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ChiTuckyBourbonBrothers
The “Chitucky Bourbon Brothers” podcast, hosted by Mike Nielsen and Tony Meyers, serves as a delightful exploration of bourbon and whiskey culture, offering insightful reviews and discussions about various bourbons and whiskeys. The hosts share their passion for sipping “brown water,” a colloquial term for bourbon and whiskey, and aim to blend music with their love for these beverages, creating an engaging auditory experience for listeners. The podcast not only provides detailed reviews of different bourbons and whiskeys but also promotes a relaxed atmosphere where enthusiasts can enjoy the nuances of their favorite drinks alongside music that complements the experience.
ChiTuckyBourbonBrothers
Episode 113 - Bardstown Bourbon Company Cathedral French Oak
What happens when you take 300-year-old French oak trees selected for Notre Dame Cathedral's restoration and turn them into bourbon barrels? Dan Calloway and Pete Marino of Bardstown Bourbon Company join us to reveal the remarkable story behind their Cathedral French Oak Barrel Finish - a whiskey that connects French architectural history with Kentucky distilling expertise.
"The cardinal sin we broke on barrel aging is you never really want to double barrel old bourbon because it'd be too dry, too tannic," explains Calloway. Yet this risk produced something extraordinary - a blend of Kentucky bourbons up to 19 years old, finished for 14 months in just six precious barrels made from the same oak chosen to repair one of the world's most iconic cathedrals.
The conversation goes deeper than just this special release. We explore Bardstown Bourbon Company's meteoric rise in the whiskey world, their philosophy of transparency and collaboration, and how they balance contract distillation with distinctive brand development. NFL legend Jared Allen even calls in to discuss the bourbon landscape and what makes Bardstown's approach unique.
Throughout our discussion, the themes of innovation and quality shine through. "The formula for our success is a combination of incredible people who are deeply passionate about what they do," Marino shares, "and we've got an ownership group and a leadership team that are not afraid to take chances and do crazy things." This mindset has propelled Bardstown from industry newcomer to respected innovator in just a decade.
We conclude with a comprehensive tasting of the Cathedral Oak itself, exploring its complex profile of the three classic Kentucky bourbon tasting notes with dark fruits and the perfect balance between wood influence and sweetness. For whiskey lovers seeking something truly special, this rare expression represents bourbon at its most innovative and historically significant.
Grab a glass and join us for this fascinating exploration of whiskey craftsmanship where French history meets Kentucky spirit!
new truck, big lift, old roads we've been tearing up since way back when these wheels are innocent. New hitch, new seats, no hit story, and you just can't fake that. So let's change that girl. Let's go put some miles on.
Speaker 2:That sounds really good. I know I like that cane brown, right it is, it is. It's just it's just coming through so clear. Maybe I've had had a whiskey or two and it's just making me kind of getting me going. How are you?
Speaker 3:Tony, I'm good. I really like the music that gets you going in the beginning. You know, when you get started it's like bam, you got to have a little. There's too many country songs that start too slow for too long.
Speaker 2:Well, we're going to really get going here at quite the pace because we've got two guys sitting with us that are a very, very big deal in the whiskey world. So, anyway, chi-tucky, bourbon Brothers, mike and Tony sitting here. Do you remember Dan Calloway? Remember that guy? A couple years ago we podcasted with him?
Speaker 3:I do. We were introduced to him from a friend of ours.
Speaker 2:Bill newlands, and then I was like wait a minute watching 60 minutes one of my favorite tv shows, and I I don't mean I don't mean to like age myself, but I love it morally safer.
Speaker 2:The whole, the whole, all those guys, and I'm like there's dan, and my wife's like who, and I'm like nothing, honey, he plays the french horn. I know that guy. He's really great, he's super nice anyway. So, uh, we got two guys sitting here with us today, um, all connected, uh, with bart's, bart's on bourbon company, dan calloway, uh, and also mr pete marino. How are you guys doing? Great thanks for having us this is so.
Speaker 2:It's fun for you guys to be in town so, uh, connected through friends, uh, we've, we've tony and I have met uh dan in the past, uh, when kind of bartisown bourbon company was getting built out in kentucky and uh, connected through friends and didn't even know that, uh, the president offted Spirits is a neighbor, more or less, of ours. So Dan's coming in town flying back from Vegas and we're like why don't we do a podcast? Let's do it. Why don't we talk about this amazing, crazy new whiskey that was on 60 Minutes and it is called the Barstow Bourbon Company Cathedral, french Oak Barrel Finish? And I mean, do we just jump right into it Because I want to taste?
Speaker 3:it really bad. Oh, you want to sip? Yeah, no, I mean we should talk about it Like it's such a cool bottle, it's such a cool concept. I mean, how did you guys come up with it?
Speaker 5:Yeah, so it started with a Frenchman named Rocky who was a barrel broker, and we've just built these great relationships with with various barrel brokers at Barstown bourbon company and whenever they have something creative, unique, they know that I'm interested in what they've got. And I was sitting down with Rocky and he he was pitching me on a couple of things. And then the third one he mentioned was this here when Notre Dame caught fire, right when the French government went to repair it, they set out a team to find the best oak in France and they went all over studying the trees and they found this small lot in the Loire Valley, the Berset Forest.
Speaker 5:It was 300 year old oak and they deemed it the greatest. So how?
Speaker 3:is it just because of, like, how hard it is? Or so, when you're in a, how do you do?
Speaker 5:that. Yeah well, they're testing it right and you get a cooler climate, it's going to grow slower, so your rings are going to be tighter, denser and it was worthy to repair the canopy of the cathedral, and so they set it out to season and they repaired.
Speaker 5:But there was enough wood left over to make six barrels. That's it, just six, six. So we purchased this wood, brought it over new French oak and with a lot of things, the liquid will come first and then we'll find a barrel to finish Right With this. The barrels came first. Then our mission was to get the best blend possible to put in there. The cardinal sin we broke on barrel aging is you never really want to double barrel old bourbon because it'd be too dry, too tannic.
Speaker 5:Okay, but with this, since it's it's it's a tight grain, it takes longer to extract. Put it on the first floor where it's nice and cool. Uh, we could control it. I thought it was just going to be two, three months, yeah it would all because how? Long did it end up? 14 months months.
Speaker 3:Cause really to pull out. Is it that tight? Is it like that heart of?
Speaker 5:wood. Yeah so, but the the flavor you get out of there, I mean, and the wood sugars that are that are present, are just incredible. So it's up to 19 year, bourbon um 14 months in the, the greatest oak back label.
Speaker 2:That's so cool. Yeah, I mean, it's 37.5% 18-year-old Kentucky whiskey. I mean Kentucky bourbon.
Speaker 3:Are you allowed to tell us where that came from, or not yet, or not ever?
Speaker 5:Yeah, you could take a guess on the mash bill, the 74-18-8. Yeah okay, you know, close by to our distillery. I was going to say it's not far from you. I have a feeling and it's funny, because when you print the labels you always have to kind of guess a little lower because it could be older. So it says 18. It actually turned 19.
Speaker 3:Oh, because you guys actually bottled this. Was it earlier this year or was it in the fall?
Speaker 5:Yeah, earlier this year, earlier this year, that's cool. And so six barrels, yeah, february.
