ment line backwards. Well, no one does it that way, but we did. That’s because we only make one product: vodka.
For more about the Stealth Distilleries venture please visit www.stealthvodka.com .
If you only make one product, you can optimize every piece of equipment to optimize your process so that it’s as good as it can be done by anyone, anywhere. That’s a tough call to make on the investment side. The banker in me would tell you that’s risky because if it doesn’t work out, you’re done. You need the setup that allows you produce at a profitable level. There’s no such thing as scaling up. The moment you turn on the equipment, you’ve scaled-up – that’s it. That’s not your only connection to Louisville, is it? I understand that you and Randy were both students in The Gateway to the South. We opted to get formal training in the best possible place in North America and that is Moonshine University in Lou- isville. There’s no other place I know of at that level. They have the exact same equipment we have at our distillery, Vendome, and they have a classroom and they invite pre- senters, some of whom have doctorates in their fields. Some of them have a lifetime of experience and most of them come from generational experience. These experts present in a small intimate group setting or one-on- one for a half hour, about the most miniscule things you could imagine and this goes on for 12 hours a day for seven days. The advantage is that you don’t just get to learn the pref- erences of one person but what the leading professionals in their field are doing at a world class level – and then you can make your choices from there. If you’re my son and I’m the only one who teaches you to drive, you’re just going to pick up all my bad habits. A formal scenario like Moon- shine University gives you all the options, not just a set of bad habits. Where you want to go and how you want to get there is up to you in the end – you build your own road map. For Randy and me, this was the right choice. It’s been instrumental in our success. I went first. Randy went almost a year later. That was also the right choice. The distillery was in one place when I went first and we were in a different place when Randy went. When he went, he was testing some assumptions and ideas he had on his own, independently. That was a very worthwhile experience. What are the holidays looking like for Stealth, John? JP: The busy holiday season is usually a peak for us. We’re just making sure that everything is good to go while Randy is away in Hawaii on his first wedding anniversary. I hope people in BC consider our products for their cel- ebrations. Our products are uniquely distilled three times and they’re clean of the impurities that turn so many people away from spirits. Tiny elements make such a big impact on any spirit. Minute, extraneous factors can really influence your bottom line as a distillery. We don’t sell products that will harm our reputation. We’d sooner start over.
“We’d sooner start over.”
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NOVEMBER 2017 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE
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