Today is all about Barrell Bourbon. We had Joe and Tripp back on Episode 164, but it’s time we get an update on what’s happening with this team. We talk more about the flavors they are pulling from different states of distillation and how that goes into the blend as well as hearing about their newest release of the American Vatted Malt Whiskey. We then talk about some gripes with the TTB, take another stab at online sales, and then look to the future with new dovetail offerings while potentially phasing out other products.

Show Notes:

• Bourbon Warehouse made out of shipping containers: https://www.wdrb.com/news/wdrb-video/bourbon-warehouse-made-of-shipping-containers-planned-in-j-town/video_100e2934-e0ca-5335-a956-83f9d9a9150a.html
• Bourbon Pursuit Yelp Collection: https://www.yelp.com/collection/Si779eiZUmjGomZP2pZLTg
• This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about barrel proof bourbon.
• What’s new with Barrell?
• Tripp, what is your role?
• Do you taste every barrel?
• What flavors are you looking for?
• Do you think every batch is significantly different?
• How many barrels does it take to get the right flavor?
• Tell us about Batch 18.
• What is your ratio of barrels from each state?
• What notes do you pull from KY, IN, TN
• barrels?
• Where do you get the barrels?
• What makes up an American malt whiskey?
• Is the TTB creating new categories for you?
• How do you decide what to blend?
• Why do producers have non-disclosure agreements?
• How many employees work at Barrell Craft Spirits?
• Did you envision this growth?
• What challenges have you faced?
• Are distributors knocking on the door for the next batch?
• Any plans for Barrell Vodka?
• Are you pro online sales?
• What’s next?
• Is it hard to make a new label for every product?
• Any plans to phase any products out?
• Is sourcing rum similar to bourbon?
• Why rum?
• What do you think is the next it category?
• Have you considered using armagnac?
• Tell us about Dovetail 3.
• What’s the difference between finishing and aging?
• How much product is left in the finishing barrels?
• What are you passionate about?
• Any plans to distill your own product instead of sourcing?

Transcription:

0:00
I love bourbon, but I’m not ready to restart my career in be a distiller. I have a bachelor’s degree and I want to continue to use those skills in the whiskey industry. So check this out. The University of Louisville now has an online distilled spirits business certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry like finance, marketing and operations. This is perfect for anyone looking for more professional development. And if you ever want to get your MBA their certificate credits transfer into Ul’s new online MBA program. Learn more about this online program at U of l.me. Slash

0:35
pursue spirits when we’re live it Kenny’s dining room table we get ups man and you know and barking dogs. That’s true. News Feed

0:43
is not the same without the UPS delivery and the dogs.

0:48
Were like all right, cut it

0:50
off. It was ok. back at it.

1:05
Alright everyone, it is Episode 221 of bourbon pursuit. I’m one of your hosts Kenny. And as usual, we got a little bit of news to run through. The 2019 bourbon Hall of Fame induction ceremony was two weeks ago, and I completely forgot to give them a shout out here on the podcast. But congratulations to Peggy know Stevens, Larry cast Wes Henderson and Evan Cole’s mean on all their accomplishments. If you’re interested to hear their stories and their appearances on the podcast, you can go back and listen to episode six 153 157 167 173 181 198 and 204. I guess we’ve been covering a lot of these people throughout the years. I’m glad to see that or be able to bring those stories to light. A new story was on a local level new station here last week. And it talked about a new bourbon where house being erected in Jefferson town, which is a part of the local area. But this one’s quite different. You may remember us talking to music construction back on episode 137. And how their proprietary wrecking system is used in a lot of places that we see on the bourbon trail. But we’re now also seeing a lot of palette ties warehouse is becoming increasingly more common because of lowering costs. Well, this new warehouse that has been planned is made of shipping containers. The developer wants to stack shipping containers six stories high and these plans were filed with the local Metro government. But at this time no bourbon distiller has been mentioned for the project. So who knows what this could end up being like because of air flow and other factors that plan that are in place. But the video news stories can be found with the link in our show notes. We talked a lot about the culture that builds around bourbon and the online community is a huge portion of that. Reddit, which is the biggest message board that’s out there today has now surpassed 100,000 members in the our bourbon forum. We recently interviewed one of the Reddit mods for an upcoming podcast, which will air here in the next few months. We’re continually moving forward with single barrel offerings that we want to have for our Patreon community. And the newest one that we are ready to announce is that we’ve been allocated a barrel of Eagle rare will be working through the process of nailing down a date and we will select eight Patreon community members to join us as we go to choose a barrel. Thank you to our partner Kagan bottle in the Southern California area for making this all happen. You can find hundreds of different whiskeys and Bourbons on their website and have them delivered to your door all around the country at keg and bottle calm that’s keg the letter in bottle calm. And you can also learn more about what we [email protected] slash bourbon pursuit. Are you going to be visiting Louisville soon and maybe looking for the best restaurants or whiskey bars to visit? Well, Ryan and I we live here and we built up a Yelp collection that helps you navigate our favorite places in the city. And you can get that link in our show notes as well. Now today’s podcast is all about barrel bourbon, we had trip and Joe back on episode 164. But it’s time that we get an update from what’s happening with this team. They’ve been winning all kinds of awards. But we want to talk more about what they’re doing inside these walls. We talked about the flavors that they’re pulling from different states of distillation and how that goes into the blend, as well as about hearing their newest release of the valid American single malt. We’ve been talking about some of the greats we all have with the TTP, we take another stab at talking about online sales. And then we look at the future with new offerings. And of course looking at their new future dovetail offering. Now before you hear from Joe and the podcast, you get to also hear from him before above the char with Fred medic. So with that, let’s get on with the show.

4:58
Hi, this is Joe from barrell bourbon. Bourbons have won a few medals, some of the most prestigious spirits competitions out there. But don’t take their word for it. Find out for yourself, lift your spirits with barrel bourbon.

5:10
I’m Fred Minnick. And this is above the char. I often solicit ideas from listeners for above the char. This idea comes from Don Knotts. And Don is a longtime listener. And I really appreciate this idea, because it’s one I’ve actually done a lot of research on, and I’m quite fascinated with it. And that’s kind of the short history of barrel proof Bourbons. Have they always been this popular? And the answer is no. Now in the 1800s, they would actually advertise themselves as barrel strength or barrel proof. Or some would even say that they were fireproof meaning that they would catch on fire. And so that the proof in the 1800s was a way of advertising the fact that they were pure, they were real whiskey versus being adult rated with like prune juice, or water or tobacco spit or whatever the rectifier is a whole sellers were doing. And so barrel proof in the 1800s meant something entirely different. Now we kind of lose track of this barrel proof subject during Prohibition, and hundred proof kind of becomes the standard. And we don’t really reset in terms of what has been bottled until the 1930s, specifically 1935 to 1942, really. And you would find some brands who are trying to market themselves as barrel proof or what they would refer to as barrel whiskey. Weller was one that probably did it the best, and they were going in the barrel at a very low entry proof, and it was coming out 108 212 proof. And in fact, the barrel entry proof up until like 1962 was 110. So the barrel strength bourbon coming out prior to 1962 would have been between 108 and 112. But we don’t really see the explosion or interest of barrel proof bourbon until really the last 1015 years. But there’s one brand we can point toward as being the most important for leading this trend, and that is Booker’s. Booker’s comes out in 1987, and was really the first to push the barrel proof conversation in American households. And you had Booker know going around the country, saying that you don’t want to drink too much of this because it’ll knock you back. Now the truth is that we don’t really market it for like its strength for alcohol purposes. Today, we market it for the flavor intensity. And that’s kind of where we are right now with American whiskey is we’re looking at things in terms of how they taste, and people think that they find more flavor in the barrel proof products. But here’s the thing. Don’t be fooled ruled by the flavor necessarily, that high alcohol can actually mask a lot of flaws. That’s why distilleries will cut the alcohol down to 40 proof to see if they find any flaws in the distillate or the barrel whiskey. So if you think you really like a barrel proof product, add a bunch of water, tastes it again, and see if it still has some of those characteristics that you like. Just because it’s high in alcohol, doesn’t mean it’s good. And that’s this week’s above the char Hey, if you have an idea, like Don did for about the char hit me up on Twitter, or Instagram at Fred Minnick, that’s at Fred Minnick. Until next week, cheers.

