This is the final roundtable for 2019 as we head into the new year. And this one packs a few punches. First, we dive into Instagram news where the number of likes are now hidden from your view. How will it impact bourbon Instagram stars? Then we roll into the meat of the podcast talking about Pappy and Sazerac vs The Secondary Market. Lastly, we share what we are thankful for in 2019. I also want to take this opportunity to say thank you to you, the dedicated listeners and viewers of Bourbon Pursuit. We really appreciate the hours you spend with us every week to hear us talk about bourbon.

Show Notes:

• Warehouse X: http://www.experimentalwarehouse.com/
• Marianne Eaves at TEDxBroadway: https://www.tedxbroadway.com/talks/2019/11/19/making-the-impossible-and-doing-the-unthinkable-marianne-eaves
• This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about vintage whiskey collections.
• Instagram removes likes. Does this impact bourbon influencers?
• Do Instagram posts drive people to your content?
• Will the lack of likes deter people from using influencers?
• Should Instagram hide the number of followers?
• Do you think Sazerac is behind the secondary take down?
• Why make the Van Winkles the face of the blame?
• Should they raise the SRP of Pappy?
• Do you think other distilleries are happy they took action on the secondary market?
• What are you thankful for with bourbon in 2019?
• Thanks to Blake from bourbonr.com, Nick from BreakingBourbon.com , and Brian from sippncorn.com for joining.

Transcription:

0:00
me think about it if you’re like a craft distiller you work your ass off like making it all anyone ever asked like, was it? Did you distill it? Yeah, yeah, we produced it. No Did you distill it?

0:13
Right there the label

0:15
and then and then they then you taste it like oh, that sucks. I’d rather have MGP

0:32
Happy Thanksgiving everybody. It is Episode 229 of bourbon pursuit and I hope you’re out there, drinking a little bit of Turkey today and just taking it nice and easy. Now Buffalo Trace just wrapped up its second experiment utilizing its custom made experimental warehouse x. Now this experiment began in 2016 and focus on how temperature affects the aging process. The first experiment ended in 2016. And that one focus on natural like keeping barrels various stages of light for two years. And the second experiment, which just ended a few weeks ago at the end of October, determined how barrel activity correlates with temperature changes, keeping to the four warehouse chambers constant and vary the other two chambers. And throughout the experiment, they track temperature fluctuations from five degrees to 109 degrees Fahrenheit, and monitored the barrel pressures ranging from about negative 2.7 psi to a positive 3.2 psi, in total 9.1 million data points were collected during the second experiment. And now the next experiment will expand on the distilleries temperature experiment by focusing on how temperature and these swings affect whiskey activity in the barrel. And there’s gonna be a two year experiment and that’s going to begin in late November. Buffalo Trace estimates that it’s going to collect more than 70 million data points by the end of this 20 year project. For more information about warehouse texts, you can visit the experimental warehouse.com good friend of the show Marion Eve got it. chance to tell her story on nothing else. But the TED stage. TED talks are a personal favorite of mine. And I feel that she did an absolute amazing job on this. Not only do you get to hear her story of getting into bourbon, working your way up the ranks at Brown Forman, delete for castle and key and her eventual departure from castling key but she really shines a spotlight on bourbon as a whole. It’s a 10 minute TED talk that was from TEDx Broadway. And you can watch it with the link in our show notes. This is the final round table for 2019. As we head into the new year, and this one, it packs a few punches, we first dive into the Instagram news where the number of likes are now hidden from your view. And if that’s going to impact our bourbon Instagram stars that are out there. Then we roll into the real meat of the podcast talking about Pappy and saceur act versus the secondary market. There’s lots of good ideas and theories behind this one. Lastly, we share what we’re thankful for in 2019. And I also want to take this opportunity Say thank you to you. We really do appreciate the hours that you spend with us every single week to hear us talk about bourbon. And I hope each and every one of you have a happy Thanksgiving. Now it’s time for Joe to tell us a little bit more about barrel bourbon. And then you’ve got Fred minich with above the char.

3:18
It’s Joe from barrell bourbon. We work with distilleries from all over the world to source and blend the best ingredients into America’s most curious cask strength whiskies. Find out more at barrell bourbon com.

3:32
I’m Fred MiniK. And this is above the char. This week’s idea comes from Ian, that bourbon guy on Twitter. Ans what are the top 10 vintage Bourbons everyone must chase on their whiskey journey. That’s a great question and it’s one I’ve actually thought a lot about because I like to collect vintage whiskies. For me it all starts with the distilleries you want to have like a whiskey from every distillery that matters to you or every state. For me, I can’t speak for everyone else. But I had to have some Mexican bourbon and some Canadian bourbon in my collection. So when I started my hunts, I captured some of those that so these are historic Bourbons that would have been made in these markets before the 1964 declaration of bourbon being a unique product the United States so those are two right off the bat. And the Mexican bourbon was not so good. The Canadian bourbon actually pretty pretty good. And then I have to always have something from national distillers national distillers was really good parent company that used to operate old Taylor and Old Crow they sold to beam in 1987 and Old Crow turned a shit in thankfully says rack acquired old Taylor from beam which was slowly To shit as well. So I always have to have something from national distillers. And then I like to go for my favorite distillers of all time. And that would be someone like Edwin Fudd, or book or know or Lincoln Henderson or Parker beam, you know something that these great legendary iconic distillers would have touched. So that’s not really a brand per se, but you got to do your homework to find out where they worked and what they did and what brands they touched on that and so that is that is one tool that I have always used as well, and you got to get something from the 1800s. I mean, it’s kind of a it’s a difficult acquisition. But if you can find the old bottle from the 1800s you feel pretty special about it. It’s a pretty pretty cool feeling when you hold in your hand something that was created during President Benjamin Harrison’s time I also like to always have a bottle from stetzer Weller Wild Turkey, old brown Forman products like old old forester from the 1960s the President’s choice, and something I’m very fond of as getting those private labels that they used to make. Back in the day places like Macy’s and grocery stores, they would all have private labels a bourbon. You’re starting to see a little bit of a comeback of this, but it was really popular back in the day. One thing I like to stay away from though are the decanters, especially the Jim Beam decanters because you really never know how much is left in there. You know, some of them might be like too much lead in there, whatever. But there’s a lot of decanters that I will not touch of course, that completely contradicts what I’m about to tell you. And that is the Old Crow chespin piece from the 1960s. It was absolutely it’s absolutely the greatest bourbon I have ever tasted. And if you’ve never had the opportunity to taste it, you can go check out a bottle at the Bardstown bourbon company, the library there I curated. So those are really some of my key points when I’m when I’m looking for vintage whiskeys and they’re all very personal you got to remember whiskey is is about your own journey as well as the hunt. So find out what it is you like and what stories means something to you and what people meant something to you and go chase them. So that’s this week’s above the char thanks a lot T and for that great idea and if you have an idea for above the char make sure you hit me up on Twitter, Instagram, or even YouTube now. Just search my name Fred MiniK. Until next week, cheers

7:39
Welcome everybody. It is the bourbon Community Roundtable number 39 and this is bourbon pursuit the official podcast of bourbon. This is one of the most favorite times of the podcast especially for us because we get to bring on all our good friends with inside of the community here the best bloggers around some of the best lawyers around that know about bourbon as well. And to be held in accountants. I mean, we got two accounts. Yeah. Got it, we’re gonna we’re going to start creating our own trade business at the end of this. And not only that is you know, we have people from all around the nation that are joining and watching us live and being a part of this conversation as well. Right now we’re sitting around 63 concurrent viewers, hopefully gets 100 by the end of this. But with that, let’s go ahead because we’ve got a whole lot of information to talk about, and I want to kind of get into this. So, Ryan, Fred, here we are again, man. You guys look looking forward tonight.

