There’s a new chapter in the history books for Kentucky Peerless Distilling Company. A thriving distillery that had been lost during prohibition is now reemerging right in the heart of downtown Louisville. Corky Taylor, CEO of Peerless, joins the show to share his story. After being bored with retirement, Corky decided to risk it on building a distillery and fighting with a team of lawyers to reclaim their original DSP-50 designation. We talk more about their rye, the recent bourbon release, and some stories from when he was roommates with the Allman brothers.

Show Notes:

• Denny’s Bourbon Menu: https://vinepair.com/booze-news/dennys-bourbon-menu-pancakes/
• Sweet spot for aging bourbon: https://www.winemag.com/2019/08/12/ultra-aged-spirits-ripping-you-off/
• Can liquor go bad?: https://www.bustle.com/articles/99585-does-alcohol-go-bad-yep-so-heres-how-long-you-have-to-finish-off-your-favorite
• This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about marketing to children.
• Tell us about growing up in Hawaii.
• Where does the name Corky come from?
• What is the history of Peerless?
• What happened during prohibition?
• What made you decide to bring the brand back?
• Why Louisville?
• Tell us about getting your original DSP number back.
• Was it hard to make such a big investment?
• Why was it important to wait to release your own product vs. sourcing?
• What differentiates you from other brands?
• What systems are you investing in?
• If you were younger, would you have focused as much on quality as you are now?
• Tell us about the bottle and the price point.
• Why does rye age quicker than bourbon?
• Is the price of the rye going to go up when it is older?
• Tell us about the small batch and single barrel.
• What is your definition of small batch?
• Were your recipes trial and error?
• What other ryes do you like?
• Who are you teaming up with for barrels?
• How did you chose your Master Distiller?
• What’s your connection to General Patton?
• What about the Allman Brothers?

Transcription:

0:00
Hey everybody. Are you interested in looking at the distilling process and pairing that with key business knowledge such as finance, marketing and operations, then you should check out the online distilled spirits business certificate from the University of Louisville. It’s an online program. It can be completed in as little as 15 weeks. It’s taught by both of you have all business faculty and corporate fellows. So you’re getting real experience from real experts at the most renowned distilleries, companies and startups in the distilling industry. And all that’s required is a bachelor’s degree. Go to business.louisville.edu/onlinespirits. You know,

0:35
you play League baseball or be three core keys on two teams, you know, so to be so everybody’s name.

0:43
It was the new john back then. Yeah, they will. Everybody says, everybody looks.

1:00
Welcome back. It’s Episode 216. of bourbon pursuit. I’m Kenny, and we’ve got some news to run through. And we’ve got some exciting news that’s coming from old forester there. 1910 old fine whiskey we talked about on the show with Jackie’s I can before and it exceeded the expectations that old forester ever would have known about. It was their fourth and final expression of the old foresters, whiskey row series, and it’s sold out across the nation, but it’s now being announced that’ll be back on shelves at the end of the month. You know, the idea of pairing bourbon and food and even infusing bourbon and food is nothing new, but some might wonder, have we gone too far? Well, the commercialization of bourbon continues as a Denny’s. You know that place with moons over my hammy is announcing a new bourbon themed menu for fall. It’s called Big bourbon flavors. The menu features a range of bourbon inspired dishes to enjoy throughout the day. So for breakfast, you’ve got the apple bourbon pancake breakfast that has two flaxseed multigrain pancakes with a caramel apple walnut bourbon sauce. And for lunch and dinner. You’ve got two classic bourbon dishes, the bourbon bacon burger, which is topped with a bourbon sauce. And then you’ve got the bourbon chicken sizzling skillet, which sees a grilled chicken breast coated in a bourbon glaze. And as with any rare bourbon release, this is a limited time offer and you can read more about this with a link to vine pair calm in our show notes. What’s the sweet spot for Bourbons age? You know if you follow along with the podcast you would know after hearing all kinds of master distillers and master blenders that ages and everything and heck, we know that when we go on barrel pics, and we have this notion that higher age is better but there’s a reason why you’re gonna end up seeing barrels of stuff that has been rejected for last year Craig 23 that just gets dumped into standard Evan Williams tanks. And there’s a new article by wine mag calm that interviewed four roses master distiller Brent Elliot, about that sweet spots, and bread said that the majority of barrels speak and around the fire 10 year range. And in this range is when all the immature character of the white dog is gone. And there’s a light and bright and delicate balance of the flavors from the grains and the fermentation that had developed in the barrel. And with the barrel to create that perfect balance. And beyond the 12 year ranges, we’re going to start seeing fewer and fewer of those actually, quote unquote improving each year. You can read more about bourbon rum, scotch and army sweet spots, which surprisingly, Armagnac was at 50 years old, with the article from wine mag in our show notes. Do you have an old dusty bottles still sitting on the shelf? And more importantly, have you opened it? Well, I guess this kind of goes for any bottle of bourbon that you have open. And you’re now wondering, how long do I have to drink this before it goes bad or maybe just changes completely. According to researchers at Bacardi they presented their findings at the annual Tales of the cocktail convention in New Orleans, and everyday factors such as temperature fluctuations, light exposure, and oxidation can lead to rapid fire beard aggregation. And this can really severely alter both of the color and the flavor of alcohol stored in glass bottles. Bacardi flavor, scientists conducted a series of experiments on the effects of temperature fluctuations on its rum and found that temperature changes can degrade an organic molecule called Turpin. And this alters the flavor of the alcohol to by exposing various glass bottles stored to UV radiation. It actually intended to try to simulate the effects of sunlight. And researchers found that over a period of 10 days of exposure, bourbon lost 10% of its color while scotch lost 40%. But color is never just color when it comes to alcohol color changes are indicative of flavor changes to and researchers concluded that whiskey has an almost indefinite shelf life if you leave it unopened and stored in a cool space. However, once you open it, the rules of the game start changing in order to best protect the flavor profile from oxidation. If you have a bottle that is less than half, you should drink it within a year. And if you have less than a quarter of a bottle left, you have about three to four months before it starts to get questionable. You can read the entire article from bustled calm in our show notes. Are you a Patreon supporter of ours. But we had recently launched a new Discord server where everybody can come and chat daily in real time. There’s a lot of talk going on about the podcast on a daily basis. And for me seriously, it’s almost hourly because I’m giving updates of what’s coming in through email and other kind of news that we necessarily don’t always talk about on the podcast, but there’s just loads of bourbon talk. So come connect your discord account to your Patreon account, and you can join in the fun with us. Now for today’s podcast, you know we look back and peerless has just been a fun distillery to watch when they first launched their two year ride at $100 or more across the country. It’s a major push back from whiskey geeks know until they tried it, it gets better and better every single year. This whiskey is just one aspect of the story because Corky talks a lot about how they rebuilt this brand. It’s just a fantastic story here. It’s always appealing to hear kind of how someone fights hard to restore history by fighting to get their original DSP. And no expense was spared when it’s actually coming to the bottling and really what the end result of their whiskey is. So this is going to be a fun distillery to watch as they grow. And if you didn’t know they just released their first bourbon to the world at four years old. All right, now here we go. Let’s get in a quick word from Joe over a barrel bourbon. And then you’ve got Fred Minnick with above the char.

