NOUNS WHISKY ⌐◨-◨ | HackMD Proposal For Nouncil
The best things in life are worth waiting for and either you take from something that has already been made or you create something entirely new.
This proposal is to introduce the ever growing Nouns community to the world of owning premium spirits in your Nft investment portfolio without leaving your front door and, to introduce the world of whisky to Nouns. Our first Nouns DAO offering will be to create and craft a premium, 3-year old Nouns Whisky. Our model is sustainable and returns a percentage of profits back to the DAO.
There are distilleries around the world that have whisky (distilled twice) or whiskey (distilled 3 times) in their warehouses ready to be sold in a barrel or a bottle format to anyone that can then slap a label onto the bottle, create a concept around it and call it your own. This is awesome and is easily accessible for any builder to start something overnight, but why do that if you have the infrastructure, patience and expertise to create something that is authentic and entirely new. This product is then born with the help of the community and collectively we can watch our creation mature, flourish and proliferate over a span of 3 years, and then watch as it leaves the distillery for the real world to take on a life of its own as it finds its way to your home, bar or restaurant.
This project will first take shape with an oak barrel, and Whisky barrel or cask trading is becoming more popular across the world and is considered a better investment in the long-run as whisky is an appreciating asset and therefor probably more valuable down the line than most of the nft projects that you have floating around in your wallet and hidden folder. With Nouns Whisky we’re making it easy, with less barriers to entry, so that anyone with 0.35 Eth in their wallet can buy 1 of 500 barrels of whisky (25L / 6.6 Gallons) on OpenSea. Your whisky barrel will be stored securely in the warehouse and is now tied to your wallet address. This is the beauty of provenance and PBT (physically backed tokens) that record your purchase and ownership on the blockchain.
Ok, you now own a barrel of whisky in a beautiful city in Cape Town, South Africa. You probably haven’t visited our country, you can’t see your barrel of whisky in person, but you’re excited to own something that is actually tangible, real and valuable. So now you must hodl your nft as the whisky ageing process takes 3 years until it is ready to be bottled and shipped. This is why we’ll be installing a live camera feed in the warehouse and doing quick vlogs during the setup phase so that Nouners can watch us start this journey together. And remember you have a cool as f**k, 1 of 1 Nouns Barrel Head artwork that represents 1 of 500 Nouns Whisky barrels in the warehouse, this is ground breaking for the ecosystem! With everyones help this could possibly be the best long-term investment that you’ll make in Web3 in 2023 and only for roughly $450. But the real question is, can your paper hands become diamond hands and hold onto this token until the next bull run?
And now to introduce ourselves. Hi guys, my name is Pierre and I’m the Project Manager for Nouns Whisky, South Africa and this is Andre the Master Distiller, he has won various awards and has been distilling Whisky for 7 years. We’re both makers, builders, love Nouns, everything Web3 and we’re asking for an investment of 102 Eth to create the first of many Nouns Whisky projects over the next 7 years until we reach 2030 when we can release a 7-year old premium whisky born from the Web3 treasury of the Nouns DAO. We will keep 5 barrels aside for this, as it is the perfect goal for us to collectively pursue with ‘One Noun, Every Day, Forever’ on the blockchain. We believe in the ethos of for Nouns by Nouners and then inviting newcomers to join us. This project is our contribution to the Nouns virtuous cycle and a global cultural revolution. We invite you to take a look at our sustainable proposal & vision, and please feel free to ask us any questions in the Nouns Whisky Discord or Discourse with links below, let’s make this happen and do something cool in the consumables category!
Jim Beam x Mila is the perfect campaign to sum up our Nouns Whisky project in 30 sec and honestly, we didn’t even know this advert existed until a few weeks back, as the collaboration was launched in 2015. Similar ads can be created for future nounish whisky content.
Financially what do we need to make this concept come to life? Let’s break it down simply:
- 10 Eth for production management costs, merchandising, design & local content creation.
