The legal side of starting a distillery.

[Icefever]

We've all heard the urban myths and seen posts on other forums about how one would obtain a license to build a micro distillery.

Well I was surfing the net this morning and came across the following....

Here.. scroll down about halfway to the Sacred Gin guy it states quote " Size of still: 6l and 2l (Rotavapor)" ...interesting photo...Here

A T500 sits in the corner....so where is the 1800litre still that's talked about in lots of posts???...and the warehouse??..just a thought that's all.

[Admiral Toad]

There's definately been a change in the granting of licences.the 1800 litres was never a regulation rather an 'advisory ' which in truth was used as a barrier to small producers.

A few years ago I visited loch ewe distillery in Wester Ross where a chap called John Clotsworthy had obtained the only small scale distillers liscences in the UK after a lot of effort.its from him I picked up tips about small barrel maturing and others techniques

Over the last few years however there's been a little explosion or relatively small distillers mainly producing Gins.theres even one up our way called the Durham Distillery what they don't tell you is that most are only rectifying commercialy bought ethanol along with the Botanicals

I visited both Sipsmiths and the London Distillery early last year.Both have had heavy investment in kit but the latter is much more innovative creating gins using both alembic and vacuum stills and also starting to experiment and make whiskys ready fo maturing

I guess the treasury have finally seen sense and the opportunity to raise duty just as happened many years ago in the brewing world

It's certainly got me thinking......

[Icefever]

I found this one as well...Here seems they operate from their front room....

Maybe there's a light at the other end of the tunnel after all for those guys that would like to try....and not a train coming the other way...

Just found this distillery not 20mins from home.

[Anavrin]

I've previously read all the above articles and toyed with the idea myself, the minimum still size of 1800 litres has some history to why a still of that size was originally chosen as a minimum, it was to ensure it wasn't portable and couldn't be taken away from the distillery for a bit of weekend moonshining.

I beleive this part of the legislation is not seen as so important when issuing licences anymore.

Any produced spirit does need to be stored in an excise warehouse, as tax isn't paid until it leaves said warehouse to be sold, but I believe if you don't want to pay to use someone else's, you can have your own so long as you get the required licences and have a secure location, the only thing that's put me off so far is any sort of question about how I would know how to distill in the first place!

[Anavrin]

Heres a good link to HMRC that details everything you do to get a licence and plant approval for a still, I've not read it all yet but it seems you can apply for a licence, free of charge, and get one but before you can distil, you need to get approval for your still, this seems to be the complicated but, not only does the still need to be approved but your entire process needs to be recorded and documented,

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... ia-and-use

Might apply for a licence, test the water, if anyone else has similar ambitions it would be useful to compare notes on the process.

[Easydrinker]

M8,
This is heartfelt and really just my opinion.
Take it as you will.
HMRC know that we are out here,and know our IP addresses,and therefore should they desire, our physical and geographical ones.
Personally,to pay a SMALL annual fee to legally do this is OK by me,maybe just in case I accidentally accept payment for something produced for my own consumption.
To consider that they might grant licences for lots of small stills,unless you are the local farm shop,or some other small buisiness,in my opinion is hoping for too much.
But then I struggle with the glass half empty or half full conundrum.
Surely it's only half a glass,however you view it?

Robert.

And should you choose that path,my very best wishes.