Speaker 3:So 18-year I mean. So you were able to fill six barrels to the top and in 14 months you didn't lose much. So you got six full barrels more or less. More or less which is nice. It was great, because usually 18-year stuff there's so much that's evaporated out. You're looking at a significant downfall in how much is in there.
Speaker 4:Exactly, this might be one of the only bottles in chicago right now, by the way, really probably I mean only available in kentucky I'm like edge of my seat, feeling real, real, real special with a lot of things.
Speaker 2:So let's, let's real quick before we. I said I'm thirsty and I want to taste it, but let's go backwards into just barstown bourbon company. Yeah for sure. I went there a couple years ago and, um like, and it's just been a brand and a company just unbelievably on steroids and I think I asked you guys before we started the podcast. I'm like, is there anything like you step back or are there any failures? And we don't have to get into failures of the brand or anything but founded in 2014,. So we're at 11 years, call it whatever. Um like, just how is it just just been so crazy? As far as growth, because what tony and I talk about a lot is old brands. They're old, so they have old whiskey. They have good whiskey they've made, they've had their problems and they've figured it out and figured it out, but they've also can they can put out really good whiskey.
Speaker 2:They know how to do it at a cheap price, because they've been around a hundred years. You guys have been around like 10 years and it's like every time you hear something about it's not just 60 minutes or whatever, that's one freaking tv show. It's like everything you do is like the next level and like this growth and it's like can that, can you keep that up and how is that happening?
Speaker 4:So Pete, I mean, I've been there for two years and I will tell you, the formula for our success is a combination of incredible people who are deeply passionate about what they do, and we've got an ownership group and a leadership team that are not afraid to take chances and do crazy things I love that yeah all those things.
Speaker 4:And we are not afraid to take chances and do crazy things. I love that, yeah, all those things we don't. There are things we do that you know have become more common in in whiskey, but stuff that we kind of leaned in on long ago. Collaborations that we do we don't have contracts with our collaboration partners. We do them on handshakes.
Speaker 3:I love it. That's how I work as a contractor. That's how I still work.
Speaker 4:This cathedral handshakes. I love it. That's how I work as a contractor. That's how I still work. This Cathedral Oak that we talked about earlier Um, you know, we didn't know what the kind of whiskey it was going to create, so buying six barrels on kind of a crazy idea nobody bats an eye. That sounds like an interesting idea, Dan, let's do it. It might not work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, A lot of them. A lot of them are Dan's ideas.
Speaker 4:Only the ones that, only the ones that don't work. Yeah, a lot of them. A lot of them are Dan's ideas.
Speaker 6:Only the ones, that only the ones that don't work. Yeah, love it so.
Speaker 4:so I mean, I think, I think it's really a combination. It's a we've got great people and we've got a mentality. Our corporate motto is never stand still, and so we want to keep pushing the bounds of what most, most people think are normal. And we've got an ownership group. You know know, our partners at Pritzker Capital are bought into what we do and how we do it, and they give us the freedom to do it.
Speaker 5:That's awesome Exactly that, and I think what we're able to pull off is to be so agile. I think so many of our members of our team a lot of them came from larger distilleries, larger operations, and they have so much industry knowledge and they're talented, and one of the reasons they were drawn to Barstown Bourbon Company is this ability to be agile and quick and then have a real voice in the room. So we have a lot of trust, a lot of valued opinions and all that leads to being able to pivot, and when rare barrels come available, we act quickly and create it?
Speaker 3:Does Steve Nally, the master distiller? Is he on board with all of this Cause? He's kind of an old school guy Like he I don't know him, but I mean he's one of him and what him and his wife are like one of the only husband wife. That's part of the bourbon hall of fame or something, and that's impressive.
Speaker 2:Steve's having a blast. The Wheat King he's loving it. Is he like Like the Because?
Speaker 4:Tell him about your trip to London? Yeah, I just spent a week with Steve Wait.
Speaker 3:I heard you were from Britain, by the way, is that true? I grew up.
Speaker 5:Born until I was 10, where Well London and then Cambridge area and then Northampton.
Speaker 3:That's kind of cool, so bounced around a little bit.
Speaker 2:You don't have any accent, so I can slip back into it, and you haven't picked up the Louisville accent either.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's different. That's a different accent. I went England to Baltimore. Of course it's very different. Take England.
Speaker 5:No go. And you know, every time I spend time with Steve I learn something new, because he's 50 years, 50 plus, coming up on 55 in the industry.
Speaker 5:What I learned on this trip from donna, his, his wife is um, he was known in the 80s and 90s as the guy that I had never heard this before, notorious for keeping the distillery clean, and he would show up on a saturday, when they weren't you know, and just take the thing apart, clean it really, and if you think about distillation, it's the most important thing. So he, he, dialed in that that one recipe at makers right made one thing but, just mastered it, so he's having a blast now creating over 60 recipes Freedom.
Speaker 1:Bourbon out of popcorn, yeah.
Speaker 5:Innovating, exploring. I think he's loving every second of it.
Speaker 3:That's cool Because sometimes you know, you think of like I don't know, I think of like my really I mean 50 years. I mean I'd be older than my parents, right, everything would be halfway because of how old I am, you know, like a half a generation between my parents and my grandparents, and I just don't see them like grabbing a hold of new technology and running with it. And that's cool to hear that he is. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we have a brand that we're working on right now. That was literally an idea six weeks ago. We are bottling it the day after Memorial day. I can't talk about it specifically right now, but it was literally an idea six weeks ago and in the last six weeks we have commercialized it. We've gotten it approved because there's a big partner involved, and we are bottling it very soon and it will be on shelves this summer.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. Up here too. Chicago get it. Illinois will get it rather than Chicago.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's a really cool idea. But to Dan's point about agility and nimbleness and continuing to push things forward that you know other people might not be created to be able to do, we can do it.
Speaker 3:Is doing something as small as six barrels like too small, though.
Speaker 5:I don't think so We've done.
Speaker 3:I mean obviously, yeah're keeping it in your distiller.
Speaker 2:They've grown and that's so cool that you can do really really small special stuff but still do the mega brands that I mean Hirsch, bellmead, jefferson, kelly, met, chicken Cock, all those stuff, all those brands are running through you guys Mega brands, but you can still do something really really small. Did I name any that aren't part of you anymore?
Speaker 3:No, that's good, can still do something really, really small. Did I name any that aren't part of you anymore? No, you guys, you guys are looking at.
Speaker 2:Why do you?
Speaker 3:say that one. No, but we talked earlier about like like Kentucky out, just because we were to have a sip of it, or we were talking about it and you were like they just, they're just, they need to be smaller and and I can see how some of these small things are great, like I don't know, like profit side, that that's more your guys. I don't really understand how the whole prophecy works of profitability, of everything works.
Speaker 4:It's pretty simple you, a certain brand costs a bunch of money, then you sell it for retail, and if your retail cost is more than your cost of goods, then you're dead profit.
Speaker 1:Oh well, I know that. Okay, all right. All right, I'm Tony I got my MBA today.
Speaker 2:Tony calls himself a math guy and I'm I could not be happier that you just explained that to him.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that. No, it's not that, but you know what I mean. Like just small barrels. You just think of all the time it takes and yeah. Small barrel, small bottles, small everything Like everything. I don't know. I don't have your bottling machines. I mean I assume they can do three, seven, fives, but I have no idea.
