The Noble Dram | Out on That Boot Hill Distillery (Season 2 | Ep. 11)

What happens when Aaron heads back to his roots?

In this special Aaron's alma mater episode, we're traveling to Dodge City, Kansas to visit one of the most unique soil-to-sip distilleries in America: Boot Hill Distillery.

Joining us are Boot Hill owner and Master Distiller Hayes Kelman and Distiller Lee Griffith for a conversation that goes far beyond whiskey. We dive deep into the Kansas way of life, discussing farming, grain, weather, risk, entrepreneurship, and the patience required to turn a seed in the ground into a world-class whiskey.

Kansas isn't just where Aaron grew up, it's a place built on hard work, resilience, and agriculture. Those same values are poured into every bottle produced at Boot Hill Distillery. Hayes and Lee share the stories behind the whiskey and why understanding grain is just as important as understanding barrels.

This episode is about more than what ends up in your glass. It's about the people, land, and decisions that make great whiskey possible.

🥃 We’re pouring:
• Boot Hill Distillery Straight Wheat Whiskey
• Boot Hill Distillery Wabash Reserve: 1863

Whether you're a bourbon fan, a whiskey nerd, a farmer, or simply someone who loves hearing the stories behind great spirits, this is a conversation you won't want to miss.

Have you tried Boot Hill Distillery? Let us know your favorite Kansas whiskey in the comments below.

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Transcript

Aaron 0:00

Oh, pour me a glass where the cattle drive past.

Gavin 0:04

Where the distiller still grows their own grain.

Aaron 0:08

Made on top of Boot Hill in a copper pot still.

Gavin 0:12

And the whiskeys as smooth as their name.

Aaron 0:16

Oh, it's home on the range. And we're drinking Kansas whiskey. Cheers, y'all.

Gavin 0:56

Tonight, we have a special one. It's a big one. It's a big one. So we've mentioned in the past that both Aaron and I grew up kind of in the Midwest-ish area, right? Middle, middle of the country. Me in Oklahoma, this guy in Kansas. The great state of Kansas. The great state of Kansas. So that's what they call it. Just so that everyone out there can get um get to know us a little better, we're gonna start alumni episode right here tonight.

Aaron 1:27

I'm excited. So um this means we get to go K-State and more importantly, Kansas in general. And so I got to pick a distillery. That's right. Uh so I selected uh a group called Boot Hill Distillery out of Dodge City, Kansas, and reach out to the guys because unfortunately, Kansas whiskey in Texas is harder to come by than I had hoped. Um, and they were nice enough to send us a handful of bottles and agree to be on the episode with us here tonight. So I want to introduce both Hayes Kelman and Lee Griffith from Boot Hill Distillery. Gentlemen, how are you guys doing this evening? Doing great, doing great, great to be with you. Thanks for having us. All right. So, one of the problems we have every time we do one of these is we start with no whiskey in our glass. So I'm gonna I'm gonna start us off here with a couple glasses. Uh, first, pour of the night, we're gonna try the make sure I get all my notes and don't miss anything here. This is the straight wheat whiskey clocking in at 100 proof. 50% AVB for the uh the metric people in this world. Oh man, I got it all over the counter.

Gavin 2:44

Look at you. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Let me get some of this. So if you don't know, any whiskey spilt becomes cologne. Cologne. It works great till the cop pulls him over on the way home tonight.

Aaron 3:02

Unless it's a female, then it might help then. All right, guys, I want to start off talking just a second before we we we get into the distillery um and its history. Tell us some of the specs on this, because this is not, we have to be very careful about this. This is not a wheated bourbon. This is a 100% wheat whiskey. So before we get way down the rabbit hole, why straight wheat whiskey?

Hayes 3:39

Main reason Kansas. What's Kansas known for? And we're the breadbasket.

Aaron 3:44

Uh well, and pretty ladies. But I mean pretty ladies. There you go. Exactly. They go well with whiskey, but you can't make whiskey out of them. So for those who don't know, I grew up in western Kansas, actually, not too far down the road. I say that everything in Kansas is pretty far apart. So when you say not far, it's still an hour plus drive. What's your what's your hometown? I grew up in a small town called Hayes, Kansas.

Gavin 4:12

Wait, like Hayes?

Aaron 4:13

No, spelled differently. Spelled a little differently, they spelled differently.

Lee 4:17

Yeah.

Aaron 4:17

Oh, they spelled that one.

Gavin 4:19

All right, all right.

Aaron 4:20

Um, all right, but these guys are in Dodge City, Kansas.

Gavin 4:23

Get out of Dodge.

Aaron 4:25

The classic reference for Dodge Morning, right? So, guys.

Gavin 4:30

Make sure you get it all the time.

Aaron 4:31

Never heard that one. Never heard that one. So, for those who aren't familiar with Dodd City, Dodd City is known for being the Wild West, the world of the saloons, um, Wyatt Derp, Doc Holiday, all that stuff. Let's talk about why you guys decided to bring a distillery back to Dodd City. Because when you guys did this, there was nobody making spirits anywhere close to there, right?

Hayes 5:01

Not even hardly. There was a couple distilleries in Kansas. Well, there was uh, you know, one of the big distilleries, MGP in Kansas there, um, making making vodka and and uh gin primarily. Uh other than that, there was when we started this, maybe two or three other distilleries. I can't even remember, but no more than very few. Uh especially west of Kansas City, there were basically none. So um really it came from a uh wanting to do more, wanting to vertically integrate the farm. Um, so I'm I'm a fifth generation farmer. We grow corn and wheat on the farm. We've been doing it for generations, obviously. Um when I was looking at coming back and being a farmer, I said, uh, you know, that's not gonna keep me busy enough. I need to find something else to do. And uh, you know, that was an interesting thought for a uh for a young guy without a family that I needed to be busier.

Aaron 5:57

But um that sounds like the attitude of a young man.

Hayes 6:01

Okay, you just need more, right? Yes. Hindsight, um, I don't know that I need more, but uh yeah, yeah. We kind of figured it out, and uh there's no going back now. So um yeah, I wanted to to vertically integrate our farm, figure out a way that we could do more with grains, not just sell it into the commodity market and um be done. Now we get to take care of our of our corn and our wheat from the moment we put the seed in the soil until the moment you take your first sip. Uh soil the sip is our uh kind of trademark slogan that we follow. We follow it very strictly. I mean it's uh everything that we distill is uh grain grown on our farm.

Speaker 4 6:43

Yeah, if we can't grow it, we don't make it.

Aaron 6:46

Yeah, that was one of the things when kind of doing a little digging, I um and I don't I don't want to steal thunder from where where the other bottles that are sitting on the table are, but but um there's some things about the whiskey that you normally see in others, i.e. malted barley, that doesn't exist. Um, and so my first question was as a kid who grew up in farming country, is that primarily because uh barley just doesn't grow well in kind of the dry Texas or dry Kansas heat? Um or was it more malting related with no other distilleries in the area? I'm assuming finding a malt or anywhere close to Dodd City is tough.

Hayes 7:30

Correct. Yeah, the nearest malt house is six, seven hour drive one way. Um, and so that was a decision we had to make as you know, do we want to the inefficiencies of trucking our grain? If we're 100% our grain, then uh do we really want to truck it six hours one direction, leave it there for the time it takes to malt, then send the truck back out, pick it up. Um just didn't seem that efficient. So uh we use liquid, liquid amylase, and then we're able to use 100% of our own grain. Uh, we do grow barley. We we grow a little bit of barley, a little bit of rye, and you can actually malt wheat for that matter, too. So someday it's a dream uh we will build our own malt house and uh make our own Kansas single malt whiskey or uh make make some other products with malt. Um, not sure when, but that's down the road.

Aaron 8:22

It sounds like a business opportunity for some uh entrepreneur in the Dodd City area to start malting grains for you guys. That'd be even better.

Gavin 8:30

I'd love for somebody else to or if you want to design and build a malting house, just a rotisserie malter in the back patio.

Hayes 8:38

Just going to just let us know that too. I uh I have a couple sketches drawn up that I've I've come up with, but I don't know how, you know.

Gavin 8:46

Well, I'm sure somebody has to do it. Well, let's talk. Let's talk later.

Hayes 8:49

Sure.

Aaron 8:51

But but to the notion of kind of having to build everything, right? Not having an infrastructure you guys can take over. Um let's talk about the building to start with, because I think that the story of the building, where it is and how it ties to the community, I think is really, really cool.

Hayes 9:09

Yeah, Lee's our local historian. I'm gonna let him jump in.

