From Moonshine Roots To Experimental Spirits: Alan Bishop’s Bold New Chapter At Old Homestead Distillery

We chart Alan Bishop’s leap from an established distillery to Old Homestead, how he rebuilt his stills, and why he’s doubling down on experiential spirits. We taste and unpack Wickliffe Bell at 139.2 proof—peat-smoked oats, smoked apples, clean cuts, and a rest that polishes without erasing character.

• Reinvention after French Lick and owning the build at Old Homestead
• Pot still aging limits and why barrel babysitting matters
• Labels that free creativity: whiskey from a bourbon mash
• Making uncommon whiskey for common people as a guiding idea
• The Old Homestead campus and “Alcohol Acres” destination
• Wild Newton Stewart yeast capture and sense of place
• Wycliffe Bell process, thumpers, peat, apples, and cask strength
• Water, highballs, and choose-your-proof tasting
• Upcoming Rise & Shine trio and barrel-rested sunshines
• New absinthe and gin releases, plus where to find Alan’s work

The best spirits don’t just taste like a place—they tell you its story. We sit down with Alan Bishop for his record-setting return to talk about leaving a legacy brand, hand-building a new distillery at Old Homestead, and charting a bolder future where labels serve flavor, not the other way around. If you’ve ever wondered how a distiller reinvents without losing soul, this is a masterclass in making uncommon whiskey for common people.

Alan opens up about the real arc of starting over: the existential first year, the stubborn stills, and the moment the “house character” finally reveals itself. He explains why pot still whiskey has a sweet spot, how to babysit barrels so wood doesn’t swallow grain, and why he’s transparent about using “whiskey distilled from a bourbon mash” to unlock honest flexibility—used oak, varied entry proofs, and subtle pre-distillation botanicals—while telling drinkers exactly what’s in the glass.

Then we dive into Wickliffe Bell, a cask-strength Black Forest Spirit at 139.2 proof that drinks shockingly gentle. Oats malted by Sugar Creek are peat-smoked with Irish turf, apples are smoked and loaded into a thumper, and the cut is clean like a white distillate before a short rest in new oak. The result is apple-oat warmth, soft phenolics that read like hickory-kissed smoke, and a choose-your-own-proof journey that blooms with a splash of water or lifts in a smoky highball. It’s not bourbon. It’s not scotch. It’s a place in a bottle.

We also map the broader canvas: Bartels & Bishop hitting distribution, limited Old Homestead bourbon kept intentionally scarce, the Rise & Shine trio (citrus, jasmine-chamomile, hickory bark) riding the thumpers, and a new absinthe that merges Old World method with New World botanicals. Along the way, Alan talks underdog grit, storytelling as craft, and building “Alcohol Acres”—a lakeside destination that pairs serious spirits with a weekend worth remembering.

If you care about flavor, place, and where American whiskey goes next, press play. Then tell us how you took your pour—neat, water, or highball—and leave a review so more curious drinkers can find the show.

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“Drink and drive, drink responsibly, and live your life uncut and unfiltered”

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Transcript

Opening, Sponsor, And Alan’s Return

SPEAKER_06 0:46

With uh Kenny Fuller on our theme song, Middlewood, 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 it 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. Tiny here tonight, and we also are here with Super Nash and Alan Bishop, the Alchemist of the Black Forest. Welcome back, Alan. Good to have you back on tonight. Welcome, Alan.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, glad to be here, guys. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_06 3:03

All right, I've got to turn you up now after that was so loud. All right. It's great. It's great to have you back on for your record setting 12th appearance. I mean, you know, when you think about it and and the evolution of your of when we first met to this point and how much has happened, it's it's really kind of extraordinary, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Yeah, I mean, 12 zodiac signs, 12 apostles. I mean, you know, it's just it just it lines up, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

Yeah, I stars a line. Yeah. Yeah. Where's my ward? I'm getting a ward, right?

SPEAKER_06 3:49

Yeah. Absolutely. You could pick, you could pick 10 10 uh open bottles from my collection and I'll send them to you. It should be 12. 12, 12 bottles, and I'm not even kidding.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Nice, nice. I have to think that through. It might not, it might all be my stuff from that other place I used to work for.

SPEAKER_06 4:10

Well, I can get you an awful lot of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

Right? Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_06 4:16

Well, I mean, coming, you know, not we're that other place, you know, kind of is now in the background. You've been at you've been at Old Homestead now for two years, right? It's right coming up in April, April.

Leaving French Lick And Starting Over

SPEAKER_00 4:33

April 1st will be uh, well, that'd be two years of me leaving. I'm not afraid to say their name experience of French flick.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

April 1st, April Fool's Day, two years, and then I think I started a week or two after that. So yeah, come July 1st, that'll actually be two years of distilling at Old Homestead, which is pretty cool. And we just celebrated one year of distilling actual whiskeys back at the beginning of January. So things are moving, moving right along, man. The uh the trajectory is becoming much, much more clear as we go, and I can see the I can see a path forward now, which is hard to do that first year and a half or so. First year and a half or so is just starting a distillery is just straight up existential crisis mode.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

So yeah, and plus a great feeling to where you're you're starting to look and see things towards the future.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah, ball's not rolling, but someone has yeah, ball's not rolling yet, but someone has bumped up against it. You know what I mean? You can you can see it with just a hair, a hair little bit.

SPEAKER_06 5:36

So well, I know the first sample you sent us from the Spirit of French Lick was the two-year-old that was when you could call it Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey. So it was two years old at the time, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:51

It wasn't bottled in a straight bourbon, yeah, not Kentucky.

SPEAKER_06 5:54

Yeah, it wasn't wasn't bottled in bond yet. And you know, honestly, from the distilling standpoint, the only thing, well, there's somewhat an aspect is that right now, you know, the where where where you left is a lot of the stuff that they're releasing at this point is like right at that aging sweet spot. And I don't think it's the aging sweet spot for what you love to do because you love it when the you know the grain is a little bit forward and the barrel hasn't completely taken over on the flavors, right? Is that correct? That's pretty much correct, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Yeah, I but I let me let me say this, and that this is not a knock against anything they do with whatever I have on hand there, whatever I made, or whatever me and dad and Pedro and Josh Lynch and uh Tyler Gomez, or not Gomez, Tyler, I can't remember his last name, doesn't matter. Not a knock against any of that stuff, but I will tell you that that stuff was not ever intended to go beyond six years. It it wasn't, it wasn't distilled for that. So for whatever that's worth. Now, that doesn't mean that anything that comes out that's older than six years old isn't gonna be potentially good. I am just saying that they need to be, they need to babysit those barrels very closely and be paying very close attention because they were not pot steel whiskey is American pot still whiskey is not designed to go to those ages necessarily. So yeah, and like you especially my style, but yes.

SPEAKER_06 7:30

Well, I think I think what you're gonna the way you say that is that if you're gonna let it go to that age, you better be picking and and choosing which barrels need to that that have seemed to age a little bit slower so you don't so they don't become over oaked or whatever. And I agree with I agree with that completely with what you're saying. Although when we were in the warehouse the last time when we did that last barrel pick, you drilled a couple Lee Sinclairs that you really could taste that fantastic caramel, but that's been what two years, right? It's two years since that happened. So we're talking about eight years old then, yeah. So so yeah, and then at one point, if you're not distilling, your stuff is it's gonna be rough to you're gonna have too much of an aged stock. You won't have anything to report.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Proactive, not reactive. That's that's million-dollar advice right there. Proactive, not reactive, right?

Aging Philosophy And Pot Still Limits

SPEAKER_06 8:38

Uh-huh. Right, and I agree. So, but that's enough about that. That part. It, you know, and and you know, it it had to be just it had to be extreme. We all we kind of everybody we've covered the story of of where you've gone, where you're at now. The you have a it's a whole different dynamic. You you've built this still the stills you have there, you pretty much, not pretty much, you put them together yourself. You ordered the parts and you built those stills. They're your stills. Now, at two years or a year and a half or three year and three-quarters, once you had them going and whatever, what's the personalities like? I mean, you had the personality, you had three pot stills where you were before, correct?

SPEAKER_00 10:13

Yes. Yep, yep. I did at the previous place I had three pot stills. I've got three, I've got three main pot stills at Old Homestead, and then a little 17-gallon pot that we do a lot of, but we do a lot of open flame stuff on. That's probably gonna get replaced by a little 40-gallon steamer rig here before too long, which is just as damn cool because it'll be run outside off profane as well. But so the character of the distiller, this is funny. Me and Tyler were talking about this the other day on our new podcast sacred profane, like you can't you can you can wax romantic about what you think you're going to do, how you think everything's going to work, how you think everything will play out, and when you get to the distillery, it doesn't really mean jack. And you don't really sort of in the same way that the first year to two years of operating a distillery or are just sort of existential crisis, it's also and it'll be more than two years guaranteed, it'll be closer to four or five years. It's very much it takes four or five years to really know what the character of your distillery is. Now, I know what certain equipment's gonna do, I know what certain yeast is gonna do, I know the differentials between them and how to play off of them. But part of that knowing is not so much the practical aspect of it as it is the intuition of being a distiller who has run the repertoire so many times with so many different things that, like I may not be able to tell you exactly what a thing's gonna do, but I can pretty much damn well tell you where at in the ballpark it's gonna fall. And I already see kind of where the character and the spirit of that distillery is going to be at. It is very much in the vein of obviously what I've always done, a copper and kings, transphobic pushing that envelope into what I did as a home distiller and a moonshiner, and making that into a more accessible thing for people who want to drink experiential, intuitively fermented, and distilled products that don't fit the standard uh TTB identity for products and that sort of thing. We certainly make a I would say the white spirit coming off still knockout, and you know, we've got different categories. Let's just talk about things that will become whiskey or whiskey-like. The white spirit coming off of those stills is big, bold, floral, herbal, uh, sometimes a little culinary in nature, uncuous for sure, very oily. And it doesn't matter which variation we do, because we can do double pot, we can do single pass short column at you know 120 to 140, we can do single pass, double thumper at 140. Even with the same mash bill, same yeast, etc., all three expressions taste entirely different from one another. Nothing at Old Homestead will be standard. It will be less standard than flick ever was less standard. It'll be less standard than anybody out there on the market. It will be its own It's entirely own ship. It's uh I don't I don't know the best way to explain it, other than uh, listen, you can uh you can take Captain Jack Sparrow off of the black pearl, but whatever ship that he's on, he's gonna sell it his way, right? And uh especially if he's got that little compass in his hand that tells him what he really wants, and I've got that little compass in my hand now that tells me what I really want. And I'm gonna follow it, and I'm gonna make a whole bunch of people follow me with it.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

That's awesome. Yeah, looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_06 13:46

But you know, the you do have a whereas location where you're located. I mean, honestly, there's a certain amount of Indiana that gets dumped in your lap, and not necessarily just because of the distillery. Like they don't they don't have to go, they're there on the weekends. It and it's unlike any other place I've been to because how many places has a brewery, a winery, and a distillery all within a football fields a hundred yards of each other, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Make it better, and a marina, oh only one place, and it's known as Alcohol Acres, AA.

