The Filmland Spirits Founders Share How They Blend Bourbon With Storytelling

We hang out with Stephen Canepa and Troy Bolotnik from FilmLand Spirits and dig into how they built a whiskey brand around vintage movie poster storytelling without sacrificing what matters in the glass. We taste their Moonlight Mayhem and Rise Of The Robots, talk blending philosophy, and hear why they obsess over labels, transparency, and the long-term connection with drinkers. 
• why Filmland Spirits launches bourbon in Kentucky and California 
• the origin story of blending bourbon culture with film and screenwriting 
• designing labels like real movie posters with scripts, bios, and Easter eggs 
• using AI for mockups while keeping a creative and quality standard 
• the Crimson Cask Kentucky-exclusive reveal and what makes it different 
• how they source MGP and blend in small batches for a signature profile 
• limited releases like Quadraforce and the risk of multi-state blending 
• tasting notes and what “Extended Cut” means for cast strength 
• why their rye leans minty, citrusy, and sweet instead of harsh spice 
• barrel-aged cocktails at home and how proof changes an old fashioned 
check us out at filmlandspirits.com. And also we’re on all the social platforms at filmlandspirits. We definitely encourage you to go chat with the filmologist on our website. If you’re interested in purchasing, just ask it for discounts. www.scotchybourbonboys.com for all things Scotchy Bourbon Bourbon Boys. Make sure that you leave us good feedback. Go to Apple, leave us good reviews. That five out of five star thing helps 
A whiskey label catches your eye once. A whiskey story makes you pick it up. A great pour makes you come back, and that’s the bet Filmland Spirits is making. We sit down with founders Steve Kanepa and Troy Blatnik to unpack how they built a craft bourbon and rye brand that treats each bottle like a vintage B-movie poster, complete with character bios, hidden Easter eggs, QR-code trailers, and original screenplays written for every release.  

We get into the real nuts and bolts too: sourcing and blending MGP bourbon and rye, aging and bottling in Kentucky, and why “small batch” can mean seven to twelve barrels instead of thousands. Troy and Stephen share how they chase consistency without going generic, what judges have rewarded in blind tasting competitions, and why they refuse to let packaging distract from liquid quality. Along the way, we talk AI in whiskey marketing and label art, not as a magic button, but as a tool with real creative and cost tradeoffs.  

Then we taste. Moonlight Mayhem Extended Cut brings that cast strength depth and long finish, while Rise Of The Robots Extended Cut rye lands surprisingly minty and sweet with notes that spark a real debate. We also reveal the Kentucky-exclusive Crimson Cask with a film-noir vibe, and we dig into distribution realities like Ohio control-state challenges and what a future Filmland tasting room could look like.  

If you like bourbon podcasts, rye whiskey deep dives, and the intersection of storytelling and spirits, hit play, subscribe, share this with a fellow whiskey nerd, and leave us a review so more people can find the show.

voice over Whiskey Thief

If You Have Gohsts

Transcript

Meet Filmland Spirits And The Crew

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Ty here to tell you about Whiskey Thief Distilling Company and their newly opened tasting room. Whether you are up for a farm the glass distilling experience on the Three Boys Farm in Frankfurt, Kentucky, or an out-of-this world tasting experience in new look, you won't be disappointed. At both locations, their barrel picks all day, every day, are like none other. Each location features stations with five barrels, each featuring their pot-distilled bourbons and rye. Once the barrels have been thieved and tasted, you can make a selection and thieve your own bottle. A day at Whiskey Thief with their friendly staff and ownership will ensure you many good times with good friends and family. Remember to always drink responsibly, never drink and dry, and live your life uncle and unfiltered. Tonight we're joined from the guys at Filmland Spirits, Steve Kanepa and Troy Brodnik. Did I get it? Blatnik. Botnik, right? Blatnik, yeah. Blatnik. Man, I told you I was screwing up. Anyways, Troy Blatnik. Okay, so there we go. I'm sorry. Anyways, all right. It's great to have you guys on tonight. You know, it's it's kind of uh just getting into a little bit about Filmland Spirits because it's such a it's a unique brand from a lot of different ways. I mean, even how you guys started, it's kind of like the the label and then the the whole horror bee horror movie thing. I mean, you have such a you have this story, and then we we really want to dive into it. And now after you know, when what what year did you guys start when when this started to happen?

SPEAKER_01 4:09

So I started working on it like in earnest full-time in September of 2020. And then we were accompanied by about March of uh 21, and we ended up launching in September of 2022. So we launched in two states originally, Kentucky and California, home of bourbon, home of movies. Well, that awesome.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Now we also tonight are being joined by Super Nash and CT. Welcome, Super Nash and CT.

SPEAKER_03 4:39

What's up, everybody?

SPEAKER_00 4:40

We're all we've been together so much lately, it's almost almost like we don't even have to introduce ourselves anymore. It's just us all the time, right?

SPEAKER_03 4:48

And I don't even have to say people's last names. I can just say hi Troy, hi Steven, how are you? Nobody needs to hear it. Get butchered or said wrong. So we're just, you know, it's it is I I listen, I half the time when I look up Nash's phone number in my phone, I have him under, I have him under Nash. Like that's it. Like I if you if I got called out on the spot, what his actual name is, sometimes I would probably miss that. I'm I'm a one-name guy. Like I was this.

SPEAKER_08 5:22

So he wants to be understanding. I think he'd prefer the oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Yeah, for the next bottle coming from Filmland. It's super Nash.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Oh wow, can't wait to see the artwork for that.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

Oh, it's not good.

SPEAKER_02 5:41

It's not good.

SPEAKER_03 5:42

It's already run away several times. I didn't like it.

Why They Started The Brand

SPEAKER_00 5:48

So I yeah, I I was like, so talk about you know getting into uh you guys, you know, you started, but why did you start? I mean, you know, what was the reason why you guys got into this?

SPEAKER_01 6:04

What was your inspiration? Yeah, sure. So myself and one of our other partners, Charlie, who unfortunately last minute couldn't be here. Um he and I have known each other over 30 years. And he used to live in LA, but then he moved to Atlanta a long time ago. And just many years ago, kind of separately, and together we started getting into bourbon. And then we decided one year to meet in Kentucky and go to distilleries, right? And back then it was easy to go a lot of them because you didn't need a reservation and there were no lines, and you could just show up and end up hanging out with the master distiller, and they're pulling out their you know, their jug of their special recipe from under the sink that no one else has ever gotten to try. And we just fell in love with all of it, right? We fell in love with the bourbon, of course, but the the people and the culture and the cocktails and the art and the science of it. And so on one of those trips, we said, you know, we're gonna do our own brand one day. And I, you know, we both went back to our lives and we would meet there every year, and but we both have jobs or things going on, and and during that time I was experimenting with different ideas, and then I I had this corporate gig and I left it in 2020 in the summer, and I kind of looked at myself in the mirror and I said, I've been saying I'm gonna do my own brand for so many years, I got a chance to do it right now. If I don't do it, I'm a liar and I'm not a liar, so I decided I was gonna just throw myself in full time. And then another friend of mine was here in California, was helping me get this off the ground. And we were banging our heads against the wall, trying to come up with a concept. Like I knew I wanted bright eye-catching labels. That was sort of the foundation of it because I spent so many years, like all of us, walking up and down the aisles and the bourbon aisle and saying to myself, why do bourbon labels are why are they all beige and brown and the pictures of dogs or birds or horses on them? Why can't we have fun like wine or craft beer or or vodka or rama or tequila and have bright, colorful, fun, immersive labels, but still have ultra premium award-winning liquid inside the bottles? And so that was sort of the concept, but couldn't come up with like what it was gonna be. And my friend just we were in his backyard and he started interviewing me because he's a podcast host. So as if we were on his podcast, he started interviewing me and he kind of cut me off as I was talking. He said, Hey, Charlie, the passion that you're talking about burb that you're talking about film and movies and writing is the same passion you talk about bourbon, and find a way to do them together. And like filmland spirits just like came out of that immediately. And the B movie concept was like instant because we were like, we just wanted a playground where we can have as many ideas as possible and be as nutty and creative and and crazy as possible. And B movies just lent itself right to that.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yeah, and it's and and the the labels aren't just you know B movies like horror movies of now, they're the B movies of horror movies of yesteryear. I mean, that is that the artwork and everything that you got going on is you know, the 1950s, early 1960s, you know, the Wolfman, or you know, there was there was a lot of B movies that were done with Westerns, too. That same kind of artwork that you've got going there. So the colors are great and everything, and yes, the label's cool. I mean, even the you know, the cork is a movie reel. So that is definitely impressive. So then you don't notice enough.

SPEAKER_03 9:37

I mean, like when we met you in 2023 at Kentucky Bourbon Festival, it was the thing, you know, there's so many people set up, there's so many craft distilleries, and and then you have, of course, the legacy brands and whatnot, and it's hard for us even to go around and meet everybody. I know this year there was people that I intended to talk to that I just didn't get time to. But we we did meet you, and it was the draw to the bottle, you know, that was a big thing. And I think at first it was like, okay, this bottle's really cool, and then you listen to the story a little bit like you told then that you used that you would tell it to 10. But I'm gonna tell you what the bottle itself, from the glass to the label, is the most intricate bottle that I don't I I don't know that anybody puts the amount of attention into a bottle that you guys do because the bottle like the embossed logo across the top, the reel across the bottom in the glass, you know, it it's like okay, so that's one part, then like Tiny said, the the court, but the label, when you read the label, it's it's uh you have everything you could ever want to know about the product, and probably a little more. Like, I need I need Nash's glasses to read some of this, but very detailed. So, you know, definitely that this packaging draws the consumer in, and and we'll drink it here in a minute, and we already know the result of that. But this is a great start to getting people to the bottle. So thank you.

SPEAKER_08 11:20

Our uh our story we tell about a little bit of to be nostalgic about the bottle as adults now is we remind ourselves when we were kids, and it'd be the morning, either Saturday morning or maybe before school, and we'd get our cereal box and sit at the kitchen table, pour some cereal and some milk, and we'd flip the cereal box around. There'd be a puzzle, maybe a jigsaw or a crossword, and some games and some brain teasers, and we'd sit there and eat and kind of enjoy whatever that marketing genius put on the back of the bottle to keep us interested. And and as adults, you know, we don't want we don't want we want people talking to each other, we don't want them stereo the whole time, but just to say you're sitting on your own sometimes who got something there that you can enjoy a little bit and read and and find something new. And there's Easter eggs within the label that you might see the fifth time you look at it, you didn't see the first four times. So it's uh we a lot of thought and and uh attention to detail when everything and appreciate you noticing it. I mean, it's uh we don't want to have to always be the one to say, hey, look at this, look at this. So when someone notices it naturally, it really makes us feel good. So thank you for that.

Writing Scripts Into The Label

SPEAKER_03 12:26

You could take about three to five minutes reading that label and looking at the bottle. It's not one you just pick up and it's like, oh, it's the brand. If you actually sit there and read it, it's it's in depth.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

All right, okay, before we get into the whiskey part, okay. So I I was a commercial artist in another an in another lifetime, worked on quant the Quantel Graphic Paint Box, one of only 13 different computers like that in the United States. And so we did a lot of those movie poster type things for advertising and everything, and it was really cool. And then now, do you have a specif was there a specific artist who was doing your labels?