- 20 Eth for global marketing, strategic partnerships & paid advertising over 24 months (This amount will be held in a wallet, in Eth and deployed as needed).
- 20 Eth for 100 oak barrels, spirits & labor. These are owned by Nouns DAO.
- 52 Eth for the facility infrastructure that will produce & house the barrels for 3 years (This amount will be converted to USD/ZAR and kept in a South African bank account that can be viewed upon request by the DAO as it will be used to pay monthly expenses over a period of 36 months).
Total ask: 102 Eth (in-depth breakdown below Q&A)
If you have any questions that aren’t posted below please reach out and post them here in Discourse for us to answer:
Questions & Answers
- When will the project launch: If approved, on the 15th of February 2023 we’ll have the soft launch on OpenSea. This project has been in the works for 6 months, if approved we’re ready to roll.
- How many barrels are owned by the Nouns DAO? = 100 barrels / Nfts
- How many barrels are up for sale to the public? = 400 barrels / Nfts
- How many bottles are there in a barrel? = 40 (500 ml, 16,9 oz)
- What is the barrel nft price? = 0.35 eth (roughly $450)
- Is there a creator royalty? Yes, 5% (2.5% to Nouns DAO, 2.5% to Nouns Whisky)
- Is there a Whitelist? No, first come first serve.
- Can I re-sell my barrel nft? Yes, you can do this at anytime in the next 3 years or the holder can enter a storage agreement with the Distillery and the Whisky can age further.
- Can I re-sell my bottles in 2026? Yes, as separate nfts in a new collection that we’ll open on OpenSea.
- Will the barrels ever leave the warehouse? No, only bottles will be shipped to the buyer that requests to do so.
- In 2026 how do I redeem my bottles? You’ll burn the barrel Nft to redeem them. Fun fact, barrel makers actually do char the barrels.
- Do I pay for duty costs, shipping, postage & final packaging of the bottles in 2026? Yes, these costs will be calculated in 2026.
- Can my bottles be shipped worldwide? Yes, besides Antartica & the metaverse.
- Do I have to be of a legal age to buy a Nft tied to a barrel of whisky? Yes
- Does the distillery have the licensing to sell the barrels to the public? Yes
- Do you have to be of a legal age to consume the whisky? Yes
- Do you have to present identification when claiming your bottles: Yes
- Is this financial advice? Definitely not. DYOR. Google whisky cask investments.
- Is this going to be a lot of fun? Hell Yes!
- What is the flywheel & virtuous cycle? Besides the 100 barrels that the Nouns DAO owns, it will receive an additional 10% of the net income of the Nouns Whisky sales from the 400 barrels on OpenSea. We will also open a Nouns Whisky Instagram, Twitter, Website & Newsletter. We will continue to keep on making more Nouns Whisky Barrels year by year and start a Nouns Gin & Vodka brand down the line.
- What is the proliferation process? By creating hype around the whisky project on a global scale with paid advertising and strategic partnerships. We will also introduce South Africa to the Nouns ecosystem by starting with the Whisky project and then branching off into other R&D opportunities.
- Are we a Nouns Whisky DAO? Not at the moment, this could be something that we introduce down the line once we have the basic Nouns Whisky infrastructure in place.
- Are we a Nouns Whisky Bar? A small one yes, we will host a pop-up bar every 3rd month at the distillery with a live feed so Nouners can tune in.
- What is our Nouns Whisky Club? This will be a project that we will introduce in Q3 of 2023.
- Do we own the Nouns Whisky or Whiskey names? No, we encourage other distilleries to create their own versions and join the global community.
- Will we be making Whisky for other DAO’s? No, we’re doing this exclusively for Nouns.
- Is this Probably Something in 2023? Most definitely!
With all the love & effort going into this project, it is a community endeavour and we plan to work with Nouns builders & content creators, the general community and anyone that wants to join us on this exciting journey to create this high-end luxury Nouns product that you can hand down to further generations if you have diamonds hands!
And remember: ‘Whisky’ derives from the Gaelic term usquebaugh which translates as ‘water of life’ and Nouns are the seeds of Web3 that we can help grow and prosper through this project for years to come.
