Dean Burden | The Nashville Distillery | Purposeful Marketing

In this episode of The Sports Umbrella presented by GalwayPlus, host Kelly Okun speaks with Dean Burden, a former insurance executive turned spirits connoisseur. He co-founded The Nashville Distillery with a keen eye for marketing and a start in celebrity golf tournaments as a white label partner.

Dean has found much success with his 4547 whiskey and Big Dog Bourbon, which appeals to golfers. He has found ways to white label his high-quality spirits in a way that charities and corporations use them as a personal touch for fundraising and as unique party favors.

Dean and Kelly also discuss marketing constraints in spirits, potential sports licensing opportunities, industry trends, favorite golf courses and a daily “small wins” mindset that's useful for all entrepreneurs.

The Sports Umbrella is a Fairway to Green podcast sponsored by GalwayPlus. Learn more about GalwayPlus at www.galwayplus.com.

Transcript

Meet Dean Burden: From Insurance to Co-founding The Nashville Distillery

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Sports Umbrella, where we cover all aspects of sports, soak in all the knowledge from our guests who range from pro athletes playing up a storm to industry experts making it rain. My name's Kelly Oaken, and I'm a former pro-golfer and founder and CEO of Fairway to Green, an equitable sports media company. Joining us this episode, presented by Galway Plus, is Dean Burden, a savvy executive who left the insurance industry to launch several spirits. Dean shares the beginnings of the Nashville distillery and how he became an expert in consumer goods marketing. Dean, thank you so much for joining us today. Can you tell us a little bit more about how you got your starting spirits and what it is?

Unique Business Model: White Label Spirits

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Sure. Actually, I spent uh a little over 30 years in the insurance industry. I started an insurance agency just over 30 years ago and worked my way up and over the years it was a fantastic career. But at the age of 50, I decided to take a severance package with an insurance company and said, Oh, you know what, I want to do something kind of fun. So I actually started out with a whiskey and bourbon company and a tequila company, just kind of sharing it with my friends, talking to people, and people are like, Oh, this is really good, this is fun. And uh, you know, I eventually invested in a portion of the bourbon company. That didn't work out as well the way I wanted it to, so uh some of us were working together and we said, you know, we should start our own company. So we did just over a year ago, and we're based out of Nashville, Tennessee, and we decided that we wrote the business plan to help corporate gifting, and also we do a lot of golf tournaments, so we were like, let's do some foundational work to raise money for a lot of these charities that we do these celebrity golf tournaments at. And we just found that was a good business plan, and so that's the way we started it. And the way we wanted to do it, instead of competing with all the other whiskey and bourbon companies out there, we were like, well, let's do a white label, let's make it your own, because so many times people are so stuck on their brand that they want to make sure they get that brand out there. We don't care what brand it is, you can have Kelly's bourbon or Kelly's whiskey or vodka, whatever it might be. So we decided to offer bourbon, whiskey, and vodka, and that's how we got our start. It's a really interesting story.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

It is, and I see you brought some samples here. Do you want to go through those now? Sure.