6:38
Hi, Joe from barrell bourbon. Here, we explore whiskey in an entirely new way. My team at barrel craft spirits, selects and blends barrels of whiskey into something greater than the sum of their parts. Find out more at barrellbourbon.com. I’m Fred Minnick, and this is above the char. I’m going to say this now and repeat it a lot. In this episode, do not market to children if you’re an alcohol brand. Now with that said, we live in this beautiful bourbon lifestyle and sometimes friends by friends, baby gifts that have bourbon logos on it. Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago, a good friend brought me a baby bib with a distillery logo on it. It was for my than seven month old son and it was quite cute. And I really appreciate it. It was It was lovely. My wife laughed about it. Even my son thought it was cute. But I didn’t really think anything of it from a marketing perspective because my friend actually made it this was not created by the distillery. My friend made this special embroidered baby bed. And then I started reviewing some cigarette testimony from the 1990s. You know, that’s what I do. I like reading old transcripts and lawsuits to find nuggets of history and factual information. Well, this was a time when the anti smoker leagues were really dissecting the tobacco industry for having built in their schools and creating cartoon characters as the mascots for tobacco. Now the alcohol industry has always done a very good job of avoiding this, you know, marketing to children and they’ve really enforced that heavily within the trade. But in recent years, whiskey fans have actually gifted one another bourbon related things to celebrate newborns and even make you know, children t shirts with whiskey logos. For the most part, these are innocent homemade gifts from one friend to another. When a friend has a kid the natural instinct is to buy that friend a gift. And if your friend is a bourbon fan, you might be inclined to buy or create a bourbon one z. We may like it and think it’s cute, but the rest of the world could see it as marketing bourbon to a child, which is very bad. You see, we are in this weird place in our society with how we perceive alcohol. Many of us look at bourbon as the great bourbon lifestyle and our children see our bottles all the time. And here is talking about master distillers. So for this audience, you and I, getting a bourbon baby bib is one of the greatest, most thoughtful gifts you could possibly imagine. But this is potentially a very slippery slope. If the wrong person sees my son wearing that bib, they may think it’s from a brand and report it to the federal authorities. It could lead to an investigation and severe consequences and social media circles which are already cracking down on alcohol and tobacco related posts after all advocacy groups will go to the ends of the earth to protect children and they absolutely should, again, do not market to children at all, especially if you are a bourbon related brand. And nobody wants to market to children in this industry. Nobody. So as we give to our friends and celebration of their children just be cognizant of what it might look like to an outsider. And while bourbon is a long way from Joe camel, we don’t want to portray our lifestyle and the wrong light. And that’s this week’s above the char Hey, did you know I have a second edition of my book bourbon curious coming out soon. You can find it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble search bourbon curious again that’s bourbon curious until next week. Cheers

10:20
welcome back into a another episode of bourbon pursuit and here we are the second time at down one bourbon bar doing our live streaming podcast. So Happy Monday to everybody that’s out there. You know hopefully we’re starting to shake things up to start the beginning of the week because a lot of news kind of happens on Monday so

10:38
yeah, especially after spring break, you know, the wall everybody’s having a case of the Mondays today.

10:45
I don’t want to do anything

10:46
but every every comes back looking super tan though. Oh no. Yeah,

10:49
not me. I still got white farmers tan. You don’t Tandy Corgi I do

10:55
if I’m in the sun. Yeah. I hear either more. Yeah,

10:59
well, yeah, this is our room now you know the Kenny and Ryan. This is our studio

11:03
so it’s slowly turned it into that we got the the phones are going off the hook if anybody can hear me Yes. Good. I’ve got a telephone going. Yeah. So

11:12
all in for your sport. We have one a day bourbon will take your questions live. Actually, that’s not a real number. Please don’t call. Yeah. But you know, today is going to be a pretty fun and interesting episode because we are sitting here with Corky Taylor Corky is the chairperson, CEO as well of, of peerless distilling company. You know, this is something that you know, honestly for us it had taken a while for peerless to kind of get on the map for us even though it’s kind of in our backyard. We all the time we have people that say oh, we want to go on the podcast, we’re going to podcast but they don’t really hit a national awareness and I think it’s time now that peerless is started to break that ground and they are starting to kind of venture out and away and make themselves a nationally recognized brand at this point.

11:57
Yeah. And internationally as well. I was just talking to Cordell my good friend corps de before the show and he was telling us and tell me that how port peerless is now in 45 states and it just one like I think the British craft Producer of the Year and, and globally so I mean, that’s pretty big stuff you know, coming out of you know, peerless. So I’m I’m super excited being Kenny actually Corky pride. I remember we came there last year for my birthday. We had a group of 10 and you gave a great tour. It was actually a pursuit undercover Volume One Yeah, yeah. Exactly. We were we’re behind the scenes, I brought my own whiskey thief. And you know, and I was it was a lot of fun. It’s a very cool place if no one’s been to but excited to revisit the story and share with our audience you know, Corky background and the whole peerless brand and what they’re doing to make their name in the whiskey game.

12:50
Absolutely. So I guess we should we should probably introduce our guest so today we do have Corky he is the chairman and the CEO of peerless to ceiling company so Corky aloha haha. Right. Yeah, that was one thing that I learned from you at the last Legends Series is that you grew up in Hawaii. I did. My father was in the military. So we spent I spent the first

13:13
eight and a half, nine years growing up in Hawaii. My dad was stationed over there. So actually, at one time live right on Waikiki Beach. So surfed on Waikiki Beach. And then we moved to Schofield and chapter so and then when I was older, I served

13:31
was that a huge lie down? It was

13:34
why I went

13:35
straight from Hawaii to military school now lived in Tennessee. Oh, that was a major lead. And you know, I used to serve the North Shore, Sunset Beach where the big I wouldn’t serve from the 25 foot waves. But I still surfing the 10 foot waves. So but now, our family moved back to my dad’s hometown, Henderson, Kentucky.

13:57
Well, what what can give us a time frame of that like the when you were growing up in Hawaii? Like what age? What age range was this?

14:03
I was about five years old. When we moved to why my brother was actually born in Hawaii on Maui. Then we moved back when I was 13 years old Henderson so 1314 right in there.

14:16
Was he given when your brother was born? Was he given like a an official like Hawaiian name that you didn’t get because

14:23
he was actually named after my great grandfather? He’s

14:25
not Hawaiian.

14:28
Polynesian name. Yeah.

14:29
Yeah, no, no, he was named after actually my great grandfather that started peerless. So he was he was Henry, they call it we call the man but he was Henry named after my great grandfather. So

14:42
we’ll kind of talk about your name a little bit too so Corky Taylor, and this the name Corky, because it is a little bit different, right? So kind of how did this name of offer what does it come from? And I’m going to just guess it’s not your actual given name, or no, it’s not

14:53
okay. No, I’m, I’m Roy M. Taylor. The third course my grandfather was you know, always Roy My dad was Roy to until and then general Pat named my father a so he went by aces, you know, the whole time and I was with him. And then since they that they didn’t really want to call me Roy. So I, I got the name Corky day one. So the only time I was ever named Roy was first day of school. So they’d say Roy Taylor, and I’d kind of raise my hand up, you know, no, it’s Corky. So that was I could go into the year by Corky so it’s I’ve always gone by Corky.

