Self-consuming liquor? Help, please!

[Baudtender]

I've been doing some specs for a bar/restaurant inventory
program I've been meaning to write for years. I want it to
be useful for folks, like myself, that don't use an automated
liquor metering/pouring system, like an Azbar or Berg, because
I'm a big believer in freepour (yeah, yeah, yeah, but we train
and test our bartenders to delirium using a 7-tube Exacto-Pour,
and use standardized pour spouts on the bottles so that I can
look across the room or on a video tape and count with them.) I
figure a simple bar code wand and digital scale are all I need to
get fast accurate counts of what's inside an open bottle. I'm
using an off-the-shelf software package at present, and I know
I can do a _lot_ better than what's out there, so I'm going to
write the damned thing myself.

I hit a stumbling block on liquor, and it sounds goofy, but I get
anal when I'm writing software. Specifically, we used to sell
After Shock, which is a cinnamon schnapps'ish tasting liqueur (I
think the same manufacturer makes a blue-colored -
peppermint? - product that has the same feature I'm about to
describe, but we no longer carry it, either) At any rate, this stuff
grows what can best be described as "rock candy" in the bottom
of the bottle the longer it sits, and/or the less it's disturbed. I'm
sure this is the saturated sugar coming out of solution.

My hanging point here is trying to find out if this sugar is
displacing the liqueur, or is replacing some or all of it by volume.
In other words, if it grows an inch of crystals on the bottom,
does that mean there's the same (or somewhat less) amount
of volume of original liqueur that can no longer be sold? If that's
the case, it's a freaking inventory nightmare, as it would weigh
the same, but a slow-moving bottle would deliver progressively
less product (until the sugar has reached an equilibrium point and
no longer wants to come out of solution.)

Which means that the longer it sits, the higher its inventory cost.
Perhaps there's a way to put the bottle into a hot water bath
or something to get the sugar back into solution? This is
bugging me because we took a club down a couple of years ago
for a 2-year major building expansion and remodel and I can very
much recall a sealed bottle of Aftershock that got put into
storage at close-down being nearly half sugar crystal and half
liquid when it was brought out for restocking.

Aside that from that blue-stuff mentioned above, which I'm sure
someone can name, are there any other "self-depleting"
products you can think of? Does Rock & Rye do the same thing?
I don't carry this either, and the last bottle I saw had so much
crap floating in it I don't think I'd be inclined to drink from it - I'm
not so sure it wasn't older than some of the bartenders that
were working at that club, but I know it's still popular in some
parts of the country.

Am I completely off-base here or what? Please no "oh come on,
it's silly to get stuck on that level of detail" replies because any
mistakes I make when writing software have the capacity to get
compounded a gazillion times, and I wouldn't be writing the
damned thing myself if I didn't commit myself to this level of
forethought and detail. If I can pull it off, I'd love to release this,
as well as some other related projects as open source (that
means free software, with all source code available should you
want to modify, or hire someone to modify it for your own needs.)

Cool project, lofty goals, but I really want to work through these
niggling little outstanding details before I implement.

Baudtender

[Frank123]

You may want to take a look at either Bevinco (http://www.bevinco.com) or Infoco (http://www.infocoinventory.com) They both have systems like you are speaking of.... I think Infoco sells an end user system for about $500....

[icey]

As a software developer, I'm inclined to weigh in on this one.


At some point, as you've mentioned; the solution must stabilize, so you know that there will be a definite worse case scenario... I'm assuming you don't have that bottle of half crystal / half liquid around, so you're kind of left with experimenting on your own - of course, the methodology there is to go out to a store and buy the newest looking bottle of aftershock you and buy, and putting into a controlled environment for a few months, then comparing it with a brand new bottle - you know, testing the volume by pour; if you wanted to get creative, testing the alcohol content; trying the hot water bath you mentioned.

Another avenue you could try is contacting either the importer (Paddington LTD of Stamford, CT) or the distiller (JBB PLC, somewhere in greater europe- they're damned near impossible to find); and asking them your questions. However, I don't think that it will be very easy to get the answers out of them.