Speaker 5:That could be a new thing, yeah yeah, you're right, and oftentimes the design, the labor, the marketing, the testing could be equal from a six barrel to a 600 barrel project, but the small ones are ones we believe in. This actually kicks off an entire series. I been this. This actually kicks off an entire series. I saw that on your website. I actually was going to ask about that. It's cool. It's called he gets excited. Look at us, yeah, look at that smile. It's the.
Speaker 3:This is uh, it's going to be special distillery reserve once a year, more than no more but it's all these little projects, right they?
Speaker 5:could be two barrels could be 10 barrels, but tiny little experiments and they're just going to pop in.
Speaker 3:Whenever they pop in, they Well they finally have a home Can you tell about the next one.
Speaker 5:Yeah, the next one happy to. I mean, we haven't officially announced it, but it's coming Breaking news, All right, all right Breaking.
Speaker 3:news breaking news on Chi-Tucky.
Speaker 2:Bourbon Brothers, mike and.
Speaker 3:Tony, it is close to the Derby, so we'll just give it a little.
Speaker 5:That's what I got. Yes, so it'll be the same. It's classic, same design 375 ml. Right, and we do that, so there's more bottles.
Speaker 2:Obviously yeah, I actually really like it. I love the smaller bottle, but I'm a dork like that.
Speaker 5:Sorry, they're also line price $99, right which? Is amazing for some of the liquid that's going in here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 18 year or 19year, whatever it is now.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so this next one, round two, is going to be called the Hokkaido Mizunara Oak Finish and it's the same thing. It's six total barrels. They've been aging in different spots of the warehouse for many years and it's got super aged liquid in there and flavor. I've had a few Mizunara. I think we have.
Speaker 2:Where is mizunara? Say the name again.
Speaker 5:So Hokkaido, like northern Japan, it's the name of forest where the mizunara is grown Right. Mizunara is native to Japan. It is notoriously hard to work with because the trees, unlike oak, they kind of grow sideways Right. So to get a decent barrel is very difficult. And then the coopers in the far south of Japan they put them together. This is first use the liquid, going in Same idea, creating a blend for those barrels it's got that kind of mizunar incense.
Speaker 2:Do Japanese whiskeys use those barrels, or are they just so hard to Not exclusively?
Speaker 5:There's not enough, because they're hard to get yeah so you'll see a lot of ex-bourbon in Japan Do you like, even for the cathedral barrels.
Speaker 3:Did you have them made in France or do you bring them back to a cooperage in Kentucky or local cooperage Made in France?
Speaker 5:Okay, so they came as barrels.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Like you just didn't get all the pieces and had a local guy put it all together. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 5:Okay, so that's going to be the second one, and this is an ongoing. You'll see a few of these. A year Distillery Reserve only available at our gift shop.
Speaker 3:That's cool. You're going to have more people just showing up in the morning seeing what shows up.
Speaker 2:Do you have lines out the door? I assume yeah, probably almost every day. That's a good thing.
Speaker 3:I mean honestly. It means that bourbon's still alive, no matter what the news says. All the time is, there's still people that want the good stuff exactly, absolutely all right.
Speaker 2:So what one more question, not to and we can go through it quickly but um acquisition by pritzker private capital in uh 22? I love what you were talking about, pete, about uh collaboration and who you work with, and I also love your website talks about transparency, which, tony, I talk all the time about. Love the label and everything in kentucky not the state, but at least in this world it's a lot of lies like there isn't a lot of transparency.
Speaker 2:so the fact that you guys are like, hey, we're not signing contracts, but we're going to be collaborating and transparent, and all that kind of stuff, did that continue? So you put out the Fusion series, you put out the Discovery series, you're doing a lot of great things and all of a sudden it's like uh-oh, was it an uh-oh? The 2022 acquisition? Or is it like business as usual? Everything's great. Go down that road a little bit.
Speaker 4:I'll tell you what. When I first got to know Bardstown, when I was at Molson Coors previously, we started the Coors Whiskey Company and I came in there as a customer, originally to create and blend some whiskeys that are now commercialized as Five Trail and Barman. And I got to know Dan. I got to know Marker when the CEO and at the time Bardstown was owned by the trust of the founder and Constellation and the founder and constellation and the founder had recently passed away, and so they were trying to figure out what they wanted to do with this asset. And Mark Irwin said hey, would you guys at Molson cores ever be interested in taking a look at it? I said, mark, I would love to. He's like, that's all I need to know right now. Thank you, I'll come back to you. Well, he called me back a couple months later and said I just sold the whole company to Pritzker and I'm like son of a gun.
Speaker 3:I didn't even get a shot.
Speaker 4:Well, thanks for calling, I'm like, and so I immediately texted a couple of friends of mine at Pritzker and I'm like you, sons of they're, like we're so excited it's going to be awesome and it's they've. It's been awesome for Bardstone, it's been awesome for Pritzker and you know we've been a part of the Pritzker organization now since that time and they're great partners. They're really terrific.
Speaker 3:Why Lofted Just a subsidiary, just to kind of?
Speaker 4:is it? Taxes I don't know, no, no.
Speaker 3:Just curious, because it's so new A couple of reasons.
Speaker 4:So it provides us a little bit more clarity around our Lofted custom spirits. So it provides us a little bit more clarity around our lofted custom spirits, our contract manufacturing arm, and when we bought Green River, a lot of people thought Green River was owned by Bardstown. Well, they're both kind of the same, owned by the same company, so we wanted to clarify it for our own people.
Speaker 2:But totally separate.
Speaker 4:They're the same company. They're two separate distilleries and two separate brands. Right Got it. So now Lofted Spirits is the parent company. That there are two separate distilleries and two separate brands? Right Got it. But so now lofted spirits is the parent company that owns Bardstown bourbon company, green river and lofted custom spirits. It also gives us a platform if we wanted to expand into other things in the future.
Speaker 3:Oh, so other, even though even other types of spirits.
Speaker 4:you could do whatever you want. Yeah, We'll see.
Speaker 3:So you get to work so. So, dan, you get to work at both. You get an office at both places now, which is so cool.
Speaker 2:So you have two French horns Having multiple offices is cool.
Speaker 5:No, it's cool to go Because Green River is such the perfect juxtaposition of Barstown, bourbon.
Speaker 3:Company. I can tell you we spoke about it earlier.
Speaker 2:It's a house whiskey at our bar, somebody asks me all the time.
Speaker 3:You can imagine how many friends we all have. They're like hey, what should I buy? I'm going so-and-so and I'm like, what are you doing it for? And if we're like we're just going to try something, I'm like have you had this? And green river is, if it's not the first one I say it's, it's in the top two every single time. And a lot of it has to do you at the price point. Some people are too caught up on hey, I want to buy something in the 60 to 80 dollar range or whatever 200 dollar range and I'm like, yeah, I'm like you don't need to be there but then you try to give, give them numbers or names of things in those numbers.
Speaker 3:But I'll tell you, I, I love green river, I've had, we've. We actually had it the first time. I feel like we were down in bardstown, right, that was right. That was the last time we were there unfortunately.
Speaker 2:When did you roll that out or when did you guys acquire However you say?
Speaker 4:that. So I think Bardstown got sold to Pritzker, I think in February of 22. And I think they did the Green River purchase in July of 22. So I think the first time I saw Green River.
Speaker 3:I bet we were there in March or so. When was COVID 21?
Speaker 2:22 was still COVID March of 2020. It was still around.
Speaker 3:We've done a couple trips in COVID.