8:44
Welcome everybody to another episode of bourbon pursuit, the official podcast of bourbon and we’re down here at down bourbon bar in Louisville, Kentucky, once again, we’re gonna be talking about, you know, barrel bourbon, and they do more than just Kentucky, right? They update, they bring stocks from last different places. And their whole goal is to blend something that’s truly unique and different. And it’s never going to be replicated again. So each batches is like that.

9:08
Yep. So it’s funny. Joe and I were talking before about people in Kentucky are laser focused on Kentucky only. And we were kind of guilty of that, as well. And we had our blinders on and, and then, with Barrow, they, you know, they’re introducing a lot of stuff to the market. And you’re like, Okay, this is actually good. And where’s this coming from? Where else were you know, so it’s like, I don’t know, they brought a lot of stuff that I never thought I would enjoy. But I really enjoy

9:36
the offerings. They really do. I mean, even at the even the single barrel program that they offer, it’s it’s something that most people, if it was just anything else, they might stub their nose at it, but barrel is bringing out some killer barrels that are coming through their single barrel program. And you know, most of them are all distilled in Tennessee. And that’s one of the things that I think it’s starting to change those people’s minds of really what else out there and they’re kind of on the forefront of it.

10:02
Yeah. And even inspired us to start our own brands. So thank you guys.

10:06
For the catalyst. And not only that, thank you for these killer dog toys. If you haven’t seen these are barrel bourbon, dog toys. Yeah, they’re awesome beer. We always love having them they bring booze and now

10:20
I can’t wait till next time.

10:22
So let’s go ahead and introduce our guest today. So today we have the founder of barrell bourbon as well as the master distiller barrel bourbon barrel bourbon. So we’ve got Joe Beatrice and Tripp Stimson. So guys, welcome back to the show. Thank you for having us. So last time you were on was Episode 164. So Been a while now. And I would imagine that your next certain because you’re carrying around all these gold medals that you’re getting at all these competitions?

10:48
A little bit. Yeah, but it looks really good. And we go out

10:51
a little flavor. We were a lot of them. Yeah.

10:55
But it means like that Michael Phelps and bourbon. Yeah, got it kinda

10:59
kinda. How many? What did you come away with from from San Francisco this past year, because it was a lot

11:04
of this year, we won. I think it’s three gold medals and three double golds. And we also we also picked up the best small batch bourbon over 10 years old and worn.

11:20
That’s impressive. Who gets keep the mo

11:23
hasn’t been the case in the display case. Yeah.

11:26
This is your week. This is not Yeah.

11:30
So before we start talking about more of the whiskey and some of that kind of things that gets people again, just a reminder, a little bit of your background and sort of where this all built out of because maybe they’re not good stewards yet and haven’t listened to Episode 164. But or every episode

11:45
or every barrel introduces right on above the char.

11:49
Yeah, I

11:50
should, I should have said that. It said, we’re here with our good friend, Joe. Because I say that every single week. I said, listen to our good friend Joe from barrel bourbon.

11:56
He’s our good friend because he pays us.

12:00
So I was going for Yeah, yeah. Well, we started this. We started the company. It’s now it’s stick around our six year and we’ve just been growing in leaps and bounds. This since we’ve seen you we have I had to make a list and had to write it down because it’s too much because it was too much I was we’re we’ve been really busy. We’ve done when we were here last time, we did our first release of the infinite barrel project. And since then, we’ve done 10 bottlings of it and just just remind you, the way that works is we started out by blending a large amount of whiskey. And then every time we bottle, we replace that whiskey. So right now there’s, there are these whiskies from five countries and almost 40 different. I think it’s 40 at this point, different distilleries, a product that’s in there. We were going to talk a little bit about I guess later about dovetail which is which is our one of our new releases. We just finished our third bottling of that. We’re in the middle of that. And we let’s see, we did three barrel craft spirits products, which was a whiskey of bourbon and a rum. We did 12345 batch releases a new year. Oh gosh. About 250 single barrels and release of Canadian single barrel right, so

13:22
so you haven’t been really that busy at all. Just relaxing

13:25
on the beach. playing golf, it just blends

13:29
and dumps itself

13:30
right around around golf carts and Northern Coleman. Yeah.

13:35
I don’t have a golf yet. It comes

13:39
to the house.

13:42
So trip, what about you. So what’s what’s your car about a little more about your role and everything that you’re doing behind the scenes here.

13:49
So I’m basically over everything that’s operations. Bringing barrels in dumping barrels, putting blends together. I’ll pull samples from all the different groupings and going the lab put blends together. and gentlemen, I’ll sit around and taste all the different blends, make decisions on what barrels go with each other to create those blends. You name it. I’m involved in just about everything.

14:19
So the blends start with you or Joe,

14:21
like what is going in the blends just kind of it’s a conversation. We know we’re going to do something we talk about what we have. We fill in the gaps with things that we need. We only we ask each other question, what do you think it needs. And then we go back to our stockpile of barrels and say, well, in the past, we’ve had good luck with these particular flavors that we’re looking for in this particular warehouse from this particular distillery. So then we’ll bring those in, and we’ll try it small scale first. If we like it, then we’ll scale it up. And we’ll scale it up step wise, to make sure we don’t go too far. And it gives us room to kind of go back and forth a little bit toward the end, to make sure we we really hit it on the head.

15:03
It sounds like not to bring up another distillery. But we, when we do the Maker’s Mark, you know, different states to do your own single barrel, it sounds like us, we go in and we’re like, All right, we’re gonna do all these different ones, and we’re going to make our own barrel or whatever. And then you go back and realize that we should just start with something that somebody else did and work away from there, you know, because they have good flavors. So it sounds like a lot like that process for you all

15:27
it is. And it’s a very tedious process, it’s a

15:32
lot of time spent tasting different things walking away coming back. Again, like we talked about last time, Joe and I have similar palettes, but we’re hypersensitive to different things that we may or may not like. So it works very well, when we have the conversation about putting our blends together because I may not get something that Joe gets, or I may taste something that joke doesn’t. And we kind of we take each other’s word on that and and just keep on pushing forward. Or you take that

16:00
I’m going to say are you tasting every barrel that’s walking through this door as well? Because I know that you you’re blending on a pretty large scale. So it’s Are you like, Okay, well, these barrels represent this lot, and it should have some sort of similar profile. Are you are you really going through and sampling them all out?

16:14
We have, we have to look at him his lot, to some degree, because to taste every single barrel, I mean, we’d never leave, right? So we we spent enough time doing this, some people would think that’s really a bad thing. You know, you get to stay there all day and just

16:28
drink whiskey.