Speaker 4 9:12

Well, so we're coming to you today from this looks like just a brick wall behind us. We're coming to you today from the old city jail. Um the building that uh Hayes basically purchased and rehabilitated was City Hall. This was the city municipal building. So it was purposely designed and built to hold all the city services under one roof. Um, it was completed in 1920, started in 19 uh construction started in 1927 and it was completed in 1929. Um, so it was built as uh anything that had to do with the city at that time. So the police department, the fire department, the city uh clerk's office, city jail, which is where we are right now, uh, city courtroom, and the clerk's office were all housed uh in this building. And it remained a city building. Well, basically clear up until he bought it in 2014, but it had not been used for nearly uh gosh, 15 years uh prior. So it had the city owned it, but it was basically vacant and and unused and unoccupied. Um, and so you know at that point, you know, what happens to a building when it sits? Well, it starts to kind of deteriorate. And, you know, this is just as much of a story of of taking uh of uh repurposing an old building as opposed to tearing it down and turning it into something else. Um much like um, you know, much like we're using our own green and turning it into something else, this is repurposing a building and doing so. Um so this the um uh it's it's our it's our home base, it's our base of operations, it's a historic building, and so we're basically forced to, you know, what we're the the building is the building we have to use within the confines of what it is. Uh we can't expand. There's no room to expand anywhere around here. So we're we kind of have to use the space that we have and use it as best as possible. Um so we're distilling in the old firehouse. Uh the distilling operation is where the fire department used to be, where the fire trucks used to be parked. Um our bottling operation is also in that same space. Um our the and then the rest of the building is devoted towards uh front of house, tasting room, uh public spaces, uh our offices, um, and uh areas that can try to generate other money. So we've this room we rent out for meetings and and things like that. But uh it's also sort of where we if we want to feel important about ourselves, we'll have our meetings in here and and do podcasts. So um uh but you know, if I if I can go back just uh a little bit of it of where the namesake comes from, you know, we're Boot Hill Distillery. Well, the building was built on the original Booth Hill Cemetery location dating back to the 1870s, and so there's a lot of history underneath our feet right now. Uh and um, you know, Dodge City was known as this Wild West uh violent uh outpost, and it was a hard-drinking town. And so in many cases, uh you know, we're sort of paying homage to that history uh of of making spirits where spirits were once laid to rest, I guess. Um, but also like I said, this was uh this was a town that had had a reputation for being uh um uh a a raucous and wild place to be at a certain at a at one time. And so we're sort of caretakers of that history as well.

Aaron 12:41

But you guys you guys have built a facility that isn't just a distillery, right? Like I I know I mean most distilleries have some level of a tasting room and stuff, but you guys have gone a kind of beyond that and kind of made it a community space as well, right? I I apologize, I have not lived in Hayes in a long time. I had moved long before you guys started this, so I haven't had a chance to come by the distillery, but I have to put it on my list for next time.

Speaker 4 13:07

That's completely fair. I think if there's anything that I'm most proud of of what Hayes has built here, and you know what we've been a part of, what I've had a chance to be a part of, and is is the fact that yes, with this building was about ready to be torn down. It was about ready to be turned into a parking lot. And we have now taken something that was dilapidated, uh, that was full of pigeons and water leaks and broken out windows, it was urban blight, slum and blight, and we've turned it into a destination. And it's a place that, you know, not only you know, we get a lot of people that are passing through. This is a obviously Dodge City is a tourist destination because of the name of Dodge City. Um, you know, and we see a lot of people that are passing through, but this is also a local watering hole as well. And you know, we are you know, we get it, we see our tourists in the in the in the early afternoon as they're passing through, and then we get our locals over the evening that are coming into our tasting room to have our uh you know, try our craft cocktail menu. And so, yes, we've absolutely turned this into a destination location of a place that uh can be enjoyed. And that is that is also celebrates the history that's around here on this area. We're we're right off the downtown area, um, just to the south of us is where the Booth Hill Museum is. And um, you know, we're kind of seeing a resurgence of interests and building and investment in our downtown community. And I'm you know, I well I I I'd like to say that we're a big part of that, and a big reason that it happened to begin with.

Aaron 14:38

So I gotta I want to make sure you ask this question because this is a good one, and I I felt bad that it wasn't one I wrote down.

Gavin 14:45

So as um most people see whiskey um in the glass, right? But I think you see fields and weather and farming and months of uncertainty sometimes, right? Or even years when it comes to the whiskey. Um has making whiskey changed how you look at risk when it comes to farming and whiskey all in general?

Hayes 15:22

Yeah, I would say so. I mean, so it's you know it's it's such a long-term play, right? So it's you know, it's it's pretty scary when we're we take whiskey and especially in the early days. And you can see from we see it every day when when we look at our our barrel aging sheets, and we were trying to pick out a new uh, you know, a couple of barrels for another blend of something or other. Of we were, you know, we were pretty careful early on. We were really wanting to get things right. It took us um, when did we finally start putting bottles or barrels of bourbon away? I didn't, you know, we we didn't love the way that our bourbon tasted early on, just the the new Mc bourbon for about a year or two, maybe a little over a year. A little over a year, and it finally was okay. I think you know we're we're happy with this. We we threw a lot of a lot of good whiskey away um just because we weren't too happy with it. And and so even still, then you're you're putting this fresh whiskey, you have no clue. Um, you know, I always tell people this kind of in this uh question, but I guess I'm getting a little bit ways out. But the way we learned how to make whiskey was we literally we didn't hire anybody to come tell us how to make whiskey. We didn't say come in and you know, bring in a head distiller of XYZ distillery to teach us how to make whiskey. Because you know what kind of whiskey they're gonna teach us how to make? You know, if they work their whiskey. Their whiskey. And and so I kind of laugh, and then I say this with a little bit of a joke, but I feel like someday um some master distiller is gonna come in here and say, like, really, that's how you guys do this? You know, this you're making whiskey wrong. Because we we said, we're gonna do it our way, we're gonna figure it out. We read some books. We, you know, I went to a couple other distilleries and learned kind of their processes, and then I said, the farmer mentality, give me a problem, I'll solve it. And uh we made made some whiskey that uh, you know, over and over we learned got better and better. And uh, once we were finally happy with it, we started putting it in barrels, and then it was another thing of okay, well, let's sit and wait, you know, and and uh get three years of time, let's try it. And then another year, and and so um, yes, the way you look at at risk when you're talking about um what's gonna happen, and we still don't know. You know, some of these, some of our oldest whiskeys out there, this is the first time they've ever reached whatever age they are, and uh it's some of them we haven't even tried. There's we have some of our oldest barrels we've never even tried because I think I'm too scared to try them to tell the truth.

Gavin 17:45

But so talking about risk, um Hayes, forgive me. I did you graduate um from Kansas State in 2015? 2015, yeah. 2015, and you bought the property in 2014? Correct. Is that what I is that her? And then the brand really launched in 2016 time frame? More or less. Okay, more or less. So as somebody that is still in school, still in college, buying a property like what you're currently setting in, how did you get to that point to be able to be like uh because you you have an agri agricultural business degree, correct? Correct, yeah, right. So so you went through that major in school to then look at oh, hey, there's this opportunity of buying this building, so we're gonna buy and purchase the building, then I then I'm gonna graduate college, but I'm gonna start a whiskey brand. Like that is mind-blowing to me. And I'd love to hear kind of your take on that. And the reason why I tied that into the risk because that is a huge gamble, right?

Aaron 19:08

I mean, it sounds insane when you spell it out. Be like, yeah, a year before I graduated from college, I decided to start a distillery. And I'm like, oh, did you come from a family that did a lot of whiskey making? Like, no, I bought I bought a book to figure out how to do it. Like everything about this seems a little crazy. Seems a little crazy. I agree. Which, which is awesome to see at work, right? Like that uh nothing nothing uh makes your heart swell more than seeing somebody take a big long shot, right? And hit the home run, so to speak.

Lee 19:40

Yeah, yeah.

Aaron 19:42

So like how do you how do you decide to pull that trigger?

Hayes 19:45

I mean, uh the the probably less glamorous uh explanation of it is uh, you know, I I was too dumb to know any better. Um and too stubborn more than anything. I mean, I'm still still the same way. Yeah, there were things he doesn't have a distillery. There's things that we did that we built that we, you know, solved problems of that I I sometimes look back and go, how the heck did we ever do that? Well, because we just said throw a problem and and I was going to solve it. And you know, sleep wasn't a real thing. Um, you know, I had an air mattress here. I slept. You know, that was one of the we one of the first areas we finished this building was our office area and just had it finished out primarily so that I could, you know, spend some nights in the building and uh still catch a little bit of sleep. Um because when we were building this distillery, I I was living in Soublet on the farm, and so back and forth every day, every night, and uh was able to work a few more hours if I had an air mattress in a in a room with a with a heater and an air conditioner in it.

Aaron 20:47

So um, you know, it's I feel I feel like half of the distillery is held together with baling wire and in duct tape. Yeah.

Hayes 20:57

If you're anything like every farmer I knew growing up, I oftentimes will uh remind Lee or all, you know, there'd be a pair of vice grips on something to work as a handle. And I go, you know, I kind of like that because if anybody ever comes in here and goes, is this is this story, you know, crock a BS here, and you can just show them a picture of this pair of ice grips that your boss placed on here as a as a handle. Uh or and they're still there. And I said, I'm not gonna fix it because it works, and it and it maybe it comes across of exactly who and what we are, because we can solve problems. Maybe it's not the absolute correct way, but is there a problem having a pair of ice grips that are that are stuck on there and it's giving you some leverage as a handle? I don't I don't think so.

Gavin 21:42

Um is it from the adage if it's not broke, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Yeah, if it's working exactly and it you broke it's broke, but you fixed it. It's fixed, but it works.

Aaron 21:55

Doing doing our research for episodes, right? I like to kind of dive deep in This stuff. And I found Hayes that you had spent time studying abroad in Ireland.

Hayes 22:06

I did a short study abroad trip, yeah.

Aaron 22:09

It planted the seed in my mind. Was your love for whiskey from the first years at school on campus or from your time in Ireland?

Hayes 22:18

I think it was previous to Ireland. I think that was a good chunk of why I needed to go to Ireland was uh you know to express my love of Irish whiskey. So I drink uh my fair share of powers uh in uh in Ireland, that's for sure. We drink a lot of powers.

