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Y-town Vodka Draws More Customers, Distributor
BOARDMAN, Ohio -- Y-town vodka, distilled and bottled in Boardman, has won national recognition for its quality and the design and labels on its bottles.
The American Distilling Institute in California awarded Y-town its award for “Best of Category, Craft Spirit” and a gold medal last spring.
The outlet where it was first offered for sale in January, Chalet Premier in North Lima, reports good sales as customers return to buy more.
“We’ve sold quite a few cases,” reports Joyce D’Amico, a co-owner of Chalet Premier. “Sales are steady. Loyalty [to Youngstown] will get you to try the first bottle. Quality is what keeps you coming back.”
The man who built the micro-distillery on McClurg Road where Y-town is produced, Bill Candella, has found that making the first legal spirits here since Prohibition was easy compared to the challenge of distribution.
“We’ve got a following,” he says. “We’re getting repeat business.”
The volume, however, hasn’t reached the levels he wants. He has a way to go.
Come Aug. 1, Candella hopes to see sales begin to really take off. That’s when his contract with Heidelberg Distributing Co. LLC takes effect.
The Youngstown office of Heidelberg, which serves Ohio and Kentucky, is Ohio Wine Imports Inc. on Crescent Street.
Where Candella had only himself to visit state of Ohio liquor outlets, restaurants and bars, trying to persuade them to carry his vodka, Heidelberg “has 200 salespeople across the state,” says John Haskins, director of Heidelberg’s spirits and marketing group, that call on those outlets, restaurants and bars.
Haskins thinks it reasonable to see sales of Y-town vodka triple within a year.
“Heidelberg is the only distributor calling on every retailer in Ohio’s 88 counties,” according to its website. The distributor is the broker for five brands of vodka and Y-town will be its sixth.
Candella says he would spend his mornings calling on restaurants, going as far south as Columbiana County and as far north as Trumbull County. The decision-maker was not always at hand.
When he called on the Springfield Grille in Boardman, beverage manager Tamela Barnhart says, she referred him to corporate headquarters in Mercer, Pa. “They do all our buying.”
As Candella was finding out, “I needed a broker.”
“We function legally as his broker,” Haskins says. The state Department of Liquor Control owns the spirits state outlets sell, not the state outlets. “Ohio ships to the stores. Ohio distributes the product. Ohio owns it,” he says, until it’s sold.
The department of liquor control sets the price,” Haskins continues, based on the distiller’s cost structure. Hence, Y-town, introduced last winter at $42.50 for a 750-ml bottle, sells for $34.75 today, still a premium price.
“It’s a craft product selling at an import price,” Haskins notes.
The state liquor department seeks to winnow out the slowest-selling brands of all spirits, “delist” as Haskins phrases it, but the growing demand of craft liquors leads Heidelberg to add Y-town to the products it handles. “The state of Ohio is willing to help you grow,” Haskins says.
Four brands of vodka are among the 10 best-selling sprits in Ohio last year, the department of liquor control reports.
The best seller was Jack Daniels whiskey with more than 350,000 gallons sold, followed by Kamchatka vodka at 294,168 gallons. Absolut at No. 5 wasn’t far behind, selling 277,729. Seventh was Smirnoff at 266,801 gallons and Korski was 10th at 222,357.
Chalet Premier has sold 100 cases since February, of Y-Town, Candella reports, so while he produces Y-town in 150-gallon batches, he’s nowhere close to turning out the quantities just cited.
He takes comfort in the number of people from Youngstown who spend their winters in Florida and have taken Y-town vodka there and that it’s become popular with the Youngstown community in Naples, Fla. The growing popularity there has prompted him to seek a broker in the Sunshine State, he says.
Besides vodka, Candella has been making apple and cherry pie spirits, both of which have won raves from those who have sampled them, including D’Amico. When the state liquor department approves their sale, she expects they’ll prove popular at Chalet Premier.
The popularity of vodka is great as a visit to any state store attests. The liquor department at the Poland Giant Eagle, for example has an entire wall filled with some 20 brands of vodka – including Y-town – that range in price from $10 to $45 for a 750-ml bottle.
Vodka sells well at the Springfield Grille, Barnhart says. “Ninety percent of our martinis are made with vodka,” she says.
To promote Y-town vodka, Candella sells T-shirts with pictures of his product. “My sister-in-law sold 36 shirts in Fort Myers, [Fla.],” he says. and he’s seen people wearing Y-town T-shirts in restaurants in and close to Boardman.
Pictured: Bill Candella’s Y-town vodka recently won a gold medal from the American Distilling Institute in California.
BACKGROUND:
Y-town Vodka Arrives for Sale at Chalet Premier
Micro-Distillery Prepares to Make Vodka in Boardman
Editor's Note: This story was first published in the MidJuly edition of The Business Journal, in subscribers' mailboxes this week.
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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