Speaker 1:We had to get sick I had COVID like eight times I was like oh, you're sick again. What do you?
Speaker 2:know, you know yeah, we're just going to say yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3:He didn't tell anyone.
Speaker 2:I just knew he was sick.
Speaker 3:I just didn't cover it up for a week.
Speaker 1:So Green River is.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's awesome and I love that you guys are doing foolproof and the weeded and it's like you're just taking one great thing and just kind of like going different directions.
Speaker 3:Are you guys doing a bunch of single barrel program with them, or is that?
Speaker 5:more through Bardstown, through Bardstown. The single barrel's coming. But the coolest thing for Green River is coming in June. We have a tasting room on Whiskey Row for Green River, right just a couple doors down from our Barsound Bourbon Company tasting room.
Speaker 3:It's going to be a game changer. We've got to get you guys to Lexington.
Speaker 2:We've got to get you guys to Lexington, I'm just saying as a Kentucky guy, how about we get there to that taste ignorant first.
Speaker 3:I know.
Speaker 2:I feel like Lexington's ripe. I'm just saying I feel like Tony's looking for a job today. Yeah, come on man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know if I have time for another job, yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, so I want to call we're going to call someone in here and am I Bluetooth? Am I bluetooth thin tony? You are yeah, so someone who is, uh, he's a buddy of mine. His name is jared allen. You guys might know him if you're uh, if you're into sports, and he is a big, big, huge fan of uh, of whiskey, drinking whiskey, all those good things. Jared you there with us. Yeah, I'm here. How are you man? What are you guys up to? We're just doing a little podcast.
Speaker 6:Have you heard of Bardstown Bourbon Company? I have you know what? Once or twice, I think you had a big guest on there today. Right and kind of famous for 60 Minutes. Right, Did I get?
Speaker 2:that right, I see it. Yes, I told him the same thing. I was like you're kind of famous now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have.
Speaker 2:Pete Marino here and Dan Calloway, and we're just kind of chatting about their I actually listened to not to cut you off, but I actually listened to.
Speaker 6:the first time you were in Bardstown, I listened to your podcast that you were with Dan in Bardstown.
Speaker 2:Right, it was the first time we met.
Speaker 6:And Dan, I apologize. I've known Mike a long time. He fanboyed out on you, so I apologize. But now that I get to clear the air as one of my friends, he represents me, so I just want to make sure we're all good.
Speaker 2:He's a cool dude. He's not a fanboy. He is, but he's a cool dude. I do fanboy a little bit that is.
Speaker 4:Jared, we're just trying to get Bardstown in the Hall of Fame, like you, so that's all we're trying to do.
Speaker 2:Congratulations, man. I don't even know if I told you that.
Speaker 6:Yeah, congrats, I appreciate it, thank you, thank you very much. I think you guys are on the way. You know what you guys are doing some good things down there. I tell you what one thing I appreciated about Bardstown from Dan, from that first podcast, I entire process of you know sourcing while you're, while you're distilling, while you're laying up and creating your, your blends, and and I think it was it was they called the infusion, what was?
Speaker 6:that yeah, yeah, fusion, yeah you know, fusion like series and stuff like that. So I I just really thought it was cool, because a lot of people I felt like at that time because again, that was a handful of years ago it feels like now. Um, I just feel like a lot of people at that time were kind of not wanting to admit they were sourcing and everybody wanted to be a distiller and you guys kind of were like dude, you're not going to create good juice overnight, so we're going to go out and find it and use our blenders and use the tool in our toolbox at this moment to create a good whiskey.
Speaker 2:And so hats off to you guys and that's such a big thing now, like even three, four, five years ago it wasn't. And you guys kind of like I mean you, you ran with that. I feel like I think, where everyone was like oh, I, I can't wait, so I'm gonna put out something that's crap or I'm gonna wait, and then you know, did we? Did you wait too long? But you were like no, we're gonna pull in good stuff, so we're always good, yeah and um.
Speaker 5:I think the best decision we made as a team was to just kick off with full transparency. This is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. We want you to taste what's coming off our stills. We need to balance it out with a little aged, but we want you to know exactly what you're drinking. That's why it's all glass looking into the distillery. And the coolest thing we've done is, as we've grown, we've still retained that transparency. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6:And grown, we've still retained that transparency. Yeah, yeah, and I think I think that's I mean other than anybody wants, right, I think the days of of the uh, the mysterious is like no, I mean, the master can only go so far. Yeah, so let's, let's really talk about the science that we're putting upon it and and the uh, and the people are I mean. Again, you guys correct me if I'm wrong this is too bold of a statement, but I think I think at some point, the master blenders hold a bigger value in the barrel.
Speaker 6:Oh, he's always got a big smile then, then, then the distillers itself, because at some point you I mean you can only, you can only fudge the percentages. So much, that's where the ideas come from like.
Speaker 2:That's why I'm not fanboying over here or whatever you said. But it's like like that's that again, the the barrel's only so much. So it's like who's who's over at Wild Turkey or at Sazerac or whatever, and where are the ideas coming from? Or are you just putting the same exact thing out? That guy is Dan this guy.
Speaker 3:He's the conductor, he's driving the bus, driving the bus.
Speaker 5:He's got a big head right now.
Speaker 4:I don't want those headphones to snap off and kill Mike's eye.
Speaker 3:I don't know what he's got to do the rest of the weekend, but he's going to be in a good mood.
Speaker 4:Mike put a helmet on.
Speaker 6:Well, I mean you guys could come out with a blend at $140 to market. I mean that's pretty bold, it's pretty awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love it. I think these guys are going to be down your way next week.
Speaker 5:Yeah, coming down Monday.
Speaker 4:Tuesday I'm in Nashville.
Speaker 6:I'm out of town. I get back Saturday or Sunday I'll be here. Hey, Jerry, did you know the?
Speaker 2:whiskey guys where they had that little house they moved to. Are you still a member?
Speaker 1:I am, I'm still a member. They were saying they might stop little house. They moved to a. I think are you still a member? Jb's whiskey house? They were saying they might stop by there.
Speaker 6:Okay, I've been paying a dues there for way too long and I think I've been there four times. I've never, I've never been to a new place. I went to, I went, I went to the. I've removed from what the place that Mike and I originally went over to the next door house, literally the house next door, and there was some weird like rapey bedroom in the back I think they're downtown right yeah yeah now he's got a.
Speaker 6:That was a standalone building. I heard they got bartenders. I heard it's all bougie now and now I'm like man. I really wish we had that rapey house any chance you get to work in the word rapey, I had never even heard that word
Speaker 6:I'm like holy shit, someone tells you to put the lotion in the basket yeah, that's what it felt like it was like okay guys, if you want to be part of this club, you got to stay with the, with the gimp in the back room. Um, I'm like I think I'm gonna pass. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure I still have like five or six bottles that I bought off, like barrel picks that I never picked up to. I should probably go down there, you guys will give me a good excuse to make it down there, okay, and you know we'll connect you guys.
Speaker 5:You got to come see us at the distillery too, just a couple hours. We'll take you all over, it'll be fun.
Speaker 6:Well, actually got. I got a question for you guys and then, when mike told me he was going to be on, I actually got a question for you and it just it was crazy. I love the preparation I knew I was going to my news feed today and just happened to pop up and was talking about some of these major liquor brands going into, you know, filing bankruptcy right?