What I'm trying to get at, is that I don't think you're going to find a software-friendly approach to this particular problem, for these reasons:

1)You would have to ask your clients to put in extra effort in dealing with a small part of their inventory.
2)Even if they did decide to be diligent and put this effort into entering extra information when dealing with these types of liquors, there are unknowns that you would need to be able to populate in order to adequately predict where in the "Decomposition" stage the bottle currently stands. Which I'm guessing would require the user to know information that they could not possibly have access to, such as the finish date of the batch, and the specific saturations of that particular batch.
3)Assuming miracles happen, and points 1. and 2. are fulfilled, you begin to deal with the bane of all humanity (OK, so it's a personal opinion - but a popular one) -- Differential Calculus; I don't think you want to slow down your product because it's wasting cycles determining the decomposition of a bottle of Aftershock.

All these things being said... I don't know if you'll be able to find a good software solution... Maybe there's a liquor rep who reads this board and can answer some of the specific questions you'll need answered to fill in some of these unknowns.

Perhaps you can include a disclaimer about things like Aftershock, and Rock & Rye (or any other liquors of this sort); stating that their nature does not allow for valid inventory.

Or, the other option is to work some voodoo with forecasting according to the worst case scenario - say, half a bottle worth of liquor; and call the rest bottle weight. The issues you'll have there (and I'm no expert on these subjects, but I'm sure there are at least a hundred people here who are - including yourself, by the sounds of it) will come up in places that move bottles quickly; showing more liquor poured than available, and messing up pour percentages.

I will say, it's a fascinating problem; it's just a shame I didn't have some kind of black magic answer.

[HYDDYN MAVURIK]

Why not just weigh a one fluid ounce of AfterShock/Avalanche/RockNRye?

A 750mL bottle will have 25 one fluid ounce shots. Multiply the figure you got by 25...and you have your total liquid weight.

[Michael Black]

Well this is a new problem.

1) you have a liquor problem
2) you have an inventory problem
3) you don't have an inventory problem if you solve the liquor problem, so solve it. You may have to add a note to your software regarding weighing various liquors.

A hot bath may do the trick, but I think it will need to be very hot and the sugar content should go back into a liquid state fairly easily given enough heat just like in cooking. Also, this is how simple syrup is made. But, you have to be careful not to be too hot, but I think most liquor bottles can handle heavy heat and a direct flame - blow torch or stove for a short time period. However, I would start by increasing time in a microwave. There may be some question as to it affecting taste too, so that's why you need to find out the lowest high temperature that will do the trick. I would avoid boiling the liquor if possible. So, progress slowly and clock it. Oh, and make sure you get it to room temperature before you start or that bottle will probably shatter or crack! Maybe you could use the defrost function to speed up the process.

Another thing I would try, is to simply pour a warm fresh bottle of After Shock into the near empty bottle with crystals and let it sit as I did the rest of the inventory.

There is a load of sugar in it, but liquor has its' own kcal of heat energy (search older topic on alcohol potentially freezing), so I think the cold refrigeration is really the problem. Were these bottles in cold or room storage? Many people love Aftershock for the crystals because it's like alcohol rock candy for adults, but I think the alcohol content in the crystals is probably significantly lower than the normal solution. You could continue to weigh, then when no liquid left, use a glass cutter and sell the rock at a premium! I was going to get into a detailed comparison to crack manufacturing, but you get the gist:)

Now that I think about it, there may be a much easier solution- remove the problem liquor from the glass bottle. Why not just keep the liquor in a standard plastic pour bottle and figure the weight without the old bottle and with the plastic pourer? Now, the crystals and problem are much easier because you just have to twist off the top and melt or sell the crystals! Bottom line, you account for all of it. The only slight problem I see is when you melt sugar with the water content, it evaporates the water and thickens the solution if brought to a boil, and the alcohol will burn off and evaporate some too. Once again, don't boil, slowly heat, or sell as crystals by weight. Sorry to tell you, your not going to have absolute perfection in weighing this product at different stages unless you want to set up a science lab .

Let us know your test results,

Mike

[HYDDYN MAVURIK]

Now that I think about it, there may be a much easier solution- remove the problem liquor from the glass bottle. Why not just keep the liquor in a standard plastic pour bottle and figure the weight without the old bottle and with the plastic pourer? Now, the crystals and problem are much easier because you just have to twist off the top and melt or sell the crystals! Bottom line, you account for all of it.

Great solution. The solution was separating the solution from the rock candy floored bottle.