Overview
At Skeptic Distillery, we believe in free thinking and individuality when it comes to solving problems. When we founded the company back in late 2014, we set out on a mission to test the limits of distilling, making spirits fresher, faster, smoother and more flavorful than before. We believe in fusing science and craft and have worked under the guidance of a chemical engineer to develop our cold vacuum distilling process.
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Founder and CEO, Karl Loepke, is a skilled entrepreneur who transformed his last company from $3.5 million in sales and over $6 million in debt, to the number one company in its niche market with over $16 million in annual sales. Sales Manager, Bruce Jacobson, was heavily involved in Seagrams Wine Coolers and helped launch and grow products like Hpnotiq, Evan Williams Whiskey, Elijah Craig and numerous other brands. Bruce’s deep connections are helping Skeptic to gain rapid distribution, as we expand and gain entrance into key opportunities with major industry players.
THE PROBLEM
Traditional distilling methods lack innovation, while many of the more innovative and unique spirits on the market are just highly overpriced. At Skeptic Distillery, we believe in providing premium spirits at affordable prices. Just because we use seemingly dense technology and methods, doesn’t mean our process is more expensive or labor intensive.
Craft spirits don’t need to be pricy or eccentric. We focus on making spirits that are exceptionally smooth, flavorful and approachable. Even our most out of the box spirit, GinQuila, is incredibly versatile and drinkable!
THE SOLUTION
Everything begins as an experiment for us! We cold-distill our spirits with a custom-built continuous vacuum still, that removes air and pressure, and allows us to distill at temperatures well below boiling. Our method removes the heads and tails of the base beer and concentrates the congeners (flavor compounds), producing a smooth and flavorful spirit.
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We sell primarily to distributors, and use a pseudo DTC model that also allows us to advertise directly to customers while still selling through a distributor. We also plan to open our tasting room soon, where we will offer cocktails, host events, and sell our products directly to the public.
THE MARKET
In 2019, the US craft market was worth $3.7 billion and is expected to reach $20 billion by 2023 with a CAGR of 32% (Source). Craft spirits are expected to grow by 30.22% between 2020 and 2027 (Source). Vodka makes up 31% of the US spirits market and was up 2.9% to $6.6 billion in February 2020, while whiskey was up 10.8% to $4 billion. (Source).
Skeptic’s cold distillation process is what we believe truly sets us apart from the crowd. We create flavors and smoothness that others can only dream of. While most distilleries are filled with massive tanks and columns, ours uses a vacuum distillation process that allows us to focus on monitoring the temperature, pressure and flow rate of our pumps, to ensure the consistent production of our high quality spirits.
OUR TRACTION
We have received a multitude of awards for our spirits, including:
Double Gold SIP Awards, 2019 and 2021 International Consumer Tasting
Best of Category, 2019 Judging of Craft Spirits
Gold medalist, 2019 World Spirits Design Competition
Best in Show by Country Category, 2018 USA Spirits Competition
Gin of the Year and Vodka of the Year, 2018 USA Spirits Competition
Our spirits have been featured in Wine Enthusiast Magazine, with our gin ranking among their ‘Top 100 Spirits in the World 2019’. We have also received reviews and recognition from Liquor Hound, Booze Dancing, Good Spirits News, Beauty Loves Booze, USA Trade Tasting, and Best Tasting Spirits.
Our 2020 revenue was $128,000 in spirits, plus another $175,000 in hand sanitizer, despite the setbacks of the pandemic. This year we have done more than $173,000 in spirits YTD, and are expanding our distribution almost exponentially. Now that things are opening up again, we are adding markets and finally gaining momentum.
Why Invest
Our products have a unique edge in a red hot market
At Skeptic Distillery, our vision is to become a leading innovator in the liquor space, globally renowned for the unique yet approachable and delicious character of our spirits. We also aim to become a brand house from which we can use our cutting edge technology to create and sell off new brands.
The US craft market is growing exponentially and expected to reach $20 billion by 2023, so as our distribution expands, we believe we will have no problem capturing a significant market share with our one-of-a-kind spirits. As business ramps up, we are working toward distribution in 24-26 states by 2022, and we look forward to having you be a part of our success story!