AI Art Tools And Real Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_01 13:13

I mean, it was what was so so to give you a little a little bit more background that leads into that. Charlie, who we mentioned a few times, he and I a million years ago used to be screenwriters. And so, you know, we kind of combined our passions, as I mentioned before. And we actually create an original script for every one of our products, right? And it's on purpose, like you mentioned, it pays homage to the beam movies in the mid-20th century, like robots and monsters, big over-the-top characters and and plots, right? And then we create the poster for that script, which of course becomes the label, right? And you got this the whole story and the characters up front. One side of the label is all about the movie. There's a synopsis, there's character headshots and bios. There's a QR code there that if you scan, you can watch a trailer, interact with storyboards, read script pages, download the poster, and the other side's all about the award-winning liquid that's in the bottle that I know we're gonna get to and talk about, but it tells who we are, and there's some tasting notes. And then we try and be as transparent as possible. So everything we can put on that label is there, from where it's distilled, where it's bottled, uh, the mash bill, all the way down to the chart of the barrel in which it was aged. Right. And so our process varies a little bit, but typically what happens is I will I will get an idea, and then I will just start going into Photoshop and start playing and mocking things up. And one day I'll show up to the team and I said, I've got this idea, or that idea we talked about a year ago. I just, you know, something came to me this weekend, and I'll make 20 or 30 versions of it and then bring it to the team. And we will rip it apart, you know, from all every angle, like creative and marketing and and and sales and all the different angles. And then I'll keep revising and revising until we get something we all love. And then once we get to that point, we will bring an artist in to recreate it from scratch. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

So the world has changed since that process. And if you've if you saw any of our social media, this me, myself and CT, like it's unfricking believable what AI allows you to do in the amount of time. Are you guys kind of excited about this? Or or I mean, honestly, what you just described to get to where you're at, now you can just basically reference one of your other labels and just basically tell it what you want, and it will come up with I mean, it's just nuts what it I mean. I I what what's C T with CTU, I you know, because I asked him, I didn't have a lot of time, asked them to do the the promo and what it did with the bottles, put it up, used all the labels, put them all in the side. It's just it's just amazing. I I think whole I I might be able to be able to share that with you guys. Let me see, photos.

SPEAKER_03 16:11

Uh yeah, I think it's probably like we were saying, you know, it's you you like the art, I'm sure, of making the label and designing it, but AI definitely brings a new element, and maybe it's not the like, oh, it's a finished product's gonna be AI, but it does give you some creativeness to be able to use in another way, you know.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Right. So, so you know, I've been using Photoshop for well over 30 years, and I've been using creating computer graphics since 1980. And and so until AI became what it was a few years ago, I would use found elements, right? Use Google image search, and I'm like, hey, I'm looking for a woman in a spacesuit from the 50s, and I find that and I throw that in Photoshop and do that. So what's really changed is I I don't have to go scouring for those things, I can just prompt and have AI create mock-ups of those things. It's not uh, you know, the tools keep getting better literally every day. It's not as easy as people might think. Like even to create a mock-up of one of our labels still takes hours and hours and hours with AI. And to get it consistent, to get it kind of look close to what you want and create the elements that are in the same style, takes it takes a lot of work. But I definitely use AI now to mock up the labels because it is faster. And then I we kind of look at it like this. It's like special effects in a movie, right? There's a time and a place and a use for them. Nobody would make, you know, an action movie now or a sci-fi movie without special effects. But years ago, people you know, and computers have been generating a lot of that animation for a long time anyway, right? Pixar movies are not hand-drawn and they're not frame by frame, even drawn by an artist. Frames, the in-between frames are all generated by a computer. So it's just a different tool that we can use for different things right now. And it's certainly, you know, it's a it's a conflict for us because the art is so important to us and we love it, but we also are business people and we have to be practical. And so the question becomes hey, if I can give you an amazing bottle of bourbon for$65 that has a hand-painted label on it, or I can give you the same bottle of bourbon for$55 or$49 that has a mostly AI generated label that looks beautiful, which should I do? Right. And our answer to that is until now it's been the hand-painted artist. Our answer now is we're gonna do a little bit of both, right? So we do have we do have a$40 product coming out uh soon that is a Kentucky exclusive, right? And it's the first time we've been anywhere near that price point. And part of the reason we were able to get there with just as good, if not better quality liquid, is because we're doing some of the artwork differently on this one. Well, and by the way, some people think it's the best label we've ever done. And and I still consider it done by an artist because I'm an artist, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Right, no, myself too. I mean, honestly, right, as an artist, I I just can't believe what you know the what I mean. The first time you use it, it was just you, you're just like, what? Really? That just made that just made everybody, you know. There was a musician that he he had done some work for us, and he was talking about how AI was starting to take away some of his work. But then he showed me his album cover that he created through AI, and I and I'm just like, you do realize it can't it's it can't, it's gotta, it does, it were, it doesn't, it's gotta be one way or another. You can't do on one end save yourself a ton of money by not having an artist do your album, and then on the other album, you don't, you know, so it really comes down to you're right, it's a tool. I mean, if you gave a Andy Warhol AI, he's gonna come up with some creative ways. And as artists, that's what our what our job is to do. It's kind of like sometimes it really frustrates you because you're just asking it to do a simple thing and it won't do it. Well, if you have the ability then to go into Photoshop and do it yourself because you just got sick of trying to get it done, you you know, it's just it's a great tool.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yeah, yeah, and even the label that I'm referring to, every single aspect of it was done individually. And then I spent hours in Photoshop getting it to and Illustrator to get it to where it needs to be to be cohesive, you know, and all it's all we don't use AI to write, right? Because we don't need to.

unknown 20:37

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Right, right, right. I do. I have to write everything because uh it's amazing. Uh, my mother-in-law said you she she made mention to my wife, she's like, his posts are a lot better. And I'm just like, yeah, because you can write, you don't need to. I absolutely I have to do it because otherwise I sound like a fourth grader.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

Right. So the before we go to drinking these, while you're on the subject of the new bottle, so is it a you said it's a Kentucky exclusive, so only sold in Kentucky or is a Kentucky distillate?

SPEAKER_01 21:13

It is Kentucky distillate. Um, and it is only going to be sold in Kentucky. It just got finished bottling today, and and uh, you know, it'll be with our distributor in the next few days to a week, and then a couple of weeks after that it'll be on store shelves, but it's only for Kentucky. So either you you live there or you're a bourbon tourist and you'll have an opportunity to get it. Oh, I'm going there, don't worry.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

You always go there.

SPEAKER_08 21:45

The label topic. I think a nice way to think about it is we think about that the same way we think about blending what's in the bottle, is open-mindedness to everything. And our conclusion is we have a standard of what we're gonna put out there. So the standard on this new bottle, although maybe at a lower price point uh almost than our most expensive bottle, is the same standard we keep. We may have been open-minded to a few different ways to get there. And the same thing happens with our arm work and our labeling is that we will never shut a door down and say no way, but we also have a theme to the company that we always want to maintain. We won't don't want to give that up. And I think that goes for the inside for sure. What's inside that bottle is number one on our mind, and we will always stand. But even on the outside, there's certain certain corners we won't cut, there's certain things we won't do, but we're open-minded to almost anything, and we'll listen and talk amongst ourselves as a team and figure it out. And sometimes it is you know a little bit of a financial decision. I'm I'm the CFO of the company, so sometimes I might weigh in a little bit more, and sometimes I may be outvoted. So it it I think that kind of carries. On throughout the whole company.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

And the thing is that you know, we we love the labels and we talk about a lot because it's it's a differentiator and exciting. We love the stories and we love that it's immersive. But the majority of our effort and the cost of goods is in that bottle, it's the liquid, right? Yeah. And what's interesting is we sort of get hit hit both ways with it because there's sometimes that people look at us and they go, Oh, you spent all this money on the bottle and the label, the liquid must not be very good. And then if somebody thinks our our label is AI made, they go, Oh, I can't believe you're cheaping out on the label. Right? So we we we hear it uh both ways. You ever you know we don't really listen.

Market Shifts And New Kentucky Release

SPEAKER_00 23:34

You can't make everybody, it's impossible to make everybody happy. I mean, yeah, you just sometimes, I mean, honestly, if even for for just with the podcast, there's some people just don't like the you know, they'll be we're very free, open. There's a lot of technical things that happen and whatever, and somebody if that's if they if they want it to be clean, sharp TV show kind of thing, that there I just tell them, I just that's just not how we are. I don't, I don't even do, I rarely do editing. I mean, it's just kind of like it. We go up there, we're uh we're live, and it's just we want the experience to be whoever's on with us, that we're just we're hanging out and talking about bourbon and sipping with friends. I mean, that's just what what what the podcast is. And it's just kind of like I will say that this is this is a question as far as the liquid goes now, that the the industry, I didn't think it would, I didn't think it would change as much as as fast as things changed, you know, just a few short, just even maybe this time last year, we were talking about a barrel shortage. I mean, people were talking about the barrel that there's gonna be a barrel shortage now, you know, they're not in there's they're they're they're what would you say, recalibrating how much they're making for the future at this moment, and then people, you know, there's been a lot of money made, but at the same time, there's a lot of really good whiskey. The quality of whiskey is up, and the barrels are there's a lot more barrels available where there wasn't. You couldn't get as well-aged whiskey. But how are you guys dealing with that? Is it really kind of beneficial to you guys that you get more available plus the price is kind of a little bit lower?

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Yeah, it's a it's a double-edged sword, right? Because the the reasons that this is going on are not good for business, right? They're not good for anybody in the bourbon industry. But at the same time, you know, the fact that we can put out a Kentucky straight four-plus-year-old bourbon at$39.99 being a small company like we are, is you know, partially like the label we talked about before, but it's partially because prices have dropped on bulk spirits, right? And we can acquire really high quality liquid at lower prices than we were able to before. And so that means we can bring, you know, bourbon to a different segment of the audience that maybe wasn't going to spend 60 or 70 or 80 dollars on bourbon before, but to get a chance to have one of our bourbons, you know,$40 is more much more approachable. So double-edged sword, right? But we have to we have to roll with it like any business business has changed. And we're rolling with it. And we're we're different, right? You know, you depending on who you believe, the the liquor, you know, spirits market in general is down because Gen Z isn't drinking, right? But if you look at the data, Gen Z is drinking, they're just drinking differently.

SPEAKER_04 26:37

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

And they're they're attracted to things that are are retro and nostalgic and are about more than just the liquid inside the bottle. They're about a community that they want to be part of and a lifestyle, and you know, that's kind of us. So we have that advantage that that was, you know, we were already in that space and attractive to that.

Crimson Cask Reveal And Details

SPEAKER_03 26:53

Well, you think about your bottle, you take advantage of a bottle share or an event with your friends. I mean, there's a story going on the whole time you're drinking it. You know, people are like, where did you get that? What is this? You know, I know Nash has got a question. I have one before he starts.

SPEAKER_04 27:09

He's had his for a while.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

I know I feel bad because I'm I know he's waiting. But before we get on to another subject, so about that bottle. Uh can you tell us what the name is? I mean, we we know we have rise of the robots, we have you know, the mayhem, moonlight mayhem. What what is our what tease us with what our new army?

SPEAKER_01 27:35

I'm hesitating because I'm trying to decide, Steve. Will Laura kill me if I show the bottle? Oh! You actually have the bottle.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

That would be even more awesome. Well, Laura doesn't know. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_08 27:47

I mean, we all we all answer to Laura, so let's let's uh let's take a second point. I'll give a little clue that I don't think should be remote. And so, and I and I'm not saying you got us wrong and saying that we leaned a little bit into horror, but the next one isn't horror, it's a different kind of a feel to it than horror. So that's a little bit of a I say, I'm gonna show the bottom.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

Okay, I'm wow. I'm usually the uptight one who's like, no, we can't do this. And I'm like, you know what?

SPEAKER_08 28:15

You guys gotta you guys got a whole new Tony or Troy, whatever you think it is.

SPEAKER_04 28:20

Hey, true.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

Super Nance is on the bottle, I win. If if he is, then I'm really good at AI.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Absolutely, right? Quick too. All right, so is okay if I oh, you're gonna have to give me permission to share my screen. I can do that. Because I don't physically have the bottle yet. They're they're all in Kentucky.

