So what happens when a retail guy from D.C. decides he’s going to jump into the whiskey business? We’re sitting down with Sid Dilawri, Founder and CEO of Filibuster Distilling, to talk about his journey. After moving from Delhi to the U.S. in 2007, Sid got his start working at a local liquor store where he discovered orange flavored vodka. He wasn’t much of a drinker at the time. But In 2010, his family bought a struggling D.C. liquor store and Sid helped turn it around growing annual sales from under $400K to over $1.2 million simply by changing up the product mix and introducing customers to great bourbon.

After an eye-opening trip to Four Roses to select his very first single-barrel, he worked towards his new idea. Sid launched Filibuster using sourced barrels but eventually transition to a full-scale distilling operation in Virginia, including figuring out how to run a column still himself. With lots of tenacity, Sid gives us an honest look at building a legacy brand for his kids and crafting a true everyday pour.

Show Notes:

• Sid Dilawri shares his journey moving from Delhi to the U.S. in 2007 and learning the retail ropes on the liquor store floor.
• How turning around a struggling D.C. shop in 2010 by pushing bourbon sparked his passion for the industry.
• The Four Roses barrel pick that convinced Sid to leave retail and launch Filibuster.
• Starting with MGP sourced juice, early French oak finishes, and navigating distributor portfolios when craft bourbon was just taking off.
• Transitioning to distilling in Virginia, installing a column still, and teaching himself how to run the equipment when his team walked out.
• The ins and outs of local grain sourcing, fermentation practices, and managing over 6,200 aging barrels.
• Why patience, product quality, and smart pricing matter when building a legacy brand for the next generation.

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Some stories are as old as time. A few friends get together, pick a few barrels, then all of a sudden it turns into full blown business. It kind of sounds familiar but I’m not talking about Pursuit, I’m talking about Shortbarrel. In this episode Clinton Dugan and Manny, co-founders at Shortbarrel talk about starting their company after selecting hundreds of barrels across the country. Clinton leveraged his marketing background and self-taught blending skills to focus on the consumer market rather than personal ego. They talk about how warehouse microclimates, high heat, and Kelvin Cooperage barrels shape core lineups like their toasted bourbon, rye, four-grain, Bee’s Knees and Sapsquatch expressions. At the very end we talk about industry collaborations like our Found Footage that has now been sold out to our clubs plus scaling into major hubs like Atlanta airport tasting bars, and why staying authentic keeps Shortbarrel ahead of the curve.

Show Notes:

• The team sits down with Short Barrel co-founder Clinton and sales head Manny to discuss the brand’s evolution from barrel picks to a full-scale whiskey company.
• Clinton shares how a marketing background and self-funded growth strategy helped shape Short Barrel’s methodical distribution expansion.
• The team explores core product development, warehouse aging impacts, Kelvin Cooperage barrels, and blends designed specifically for consumer palates.
• The conversation details the creation of the Bee’s Knees honey-finished series and the team’s approach to using honey as a core flavor ingredient.
• Clinton and Manny discuss clear spirits offerings, airport tasting bar expansions, and their collaborative release with Pursuit Spirits.

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How many times have you reached for a bottle on the shelf simply because the glass looked incredible or the label caught your eye? At Pursuit Spirits, we talk endlessly about what goes inside the barrel, but the multi-million dollar engineering and design process that gets that liquid onto the shelf is an entire science of its own. Today, we’re sitting down with Andrés Hernandez of Fusion Glass Mexico and Chad Michael of Chad Michael Studio to talk about custom bottles from engineering, designed, and evenutally going to market.

Andrés has the factor that specializes in 100% PCR (post-consumer recycled) glass that gives their glass a certain rustic appeal. But that process has to managing extreme temperatures, color formulation, and structural tolerances from the designer. That’s where Chad comes in. He’s the creative guy that can turn an idea on the back of a napkin into a bottle that looks like artwork. He spends his time understanding the brand DNA and translating that into one of a kind package design. This is an angle of the show we’ve never taken before and I’m sure a lot of bourbon geeks will appreciate everything that goes into the bottle you pick up off the shelf but if you’re a whiskey producer looking into the custom space for something your brand can call your own, this episode is the complete package… see what I did there?

