Distillery Operations: How to Run a Small Distillery

This work covers all aspects of distilling operations from fermentation to bottling. It is written by a licensed distiller who started his own distillery and then operated it successfully for almost twenty years. The book’s focus is on the actual mechanical, biological and chemical aspects of operating a distillery as well as the regulatory requirements associated with being in such a highly regulated business.The book is not highly technical but is written on a professional level as a peer to peer work for other distillers. Alcohol aficionado’s who want to learn how alcohol is actually fermented, distilled, rectified and bottled will also learn a great deal from the text.While there is a great deal of text and explanation of the processes involved, much of the work is explained in tables that show the results of various operations, like just how big a still do you need to produce 100 gallons of alcohol a day; and how much corn do you really have to purchase to make that 100 gallons, down to how many yeast do you need to ferment it and how much energy do you need to apply in order to distill it. The book provides a good survey of the processes necessary to produce quality beverage grade alcohol on a commercial but still artisanal scale.The later parts of the work are devoted to the author’s experiences and conclusions about the distilling business.

Payton Fireman is an attorney by trade and has practiced law in West Virginia for thirty years. In 1998 he founded The West Virginia Distilling Company, LLC, which is West Virginia’s first legal distillery licensed since Prohibition. To improve upon the government regimen for alcohol blending and accounting he developed Alcohol Blending Software (ABS), a computer program which can be used to manage virtually every part of a distiller’s business. This Distillery Operations Manual extends his work on ABS Software to the physical and biological processes of operating a distillery. Payton was born in Boston in 1958 and raised in New York City as well as Lake Placid, New York. He attended high school in Clearwater, Florida. Moving to West Virginia in 1976 he completed his undergraduate and graduate studies at West Virginia University in 1983. In addition to his membership in the West Virginia Bar Association, he a member of the Florida Bar Association. He was director of the Criminal Justice Program at Salem College from 1985 until 1989 and then served as a Trust Officer for Huntington Bank for ten years until establishing his private practice in 1997. In 1998 he began building his distillery. His company websites are mountainmoonshine.com and alcoholblending.com.