15:31
That’s a great it’s not too bad.

15:32
It was a military name. I mean, there was a lot of visit. He’s something about it. I don’t I don’t know. But I had I had played darn it

15:39
the neighbor.

15:40
No, not really. So it was you know, you play Little League baseball and or be three core keys on two teams, you know, so it’d be so everybody’s name.

15:51
It was the new john back then.

15:53
Yeah, they will. Everybody says Korea everybody looks

15:58
good. So I kind of want to kick it off and start talking a little bit about the story in the history of peerless. So before we talk about the whiskey and the bourbon that you’re producing now kind of give the story of your family and how this really evolved.

16:13
Okay, how it had evolved, was obviously through my great grandfather. He was he was born in Poland. He was a Polish Jew. He moved to New York City to Manhattan. When he was five years old. He was selling papers on the corner when he was seven 810 12 years old. And when he was he saved up some money when when he was 19. He said I’m going to get on a riverboat. When I run out of money, that’s where I’m going to get off. Why didn’t get off in Louisville, Kentucky. I have no idea he got off in Henderson, which was a good thing. Walk up top of the hill head zero money. And he asked the bar up there called buckets. Can I sweep the floor and can I live in the attic until I get myself squared away. And about two years later, he ended up buying the bar. But what he really wanted to be was a banker, and that’s what he was. He went from Henderson to St. Louis, for a short period of time because there was a lot of Jewish people from St. Louis. So they kind of took him under his wing. He became a banker and st move back to Henderson open First National Bank and an 1818. And he bought a small distillery from the worship family Mr. worship and passed away he bought a distillery. They were making about eight barrels of bourbon a day. And within two years, he was he had some weeks he was making 200 barrels a week. So he took it to a pretty good at one time, he was probably two or 222 stories in the state of Kentucky. He was probably in the top five or 10. during that era.

17:43
He looked as it purely investment or was it like something I enjoyed?

17:48
Now I think he looked at it as an investment. Yeah, I think he was pretty money driven. He built one of the largest breweries outside of the Mississippi, the Henderson Brewing Company, and a way to distributor just beer during that era was all by river boat. So your head his own river boats and went to Cincinnati to local down to St. Louis and he built that into a pretty good says brewery. But his love was Chicago. That’s where all his buddies were. He couldn’t do this today. But back then he said on the board of five different banks up in Chicago, but he owned the Palmer house up in Chicago is probably one of the most famous some people never heard of it. But it’s the longest running Hotel in the United States first hotel to have a light bulb. Telephone elevator dishwasher. and air conditioning.

18:33
No iPhone, not the first off

18:36
iPhone. No, I think it’s but but they invented the brownie. So that’s what they were famous. Okay. I like brownies. Yeah, yeah.

18:44
So I guess kinda helped me through the the timetable here now was your great, great, great or great, great, great grandfather. Okay, so was this last during Prohibition or like it was okay. So you want to talk about like, how that that sort of

19:00
had it. He headed up to prohibition and he had about 63,000 barrels of bourbon he had to get rid of. He was having if you had 50,000 oh man owns borough, because they had huge warehouses or some big distilleries and, and owns burn, they had big fences with Abby on him. So he was able to had a lot of barrels. And it took him about three years to get licenses to distribute alcohol during Prohibition. So

19:26
so nobody was coming there. Day one trying to bring cameras. Yeah. And Whoa, I

19:30
think they probably were, I mean, all he is, the distillery and Henderson was pretty wide open. And that’s reason why he would sneak at night over on 17. train cars don’t want to keep barrels over and keep them hidden. So the government, you’re right would have gone in there with access, crack them open, pour them out. So he thought he could get a license eventually. And it took him about three years to do so. So then he got a license of sable to distribute, where he distributed a lot of his alcohol and we found sad, Rocky words up in, in Chicago. It’s worth distributing. That’s breakthrough. But they were that it was a I guess he knew about my great grandfather. And before I got up there, he told us that my great grandfather sold the Walgreen or buys from a with Walgreens got one on every corner, right. But he sold them a little less than 40,000 barrels of bourbon during Prohibition, which was a big deal back then. So they partied pretty hard in the Palmer house. For years, not his quitting one of these two week parties. This went on for like 10 or 12 years term, prohibition but he was able to get rid of all his and he shut the distillery down. He shut it down before that.

20:44
So it was more like a like a liquidation sort of thing is what he was trying to get out of.

20:48
Yeah, he was he’d already sold his skills and 1917 probation came along in 1919. So he must have known something was coming on. So in 1917, he sold his still united distillery up in Vancouver, British Columbia. And what he did, he hired Mr. Sherman here in town that owns Vendome. They’re the largest still building in the United States, probably the world hired Mr. Sherman brought his family, the Henderson his wife and four kids stayed there eight months broken down, went up to Vancouver, about a month on the train, set them up, spent eight months up there came back here. And that’s where they got some of the money to continue and to build Vendome with. So I went in there and 98 years later, and they told me was your great grandfather that helped put our great grandfather and business.

21:38
So they were like, well, you need to still so we’re gonna go ahead and just bump you up near towards the front of the line. This is this is your repayment

21:43
dad wouldn’t really it.

21:47
So talk about the the idea now, you know, the family legacy of distilling, and having your own whiskey had been lost for a few generations. And and now you were at the point of just saying like, screw it. Like, let’s let’s start making whiskey again, like what was the what was that real determining factor that wanted you to start pushing towards that as

22:09
he had a legitimate story? Yeah. People are like my great grandparents. You’re like, You’re not even related.

22:16
It’s not even clay.

22:17
Yeah, exactly. I’ll tell you what, I had a big company and I had a financial services company. I sold it group at a New York fifth floor Rockefeller Center. I walked on a beach in Sarasota, Florida for a year and a half most depressed I’ve ever been in my life. I said, I’ve got to go back to work. So I came back. I had a home here in Lowell. And my youngest son Carson was a builder. And so let’s let’s do something I don’t care what we do. Let’s do something. So we had a lot of history with my great grandfather and my grandfather, running a distillery. So he said, Let’s build a distillery, we went down to Vendome and walk through the door. And so we want to order a still and started looking for buildings here in town. And Carson was a builder. So we found this building, down on 10th Street did kind of lend itself to do what we wanted to do and or distills. And he started the building took us almost two years to the day to build the building or to convert the building to a distillery and

23:15
YG to that building, and that location.

23:18
Well, I just felt like that if I kept the building, and maybe when our bourbon came out in six to seven years part a little bit would be heading that direction. It was pretty pretty much gone news greatness, but there’s not many places left and that into town. So I thought in 678 years, local would be heading that direction. So it was in a kind of a rough area and then it’s starting to get better as we go along. And I’m going to get the park built in on river to be better yet, but I just thought it would it would work out and it had a loading dock he was about to write says we wanted so it’s worked out. I think it’s worked out very well for us.