16:29
We didn’t get I guess it’s one thing when you work in it versus actually doing it. It’s

16:34
always hard and fast. So I mean, sometimes sometimes there is a lot of variation in a particular group of barrels. And sometimes there’s not as much every barrel is unique, but it really depends on on what we on what we’re doing. You know, it’s sometimes we have tastes more than others. But I

16:47
would say the single barrels we do, we do handpick those. Yeah. But the batches we we try to rely on past experiences from the different distilleries, locations and put the blends good.

17:01
You know, it’s a little bit different. As you know, we actually start with what we’ve started the whiteboard is a clean slate, we, once it’s once something is done and packed up, we’ve been involved we we start with what are we going to do next? And then you know, the The first thing is, we come up with maybe a concept, you know, what is it that we want? What are we going for, we’re looking for, what do we like about the last one that we make, we can tease out more and replicate. And that’s really the starting point. And and you know, and then sort then the hunt is on between trying to find things that actually deliver that. But we spend, we can spend

17:34
two weeks a month on one particular blend, it’s we have multiple projects going simultaneously at any given time. So

17:40
what are some things like he said that some things that trip likes that Joe doesn’t and vice versa? What are some of those different flavors that you might like that Joe doesn’t like for example, Katie and I, when we go pick our pursuit series, I know Kenny’s searching for tannins, oak. And I’m like, let’s stay away from those. I want more of the sweet kind of flavor. So what are those between YouTube and new Trump’s? You?

18:04
know, there’s never never it’s always we always agree 100% on we’re doing or it doesn’t get the bottom. But

18:11
I think a lot of the differences that we talk about is it’s not more of what we like and don’t like, I think it’s what we’re sensitive to so certain stringency, these chemical notes. You know, if there are any certain off notes, like, especially in some of the new make stuff, I’m really hypersensitive to like a mildew note. So it’s things like that. It’s not that we like things that the other does. And it’s the hypersensitivity to the different aromas and flavors that might be in there. Gotcha.

18:45
Well, what are those some of those aromas that you guys are really going for when you’re when you’re creating the blend? I mean, you said you start with a clean slate, but I mean, there’s gotta be something you’re like, Okay, like, dark cherries, or chocolate? Or, I don’t know, carrot cake, like I don’t know, like what’s like what’s like what’s

19:01
marzipan,

19:02
bread, bread, bread pudding, marzipan, and the new all like the same sentence?

19:09
It’s true. Well, I think one of things we really like our tropical fruit notes, juicy fruit, dragon fruit flavors, we love I love those. We love those. We love those. Anytime we can win him we can blend to that, will will just stop sometimes. And that’s one of the reasons that badge 18 is is where it is in the sequence is that we blended that actually last winter, we bonded A long time ago. And it was a relatively small batch. But I love the story. Because as we were blending it, we were we were strips that we step our way up to the volume, like, we come up with the theoretical in the lab, and then we try to replicate it with the barrels. And as we do that, we we taste we stopped and we taste. And this one, we both at the same time said we cannot not add one more battle. And it was maybe two thirds of what we wanted. And we just stopped. Because it was exactly we had those super sweet notes at them in the middle palette of it. We just love that. We I think we look for a balance of the tannins and the grain. And I mean, that’s, that’s all really important. Balance is really key to us. We don’t we try to make it as balanced as we possibly can

20:12
balance but without basically recreating the same thing over and over. So, I mean, there’s, there’s, there’s got to be a lot of barrel junkies that are out there. And have you been able to say like, Okay, well, I think, you know, when we did barrel batch or bourbon barrel batch 12, like that might be pretty close to 16. Or you think like they’re, they’re all just worlds apart,

20:35
I think you’re going to find some similarities in in all of them. Because you know, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a grouping that we like, you know, we talk about complexity, we talk about fruit and flora, we talk about, you know, open battle, and all these different flavors that are out there. And all of those are going to mingle in different concentrations in all of our batches to some degree. So while some may be not day difference, I think you’re going to be able to find some of those flavors in most of the batches. I would say something like maybe 12 or 14 is going to be a more traditional representation, which is going to be you know, an oak forward. traditional style bourbon, there’s not a ton of fruit, there’s not a ton of floral, whereas something like you know, back way back seven be was just loaded with that for floral note. So I think it Yes, the there are differences, but there are lots of similarities as well.

21:38
So when you’re like making a blend, and you’re trying to get those different flavor notes that you’re looking for, how many barrels of a certain type of whiskey to make to get to that flavor. Like is it

21:50
such good? Or? Well, that’s a really good question. It could be one yeah, it has to hit the threshold perception threshold of those particular compounds you’re tasting. And sometimes one barrel will make all the difference. And that’s it. Yeah, yeah. It’s pretty incredible. Yeah, I kind of liked this live thing I can get. I’m getting instructions sent to me is ongoing.

22:12
dining room table, and we’re live at Kenny’s dining room table, we get ups man and you know, and barking dogs. That’s true. News Feed is not

22:20
the same without the UPS delivery and the dogs.

22:23
were like, all right, cut it

22:26
off it. Okay. Got it.

22:30
Alright, so I guess back on topic now. So, you know, we we had the opportunity to getting a batch 17 and it was awesome. It was really I mean, it was out of this world as one of my favorite whiskeys of the probably the past few months. And now is 18 getting ready to come out. Is this released? what’s what’s the time Yeah, we’re sold out.

22:50
We’re sold on 19 is gone. We’re 19 is almost gone. And we’re teeing up 24 next month

22:58
Yeah, it’s so you’re running through the pretty

23:00
quick. We do about four releases a year yeah, for batch releases a year and then a and then the new year so it’s really fine. Fine Bourbons give or take

23:09
Yeah, that’s fine but sold out to it’s it’s available it’s just it’s all been allocated yeah right we still find it

23:17
right we don’t have any money so that means we don’t have any more with the distribute we’ve sold everything to distributor and then distributor now is pushing that means you’ve gotten your check and you’ve been paying

23:28
like yeah, you want to make sure that it’s it’s not sitting on shelves either right? You got to make sure you’re still out there and doing your marketing and

23:35
we have two customers we have a customer we sell the distributor and then we have the the end customer who’s in there so our sales are concerned with our distributor customer I’m concerned with you standing in the shelf or in the bar buying the product that’s that’s where we look at the world for sure. Yeah.

23:49
So talk about like the blends themselves because I know that a lot of these you’re doing a lot of I don’t know, tri state the way to really put it you know, you’re doing some Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana. what’s what’s sort of like your ratio when you’re when you’re looking at these because, you know, is it is it you know, 35% Kentucky I’m sure it’s different here and there. But like where where do you start at? Because there’s got to be at by now. You got to have some sort of formula that you think in your head like okay, we know this is where we should start. How about you?

24:22
What’s your Nashville?

24:24
Well, we stopped in the Nashville because we couldn’t do the math on it anymore. Because there’s different Bourbons, different Nashville’s in from different states or Nashville’s and then what percentage of those barrels and it was getting me know 27.2% it was was just the math was too hard, that we really truly don’t have a starting point where it really the barrels lead us through at the barrels lead us into into what we what makes sense. And sometimes it will be more Indiana forward, but a lot of times it’s Kentucky, it’s Tennessee forward. And and then a lot of times we it’s surprisingly, sometimes it’s only, you know, 10% of 20% of a particular a particular group that makes that influence. So they really, do we have no real standard or no blueprint that we start with, we really do let the barrels lead us to the answer.