SPEAKER_06 14:34

Sweet. One place in the whole world. And then just you just for for shits and giggles you threw in a hotel.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Yeah, we did. You had to because with a a brewery, a winery, and a distillery, you always can get you drunk.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

You can have a you can have a good time, I can get you drunk, and as long as you can crawl to that hotel room, guess what? I can go home at night and I can sleep like a baby, not worrying about nobody or no consequences. I don't have to worry about it either, because they can get up the next morning. That's right. They'll hear that steam whistle going off on it still, that'll get them up.

SPEAKER_06 15:12

Oh, and then and then the next morning you just roll out and there's a coffee shop. It's you got it all. Plus, I mean, good restaurant, right? A good restaurant right next door. I mean, good, good, I mean, it's just the the coffee shop serves breakfast. I mean, realistically, it's a one-stop shop for vacationing, partying Indiana.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

And you can't get any better if you want if you want to get out in the in the sticks and the heath and you want to have a good time, and you don't want to be in the middle of everybody and everything. We got almost 9,000 acres worth of lake and lakefront there with the Potoka Lake area. You got the, like you said, all the things there at Alcohol Acres. We also have, you know, the restaurant in the lobby. We also have the restaurant right there on the proper as well. Oh man, the name of it's flipping me and I'm gonna get smacked for that guaranteed. Uh, the most underutilized thing that that is there, let me tell I'm gonna tell you guys a little trade secret about alcohol acres. I'm all about the restaurant that's in the hotel lobby, and I'm all about uh that other restaurant there I can't think of the name of it, but down the road there's another restaurant, same ownership, not us, separate people. There's a place called is it Finn's? I think that's what it's called. Anyways, one of the two restaurants right there has got the greatest hangover food ever, and I'm gonna tell you guys about it. It's the one that's a little closer to the highway. So they have a Big Mac pizza. And I don't know if you've ever had a Big Mac pizza, but it is exactly what you think it is. It tastes exactly like a Big Mac on a pizza and is the single greatest hangover cure on the face of the planet. That sounds awesome. Well, and don't get much more Hoosier or Hoosier Occupy Northern Kentucky than what we got going on.

SPEAKER_06 17:01

Okay, so so the one thing that you've uh one thing that if anybody has never met Alan or know about Alan is that his enjoyment of distilling is only put up the the only thing that I think that you enjoy more is food. No, I I never you are not. You have to you have to ride your bike, but but no beer is a big insinuation. You you love you love food. I mean, there was a restaurant, I mean, you will tell people about the best food there is to tell people about and where it is, and when you tell somebody about a pizza, a Big Mac pizza, which we're probably gonna get in trouble on that one, but at the same time, you tell somebody about that we know you've eaten it many times.

SPEAKER_00 17:58

What you what you call fat, I like to call power, but yes, I love food. You're not wrong.

SPEAKER_06 18:03

But but but I don't not you are not fat. I mean, I I would never I'm not calling you called yourself yourself fat.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Listen, I'm aware that I am a small D-shaped human, and it's okay. I'm comfortable with that at this point in my life. It's all good. It's all good.

SPEAKER_06 18:21

Well, you changed, you changed the shape this this last past summer. And I and you know, and the only thing that sucks is when you when you bike, it's great if you get into it and you get in a rhythm, but when it starts to get cold, I it's just like running. At first, you think it's really not that cold. And you live in Indiana, I live in Ohio, I lived in Wisconsin, but there's a point where you're just like, fuck this shit. You gotta find something else once it's winter, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:53

I'll touch on the on the bike thing real quick before we go back into the stilling-related stuff, but it's not the cold. The cold I can deal with. I'm all I I like cold weather. I actually love cold weather. It's the wind. The wind. Fuck the wind. Yeah. The wind on a bicycle riding into a headwind. Oh my god, you might as well uh you it's like biking through a tar kit. You can't do it. I can't do it anyways.

SPEAKER_06 19:19

So well, I could put put it this way the fact that you're saying that the wind, the wind makes the cold even colder, and it makes you makes the the worst part is your your hands or your feet. It just like it just strips you. And it doesn't have to be, you know, it could be then do you ever do you notice there might be a 28-degree day that you go out in and it and after a bunch of below zero days, it feels warm, but then there's that 28-degree day where it's just almost feels like it's zero because it's got so much moisture and the wind's whipping through, still making your hands not work.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Sucks cold.

SPEAKER_06 20:00

Yeah, up here.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Um I'm a I'm a big guy, and and I I love the winter and the cold a whole lot more. Miss today's when I was living in Colorado than all that. But put me in the sun and the heat. I mean, you can only do so much to cool down. So many fuels you can take off legally.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Well, one of the one of the beautiful things about Old Homestead is you know, and we're trying to get more people there in the wintertime in particular, and we'll be doing a lot of events around that. They're doing a lot of events in the event center and stuff like that, comedy shows and masquerades and murder mystery stuff. But, you know, you can come in, it's cold outside, and I'll sell you some liquid sunshine and it'll warm you right up.

The Old Homestead Campus And “Alcohol Acres”

SPEAKER_06 20:44

So, yeah, there's no doubt. And the one thing, okay, so let's just talk about uh starting. I I I know that you know it's it's it's kind of ironic that when you left where you were before, you were at the point where things were gonna get humming. You could have a little bit more age spirits, you could still be making the new stuff, you were just at that point and you went through it. You went through learning all the equipment, now you go back and do it again. Now, to do it again, I'm sure there's days where you're like, okay, this still sucks at this point, but I'll get through it. And but then there's the days where you're like, holy shit, my my changes this time is making it this much easier, or I'm getting a better result because you're doing it a second time. You know, talk about that starting over because it's, I mean, I don't care what you tell me, it's gotta, you know, anytime you start over after you've developed something and you do it better, you can do it better. I know that. And I think you have at this point all aspects of doing it better. You know what I'm saying? All the aspects, you know, the people, the whole thing, you know, and you and you you've never lost your, what would you say, your social media identity or your what you're putting out there, because we all know you got to, you know, you can make you could sit there and go in your little corner. I think I think one of the I I don't know if you ever been to Glen's Creek, but Dave there, he does that. But if you don't market properly, you need the certain amount of success by marketing your brand of who you are, so that people want to drink what you're doing, because otherwise there's that's that's part just part of it, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:42

That was a complex uh question, but yes. So so one of the reasons I don't think that I've and not to say that there aren't people who have not followed me closely, some people dropped off when I left Spirits of French look, and that's okay. I took note of that. I know who they are, and I know why they were around me in the first place, and it was because they could get something from me, and a little bit of success that I had would help them out. And listen, I took I took names, I wrote them down, I know who they are, and guess who ain't getting in the loop this time around? But one of the things I think has always helped me, Jeff and Martin, you guys know this about me is I'm not at one point in time, maybe I was playing a character, but what I'm doing now is not a character. What you see of me on social media is me, and the distilling thing, unlike a lot of Distillers out there, I think, and I don't say this as a slight, this is my lifestyle. I would be doing this whether or not I was working a normal 40-hour a week job or whatever. I was doing I'd be doing it in my basement. Nothing would change other than the fact that nobody would know about it. That's all that would change. It's the only thing I've ever been really, really good at. And I consider myself as much a storyteller as I am a distiller. And so one of the people that I look at, so this is actually my third time starting over. Now, this time I've got some ownership, and I consider this the last one as far as I'm concerned. One of the things I look at often I like to I like to look at the musicians and writers and poets and things of that nature. But I look at David Bowie a lot because Bowie constantly reinvented himself. He would tear himself down and start completely over. And I've done that three times now, but the beauty of this is that within Old Homestead, I could keep tearing myself down and starting over in many, many ways, right? There are days where, yes, no matter how much you love what you do, there are days where you just get there and you fuck this. Why am I here? What am I doing? Clearly, I don't know what I'm doing. And the self-doubt sort of creeps in. And it can get the better of you, especially if you are dumb enough in this industry. And I say that with all sincerity to people that need to hear it. If you are dumb enough in this industry to think that you need the validation of all those people who didn't follow me over from the previous employer because I can no longer do them any favors because I'm somehow not on top of the world, or people who come up to me at events and say things like, Oh, this, and this is a great one, things like, uh, oh man, let me know when you have some good whiskey so I know when to come visit you. Now, kiss my ass. I've already got distilled spirits on hand. If we were friends, you'd already be coming and visiting. You ain't not on the list now, right? So there's always a little bit of an underdog with me. I like being the underdog. That's why I like working for small distilleries. I like to punch up and I like to surprise people by what I know how to do and what I can do. There's nothing better than knowing that someone looks at you like you're a dumb hick and they couldn't accomplish anything, and then you get to rub it in their face. And so the more adversity that there is, essentially, when I start off, the more of a mountain there is a climb, the more I want to do it. The more, the more I'm determined to be like, no, dude, you you your perception perception is that you think that you know something about the distilled spirits industry, and my perception of you, because you look down on me because you think somehow you're smarter than I am, is that I'm going to prove you wrong just because I can't, right? That's what I love about Old Homestead. It's in the middle of nowhere, but it's also within an hour of Louisville, Kentucky, right? Yeah, that hour within Louisville, Kentucky is fantastic for me because guess what? I get you away from that town, I get you away from Bourbonville, and I get you up here in the Hoosier-occupied northern Kentucky, and you have a good time, and you try something that you've never tried before. In 10 years, you're not going to be still talking about that same bourbon that tasted like everybody else's bourbon. You're going to be talking about the experience you had tasting the odd thing that you've never tasted before that never existed in a distillery before. Right? That's that's what I do. So I shepherd my people, Jeff.

