![ballast point fugu ballast point fugu](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/7b/a5/45/7ba545f8656b659392b66292101b87ba.jpg)
Here, most distillers find it almost a duty to help their peers, to experiment and to collaborate. “Home distillation is illegal, but we’ve found a few ways that we might be able to circumvent those laws and offer small batches for sale in the tasting room, and maybe run some competitions and get new talent out there.” It’s a notion that harkens to home brew clubs of the last 40 years and that speaks to the collaborative nature of distilling in San Diego.
#BALLAST POINT FUGU HOW TO#
Digilio is consulting with about 13 distilleries and has plans to open a distilling school in San Diego where guests can learn about spirits and how to operate a still. Now, he is becoming the man he wishes he had known.
#BALLAST POINT FUGU TRIAL#
Ray Digilio, for instance, who founded Kill Devil Spirits, says that he wishes he had someone to advise him when he began distilling so that he wouldn’t have had to rely so much on trial and error. New distilleries planning to come online will find a welcoming cadre of colleagues willing to advise, support and maybe even lend equipment. AB 1295, which takes effect January 1st, 2016, allows, among other things, more robust tasting room options and the ability to sell spirits directly to consumers on site. Its dual purpose is to promote distilling in San Diego County and raise awareness about San Diego craft spirits more broadly. In 2014, the majority of county distillers banded together to form the San Diego Distillers Guild ().
![ballast point fugu ballast point fugu](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/06/f5/53/06f553815a5a0477efe57430cc494b9a.png)
When they do, they’ll find an existing corps of distillers who have come onto the scene within the last few years and who consistently help each other. But now, some anticipate a gold rush of new distillers-perhaps those who’ve been waiting to see how the new legislation panned out-to finally take the plunge. Before then, even tast ing rooms were forbidden before 2014. They could also sell t-shirts, hats and other swag. What they could do was offer quarter-ounce pours (up to 1.5 ounces per person, per day) to visitors and tour groups. Breweries and wineries could have tasting rooms and sell products directly to customers, but distilleries were specifically forbidden from selling directly to consumers. Before this new law, California craft distillers were at a disadvantage. In a boon to the local distilling scene, California governor Jerry Brown signed AB 1295 in late 2015. With so many locals who already know about yeasts, grains and fermentation, and who have a propensity for both experimentation and collaboration, it’s not surprising that more are expanding into distilling. Home brewing is such a popular local pastime that the joke that a person can’t walk 10 feet in San Diego without running into a brewer isn’t really too far off. In a county that stretches from the outskirts of Tijuana almost to Disneyland in the north, San Diego has more than 70 miles of beaches and 114 breweries to slake prodigious thirsts brought on by incessantly pleasant, spring-like weather.