25:09
So in your opinion, when you’re tasting each one of these different regions, different kinds of Bourbons, what are the notes that you’re pulling out? Like if you’re tasting something from Indiana vs. Tennessee vs. Kentucky? Do you? Do you think like where the distiller you’re pulling from each has their own uniqueness to it? Or is it based by state like what what do you what do you kind of see that as

25:32
I think we have, let’s back up and look at it from kind of the production standpoint where you have one, we’re all in this same sort of region where we actually get four seasons, which is very beneficial for us. And then look at the different distilleries that are going to use different yeast strains with different grain bills to create these different flavors. And then you stretch those out in warehouses to say, Northern Kentucky, down into southern Tennessee, and you’re going to see variations of flavor development across that region. So then being able to go in and say, you know, I’d like to get a spicy bourbon from Indiana, or I want to get a fruity or bourbon from Tennessee. I think you’re able to do that. Because of the different again, you strain Nashville and then the difference in the warehousing. maturation.

26:36
Well, you know, the next question people want to know is where are you getting these barrels?

26:40
We go to the barrel store barrel get in place.

26:44
I mean, let me throw something I mean, if you want to go down this road, something completely different than we’re working on speaking of different states, is we’re about to blend a total different product and American valid multi product, which is so there are a lot of incredible American single malt produces in the United States. can’t call it scotch. Because I mean in Scotland, and there isn’t even really a category for for malt. It’s either malt whiskey, which malt whiskey technically has to be a new barrels. And a lot of times the mall producers want to put it in US barrels. So we’re going to be working with six or eight distilleries. We are we are working with six or eight distilleries from around the country. Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, New York, Texas. I think I may be missing one or two. And so we’re getting barrels from all over the country. And we blending those. So you’re going to see some real incredible regional differences. We when we when we put this together. That’s going to be that’s one of the next projects we’re working on. That’s

27:44
what makes up a malt American malt whiskey. Like, like somebody doesn’t know. AK me? Yeah.

27:51
makes an American malt whiskey.

27:53
You want to do this? It’s it’s, it’s it’s multi barley. Okay. And so it’s generally majority is multi barley. And there’s and sometimes there’s some corn in there. But for the most part, it’s distilled malt, the single malt multiplies the

28:09
primary grain I got. Yeah.

28:11
Okay, great. So this is a little bit different than bourbon. Sure.

28:13
And there’s some, there’s a group that’s actually lobbying, to the TTP trying to get a multi category to create something create something for us. us being the distillers.

28:26
What is it that you like about the malt that’s going to, I guess, fit the barrel profile or blends or whatever?

28:32
Well, it’s, um,

28:34
yeah, I was like, Can this compete with, you know, Forbes whiskey of the year as well? Like, how many medals can this one?

28:40
I don’t know. I don’t know. That’s, that’s sort of a nice, it’s a nice accolade. We don’t it’s not our, our gold. You know, we really we love hearing other people talk about our products and, but the goal is to really is to make a product that people really love to drink. I don’t know. I mean, this hasn’t been done before. You know, but but it the inspiration of it was we we taste a lot of whiskies in and we know a lot of producers and and there is just an incredible amount of really high quality single malt produced in the United States, and they’re relatively unknown. I shouldn’t say that, I mean, of course, it’s about colonies or by knows them and then there’s less than a Reno’s those guys, but there are a lot when you start getting into the smaller ones are a lot of people don’t know. So we really wanted to bring that we want to bring that out. And, you know, and, and, and, and take our cut out, which is to take some of these great products, I mean, the world is our ingredients, and well as our pantry and take them and blend them together into something you know, even greater than the parts we hope will say

29:40
I want to say you keep going down this path and we were you know what, we’ll talk about dovetail in a second because you were talking about all the TTV different categories like it seems like you’re you’re trying to make their job harder by making them just create new categories just for you like blending everything from here and there.

29:55
We’re trying to make the job easier if they just go along.

30:01
Well, the difference the valid the valid Malden the malt whiskey is sort of a different, it’s a different it’s a different problem because there just isn’t a category for what they want to produce, which is a a straight malt whiskey that is does not have to go into a new barrel. Because most scotch of all scotch is in us barrels. And there are different properties, different characteristics. And we’re doing with this valid project we’re doing a combination of whiskey that went into new barrels and whiskey went into us barrels previously as us barrels. But that aside, the whiskey category is is the one that was the category is sort of an really unusual one. because traditionally, a blended whiskey has can have 20% grand neutral spirit in it. So it’s a category that’s just that it was it was really looked down on a blended whiskey category. Our whiskies every one of our whiskeys is 100% whiskey, so

31:03
we’re not doing Seagram seven and seven we’re not

31:07
we’re not putting brand new show spirits and and whiskey together hollering and all and go food

31:12
but we do

31:13
not you do you really awesome food coloring

31:16
speaking of blended way I found I went to state sale the other day and got a bottle of it’s called golden wedding is like from the 30s or some wild and it was a blended whiskey but I was like all this is gonna be great I’m just in it was terrible. You could tell us neutral grain spirits with like, like brown died and it was on

31:35
the ground the Beatles Yeah, exactly. That was an ingredient of bourbon in the know it Yeah. In the early 1900s and it tasted

31:42
worse than that. I wish it was it was

31:44
color these kind of people he’s Crisco to little bit but but so the dovetail is I think the dovetail is a really is an interesting project. Originally it was going to be our whiskey number six and so and what’s in it, that was the name of that was the original idea. Well we have a series of whiskeys, we are barrel whiskey, and we do them in batches just like the bourbon so it was okay, this is the next one and and what it what’s in this product is 11 year old Indiana whiskey that we finished in done vineyards Cabernet barrels done vineyards is is really incredible Napa Valley, hundred year old family vineyard. And they make an incredible, rich lush camber of Cabernet. And so we got the barrels and we and we finished that whiskey and then we took some Tennessee bourbon and finish some of it in in in rum casks. So our rum casks. We bring rum in from different countries usually comes in in a steel container because the barrels will leak over the place. We put it in x bourbon barrels. And then when we’re finished, we dump it out and we take those x bourbon barrels that had rum in it and finish some bourbon in it for this product. We also have some special bourbon finishing late vintage board pipes. So there’s a combination of different whiskeys in here with different finishes different proportions, we blended it, and sent the label off to the TTP and six months later.

33:14
And for everybody at home, this is what we’re talking about the dope.

33:17
So what’s what’s the is we call it whiskey is a what’s the category that this is followed. And so

33:22
this is technically a distilled spirits specialty, okay, which is in the same category that you can have bubblegum flavored vodka, and you could have 100% whiskey, so it’s a little bit it’s a little bit, it’s a little bit of an odd category,

33:35
but it’s fine that you have that because this is like the one product that I see like people are like this is actually really good. Like you’ve got to go out and get some and I’m trying it right now and yeah, I’m kind of floored like how really good it is. I mean you get you get those Bubble

33:50
Bubble Gum notes you get some

33:53
grape airhead you know those like to you come you come as a kid, you know, there’s like, driven sort of like fruit by the foot. You know, like,

34:03
like you said, You love those Juicy Fruit kind of that this is like

34:06
get those know that we’re happy to get those sugary kind

34:09
of great notes. So,

34:10
yeah, we want to bring you back to your childhood. That’s what we’re

34:13
I do I try to take everything I’ve had in my childhood. I’m like, all right, I taste this and that or whatever. So it totally reminds me of that

34:20
is one thing that you know, you just kind of kind of just piqued my interest a little bit when you were talking about like all these different barrels and all these different things you’re doing you could almost open up like your own like week long vacation where bourbon nerd to come in. And they could just like, just pay you to be there for a week. And they could just sit there and just play around and experiment with everything and try to like make their own sort of crazy blend. I mean, because this was I gotta ask like how you

34:45
you got to this

34:47
idea that we should blend these two together?