Craft, Food, Weather, And Real Life

SPEAKER_06 26:52

So you made the reference, which makes me so I so you made the reference to Bowie, okay? And I followed Bowie from the time, I mean, it's like when I was listening to music in late 70s, I was I was too young in this in the early 70s, but once I started listening to it, he put his greatest hits out. But then I started listening to his albums like Lowe and some of his other albums that he put out that weren't mainstream pop music. He basically musically expressed himself. And then every once in a while, he could he would just basically uh and I will say this respectfully, shit out a pop album that would go and put, you know, you know, just dance, you know, let's dance and get me to the church. That was a pop album designed to do charts and keep himself relevant in the industry. So your for for let me let me throw this out. Your pop album should be in between all this, is your pop album should be a bourbon.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

You throw down a bourbon. My B side is a bourbon, buddy.

SPEAKER_06 28:04

Okay, so as long as you're making B sides, I'm right there with you, and I'm always there, anyways. But I'm I want to listen to the B side too. Because what you laid down as far as bourbon is so fucking different than other people's bourbons, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:24

Right. But see, I already and I know I see what you're getting at. So let me let me let me phrase it this way. So when it comes to a pop album, my my my pop albums would be those things that are widely accessible to everyone. So things like the flavored sunshines, things of that nature, right? Where you don't have to be like you don't have to be an expert to enjoy it or to understand what it is, it just is what it is. You drink it, you feel good, it tastes good, it makes you happy, it's got some sugar in it, whatever. So when it comes to the bourbon thing, to be honest with you, and not that we're not gonna make a little bourbon, because we are, and I'll talk about that momentarily. But the bourbon, the little bit of bourbon that we make at Old Homestead, uh two twofold. First and foremost, this coming spring, there will be bourbon going into distribution, Bartles and Bishop. First products ever had my name on it ever. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, where does I'm pretty excited about that? Where does Bartles come from? That's where I was gonna say. What where does Bartles come in at? Steven Stephen Bartels, who is one of the owners of the distillery, one of our state reps here in the state of Indiana. He's a former police officer, and I'm a former moonshiner. So you can already see how that story sort of develops, right? So, and we have uh Bo Bo Cumberland did the artwork for that label. There'll be a Thomas Green Rye whiskey. That's all coming the stuff that we distilled at Moondrops in northern Indiana, well, Indianapolis, where I laid out mash bills for him, yeast, protocols, all that stuff. We can't put it in the tasting room. It will be in distribution. We will have single barrels available of all those things as well. All right. Now, in the future, though, when bottles and bishop gets released, it will not be burning. And we can talk about that in a little bit. If you remind me, I'll tell you exactly what it will be and exactly what it will not be.

SPEAKER_06 30:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

The little bit of bourbon that we make in the distillery, the little bit of bourbon we make in the distillery, and I'm talking, we're probably going to make less than 20 barrels of bourbon a year if we make that. Does that ever be available in the tasting room or as potential single barrels? Because listen, I pushed, I pushed bourbon just about as hard as bourbon could be pushed with it in the craft distilling world. Right? It didn't have a whole lot of levity left for where you could go, right? You can only do so many variations on a mash bill with different grains, etc. Not to mention that bourbon is not doing fantastic, it hasn't died, don't get me wrong.

SPEAKER_06 31:00

No, it's not growing. It's it's contracting a little bit and like whatever, but it's still it's still doing all right. But what what I will say is, what about it's are we still talking American whiskey though?

Reinvention, Underdog Energy, And Marketing Truth

SPEAKER_00 31:15

So this is where it gets fun. All right, so there was a time where, say, five years ago, I would have never thought about putting this on a label ever. So at one point in time, TTV was letting a lot of things slide as American whiskey. And I thought maybe we'd slide into that category. And the more I thought about what we do, the limitations that I do not want to have, period, whatsoever. We're gonna fall mostly into two categories. It's either going to be whiskey, which if it's just whiskey, I will tell you exactly what it is, or it is going to be something along the lines of, and you have to imagine this in your head, okay? And you have to imagine that I'm the storyteller and I'm telling you the story. So, and you know that I'm completely transparent about everything. Anybody can ask me about anything I do production-wise, and I'll gladly tell you. So you think old homestead, okay? And then you think that bartles and bishop sort of thing. All right. So if I dropped into American whiskey, even if TTV wouldn't let me, and I could probably get it through the labeling process as an American whiskey, but I feel like it'd be much less truthful, and I feel like TTV pushed back on it. So, Old Homestead, Bartles and Bishop, and then the category itself is actually whiskey distilled from a bourbon mash. And I'm gonna tell you why it's whiskey distilled from a bourbon mash. Because it's completely honest, because the average consumer doesn't care that it's whiskey distilled from a bourbon mash. What they care about is it's whiskey and it has a story and it's experiential and it's good. That's what most consumers are really concerned about. Okay? It also does one thing in one breath, or two things in one breath. Whiskey distilled from a bourbon mash. It tells you exactly what it is and exactly what it is not in one breath, right? It is a bourbon mash in that it's 51% or better corn. But that's as far as that bourbon connotation goes when it comes to whiskey distilled from a bourbon mash. All right. It's it's barreled into used barrels. Now, when I say used barrels, that can include what you and I might consider new American oak, all right? What that is, is where I wash my barrels out with water and a little bit of heart solution the day before I fill them. For you and I and our purposes, that's still new American oak. TTV considers it used oak. That includes high barrel entry proof. So I'm not limited to 125 proof. I can go entry proof at 140. That includes 2.5% harmless flavoring or coloring, which you don't have to do post-distillation, by the way. They never say you have to do it post-distillation, they do just basically say you can't do it during fermentation. They don't stop you from doing it during distillation. We're not ever going to be adding coloring or anything of that nature post-distillation. That's not gonna happen. I still stick to the purity thing of that. But what that category does do, or what any of those categories, whiskey distilled from rye mash, whiskey distilled from wheat mash, that allows me to add some colors and testers that bourbon andor straight whiskey andor bonded whiskey would not allow me to do. Right. Okay. Yeah, yeah. You see what I'm saying? I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_06 34:18

No, that's the no, that's 100% the moonshiner in you to be able to add that little bit of flavor from something else other than whatever. That's that's I I under that, but that excites me right there, what you're doing. What you what you said right there, okay. I'm I don't honestly, I I when you're in the same category of whiskey, a bourbon mash and everything, it doesn't actually for me have to, it's not about bourbon. I will tell you this. What you said, there's a bunch of things. You said it's gotta have a good story, and you need, and then you need it. Was oh my god, what was the last thing? But experiential, experiential, right? Experiential. But meeting you, like for instance, having people on by you going on podcasts and people getting to understand what you're saying to them and what you're doing, that is a huge thing of the time and effort. And it's the same thing with what I've seen with any other brand. If the person's willing to do podcasts, go do tastings or or talks like you do. You know, you're you have the historian aspect in you where you tell stories, but then your whiskey is can go along with those stories or your spirits that you're that you know, everything. I mean, uh, the Alchemist of the Black Forest is a fantastic descriptive thing where people really want to understand what you're trying to say. But if you weren't there backing it up, that that's that's a problem. There's so many places where I've met the distiller. Let's uh well, we could take few, Paul Letko. He basically, I mean, for God's sakes, he's a great guy. He's unique. But when what how how few doesn't do well in Ohio is he's never around to make somebody go, well, I saw what he was, I saw him and he was did this, and he was on a podcast, or I've met him, and it doesn't make you want to buy that on the shelf. You got to put something behind it, and it's a you know, a story or the start of a story, like you are right there. You have a lot of history, but you're this is a new distillery, and you're starting, but you but also there's also you know, how do why does this why do so many distillers move around? And there's there's so many different reasons to that, right? People, people can determine it. Sometimes you could be at a place too long, right? Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:00