Company | : | Skeptic Distillery Co. |
Corporate Address | : | 2525 W Le Moyne St., Melrose Park, IL 60160 |
Offering Minimum | : | $10,000.00 |
Offering Maximum | : | $1,000,000.00 |
Minimum Investment Amount(per investor) | : | $250.00 |
Offering Type | : | Equity |
Security Name | : | Class B Common Non-Voting Shares |
Minimum Number of Shares Offered | : | 2,000 |
Maximum Number of Shares Offered | : | 200,000 |
Price per Share | : | $5.00 |
Pre-Money Valuation | : | $9,000,000.00 |
*Maximum Number of Shares Offered subject to adjustment for bonus shares. See Bonus info below.
Investment Incentives and Bonuses*
Previous Backer Bonus
All previous investors will receive an additional 5% bonus shares on top of the highest bonus for which they qualify.
Time-Based
Friends and Family Early Birds
Invest within the first 48 hours and receive an additional 15% bonus shares.
Super Early Bird Bonus
Invest within the next 72 hours and receive an additional 10% bonus shares.
Early Bird Bonus
Invest within the next 7 days and receive an additional 5% bonus shares.
Amount-Based:
$1000+
Unique Code for FREE trio of products on website (any 3)
$2,500+
First tier plus Unique Code for $100 of free merch via Skeptic online store
$5,000+
First two tiers plus lifetime 20% off all drinks, spirits and merch purchased online or in the distillery
$10,000+
First three tiers, plus guaranteed (at no cost) bottle of every limited release product for 10 years.
*All perks occur when the offering is completed.
The 10% StartEngine Owners' Bonus
Skeptic Distillery will offer 10% additional bonus shares for all investments that are committed by investors that are eligible for the StartEngine Crowdfunding Inc. OWNer's bonus.
This means eligible StartEngine shareholders will receive a 10% bonus for any shares they purchase in this offering. For example, if you buy 100 shares of Class B Common Non-Voting Shares at $5.00 / share, you will receive 110 shares of Class B Common Non-Voting Shares, meaning you'll own 110 shares of Class B Common Non-Voting for $500. Fractional shares will not be distributed and share bonuses will be determined by rounding down to the nearest whole share.
This 10% Bonus is only valid during the investor's eligibility period. Investors eligible for this bonus will also have priority if they are on a waitlist to invest and the company surpasses its maximum funding goal. They will have the first opportunity to invest should room in the offering become available if prior investments are canceled or fail.
Investors will only receive a single bonus, which will be the highest bonus rate they are eligible for.
A crowdfunding investment involves risk. You should not invest any funds in this offering unless you can afford to lose your entire investment. In making an investment decision, investors must rely on their own examination of the issuer and the terms of the offering, including the merits and risks involved. These securities have not been recommended or approved by any federal or state securities commission or regulatory authority. Furthermore, these authorities have not passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of this document. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission does not pass upon the merits of any securities offered or the terms of the offering, nor does it pass upon the accuracy or completeness of any offering document or literature. These securities are offered under an exemption from registration; however, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has not made an independent determination that these securities are exempt from registration.
Hello Everyone!
It looks like the campaign is wrapping up in the next 24 hours or less. There's still time to get in on the ground floor of our company and help us chart a new course in distilled beverages.
Some companies on the platform are great marketers and have the resources to spend on that, and we applaud them. However, we've remained laser focused on making great products and doing it as inexpensively as possible. Doing a lot with a little is our modus operandi. What can we say? Our expertise is in making and selling great spirits, not fundraising. Isn't that what you would actually rather have as a distillery investor anyway?
What we do possess is a small and dedicated team that works harder than anyone, amazing products, ACTUAL GROWING SALES!!, rabid fans and vast untapped potential. We'll be making a lot of noise in the coming months and years. Our pivot late last year into readily available liter bottle options for on-premise sales is starting to really open up our volumes significantly on gin and vodka. Every day we meet bartenders and customers really excited about the taste of GinQuila and cocktail possibilities with it. We're distilling more often than ever before, and opening new accounts almost daily.