Show Notes:

• How Fusion Glass Mexico approaches sustainable glass manufacturing and 100% PCR recycled glass
• The step-by-step process of collecting, crushing, washing, and remaking recycled glass
• How high-temperature glass forming impacts bottle symmetry, wall thickness, and weight
• Chad Michael’s journey from agency design work to founding Chad Michael Studio
• Using brand story questionnaires to define brand personality before designing packaging
• Stock glass vs. bespoke custom molds: balancing cost, MOQs, and shelf presence
• When and why growing brands should transition away from stock bottles
• Technical limits of glass production: machine compatibility, GPI standards, and impact testing
• The future of whiskey packaging design: balancing creative storytelling with logical, cost-effective engineering

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The first time we had our guest on the show, we barely scratched the surface of what she has going on with the industry. It was more of a moment to remember her dad, Richard Wolf, and his impact on the industry. But now Monica is back and with a new last name of Wolf-Brown. We talk about some personal milestones before diving into how she built The Blending House in Shelby County. Monica about the state-of-the-art facility featuring a massive blending floor, seven custom rickhouses, and complete turnkey logistics for growing brands. Monica shares her take on how American whiskey’s view of blending compares to scotch, wine, and coffee which leads into her latest Shang project. A cross-cultural collaboration with Whiskey House and True Essence that combines Chinese baijiu with American sorghum whiskey aged in oak.

Show Notes:

• Monica Wolf-Brown returns to share updates on family life, motherhood, and how her father’s legacy continues to shape her career in the bourbon industry.
• Monica details the origin of The Blending House in Shelby County, built to solve storage, blending, and bottling challenges for independent brands.
• The episode explores the facility’s single-species yellow pine rickhouse engineering and its versatile bottling line designed for various bottle formats.
• Monica breaks down her blending partnerships with clients like E.J. Curley and Jack Rose while comparing American blending traditions to scotch, wine, and coffee.
• The conversation covers the Shang project, an innovative collaboration with Whiskey House and True Essence Foods blending Chinese baijiu and American sorghum whiskey.

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We’re back with Part 2 of our PursuitPalooza 2026 AMA session. We kick off by tackling the business realities of the RTD boom because we keep punting the idea if we should do one ourselves, and exploring why entering the canned cocktail market is a completely different beast than aging bourbon in a barrel.

We talk about some the weirdest tasting notes we’ve ever pulled like peanut butter and jelly, peach rings, and Grandma’s candy jar. Finally, we get personal about what it really takes to run an independent spirits company. We talk about managing operational pressure, our core philosophy of “no problems, only solutions,” and some of the wild, unfiltered Palooza memories from over the years.

Show Notes:

• RTDs vs. Aged Whiskey: The hidden challenges of canned cocktails, including shelf-life stability, high R&D costs, and retail distribution hurdles.
• Sourcing Strategy: Why Pursuit Spirits prioritizes proven legacy distillates over volatile craft profiles to establish consumer trust.
• Wild Tasting Notes: Recalling the most unusual flavor profiles we’ve encountered, from PB&J and peach rings to farmyard funky pours.
• Labeling & TTB Regulations: How slight legal nuances define “straight bourbon” versus finished expressions, and what consumers actually notice.
• Leadership & Problem Solving: Behind the scenes of scaling Pursuit Spirits, empowering employees, and keeping cool under operational stress.
• Celebrity Brands & Industry Hype: Our unfiltered thoughts on celebrity-backed spirits, hazmat-proof trends, and the ongoing craze for allocated bottles.
• Palooza War Stories: Reliving hilarious, late-night Palooza memories, EDM club outings, and keeping the annual event fresh for repeat attendees.
• Historical Dream Pours: Ryan and Kenny name the iconic figures—including George Garvin Brown and President William Howard Taft—they’d love to share a dram with.

