MANY a business idea has been hatched over a few drinks on a night out.
But while most are well and truly forgotten by the next morning, there are some ideas that come to fruition.
One such example is proud WA company High Spirits Distillery, which is producing premium dry gin and vodka from locally grown bio-dynamic triticale.
The unique artisan business, borne out of a vision by Mike Caban and brother Jade, is the only distillery in Australia and only one of two in the world using 100 per cent unmalted triticale.
High Spirits has been built around a 'Grain to Glass' supply chain, whereby the triticale is grown on a Dumbleyung property before being delivered straight to the company's Welshpool premises for processing and bottling onsite.
It hasn't been an easy road, but Mr Caban said the small batch business was now going from strength to strength since releasing its first vintage in late 2017.
"I'm a chef by trade and have always had an interest in distilling, but then a few years ago Jade and I went to a whiskey tasting evening, and after a few whiskeys decided we wanted to start a business together," Mr Caban said.
"We were still keen the next day and got straight into investigating our options, looking at licence requirements and coming up with a business plan."
Mr Caban said their initial thoughts were to start up a brewery in Perth, but soon realised there was already a lot of competition in what was a numbers-based field, as well as requiring huge financial inputs.
So they shifted their focus to producing spirits, and began investigating triticale as their base product.
By late 2016 they had secured financial backing from their father and Mr Caban's father-in-law and set about researching and developing how to best use the wheat and rye hybrid.
"There is only one other distiller in the world using triticale and they're in Alberta, Canada, so not a lot was known about working with the grain," he said.
"It is hard to work with and we've been breaking new ground and learning how to use it, as it has a high beta glucanase and protein content and produces quite a viscose mash after being milled and cooked."
It was then fermented before being distilled as a vodka, while to produce the dry gin it had to be redistilled with botanicals added.
Almost 12 months later, in August 2017, they were ready to release product to the market, to which Mr Caban said there was a soft response.
It wasn't until the following year when they entered their gin and vodka in the London Spirits Competition that things started to pick up.
"We won three trophies and a gold medal, with our dry gin receiving a score of 96 out of 100 - the second highest score for a spirit in the competition," he said.
"When we won those awards we realised we were on to something special."
Mr Caban said he wasn't surprised that there was a good response to the carefully crafted products, as they were unlike anything he'd ever tasted.
"Using a wheat and rye hybrid, there are two different aspects to the mouth feel from the gin - it is super smooth like a wheat spirit, but then it has a spicy finish like one produced from rye," he said.
"Triticale really is an underrated grain that needed some of the spotlight."
And he was particularly proud of the fact they were involved in producing the product from start to finish.
"We have total integrity over the end product," he said.
"It's a great feeling when you know every process that has happened from the grain being harvested, right through to the dry gin being poured into a glass."
And to top it all off, any waste product goes to an organic farmer in Bridgetown who uses it for pig feed.
Mr Caban admitted it had been a steep learning curve to get the business up and running.
"It has been a lot harder than we thought it might be - everything has taken a lot longer than we expected, such as the printing of labels and getting the bottles shipped from Italy, as well as learning how triticale would best respond to our processing," he said.
Having to factor in excise and goods and services taxes of about $30 per bottle, pushing the price of a 700ml bottle of their premium product to $84.95 for dry gin and $79.95 for the vodka, was another hurdle.
High Spirits buys about 10 tonne of triticale each year and one batch of gin takes about three and a half weeks to come to fruition at the company's 113m2 Welshpool premises.
Mr Caban said they were hoping to source more grain to enable them to produce as much product as possible.
"Currently everything that we distil is sold, but that money goes straight back into our business, which is wholly family owned," he said.
"We're also at the point of needing new people to help us grow the business, because we're not even close to satisfying the local market, let alone getting into the Eastern States - it's a bit of a bottleneck.
"We are making as much as we can as quickly and as often as we can."
As well as the premium vodka and dry gin, Mr Caban was producing about six microbatch labels each year.
These microbatches were mostly made in collaboration with other growers, such as a roasted hempseed gin with Vasse Valley Hemp, a black truffle gin with The Truffle Triangle, and a smoked chilli vodka, and produced anywhere from 60 to 180 bottles.
"Some sell out online within a couple of hours, while others may take a couple of weeks," Mr Caban said.
"But when they do sell out we move onto another product, unless we get really hounded by customers, at which point we'll consider re-releasing the product."
It is the production of these microbatches which allows Mr Caban to indulge his ability to come up with different flavours through a good knowledge of how food and drinks go together.
"It's my creative outlet where I can exercise the chef within me and work on recipe development without having the stress of working in a hot kitchen," he said.
Another point of difference was that they were totally transparent and open with their methods, in line with their business values of producing products that are made with integrity and honesty.
They do not add any artificial ingredients such as colours or flavours, which is particularly relevant for the microbatches - for example, their strawberry gin was made from scratch, and then fresh fruit was added in before being filtered out later.
So far they have gone down a path of growing the business organically with limited advertising, preferring to spread the word on social media and also holding tastings at regional events including at the recent Make Smoking History Wagin Woolorama, where they sold out of their gin.
Mr Caban said they planned to attend a number of events over the next few months, including the Williams Gateway Expo on Saturday, April 13.
"We love getting out to the regional areas for the tastings and showing people what we have been able to make from 100 per cent WA grown grain," he said.
