Archive for November 2021
CiderCon 2022 Schedule Released
The American Cider Association is please to share the first draft of the CiderCon® 2022 Schedule! With tours, tastings, educational workshops, demos and more, CiderCon’s return to an in-person event is bound to be one of the most energetic CiderCons to date. Early registration numbers have been record breaking, with more than 400 people already signed up by November 15!
We’ve produced this draft schedule to help you with your CiderCon® 2022 planning. More session are being added each week and the schedule will be updated to reflect those additions. Session times may change as the schedule finalizes. Some sessions require separate registration which can be done during checkout. Details can be found on these sessions on the CiderCon® 2022 Registration page. Following our health & safety guidelines is necessary to participate.
For more details on all things CiderCon® 2022, you can head to the CiderCon® Website. You can download the draft schedule here.
Distributor Relationships & Social Media Advertising Sessions at CiderCon 2022
The American Cider Association is pleased to announce that Julie Rhodes of Not Your Hobby Marketing will present three sessions at CiderCon® 2022. Read on to learn more about Julie’s sessions and why you won’t want to miss them.
Social Media Advertising 101: How to Get Started with FB & IG Ads
Social media marketing should be a major component within your strategic business plans. But with organic reach of social media posts declining, that means less eyeballs on your cider brand. Learning how to formulate a paid social media advertising structure to add to your current organic content can help boost visibility, help build brand awareness and allow you to observe the purchase habits of your best customers. Join Julie Rhodes, owner of Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions, for an interactive social media advertising presentation and workshop that will get you started with social media advertising.
Distribution Management for Beginners
Making the leap from on site sales to selling your cider products in retail is a big step, so wouldn’t it be helpful if there was some type of guidebook or instruction list for how to make this transition? Yes! Only that doesn’t exist, but lucky for you, this session on Distribution Management for Beginners led by Julie Rhodes of Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions does. Learn the ins and outs, ups and downs, and best practices for those that are just getting started creating relationships with their distribution partners.
Distribution Management: Advanced Concepts
If you’ve been selling your cider brand with a distributor or wholesaler for a while, but are feeling a bit lost when it comes to strategic sales planning, this breakout session is right for you. Keeping your brand top of mind with your distributor personnel is vital if you want to succeed in the wholesale channel, but it’s how you accomplish this that seems to be a mystery to most. This session will explore the ways that you can implement strategic sales plans, interactive training, digital marketing, and advanced analytics to ensure that you’re building a long-term, profitable relationship with your distributor partner.
Julie Rhodes, Not Your Hobby Marketing
With over 20,000 hours of experience on the business side of the specialty beer industry, from field sales to digital marketing to regional management, a BA in Marketing from Texas State University at San Marcos, and more than 15 years of experience in the service industry, Julie Rhodes is an authority on beverage sales, marketing, sales team management, distributor partnership management, supply chain logistics, and customer service. She is the owner of Not Your Hobby Marketing Solutions, an educational services and consulting company that teaches sales, marketing & distribution management strategies to craft beverage professionals.
Webinar: Three-Tier Compliance & Regulatory Concerns for Cideries
Join the American Cider Association for the webinar Three-Tier Compliance & Regulatory Concerns for Cideries on December 9, 2021 at 11:00am Pacific Time. Alex Koral of Sovos ShipCompliant will lead this webinar.
What Will Be Covered In This Webinar?
As they expand, cider producers face a long list of complicated and evolving compliance and regulatory challenges in order for their cider to be distributed and sold in new states. Licensing, state and federal brand registrations, distribution agreements, and required follow-up reports make compliance a time-consuming and expensive process.
This webinar will spotlight the most pressing regulatory issues facing today’s cider producers involved in interstate distribution. Attendees will learn how to effectively, and cost-effectively, navigate regulatory and compliance risks.
- Get ahead of regulatory compliance to avoid delays in bringing new products to market
- Know the regulatory barriers that exist when entering new markets so you can expand your presence with minimal holdup
- Stay up to date on key regulatory issues impacting your business
This webinar is for active ACA members only. You can become a member or renew your membership here!
Our Speaker
Alex Koral, Regulatory General Counsel, Sovos ShipCompliant
Based in Boulder, Colorado, Alex Koral is Regulatory General Counsel for Sovos ShipCompliant, where he serves as lead legal researcher for beverage alcohol regulation and has become a leading expert on interstate distribution of alcohol. He has spoken on the topic at many industry events including Craft Brewers Conference, Craft Beer Professionals conferences, and meetings of the National Council of State Liquor Administrators and the National Liquor Law Enforcement Association. Alex has been in the beverage alcohol arena since 2015, after receiving his J.D. from the University of Colorado Law School.