SPEAKER_00 28:42

All right, let me see here just while he's doing that.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

Uh all I wanted to say was Troy, we got a comment from Kurt from Montana. He commented exactly what you said a while ago. He says, uh, I have a counter house in Colorado and seen the bottle firsthand, and the art was so cool, I thought, yeah, they must be making it for the Jews. But then he's like, oh huh, now I'm really finding out different. So it looks like I'm going to have to go back, reschedule a trip back there, and grab a few. And then he said, Great, great job, guys.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Thank you. I love it. I I was gonna say that the thing that every single product we have put on the market has won a gold or double gold medal at the most prestigious blind tasting competitions in the world. San Francisco, Barley, corn, tag global spirits awards, right? And you can say, all right, if we put one or even two of ours, won a gold medal. Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe we got lucky, right? But Steve, myself, and Charlie, we are the blender. We taste every barrel that we own. We have an extensive database of tasting notes. We try and taste every barrel every year. We certainly taste them again when we go to do a blending session. And and we designed what this tastes like. We make sure it continues to taste like that. We experiment with all the new products. And so we've really put our art and our passion and our science into this to make it great. And then you get everything that we put on the market keeps winning. And these are difficult competitions to get a gold at. Forget about a double gold. So it speaks to what we care about most. We're bourbon nerds, we're whiskey guys. We the liquid in that bottle, our our name is on, our names are on every bottle. Yeah, and there's no way we're gonna do that unless we are incredibly proud of every single drop of liquid that goes into every bottle.

SPEAKER_03 30:22

There's there's a difference between a gimmick and being passionate, and that's the difference for you guys. You're passionate, so you go so extensively through the bottle because you want it to represent what's in it. Whereas some people, yeah, let's make the sticker look cool and hopefully they'll buy it. You know, that's not the case.

SPEAKER_08 30:41

And almost everybody who's had that opinion and and appreciate the the comment from Montana and glad that he's given us a second chance, is almost everybody we've talked to whose first impression with that finishes with the second statement. And then I tasted it, and then I realized it wasn't. Like we've never met one person who goes, I thought it was a gimmick when I saw and I avoided it, and then somebody gave me a poor, and I then I knew I knew it was a gimmick. No one's ever said that. They always finish with the now I get it. And then I always tell folks who might have that opinion, just watch one podcast Troy's done by himself, or we've done together, or Charlie and Troy have done. Just watch one because if you hear the story behind it, you'll know that it wasn't a gimmick. Now, some people don't have the time to do that in peace, but you know, there there is absolutely no doubt that what we care about is is what we put in that bottle much more than what's on the outside. Now, the outside is a blast. We have so much fun with it, and and we and all and we're our harshest critics on that stuff. So we just want to have fun on the outside and be super serious on what's on the inside.

SPEAKER_02 32:22

Okay, so can you watches the podcast, they'll definitely see your the passion that you guys have and all and what you put into it.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

Troy, can you share can you hit the share button right now?

SPEAKER_01 32:36

No, it's still saying sharing is not turned on. You can request. Okay, I'm sending requests. Yep, there you go. Now you can. Yes. So Laura, I apologize in advance.

SPEAKER_03 32:49

You can blame it on me. I'm used to it. It's good. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 32:55

Oh yeah, that's more mystery and detective right there.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

Oh man. The crimson cask.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Nice.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

Almost like a Humphrey Bogodart.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Yeah, a very, a very 1930s, maybe into the 40s film noir. But an over-the-top story. That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

The detective. Oh yeah. Like the Undertaker's manager on WWE.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Here's a full shot of the whole lady.

SPEAKER_03 33:43

Exactly. Whatever that guy's name is, that's what it looks like.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Oh, that is cool. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Well, that is awesome. Argue that the story is Scarlet was never quite the heir her bourbon barren father hoped for. When he's found crushed beneath a barrel, her name scrawled in blood across its staves. Only Cutter, the bottom shelf gum shoe she was never supposed to love, can help clear her name. She may not be guilty, but she sure as hell ain't innocent.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

Awesome. Awesome.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Yeah, we're super we're super excited about it. We love this one. And like I said, we've had people's cross. Yeah.

unknown 34:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

Alan to be able to be at that price point is just yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_08 34:29

So the people our blending session of this one was so enjoyable too, because we definitely have had an idea in mind to make something a little more approachable, a little more flavorable than what we have. But we're never going to compromise and just water something down and put it on the shelf at a cheap price. And so the blending, the tasting of the set of different barrels, putting together different mixes of those, it was such a good experience because when you get the results you want, and again, without sacrificing the quality of what's going to be in the people are gonna, I know they're gonna spend$39.99 and be very, very happy. Just knowing that as we were blending it, you know, makes us feel amazing.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

Yeah, yeah. People on the audio, the the actual name was the Crimson Cask. So that's that's really kind of a cool. Now, what is the what's the stats on it? What's the what's the proof? What's you know?

SPEAKER_01 35:26

It's it's 90 proof. Oh nine. Yeah. And it's a 75214 mash pill, which is the same as our Moonlight Mayhem, but this is Kentucky juice, so completely different flavor profile. Yeah, totally different flavor profile, different distillery, all of it.

MGP Sourcing And Small-Batch Blending

SPEAKER_00 35:46

Yeah, now now you're you're what you've been working with with film land, what is that? What what were you working with with that? What what state are you working with that?

SPEAKER_01 35:57

Oh, okay. So so our core products, which are Moonlight Mayhem, Moonlight Mayhem Extended Cut, the Cast Strength Bourbon, Rise of the Robots, and Rise of the Robots Extended Cut, our core products are MGP, proudly MGP. We get all we get our barrels from MGP, and then we bring them in and we age blend and bottle them in Kentucky. So they've all been in Kentucky for a long time before they go into the bottle. So we're getting some of the benefits. So we got this incredible distillery that that doesn't know how to produce anything that's not delicious. We bring it in. We do very, very small batches. So like if you ask one of the big boys what their small batch is, it's 5,000 barrels, right? Our batches are seven to twelve barrels. That's it. And we've done some that are smaller because we have designed a particular flavor profile that we love. And because we have such small batches, changing out one barrel or a portion of a barrel has a huge influence on the flavor and and all the mouthfeel and all the characteristics. And so we have the ability to kind of dial in very precisely and continue to produce a liquid that matches exactly what we want. And limited releases. I'm sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

You would probably have to double it to make it like you and that takes a while to get to go from seven to you'd have to go to 14 instead of eight. You know, that would probably be what would happen, right? As far as if you were going to make bigger batches.

SPEAKER_01 37:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

And and you know, it we can, and and I think we, you know, we've had 12. We had one limited release that's that's current right now, Quadriforce. That was a much larger batch because of the nature of it. It was very unique, and we had to use everything all at once with it. We can talk about that after we get through the the stuff that you guys are gonna taste. But you know, it it it just our our core products are are MGP. Our limited releases vary, they're all over the place, right? Some some like Quadri Force comes from all over the country, right? And then we've had another town at the end of tomorrow, the poster over Steve's shoulder, which was our we released at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival in 2023. That was our first limited release. We were only in a few states at the time, so we only made 600 bottles of it and it sold out immediately. It's a Kentucky straight nine-year-old bourbon.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

And I absolutely kicked myself in the butt for not buying that bottle. Me too.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Well, I can tell you. So CT, since since you do go down to Kentucky, I'm sure you hang out or spend some time at Justin's House Suburban in Louisville or Lexington. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah. So after, you know, they're they're they're good friends of ours, they're big fans of the brand. They start coming to us and saying, hey, please do a single barrel for us of Town at the End of Tomorrow. And we said, absolutely not. We're not doing that. Our single barrel program is on Moonline Mayhem Extended Cut. And then they came back a few months later and asked again, and we said no. And we kept saying no until we said yes. And so they have the world's only Town at the End of Tomorrow single barrel. And I know they still have some left, at least in Louisville.

SPEAKER_00 38:56

You better get there quick, CT, because after tonight, after ton, yeah, tomorrow's Friday. You better go because after tonight there might not be any left after you just mentioned that's where to go get it. That's that's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_08 39:11

They're great partners of ours.

SPEAKER_00 39:13

Yeah, yeah. Actually, Mark Carter, old Carter Social Club, is like right, I don't even know, kitty corner or like adjacent Jason or above them. Above them, above them. You know, Mark, Mark's like, I'm late. Just go down to just go down to Justin's and have what you want. And and you know, that's a when when he said that, that's a loaded question because they have some stuff that, you know, but you know, we wouldn't take advantage or anything like that. Great place. I love the Justin's.

SPEAKER_03 39:50

What uh what do you want us to drink first? What uh what let's get into drinking some of these?

SPEAKER_01 39:54

So you have Moon Light Mahem extended cut and rise of robots extended cut?

SPEAKER_08 39:59

I'm gonna ask you guys a question that I I know the answer to. Do you mind if I drink with you?

SPEAKER_00 40:04

We we you guys, we demand it. You we demand it.

SPEAKER_03 40:10

I have an answer for your question, but you have to go to your own website and ask your little robot. Oh, okay. Your little robot came on and was asking me if he could help me, and then I said I click the X, and then I turn back, I so the screen goes off, and then your robot's doing this.

SPEAKER_01 40:31

Yeah. So what you're referring to is called the filmologist. So the filmologist, our tagline for the filmologist is AI or a whole, and the filmologist is a it's a customer service chat bot, an AI-driven customer service chat bot that will check your order status. Looks like a bartender. Looks like a bartender. It will give you cocktail recipes, it knows everything about our products, it'll give you discount. You ask it for discounts, it gives you discounts, all kinds of stuff like that. But it has a crappy attitude and a potty mouth. And so as long as you're not easily offended and you're willing to be insulted a little bit, you can get what you want out of it, but it's definitely gonna give you some crap.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

I mean, isn't that isn't that what all whiskey drinkers want? We want we want people to give us shit. We give it.

SPEAKER_03 41:18

Yeah, I just thought it was hilarious because like I'm already on like the mailing thing, but it brought up a thing. If you wanted a coupon, and I'm like, I don't want the coupon, I'm trying to, and I exit out, and then immediately that robot's flipping me off.

SPEAKER_06 41:31

And I'm like, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_08 41:35

Yeah, that is uh it's Troy's personality with my bald head on that robot.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

So yeah, so start with Moonlight Mayhem Extended Cut the Burger.

SPEAKER_00 41:50

And I did get them all samples of what you sent, and we appreciate what you sent up. That's that's for sure. And and so Laura, she's the one that contacted us, and you know, and now we're kind of hanging out. I I appreciate that. But what what is you said you all have to answer to her? What tell me how Laura fits fits into the whole thing?

SPEAKER_01 42:16

Well, well, I so I I I like to think of myself as a servant leader, right? Like I'm I'm here, I'm here to serve my customers, I'm here to serve my team, whatever I need to do to get everybody where they need to be. So I'm the founder and CEO. Steve is has about 75 different titles with us, as he mentioned, CFO and treasurer, and all those things. But of course, I know Steve's most proud of being part of our award-winning blending team. Charlie is the VP of ops, but also product development is my co-creative. Kristen is our head of sales, she's been in the industry a long time. Kristen Kilpak was at Jefferson's for a long time when they were coming up. And Daniel Clark is our head of marketing, and he's been in the business a long time as well, was at Penora Card for like 10 years, doing marketing for their craft spirits acquisitions, brands like Jefferson's and rabbit hole and that kind of thing. Laura is our head of PR. So, so Laura, who is, you know, she has been in the industry a long time. She's she focuses on the spirits industry a lot, and she is incredible. And so we're we're joking to some degree, but uh, you know, I I go to she's the expert, right? And I say, What do you what do you want me to say and not say? Right. So that's why we're joking. She's she supports us uh in what we're doing. And and because she I know she's home writing the press release for Crimson Cask right now, so she's probably like, Do you still want the press release? Because she went and blew it.

SPEAKER_08 43:39

Laura's been very instrumental as to address the topic we had a little earlier is when we launched, you know, we we knew what was in the bottles were good, and we won these awards, and we thought people may pick up on that and not judge us a certain way. But we found that there was a little more of those, it must be a gimmick kind of comments, and we probably preferred. And Laura, along with all of us on the leadership team, we want to do more like more things like this. We want to get out there and talk more and see our faces more and hear our voices more. So our social posts used to be a little bit more about the bottle, the art, the trailers, but now you'll see our social posts and then more of these type of podcasts and talking to folks like you guys, is so that we can get that message out. We you know it's not 100% one way or 0% the other. We probably just changed the proportion of that. But Laura's been very instrumental in helping us get the word out and having us meet folks like you, and it's been great.