8:31
Yeah, I think this is a very important discussion to have tonight, and maybe it’s one we’ve all wanted to have.

8:39
What are we discussing?

8:42
What happens what happens when you don’t do the homework? Yeah.

8:45
I’m super excited to discuss that too.

8:48
Nice. Nice. Alright, so let’s go ahead and round in our first one. So Blake from bourbon or how are you? I’m

8:53
doing well doing well. Thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, into my introduction. Yeah, I guess it’s just our usual thing is usual Alright, I’m Blake from bourbon or if you’re watching this you probably already know this is the, you know, longest standing tradition of making the roundtables, like call me the kin, Kendrick. Ken Griffey, also Cal Ripken of the round table but that’s a follow me on all the social medias. Bo you are Bo and r.com as well as seal box calm, only have URLs where you have to spell it out and people are caught on What was that again? So seal boxes. Es el ba ch s.

9:36
And you got a new one right Southern barnburner I have that

9:39
one. I don’t know. Is that is that you

9:43
know, is there a southern bourbon or out there? Yeah.

9:47
Yeah. Someone’s copying you.

9:49
Talk boy hop on those URLs. Blake. Oh, yeah.

9:53
Go ahead and put that cease and desist out.

9:55
I’ll get it together tonight.

9:57
You know, speaking of that, the kind of fakes and stuff that Come out there. Remember Ted Finnick? Remember those articles? Yeah, that

10:04
was whatever happened he had like a solid two month run and then all the sudden

10:08
it happens every now and then someone will come out and try to, you know, impersonate me or do some kind of, you know, fun satirical deal. And that’s great. I love it. But what they don’t realize is if you’re going to try to impersonate me You better try to keep up because I go fast and

10:25
they realize like oh man this this is work now like

10:32
I’ll just go back to making fun of him and in a Facebook forum you know and that’s good

10:38
all right, Brian, you’re up next buddy.

10:40
Yeah, thanks guys for having me again is Brian with sip and corn you can find me on the all the socials as sip and corn and you can also find me at bourbon justice calm. Look forward to a good show tonight. Guest

10:51
fantastic and Nick.

10:53
And I’m Nick with breaking bourbon calm. April 1. Breaking vodka calm that’s been known to happen. But only that one day. And I can find us on all this socials at breaking bourbon. And thanks again for me on guys.

11:08
Absolutely. It’s always great to have all of you on especially everybody else that’s here in the chat. So let’s go ahead and kind of start with our first question. If people in the chat they have something that they’d like to say with us as well speak now, we’re going to be like to be able to put it out there for you. So the first we’re going to talk about is the new change that happened with Instagram. Now, this is something that kind of, you know, maybe impacts the bourbon world a little bit, but more or less, just like the influencer market that’s out there. So one of the recent changes that happened was they removed the ability to see the amount of likes that an individual has on a specific kind of post. And this can be for a few different reasons. You know, there’s a lot of things that you know, you can buy likes out there, that’s, that’s not unheard of. You can buy followers as well, but one things you really can’t buy or, you know, good comments or engagement and stuff like that. So I guess the one thing I’ll kind of hand it over to what sir, who has the The most followers I’m it’s either between bourbon or breaking who’s got the most followers or aging? Probably.

12:05
Yeah, I’d have to check. I think we’re just under 70,000

12:08
Yeah, okay.

12:12
I got 7070

12:16
Yeah, there’s there’s no thousand after it,

12:18
you’ll get it. I mean, you know, I’ll say this you know, our, it’s all 100% organic we we’ve never gotten into, you know, anything where you sign up to get followers in some way, we pretty much just post What we want to talk about what we’re drinking. We try to keep it light on there as much as possible, of course, will will post new content and that kind of thing. But we’ve really made that clear with you know, anybody who wants to, you know, be sponsored in some way that you know, really it’s about what we want to do so sure, if you want to send us a sample of something, or a bottle That’s fantastic, you know, we’ll maybe review it maybe do a TNT you know, maybe it’ll show up and Instagram but really, we still, you know, maintain and control that you know, from the like personal active, you know, we certainly use it as a gauge as to what, you know what people want to see, you know, what, you know, what times a week or times a day, you know, maybe that the times when more people are going to see those posts, you know, generally speaking, you know, number of likes, you know, you’ll you’ll gauge that it’s kind of the, the, the, you know, that metric outside of kind of next next met metric, which is the interaction. So the number of comments on the post, which is, you know, some posts, we see a huge volume of comments and others, you know, not really much I think, sometimes when we direct people off to the site, we actually lose comments on the Instagram post itself, and people are getting pulled right off to the site to read the review. But that’s the intent. You know, the idea is to kind of share that message, let people know there’s something new up on this site. You know, what I think is interesting about this whole thing is it’s being proposed as, and maybe there’s some truth and validity to it, that, you know, it’s to help with people’s mental well being that kind of thing. But that being said, I think there’s a part of That believes at some point, you know, these companies that want this data on, you know, unlikes are going to be able to buy it on the back end, they’re going to be able to see that data, you know, through some kind of payment to Instagram, they’re going to be able to figure out, you know, who the best engaging influencers are, if that’s what you want to call them. And they’re going to use that as a metric. Because right now, if you think of these, you know, these companies, if they’re looking at, you know, number of followers, and they’re looking at number of likes, those are really kind of just surface that just touches the surface of what’s going on, you know, as far as the interaction goes, and they really want the interactions, they want people that are interacting with the community and in depth and really, you know, connected with the communities that they’re talking to. And those couple of metrics, I’m not really sure, you know, fully, you know, fully show that so I think what we’re going to see is I think we’re going to see Instagram, really starting to take a bite out of this pie of, you know, these influencers who are making money on this journey, they want their piece and I think that’s what’s eventually going to come is you know, ways for those companies to kind of engage that data?

15:02
Nick, that’s a fantastic answer, by the way.

15:04
next subject. Here we go.

15:07
Do you ever gauge your post between you and Jordan and just to see who has the most likes?

15:12
I think Jordan does that he’s keeping track five state. Not really. We have I mean, we have fun with it. We’re running scoreboard.

15:22
We do get excited. I will say when there’s actually when there’s comments is when we really get excited, I think I posted actually was the three of us together, we went to a local store, and he kind of let us in the back or he’s got way too much. That’s not like generally for sale. But he kind of said, you know, take what you want, you know, what do you want and, you know, we weren’t we didn’t go over Barba which got three bottles and stuff you just don’t see. And you know, we kind of put them arrange them in group. So this is what each of us got, you know, my group, George’s group, Eric’s group when you just said which, which one would you pick? One, two or three. And we were amazed by how many comments we got. Matt, you know, because it’s really interesting to see, you know, that dynamic of what people gravitated towards, you know, with the bundle or the one particular bottle they felt like was the strongest, you know, that kind of thing. So, we get more excited about I think interactions than just just plain old likes at this point.

16:16
Yeah, I kind of the question for you know, between you and Blake, you know, when you look at this, you know, the ultimate goal is that none of us are like making money off Instagram, right? None of us are. I guess the question is, is that what we want to do is want to figure out how do we convert these people that are looking at our stuff on Instagram to actually listening to a podcast or reading one of your articles, like, do you see Instagram as a medium to actually make that happen? Or just are people just excited to just be like, Oh, cool. Nick has a bottle of Pappy 20 all like that. For me.

