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Beverages
All Containers›Shop by use case›Beverages›Making a drink, and selling it in a bottleShop all non alcoholic →
Beverages

Making a drink, and selling it in a bottle

By Dwight Davis, Founder

Updated

On this page10
Two quantitative thresholds from two agencies, and no other property here has two. FIVE LOGS: juice processors must achieve a 100,000-fold pathogen reduction, and the retail exemption that lets a market stall operate ends the moment one case goes to a café. HALF A PERCENT: TTB counts a fermented drink as an alcohol beverage at 0.5% ABV, reached "at any time during production, when bottled, or at any time after bottling". Which makes the package part of the control rather than a wrapper around it: the bottle is hosting a reaction, and the same mechanism produces both the legal failure and the physical one.
92 of 92 written. Every page names its source or says it has none.

Getting started

Before there is product.
Is a drinks business for youWhat it costs to startHow much time it actually takesWhere the fruit, tea and water come fromEquipment for a first batchYour first year, month by monthWhere the work happensWhat you have to register, and with whomWhat protects the makerTurning a recipe into a productNaming it without a problem later

The liquid

What is actually in the bottle.
Water, which is most of itThe base: juice, tea, extract or infusionSugar, and what it is doing besides sweetnessAcid, pH and why it matters twiceCarbonationFlavor, botanicals and extractsColor, clarity and hazePreservation without pasteurizingStoring raw stock

The two lines

Five logs, and half a percent.
Two numbers, two agenciesThe five-log reductionHACCP, or the retail exemptionThe warning statement on untreated juiceHalf a percent, and why it movesMeasuring alcohol properlyFermentation after bottlingIf you cross it

Making a batch

The day it gets made.
Choosing a batch sizeTreating the waterExtraction and brewingBlending to a specificationAdjusting sugar and acidHeat treatmentCarbonatingFillingSealing and cappingCleaning down

What goes wrong

Named failures, and most of them are pressure.
Bottle bombsRefermentation in the bottleOver-carbonation and gushingIt went flatMold and spoilageSeparation and settlingHaze and cloudinessColor changeOff-flavorsLeaking and seal failureLosing it at scale

Bottles, cans and closures

Where the container decision lives.
What sizePressure, and which containers hold itGlass, PET or canClosures: crown, ROPP and screwHeadspace, and why it is a safety numberFilling without a lineLabels on a cold, wet bottleTamper evidenceHow it looks on a shelfThe cold chainCase packing and shipping liquidWhen stock goes off-condition

Selling it

Where the thresholds reach the label.
What to chargeWhat federal law requires on the labelThe nutrition panel and serving sizesWhat you may legally call itHealth claims, and the ones to avoidSelling at a marketSelling onlineSelling wholesale, and what it does to your exemptionWhat your state addsInsurance, and what your policy excludesWho you buy from

Growing the operation

What breaks first.
Making more of itMaking batch 60 match batch 1Equipment at the next sizeHaving somebody else make itThe contractThe first person you payWhat you have to write down

Tools and directories

Things to use rather than read.
Which regime are you in? A checkBrix, pH and what to measureCarbonation and pressure arithmeticHow many bottles you will getWorking out what to chargeWhen it pays for itselfEverything that has to be on the labelThe words, in the order you meet them

Beyond the bottle

The obvious second products.
Syrups and concentratesCold brew and ready-to-drink coffeeShrubs, switchels and drinking vinegarsMixers and the bar tradeMaking it for somebody else
Written from the federal regulation and agency guidance named on each page, not from a laboratory. Whether a particular product meets a pathogen reduction requirement, and what its alcohol content actually is, are measurements about your product, and this is not those measurements.