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Today, we are bringing you part 1 of 2 for our Pursuit Palooza 2026 AMA session recorded live with myself and Ryan Cecil. We take a look back at how Palooza originally grew out of having way more whiskey and industry guests than we could ever fit on the podcast and why we decided to start having Palooza.

From there, take questions from our fans in the audience about transparency in labeling, dissecting “bottled by” statements, straight bourbon requirements, and whether the average consumer actually cares about production details versus price, story, and flavor. Plus, we address the big question on everyone’s mind: has the bourbon boom peaked, or is there still room for category growth?

Show Notes:

• Palooza Origins: How having too many podcast guests and leftover whiskey barrels spawned Pursuit Palooza.
• Labeling & Transparency: Breakdown of “bottled by” statements, legal requirements, and what consumers actually value on the shelf.
• Pursuit Archive & Revivals: The story behind Sherry River Rye, keeping an archive of past releases, and future P-Club plans.
• State of the Bourbon Industry: Addressing market shifts, changing distribution habits, international growth, and the end of truck-chasing.
• Hard Lessons in Craft Distilling: What we underestimated about packaging, marketing, and navigating the three-tier system when starting Pursuit Spirits.
• Underrated Distillates: Ryan and Kenny highlight hidden-gem producers like Tennessee Distilling Group, Woodinville, Still Austin, and Southern Distilling.
• The Reality of Organic Bourbon: Why large-scale organic grain production faces massive hurdles with pests, weeds, and high costs.
• Palooza War Stories & Blending Dreams: Recalling wild Palooza mishaps, dream blending-room collaborators, and the ultimate death row food and pour pairings.

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There’s a time when whiskey enthusiasm takes it to the next level. I’ve lived through it. I was a stone cold hobbyist, and I still am, but then I started a podcast and now Ryan and I have Pursuit Spirits. We don’t know how to stop taking a hobby too far. And our guest today is no different. Mike Hinds is co-founder of Nashville Barrel Company, Mike takes us back five or six years to NBC’s humble beginnings, starting with local charity picks for cancer research, hunting down Jack Daniel’s, Weller 12, and Willett single barrels, and making frequent runs to Bardstown to learn the ropes. When he decided to start Nashville Barrel Company there were plenty of operational headaches like sourcing whiskey and dealing with shady brokers but a few mismatched samples unexpectedly got them a hit they kept on playing with Kelvin barrels. Since then they have been expanding into downtown Music City, and have now opened a new spot in NuLu called the Louisville Rickhouse Company. Instead of chasing cheap inventory or relying on marketing gimmicks, Mike shares how their focus cask-strength single barrels built consumer trust and whiskey clubs kept their growth soaring. We also talk about Stella, the official company dog, their VIP club, and how Mike has been one of the few lucky people in history to pick a single barrel of Pappy Van Winkle 15.

Show Notes:

• How a passion for bottle shares, charity picks, and barrel hunting birthed Nashville Barrel Company.
• Early sourcing realities: broker blunders, mismatched samples, and launching with rye instead of bourbon.
• Pivoting during COVID from third-party co-packers to brick-and-mortar locations in Nashville and Louisville.
• The strategy behind building a brand on cask-strength single barrels and authentic community trust over gimmicks.
• Inside NBC’s special releases, including a Pappy 15 single barrel, “The Compromise” blend, and their VIP club.