16:45
I think it’s just, you know, it’s all part of the big big flywheel. So you know, there’s, there’s people who come to just see the Instagram and may see a blog post or something like that, and, you know, so it’s kind of connecting it all. But I think Instagram is a good discovery tool.

17:02
So

17:04
somebody may not be you just Google searching and find you, but they may see you on Instagram. They’re like, Oh, they have a blog they posted a review now I’ll look at that. So I think it’s it’s really good for that just for discovering new new blogs, new new websites, all that kind of stuff. So it’s not as big of on the likes, like I didn’t think that was that big of a deal, at least in the whiskey industry. You know, I think Mikey putting the comments about, you can still see the inside. So companies want to see your analytics of how many likes and comments you get per post, they could still see all that it’s more of like that forward facing just that vanity number of Oh, this post got 1000 likes it is crazy. I think they just took took away that and I mean, that’s fine to me. I don’t think it really affects anything that us do. Because, you know, like Kenny said, No, no one’s really making money off of Instagram. At least I haven’t figured out a way yet. So, you know, it kind of removes that removes a little bit of the vanity.

18:09
And so I think it’s pretty good thing overall,

18:11
I think this is very important for the consumer. What this does is it kind of, it kind of deflates a trend that we’ve seen in, in whiskey in that there’s been a shit ton of people who bought a bottle of bourbon five weeks ago, and suddenly they’re an expert. And so, you know, Instagram seem to be a breeding ground for people coming into the game. And I, as you all know, I will help anybody trying to get into this business at you know, to create interesting content or ideas or videos, whatever. I am all about furthering the education and the conversation. And even if you are a new bourbon consumer, and you’re bringing people into that journey, And you’re just posting a bottle. There’s nothing wrong with that. The the problem that has surfaced from these, you know, some of the what we would call influencers is that they were like, overnight experts, and they would they would post themselves as that I mean, and someone like, you know, Brian and myself has been doing this for more than a decade. You know, he just kind of kind of look at that and scratch your head. But at the same time, I have seen the impact of what the influencer community can do for for events and getting people to show up or even watch something. And I think it’s really powerful. There’s a guy scotch and time I thought I that what he has done has been really remarkable in that he kind of vetted a lot of influencers that would touch scotch whether they were a cigars or They were car people. And like with it, you know, with a flick of a finger or a reach out through Instagram, he would have all those people talking about an event. And before you know it, you know he touches a million people. And those are real people. And so I think there’s an incredible amount of value to it. But we just have to be careful that we don’t get ourselves in a situation where we’re not providing real information or a real story that matters to somebody

20:32
kind of just the back of what Fred says, I think I love Instagram and I waste countless hours of it. That’s why I’ve mostly delete social media during the week not to waste time on it but with Instagram, it’s like you have shallow short and like you know what contents going to grab you at that instant and it’s like, everything has to be epic and it makes it like so like dramatic and it’s sad that we have to like remove likes because people put So much self worth, like in those that we’re trying to fix, you know, people’s mental health because they don’t realize this is a highlight reel of someone’s life or their life like when Blake’s, you know, dropping a brisket and it wobbles, and he has to put, you know, juvenile 400 degrees on it. It’s not because he’s living this epic life. It has kids screaming in the

21:22
room in the background, like everybody’s going crazy. That’s why I have to put music over every single.

21:32
Like, those celebrities are like, look at me, I’m so epic, because I’m with my boys and we got like 10 bottles and we put like 40 filters on it to make it look like the craziest photo ever. But, you know, that’s just my thought on it.

21:45
I will say that when I got when Instagram verified my account, and I got that little blue checkmark. I mean, there’s there are a few things that I have celebrated. More than that, that was like in a weird way, it was like, you know for

22:03
let me interrupt few things you’ve celebrated more than that.

22:07
Well, in terms of like social media, I was about to go down, go down that road, like, I hate social media. But when I first started, like trying to, you know, sell books to publishers, they were like, you need Instagram followers, you need Twitter followers, you need this and now it’s fucking YouTube. So you know, you have to have all of these things to be encompassing and so that’s why you know, I’ve worked on that is because it’s what the people who you know, put on events and you know, buy books at the publishing level or films or whatever, that’s what they want. And at bourbon and beyond, you know, we assess bands based on you know, like a new up and coming band, we can assess a band based on the metrics from YouTube or Instagram, that’s real life data. So when I got that like blue checkmark because I know how important that is for like, event planners And that’s basically how I make a good chunk of my living is doing events around the world. And when I got that blue checkmark, I was like, I’ve made it.

23:10
I had no idea I was That’s crazy. I mean, I was late to the game didn’t get on to my daughter got me on. And it’s it’s eye opening to

23:18
actually just put a green check after my name. I think it’s something similar to that. Blue check. I think it

23:24
will. The green check emoji. Yeah.

23:28
Yeah, it’s pretty close. I think it’ll pass in some places. So yeah, I mean, like I said, I think that was a really good kind of way to touch on it a little bit. And I guess the last thing that will kind of look in here is, you know, as if you’re a company and you’re still looking for that engagement, that influencer following I mean, it is this can be a deterrent for you not being able to see that or is it going to be like okay, now we have to get more data out of this person, try to figure out if they’re actually a true influencer or not. I think

23:53
it’s going to cause the companies to dig deeper

23:56
sites that give you those analytics. I mean, there’s sites like You know, don’t on it down

24:02
follower by user.

24:03
Yeah, by account. And I think it’s I think Instagrams going to use that data, you know, I think they’re going to collect more data, I would think that they, at some point are going to try to be in between, because if you think right now, if there’s transactions happening between companies in between influencers she got in, it’s happening outside of Instagram, but then the post and the activity, the thing that they want is happening inside of Instagram, I gotta believe that, if I’m Instagram, why wouldn’t I want a portion of that? Why would I want to be the one to connect those two entities? And if anything, we may see a lot more of that because right now, it’s really pretty ad hoc, you know, especially if you’re not somebody that’s, you know, a huge Instagram personality that’s got it figured out, you know, or a big company that’s got it figured out you know, you’ve got smaller companies seeing it seeing like seeing followers thinking, Okay, there’s a big audience here. Maybe they don’t understand that but they might want to throw some money. They may not know how to connect with quality, the influencers I think we may see a lot more connectivity there, you know, between between these two parties with Instagram actually in the middle taking a portion of it, which to me that’s even a little bit more scary you know, because as of right now you got to be cautious about what you’re seeing and reading because what’s really what’s really behind it, you know, and there’s certainly some markets out there where just about all the information that’s out there is got somebody money behind it is very difficult to find real information, you know, that somebody has put together on their own without the influence from somebody money.

25:33
Okay, last question as we kind of tail off on this. Should Instagram also hide the amount of followers that you have,

25:40
I think that would start to deter even more from people reaching out to you know, influencers and all that kind of stuff. So I think that would hurt their, you know, they can kind of get away with hiding the likes and you know, gets a nice PR push, but if they started hiding followers and all of that. I mean, you know, the whole mental health thing I get, but it’s like, if somebody is drawing value in their own life, because of how many Instagram followers, they have Instagrams not gonna be able to solve that problem in their life, you know, it’s going to take something more. And, you know, it’s a sad thing to say, but it is true. Like, if that’s where you’re deriving value from with your life, like, you need to take a step back in general. And that’s just a small byproduct of I’m sure some deep seated issues.