In fact, the vodka we contract distill and bottle for PlayPen Vodka is the craft well vodka at prominent LGBTQ bar in Chicago, Nobody's Darling, and they are one of just 5 finalists in the country for the James Beard Award for Outstanding Bar Program! With PlayPen Vodka being a key compenent of their program, this is a tremendous accolade to even get that close, and with a real shot at winning!
It's just a sneak peak of the successes and growth that is sure to come this year. We hope you'll take this final opportunity to get your seat on the rocket ship next to us. The more the merrier!
Cheers,
Karl - Founder
Whiskey and a beer anyone?
Or rather, cold distilled whiskey and a non-alcoholic beer?
It's become blatantly obvious over the past few years that retail choices are changing in the liquor, wine and beer aisles. Hard seltzers now take up as much as 25% of the shelf space that beer once inhabited. Canned wine is a thing. RTD (ready to drink) cocktails are booming. Even zero proof spirits are finding an audience. So this begs the question: What does this mean for the future of alcoholic beverages?As it turns out, not much. The appetite for spirits is as big as it's ever been and growing, but the appetite for low-calorie/no alcohol options is growing as well. Part of this might simply be perception from marketing pushes, but it's also true that demand is sometimes created in this way. Big beer brands like Heineken and Budweiser, are now producing and promoting their non-alcoholic beer options. Heavily. There's a clear and growing trend towards these options for consumers.
Recently, a friend of mine sent me a link to an episode of Dragon's Den, the original British version of Shark Tank, that got me thinking... These British entrepeneurs were trying to raise 1 million quid to purchase a "dealkylyzer," or in other words, a vacuum distillation apparatus, in order to produce non-alcoholic craft beers. Eureka! I realized that the liquid we had been dumping down the drain as a waste stream for whiskey distillations could in fact be a profit center. So, I tried it out on a few small distillations of beers. And you know what? It works. It works perfectly. And not only do I get a brilliant whiskey out of it, but a brilliant non-alcoholic beer!
Skeptic is positioned to become a leading innovator in the non-alcoholic beer space owing to the use of our existing technology. It's just one of many exciting developments we plan to implement in the coming years. We hope you'll join us in our journey.
There are a lot of companies vying to earn your hard-earned investment dollars in the liquor space. Here are 3 reasons why Skeptic Distillery stands apart from the rest:
1) Unique Technology - our application of cold vacuum (i.e. low pressure) distilling technology to spirits allows us to achieve fresh, bright and smooth flavor. Cold distilling is also far more efficient, using less heat and energy than atmospheric distillation, with a lower overall carbon footprint. Think fresh cold brewed coffee versus burnt gas station coffee, or fresh squeezed orange juice versus heat pasteurized juice. The difference is night and day!
2) Award-Winning Results - Our spirits have consistently earned accolades and awards from industry competitions as well as from the public. Skeptic Gin was ranked in the Top 100 spirits in the world in 2019 by Wine Enthusiast. Skeptic Vodka and Gin earned Vodka and Gin of the Year respectively in their first year of production, and GinQuila recently earned a Double Gold at the consumer focused SIP Awards this year.
3) Growth Trajectory - Since our inception in June 2018, we have expanded into several new states and grown sales significantly YOY, even during the ongoing pandemic! But we are merely at the beginning of achieving significant gains and success. With the recent launch of an on-premise focused, liter bottle, premium well vodka and gin program, we are positioned to make major inroads on cocktail menus in restaurants and bars locally and regionally. With the anticipated opening of our tasting room/stillpub cocktail bar in late Q1 2022, we expect to generate a lot of enthusiasm, excitement and direct sales of spirits. Further, the pending launch of Tamarico, our unique flavor entry into the shooter and mixer liqueur space, as well as our craft beer and other whiskeys with the completion of our low-pressure whiskey still, will further juice our growth. And with your investment, we expect to be capitalized sufficiently to enable us to accomplish all of this and more, and quickly.
So please join us on the ground floor of being the leading innovators in liquor production, with the potential to completely disrupt how spirits are made for decades to come!
[The following is an automated notice from the StartEngine team].
Hello!
As you might know, Skeptic Distillery has exceeded its minimum funding goal. When a company reaches its minimum on StartEngine, it's about to begin withdrawing funds. If you invested in Skeptic Distillery be on the lookout for an email that describes more about the disbursement process.