NOUNS WHISKY ⌐◨-◨ : The In-Depth Business Details.
1. The inception and execution is broken down into 6 x Phases.
Phase 1 - Nouns Nfts - January & February 2023
- 500 Barrel Heads are designed & generated and uploaded to OpenSea manually. No minting site. View the first batch here: Nouns Whisky Barrel Nfts
- Nft sales / claiming starts on the 15th of February 2023 with a soft launch.
- The DAO holds 100 barrels and can decide how these are allocated.
- The distillery holds 400 barrels and these will all be sold to the public at 0.35 eth each.
- The project does not need to sell all of the Nfts at the soft launch as this is an ongoing project.
Phase 2 - February & March of 2023
- The Pienaar & Son Distillery will source and acquire the 25L Oak Barrels.
- A 3-year lease on a storage facility will be negotiated and locked down for 36 months.
- Sin tax licensing will be registered for the project.
- Insurance for the barrels will be setup.
- A security company will be contracted to make regular rounds at the facility during the projects lifespan.
- Employment of labor will be needed to set the barrels up in the storage facility.
- Public Liability insurance will be set up for the labourers & potential visitors.
- A pallet jack will be bought to move the barrels, bottles & liquid around in the facility.
- Liquid for the whisky barrels will be produced.
- Holding tanks (2x200L + 2x500L) will be acquired for the facility.
- Internet & a permanent computer is set up in the storage facility.
- A camera is installed in the storage facility so that anyone can view the process of the barrels being set up via the Pienaar & Son website.
- The distilling of the whisky barrels starts in mid April.
Phase 3 - March & April of 2023
- Provenance / ownership of the barrels will be recorded with the Nfts ID and these Nfts can be re-sold from the launch date over the span of 36 months until the whisky is ready to be bottled in 2026.
- A press release will be compiled explaining the collaboration between the Nouns Dao project & the Pienaar & Son Distillery.
- This will be sent out in late March to various news outlets across South Africa and to select Nft, whisky, food & beverage news websites.
- A more in-depth Nouns Whisky website will be created.
Phase 4 - May 2023
- 4 x Small events will be held at the distillery with Nouns memorabilia on display.
Phase 5 - June 2023 onwards
- The barrels will be monitored by the distillery over the coming months and updates will be added to the Nouns Whisky website for all holders to see.
Phase 6 - March / April / May / June 2026
- The whisky will be ready to be bottled & packaged for the Nouns DAO & the public holders.
- 40 x (500 ml) bottles will be available from each barrel, also accounting for liquid evaporation over 36 months.
- The owner of the barrel will then be able to ship these bottles to a specified destination across the world. P&P / Shipping will be for the holders cost. Or the holder can enter a storage agreement with the Distillery and the whisky can age further.
- If the holder chooses to redeem their barrel and put their 40 bottles up for individual sales on our OpenSea page, this is an option.
2. Nouns Whisky South Africa Project Costs:
For this project to proceed, upfront costs are necessary to create the Nouns Whisky infrastructure and to produce the liquid. We are asking for 102 Eth with the aim for the DAO to recoup this investment through their 100 Nft sales if they choose to do so. Pienaar & Son have a proven track record in running a profitable alcohol business for over 7 years.
Why have we chosen Nouns Whisky as the product that will kick-start Nouns proliferation in South Africa? Sustainability is the answer. Alcohol products have played a fundamental role in supporting and helping to pioneer the art & music scenes across South Africa over the last 20 years, and now with this business plan Nouns can join the playground.
20 ETH ~ WHISKY PRODUCTION
The bulk purchases here will be made in the first 2 months of the project.
- Purchase Oak barrels (100 guaranteed to be produced for the DAO)
- Produce new-make spirit to fill the oak barrels. The oak + ageing time is what gives whisky its characteristic flavour.
- Depending on public sales, the additional barrels will be purchased and liquid distilled.