Gavin 22:34

So I I have a question. All right, I want to know what the go-to bar is in Ireland? No, it's Kansas State.

Aaron 22:42

Oh, at Kansas State. So I'm a different generation, Hayes. This is this is the problem because the the last couple times I've been on campus, I realized none of the bars we used to frequent are there, with the exception of one. Last time I was there, Annie Mays still existed. Annie May, Annie Mays. You used to drink in the basement of Annie Mays all the time. Yes, but yeah, Rusty's Last Chance was was the big one.

Hayes 23:08

Rusty's yeah, and that doesn't exist anymore.

Aaron 23:11

It's gone. Now it's it's a much bougier. I went to school back when dorm rooms were cinder block walls, and you walked down the hallway to use the bathroom, right? Now mine was the same way. They've gotten soft on those kids since I left. What dorm are you in? Uh I lived in good now. Me too. There you go. There you go. You all are in the same room, probably. No, no, there's a lot of rooms in that room. They all look the same, though. They all look the same. Yeah, prison cell. Yeah. Yes. And now you see the jail cell are. Oh no, no, no. The jail cell they're currently sitting is much nicer than my government, for sure. A little better than good now, yeah. Um well, okay. So Lee, I kind of want to hear what got you into into becoming tied to Boot Hill, right? Because I don't think you started necessarily as the distiller. No. Right? But but that's the role you kind of find yourself in now. So I kind of want to hear your story of how you got to love whiskey and or more importantly, love making whiskey. Or maybe we have Hayes step out and you tell us you don't love this shit at all.

Speaker 4 24:26

The real story here, yeah. Yeah. He already knows I don't know anything.

Aaron 24:31

Um set the border low, that's what I always say. That's right.

Speaker 4 24:40

Uh it was it was a case of sometimes it's not what you know, it's who you know, and being in the right place at the right time. Um, I or wrong. Or wrong. No, this is the right way. Um, I was in the car business prior to being here. Uh, I worked in dealerships, I worked in service departments. Uh that explains the drinking. Uh yes. And and uh you were absolutely correct in in that regard of uh running a dealership service department is cause anybody to drink. And um I uh it was literally right time, right place. Um was maybe looking for another opportunity, and uh I a friend of mine we had hired at Hayes had hired uh uh the right before we opened had roped me into uh giving grand tours at our grand opening back in July of 2016. And uh actually, well, that's that's that's sort of the main story. I guess if I could go back a little bit, there was an event here uh about a month or two before that that I bartended, helped kind of bartend it was a little fundraiser that we'd held before we ever opened for Big Brothers, Big Sisters. And uh that's kind of about the first time I met Hayes and met some of his dad and and uh some of the other folks that were here early on. And um, yeah, then I got roped into the grand tour or the grand opening and uh gave tours of this building. And I gave basically got a script that was 14 pages long the night before, and then and said, Here, you need to learn this and be able to entertain people uh for for uh for the duration of the date uh the next day. And I went, oh shit, okay. So I learned the script and uh well I I read it and I didn't learn it, I didn't memorize it. Um, reading off my notes there. But that was kind of how I learned uh about the history. I mean, I knew of the building. I'd lived, I'm not a native of Dodge City, but I knew of the building. I knew some of the history. Uh, I didn't know I knew plenty about drinking, but not anything about making whiskey. Uh and it really kind of started from there. And you know, one the the story I kind of like to tell of kind of give you a perspective of where we started is that on that grand opening day, July of 20, July 30th, 2016, we literally had nothing to sell but t-shirts and glassware. Everything that was distilled was from that point on. Um, kind of to Hayes' point earlier of uh uh, you know, there was there was a lot of trial and error. And we had some an example of a whiskey. Who wouldn't call it whiskey? We had we had sample, we had samples that we could give people. I mean, we had something distilled of a vodka and and a whiskey-ish that was that was to to to multi to mollify the masses of people that were coming through this building that day. And uh so that was uh so summer of 16. Uh and and kind of to the point we made a little earlier, you know, the first bourbon really wasn't we didn't put away until early January of 17. So there was about six months there of time that passed. Uh, I'm kind of getting a little off track, but um so I I did my my volunteer of uh duty that day and gave tours and and and learned the process. And then it was really about a year later. Um, I always like to joke that that I that Hayes didn't pay me for a year, but it was about a year later that you know he was looking for, you know, we were getting close to distribution, we were getting close to uh taking product to market, and you know, you gotta have somebody on the road to do that. And um, I guess my name came up in conversation, and and um I guess the rest is history at that point. So I was hired as the guy to go be on the road, but you know, at that point, uh I we had we were still making spirits at that point. Um not uh had not signed an agreement with the distributor yet. Um so my first three or four months working here was working in the still room. It was just nothing but making a mess and cleaning it up. It was it was cooking mash, it was um moving grain from the mash ton to the fermenters, pitching yeast, uh trying to figure out how to run the stripping still uh and learning how all that works. I was literally on the job training. It's I mean, was was my first, like I said, three, four months uh of working here. And then in the meantime, was starting to try to build out a plan to try to go out and sell talk about whiskey. And at that point, we signed the agreement with our distributor, and I went on the road for the next seven years. And that's that's the that's the short version.

Aaron 29:49

Yeah, it's the life, right? Where somebody pays you to drink whiskey with them. There you go.

Gavin 29:54

That's that's what we're what's where we're striving to be.

Aaron 29:56

Yeah, so far it's just costing us money. So far, we're paying to drink whiskey with people. Yeah.

Gavin 30:02

So I there was a question that I wanted to bring back up. So um wait, are you saying they didn't answer it good enough for you? No, no, no. It's it's it's to tack on to a previous question where uh we we talked a bit about 2014 purchasing the building. Hayes graduated in 2015, 2016, really when uh the the distillery launched or had its opening day. So, not to get anybody in trouble, but Hayes, how work did you distill before kind of launching this whole big thing? Because this is something that has always perplexed me, right?

Aaron 30:43

It it's an industry that they won't give you a license until you prove that you can do it, but you can't learn how to do it if you don't have a like it it's a very much catch-22 industry. Uh yeah, at least that's my feeling.

Gavin 30:57

And I and it always like I'm always intrigued in this because I wanted to start my own thing.

Aaron 31:04

I'm telling you, you just gotta start making moonshine in your bathroom. Okay, there you go.

Gavin 31:10

Thank you. So I'd love to hear I'd love to hear your story on that.

Hayes 31:14

Go ahead, yeah. Um, so the first uh still I ever ran, you have to talk to my college roommates about it. Um it's a pretty good story. There it is. Uh we we would have uh you know small small gatherings of of a few friends over at our houses from time to time in in uh college, and uh invite as many people as we could find and buy a couple of uh kegs of the cheapest beer we could get and uh make a concoction called jungle juice. Uh it was uh Everclear and whatever else was in your jungle juice with with plenty of um juice and things in it. And uh I I I've always been, you know, I'm a pretty frugal guy, pretty uh I like to reuse things. Uh I like to figure out a way to you know not waste more than anything. So I came up with this idea. I said, guys, what if what if we took all this wasted, you know, there's beer sitting in there's hundreds of cups of half full beer and half full uh jungle juice, whatever else everybody was drinking, and we left it. You know, the next morning we're cleaning this up. I said, let's take this, we'll build a still, and we'll just distill all this stuff back into ethanol. We'll feed it to everybody the next night back in our jungle juice, and we'll repeat this. It'll work fantastic.

Aaron 32:37

So that is agribusiness at its key, right there. Exactly. You know, it's like it never ended up. Taking your waste and turning it into a profitable product.

Hayes 32:45

Yeah, yeah. I mean, not profit. I'm not trying to make any money off it. I just wanted to make sure we could continue to party on it. She didn't want to spend it. I mean, but now you are.

Aaron 32:52

Now you want it to be profitable. All right. So I I want to I want to spend just a little bit of time talking about what we were tasting today before we move on to the to the second bottle. Um, so normally Gavin and I take turns, but I'm presenting all the bottles tonight, which means Gavin has to give notes first. Um I having a good time talking, so I want to kind of keep the conversation moving. So kind of condense down your notes.

Gavin 33:21

Give us you telling me that I can't be windy about this?

Aaron 33:24

Nose palette, like what are you getting overall?

Gavin 33:27

So on the nose, um, I think there's an earthy note to it. Um, there's a bit of uh I wrote leather. Um something that is not like brand new leather, but something that's been worn in a little bit. Maybe an old saddle.

Aaron 33:46

I can get that. Yeah. Um it's like the the dusty old saddle that started to crack because it's been sitting in the barn for so long.

Gavin 33:54

You're just not taking care of your saddles at that point.

Aaron 33:57

No, no, rode hard and put away wet.

Gavin 33:59

There you go, folks.

Aaron 34:01

I'm trying to think of all of the farming cliches to throw into this one.

Gavin 34:05

So I did grow up on a farm, by the way. So uh you're in good company. Um, but you know, a little farther south than where you're sitting.

Aaron 34:13

So the dirt's funny colored where you come from. It's red.

Gavin 34:17

Um and then on the palette, I wrote frosted flakes. Yeah. I think there's a I think there's a cereal note to it, but it's also sweet.

Aaron 34:30

I feel like you can't say frosted flakes because this is more like Wheaties than cornflakes.

Gavin 34:35

I guess we could say that. Come on. Maybe brand. This is why he's not in marketing. Dang it. Miss an opportunity. Uh and and then I think there's like um a well, I mean, I almost like a um a baking spice a little bit there.