This campaign will continue to accept investments until its indicated closing date.
Thanks for funding the future.
-StartEngine
Please enjoy this short time lapse video showing the final pouring of the epoxy flooring for the Skeptic Distillery tasting room/bar. We are targeting March 15 to open to the public, though that timeline is still fluid and will depend on a number of factors. We still need to purchase and install the lighting, finish the bartop and underbar, complete the bathrooms, complete the backbar and shelving, and purchase tables and chairs. However, we are about 75% of the way finished!
In other news, we are securing local commitments to supply our vodka and gin in well placements at a number of restaurants/bars around Chicagoland, and we will be announcing a partnership with a restaurant customer of ours to supply a bespoke whiskey for their use, which locks in around 200 cases per year in whiskey sales. This is an important step to proving the quality of our small batch produced whiskeys and the ROI on the production whiskey still, which we intend to build with proceeds of this equity crowdfunding campaign.
As always, please feel free to reach out to me directly with any questions or comments!
Cheers,
Karl Loepke, Founder
We'd love to show you some of the progress on the tasting room that was made possible with the first tranche of investment, of which we disbursed approx. $10,000.00 to fund the epoxy preparation and bar build-out. As goal #1a, the front bar/tasting room is enormously important to really building our community of followers and supporters locally, and as a means of generating revenue at higher margins than distribution.
The below photographs show the progress over the last 2 weeks. We started out by framing out the bartop, which we then poured as countertop cement. This will be polished and sealed after the floors are done, which is being completed by tomorrow. The next pictures show the progress on the floor up to now. Today the metallic powders and main color and leveling epoxy will be poured, then tomorrow the final polyurethane coat with slip resistance will be added to complete it.
We're going to put together a cool time lapse of the metallics being poured and post as a short film in the next couple of days.
We are targeting March 1, 2022 to open the tasting room/bar. Once we have a firm date, we'll notify everyone and invite all investors who are in the area, or may be at the time, to a private opening party. And we're very excited to check this one off the list and get started on the next, even more exciting project... goal #1b: the production cold vacuum whiskey still. We will need as much financial support as we can earn to pull this off, so we really appreciate your support and partnership with us as we go along on this awesome journey together!! Please feel free to reach out directly to me, Karl Loepke, at 773-910-1339 or kloepke@skepticdistillery.com if you have any questions.
Even though it's the holiday season and there are all kinds of uncertainty surrounding the economy and the supply chain issues, etc., we wanted to give you a few updates to show how Skeptic continues to progress!
We have elected to take a small disbursement from the initial investments in order to accomplish a few things to get us closer to opening the tasting room/stillpub. Not just a tasting room, we will be able to serve actual cocktails here as well as beer and wine, if so desired. The space is coming along well and we will be pouring a concrete bartop this week (keeping that industrial feel), and the floors will be finished next week, thanks to the funds we are receiving from the initial investments. So, THANK YOU for helping bring this to fruition!
After this is poured and sealed, we will have the floors repaired and epoxied next week. After that, we'll begin completing the look of the bar, at least on the underneath side of it facing outwards. We intend to make it look like recovered metal paneling from NASA rockets, and it should look pretty neat when all is said and done.
In other news, we have been advertising GinQuila on social media with the video below, made for just $1,000.00 with help from an Instagram account (food_for_art) and Fiverr (great site if you've never used it!). Our GinQuila skull character, who we've dubbed Ringo (because I've been watching Get Back on Netflix, and it's amazing), explains what GinQuila is and what makes it special.
Lastly, I wanted to update you all on a new product we've been developing that we think could become really, REALLY big. It's called Tamarico, and it's a tamarind, chili and chamoy liqueur that is designed to compete in the shooter category with the likes of Fireball, Skrewball and Jagermeister. Currently, other than tequila, there are no shooter products marketed to the Latino market. Tamarico will change this up and we believe that it could become a really, really big thing. We are also in talks with a major Mexican spice brand for a co-marketing strategy in our launch that would bring a lot of caché and credibility to the product. Here's a look at the label design, which is designed to be reflective of the tamarind chili candies popular in Mexico.
[The following is an automated notice from the StartEngine team].
Hello!