Charity Fundraising Playbook

SPEAKER_01 2:19

So we really got the start. I guess let me back up a little bit. We've got the start because we were doing a lot of golf tournaments, and one of the companies is Applied Underwriters. It's at a large insurance company, and they do about 75 different golf tournaments all across the country, and they raise money for charities. And so they came to us and said, Hey, we would really like to have this, we have the largest bobblehead dog in the world. It's like huge. And I was like, Wow, a big dog bourbon. That is a really cool name. They go, Oh, yeah, we already got the trademark on it. And I'm like, but you don't sell bourbon. And they're like, Oh, yo, what's your point? And I'm like, Well, I want the trademark to it. And so ultimately we negotiate with them and we got the name of Big Dog Bourbon. So we now own that trademark, and we do give a little bit back to the Global Reach Foundation for every bottle sold, and that which is one of their the chairman's foundation that they have. So it's a great partnership with Applied Underwriters. And so the first one I want to talk about is the Big Dog Bourbon, which is actually the head cover here that the winners of the tournament get on something like that. And so this big dog bourbon is one of our most popular bourbons that we can find, which is a 104-proof bourbon, heavily weeded, but it's very tasty, has a little rye in there to have a nice smooth finish. And that people white label that. So they'll ask to do their own brand on there. And a lot of times we'll take a charity, we'll put the name of the charity on the bourbon, and then put their backstory, tell a little bit about why we're raising money for that charity. Probably the most successful thing that we've done, we've raised about$250,000 over the last six months for different charities. And what we'll do is we'll put that label of whatever charity it is, whether it's United Way or Lantern Network or some other type of charitable cause, and we'll then auction a bottle of bourbon at the end of the night. And people sometimes go to these charities and say, Oh, I can't spend$5,000 or$10,000 on a table, but they can spend$200 on a bottle, take that home with them in a nice bag, and it's just kind of a gift from the charity, and then they've raised money along the way. So it raised, you know, eight to twelve thousand dollars in a matter of two minutes. So it's a nice little gifting idea for most of the charities. So that's what we did to uh differentiate ourselves from a marketing standpoint and getting it in more hands. That's a good way to do that one. So that's the big dog bourbon. That's the one that we started off with. Like I said, we do golf tournaments all throughout the year. And what's interesting is, and this is a very interesting story, is we got to the end of the year and it's in December. We're in the Nashville at one of the owners of the company's house, and we're sitting there talking. It's about December 17th, and we're like, well, it's almost the new year. We don't have any golf tournaments now until March. What are we gonna do during this slow season? The 45-47 label. So, long story short, we basically had 11,000 bottles we were gonna sell. So within 30 days from proof of concept to actual on the 17th of January, we launched this bourbon as a pre-sale online. We made a$120,000 bet. We said, let's spend$30,000 a week for four weeks, one month. If it goes great, we hit it big. If it doesn't go great, we lost$120,000, right? So after two weeks and$60,000, we sold over$12,000 bottles, more than what we had in it. So we had to go back and decide make a big decision. Are we going to go ahead and spend another, at the time, about$700,000 to buy more bottles, more barrels, and more stoppers and labels and so forth. And we decided to move forward with it and invest that money in there. And over the next hundred days, we sold over 44,000 bottles of this product. And it's probably the hottest selling whiskey in the country right now. And we did this all direct to consumer. We did not go to any of the retail stores at all. We did it to our online broker, distributor, retail distributor. We don't sell it ourselves, we are the supplier maker of the product itself. So it turned out fantastic and we hit a home run. We got lucky on that one. Not everybody can say that's how it starts out. Trust me, it doesn't work that way every time.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Yeah, I was gonna say, what sort of criteria did you study or analyze before deciding to go ahead and investing that extra money into the next batch?

Scaling Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) Marketing

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Well, you know, when you think about it, I live in the woodlands, Texas, um, in the Houston market, and you think about oil and gas and things of that nature. And if you hit an oil, uh if you basically you get an oil gusher and it's coming out the top, do you put a cork in it and stop it and say, oh no, we got the amount of oil we want? No, you keep on going. You let it go and you keep continuing to do that. And I think, you know, and we might have a four-year span, we don't know at this point. But 45-47 seemed to resonate with the consumer. So we decided that we would go ahead and invest the money into it because we felt like that brand, based on our criteria, what we saw on a daily basis, we measured what we were selling every single day, and it was overwhelming that was the product that was going to go. We took an unconventional approach to our program. I think, you know, I think about uh the Walmart tycoon, Sam Walton. He's always said, in an unconditional way, you should maybe take what other people are doing and doing it the opposite way and try to figure out a niche market. So what we decided was we are more of a marketing company that just happens to provide really good quality spirits. So we said, well, instead of going to all the distributors and the retailers and trying to get our products into there, why don't we try and get the consumer to tell them that they should bring in our products? And so we're advertising and marketing ourselves as the brand names that we have, and it's actually worked very well where people now, our almost every state in the country, even outside the United States, are calling us and emailing us saying, hey, how do I get a bottle of big dog bourbon or how do I get a bottle of 4547? But we are seeing that marketing really, that unique, unconventional way, really worked. In fact, in the first 30 days, we had one of the largest distributors in the country contact us and want to meet with us to see about what we were doing because we had sold over 1,900 nine-liter cases in the first 30 days, and they just kind of laughed, like, wow, you have to be kidding me. What are you doing? And I guess the question they asked was, well, why do you need us? And we said, We really don't need you. So, but eventually we realize that the consumer is always asking on a daily basis, how can I get your whiskey? How can I get your bourbon? And uh we are now starting to roll out to the retail states. There's 18 different control states, meaning the state controls bringing in the alcohol and the pricing of it, and they sometimes have ABC stores, sometimes they're independent stores, but the state controls it. We have gone to several of those because it's a direct contact with the state, and we are doing very well in a lot of those states, ordering every single month pallets of the whiskey and bourbon. So we've had a lot of success with that. So that's been a good one. We also uh took silver medals on the big dog bourbon and the 4547 whiskey. So each one of our products that we release is a high quality product and has some nice hardware to go along with it.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Galway Plus is the proud sponsor of the sports umbrella. Galway Plus Sports and Entertainment is the first of its kind platform in the wealth and risk management sectors designed to cater to the diverse needs of affluent individuals, teams, leagues, and organizations operating within the sports and entertainment industries. Learn more at GalwayPlus.com. Congratulations. And obviously, it's a high quality product. You're talking about your marketing. It's every business's dream that the consumers are asking for more of what you're providing. What do you think that secret has been? What sort of brand equity have you built? Has it been the partnerships with the celebrities or influencers? Has it been the focus on the product? What do you think has given you that vantage point in the business?

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Yeah, it's interesting. The way we took this unconventional approach, we started really through the big dog bourbon. Last year, we uh the first event that we went to was uh Anthony Anderson uh celebrity golf tournament that he has out in uh California. And uh Anthony was so gracious. Uh we did a uh sample label for him and Cedric the Entertainer, his good friend, that have an AC BBQ, which is fantastic, by the way. I really enjoy their products. So we had a lot of conversation about the different products and the celebrities that came through, gave us a lot of feedback on our product and said how smooth it was and how they really enjoyed it. So we started out with that series. We did several events with Hammond Entertainment, and it worked out really well for us. We only did 16 events in 2024. In 2025, when I started doing the schedule, I do all the sales and marketing and events for our company, and we had over 70 events booked in the year in 2025, and it's just hard to do by yourself, right? Traveling all over the country, and we have to be a little bit more choosy about what we're doing now. But we have some really good partnerships out there, and a lot of the celebrities see the value in hey, if I could put this on my name on this brand or on this bottle and raise money for our foundation or for a good charitable cause, those that are less fortunate. That's a win-win, right? So it's a win for the whoever's putting it on, the foundation, it's a win for us, and it's a win for the consumer. So the one of the reasons we got started in this business was to white label. I mentioned that earlier on, and we can put whatever label on there you want. And so we take these good quality bourbons, vodkas, whiskies, and that's what's really differentiated us. Not everybody's willing to do that. That's not an easy process, by the way. You have to get the TTUB to approve everything through the labels, and it takes a little bit of time. But it for us, it was a way to put it in more people's hands and get people to try it. And now that they've tried it, they really like it. And so now a lot of people go and ask their distributor or ask in the consumer standpoint, going to retail stores and asking for the product, and that's what's been the difference maker.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

That's incredible. And just thinking off the cuff here about white labeling, I know you're working with corporate partnerships and with charities. Would you ever go into licensing with teams and leagues and more into the sports side of things?

SPEAKER_01 13:16

Yeah, interesting question because that's something we're considering right now. Because one of the things I'm working on right now, middle of the year, is to work on October, November, December, right? You always have corporate gifting and things of that nature. We are working on some gifting packages that will include things that you can partner with a local NCAA team or NFL or Major League Baseball, things of that nature. We think that there's an opportunity there to do something really interesting with those folks. And we'll see. I can't spill the beans yet, but there's some things that we're going to be doing here in the near future that will open up the doors to many avenues. And I think that's obviously I think you hit a nail right on the head. And the fact that you have to get your brands and you have to get it out there to different organizations. For instance, big dog bourbon. We're really the target market in that is the golf market. When you say big dog, hit the bid that big dog, that's the driver, right? So we're gonna target those golfers out there. It's also been real popular within the hunting and fishing. Any outdoor sport, that's really where the big dogs come into play. I mean, who can turn down a big dog, right? I mean, so that that's really what that target market's all about is getting out there and targeting the outdoors world, and uh, it's just a great, in our opinion, a great brand.

Licensing in Sports: Teams, Leagues and Gifting

SPEAKER_00 14:35

I agree. And thinking ahead a few years to consumer behavior, corporate gifting, the industry in general, everything's evolving. What sort of trends do you expect to see in the next five years in your space?

The Next Five Years: Spirits Industry Trends

SPEAKER_01 14:48

You know, there's been the ups and downs in the industry, right? Ever since we had COVID several years ago, and a lot of the brands did really well. And a lot of people will say that in today's market that the spirits world is down. But in all reality, if you look over the last five years, it continues to trend up. It's just that because COVID was such a time where people were maybe sitting at home and maybe consuming a little bit more at the time, it actually, if you were to take a line, it actually is going in a northeasterly direction in terms of before. If you just take COVID out, it actually still is continuing to go in a northeast direction. So I think you'll see that the spirits world will continue to thrive. I think it's how our approach is let's go for the marketing side of it, because you can take the leading brand of any one of those spirits, and it's all about what's the first thing you think of when you walk into a retail store, or if you're looking for a new product, you're thinking, well, what have I heard of before? Oh, I know this brand because I've heard of it before, and I know of and they market themselves. And I think we have to do that. We have to continue over the next two or three years to really heavily market those brands that are out there. There's gonna be more brands that we come up with. There we're in test mic right now, but we actually didn't start this company out to make a brand. It just evolved this way because of the consumer's telling us they want this brand. So that's I think you're gonna continue to see us come up with additional brands and different. We don't take ourselves too seriously, but we're kind of a fun group. There's six of us in the company that we talk every day about how let's do this idea, let's how about this marketing idea? And we're coming up with the big dog bourbon, and we're gonna revamp some of the marketing we currently do with the 4547, and there's gonna be some new commercials out there that are really quite fun, lively, and I think you'll really enjoy it. I think you know, we sometimes make fun of ourselves because of that, and we don't take ourselves too serious, so it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

It is, and I know just from my own experience in the marketing world, it's actually impossible, as far as I know, to market alcohol in social media, in paid search. So I think really a lot has to be invested into the brand, into the marketing campaigns for TV and other paid media. Do you think that's helped you keep control of the narrative and not enter that saturated social media market?

SPEAKER_01 17:12

Yeah, we actually hired a PR company recently, Linda McLaughlin, they're great partners, and she has been a fantastic partner of ours in Through Media, and she has helped us with some of the ideas behind this in social uh influencers and working on some of our websites. I think what it comes down to it is you're right, it's hard to put on through YouTube, you can't have alcohol on there. We've even done some things with like Daily Wire show, and they can't say certain things on there, and you have to do a pre-roll or something ahead of time. You can't actually drink while you're on the show and so forth. So Spirits World is a little bit more difficult. We've taken a different approach where we're gonna start doing some. We just recently were asked the Rob Report is a report in June and July that comes out. It's the best of the best, and we're gonna be in that in that publication. And I think that'll help us, you know, people that are looking for something different in there. And if you have everything, the way we look at it is if you're a person that has everything, I'll bet you you don't have your own vodka or your own bourbon or whiskey. To put your own name on there, that's a special thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

So it is fun, yeah. I have a couple golf questions for you.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

What is your favorite golf course?

The Challenges of Marketing Spirits

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Wow, I've had the opportunity over the last 40 years playing golf to go to some of the nicest golf courses across the country, whether through celebrity events or my own, my wife and I like to play quite a bit. She's a big supporter of me and this venture. And we've been able to go and travel a little bit together. So I would say the one course, our favorite course that we've played several times is uh Kio Island in South Carolina. We really enjoyed the ocean course there. At the first time we played it, it was a little difficult with the wind and everything, but as we've got to play it more and more, we've realized that is a unique course, and I really like the courses by the wind. I would say that my favorite course, though, overall would be King's Barnes in Scotland. I had a chance last year for my birthday. I got an opportunity to go for four days. Actually, played five courses in four days. And King's Barnes was probably my top of the list course, played really good out there. As I say, uh tell my friends, I don't get to play that often, but when I do, it's a lot of fun. And I actually shot 78 that day. Had a good, for me, that's good. And I would say that's probably one of my now another links course that I just played uh a couple weeks ago is in Whistling Straits up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Kohler, Wisconsin. And that was an another amazing round of golf. When you're walking the golf course, you're truly taking in the what golf is all about. And you know, if you have a good caddy, it can make just make your day. And actually saw 78 that day as well. So I'm not that good a golfer.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

It sounds like you're a great golfer.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

I got lucky, I think. You know, you know, a blind squirrel finds a nut every once in a while.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

So those all sound fantastic. Some of those are still on my bucket list. I've been to a few but not actually played them.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

So what's your favorite golf course?

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Oh gosh. Mine's actually Kings Mill in Williamsburg, Virginia. It's it was an LPGA venue for a few years, but it was my home course when I played at William and Mary. And it's just it's hard to beat. But I also love truly out in Ireland. I think when you play well somewhere, you tend to have better memories of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Yeah, that's right. That's right, yeah. I would agree with that.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah. So my last question that I I love to ask is I'm a huge fan of sports psychology, golf psychology. What is one perceived small win in your business that has been worth celebrating?

An Entrepreneurial Mindset: Small Wins

SPEAKER_01 20:48

I think it's a great question in terms of small wins. We have a lot of small wins throughout today, throughout the year. We've really only been doing this just over a year now, and we're gonna do close to$10 million this year in revenue for those three brands right there sitting in front of us, plus some other white label projects for people who can buy barrels of bourbon, half barrels of bourbon. I think a win comes down to I'm gonna go back, you said you like psychology and sports and things of that nature. I'm gonna go back to a quote that I had heard years ago. I got a chance to meet Lou Holtz and hear him speak, a coach at another Dame fighting the Irish football team. And he said, in his opening statement, if what you've done yesterday looks big to you, then you obviously haven't done much today. And it makes me think every day when I get up, I've got to go out there and be better than I was the day before and try to find new inventive ways to continue to grow the business. And the little wins that happen along the way, you have to celebrate them because this business can beat you down, right? You can put in 12, 14 hour days and sit there and go, why am I doing this? Does this make sense? A lot of time away from my family, and yeah, you you try to make things happen when you can, right? But I'd say the little wins along the way are when we do get an actual contract with somebody and they say, I want to buy three barrels of bourbon and put our brand on there. Or they say, Hey, we're we came up with a you know unusual concept of a 45-47 whiskey, and it just hit, you know, just struck gold and just took off. Little things that we're doing, like little commercials that we just come up with off the cuff, just like, hey, wouldn't it be funny if we did this? And that's a win when everybody agrees on it, and we all say, Oh, that's a good idea, we should do that. And then the all the rewards come later on, all the accolades, all the things. So each day is a little success. Whenever you're putting together a brand, and you launched this brand just over a year ago, every day seems like a win. So, as long as you're making money, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Exactly. That's a great answer. Thank you so much for joining us today. Really enjoyed learning about the Nashville distillery and can't wait to see you all launch soon.