34:49
Yeah, why didn’t you stop at the the Indian thing is Evelyn in the Cabernet. Is it because like oh, that’s been done whatever. Yeah, once I’m finished barrels, they’re like so passe like everybody doesn’t know

35:02
what we try we are always trying to try different new things. But we have these meetings where we all get together every every every month two months probably and we just brainstorm ideas what what is what is the most crazy thing we can do? What’s the nice little story about the tale of two islands

35:20
so that was that was a meeting where we sit down and we needed some what we what we call it one off projects that we like to work on. And we knew that we wanted to use some of our leftover Jamaican rum from batch one and we want to do a finish so you know what we were going to do and we had like 20 samples set up in front of us and and what do we want to do this texture that finish and at the very end there was a blend of the rum with some scotch and we thought there’s no way this is going to taste good. And it was one we liked the best so we put that in a bottle and called it tale of two islands and it was it was phenomenal so you’re blending scotch now to

36:11
we do we do we do have we do blend scotch and infinite barrel we an Irish Whiskey Yeah. But these are those casks are

36:21
on but the those cat what I love about those casks is

36:27
it’s a Kentucky distillery. So I can’t say that which one

36:33
went to great distillery which I can’t say that when we get the barrels

36:40
with both their names on there Why do you think that is like in the sourcing like I would think they would want to want to know like or want to be able to tell like hey this came from us like what why do you think they do that?

36:51
Well I think there’s there’s a lot of reasons why people do it but but part of it is they’re protecting their trademark so in other words they wouldn’t want us capitalize on their trademark so if we you know pick any pick any Kentucky this is already and if we username they would sue us you know,

37:09
federal bourbon brought to you by XYZ

37:13
and you know, Kentucky is a litigious state so it’s sort of

37:16
Yeah, I agree. But I mean this is this is a fantastic blend like this is the first time that I’ve tried it and and it’s definitely something that I was just kind of like Wow, I didn’t

37:27
expect it this is the first like whiskey blend or whatever category it is you want to call it that I could eat this with a rebel most like it would go perfect yeah big fatty steak or even a dessert

37:41
yeah or just like a dessert kind of finished like

37:44
every day like really is you can taste it in like current bonds Nixon was big bowl cabs I like

37:49
I’m glad you like it you can you can pairs with so many movies tomorrow night. I’m like bottle

37:57
coffee

37:58
in your flask. Yeah, just part of the at the table there.

38:02
So what’s what’s next I just got I just got an I should clarify one point which when we when we do our brainstorming it’s it’s the company it’s we all get together it’s not just we spend too much time together anyway just doing stuff

38:16
in the company now.

38:19
Let’s see 999 people

38:23
did you when you started Did you envision it getting this big do you envision getting bigger? The 2019

38:31
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41:03
We’re happy with the growth.

41:06
I we’re ambitious we want to be we want to be as big as we can grow. We’re very happy with the control growth we’ve been having. We’ve been doubling every year and and we’re it’s where we’re on track. We’re absolutely on track to where we want to be.

41:21
How tough is it to like, I think you said you’re like 100% up from last year? What are some of the challenges that you faced, like, I guess going from, you know, experiencing as much growth because like, for me a 20% growth is like chaos. In my biz I couldn’t imagine doing like 100% growth. It still talks about some of the challenges or hurdles that you face doing that?

41:42
Well, we’ve been, we’ve been planning for business perspective, we’ve been really planning on this appointment, we have 10 people in the company. Somebody

41:51
somebody just

41:54
got the list

41:56
getting fired up.

42:00
Nine tomorrow, I keep getting texts like that.

42:03
It’s just in.

42:06
But But to answer your question.

42:09
We’re we spent a lot of time planning, we we plan our releases, we plan our production schedule, we we we account for growth within that. And so it’s so a lot of it is logistics planning, getting the barrels to the right place at the right time getting the bottles, the corks, all that stuff, making sure that everything is everything is is lined up and correct. And we and we plan for our goals, which are which we’ve been pretty close. We’ve been we’ve been hitting our goals and exceeded our goals. So we’re already anticipating that growth. So we’re we’ve factored that into into everything that we do, you know, you’ve been selling through your batches very, very quickly. And our distributors sitting there knocking your door like Joe, we’re ready for the next one, like Hurry up, when’s it coming? When’s it coming? That’s such a complicated business. It’s incredible, because well, first of distributor is sort of a generic term, we, we’ve put together a network of distributors across country, where with a couple of that we’re in more than one state. But for the most part, we’ve been very careful about who we align with, because they have that they have to be the right size, we don’t want to be too big. So we asked them to them, we don’t want them to be too small, because they won’t have the capital to buy the products that we need. So it’s it’s a very, it’s a very, it’s not such a straight line. And some are better than others, some are better others are planning and some will, will are right on top of the releases and others they need a monthly call to say by the way that you put your purchase order in and then it’s not. It’s not usually because they don’t want to it’s because they’re they have a lot of products and they’re they’re torn a lot of different directions. But it’s it’s a very, you know, it’s that whole aspect of the business is just it’s just different. It’s different from any other business. Because you have it’s like you’re dealing with 50 different countries. Every state has its own laws, is it is the federal there, but every state, every state can Trump it. And then you’ve got 13 control states, which, which are all entirely different. And they’re all government state run. But each one of those has different regulations rules. So it’s and then you have what’s called franchise states, which are states that you make an agreement with a distributor, and you can never leave. No matter what the contracts are about.

44:26
This is not fun. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz you gotta be careful. Yeah, you partner with somebody and they kind of screw you over. And you’re, you’re you’re stuck, right? You’re contracted in for X amount of

44:35
time we’ve been we’ve had good relationships. Yeah. Because our products are selling and so there’s, they do well, and then they’re happy. But if you don’t do well, then they’re not happy, then that’s a different story.

44:44
Oh, good. Yeah. So you’re not going to come out with like barrel vodka yet? And then that’s going to be sitting on the shelves is that?

44:49
I see. I think Fred’s been telling us that we should do that.

44:52
Go. Yeah, he’s an advocate.

44:56
How much he likes.

44:58
T shirts and hands and everything. NET? How much he loves it? Oh, absolutely.