52 ETH ~ FACILITY & LEGAL
These expenses will be kept in an account that can be viewed upon request by the DAO as it will be used to pay monthly expenses over the 36 months. Transparency with this spend is important to us.
- 3 Year storage facility lease
- 2 Month rental deposit fee
- Storage facility insurance for 3 years
- Liquor licensing & legal fees for 3 years
- 4 x Holding tanks
- 1 x Pallet jack
- Wooden shelving for the barrels
- Security fees for 3 years
- Labor
- Public Liability insurance for 3 years
- 1 x Computer and hi-res camera setup
- High-speed internet rental for 3 years for live facility feed
10 ETH ~ PROJECT PRODUCTION
These expenses are part retro-funding and will be split between Pierre, Andre and the specific suppliers need in the first 2 months. We have been extremely frugal with these line items to reduce the overall production costs. Please note that the R&D process to introduce Nouns to South Africa started in June 2022.
- 2 Month Nft design & brand development fees
- 6 Months design & South African marketing material fees
- 6 Months social media fees
- 6 Months project management fees
- 1 Months PR agency fees for the Press Release
- 4 x Eventing fees in June 2023
- Basic website development
- 150 x Nouns t-shirts & tote bags (given away for free at the distillery)
- Photographer for content creation
- Accounting fees for tax declaration
20 ETH ~ GLOBAL MARKETING, PAID ADVERTISING & STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
Please note, this amount can be deployed by the DAO in a multi-sig over time, it is not needed upfront. We arrived at this amount after feedback from our discussion in our Nouncil meeting.
- Identify key food & beverage websites and contact them for product reviews and paid advertising over 12 months.
- Connect with Nft News outlets for reviews and paid advertising.
- Connect with traditional media outlets for advertorials & press release information.
- Connect with established builders in the Nouns ecosystem to create paid content for Nouns Whisky.
- Look at ways to utilise digital billboards with Nouns Whisky assets.
- Get Nounish studio involved to create some video content.
3. How much ROI can the Nouns DAO expect from the Nouns Whisky project?
- 102 Eth investment
- Produces 100 barrels for the DAO
- 40 bottles per barrel = 4000 bottles
- If the DAO chooses to hold onto all the barrels till 2026. There will be a $100 reserve price per bottle on OpenSea = $4000 per barrel
- If the DAO sells all 4000 bottles in 2026/2027 at $100 each that = $400 000 = 300 Eth at todays price of $1 333,25 from an 102 Eth investment. This is a best case scenario but conservative at $100 auction price per bottle.
- If the DAO sells all 100 barrels at 1 Eth each, forecasting they reach this price during the 36th month period, the DAO will make 100 Eth to recoup the 102 Eth spend.
- Besides the 100 barrels that the Nouns DAO owns, it will receive an additional 10% of the net income of the distilleries Nouns Whisky sales from the 400 barrels on OpenSea. This amount will be sent to Maty to record and confirm that the payment has been made once we reach a sold out position.
- The DAO will also receive a 2.5% royalty from all of the sales on OpenSea in perpetuity (barrels & bottles).
4. Pienaar & Sons Distillery Sales Case Study in South Africa.
Distillery Location: V&A Waterfront Makers Landing (@makerslanding) • Instagram photos and videos
View their Instagram here: 10.7k followers: Pienaar & Son Distillery (@pienaarandson) • Instagram photos and videos
Here is the distilleries current business model and you can see their whisky here: Tiny Batch Whisky - Heavy Char – Pienaar & Son
Please note that these figures are based on the distillery already having invested in the infrastructure to create these batches 5 years ago and with 225 litre barrels.
Cost to produce and store first 2 x (185L after evaporation) Barrels = ± 2.5 Eth (ageing period - 4 years)
Total bottles produced = 1100
Bottle retail price in South Africa = 0,032 Eth each
Gross income from bottle sales in South Africa = 35,42 Eth
Time taken to sell out = 19 days
Nett profit from bottle sales = 23,20 Eth
(Ex Advertising) ROI = 994%
Awards: World Whisky Awards - Single grain, Single cask - Bronze Medal
5. So what does this mean in the long-run for Nouns Whisky?
- When the Whisky ageing process comes full circle in 2026 we can start selling the whisky across South Africa.