24:00
Why not up? Sorry.

24:01
No, no, I was about to say I mean, do you see that as more of like, like levels having a Renaissance period because you had a choice you could have you could have gone to Bardstown you could have gone back to your hometown.

24:12
Why not be the ones bro because you know, those the dollars making a great name for themselves? Sure they are there?

24:18
Yeah. Well, Henderson, Henderson, my hometown. I mean, that’s, you know, I feel like it’s where everything started in Henderson. But I felt like that I like global I knew local was coming along with the bourbon Renaissance with bourbon ism and what was going on, and that was be even being talked about four or five years ago. So I felt like, you know, with brown form and being here and, you know, just a lot of things going on at downtown local, I just felt like that, I’d go ahead and take the chance. And in 567 years, it would kind of hit our direction. I’m not too far off. I mean, a lot of it has to do with luck, you know, you have to have a lot of luck doing it. But as luck would have it, I think that we’re in the right place at the right time. And we made a decision that we’re making our own product, I don’t source anything at all. So I knew our Bourbons not even out it won’t be out till June 22. So we’re actually, you know, waiting a little bit over four years for it to come out. I’m holding off, I can bring it out today if I wanted to, but I’m bringing it out on my dad’s birthday. That’s the only generation we skipped. We skipped the third generation on the fourth, obviously Carson’s a fifth. So an honor my father, I’m bringing it out on his birthday. Very cool.

25:41
So I mean, back to the global thing. I’m assuming that you are as I mean, you’re going to pay a little bit more money up front to actually sit here and have your home base and being headquartered in Louisville, then then trying to go and you know, be in Owens borough or be in Bardstown or something like that, you know, did you look at this and saying, you know, this is the this is where the population is going to grow. This is where the tourism is going to expand more argument. We don’t have to convince people to come like we’re already just like, another.on, the map of the Louisville bourbon kind of experience, if you will.

26:11
Absolutely. I mean, with the convention center, right here, I mean, you know, you know, what’s going on here with, you know, the farm machinery shows the big shows are here in local, the convention center. At that time, I didn’t know it was going to be torn down and start all over. But that’s okay. We got through though that two years, so did everybody else. But during that era, they were building like an unbelievable amount of hotels in this town. I think when I started, they were building like 10 hotels, and then it come with another couple years and there’s 20 new hotels. So those people are going to do something they’re going to go places and I wanted to be in local so people could come in and take a tour of our distillery and know the family the history because I really believe we have about as much history in the bourbon industry is any distillery in the whole state of Kentucky and it might be a might be saying a mouthful, but when you go back Red

27:09
Nose gonna have a sponsor that when you

27:11
said,

27:13
Right, right, no or any names. Well, okay, well,

27:16
Jim Beam is known as DSP number 230. We’re number 50. So Oh,

27:23
I want you to I want you to also tell that story too. Because I know that you were you also thought to have your original DSP back as well

27:31
fought fought it in the word for I spent, I spent a year and a half. Getting that number back. I mean, we started from my great grandfather. I can’t tell you how many attorneys in this town I went through and, and what we had to do to get that but I was bound and determined that we had DSP number 50. It took us a year and a half to get almost to the day, a year and a half to get that number. First time in history. The government’s ever gone back to give a DSP number back a family. So we were able to get it and finally I called the fella when it when we got an asset. Okay, what would my number have been if I could just fill the paperwork out the way you want me to? 20,232? I said, 50 looks better up on

28:18
the building. It’s hard to market out there like I have all this history. But we’re DSP to 1000. Like, yeah, right.

28:25
Yeah. So the new numbers in the 20 2000s. Yeah, you know, and there’s a number of them in this town that are 22,000. So, but no, I mean, when you mentioned Jim Beam there to 30 were 50. When you mentioned buffalo there 113. wild turkeys, 139. makers is for 44. I know them all. So number 50 is a big deal. It doesn’t it’s not such a big deal sometimes in the United States, and we do tour center. Okay, we’re number 50. But you bring somebody in here from Japan, you bring them in from Scotland, from Ireland, and they see number 50. There are like, Oh, my gosh, you have got to have a lot of history with your family to have DSP number 50.

29:07
When you’re going through that process at a point where you just like this is this is too much. Yes, we’ve we’ve dealt with TTP, we’ve dealt with the laws we’ve we’ve gone through and I don’t even know, they know all the laws and all the restrictions. So at some point, did you ever think like, let’s just give it up, it’s going to be it’s going to take way too long to get this 50 back?

29:26
You know, I did, but you have to keep in mind, we were going through the construction era, that time we were we started and it took exactly two years to go through it. So I started that process. Even before we started, when we first bought the building, and we had to get some thing we had to get permits, you know, it takes time to do. So I was I was working on 50 from day one. So yeah, I I just felt like that I’d finally get it. So and we are severe. Yeah, yeah. So we never really, you know,

30:03
I just thought I’d get

30:04
you’re a financial guy. So like, when you’re looking at a bird, you know, starting a distillery in in the investment it takes and the return on investment and like, like, were you like, this is this is like, what was your mindset going into this? Like, I know, you want to bring your family’s history back and like that. But talk about pulling those triggers like even though your brains probably like this doesn’t make much sense. Like

30:29
now I did. You know, when I first we weren’t going to be and we’re not we’re not that big. Today, we’re we’re a small distillery. But when when Carson and I got into that we were thinking along the lines of a smaller about half the size we are, but then I guess my financial background kicked in, and I started figuring, you know, I’ve got to do X amount to make this many barrels to make this many bottles to be in so many states, this is what we need to be. And then we wanted to make it where we had complete control of what we were doing. So my mindset was, we’ve got to make it a certain size, we have to make it this way. And I think we had it down to a pretty good sense. People asked me Well, were you aware of the construction costs? Well, Carson having a financial background or a business background on on building, I pretty much knew what it was going to cost us to build. And you know, putting barrels away, you know, where we waited, and we waited for a rye whiskey to come out and a little over two years. And now we’re waiting over four years for our bourbon. So people don’t do that, you know, they go and they source it, they put it in a bottle. This is my product, you know, same old game everybody plays, but I just couldn’t do it. I just, I had to, I had to do what I wanted to do and keep it and make it keep it and hold it and put it out when it’s ready to go.

31:56
Why was that so important to me.

31:59
Because I’m building a distillery to stay. I’m not I’m not building this distillery to sell. We’re building it. As a family. We’re building it for people who work with us. And we call them family. So you know, I’m the fourth generation Carson’s a fifth, he’s got boys, it’ll be the six. I don’t do that anymore. You all know all the distilleries in the state of Kentucky, you know, so there’s only one or two owned by the family. Everybody else is owned by this one. That one, we can go all over the world and talk about that. But I think in order to have respect from the big distilleries, a big what I call the big seven and to be have the respect from other distilleries around the United States, I had to do it my way. And that’s make my own product. When it’s ready. It’s ready. And as luck would have it, that’s kind of what’s happening to us.