SPEAKER_03 44:30

Where where you guys have a problem with Laura is that there was probably five people today that asked her what that new bottle was called and if she had any information, she said no. And now you're dead.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

You're dead. Oh, yeah. The the good news is she she's probably listening right now, watching, but she's on the east coast, so hopefully she'll go to bed before this is over, so I don't have to deal with it until tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

No, Laura, Laura her name is Laura. Oh, she's watching.

SPEAKER_01 45:00

Yeah, I know. Uh Laura, Laura, Laura is the best. And I try and tell her that, and we try and tell her that all the time. But and and the way she has helped us and and expanded how she helps us is beyond impressive.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Well, if she wants to j I'll just throw, we'll find out if she's watching. She should just jump in for a second. She has, I did give her the link.

SPEAKER_01 45:23

She she I I would love it if she does. She typically does not like to be on camera. I know that. But if she Laura, if you're listening and you want to come on.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

Yeah, feel free. And then also she's like, uh well, ge she's like, she's like sending me pictures of you guys, right? To use and whatnot. And she's like, uh, here's one. And it's like, that's me 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

That was the one I did of Troy. Troy was like, yeah, that's a good picture, but it looks like it was 20 years older.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Younger. Yeah. Uh so I mean.

Tasting Moonlight Mayhem Extended Cut

SPEAKER_01 45:56

Yeah, this this is good. Oh, wow. So Moonlight Mayhem extended cut, right? This is a gold medal-winning cast strength bourbon. You'll have to tell me what the the the proof is on it because each batch is a little bit different. So I don't know what the proof is about from thinking. 115. 115. Okay. And so the thing that's cool about this, Steve will tell you, this is his favorite. This gets incre in addition to the gold medal from San Francisco, it gets incredibly well reviewed. So a couple of years ago in the winter edition of Advocate Magazine, they rated 150 different bourbons. They gave us a score of 93, and that tied it for best bourbon out of all 150. And then you guys, I'm sure you know who Peggy knows Stevens is. Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:41

We do. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Yeah. So a couple of years ago, I hadn't met Peggy yet at the time. And she called me up and she said, Yeah, I rated your Moonlight Man Mix Tendicut for American Whiskey Magazine. And I gave it a 9.1. And I said, Oh, okay. And she goes, No, no, I don't do that. And so then I then I went and looked, and the last thing she gonna score like that to ended up winning Whiskey of the Year that year. So incredibly high praise. And I've since gotten to meet Peggy and she's wonderful, and and she's I know she's a fan of the brand, and we're huge fans of hers. So it gets it gets really, really great reviews, and and people just tend to like freak out and love it. If you're if you're a whiskey aficionado, right? If you're if someone who knows whiskey and or even if you don't know it well but just enjoy it, this is where you're gonna end up gravitating to.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

This is a 21 rye.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:30

75% corn, 21% rye, 4% corn. It's got that cherry, cherry corn note. Yep, it really has that cherry aspect.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

And chicken is coming through. The I mean, honestly, the it also has just a sweet, like a like a dessert kind of note that I haven't put my finger on yet, but it's man, it's it's really good. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

So when we were blending this the very first time, I think we blended it for the first time in August of 2022. We're in Kentucky, and we were we we'd pulled a lot of samples from a lot of barrels, and we were we were tasting like crazy. And we we did it, we we picked certain barrels, we put them together, and we're like, hey, this is this is pretty good. Like, all right, well, let's put it aside for a second, work on something else, and we'll come back to it and see how we feel. And like a minute later, I remember turning to Steve and to Charlie, and I was like, Are you guys still tasting new things? Like, like the finish just kept going and going and going, and we're like, it just kept evolving and changing, and we're like, Yeah, we're putting this in a bottle. This is amazing.

SPEAKER_03 48:34

And that's what makes it fun, too, is when it does evolve. Like it's yeah, it's not one note or two nodes, it's like, wow, I didn't I didn't taste the vanilla cream pie that was there before, but now it's definitely there.

SPEAKER_02 48:48

So I'm sorry, no, go ahead and sugar from top and on a cobbler is coming through.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

Go ahead, Steve.

SPEAKER_08 49:00

I was gonna say, when I watched some of your guys' other podcasts, what I appreciated and what what made me really look forward to tonight was you guys picked up on the idea that that we can buy 50 barrels from MGP, and someone else who's really good at blending could buy 50 barrels from MGP, and we could make a batch of eight, 10, 8, 9, or 10 and come up with a completely different flavor that is filled my spirits cast strength, or even you know, lowerproof version of that. And that other great blender can come up with a version of their own, and they're not the same, and we could both love each other's whiskeys. And you guys pick up on that nuance so well, where others we have to explain that to over and over. And we try to make this unique to us, even though it's a you know it's a very widely produced mash pill. But but by doing small batches and by Troy and Charlie and I tasting everyone and documenting and keeping a catalog of the flavors of each one, we can we can find a unique flavor and then replicate that flavor. And our motto is the next version of this is gonna be as good as this or better, it's never gonna drop in quality. So and it's it is fun and it's it's also rewarding.

Quadraforce And Big Blending Risks

SPEAKER_00 50:08

Well, it's so open for you guys. I I mean, honestly, you I mean, even if you wanted to do uh you can there's so much because of what's on the market and what you can get, you have the ability to create a lot of different stuff, but you know, even right now you're kind of sticking, like if for Kentucky bourbon and you got the Indiana and MGP, and but you can but there's people now they're they're blending to blend and they're mixing barrels from different places, and there's no reason there's nothing that is there to stop you now. And now there you go. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Um I mentioned this earlier, it's called Quadra Force. You see that little gold gold metal hanging from it? That's the real metal. I didn't make that up. So quadriforce is a super unique bourbon because we made it by blending four bourbons originally distilled in four different states, right? And the result is actually a four-grain weeded bourbon. And then we took that singular liquid and we put it into bottles with four different labels. Each one of the labels features one of the four quadriforce heroes, and each one of the heroes represents one of the four states of distillation. So you have Kentucky Anna is on this label. We have one with Tennessee Terra. There you go. We have Cal A Comet, and then we have Mr. Mr. On who represents that fourth state of distillation, which is a mystery. And so Quadrifor is super unique. It's exactly what you're saying, Tiny. Four different states. Incredibly risky for us to do, right? Because we we could only taste samples from those four states, and we have to make little tiny blends as a sample and say, is this going to work together at scale? Because you can blend in a little beaker and it can be great, but then you go to scale and it's completely different. Oh, yeah. So we took a huge risk dumping tens of thousands of dollars of bourbon together in tank.

SPEAKER_03 52:03

You know. Well, I mean, think about like you sit there and you make a blend that you put together in a matter of time, how quick it can evolve, like days. It's it's totally it can change that quickly. So yeah, there's an art to blending that I don't think every consumer really understands it, but they may drink things that they pick up in the ship every day that have been through that, that they probably like more than just the single barrel that's never been touched.

unknown 52:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 52:34

Well, it's also the key is buying who you're buying from. I mean, if you're good bourbon, good bourbon in is you usually then you get good bourbon. So if you're buying good, you know, properly distilled in age bourbon, you you usually there, yes, you take a risk that it might not be perfect, but at the same time, there's a really good chance what you're gonna get, you know, there there might be an odd thing that happens, but overall you're gonna get something decent. But when you're mixing it, aren't you expecting something surprising to come out of it? Like, you know, flavors.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

Right. So a product like Quadraforce, absolutely. Right, but that surprise could be a bad surprise, right?

SPEAKER_00 53:20

Yeah, you don't want it to taste like a bean burrito.

SPEAKER_01 53:24

Right, right. So, so so with our uh experimental limited release kind of stuff, yes, we want to be surprised. We don't want to be surprised once it's in the bottle. We want to be surprised when we're experimenting and getting uh to that place, right? And I think we did okay with Quadri Force. It got a 95 in wine enthusiast, which if you guys know that magazine, even for a wine, that's a crazy score for a whiskey and south of the charts. So we're we're super proud of that. But when it comes to our core products and the MGP juice, look, there there are barrels we get from MGP and we taste and we look at each other, and it's a thumbs down, and we're like, we will, this would never be a single barrel. I'd never want to sit and sip this, right? It went too far one way or or whatever. It got too, you know, it's got too much of that sour taste to it, or it's way too sweet or or watery or whatever it is. We get everything. But we also know we've done this so much now, we know, like we we make a a blend and we go, oh, this is just way too sweet. And like, well, wait a minute, what about that barrel we all hated that was too sour? Let's try putting that in and see if it pulls this, and boom, we end up exactly where we want to be. So, you know, that because, like you said, it's a distillery like MGP, where everything that comes out of it is going to be at a certain level, no matter what. You're just gonna get stuff that leans one way or the other, and then we get the advantage of because of those small blends, being able to use that to really have large, large shifts in in flavor profile and mouthfeel with just a little bit of a change.

SPEAKER_03 54:49

Yeah, so maybe maybe a new limited edition batch that's coming out. The label is gonna be this crazy looking mad scientist from like the Frankenstein movie. Like that, that, like that.

SPEAKER_00 55:04

You mean you well, no, honestly, you gotta have your Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, right? There you go. You got the mad scientist and the monster. So that would be Dr. Jekyll would be your your batch, your small, the small batch version, and then Mr. Hyde would be the cast strength. There you go. Extended cut. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:29

So what what was the age on this? Is this around nine years?

SPEAKER_01 55:34

No, so so but that's a great compliment. But it everything we put in a bottle, by the way, is always going to be at least four years old because we don't age fate, not because we're trying to hide anything. It's just because we don't typically handwrite on our labels. So each batch is a different age, and having to figure out a way to print labels with a different age, it's just logistically too difficult. Most of the time, our our core products have gotten to the point where they're they're up five to seven years old. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 56:02

Yeah, it doesn't have like so MGP21s for me, they'll get buttery on the mouthfeel at around nine, ten, some of them, not all of them. This one doesn't have that, but it's got a nice mouthfeel that's more like vanilla kind of base, I guess is a good way to put it. Right. But yeah, I mean it it definitely works. That's and this is priced at what it is seven.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

Most of you know, we can't set the store prices. I see it sometimes for$74.99, and I see it for$83.99, but it's right in that range. Okay. You should you should be able to definitely get it for under$80.

SPEAKER_02 56:40

So sweet honey, honey notes going on in there, too. Great mouthfill to this, too. I mean, it just coats the mouse. There's a nice viscosity to it. I mean, just hitting all the right spots there.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

Okay, okay, Nash. Now you're getting a label with your picture on it.

SPEAKER_03 57:00

That's what we're shooting for, super label. You just don't put him on the extended cut version. We need to see the extended cut needs to be like NAS, but like on steroids.

SPEAKER_00 57:12

If you're gonna put him on a label, his head's gonna get so big, you just have to like have some sort of a big head syndrome on the label.

SPEAKER_02 57:23

Tani did uh a picture of us for for one of the boxes, and it looked like I was on steroids. It looked like me and T C T both were on steroids. It's like, oh my gosh, that don't look nothing like us. He loved it, but we we found it in. Yeah, I think I commented on it, take the AI away. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were trying, we we called, we called Roxy up, that's his wife, and begged her, please, please, please take the AI away from him. He's just doing crazy. This was like, you know, about a year ago or so. And it's like, take it away, take it away from him, and just begged her to, and she's like, no.

