Masao Ishihara called a phone call inside the winery and asked the finance department to deliver the accounts for the past year. He spent the whole morning looking through the accounts.

When it was lunch time, Masao Ishihara paused his work and started to eat the bento he brought. Although he was eating, he was still thinking about things in his mind.

Accounts payable are a problem. Cash flow is also a problem. The high survival cost is also a problem... All kinds of problems together, so naturally the winery has big problems in its operations.

However, the blessing in disgrace is not yet enough to make things happen. The fault tolerance rate and time window that are left for yourself is very small.

The barley needed for Karuizawa whiskey is golden barley from Scotland. In addition to the barley used by its own distillery, only a few distillery such as McAllen are still in use.

Not only that, the wooden barrels used for whiskey marinated are not the most representative local water barrels of RB, but imported Shirley barrels from Spain.

When Masao Ishihara thought about this, he thought again that if his winery followed Suntory's Yamazaki and Shirazuku, and used RB's local water barrels, on the one hand, it would be firmly opposed by the chief distributor, vice president and others, and on the other hand, it would also be unable to suppress costs.

The layman didn't know it, but he knew very well that the water barrel was not cheaper than the imported Spanish Shirley barrel, but was even more expensive.

A bourbon barrel is generally 120 US dollars, Sherry barrel is about 700 US dollars, but the water barrel is as high as 5,000 US dollars, and it is often priced.

Although the water-shaped trees are distributed in many places, the total amount is sparse. Rb strictly restricts the cutting of water-shaped trees under 80 years of age.

In addition, the growth cycle of the water-bearing tree is very long, and suitable for making whiskey-ripening wooden barrels must be over 170 years old. Bucket making also requires relatively straight wood.

The most ideal water sauna tree can only be a water sauna tree produced in Hokkaido. Even Suntory, the number one RB whiskey, can only produce 100 new water sauna barrels every year.

The reason why the yield is small is that the water slab trees that make water slabs do not grow according to routines at all. They are crooked and have many nodes, so it takes more effort to make a bucket than ordinary oak.

In addition, the wood has large gaps and is prone to leakage, so it requires high barrel making technology and is very difficult to process. Even in RB, there are only a handful of wineries that can make water barrels.

Therefore, the price of water-barrel whiskey is generally much higher than that of ordinary whiskey. This whiskey made from water-barrel slimly contains a unique flavor of agarwood, sandalwood, etc. contained in oriental trees.

RB whiskey made from water barrels is different from other mature whiskeys in the world such as oak barrels, bourbon barrels, sherry barrels, red wine barrels, and so on.

It is not only a wooden barrel that can be matured as high-end whiskey, but also one of the woods that can be used as high-end furniture. This makes manufacturers of high-end furniture compete with distillers that make high-end whiskey.

After lunch, Masao Ishihara continued to work and read the accounts immediately. He got up and left the president's office, followed the stairs from the third floor to the first floor, and walked outside.

Although he is not unfamiliar with everything here, he has other plans and plans. He has seen brewing workshops, distillation workshops, filling workshops and other places.

The hygiene in these places is very clean, without any fruit peels and paper scraps, which can reflect from a small side that the daily management of the winery is done quite well. After all, whether a factory is managed well can be reflected in the hygiene situation in the factory.

Masao Ishihara stopped and turned a big circle 360 ​​degrees. His eyes were looking at the green mountains covered with trees around him.

All the things he saw were also his personal property. In order to better ensure the quality of the wine, my grandfather bought all the mountains in the nearby area one after another.

The mushrooms, even stones that grow in the forest, are still personal property under his name. If an outsider enters the forest without permission to pick mushrooms and stones, it is a steal. Who made RB a privately owned developed capitalist country?

Masao Ishihara looked at the trees that had grown for decades or even hundreds of years on the distant mountains, and was really interested in cutting down and selling money.

However, no matter how he thought about it, he wouldn't have done it like that. His winery was like a basin, surrounded by mountains.

Once these trees are cut down, their own winery will face the danger of destruction at all times. First, the water quality will change.

Secondly, with these trees there, there will be no landslides or mudslides. The winery will not be buried directly in a heavy rain.

Masao Ishihara had to look at a piece of open space in front of him. The new workshop for brewing cider could only be built there.

There is a place where there is money for construction and the money for purchasing corresponding machinery and equipment. How can we get it? The cash on the winery account can only barely maintain the production of whiskey and the wages of employees.

Of course, the money cannot be used for other purposes. Could it be that I really have to mortgage my ancestral home to the bank? This is absolutely not possible.

Masao Ishihara gave a big denial without hesitation. If Karuizawa Whiskey Distillery was unable to escape the fate of bankruptcy in the end, it would not be too miserable and would have nothing. At least, it would have a shelter from the wind and rain.

He thought about it carefully again. Even if he mortgaged all his ancestral homes to the bank, he might not be able to raise all the funds needed to build a cider production line.

Masao Ishihara was walking in place, thinking about it again. If it was a last resort, he could only mortgage the winery's industrial land, administrative buildings, various equipment, together with the surrounding Aoyama to the bank for funds.

Nowadays, banks will not have a good life, and they may even be a little too busy to take care of themselves. Even if a bank accepts its own collateral, it will try hard to lower the price, increase the loan interest rate, and shorten the time for repaying the loan.
Chapter completed!