26:34
So

26:35
kind of a, on a serious note to bring it back.

26:39
No, like, what’s the point that I mean, you know, we’re all on there to build a bigger following and reach bigger audience. So take it for what it is. It’s a tool to talk to more people about whiskey. It’s not something that you should be waking up in the middle of the night thinking why don’t I have 100,000

26:56
followers every time my posts don’t get as much likes his kidneys. I’m liking that. You’re in a funk. You know,

27:07
I who cares what they do? I mean, I just all I mean every, every day, they’re all changing their algorithms and you know, one day it’s all going to go away or be changed and highly regulated. Just, it’s not worth worrying about or even thinking about. It’s all stupid.

27:24
Yeah, like speaking of stupid, let’s go ahead and move on to another stupid topic. So some fun.

27:28
Yes. Alright.

27:30
Cool. So, last week, Blake broke a lot of hearts out there across the nation, as he got rid of you know, he always has to be tech map, but he said this year, and never again, will there ever be another Pappy release map. And so that kind of led into a good blog posts that kind of talked about really the problems that he sees with it. You know, even if you do find a bottle, Pappy. odds are you’re not going to be paying retail because I think he said there’s about it. Maybe a two to 5% chance that there’s that’s all the retailers that are left across the nation that are actually selling theirs at suggested retail price. And so this kind of leads into the sort of the next question and it also kind of tails off on a lot of things that we had discussed or kind of took the the brunt end of it. A few weeks ago when we had a counterfeiter on the podcast, and people were talking about, okay, well, you need to go talk to Sandra, you need to pull you need to put them online, they should be responsible for this. Like they need to answer the questions that people we reached out to saceur and PR, and we asked for somebody to come on the show to try it and provide some transparency. And we knew this was going to be a sensitive subject. And we’re willing to give all the questions up front just in case they wanted to prepare their answers. However, resizer at the respectfully declined our offer, and they do not wish to answer any of our questions. So we’re going to do what we do best and make all sorts of frivolous claims and conspiracy theories.

28:53
Thank you. lations.

28:54
Yes, so everything you hear from this point forward and me button right now.

29:00
Go ahead and throw that Brian’s

29:02
way.

29:04
So anything that you hear from here on out is our own opinions. Nothing that is factual or true or anything. This is just something that we’re all just kind of talking about as just kind of friends and kind of just putting our ideas out there. So, the first thing we kind of look at here is, of course, we all know that the van winkles were kind of the face of the secondary market take down we talked about it, you know, we recorded it bourbon and beyond. We put it out there the whole world got to hear. However, I kind of want to put it out there for you all. Do you believe that there, you know, there are bigger wheels in motion behind this. And it’s actually Sazerac as a whole. And it’s really the Van Winkle is just kind of had to be the puppet in this.

29:42
We’re not going to fall on the sword with you, Kenny. Let’s you’re on your own.

29:47
When you look at it, it’s kind of like the perfect storm. So the Van Winkle is have the face where everyone knows Pappy and everybody wants to get Pappy and that’s you know, that’s I’ll step out and say that’s the majority of what was being sold and traded and everything on the secondary market. It helps when you have a billion dollar company that also hates the secondary behind you and that’s that’s where azurite came in. So you know where I think Preston said where he fail which was you know, he hated the secondary market and all this stuff but more Julian and everyone else falls I don’t know. But you know, to me and I just think it’s really misguided Is this the best way I don’t want to say it’s dumb or stupid because I think they have their reasons but I think they missed out on they’re actually targeting their their biggest you know, cheerleaders and their biggest promoters by going after the secondary market in you know, to go after the secondary market and not just put some, you know, anti counterfeiting measures on their bottle. I think that’s the biggest thing. And I have a, you know, my prop is in the background of how much I feel like they actually do care about the consumer. And you know, you look at the 2017, Pappy 15 year, they put the wrong foil cap, they put the red cap on the bottle instead of the black cap and just let it go out to market. I mean, I can’t think of any other product where they put the wrong cap on it just like who cares? Send it no big deal. And that’s to me that was like a bigger slap in the face that actually going after the secondary the fact that you know, these things are how crazy people go. And it wasn’t like there was a press announcement meant before it was just like they started popping up and for like, hey, the 15 years got a red cap on it this year. Like oh, bottling mistake, it’s good. So, it took us 20,000

31:55
bottles before we realized screw let it go.

31:58
Like I just You know, we send one sticker out wrong and you’re going to get a reply automatically you send it out, Hey, sorry, we sit around sticker, whatever. So that to me was just kind of like, what are we really going after here and ultimately, Cedric says or ex defense of the three tier system, which they are strongly embedded in, they believe in the three tier system, they think three tier system should be there no matter what. And they see the secondary market as, you know, a deterrent to the three tier system or you know, impeding the three tier system. And ultimately, it’s not about taking down the secondary, it’s about making sure that that three tier system is in place, and ongoing forever.

32:44
They were even against like the da Vinci spirits.

32:48
Lucky. So, you know, for me, like that’s what the secondary market was was to go and enjoy looking at those beautiful old bottles. That would occasionally pop up from the 50s and 60s, I gave two shits about Pappy. And, you know, but that’s what led the conversation in it really, it comes down to it comes down to every single year for that company. They have the hottest Bourbons that everybody wants in every major city in the country and the small ones in every country in the world. How do they get there? How do they get it there? And then in between those these things that happen, they’re staffed within their own company. You know, there’s small little counterfeiters here and there you got ridiculous hype, you know, driving around it, like from like the from the fortune story about billionaires can’t even get a bottle to help us talking about it. I mean, for God’s sake, I mean, I’ve my whole Pappy versus the field thing on YouTube. Was was an experiment for me just at halftime. I’m fine with it, but, but it was like, you know, I’m part of the problem. So I guess, you know, before we kind of jump into some other questions here, does anybody else kind of think that? You know, was it really like why make the van winkles the face of this?

34:18
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36:24
Well, I mean, do you think that says rack is making the Van Winkle face? Or do you think the van winkles are recognizing that of their own volition and in you know, driving and as well themselves?

36:36
This is all theory, man. So if you think that, you know, they had the wheels in motion behind this, and they’re just like, hey, Preston, we’re going to go ahead and let you be the punching bag. This today like what what do you really think that was it or you really think that maybe the vein winkles actually do legitimately care about the secondary market?

36:52
I think they were the face no matter what I mean, if four roses came out and tried to do the same thing, it’s like well You know, you the small batch limited edition gets flipped a little bit but and nobody’s going to step up from a bottle from 1950 you know, some old still Weller nobody’s going to step up and like try to shut it down on their behalf so I think they were just kind of already the face.