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Is the classic “unicorn” whiskey officially dead, or is the market just finally giving us what we’ve been asking for? On this edition of the Bourbon Community Roundtable, our panel is breaking down how 2026 is shaping up in the world of whiskey releases. With older age statements hitting shelves, pricing pressure mounting, and an avalanche of finishes and experimental wood treatments coming from both heritage giants and craft newcomers, picking a clear bottle of the year is harder than ever. We dive into the heavy hitters and sleeper hits catching everyones attention, including the Blade & Bow 12-Year Solera, Parker’s Heritage 20th Edition, Garrison Brothers Cowboy Bourbon, Dragon’s Milk Origin toasted and amaretto releases, Four Roses’ latest experiments, New Riff’s 6-year wheater, Old Soul’s house distillate, Leiper’s Fork’s 10-year blend, Lost Lantern’s 50-state blend, and an Angel’s Envy stout finish that surprisingly delivered. We wrap up by asking the big question: in a flatter market overflowing with high-quality, accessible bottles, what actually makes a bottle legendary today?

Show Notes:

• How 2026 compares to recent years with older age statements, pricing pressure, and fierce market competition.
• The wave of experimental finishes and wood treatments shaping consumer attention across large and craft distilleries.
• Highly anticipated releases on the panel’s radar, including Parker’s Heritage 20th Edition, Blade & Bow 12-Year Solera, and Garrison Brothers Cowboy Bourbon.
• Standout craft and independent releases from New Riff, Dragon’s Milk, Old Soul, Leiper’s Fork, and Lost Lantern.
• The evolution of “unicorn” whiskey and whether extreme scarcity is losing its grip on the bourbon community.

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Single barrels have changed. It was once a time where it was a simple trip to a Kentucky warehouse but now it’s morphed into a tech-driven, digital community experience. On this episode, we sit down with Michael Nagdi, co-founder of The Prime Barrel, and Garry—better known as “Mr. G”—chief taster and host of the Prime Barrel Chronicles. Michael shares his journey from retail into pivoting during the pandemic, taking his traditional retail setup into an online barrel club built on Discord, education, and exclusive access. But Prime Barrel isn’t just picking regular old barrels—they’re leveraging tech like NFTs as digital membership cards and embedded NFC chips on bottles that let their club members unlock tasting notes, watch videos from the pick, and even provide that information back to distilleries for real-time data on where bottles are actually being opened and enjoyed.

Show Notes:

• Behind the scenes of building The Prime Barrel and pivoting from retail to an online-first model during COVID.
• How Discord and digital access transformed a local bottle-picking group into a thriving nationwide community.
• Using NFTs and NFC-chipped bottles to unlock exclusive tasting notes, videos, and real-time consumer data.
• Mr. G’s journey into bourbon, selecting barrels for diverse palates, and hosting the Prime Barrel Chronicles.
• Current market trends: high age statements, the shift away from finished whiskeys, and upcoming distillery experiments.

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In this episode, we’re bringing you live, boots-on-the-ground coverage directly from the Pursuit Spirits booth at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown. This action-packed compilation captures the energy, debates, and dynamic voices shaping modern whiskey culture. We kick off by tackling the push-and-pull between digital marketing, detailed tasting notes, and the essential trust built through live tastings. From there, we explore how fresh, diverse perspectives are breaking traditional industry molds, why balance and distillate quality beat arbitrary age statement numbers every time, and how tight-knit communities keep enthusiasts connected beyond the bottle. Plus, we throw down in a live debate comparing the innovation of craft distillers against the scale of heritage titans, and wrap up with a look at how social algorithms, hype, and online content creators drive today’s bourbon market. Pour yourself a drink and experience the best of the festival floor with us!

Show Notes:

• Live coverage directly from the Pursuit Spirits booth at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in Bardstown.
• The balance between digital marketing, detailed tasting notes, and building trust through live tastings.
• How fresh, diverse voices and perspectives are reshaping traditional whiskey culture.
• Why distillate quality and overall balance matter far more than age statements.
• The role of tight-knit communities in keeping whiskey enthusiasts connected beyond the bottle.
• A live debate comparing the innovation of craft distillers against the scale of heritage brands.
• How social media algorithms, hype, and online content creators drive today’s bourbon market.

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