As you might know, Skeptic Distillery has exceeded its minimum funding goal. When a company reaches its minimum on StartEngine, it's about to begin withdrawing funds. If you invested in Skeptic Distillery be on the lookout for an email that describes more about the disbursement process.
This campaign will continue to accept investments until its indicated closing date.
Thanks for funding the future.
-StartEngine
Hello everybody!
Please take a couple minutes to watch this video where I do a walk-through of the distillery facility and discuss in some depth the vision for the tasting room space, the progress we've made, and our plans for the capital raised in this crowdfunding campaign. I actually did this video a few weeks ago and we have made some further progress since then, which you can see in the images below the video.
As you can see from the video, there's still a lot of work to be done, though not much as you might think. Primarily completing and outfitting the bar, paint and floor resurfacing, then it's just adding in tables, chairs, etc. Because it was an old office space earlier, there was a ton of stripping down to bare bones and demolition required to get to this point. The heavy lifting is done though, now it's time to paint, build and finish it up. The warehouse is completely done aside from cleaning and sealing the concrete, and the distillery is now 95% complete but for some paint touchup and reorganization. We're distilling vodka this week and gin next week so we had to pause finishing up to make some product. I'll post about our production process to give you a behind-the-scenes at what makes us so unique in a future update.
I recently revamped and relaunched the Skeptic merchandise online store with the arrival of some new GinQuila shirt designs. These are available in aqua blue and sunset orange. You can also preorder the Skeptic astronaut rocker shirts there as well. If you have already invested and are owed a unique promo code perk, please reach out directly to me at kloepke@skepticdistillery.com or text me at (773) 910-1339 if you would like to order something as I have not set those codes up yet for each individual. To celebrate the launch of the store, anyone can use the code GINQUILA10 to get 10% off anything in the store (albeit limited selection at the moment).
We're also offering 10% off at the Skeptic Spirits Store with the code SKEPTIC10, if you would like to order some spirits in time for the holidays. We'll be running a Cyber Monday deal over there as well as a holiday promotion for gifts. Please follow us on social media to stay in the loop on what's coming up!
I would like to discuss in a bit more detail what really separates Skeptic Distillery from the crowded spirits category, and why what we're doing here has enormous investment potential. In a series of articles I began posting on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago (the first two of which are in the links below), I go into some depth about the process and elaborate on what we plan to do with the options it opens up for us in the future.
(7) Vacuum Distillation and Spirits | LinkedIn
(7) Vacuum Distillation Feedstocks - Mash or Beer? | LinkedIn
These articles are intended to be more or less educational, and I will continue writing them, but I want to discuss here what this all means in terms of the investment potential of Skeptic Distillery.
Cold vacuum distillation allows us to distill at room temperature or below, which means we can preserve the complexity and character of what we're distilling into the spirit. Traditional distillation temperatures and methods destroy most of that and only the most potent flavors and aromas come through. This means that we can introduce complexity up front, rather than rely on the barrel to develop it over time. This is revolutionary in the industry, when you think about it.
What it also means is that extended aging and such are not necessary. In fact, that would crush much of the complexity of the starting spirit and turn it into something more like a traditional whiskey over time. So what we're talking about doing is creating white spirits right out of the still that are already complex and tasty, essentially creating entirely new categories of spirits that haven't really existed before. And then, we can also age these to introduce character either from a barrel or wood spirals or chips from different types of wood to give even more unique character. The possibilities are practically limitless.
Being one of the first to market leveraging this kind of technology in a practical way, we plan to become the leading distillery in the world producing spirits in this way. One of the first whiskeys we plan to produce with the cold vacuum whiskey still will be based on a Toasted Coconut Porter recipe that we have experimented with extensively on the pilot still. The flavors and aromas are complex out of the still, with notes of chocolate, caramel, raisin/prune and toasted coconut, which is then aged on oak chips or in a barrel, picking up the oak character, vanilla and some cinnamon notes as well. And it's remarkably smooth as well.
So please take a look at the articles to gain a better understanding of our unique process and how we're applying it to spirit distillation, and why it makes for a superior product with limitless possibilities. And if you decide to invest with Skeptic Distillery, thank you as well! Your investment will allow us to bring these products to market faster and to achieve our goals on a much quicker timeline.
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