Speaker 2:so I think stoli filed chapter 11 this year we were just talking about it, not on the podcast but yeah, true, yeah, and so a company like that, I mean so so how does the position itself in the marketplace.
Speaker 6:Uh-oh, it seems like you can use dollars to fail.
Speaker 2:The failing can't be compared against that you cut out for a second. Try it again. Ask the question one more time.
Speaker 6:Oh, I said you know. I said how does Bardstown, you know, how do you guys protect against what happened with Stille? Right, Stille, in all intents and purposes, you think, would be too big to fail, right, it's an iconic, you know, especially in the vodka brand. And then for them to file chapter 11, how do you guys position yourself in the market and then, as a company, how do you protect against ending up in a situation like that?
Speaker 4:Well, we've got a really smart ownership group.
Speaker 4:Uh, that are private wealth guys, private capital guys who kind of keep us, you know, from doing things that are maybe we. We, we want to make sure that we're very intentional about our growth. Um, and so we are. We're not quite even in 50 States We'll be in 45 States by the end of this year and so we are growing with intentionality. We've got great quality underpinning everything this year, and so we are growing with intentionality. We've got great quality underpinning everything we do, and so that really helps.
Speaker 4:Um, we also have, you know, we're not just reliant on one part of our business. Our business is a little bit more multidimensional. So the biggest part of our business today is making whiskey for others, correct, so our brand is kind of coming up and ascending. But the contract distillation part of our business has allowed us to overinvest in our brand, and so we've been able to invest in marketing and sales far ahead of what other brands our size would be able to do because of the multidimensional part of our business. Okay, and so that's, that's some built in protection that we have hospitality, we've got brand and we've got contract manufacturing. So those, those multiple dimensions help us and we try not to bite off more than we can chew. We try to stay as focused as we can, but growing with with pace, if that makes sense.
Speaker 6:No, absolutely yeah, Cause I always look at, I always look at brands that go. You know, they got 57 SKUs right and I'm like, well, all you're doing is selling your juice with a different makeup on a different pig, you know. And so I was always curious about that. You've got to have innovation, but at what point does innovation and growth take you too far one way, get you overextended. And so I read that article today about Stoli and a couple of the other, like Lee's out of Colorado, I mean Montana. I don't know if anybody's ever heard of montana distilling, but, um, maybe they have, I don't know. Oh, I was reading this. I was like, holy crap, like you know, you is it, is it one thing, is it is it, is it, you know, being too aggressive in the market? Is it not being aggressive enough? Is it too many skiers?
Speaker 2:I mean it could just be a bad, you know, badly run, but that was true well, pete was telling me because I'm glad we talked about this, uh, offline before we started but uh, there was one word and it came down to with stoli it was, it was russia, and I'm like oh, oh yeah, that's, that's they've. They've kind of crippled them pretty much. Talk about that for maybe a second yeah, so they've got, they got.
Speaker 4:They got hacked um by the russian government.
Speaker 4:Supposedly it's been by the government and so that that kind of crippled them but, yeah look, I spent a lot of time in the craft beer business before I joined the whiskey business and one of the lessons learned from craft beer is that all these craft brewers and there's still probably almost 10 000 of them, they all became had these places and tasting rooms and they'd said we've got a lot of people that visit us from Florida and they all say they want our brand in Florida.
Speaker 4:So we're going to go expand to Florida and if six or 10 people tell you they want you in Florida, you get excited about that as a brand owner. But that doesn't mean there's a market for you in Florida. And so if you extend yourself too far too fast and you don't really understand the, the capacity and the ability of your brand to really stretch, that's trouble. So we always thought about it as a home, backyard and beyond. You need to dominate your home. Our home is Kentucky, then you, then you push out to your backyard surrounding states and then you go beyond that. And so if you do it with some strategy and some intention, intention behind it, that prevents you from maybe stretching yourself too far too fast, where you can really get in trouble.
Speaker 6:Yeah, that's interesting. You almost got to take a local approach the entire way, right? Yeah, you know, keep it small.
Speaker 6:next thing, you know you're everywhere, yeah, and plus, I think you know, right now it's kind of a unique position for the whiskey world. It's just because we're now one of the few spirits that is solely American-based, you know, or at least bourbon, right, yeah, and now you know you're reading all these things with tequila, with even some vodka, all these companies, you know, with all the tariff issues right now, but it's like bourbon is kind of protected against that because it has to be made here in America. So I mean, depending on if you're trying to ship overseas or not, but when you talk about your own backyard, I think it's a good time right now for the bourbon world. I view it kind of like you know, there's a good little cleansing and the true brands will stick and anything with quality will will rise back to the top, I'm ready for that.
Speaker 3:Couldn't agree more, I think. I think the quality is the word. You said that that makes the most sense. Honestly, I think that I necessarily don't care where the brand's from, but the quality. The quality has to be there or you're going to be in trouble you gotta start with that as your bullseye, for sure, yeah.
Speaker 6:Yeah, and you look at, you look at, I think over through COVID, right, where everybody was. Everybody wanted to start a distillery in COVID, or even maybe slightly before that. But you know, like, like we talked about earlier, then you're rushing everybody's, rushing the market to sell four year juice or something you know. Try to make, try to make ends meet when again. That's why I I mean again, when you know listening, you guys talk openly about sourcing from other companies when you're making your own whiskey. I was like that's genius. It's just because now you care about the product, right, it's not an ego thing, it's a product thing, and I think when you put the product first, the consumer ultimately trust you yeah, I think he said barzone bourbon company was the genius, not you again.
Speaker 2:No, we're not.
Speaker 5:We're not to replay that. We'll have to replay that jared. I gotta tell you when you guys when.
Speaker 6:To tell you when you guys got bought by the Pritzkers, I was excited because some of the Pritzkers family from Chicago. They used to do some stuff with our foundation. I was like well maybe I'll get a free bottle of bourbon.
Speaker 4:Maybe we'll get together in Nashville and I said I've got one big learning coming out of this. I actually hate the Vikings a little less. Now you actually know what you're talking about.
Speaker 6:Okay, I appreciate it, you must be from Green Bay.
Speaker 4:He is yes, sir. I love you, yes, sir.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, love it.
Speaker 6:I will say I thought Clay's intro to the draft last night was pretty freaking funny.
Speaker 4:That was so great. I said a legendary Packer doing legendary things.
Speaker 6:Yes, that was good. You know, he's down here in Asheville too. Right, our kids all go to the same school.
Speaker 4:Awesome.
Speaker 6:Yeah, maybe I'll get. If you guys are in here, maybe I'll see. If he likes bourbon, we'll bring him over there you go. That'd be fun.
Speaker 2:Hey, man Jared, thanks for hopping on. You know a lot more than I thought you knew.
Speaker 1:Really so. Uh, really really is like. Is he reading notes right now?
Speaker 2:I think he's driving. He can't be loved it, loved it, loved it all right, thanks, man, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 6:All right, see you, buddy, take care bye he's hilarious, he's a.
Speaker 3:He's a good guy, that's fun, yeah a little bit more than you thought.
Speaker 3:Well then, I thought he would be impressed I got a question, though, back to the blending. So do you think that the blending portion of bardstown bourbon company was one of the key factors of going? I feel like blending when you talked about old bourbon, like old bourbon companies, right, heaven hills, the buffalo traces, the, the old, the old classics nobody blended. And now it's, it's cool and like. And I feel like when you guys first started at bars, not urban company you, you got into blending very, very early.