Aaron 34:51

Yeah, I I think a lot of what I was picking up runs very similar. Uh, first couple times the nose of glass. One, sometimes we start with another pour beforehand. We were weather today got us a little late getting started, whatever. And so this was the first sip I had today. And I'll be honest, on the nose, it initially the 100 proof smelled hot, right? Even the first sip kind of tingled and burnt. Um, but as I as I kind of revisited the glass, that kind of mellowed back down, and I got that distinct grain notes. Um I'm an old school kid, right? Cheerios and grape nuts were two of my favorite cereals growing up. But we were we were we were we were too poor for sugar cereal, right? No frosted flakes in our house as kids.

Gavin 35:36

They're great.

Aaron 35:38

But yeah, like I I get some of that kind of classic cereal grain. Um, I always almost reminds me of crispex. Do you remember that was like wheat on one side and corn on the other? Like kind of like checks. I get that kind of thing. Um, on the palate and on the finish, I got more of a toasted oak flavor and the finish. You said baking spice to me, cinnamon.

Speaker 1 36:01

Okay.

Aaron 36:02

Um, like not the sweetness you get from big red gum or red hots, but distinctly the spicy kind of tongue tingle that those have. I could get that kind of spice to the end of it. All right. Guys, did we do okay? Did we thumbs up? You agree? You're like, no, you guys must be drinking something else.

Speaker 4 36:23

Yeah, you know, it's kind of funny you mentioned the grape nuts because that's that's what I grew up eating as a kid. You know, grape nuts are not pleasant.

Aaron 36:33

I still eat them. Oh, no, no, sprinkled over the top of ice cream.

Speaker 4 36:39

Well, okay, from the perspective of you know, a seven or eight-year-old that's awful, I agree. That you know, is trying to you know get taken to school and you're trying to shovel your grape nuts down and just hate them around.

Aaron 36:53

Grape nuts is a slow-eating breakfast. It is now that I'm with you.

Speaker 4 36:59

But this is exactly you know, grape nuts or uh bran, even raisin bran, because I'm getting a little dried fruit um on the back end. Uh, so that raisin bran or just the the full the flake itself is is very prominent. So I that's something I've always felt that our wheat whiskey has had is those just those real that that cereal bran, and then yes, the baking spice, all spice, uh, you know, almost pie, pie filling kind of on the back here.

Aaron 37:33

Yeah, like almost apple pie spice, right? Not the apples, not the apples, no, all of the that shaker of seasonings that mom put in on the apples.

Gavin 37:44

So, one of the things I like to always do is go back because I really enjoyed this. I mean, I I sipped it all the way down to the very last set. I've kind of been wanting to save just we're on our second one.

Speaker 4 37:54

What are y'all doing?

Gavin 37:55

Well, oh, that's a challenge. Yeah, but but going back to it, when you said You guys started at 8 30 in the morning, though. Like good point. Like the raisin brand almost kind of came into play going back and sniffing the glass.

Aaron 38:15

No, no, and it I didn't get that right off the bat, but it's one of those things that my wife always laughs at me because I'd I drink a whiskey, and then um the thing that keeps me from overconsuming is the fact that I really, really enjoy the aroma of an empty glass, right? When you get to the end and all of the lighter compounds have started to dissipate, and you're left with the heavier compounds in the glass. Like all of a sudden, every five minutes, the glass has a completely different character. Um, so yeah, you get down to the the glass is essentially empty. Like it it absolutely takes on a new stuff. All right, you got to give it a number. All right. This is the this is the hard part. You're you're gonna either make me and Hayes Christmas.

Gavin 38:58

Uh, I really enjoyed this. I'm uh I love weeded whiskies. Um this to me He was he was gonna cheat. He looked over and I'm looking at the bottle. I'm looking at I'm looking at the beautiful bottle. Um I I am a uh aesthetic looking kind of guy. Like I like the bottle, I like the the twine, uh the whole packaging, the soil got a picture of Hayes on the tag. I mean, right there. I mean, that's great, right? Uh yes. I I gave this one an 87. I think I think it is very delightful. It's something that I could sip every day. I have it, I'd love to have it on my shelf. Hint hint.

Aaron 39:44

Um, see, they they're like, we sent you a bottle already. How much they sent you a bottle? No, no, I have a bottle.

Gavin 39:50

You haven't done that shit. Um, this it I I like it. I like it. And I'd say good job, guys.

Aaron 39:57

Yeah, so for me, I'm in an 84. Um, I think if you're a wheat whiskey fan, right, I think this totally lines up. Those guys who are looking for more of that rye heavy kind of thing and that corn sweetness, this obviously doesn't have that. I think this is a fun anomaly to have in your collection, too. Um, I don't I don't have any other 100% wheats, right? So when somebody comes over and says, Well, I like I like weeded bourbon, I was like, Oh, this would be a fun thing to kind of push your palate and and kind of um help you explore your own journey of whiskeys um by by stepping to this one. I excellent. Well done, guys. Well done. I'm assuming you guys both give it 99. Make a rule, no 100. 99.5, yeah.

Hayes 40:47

Yeah. Oh, have you so have you uh point what are other wheat whiskeys? If we can dive into them just a second, what other wheat whiskeys that uh you guys have had? Because that's the thing, there's not many out there, so it's a few, but uh it's an underserved category of whiskey.

Aaron 41:01

Yeah, so I I think obviously classic one that everybody knows, makers mark and weller, right? Those are two really non-wheated bourbon, like talking wheat whiskey. Weeded whiskeys. I don't know of any others. That's Burnheim is the main one. That's the that's the part that I love about this is that you get people who come in and say, Hey, like I like weeded bourbon, and they're like, Yeah, let's let's see how far down that wheat rabbit hole you want to go.

Gavin 41:30

Um because this is as weed as wheat can get.

Aaron 41:33

You don't get any more weeded than 100%.

Gavin 41:36

This is 100%.

Aaron 41:39

All right. Excellent done, guys. Um, all right. We're gonna take just a break for just a second. Um, we're gonna talk about a giveaway thanks to the guys over here at uh at a boothill distillery. So uh we'll catch you guys on the flip side. Enter for your chance to win this bottle of Kansas Made bourbon from Boot Hill Distillery.

Gavin 42:03

Follow both the Noble Dram and Boot Hill Distillery. Like and share this post. Comment with the boot emoji and the phrase soil to step. And lastly, tap four of your whiskey loving friends.

Aaron 42:17

You have just one week to enter, so don't miss your chance to win this hard-to-fine list. Find out what soil to step is all about.

Gavin 42:29

Welcome back, everyone. We uh really hope that you enjoyed our little commercial on the giveaway intent. This bottle right here. Thanks to the boys on camera. Um, so I am actually empty and I need another pour.

Aaron 42:48

You do, you do, you do. All right, boys. We're taking a shift and we're leaving the standard boot hill product offering and into university collaboration. We're Hayes and I are alums, right? I I shouldn't say Lee, I don't know where you went to school, so I don't know if you're an alum as well. You knew the bars, you knew the bars, and that's close enough to my my book. Yeah, this next one we're trying the Wabash Reserve 1863 edition bourbon. So now this one comes in at 90 proof, 45% ABV for those doing the math, uh, and is a six year age with a three grain mash bill. But this is where I'm going to turn to the boys that are joining us to ask for some clarification as to which of the three grains found their way into this bottle. And then we can talk a little bit about why it's called 1863. But let's start with the the grains in the glass. Ready for it? I don't know if I remember. Or is it a secret? It wasn't spelled out on the website, so it might be a secret. And they're like, well, it's these two.

Hayes 44:17

No, it's uh it's it's corn, wheat, and barley. Barley. And it's unmalted barley. That's really unmalted barley.

Gavin 44:27

Yes. Fun. Have we had an unmalted barley on um yes.

Aaron 44:34

So some of the Irish stuff we've tasted before is used both malted and unmalted. So yes. Is this a is this a tip of the cap to the Irish roots with the unmalted barley? I don't know.

Hayes 44:48

You know, we we've played with unmalted barley a handful of times. Um we actually have an experimental sitting ready to be bottled of uh of six-year-old unmalted barley. Six-year-old 100% unmalted unmalted barley, which is um it's interesting. It's weird. We've just kind of been babbling with it here and there and finding out what we like and don't like about it. And it it makes its way into a couple of blends here and there for different bottlings. Um you didn't grow very much of it, though, did you? You didn't grow a lot of it, yeah. So so you know that's the fun thing about our our distillery, or the less fun thing if you're if you're me. Uh, if we want to make uh an unmalted barley or a uh rye whiskey or something, for example, it's uh it's a long process. We don't just call up and say, hey, deliver us a truckload of bar uh barley or rye. Um I've got to figure out what's gonna grow, plant it, you know, source the seed, plant it, harvest it, figure out how the heck to grow it, store it.

Aaron 45:42

Yeah, you have taken you have taken a production process that takes years already and have added years to the front end of it.

Hayes 45:51

Addition to it, yeah, yeah.