37:19
But I don’t think anyone else really, I guess could be the face in a sense of, you know, if you think about it is a very family business in a way you know, if you look at if you look at says rack and that company, you know, that that teaming up with the van winkles and partnership was a fantastic move, you know, for their product line. You know, that whatever caused Van Winkle and Pappy Van Winkle, you know, all the things that, you know, you look at the dominoes that fell years ago that just caused the popularity to skyrocket. You know, there’s no question that that’s overflowed into you know, a lot of says RX product And now we’ve got this, you know, we’ve got this this kind of like beast that’s feeding itself in a way, because we’ve got us as, as bourbon enthusiasts, as drinkers who talk about this stuff all the time, who buy this stuff and want this stuff. I mean, I look in my, in my, in my collection here, and I’ve definitely got like a high percentage of Sazerac type products that I’ve kind of like stocked up on just based on that, geez, I don’t think I’m going to see it again for a while. I better buy a few of them, as opposed to Yeah, I see it all the time. I’ll just get one. What do I need three, four, you know, and so then we’ve got the distributors using it to hold over the retailers as a product to buy more products and is not just sanitary products, but it’s stuff they want to move as well, because they’re in it to make money. You know, you know, so you’ve and then you’ve got the retailers who don’t put this stuff on the shelves. So no matter how much they’re making, it appears to be a ghost, whatever it might be, even though there might be a lot of it because of a retailer’s holding it back and taking you by You know, by the by the shoulder and saying by the arm and saying, Hey, I got something special, you’re, you’re a good guy like you, you want to, you’re suddenly saying, I am special? I do want that. Absolutely. And then it’s not even a question about it, you know, so get everybody really believing that all these products are insanely hard to get that’s causing people to hoard them, stockpile them, and buy more of them, and then that’s what’s causing the price to go up. So the secondary in a way, has kind of helped their cause in a sense, you know, at the same time, you know, it’s, they’re, they’re a company, you know, you got to look at say, what are you doing to stop, you know, counterfeit bottles to stop these things from going on to prevent illegal activity? You know, so how much of it is them really wanting to stop it versus just okay, I suppose we really should, you know, apply and make it look like we’re doing something over here,

39:46
Nick, I think it’s more than just that that helped them. I mean, it’s the horse they wrote, it’s the it’s the reason that those brands are as popular as they are today. And now there’s at least 15 turn their back on that secondary market but that’s that’s what made them and maybe once you make it that big you can turn your back on it and you can try to take this holier than thou attitude toward it, but it got them there and I mean maybe it’ll push them back down if they if they push back against, you know Corky Taylor from peerless when I asked him about this you know at bourbon and beyond he he said that he’s like this is like it’s a mistake, that this whole thing was like punishing the the hardcore consumers that really has brought, you know, bourbon to where it’s at right now. But I’m telling you all the van winkles in the 90s every single day they were near closure, you know that that’s a company where

40:51
everybody wants to hate on them, but it was they had a long road. Long Road to get here and You know, and they, they get probably far more hate mail hate mail than all of us combined on on a yearly basis, because people can’t get bottles and they get all these stories that are connected to them. And so I think a lot of what we caught on that stage in September was frustration, and I don’t think saceur i don’t think i don’t think sads rag put then we close up to this, I think they wanted to do it. And I think Preston on that stage that day wanted to get it off his chest and you know, they, they’re angry about it. They’re angry about the fact that someone can sell a bottle that that’s who’s not a licensed retailer, they’re also angry about the people who are jacking up prices and liquor stores. And here’s the thing as they say they can’t do anything about that, that that’s true. So the liquor stores who are price gouging, you know, are protected by federal laws that prevent, prevent alcohol companies. From dictating pricing, so, like Mac and these like ambos, they they like fixed their prices and prices and retailers can’t, can’t do they can’t jack the prices up alcohol cannot do that. And that all goes back to the 40s and 50s. And ironically, the Pappy Van Winkle testified in Congress talking about all the price fixing that was going on in the industry. So they are in a hard spot. And I, you know, it, it’s, it’s a know when to know when if they jack up their prices to kind of like, you know, meet the demand, they’re in trouble. You know, they get yelled at, you know, and if they don’t do anything, they get yelled at, but, but what it came down to is they made a business decision. And, and they, I think, I don’t think they made the best business decision, but they made what they thought was best for their company.

42:53
Fred to piggyback on that, you know, I think that they do internalize what they went through and I think there’s got to be a part of them that says, if we raise our prices today, this, you know, we’ve kind of gotten lucky in a way. I mean, if I were them, I would certainly feel like, man, we really got lucky over the years with how popular our product has become, what if we push it too hard, and we lose what we’ve gained. And we’re back to where we were? Yeah, so I gotta believe it for them. That’s got to be going on. I mean, that’s a human thing to feel. I would think if any of us in that position would probably be, you know, thinking the same thing.

43:28
You know, and this is this is all kind of coming back around because, you know, Christopher Hart and a few other people with inside the chat, you know, they were saying like, Oh, it’s all the vein, winkles. It’s not SAS rack. And I’m kind of saying, I’m kind of the opposite. And I’ll kind of give you my, my theory on this. Because, you know, when I look at this, I look at, you know, the vein winkles is the face of this and they come out saying that the main argument is behind counterfeiting, and that’s a pretty weak excuse, like, actually, it’s a shitty excuse my opinion, like because they’re not doing anything to prevent it. They’re not doing anything to invest in it to make anything happen me Blake made a pretty good example about that even quality control at Sazerac was poor enough to even see that happen. And what was the real point of just going after the secondary market? So if I think about this, and I think a few steps back, and I think a little bit higher up the ladder, I’m like, Okay, well, I want to put these people to faces because the most popular brand out there, and it’s something that people are going to recognize. And if it’s coming from them, all these bourbon nerds, you know, crazy, they’re going to talk about it. And people are talking already on on here that saying, you know, we’re doing it like we’re giving them the more press that they’re already going to get right. So we’re giving free marketing. And this is another theory that I kind of heard from somebody else as well, is that sazzle is expanding. I mean, they’ve got more warehouses coming out, they’ve got more distilleries coming online. And the goal behind this is to not have so much focus, being on just a few select brands. Instead, what they want to be able to do is they want to be able to try to spread the pie even further. Get these hands and get these bottles in the hands of more people, not the allocated products, but the stuff that’s coming online. And you got to be able to get it in such a way that people aren’t just talking about the same five bottles all the time. Now, I also kind of look at this in another way is that this is a, this is a very bad thing for bourbon. Because we know Fred talked about a little bit earlier. And, and I think we’ve all had that same feeling that when we’re able to sit there, and we’re able to scroll, and we’re able to see these cool bottles from the 50s and old Miller antiques from the 70s. And like all these like, you know, old Willett wax tops, and people are just going you know, they’re going crazy for it. And they just want to rip it away for why for counterfeiting. Like, that’s bullshit. Like it’s bullshit, right? There’s got to be something that’s a little bit little bit higher here to make this a real a real claim and a real excuse and it can’t be counterfeiting. So I’m just saying that there’s there’s some dots in my head that aren’t connecting. To make it say that counterfeits are really the real angle

45:56
here when the Attorney General’s

46:00
For the country all the states basically issued a joint letter saying that they’re going to be cracking down on secondary market that’s that the bad week goes guys

46:10
I’m sure Julian has

46:11
some connections but for to get 47 out of the 50 Attorney General’s

46:17
and let me tell you, they’re all playing on that date the Dominican Republic, minibar stuff and the whole seller world boy they seize that opportunity better than you know it. Yeah, anything since prohibition I mean, my

46:35
god,

46:36
they’re like all see, look what happens here when we allow shipping. You can die. You know, you could die from alcohol poisoning and vultures will be eating your guts on the beach. It’s just ridiculous. how far they took that?

46:52
I don’t think says right really gives a shit as whiskey geeks we think would they care these whiskey brands care about what we think and like These really high end bottles matter that the reality is, those things are like 5% of their business. It’s like low on the totem pole. It’s more of a pain they asked for them. They’re thinking more grander bigger. I just don’t think that counterfeiting or the Van Winkle. I mean, yes, they wanted but I just don’t think they would put all these resources in it into that when they’re just there as on how much fireball how much Buffalo Trace, can we push out there and do it globally? Not that that’s what they’re focused on, I think.

