The Art of the Blend: Crafting Perfection from Cask to Bottle
The time had finally come. After years of patient and careful maturation, Biebod Distillery’s precious liquid is ready to be bottled. This was a moment of immense pride for Ben, the Head Distiller, who was now also responsible for the delicate art of vatting and blending. Anya, the CEO, was keenly focused on the final product’s quality and market appeal, while Chloe, our Finance Director, needed to ensure every bottle’s cost was precisely calculated to protect margins. David, the Sales & Marketing Manager, was already planning the launch of their first flagship release.
Creating the perfect “marriage of casks” required deep insight into each cask’s quality indicators, grading, and internal notes. Manually selecting and locating these casks from the warehouse was time-consuming and prone to error. Then came the challenge of accurately tracking operational losses during the vatting process versus the continued maturation losses, per location as well. A major pain point was the disconnected systems and data silos that many distillery peers faced – liquid cost in one system (or even a spreadsheet from 5 years ago that no-one’s wanted to touch!), dry goods in another and manufacturing data in a third. This made it impossible to efficiently and scalably get a true, combined unit cost for the finished product, obscuring real margins and hindering strategic pricing and reactivity to market conditions or operational changes. As a young business Biebod’s competitive advantages definitely included being more nimble than it’s peers, and it’s system needed to reflect and empower that.
Maturation Loss Demo data by location , flexibly available to show %’s or absolute, by location, cask type, spirit type or any other metric ::
MasterDistiller empowered Ben to build his marriage of casks with market-leading transparency. He could access quality indicators, cask gradings, and internal notes directly from the system. Barcode scanning made it easy for his team to locate and transfer the carefully selected casks. A key USP was the ability to filter using planned bottling categories that had already pre-allocated recipe casks together over the years, ensuring consistency and well planned warehouse stacking and access.
Cask Asset information available alongside other key tabs, with cask barcodes for each maturation + the permanent cask with history ::
Once married, the system meticulously tracked operational losses and maturation losses separately for effective and simple reporting (as well as regulatory needs). This also provided the combined and accurate cost of their vat and, ultimately, each bottle’s liquid to be seamlessly combined with the cork, label, bottle, seals, labour allocated overheads etc.
The liquid was tracked at all times in both Bulk Litres and Litres of Alcohol (LoA) measurements, making operational and regulatory reporting seamless from each perspective.
Odoo’s Inventory app managed all dry goods – bottles, labels, caps, packaging – ensuring full traceability of components and unit costs. This integration meant Chloe could break out where their margin was shifting, ensuring cash consumption was managed closely through purchase controls and inventory management. The system even covered minimum stock holds and quantities to auto-generate draft Purchase Orders for replenishment, preventing costly delays.
Duty Suspended Demo SKU Cost Analysis ::
And before we could sell, duty costs were crucial. MasterDistiller’s custom W5D tracking information within manufacturing ensured their traceability of duty payments was on point and fully auditable/transparent.
Early Wins that Compound :: The rigorous data capture from production (Part 1) and comprehensive cask management (Part 2) now compounded dramatically in the vatting and bottling stage. With the system knowing the exact cost per LoA of the liquid in each cask, and Odoo’s Inventory managing the precise cost of every dry good, Biebod Distillery could achieve a true, accurate unit cost per bottle for the first time. This led to margin improvements of 3-5%. This integrated view of wet and dry good unit costs, combined with manufacturing efficiencies, meant that the early wins in efficiency and data consistency directly translated into a healthier bottom line that only compounded as we grew as well as gave Chloe insight on material resource planning and cashflow management around inventory levels and purchase requirements.
Our bottles are filled, fully costed, and ready for their journey. Getting them into the hands of eager customers around the world is a whole new challenge though. How does Biebod Distillery conquer the market, from local enthusiasts to international connoisseurs? That’s the focus of our next chapter…
Ready to explore how MasterDistiller x Odoo can help your distillery navigate the future?