Today we’d like to introduce you to Keith Barnes

Hi Keith, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

I have been in brand marketing for CPG companies for 37 years. The company I’ve owned for the last 33 years, since 2004 known as Motive Marketing Group, specializes in beverage alcohol. We work brand marketing, specialty packaging and heavy retail below the line for the largest spirits companies in the US. The category is great, very recession resistant, and the people are top notch. I have an affinity for whisky brands. Their history, the stories of the founders. The people who made their life’s work bringing these great brands to life. It’s compelling on so many levels. Some spirit brands need to invent their story, their reason for being, but with a lot of whisky brands their history has written that story. It’s better than any fiction, there’s just never enough space to tell the whole thing. I’m privileged to be associated with all this.

The brand story of Bainbridge Organic Distillers starts in 1998. I had started to build a whiskey/whisky library. I had hundreds of bottles of modern whiskey/whisky, many that I worked on at Motive Marketing Group every day. I purchased some bottles at an auction, and included in the lot was a bottle of Old Crow bourbon, 100 proof, distilled 1937 bottled 1941. I remember being curious about the Crow, but that’s it. I opened the bottle a few weeks later and upon my first sip my concept of “what whiskey is” was shattered. This bottle was un-fucking-real. I had 2 tasks that I attacked immediately. The first was to hunt down and acquire an expansive number of American and world whiskey from pre-prohibition through the 1970s, with a focus on the 1930s through the 50s. The second was to discover how this Old Crow whiskey was so much better than modern whiskey.

4 years and nearly 1,000 bottles later I had a theory. In modern whiskey making grain is grown for yield instead of flavor. Fields are treated with chemical pesticides, weed killers and soil fumigants from day 1. Yeasts and processing aids are genetically modified to produce high yields over flavor. Toxic acids are added to keep fermentation going. Monitoring production and making “cuts” are performed by computers.

By contrast whiskey made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were very basic. Grain was local and specific to its region. Varieties selected for hardiness and flavor. There were no chemical pesticides or herbicides, no shortcuts. Yeasts were simple. Skill, innovation and technique were driving factors in quality. This kind of agriculture and production sounded a lot like what we call “Certified Organic” today.

In 2003 I designed a 15-gallon mashing and copper distillery set up in my garage (much to my wife’s annoyance) that allowed me to run non-computerized production trials using vintage strains of yeast and early 20th century enzymes. The Certified Organic grains I used were “heirloom” varieties, prized by Organic farmers today for vigorous growth without the use of chemical weed killers and pesticides. I distilled vintage varieties of malted barley, corn and rye, and wheat, all Certified Organic The distillates I put into 1- and 2-gallon American oak casks with heavily charred interiors for a period from 6 months to 2 years. My microbiology and organic chemistry coursework at university was of huge benefit here (I never thought I’d have a use for it), and input and advice from a distiller at a traditional distillery in Scotland was instrumental, helping me to problem solve my way through grain milling, stuck fermentations, and making distilling cuts organoleptically. The resulting organic whiskies were quite good. They definitely had a vintage vibe, and I was pleased at the flavors and character I’d coaxed out of the grains with the old-tech process. I had identified a way to capture echoes of the quality and flavor of whiskies from a bygone era, the flavors that modern distillers had left behind. Organic production was the key.

The next chapter in Bainbridge Organic Distillery’s story was written on March 20, 2008. An initiative that would grant distillers the right to sell their own spirits and provide samples to consumers direct from their tasting rooms was signed into law. What had started as an academic experiment and turned into a hobby now had the chance to become something real. I spent 2 months drafting a business plan and reviewing the necessary permits. Running the numbers confirmed that I would be capable of self-funding the operation. I ordered a new hybrid still and stillhouse kit from Vendome Copper & Brass. Having completed these required first steps, I completed and submitted the TTB’s DSP permit application. On July 1, 2008, Bainbridge Organic Distillers received its Distilled Spirits Plant permit from the TTB. We were in business.