32:54
So So talk about how to say you say what you want to do it your way and your own product. How did you define that or come up with like, this is my set of these are my standards these are? This is my ethos. And don’t give us some like, Oh, we source all our corn from you know, 50 miles away

33:10
else’s story. You know, I think there’s there’s gotta be a what

33:13
is what makes when you look at a bottle of peerless What do what, what do you tell people to see in that bottle like What’s in it? Well, not just whiskey.

33:24
Whiskey, we, we understand, everybody makes it the same run through the same stills I put it in a barrel, they still at 160, they put it in a barrel at 125 they watered down they put it in a bottle at 92 proof that wouldn’t we we wanted to have complete control over everything that we did. And in order to do that, we had to have the right computer systems, which we did our it all our own software, we had to have a right drain opera, we had to find out what would make it the best product, it was a 1964 change from from going into barrel at 110. Proof 225 proof. So they did that for cost. But going into barrel, and 110 proof actually makes a better product. So I put it in a barrel at 107 proof because it might creep up a little bit. And then I take it straight from the barrel right to the bottle, we don’t add one drop of water to it. When you take it from the barrel once its age to the bottle. So the bottles that you see right here are probably 100 and 808. Point 108.2. We wanted to give it the best flavor profiles we could possibly give it. The other. The other main reason why I think that we’re making as good a product as we are is we’re sweet mash. everybody’s familiar with sour mash, you hold the mash back, you pull it forward, you know, that didn’t away we’re a military family. I want it I want this place clean up. The joke is I want a battleship clean. I want that place spotless when we when we make a product, we steam clean, we clean everything, you won’t see a hose on the ground, you won’t see a pressure gauge spewing, you won’t see any of that everything we have is control we could cook Exactly. It was a certain temperature we ferment exactly at a certain temperature, everything is controlled. And I think that’s reason why we’ve received accolades that we have, since we started and we’re going to continue, we’re not going to be cocky enough to think that we’re doing it exactly right. We’re doing it better every day, everything we do, we’re going to we’re going to get better equipment better systems to make sure that we’re on top.

35:44
What kind of those better systems are you investing in? Today? Well,

35:47
we’re we’re, we have a continuous still. But there’s you know, there’s just so many ways to make that still run better run hotter, run faster. So basically pumps and gauges and things like that, that we have just exactly. complete control over so you know, we’re we don’t make a lot of product, we only make 1012 barrels a day, that’s probably all we’ll ever going to make. I don’t have any aspirations of building a distillery that’s going to be line up to Jim Beam or Maker’s Mark and making 1000 barrels a day we’re going to make, you know, we might make 1215 1618 barrels a day someday, but not today. So we just want to have control. If you can have control if you’re the size distillery we are today, when you get way up there. You just you’re just making product. Yeah, and don’t miss it. And all bourbon coming out of Kentucky is a good product. We just want to have the best.

36:52
Do you think, you know, the decision to you know, like you said stay small, like really focused on quality? Do you think you would have made it that same decision younger in your life if you were like, start the distillery like younger and like oh, we gotta you know, make this as big as big as best, big, fast and best as possible and turn over like, like whereas this is more like a passion project. I’m sure it’s giving you returns but it seems like more like you know, this is really

37:18
you know if how to stay down in Henderson. We’re all my buddies are and where the some of the big buildings are. And maybe I would had aspirations of building a bigger distillery and coming out of my great grandfather’s buildings or done something. But, you know, coming into Louisville, Kentucky and wanting to do it in in the city where I could I could benefit from from people taking tours and visiting us. I think and then in the timing on bourbon bourbon, it’s only been hot for the last probably 810 years. I mean, you go back 20 years. I mean, everything was vodka. You know, Jen was way before that. So vodka was so hot, how the flavored vodkas, bourbon really hasn’t been that strong for the last I’d say 10 years.

38:09
Now, no one cared about it.

38:12
Now they know that they care about Yeah, but they make great stuff in Bardstown. Yeah,

38:17
so I think that you know, I talked to the all the big guys and they say that the bourbon industry will be good for the next 14 to 20 years. So that’s good to hear because every business has a cycle. My father was in the head of Ford dealership and every five years you know is going to go down is going to come back. So at least bourbon industry I think will be good for the next 1520

38:40
Why do they think that?

38:45
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39:10
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39:39
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40:39
So at least bourbon industry I think will be good for the next 1520 Why

40:43
do they think that?

40:45
Well, I think it’s a lot of reasons i think i think they feel like that it is because it’s getting to be a war worldwide drink. I mean, the Japanese love it. They even they even in the UK, they like it Australia likes it can it is drinking our product. So but the main reason is, I think women like the flavor of bourbon. They they like it. They’re getting away from vodka. And I think and then I think you’ve got a mixologist and all the big cities are getting back to mixing the drinks. The Manhattans, you know are made with. They were made originally with rye whiskey. Now they’re coming back and making with Rasul that helps us in the big cities of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, LA. So I think there’s a lot of reasons but I’d say number one would be that women like bourbon, they liked it, they liked the flavor of it. And it’ll hopefully it’ll be a good thing. It’s number one drink in the world today.

41:44
Let’s keep it number one.

41:45
Yeah, it will if it’s, you know, obviously we do we do our part.

41:50
Yeah, keep writing keep keep keep keep it going. Great. So the other kind of question I want to kind of talk about is is the bottling and as well as the price point, right? Because this is something that most consumers out there if they’ve never heard of it, they might see it on the shelf and they’re gonna be like well what’s that’s really up there for for two three year old products are kind of talk about the cost of the bottle that goes into it because I know that you put a concern amount of effort that goes into the shape the topper and everything like that, and how that kind of falls into the ending retail price as well.

42:21
Yeah, so probably the craziest thing I’ve ever done, but I’ll explain. We’re here for what we what we, Carson and Chris Edwards and are they designed the bottle we wanted to have what we thought was one of the best bottles made in the United States and again, I wanted this bottle to be made in the United States we found a company down in right outside of Atlanta, they only make perfume bottles, they make our bottle when you pick it upside down and says Made in USA. So we wanted to have the right bottle the cap actually cost more than the bottle. So it’s we wanted to have the heaviest cap, the heaviest bottle. One it has a design on it. And then the label we actually won. On December 5 repeal day in New York City, they have a contest who has the best bottle who has the best label and who has the best cap in the United States. And last year we won all three It’s never happened before. So we feel like we have the right and then to put the pot product in or to put a two year old product in there. And and and retail it out for 119 or hundred and $20 was a push. But we don’t make much product. We felt like it was a good product. Evidently whiskey advocate thought it was a pretty good product too, because we’re ranked the 15th best whiskey in the world with a two year old product, but the number one rye whiskey in the world. On April the 18th of 18 we’re ranked the number one rye whiskey in the world jack daniels Rakim and second whistle pig came in third. So it was a big gamble on our part. We have won the accolades, accolades January the 30th check and I went to New York City and whisky magazine gave us the award for the number one craft distillery in the United States out of 900 Caleb Kilburn our distiller master distiller just got back from London March he went to our March 28 we got that we want to have the number one craft distillery in the world so we must be doing something right we are getting but now we do have different price points so a lot of our rye will be more in the $89 our bourbon will come out about 1600 dollar it’s still a high end but we don’t make much

44:38
well oddly enough I don’t know if people know that that rye whiskey actually is more expensive to to mash and to create than it is to actually make a bourbon whiskey. So

44:47
kind of talk about comes up the tanks Glen all that fun. Yeah,

44:50
it does anyway in rotten rice, you know, it’s 1313 $14 a bushel and corns $3 and 68 cents so, you know, it just costs a lot more money to make Yeah,

45:02
but why is it that that rice seems to age a lot quicker and have a better approachable taste to it at a younger age and say a bourbon does what really think it counts for that.