- We can offer the Whisky to bars across South Africa.
- We can offer the Whisky to music festivals across South Africa.
- We can offer the Whisky to major liquor outlets across South Africa.
- We can create pop-up bars and sell the Whisky directly to consumers.
- With our e-commerce store we can sell bottles directly to customers.
- We can offer the product to an international audience.
6. What does this do to create sustainability and proliferation?
- Alcohol companies make great margins on their products that creates regular cash flow as alcohol is available to consume 12 months of the year. You can sell the product 365 days a year as it is not a seasonal business plan.
- Nouns Whisky can invest financially in music events, artists, musicians and any other strategic partnerships with profit made from sales in South Africa. This is key if you’re going to build a brand with the goal of it being sustainable to 2030 and beyond.
- With profits the business can also create social responsibility campaigns and donate to charities to do community cleanups and more.
7. Why should Nouns invest in financially sustainable projects.
This is an opportunity for Nouns to branch further into the African continent with a sustainable business plan. We can give a % of profits back to the DAO in perpetuity, R&D other product lines and turn the investment into a long lasting brand building endeavour. It is that simple and makes this investment a winning formula.
8. What happens with the project in 2024, 2025, 2026 and onwards so that we can release more products?
With the profits that we generate from the sale of the 400 Nouns Whisky barrel nfts we will release another batch of whisky each year that will mature for another 3 years, this will be available to the public again to trade and this will allow the project to remain sustainable without requesting the DAO to fund us each year. We can continue to create more content, on-board new buyers and continue the proliferation of Nouns Whisky and best of all we can continue to produce a 2.5% secondary sales royalty in perpetuity for the Nouns DAO from OpenSea nfts, and 10% of the primary nft barrel sales every year. We will also be looking at R&D opportunities in the coffee & bottled water categories as an additional way to introduce Nouns to South Africa and create a ROI for Nouns DAO.
9. And now it’s time to showcase our brand assets, look & feel!
10. Our experience in the music industry with alcohol brands.
To strengthen our pitch and to showcase our experience in the alcohol and music industry: here is a music video that we helped produce in South Africa and it has accumulated 7.7 million views. There are key elements that played a role in the creation of this video and first and fore-mostly the Afrikaans band needs to write a song that the nation wants to play on repeat, they hit this for a home run. Alcohol companies sponsor culture and this could easily be a video that Nouns Whisky could have produced as Jagermeister paid for it. We have a lot of opportunities down the line to work with musicians in South Africa.
We helped the same band release a Vinyl and EP album backed by a physical and collectible box of beers and there was a free album inside. This could have also been a project backed by a Nft. The box of beers was then distributed across South Africa to more than 100 stores where fans could buy the box of beers. There was a limited amount and fans were seen standing outside of the liquor outlets waiting for the stores to open. This is something that Nouns Whisky could have sponsored. I’m using these projects to showcase the power of what an alcohol business & project can do with profits / marketing budget. This is the same model that Jagermeister uses, they sell bottles and use a portion of this income to connect with culture and introduce their brand in countries across the world.
11. Summary: Future Plans for Nouns proliferation in South Africa and beyond.
- Nouns Whisky Club
- Beverage Website for Nouns products from around the world.
- Nouns Beverages in South Africa (Beer, Wine, Gin, Vodka, Soda, Water)
- Nouns Pop-Up Bars
- Coffee Nouns in South Africa
- Whisky Coffee / Irish Coffee
- Barrel Aged Coffee
- Invest in artists, musicians and events.