Speaker 3:I mean fusion was a blend. I mean that's what it was. It's like it was. It was a way to make money while your stuff was distilling, right, like it totally makes sense to me on a business side, but it was. I mean I don't know if that was the. I mean I obviously, I know the transparency and I know they had the, the computer systems that would help different people and they were trying to be state-of-the-art and all that stuff. But ultimately it comes down to a decision of this blending and, yeah, was it just right time, right place or was it just you guys are really good at it? I mean I, I don't. I, it's awesome that it has worked out, because it's something I really like.
Speaker 2:Let Dan answer the question.
Speaker 5:I got a lot of questions there. No, you nailed it. Fundamentally, the idea of making blends while our core product aged was, like Jared said, not my decision, a genius decision from the company, and it really set the stage for what we call it, our core four right, our six-year age, stated origin series bourbon and rye. How we were able to establish the brand, though, was through blending and finishing, and what I I feel like we led the industry in was aged, transparent, creative blends.
Speaker 5:And then this idea of collaborative partnerships where we call out the partner brand on the label. It previously you know it helps.
Speaker 3:I'm sure I'm selling right Because you get to you get to use their and and.
Speaker 5:When we started, we were the tiny brand, so if we, when we landed someone like it like a big Cabernet or or run, like prisoner.
Speaker 3:I got the Prisoner one over there. That's an easy example because Prisoner's right there. Anybody that knows anything about wine knows about the Prisoner's Pinot, the reds of Prisoner right, and I'm not a wine guy but I know what Prisoner is Right.
Speaker 5:And so coming out of the gate there as a way to build our brand equity through these legitimate, awesome creative partnerships yeah, blending and finishing is is how it started.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, yeah, it was cool because I yeah, it was just. I don't know if it's right time or you know right, right product at the right time or what, but it seemed to have really been really solid.
Speaker 5:The timing's incredible when, when we came out of the gate too, there was an excess of aged, beautiful inventory that we could go pick up and buy and, as that started to slow down, from all over the country.
Speaker 3:You got stuff from everywhere, not only in our country. You got it from Canada.
Speaker 5:I don't know about Japan, but I know you got it from all over the place, yeah, and we were able to bring it in and as that started to reduce a little bit was the exact time that our core product came of age. That's cool. So the exact time that our core product came of age, that's cool. So you know the business model. It really worked with the timing.
Speaker 3:How'd you become?
Speaker 5:a Salmonier, a whiskey. Note cards, all note cards.
Speaker 3:No way.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I was a musician for for for all my twenties and then I met a girl from Kentucky and and moved up and, uh, you know, that's your wife?
Speaker 2:I assume yes.
Speaker 6:All right. Wow, that was like a weird transition.
Speaker 3:The animals just fell off the cliff it was like, oh, this guy's so great and all of a sudden his smile went away. Boom, His head shrunk.
Speaker 2:And goodbye here. We're going to close quickly.
Speaker 5:No, exactly, but I wasn't sure what to do. What to do? And I'd always love spirits and cocktails, and I I went decided to get my psalm certification, which is all history and um geography and then tasting.
Speaker 3:Do you remember as a kid like being able to taste different things, or is it just something that's can you train yourself like anything else?
Speaker 5:train yourself, I think I always loved it uh, and then you know what you like, which helps a ton in this industry and I see it in. One of my sons has the same little thing where he's just obsessed with little flavors. But I just studied a ton, honestly, and had some really good mentors, uh, throughout the thing that, and they kind of taught me how to do it and, um, then, from wine it was, it was a nice transition into bourbon, honestly it was just a lot.
Speaker 5:You started with wine and went to bourbon and I was cocktails too, living in new orleans. Always, yeah, made cocktails, studied that, but the wine was the formal training on on tasting and and blending to an extent and then just switched into bourbon, but I always, and still to this day, just have had awesome mentors.
Speaker 4:That's awesome I love a transition. He's the sorry. He's the bourbon version of the most interesting man in the world he really is.
Speaker 3:I I agree with that. Like that's really cool.
Speaker 4:He doesn't always drink bourbon, but when he does, he prefers Bardstown.
Speaker 3:That's right he doesn't prefer he only has Bardstown.
Speaker 2:Well, I was going to say I love a transition, but I love a good transition. So we came right back to the whiskey, we came right back to actually talking about the notes?
Speaker 3:Can we taste about what we're going to have?
Speaker 2:Now, let's do it. Let's do what we're here to do. Alright, so back to this is a Bardstown Bourbon Company Cathedral, French Oak Barrel Finish. It is 110.1 proof. They are only am I correct that they're only at the distillery's gift shop? Yep, so you gotta go down to Bardstown to get them.
Speaker 2:Came out in February $99.99 for I'll call it a half bottle which is 375 milliliters and you pull the back of the label and I'll be quick 45%. 14-year juice Kentucky 37.5%. 18-year juice Kentucky 10%. 11-year 5%. 9-year 2.5%. We're back to a 17-year. Like this is some good job, let's. Dan, can you tell me the what's, what's our, what's our color here? Like it's?
Speaker 3:dark.
Speaker 5:I don't do color like it looks like a rum, like yeah, holy shit and it's color so interesting because I love when it starts to get this kind of that's a cherry, that's a cherry color?
Speaker 2:it is a cherry, like you know. That's a dorky thing, like I like. I love it and that's just purely aesthetic.
Speaker 5:When I see it it makes me want to taste it. But uh, a lot of that's from the french oak and, and you know, first floor, minimal extraction on color. It took. It took a while. Yeah, obviously it's going to be dark, and then the key that really makes it rich is lower proof to bottling proof minimal water.
Speaker 5:Yeah, because it was on the first floor. When you age on the first floor for 14 months, you're going to lose two or three proof points. That's it. So it was really coming out of the barrel. It was about 140.
Speaker 3:Did you char this?
Speaker 5:at all, or is this just clean?
Speaker 2:The second barrel was toasted Really quick let me cover it so, cathedral French Oak and it's a blend of 100% Kentucky bourbons aged between 9 and 18 years and then finished for 14 months in barrels that are 300-year-old French oak, year old french oak, and you were connected through to that through, uh, the wood that they were trying to find to rebuild.
Speaker 3:Uh, notre dame, yeah, is that correct? Yeah, okay, I just wanted.
Speaker 2:We didn't like actually say all that, and if we did, then I repeated it. Well, you got it. We're back to full circle.
Speaker 3:I love it, yeah okay, uh, what I want to do here, with exactly right with our notes and tasting.
Speaker 2:I know like we could. Like dan is kind of cheating because he knows the back of his hand, but I want to hear how he goes into it a little bit, and then you and I can do our thing, yeah, which we're also really fucking good at. So I mean, come on Anyway, cheers, guys, cheers.
Speaker 3:Oh, they need some more in some of their cups here. Some of those cups are low Cheers.
Speaker 2:They need some more in some of their cups. Some of those cups are low. You brought it for us, so of course you're welcome to have more. Drink it up.
Speaker 5:One trick that's really interesting some of the best tasting Glencairns once it's empty is actually a really nice way to come back to it Really Is that where you get the best nose. I mean because you take out some of the ethanol to me and it's just kind of what is your theory on a chilled glass?
Speaker 3:just crushes it. Don't do it total personal preference.