I could tell I think I think the easy way, the easy way to sort of think about those things too is, and this is what I've I've Julie and I talked about, and Tyler and I. So Tyler will be able to do all the things I didn't. He knows the stories, he's learning that, stepping into that as well, which I need. We will do several things. One of those things is to make uncommon whiskey for common people, right? People who go out and bust through knucklees 40 hours a week, and they're not worried about what those bourbon rules are. They don't give a shit what those bourbon rules are as long as what's in their glass is good and it gives them an experience and a little escapism and brings them joy and happiness. And of course, obviously, Jeff and Martin, you guys know this about me. There will be things for the dorkiest of the dorky that want to get all the way down to the nitty-gritty dirt with me and talk about the weird shit that, like, not just weird stuff, but you know, those subcategories. Like when it comes to a little bit of bourbon we've made, it will be very specifically my style of bourbon. It just won't be a whole lot of it, right? So it's something for everybody. Well, that's the goal. I gotta have something for everybody. Well, and and the other thing we gotta realize here, so this is where the stillers are making a mistake right now. Everybody is spending, this is the biggest mistake I see out there, everybody's spending too much time tied up with conjecture about what the current bourbon market is doing, as opposed to if you were smart and you're not already established, you would step back and you would say, okay, it doesn't matter what that market is doing. What matters is what is this generation that's coming up interested in, and what is the generation behind them interested in? Because if you're not already thinking about that, and we have, I can't tell you what we're doing yet. Promise you, you'll be one of the first ones to know. If you are not thinking along those lines, you're already done 10 years from now. No matter how good you're doing right now, you're done 10 years from now.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

So many of these big distilleries out there now, they've played on the market, and what their bourbons and whiskies are doing, and they've played to the older crowd. They're not looking, they're not really looking towards this younger generation, this new generation of whiskey drinker, bourbon drinker that's coming in now because there's so many of them, like I say, they want something in their glass that's gonna give them an experience, an escape, a taste, you know, that you know they can relate to.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Well, and yeah, and I I don't I don't I don't desire to be like 10 or 20 years from now, like I don't want to be the old distiller that that's trying to be cool, but here's what I do desire to be. I desire to be the old distiller where they're like, yeah, he's aye. He's aye, he gets it. You know what I mean? I'll settle for that. I mean he's a cool grandpa.

SPEAKER_06 39:50

I mean, you know, for God's sakes, look at your dad. Holy shit. You you what you I mean, what what kind of the I mean, he has a a presence. Everybody knows about him. They can't uh and you know what? You want to be the distiller that everybody cares about. It's just like just I just know how much many people reached out. I mean, your dad had to be blown away how many people reached out to him when he had his hip hip surgery, right? I mean, that is something. Oh, yeah. I mean, that I think, I think the success of your father in the distilling industry is something that, you know, with you know, you've talked about it so many times you got to work with him, you drove him to work, you guys drove to work together and everything, and now he's at a separate places in a different place, but he's in he's amongst friends, you know. He's in good hands, and he's you know, it's really kind of cool to see that. But as far as like where you where you're going, I would have thought that I thought that too, Jeff, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:54

Now the bishop family name is like a distilling fucking dynasty, right? One of us in Indiana, one of us in Kentucky. Listen, we're invading other states. We're invading Kentucky now. He's distilling an old corner. How cool is that?

Beyond Bourbon: Labels, Freedom, And “Whiskey From A Bourbon Mash”

SPEAKER_06 41:06

Right, right. You want to be in Indiana, Alan, but you could be anywhere you want to be doing this. That's one thing. The knowledge that you have and the ability to do this, you pretty much could have, I think you could have pretty much gone anywhere you wanted to. You could have, you know, but where you wanted to be go is where you are, you know. I mean, at what at one point, you know. I wouldn't I wouldn't say directly that I I don't even know how to describe your personality. Are you a people person? Now I wouldn't say you're you're a phenomenal select people person. But when it comes to a general people person, you've learned how to go about existing in this world, but at the same time, I wouldn't call you a people person, right? You would agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

Red lights are there, Tiny.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

Um very good at very good at doing what I do in terms of telling stories and being a culture keeper. And but I'll I'll tell you, and anybody who knows me knows this. And I'm not nearly as feral as I once was, obviously. But uh, I mean I'm drinking absent tonight, and that's the first time I've drank in forever. But uh I listen, I grew up as an only child and didn't have uh didn't really only have one cousin that was close, and I value my stuff, my time, and my privacy. And and when I say my privacy, I mean my privacy to do the things that I share with everyone, right? Like so, in other words, I'm not necessarily trying to be everybody's best friend, and I'm certainly you put me in a room, if you got me talking to people, I'll talk as long as you want me to. But as soon as I get the chance to get out of that room when I'm done talking, I'm leaving, going home because life is too short not to be spending every moment you can doing something creative, and nothing creative happens in those rooms generally after you finish speaking.

SPEAKER_06 43:19

I well, yeah, I there's no doubt that you have a persona of going out, but how about this? You're guarded, you have a guarded aspect to yourself of it's not like just anybody can go, and and one of the things that you don't that you don't appreciate is a lot of times people will come up to you and through everything and act like they are your best friend. Whereas, you know, that's a kind of a hard thing where overall I just think for what you do. Now I will tell you this. I'll give you a comp this is a comp meant as a compliment. You would have made a really, really good moonshiner at at during the time when moonshining wasn't a TV show. You you would have you could have done, you have all the skills to be able to do this. There's no doubt. And you and the and the craft and what you love is for me, that is one thing that just to see how you go about doing it is why it's artistry. It's alchemy, but it's artistry. And the artist in me when I met you of how you did things so different. I mean, you do things and you go about them, but you still knew where you were before that you had to put level of to get that where you wanted to be, you had to produce the whiskey you were pr producing. But you've already done that. You did that there. Now it's just like as what was it? It was Picasso. A guy came up to him and asked him for him to draw him a picture and sign it. And he did it on a napkin, drew a picture, you know, a little bit of an abstract picture and whatever. And the guy said, Well, can I have it? And he said, No. And he said, Why not? He goes, Do you have$5,000? And he said, Why would I pay$5,000 for a picture on the napkin? He goes, Because I took my whole life to learn how to do that. And I Just don't give that away for free. You know, people come up to them and think that everything's just accessible, but it's not, right? It's like there's a creativity and a part of your soul that you put into this and these spirits, and that's why I'm leading you into what you what you sent me. Because I think that's a masterpiece.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

I sure am glad that you didn't charge me$5,000 for that Lee W. Sinclair recipe that you wrote on the napkin that day.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

You know, I'm I'm a little disappointed in myself that I'm not charging$5,000 or haven't charged$5,000 for all those pictures of dick-nosed dolphins I've drawn over the years.

SPEAKER_06 46:11

Don't you I've got it hanging in here, and someone Alan, someone already offered me$5,000 for it, and I told them no.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Oh my gosh. Do you remember that is if you write to me, I'll sell you one for$2,500. Damn it.

SPEAKER_06 46:31

I was trying to get$7,500. Here, I'll get the$7,500 and send you the$2,500, alright?

SPEAKER_00 46:43

Now, you you are you're correct in your assertion, though. So what what I do, Jeff, and this is where I think I probably there are a certain crowd of people that I get lost on. And and I'm I am fully aware of the fact that there's there's always a certain group of people, like everybody has this to some degree. There's a certain group of people, though, that like the existence of someone like me just pisses them off. And that's okay, I don't care. It is what it is. But you're correct in that what I do is very much so it comes from the spirit, it comes from the heart, it comes from where I'm from, who I am, who raised me, who I was around when I was a kid. I don't I don't separate any of the aspects of my life. I just don't. And I know that you know, some of the big guys that you have in the industry, they'll say, Well, that's not being very professional. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. This is who I am, this is what I do. Like it, don't like it, take it, love it, leave it, whatever it is, right? But if you stick with me and you have the attention span and you have the adventure in you, you'll see something really, really cool. You'll experience something really interesting. I'll take you to the depths and I'll bring you back, and I'll give you an experience, and I'll give you joy, and I'll give you social lubrication, and you'll see your world in a very different way. If you just listen to what I'm doing, take a look at what I'm doing, and take a minute to step outside of what might be your ordinary comfort zone. You'll find an entirely different world out there, right? And and I'm and not everybody has to do that because I again I make things too. Don't get me wrong. I don't want anybody to get me wrong. I make things too at old homestead to fit the crowd that doesn't want to ask any of those questions, talk about any of those things, and that's okay too. That's fine. Well, that's all right. You have but when it comes to deaths, I'm I'm all about listen, let's take you through the initiation, let's take you through the ritual, let's take you through, and let's tell you a story, and you're gonna learn something today, you know. Well, you're so older beyond beyond your years.

Making For Everyone: Pop Spirits And Deep Cuts

SPEAKER_06 48:53

You're so older beyond your years, okay? The one thing that's that, but see, where you where where you're where you understand what you're doing is that uh I I'll go to an Amadeus moment. He all he wanted to do is write operas, and he didn't want to take students, he thought he was above that, but making that for the crowd, uh and he died poor. You know, writing operas and making beautiful music wasn't what paid for. So you so if you don't do something for the crowd and and whatever, and and something that's gonna make money and do the thing, eventually that's what what everything's about is you know, it it you you do the spirit, and what you're doing, it's gonna, you know, you want it to make money, but the the basis helps you make money, and I don't want to say easy money, it's just playing to, like you said, the crowd, and that keeps you able to be able to do the operas and the the you know it makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

Well, and and to and to and to be fair, Tyler and I, and and Joe Lee and let me say this so the platform that I have at Old Homestead via Steven Bartell, Steve Shirk, Heather Sether, etc., is a fantastic platform to be able to work off of to do these sort of things. There's absolutely zero doubt about that, and I'm very thankful for it. Joe Lee and Tyler and I will all tell you the same thing as well when it comes to those things that do pay the bills. We're still exceptionally proud of them, right? Like, like the the flavored sunshine spirits, they may not necessarily be my thing, but you know what? If when I can step outside of my ego and my own shadow and just have a shot of those fucking cinnamon sunshine spirits, they're pretty fucking good, they're not bad, right? And Tyler, man, I'll tell you guys, Tyler takes that shit seriously when he distills that base alcohol. He puts the same love and heart into that that he does when he's distilling any of our whiskies or brandies or anything of that nature. So, yeah, no, you're absolutely right. You have to, I have to cater to the crowd. It took me a number of years to get to the point of realizing that that might be the case, but that is the case, and I'm all about it. Listen, I can I can go out and you know how I am, guys. I can go out and have a good time on a boat with a bunch of guys, you know, slaming a few beers and having a few shots of schnaps. We can go do that. That's okay. That ain't nothing wrong with that. Everybody needs a everybody needs a good lost Sunday every once in a while.