45:13
You know, I that’s probably a question more for Caleb than it is for me. I don’t know why it why it ages that much faster, but it’s twice as fast. I mean, so to have our now we’re going to have we have a three year old out. We’re going to have a four year old out probably in the next three or four months. So on a go forward basis. We won’t be a two year old raw. All of our Robbie for four to seven years old and then we’ll come out with a Henry Craver eight year old so it’ll be hitting on a four year old here probably in the next three or four months. So we’ll be strictly over for four to five year old right.

45:53
What’s this Henry Craver thing you just brought up that that kind of piqued my interest that you’re talking about that?

45:57
Well, we’re going to honor my great grandfather we’re holding about 20% of what we make for Henry Craver bourbon. So we’ll have a deer will always have the peerless product out. But we’re going to have a Henry Craver eight year old product and probably an eight year old rye whiskey as well hold a little bit for him for an eight year old. So we’re it’s more an honor my great grandma. It’s all about our family, our heritage, what we’re trying to accomplish here as a family. But I think our eight year old bourbon should do well for us.

46:36
Yeah, that was always one of the things that I remember. I remember when this when the two year old ry first came out and yeah, it came out with $100 price tag and I know people were talking to like, oh man, like how can they do $100 on a two year rye whiskey? And I think one of the big things that was the question that was came up was well, when the rise three years and that’s four years and as five years so on and so on, like, is the price going to keep going up? Is he gonna go down as gonna say the same? Like what’s what’s your the long term game there?

47:04
Well, I’ll tell you what the short term game was for a long time. Okay, let’s go the short term, the short term, if I had to ask $39 and 95 cents a bottle, I would have just been everybody else. I’d have been Jim Beam Maker’s Mark, you know what we’d have just been? We’ve gotten lost in the shuffle. So in order to get everybody’s attention, which I think we did, we were getting $129, which everybody went Holy cow, I’ve got to try that. Yeah, I got I mean, $129 for two year old bottle. Let’s try it. And it just so happened to taste good. So was it a gamble? You damn right? It was God. But, you know, as it turns out, the way there’s come down the pike, we do realize we’ve got to get to a four year old, then you don’t have put an age statement on the bottle once it’s four years old. So it’ll be five, six years old. And I think it’ll get it’ll get better every year, our three year old is better than the two year old. But it’s, it’s hard to say. I mean, if you’re number one in the world at a two year old, what the hell?

48:09
Where do you go from there?

48:10
Where do you know where do you you know,

48:12
what, how much close up shop. Let’s start off.

48:16
But now we know. We want to make things better all the time. We want to do a better job. We want to be proud of the product we put out. Can we want to be more cost effective? It was it was a big deal to come out over $100 with a two year old but it got people’s attention. We would have never, ever gotten the accolades we got if we hadn’t asked $129. Right.

48:39
Who was who was the biggest like, advocate and then like the person that was against it, like with inside of the family or inside of the company that was like this, the price point we’re going with, and then somebody was like, I don’t know about that. Or you just kind of like headstrong with it saying we got to do this.

48:55
You know, I don’t I think everybody pretty much agreed. I mean it. We don’t make much product, where I’ll make it real simple. We go where the money is. The money’s in New York City. The money’s in Chicago, the money’s in San Francisco, la Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Miami. So, London. So if you only make 1012 barrels of bourbon a day,

49:23
you don’t need to Henderson

49:24
you don’t think

49:26
we got it in Henderson but only bet three places exact, you know, you don’t we’re not going to go down to Bardstown and put it in the bar down in Bardstown. You know,

49:34
they’ll bitch like, they can’t even pay for a $40 bottle. Yeah.

49:38
So So I mean, you know, if you if you if you have the history that we have, and we go to the places where the money is it and they like it, they have to like it, then we’re taking a gamble, but not going with its it’s going to work?

49:57
No, absolutely. And I think it seemed to work. So the doors are open, the money’s still coming in, you get product and would you say 48 for how many states have 45 states the five states across the country.

50:08
And so that was kind of like the one of the big reasons we kind of want to talk to us because yeah, you’re starting to get this this national presence around you. And I kind of want to also talk about like so what are the difference in the two bottles we have in front of us today? You have the two years small batch and we have a three year single barrels that would exactly and it’s it’s a three year single barrel and we we’ve, I don’t course all the distilleries have a reputation of selling single barrels but for the size that we are I think it’s kind of hit pretty good for us to where we are selling quite a few single barrels. I mean, last year we I think we sold over 50 which was big for us and this year we anticipating selling well over 100 and for a small distillery that’s that’s a good thing and that’s how it helps marketing when you’re

50:54
it’s almost like it’s almost like a month worth of inventory at this point. Yeah.

50:59
Yeah, you know, so you get in some of the big bars and you get in some of the big liquor stores in the country and they’ve got 30 cases your product in the center out you know, they see it and so it’s kind of help us with that as well.

51:13
What’s the Nashville on this this route these rye whiskey?

51:16
we don’t we don’t I can’t tell you.

51:19
That’s that’s so good.

51:21
So everybody Asad now, you know it just we just we don’t want to do that. Because everybody else to school disclose their we’re not going to disclose our How do you like it?

51:32
I love it.

51:34
It’s it’s great for two years, or 32 or three? That’s the two years.

51:39
That was about three. Okay, cool. This is

51:43
nice weather.

51:44
No, I mean, both great. I mean, to me taste. It tastes like a Kentucky right, like more of a lower. Rob. Like a closer to 51%. Rob, but I’m not going to prod you to give us that.

52:00
Drink the rest of it. I’ll get you some of this three.

52:02
No, but I will say you know a little bit about what you said about the mash bill. No matter where we go in the country. They basically call it a bourbon drinkers rye whiskey. Yeah. So we do have enough corn in there to gives it a little bit sweeter, sweeter taste, and I don’t think you quite get that burn that you would within different raw. And then we have the three different profiles. We only blend six barrels.

