With thousands of distilleries competing for consumers’ attention, the right strategy is essential for catapulting our clients into the spotlight.
Of note, customers value a commitment to sustainability more than ever. Additionally, many distilleries are simplifying their menus, with a back-to-basics approach that favors quality above all else. Finally, a more health-conscious crowd craves options with lower alcohol by volume (ABV) and cocktails with reduced sugar content.
At HMS, we pair our deep industry experience with the latest technologies to build distilleries that appeal to consumers’ desires and capitalize on market trends.
So we’re there with you every step of the design process, from ensuring you meet regulatory requirements to optimizing your day-to-day distillery operations.
Distilleries are among the most heavily regulated industries in the nation. As a result, clients with distillery projects must face a tricky regulatory landscape encompassing federal, state, and local licensing laws. We oversee all project management aspects to help our clients navigate this confusing maze-work to verify zoning and land-use approval.
We also assist in making distilleries accessible. Given all the loving care you’ve put into creating your signature products, you want to guarantee that customers can conveniently access your site. Determining ideal access requires traffic impact assessments and capacity evaluations to determine visitor flow and design efficient parking.
Additionally, distilleries exhibit unique design characteristics. Unlike many other food processing facilities, many distilleries have a sizable retail component. As with parking, retail areas should be properly laid out to ensure customer comfort.
Only your spirits should be aged, not your distillery. Clients must keep current to keep profitable, so we are often called upon to retrofit old or existing buildings through modern expansion projects. We breathe new life into breweries or distilleries by orchestrating equipment updates, layout redesigns, and other upgrades informed by modern, big-data-driven analytics.
Designing and building distillery facilities begins on paper, as clients must produce permit-ready construction drawings.
This is where our extensive expertise comes in. Modern distilling is highly specialized, so our blueprints simultaneously strike a balance between industrial efficiency, hygienic controls, and visitor hospitality.
Beyond these aspects, we also factor in specific construction methods, such as selecting the most sensible food-grade walling and flooring materials.
Finally, it’s essential to focus on coordinating your engineering processes and production flow layouts to achieve diverse goals (efficiency vs. comfort) across manufacturing, hospitality, and retail areas.
Distilleries pose additional fire and explosion risks due to the handling of flammable materials, like ethanol (i.e., alcohol).
Distilleries are therefore considered high-hazard facilities. In addition to specialized fire suppression systems, they require electrical equipment and fixtures to be properly rated for use in hazardous environments.
We keep all this in mind as we map your entire workflow, from receiving departments to bottling. We allocate resources to the strategic placement of stills, fermenters, and other machinery while integrating as much efficiency-boosting automation as possible to up our client’s production capacity.
Rickhouses, or barrel warehouses, use temperature gradients to achieve the desired flavor complexity and maturation. Proper designs also facilitate the most effective storage plans.
At the same time, smart features like natural ventilation reduce energy usage and keep barrels at the correct temperature despite seasonal swings. And, of course, we use our expertise to help you create the safest environment possible, streamlined for barrel handling and forklift access.
Running a distillery means navigating a complex, often-confusing code compliance environment. We assist our clients in complying with local, state, and federal statutes. These include excise taxes levied per volume based on the distribution and sales of alcoholic beverages.
Overall, distilleries must satisfy specific permit criteria at each regional level. For example, federal compliance with manufacturing and storage standards and labeling approval, state-based production and sales regulations, and local safety, zoning, and business license laws.
A startup commissioning resource is the ace up your sleeve that lets you turn your distilling dreams from a proposed project into a successful reality. We guide customer facilities through the process to upgrade facilities or build new distilleries from the ground up. These processes encompass installation processes, dynamic equipment testing, and product trials to optimize resource use and maximize product quality as well as potential cost savings.
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We modernize old factories or design from scratch.
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