Progress or Something Like That

Progress is an interesting word. It implies forward movement, something that may be nearly undetectable. After working on our business plan for the past two years, I feel that one day I will be able to measure the forward progress of the distillery. But right now I am still in front of the tsunami: what I call the huge mountain of stuff  that needs to all come together at the same time to make this project fly.

And lately, I do believe that the tsunami of work is reaching a measurable state. We are having plans drawn up for the distillery itself, its equipment designed, and the necessary work on the building if not contracted, at least quoted on.

The tsunami of which I speak is this: you cannot apply for the licensing until you have a building and a business that is incorporated. You can't design your distillery and it's equipment and leaseholds, until the building is secured too. I believe we will be staying in the location where the bar is currently, barring unforeseen difficulties, which mitigates the location question. But you can't design the bottling line until you know what bottles you will need. And that involves getting the brand, the logo, the illustration and all its design-y aspects done such as the size and shape of the bottles. This means you should also be firm on  labels, fonts, label verbiage etc. Bottle samples should be arriving from Italy any day, so that part of the process can go ahead, if any of them float my boat. And of course the engineer needs to see them and of course he will have ideas. He always has plenty of ideas!
If you do go forward too far ahead, you can bleed through your money really fast!

Do you get the tsunami feel yet? Have I mentioned that it is illegal to own a still and to make alcohol before you are licensed? So, while we can design the machinery, we cannot build it until licensing is in place.
And we haven't even gotten into the website and other design-type elements. Not to mention the names for the various production lines and their contents and production schedules,

While it is very exciting, this pile up of elements can be really daunting.
I haven't mentioned the licensing much, because with 5 bar and restaurant licenses under my belt, that doesn't  daunt me. BUT... I think I may be farming out the LCBO application to someone who has experience, at least the first one, so I have a template to work from.

I am speaking with government agencies about grants and loans, especially for hiring, but also those grants and loans directed specifically at the food processing industry. A whole new field to conquer!