SPEAKER_06 51:37

Well, I find that every although the well, I mean, but the sunshine is cool as hell, is your process is a story. I mean, you're talking about what we're using sunflower seeds to make that and what you do with those in those barrels and do the fermentation and all the stuff that's in there and when it's going, and you put that out there and all the the the roasting and all. I mean, it's a cool freaking process. So you're you're you're um kind of paying tribute to the moonshining aspect. And you know, we all know what regular moonshine tastes like. It tastes like, you know, if you just take what's off the still and put it out there, some people enjoy that, but it's that's not always the most enjoyable experience. That's why they have flavored moonshines, and some people flavor them better than others, but at the same time, the sunshine, though that lemon and the cinnamon and everything. I'm not saying for one second that it doesn't who doesn't like a lemon drop?

SPEAKER_01 52:42

It's just that they start adding to me. When they start adding flavor, they ain't doing something right, you know, because I've tasted a lot of grain spirits that I mean, just so much good flavor of the grains that are coming out, and it's gotta be done right.

SPEAKER_06 53:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 53:05

Yeah, no, it's uh you have to have those sort of things for the general public, right? Like you have different levels of involvement, whatever it is, right? Like uh I guess like video games might be an easy example, you know. Like you might have the average person that plays whatever video game, but then you got and whatever video game that is, it's popular at the moment, whether it's on your phone or some console or the computer or whatever, right? Maybe you have that, and so you consider yourself a quote unquote gamer, like a person thinks of themselves as a drinker, but then you have the person with the supercomputer with you know the massive wall of screens, and you know, they're all they're all in on it. But you know, the people with the supercomputer, they're not they're not paying the bills. It's the people with the average gaming system that consider themselves gamers. They're the ones they'll they will fund the cool shit that you want to do, right? And all of it's cool. I mean, don't get me wrong, I wake up every day thankful that I get to go distill for a living as opposed to digging ditches or whatever, and not that there's anything wrong with that. Just I I know what my skill set is, and my skill set is very limited in general, so I'm very thankful that I get to get to do that for people. And I'm also I've also come to the conclusion recently that I'm very thankful for the idea that I get to be a part in some weird tangential way for all the classes of people that drink. I get to be a part of their life in terms of weddings and funerals and moments of joy and moments of shit. I really need to say something to somebody, but I don't have I don't have the social levity to be able to say it without a little bit of anebriation in me. There's a there's a particular power and magic in that that's pretty it's pretty special, honestly, when I think about the number of things that you know the moments that people have with the spirits that that I'm able to create. I think that that's uh I don't know. There's something really there's something really, really cool about that and really interesting to me. So that's pretty awesome.

Bartels & Bishop And Limited Bourbon Plans

SPEAKER_06 55:10

Okay, yeah. So so you did the uh I'm gonna try and say this word which I the palindrome, right? The palindrome, that was was that does that did I say that right? The brandy?

unknown 55:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:25

I did say it right, a palindrome. Yep, palindrome, yeah. Oh my god, uh that's amazing. So when you did that, that was high proof, and then now that you're here, and that was an apple brandy, right? If I'm not mistaken, smoked apple brandy?

SPEAKER_00 55:43

It was a three, three or four years a new American oak apple brandy, and then it went into a used scot peanut scotch uh sherry butt for a year or something like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:57

Okay, so that's that's why I mean, all right, so you came out with the black force spirits that I got the first one, right? The 50 50 proof, what was it? 50 proof?

SPEAKER_00 56:08

70 70 proof, uh, what is that? Nine herb charm, yeah. 70 proof.

SPEAKER_06 56:13

Okay, so and and and you know, it's it's a the spirits kind of light, and it's kind of I would say it was kind of refreshing, more like almost like somewhat of a like if you were gonna say it, an an herbal liqueur.

SPEAKER_00 56:32

You know what like an herbal tea or like uh like a chartreuse or strega, something of that nature, and we we sell the hell out of it. I wish it wasn't such a pain in the ass to make because we can't keep up with it, it constantly sells out and has to be remade.

SPEAKER_06 56:46

So well, yes, and and that isn't a bad thing, right? Found something that it's niche, but now so we we talked about that on the podcast the last time, you know, that's what you had out and we whatever, and and I picked it up and it I I enjoy this. But now, under the same label, Black Force Spirits, you put this out, and we you need to talk about this because all right, it's the Wycliffe bell, which is an actual bell, correct? Because I saw the picture on online, and that's what you know. You when you make something, a lot of times you pay if if if it's got a name, and you will always pay homage to it because you respect history. So, but my question is you know, I got it, you sent it up for a sample. Kim sent me the letter that you sent out. She she did it, it didn't, it wasn't she she she Facebooked it to me today, so I read it. So I figured I wanted to taste it beforehand because honestly, you definitely said you want an honest opinion, and I wanted to make sure that going into this, I knew what my honest opinion was. And then also I wasn't gonna give you a bad honest opinion if I actually thought it was bad. But you know, there's always that thing that it's not your cup of tea. It's not that it's done, whatever, okay, but this isn't that's not what this this is. This is would be my cup of tea. But what you did to make this, let's go into it, is is kind of like everything that it is is insane. It's not anything really like the first one, correct? I mean, what is now my proof got erased. I don't know how it must have been that it was cold when it got chipped up and then mud is yeah, 139.2. So not 70, not 70 proof. So when I when I poured it, it wasn't under the thing. I was thinking that we're gonna be a little bit towards this, but I knew right away that it was more like the palindrome because it's and then it's very what say that again much more like whiskey.

SPEAKER_00 59:11

You'll be surprised, I think. It's much more like whiskey.

SPEAKER_06 59:14

But there was much more so there was the hazmat aspect to both of them, and then you did mention that you put it in a peated scotch barrel, right? Right? That was the palindrome. Now, this one talk about what you did to this because we're talking about a lot of the same things are going into this. Now, this is how much I love it. This is a hand-blown glass that I I purchased at a glass blowing studio, I believe it was in Wisconsin, but they were making that green glass and made it. And I I only pull this out for something where I feel it's appropriate. I've used this for absence, I've used this for some dusties, and I think that this definitely goes about and deserves to be in the glass. So talk about it now.

Black Forest Spirits: Nine Herb Charm

SPEAKER_00 1:00:09

And you and you and you and you get it, yes. So using that glass is an example of why I sent that letter. So for people who don't know about the letter, and and trust me, you're close to me at some point, you'll get the letter too. So every time we roll out with something, I'm gonna I'm gonna pick randomly. I'm just telling you guys right now pick randomly a few people that get a bottle. It won't be the same people for each bottle, it'll be different people over time, people who supported me over the years. And that comes with a letter. And that letter explains to you in a way that you understand that this is exactly who and what I am, and it's not just about you know being an influencer or anything of that nature. You're in fact, those people are off the list. Like I said, I've scratched them off the list. I don't give a shit. It's fine. They come around, they come around. So, first and foremost, let me say yes, whether you like it or you don't like it, I want to know one way or the other because I I'm very, very proud of it. I know that sounds trite to say because I'm the producer, but let me tell you what it is. So, our distillery sets geographically, obviously by Potka Lake, but we set between two old towns that no longer exist. The town of Newton Stewart, which is now mostly underwater. It was covered up by Patoka Lake in the late 70s, and Wycliffe, which was an old town on the other side of us. So, Newton Stewart was founded by two Stewart brothers that were related to the Stuart Royal family in the British Isles. They were from Ireland and they were from the town of Newton, therefore, the name of the town was Newton Stewart. There were a number of moonshiners in that local area, especially around the time the lake was built. And when they built the lake, the government came in and eminently domained everybody. And so they were paying as little as$50 an acre for people's property. So these three moonshiners sort of banded together in the late 70s. And what they would do is every time the government bought a piece of property, they would set up a still on that piece of property. So that way, if the still got busted, as long as they weren't there, nobody got in trouble because it was on government property. You couldn't prove who owned anything. So Julie and I, day one, an old homestead, we went down to Newton Stewart out behind. There's one building there that's left. It was the old general store. We went out behind there and we actually set yeast traps and captured yeast, and that's what we mostly use for the Black Forest spirits as well as for the sunshines is the Newton Stewart yeast string, which is high alcohol tolerant wild yeast strain. Wycliffe is named after John Wycliffe, who was an English church reformer. Well, they say it's named after him, but a lot of the early settlers at Wycliffe were from Wells, and the word Wycliffe means Whitecliff. Pretty much all that's left of that town now is the old cemetery. And that old cemetery's got a shelter house in the middle of it that has the old church bell in the middle of it. And the cool thing is they set it up to where you can still ring the church bell. Now, I've always joked that what I do when it comes to storytelling is a little bit of positive necromancy. Uh so you can imagine my utter joy as someone who's into esoterica and the occult, when I realized you can still ring that bell, right? What a great way to be able to talk to the uh to the spirits of the place over there, right? And say, hey, I'm here, guys. Pay attention. So what the spirit is that you're tasting is this is what we call a very special spirit. It's literally a DSS by TTB standards. DSS means distilled spirit specialty, and what that basically equates to is TTB has no idea what the fuck to call it. So if they don't know what to call it, it falls into DSS. And I love it because it is a highly, highly underutilized category, especially if you want to make experiential spirits. Things that again, people will be talking about 10 years from now, as opposed to whatever the bourbon of the minute is at the time, right? Ten years from now, the bourbon of the minute probably not going to become up in conversation. Ten years from now, that weird smoky Apple VD thing that we had at Old Homestead might still come up in the conversation. So what we did is Tyler and I had Caleb up at Sugar Creek malt. He malted some oats for us and he ground those oats and he sent them to us. We then took those oats, we moistened them down, sprayed them down with some good water, and we put those in our toaster oven with some Irish peat. We peat smoked those oats really heavily, which also roasted and toasted those oats at the same time. While we were doing that, we also took a bunch of apples and we peat smoked those apples.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:26

I have a question real quick. What the hell does Irish peat look like? Because is it I've heard so many different things what Irish peat could be could be a block of ancient sheep shit. I mean, what does it actually look like when you buy it?

