There used to be thousands of distilleries spread across Kentucky at houses, farms, and industrial sites. As time moved through the industrial revolution, prohibition, and the clear spirit movement, many of these became ruins and were long forgotten. Nick Laracuente has dedicated years to uncovering these forgotten pieces of history as an effort to piece together their story. He is also on the forefront of Buffalo Trace’s Bourbon Pompeii exhibit. Listen to this episode as Nick tells his story of discovering artifacts and uncovering the history of bourbon distillation.

Show Notes:

• Did archeology turn you into a bourbon enthusiast or was it the other way around?
• I suppose it really helps to know more about the product you are researching
• What is the drive or economic reason for wanting to dig up these sites and learn?
• Are distilleries funding this or the state? Where is the money coming from?
• Who was Jack Jouett?
• Can you talk about the magnitude of the footprint you are dealing with?
• What is your fascination with the Fraziers or Ecklers who haven’t had much history documented?
• Have you been able to uncover something that isn’t part of today’s distillation techniques?
• When you are exploring a site, do you have an idea of how big the operation was to figure out what to look for?
• When you are digging holes looking for artifacts, how big are these holes?
• What is your “eureka” moment when something is found?
• At what point does the story start coming together for the Jouett distillery?
• Let’s talk about the poster child of bourbon archeology, Bourbon Pompeii.
• Other than the vats, anything else cool that was discovered?
• Follow Nick on twitter (@archeologist) and instagram (bourbonarcheology)

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How are businesses able to take advantage of Kentucky’s House Bill 100 or better known as the Vintage Spirits Law? Today’s show features two opposite side of the spectrum. We have one side doing retail with Justin Sloane at Justin’s House of Bourbon in Lexington, and the other is on-premise at a restaurant with Larry Rice of the famed Silver Dollar in Louisville. Both of these places are known for having unique bourbons on the menu and we get an inside scoop into how this law has effected their business. We wrap up the show with their greatest dusty hunting stories.

Show Notes:

• Talk about how you got into bourbon
• It seems like many people got started with collecting Maker’s Mark. Are any of them valuable now?
• Justin, talk about the launching point for The House of Bourbon, was the spirit law a big motivating factor?
• Why did you think a package store would be the best way to capitalize on House Bill 100?
• Why aren’t more liquor stores investing in this business model?
• Larry, you saw the writing on the wall pretty early and Silver Dollar became a destination for bourbon trail people. What was the idea of having a very large whiskey catalog?
• Where did the honky tonk aspect come from?
• What is it about vintage or dusty whiskey that they bring to the table?
• Talk about how you began acquiring all these bottles
• Do you feel uneasy knowing you have all these unicorns and you won’t get to try it?
• How are you managing inventory?
• What’s your target market?
• Larry, I think you’re getting locals that are just now getting into the scene but don’t know about the forums.
• Do you find it funny that old people thought this was rot gut?
• Do you want them to fly off the shelf?
• Do vintage spirits have big revenue or is it just value-add?
• Will there be an end in sight of getting hands on dusty bourbon?
• Lets wrap it up with your best dusty hunting story

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• Let’s do what we all always do and start from the beginning. Do you remember your introduction into whiskey?
• Can you talk about your education and what led you into distillation?
• So lets look at your history at MGP Ingredients. What was your career path and trajectory there?
• The internals of MGPi aren’t discussed very much. How big is the operation there?
• What was the idea to distill all that rye before it became popular?
• Are there more spirits that were produced than others?
• What was the break out in bourbon vs rye being produced?
• Do you pride yourself in knowing that 90% of the Ryes and probably a good percentage of bourbon on the shelves of liquor stores is all from your work?
• How popular was contract distilling 10 years ago?
• Do you feel a bit angered or left out knowing there are tons of NDPs out there who are making a fortune telling a story about a rye that you created?
• Talk us through the process of selling to an NDP. Are they coming to MGP asking for juice? Is MGP coming to them first trying to sell them?
• Are there contracts that say you can or can’t market a MGP bourbon or rye?
• Are there boundaries on how they market MGP juice?
• I’d like to know if they have ever had to turn someone away with either just buying sourced barrels or contract distilling? If so what is the pecking order or criteria?
• What are NDPs doing to make their product different or if it’s all the same stuff?
• Are NDPs taking barrel from the same warehouses or how do they pick and choose?
• Did the whiskey boom hurt MGP getting rid of aged stocks?
• Lets talk about Old Elk in Colorado

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You know when people say “I miss the good ‘ol days”? Guthrie McKay is one of them. He has seen the bourbon renaissance flourish as he’s been nestled in a small little liquor store in downtown Bardstown called Toddy’s Liquors. Toddy’s has almost become a stop on its own as people visit the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. Listen as Guthrie tells stories of taking customers to visit Booker and Parker, his run in with Bill Thomas, and how the current boom has made him adapt business.