45:03
So from your side of the business, would you guys be for online sales? Or

45:11
is that

45:11
original? My original business model I wrote was all online sales. Yeah. But because it’s just and the thing is, the reality is, is it doesn’t affect the distributors, it actually helps distributors, it would it would open up another channel and save them money. But they’ve got to see that point, the connection? Oh, no, the more we do with our do you think that is connected with them? Is it I mean, I guess just anything with bourbon or liquor, everything. So like old school, they don’t want to change. They’re like, I don’t know, they’re just stuck in an old nine. So you’ve got big aircraft carriers traveling. And in order to turn those around, it requires a lot of energy,

45:50
a lot of people and a lot of regulation. It’s all that sort of stuff combined. Now, because I think we’ve, we’ve talked about on the podcast before we’ve had on the roundtables to kind of like figure out like, what, what’s the discussion of, you know, why can’t we open this up, like, when is Amazon finally going to start delivering to your door and prime next day, you know, dovetail next to you. And when people are going to start setting up online scrapers to go ahead and buy allocated products, like soon as it hits on Amazon or something like that, right? So the day could come, it probably will come it’s just who knows when it’s going to be. But I kind of want to talk about you know, a little bit more about trip, you know, the operation side of this, because I think that really what people want to know more about is is the blends and and everything that’s going into this. So kind of talk about really what’s next on the horizon for you all, and and are you worried you’re going to run out. And because there’s a thing that you talked about, before we started recording this, as you were saying that you guys are tripping over barrels at your warehouse, like you’ve got

46:47
that much stuff going on, you’re ready to sell some, we’d be happy to take

46:53
that or we’ll just go and make your own blend. Yeah,

46:54
there we go. So there is a blend. But

46:57
the process logistics get a little tricky when you’ve basically grown out of your space. So all the way back to what we order and when we order it. So Joe, and I’ll have an idea what we’re going to do. So we’re so we’re going to have a, you know, a dovetail and a batch of bourbon will have to infinite. And we’ll just have a list. And then in our minds, we’ll go through and figure out what barrels we think are going to go in each of those plus what we already have in house. So we’ll ship everything in order. And as it comes in, it literally comes off the truck, goes to the dump trough gets dumped into the tank, empty barrel goes back out and onto another trip, because we don’t have room to keep the empties in there. So that process goes on for an entire day when the trucks delivered, so that that’s kind of how we get our base. And then once we have the base for whichever project we’re working on, it then becomes the treasure hunt of what flavors are we missing? Where do we find them? And how do we put those together. But it is it’s a bit of a logistical mess to do all that in, in a small space. And it was kind of funny the last the last time we got we had three trucks in one day and for our space, that’s a ton. And we had to strategically place them in the facility. So that right up front where the tanks are, we had tanks, forklift dumped off, and then we just started working our way back. dumping barrels working because there was no room there was a path for the play. That was it can just

48:33
used to be a two dimensional problem. What was on the floor? Yeah. Now it’s literally the three dimensions wrong way. It’s like Tetris. I mean, Tetris, we’re up for four levels.

48:43
Oh, wow. Just so people know, at least at least from at least I think my knowledge so a truck is about 96 barrels. Is that about what comes in? I’m dependent on how their ship? Yeah, yeah.

48:54
Or depends if they’re up or down?

48:56
Yeah. So what up? what do you get for on a pallet,

48:58
what you do six pallets it for based on weight, you can get

49:03
lost, I don’t do math,

49:04
okay. But you can do without the pallets, and you can get a few more.

49:08
So you ever more work? That’s more human work?

49:13
Are you ever worried when when Joe or anybody else on the team, because we now clarify that there’s 10 people on a team,

49:19
maybe 11 by now,

49:22
or none, when with like an idea comes up, and you’re like, Oh, God, here we go another label. And like, you have to continue these these product expansion line, because you’re still doing your barrel batch Bourbons got your infinite, you’ve got, you’ve got your rum. I mean, you’ve got all kinds of you’ve got your New Year’s Eve bottle. So kind of talk about like, When is that going to end because you know, it’s it’s like a scale up thing that you’re like a scale out thing versus like trying to scale up, that’s kind of hard to be able to do,

49:54
I would say that. First off, we love to innovate, we’d love to do things that have not been done, we like to be creative, going, we’ve got a stack of ideas that if we had more time, we would be able to do. So we love that we don’t want that to stop. When we talk about, you know, the batches and expansion and everything. When you look at someone who does a product the same way every single time, which there’s something to be said for, they’ve already got a cola, they already have all that stuff approved, they know what’s going into that bottle, it’s just a matter of doing the same thing every time. Every time Joe and I put something together, we start from square one. So the bottle doesn’t change, the shape of the label doesn’t change, but everything that’s on the label front and back changes, which means it has to go get cola approvals, and then come back to us. Everything that’s in that bottle is going to be different, which means we’ve selected different barrels, we’ve come up with new ideas, we put different blends together. And then once everything is approved, we’ve we signed off on the blend, it gets bought cases shift. So every single time anything goes out from from barrel craft spirits, we’ve started from square one, to create that. And then on top of that, trying to constantly innovate and and better ourselves with each new product that we release.

51:18
So purposely inefficient, is that the best?

51:22
Well, the one thing that we have that is we spent a lot of time in the original label design, creating the structure of the label. And we have essentially a matrix of product. So and we fill in. So there there, there’s, you know, buy type whiskey rum, right now, DSS and rum. And then there are different levels of of that were essentially three price points in all of our products going into those three price points, to make it easy for the customer and the distributor. And so then it’s a question of creating the content for the label that fits that particular metaphor of that matrix. So we’ve we’ve, again, everything we’ve done is a lot of advanced planning, there’s some things look haphazard, but they’re really not. We’ve actually done a lot of the thinking about this already in advance, we spent a lot of time planning.

52:12
So with with all these, like line extensions and other things you’re doing, are you looking at ever phasing anything off? Because it’s it’s a lot to keep up with everything and to continue blending? You know, great question seven different sort of releases.

52:28
Yeah, it is a great question. And I think

52:31
I think the the the public know, you guys will decide some of that when we when we love doing everything that we’re doing right now, he said, but he’s upset with it. Yeah, I mean, if you if you decide or the public decided that all of a sudden they don’t like something, then we’re probably not gonna do that again. But I mean, currently, we’re having fun putting all this stuff out there.

52:52
The other thing too is, is if we don’t like we have not done rum to yet, because we haven’t found the rum that we’ve done. A Tale of Two islands, which is a limited release. But ROM two isn’t out because we haven’t found and we’ve looked at 100 different rooms we haven’t found the right ones with it we’re looking at we’re about to do around project because we we did just buy a lot of ramen, I think that what we have is going to be interesting. It’s combination of at least Jamaica, Barbados, Ghana, and maybe even Martinique, we’ll see I’m not sure. And when that’s right when that’s right will release it but we don’t feel the need to have it the only the only product we want to have out there all time is our bourbon and whiskey. But if the rye isn’t the one we want, then we’ll wait. Right three is we’re kicking around right three right now.

53:41
That’s been the sales like you don’t you don’t see a whole lot of the right on the shelves. Like that’s kind of a really kind of hard to find product and I think correct me if I’m wrong, you were doing a few like single barrel rise this year as well.

53:52
We did we did a fair amount of single barrel Canadian rise. They were 13 years old. And they were they were they were 99 or 95%. Right? They were spectacular. Yeah, we

54:10
we have another Canadian Roz are good we

54:12
came right you know if you leave it alone, and

54:15
you may have a lot of those great big juicy for flavors they do as like, so I’m not surprised that like this.

54:23
Yeah. And then when we were about to acquire a lot of candy, right, and the first thing that trip days was bubble gum on it. It’s so true. It’s a very bubble gummy. How’s that?

54:36
I got a question about source the buying round and sourcing. Is that similar to the bourbon game, like, is it similar? Totally, totally different? Because I know with bourbon, you got brokers and all that stuff. And you don’t really talk I didn’t. How’s that process work with your you just get a one way ticket to the islands and hang out? Yeah, for a few months? Already? Yeah,

54:53
take a few

54:54
hands I figured out you can do. It’s very different and depends on it depends on the silver, but but there is, there’s a lot of spirits available. You just have to know where to get them in rum is rum. You know, aside for a couple of very specific distilleries, it’s readily available. I mean, there’s, if you you’ll notice there’s a lot of rums from Central America, there’s run from South America out there now, you know, and and they’re all very different. I mean, you know, some of them are just too much sugar. For us. It’s, it’s not what we want, we tend to really like those pure and kind of a funky Dunder, the fermentation distillation process, or just really heavy duty fat rums. No oily.