The Wycliffe Bell: Story, Yeast, And Place

SPEAKER_00 1:04:46

So it what Irish Peat is, is the breakdown of uh well, peak can be the breakdown typically of deciduous material. That's the material that comes back year after year, so that in Ireland they'll call it turf. And what it looks like is it looks like somebody cut a piece of we buy logs basically. They're logs about yay big, yay wide. It looks like somebody cut a piece of soil that's solid out of the ground, but it is like the texture and hardness of like a soft wood, essentially, is what it looks like. We used Irish peak specifically because there's a little book, little bit more of a fruity sort of character that comes with Irish peak, but also because Newton Stewart was settled by the Irish, like I said. The Irish have a pochine tradition, which is Irish moonshine, where they used Irish peak to be able to smoke the various grains they use for that, including oats. And in Wales, they have something similar to pochine, they don't really have a name for it, but using the same sort of materials just from Wales. So when Pete smoked both those components, and then we put that into 53-gallon open-top former whiskey barrels that we use as fermenters, and we added cane sugar to that, and we fermented that. And after fermentation, we put that into Artemisia, which is our 250-gallon pots filled with a double thumper system on it. And we did a single pass distillation whereupon we peat smoked even more apples and put those into the thumper to up that apple characteristic and also up that peat characteristic. Again, in tribute to Irish Poachine, Welsh-style poachine, to the town of Newton Stewart, to the town of Wycliffe. We cut that as you would a white spirit, which means there's no heads in there, there's no tails in there. We wanted as clean cut as what it could possibly be. And what we did from there is we we rested it in a new oak barrel. So a new oak cask. I apologize, I don't use the word barrel. So we went into a new oak cask, number three char. So for anybody who's followed me, number three char is very rare for me. I always use number two char on almost everything. I would like to say that I picked number three char because it worked out perfectly, but I didn't. They just happened to have some number three char barrels on hand when I got there, and I needed to use them, and so Wycliffe sort of fit that mold. And so what we are doing there is we are not uh we're not looking for maturation the way that you would with a bourbon or a whiskey or something of that nature. We are looking for balance between fresh spirit off the still, wood sugar, and color. So that way you're still getting all the positive aspects of that fresh spirit. But we're knocking some of the edges off, some of the roughness off, adding a little wood sugar to it, a little sweetness to it, a little roundness to it. And to me, and to Joe Lee and to Tyler and to Steve. Bartels and Steve Shurik and Heather Setzer. It drinks very much like a smoked whiskey. It for being young, it is, you know, it's not even, again, it's not aged. That's not what we're trying to do. We're not trying to mature. It's rested for, I think it was 16 months total, a year and four months in our warehouse. It dranks way under the proof that it is. We bottled it at cask strength. It was one cask. We make less than five casks of that every year, and pretty much every one of them goes into a different type of barrel or has some variation on it. We will only release a cask of that when the first one sells out. It will always be at barrel strength. So that one's at 139.2. And the reason for that is so, for example, LaFroid used to always say that their whiskey was an extract whiskey. And the idea behind that was it was kind of um choose your own adventure, right? How much water do you like with it? How much water do you not like with it? That's entirely up to you. And as you add water or even small amounts to that special spirit, which is not a common whiskey, it's going to change entirely throughout the drinking experience. The other thing is that we're not too highbrow to say that that makes an excellent highball with Coca-Cola. So in Ireland, they serve something in Scotland too that they call smoky cookie, which is a smoky whiskey with Coca-Cola. And although it sounds weird, it is absolutely delicious.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:55

I gotta say, the color that I'm looking in the bottle that looks I swear that looks like you know at least three, four, five years in a barrel, and you're only saying 16 months.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:08

How does it come off the still? Does it all come off the still clear? Every bit of it comes off clear. So is there any time something comes off with color?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

For the most part, not unless you fucked up. Oh, so you occasionally occasionally you might have a botanical that'll carry a little color, like fresh ginger, sometimes. If you if you look in the tank and you're using fresh ginger, like in bulk, it'll have a little yellow color, but once you put it in the bottle, you can't really see it. Other than that, unless you've puked the still or done something real silly or you got a dirty still, you shouldn't ever have any color.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:49

Okay, so everything technically done right should have for the most part comes off clear. So this all this color came from the barrel.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:57

White spirit, when that white spirit came off the still, did it have uh because you I I heard you say that you put the smoked apples in the thumper, did it have that appley flavor and that flavor? And I bet that was some good white spirit.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:15

Oh and it's it's that apple characteristic is still there in the finished spirit. It's just a little more, it's more integrated across the board with the smoked oats as well. But if you look past the smoke, there for me, because everything's subjective, right? For me, there is definitely an apple and oatmeal characteristic behind that spirit, without a doubt.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:40

Oh, yeah, the apple is 100%, but I will tell you, there is a hot, hot cinnamon red hot aspect, but it doesn't have quite the sting that like the red hot has because the sweetness that's coming through on the apple on this spirit, I will say that it does have an aspect with the peat of having a feel of a scotch. Okay, you're right. When you when you talk about it, but it's not, it's so slight, it's not overpeated. I I do not like a lot of times the fruity aspect of an overpeated scotch because what happens is I find myself liking the sweetness of that fruitiness that you're getting from that scotch, but then sometimes if the peat's too much in that smoky of that peat, it just kind of gives you a taste of the sweetness and then just drowns it with too much smoke. Where this one, the sweetness overrides the smoke, there's no doubt, from from the apple aspect of it. And then there's a hot cinnamon aspect of it, and then like I said, at 139. Now I just added a little bit of water, like you said. Yeah, that calms it, that calms at 139 down to really open up the spirit of of picking up. I mean, the apples, the apple, the apple part of this, like the brandy apple part of it, but I mean it's like if it's like almost like if you took the the pelodrome and then you dumped some scotch in it, and then then had the perfect, found the perfect scotch and got the perfect balance of the smoke. Whereas the I went back and had a little bit of the pelidrome and there was a definite, definite, because I have some of that bottle, there's a definite, what would you say, parallel? And I think the parallel is partially because of the proof at 131 and 139. Those are high proof spirits. But I will tell you that my initial without knowing what the proof is, because it wasn't there, and then what I what I was expecting, that first sip, I really liked it. I mean, it is unique, and it's something now like it's it's a sipper. There's no doubt about it. If you you can this is not something that you're just gonna sit and drink, drink the bottle, you shouldn't be drinking the bottle in one night. This is something that you should cherish and respect that uh the quality that's gone into it, and then hang on to it as long as you can while you're sipping it, and then share with as many people as you can.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:45

That you really found that balance between the smokiness and and the apples and and the spirit itself, like saying going into the cast for 16 months.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:56

Nash, I would be interested to see what you think on this one because Nash is not a huge scotch fan. I've gotten many bottles of scotch that he purchased that he sent up to me because they were scotch.

Peat, Apples, Oats, And Thumpers

SPEAKER_01 1:14:12

A real good heated, heated scotch, right? Right. I mean the peak overwhelms the taste, the fruitiness, and the taste of the whisk peak or the scotch, then that's when I don't I'd start disliking it. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:28

So I'm blowing up my my charger, guys. I apologize. That's okay. So the so the interesting thing is make a little a little tasting note for you here. So the way that Irish Pete works, so some of what you might think that you're getting is apple Jeff and that sweetness. And there is that is there, don't get me wrong. So what works about this versus a peated scotch is the phenolic level is entirely different than a peat than a peated scotch, and it's an entirely different type of peat as well. So when you go back to that, just something to think on for a minute. And this is what makes this spirit interesting to me, because every time I go back to it, I can get something a little bit different every time. And again, we're going for that experiential thing. So what's really interesting to me is when you go back to it, don't think an apple. But think a little bit of hickory smoke barbecue and see if you that little uncuous character of hickory smoke barbecue starts coming across for you.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:32

It's you know, it you know, it really has like a almost like a barbecue chip, that that barbecue chip taste, that that that flavor they put on a barbecue chip, like when you're you know, when you like uh whatever, it's there. But I will tell you that I can tell the difference between the sweetness of the peat, because it's more, or the sweetness of the fact that you use the cane sugar, that's there, but then the the sweetness of the the apple flavor is there, no matter what you try and say. Now, would you consider an apple flavor like you do fruity? I mean, because I understand it's a fruit, but usually when I'm thinking of a fruit, I don't in my whiskeys, it's usually some of the other, you know, like a citrus or that, you know, the apricot, you know, kind of thing, those kind of those flavors. Apple has its own flavor altogether that I think separates itself in whiskey, which then associates itself more towards brandy because you pick all that, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:43