Exploring Geographic Indicators for Cider
Dear ACA Members,
For the last year and a half, the American Cider Association has been working closely with our partners at the New York Cider Association and key stakeholders in the wine industry and government to explore how harvest-driven ciders over 7% ABV might benefit from a system of geographic indicators. We all know the impact of place and time on a cider can be profound, yet because of the legal structure of American Viticultural Area (AVAs), certain appellations are prohibited on ciders requiring a certificate of label approval from the TTB.
State and county appellations are available to qualifying ciders but place names that may or may not overlap with an AVA are usually a ticket for a COLA rejection.
This is understandably frustrating to cideries whose ciders are influenced by the climate, soil and topography of their geographic location.
Our approach to exploring appellation in cider is to be thorough and cautious. The language outlining the legal structure for AVA is complicated and adopting the same structure for cider would have profound, and in my opinion, potentially negative effects on the cider industry. So the solution will need to be specific to cider, as cider deserves.
ACA and NYCA are working on this project together because our members’ voices on the need for a geographic indicator beyond county and place are crystal clear. It’s important to know this work is very complex. This is a long term project requiring legal experts, financial resources and perhaps Congressional action. It also requires the continued input of members like you.
We want to hear from you. We’ve put together this brief survey to begin learning more about your needs on indicating the geography of your cider as part of Phase 1 of this project. ACA is giving away a free hoodie to two lucky survey takers! We know this time of year is busy for you so we will keep the survey running through this calendar year. If you are interested in being more involved in this work, you can let us know in the survey. We look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Michelle McGrath
Executive Director
American Cider Association
P.S. I know that wine and cider labeling regulations are confusing. Geographic indicators complicate things even more. I’m excited to share that the ACA is rolling out a member resource library later this month. The library will house compliance information for our members among many other tools and resources. We will add new tools to it every quarter. Stay tuned for the official launch!
Tiffanie Barriere, aka The Drinking Coach, to speak at CiderCon 2022
We are thrilled to announce that Tiffanie Barriere, aka The Drinking Coach, is speaking at CiderCon 2022 in Richmond, Virginia! Tiffanie is no stranger to cider, which is why we’ve asked her to demonstrate how to make killer low-ABV cider cocktails in her workshop at CiderCon. She’ll walk you through the steps so you can take these cocktails back to your tasting room program. Beyond the perfect cider cocktail, Tiffanie will also be weaving the history of Black bartenders in America into her presentation. Whether it’s cocktail construction or American alcohol history, walk away aware and A LOT smarter under The Drinking Coach’s tutelage.
Tiffanie Barriere is the bartender’s bartender, an influencer and educator who has been awarded with some of the beverage industry’s highest honors. The Bar Smart graduate is a Tastemakers of the South award-winner who spent seven years as the beverage director of One Flew South the “Best Airport Bar in the World.” As an independent bartender she is known for creative and innovative cocktail menus for pop-dinners and bar consultancy clients; hosting mixology classes around the nation, and connecting culinary and farm culture with spirits. As a leader, she is a member of the Tales of the Cocktail Grants Committee, the James Beard Beverage Advisory Board, and a member of the Atlanta chapter of Les Dames d’Escoffier.
“The Drinking Coach” Barriere has graced the demonstration stages of prestigious food and hospitality events such as the Atlanta Food & Wine Festival, Charleston Food & Wine Festival, BevCon, Tales of the Cocktail, Savannah Food & Wine Festival, Music to Your Mouth and more. As an author-contributor, Tiffanie’s cocktail recipes can be found in the Southern Foodway Alliance Guide to Cocktails by Jerry Slayter, Jubilee by Toni Tipton Martin, and Road Soda by Kara Newman.
Her reputation as a public historian has opened doors for her to speak on panels at such venues as Fire, Flour & Fork, Southern Foodways Symposium, and the Soul Summit, and she has interpreted the cocktails of African American and women firsts in spirits at the James Beard House in New York City.
The culinarians and chefs she has worked with reads like a Who’s Who in the Culinary Arts: Duane Nutter, Todd Richards, the late Darryl Evans, Kevin Mitchell, Deborah VanTrece, Jennifer Hill Booker, Suzanne Vizethann, Erika Council, Todd Ginsberg and Asha Gomez.
Barriere and her cocktails have been featured in such publications as Imbibe magazine (print and online), Difford’s Guide, Creative Loafing, Forbes, Essence, Southern Living, The Bitter Southerner, Cherry Bomb, Washington Post, Thrillist, Eater, Vine Pair, Food Republic, and Garden & Gun. In 2020 Tiffanie was featured on Food Networks The Kitchen showcasing her creativity on how to batch for more than 2 people. She also received the Tales of the Cocktails Dame of the Year award in 2020 and the cover photo of Imbibe Magazine for the Top 75 for Imbibe.
The Louisiana-Texas native is the trustworthy mentor of some of the best bartenders and mixologists in the world. Tiffanie’s main goal is education, service and fun with every pour.