47:31
Yeah, I think if anything, it’s a reaction. I can agree with that to Ryan and the van winkles. It may be more internal, you know, they’re invested in it.

47:39
But I think I think the van winkles it’s like Fred said, they’ve got so much sweat equity and all this and, you know, it’s their family history and they’re just for lack of better term butthurt about it. You know, that people can flip it on the market for 10 x what they you know, because a $300 bottle, they’re probably making you know, 9200 bucks on it you know and then and then it’s selling for 1518 $2,000 i mean you know that’s probably more of it for me but

48:07
but okay here’s the thing like they can control that why don’t they do it?

48:10
Well they could I guess but for they can just why don’t they sell it for two grand but the same amount of hate from the other side saying well you sold out you

48:21
know what Booker’s do when they raise the $20 they’re like hell fuck the head

48:26
I kind of nonsense

48:28
yeah their perspective you know they I can’t imagine the amount you know as Fred said they probably get the amount of hate mail all of us combined on a daily basis you know, it’s probably pretty frustrating to get like they think they’re doing the right thing by just keeping the prices lower and I’m sure every random you know guys email them saying oh, I used to buy your bottles for $50 a bottle and loved it now I can’t get it. And you got a you know, I’m sure it’s millennial thrown in there somewhere who’s ruining it or like You know a guy in skinny jeans and a flannel shirts probably the reason why they can’t live happy anymore. But you know they’re probably frustrated with that like I would be too I don’t you know i don’t blame them but I just think they’re taking the wrong approach

49:16
doesn’t keeping that bottle at $90 encourage secondary flipping

49:22
you know, but indirectly if they crease it so so say they came out next year and happy 15 was just $500 I guarantee you they’d get even more hate because of that. I think but I could be wrong. I mean, ultimately I you know, I think it like Ryan said this is not a big I think all these limited releases is something they want to get behind them. You know that we Jordan an eye toward heaven Hill, and it was crazy the amount of spirits that were flowing through there and bourbon was, I mean, we saw way more watermelon vodka and flavored rums and all this stuff that we had never seen just, you know, hundreds of thousands of cases moving through their Eliza correct 23rd year was not even on the radar of what was what was important and what was, you know, kind of moving the profit loss statement. So I think it is kind of that necessary evil they want, they want to have it they want that, you know, the history and the heritage and everything else. But at the end of the day, that’s not what makes these places profitable for raising prices really,

50:35
I mean, well, it isn’t, it’s still, you know, flips for double for you know, instantly it

50:40
will, it will it has a little bit because will it that that affects the bottom line and a little bit more, you know, if you double the price of something that is affecting your bottom line by like, point 05 percent,

50:52
you know, it’s only one to 2% of their total business like that. They cut almost All their gift shop sales of it because it became such a pain in the ass. They were getting ABC letters from people saying like, or not from people that from the ABC, that people were turning them in, you know, saying like, well, they’re just selling to certain people and you know, then they’re like, well, the hell with it, we’re not even gonna deal with anymore because it’s just do this for the, you know, the whiskey and this is turned into a more headache than than it needs to be.

51:23
So I want to bring something up that Kenny said at the very top, and that’s like, I want everyone to know, like how hard we work to get a representative from Sazerac to come on and talk about this. And we thought we had someone across the finish line, but we did not say Hey, come on this show. You know, we respected that person’s position and his future with with that respective company. And I just want to tell you that anytime we have we’ve all given a lot we’ve sung a lot of things haven’t hills way. Anytime I have ever written anything. Negative about heaven Hill, they reach out to me and they explain anytime I’ve ever written anything about Jim Beam, they reach out to me and explain and you know, sometimes they won’t talk to me for six months, but they will they will still have a conversation with me. What we’re looking at here we are looking at a very, a very closed in organization. Arguably it’s the best whiskey that’s out there and hungry consumers who want to know more. And if anyone from saceur acts listening, I’m just telling you that the playing it like playing the game of like not talking about this is only hurting you is only hurting you and and you got to come on you got to talk about this because people people are fascinated about it from a business perspective as well. I mean, in addition to Kenny’s like, right vein popping up over here when he’s got a blood draw tomorrow, you know, I’m getting concerned about him. People are absolutely fascinated with the business. A bourbon. So let’s talk about one of the most key issues in our industry. And that is allocation. How do you decide to do allocation? I would love to have that conversation.

53:13
And so there’s one other thing I kind of want to also bring up as we were talking about raising prices in this just kind of like just jogged my memory a little bit, you know, when Blake came out with his article, you know, saying that maybe there’s like 5% of retailers nationwide that are actually still selling at us, Rp. And let’s, let’s be, let’s be generous. We’ll give it the 8020 rule say 20% of retailers nationwide are still selling it SRP

53:34
even if they generally are state run, you’ve got state run to start with, right. Okay. So then there’s all them and then you’ve got the other ones with a lot of big retailers are doing lotteries

53:44
across the board. Even if they said rk Well, guess what the new SRP for Pappy 15 500 bucks. There’s still 80% of the country that’s still going to charge more than 500 bucks that’s fine. Right in the 20%. That’s there. Yeah, sure. little bitch, but whatever. Like, I think most people get over it. And, and not only that is most people, if they have the offer to buy a $500 bottle, most people are going to do it anyway, because that’s the only time they’re ever gonna get their hands on it. So I don’t really see a whole lot of blowback, even if they were to raise the price in the back end. However, I’ve always been one to always say, you know, kudos to Sazerac and the entire portfolio of actually kind of sticking to their guns and really not raising prices across the board on any any allocated bourbon, you know, so it’s, it’s one thing that is cool to be the bourbon consumer and just say, like, hey, it’s always a good deal. If you can find it a retailer, right? If I could find the owner to leave for $45. Cool, great deal. If it’s 150. Maybe it’s a pass. So that’s just one of the things that, you know, over the over the years, I’m just really surprised that we stuck with him. And kind of like the last question I want to throw as regards to this. You all think other distilleries are happy with sizer x actions here or Van Winkle, his actions whoever it is to actually take down This, this singular, or should I say the big secondary market groups?

55:04
I think that’s an even more interesting question, because so far nobody has jumped on board to publicly say, yeah, we’re with them. We should, you know, be doing something to combat that. And maybe it is because, you know, if we look at it says rack are the leading products in the majority of that, you know, it’s it’s dusty bottles, and it’s

55:26
sad, it says right products.

55:29
But I do think it’s interesting that nobody has really kind of jump in to fight the battle with them. And you know, whether that’s because they disagree or whether that’s because they want to see how it you know, the consumer is going to react, I don’t know, but

55:46
the longer other distilleries stay out of that fight, I think it’s better for the consumer.

