont's liquor control system, like similar ones in 16 other states, is a product of Prohibition - or at least the end of it. "It's irresponsible to ignore that we've lost control of our control state," Christiansen said. Large national companies that specialize in shipping booze to customers' front doors were skirting Vermont's system. "If you take that away, it's pretty brutal." "You know how powerful tourism is in our industry," Christiansen said. So access to customers - especially those in big, lucrative markets out of state - was "virtually gone," Christiansen said. Like most Vermont distilleries at that point in the pandemic, Caledonia Spirits was closed to the public. Otherwise, their products are only available through state-contracted 802 Spirits liquor stores. Distillers can sell directly to customers at tasting rooms and farmers markets. Under Vermont's control-state model, the state strictly manages the distribution and sale of liquor. "Our distillers are struggling," he said.Ĭhristiansen urged the committee to consider an amendment that would allow Vermont's spirits producers to ship their products directly to consumers. He painted a bleak picture of the industry. In May, Caledonia Spirits president and head distiller Ryan Christiansen testified before the Vermont House Committee on General, Housing and Military Affairs, which considers matters related to alcoholic beverages. In addition to retail sales at liquor stores, many rely on out-of-state tourism to fill tasting rooms that have been largely shuttered for the past 20 months. Still, it's been a hard time for Vermont's distillers. That pandemic bump, driven largely by sales of national brands, even led to a liquor shortage this past summer. They waited in a line out the door to sip Tom Cat old-fashioneds, barrel-aged negronis and, yes, bees' knees.Īlcohol sales as a whole increased during the pandemic, including a 13 percent spike in liquor sales, according to the Vermont Department of Liquor and Lottery. Like bees to honey - or honey-based booze - locals and tourists alike swarmed to Caledonia Spirits' bustling tasting room. That, and the scene on Gin Lane on a recent Saturday, would hint yes. Vermont has 26 licensed distillers today.
"Within a decade, Vermont may well be known as a craft-distilling epicenter," the story predicted.
When Todd Hardie launched Caledonia Spirits in Hardwick in 2011, Seven Days called his team "participants in a modern distilling revival in Vermont." At the time, 14 businesses were licensed to distill in the state, up from three in 2004. Barr Hill was the only Vermont-distilled product to make the top 25. What beat it out? Two different sizes of Tito's Handmade Vodka, a self-described "craft-distilled" national brand whose scale far surpassed any reasonable definition of "craft" or "handmade" a couple of decades ago. So much, in fact, that Caledonia Spirits' award-winning gin - distilled from Vermont honey on Gin Lane in Montpelier - was the third-highest-selling liquor in the state of Vermont between July and October 2021.
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