Over the next months we developed a bare 6000 SF industrial space into a working distillery complete with tasting room. On April 14, 2009, we fired up the still for the first time, making our whiskey from USDA Certified Organic wheat produced by a small family farm located on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. We were on our way.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?

Running a USDA Certified Organic operation has its own challenges. procedures, formulas, suppliers and ingredients must be approved by a certification agency empowered by the USDA. Record keeping on all aspects needs to be meticulous and auditors from National Organic Program conduct on-site inspections at will, which are time consuming and interrupt production schedules and processing. Purchasing USDA Certified grain and approved yeasts, processing aids and other inputs is very expensive – sometimes 3 times to cost of conventional grains and inputs. Market pressures do not fully allow the business to adjust pricing to comfortably accommodate these costs.

And if there is such a thing as “too much money” I’ve never seen it. Changes in regulations, economic weakness and high inflation and not just obstacles, they are challenges.

Whiskey making also has a time component that needs to be accounted for. When making clear spirits, white rum, vodka or gin, those products can be bottled directly after they are distilled. No aging time is required. But whiskey must be aged in barrels before it can be called “whiskey”. Oak barrels, charred on the inside, alter the chemistry of whiskey as it ages, and imparts its own chemical fingerprints on the liquor for as long as it is in the barrel. A lot of American whiskey is aged for 2 years and then bottled. Some whiskies hit the 3-year mark. Bainbridge Organic Distillers ages its whiskies for at least 6 years. Our oldest whiskies in barrels are almost 9 years old.

Allowing whiskies the time to reach their peak of flavor can be challenging. If a distillery is not capable of doing this that can be an obstacle, to both the distillery and those trying to drink that distillery’s whiskey.

Distilling regimens can shorten the time to a small degree, using small barrels can do the same, but whiskies have to be distilled to be suitable for small barrel aging. There are processes today that claim to give whiskey years’ worth of aging in several days are weeks. Going out on a limb here, if the whiskies that have undergone this process are a testament to the effectiveness of these processes, they are not a solution for quality minded distillers.

Running a brand marketing company specializing in beverage alcohol has its challenges as well, but there’s nothing that a great work ethic, a dedication to finding solutions for your clients and a ton of creativity can’t overcome.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?

Both of my businesses are in the same space, beverage alcohol, so many of the larger drivers are at work with both of them.

I believe that the beverage alcohol category is somewhat recession resistant. The economy might drive consumers to consume alcohol at home vs a club or restaurant, or to select a low-priced beverage over a high-priced ultra-premium one but the overall volume and sales of the beverage alcohol sector remains robust or growing.

For Motive Marketing Group we might see more emphasis on the promotion of lower-priced brands, or the introduction of new brands designed to scratch a low-priced, lower-alcohol or no-alcohol itch, But these need to be promoted and supported just like high priced products when the economy for them is riding high. Having the capability to manage all waters is of great benefit here.

For Bainbridge Organic Distillers the economy and other factors can be more of an impact. Currently the market for our sector, Ultra-Premium, is flat or down. High inflation and the country’s flaccid economic performance are major factors here, forcing some people to switch to lower priced brands. The introduction of no-alcohol brands and promotion of dry months is a minor factor as well. Overall, we are bullish about our prospects and ultra-premium beverage alcohol in general. There will always be ebbs and flows, but the past supports that there will always be a demand for high-priced ultra-premium products. Distillers and brand marketers might just have to travel farther to bring those consumers into the brand franchise.

What sort of changes are you expecting over the next 5-10 years?

Motive Marketing Group’s pricing model is to be very competitive vs competition, but to over-deliver on customer service, quality of work product, overall product value, client experience and time to market.

Bainbridge Organic Distiller’s pricing model is rooted in COGS, maintaining healthy margins with an eye to keep pricing at a level that our core consumers will accept and support.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bainbridgedistillers.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bainbridgedistillers/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BainbridgeOrganicDistillers/
• Twitter: https://x.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fwadistillers
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/bainbridge-organic-distillers-bainbridge-island

Image Credits

Stuart Isset, Ian Coble