55:39
So if you guys do a lot of just bourbon whiskey and itself, then why run? Like why? It’s, I guess it’s one of those things, it’s coming up. Well, now, I mean, look at it. You look at it from a business perspective, and you’re like, Okay, like, we’re gonna we’re gonna chop off like the dead weight, like is from a dead weight to you? Or is it still like that’s still like experimentation? Well

56:00
think about it this way. The person who drinks our rum is really a high end whiskey or bourbon drinker. So you’re not going to take our rum and mix it with Coke. I mean, this is not a white rum or white rum. This is these are serious, serious products to drink. So it’s a there’s a natural crossover between some of the high end whiskey drinkers to some of these sort of vintage or really esoteric realms. They’re not for everybody. And, and I don’t even believe that rum is the next whiskey category. I think that this is that the people who drink the rums that we that we will bottle are a subset of the people who drink the whiskeys. They’re not necessarily hardcore rum drinkers. Although they’re the people who like rum do drink our rum, but it’s not the general population. So we do it because because our customer likes it. And we like it. And you know, our promises. We only put in the bottle stuff that we like,

56:55
you know, you said rums, not the next category.

56:58
What do you think is the next category I think America was he’s got a lot of room to go. I think we’re, I think we’re in the sick. My opinion completely. We’re in the sixth inning of bourbon, we got a way to go with that. But American whiskey is there’s a long runway on that. I think people are going to discover it the way they discovered bourbon. And that sort of fits our model. You know, we were looking at we look at people want to know what’s new and what’s different, what’s exciting. We’re always doing something new and different, exciting. And I think that if you look at that, that’s what people like, and we’re going to just keep doing that. I’ll toss one at you because

57:31
I know that

57:33
you buy your whiskey.

57:35
We all go there. I know we’re not going to get that without a chokehold here.

57:39
Yeah, actually, we already know. The

57:44
so a lot of people look at Armagnac as a as a as a kind of a good substitute for whiskey because it’s it’s, it doesn’t have the same kind of flavor profile, but you do get some like very dark and condensed sort of flavors and floral fruity notes. Have you guys even thought about looking at Armagnac as a possible source?

58:04
Okay. new ones flavor? Yes, the answer? The short answer is yes. We don’t know we’re going to be out there. It’s

58:12
3.5. Actually, we’re already we just finished.

58:14
Finished, there’s three more.

58:17
So So talk

58:18
to talk about talking about three real quick since it’s probably going to come out. So kind of talk a little bit about like what was in the blend is a little bit different than we’re drinking now. Like, kind of talk about that a little bit about that?

58:28
Yeah, there. The interesting thing about dovetail is that it is going to be a little bit different every time. But we do use you the same similar ingredients in that the barrels are the same. But, you know, grapes change every year. So the one that was in the barrels that we may get next time might be a little different than what we use previously. So there’s going to be some flavor differences there, we might use a different number, we might use a Jamaican rum barrel instead of a guy in a Guyanese rum barrel, or all of those things are going to put subtle differences in there. But at the end of the day, when everything’s put together, you still taste all of the same flavor characteristics, but a lot of them are in different concentrations. So it’s it’s a, it’s a similar experience, but it’s not the same experience. And I think being able to, to put all those compounds in there, in those different concentrations and let them vary a little bit as you go along. It’s kind of fun to do it.

59:33
So another thing that you kind of piqued my interest, little bit too. I saw something from another friend of the show Wade wood or today and we’re talking about finishing, it was more or less around like finishing versus aging. So you’re talking about putting something into the barrel. And now do you all look at what you’re doing is finishing like it’s just in the in there for a short period of time, kind of marry some flavors you like really aging something in there?

59:57
No, I mean, everything we use is a Yes, yes. Yes, we put it in there for some maturation, but mainly, it’s a finishing.

1:00:07
Yeah.

1:00:08
And some of us we have some whiskies. And we have some things we’ve been finishing for two years.

1:00:13
I mean, you’d have to classify that

1:00:14
would that would be I would consider two years age. Yeah. Well,

1:00:17
the funny thing is, you know, the I would think I think 30 minutes is finished, yours is probably age now the run finishing the run fish we do. I can be as short as two weeks. I mean, it depends on it depends on the particular finishing agent. And for us, one of things that we’ve really been careful about is we don’t want the finish to overpower anything. fact, we, we don’t even really want you to taste the finish, we want the finish to enhance the whiskey and make that greater than then either either parts. So you’ll pick up some of the notes. You may pick up brand characteristics. But for the most part, what you’re really tasting is something that’s that is been created from the different finishes and the different whiskeys. So it’s a totally different new flavor experience altogether. Yeah. So john, I want you to

1:01:02
taste it and go, Wow, what’s that? I’m going to go back and taste it again. And then try to figure out what it is. And I know the bottom. Exactly, and we don’t want you to take a sip of it and go oh, wow, that tastes like a big bowl cap. Yeah, you know, we want you to get

1:01:17
that deal. I know.

1:01:20
We actually that’s that’s probably an exception because that that cab is such an exceptional product. Right? That that it just brings out some beautiful nuance some

1:01:31
people about finishes, I guess there they have a concern that how much product is left in the barrels when your product goes into it. Can you talk about that when you get these barrels? like are they completely bone dry, they have some in the non keto

1:01:45
they just wet we don’t mean we’re not that’s a that is usually they want you want to be wet, but you don’t want them to be sloshing around with three gallons of product right and that is an issue with certain finish on products where people are buying barrels that have you know, couple 10 gallons either different different experience now where we were we replay it straight down the middle it’s you know, if it needs if we have to wet a barrel will put a little bit into wet it but for the most part, it’s the way we buy the barrels. So you know we’ve we’ve we’re used to done vineyards now three, three bad three times. Oh, wow. And we’re going to get more barrels on them. But you know, it really held up getting your mileage out of them that we are

1:02:29
Yeah. So I guess one of the questions where we start kind of wrapping this up a little bit kind of talk about really, what keeps you going because we’ve talked about the barrel finishes we’ve got actually we didn’t really touch on the infinite stuff that too much but we know he talked about dovetail we got infinite. And then you’ve got your your straight bourbon whiskey line. Really like when at the end of the day, like what what keeps the engine going for you all like in regards of like, just the passion behind it, you know, is it is it the finishing side? Or is it is it the straight bourbon was beside the blending?

1:03:01
You know, I think it’s all about

1:03:04
in a cop out answer saying both.

1:03:08
It’s all about being creative, innovating. You know, we do things differently all the time. We don’t do the same thing day in and day out. coming up with new ideas trying to constantly better ourselves. I mean, all those things go in go into it, isn’t it? there’s not there’s not a single day we go to work and do the exact same thing we did the day before.

1:03:30
We don’t want to make me feel bad, but we have the best job in the world. I mean, every day is a great day every day is a new experience. It’s it’s you know two days. I

1:03:41
mean, we get to sit here with these guys and it’s a pretty good

1:03:46
day to get to be with you are our best.

1:03:49
Our best life

1:03:49
we didn’t even get to bourbon 18 Let’s do it Jason

1:03:53
let’s do it real quick. Real quick Yeah, Susan Susan thing I think I drink mine All right.