Aaron 45:53

A little bit of compensation. You didn't have anything better to do. Yeah. Exactly. Um, all right. So for those who aren't familiar with this, 1863 is the year in which Kansas State was founded. Um, this is where I get to be the history professor, right? Because I actually know a little bit of Kansas State history. All right, I'm done. That's all I need. Um, no, no. So we were the very first land grant college established in 1863, not actually called Kansas State at the time. It was um Blue Mont College. Blue Mont. Um, and then and then eventually transitioned over. We used to be the Kansas State Aggies back in the day. Um, so every time somebody down here talks about the Aggies, I was like, yeah, you're a little late to that game, boys. Um yeah. Sorry, I've been trying really hard to hold that in. All right. So we talked a lot about kind of like how you guys went from either a college student or a town that hasn't had a distillery um in years to now producing. I kind of want to talk about where Boot Hill Distillery is now. So let's start with this. We're in Texas, and I actually started the show talking about how hard it was to track down bottles of anyone who distills in Kansas, right? You guys or any others. Where can people find bottles of your whiskey?

Speaker 4 47:34

Well, that's that get that leads into a qu uh a conversation of how alcohol is distributed. And it's state by state. And and there are reasons that you can't get certain producers in certain states, is because of the three-tier system that uh alcohol is sold under, which was implemented after prohibition was repealed. Uh uh in okay, I can't, 1933, excuse me. So distribution is on a state-by-state basis, and so you know, if you're a big national brand that has a shit ton of money, you can pretty well go anywhere. When you're a small a regional brand, you're you really kind of, and I think one thing that maybe we've kind of had to learn is that that you've got to win your own backyard first. You've got to, you know, when you're starting a brand, you've got to you've got to win the hometown over and really build the brand within the state. Because the further you go out from your state, the less people care about where you're from. And we're proud of that. I mean, we're I think we think Dodge City is pretty cool. Um, we think our story is pretty cool, we think our whiskey's pretty good. Um, but you know, the further you go out from our region, it's uh sometimes a tougher sell. But you also got you know hundreds, if not thousands, of other products that you're up against. Um, I I say this to say that you're really only going to find our product in about four or five states. And in earnest, you're really only gonna find it all over the place in Kansas. The reason we're not in Texas is because Texas distribution is a nightmare. Texas, I mean, you think about there's more people in the DMW area. You're right. If you there's more people in in the DFW Dallas Fort Worth area than there are in living in Kansas. And how are you gonna reach those people? How much money do you have to spend to reach those people? And so, you know, sure, you might gain distribution, you might have a distributor that says, Oh, yeah, sure, I'll take your brand on. But that doesn't guarantee that your product's gonna get sold into a retail situation. That doesn't mean that the bartenders at your local establishment, unless they know about you or they know us, or we're out there actively selling it, that they're gonna bring that product in because they've got thousands of other things to choose from and and you know, and reps and brands that are in front of their face all the time and that are providing all sorts of benefits to uh uh to serve their brand. So this is a long-winded answer, I realize, but you're gonna find us locally, you're gonna find us in Kansas. Uh, we do have Oklahoma distribution, it's not very wide. Uh, we do have some Missouri distribution, it's not very wide. Um, we have uh Tennessee, I think. Uh, and we've dabbled in other states. We were we had a distributor in Texas and it was an absolute shit shell.

Speaker 3 50:53

Two different times.

Speaker 4 50:54

We had two distributors. We had two distributors in Texas and they didn't do shit. And unless we were gonna, unless Hayes like somehow found a whole potload of money that we were gonna go down there and spend and sell whiskey, we weren't gonna get any placements. And that's part of the game that I don't think your average whiskey drinker or experience drinker really kind of gets. I'm kind of getting on my my soapbox a little bit about this because it's frustrating.

Aaron 51:19

Preach it. We we said preach, we meant but it allows.

Speaker 4 51:24

Tell us it takes so much, and that's why it's cool to like connect with with with you guys, is that you know your audience is is kind of built in interested in in the stories, in the people that are behind the brands. You know, how many times do you, you know, unless you go to the Kentucky Bourbon Trail or you go to uh you know, say TX uh distilling that was the uh in Fort Worth, or Balkonas in uh uh or less um Waco in Waco, or uh uh Garrison Brothers in uh high Texas, you know, how are you gonna know about those brands? Still Austin, I guess, another one that's kind of you know gained some traction there in Texas in a while, uh recently. So it's a lot of there is online, and then all online, otherwise that online distribution, but even that has its complications because you're paying for shipping. Not every state allows alcohol to be shipped in the state, Kansas is one of them. We can't even ship our own booze to people within our own state because Kansas doesn't allow that. Um, there are a handful of other states that don't allow alcohol to be shipped into their state, and so even online shipping is a crapshoot, and sometimes we just have to, you know, customer says, Well, hey, I want to get my bottle sent to such and such state, you know, and I'm going, well, if the state doesn't allow it, our third-party retailer will not ship it to you. And sorry, there's nothing we can do about that.

Aaron 52:57

So pass PO box across the state line.

Speaker 4 53:00

Yeah. Right.

Gavin 53:02

So passing say that out loud if you're if you're with the TABC I'd certainly say that. Oh okay. So we like we like to break rules.

Aaron 53:12

So so the best chance of anyone across the country first start looking online.

Speaker 3 53:20

Correct, correct. Yeah.com and get a buy.

Aaron 53:25

What I'll say is if you if you want to make a pilgrimage out to the distillery, uh, give me a holler. I'm sure my folks would let you crash on the couch. Um, they're not too far up the road. I'm just imagining my mom calling me, like, what the hell did you just say?

Gavin 53:43

And then she'll open them with open arms.

Aaron 53:47

So one of the things that I think you guys kind of touched on a little bit when you were talking about opening day or the grand opening. One of the struggles, lots of little distilleries at startup face is whiskey takes so damned long to get ready for a glass that you gotta find something to sell in the interim. We're also finding Texas just recently changed the law, but a lot of distilleries were running into the problem of they'd love to sell drinks, cocktails and otherwise, at the distillery's tasting room. But the Texas law said you couldn't serve any alcohol you didn't make. So you guys, although the show is not geared around other spirits, you guys do provide or offer a number of other products. Just so everybody can get an understanding of what all you guys do, give a quick rundown of what some of those other things are.

Hayes 54:47

Yeah, so we make um the very first product we released was vodka, and we still make vodka. It's 100% wheat vodka, same mashed bill as uh as our 100% uh whiskey. Actually treated a little bit differently, but uh exact same stuff. Gin. Uh, we make a gin with sarsparilla is our kind of main different thing. I like different botanical to replace it. Sasparilla. Sasparilla, that's right. Had to be Dodge City. Um we make anything and everything we can with grain, to tell you the truth. Because you know, we don't make rum because we can't grow sugar cane. We don't make tequila, obviously, because we're not in Mexico and we can't grow agave. Uh anything that we can figure out how to make, we do. Um, the other big thing that we make is we we do uh canned cocktails. We have our vodka basil lemonade, our rosemary mule, we have a whiskey cola, we have a handful of different um beyond that seasonal cocktails that we do in cans. We got into that during COVID, and uh we sell a lot of those cans. That's uh that's a good chunk of our business now, too, because uh the market is going towards what's easy, what can I get in my hand right away. And and uh we've found that there's a lot of really bad canned cocktails out there. And um we've been, I like to think we do a pretty damn good job of making ours taste. They're all made from cocktails that we originally made in our tasting room. Um we just figured out how to make them in 7,000 canned batches at a time instead of uh one at a time. So that is something you're talking about, the tasting rooms, and what other people not to go too far into this. But uh, we never planned to have a tasting room, we never thought we would. Um, and we actually legally couldn't. We had because we had this the micro distillery, Kansas law has allowed us to, but our local uh our county law said you had to sell 15% of your grocery seats in food. And I never wanted to have a restaurant, that's for sure. So we couldn't be an actual tasting room. We realized at some point, um, why don't we just try to change the law? So we uh made up some some yard signs and started kind of lobbying for uh people to vote to change the law to get rid of that 15% food requirement. And then next thing we know, we we got the law changed and we opened a tasting room. And Kansas law is actually pretty good on that fact. We can have a full, we can serve whatever we want in our tasting room. It's it's actually licensed as a full uh drinking establishment with the state, and so we can buy other spirits. But we it's kind of a challenge for us. How can we make things out of our own stuff? How can we buy the least amount of uh other things? Not that we can, but it's it's cheating. You know, it's how can we make something that is like some other cocktail you had? But you know, the one thing we can't vermouth, and we have to buy vermouth. We absolutely have to. But everything else, you know, we can typically make a syrup that can do something similar, we can use different juices. Um we do our best to utilize all of our own products. And we have a, you know, again, this is outside of this show, but our tasting room is uh if you're a cocktail person, we make we we not to toot our own horn too much, but we do a pretty damn good job of making cocktails. Um I love cocktails. I love going to big cities and drinking fancy cocktails that somebody made, and so it's kind of been our thing to bring that to Dodge City and uh give you cocktails that have some uh care to them. You know, everything is very specific and precise, and um, it's been a lot of fun to we are in the beginning. I think we kind of pretentiously said we're gonna teach Dodge City, Dodge City how to drink. And uh I think that I think we've kind of done that. You know, it's it's been fun to see Dodge City come around to I remember early on there were people going, you know, wow, you're gonna make an old-fashioned like this, three ounces of whiskey and a sugar cube and bitters, that's that's what you're gonna have in your old fashioned. Now people go, wow, this is that's how an old fashioned supposed to be. You know, it's it's uh it's at the standard. It's we yeah, I'm kind of set the standard for how an old-fashioned tastes, uh, which is uh classic old-fashioned.

Gavin 58:54

So I want to touch on something. Um we talk often about the science or what I would what I like to say is the art of making whiskey, because sometimes there is a preciseness to it, but then there's the experimental side of it, which I think y'all were you just were mentioning kind of some of those experimental ventures that y'all went on. Can you can you talk a bit about that process? Like what what goes through your head whenever you're maybe trying to find a new product? Is it is it by accident or is it like I or even talk about kind of your day, like how that happens.

Aaron 59:40

Yeah. Who which one of you is the mad scientist?

Hayes 59:45

All right. Well, it's I I would say it's typically uh maybe my direction, my you know, Lee's Lee's idea, my implementation, and then and then Lee's got to come up with this guy has a better palate than than like probably anybody that I know. And yeah, when he when he tries something, if Lee says this is good, it's good. I mean that's that's the biggest thing that that's so awesome about him making whiskey is that if it comes off the steel and if he's tried it and he thinks it's good, I I I kind of I don't worry about it anymore. So, you know, I I'm kind of the I guess I'm a you know I'm a problem solver. And so I go, hey, yeah, Lee's got this wild idea. Hey, I want to, can we try and do this? I go, well, no, you know, that's that's out of this, out of our realm of what we can do. Or or yeah, let's here's kind of how, and I think it kind of gives some direction on how that goes. Um, you know, a lot of the things though, like like we were talking very early on, is um these experiments have to happen, yeah, they happen now, and then we kind of have to forget about them for years, you know, the way that our process works. And so sometimes it is that deal of well, here's what we have. And Lee says, Well, these are the only grains that I have to distill from. And I go, Well, I'm not bringing a truck of grain back up because we're busy with XYZ on the farm. So figure out how to make some weird whiskey, and uh we'll see if it tastes good. And so there's some of those that are just uh you know, product of necessity. It's the duct tape and windex.

Aaron 1:01:22

Exactly.

Gavin 1:01:23

Right.

Aaron 1:01:24

So I take that that same line of question and go back to the whiskey we're sipping. A collaboration, I don't know, maybe collaboration isn't the right word, but one that you do in partnership with an a separate entity, like in this case the university. How much of what goes into that glass was decided by you guys versus decided by them? I is there creative collaboration on this? Or is this just a here's the whiskey we got, and they're like, Yeah, we'd love to do you guys to do a whiskey. Is it more more business than than art?

Hayes 1:02:06

So it's it's a couple different when we it's primarily business, to tell you the truth. Um, some of our partnerships, we have a handful of different um licensing agreements with other universities, other um entities, and some of those groups say, yeah, we want to be a part of what goes in the model. Um typically, you know, I say, look, we're you're good at running a university. Um, we're pretty good at making whiskey. Let us make these decisions, we'll do the best we can for you. Um we've done it where we've given them some options and said, hey, let's let's take these to uh some of your um, you know, some donors or something that you'd like to, you know, and do some event. We did that with K-State. We've done that with other universities.

Aaron 1:02:51

Yeah, and we allowed them picturing picturing a room full of history and literature professors with their sport coats with the elbow patches. I don't know if that's I don't know if that's exactly how it's later. Yeah. So the money makers, the moneymakers are deciding. I get it.

Hayes 1:03:10

Moneymakers, of course, yes. So the biggest thing with K-State is you know, as a partnership we started uh what in 2021, I think was our first one. Yeah. And uh we've been kind of trying for a couple of years back and forth and finally just got in front of the right people and we made an agreement. And um honestly, we were we were the the first. I mean, we were technically the second, I guess. There was New Mexico State University that did one. Um, but ours, I mean, this was it was huge. Our first wobash reserve we released, it was we were like bottling around the clock, uh trying to keep up with it. It was it was insane. Um, and then we we've carried that out for for years past. This is our most recent uh release. Um we'll see if maybe there's one coming this year or not. I'm not 100% certain what our plan is, to tell you the truth. Uh, but it's it's been a cool deal, and we've done it with a handful of different universities around the state. And um it's it's neat to see alumni of each university, you know, just their pride for having a bottle of whiskey that is that is theirs, you know, just similar to yours. You know, it's it's uh I think that would be reasonable.

Aaron 1:04:19

It will absolutely set any place of prominence on the shelf here for sure.

unknown 1:04:23

Right?

Gavin 1:04:24

I hope you got seasoned tickets out of the deal.

Aaron 1:04:26

Oh yeah. This feels this feels like sweets, I'll be honest. Like an ice. It should be. You shouldn't have to sit out in the weather if you make the book. Yeah.

Hayes 1:04:38

Well, I didn't have uh we had we didn't have sweet, but we had I had a worker pass there for a few years, which was just as good. It allowed me to get into any suite I wanted to, as long as I was working. And uh so I was I was working off so you know.

Aaron 1:04:53

You just carried around a bottle of bourbon with you, and you wore your hair in the middle of something got a clipboard and a heart.

Hayes 1:05:02

So that was kind of neat to get to see the ins and out of Kate State.

Aaron 1:05:05

So when I was when I was on campus, you couldn't drink at all at the football stadium. And I know now they've got if you pay enough, they'll let you have whiskey, right? Um is Boot Hill Distillery whiskey served at the stadium, or is this something that people have to go buy online or retailer?

Hayes 1:05:26

It was up until so there's two different agreements. Uh one with until the incident? Yeah. We don't talk about the incident. So there's two different, yeah, there's uh I've learned a lot about the the intricacies of uh universities, and and so basically there's sports marketing group, and then there's your licensing entity. And uh we continue our licensing uh agreement, and that's how we're able to sell these at a percentage, 16% of every model goes back straight back to the university. Um, and then on top of that, uh we had a uh like an advertising agreement. Agreement basically. And uh that allowed it to be advertised around.

Aaron 1:06:06

What's that? They need that 16% to buy new elbow patches. You gotta buy new elbow patches, yeah.

Hayes 1:06:11

Yeah, yeah, plus a little bit more, you know, to make it all work. But but it was served. Um, there's a few spots, it's still available. I think it's still available like in the sweet levels. Um, you can order it, but it's not necessarily at all the bars anymore. So um the fridge liquor store, classic wine and spirits, Nespers, uh, yeah, all the major liquor in Manhattan for sure. Everybody has it, they've they've got it up for sale. There's another when you're in Manhattan, there's uh there's a place called Bourbon and Baker that uh they've been a great that is an awesome place. They have done on point.

Speaker 3 1:06:47

Probably the number one whiskey bar in Kansas. Yeah. Great one or two whiskey bars in Kansas, great whiskey selection and uh good friends of our.

Aaron 1:06:57

You're ranking them in quality, not alphabetical order. Correct. You say number one. Okay, got it, makes sense. Well, bourbon, it's it's a bead, right? It's early. So let's let's talk just a second about where you guys see Boot Hill going from here, right? One of the things that continues to be a conversation amongst both whiskey drinkers and whiskey producers is a level of uncertainty, unease in the market. Um, I'm curious. We've had conversations with massive distilleries that if they had to mothball and shut down for a year or two and then come back, they could absolutely do that and and still be fine. I'm curious for a smaller producer that I assume steady business is far more critical to the bottom line. Um how do you guys see the future of the whiskey industry? Because you you're small enough. I I'm assuming you're still growing in market share. Um, especially to your comment about owning your own backyard, so to speak.

Hayes 1:08:16

Exactly. Yeah, no, it's that's kind of what gives us um some positive outlook on what's going on. We've seen, you know, we've the whiskey worlds, yeah, it's taking a hit. Um but our yeah, our thing is that there's still there's a lot more people out there that have never heard of us than there are people that have heard of us and decided to stop buying us because they're trading down or they're they're buying something cheaper. You know, that's what's happening with these bigger brands for sure, is that they're they're trading down to these lower, lower price items. You know, there's and there's again, there's a lot of people, there's there's your listeners, there's there's people out there that guess what? They're still interested in new fun whiskies. And so that's where there's a lot of opportunity for us, is that we're still we're still trying to get our name out there. You know, we're 10 years in this business, but we've just barely scratched the surface. Our production is so small that you know we're we have not overproduced by any means. Um, we've every single year we've said, man, I wish we would have made more whiskey that year. Not that we're growing astronomically by any means. I mean, we're we're clawing and scratching for every bit of growth that we have, but um, you know, the one thing the past couple of years have taught us is to focus, look at what we're doing, think about, you know, be a little bit more conscious of what our what's working, what do we do really well, and and try and hammer into that. Um, what do we want to do? And that's bourbon. That's what we originally set out to do was make good bourbon. And uh we'll keep doing it. Lee's gonna keep making good bourbon and we'll keep doing our best to sell it. And if not, I think in a couple of years, I mean, people will absolutely be, you know, the older our bourbon gets, the more excited we get about it, anyways.

Aaron 1:09:59

So um what I think too, one of the things that is a bit lost in all of this, the bubble is bursting, sky is falling, kind of hysteria, is you look at how much whiskey was consumed in the late 80s and early 90s, to how high it came up, even if it comes back down, we are still a far cry from where it was when it was really at its bottom. Um, I I know I I was talking to a buddy who's big into cigars, and he said the same kind of thing happened in the cigar industry. Like it it boomed like crazy, and that bubble burst, but when it burst, it didn't go back to where it was. It was still noticeably bigger market, it just wasn't as big as it had gotten. It had just overshot a little bit. So I I assume there's a bit of just kind of self-correction that the market is taking with regards to secondary prices on bottles and people chasing stuff and overpriced um items. Yeah, I I have a significant collection, right? So it's as one who has purchased a lot of whiskey, not collection, selection. Selection. No, that's a valid point. No, these are here to drink, not to look at. It's not a museum, it's a den, right? Um but no, it's this this I kind of always prided myself on not chasing the overpriced, trying to find that hidden gem that was was absolutely worth the dollar you were spending on it. I I don't know as if bourbon ever gets back down to the prices it used to be, but we're getting better bourbon than we were ever getting back then, right? Like there is value for what you're paying for, right? Which I I think sometimes gets forgotten in that equation.

Gavin 1:11:52

Yeah, here's a hot take. Uh-oh. Hot take. Get the pen, get the pins out. So you talked about like uh bourbon in the 80s and kind of in the 90s. How the world runs today, we are so technology focused, everything is a here and now kind of thing.

unknown 1:12:16

Sorry anymore.

Gavin 1:12:17

That I feel like here here's my prediction, and I've not said this out loud before. I think even on a bust or a downturn, because the world moves so fast, the cyclical nature of the whiskey industry, even if we had a bust that went totally bust, the time it took to come back to where we were pre-COVID and into COVID, I think will be faster than it ever was before. Meaning, even if we, you know, yes, there are distilleries that are ramping or going down in production, right? Yep, the time it took previously was years.

Lee 1:13:09

Yeah.

Gavin 1:13:10

Where, and then I mean like years, where even if the whiskey industry continues to go down on its bust, it may only take it a couple years to come back, just how fast everything moves. I'll say if that makes sense.

Aaron 1:13:31

I know the market creates a little bit of volatility and probably a little bit of heartburn for a producer, but as a consumer, this is awesome.

unknown 1:13:40

Right.

Aaron 1:13:40

Because all of the things that I have been unable to get a hold of previously, whether it was allocation kind of stuff or just sheer price, had gotten to the point where like I can't I can't justify spending that much money for that, those things are coming back into a reasonable place. Um and on top of that, the boom has created a large number of I don't like to label the word craft, they're smaller distilleries that are focused more on quality production than necessarily quantity production. And that means that not only is the good stuff from the big guys becoming more available and more cost-friendly, there's a lot of other options which ultimately help keep the price from racing back up. Um, yeah, it's it's a it's a fun time to get into whiskeys right now. Um, it saddens me a bit because I've got bottles that like you never know when you're gonna get to see another one of those. So you go ahead and get a second one. And now I'm looking around, like, hell, you can buy them everywhere. Okay. If I had just waited, I wouldn't have had to worry about where am I going to keep all of this stuff.

Speaker 4 1:14:55

I think one of our sort of realizations or or decisions several years ago was we can't make enough whiskey at this point. We need to make more whiskey. Not having enough whiskey is a problem. And so we need to make as much as we absolutely can while we can and figure out a way to be as efficient as we can to make more. Because, yeah, while the big producers are probably ramping you know production down because they just produce so many thousands of proof gallons per day, we're on the opposite trajectory of that. Because if you think about what the thing is wild to me, you know, especially when I took over the distilling side, is that all the whiskey that I'm making, we're not going to get to drink for years. So we need to come around in about four or five years and have the same conversation, and then you'd probably be drinking my whiskey. But until that point, we're not, you know, that it's a wild concept to wrap my head around everything that I've been doing gets put in barrels and it goes away. And and certainly we think about it, but you know, it's it's not something that we look for for that's gonna get put in a bottle for a long time.

Aaron 1:16:15

Yeah, yeah. You're not producing for today's market, you're producing for a market in four to six years, correct? Right? Yeah, and it's it's much tougher to look into the crystal ball and see what that world looks like.

Speaker 4 1:16:30

We have no idea what it's gonna look like, but we know if you don't have it, then you're not gonna have anything.

Aaron 1:16:35

No, so the the question I ask is when you when you talk about production capacity and can't make enough in a distillery that is both the grower and the producer, and ultimately the financier to handle both ends of that, how much of your limitation is grain production, farming? How much of that is the distillery can only do so many batches at a time, versus there's only so much capital to lay out in an aging bar for years, right? Like which of those is the limiter?

Hayes 1:17:16

It's probably the last two. Yeah, the biggest one, um money's huge. But the biggest, you know, and and I guess money could buy us a bigger distillery or bigger equipment. Um, we run our distillery at a max. We could add more shifts. Um, but as far as you know, we run one shift today, five days a week. Uh, if we added, we could add three shifts on, we'd need a little bit of capital investment in that. Uh, but I'd pretty quickly run out of money in barrels. Barrels aren't cheap. We just gotta tomorrow we're getting a semi-load of barrels in, and we're gonna fill every one of them tomorrow and the next day. And 75, 80 barrels tomorrow. And uh that's we do that. And that's most of my money. So it's all sitting there. I tell people I've got a I've got a shed full of my entire net worth that's sitting in uh in barrels of whiskey uh inside of a metal building that's unmarked.

Aaron 1:18:11

And uh here's a question. It's a retirement plan.

Gavin 1:18:14

I'm just saying because we've we've talked about distilleries that you know they've lost, like we talked about Heaven Hill, right?

Aaron 1:18:22

Oh, don't don't be putting bad juju. I'm trying to put bad juju. What the hell is wrong? I'm not putting bad juju. I'm just saying, as this is the Oklahoma kid coming out in it. Yeah, it's the risk.

Gavin 1:18:35

It's going back to the risk question that I first asked. It's like you put barrels that has all of your money in it, essentially, and then you let it sit there for years, right? And I can only imagine you put money in the bank, though, don't you?

Aaron 1:18:54

You give it to somebody else in hoping that in several years you'll pull it out and it'd be worth more. Good point. Yeah, but I trust whiskey more than I do those bankers.

Gavin 1:19:03

It's much more tasty, too. Uh the the uh the anxiety that I would have to put barrels in an unmarked warehouse that here's what I'll say the the saving grace, and I I'm an outsider, right?

Aaron 1:19:20

I'm never worked in a distillery, never owned a distillery. Um, the the saving grace is no matter how bad the economy comes becomes, if you lose all your money, you can still drink the whiskey to feel better. There you go. You still got plenty of whiskey to drink. There you go.

Hayes 1:19:39

I don't think anxiety started reminding me of all these problems.

Aaron 1:19:43

Hold up, hold up, hold up. I need you to I need you to clarify. Hey, I didn't say shit about that.

Hayes 1:19:50

That was all Gavin. That was all Gavin. That's fair. He is, he's really making me dive deep into my field here. Let's see.

Aaron 1:19:58

Debbie Downer over here.

Hayes 1:19:59

The ginger in the corner over here.

Aaron 1:20:02

All right. So should we talk whiskey? Let's talk, let's talk. Let's get back to something fun. I'm out because because I'm really, really enjoying this. I walk.

Gavin 1:20:12

This is this is going back to the well twice.

Aaron 1:20:15

You said there's been multiple wobash reserve releases. This is release number three.

unknown 1:20:20

Four.

Speaker 1 1:20:21

Four.

Aaron 1:20:22

Four?

Gavin 1:20:22

Four.

Aaron 1:20:25

I just because I'm it's fun to ask a question. Of the four, which one is your personal favorite?

Hayes 1:20:33

It's either this one or the one right. So the one previous to this was um it was finished in rum cast. We've got some four square rum cast and finished. It was pretty awesome because of those rum barrels giving it some some sweetness. But this thing, I don't want to put put words in your guys' mouth, but it's uh I yeah, this is my favorite that is available now because the the doom is gone. There's no more no more existence of the Wabash Doom. I think there's a couple bottles in my office.

Aaron 1:21:04

Yeah. All right, well, time time to tell us what you get, Gavin. So one thing came we haven't had the Doom, so we're just gonna have to drink this second rate.

Hayes 1:21:15

It's fantastic. In my opinion. I don't know what you guys are rated. We'll see. See how much more you can drag me down, Gavin.

Gavin 1:21:25

Wait till he gives you a he wasn't gonna say that until you said that.

Aaron 1:21:28

He's gonna give you a 62. I can see it coming, Gavin.

Gavin 1:21:32

Oh, what a jerk. What a jerk. This is not my alumni.

Aaron 1:21:36

That's true. I'm not alumni. This is this is the Oakie State in him showing up, right here. Right. Yeah. He's like the end of this podcast is over. Yeah. Um, yeah, that they're gonna leave us a one star Yelp review. Everyone else. Uh are we on Yelp? This is a good question. I don't even know if we're on Yelp.

Gavin 1:21:58

You're gonna start a Yelp account for us for us to give us a zero star for podcasting YouTube channels. Um this one. That's awesome. We're gonna trademark that. No, no, no. Um I I so there's a few things I wrote down. Uh, don't hate me for this. Um I put cheesecake on the notes.

Aaron 1:22:22

I think there's a cheesecake note. I think you're so close. So often you say something, I'm like, damn, Gavin, you were so close. You said frosted flakes, and I was like, no, I think what you mean is Wheaties.

Speaker 1 1:22:35

Uh-huh.

Aaron 1:22:35

You said cheesecake. The problem is, I think what you meant is the fruit that goes on top of the cheesecake. That's the key. If this was just plain cheesecake, wouldn't agree with you at all. But the fruit compote that goes on top of the cheesecake with that kind of rich, creamy goodness of cheesecake. Now I completely agree with you.

Gavin 1:22:56

I don't get that at all. I was wrong. He's wrong. I I think there's a cheesecake note. I also put there's an earthy, almost like uh sawdust or like a barn note to it on the nose. Um and then and then I it it turns to sweetness. Um, and so I think that cheesecake note follows into the palate. I think that there is um the cheesecake or the graham cracker crust with the whole cheesecake. I mean the whole thing kind of folds.

Aaron 1:23:30

I just wrote down graham cracker on the nose. When you said cheesecake, it got me thinking about what that cheesecake and like that's graham cracker, it's that strawberry, raspberry, cherry, whatever goo they pour across the top. Yeah. Um I couldn't I couldn't agree with you. Like there is a smoothness that shows up on the palate. Like sometimes you take a sip and it's it's a little harsh. I know this is slightly lower proof, right? We went from 100 to 90. It's also the second pour, which helps. But what I'll say is where I think the first one drank a little hotter than the 100 proof, this one actually drinks a little softer than the 90 proof would suggest. That this one feels like it could get me in trouble because it doesn't feel like it quite has as much heat.

Gavin 1:24:18

Hold on now, hold on now. Don't you be don't you be ragging on that?

Aaron 1:24:21

No, no, I it's not a bad thing. I like getting in trouble. Just ask my wife, she'd agree.

Gavin 1:24:28

Yeah, it's fair. Um, I on on the palette, I thought that it it sipped hotter than the 90 proof. Really? But then on the finish, I think it it went down. And although it was warm, I do think that uh the proof made it made it last a little shorter.

Aaron 1:24:54

Um but then you think the finish on on the 1863 was shorter than the finished on the straight week.

Gavin 1:25:01

Yes, yes. And then but on the palette, I think that they're I think it was more viscous. I think there was a more syrupy kind of uh palette on it.

Aaron 1:25:13

To correlate them to beers, right? Because that's when I I'm not a wine drinker, right? My wife talks about dry and why in and fruity and stuff. I the the straight wheat had a bit more of that IPA tartness to the palate, right? That kind of dries excuse me, dries your mouth out. This has a little bit more of like a porter or a staff, that kind of creaminess that carries through. I agree with you on that. On on the finish to me, I got a lot more of like this, I'll say soft sweetness. Sometimes when you say sweet, you mean fruit, right? I got fruit on the nose, I got more caramel sweetness on the finish. Um, but there's there's a sharpness to it still, though. Almost like you said you said cheesecake. I already had this written down. I almost put like black coffee kind of bitterness, which to me, cheesecake and black coffee just go so beautifully together. You get this creamy dessert and this kind of sharp, dry um uh sip. So yeah, I to me the the finish almost kind of has like I'm not a coffee drinker, but like if you put caramel into coffee, right, you still end up with that kind of like that sharp bitterness of the coffee, but that kind of sweet, creamy uh sweetness of the of the caramel. So yeah. All right, you got a number? Oh shit, I gotta remember that he's gonna be.

Gavin 1:26:36

I know this is your bottle.

Aaron 1:26:38

They're they're all my bottles. They're all your bottles. Well, except for the middle one. That's for one lucky listener.

Gavin 1:26:43

Yeah, that's right. Look at that little plug. Um, so I I would like to ask you what your number is.

Aaron 1:26:53

Oh, we're switching it. We're switching.

Gavin 1:26:54

Okay, so to me, I'm gonna hide my number over here.

Aaron 1:26:58

I really like the creamy sweetness that comes from this. I like the fruitiness to me. Uh, this one actually goes up just a bit. I'm at an 87. I think this is an excellent, excellent bourbon. Um it is it pushes back towards that heart of why you drink bourbons to begin with, right? It's the creamy caramel, it's the vanilla, it's all of that stuff. Um I like the six years in it. One of the problems we tend to have here in Texas, right, guys, is that six years is way too long to age in Texas. By the time you get to six years, you might as well just chew on charcoal. Um because that's all I can taste. So I I like the fact that this has it's not Kentucky style, right? It's it's distinctly different than what you get in Kentucky. That malted or that unmalted barley, I think, actually carries through with a little of the cereal note. Um, yeah, I think that's again one of the reasons I like. Liked this one on the shelf was that it is distinctly different than others in that category. I think that's exactly why I like that bourbon too.

Gavin 1:28:09

All right.

Aaron 1:28:10

87 for me.

Gavin 1:28:11

87 for you. I put this one at an 86. Uh, and the this one, I win this one squeaked out for me because I am more of a weeder. I love weeded whiskeys. Um, this is probably the first 100% weed that I ever had. So this one, the 1863, I thought was absolutely wonderful. Um, to me, I think the 90 proof was just you wanted to have a little more kick.

Aaron 1:28:46

Oh, I wanted a little more, just a little more, just a little more, and that would have been one point difference.

Lee 1:28:52

Yeah.

Aaron 1:28:53

Um 91 proof. You'd have had it. You'd have had it.

Gavin 1:28:56

You'd have had it. But what I absolutely love about this is I'm I love cheesecake. Oh my god. I'm a cheesecake fiend. So this one giving me that cheesecake note really just revved my engine.

Aaron 1:29:12

Or saddled my horses, or I'll say going back to the weeded after having had the bourbon and come back to it. There is a distinct like oakiness to it.

Gavin 1:29:26

I was gonna say, like, hey.

Aaron 1:29:27

There's a there's a I mean it on the nose, it's clearly more youthful.

Speaker 3 1:29:34

We just go here next. Oh, we're on there.

Aaron 1:29:38

You guys can drink whatever you want.

Gavin 1:29:41

Bring out the bottles that we no one can get. Yeah, no, no, we should get our seven here.

Hayes 1:29:46

Yeah, just flex.

Aaron 1:29:48

Bring out the doom, bring out the doom, and just start with that.

Hayes 1:29:52

Um he's like, all right, you gotta get a whiskey breast to drink, yeah.

Aaron 1:29:56

No, the the the straight wheat has this sharperness that I I don't know if I'd fully picked up on um the first time through. Now that you now that you have the the the sweeter, softer bourbon. All right, Hayes. I I understand there's a bit of like how do you pick which one of your kids you love the most? But when when you come in in the morning, you're taking your 8 30 a.m. pour, is it a standard offering, or do you are you going straight to tasting what's going on in the Rick House and experimental stuff? I mean, when you kind of reset palate in the morning when you start, where do you go?

Hayes 1:30:45

Well, yeah, it's it's whatever's whatever's sitting on my desk to give approval on, primarily. So we're always we're always tasting two different things at once. Um, you know, and it's typically it's the last batch against the next batch. So past couple weeks, it's been vodka. I've been drinking a lot of vodka at uh 8 30 in the morning every which is uh vodka is a morning beverage, it's a rough rough life you live. Just yeah, it gets you started.

Aaron 1:31:15

What was the old quote? Clear liquors are for sick people and rich women.

Hayes 1:31:20

There you go.

Aaron 1:31:20

Those are the two people who are supposed to drink clear liquors.

Hayes 1:31:23

So I'm feeling that well, and I I I'm not a I'm not a rich woman, but uh, I guess I'm a sick person, aren't we all?

Gavin 1:31:32

Yeah. Um so as a farmer and a distiller and owning a distillery, how do you split your time? Are you do you split your time equally? Are you on the farm uh you know half the time? What does that look like for you?

Hayes 1:31:53

I I typically explain this as I go I go to where the fire is. So um, you know, if it's the middle of middle of farm burn down, so no. If it's the middle of harvest, I'm I'm on the farm, I'm I'm running a combine, I'm you know, making sure things are cruising along. If it's uh you know, typically O and D time is is just busy all over because we're we're selling a ton of whiskey and and trying to make all those things work and bottling, and then we're also doing corn harvest. Um I typically what I say, which makes more sense if you know here, I live on Highway 56, which is the highway between Dodge City and Sablet, where my farm is. That's that's where I spend most of my time, to tell you the truth, is uh back and forth. But um yeah, so it's it just depends. You know, I I try and get as much. Sadly, a lot of my time is spent in my office. And uh, you know, I'd much rather be be out working on something, be on a tractor, be downstairs solving some problem, but instead I'm I'm sending back there answering emails and uh figuring out what the next situation is, trying to figure out if I've got enough uh Ronda regular Bremen.

Gavin 1:33:03

Text messages from the Noble Dram.

Aaron 1:33:05

Yeah, no, I text messages. I will I will say he does tend to answer pretty quickly. Yeah, I I I I picture you get up in the morning, take like two laps around the outside of the field with the combine, and then it's noon, so you head on into the office and get to work. Yeah, the idea that you farm as when you're not at work also sounds ridiculous. Or the idea that you make whiskey when you're not at work also sounds ridiculous, right? I'm not sure which is a more apt. I'm not sure which is which description. So I do I want to be respectful of everybody's time. Let's bring the episode to an end. We can sit and drink all night long, right? If you guys got nowhere to be, I got nowhere to be. I am 22 feet from the bed, so we're we're fine. Um, so let's say goodnight to everybody at home. Gavin, take us away.

Gavin 1:33:56

Uh appreciate everybody for joining us uh tonight on the Noble Tram. Uh, this wonderful episode with Booth Hill Distillery with Hayes and Lee. Cheers.

Aaron 1:34:07

And Salon Javall.

Speaker 3 1:34:11

Oh, should we do that?

Speaker 1 1:34:14

We want to thank you, our Noble listener, for joining us. We believe each whiskey has a story, and so do you. So give us your thoughts by leaving a comment. And if you have a whiskey you would like to see us share, let us know. You don't want to miss a single episode, so subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Aaron 1:34:27

And make sure to like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok to stay up to date on the Noble Dream.

Gavin 1:34:33

If you find watching us difficult, you can always listen to each episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. As always, be noble and enjoy your journey responsibly.