Would you say so apple, an actual apple flavor in a whiskey is is fairly rare. And what I mean by that is this I agree. There's one compound, and I don't remember the name of it off the top of my head, but I will I will tell you where you can find it almost all the time. And it is it is very much a green apple characteristic, and the only whiskey I know of that it's common in is cardew single malt, which is not a smoked whiskey. Now, the flavor that you associate with distilled apples like what you have there, because those are fresh apples and not fermented apples, is an entirely different characteristic, and it's a little harder to put it it's more of a stewed apple kind of character. I couldn't tell you what flavor compound that is. I don't I don't honestly know off the top of my head. But it's a very different characteristic than say just a distilled apple would carry over, right? Because so when we put those apples in a thumper, for example, you have to remember that in that thumper, those apples are still quote unquote fresh apples. They still have sugar to them. So you're not distilling sugar over, but you are distilling over the aromatic principle of the various sugars and compounds that are stuck together within that particular thing. Hey, if you guys don't mind, I'm gonna use the restroom real quick. Yeah, go ahead. We'll talk we'll talk amongst ourselves.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:22

You get more questions in, and then we'll we'll wrap it up and bring people in. Macaulay just came on, Tyler Richardson said uh Richardson said good night, enjoy the Wycliffe Bell, and then Macaulay Macaulay's here, John Lambert's here, John Ritt just jumped in. It's it's happening right now on Facebook. YouTube, we're doing all right. So how look the eye's doing good.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:56

Eyes doing real good. As you can see, no more dark blood blood spot where it was to that vest. Yeah, it's it's just dissipating and still using the eye drops and stuff.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:09

So yeah, at least you didn't take out your good eye.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:13

That was the good eye.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:15

I know, but you but that you didn't take it out. At least I didn't take it out, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:20

Yeah, yeah. What he's talking about, Alan, is uh Monday a week ago, I was working on a fire system and I had some bicecript clamps that I had to clamp it off. Well, the set that I had for this particular system had to open up that set screw all the way to where it barely got on there. Well, as I was working on it and I looked up, and my son just had handed me like a set pin to put in there. Just as Doc put the set pin in, I bumped those vice grips, and that screw popped out, fell about two feet down and popped me in the eye. Oh no, my good eye and busted a vessel in it. I mean, it was dark blood red, but didn't do any damage, just busted it. Yeah. Since the last time, I don't know whether you noticed, but got my crooked eye fixed.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:21

I see that.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:22

Yeah, yeah. So I thought yeah, had that done in August 27th, had that surgery done, and that was some extreme shit. I'm sure. I'm sure. Yeah, they actually detached all the muscles from the eyeball, set it straight, shortened the muscles, and sewn all the muscles back together. Oh, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:44

I done I done had the cataract thing done. That was close enough. I'm good. I'm good, yeah. So yeah, close, close to it.

Resting, Proof, And Choose-Your-Adventure Drinking

SPEAKER_06 1:20:51

So, Alan, I put, I probably dropped this down to 70 proof, or not 70, 80 proof, which is normally what scotch is, right? Scotch Irish whiskey, 80 proof. And I'm telling you, you need to do that. You need to just add water down. Have you done it? Because now we're talking around the phone on the voice. But I mean, at 80 proof, you're talking. It tastes like American single malt. The the sweetness is now there's the apples gone. The sweetness is the peat sweetness, and it tastes like an apple. It tastes like uh an American, like a single malt. It's not we all know it's not scotch or Irish whiskey because it was made here, but it it definitely takes it into that flavor that you will get with a scotch or a peated scotch. It's there. It's amazing how the water dilutes the sugar and the apple flavor, but leaves the leaves the peat alone. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, it's kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:10

Well, that's why I kept I kept it at high proof because again, I want people to be able to find what they like. So what was really interesting to me was so I played with the proof several times, and there are places where I particularly like it at, but I poured it for people who don't normally drink spirits at proof, and repeatedly got, and people that I trust, people I know would tell me I was full of shit otherwise, but I repeatedly got the surprise of them liking it at 139.2 and not believing it was at that proof. So I was like, you know what? No, let's let's let them let's let them decide where they want to go with it, you know. And especially because diluting it, like I said, if you put it in uh what they call smoky cookie, which is just Coca-Cola in that, it's nice to have a little bit higher octane to go along with that Coca-Cola, right? You get a little bit more bang for your buck out of that drink.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:08

So well, I I mean, one of the the cool things, the one of the things I like to mix is Red Bull. I gotta try a Red Bull one.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:18

Yeah, I don't know. Red Bull might be interesting with that. There's some some interesting characteristics of Red Bull. That might actually Red Bull would probably work really well with that nine earth yard, believe it or not.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:28

Really? Well, let's let's do a taste test. I think I got one right here.

unknown 1:23:34

Message from Steph Miller.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:39

I got some Red Bull. So Tiny, how's how's the finish on that uh that at proof? Was it I mean, was it very long?

SPEAKER_06 1:23:50

Lingering Yeah, you pick up the the apple cinnamon thing stays with you with a little bit of peat. It it it it it it goes forever. I mean, you what you know it's funny when you get a spirit with this much flavor. I mean, if you were gonna this, if I was gonna give it a barrel bottle breakdown, the body on on it is unlike anything else. I mean, at that, I'm gonna end up drinking too much of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:19

Let me see. And you remember you remember way back in the beginning, Alan, and he said, This is not a bottle you want to sit around and drink the whole bottle of well, no, now he's gonna sit there and just go at it.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:31

Well, I will tell you, dropping it in back after it having it low. Now I'm picking up. So this now, the second time, like you said, I'm revisiting it, right? Tons of lit, there's a ton of there the the the apple and the peat are coming out with licorice. Very similar to it's got an absinthe aspect of it off that that part of that taste. So have you picked that up, that licorice aspect at all?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:01

No, I haven't, but I could I could maybe see that with the phenolic character of that peat, that maybe especially lowering the proof and bringing it back up. So, what I suspect you have going on on your palate is that when you lowered the proof, you dropped a lot of the oils out of suspension. So a lot of those oils are sort of hanging out on your palate, and then you're going back to it, and then you're getting that high proof washing those oils off, and so you're kind of doubling up on the phenolic character of that smoke, more or less. So I could see that from that perspective. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:33

I should put uh wait a second, I'm gonna do half and half. You said you should do Red Bull. Now, this Red Bull is flat because I it's been in the I didn't say I you said I'm gonna do it with Red Bull. No, no, no, you should do Red Bull with Red Bull. No, you suggested once I said I was gonna do Red Bull to do it with the other one.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:54

He didn't suggest, he just said that there might be some unusual flavors coming out in it. Well, here we go.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:59

We're gonna Red Bull Niner might work. We might work together. Yeah, we're gonna try that. There we go. Hey, uh Alan Seth is my son. He goes on comes on the podcast as Knobs because he loves Knob Creek, but he also really has an affliction for the barrel picks from French Lick because he gets a supply from me that keeps that keeps coming. And and he basically flipped from a gin drinker to a bourbon drinker because of probably the supply of French lick I was able to supply him with.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:45

We'll see if we can't kick him back over to uh to gin and absinthe. Uh now that we just released a gin and an absinthe today.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:53

So well, hopefully, I don't know if he's ever done too. He's not a black licorice guy, are you? No, but my wife is a gin and black licorice person. Oh, I would like to see Ellie. Yeah, yeah, I'll bring some up. I've still got some left over that Alan Alan still some black absinthe I've got over there. Wow. Wow. And I'm and I'm and I'm I'm probably seven-eighths of the way finished with the painting, and I've deb I've been debating whether I've let AI finish it for me. Just kidding. Just kidding. You're trying to make me go into a rant because I go into a rant. Of course, I know. I'm not gonna let AI finish it. But what did you Julie Jolie needs that painting for the tasting room? Oh, it it's happening. That just motivated me faster.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:52

At the bottom of it, you should you should write national treasure. Because that's what Eric Owens from ADI called me the other day, right in front of Jolie, and I was like, Oh, I'm never letting her live that down.

Tasting Notes: Apple, Smoke, Cinnamon, And Water

SPEAKER_06 1:28:04

I'm gonna tell you, oh, so what this tastes like with um holy shit. So the actual Wycliffe Bell tastes like bubblegum with it's like bazooka bubblegum with with Red Bull. So that's a very interesting flavor. I actually could well this turns this into a different bottle, that's for sure. This would be you should you should offer that at the taste. We're talking bazooka bubblegum, man. How do you get that flavor? Anyways, all right, so the other one. Juicy fruit? It turns into a fruity on one and juicy fruit on the other. It does. You know how some of the juicy fruit you sometimes you get like you could get the different flavors like lime and lemon, and then you could get the one that's all the fruits. Yeah, that is I I mean, I think. I mean, it's not like he Makes enough of either one that he'd ever do this in the tasting room because he sells out the bottles as is. But I'm telling you, both of them produce unbelievable result.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:49

Well, see, that's experiential too. I'm uh I'm pretty uh agnostic when it comes to the way that people consume the spirits as long as they consume them.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:58

So yeah, that is that's crazy. All right. Well, this this one, I wouldn't suggest doing it. It was just for fun. And that could lead to at 139.9 proof, that could lead to some well, I suppose it would keep you up through it all. Because Red Bull has wings, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:30:24

All right. So if we you reckon if we gave it to uh if we gave it to Pam Bondi, she'd post all the Epstein files underredacted. No, wishful thanking. No, that'd be wishful thankful.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:37

It's just like it's yeah. Although I wouldn't mind sharing a drink with Pam Bondi because then she, you know, maybe she'd tell us what because whatever she's posting or we're releasing, it's not like she she has control of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:56

And see what happens. I mean, we could go into shake that tree and see what falls out.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:02

Yeah. Fire horse energy. Yeah, so it so the the Wycliffe is a that's an introduction to some of the things that will be coming over the next year. So there are there are a number of unique barrel-rested, sunshine-inspired things that we did. So there is a there is a full-on barrel-rested actual sunshine spirit that we did. There is there are multiple barrels of Newton Stewart, which is the corn-based shine that we did, sunshine that we did, and they are all in very different barrels. So there's cavernet barrels, there are four square rum barrels, there are new oak barrels. Some of those will be blended back and forth different ways. Several of those will be out this year. And then the one that I'm also really excited about, dislike with the Wycliffe Bell, is a product called Rise and Shine, which is a we took malted rye and sugar, and I believe there's some apples in there, raisins. Of course, we use raisins and all those spirits. And then we took that and ran that through Arcamegia, which is the pot double thumper system, and then we did three variations, and they're all going to come out in 375, and you'll be able to buy them as a three-pack as well. So one variation is a citrus variation with a bunch of citrus in the in the thumpers, one variation is a jasmine and chamomile variation, and the third one, which I think is the coolest one, the one I'm most excited about, is we took some hickory syrup I made at home and then some toasted hickory bark and actually put into the thumpers. So might be the most fucking who's your who's your thing that anyone's ever done.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:44

So I think you've just finished off for me. Tell me if I'm right or wrong. So a doubler and a thumper are very close, but a thumper is where you add to the the distilled spirit that as the distilled spirit goes in there, you've got other stuff in there that you put that will mix with the distilled spirit, and then it goes through the still again, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:13

So you're sort of on the right track. So a double and a thumper are obstensibly the same thing, they're a mechanism for raising proof and purity, is what they're for, okay? A thumper on a pot still, you can use to well, you can do it on a column too. We did it down at Wolf at Stolen Wolf. But a thumper, you can add various other things too if you would like to, in the same way you would a gin basket. But the mixing is different because you have vapor hitting liquid, and that liquid is containing the other things that you want to flavor with. So you're raising proof and purity, which drops flavor, but you're adding flavor at the same time, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:51

So that's why you would call it a thumper. But a doubler, you you don't actually, you're just basically raising proof and purity without adding anything else. That's why you call one one and the other the other.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:05

You you could add flavor and a doubler. So a thumper and a doubler work a little bit differently. So they do the same thing but a different way, essentially. So a thumper basically is you're injecting live steam into liquid, whereas with a doubler, you're essentially essentially condensing steam into a liquid and dropping it into a small pot to flash the still very quickly. That's ostensibly ostensibly what the difference between the two of them are. So and and you're not going back into the still. What's happening with our system is we have the still and then two thumpers. So what happens is thumper number one works off of the parasitic heat from the still and redistills. It's almost like running back through a still a second time, right? And then the second thumper after that is doing the same thing. So you're getting you're not getting full distillations each time, but you're essentially running both those thumpers, you're getting the equivalent of a double pot still distillation in one run, as opposed to having to do multiple runs.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:13

Okay, so so you just talked about that will be coming out. All those are going to be available in the gift shop only, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:35:21

Yep. Yep. Most of those things will pretty much always be gift shop only, with rare exceptions. There may, you know, somebody comes along and they want a single barrel of something weird like that. Because they're not all, some of them may only be rested, you know, 14, 15 months, whatever. Some of them might sit in there for a number of years. It just depends. Some of them might, like the Newton Stewart stuff, that may or may not, depending on what my mood is and where I see it going. That might turn into like a Solera project in time, right? To where they can build some maturity. I don't mind that necessarily. But yeah, for the most part, they're gonna be tasting room only, experiential, come to Alcohol Agres, have a good time, spirits. So, and they're gonna be pretty much guarantee you those are all going to be barrel or bottled at proof. Because again, I like that idea of you pick what you want where you want it at, right? That lets you be involved in the alchemy a little bit and get your hands dirty.

Thumper vs Doubler: How Flavor Rides The Vapor

SPEAKER_06 1:36:17

So all right, Alan. We're gonna end so so give a little, we're gonna end this. Give a little promotion for old homestead, give a little promotion for what you're doing still, all of your podcasts. I mean, it's just like I you you got a new podcast, you're you've got if you have ghosts, you have everything. You've got one piece at a time, distilling institute. Uh just throw out everything, and then we've got a ton of people wanting to come on. So just we'll we'll end this. I'll send the link out to everybody, and we'll bring some people on. And they've got questions because you're amazing. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:01

All right, hey, so uh you can find me at oldhomesteaddc.com. The website right now is undergoing renovation. I've been working on that for a couple weeks. We're getting there, it'll it takes a little time. Again, you know, figuring out the character of the distillery and all that sort of stuff. So, old homestead, the way that you can think of us is having multiple fillers. We got some for everybody. So there's sunshine spirits made from malted, roasted sunflowers, and cane sugar for the most part, with various other ingredients. There's black forest spirits, which essentially represent the history of the black forest of southern Indiana, or they are historically inspired spirits from around the world. There are the various whiskies andor brandies that we are making, which are high-end, variable, variable in terms of yeast, distillation, fermentation method, maturation, etc. We make uncommon whiskey for the common man. We make special spirits that are not common whiskies. You can come hang out with us, come stay at the distillery, check out the distillery, the hotel, the tasting room, the winery, the brewery, the marina, the gas station, floating cabins, land cabins, the whole deal, alcohol acres, you know, AA2, as it as it were. So it's a good time for everybody. But now let me say this too, because I want people to know this. It ain't just alcohol, right? So most people nowadays are not just after alcohol, they're after something they can do with their whole family. And the cool thing is when you get out to Potoka Lake, there's all kinds of great stuff to do with the family. There's places around there you can do ATV rides, you can rent boats, they got party boats, they got all the stuff that you want to do. They got a beach down there, all that stuff. So you can do the family thing and also have alcohol if you'd like it. Something for everybody, like I said. As far as me, you can find me at the If You Have Ghosts, You Have Everything podcast, which is kind of my main podcast gig at this point. The One Piece at a Time Distilling Institute on YouTube, and the One Piece at a Time Sacred and Profane podcast with my co-host Tyler Richardson. At some point, Distiller's Talk will be back. And uh you can go to the AlchemistCavin.com and pick up your copy of the 2026 Practical Distillers and Alchemist Dominac, which is really of all the private things that I do, that is the thing that I'm the most passionate about because it's the thing that's I don't know, it's where the esoteric sort of meets the more literal world of distillation. And it's also the thing that funds all the other things that I do for free throughout the year, like podcasts and one piece at a time, etc. So yeah, AlphaMascadon.com, all that stuff.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:37

That that's you know, everybody after that, you know how amazing Alan is at as getting his message out because 100%, every single thing that he mentioned, what he is doing, even his podcasts, are the production value of those podcasts are amazing. And he does he does it right. And right from where I'm I'm pretty sure you record right from where you are right now, as far as but I will suggest if you have ghosts, you have everything, that podcast is the coolest podcast out there. There are so many people that have been on there, and as I say, you take the distilling, you take the spirits industry and you combine it, combine it with the spirits world, and it's just a great, great podcast. I love your podcast, Alan. I love what you're doing, and thank you so much for coming on. Afterwards, if you're on if you're on Facebook, I'm gonna be sending that link and everybody can join us tonight. And I really much appreciate that you that that you do this for us every once in a while. Usually you have to take a bathroom break, and we keep you on longer than than most people come on, but we usually you I I guess tonight you definitely knew what you were getting into, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:06

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, three glasses of absinthe and a cup of coffee. Anybody's gonna have a pee break after that.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:12

Yeah, I gotta figure out now that now is your absinthe available in the in the distillery now? Have we gotten to that point?

SPEAKER_00 1:41:21

Term effect, which is the amethyst absinthe, absolutely is now available as of tomorrow in the distillery in in celebration of Neptune and Saturn both stationing at zero degrees Aries and the the end of the year of the snake and beginning of the year of the fire horse. So is it Americanized absinthe, which basically means that I took all the traditional stuff that you would get from absinthe and used those methods, but I use some unique botanicals in it, and botanicals grown here at my farm and colored it with maize morato or casuli corn, which is a bright purple anthropine enriched corn. Yeah, it's it's a new world absinthe, never existed before until now, and there it is right there in the distillery for you guys to enjoy. Well, and 140 fruit on my day.

What’s Next: Rise & Shine And Barrel-Rested Sunshines

SPEAKER_06 1:42:06

We need to do an absinthe, the first ever Scotchy Bourbon Boys Absinthe podcast coming up. I know the one time when you and Ben were on, I it's just like that. That was a wild podcast, no doubt. One of my favorite. I just was sad that I wasn't there drinking 27 different sampling 27 different absinths with you. You you visited that was that was a marathon, is what that was. That was a marathon. Yeah, you visited the Green Ferry that night. I just remember seeing Ben's face, and I hadn't met Ben personally, but his face behind he kept just looking behind over your shoulder. It's fantastic. All right, we're gonna we're gonna finish this up. All right, everybody, just on Facebook, hold on. YouTube will keep it going until everything goes. But www.scotchyburbonboys.com for all things scotchy bourbon boys. We got the glens, we got the t-shirts. Super Nash is wearing a t-shirt. And then we also have bourbon balls, so check that out. And then remember on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube X, and now TikTok, along with Patreon. And then just remember Apple, iHeart, Spotify. You can find us pretty much if you're listening to a podcast, we're there. So remember, whether you listen or you watch us, remember to become, you know, do the things to support us, memberships. If you're listening on Apple, make sure that you leave a five-star rating and give us a really good review. Helps us out. And as we keep growing, we appreciate everybody out there. And remember, good bourbon equals good times, good friends. Make sure you take it, Super Nash.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:02

Drink and drive, drink responsibly, and live your life uncut and unfiltered.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:09

And here we go with our theme song Taking Us Out.