Speaker 5:I, I don't normally. Usually when things are too cold, it's you're going to lose a lot of the sensory.
Speaker 3:Um, but if you enjoy that feeling, I'm not a big fan of adding water to it, but like I like it chilled, so it's like. It's like I almost need to figure out how to. Maybe you guys need to store some of the good ones in the fridge.
Speaker 5:I think, yeah, it's if you chill, it's just going to make it easier to go down.
Speaker 3:But you might lose some of the smell. You smell what you're losing.
Speaker 2:That's cool, just question all right, let's do it. Think putting in 14 months in these barrels affected the nose more or the palate, the palate more, okay, yeah. So nose, nose. What do you? What do you get in? You're getting a lot of classic.
Speaker 5:Kentucky Right, a lot of oak, and I think I said it in 60 minutes. But if you think about it as a seesaw, which to me just always works right, if we drink a six-year, you're going to be beautiful, balanced, but closer to the grain. Okay so you literally smell more like the actual corn and as that goes, if you get to 18 years with a double barrel you've swung the other way and the challenge is can you double barrel without it being all tree, no fruit.
Speaker 3:Where's that middle? Do you think it's like 10 to 12?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know, yeah, what's your favorite age? Do you have a favorite?
Speaker 5:It totally depends on where the barrel was aged Did you hear that.
Speaker 3:He was going to say it was a great question. I know I saw that you were so close. Almost Mike's head got big. You saw that His head almost got big and his lamb was just left.
Speaker 5:All right, sorry, keep going, no it depends on where it's aged, because you can have, if it spends its whole life on the first or second floor, 12 years. It might need more time.
Speaker 3:But for bourbon, honestly, 8 to 12 years is just such a sweet, that's a run. Six years is where you find the balance, I think, to start, and that's why it's so important that these are six years old. If you get to four, to me it's just way too basic, right? It's like that's the that's. There's a reason that to be a bourbon, it's four years a minimum.
Speaker 5:Yeah, probably for a reason, but this if you go, if you go, this old yeah four year really.
Speaker 4:You're getting two year really that's true.
Speaker 5:You're, you're, you're seesaw swung but.
Speaker 2:But it's Tony, no side conversations, he's talking the seesaw swung.
Speaker 3:You just sell the two-year, yeah, four years, where you really start.
Speaker 5:Six is the spot. But you're swung this way where you're so decadent right. And if you're going to have that wood, you need the sugar to back it up, which to me, is why the second barreling can give that because you're going to get If. Give that because you're going to get if. If it's toasted and it's not overly tannic, you can extract the wood sugar without all the grip. So this has a dry finish but the sugar balances it. Are you able?
Speaker 3:to use those barrels twice, or is it?
Speaker 5:like a one time immediately.
Speaker 3:I think they have so much left to give. Just curious because it's so tight. I was curious that at 14 months is a long time, but when you were talking about the rings being really tight and, yeah, like, could you get a second, could you get lucky and have a cathedral two after 24 months, it's coming.
Speaker 5:You nailed exactly, I guess.
Speaker 3:Hey, I want, tony is applying you might, maybe I am working, maybe I might be working yeah yeah, so they're, they're filled, they aging, they're on a lower form, just curious. We'll see. You know, it is what it is.
Speaker 2:All right, so novice nose notes would be Just start.
Speaker 5:I think there's some smoke there.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 5:I mean from the toast, from the two barrels you're always going to get a little more smoke.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's a toast.
Speaker 5:Maybe a smoke's not the right word word, but there's definitely a high toast yeah, and to me, whenever I say classic kentucky, classic kentucky, it's always three flavors that are just you kind of assume they're there caramel, vanilla, baking spice oh, baking spice, I would have said oak.
Speaker 3:I would have said oak because of the three, but that's I guess. Oak is just coming and you would have been wrong.
Speaker 2:All right, let's. Uh, I was close, I would have had two of the three.
Speaker 3:let let's move to the palate Cheers again, guys. This I can't wait for, because everything I've read about really enjoys this.
Speaker 2:So we're over 100 podcasts and Tony says almost every time like podcast 50 forward, he doesn't really get the taste until he's tasted it three times. Three sips, that's what it takes for me. Three small sips. So a Glen takes for all sips, so a glenn karen call it like less than an ounce. Three sips are in there. Do you agree or disagree?
Speaker 5:um, I do you get a bam on the first one with it. If I was really gonna dive into a flavor, I'd taste it if I was being official three different times in the day, because you kind of I think you you might sit at night middle in the day so not in a row.
Speaker 2:I did a tasting once and it was like too close to toothpaste and I'm like you want us to taste at 11 am. I'm like I just I woke up late and I, yeah, like morning, afternoon, night are very different and most importantly, whatever your first taste of the day is going to taste really strange to me, it always.
Speaker 3:Uh, I have to get re-acclimated to sipping that's cool, so so it's just yeah, the finish on that definitely some banana, fosters Banana.
Speaker 5:It's got well. That's the challenge.
Speaker 3:There's some banana on the end of that.
Speaker 5:There's fruit all over this yes. And that's why I think this thing's special is because we got the age and the seesaw all the way this way, but there's still tons of fruit and sugar, which is the banana.
Speaker 3:The banana fosters is something like. That's a, that's a distinguishable taste for me. Yeah, and, and it's if you, I love bananas. I'm telling you there's some of that in there, yeah.
Speaker 2:It almost tastes like someone dropped a cocktail cherry in it. Yeah, there's like that, that like stickiness and that extra sugar at times it's not all the time and you said you think it dries, it finishes dry.
Speaker 5:Not as a negative. I think it has a dry finish but there's enough sugar there where it's a balanced finish.
Speaker 3:No, I think it's excellent. Yeah, the sugar is still there. The fruit in this is more than I was anticipating.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no, me too me too, like way more. Yeah, I always I.
Speaker 2:I think sticky cherry was a cool, cool way to describe it, and bonanza foster, absolutely yeah, would you say, um, like old enough to where it's like getting a little like, not like port wine, but a little like a little deserty.
Speaker 5:Yeah, the dessert I wouldn't. To me, this is at the very end of the line for age. Bourbon, right once the the dessert. I equate to sugar fruit, bananas, foster if you started going another year.
Speaker 4:You would just have kind of the tree notes my palate is the least sophisticated of the four of us by far, and I would say this one for me there's a decadence to it, but you can enjoy it more than it's not a one and done. You could have a couple of these at night and you could still enjoy it, because there's complexity to it.
Speaker 3:No, I agree, a thousand percent yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's not. Uh, we said 110, uh, 0.1. Uh, was that, was that proof real quick? Uh, we said 110.1. Was that proof real quick? Was there something about that or is that just how it came out? A?
Speaker 5:little bit of both I picked up and I don't know why I didn't think about this earlier is just to taste it without knowing what the proof is. You know, I think for the first, however long, doing bourbon, I would just proof it. You know, here's 112, here's 111, here's 110, and do it Started just doing water droppers. And I should mention, when I say taste, I mean our company has some of the best bourbon tasters I've ever met and they're in all the different departments right, everyone from sales to finance, of course, our quality team.
Speaker 2:And I'll usually sit things on my desk so, like the whole company, tastes it Absolutely. It's not just like oh, we have 12 guys and gals, they don't let me do it.
Speaker 3:Wait, pete, you get to fight out. I was like wait.