52:29
Three. What’s

52:31
your definition

52:33
six barrel? Yeah. So we take try to take three different flavor profiles, fruits and florals, Carmine vanilla. And in the obviously the oak and pepper is the original rice with we blend those and we do it, you know, we pick our barrel. So if we can continue doing that, it’s not ready, it’s not ready, we put it back for another three months, six months or whatever. So we want to make sure that the barrels we put out again being small, we can do that. Obviously, we’re not going to blend 500 like the big ones stood. And the other thing it’s really important to to try to stay. What we feel like will be a quality product is all of our Rick houses are just going to be one floor five. So the temperature from the top to the bottom is that four degrees, you go in these big warehouses could be 40 degrees temperature from the top floor to the bottom floor. So we like the idea one floor, more control better product. So the things that we do on a continuous basis, we hope will be a better product for us.

53:45
Where did you so when you’re developing, you know, Corky thing your own way whose whose recipes? Are these are like was it just trial and error? Like we’re waiting on someone else to like figure it out? Or?

53:58
You got it? trial and error? Yeah, we you know, a year

54:04
trial. That’s the fun part. Right.

54:06
Yeah, you know, sorry, we knew, you know, kind of what we wanted to do with flavor profiles. We had a pretty good idea what some other products close to what, you know what their mash bill. So we just came up with a magic pill that had enough corn in it that people would still think it’s a good quality bourbon. And a lot of people that drink this still think it’s bourbon.

54:29
It I mean, it could I mean, you can taste the right of it. It’s very close. Like you said, it’s a bourbon drinker bourbon, it’s like you’re not a barbarian bourbon bourbon drinkers. Right? We’ll get there. Yeah. So talk about like, what, what are some of your favorite products that kind of like, made you determine that this is what I like, you know, some similar similar products out there that were like, this is kind of a whistle, whistle pig.

54:55
And when when we, when we looked at it, we knew who who our competition was going to be. And it seems like since we came out, whistle pig, no matter where he goes, God is going to be our competition. So, you know, but but there there’s is 810 1214 years, right? So and, you know, so we we had pretty good idea that that’s, that’s our competition, but we wanted to make it our flavor, flavor profiles. So we couldn’t sit around and wait 14 years. So we had to figure out what what we could do. And Caleb Kilburn is a is our master distiller he’s been with us since day one, and he does a great job for us. But we got Chris and Tommy and Aaron Carson. So we’re, we’re kind of all on it trying to figure out, you know, what we can do to make it better. And obviously, going from the two year to three years better than when it come out with a four year it’s going to be better and five year and then kind of hold it about two. I don’t think Brad needs to be with some pig does a great job. They’ve got a great product, but we’re not going to be up at 1214 years. Yeah, we’re just not

56:10
well, who knows? That 20% you’re holding back save another 2%? And then you know, you’ll you’ll find out later on.

56:16
I am afraid here. Yeah.

56:18
Yeah, that’s me tough sell, sell, sell,

56:21
sell the other about the the flavoring aspect or not flavoring. But you know, how you how you embody and invoke the flavor of the whiskey is all done a lot through the barrel itself? It is and are who are you teaming up with to get your barrels? Or is this another? I’m not going to tell you?

56:37
No, no, no, you know, we we strictly do business with Calvin Cooper each. We like the quality of their barrels that they make. Personally, we like them. They’re there, they become good friends of ours. They, you know, when we got in this business barrels were hard to come by there was a barrel shortage. So we went to some of the big barrel places and they’d say, Well, you know, we can help you with four or 500 barrels, we can give you 1200 a week, you know, we can do this or, you know, and we went to Kelvin and, and talk to them. And they said, we’ll take care of you. And I’ll be with Calvin Cooper each. As long as there have to always be with them. I’m not gonna I won’t, I won’t leave. I won’t

57:20
leave. It’s amazing how rich these barrels are. I mean, for three year old property, it’s crazy. I mean, talk about how did you get hooked up with Caleb and why did you choose him to be your master distiller?

57:34
Well, there’s, there’s flavor man, the epicenter has a school, that that only lasts about six days, but it helps you gives you an idea how to become a distiller or to build a distillery. Caleb went through the school, my son Carson went through the first class. Caleb was in a second said, Mike. So we’ve had a number of them go through the school. And then they said, somebody said, you got to take a look at this young man, he’s still a junior in college. So he came over and talk to me said, you know, I’d like to, you know, work with you. And this is even before we laid out to the story, and I said, Sure, you know, once you start shoveling gravel over there, and oh, by the way, I got a bunch of nails in his would pull nails. And he did that for the first summary was their second summer. I think he he shoveled gravel, and helped us pour concrete so and then he was able to lay out the distillery the way he wanted it laid out the kid, I say he’s a kid. He’s not a kid. But he’s, he’s literally a genius. I think he’s he’s very, very smart. He understands the mechanical. He understands the whole system all the way around. He’s gone into big distilleries. He’s followed him around, he went to the school. He’s sharp, and he does a great job for us. He’s helped work with Tommy and, and Nick, Chloe, and help them along. So we we have three people that can really do what we want to enter. But Caleb is the he’s the lead lead pony there. So

59:07
is he like another son to you?

59:08
party? Emily, he really is. Yeah, no, he is. And you know, and I feel like a lot of men are there. You know, we’re basically a big family. We don’t we only have about 20 employees. Maybe we got a few part time that are you know, working in the retail part of it. But you know, we’re most will have is 22 employees in there. So we’re always going to be that’s us distillery.

59:30
So before we kind of wrap things up, I know that I kind of want to touch back on the the history of you and your military background, because I know there was you have a title to General Patton as well.

59:42
Is that correct? My my father was General patents chief aide. So if you saw the movie Pat and the man at work was right with General Patton in real life was my father. I’ve got general patents gun and he carried all through the war. You saw the movie Pat, and he said pearls were for women and average for men have got to go the average handle 45 that was his shoulder harness. So my father owned it for 30 years. He passed away young and have a heart attack. I’ve owned this gun for 43 years. My sons alone and my grandsons, they’ll own it. So the gun that General Patton carried all through the war will never leave the Taylor family.

1:00:19
And then and then so you also have like I mentioned that that military tie. When military officers or personnel come through the distillery I think you’ve had a few of those kind of moments as well with with some of those individuals, have you not?

1:00:33
Oh, yeah, they do. Because if you go down to the patent Museum, down in Fort Knox, there’s, there’s a picture about a 10 foot tall picture general Pat, and that’s my father standing right next time. So all the army generals, McCaffrey just just retired two star General, he wanted to have his retirement dinner darkness story. He brought eight of the top army generals and United States Army we’re in our distillery that night. So he wants us to bring the gun in so people can see the generals in the army. And the Colonel’s. If there’s a general or a colonel down at Fort Knox, or somebody visiting from Leavenworth or from other places, they come see me and they want to know the history about my father. And which is, which is a pretty interesting history. I mean, the story that everybody likes to hear is when I when my father sent me to military school down in castle heights, and my two roommates were the Allman Brothers. So Greg, and my roommate started that in military school. And it was a wild damn time. I’ll tell you that. So we every time I’ve listened all in, but brother, yes. Wild. So we, we, and that’s to back up just a little bit. You mentioned Freddie now. Yeah, well, Freddie. Freddie and I spoke at the convention center one time and Freddie’s father Booker sent him to Castle heights. kind of straighten your career and dad, my dad said me to Castle, I straighten my rear. I work for Fred. It didn’t work for me. So, so Freddie for all these years, he said, you know, the Allman Brothers went to Castle heights. So I’m 70 years old. Freddie’s probably 62. So he’d been telling these people that the Allman Brothers went to Castle i. So we’re speaking here to Convention Center. So Friday, you didn’t know this, but I went to Castle IT can imagine what he said. Yes. No muffler. Yeah. So as I said, And oh, by the way, the Allman Brothers were my roommates. Well, he busted a good on that when he said my goddess, but Freddie, you never saw the Allman Brothers. I’m 70 year like 62 they weren’t a said no, they weren’t here about God. But I knew they were there. I said, I know they were to they were my roommate. So we laughed about that. And so when he does see me, so I know you’re the only brothers roommate.