Show Notes:

• Talk about the store. How did you get into the liquor business?
• Why didn’t you name it after yourself?
• Talk about Bardstown 30 years ago and the bourbon scene and how it has changed
• Was there a premium brand back then?
• Did you have a hard time selling stuff like Booker’s or Maker’s Mark?
• Talk more about those early relationships with first entrants in the market?
• I’m sure you aren’t sending people to the Beam’s house any longer
• Is your store becoming another stop on the bourbon trail?
• What’s your most annoying Pappy story?
• Talk about your history with Bill Thomas
• How do you deal with distributor games now?
• Are you looking forward to seeing Bardstown grow with reinvestments into infrastructure for keeping bourbon booming?
• How do you deal with shelf space on craft brands?
• Are you major buyers on the bourbon trail or everyday consumers?
• So you don’t feel bad about pricing above secondary?
• Are gift shops taking away from your bottom line?
• What can big distilleries do to help support you?
• Can Bardstown support any more business? Are there enough people?
• You’ve talked about lot of gripes, but tell us what are some of the positives

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Picking a single barrel out of a line up seems relatively simple when compared to blending tens or hundreds of barrels together to hit a specific bourbon taste profile. Where does that process begin? Do you start with a few and keep taste testing? Is it a math formula of X spicy barrels to Y sweet barrels? This episode features Ed Bley, blender behind the underground phenomenon known as Old Baldy. We ask Ed what it’s like to go from picking single barrels to learning how to blend multiple barrels to hit a distinct flavor spot. It’s an art form that Ed describes as trying to perfect the “witch’s hat”.

Show Notes:

• Were you trying to make something truly unique?
• How did you get access to the warehouse to start creating your own private label?
• Do most blenders have a lot of this down to a science where they know what warehouses are going to yield a specific flavor profile?
• Did you at one point think, well we may have just thrown away a bunch of barrels while waiting for it to marry in a tank?
• Were you experimenting with finished whiskies at home to perfect this?
• Was there a teacher that go you to this point?
• Are people mad because they don’t have access?
• What’s your advice to people on how they can experiment at home?
• What are the elements of the bourbon flavor wheel are you looking for?
• Do you think people get turned off from grain flavors?
• What problems do you run into when you scale from a few barrels to barrels in the teens or small 20s?
• Do you think people are a little crazy that they are paying hundreds of dollars for your blend?
• What’s your plan for the next one?
• Is the best way to learn to do this is to learn how to break down single barrels?
• Do you think you are helping revive blended straight whiskey?
• Hear all of Ed’s Podcast’s at https://bourbonpursuit.com/?s=bley

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The threats of a global trade war have been looming over the past few months. Sparked by an EU attempt to lower the tariff on steel imports, they targeted American products such as peanut butter and bourbon. What sort of economic impact would a bourbon tariff have on exports to other countries? How does that trickle back into Bardstown, KY and the growing market? Does it even matter?  On this episode, we are joined by University of Louisville’s Economic Professors, Conor Lennon and Keith Teltser, to explain the intertwined global economy and the effect a tariff has from the bourbon producers to the grain suppliers.

Show Notes:

• How did you all get into bourbon?
• Explain what is a tariff?
• This all started as a retaliatory effort from the EU as an opposition to the US putting tariffs on imported steel. Can you give some more information to set the scene?
• Could this be a much ado about nothing?
• Could something actually never happen?
• Is big European growth even a target?
• Does the tariff even have an effect when you look at the abundance of the excise tax?
• When people say “Alright! More bourbon in America!” is that even a sentiment that should be encouraged? Or is that narrow-minded?
• What protection do you not like about Bourbon from a economist’s perspective?
• There isn’t a shortage of bourbon on the shelf. Are there other markets that haven’t been tapped?
• Who has the biggest dog in the fight? Brown-Forman with Jack Daniels?
• What are those other aspects we haven’t touched on that this impacts? Voters? Constituents?
• What other countries could remove their tariffs to bring more imported goods there?
• You all find the secondary market much more entertaining
• The academic work on bourbon prices over the last 3-4 years is on Conor’s site under the “Research” tab (direct link: https://tinyurl.com/yau4pn34).

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What does a bourbon that receives double gold actually mean? Are the whiskies judged blind? We learn all this and more as the Executive Director of the San Francisco World Spirits Competition, Anthony Dias Blue, joins the show to give us an inside glimpse to the bourbons that can be entered and dispels some myths if it’s a “pay to play” atmosphere.

Show Notes:

• What sets your competition apart from the rest?
• How many different categories do you have at the event?
• Are all tastings done blind?
• Are they shelf bottles (from a standard distributor) or do distillers get to choose specific bottles they send in?
• Why not Jack Daniels and other major selling brands?
• How medals are awarded, and what those medals actually mean when we see them on a bottle?
• How many judges are there and how many need to rate a bourbon as Gold for it to receive a Gold Medal?
• Most of the time when I see a sticker on a bottle saying that this bourbon was rated as Gold or Double Gold, it doesn’t have a date on the sticker. If a bourbon is awarded a medal does it have that medal forever? Is it or can it be evaluated ever again? Does the producer have to do anything to maintain that medal?
• Is the “same” product is entered over multiple years and judged independently each year?
• How much weight should we consumers put on these awards when we see them on a brand we’ve never heard of or tried?
• Why have a competition at all?
• Is it “pay to play” and your entrance fee will automatically score you a medal?
• Do you see cases of “bait and switch”? Products/Sellers submit “honey” barrels to the competition to get a higher award, and then using that award to promote an inferior product.

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Can you name all the distilleries in Lawrenceburg? How is it possible that a straight bourbon is only 70 proof? Wade Woodard, blogger at tater-talk.com and witty comedic relief on Facebook forums, leads us through a series of bourbon brain teasers to see if we really know our stuff. Wade is an advocate for bourbon laws and makes sure that everyone is playing by the rules so he knows them inside and out. Listen to see if we get stumped and see if you can answer the questions before we can.

Show Notes:

• None! Because I want you to listen and try to guess the answers for yourself!

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He might be the angriest man in bourbon and ruffles a lot of feathers along the way, but he’s been enjoying the spirit longer than most of us. Bourbon Truth, or known as Lloyd Christmas on twitter, is well known for his jabs at the industry. In this episode, we talk about his disdain for shelf trophies, if the current market is overinflated, his opinion on how spirit awards are rigged, and even touch on apple brandy. He’s back with another no non-sense episode about the harsh reality we often overlook.

Show Notes:

• Also appeared on Episode 094
• How has bourbon changed since we last talked?
• How dumb are people getting that they are buying partial bottles?
• What are your thoughts on WhistlePig and their pricing strategy?
• What bottles are collectibles for you?
• You said that you hate people that buy bottles as investments but it actually worked out for you.
• Do you think you sold your collection too early?
• Are prices just at the top ?
• Are unicorns going to go up?
• What are some of those bottles you would sell already open?
• You mentioned KY Owl and it’s pricing, do you see that as a long term investment for that particular brand after their Stoli funding?
• Why do you think people feel the need to sell half-open bottles?
• You had a funny tweet that said “Reviewers have so many different ways of saying ‘the booze sucks'”
• The Whiskey Advocate changed their whiskey review system with their original score and panel score so it’s flawed.
• Are those spirit awards just BS now? Because the most favorited spirits don’t enter anymore
• Is the problem that they are sending single barrels or limited expressions most people won’t have access to?
• What do you see as the movement of craft? Are bad ones ruining the reputation for the majority of them?
• Are you jumping on the rum train too?
• We haven’t heard people talk about brandy much
• How bad has Van Winkle quality gone down in recent years?
• Allocations are becoming very scandalous

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• First let’s give an overview of the company and then we will dive into the history.
• So do yo know about the history of storing barrels before the idea of rick houses?
• There’s all different kinds of ways to store barrels. But you all are pretty much renowned for it. Talk about how that came to be.
• Why wood?
• Talk about the design of the rick itself
• Why is your design better than pallet? More economical? Does it make it easier to move barrels in and out?
• Is a rackhouse made to survive acts of nature?
• What sort of maintenance is involved?
• You also have a patented process, right?
• Give us the basic idea of why a rick house is constructed the way it is
• What man power is involved? I hear you all have a machine that is beginning to automate a bit?
• How long to get one stood up?
• What’s the sustained weight?
• Why is there hardly ever electricity ran to these?
• Do people ask for other amenities like running water?
• How has the engineering of the construction changed over the years or are they just getting bigger?

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