Hand-Painted Labels And Story Continuity

SPEAKER_01 58:07

Also, the the and the antithesis of the whole AI label conversation we're having is so I mentioned I I mock up the labels and we bring in an artist to um to recreate them from scratch. And until our latest limited release, not what I showed you before, but until then, all of the artists we brought in would paint digitally, right? And so they got a tablet and a stylist and they're working in Photoshop or some other painting program, right? And which is great. But then we have a limited release. I have it here. It's called Moonlight Mayhem 2, the White Port Wolf. This is actually, we took our double gold medal winning Moonlight Mayhem, age stated it at seven years, and then finished it in Whiteport Winecasts from Napa Valley, won a double gold at tag last fall, and is about to get an incredible score in a very prestigious magazine that I may have mentioned a few minutes ago. It's embargoed until May the 18th, so we can't tell you. Sorry, do you need to apologize to what again? Delore again. But anyway, maybe, but anyway, he's not even drinking and he's just letting all this stuff down. It's been a long day. My guard, my guard is down. Um and so with this one, we met up with an artist based out of the Portland area called Anton Kimball, and he was making movie posters in the 80s and 90s. 75-year-old, wonderful man who hand painted every aspect of this label on canvas with paint. This thing did not touch a computer until he delivered the canvases to us and it had to be scanned in, and then we assembled the label. So why Port Wolf herself is a painting, the moon is a painting, the couple, the car, everything is separate. And I have the canvases in the other room here, which is really, really neat. I've got to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_08 59:48

And that gets to what I was saying earlier, guys, is we're open to we're open to so many different things to make something that that uh people will enjoy. So we talked about the crimson cask and one one method, and then you see White Poor Wolf there was another one, and what's inside is fantastic, and with a little bit of different perspective on how we came up with the outsides.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:08

And that bottle is still available on your website.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

Yeah, that bottle, it's in stores, it's a it's a current limited release. Quadraforce was from the the season before, so it's almost gone. You can still find it in some places, uh, and you can still get bottles on our website, but it'll it'll be gone by the fall. And Moonlight Mayhem White Port should be around till you know through Christmas.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:30

And and the cool thing about the White Port label is if you look at the label we're drinking, which is the Moonlight Mayhem, you'll see two main characters on the front. And the story Troy and Charlie wrote continues. It's the it's the sequel to that story, and those two main characters are down here with the white poor wolf being prominent, but the story on the side takes those characters from the first label that we're drinking and continues their saga, and they're still on this label, just in a little bit of a subordinate role with the white poor wolf being over. Probably's not going to take credit for that brilliant artistic mind of his and Charlie, too. But they've they not only we not only make whiskeys that continue. This is Moonlight Mayhem finished in whiteboard, but the story continues, and it's it's when I sit back, because I have none of those genes, I don't have any of that ability, and watch these two create this experience for people who are enjoying the stuff inside, and then also enjoying the stories that continue.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

So how detailed are the stories? I mean, are they little books?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:34

No, we create the script. Okay. So you can go read pages from we don't publish the whole script, okay, but you can go read pages from the script on our website. You can and we have the trailer and and interactive storyboards which you know kind of play out some of the pages of the script as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:49

So it's kind of like the what you what what it's like the outline of the movie before the movie shot kind of thing, or is the script even more detailed than that?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

Yeah, so so in the not to get too inside baseball, but in the film business, the outline of the movie before you write the script is typically referred to as a treatment. You write, you know, a three to ten page, you know, full paragraph description of what the story is gonna be, but then you gotta write a script, a screenplay, right? And the screenplay is what the movie is shot from. It's what it's filmed off of. So we we write treatments and then we write screenplays.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:24

Okay. So it's one day one day it's gonna be a movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

Um, you know, look, I I always say we're we're not in the movie business. I did that, I left that on purpose. We're we're in the whiskey business, that is what we do. Now, if somebody rolled up with a you know wheelbarrow full of cash wanting to make a movie, I'm not gonna say no.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:44

Well, but but it's not we're not actively we don't actively well just just know that in New Orleans, if you can get in there by next year, they basically the the venue now is renting out the top floor of a mall, and they also rent out the theater. So they they are planning next year to use the theaters way more by showing all the documentaries. So that would be cool if you had like a 20-minute, 15, 20-minute kind of thing that goes with your whiskey and you were there. I mean, that's that's the kind of stuff that that makes sense, I get it. But you're still, I love the fact that through you're through the whiskey and the blending, but then you're still it. I'm I'm the same way being a commercial artist for first 40 years, and then the last 20 years I've been a plant manager of my cousin's recycling plant, but I also have been a fine art done commercial, fine, or not commercial, but fine art, uh computer fine art, mixing the medium between computer art and acrylic painting. So I understand exactly what you're doing because you have the desire to keep doing what you've always done because you love to write scripts and stuff like that. But it's a lot more fun when you're writing the scripts and you're the guy that's like everything. So you don't you don't have to be as you don't get the feedback that's critical that what happens when you're actually writing scripts for movies because that's frustrating, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:17

Yeah, and that that's one of the several reasons that I decided I didn't want to professionally be a screenwriter many years ago when I said I'm done with this, is because I just I love writing and I love telling stories. And I know if I pushed hard enough, I could, you know, I could I have no problem operating in any kind of business environment. But I just didn't want that's not how I wanted to be creative. I wanted to be creative for me. I didn't want to be creative because uh I was I was trying to meet some financial goal or somebody who wasn't a creative person thought they knew what they were doing, kind of thing. And and someone's exactly that. We we don't and it's also part of why I want them to be movies because I just want to be as silly and crazy as we can possibly be. Right? Our stories are very silly on purpose, right? Because we we love having fun with the labels. We're serious about the whiskey, but when it comes to the labels and stories, we do not take ourselves seriously. We like to laugh, we like to see when I tell the story of one of our things, I love seeing people's faces if they're smiling or they're laughing or they're going, oh my god, you know, then I know we've we've done what we set out to do.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:20

I can't I can't convince him, I can't convince him to get some of my spreadsheets on the QR code to fill up. It's only it's only these scripts, but someday you'll get some good excel excel spreadsheets on there too, I hope.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:35

I guess people asking on Facebook here, they're talking about that they would like to try to get these labels off the bottle for their artwork, you know, in their bar rooms. And I was just wondering if that is maybe available or maybe will be available in the web on the website.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:53

You were showing the QR code. Yes. Yeah, if you go there, there's a spot where you can get the posters, you can download them in PDF, and then you have to figure out how to print them yourself, or you can buy posters on our little store and get the posters pre-printed. So they're available for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:09

And I'll also say if you're in any of the markets where we come and we do tastings in liquor stores, like we're doing tastings in liquor barn constantly in Kentucky, for example. We always give out posters when we're there.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:22

Great. Wow. There you go, everybody Facebook that was wondering about it. We got that's best the kind of artwork that you can obtain, and go to their website.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

Yeah, on our website, we have the full 24 by 36, like the town at the end of tomorrow poster that's over Steve's shoulder. And we give out 12 by 18 cardstock posters that are double-sided.

Ohio Distribution And No Storefront

SPEAKER_03 1:06:39

So before we drink the rye, what is so have have we had any conversation with the state of Ohio? Yeah, that's and if you guys know anything.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:54

We we do. Yeah, so so we submitted the last, you know how you guys know it better than I do, but you have to submit for the following season, right? And we have tried submitting core products to be core products, we've tried submitting limited releases to be limited releases, and so far we've gotten turned down. And unfortunately, the people we've dealt with have been incredibly nice, but they don't really tell you why they turn you down. And so we we don't know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

Well, we we know we know the person who can tell you everything. So I will put a bug in their ear. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:32

That would be I mean, I think your product, you know, for the state of Ohio, we we talk about all the different brands that are you know across this great country, but you guys should have a place in Ohio. This is this is great product. What a great story. I mean, it's uh thank you, it's not corporate America meets urban and oh we just want to make more money. It's hey, we we're we're passionate.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:56

That's and if and if they knew, if the decision makers knew how many people in Ohio are driving across the border to party source and those other stores to get our products, you know, maybe that it would help.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:08

There's a lot we need tomorrow. Believe me, the state of Ohio knows what's going on there. They absolutely know what they're missing out on. They're there, you know, there's a certain it takes a little bit longer in this state. We're not moving as fast as some other states might be to change the laws, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:34

But they're they're getting bombarded. This is such a good venue. The state of Ohio is such a good venue for bourbon, it is that they're getting hammered by everybody. I I can't even can you imagine they probably hear from brands we know we're in this every day, every every hour of every day. And a new brand pops up, and you're like, I've never heard of them. And I guarantee you they get it even worse. They do.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:01

They do. And we we have we some of our investors are based in Ohio also, right? Because it's it's so close there. So we we would love, we would love to get in. We're in we're in Pennsylvania, which is not the same but similar. It's a control state. The process is a little different. It took us 16 months to get a yes uh in Pennsylvania. But when they did, they brought in a ton of both rise and sold through very fast.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:23

Where are you directly out of now? Where would the if if where where is do you have a physical place that you can go or you know, or where would it be? Or you do I'm just trying to figure out that.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:36

Yeah, we we uh from an office standpoint, we don't have a central office. We're spread out kind of all over the country. I mentioned Charlie's in Atlanta, Steve's in Ventura County, I'm in LA, Chris is in Orange County, Daniel's in Colorado, right? We're all over the place. We we blend and bottle and store everything at a facility in Frankfurt, in Kentucky. And so when we do all that work, we go there. I'm in Kentucky constantly, right? Eight, eight, ten times a year. At least Steve is there with me four or five times a year, and we uh we do that. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:10

So you guys like to go to Kentucky?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:14

Well, I'm just saying call me, let me know when you're gonna be there.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:18

I will come down and I will Yeah, we have a pretty good idea where you're going to.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:24

I'm about two hours from Charlie. I live in South Carolina, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:29

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:29

He was just across the yeah, I live just across the South Carolina border, Georgia border, about two hours away from Atlanta. But there's no actual I was just in Atlanta just in Atlanta a week before last.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:45

But there's no no actual storefront kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:49

No, I mean as a as a brand, right? Technically, we can't have a storefront in Kentucky. Things are changing because all those tasting rooms have popped up, which some of which are fabulous. But you have to have a Kentucky DSP, and the tasting room is your satellite location off of your DSP. So we're we're, you know, we we have a strong presence in the castle in Kentucky. We're in their gift shop, we're in their bars, and we're in bars all over Kentucky too. We're in stores all over, but there's no filmland physical location you can come visit yet, or at this point.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:21

Yeah, but if you come into a county, then you can come to my house.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:25

Yeah, but I'm just trying to I mean, I can just man, that that storefront would have to be a blast. I mean, it's you you have everything. You wouldn't have to like a lot of times when you go in and you see that there's a lot of really cool things they do from a marketing standpoint of a brand at their tasting room kind of storefront. But you guys, you just you probably have everything already, and you just bring your stuff and it would be decorated, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:58

When I first started raising money for this six years ago, uh yeah, doing the math, the original proposals we were showing had renderings of what that would look like.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:08

I mean, you could even have like a little whole experience with you know a speakeasy, but you know, then have you could have you could do character things, you could have you know what I mean? You could have movie nights where the characters of your of your labels and the stories could be be there interacting with your people. I mean, there that is that is the coolest uh thing. I I'm looking forward to you guys it just keep getting bigger so you can do all this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:40

That's what we're that's absolutely what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:43

Yeah, we have a cool social media following, I'd say, proportionally greater than most brands, our size, the number of people who follow us and are actively involved. And there's some of some of those folks have done that on their own and and posted the pictures of a Halloween party where different people have dressed up as our characters. And and you know, we've been involved sometimes, and we and then we've been surprised sometimes. It's been a little bit of both, but but that's one of the other fun things about us is we attract a different group of folks who get who enjoy the whiskey and then enjoy the experience beyond. So getting around around you know the end of October, those social media posts that that just link us, and they're all dressed as some of the characters on our bottle. It is the coolest thing, you know. It feels good. Then we're like, we contact, let us know if you want us to help you. Like, let us because that's the one thing is you talk to your contact in Ohio, the one thing that may differentiate us from some of the other small brands out there that they've had to deal with is we're real people and we'll have real conversations about any topic anytime. Not with a it must be our way or the highway, we'll talk about anything, and and we're available to have those conversations for business meetings or fun stuff like a Halloween party where people dress up as our character characters. We'll have those types of interactions anytime folks want to.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:02

That sounds awesome. And uh we've we had just uh few comments earlier from Facebook uh that we're talking about around Halloween, how cool this would be and all for some of the characters and all that. Yeah, so it's been a good one.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:15

We do a promotion, we do a promotion every year starting in September through Halloween on Moonlight Mayhem, because we call it the official bourbon of Halloween, and we do a lot of promotion, a lot of discounts, a lot of fun stuff around that. Like Steve said, there's so much uh social media content being generated by our our our fans and our customers around that time of year. It's awesome. Love seeing those pictures.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:36

If if you ever do the store, if that ever happens, have you seen the movie Benchwarmers?