Speaker 2:Pete's sitting at his desk and all of a sudden he's working on some paperwork and there's a whiskey and I'm like wait a minute, that officially is the field's job.
Speaker 1:I am looking for a job now.
Speaker 5:We touched, touched on. We touched on our innovation, our transparency. The third core tenant of the company, is collaboration right and yeah, we work on everything together. We do a tasting panel where our chef, our beverage director in there, um it's it's so much more fun.
Speaker 4:That's so cool yeah, it's, it makes it a blast the next time you guys come we'll do a tasting panel with you. Some stuff we're working on oh that'd be fun, did you?
Speaker 2:so? Are you all the way down like like how many you're talking about, like water droppers, and changing the proof? Are you tasting this at like 10.1 9.9?
Speaker 5:it's a great question like uh, I'd say half proof points when you get close, because no, no, no I'm sorry, no, half of a digit.
Speaker 2:That's what I mean. So like 110, 110.5, 111. Yeah but still that's my news. I'm wrong, tony. Our brains work at like something in the 90s, something in the 100s. I'm sorry, bonded 100. Then we get to like 110. Then we're like oh, we love Old Forrester at 115. Then you're like oh, something's in the 120s and the 130s like we go in 10.
Speaker 3:I'm going through points, so you're going in halves. Holy shit that's yeah, no, I mean, like, for me, I I'm. I always tell people, okay, I, I love weeders, I love the sweeter, the sweeter, and this this actually classifies it to me. In my opinion it's very sweet. Maybe it's the, it's the front, it's all the fruit really I think it's very.
Speaker 5:It's like you mentioned earlier with where you didn't care as much for rye, but then when you get to an 18 year rye it would be trying to written house rise yeah, once you get to that very long barrel age, it really makes rye difference. It makes it different, completely different, yeah yeah, and you lose a lot of that mint and you just get a little bit of the spice yeah, it's not even the mint.
Speaker 3:To me it's a little bit of that spice like you get. You get rid of that, that, that high spice, that like that comes at you immediately and it just it starts different and you'll get the spice and you'll get the long run.
Speaker 2:I think actually you don't. He said it.
Speaker 3:I think you don't like the minty ones that might be what I don't even think you know you don't like those, but I think maybe that's what it is you don't like the minty anyway, um, maybe I mean I, I could tell you right now, like if I'm at a, if I'm at a liquor store and I see bourbon and I can look up the mash bill, and if I see you know a six to ten year bourbon and it's got, you know, 70 percent uh corn and it's not a crazy price. I take a flyer on it a lot and if it's a weeder, it's even more To me. I even take it another step. I'm like I'm in I'll probably spend an extra 15 bucks on it. You know what I mean. That's just kind of where I'm at. And I know Mike is a little different. Mike likes more rye stuff. He's more of a four-rose. More rye stuff. He's, he's more of a four row. You like your four roses and you like your Russell's and you love your wild turkey.
Speaker 3:You like your your high ride and there's nothing raw, it's just what you prefer. Like if I'm just having a sip at my house, you get what you want. You don't get what you want to try, you just get what you want.
Speaker 4:That is a cool thing in bourbon, Even the most discerning guys are like find out what you like and join the party, and that's I think it's awesome.
Speaker 2:So fucking true of the beer world. It was like, well, what? But what if I don't like Pilsner's? Like what if I don't? It was like, uh, well then, get out brewery, what? Yep, okay, I thought you wanted to sell that nine dollar beer to me, like absolutely that sucked.
Speaker 3:I hated it so, mike, you're gonna do it. You're gonna uh do our sip rating here are we gonna try to max with that tonight you guys don't have to do it, but sip rating shareable uh, I first of all.
Speaker 2:It's a half bottle, so I'm not sharing there's only half.
Speaker 3:I was in the same boat. I was just gonna see if you were gonna say I'm keeping this, so I'm not sharing it.
Speaker 2:Um, influence, the eye for us is influence. I mean barstown bourbon company. We've uh, I think you've been drinking whiskey longer than I have I'm probably like nearing the 15 year point and um, I feel like they've kind of been uh with that journey the whole time and it's been really cool to be part of it. So huge influence there. Uh, price I wish, I wish, uh, dan and pete made this a little cheaper you know, because it's it, it's.
Speaker 2:It's a hundred bucks for half. Let's call what it is. It's a $200 bottle. It's a hundred dollar half bottle, but it's like crazy. I mean, come on.
Speaker 3:It's 300-year-old.
Speaker 2:Crazy, rare stuff. You're not buying 18-year-old barrels of anything. It had to be that no matter what. And do you want Pete to do another lesson for you of profits?
Speaker 3:No, I get it. No, no, no, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 2:So then I get it, so I'm fine with the price. So I'm actually thinking it hits on all three.
Speaker 3:Shareable to me is I'm not sharing it unless somebody knows what they're talking about, because this is good stuff. Influence is off the charts. I've been a big fan of Barstown since you guys started. I have followed you guys and obviously have some of your old bottles here, so it's kind of crazy. I know some of the stuff over here. So it's kind of crazy, like I've I've know some of the stuff over there. And then price for me is it's I just you don't find it's hard to find new, good bourbon under a hundred bucks. I hate to say it like that. It's just us, it's anything that's that's really worth it that somebody is going outside. And then this with this being such a small collaboration, anything with six barrels to me is kind of such a crazy small number of bottles. I mean I know what that is. That's 1,200 bottles. I mean that's all you got. So at $100, it is what it is. That's where I'm at. For me I'm probably not sharing it unless I really like you and everything else is super positive.
Speaker 4:Well, thank you guys. Thank you, you guys are always welcome. It's been too long since you've come and visit us, so our doors are wide open for you guys anytime, and we appreciate the support.
Speaker 2:I mean the new tasting room is. You said it's going to be big, right like sports bar, big, the bar sounds open it's the green river is opening that's what I'm saying. The bar sounds open. The green river is the one, the new one that I want to hear about, that's right on Main Street.
Speaker 4:It's three doors down from our Bardstown tasting room on Main Street. It's going to be awesome. It's going to look and feel very different than the Bardstown one, in line with both of the different brands. It's going to be a cool space. There's a speakeasy in the back. There's going to be a little stage for music Ballpark when it opens. Middle of June.
Speaker 2:Sweet. Middle of June. All right.
Speaker 3:We're going to go out with some Parker McCollum.
Speaker 6:Big fan of this guy. I love this guy.
Speaker 3:We saw this guy at Windy City Smokeout last year Solid.
Speaker 2:He's solid, but we agree that he disappointed a little bit.
Speaker 3:Well, he shouldn't be a closer. He's got too many slow songs, but it's okay. I like his music a lot.
Speaker 2:Two guys in their 40s also shouldn't be at a country music festival with a bunch of young kids.
Speaker 3:I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:That was also weird. We had our wives with us.
Speaker 3:We had our wives with us.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, shot Tuggy. Bourbon Brothers. Mike and Tony, we take care of the whiskey, so you could focus on with whom you share it. Pete Dan, barstown, bourbon Company Holy shit, this was awesome. Great to have Jared as well. Thanks for being here, guys, thanks for being here, guys, and thanks for bringing some spectacular juice. Yes, if you go to Kentucky, you've got to stop. It's a must-have, must-do now.
Speaker 5:Thanks guys, Peace out.
Speaker 2:I know.