55:53
Well, I think here in the United States, you know, I think the market is just very, very small, relatively speaking. You know, maybe there’s counterfeiting going on and other countries where it’s more of a massive problem that we’re just not in tune with that we don’t know, you know, you see videos pop up on YouTube have these like mass production type situations where people are bottling, you know, something in in a counterfeit nature that it definitely appears to be in a different country, you know, where it’s going to be, you know, sold in some black market. But here in the United States, you know, I think it’s really resolved mostly to the enthusiast crowd, you know, to the crowd is trying to be istock bars and restaurants and high end places like that, you know, as a percentage of sales. I it’s got to be really small. What I would really like to see and I know, you know, I know producers distilleries Listen to this. I would like to see a movement from producers and distilleries, you know, from somewhere to kind of create this market. How do we, you know, people are going to buy and sell, they’re going to if this stuff is going to change hands, it’s going to happen. You know, the market is going to find a way because somebody has it, somebody else will it plain and simple, that’s just how it’s going to work. Right? So if it’s not this thing, it’s going to be the next thing. So I would like to see a movement to get behind that, you know, in a way that doesn’t encroach on the new production, the new businesses, stuff that does go through the three tier system, the normal way, there’s plenty that doesn’t, you know, there’s plenty of stuff like Fred mentioned, you know, the older stuff, the stuff people find in their grandparents basements, that somebody else wants, that is of no value to the person who found it, but have tremendous value to maybe somebody else. And in some cases, maybe a lot of other people. You know, as we’ve seen with these charity auctions, and things of that nature, where these bottles can raise a tremendous amount of money, there’s certainly a market for it. And I really believe, you know, the producers, especially the big producers should get behind that kind of, you know, they’re behind the culture, if they’re, you know, touting the history and those kinds of things. put your money where your mouth is, and make it so that we can have them market that everybody wants and is going to have anyway.

57:56
You know, what’s funny is there was a secondary market called classified ads forever. Like, in through my research, I found so many bottles for sale and like small newspapers and people would just, you know, go and buy him but I’ll say this like, Christopher Hart brought this up, Ryan and I were on his show. It’ll be I think it airs this week as well. But I brought up the fact that I do think that second you know, he brought up two factors like the secondary market is will always survive in these forums in some way, shape or form. And not I do not believe that I am seeing an uptake of federal authorities getting involved with this. I mean, this is a very serious issue. The same people who were involved and taking down Big Tobacco in the 1990s you’re starting to see them focus on alcohol while at the same time you have a incredible large movement within the health community try and ban advertising. So the second the all this alcohol stuff falls under kind of like two battles one you have one trying, you know, one side trying to block the lead Sales and you have another side, you know, for whatever reason they’re trying to block illegal sales on the other side, you have people who are trying to ban alcohol and social media. So you’ve got, I mean, right now it’s coming at to France. And in some ways, that’s why it’s kind of mark Browns head has always been a very he’s always been very conservative about this. And so if like if you were to put yourself in his shoes of like you’re trying to protect what you do protect your company in the best way you think is possible. You know, you may pursue something like this to prevent it. But the fact is, is what no one ever seems to grasp. Is that us, the bourbon fan, the consumer, you know, I just feel like all of these, if anything is, is going to change. It has to come from us. You know, there was a few years ago, New York tried to ban fantasy, fantasy gaming, you know, within five hours every Saturday In New York, I had heard from people in their area that never even considered politics, and they changed it just like that. Now we can all play fantasy football and make money off of it. So if if we are going to save any, you know, semblance of what the secondary market is or what a meant to us, it’s got to come from us. And we have to start like, pushing it. We have to, like, you know, write our congressmen and our state senators and say, like, you know, this is an issue that’s important to us. And, believe it or not, you know, if Wade Woodard and people like that multiply, I mean, who can handle 20 letters from Wade water today?

1:00:43
And Fred, I go bigger than that. I mean, the three tier system is antiquated. It’s rooted in Prohibition era, sentiments and law. I mean, that whole the whole system’s got to go and if part of that is a more even more robust vintage Law then we already have that really resembles what the secondary market looks like. So be it, it’ll be a safer market. If folks like Sazerac and the other producers, take anti counterfeiting measures, it’ll be a safer market. We’ve got to go to more. I mean, I’m always an open market guy. But here I really am for partly out of self interest, but that’s where we’ve got to go. We’ve got to go to less regulation and more openness on it.

1:01:26
Yeah. Let’s say let’s stage a DC protest. Hey, hey, three teams gotta go. I don’t know how

1:01:34
to go to DC and drink bourbon.

1:01:37
Next to the 30 other picketers

1:01:40
actually, what would happen is everybody would just end up with jack rose, and no one would go do anything. We pretty much

1:01:47
like that idea.

1:01:48
We need some members of Congress while we’re there, though.

1:01:51
Yeah.

1:01:52
What guy with a retail license in DC so we can maybe set something up, I think, Oh, yeah. Let’s do it.

1:02:00
Trying to get the RV let’s go

1:02:01
gas it up

1:02:02
alright so let’s go ahead we’ll kind of wrap this up on a little bit higher now because this is this is the Thanksgiving episode so happy Thanksgiving everybody Hope you’re if you’re driving you’re maybe you’re just starting to try to fall asleep to some trip the fan little slip or something like that but let’s go ahead and kind of go around a little bit and kind of talk about you know what we’re thankful for and bourbon in 2019 if there’s something that was awesome that happened to you whether it was growing or do anything like that or just laying a cool bottle

1:02:32
we’re like in height

1:02:36
Sure, why not in with

1:02:39
I’ll jump in.

1:02:41
So,

1:02:42
first I’m going to plug an article that’s coming this week. And some bourbon are always do an article about, you know, just Thanksgiving, open up the good bottles like who cares if it has a secondary market. I think that’s even more prevalent now that the secondary market is kind of fading and or unstable. So what I was trying to do is open up good bottles with family members, friends, that kind of stuff. I will be open up Happy 15 year that that’ll be a part of it. No, I think, you know, Thanksgiving is great. It’s time to, you know, kind of reflect a little bit. And so all in all, this has been a good year for bourbon, I think there’s a whole lot more great available products on the market. You know, we’re starting to hit a little bit of that, you know, people are have been scaling up for, you know, six, seven years now. So we’re seeing more and more great products come on the market, and that’s a good thing. Absolutely. All right. Well, here I’ll go real quick. So, you know, at least for us in the podcast, you know, I’m thankful for the success that we’ve had this year. It’s been fantastic. You know, we’ve had a lot of great episodes. And not only that, as I also in a selfishly have to give a shout out to our Patreon community because you know, we are now 11 months end of the year being able to take my wife away from her old job and have her work on the podcast full time fight more

1:04:07
holy cow that’s all it is fight not kidding.

1:04:13
It’s simple. It’s very simple.

1:04:14
But no I mean it really has been it’s been a blessing again for myself and the family and everything like that. So that’s ultimately what I’m what I’m thinking for regard to this podcast regards to bourbon for this year, just really what is brought me

1:04:27
and I’m going to echo that I mean, we took some shit when on the round table when we did the, the the shutdown of the secondary mark and everyone doubted it because there was only one email at the time or whatever the hell it is. You guys took some grief couple weeks ago for the episode of counterfeiter, but you guys bring so much good to the bourbon world and I appreciate that and that goes for bourbon or unbreaking to. I mean, you guys, I’m sitting here with the three groups that are really leading the charge, so I’m thankful for that. The other thing I’m thankful for is still the generosity of the bourbon community, whether it’s sharing a rare bottle or sending samples or those sorts of things, or doing a big event like Ryan and Fred are aware of and we’re with a couple weeks ago and you get you get $375,000 in donations for bottles of bourbon and four barrels. And I was just at another charitable event this past weekend for a children’s hospital where you would think that there would be where there’s Dr. Money in the crowd and and great auction items, they had a house they had a BMW, all these sorts of things. And it was $218,000. So the the generosity of the bourbon community is something that has always struck me and that that I’m thankful for and thankful to be part of,