SPEAKER_06 1:14:44

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:45

So in the movie Benchwarmers, it's a baseball movie. They have a robot that goes around and he makes fun of whatchamacallit. That robot guy that you have on your way has to be the person who waits on you when you walk through the door.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:00

And and when and if you walk out, he gives you the finger.

Tasting Rise Of The Robots Rye

SPEAKER_01 1:15:04

Yeah, yeah. I created that a few months ago, so it didn't exist originally, but yes. And we have conversations about doing tasting room all the time with different people, and that definitely would be involved at this point because it's been so popular, people love that thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:21

Well, the the tasting.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:23

We're moving to Rye now. Yeah, I just poured the Rye. I saw that. I saw that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:30

The CFO keep us keeping us on track.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:34

I'll taste for both of us, Troy. Don't worry.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:36

Okay. This one is called Cheers. This is Rise of the Yeah, Rise of the Robots Extended Cut. So we've been saying extended cut all night, for but for people who don't know, extended cut is our trademark term for cast strength. Just like a movie gets the extended cut treatment, it has more scenes, our extended cut has more proof. And so we launched Rise of the Robots. So when we originally launched, we only had the three products Moonlight Mayhem, Moonlight Mayhem Extended Cut, and Rise of the Robots 94 proof. And at that same Kentucky Burb, that's the 94 right there. Yeah. At that same Kentucky Bourbon Festival that we mentioned a few times already, where we launched our town at the end of the tomorrow limited release, we released Rise of the Robots Extended Cut, which we're trying now. Gold medal at San Francisco, uh 92 in Whiskey Advocate. And and I will I'll you know, I'm gonna reserve some of the things I'm gonna say because I want to hear what you guys think and what you taste before we talk further about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:35

95-5. You were talking about the cast strength and all. This is that was one of the full cool things that I liked about this label. That right there where it says full proof, it's full moon proof. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:50

And that and that was a pretty cool little assignment. Rise of the robots is full metal proof.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:55

Yeah, look at that. On Rise of the Robot, you'll see another little word there too. So it's we we we have to find with those those are the details that you can cast the second, third, or fourth time you sit down with it that you might not have seen the first time.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:08

I got I got a question. Why is the girl on Rise of the Robots carrying a shaker?

SPEAKER_01 1:17:14

Oh, so let me tell you the story of the movie. So she's got a shaker in her hand. Yeah, she's got a cocktail shaker. So Rise of the Robots takes place in a future where technology has been outlawed, and a fallen technology titan builds an army of robotic bartenders to take over the world, and our heroine is Courtney, the bart bartender-turned action hero who has to save the world. Oh there we go. That's why in one hand she's got a cocktail shaker, and in the other she has a severed head of a robot.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:09

The the classic MGP mash bill. So when you're when so you guys obviously taste a lot, a lot of barrels that come from MGP. So the there's one, there's a certain flavor profile that if you don't blend and and work it so that you make your own flavor profile that will stay consistent throughout a lot of brands. And so one of the things initially for a while there, a couple years back, it was kind of like there were so many brands that right at the time you were probably starting, because I think I probably remember there were so many MGP brands, and I was tasting so much MB MGP, I was getting burned out, you know, straight across because there was a consistent flavor profile. But since that point when that burnout was happening, and people were just like MGP was almost getting a negative connotation, well, that's MGP or whatever, of yourself, I would say, and there's a bunch of other brands that have really done a good job eliminating the the specific MGP profile and creating their own. So, what do you how do you attribute, you know, when you're doing that? Because you have to be aware of it, because it was throughout a lot of different brands for a while. I mean, this does I've tasted a lot of 95.5. I and there's a there's a brand that was using it that made it probably, and this tastes nothing like that brand. I mean, you have a sweetness in there, you've got there, this is this is there's no there's the harshness of what 95.5 can be that really hard spice. You have that mellowed, you know what I mean. What what do you how do you go about doing that when you blend?

SPEAKER_08 1:20:03

I'm gonna let Troy answer. I'm gonna let Troy answer the specifics, but I want to give a little bit of an umbrella thing. This is one of the beauties of our blending team is our ability to approach the blending with different perspectives. And I was not, I I had definitely had rye before we got together, but I was not as as attuned to rye flavor notes as Troy and Charlie were. I more and and and in my what I brought was a little more international. I had more Scotch and Irish and Japanese whiskey background in the two. But the beauty of our blending team is we all we have a common, this so if you think of three uh circles and you put them together, that Venn diagram, the three of us have a lot of common, but we also brought some unique things. And I'd say to answer that question with Troy is gonna do specifically is one of the cool things about the three of us coming together. I just wanted to say that first, Troy, because it wouldn't have made as much sense afterwards.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:01

Yeah, no, and and if and if you know when we're blending, if we disagree, right, we're gonna have a conversation about it, and then I'm gonna overrule the guys anyway. But no, it's a very it's an incredibly collaborative process out of equals for sure. But you know, first the barrels come into Kentucky, not everybody's MGP age is in Kentucky, they they get it right from the MGP warehouses in Kansas or or Indiana and goes right in the bottles, right? But spending time in that Kentucky weather makes an absolute difference. The next part of it is just uh, you know, most people do not taste the rye and say what you just said, Tiny, which is sweet. Right. But we we uh particularly love minty ryes. When you lean into that mint, right? And so when you lean into the the rye's that are minty and citrusy, you end up with a rye that's not gonna be so dill and grassy, you know, and and super peppery. It's gonna be a little sweeter, especially for a rye. And we we know this happens because we get a lot of people when I'm tasting people at at the festival or at liquor stores, will come up and they will go, oh no, I don't like rye. And then they decide, all right, I'll try it. And they go, that's rye, that's really good. That's not the rye I remember having. And it's because of that that flavor profile that we aim for, and you know, so the combination of all of those factors.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:22

I I would say that it has a minty, but there's an underlying sweetness to it. There was a brand at Kentucky Bourbon Festival that everybody liked and whatever, and I tasted it, and this is how much I like some rice. I basically wanted to spit it out, like just spit it out right there. But I was respectful and kind of walked away and then spit it out. But at the same time, that's kind of how some rice will hit me. Plus, there's an aspect of in rye that if it comes out, it tastes like formaldehyde to me or some sort of rancid thing. Where so I'm always I tread lightly when I taste rice, right? And I was when when you when this was when this was sent to me, a little bit of it, so I mean, the first thing I had to do is when I opened and did the samples for the guys, I did definitely had to taste the rye. And then if if I if it was one of those ryes, I would have contacted you guys and let you know, but it wasn't, so there was no problem there. And and you know, I think a rye palette, we all all of our rye palettes, when you first start and you're a bourbon lover and you've got all those caramels happening and everything, there's a lot of flavors in rye that are what would you say? There it's a complex thing, not complex in the taste itself, but it as how your brain processes it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:52

Yeah, and you're tasting it on a completely different part of your tongue. Yeah, right? All of it is it's the it's at the back sides of your tongue, and you get a lot of it as it as you swallow it, which is a little bit different than how bourbon is, and that pepper. I what I always tell people who who are not connoisseurs or s or experienced drinkers is sometimes you're gonna drink rye and you're gonna think it's higher proof than it is, because you're you're gonna mistake that spice and that pepper for just alcohol, right? And so you have to, you have to, you know, it's an evolution. I think you evolved to rye.

SPEAKER_08 1:24:24

You guys know when the when the rye took off, there were some distilleries that made a modified bourbon and called it rye. It was 55% rye or 60% rye and a lot of corn, and it basically was just almost bourbon. And that that and some people got started thinking, oh, I love rye because they were basically drinking bourbon, right? It wasn't it was still a lot of corn in it. And then when you got to the the higher percentage of rye all the way up to 95.5 with no corn in it, if if if someone who went from either bourbon loving or the first rye they had was one of those 55 or 60 percent rye ryes, and then they had that, it shocked their brains so much that they would say, I don't like rye. Even those people can be turned around if you give them enough time, education, experience with it, and explain what they're what they're dealing with, then they'll come around. But if it's just they do it in isolation, it's hard sometimes for them because the the flavor is so different. And then that's if you do the classic 95.5. With us, we try to do that and journey for them a little bit without having to be in front of them. Because by by dampening some of those flavors and offsetting it with some sweetness, they don't need anyone in the room to help them make that transition.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:43

It it's uh, and maybe I'm off on this, but I keep getting the sweetness. It it is not a typical bourbon sweetness, like you would say, Oh, it's vanilla. I can't put my finger on it, but I almost feel like it's maple.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:02

It's almost a I think it's like different. It reminds me of like a lemongrass tea with honey. Like if you nail it, yeah. So it's like a honey, but it's also got a grassy kind of thing, but then maybe you put like some spearmint into that tea, and then you pick up that that that's on the finish. I mean, once that sweetness of the honey, the lemon, the grassy honey, then all of a sudden you pick up that spearmint, like you just chewed some gum, and this you know, you might sell this as a breath freshener, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:26:41

You guys remember what the Wrigley's with Wrigley's gum, there was peppermint and there was spearmint, and those had a unique flavor. But then there was that crazy one called double mint. Double mint? What the hell? Double mint. Was softer, yeah. Double mint was like a blend of mints that didn't have uh slap in the face, like maybe peppermint. I I think of it as that double mint flavor of the Wrigley's gum where you don't even know. Softer sweeter. You can't you can't describe it, but it's cool, it's it's different, it's unique. So the mint is to me is like and it's not perfectly analogous, but it's that little bit of unknown, like double mint gum. And then I I I pick up the honey too. Sometimes people don't, but I get that honey uh sweetness a little bit also.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:23

Well, you gotta add twins to the you gotta now add twins to the story.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:28

See, I was getting like a tart apple up front, and then Jeff said when he said lemongrass, then it was like, oh my gosh, yeah, that's on the nose. Yeah, on the nose, and then on that first sip with like you know, that either the tart apple or the lemongrass coming through. But then on that on that finish is is definitely the double mint to that sweetness of that double mint. I mean, it's just oh, it's just beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:58

Well, I can tell you, as a bourbon lover, like when I come downstairs and there's 1500 bottles down here and I'm looking for something to taste, you know, like when when I'm not podcasting or whatever and I want to pour, it you I usually don't go to a rye. So a lot of times when when I'm looking to just at least make it so I can fit some more bottles down here, I will give away rye's and certain certain different. I don't try and give away the worst stuff. I always try and give to people some of the good stuff. So a lot of times if it's good, that I'm like, oh, this guy likes rye or whatever. But I'm telling you, what's gonna make me keep this bottle right here is your label. I like it and I ain't giving it away. So there you go. That's an honor. You've just you've covered the whole the whole gamut right there. It's it it's worked.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:51

I'm thinking, I'm thinking of all the like we can never have you review our rye because I'm I'm thinking of what you would say. It's like, yeah, I didn't spit it out. Hey, it's for Maldeh, not it's not quite good enough.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:06

It does, yeah, it doesn't taste like embalming fluid. No, it's good. I mean, honestly, I taste the sweetness. Uh there is, you know, when people talk about, you know, it's so funny because rye and and weeded bourbon and and and then rye whiskey is people think of them as so different, right? Even the labels green and then brown, you know what I mean? Whatever, and it's so different. But if you drive by I challenge anybody when if you don't know what you're talking about, drive by a field that's growing rye and tell me if they're growing wheat, because it's basically it looks almost. I mean, I understand there's there's probably a difference, but when I'm going by a field and I don't know that it's rye or wheat, I'm not going to be able to tell you what it is. It's just a 50-50 guess. I mean, it's not that different. I mean, what the hardy the rye is a hardier wheat that grows north, you know, more. I mean, it's basically looks the same when you when you process it, but it definitely has a much different flavor, there's no doubt.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:14

Really loving the finish on this, the the I would agree. The sweetness is just it just lingers and lingers there.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:22

But it still still has a bite in the middle of your tongue, though.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:26

Like but it's not too spicy. And what's the proof on this, right? This is the extended cut.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:33

It's like a like an all spice.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:37

What it uh you tell us tiny because you got the bottle there, it varies by notch. I'll tell you because he can't read.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:43

Yeah, I I wrote it.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:44

I can't read his handwriting because it's all smudged.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:47

What about you, Nash? Did you unsmudge it?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:51

You smudged it before I got it.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:56

Looks like 116. Probably 118. 118, yeah. Yeah. Probably one. We haven't.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:05

Yeah, that's 118. Yeah, yeah, it's 118.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:09

That that's actually the highest proof batch we've ever released to that.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:13

Yeah. Uh-uh. It's one, it's 115. Oh, that was 115. Nope, that's the looking at the room. Yep, I am.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:21

Yeah, you're looking at the other bottle.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:23

118. You're 118. So so this one, okay. I'm looking at this one. So I'm looking at the label on this one, and you can see that 115 right there, pretty good, right? You see that right there? So who did this label? Because it's a lot different. It's kind of like a fatter marker or a bigger push. Do you guys who who writes them in?

Barrel-Aged Old Fashioneds At Home

SPEAKER_01 1:31:50

Well, everyone different people at the different people at the bottling facility, but we did change bottling facilities last year. So it's possible one of them was bottled at one and one of them was bottled at the other, which is which is more than likely what happened. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:32:04

So when I I make I uh I have a two-liter uh bear aging barrel, and I make uh old-fashioned out of the 94. I I combine the 94 proof and whatever bottles I may have of the castrant together to form like a one, one oh one, one oh two version of our rye, and that's what I use in the old fashioned. This whiskey makes an amazing old fashioned for those who prefer rye old fashions. Troy prefers bourbon old fashions, and a lot of people prefer bourbon old fashions. But those of us who prefer rye and old fashions, nothing wrong with using just the 94. I think this at cast strength kind of dominates it a little too much. But but if you happen to have both of our our 94 and this one, and do an ounce of each or whatever your proportions are, mine's for a barrel, so a lot of a lot of each, but uh but an equal parts of our 94 and our cast strength in an old fashioned, if you're a rye old fashioned preference, it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:04

Are you daring me, right? I go walk into the other room and I will do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:10

But I you do realize not only one and two gallon barrels and five gallon barrels out of my garden in my garage.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:20

But Nash, you're gonna be in California soon, and he has barrel barrel aged old old fashions.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:31

So, you know, why don't you if you guys don't mind me standing up? I'm gonna show you the barrels in a second. I'll just grab them and show them.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:37

No, we don't mind. Not not at all. No. Wait, he's not gonna take the camera, he's gonna actually go get the barrels. I thought he was gonna take the camera and just go, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:53

No, I think the camera's attached to the computer.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:56

Oh, he's on his laptop.

unknown 1:33:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:58

So here's my barreled Manhattan.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:02

And we partner with a company that makes the barrels and they etch our logo in there. And then here is my barreled old fashioned. Well, so that that I I usually don't pour them out until they've been in here for maybe a month or so. And this one I think is right at a month. So come on over, and this is cool. The other hoodie.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:25

So you put the uh the the sweetener and the bitters in with it?

SPEAKER_08 1:34:31

Yeah, I make the uh I make the entire cocktail in a big container, sweetener. I actually put a little soda water in too just to dilute it a bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:40

The the bitters are all in there, and then put on your what's your sweetener?

SPEAKER_08 1:34:46

I either use demerara syrup, and I think in that one I and that's now it's a demerara, and then I'll switch off between demorara and maple.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:54

So I'll do a maple old fashioned stuff. All right. Yep. I have one in tomorrow. So this was being syrup right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:35:02

So this is my my Christmas present from CT.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:06

So so maybe if you send me the recipe, I will I will actually it it may come up because on our social media, what we talked about, Laura earlier, and we have another partner who does social media. I film myself making what I just showed you, that old-fashioned. I I did a POV.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:24

It is on your Facebook.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:26

Yeah, and so oh that was the that was the quiet professional, I think. If you see my face, that's a different one. Uh but I did another version a day or so later where I filmed a POV of making and mixing. You'll see me pouring the cast strand and the 94 proof in the big container. You'll see me adding all the ingredients and then filling up the barrel. The recipe will be on that video. If it doesn't come out in the next couple days, I'll send it to you separately. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:53

Awesome. Yeah, I got one of those barrels just like Jeff's. It's so super nice. It is uh spirit.

SPEAKER_08 1:36:00

Yeah, it's it's it's a great and it's nice when you have people over and you want to talk and you and you want to kind of be somewhere. You don't have to be have your back to them making a cocktail, you just turn the spigot, and all of a sudden they have a beautiful cocktail ring for them.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:14

Although what's aggravating about those barrels is the ones that like Jeff has, I have one, it holds four 750 milliliter bottles. And the first time you do it, and you only get about three bottles back out of it, and you're like, what the like where did what the shit really it'll hold four? I'm I've been through so many renditions of this this barrel as I have done four batches of maple syrup, five batches of different bourbons that I've done in it, and they all come out like just crazy good.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:50

Okay, see, so now imagine spending thousands of dollars for 53 games only get about 38 out of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:56

Right. Yeah, or I'm sure you guys have had this happen. You go and you've bought a barrel and they tell you, okay, and then you go and it's like, whoa, this isn't hardly anything. We we have had bone-dry barrels. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:10

And there's no returns.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:12

I've heard that story before, and I can't even imagine what level of yeah, I would be on.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:22

So look, when when we first started, and I lived in fear of an empty barrel because, like, you know, on a percentage basis, that's a lot of the bourbon. Right. Yeah, I'm not saying I enjoy when I find out we have it, but you know, it's uh you just we're we're averaging our cost of goods over all the barrels we're buying over a period of time, knowing some are going to be empty, some are gonna get dropped, it happens, you know. So we just have to, it's just part of it, it's the normal part of doing this kind of business.

SPEAKER_00 1:37:48

Well, it's plus, plus if I mean, if you put in 53 and got 53 back, then it wouldn't taste very good. I mean, for God's sakes, the whole reason why it tastes good is because it all gets absorbed in there, and then once it's full up, it just cut starts pushing it back and forth through the you know the sugar barrier. And you know, I I don't I just like it's it's just part of it, and I've heard that before. I mean, the one year Pappy Van Winkle did they didn't even release it because all the barrels were empty. It's just it happens, but I I can't well, you know, when you're doing what you're doing seven to nine year and a you get an empty barrel, that's that's that's intense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:38:35

Yep. Yeah, and it's it's the uh it's the beauty and the curse of this industry and at our level, right? It's the it's it's really when it's what you enjoy, the the variety and the artistry of it, and the ability to adapt. And then Troy and I both have that side of our brand, but we both have the business-like regimen inside of our brain, and we have to let those two fight each other a little bit and give and take. And I think, you know, we met five years ago and have developed a wonderful relationship. I think I've watched him evolve in that respect, and I and I think he's helped me evolve in that respect. And it's been it's been fun to go on that journey with our seventh product release to see our the the amount that we're willing to accept of that. And and then talking to people in the industry, like the time we spend in Kentucky, we learn from people who've done that for 20 years, and they and they kind of tell us to relax. It's just part of it. Just don't don't take it so seriously. Like that's part of this deal, and and your skills will develop as you adapt to those things. And that's been wonderful along along the journey since our product launched, since our company launched.

SPEAKER_00 1:39:45

I hope the 375 evolves too for the stuff like that, too. 375 milliliter bottles. So, but also, I mean, we've been associated with uh craft distillers where that kind of thing happens with the barrel and it's really good, but you know, there might be only like 30, 40 bottles in there, and it's it's uh it's on a level that's not part of their brand or whatever. So they end up just angel sharing it with everybody. You know, that's always an option, right? You know what I mean? Or make it a personal thing. I mean, there's just you know, there's just so much of that that happens that's really good, but you're only gonna get 20 bottles. It's not like you can do a 20-bottle release. And if you pour it into what you're doing, I mean you might be able to cut a couple of those where it would help out a little bit, where it would make it just a little bit more rich, but then there's other ones where there's just no way that's happening, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:40:46

Yeah, yeah.

Quality Cocktails And Building Connection

SPEAKER_00 1:40:47

Yep, yeah. I've always, you know, the big guys know what to do with all that stuff, just pour it in a batch and put cherry flavor in it, and there's they're sad, you know. I mean, I honestly the you know, it's funny because flavored whiskies and it's or all the stuff that happens with the whiskey now, they have the whiskey cocktails and all that kind of stuff happening, you know. And and I've done podcasts. Does does a better whisk bourbon or a rye make a difference when you're making an old fashioned? And and I've come up with it that it does. I mean, it actually makes a difference in a drink. Does it matter on a Friday night where somebody's buying cocktails to get drunk? Probably not, right? That that they're not looking, but but when you're talking about making cocktails for your friends or making a good quality craft cocktail, it absolutely does matter.

SPEAKER_08 1:41:43

Yeah, I ask you both when people ask me those questions, I say yes and yes. Can I use this to make a cocktail? Yes. Does it do these if I use this high quality liquid versus this low quality liquid? Is there a difference? Yes. It doesn't mean they're they're mutually exclusive. They're you can you can do anything you want, but the the idea, and I've done it, uh I'm a little bit got a little OCD, so I've made old-fashions with different proofs or different what I perceive as quality liquids, and then tasted them blindly. I had my wife mix them all around and put numbers on them, and I can tell the difference. And so it's definitely, I believe there's a difference. Now, does that mean, like you said, that you always have to use one or the other? No, just enjoy yourself is the most important thing. As long as you're enjoying it, it doesn't matter. But if you ask the question, is there a difference? Yes, there's there's a difference, and then I don't want to lie about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:41

There you go. I took more rye.

SPEAKER_08 1:42:48

He's not giving it away. Nope.

SPEAKER_00 1:42:51

Nope, not at all.

SPEAKER_08 1:42:53

Here's the question: if we put a black and white label on it that just said rye whiskey, would you give it away?

SPEAKER_00 1:42:58

No. Oh, let's see. Well, I would I would consider giving it to one of my friends who really loves rye. I I've got three or four people that just go crazy for rye, so I would consider that. But I'm I'm excited to make a couple drinks with that. I think that I think that would make a really fantastic old-fashioned. There's no doubt about it, but the sweetness that it's bringing.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:26

I like the idea, like you said, the I still I cannot get away from there's a a hint of maple in that, but honey for sure. That would make a great uh oh, what the heck is the honey drink? It has it's it's not an old-fashioned gold rush? Gold rush. I like an idea of doing a gold rush with that rye.

SPEAKER_01 1:43:50

Right. And CT, you don't have the bottle in front of you, right? I have no, I have the regular, the knife. So so Tiny, if you read the tasting notes on the bottle, there's a word there that C T has said twice.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:02

Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:10

I just can't remember getting that much of that note on that bottle, like uh of any of theirs.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:17

Okay. Any 95 mint and oak on the nose and tongue with notes of chocolate, maple, cream, and a long, robust finish that hints at fresh baked sourdough-enjoyed meat or with a drop of water, this sophisticated blend is sure to mobilize humans and robots alike. Yeah, that's but there you go.

SPEAKER_01 1:44:42

The maple. That's one of the notes we get from it.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:48

It's it's like I just I couldn't get away from it. I kept telling my brain, say it's honey, say it's honey, but then after I drink it and I report it, and I did it again, and it's like, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:58

I will give you the I will give you the fresh baked sourdough aspect. That's the that's a little bit of I will now that you said the chocolate.

SPEAKER_02 1:45:05

That's not no, I did not get the chocolate there for a little while. After it sits there for a little while on the finish, and you're and the air goes across, I can taste that chocolate.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:18

There's a there's a difference of the way this finishes on the top of my palate, too. Like I don't know what it is, but the roof of my mouth usually it's tongue, yeah. That's it. But the roof of my mouth is actually feeling a little bit of a sensation.

SPEAKER_00 1:45:33

I will give you that this this um this body on this, on the on this, on both of them. The bodies are we always give you know a rating system of one to four on the body, and it's definitely a it it covers every when you drink it, it's everywhere in your mouth. I mean, roof of underneath your tongue, cheeks, top of, you know, on you know, roof of your mouth and back of your throat. It's everywhere.

SPEAKER_08 1:46:01

Love it, love it. I mean, we we look for that experience in our castorants of there may be barrels that we taste that that's their preeminent quality, and the flavors may not be exactly what we like, but we know that will blend well into seven or eight other barrels that have all the flavor characteristics. We'll find a barrel that just you know is dominant with that mouthfeel. And we won't settle with the one that doesn't have a wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:30

There's not a lot of things that I drink, and we we all get to drink our share of things that actually hit the roof line and stay in the top of your roof of your mouth as it's finished. Yeah, you may get a sensation as it's going down, but then it's gone.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:47

This is staying like it's it numbs the roof of your mouth.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:52

Yeah, it's it's it's a it's a sensitive thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:46:54

It's a it numbs it with taste.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:56

Well, that's what I said just a few minutes ago. It's tingling across the roof of my mouth, and I don't think I've had that happen with a rye. It is yeah, it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_08 1:47:08

You guys are making our day or evening.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:11

No, you you did it right. You did it right. That's a testament to you guys, you guys. Uh your blue experience and and your dedication to what you do and your craft uh is it shows right here in the bottle and in the glass.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:28

But but also it shows that this didn't happen from sitting at a bar, shooting a shot, calling it a day, moving on. This is this is a if if you want to enjoy what you guys crafted, obviously this took time to craft. Now, to enjoy that craft, we have to sit here and slowly to go through it. It's slow drinks, it's a nose here, a sip here, and then finding those flavors, and then the next time you go to drink it, you're like, Oh yeah, there they are. Because that's to me like the thing that is enjoyable about bourbon, not only the people, but finding the flavors in it. Because you can go and drink whatever and it goes down, and yeah, it's hot, or it's it's got caramel, and it's got this and that, but this is a journey, like it's like totally different. So hopefully people get that.

SPEAKER_08 1:48:29

Yeah, we tasted the the castrants, and all of us have had a lot of whiskey. We tried to capture exactly what you said in our 94 proofs, also for people who may not have been as far along the journey as as the five of us are, but also make those so that the five of us can drink and go, yeah, it's pretty good. I got a lot of flavor for that, right? So so we we that's where we try to to appeal to a wide audience in the movie terms or in the whiskey terms, is people at different levels of their whiskey journey. So some of those out there who might be listening to this who aren't into cast strengths, we do have lower proof offerings that we try to capture that exact same experience with for someone a little earlier on their whiskey journey.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:15

And and this is so that people understand too, this is not a when you drink a uh the extended, we we call it the extent. It's not like I think Troy said it earlier, it's not because it's spicy or ethanol, because people drink a 80, 85 proof, and it's got ethanol. And this is not that spice, this is pepper or a baking spice, like Nash said earlier. That's what you get on some of these, which if you're drinking it slowly and enjoying it, you'll pull that out. Whereas if you're drinking an 80-proof well, we'll call it a well bottle and then a bar. It's gonna burn. It's totally different. Not the same.

SPEAKER_00 1:50:04

I the to to finish up, I would say that it's exactly what you guys uh like the whole experience uh from start to finish, from purchasing the bottle, seeing the bottle, uh, maybe going on the website and everything, everything is kind of what would you say done with how down you know the your your roots. It's not like when when you put out a B horror film, you make some really quality stuff, but you have to be so creative that and you you and do things specifically to be able to create something that's a movie experience that somebody might eventually it might become a cult or it might become something and as big as somebody who spent, you know, just went out and spent all the money and did all the things and bought all the you know the canned stuff and whatever to produce a movie to entertain people. But you guys, it's like the work is there and you could taste it in what you're doing. I mean, it's not overpowering. I mean, this is 118 proof, it's a rye, it could easily just be overpowering, but it's not. It just it it feels it, it's oh the whole thing is far is. An overall experience when it's when it's in your mouth, but you don't ever get that it's too spicy, this is too hot, this is whatever, and that's that's kind of like what it seems like you guys are accomplishing what you want to accomplish.

SPEAKER_01 1:51:47

Yeah, look, we we love it when anybody even tries our product when they enjoy it, that's really rewarding. When people recognize the level of detail and effort and time and passion and caring and money that goes into making our products, that's really rewarding. That's that's like the ultimate for us because that's what we do. We we we don't sit there and go, oh, let's just hurry this up. You know, there's been plenty of times where my team is, you know, certain members of my team will say, Hey, Troy, good enough. And I'll be like, no, right? It's not. I want to spend more time making it where I think it should be because uh you never know who's gonna enjoy what aspect of what we've done. And I want every single person to have the top level of quality.

SPEAKER_08 1:52:30

Well, to form a connection. And we can form a connection with someone who's tasting bourbon for the first time with Moonlight Mayhem 94 proof. We can form a connection with people like us who drink it, who've had whiskey a long time and castraneans. We can form a connection if somebody's never had whiskey and goes on and logs on and sees that bartender and has a fun interaction with them, or watches a movie trailer, or sees our poster. We want to form long-lasting connections with people, and everything we do is designed to form that connection. And if that means they buy one bottle every five years, or they buy five bottles a day, it doesn't matter. As long as we're connected and they understand that we're not just trying to make a quick buck or just throw stuff in a bottle and put a fancy label on. We want to connect with folks, then we're succeeding in everything we do when we form that connection. And I think we connected with you guys tonight because I feel it, I feel that's more important than you saying you like it or don't like it, or pick up that the connection is what's more important.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:28

We we connected two and a half years ago to the point that I still have your business card downstairs in my business card files, and so you know, and I know Tiny and Nash keep them too, but that's like I think I always feel bad when I go back to KDF and I'm like, or any event, and I'm like, man, we talked about getting together and doing a podcast, but we just never got to it. And I'm glad that this finally happened. When Jeff told me he was like, filmlands, they're sending some bottles, we're gonna do it. I'm like, oh my god, finally, you know, like not not not his fault, not your fault, not my fault. It's just we all get busy. It's great to finally be able to do this.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:16

I agree. Thank you. Thank you. And just know that, like, from my standpoint, there in CT standpoint and Nash's standpoint, we are always, I mean, we we're live two nights a week, you know, Tuesdays and Thursday nights every single week, unless we're in Kentucky and then we're doing live stuff, you know, maybe not on the Tuesday, whatever, but we're always you know getting out there and we're out there. But to do that, we have to do a lot of work to contact people. But to have Laura contact me, I mean, right there you're winning. And then two, as far as your whiskey goes, you connected with me when I opened these and was sampling them out and I tasted them. That connection was definitely there was, you know, the connection was made because I knew what was in the bottle was was quality. I mean, I have a lot of people send me stuff first, and then I have to, I, you know, I when I when I talked to Laura initially, she's like, I'll send you up some samples. And my my thought is, you know, I have to taste it, and it has to be good. And if I don't like it, I'm not gonna lie. I will always talk to everybody, but you know, that wasn't something that I needed to do. It was just, you know, and I had tasted the cast strength before, and I said to her, we really kind of like the cast strength, and she's like, Yep, we got you. And so definitely the connections there, you can tell the work is being done. I mean, when you're and then I can't wait till your Kentucky release comes out. I can't, you know, that's that's and you guys as blenders, be proud of yourself. I mean, you understand what people want to drink, you know, you understand different types of palettes and that type of things, and you guys are doing a good job. Thank you. Really appreciate that. All right, so we should unless anybody do you have anybody have do you have any more questions, Nash, you want to ask or CT?

SPEAKER_02 1:56:24

Well, I just like to say that Troy and Steve, what you guys just said and talked about just a few minutes ago is just building your credibility in this industry as providing a great product. And I truly believe you're you're starting to build a great fan base and just keep up the good work and and just keep it coming, guys. I mean, we we're loving what you do. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:51

We appreciate that, Nash. And I I would say to that end, anyone who's watching who's interested in in knowing more, check us out at filmlandspirits.com. And also we're on all the social platforms at filmlandspirits. And we've got a lot of fun content. We also have informational stuff, and we definitely encourage you to go chat with the filmologist on our website. And if you're interested in purchasing, just ask it for discounts. Or if you just want to know more about us or the product or the stories, it will share everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:17

So absolutely and if and if you're watching this, and if the state of Ohio is watching this, honestly, I I am always more driven to people than the bourbon. I think that's just me as a person. I've always been more of the social butterfly type person. And I can like reality is that there's a lot of good product out there, but there's not a lot of great people. There's good people, but I always enjoy a good story. I like knowing that people are in it for the right reasons, knowing that people aren't just doing it because, oh my god, I saw the opportunity to make millions of dollars. That's not probably happening in this industry without uh some dumb luck and and whatnot. So I appreciate what you guys are doing for the bourbon industry. I hope to see the bottles in Ohio because yes, that'll save me a Friday trip down to Kentucky. Oh, that would be so good. But it'll save me a trip. But I would love to see it all on the shelves in Ohio. I would love to speak about it. I would love to have you guys here. I would love to meet you in Columbus and be able to do a tasting and an event. I think that would be awesome. That would be that would be great.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:36

We we come and I I I come and Steve comes to whatever markets we're in and we do those things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:58:41

What a great, what a great story to share with people and what a great product and be able to talk about all you got to talk about. So thank you so much for coming on and finally, two and a half years later, making this happen. Awesome. Thank you guys. We appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 1:58:55

Yeah. Thank you so much. So if you guys need to go, we understand. What we usually do is we finish up the podcast and then throw it out real quick to people listening on Facebook if they want to join in and ask you any questions. If you want to stay on for that, that's fine. If you got to go, we understand. And and if they're all talking too much and it's kind of going in a way, feel free, just just say, I'm gonna hit the hay or I'm going out. You know, I understand it's a little bit earlier out by you guys than it is by us, uh, you know, but at the same time. When is it there? 7 30. Yeah. Oh boy. Yeah, we're at, yeah. So, but I'll I'll finish up, throw it out, and we'll we'll go from there. All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:38

Yeah, I mean, if people have questions, I I can hang out for about 10 more minutes. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:59:43

I can stay as long as you guys want.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:44

So yeah, Steve, yeah, we'll say that because I went to bed one night, and the next day I asked Jim, I said, Well, how long were you guys up? And it was like 12 30.

Final Thanks And Show Sign-Off

SPEAKER_00 1:59:55

So yeah, but but for 12 30 here is 9 30 there, so he's okay, but still, hopefully it doesn't go that long. Anyways, all right, everybody, www.scotchybourbonboys.com for all things Scotchy Bourbon Bourbon Boys. We've got Glenn Karen's t-shirts, you check it out. And then, and then also remember we are on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X, and then all the major audio podcasts of Apple, iHeart, Spotify, and whether you listen to us or you watch us, make sure that you leave us good feedback. Go to Apple, leave us good reviews. That that five out of five star thing helps uh with our with our rating and getting us more people to watch. And then also remember good bourbon equals good times with good friends, and we've made some good ones tonight. Thanks, guys, and thanks, Troy. Thanks, Steve. Make sure you drink responsibly, don't drink and drive and snash, finish this up and live your life uncut and unfiltered. Our AI theme song will take us out.