1:03:57
All right drink Did you like it? Oh my gosh, my Yeah, the What do

1:04:02
you talk about around again?

1:04:03
Yeah, might as well I mean, we’re here

1:04:07
Did you get those you get those really subtle top notes the fruity

1:04:13
No, I do he reminds It’s crazy. Reminds me of all right. We said that. No, I did but we’ll talk about the dovetail but even on this It reminds me there’s some like some of the weed in Nashville’s had those fruity juicy for notes. And I’m like, but I know there’s not much we did bourbon on the source markets. I’m like, What’s in there? You know, I’m trying to figure out what’s in there because there’s no we have yet

1:04:32
to we have not worked to the bourbon yet. We’ve we’ve looked at a few but just know this is there’s no wheat in this at all. Okay.

1:04:41
Because it Yeah, the you know, the like, really good, like dark cherry still. Yeah.

1:04:47
A lot of those good toffee notes and stuff like that, too. It’s another home run. Yes. Like I said, I love 1718 is right there with it.

1:04:54
I think I like 18

1:04:55
so this one yeah. 1818 is holds a special place worse. And it didn’t mean it was a recreational not

1:05:03
more than 11

1:05:04
more than 11 because 11 has weapons kind of like what like really puts you on the pedestal there. You’re kind of like rocky at that point, you know, the top of the stairs jumping up and down because

1:05:13
the answer is whatever the new one is, is my favorite. And it’s not because of any other reason that is it really is I mean, we like the thing that we’re doing now. But this is just this did this did this one got great recognition that one best small best

1:05:27
ones. Like I I call them a guzzlers, like you just said

1:05:33
they’re dangerously delicious. Like wake up in the bottles empty. Yeah.

1:05:39
Like, it’s just such good, easy drinking. Like it’s really good. Like, I don’t know,

1:05:45
somebody asked me did you say weed? Or we did

1:05:47
we, you know, we, you know, place the CBD oil. And

1:05:52
actually, it was my youngest daughter asked awkward. I

1:05:59
think last time we have talked, you know, you guys are in a location. But are you? Are you still I mean, I know the main main game is sourcing like, is this still distillation? The future? Is that starting like what’s what’s your kind of what’s the plan there

1:06:12
gave you all those barrels?

1:06:13
Well, and that’s part of the problem as fast as we’re growing, it becomes a little bit of a struggle to keep putting these products together. And on top of that space becomes a factor. So while everything that we talked about in the past, building, the distillery and and you know, focusing on different nuances in the East fermentation and distillation methodology, wish to plan to move in that direction, we just have to figure out how we’re going to do all that.

1:06:47
Again, we’re looking at different spaces now.

1:06:52
Moving on, bigger and better. I think now you guys, I think last time we talked because you know, Joe, you know you came from we come from a tech background. You guys are in like an underground bunker that used to be a like data storage facility or something like that.

1:07:05
As a Cricket Wireless facility. Yeah. We our server room is our bottling room, which is we have the most temperature humidity control balling room in the state in the country. So we have happy workers and

1:07:18
yeah, does it

1:07:20
does it bum you out? Like because you, you’re the distiller, do you want to make your own juice? Or you absolutely or the like, yeah, I’m totally content with the blending side.

1:07:29
That was more my my forte in the business is really fermentation. East fermentation distillation. The blending has been fun, you know, it was, it was something that in my previous life, I hadn’t put a whole lot of focus on. And then meeting Joe, and our collaboration has really opened up more doors, on creativity, putting things together. And really, I think that we’ve only told part of the stories they have with the story, as far as blending and flavors are concerned because there’s a whole nother side of this story that comes from East fermentation, distillation of maturation. And when you understand where to go to get the flavors that we talk about in these in these mature barrels, then you can start creating the things that you’re after. And instead of going to find them you can make them on the front end. Yeah, so there’s so there’s a whole nother piece to this puzzle, that hopefully one day we get to get to chair. So you’re

1:08:29
still I think just to sort of remember, we tend to look at things a little bit differently. So we went down the road, when we did the planning on the story on becoming a production facility. And then we realize that that’s not really what we want to do. We don’t necessarily want to build the factory to make that product. And all along that product we were going to distill would be an ingredient in in our product mix was never the idea to let it replace everything we’re doing, we’re going to continue to source so that that was a again, we planned everything there was a year more than a year of planning. And then we had this realization was like that’s not the way we want to do it. So now we’ve been in this other planning phase of how we’re going to do it differently, the being a production facility. And I don’t really want to say more than that right now. But that’s it i mean to be elusive about it. But but we are thinking about and planning a different way of approaching distillation, and the way that it fits into our product mix. It’s more in keeping with what we do.

1:09:31
Next year, we’re going to save that

1:09:32
for Episode 350

1:09:35
chapter three right there. Save it as That’s awesome. We’ll have our own recording studio but then the goal is pretty nice right now.

1:09:42
Yeah, see you don’t we don’t get couches like this in my house when we’re sitting here recording.

1:09:45
Oh,

1:09:46
it’s fantastic. No barking dogs. Oh, yeah, we were able to go live at least and you know, we had we had so many awesome servers and we’re still we’re going the background but that’s okay. It’s what you expect. We’re down here to a restaurant you know, down one bourbon bar. So thank you for them for hosting us once again. trip I wanna say thank you so much again for joining us today. Give you another opportunity to just to say where people can learn more about your products where they can sign up for your newsletter because I know that I get your newsletter every month. It’s always fantastic to read. You know how much you guys are killing it too. So go ahead and tell people you know where they can learn more

1:10:20
barrel bourbon, calm to Rs, two L’s barrel craft spirits, or any Misspelling of those two words will get you to our website.

1:10:29
And again, thanks to everybody who supports the brand. You know, you’re the reason we get to keep doing it. I’ll say it every time for sure.

1:10:36
Absolutely. Well, when you put out good stuff, it’s easy to support it. So it really is and you know again, thank you guys for coming on. You know, batch 18 if it’s out there find it by it’s terrific. And you can find dovetail I mean that tells you like I said it’s just a truly it’s a truly unique kind of I don’t you can’t even call it whiskey. What I like to call it

1:10:56
it’s a whiskey finished and done vineyards Cabernet barrels ramen, late finish podcast. That’s the name.

1:11:02
Yeah, that’s a long one. I’m not

1:11:03
gonna I’m not gonna put that one on.

1:11:05
But you know,

1:11:06
just a dovetail

1:11:08
is not kidding.

1:11:10
But it’s really good boost. So again, thank you all for for coming on here and doing this was a pleasure. And thank you everybody that tuned in live and got a chance to kind of hear these guys up close and personal. I saw my phone was going off. So I know there was some comments going on. Sorry, I couldn’t get to any other questions but make sure you follow bourbon pursuit on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram also follow these guys because they’re on all those social media channels as well at Burrell, bourbon, and Ryan go ahead and close this out.

1:11:37
My phone was going off too but people are yelling at me.

1:11:41
It sounds like my phone wasn’t exciting.

1:11:44
But now thanks to downline for hosting us. This is a great venue great spot. love these couches. I’m going to hopefully we’ll keep to get keep to continue to get to use them and trip and Joe. Thanks. As always, you’re my favorite guys because you’re always bringing booze now dog toys. I’m excited to see what’s next. And yeah, we’ll see you guys next time.

1:12:05
Sounds great. Thank you. Cheers, everyone.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai