Duck Club, Day One with McCauley Williams

We sit down with Macaulay Williams to explore how Duck Club blends culture, craft, and sharp pricing, from a $29.99 92 proof sipper to a $39.99 110 proof High‑Brass. The talk ranges from rickhouse science to market oversupply, with a clear stance on blending, transparency, and conservation.

• origin story of Duck Club and the hunting clubhouse ethos
• Riley Green as co‑founder and authentic voice
• conservation support for Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl
• blending philosophy, extraction vs oxygenation
• why 53‑gallon barrels matter for balance
• detailed breakdowns of the 92 proof and 110 proof blends
• pricing strategy and value in a corrected market
• transparency via batch info and QR codes
• sourcing vs contract distilling trade‑offs
• branding, nostalgia, and reaching younger drinkers
• proof, flavor, and where whiskey shows best
• rollout plan across 28 to 30 markets and merch

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www.scotchybourbonboys.com
“Make sure you live your life like us, uncut and unfiltered.”

A new bourbon with duck blind DNA lands with a clear promise: real flavor, real value, and a story that actually fits the bottle. We welcome Macaulay Williams, CEO of Morningside Brands and co‑founder of Duck Club, to pull back the curtain on launching a spirits brand that marries hunting‑camp camaraderie with disciplined blending and transparent pricing. From his pivot out of law to building multiple labels, Macaulay explains how market cycles, barrel science, and brand identity shape what we pour.

We dig into the mechanics that matter—extraction vs oxygenation, why 53‑gallon barrels are a sweet spot, and how rapid aging shortcuts often miss the mark. Then we taste through Duck Club’s lineup: a 92 proof Kentucky‑plus‑Indiana blend at $29.99 that drinks far above its price, and the 110 proof High‑Brass at $39.99 that layers in eight‑year Kentucky character and a caramel‑rich finish without chasing heat for heat’s sake. Along the way, we touch the fallen rickhouse saga, climate‑controlled warehouses, and why blending may be American whiskey’s most exciting frontier right now.

Culture is the throughline. Duck Club leans into the real rhythm of duck season—cold mornings, warm fires, and shared stories—and pairs it with conservation action through Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl. With country artist and die‑hard hunter Riley Green as co‑founder, the brand reaches younger drinkers without losing authenticity, using vintage‑inspired design, batch transparency, and lifestyle merch to widen the tent. If you care about flavor, value, and a brand that shows its work, this conversation will recalibrate what you expect from a $30–$40 bottle.

If you enjoyed this deep dive into whiskey craft and culture, tap follow, share with a friend who loves a good pour, and leave a quick review. Your support helps more curious listeners find their next favorite bottle.

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Transcript

Sponsor: Middle West Spirits

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Middlewest Spirits was founded in 2008, focusing on elevating the distinct flavors of the Ohio River Valley. Their spirits honor their roots and reflect their originality as makers, their integrity as producers, and their passion for crafting spirits from grain to glass. Their Michelon Reserve line reflects their story from the start to the bottle to your glass, with unique wheated and rye bourbons, and also rye and wheat whiskies, the Michelon brand is easy to sip. It might be a grain to glass experience, but I like to think of it as uncut and unfiltered from their family to yours. So tonight we're joined by a very special guest. It's Macaulay Williams, CEO of Morningside Brands and co uh co-founder of Duck Club Bourbon? Or actual founder. You know, co-founder. Co-founder, okay. Okay. And tonight we're gonna dive into what makes Duck Club stand out in today's bourbon world, how it came together. And then also, you have a partnership with the with the brand Riley Green, right?

SPEAKER_05 3:32

Well, Riley Green's a person, but yeah, he's he's the other co-founder.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Oh, he is the co-founder. So you actually found co-founded it with him. Okay, I did not know that. I thought he kind of was that filled in something for me right there. So welcome. Welcome to the welcome to the podcast. It's great to have it's great to have you here. So uh initially, when I put it this way, uh, how how new is Duck Club? I mean, honestly, because I've done I've done it's funny because AI allows me to do a lot of lot more extensive research than what I'm normally doing. So I even have I've got metaglasses. Sometimes I wear them on because it'll be like my assistant, but like I can't see the screen. So when I'm having a guest on, I don't wear the sunglasses because it's like then I can't see you. But at the same time, there's there it'll tell you a lot about, you know, I learned a lot about you and about the brand, but like you said, uh Riley's the co-founder, so that's kind of that's kind of cool to know. And then, but also I was looking for, well, when did it get released or where? And it kind of wasn't out there. So, how long have you guys been doing this?

SPEAKER_05 4:55

We're brand new, man. We launched the Friday before Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:00

In Select Markets in Arkansas on Tennessee and South Carolina. And now we've we're rolling out, so like this is hot off the parade.

From Law To Spirits Entrepreneurship

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Okay. So, all right, so what I I a little bit of you, so you're in you were in the legal profession, you were a lawyer, right? That's right. So how does and was it because you were a you had been associated legally with the distilling industry that made you want to do this? Or how the heck do you go from being a lawyer to launching your own brand of whiskey with Riley Green?

SPEAKER_05 5:43

It's a great question. Yeah, we're jumping some steps, man. So I've been uh I've been doing this for about 10 years and have launched several brands. So I left the practice of law nine years ago.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 5:57

I'm still a licensed lawyer here in Tennessee, but I started I created a brand called Blue Note Bourbon First.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 6:05

Um back in the day. And so I left the practice of law actually. Well, starting in 2016, I started to get into the bourbon barrel investment fund side of the industry. So supply side, inventory management side, and in 2018, we created and launched Blue Note, bourbon, and then Juke Joint, yes, juke joint, all of them. Oh, enough. And you know, it it grew from there, man. And then Jukejoint, I think we rolled that out in 2020.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

I love that. I love that.

SPEAKER_05 6:45

Yes, and so in January 7th of 2022, I left the company. I was the founder, one of the founders and CEO of the company, and I started my new company called Morningside Brands. Okay. And with Morningside, we're building a portfolio of premium spirits. I went into the tequila space. I launched a brand called Alma del Jaguar Tequila, which is still in our portfolio, and then a brand called Weymar Gym. And under Morningside, again, we're building a portfolio of brands across spirit categories, all in the premium sector, with unique branding and brand identity. And we just launched, I got back into the bourbon space just this past November. And we launched Duck Club in Advance of Duck Season.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

Okay. So you being associated with Blue Note, I mean, we've actually done a podcast on the line. Uh, and uh, I mean, it's been a while, but it was very favorable because Super Nash, who, like I said, had the heart thing. I wish he would be here right now, because he basically had purchased purchased pretty much all of them. And so he poured me up two two-ounce samples, and I had like eight two-ounce samples of each and every, and we went through, I think, and we tasted everything. And I have to admit, the juke joint was great, and the tornado it was the tornado batch too, right? There was the tornado batch of juke joint that was just like I think the the warehouse collapsed.

SPEAKER_05 8:24

It was technically a straight line wind that blew the rick house ever, but tornadic-like activity. Rick house collapsed. Talk about a sketchy situation and a crazy morning when you get that call. Yeah. It was actually my buddies Ryan and Kenny at a Burgerman Pursuit. So I helped them start their brand Pursuit Spirits.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

Okay, so that even that makes more. So you're filling in a lot of blanks for me right now.

Blue Note, Pursuit, And A Fallen Rickhouse

SPEAKER_05 8:55

Yeah, man. I've done this. Is uh this is probably brand like 15 in the alcohol space. Now a lot of them were like private labels, small, one-offy kind of stuff. And then with Bourbon Pursuit, it was I pitched them on the idea. And yeah, it had nothing to do with like the name or branding, but it's like, let me help create a bourbon for you from like the supply side, and started off all as single barrels. Like they came up with the name Pursuit Spirits, it was all single barrel editions that we bottled here in Memphis, where I'm from. Um and then it just kind of grew and grew. That Rick Council collapse was nuts because I'm in central time zone. They're in Louisville in the eastern time zone. And so I'm at the gym and I get a text, and it's a video of the morning news in Louisville, like like a grainy pixelated video of I think it was Ryan filming his TV, like holding his iPhone up to the TV to film it, of this Rick House in Owensboro that's collapsed. And the company it was called BR Distilling. The parent company to blew that. And at the end, like the ladies, like you know, Kimberly Smith signing off from Owensboro, Kentucky, and they zoom in on this huge monstrosity stack of barrels, you know, 20,000 barrels, onto the one barrel on the very top of the pile. And you could see on the barrel head BR distilling. And that was one of those oh shit moments out of my uh I was like on the Treadville and I like just went straight from the Treadville and got in my car and drove up there like directly. But, anyways, yeah, that that was an epic release, a great example in this industry how folks are resilient. We'll come up with really cool ways to turn what would you know people would consider a a loss of travesty into something positive because yeah, Mother Nature does some crazy stuff, turns out, when barrels are exposed uh with no roof and the summer rains and the heat and all that.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

I think okay, so that would be one, two, three.

SPEAKER_05 11:51

So the 2020 that so what that what what that happened in 2022 that all went down, I think, during COVID in 2020, and that was released in 2021. Okay. I am no longer associated in any way with the company, and uh we'll spare the details of it. But yeah, so it's been it's been a minute, but we did some cool stuff while while we were while we were doing it.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

I just I'll just let I I like once I had the first bottle from there, I like traded, I just traded everything to get more bottles. I just absolutely loved that bottle. I mean, the the one that was just the flavor on that juke joint, oh my god. It was a great, you did a good job with that.

SPEAKER_05 12:44

We've been doing like that's some uh Ozita allergies, bro.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

That's that's pre-Green River, pre-Bard Salem, pre-all that's but that but they also were they were that was like not the they weren't they weren't speeding it up, right? You were actually doing the stuff they were, you were just aging normally in a Rick House, right? Well, I mean, I mean Green River, what a what I mean, honestly, acquiring the stock. I mean, I know Aaron Harris, who's now the Green River Master Distiller. We're pretty good friends because I've known him throughout his whole career. And I got we got to taste through some of those barrels, and my God, that's some good whiskey. Uh, just they, you know, that was like, you know, the legal part of it.

SPEAKER_05 13:28

There was some things that they call the original master distiller was not not that the new the new guy. I don't know the new guy, not that he's not amazing, but Jacob calls the a savant, I mean a true my HPA master distiller at everything. You want a master distiller to be, just like a true artist.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Well, they just they they underestimated what as far as the brand goes, what rapid aging actually means to people. Whereas you, you know, like it's it's it's ridiculous because they they were doing that special thing where they were vibrating and everything, and then they were, but if they wouldn't have just promoted that and nobody knew, they would have been able to age put it out at four years or whatever, and it probably would have been pretty pretty good. It's just strange because you know it's funny because there's another distillery that rapid ages that they won't say they're rapid aging because they don't, they just a year is a year. It's Buffalo Trace. I mean, for God's sakes, they heat their warehouses, they heat them in the wintertime. It's a steam heat pipe system that you know Taylor did forever, and that's would be technically what you're calling, you know, you're making the seasons, you're speeding them up, but you know, a seven year is a seven-year to them, but they put some more stuff in it, and it kind of explains sometimes how good it is and why people like it.

SPEAKER_05 14:59

Yeah, I would it's an interesting comparison because I would say it's a Z Tower, like which again Blue Nut never used. Only like a handful of like private label brands, I think, ever were bought into that out of there. But yeah, these are this is like a machine that is pumping air and heat and vibration. Yeah, it's it's a true mad scientist thing, yeah. Yeah, on the heat of the rickhouse. I'd say the heat of the rickhouse is a little more in bed owns than than the stuff that was like, you know, clearly, yeah, my little kind of out of bounds stuff. But but yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

No, I get it. I that was like more a little bit more mad scientists than just heating and cooling or just heating your rickhouses. But at the same time, the the whole technical aspect of it is you're trying to get it in and out of the barrel more, and you're and you're trying, and you're doing it artificially when you heat them, you know what I mean? And and during the wintertime, but there's nothing wrong with it. I it's just like and Buffalo Trace won't say anything, they don't talk about it. So it's like the way to do it because a year is a year, right? There's no such thing as rapid aging because a year is a year, no matter what you do to it.

Rapid Aging, Rickhouses, And Ratios

SPEAKER_05 16:16

Well, I've been down and started off in bourbon in Tennessee and Tennessee whiskey, and have now done a number of spirits in learning the gamut into gin, which we've done some exotic finishes in gym, but really no maturation there. But in tequila, like our tequila brand is one of the fast, it's top three fastest growing tequila brands internationally in the country. And a lot of what's driving it is our aged categories and like really peeling back the layers of science of barrel maturation and understanding how different cooperates, different spirits will interact with oak. It's fascinating. And yeah, I always said there's two main pillars to maturation. You have extraction and oxygenation, extraction, pulling flavor, color from the wood, oxygenation is the barrel breathing in that aspect, not to be confused with oxidation. But when you rapidly age, or when folks throw off kind of the beautiful ratio that a 53-gallon barrel provides, the volume to surface area ratio that a so a 53-gallon, so now I'm getting into like other world spirits, and now I'm starting to learn how to think in liters, which is a new phenomenon. But a 53-gallon barrel is to 200-liter barrel, and then a typical wine barrel is 225. Between 200 and 225 liters, you're this magical ratio of volume to surface area ratio that balances the extraction component with the oxygenation. And what so many of the rapid aging groups, not necessarily buffalo trace, mess up is that that like perfect equilibrium of the two. So like it'll over-extract but not oxygenate at the same ratio, and it takes both to harmonize to yield proper barrel profile. Even one. Yeah, it's like it's just like kind of the golden rule, if you will, of match creation.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Yeah, there's no doubt. The I would say like Buffalo Trace, when you see the the Sazerac, the length they go to be able to do what they're doing, the tests they've done, the in wood and everything, they've been around long enough where they kind of know what the balance, you know, they know that balance has to be there, but they also, you know, just like all of the stuff that they're producing, I mean, their expansion, you talk to but you talk to them and it's just like you they're they're like they've they've made the same type of rick house that all the originals are. They made like seven of them, and then what they do is take the measurements of the temperature, the the air pressure, and everything in the morning, and then of the original, and then they match it. They have a climate control that can match it in in, and I'm just going, now that's just getting into the crazy aspect of it, but that's what they're doing.

SPEAKER_05 19:24

But I mean, look, look, these guys, Buffalo Trace started in like 1999. They haven't been around very long.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

This is true.

SPEAKER_05 19:30

Bill Goldring, I like to say I'm an entrepreneur at heart and a ram builder, and I'm in the spirits industry. It's just my industry, what I do, because I haven't doing this for like a decade now. I mean, there is nobody better at this game and this industry than Mr. Goldring and the Sazerat company, I mean, which owns Buffalo Trace. I mean, these guys are on another level. And there's and it's cool because they're domestic, they're based out of New Orleans. We got all these foreign conglomerates from France, London, wherever, Italy getting in. And it's like, I gotta tip my hat, man.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Like these guys are really, really good at this from a not only a production standpoint, but marketing, sales, like yeah, I mean, as you know, the the one of the key components of anything that you're doing in the in this industry is it became a collector's thing from a collector generation. And all I know is that all I've ever wanted since I was a kid is what I couldn't have. If I was collecting wacky packages, I wanted the rare one that you couldn't get. If I was collecting baseball cards, it was always the ones that you can't get. You know, you want the ones, the inserts. How do you get this? You know, how many times do we open up packages and we're always hoping for something? They give us something in a package that you can collect, and it's good, it's genius marketing. And it's the same thing with Buffalo Trace.

SPEAKER_05 21:00

It's like if they built an empire off of that. Yeah, you know, like it was the yeah, the fireball is the real moneymaker in your portfolio, and a lot of the other stuff, Bernadette's vodka, all that's something like a thousand different brands, like legitimately a thousand brands. Yeah. But the understanding that an early way before anybody else in the industry got it, collectors, scarcity, story. I mean, they've all a lot to my knowledge, yeah, I don't know if any like made up brand other than Buffalo Trace itself. Like all the other ones have true lineage.

unknown 21:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:37

So you I as a as a you know startup kind of level guy in this space, like we look up to those that we think are doing, and we can of course critique certain aspects, but we can also pick the the elements that they they crush at and are like really inspirational. And so anyways, we're off on something.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

Yeah, but yeah, but let's let's get going on let's get going talking about you, right? Yeah, but that's kind of weird. We're just hanging, right? That's the thing. Let's see. All right, so here's here's the first one. Duck Club Bourbon is a pretty fresh name in the market, right? So you're new, it built around the hunting culture and outdoor life. What inspired you guys to launch the brand with that kind of, you know, it's the it's personal personality of the duck club, the culture, the hunting culture. And then I I was reading there was some aspect of helping out wildlife kind of thing. Was that was that in there? Did I read that? Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Buffalo Trace’s Controlled Climate

SPEAKER_05 22:45

So I'll give you the pull, I'll give you the quick rundown. Now that I've like sparked a little bit, I'll let you know I know a little bit about the industry. And so so I'm from Memphis, Tennessee. Like I mentioned, we're like the duck capital of the world. Ducks Unlimited is based here. A lot of the best duck hunting gear companies are headquartered here, and all the best duck hunting land in the world is within like a hundred and fifty mile radius of right here. And so my earliest, fond memories growing up were duck hunting with my father and his friends. And duck hunting, duck season is from November till the end of January. It's obviously a heavily male-dominated sport. It's cold, but duck hunting is unique compared to other forms of hunting. Like deer hunting is a great kind of antithesis of duck hunting. Deer hunting is a solitary adventure. You go out in the woods, sit in your deer stand or deer blonde, and look your boat arrival, and it is a one-man sport. Duck hunting is a group. You go out into a duck blind, and then there's typically a cabin or campsite, oftentimes referred to as a duck club, that they actually sell memberships to. And so it's a it's all about camaraderie and fellowship. And if we think about what whiskey season, like we love to drink burden year round, but like whiskey's ultimate like season is that holiday November through January, cold weather, fireplace weather. That's when whiskey just totally wins over every other category in terms of consumption occasion. So I started thinking about for my next brand, like what really meant something to me. I wanted to get back in the bourbon space. And to me, duck hunting is the most iconic whiskey-like occasion because of the camaraderie. You go out in the morning, you come back to the fire at the clubhouse or cabin, you're sitting there, it's the guys, it's like the the neighborhood kids got together in the treehouse, but are not all grown up and they're middle-aged. It's that kind of camaraderie. And there's other elements where you experience this. But I noticed that there really hadn't been a brand built around waterfowl hunting, which was so important to me. And then when looking at kind of the general market right now, um, there's so much aspirational desire from people that have never been hunting to be more outdoorsy. And our tequila brand, for some context, is all about the outdoors and jaguar conservation through a wildlife reserve my my uncle founded in Mexico, and we shoot that as and show that as an exclusively like outdoor camping, hiking, bliefishing, exploration type brand. So my mindset's already wrong, it's all about like the outdoors. And so Duck Love was born from those experiences, and then it seemed to make a lot of sense. We say it's for the outdoorsmen, the literal and aspirational. So think like Yeti coolers. Think how many people you know that have a Yeti cooler that have no business owning. Like, unless you're a hunting or fishing guide, you don't need a Yeti cooler. Unless you're mountain climbing, you don't need Patagunny gear. But people rock all this stuff because that is aspirational branding and what it means to them. And so our event and play with this brand is we think a lot of people will feel inspired and will want to be a part of this lifestyle, even if they're not actually hunters. And so through that, I was in Nashville. Like I said, I'm from here, I'm a ninth generation Tennessean. And I was in Nashville talking about like just the concept, the idea of duck club. And some buddies of mine raised, I was raising money, and some buddies of mine said that they knew Riley Green and his team. And I said, that's amazing. And I've listened to his music. It's cool. I don't know anything about him personally, but like, you know, he's super into duck hunting and he wants to get into the bourbon in the alcohol space. So that's really interesting. And then I noticed that his Instagram handle was Riley Duckman, and that he is all about duck hunting, that he's made ducks and duck hunting his personal brand image. He owns the Riley Green Duck Line Bar in Nashville. And anyway, so I was able to get a meeting and then kind of except, like, hey, this is what we're doing. Our buddies introduced us, like, is there any way we could work together? And yeah, I didn't know what was gonna happen from that. And he's just like, I have to be involved in this. This is directly on brand for me. Uh it's kind of like uh unbeknowing, like unbeknownst, like you were designing a brand, like for like this is exactly how I would have done it kind of thing. And then we just hit it off and started to think about how we could collaborate together, obviously, with his influence, my spirits background. I've never done anything with a celebrity involved, never had any desire to really. And this one came about like super organically. And yeah, he's such a creative guy as a songwriter, and so authentically into the space that had all kinds of ideas for you know how it should look. You know, our packaging is meant to be um an homage to an old hunting magazine cover. So I got that damn blur effect on. It's an old hunting magazine cover or an old hunting sign.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah, they're they're cool as hell. I love the I got the teal lights on behind me because you got the teal.

SPEAKER_05 28:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

I mean, the whole I it's funny because when uh oh I'm Rambo, I'm gonna stop there.

Why Duck Club: Culture And Camaraderie

SPEAKER_05 28:18

You start firing away more questions. When uh I gotta I gotta say the conservation aspect. So we work with uh Ducks Unlimited and Delta Waterfowl, the two largest wetland conservation and duck conservation organizations. We donate barrels, merchandise, and case goods for their auctions and fundraisers. And we've already raised like over 20 something thousand for wetland conservation just in a couple of events in the last 60 days.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

That is that's amazing. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_05 28:50

Yeah, so we're gonna keep doing that. And duck hunting, it's not about just going out and slaughtering animals, right? It's about the camaraderie, finding beauty and the coldest, harshest elements, hanging out with your friends, making new ones. And you know, whiskey has quietly always been the unofficial drink of duck huntings. That's what this should be don't ever support people going out and drinking and shooting guns. It's all about the like the night before or or the night after the hunt, right? When everybody's getting together, the camaraderie obviously be responsible.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Uh well, it's no different I I fish, so I understand what you what I get it.

SPEAKER_05 29:29

You get that camaraderie aspect.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

Well, and then it's yeah, because yeah, when you do you're not drinking when you're when you're duck hunting. But Greg Schneider, who is a master distiller throughout, but he was chicken cock whiskey, that was his last thing, and now he's at four branches, but good friend of the show. He's he's on tonight, and he worked for Wild Turkey.

unknown 29:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 29:55

I'm okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

So you know, so he is a hunter extraordinaire. He goes turkey hunting, pheasant hunting. I I'm sure he's duck hunted. And so he's he's but fantastic guy. But he was just talking, you know, first you were talking about the aging, and he's like aging in the 53-gallon barrel, and the the whole, and then you started without knowing what he said, started talking about the perfect surface, you know, and air volume. Yeah, he's now he gets into making barrels. He was making barrels there with the West Virginia, yeah. And so that was some cool stuff that that was happening, and then you know, he was just bringing up the wild turkey aspect, so it's pretty Greg's listening.

SPEAKER_05 30:38

He probably doesn't remember, but I took a class from him at Moonshine University in like 2017.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 30:46

And you know, knew and he's kind of like a like no no like he's kind of a badass, and you kind of know when you meet him, yeah. So I was like he's a man. We have some interesting folks come in that you're like kind of like taking notes, and it's like being back in class, and then Granite comes in and you're like Yes, sir. Yes, sir. This guy's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 31:09

The kindest individual, I mean, uh, we consider I consider him a personal friend, and everybody part of the podcast does too, also. And we've we've drank with him at his house many times. There's a restaurant in Indiana called Amoraid that he that we eat with all the time. The the chef just is fantastic. It's the only restaurant in my life where I don't order. I just tell him to cook me whatever he wants to cook me. Amazing, amazing. But get it get getting back on, I did have a question and we just went so but oh, I love the I do love the artwork from the standpoint of you know what you were doing, it it totally made sense. Now, when David contacted me, he said duck club. And you know, I I look at myself as kind of knowing what's going on. And that had that had eluded me. So that's when I started, you know, getting into. So let's get into the actual expressions. You got the 92-proof high-brass, right? 90. No, the 110.

SPEAKER_05 32:21

The blue label, the 92 is if you will. That's the main product. And the the the the red and the guy and the dog is what we call high-brass, and that's our one ten. Um so we can start with I would I would say we let's break down the 92 first. Let's build up to the high-brass.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Okay, so the one thing I want to mention to everybody. So there's all these brands that come out, and like right now, when brands are coming out and they're five, six years and whatnot, I'm used to paying anywhere from high 50s to low 80s. And so one of the things, because because David got me these bottles as uh for samples that I'm gonna give out to my guys.

SPEAKER_05 33:11

But David's our head of PR, by the way, for some context for those listening.

SPEAKER_00 33:16

And that's who who introduced, you know. I uh although we've not talked up until this point, but he, you know, he kind of was like, put out the thing, and I'm just like, absolutely. So but price point, right? And it thank you. 39. So the the regular one, the the the the blue, yeah, is is am I am I right? It's$39.99 or is it$29.99?

Riley Green Joins As Co‑Founder

SPEAKER_05 33:44

$29.99. Yeah, yeah, it's$299. So we give you the rundown on this one. So this is a five and a half to six year blend. We're blending in 88% Kentucky bourbon that we sourced from Claremont, Kentucky. 88% of it is 67% corn, 23% rye, 10% malted barley. And then we blend that with 12% weeded bourbon MPP in Indiana, and that one's a 54, 50, excuse me, 51% corn, 45% wheat, 4% malted barley. So again, it's 88% five-year Kentucky, 12% weeded Indiana. So five six-year blend, it's now a four grand because we blended those together. And this is sitting on shelves between 29 and 32.99. And we think that's a hell of a deal. It is. So it's in the bourbon market, man. There's so much stagnation at the higher price point. And we're we're coming to disrupt some shit.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

So this is uh now. I opened this a little earlier so that it wasn't just I aired it out, let the bottle sit. I let the cap off for about 45 minutes, and then so I wanted to not just be sure.

SPEAKER_05 35:05

And um, this is this is what we call like bourbon for the outdoorsman's our brand tag one. This is our every man, everyday drinker. It's good to be you could drink it on the rocks, great in a cocktail. This is not like I think you can analyze the flavor. This is drinking bourbon, is what we want this to be. And nobody in the world that's super into bourbon will be offended by this money either.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

There's nobody 92 proof. You're at you're at 92 proof, so you're decent, decent, decent proof. It's not, but what I will say, there's a reminder. I will say this, it doesn't taste like MGP.

SPEAKER_05 35:49

No, even though it don't 12% MGP.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

I know, but it doesn't, there's not, it's not I've I as a as a podcaster and uh you know a reviewer, the MGP, when MGP is used, there's a lot of people that do a lot of different things with it, but there is a standard taste that is at the base of it, you know, and this isn't that that's not there. No, so we actually wow nice viscosity.

SPEAKER_05 36:20

We uh one of my partners in the brand, too, is a guy named Ryan Perry. Ryan runs the silent spirit group. Ryan founded Heaven's Door and was their CEO. And so Ryan's on our team, and he brought to the team his new master blender, Sam Schmelter, who was a 12-year MVPI veteran. So behind the scenes, there's a group, and I think like I kind of laid the groundwork that this is what I do, and I've built a lot of brands, and we know quality, we know how to do this. And I'm emphasizing Ryan and Sam's name just to be like there this is not like, hey, I was practicing law last year and got into this. I was practicing law 10 years ago and I've dedicated a lot of decades to figuring this thing out. And we have a lot of great industry pros on the team, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

That's honestly, through the podcast right now, I'm learning a lot, and it's fantastic and impressive. Heaven's door coming from there, that in itself, well, and then there's an experience of being a partner with a musician that's added in by him coming from there, right? I would say that's really good. It's like having what is it? It's pink, there's a honey aspect to it. Caramel honey, it's very much a bourbon and not too sweet. There's not too sweet, there's a nice, nice aspect to it. And for the nine for your standard, which this would be considered a small batch, correct?

SPEAKER_05 38:12

Yeah, there's no legal definition of small batch, right? Yeah, like our first batch we made like 5,000 six packs of it, and we'll probably do the bat kind of volume like once a year of this one. Okay. So it's not teeny tiny, but it's uh it's not big.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

At all. Well, I always like you got you'll have Elijah Craig, you'll you'll have some of the standard, what you know, Evan Williams, but then you got an Evan Williams, then then you've got the small batches. You know what I mean? It's like a step up from just a standard. And this this is definitely as far as if you put it up against like a Elijah Craig small batch or whatever. I actually think this is a better entry level to your brand. I like it. I mean, uh, one of my favorite pores when I'm deciding that I want to just not analyze the bourbon. You know what I mean? It's like it's usually a what small, whatever, but at the old tub from Jim Beam, they that hundred barrel, that bottled in bond, and this is right there with that.

SPEAKER_05 39:27

Well, you know, that's what I was saying. It's like, let's don't bring haughtiness and like everything to every bottle of bourbon. Like, there's some bottles that are just meant to be a good drinker. And I that's not to downplay this one. I think we can analyze it. But yeah, I'll like to drink, and our team does, and the hunting community and Riley and what this brand's all about. We our core item is meant to be again, like the bourbon for the Alcador zone, which is our way of saying to every man bourbon.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Yeah, yeah, that's it. 20 and it's$29.99, so you're not outpriced, especially in this market. I mean, I you know, there's a lot of lot of bourbons out there, and that's that's a that's a nice choice. I like your your shotgun top, yep, wood and everything like that. So no, that it's put it this initially you see that it's Tennessee, you know what I mean? When you're like like reading bottled in Tennessee. So then you know, what does a person who you uh you're thinking, George, maybe it's Dickle or whatever, but then when you read more into it, you really it's obvious you put a lot of time and effort into thinking how to go. I mean, and mixing the Claremont, Kentucky with uh MGP hasn't, and that's I think the direction bourbon is going. You know what I mean? Why do you have the rules where if you you gotta have you why can't you blend? You know, Scotch has done it for years, hundreds of years.

SPEAKER_05 40:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 41:00

Right. But a lot of a lot of people think you stay true to the one, you know, that one you most a lot of people, but one of the people at you know, Lux Lux Row, what Remp John Rempe, right? He does blood oath, and that's like nobody knows what's in those.

Tasting The 92 Proof Blend

SPEAKER_05 41:19

Well, the there's it's a really interesting time in the bourbon market right now because we have some stagnation of consumer demand and pull through off the shelf. We got big names going bankrupt, brands up for public auction. Yeah, there's like blood in the Treated you like it is not necessarily great. And there's a huge oversupply. A lot of it has to do with how I got into this industry, which is bourbon barrel investment investments. So outside of industry investors buying up new mimic barrels, hoping to resell those barrels back into the supply chain and make make a profit. And they've driven up supply so far beyond demand, as well as a number of banks creating asset back loan products where they would loan 80 to 90% LTV against aging barrels, encouraging people to overproduce, acquire more. So, anyways, the long story short, dumbing that down, just bringing that like distilling that down, is there's a supply blood. There's an immense amount of inventory on the market. And a lot of there's a lot of amazing stuff. And again, we're kind of industry pros at this point. And so we're designing the brand to be opportunistic, not hey, we don't know what we're doing, so we're gonna go buy a few barrels from MGP. It's we're just designing the brand to be opportunistic so where we can source absolutely amazing liquid and blend it together. That's why we have Sam on the team and Ryan on the team of how can we find interesting things on the market and blend it together. Like these core items are gonna always be the core, but we do plan on uh building out our SKEs, our our you know our product line. And there's so much cool stuff. Like the idea of laying down Newfill in today's market is absolutely insane. You know, one distillery, maybe the only one I know that exists in Claremont, Kentucky, just announced that they aren't distilling anything anymore.

SPEAKER_00 43:23

Oh well, they're they're they're distilling just not there. And that that that's going to Boston, I know. Yeah, and then and I mean, and then they've got old granddad, they've got the the they've got the craft distillery, and they can and they didn't lay anybody off, which was a good thing. But the other thing, aspect of it is as Greg, Greg wrote an article, Greg Schneider, and he says, just real quick, he said, what goes around, he goes, comes around, wow. He goes, wishing him all the great success, but let he wants to know if if you want to collaborate on something, he'd be something special, he'd be interested. So he just threw that out. But to me, yeah, that was to you. So if you you should contact him if you want. I have all his contact numbers and everything if you need it.

SPEAKER_05 44:12

I haven't had his own.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Yeah, I will. I will absolutely do that. But I will say what you're saying. Now he wrote an article that it's not, it's not a what would you say, a whatever. It's it's not a collapse or anything. It is a correction. And I will I will agree with it. And you are and and and you know, everybody, I don't know why bourbon drinkers are so concerned. We've been we've been doing this boom, and there's been a shortage of bourbon for 15 years, which is making the price intensely expensive. And now all of a sudden, there's an there's there's enough. Like you said, you could go and get something of what you want and they'll have it in inventory. There's like an inventory of it, which then leading up this this leading up to this real quick, leading up to this, you could sit on the toilet and take a shit and start a bourbon brand and it would sell. It's just like now all of a sudden, everybody who is doing that, you gotta actually be intelligent, have the right people, know what you're doing, and know how to market stuff. You you can't, you you it just isn't gonna sell itself. So that's what I've been saying. It's just kind of like, yes, heaven Heaven Hill, they just built a brand new distillery, but they're gonna run it without hiring more people. Well, and at first they're like, that's crazy. Well, now they realize that no one's gonna lose their job because they got a distillery to run. I mean, there's so much, it's it's like in two years we were going from a barrel shortage, not enough bourbon, and then two years later, there's a lot of bourbon on the market. They're having they're shutting down, you know, barrel making because they don't have the demand for making the new barrel. I mean, it's just it's crazy how fast it's changed, but now go ahead. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_05 46:07

I think no, I think, but I think the cool thing, like as from the consumer's perspective, is we're gonna see the weeding out of the players in this industry that have no business being here, they're gonna fall out of the wayside. The people that either got over-levered or just had a brand that had no business being the market to begin with. But from that, I think you're gonna see some really cool stuff emerge. If you're open-minded to it, there's gonna be some epically cool blends of stuff that's never been done before. Right. Like again, this is a this is a 88% Kentucky from Claremont, and then 12% weeded MGP at 30 bucks on the shelf. At 92 proof non-shell filter. And this is just meant to be the core. Like, this is gonna be the ones that were pouring high high volume, high velocity at you know, bars. Like, wait till you see our cool stuff, and then you're gonna get into that a little bit with our high proof, uh, with our high breast that is to kind of see where this opportunistic market can go.

SPEAKER_00 47:11

So the other aspect is, you know, when you're thinking about it, it's just like how they've been keeping bourbon drinkers satisfied. I know when I first got into this in 2019, if you would mention uh finished bourbon, there was a ton of people that were like, they're like, that's not bourbon. I just like that's just flavor, that's flavor, that's changing, that's cheating, the rules and everything. And then now we've gone through every single kind of finishing barrel. We we've rum finished, we tequila finished, we enano finished, we every single kind of wine finished, every single kind of wood finished, and and then you go, well, what's next? And you just you just nailed it. It's just kind of like, I mean, all you gotta do is look at Scotch. It's like Johnny Walker. Johnny Walker is not made from one distillery, it is barrels purchased from multiple distilleries and blended together, and it's the same thing. John, you know, the Johnny Walker Blue label. I mean, it's got Highland Park, it's just got all the best of the best in there. So, and that hasn't even been touched on. I think Freddie No is touching on it a little bit with Little Book, where he comes out and they're doing some different things. Uh, but you know, and I like I said, John Rempey at Luxrow, you know, with with Blood Oath, but that market is not even touched. Mixed buying barrels. And the only way you can do it is if you have if those places have extra barrels, right? And they're gonna start having extra barrels, and you're right there at the start.

Pricing Strategy And Access

SPEAKER_05 48:50

Yeah, and not to mention that so when we started those barrel funds back in the day, the goal was to exit at four years. So buy new make for$650,$550 to$750 a barrel, depending on where it was coming from. So it's you know, wood plus liquid, and sell that at like$25,000,$2,600 a barrel. Epic return, right? If you could get it. The barrel market peaks in early Q1 2023 at like$3,000 a barrel for four-year. And why we measure the bulk market off of four-year because that's kind of the standard, because that's when you have to you no longer have to stay age on a on a bottle. So the entire industry kind of measures maturation at like bottle-ready bourbon commences at four years, right? So that's sort of like the the litmus test, the watermark, if you will. And now we can get nine-year-old barrels for 900 bucks. Like it's a buyer's market, and so I think what you're gonna see from this is uh so much cool creativity, and I think it's gonna be a really great time to be a consumer. And we've kind of come through this wave of holdiness, and people I use that word, a lot of people are just like overanalyzing, thinking they know everything because they've been on some Reddit forum. Like, if you don't know anything unless you've actually done it and toured the distilleries and met the people and actually know how it's made, you can't just read it all in a book or in a Reddit forum.

SPEAKER_00 50:24

Plus, um, there is I've been to a lot of distilleries and I've been to through a lot of perspectives with distillers and blenders, and there's no wrong, there's there's really no wrong or right if you know what you're doing. There's so much available, there's so much difference in what one distiller thinks opposed to another distiller thinks. And then there's the high big commercial guys, you know, you know, and it's kind of like it was funny when Freddie Noah was coming up and he was trying to do different things, and he was like breaking the still because he wanted to do a cook at a you know, and they're all set for perfectly for pressures and everything. That's why they built the craft distillery, because it was just like they were so used to just making bourbon one way, and then all of a sudden, you know, it all started to evolve. But it, you know, I mean, there's so many different mash bills and different things you can do.

SPEAKER_05 51:26

I mean, there's some really cool innovations that come out of this collect because it blends, and you know, the creative folks are gonna come up with some really cool stuff. And I think as the consumer, now is the time to get excited, not even about necessarily collecting, but drinking again and trying. And yeah, I don't know. I'm I'm firing up about it. A lot of people are dooming gloom in the industry. I see it as an immense opportunity, and that's I've been kind of sitting on the sidelines since 22 waiting for the right time, kind of waiting for the bus to happen to get back in. But anyway, so this this one's gonna be more probably most of your audience's flavor profile. This is of the two are zipper, uh considerably more complex. So we call it high brass because in a shotgun shell, which again we're all a hunting theme, a high-brass shotgun shell has more gunpowder in it. So we say this is our duck club high-brass, a cut above for those seeking more firepower. We're cognizant of the fact that a lot of bourbon guys, geeks, uh collectors wouldn't consider 110 high proof. So we came up with our own term of art, kind of again, looking back to our hunting culture roots.

SPEAKER_00 52:39

Well, this one. I'm here to say all their livers will, if they don't, if they don't think 110 is high proof, I know their livers do. You know, they just they're just always fooling their livers.

SPEAKER_05 52:52

Yeah, sometimes in this whole hazmat phrase and the the super high breath, you really get away from actual good flavor. Becomes this machismo kind of well, I like how hot do you want your taco? Like, well, I want it as hot as we can make it. It's kind of a dick measuring contest to an extent. It gets a little tiring. Although I think 110 is a sweet spot, really.

Market Oversupply And Smart Sourcing

SPEAKER_00 53:12

You know, rare perfection came out that with that exceptional perfection, I think it was, and it was 161 proof. Now, I got a one-ounce pour of that, right? And honestly, it was good, but it was that one ounce pour lasted me three hours. I I just it was basically put a little bit between my teeth. The the flavor was fantastic, but 160, whoo.

SPEAKER_05 53:44

And if you're doing something that uh that's really cool because now you're getting into like no one's done before kind of territory, which is really cool. And nothing's wrong. I I love a good like 120, whatever, but proof is not always better, there is the point. It's like where the whiskey shows best is where it should be bottled. And we find that this one and it's 110th, this really happy medium that's approachable enough for more kind of amateurs, has enough viscosity, thickness, octane to appeal to the more sophisticated bourbon palate. And the really cool thing about this one, Tani, is you're gonna see what blending does. All right. So this is 81.5% the same as the blue label. So it's 81.5% five and a half period McLaren, blended with 18.5% eight-year uh from Louisville. And those barrels from Louisville were distilled for a brand that's now owned by a French conglomerate, and they were aged on the ocean. And we blended that in. And so we've kind of got two competing conglomerates involved here in this blend, and it's it's really interesting. And so those math goes against 81.5%, 67, 23, 10, with 18.5%, 75, 15, 10. But that that eight-year-old is a just that's a lot of information, actually. It's 81.5%, five and a half, eighteen and a half percent eight-year-old, all Kentucky bourbon, and you're gonna see what that difference of the eight-year blended in does. It becomes an entirely different product.

SPEAKER_00 55:27

So why didn't you in this one? Why didn't you put in blend of Kentucky straight bourbons?

SPEAKER_05 55:33

Well, we that's a great question. It's because we want the flexibility and later batches to potentially alter the blend direction. Okay. Yes. So you design the label and you file the cola, and that becomes registered, and then we've registered that in all the states. Yeah. And then we set up based on the opportunistic market there is, we think we can match this profile across a lot of different states.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

No, this one is picking up a ton more caramel, it doesn't have that honey honey-ish flavor that the other one did. Yeah, and I could tell you that the other one had a little bit of the famous peanut note on it, too.

SPEAKER_05 56:16

Sure. So just be clear too, so like when you build a brand, you gotta have core skews, like core items that you can build distribution, get out there, reoccurring revenue, reoccurring advisor, people like brand awareness, all these like basic pillars. And so for these two, we registered the colas as blends of strange bourbon. And then we say on the back that you can scan the QR code, yeah, go to our website and see what the then we register the batch number and the QR code. So there's no us tricking you of you not knowing what's in it. So when you see it different, this one's batch one, of course. It's gonna be this ratio because that is that batch two could be slightly different, batch three, batch four, et cetera. But we're always gonna show that to you on the website. So if you really care and you really want to know exactly why it maybe is three or four percent different in the flavor profile, you can go see it. We're not gonna hide that from you. But we think we can blend with our ambassador blending team to within three to four percent variance by blending entirely different whiskeys together for our core items that allows us to scale and be really opportunistic in today's market. But we have some really cool limited time or single barrel expressions, one-off expressions where they look say like Tennessee or Kentucky, it'll call out exactly what it is if it's not a blend. But it's it's it's kind of a new way, it's it's a it's a brand building tactic for today's market, just to be like totally transparent of how we're doing this.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

So the one question, uh so you're we're we've covered uh as we keep going, you're answering question after question without even being asked the question, and which is fine because it just it's it's so I'm just going through, but the one question that one it was Matt Acoustic on YouTube, he asked, he goes, So it's the duck club, okay? So the if you look at the the picture and hunting and whatnot, so you've got the classic, that's the classic bourbon drinker kind of thing, the duck club, whatever. So is there a way he asked, is there a way to to market this? Because the price is the price point, and younger bourbon drinkers, you know, the the what I would consider at my age kids, but you know, not not children, but you know, the 22 to 27-year-old drinkers, is there something you're thinking as far as marketing it towards towards them, you know, as far as there is there a way that you can get it so that you have like a still associated with Duck Club, but then appeals to them? That's was the question that he asked.

SPEAKER_05 59:00

Because he was like that's I think that's a great question. And I'm gonna break that down a couple ways. So, first off, my co-founder Raleigh Green has three million Instagram followers, and a lot of them are pretty young. He's performing in like 70 live shows and stadiums across the world this year, and a lot of his following is pretty young.

SPEAKER_00 59:19

Yep.

High‑Brass 110 Proof: Blend Details

SPEAKER_05 59:19

He was gonna have bottles on the stage at every show, and again, he's the duck man, and that's why he's involved. And he's a diehard bourbon guy, too, which has been really cool. It's it's it's just weird, and I I can't say in earnest that you take me seriously that we're not a celebrity brand. But the ideas, the early kind of DNA of the brand came about prior to that, and then it was just like the serendipity that came together. So we, of course, are, I guess, a celebrity brand now. Um, so that's one, that's kind of our gas on the fire, if you will. And uh, he's got some really cool things coming up with some TV shows that he's acting in. So I think I think the kids are gonna find out about it, but on a more fundamental brand level. Um with with bourbon, why 1940s, 50s kind of fonts, imagery, nostalgia style marketing, and then why hunting? So it's not just what we're into, which we actually I actually really am. Um it's it's it's bourbon marketing. So bourbon is all about nostalgia because it's about the time spent in the barrels. That's why you hear all these brands that are they get this concept, but they make up it's my great-grandfather's recipe, or I found this recipe younger. It's a hearkening back to the past, and it has to do with American history. So it's this idea of this I'll just built into bourbon DNA, right? Yeah, through and through in marketing.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

I think you're right. In the standpoint now, when I when it used to be bourbon, what killed bourbon in the 80s was it was what your grandfather drank, okay? And they and the kids wanted something different, but now you go from my generation to my kids' generation who are drinking right now, and it's almost like through those two generations, they want to know what their great great grandfather drank because they're lost in social media, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:24

That's exactly it. Yeah, like it just bounces back.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

That's why you see all the retro is in across the collecting over music, car design, all of it. Even collecting. They all the collecting things, things that weren't collectible were collectible again. And you know, you saw things that drop to nothing because whatever, and now they're I guess it's goes around, comes around, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:01:50

Brag again, dude. What a what a genius. But you're I had to finish it on one final thought. So, and this is something that's not meant to be never trying to gender thing, but I have to bring it up. Bourbon is inherently masculine, there's no way around it in American whiskey. And so that masculinity doesn't mean that it's we're just marketing it, dude. But you have to have an authentic masculine message that's true to the brand, true to the consumer, because that transcends how it's perceived. Johnny Walker, we like to talk about Scotch, came out with Jane Walker. Total flop because it was fake and it was too intentionally marketed to women. And the ladies that drank Scotch, like, I don't want to be pandered to. I like the masculine thing. That's that's why the reminded of drinking scotch. That's you a little bit more power.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:40

That's why the whole Game of Thrones thing worked. I mean, they did the White Walker, whatever, and I guarantee you that's what made there's a lot of women who watched them drink scotch on the game of thrones. Just like, yeah. I mean, that you gotta get to them authentically in a way that they're you're not, like you said, you can't insult them. And then men aren't gonna bring drink that.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:05

But yeah, you're it's it's it's a it's a really fun time right now in the space because we're able to do this and talk about it in this way and be creative in this. And it's there was a point, like you said, where like it was only about like the pedigree of the juice, and like ultimately, like there's no way around it. We're in the CPG industry, consumer package goods, consumer product goods industry. Oh, yeah. And so branding, marketing is there. One thing that you're gonna see from my company, Morning Side, is every single one of my brands will score in the highest possible tier in the 97th plus percentile on quality. Uh huh. We're actually gonna do really cool shit that's authentic to the category and the brand from a marketing perspective.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:54

That's perfect. Yeah. Let's see. Okay, you cover that.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:59

I will not bring it down. Bring me back to reality, Tony. Bring it back down.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:05

All right, so we just covered it right there. Here, here's the question: how important is that cultural connection in building spirits' identity today? Yeah, we've just answered that. All right. All right, so here we go. Here's a fun one. We got to it. So, first of all, what's your favorite way to enjoy duck club? Do you like a knead on the rocks in a particular cocktail?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:36

I mean, so when it comes to my bourbon, I'm pretty sure. This is not just me being like it's like a when I'm drinking, if we're really drinking, like in a social setting, like at the duck club or like at a tailgate, it's gonna be with like ice or crushed ice. And when I'm sitting around at home, it's gonna be neat. I've never been a big cube guy. I either want water dilution because it stretches it out. And the reason I like ice in those social settings is because when you're just drinking straight liquor, you know, been there, done that, doesn't end well. The ice adds water, cuts it. Yeah.

Transparency, Batches, And Labels

SPEAKER_00 1:05:15

Um I honestly, if especially in a social setting, people don't actually realize that they just refer to it as ice. But I don't mind a big cube. Okay, and I uh you pour it over there, I'll let it sit for maybe 10 minutes after I do that, so it does get some delusion because that's what I'm looking for. But then that big ice is a slow delusion. So as you're going, it just keeps more and more. And then got, but when you're talking crushed ice, I mean, do it do Knob Creek or do duck club over a big ice cube, and then the next time put it over crushed ice, and it's not even the same experience. Those are two different, seriously different experiences, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:56

And I'm all about like the again at the duck camp or a tailgate experience where it's yeah, it's again, there's nothing fancy about it. It's a good bourbon, but we're drinking it with crushed ice and a styrofoam cup. Because we're just drinking and hanging out, and it is not like it is a subconscious thing, but also like my palate isn't you get to a point where like you just it's one thing that sucks is you accidentally become a snob when you do this for a while. It's like you like legitimately cannot enjoy some bad-eyed products, and so yeah, but they're still in some time that you want to shut it off.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:29

But it's but it but when you taste it so much and it's part of you, like especially you tasting batches or pulling from tasting different barrels or batches or whatever, people who consistently do it, it's kind of like I mean, it's just there's a certain amount of palate fatigue where you get to the point where even like a whole week, everything tastes the same. You know, you're pulling in the like your palate goes through so many different things, but there's that time where you will just like okay, I've just done six different bourbons, six different podcasts, and and I had two parties, a tasting and whatever, and I'm tasting everything, and I'm like, that's too much the same, you know what I mean? And then you revisit it after taking a little break, and all of a sudden you start pulling out the fruits or the caramels or whatever. It's just crazy.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:24

At the end of the day, man, we're this is we're meant to, this is a drinking bourbon. We're gonna give you the best quality product. By the way, that hybrids, that five to eight year blend that we just put over, 110 proof,$39.99 on the shelf.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:36

Yeah, that's that's a deal.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:38

It's a deal, it's an absolute steal, really. Yeah, that's the that's like we're giving you$10 to excuse me,$20 to$30 discount per bottle in quality because of how we're building this thing and just having fun with it. And we're gonna do some really cool stuff. Like I got nine-year Kentucky in maple brulee casks. We got eight through nine-year Kentucky single barrels coming out. We got a really cool double barrel that I can't reveal the secret of that. So we got some cool stuff in in all everything's gonna be under 70 bucks a bottle.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:13

Like that's that's yeah, for sure. For sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:20

All right, so Tiny's getting fired up.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:24

Where do you hope Duck Club will be in five years? Like, what is the what what what you know? You're talking about what you're gonna do, but what do you perceive it as? So how many different, you know, what what amount, uh, how many shelves are you gonna be on? You know, what what are you thinking?

Reaching Younger Drinkers

SPEAKER_05 1:08:43

So check this out. So we launched the brand. This one's a shout to Greg of how we we should collaborate and anybody else that wants to have them. We launched the brand the Friday before Thanksgiving. In the industry, if you tell somebody and our distributors at Macaulay that we we've done a lot of stuff with you, we love you, but the F are you talking about? We're gonna launch the Friday before Thanksgiving. Like, you know that part don't send in this business. You don't launch an O D. Our Arkansas distributor in 30 days said it was their most successful brand launch since Yellow Tailed Wine in 2002. We're already in over a thousand accounts in just four states. We are rolling out probably 28 more states this year. I mean, the goal is to be a national brand. But a national cool brand, not just some huge sell-out conglomerate. We want to be where our target consumers are. We're really looking at the overlay of the Venn diagram of whiskey drinkers to hunters to country music fans. Turns out there's a huge correlation and parallel there. It's like 65% of the same audience, which is insane when you overlay like three different things in a Venn diagram like that. And yeah, our goal is to disrupt the stagnation, deliver really cool stuff, have fun with it. We want this to be a national brand, and it's something we can just be so proud of. Um, we got we have a whole new we check out our merch on social media as you can see our 47 hats that I have on. We have the Howard Brothers hoodies who we partnered with. We're rolling out some stuff with some cool brands, like the band and shin and duck hunting brands. We have our new truck stop merch, which is really fun, which was like one of my pet projects that we're rolling out that's like, and that's what Riley's been really digging. It's like themed after the gear, but it's high quality stuff, but it's like that you find at a truck stop. And just having so much fun with it and just removing the VS, but giving you collector quality bourbon and kind of lifestyle branding, and so national brand would be the answer.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:59

You have to have Dave send me some so I can wear it on the podcast.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:03

Oh, I gotta give a shout out to our our our boy Dave. So Dave's our global head of PR, Dave Manler.

unknown 1:11:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:10

So you know, he was the global head of PR at Whistlepig and Cas Amigos and has done all of some big stuff before. So we're this is sort of like a group of folks that have you had their through this full of hard docs from previous experiences that is kind of all coming together and just being like, let's do something that we actually have a lot of fun with. And that's what's given us this really cool, cool energy.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:35

Well, and and it is cool. You all have been places before, and anybody who's been, especially that's how this this industry works. It's like people go from one place to the next. It's just like when someone leaves, you unless they're retiring, usually you know they're going someplace else, unless they were put it, they were, unless it was the the what their position was too much for them. Sometimes the position is too much for some people. But overall, people are always changing. But you learn from, you know, you learn from where you've been, and then you you know what you pick up and what you want to do. And by the time you get to the point, what you're doing now, you've done it. It's like you kind of understand the ebb and flow of the business and what you got to do to be successful, because there's so many before before that were successful, and there's a lot of people that you know weren't successful, but all of it's pretty much spelled out what costs you when you're not successful, that's for sure. It's not a it's not a mystery when somebody doesn't make it. It's like if you do the right things and you're doing the hard work and you get the stuff out there, you know, usually that I mean, I've I've not seen it be a problem. I've seen people doing the right thing, let their people go, and then everything go to shit. You know, when they start letting the people go that made them who they were, that in itself is the the bourbon industry doesn't like that, you know. They meet, you know, you want to meet the people making it, and most of the time it's a family, and then all of a sudden the ownership is dissolving the family because for whatever reason they misspent the money or whatever, and all of a sudden the whole thing that's that's usually the start of the collapse. So I'm glad that you're doing this.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:20

And it's like we're like the Avengers, man. It's like the getting the good guys together on these various different projects, and it's like, let's unite and do something, and that's why we bottled in Tennessee because our friend, our good friends, own an epic uh distillery with a state-of-the-art bottling line. And it's like, hey, we're not necessarily gonna just use y'all as a juice or maybe even any of it, but we'd love to contract y'all to do the bottling, and sounds like that's something the business was looking for, and it's again just kind of like all these different connections from the industry coming together to try to do something really cool and fun together. But Tiny, question back to you holler at me about that one ten. What do you think? Hi, brass.

Masculinity, Nostalgia, And Branding

SPEAKER_00 1:14:06

It's it's it's uh the I I love it because I'm a caramel guy and I taste the caramels. I get I there's definitely so it's always if something's too sweet for me, you lose the bourbon aspect of it. So there's I always call it the standard bourbon flavor, which where you if anybody wants to know what bourbon should taste like, it's when you walk into, in my opinion, and then that's just my opinion, when you walk into a a Rick House and what you smell the wood, the whiskey, that smell to me is what the standard-based bourbon taste smell is to me. So when there's a lot of times when you're having some pot still or you know, different crazy mash bills, you'll lose that standard bourbon flavor and it'll be overpowered by something, right? And if it's in the barrel too long, a lot of times you can get, you know, a 15-year, you can get not that it's a bad thing, but there's so much caramel into that that you don't taste, you're not tasting the bourbon. So the bourbon's a mix of the whiskey, the the wood, and then the char, and it's all there. And in this case, you have the right balance of wow. The nose now, after a little bit of time, and now that that I hadn't it went the car, it's it's all it's the caramel on, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:45

It's awesome. I did, I think I I think I told you before we had the listeners on. I'm sitting in this sterile white rhythm at my house in Tennessee because we're stuck under six inches device, and I'm coming in a little hot tonight. It's like just like probably oversharing some details because it's like day six. It's the art of lockdown. Two kids under five. I'm losing my mind. But yeah, but the high brass, like I was just thinking, I only brought upstairs. I can't I can't, I cannot leave this room, otherwise I'll be overwhelmed with children. Yes. But um, I was just thinking when you were describing it. I'm gonna go have a sip of high brass by the fire downstairs once is over. Hopefully post bedtime for sanity's sake. But the high brass is awesome, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:33

It is, it is. And for 40, okay, so I would say, come on. Like it's for 40. Yeah. For$40, it's probably the the that's that's probably one of the best$40 bourbons I've had. I'm not and I'm not just saying it because you're on. It's like it's my wheelhouse. It's like when you get into these, I love rare breed. That's$116 or whatever, but the caramel on that, but it it rivals that wild turkey, but that that's gonna cost you$50 right there. And it's got a really nice hug. It's the the finish, you pick up a little bit of the of the you know, the wood flavor, the tannins of the wood, but it's not bitter. There's the sweetness of the caramel that keeps that going. I mean, I would say that's probably it's an eight with the eight year and the five year, it's probably the the finish is uh a medium, but you know, when you're gonna get a really long finish from something, you're usually getting long finishes from you know 12 years, 13. That's where you pick up that. So the medium finish is perfect. This is like this is this hits a home run, that's for sure. I'm gonna I'll do I'll I'll do this, I'll get some samples to my guys, and then we'll do a barrel bottle breakdown of the high brass coming up. Let's go. So, yeah, definitely. No, it's right there. It's funny, it's like I like I said, when I first got these, I don't always like to open them up right away, like like get right into them and open them before. I like usually like to try a day before I'm on with you, or sometimes I'll do a I mean, the one the just the the duck club, I did the crack probably about an hour before the podcast. So that that's the first time I tasted this. This one I think I did on Tuesday, and it's just like and and oh having it being open for a couple days definitely it's really starts bringing out those caramels, you know. So for sure.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:50

All right. One thing I've learned from like the tequila industry. So we we have again the tequila brand. It's so cool of like what you can learn from the different I've taken a lot of my bourbon stuff and and brought it over into the tequila space, but in tequila, it's all about oxygenation and letting the spirit breathe and like really appreciating the plant, the agave, and like that. And so, like to your point, like bottles and not only bottles, but when we also we're now now like we're agitated in our blending tanks a little bit more than I we used to do because we see all we saw what it would do in tequila of like what air can do in a good way. Now you can totally overwhelm it and like over-oxygenate. But yeah, man, like it's mother nature. If you if you learn how to like some some of the, I guess I won't say tricks, but some of the techniques that like bring out the right flavor, it's it's powerful.

Proof Wars, Balance, And Flavor

SPEAKER_00 1:19:48

Well, people don't realize how when it comes to flavor unstable whiskey is. So let's just say it comes in that week and you you're waiting in line and it's been uh right off the truck. Well, it just went on a truck ride in today, negative two degrees outside, and it went from the warehouse to the liquor store, and now it's gonna go inside where it's so it was in the warehouse 40 degrees or whatever, and then it goes to negative two out there, and then it then it comes in and it's it's you know goes into 68 degrees and and then it go, then it gives it to you, and then you take it home, it rides there, it's being shook up. You probably shouldn't get home and pop it because it's not well it's gotta restitute for a little bit and regain its composure.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:52

Well, think about it this way like to hear something that's like it's like the bottle shop, like that movie or whatever, when in wine, which is isn't a fun one. Uh it's true, but think about this. We all know that oil and water don't mix, right? And we also and then here's the thing. So in a bottle of bourbon, you have water, you have fusel oils from the barrel, and then you have alcohol. Turns out alcohol doesn't like to mix with oil or water either. So you have three things that like scientifically, chemically, don't like to mix together. So, yeah, when you start shaking that around, it's gonna throw it totally out of balance.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:32

Yeah, and then also as a blender, you know. So we did a we did a private pick at Maker's Mark, right? And we were mixing them right there. And he would mix it parse to parse to part to part. And then we would taste it to see what, you know, based off the staves that they're going to put in the barrel. And then you come up with something you like. And I'm just going, one, I know that at one time I took four different the end part of four different um wood for double oaks and put it in a decanter. And I tasted it and it was like absolutely horrible. And after sitting in the decanter for six months and I tasted it, and everything got a chance to like actually become one, it actually tasted back to being like a wood for double oak that was decent. You know, it's just like you got when you're mixing your barrels, if when you do it right away, you're tasting whatever and doing the blending and everything, but there's got to be a point where you it's got to go together for a little bit, right? Where they actually, instead of being separately mixed up, trying to make some flavors, if you let them sit and settle and become one, then you taste them. That's more like what you're gonna be tasting for you know on the blend, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:22:50

For sure. It's around at one week minimum homogenization period in tank. And you want to do that because we think the highest level, think about like oxygen. Think about like alcohol, water, oil, not liking to mix. Yeah, something that we've like I learned a long time. If you're not careful, the ABV can actually be different at the bottom of that tank than the top of the tank. And so like the you gotta stir it agitators or stirring it, blending it, homogenizing the batch. And then it does take, it's almost like that principle of like the chili or the spaghetti sauce tastes better than the next day kind of thing. Yeah, because it all kind of finally rests and actually finally comes together. It's the same thing in this, like you gotta let it sit for a couple days because it finally kind of like comes in a resting state, which is which is really interesting to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:46

Well, I I told my wife, like she makes the most awesome lasagna, but it's all I said to her long time ago, it's like cook it, cook it the two days before, and then we'll eat it and just heat it up. It's just the heating up process is the most the hardest thing to do after you cooked it, but it's like way better. I mean, it's like that's where I it's like restaurants should do that. They don't, but they should. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:12

Well, hey, just one thing I'm getting at a defensive ed too about like the blending versus the distilling. So two things capital and then brand example. So capital. So like if you're starting off trying to do something, like just to emphasize, like, we are entrepreneurs that all came from different companies coming together. Like, we're not in yes, we have Riley on the team and stuff, but we're not some like you know,$100 million back, whatever. Like this is two strapped us all doing something that we're passionate about together. And so with those financial realities, like obviously, we're not gonna build a distillery and then wait 20 years to release a brand. If we were a private equity fund or a billionaire family with our family office, we might have a 20-50-year business model. So, anyway, so capital sets your business model. And so we are a startup, so but we have to source based on our resources and model.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:22

And so and you're embracing you're embracing the sourcing.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:27

Yeah, and and and let's also just like embrace reality that's hitting us in the face here. And that's that's reality.

Oxygenation, Blending, And Resting

SPEAKER_00 1:25:33

I mean, if you look, if you look at Bargetown Bourbon Company, they they built their brand while they built a distillery with lots of money backing, or but they built that brand on mixing sourced bourbon, you know, and getting it on there, and then started gradually mixing in their distillate to the point where we are now where the the stuff's still partially sourced, but it's also there a lot more of their distillant. I could see, I could see uh okay, so let me guess. The first thing you would do, right, is once you get more capital based off this blending, which you're very, very new, you would start to contract distill, obviously, right? Come up with your mash bill. I mean, in contact contract distilling with the modern dis distilleries, honestly, they'll do any, they can achieve almost anything you want. You know, how you want it, what what it, what the temperature of when everything's you know cooked, and I mean it's unbelievable. That would be the next step, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:26:38

Before not to be a naysayer to some of the industry guys out there, but like realistically, we're many years away from that, not because of our brand scale. Like, we're gonna do probably like 30,000 cases this year, but because of just how much blow up there is. Like we would be foolish business-wise to start laying down the new film when there's so much amazing juice. So maybe like what my estimates and studying volume is maybe like four years from now, we could start laying down new film. Like, there's that, there's literally that much uh juice out there.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:09

Right. I get the I get the juice aspect and why you would do why you would do it, but uh but it being super successful.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:17

Here's my other example was so I said the capital resources and then brand example. So brand example is the brands at the highest echelon and the most commercialized echelon or tier have proven that this business model works. Happy Van Winkle is unquestionably the most sought-after bourbon. Right. They've never made any of it. It's still the IP is not owned by Buffalo Trace, it's still technically a separate entity, not owned by Satan's Racker Buffalo Trace. It is produced there now. It has always been sourced, right? And then prior even to that kind of joint venture model, it was always so the highest quality bourbon was built off of our business model, and then one of the most commercialized success stories of an upstart and bullet bourbon.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:10

But I mean okay, question. Sourced. But if you it was technically sourced from Stitzel Weller, correct? That was where it was Pepe was started off by being sourced.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:27

I think a lot of it was, right? But I think I think he was blending in a bunch.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:32

Because, like what you know, what you got with that when you look at it, when you go to Buffalo Trays, they're just they're they're picking and choosing that family picks and choose, and they were doing that at Weller, uh, at Stitzel Weller too. They're they're picking, they got a contract for a certain amount of barrels that they get to pick and choose from that mash bill.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:56

You know, the map the what they will maybe treat value, but I think that also over-romanticizes and collectorifies the business realities of you think at some point if they needed some some inventory, they didn't find good inventory and blended in. Yeah, I could see what they did or didn't do. Right, right. But but I but I would bet a lot of money that there's some nonsense color juice prior to Buffalo Trace's juice that got blended into there because that's just how this business works. I've done it, that's reality.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:29

Right, I believe that. But I will say that there's there's Pappy Van Winkle still sources bourbon from Buffalo Trace, whether they while it's being aged. But I mean, that's the tech, you know. I suppose it would be you going, okay, so it makes sense.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:46

The point is it's just like, let's don't break it down. Maybe you can.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:49

No, but no, but in my brain, no, we're not, I'm not arguing with you. In my brain, it's like if you're going to Claremont and you're picking stuff from Claremont and you go there, it you might be looking for specific mash bills and whatever, exactly how you would have distilled it because that's what you want and they got it. That makes sense that it's your sourcing from Claremont and whatever, and you're getting what you want, opposed to if you were doing the the distillate where you were contract distilling, telling what to do, and then laying those barrels and those were yours. That would then be a whole that's it's almost the same thing, but it's still different because you're directly involved and you've bought it beforehand.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:28

Sense of like ownership and control versus end result. Okay. We are solely focused on delivering the best quality product in the bottle to a consumer. Right. We're not gonna let our own ego and pride get in the way of saying that we had to do it all the way through ourselves, if indeed we can create a better product by outsourcing it. Yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:55

Let's no, I'm I was just saying, I understand you made me understand what outsourcing, what it is. You know what I'm saying? I get it. I mean, there's not that much of a difference, but it still is a difference because it really comes down to money. So right now, when you buy it, you're buying it based off of where it's at, what it is, what you want, what you're tasting, and that's in your sourcing. Whereas if you distill it, contract distill it, you're paying up front. You're paying up front for them to do it. And then while it ages, you're waiting and you've paid the money, opposed to kind of, and I get that. I get that completely now.

Sourcing vs Contract Distilling

SPEAKER_05 1:31:34

Well, so we look at so that was I said papy, that was a triggering, you know, that was uh a uh what's it like a rage? Rage bait one. But then you look at like a one of the best upstarts in whiskey of a a non-industry player coming in. Now, of course, the Sindrums got involved and it became Diaggio, but Bullet Bourbon was like 17 different things over the course of 20 years, and so that's a lower tier, much more high volume product, but it kind of shows this very similar model happening at a different price category, different consumer target. So, my whole kind of point with the analogy, like we can of course pick apart some of the history and facts, but it's like the business model works at like this tier and this tier. And in and then those are just like two examples of it where there's a ton of other success stories that have come out of it. Like let's put it this way, none none of those like really big brand exits ever happened because they built a distillery and their own juice has what got them there. It was always built in the brand, and then the conglomerate built the distillery. Well, I get that too. High West, Penelope, like just go down the list in your line, like it was always sourced.

SPEAKER_00 1:32:54

Oh, yeah. There's no doubt, and then Penelope had the best of the all worlds. The people they were sourcing from decided they want to. I mean, it's so really, isn't Penelope still being sourced? It's no freaking I I know Danny and Michael, and Danny's like, you know, now he's the difference is is instead of you know him having to pay money and have they actually bought their inventory back from them too, which is even freaking nuts.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:25

How much are buds? They're two of my best buddies in the industry.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:29

And I understand. I mean, but technically, even though Penelope is reabsorbed with them back into MGP or Ross and Squib, it's still the same damn thing. Except oh, did I lose you? Sorry. Okay, so right? Isn't it just cats? Isn't it still the same damn? I mean, realistically, it's not sourced anymore, but it is. I understand the place that makes it. That's bizarre. Don't you find that unique in itself with what they've what they've done? I'm I'm very happy for them. I Danny, Danny was such a good friend of, you know, and talking to him and whatever, and then to see the success that they've had, but still.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:17

The kids go to sleep and the other critters start to come out, bro, and like start making noise.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:22

So now you know. All right, so let's let's end this part and then we can ask some questions and then let you go. Okay? Let's go.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:29

All right. Agreed on on just to round that last one out. Agreed, and then also one last one. Danny and Mike are like the best. Those guys are great, and not just from like the best bourbon blenders or bourbon guys are just people, dudes.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:44

Yeah, no, they're real. That's why I mean, honestly, some I've been I've been asked, well, why don't you know, because what what Bourbon Pursuit did with Pursuit United, why don't you make your own brand? And I'm just like, I'm a people person. I would never even, I would not even think of trying to do what they're doing because I love meeting all the people in the industry because this industry is crazy awesome people.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:12

The people blenders, distillers, how much money you can lose, and how intensely stressful this is. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:20

All right, so every everybody, I'm gonna well give the plug. What's your website? Where to go, how to get it?

SPEAKER_05 1:35:28

Yeah, so check us out at DuckClub Bourbon on Instagram. DuckClubbourbon.com. I mean, the fans have gotten out there. We've already had just like we're like day 65 or something. We got almost 19,000 Instagram followers. It's it's great. You can order it online on our website. We're rolling out across every uh southeastern, midwestern state. Uh we'll be in, like I said, like between 28 to 30 markets by the end of the year. Just just building, and it's been so cool to see the consumer adoption and like in in the industry adoption. Like again, I've started like 15 brands. I've never had it to where big distributors and big retail chains were calling us this early on. Like some of the biggest chains in the country. Like we love and pride ourselves on working with the independent retail market, but as a brand owner with like a huge chain is calling, it's like we know we have something special. And so yeah, just follow us. Just give me the one benefit of the doubt that we're gonna do really cool stuff. We're always going to put quality first. You're never gonna find a better value, whether it be the bottle of bourbon we're selling you, or the hat or t-shirt, or hoodie. We're doing it right. Like, I have like a core principle I tell everybody in every one of these settings is any product we make is something I would proudly serve a guest in my own home. Like, I always like to challenge other brandowners and say, like, hey, if you're like idol or somebody you really care about that you look up to came to your house or house party, would you feel pride in serving them your product based on like the quality of it? And I think that's a really easy litmus test. And a lot of people would kind of admit that, like, well, I like to sell it, I like to own it, but I wouldn't want to serve it to the person I look up to. And I think that's a really easy way to like weed out true belief or passion in their own product.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:38

That's that I I agree with that. I mean, the people that I I associated within the industry, that that's exactly it. They love making the good quality products and whether they're just stilling it or there's a certain amount of pride, and you definitely have that same pride in what you're doing and how you're going about it. And thanks for coming on the podcast.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:02

So it's been it's been way more fun than I even thought. You're you're an awesome, you're a natural conversationalist. I was looking for the word.

Pappy, Bullet, And Model Proof

SPEAKER_00 1:38:11

I I like people. I like to meet people like you. I I just that's why that's that's why we're a lot of us are in it, is because what it does is it's like the connect, bourbon is like the connective tissue to bring people together. And then the real fun is when you're all together, and you know, that's one thing that we always say, you know, drink responsibly. And that's kind of what we're doing all the time. And I enjoy doing the podcast, having the you'll see afterwards a couple people will join us, and we hang out a little bit, talk bourbon, and then I go, then I stay up way too late and have to go to work in the morning. But beside that point, www.scotchybourbonboys.com for all things scotchy bourbon boys. We got the Glen Karen's, the t-shirts, the bourbon balls, so check that out. And then also remember we're on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X, and TikTok, along with Apple, iHeart, and Spotify. Whether you listen to us or you watch us, make sure you leave good comments. If you're on become a member, you know, join us on Patreon, you know, support the show. We love everything that you do. Every every single cent gets put right back into the podcast, whether it's our travel expenses or our bourbons. One we love everybody, and thank you for coming tonight. Remember, and thanks, Macaulay, for coming. And remember, good bourbon equals good times and good friends. Make sure that you drink responsibly, don't drink and live drive. Don't drink in live. Oh, don't drink and drive, and make sure you live your life like us, uncut and unfiltered. And here we go with our AI theme song, The Take Us Out.