1:05:56
you know, and thank you for that comment to Brian, you know, I’ll kind of rewind a little bit, you know, so Jordan, Eric and I, we met in the second grade Jordan lived down the street from me. Eric went to the same school. You know, we were friends since then. But then college all went to different places. You know, after college, I lived in different places. Incidentally, Jordan lived in Louisville, Kentucky for a little while. And when he was there, we visit we go drink bourbon, we go to distilleries, that kind of thing. Well, it didn’t really click quite click, he left there and move somewhere else will you know, so we really honestly weren’t talking that off. We might talk once every couple months see each other once or twice a year if that. At one point, we got together and we each had like 10 bottles of bourbon we were talking about a little bit. We went and bought way too much, and brought it all and we had this gigantic tasting years ago. And that’s what kind of kicked off the idea for doing the website and kind of going from there. And it got us to the point where now you know, we’re on it. it together, but pretty much talking every day on the chat and then probably talking on the phone, you know, once or twice a week, you know, and then that’s transition to, you know, meeting you guys, you know, in January 2018. You know, we all get together and select a barrel, you know, and now here we are, you know, go to Kentucky get together, you know, do this, you know. So it’s just, it’s really, you know, I feel like bourbon has brought me together with a lot of people in my life. That’s been that, you know, kind of an unintended consequence. But really, honestly, if it wasn’t for that, I think I don’t think I’d have the interest in bourbon that I do have, I don’t think we’d still be writing about it. If we didn’t have that support, if we didn’t have that kind of community engagement that’s around it. And then that echoes to all the people that are readers subscribers, as even if you just comment on Instagram posts, it doesn’t matter. It’s just that like that communication, that interaction with people that it seems to inspire is really what I think supports it supports us for what we do on a daily basis on a weekly basis. Whatever. And I think that that idea of bourbon bringing everybody together is really what makes it keep going and what makes me keep being excited about it. Nick, you’re on fire

1:08:09
tonight, you’d like

1:08:12
it is a little warm in here.

1:08:13
I got I got chills there.

1:08:16
That’s how I feel. I mean, really, truly, I made it. That is how I feel. I mean, it’s just great that, you know, we connect on this level in and it’s just great that the ball kind of keeps rolling and just it keeps getting bigger. And people keep getting excited about it. You know, it’s like you don’t want that to go away. You know, you don’t you don’t want it to be a plateau that drops off you want it to really keep going, you know and growing.

1:08:39
So I started writing about bourbon, you know, in 2006, and I was a definitely a consumer prior to that. And, you know, I tell this story a lot, but I was writing about wine at the same time and I really, I really had made it as a wine writer like I had broke some things and I was writing for spectator and wine enthusiasts I had made it and bourbon was still kind of like 2008 to 2012. If you’re a writer, you couldn’t really do much with it. There were a couple blogs, but there was not really a way I could support my family writing about it. So like I was writing about like technology and wine was really kind of taking off. And in 2012 I was a finalist for the International wine writer of the year, Louis rotor awards for like the under 35 category. And I’m in this room in London with like Robert Parker and Janice Robinson, all these legendary wine critics and wine makers. And I look around this room and all I thought to myself as I just want to be a Jimmy Russell, I want to be with Fred know and Parker beam. And Lincoln Henderson and I just I want to talk about bourbon. It was it was that moment in that room that I decided I wanted to leave wine Focus on bourbon. And so I kind of just threw up, put all my cards and into bourbon and in 2012 and it’s been one of the greatest decisions I ever made. But I could not do it without, without the support of my family. I mean, what I do is I travel a lot. My wife is absolutely amazing, even though she steals most of my good bourbon when I’m out of town. True, true story. She’s always making whiskey sours with like something that I spent a lot of money on to include rare vintage bottles, so I got to figure out how to hide those better. But if it wasn’t for her, I mean, I would have given up a long time ago. And if you’ve ever read one of my books or a blog post or liked anything, I love you, man. I really appreciate it. But I’m also really thankful for Ryan and Kenny Like, you all, you all listening, you know, we kind of go back and forth and everything, but I feel like we’ve really, we’ve really become pretty good friends in the past year and that counterfeiting that counterfeiting episode. We really bonded over that. And I take, I take 100% of all the criticism that came from that because I did feel I came off very unprofessional because I mostly wanted to strangle the guys neck and it came off pretty, obviously. And I didn’t let Ryan and Kenny get a lot of their questions in and you know what? They were just like, we’re a team. We’re a team. We’re a team. And so I’m really thankful for those two knuckleheads. You got it for you.

1:11:49
There’s a there’s an important question that Jason Nutter wants to know and is that are you thankful for vodka

1:11:57
breaking pockets calm Fred wrote it.

1:12:01
thankful there’s something to hate out there.

1:12:03
Yeah, you know what I really do? I really do think it’s important to hate something in social media. Most people hate on a politician. I hate vodka so

1:12:14
fair enough

1:12:17
All right, I guess that leaves me huh second that Fred up in extremely grateful for this relationship you know us Don’t you joining the team I think it’s been an incredible ride and you’ve given us opportunities that I still can’t even like wrap my head around like me being a host or Kenny and I being a host of insane bourbon panels at a major Rock Festival and you look out in the crowd, and there’s, like 30,000 50,000 people and I’m just like, so grateful the opportunities you’ve given us and given us Metallica concerts like we’re five rows from the from like, what’s his name the Napster killer dude and You know, we’re by these like hardcore fans and Kenny and I are in like our Patagonia jackets, we look so awkward. And it was such an awesome time though. And like, just, I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for us. And I’m so grateful for Kenny and Lauren and everything they’ve done for this show. I mean, this was my idea, but I could never have envisioned it being what it is. It’s insane. We have people, a great Patreon community that just continues to support us and continues to grow. And it’s and they come on barrel pixma they come off, you know, to liquor stores to meet as they come in. And I don’t take that for granted ever. It’s surreal. And I’m like humbled by it. And I just I just so thankful that Kenny and Lauren and Fred have been involved to take this to where it has and then the bourbon Community Roundtable I mean, the relationships we build, I mean, holy cow, I mean, like you guys hanging out with the all the festivals, doing the pics like It’s just so much fun and like the bond that we have together, it’s, it’s just Words cannot describe how much greatest happened in this this podcast that I dreamed of when I was driving down in between jobs and spring lines. And now it’s this. And so I just want to say thank you to everyone, and I’m just so thankful for it all. And I hope it never goes away.

1:14:25
Absolutely. I do love like having us as a group of guys and friends that, you know, we can all get together and we’re not like, so how’s your day job? Like, we don’t ever ask that, you know?

1:14:35
Wait, everyone has data? What’s your real job

1:14:39
to actually do?

1:14:42
This is it. Absolutely. So, you know, again, thank you, everybody, for coming on the roundtable tonight and talking. You know, I think we had a good list of questions. You know, Sazerac if you’re out there. We’re always willing to let somebody come on and kind of we’d love to have the transparency out there. I think the The community really wants to hear from you. And I think, I think I think everybody would really just love to be able to kind of hear, as Fred said, the business side of it as well. And then also, again, thank you to everybody that joined us in chat. I think we had close to around 83 concurrent viewers was peak is where we were so that’s awesome. I didn’t hit 100. But we got close. Have a great Happy Thanksgiving. And we will see everybody next week. Cheers, y’all. Here’s

Transcribed by https://otter.ai