12. And to conclude, our Roles & Experience: Andre & Pierre
Andre Pienaar:
- Proposal
- Master Distiller
- Facility Management
- Project Management
- On-Site Content Creation
- Merchandise Production
- Nouns Events
Pierre Coetzee:
- Proposal
- Project Management
- On-Site Content Creation
- Merchandise Production
- Design Management
- Nft Management
- Blockchain Payments Management
- Nouns Events
Andre Pienaar: https://pienaarandson.co.za/
I can confidently say that whisky was always part of the plan, and one of the cornerstone reasons I wanted to start the Pienaar & Son distillery. With the foundation of my fathers’ knowledge of building beautifully sophisticated distillation equipment, and my biochemistry and chemistry degree, I knew we would have a significant advantage in the understanding and manipulation of the fermentation and distillation processes required to produce a world class whisky. There is a lot more at play than making some moonshine and chucking it in a barrel.
Pierre Coetzee: https://futurenow.world/
Over a span of 15 years spent in Cape Town & South Africa, active in the skateboarding, music & art scenes: I’ve been fortunate to pioneer and explore these movements through small investments into supporting skateboarders, musicians & artists careers. I’ve been able to work with the majority of the alcohol & lifestyle brands with sponsorship procurement and speciality brand activations & development. Over the past 20 months I’ve navigated the crypto art industry as a creator & collector, following Punk 4156, his journey, the sale of his Crypto Punk and the inception of the Nouns DAO initiative / collective. We’re in a new era of a cultural revolution supported by cryptocurrencies & DAO’s, this is why I’m approaching Nouns DAO to work with Andre and his local Cape Town business as an anchoring point whereby we can start the proliferation of Nouns in South Africa. This is our first sustainable proposal to the DAO and once proven successful, there will be more opportunities to further introduce Nouns to the melting pot of South African and global cultures that reside here. We live in a beautiful country and need to innovate by using the blockchain as a vehicle to help small businesses to thrive and prosper. Nouns Whisky will be the foundation of our collective journey.
Brands I’ve collaborated with: Honda Music Stage, Vans, Converse, Puma, Levi’s, Ray-Ban, Red-Bull, Jagermeister, Jose Cuervo, Olmeca, Smirnoff, Jameson Whisky, Three Ships Whisky.
Artists I’ve worked with between 2010 to 2015 in Cape Town as a venue & events manager: Qbert, Diplo, Steve Aoki, Foals, Public Enemy, DJ Premier, DJ Krush & Seth Troxler. I also helped create and produce a 3 day festival sponsored by VANS titled Endless Daze and helped to launched a beer brand for one of South Africa’s biggest bands.
Nouns derivative project: When we started our journey in June to pitch a prop to Nouns Dao we wanted to first engage with the community and release our own generative collection that would also incorporate some of our creative work, some fun words, other CC0 and iconic web3 projects. We did this by showcasing the designs on the Nouns bodies. This was a challenging project and led us down a rabbit hole as it was the first time that we would do a 10k mint and use a design generator. We had never looked into contracts, how to DIY it and finally stumbled upon NiftyKit and deployed the project as a free mint on Polygon so that the community could collect 20 per wallet and share them with friends.
Web3 Projects I’ve complete: In 2021 I was the first artist to be featured on the OpenSea homepage as they wanted to pivot into featuring more art and less pfps. This fine art piece of mine was showcased and received 15k views and is still featured on their Twitter banner. As a part of the showcase I also gave away over 150 unique nfts for free to onboard new collectors, free nfts were few and far between at this point in time. So this was a really cool experience and I had the opportunity to meet a lot of new people in the nft community. We then did an unofficial Cool Cats digital beer and if you as a holder bought a 6-pack we would then send you 6 beer nfts with your pfp on it, and people would share it with each other via polygon. We customised just over 100 bottles that got shared around Twitter. Lastly we were able to secure some plots and built 3 x galleries in Decentraland. A very time consuming exercise but a lot of fun!
Thanks for your time, Andre and I appreciate it and fingers crossed we can collectively get this project approved, it will be an exciting journey for the global Nouns Community starting a new chapter in 2023!
P.S. - Here are some fun ads and some inspiration for the project in the long-run. Cheers!