1:02:53
That’s pretty awesome. They didn’t initially I try to get you to pick up another guitar. You start playing with them or anything.

1:02:59
You know, that was that was when they were 1415 years old. They were they were Yeah, they had a guitar in the room. But they never know. I mean, they might on Sunday afternoon they play the guitar you’d sing but I mean, I didn’t know what the hell’s going on. You know, they weren’t writing Jessica

1:03:13
they know they know they weren’t they weren’t a ramble man.

1:03:17
We we got a little trouble we we found out the first day we were there The girls were to Dairy Queen on Sunday night so we come busting out of there for the Dairy Queen Sunday night come back at one captain’s always standing there raising like we care we want to get kicked out Yeah, exactly.

1:03:36
We send me

1:03:36
home we stayed we stayed in trouble. Yeah.

1:03:40
Give me Give me another one of those good story so I mean, you would want to go to the Dairy Queen what other things you tried to do to get in trouble there?

1:03:47
Oh, we made a little we did make some wine and there was we get drunk every once in a while but I think the Dairy Queen was That’s awesome. It was it was a wildest so I was we had no money we’d go the Dairy Queen. I mean we go the Dairy Queen end up at one o’clock when we couldn’t even back coke. We were so good on the Dairy Queen more

1:04:07
than blizzard.

1:04:08
Yeah, we did. And then I figured out I said hey now here’s how we’re gonna make money. We’re going to go down to the drugstore. We’re gonna buy a little vial of cinnamon we’re going to go in KF cherry Sophie’s toothpicks and filmed all the rich boys for 10 cents apiece. So we told so 10 and breakfast 10 lunch 10 at dinner has $3 a day 20 $21 when we got on set we have a lot more fun it to Dairy Queen on why

1:04:32
we want to Why do people want cinnamon still

1:04:34
they loved him all the rich where they had rich boys down there man I had al gore went school. He was one of our roommates for a short period. So Heck, they just say walk around with these cinnamon toothpicks in her mouth. They loved him we had go ahead ever had all the money boys second on those two things. I didn’t know that was a thing. Yeah. So they know. When I got Rachel Coleman brothers wrote a book. Then they they wrote about that in their book I live came up with a cinema

1:05:01
to fix that’s, that’s pretty cool.

1:05:03
I know. It’s the next big marketing ploy right there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, when you leave feels good stuff, a bottle of whiskey and a cinnamon toothpick.

1:05:11
Yeah, but you should do it.

1:05:14
So quickly, I want to say thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast was a pleasure to not only get to know you and your story, but also more about the product. And and now that people are going to know more about it, they’re going to be probably more inclined to go out there and try it too. So next time you are at your liquor store your local Packer store at a bar, wherever it is, give it a try. I mean, I’m going to say that I was I’m a believer now because I am tried fearless over the past two years plus now. And the first time I tried it, I was I was pretty pretty taken away because I was this is again a year plus ago, about being a two year product. I was like this is actually pretty fantastic. And now if you

1:05:56
remember my birthday, we’re sitting at the bar and they get the samples and I was like, Alright, let’s see what full of shit are. Good. Then we took it. I was like, damn it, it is good. And then, but now, I mean, gosh, what we’re tasting day is like even better, you know, really amazing what a year is done to this, like, gosh, specially that single barrel has been it’s like me, it tastes like a eight to 10 year old. Like, I mean, the richness and complexity. And then I mean, it’s I don’t know what you’re doing. But he told me he won’t tell us he won’t tell us

1:06:26
other than going at a lower proof. Yeah.

1:06:30
We just want people to come down and see our place. And

1:06:34
it is a cool place. I mean, like, it’s amazing. Because when Kenny and I, we were on my birthday, a friend of mine set up a heaven Hill tour of the Chevrolet plant, you go there and they got you know, I mean, obviously, it’s a factory over there, and you go to your place, and it’s great to come see like a craft distillery where it’s like, it’s like, you feel like it is truly handmade and like, everything’s, you know, legit about like, it’s it’s a cool building and everything about it like,

1:07:01
I don’t know, that’s refreshing.

1:07:04
Well, I’m just saying it’s good. I don’t know, it’s just a nice change of pace from all the other distilleries you go to. Yeah,

1:07:11
so before we kind of kick it off here, give a shout out to people of where they can find out more about you, where can they locate the distillery so on and so forth?

1:07:20
Well, we’re down on 120 North 10th street right past some baseball bat factory Louisville Slugger with a big base, but go another block, take a right towards the river, we’re right down the street there. We have tours from starting Monday through Saturday from 10 to five, we stay open late in the summer till seven on Thursday and Friday night. But you can get our product and most all the liquor stores specially in Kentucky but you know, the big liquor stores and even the smaller ones and we’re getting wider spread and a lot of the restaurants and bars and and so we’re you know, just take time you build a brand and you know, it’s taken us it’s going to take us a while to build a brand. So we know that but we’re pretty accessible, you know, in the liquor stores, especially in Kentucky, and will all over 145 states and we’re you know, like total lines and ABC and of MMOs and a lot of the specs and some of the big bigger change in the in the big states where we are but we’re in we’re in a lot of liquor stores here in the state of Kentucky in there. And they support us very well and we’re we’re very appreciative we know where we’re from we’re from

1:08:30
so we’re playing your own background

1:08:33
we’re you know, we’re honored to be here and we’re we’re tickled to death to have people drink our product

1:08:39
we got Corky man up I appreciate that I love the history the bottle everything about it i mean this is you know it’s it’s cool seeing stuff that’s being made in mobile that’s not just from like you said the big seven and seeing the success that you guys had. It’s really exciting and I’m excited for you know what’s to come and appreciate you too taking the time to hang out in our little neck here.

1:09:03
Yeah, one bourbon bar. And so thank you once again to down one bourbon bar for inviting us here having us here we’re just a few blocks away from POS distilling company. So if you’re coming down to visit peerless and as well as a lot of the other Louisville bourbon excursions make sure you stop at down one get yourself and drink and move on to the next place. With that will see everybody next week.

1:09:39
The world’s biggest music and bourbon festivals even bigger September 20 21st and 22nd at Highland festival grounds of the Kentucky, Louisville with Foo Fighters.

1:09:51
Zac Brown band

1:09:54
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai