Bourbon Boyz
Bourbon Boyz
Ep 230 - Dusty 101 with Brad Bonds
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Brandon and I got remote and are at Revival Vintage Spirits in Covington KY. We talk Dusties with the man who knows all about them Brad Bonds. He lives, eats, drinks Dusty spirits. Not just Whiskey either. We talk and sample vodkas, and other spirits. Its a wild ride.
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Welcome to the Bourbon Boys. What's going on? What's going on? Very special episode. We're here at Revival Spirits with Brad Bonds as our guest today. Big time. Dusty Bonds. Big time. There's your mic. That's it. What up? We're starting off on a good foot.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. All set. Brad. I thought we weren't even on yet. I thought this was. That's how it goes. That's how it starts. I just put you in it.
SPEAKER_01I'll put you into the fire. That's right. We're at Revival Spirits, Revival, what's the revival?
SPEAKER_00Revival vintage bottle shop here in Covington, Kentucky. And then we have another location in uh Elizabethtown that's just a bar. But this is our flagship one. And uh we have a full-blown liquor store in here. Uh we buy off the public and then we get from distributors. And we have a vintage uh tasting bar that we're sitting at. We're upstairs right now. Uh downstairs, when you walk in, uh you have a full-blown, just new bar, uh, mainly new bourbon heavy, but you can get rum gin, scotch, tequila vodka, uh, you can get beer and wine. We do vintage cocktails, we do new cocktails, uh, we do new and old history tastings downstairs. Nice. Um, and then upstairs where we're sitting at is more vintage. Um, all the bottles are for sale up here, and then our old tasting bar from the little shop you guys came to is up here, and um, I feel most at home where I'm standing behind right now. And you um can basically drink from World War One right now. We have uh I have four bottles from pre-prohibition. Um, our tasting start at$3. Our most expensive pour in the building is$40. It's a Spudnik decaner from 1957. I saw you post that the other day. It's sick. So, I mean, like, just to start off with this, like, we're asking$40 for a quarter ounce. Um, this bottle trades on Facebook for about three G's. Uh, we're on pace at that to make four G's on my bar, uh full transparency. So, like most bars, if they were lucky enough to get the bottle for three grand, they'd want to make their money back in three pours. Um, so you know, we're kind of running a charity, I guess, for the average person to come in and we still make money, don't get me wrong. Right, right. That's it we want to keep the lights on. Want to be fair to who we buy from, fair to who we sell to. I've never swayed from that. Um, you can't get your reputation back, you can't get your integrity back. Uh so it life has to be a two-way street. I want anyone selling to me to win, and then uh when you're buying from me, we don't want to be a museum. And you know, it's uh another man's trash is another's treasure, and and the this bottle tomorrow, if you bring your mom in, I know I don't know when you're gonna air this video, but uh, we're doing this for 20 bucks a half ounce tomorrow. Very nice. Uh so you know, bring your mom down and uh taste history with mom, and it's out of this world with the Spudnik. So yeah, that thing is just wild.
SPEAKER_01Funny story is my mom woke Brandon up this morning uh at 12 o'clock. 12 o'clock on the couch. So it was an hour and a half before he's supposed to be here. Brad's come a long way from the strip mall by Brad uh by Cork and Bottle. Okay, the the fake bookcase. Yeah, I've heard a lot of giant. What was it, like four-gallon jug of uh medicinal whiskey? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, man. We had some uh we found some cool shit down there. Um, you know, if Cork realized how special what we were doing was, like, I would have ran with it with him. But uh but no, every everything happens for a reason. And um I got a first legal opportunity to do this, and we were actually the first in the state of Kentucky uh to buy and sell vintage spirits um when the law changed. I think the House of Urban went live a few months after we did, and um, and so uh unfortunately the bar owner there or the bot or the liquor store owner just didn't have the same vision, and um I lasted about a year, and okay. I think you know everything happens for a reason. I met my business partner down there, and so I'm partnered with uh Shannon Smith, uh alcohol beverage attorney, and then she also got to talk to Ed, who we're both boys with. Uh you know, uh that's how I know Chad is Ed Bly, and Ed was trying to start a um his own uh spirits brand, and so Rising Tide Spirits, and then we wanted to actually put uh Revival inside of Rising Tide, and unfortunately things didn't go as planned with that. But um, you know, we carry Rising Tide here. Ed just had his latest release, and then Shannon's uh the basically attorney for Rising Tide, and um you know keeps him on the up and up, and then she also keeps uh Revival on the uh up and up, and she's the main owner here on the second uh with Rising Tide a smaller stake, but still uh you know they're full-blown attorney for for the brand. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01So my question is uh anybody that loves vintage spirits, I mean everybody knows Brad's the man to go to for Dusty Bonds. When you started out, how was your what was your process of finding these things? I know now people bring stuff to you mostly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Dude, I was uh just um out of my mind, man, driving around to antique malls that they're like, we don't have full bottles of booze, like what the why are you here, you know? And I'm just like, well, here's my number. If you find them, call me, you know. And uh I just um I wanted to taste the best thing I've never tasted. And so my journey really started at one of my best friend's house, Brian Burke, and he's uh he's the Mac man, if you if you've heard of him online, but um he had a really successful business. I was with Verizon, and back in like 2006, I started hanging out with him, and he would bring the best, you know, because he could afford it, like the best bottle he could get of like scotch or uh Irish whiskey or bourbon. And um, I'd have a steak dinner at his house, and and just because he's my friend, I got to try some of the things that most wouldn't get to try. And so I kind of started my journey out going to liquor stores to find a bottle that would uh to give to him because like he gave so much to me, and and it was all about sharing, you know, and so but no vintage stuff. And so in 2012, I I go to my parents' house. Uh my dad's like, you know, I know you're really getting into booze, uh, especially bourbon. He's like, your grandparents unfortunately have just passed away. He's like, uh, you know, I got some really rare bottles in the bar, and um, I'm like, well, okay, I understand what you're saying because I watered all your shit down. I'm like, you and mom literally have nothing. And he's like, well, Brad, unless you were watering your parents' booze, you know, we got some cool stuff to show you. So he busted out like uh Canadian Club and Scotch from the 40s and 50s, and uh, there was a rebel yell half gallon from 1983, and I knew enough to be dangerous, but not fully enough at the time. And so I was on a bourbon group that Brian had added me on, and I was basically that guy. You know, we got to start somewhere. And I took a picture, I put it on this bourbon group, and everybody did what I thought they would do. They said the rebel yell is worth money, which my dad was like, You're your grandpa's a cheapskate. How could this be worth money? Correct, correct. And so uh the other stuff that we thought would be worth money really was worthless. And um we opened up the Rebel Yell that night, and uh I just had this aha moment, man, uh tasting Stitzel Weller for the first time. I'm like, what the hell am I doing? Going to these liquor stores trying to make relationships with these guys when the best stuff's already in people's homes.
SPEAKER_05Correct.
SPEAKER_00And um, so my mom was like, you know, Brad, I can tell you really like that Rebel Yell. We don't really want that in the house. There's like a rebel on there and a rebel flag. Like, yeah, we don't even need that in here. Your dad and I don't like we don't want friends to come over and even see it. So if you like it, you can have that shit. And so I was like, Well, I'll I'll drink the hell out of it. Well, ever since like that day, man, moving forward, I'm like, who else in their house has these things that like they don't appreciate? They want to throw it away, literally, like a trash. And I'm like, that's my fucking treasure. Yeah, and so I put a PSA out on my uh personal Facebook page. We could probably go back to it in 2012. Like, hey, I'm in search of dusty, uh dusty old bourbon, and um, I'm like, I don't even know what I'll pay you. I don't even know what to pay you for it, but I know that I want it. And um, I just started getting added to a bunch of bourbon groups, uh, started trading my newer bottles I bought early on to get vintage, and the process just kind of started from there, and uh just went to a bunch of estate sales, uh uh went to a bunch of antique malls, traders' worlds here, uh anywhere I could go, and um started to make a name for myself. And uh in 2017, I never watched the news and was watching the news, and on the news, they're like the vintage spirit law is about to pass uh in 2018. And I was just like, Holy shit, I I told my girlfriend or fiance at the time, like, I'm gonna leave selling cars and cell phones and go do this. And then I have a child who's now 18 and I'm paying child support all this time. And I told my ex, like, hey, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go do vintage spirits, and they both were just like, if you can pay your mortgage and child support, we don't give a shit what you do. Right, you know, just be happy and and make enough to uh survive. And so you need to do, right? I took the uh legal jump in uh 2018, and you know, like I said earlier, went to Cork, and here we are today. And in a nutshell, that's kind of my uh story. Just you know, I found out pretty pretty quickly you can't get vintage bourbon without uh rum, gin, scotch, tequila, vaca, these liqueurs. And so instead of telling people, hey, I don't want that, I just want this, right? You know, as a human being, when you're selling stuff, uh, you don't want to be told, I only want your Mickey Mantle, I don't want your bench warmer. You want to sell all your fucking baseball cards. So we're uh you know, I'm buying all of it and tasting through it at a you know, at a young kind of uh still young into this back in 2017 and 2018, and I figured out pretty quickly, I'm like, the best shit's already been made. It's already in a bottle. Like what's made today is like computer generated, you know, a banana liqueur made today was made in a goddamn laboratory. I I'm finding stuff from uh Cuba from the 20s and 30s that's like God's gift to, you know, if I'm on my deathbed, that's what I want, you know. And um visited um some places in Chicago and uh saw like the milk room, and I'm like looking at their menu and I'm like, I can do this for 10 times less with less overhead and uh still be fair to who we're buying from and fair to who we're selling to. And so started at Cork and then um you know that didn't work out, but I got a chance, and then we opened here in 2020, and you know, 600 square feet, we moved down here and uh September 24 and kind of haven't looked back, and um, you know, it's it's at a higher level now, and we have more employees and this and that, but never lost the vision of of what it was.
SPEAKER_01So um so I'm sure this is a question you've been asked a million times what makes dusty whiskey better than current stuff?
SPEAKER_00Um, every bottle is its own time capsule, so a lot goes into it of where did it sit in someone's house? Uh, you know, was it in an attic? Did people put it in a shed? Was it in a musty basement? How is the seal? How is the fill? Uh beyond that though, when it was made smaller batches, uh the ingredients were just more organic and better, the water wasn't filtered, the trees were older. Uh, when they seared a barrel, it was probably from a a campfire. Um, I would say there was no timer to the barrel seal sear. It was people smoking a fucking paw mall and being like, all right, my paw mall's right here, I've seared the barrel, you know. And uh uh just the process, the inconsistencies, the hard times, no computers. Um the we're we're sipping a Yellowstone from 64 to 71, but on the label it says six year, it's really a seven year. So they totally underpromised and over-delivered back then. Um it doesn't age anymore in the bottle, but I really do think it's like a stew or Thanksgiving dinner on Friday. Uh, you know, it once it congeals a little bit, like uh it's just phenomenal. I I you know how can we go in the future and make anything better that was made in the 90s and older? I don't know, maybe in a laboratory they can in the future, but you know, Stitzelweller, they lost the yeast strain to it. Um you know, they're making good whiskey today. We're just kind of brainwashed into thinking that's what bourbon should be. As we sip on this Yellowstone, this is what bourbon should be. And the loyalty is gone. Uh, but you can see why there was brand loyalty back then. I mean, uh, if you could get this bottle for four to six dollars, why would you drink water? And uh you would tell your wife, like, we need bacon, eggs, and milk and yellowstone. And if I'm coming over with Jack Daniels, we're gonna fist fight. Yeah, you know, so it's uh those days are over, nobody has loyalty to shit. Uh people like soccer now.
SPEAKER_02So uh so I guess I guess my question for you, my question for you is obviously starting out in 2012, right? So now, like how has it changed like the market? Was there peaks? Was there crazy time?
SPEAKER_00I feel like in 2012 I was just like out of my mind knowing what you know the future of this, and I feel like I rode the wave. I've ridden the frickin wave and we're at the top of it right now. Okay, yeah, and I just don't want to fall off my surfboard. But uh mountainous hole, yeah, dude. So if we can just hang tight, literally, like we're hanging 10, like I'm making the surfer thing right now, but uh uh but nobody who can't see he's on his board. Yeah, we just need to hang high on this wave, but no, I I saw the future, man, and um I wouldn't have been this like crazy about what I'm doing if I wouldn't have seen it. And I think others did too. You know, Owen saw it, the the Justins at Justin's House of Urban, uh, you know, uh uh Smooth Ambler saw it, New Riff saw it. I mean, the people early on saw it, like and others that kind of waited a little bit are sitting here holding the bag, I think. And yeah, uh hopefully I won't be um or our business won't be in the future, but uh you know, I I think as we go in, as people drink less uh and maybe party a little less, like you still want to partake in it. And if we can have a uh a fair product that's uh maybe older than you or a birth year, um you're still gonna consume liquor just at a slower pace. And if we can provide an atmosphere that's seven days a week and get you in the game and you can come down on your birthday and maybe you drink once a year, we'll have to do it. Speak for yourself at a slower pace.
SPEAKER_02So I got four birthdays a year.
SPEAKER_00I don't know what you're talking about. Four birthdays a week. That's right. Well, I'm just thinking of the average person that maybe is uh toning it back a little bit. They took the dry January to the next level and it's still dry.
SPEAKER_02So I think that gets back to probably what you're saying here is I think people want an elevated spirit, whether it's vintage or like a limited, like they want something they can't get. And for me, coming here, and I I don't speak for Chad, but to me, even to pay a little bit of a premium to have something, to me it's the time. I don't want to have to search that stuff out. And just to come here and sit here and so the price to me is cool and everything, but I to me it's the time that you take to do that.
SPEAKER_00It's funny you mention it. So people ask me all the time, like, how the hell do you get this shit? And I'm just like, I breathe air and cut checks, but um, I'm basically buying from people that that sleep outside, and then I sell to people that sleep inside, and uh that's for the new. And then the old is you know, unfortunately, people pass away or they get sick, and uh liquor just isn't important anymore anymore. And maybe they have a health bill, sure, maybe their daughter's going to school, their wife wants a new kitchen. The booze just isn't important anymore anymore. And um, I did cell phone sales for a long time, and then I did car sales. Those two things, like you they have to work, and uh you're pretty picky of the car you get, and that's a big fucking purchase. There's nothing bigger than a house. And then a cell phone, those are that's closing all your deals. Well, when you're doing a booze, like I'm picking this up as a my Yellowstone as a uh as a phone right now. You can't call anybody from the Yellowstone. We can't ride this around. I'm I'm using it as like a like a drone. Oh, that's what you say you're using it as so uh uh different kind of party. We can't ride this, you can't drive the liquor bottle, you can't call with it. So it's um it's just a different sale. And I think you know, uh the the tough part is if it's somebody's like grandparents and they've seen it all their life and the heartstrings of it, I'm leading with you should keep it.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And so, you know, if they still want to keep it, I'm giving them the option. And uh, I look back, you know, um my great grandfather my grandfather showed me a Civil War sword and a Civil War gun that um he was gonna pass down to like me or my cousins. And once he passed away, a couple years went by, and I just asked my mom maybe 10 years ago, like, hey, where's Papa's uh Civil War sword and uh you know his his gun and stuff? And she's like, Oh, well, Brad, like you didn't seem too interested in it uh 10 years ago. Like I might have been smoking weed that day. I don't really know, but but now I'm like, fuck, like I really want that back, like hardcore. And we tried to reach out to my my grandfather, actually gave it to one of his friends for a cup of coffee, and uh we reached out to that guy and he traded it for something else, you know, and so it's long gone. And yeah, dude, right? So that that story right there, like I would hate to buy something from someone where they look back in five or ten years and have that that sickening aha moment I have. So I try to get it.
SPEAKER_02Like it's drink. You know what I mean? Like, literally gone.
SPEAKER_00But we're not a museum, correct. I'm selling shit, I'm taking money for it. So yeah, your your thing is put to work immediately. And so uh, you know, I want to have that heart to heart with people, like, hey, look, we really don't need this. Like, you might need it more than me. And like, you know, my offer will stand. Why don't you talk to your family? Like, it sounds like you guys have some heart strings with this. Yes, sleep on it. Yeah, sleep on it, man. So uh I try to have that conversation with everybody. Thanks meeting you. Thanks to meeting you too. Absolutely. We have some folks leaving. See you guys. Uh, but um, you know, I never would want wish that on anybody, so uh every single person, no matter how silly it is, if it's a Jim Beam train or whatever, like I want to tell them keep it.
SPEAKER_01But you know, I just opened up a Jim Beam train for my birthday this past year. Hell yeah. Um, so talking about the whiskey we're drinking, what are the tasting notes you get, Brad?
SPEAKER_02Uh uh to me, it's like what I I I talk about it a lot, right? Like that that caramel old school bourbon to it that I that I really like and that viscous on my tongue, it's very thick, it's nice on the palate. Uh but to me it's like nostalgic, like it very old school. I mean, I think that too. Super sweet. Like it's in something I would envision like my grandfather actually drinking.
SPEAKER_00It's kind of like a concentrate for me. Um, you know, the low barrel entry, they probably went in a barrel at 105. Right. So that this has less, probably 5% water added to it. So it's a cash strength almost at 100 proof, and uh the flavors I get are just um out of this world. I mean, uh, my if anybody making whiskey's listening, if you can remake this, like uh holler at your boy, I'll buy semi-trun.
SPEAKER_02I I would imagine Yellowstone would very much like to remake it.
SPEAKER_01I tell people all the time when they ask, when we've had this conversation on the podcast before, what made dusty whiskey taste so good? I always go back to the barrels. Because the trees are older. The trees were older than they didn't matter.
SPEAKER_00Say you wanted to make vintage whiskey right now, you'd have to put a cut it cut a uh 50 to 100-year-old tree down, like an older tree down. You'd have to put it outside for five or ten years to season. I mean, by the time you do that, if you're 35, now you're 45. Then you've got to put the bourbon in the barrel and wait 10 more years. You're waiting 20 years if you're alive when you're 55, uh, like a Royce Sneely, right? You know, to see his stuff when he is 55. Like, holy shit, right? Um, and then he's still at the mercy of the trees he's getting. Right.
SPEAKER_02That's all.
SPEAKER_00And I love what the Nealys are doing. I love what like the Leppel brothers are doing. Uh I love what you know, New Riff's doing. At the end of the day, they're all still at the mercy of the trees that the Coopers are getting it from. And Lorax. Yeah. No, it is. It really is. Uh, no, it's like show me a tenure air-dried state, right? Yeah, it's on your wall. Correct.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, those are valuable pieces of wood. Yeah, that just to get to that point, and I think like that's a great point because I think people overlook that when they they just drink it, right? Like they think the fluid, the juice, and they don't not think about the process and how much that has changed, and like you mentioned earlier, like the automation of stuff. Yep, right? The machines coming in, the computers, and you go to some of the big distillers and they're just punching on the keyboard. Like, yeah, there's heats in the air, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Like, this is not, you know, everybody thinks like they get a beef turkey in their mouth and these cell phones. Like, I could do this, like no, they're just following the script. Uh you know, it's uh I feel like a brand ambassador of the dead. I swear to god, you guys, I need a t-shirt that says it. Uh, you know, the surprise you don't have one. Where the people that I know, right? The people that made this Yellowstone that worked at Glenmore, they're not here anymore. They were it was made in 1964, and then we're sipping a uh Spudnik 1957, it was barreled 1952, it's up next, and uh, you know, uh hell, the person that bought this probably isn't with us anymore. And um, you know, to to have it live on and not just be a memento on someone's wall and to sit here and consume it, and you know, you can buy old cars and baseball cards and you can buy uh, you know, paintings and and rugs and collect watches and all the things, but you can't eat it. And so uh, you know, to be able to consume something that's older than you is fascinating. Um, I think the next craziest thing is is wine. The biggest misconception was our with our families was to not drink it and to age it. Well, they should have drank it when they were our age, and then I think the fast most fascinating thing for me to consume uh is vintage uh tobacco. And so I have uh some some cigars from uh Frank Rizzo, the mayor of Philly, and they're from the 70s and 80s, and we're just smoking on them. And how can tobacco be good that was grown out? You know, some of it was aged 15 years before they even rolled it. It's from like the 50s or 60s, and uh it wasn't fermented, you know, and uh the guy that owned it died in 1993, and then the jerky boys came out and they made crank phone calls like, you know, Frank Rizzo, I'm gonna blow your house, you know, and uh and we're sitting here smoking on shit that was a gift from the goddamn mafia, and it still is good and it's still buoyant. And uh, you know, it's just fascinating to me it that it stood the test of time. But uh well the science behind that and it not drying out to me is it's incredible, fascinating, absolutely incredible.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you can have a cigar today and you let it sit out and in like two days you're done.
SPEAKER_01Like that thing for anybody that doesn't know what Sputnik is. What we're drinking. Can you go more in depth with what we're actually doing?
SPEAKER_00So there's some like really fun decaners. Pretty much every Chris. I mean, holy shit, dude, I don't know if you've taken a sip of that yet. Not yet. It's salivating.
SPEAKER_03I almost don't want to drink it with the look at it.
SPEAKER_00It's an extreme level of salivation. It's tough to even speak after talk tasting it. But um the color on that thing. They did uh for Christmas, I believe, uh around the holidays every year for a long time, probably starting in the early 50s, maybe the early late 40s, did a different decanter each year. So this one was from 1957. It literally looks like a lava lamp. Um, these are just really tough to come by. They, you know, it'd be a quick sale in our shop at 2,000, it'd be a slow sale at 3,000. We just don't ship, so our biggest pain point's that. But um people ooed and odd over this for a couple days. So I was just like, fuck it, let's open this thing up. And then um, we do quarter ounce pours up here so I can share each bottle with a hundred people. So a hundred people will get to try this Spudnik decaner, and uh the last person that gets to try it will get I'll give them the decaner to take home. And so we don't sell empty bottles here. I was gonna say we give it away, uh and you know it's it's really frowned on to sell empties, but um, but no, this is a sick bottle that I'm sure we'll see this in the future. That you know, uh Brown Foreman, if you're listening, you guys are complete idiots if you don't maximize and come out with this again.
SPEAKER_01It's like the bowling pin just came back in the bowling pin came in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if you guys want to do that next, I got a 68 bowling pin right here.
SPEAKER_01I'm sure it tastes better than the new one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, dude, it's you know, the one thing I noticed uh that Beam, if you're listening, you did a great job is uh the top of the bowling pin on the new is actually heavy and nice. Uh this bowling pin from 68's kind of chintzy, and typically you would think the chintzy one would be from today because they're cut in corners. Yeah. Uh but yeah, the this one is uh it's it's a little light uh from back then. In fact, bowling pins the pen bottle came out in the 40s, I think in 46 or 47, right as the war ended and you know the World War II. Um and it was in a regular beam bottle, but it had pen labeling, and they did an eight-year, 86.8 proof. So the only time Beam did an 86.8 is with the pen. And if you know about old Scotch, Scotch was that proof. And so they stayed true to it. The new release they just did is actually 86.8 proof, and it's an eight-year. Um, but yeah, it's phenomenal. The dude, this forester though. It's you're exactly right.
SPEAKER_01The oak on that is just nuts. What's the age?
SPEAKER_00Uh, five years. That's five year bourbon, bro. That's incredible. I think in a blind, you know, we all want to like Stitzel Weller better. Uh, but you know, I I mean I'm a big old Forester guy. What's the proof on that one? 100.
SPEAKER_01That's the thing about Stitzel Weller. So much of it was proof so far down. It's like it just tastes like liquid candy.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01There's just not a whole lot of oomph to it.
SPEAKER_00That's got oof. It's really good. I I think in a blind, it'd be hard to not pick that over a Stitzeleller from the same era. Uh our heads would want to say we want we want to pick Pappy over that, but um, you know, blinds are so humbling. I I actually need to be at one point we had bags over one bottle on each of our shelves. And just to get people to like try a covered bottle that they didn't know and uh have some fun. We all get yeah, no doubt. Uh I think we all get caught up on a label though. Uh nowadays, you know, and um I you know go to your local bar, taste things, don't who cares what uh me or Chad says or what Fred Minnes says, like go try things and then spend money and buy a bottle. I agree. Like find something you like, that's always what's a tab for here. Um if so it came with this thing, and so we were talking about the uh beam. So there's like a little kind of circular triangle like thing that's like a thing that goes on top of the uh your sample bottles. Yep, yeah. That seals it basically, and so you take that out. If you put this on, you can pour through the spout. But it's kind of like a yard hose, the first sip. You know what I mean? Like you don't want to be the first sip off the orbit. You get the hot fire on it. It tastes like plastic. Who knows with the funk that's like built up in the tube of that? That's before we landed on the moon, bro.
SPEAKER_02Right. Like you think about where that thing's been.
SPEAKER_00Like you don't have like to now be sitting here.
SPEAKER_02You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00That whole journey alone is always fascinating. Yeah, what it's seen. No, it's uh well, and the whole reason that it's here is because it's in a pen. Right. This thing is it's got the tag on it, like the little hang tag on it.
SPEAKER_01That's incredible.
SPEAKER_00So, but um, and we're we're up again here on the second floor of Revival, and uh just to touch on real quick, we're gonna we're gonna continue a second part of this downstairs. But while we're up here, uh I just wanted to tell you guys um without being you know taking too much time, but we start our pours out at three bucks. Um, you can try uh rising tides old swagger uh 13 and 12 year release for three dollars. It's a quarter ounce. Most bars would be lucky to get it for 150 bucks. They would want their money back in three pours. It's a$50 an ounce pour, so I'm doing it for 12 bucks an ounce basically. But I want you to try 10 things here, and you only had two and a half ounces, and then grab a beer or grab a cocktail and be responsible.
SPEAKER_01Um what's the address here?
SPEAKER_00Uh 614 Madison Avenue, Covington, Kentucky. We're located next to the nicest hotel in the state, Hotel Covington. Uh, we're about a 15-minute walk from Paul Brown Stadium in Cincinnati. Uh, we have another location at uh 220 Helm Street uh in E Town. It's the old Wilson Motorcycle Shop. Uh the center of the city in uh Etown is the um is the courthouse and uh which has a bunch of bars around it. We're about a football field from that. So go down, hit all those bars around there, and then come come see us. Go to Flywheel and uh get some good food down there. They they have awesome people. Uh we love ETown. Uh you know, show ETown some love. Um, there's bottles down there that aren't up here. And so uh would love to get you down, uh Chad to ETown. We'll do a podcast down there, and um, we have Amelia running. Uh my bar manager down there is awesome. Uh she's killing it, and we have some cool stuff down there that's not up here. I try to make them not my redheaded stepchild. So uh, but I wanted to take just to go the other day.
SPEAKER_01It was a lot closer to mom's house. Yeah, dude.
SPEAKER_00No doubt. And I need to pick up bottles.
SPEAKER_01From uh mom's house to here felt like it was forever.
SPEAKER_00Um I'm just gonna hit you guys with like a couple bottles offerings that we currently have that if you hear this and come here, they might not be here, but they still might be here. We just go things through things so quickly. So I have Russian vodka from the 70s and 80s, I have Johnny Walker from the 70s, uh, a 25-year Armagnac from the 2000s, there's Drambuy from the 60s, Seagram's VO from 1953, I have a cumquat uh liqueur uh from Italy or Greece from like the 90s. It tastes like liquid dum-dum. Uh, there's rumplements from the 90s, there's two tequilas from the 80s, one of them's two fingers, and then we have uh 151 uh rum from the 70s, gym beam from the 70s, klua from the 80s, marciano cherry from the 60s. All that is five bucks. Uh$10, you're looking at Curacao from the 30s, wrapped in a wicker bottle. There's wild turkey from the 2000s. I have a uh a vodka that says uh the display only made in Russia, finished with tea leaves, just crazy. A tequila from the 70s, Haitian rum from the 40s, banana liqueur from France from the 40s, Jameson from the 50s, uh there's an Italian liqueur from the 40s, more vodka 107 proof from Russia from the 70s. There's a Swiss brandy from the 30s and 40s, uh Angels Envy Cash Strength from 2016. Uh the raw? Uh no, that's their just uh cash strength, uh the expression that came in the box in 2016. We have a white heather uh uh scotch uh from the 40s or so. All that's just ten dollars. Uh so you can basically travel here from Chicago, New York, Vegas, LA. You can drink like your Elon Musk or Trump, uh, still make your payments on your car tomorrow. You can go to Jeff Ruby's basically for free. You can buy a used car and go home and you save money. Um, I'm gonna continue. So for$15, you have makers from 1980, VAT 69 Scotch from the 40s.
SPEAKER_01I know you're a maker's lover. Dude, I've always been a maker.
SPEAKER_00Makers made bourbon like they did back then, no one would drink water. It's epic. Uh the Samuel family sold in 1980. That's the last of the makers that was uh distilled and bottled uh by the Samuel family. Uh we have Four Roses from the 50s, there's a 12-year uh old Fitzgerald from the early 2000s, 70s granddad. Uh we're doing a bean pin from 68 and a Yellowstone from 70 Bonded. All that is just 15 bucks. Uh Bicardi from 1951 is 20. Rebel Yel from 1990 is 20. I have a pre-prohibition cream de violet for 30, uh, pre-prohibition gin uh for 30, pre-prohibition whiskey from Covington called Golden Gift. You had to buy four bottles of their other spirit to get that for free. They never even sold it, but you can try it here for$35. What's cream de violet? It's made with violets. If you could reincarnate your grandmother, uh it the kiss she would give you with the potpourri smell, it basically brings you back uh to your grandma. So it's your grandma in a bottle. It's like a genie in the bottle. Your grandma just comes out. That's cool. Uh it's phenomenal. Are you guys seven days a week? Yeah, seven days a week. Uh we're open 63 hours a week to the public, it never stops.
SPEAKER_02And then the bar down to the bar downstairs. You can come in.
SPEAKER_00Or three to ten, uh, Monday to Thursday, 12 to 12, Friday and Saturday, 12 to 8 Sunday. So uh the last one I wanted to tell you about is we're gonna try an absinthe today uh from the 30s or 40s from France, and then you can try that versus the Neely's absinthe uh from today for$30. Um, when I say you can drink like a trust fund, baby, come on down.
SPEAKER_01Uh we're gonna see fairies after this.
SPEAKER_00Um, off Royce's stuff. So I think Royce's actually has more uh wormwood in it. This one, believe it or not, I'm learning every day. And just to show you guys, I have a Haitian rum, and when I'm processing bottles, I get them a bunch at a time. I'm busy as shit, so like you know, I'm only human and I'm learning every day. I'm getting humbled every day. Uh I'll never know everything. But uh, we're I'm showing them two labels right now. One's a Haitian rum from the 40s, 50s, one's an absinthe from the 40s and 50s from the same deal, and they kind of look the same, right? And so um the absinthe, for instance, I put it in a spreadsheet and I put that it was a rum liqueur because it said Haiti on it. And uh right before I opened it, I used Chat GPT, and ChatGPT said, That ain't that ain't that ain't a rum, that's absinthe. And so we uh we opened it up, it was a big ordeal. Uh it was midnight one night. We had some fun people in here. Tony's actually sitting up here. Uh uh, one of my main bar guys on the second floor. If you come up here, say hi to Tony, but uh he helped out with uh we had cork go everywhere. We had to, it was just a freaking, it was like a movie set up here for about an hour, but we got it open.
SPEAKER_02So was this a wax top? It was a wax. It was a wax top, so it's did it just crumble? Like, it pretty much crumbled and went everywhere.
SPEAKER_00It it was it was uh fiasco, but um this says Hayes Haiti on it, and the little research I did, they were proud of the sugar cane. So the sugar cane came from Haiti, um, and then this has been waiting in a bottle almost a hundred years for you to try it. Um waiting on you. So we'll get you guys just a little weed uh because I don't want you tripping too hard. Yeah, I don't want either. Um I'm not driving.
SPEAKER_05See how curved that bottom of that bottle is. Yes. He was able to put it on top of that cord. Yeah, in that wild.
SPEAKER_02That's gotta be a couple inches, huh? Mine's gonna be if I'd see the bottom, yeah. That's what she said. Yeah, yeah. Correct.
SPEAKER_01Quit looking at me like that. I didn't say a word. I didn't say a word. You don't have to say it.
SPEAKER_00Alright, so here is, I'll give you guys Neely's stuff first. This is Neely's. It's 120-proof, made from uh uh 1890 contraption he uses to make his fairy juice. I will give Royce props. Uh I visited him un unannounced, and um he was up on this absinthe machine when he first got it, like he was working on a Model T Ford. And I walked back there and I laughed, and I'm like, Can't you get somebody from Buffalo Trace to work on this? And he's like, Brad, let me get your knee. I want to smack it. Uh and so Royce Royce is the man. He uh he is uh he answers the phone there, he is tooling around with all the machinery there. Uh for for this being new absinthe, hats off, dude. Yeah, that's wild. That is wild. It's the smell. I haven't even drank it yet.
SPEAKER_01The black licorice on that is it's really bold, it's awesome. This smells like my grandma. That cream de violet. Do you want something?
unknownI'm just gonna retrain Jackson.
SPEAKER_00You're doing a retrack. So we got J O. It's a full service bar. Full service. We got J O in the house. Uh uh, so JO's crushing it for us. Um, he came from Party Source. Okay. And uh he was their head inventory guy for 10 years. Went on to uh uh was it the Marriott or where'd you work at?
SPEAKER_04Um I went to Ladle Park Hotel, which is the old Anna Louise Inn, part of the Marriott.
SPEAKER_00So uh in the Marriott world, he was a top five bartender nationally, uh recognized. And uh the face of the very proud man. What's so cool is uh he can go down and uh mix up drinks better than just about anybody in the world, but then he does the inventory up here better than just about anybody in the world. So uh to say he's an asset for revival is an understatement. Um but uh uh JO, like have have you liked uh your time here? You've been out here about six months.
SPEAKER_04Closer to seven, but you saw kind of anything about this place. In honesty, no. I absolutely adore this place, love it. I realize that when I'm driving to work, uh I'm happy to be going to work. I love to see what's coming in, what is going out, and what is being purchased? Because like today we ended up with uh item in which I'd never heard of, or Brad had never heard of, and it was in a bottle that was a tiki. Yeah, a tiki bottle. And it's plastic. Plastic, and it was uh crushed into on itself because it apparently was like a high pressure, low pressure kind of thing. It went around the moon in the sun a couple times. And what it what it turned out to be was it turned out to be a Hawaiian moonshine. Right. What the heck?
SPEAKER_00I mean, how does Hawaiian moonshine rest in a plastic bottle for like 40 years and a phone apple? Oh, it's only 80 proof. It's made from a root apple.
SPEAKER_04It's called uh a root called Thai Ti. Okay. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right or not. But the other one was like this sucker here.
SPEAKER_00He soaked the cork of that for like a week before we opened it. So we have a cumquat that we um all these uh collectors out there soaking their corks.
SPEAKER_04Uh cork soakers. Cork soakers. We're all full corkers. Keep it up, I'm gonna leave.
SPEAKER_02On that note. So for uh so for you, Joe, like coming here from like a Marriott, like is it less intense? Is it more like is it what is it? I know it's gotta be different, but like what does it look like?
SPEAKER_04It's beautiful not having to deal with the corporate in the awesome without dealing with the uh the breathing down your neck of like making sure you're in the stress of literally not blowing a million plus dollar wedding, uh designing a cocktail for people and making sure that everything is getting a mess here.
SPEAKER_02Don't worry. Yep.
SPEAKER_04Okay, and so one of the things is just basically um people would come in and I had this uh big power couple that the chef uh created a uh a full menu for this spread. Okay, and I'm just walking by and all of a sudden there's a spoon in my face, and it's like, try that. Like since unfortunately, I I knew we're good friends, we still hang out, that chef and I did. You trusted his spoon. Yes, I totally did. Uh it might it like times, it might be pickled um, he was very proud of this, pickled mustard seeds. Okay. He made them himself and to like uh just like this uh lamb and heavy cream and these vegetables that I'm not even gonna try to pronounce. I taste this, and then I have to go produce a cocktail. Right to pair with this, and then make sure that the people paying for all this are very happy with this. Yeah, that's a lot of pressure.
SPEAKER_01And so, like, this is Brain is hungry, so you better watch how much you talk about.
SPEAKER_02If you just put up meat bourbon, I mean that's what I would do. Like this goes with everything.
SPEAKER_04No, unfortunately. It was people, and this is kind of the things of like I would deal with. It's um uh person was like, uh uh, we'd like to hang out at the tennis court. I like um I like uh tequila and orange. So come up, you know, a simple tequila orange cocktail. The other one was the guy liked a uh more savory bourbon, but he didn't want it too strong. Okay, I'd do that. And then they stopped me and said, our dog likes carrots. And they wanted a third cocktail for their dog. Apparently was a special guest at their wedding.
SPEAKER_02So what do dogs like to drink?
SPEAKER_04Uh well, I made a cocktail. I didn't ever meet the dog, but I made an alcohol cocktail based on carrot, where I actually uh boiled down the carrot, pureed it a little bit, and then uh just a touch of vodka and a little bit of sweet juice.
SPEAKER_02Dog got lit at the wedding.
SPEAKER_01Speaking of weddings, how many weddings are we going on around here right now? We walked in.
SPEAKER_00So the hotel owns like the Madison next to it and the hotel, and then behind us, there's a wedding venue. I think they can do five to eight multi-hundred person weddings at a time. Okay, that makes sense now.
SPEAKER_02Um, so yeah, there's I think they're doing that right now because it is everywhere now.
SPEAKER_00Like no, it's uh wedding central down here. Plus, you got in that hotel, uh, whoever's playing the Reds, you never know if like the Boston Red Sox are in there or Jim Gaffingan could walk out. Uh uh the Paul Ron Paul, or what is what's that Paul, the guy that fights everybody? Jake Paul. He came down for like Trump speech. Uh he was randomly over there with his like tall girlfriend that I guess is like a uh probably some model or something. Yeah, oh she's an Olympic athlete, that's right. Some some kind of thing, but yeah, they were there the other day, so uh never know. You never know uh who is gonna come in this place. Oh no.
SPEAKER_02So my last question is which bottle for you has been like the craziest thing you got, and not like value, or but like something you were like, oh, what in the world? Or like this is so cool.
SPEAKER_00Um man.
SPEAKER_04Oh, dude, I got the one for us right here.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, just like anything to come across. Mark Stoops Makers Mark bottle. Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_00Mark Stoops Makers Mark bottle. Um, you know, we we found a collection um a couple years ago in the Pindennis Club. If you guys have heard of that, uh it's a Louisville club, it's a kind of an old man club. It's been around since around the Civil War. You had to be a general basically to be a part of it. Um we got a uh 1890. Did you make it there, Brandon? Did you make it cut? We made an we got an 1893 Pindenness Club, uh 125 proof. Oh wow. And it was about halfway full, and unfortunately, the uh cork had fallen in, and I'm like, this bottle's kind of priceless. How can we, you know, how can I even sell it with a cork floating in there? So I opened it and it ended up being awesome. Uh it reminded like we were in the little shop, and it the smell of the bottle took up the whole entire shop. You could smell barn, tobacco, brown sugar, wow, honey. Um, it literally was like the funk of the past just came out. It's a gamut. And uh yeah, so like that was a really fun one. Like just looking back, and then I got three, or our business got three bottles of Taylor from 1913 to 1917. Um, I sold one or two to one of a big Taylor collector. Uh a couple of them, or one at least, ended up in Southeast's auction uh recently after I had sold to him. He put it there, and then uh Jerry Bruckheimer's wife randomly showed up at her shop uh uh two or three years ago, and um we ended up doing a derby party with one of those for uh Jerry Bruckheimer and her uh two years ago. And so to open that up and to share that with the owners of uh Wrigley Field and uh uh Mr. Bullet was there, and uh the owner of Barstown Bourbon Company, and I don't even know who else. Like it's funny, um, and I'll just tell tell this before JO talks about his bottle. I didn't know that much about Taylor. I mean, I I knew enough to get in trouble, and so when you're talking in front of billionaires and people that have a lot more than you, you don't want to fumble around, you want to be very vetted in in the uh history of what you're opening, and so I spent two weeks of looking in ChatGBT, looking in Reddit, looking in everywhere I could frickin' look about Taylor to learn as much as I could about E.H. Taylor, and so I knew how to speak about him. And uh when I opened when we opened the bottle, all these rich people, you know what they wanted to know? How the hell I got it? Right, and I'm like, fuck, I know I tell you easily how I got it. Correct. So there was a uh Latonia horse track uh here in Latonia, and everybody from Cincinnati went to it. It was bigger than Churchill Downs at the time. The owner of it had Van Hook as a brand, and Barry Brinniger is actually bringing that back now. There was a bar right outside of that track. They had Van Hook and Taylor were their drinks of choice, and they shuttered during prohibition. So these bottles went in a house in Covington. The people uh moved, they went to Frankfurt. There was a uh yard sale. The neighbor of the yard sale was selling empty bottles for their neighbor. Somebody at the yard sale said if those were full, they'd be worth some money. You should call a revival. And the lady was like, Well, my neighbor has some full ones. So they called us, they thought it was Jack Daniels. And uh when they brought it in, I was just baffled. There was three of those, and I got five Van Hooks, and uh that shit was gone, and like we're not a museum, so I sold it quickly. But uh, but yeah, just to tell them confidently uh the story of how we found it and then the history of that horse track uh was really cool. So, but what bottle you got, dude? Yeah, what'd you go with?
SPEAKER_04Well, I grabbed this one here, which was a liqueur d'or. Oh, and it has some other name on there for like Legarine. And it is we had no idea what it was. We knew it was filled with a brown liquid, and it had, of all things, the gold flakes floating in it, like uh Uh from Goldschlager. Goldschlager, yeah. Yeah, and we were just like looking at this and we had no idea what it was. It sat on the shelf for the longest time. And the one thing I love about Brad is if it sits there for a minute, we know we're not gonna sell it. Brad's gonna open it. And we opened this thing up, and holy crap, it was a outstanding amoro. It was brandy-based, very sweet and gingerbready. And the universe cried when the bottle came in me because it's probably never gonna be seen again. The other one in which I just kind of like to pull this guy out because it's such a unique one is this guy here. This is a looks it's a little hip flask. It sat on the shelf for the longest time, uh, from 1969. And I know I'm not gonna pronounce it rightly, but it is golden samurova. Uh S-A-M-O-V. That's Russian? A-R. Yeah, I barely speak English, so don't ask me if it's Russian. Russian, yeah, but Russian gold. It would make sense because it is a vodka, but when you look close enough at it, it's gold. Yeah. Right. That's when you taste it, it's I guess it was like it's at the age.
SPEAKER_02Like, you know what I mean? I was like the delight.
SPEAKER_04This is a vodka that is subject to a mellowing effect. Like Tennessee whiskey? I thought that to begin with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04That maybe it was mellowed through like wood chips and then like maybe show them the top of the bottle, too. Yeah, it's a dune at the top, not for basically display only. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00It wasn't even meant for sale. That's wild.
SPEAKER_04And it was when tasting it and nosing it, you were gonna get that nose of vodka, the taste of vodka, but there is no finish.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It is a vodka for mellowing, and it says on the back, go home, make your favorite golden cocktails. What golden cocktails do I find on the internet? None of them that ever call for this recipe. Nobody knows what it came from, but one lady identified the area was that it was from uh MGP Seagram's area. Oh but I've we have not found anything else about it. Uh my personal belief is uh maybe they mellowed it with like a little bit of something like brandy or so, but it doesn't have a sweet finish. There's nothing like that. No, it just kind of pops the mind, just trying to figure out what the hell is this?
SPEAKER_02It is weird. Like not in a bad way.
SPEAKER_04Like it's just like I never had this. Yeah, it's like uh when right after the moonshine revival and we had all of those uh crazy uh vodka flavors from toasted marshmallow to you know uh oh goodness, Brittany's feet, I guess you could say Britney's feet.
SPEAKER_02So there's like a little taste of Russia there.
SPEAKER_04This was one of them I felt like could have uh something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Alright, well, we're at 45 minutes. So we're gonna go ahead and shut this one down. And so start the next one.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for letting me barf on your uh people that are listening. I feel like I just like hit him with a lot of things.
SPEAKER_02Thanks so much for having us. This has been great, like great pours, great stories, and I think that's what it's about to me. Like uh, we'll definitely be back.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. No, it's uh friendships here, man. I mean, uh bring you know, my goal for our business is to be on somebody's five. And what I mean that by that is if you're coming through Cincinnati or northern Kentucky or Kentucky, where do you go? You know, you're out you're from Colorado, you're from wherever. If we can, you know, you got the Reds, you got uh King's Island, you know, you got Turfway Park, you got whatever Skyline. You know, Jeff Ruby's or whatever. If we can, you know, and I just mentioned like hundred million graders, yeah. Graders ice cream. You know, you have hundred million dollar companies. I just mentioned if if we can sneak on there and uh be your six pinky, you know, in some kind of way, like bring your friends and family here. Uh, you know, this is a gym of northern Kentucky, this is a gym of the United States, I feel like.
SPEAKER_04And did you brag about what Whiskey Advocate did?
SPEAKER_00Uh we've been top 100 bourbon bar for uh five years in a row. Uh Garden and Gun, top bourbon bar. Uh this is not paid advertisement. I mean, uh we've we've earned it.
SPEAKER_04And uh Whiskey Advocate this year labeled us number 49 in the entire United States, one hundred top 100.
SPEAKER_00I think that's just how that laid out. I don't think I you know I'm gonna look at it and say we're number 49.
SPEAKER_02Well, number 49.
SPEAKER_00Well, garden and guns got us in the top 10, though.
SPEAKER_02Well, just to like just to just a compliment some more, like my thought is I think a lot of places that uh curate bottles like this, it can come across as stuffy. And that's not the vibe here. Like, you know what I mean? Like which I like it's cool. It's like just a bunch of people that there's new triple suits on.
SPEAKER_00Correct.
SPEAKER_02Like, I ask you, I'm like, do we need to wear a collar shirt? Like, what kind of jam is this?
SPEAKER_00Dude, I'm sitting on the what shirt do I have on? Correct. Yeah, uh, I bought it on eBay or something it's some dead guy with a couple whiskey bottles in it. Oh, I love the cat. You got sipcorn in the house? Sipcorn on the tea. I like the city.
SPEAKER_02Anyone who's got a cat shirt on? Correct. He could have worn basketball shorts.
SPEAKER_00You could. He could have. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01Instead of these tight ass jeans.
SPEAKER_00You got a you got a bear on? Like, where did it go? I mean, where's the pole? I mean, we're gonna be. No, we want people to come as they are, and uh, you know, the the days of being pretentious around this are over, at least at Revival. Uh come as you feel. Uh, don't you don't need to dress up to come down. If you want to dress up, that's great. But uh, you know, our staff, we just want people to be comfortable. That's it. So it's nice. I like it. Yep.
SPEAKER_01All right. Well, until next time, enjoy your pours and enjoy your family.
SPEAKER_02Burbank boys out.
