382 – Building A Brand With No Distillery with Michael Paladini and Danny Polise of Penelope Bourbon



Starting a brand is no easy task. There will be a lot of fails before you ever see your first success and there’s a lot to the industry that have to be taken into account from a regulatory aspect, supply chain, sales, and distribution. Mike Paladini and Danny Polise from Penelope Bourbon join the show to talk about how a wild idea to start a whiskey company grew into one of the hottest new brands on the market. They traveled to MGP after reading an article about how that craft whiskey you like is actually from a factory in Indiana. From there it’s been a roller coaster of emotions and now they are working on new projects to reach more bourbon enthusiasts.

Show Notes:

  • Above the Char with Fred Minnick (@fredminnick) talks about the aging climate of Texas
  • Can you talk about your wildest high school party that you threw?
  • What started you down the path of drinking bourbon?
  • Are more people in New Jersey finding bourbon and becoming drinkers?
  • What were you doing before Penelope?
  • What made you want to quit your day jobs and pursue a whiskey career?
  • What research did you do for starting a brand and sourcing?
  • Talk about that first day at MGP?
  • Did MGP help you with creating your proprietary blend?
  • Were you trying to maintain consistency or try different blends?
  • How are you figuring out how to scale the business with bottles in 29 states and 4 countries?
  • Are you finding it harder to buy directly from MGP with the explosion?
  • Why go into the light whiskey category?
  • Do you have any finished whiskey horror stories?
  • @penelopebourbon
  • Support this podcast on Patreon

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *