Reviving The Three-Chamber Still With Rebekah Neeley Neeley Family Distillery

We catch up with Rebecca Neely on what’s new at Neely Family Distillery, from a hidden speakeasy room to a rare three-chamber still that’s finally running. We also get deep on blending, finishing, and festival releases, plus the behind-the-scenes chaos of a surprise New Orleans wedding. 
• the speakeasy room and how guests stumble into it 
• what a three-chamber still is and why it matters in Kentucky whiskey history 
• first agave spirit plans and how they’ll barrel-age it 
• why finished bourbon is a creative choice rather than a cover-up 
• how Neely thinks about barrel picks, naming, and special collaborations 
• what changes in flavor as whiskey ages and oak takes over 
• getting Neely whiskey into Ohio and what the distribution process is really like 
• blending as a craft, including sampling technique and quality control before bottling 
• absinthe culture, the 1890s absinthe still, and a four-year aged absinthe release 
• Kentucky Bourbon Festival plans including a 10-year bourbon and the banana batch four-grain 
www.scotchyburbonboys.com. Remember drink responsibly, don't drink and drive, and go out and live your life uncut and unfiltered. 

A hidden speakeasy door at a Kentucky distillery is fun, but the real surprise is what’s happening behind the scenes. Rebecca Neely joins us to talk about how Neely Family Distillery keeps pushing forward with hands-on barrel picks, relentless day-to-day work, and a very specific obsession with chasing flavors you can’t find anywhere else. If you’re into craft bourbon, Kentucky distilling history, and the reality of building a spirits brand with a small team, this conversation goes straight to the source.  

We spend serious time on their three-chamber still, one of the rarest setups you’ll find in modern American whiskey. Rebecca breaks down why it’s so difficult to run, what they’ve already distilled on it, and why their next move is an agave spirit, plus plans to barrel-age it and experiment with finishes down the road. From tequila and gin barrels to a sotol finish that “tastes like fireworks,” we talk about the point of finishing, why “finished bourbon means bad bourbon” is a myth, and how blenders protect their reputation by fixing a blend before it ever reaches a bottle.  

Then we zoom out to what’s happening in the market: getting into Ohio distribution, why strict shipping rules can actually save your product, and why the “bourbon bubble burst” narrative misses the bigger truth that experiences and authenticity are what fans chase. We also nerd out on Neely’s absinthe, made on a dedicated 1890s absinthe still, including a new four-year barrel-aged absinthe, and we preview Kentucky Bourbon Festival drops like their first 10-year bourbon release and the cask-strength banana-note four-grain. Subscribe, share this with a bourbon friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show.

If You Have Gohsts

Transcript

Whiskey Thief Tasting Room Spotlight

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Ty here to tell you about Whiskey Thief Distilling Company and their newly opened tasting room. Whether you are up for a farm to glass distilling experience on the Three Boys Farm in Frankfurt, Kentucky, or an out-of-this world tasting experience in New Liverpool, 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.

Rebecca Neely Returns And Speakeasy Secrets

SPEAKER_04 2:58

Tiny here tonight, and we have Rebecca Neely joining us from Neely Family Distillery. Hey Rebecca. Yeah, it's great to have you. We it it's been a i I was looking at it and it's been been a while, but not really, because it will the last time you were on the podcast, we were coming down to Kentucky Bourbon Festival last year. So it's almost been just about a year, and we did it from the speakeasy.

SPEAKER_07 3:32

We did.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

That was fun. Yeah, it was. And your speakeasy blew my mind. Yeah. I mean, uh so have is is it's do you still got that going and everything? Oh yeah. Absolutely, we do. Does it have more popularity now that people are just completely aware of it? We people aren't fully aware of it.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

We still have did we have our chairs in there yet? Did we have it full of chairs? Yeah, we yeah, we wasn't. I couldn't remember if I we had it full of chairs or not. We uh use it still just as a speakeasy where like people maybe find it, they maybe don't. And we've had some people that like didn't want to join in on tastings or tours that just like they go, they find that and they go sit back there and get a scroll on their phones. Or I use it often to get away from the front. How do they find?

SPEAKER_04 4:22

I mean, how do they find it? Are they no, uh do they know what they're looking for before they get there?

SPEAKER_00 4:27

I don't think so. Sometimes, sometimes the door is left a little bit ajar. And so then they're like, oh, what is this? Because it says on the door, it says, Do not enter, open water. And so it's a little bit open. It's like, well, that's not outside. And then you open the door and you're like, oh, it's a whole it's a whole room, like it's a whole spot that you can hang out in. And so I've had a few people come like, can I sit in there while everybody else is tasting? I'm like, yeah, go go ahead. Sit in the sneak easier room. It's really nice for podcasting. If we have like, you know, a meeting where we need to have like just a few people in there, it's great for that. We've done barrel picks in there. We did a barrel pick with Macaulay in there before. We did a barrel pick with the storage company out of Indianapolis in there. So we use it for all sorts of different things. And it's just nice to have that extra little space that like is tucked away because you generally everywhere in the distillery is allowed.

SPEAKER_04 5:16

Well, I it's it's I agree, it's nice. And then and then the air conditioning worked perfectly. That was really cool. And and that's a big thing in Kentucky, right?

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Oh boy, yeah. It's been it's been pretty brutal in the distillery. These past couple up until this week, these past couple weeks, it has been just so exhaustingly hot. And then it's it's funny because you know, we all sort of work in the front, we all sort of work in the back, everyone that works at the distillery. And so you'll be working the back and you'll just it's like I was looking at the thermometer back there, and it was like 100, 105 degrees in the back. And then you go to the front and it's 68 degrees, and so it like shocks your body, and then if you're up there for too long, you're almost like, God, I'm getting kind of cold. And so then you go back to the back to warm back up, and then you're like, oh no, well, I'm sweating to death. And so there's really no comfort in the summertime in the distillery because it is just hot and cold and hot and cold. And then if you go into the three-chamber room, well, then you're really gonna be just sweating about to death out there. So it's it's been a lot the past couple weeks, I would say, out here in Kentucky. I know that we're not in Texas, so don't, you know, I hope no one eats me up in the comments over that, but you know, the the the corn the corn sweats around here really get ya.

SPEAKER_04 6:40

All I could say is one, just to revisit just the the speakeasy, is that I had no, I've been I I've been to your place many times, probably about 10, 12 times. I've been in that tasting room, and when you opened it, I had no freaking clue. It's the best. I mean, honestly, I was a surprise. I I I've there there are some where that where you go places, trail hotel or whatever, and then they got this thing and the door opens and it's behind uh it's behind picture frame. So it makes me look at things differently. And then also when we were in New Orleans in the hotel, there was a speakeasy there that that the night that Macaulay got married, we were I we had to go early. So I went upstairs at like 12:30 and we had to get up at three to get to the airport because we remember all that shit was happening. Yeah, I remember, anyways. But but Matt, who I was with, he stayed out and he said he was gonna go. There were some people from Chick-acock were gonna leave and go someplace, but all of a sudden Fontaine comes out of a wall. He goes, he the wall opens up and it's Stephen Fontaine, and he goes, Matt, come here. So he went to the speakeasy in the hotel, which was like a wall. I didn't, I it's just like, but I love that. But yours, yours is more like a janitor broom closet opens up and there's a speakeasy in there. You would never even like you expected at those places, but I was like, holy, you're like, Do you want to go in the speakeasy? I'm like, where's the speakeasy? So it was awesome.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Well, it it works out like that because it was literally a door to the outside at one point, and it was just a porch. And during COVID, that's where we'd sit and hang out because there was nowhere else to go, and we'd just sit there in rocking chairs and look at the water, and because nothing was open. And so it was an outside space at one point, and we did not want kids going out there because our pond is 18 feet deep.

SPEAKER_04 8:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

And so we didn't want kids going out there, so everything about it was intentionally put up to keep people out of there for safety purposes, but now we just left it up because it sort of makes sense for the the speakeasy part of it.

SPEAKER_04 9:01

Yeah, it just yeah, it was I I mean fantastic. I mean, it was fantastic, but then you mentioned the three chamber room.

The Three-Chamber Still Comes Alive

SPEAKER_04 9:14

So tell everybody about that exciting news and kind of go into detail of what it actually means, and then tell me and Super Nash how's it running?

SPEAKER_00 9:28

So the three chamber has been it's been quite the project getting everything ready because you know there's there's not many of them in the well in the world, frankly. And they were a thing back in the day, but they're just not an efficient still to run. And so there's not many of them out there. We've had it running, we've done some corn whiskeys through it. We're actually looking at doing a, we're gonna, we're we will be doing an agave spirit on it very soon here, which that'll be our very first agave spirit we've ever done. And so it's gonna be off the three chamber, which I think is gonna be, I think it's gonna be really cool. We have no idea though. We'll like we'll find out. But it'll it'll be fun doing uh an agave spirit on it, and then we're gonna do the the first official run of bourbon on it on the 26th, and we're doing a whole event around it, and people can come out during the day and hang out, and we're gonna fill the barrel at seven o'clock, and you get to write your name on the barrel, which will be really cool. When is that? Uh the September 26th.

SPEAKER_04 10:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

So we're pretty pumped about it. I mean, it's the first time that there's been a three-chamber operational since the 1860s in Kentucky, which is a big deal. And you know, Tom Leopold's doing it. Yes, um, Iron City Distilling is doing it, but down in Barbados at the Stade Distillery, they're they're doing it as well. And it's it's it's a lot of fun running like watching Royce run it because we did ours a little bit different, where traditionally you'd have to climb the ladder and drop every chamber every single time with actual crank valves. But Royce did it so it's actually pneumatic. So he just has to hit switches, which is good is a lot easier for what you're doing because it is you gotta stay cool with that thing the entire time it's running.

SPEAKER_04 11:16

And it runs for So obviously eight to ten hours. So obviously, he worked with Vendome to work out that aspect.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Mm-hmm. So that he definitely wanted it to be a little, I mean, and also Vendome's only made. I mean, the one in Barbados, that one's a hundred years old. It came from Cincinnati, which is actually a pretty interesting fact about that one. Uh, that's the Vulcan still. But then Todd Leopold, I believe his was built by Vendome, and then the one over at Iron City was also built by Vendome. But even Vendome doesn't know exactly how all that stuff works. And they're the best stillmakers in the world, you know? And I'm not saying that they don't know how it works because they they definitely do, but still, like if you've only done something so many times.

SPEAKER_04 12:02

No, Vendome's not gonna tell you still figure it's still figured out. They can make they make stills, but they don't, they they're they're not, they don't run stills, they know what the still has to do, even even like the the you know, people have the software programs and everything, and that does what it, you know, so that it works and you can control so much going in, and it but at the same time the the that's left that's that's the art of making whiskey,

First Agave Spirit And Barrel Plans

SPEAKER_04 12:32

right? I or or so the agave spirit, all right. I never asked you this, but based off of kind of what I know about you a little bit from your social media, are you a tequila or do you is that what is agave spirits in those? Is that kind of your do you like that?

SPEAKER_00 12:53

I I do enjoy like margaritas. I love margaritas. I like taking shots of tequila. Like, I mean, it's it's a fun spirit and there's a lot of cool things you can do with it. So I am a fan. It is not something that I am if I'm going to a Mexican restaurant, I am getting a margarita. Like that's just how it goes. Like that's and I I do love a really good margarita. I don't gravitate to a ton of agave-based spirits necessarily, but it's the only spirit that we don't currently have in our portfolio. You know, we have we have rye whiskey, we have a we have a single malt, which hasn't been released yet, but it's about I think it's like a year and a half old so far on our single malt. We've got, you know, a botanical-based spirit with the absinthe. We've got a vodka, we've got, we've got all the different things except for an agave-based spirit. And so it just makes sense that we would add that in as well. You know, is it gonna be distributed? No, probably not, because why would people buy our tequila over or our agave spirit, anyways, over someone else's, you know? And they might come to the distillery because of the fact we're making on the three chamber, but we'll see what it how it does. Like I said, we've never made it before. So we're gonna find out how good it is. And I think it's gonna be a pretty cool thing, but we're gonna put it in a barrel. I'm gonna age it for a year and see how it turns out.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

Well, then after you do that, then you can uh finish one of your bourbons in a in a agave spirit barrel.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

We gotta we gotta make sure we say it right. You know, we're we're you know, we're in America and we you know we can we're allowed to have bourbon and other places aren't.

SPEAKER_04 15:34

We're allowed to we're allowed to have we're allowed to have American single malt, but we can't have scotch. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Well, and that makes sense. Yeah, and and we we definitely will finish subbourbon in our used barrels for that also. Because we've done one before. We had one tequila finish once before, and we're about to have another one. I've got a tequila barrel sitting out there right now that I need to fill up. And I also have a gin barrel sitting out there. We'll see how that what that does. You know, it's uh we like to get different finishes. Hopefully it's cool. You know, there's you don't see many of them. Lou Run did one last year with the, I think it was Emerald is what it was called. And so I never tasted it, so I don't know if it was good or not, but we're gonna try it out, see if it's any good. Hopefully it is, and I don't waste a bunch of whiskey.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

We'll we'll see how that turns out.

SPEAKER_04 16:28

You know, I don't can you can you actually you could have no I mean honestly, if you're doing if you do a barrel, you could you could definitely let's just say it didn't work out completely, you would just make a really good cocktail with it. Because you can always make good cocktails with the you know, where you with that flavoring that you're talking about, there would be no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Well, and you can also always do another finish with it. If you know, if the finish that you have is like if it didn't turn out how you want it, then you can always just be like, well, you know what, let's do a triple finish or let's do a double finish then and see how that goes. So you can always just continuously do things and see what happens next. I don't like to do that all too often, but it is an option. You know, once you finish once, you might as well finish twice if you need to.

SPEAKER_04 17:22

I think, I mean, I like you said, you don't certain things you don't want to do, but there's certain things that the the nature of the beast, right, Super Nash, is all the barrels, every single barrel of whiskey doesn't turn out perfect. There's the and there's you gotta do something with it's still good distilled whiskey, even though the flavors aren't, you know, the barrel, let's just say the wood in the barrel was too much or whatever. You know, you you experience that. And I've always, you know, people are always like, Well, flavored whiskeys would I'm just like, yeah, that it's an people like you know, people who don't like drinking whiskey straight like flavored whiskeys. And if you're gonna put flavoring in them, you probably don't always wanna put it, use, use your stuff that would go as straight whiskey, you know, that type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

So and for any of our actual like flavored, sorry, it's a truck going by any of our like flavored stuff we do, like salted caramel or cinnamon, we use just our white dog for that. So we don't even put in an aged spirit with those.

SPEAKER_04 18:28

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

Yeah, so that's what we do with those. And when it comes to finished bourbons, you know, it's it's interesting. And I think we talked about this before where it's there's a lot of people who

Finished Bourbon Myths And Flavor Risk

SPEAKER_00 18:39

assume that finished whiskey means it wasn't good in the first place, or you're finishing, you know, because like I mean, there's so many like things that people think about, or at least used to. I think people are getting better about it now. But finishing a whiskey does not, or a bourbon or whatever it is, doesn't mean that it wasn't good to start with. It just means that you wanted to do something cool. Right. Wash there's so many bourbons these days that taste exactly the same. And so I think that people are getting a little bit exhausted over that sometimes. And it's like, oh wow, I found another bourbon that tastes just like the last bourbon that I had. I don't know what's fun about that. To me, that's not fun. I want to taste things that are different and cool. We've got our so-toll finish in the distillery right now. And listen, I fully understand that a Sotol finish is not for everyone. It tastes like fireworks. We've put that on social media. I've had tons of people taste it. There's some people who really love it, some people hate it. That's okay. It does like it's fun to taste. The flavor profile is like it, it's just something you've never had with a bourbon before, which that's what's fun, right?

SPEAKER_04 19:50

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

SPEAKER_05 19:55

This is proof right behind you. Always searching for a different flavor, a different taste, you know. Exactly. A different mouthfeel to it. You know, you know, there's all different aspects to it. Go into a taste of a bourbon and a whiskey, or an absinthe, or or a gin, or or a moonshine, you know, and that's you know that's that's the fun part about it. Well, like you said, there's and then if you're the creator of that, that like you're saying, that's that's the fun part of it, is creating that.

SPEAKER_04 20:30

Yeah, and and you said, well, when it all tastes the same. I got to the point, and and it's it's the nature of the beast of tasting with being a person who's always tasting whiskey, that I can recognize MGP so easily with throughout where there's a there's a flavor profile on the standard, you know, of that brands of people who use that, that that flavor profile goes throughout. And it's not a bad flavor profile, but there's a lot of people who use that to get through, or they still use it, and that's why, like what Macaulay did, you know, and what Penelope does to some extent, where they finish it or they're doing different things with it where they, you know, they can completely erase that flavor profile, you know.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Which is cool. That that is something that I really admire and like look up to with the different like blenders and people who do the finishes and stuff, where and mind you, MGP is amazing, and they've you know, they've won so many awards with their stuff from other distillers from other places that are using their stuff, and there's nothing wrong with them. But I'm always so impressed by places that can either blend or finish and get rid of that very distinctive profile to it, where people don't taste it immediately and go, Oh, that's MVP. That to me is impressive, and I think it's really cool because it is it is distinct, like you know pretty quickly most of the time when that's what you're tasting. But what anyone that can blend I'm really impressed when someone can blend it out with just straight bourbons, because that's an impressive thing to be able to do. Because if they're just using all MGP and then they somehow make it not taste like MGP, it's like, what did you do? What kind of mastery is that?

SPEAKER_05 22:27

I'll give you one such person, Mark Carter. Mark Carter, man.

SPEAKER_04 22:32

What a great and and blue.

Barrel Picks And The Art Of Naming

SPEAKER_04 22:36

I agree, he is, I agree with that, but I will say, and this is this leads to the next stage of your interviewing you, where it's so exciting. You're blending, and you're but when you first, when I first met you, we were dealing with sometimes 36 months, sometimes 20, you know, 24, 20, and you had those bottles like this right here that taste like tiramisu, and you were naming it. Yeah, I remember you were naming it things, and and they were like, you know, it's almost like it's it they were asking, well, is this bourbon still kind of thing? I think you had one that was like cherry rum or something. Yeah, or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Yeah, we had buttered rum. Yeah, yeah. It literally tasted like buttered rum. If you've ever had buttered rum before and you taste it, you'd be like, oh, this does taste like buttered rum. If you're like, oh, so it's rum? And I'm like, no. I was like, God damn it, like this like and we don't name them as often, like we uh name them far and few between now because for one, it it is hard to name stuff all the time, like peer like. Hats off to you, John Waddell. He does a great job doing that all the time. And we've had some really great names for our stuff too, but it just was like, it, we are going through them so quickly that it was very exhausting to try and come up with new names and not reuse stuff and not like continuously use like the same terms. And it it's just a lot. We have we have so many different products in our gift shop that it's not a necessity to have a name for something anymore. And also before, to be fair, so now we have a whole tasting sheet when people come in. And so you're gonna look at the sheet and go through it like that. And so before we would just be talking about it, and so it was easier if there was some sort of crazy zany name for like what each one was, because that's easier to remember when you're going and shopping. But now we've got a sheet, and so they can walk around their sheet and be like, which ones did I like? Oh, here it is, and they can find it pretty easily that way. But it is fun having the names for them. And at this point, a lot of times when we do have names, it's because we did some sort of special barrel pick with someone and we let them name it. And so we've had like the Rough Riders, which was uh nod to North Dakota. That was a barrel pick we did for a an event that I do in North Dakota every year, and someone bought the special barrel pick, and so they named theirs a Rough Riders. We just said we had Wayne and Rebecca McBrier down, and they named theirs uh Dr. Cola. Dr. Cola, yeah. Route 66 for her birthday.

SPEAKER_05 25:17

I was gonna ask you about that. Uh yeah, it's it's a great one. I was gonna ask you about Dr. Cola.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

Yeah, it was it was fantastic, and it was really fun because Wayne had messaged me to set that up and he said, we want to do some sort of like special like tour or tasting with you guys. And I was like, Yeah, we're not doing all that. We're gonna just do, we're gonna do a we're gonna do a fucking barrel pick. Like, that's what we're doing. And so I was like, we're doing a barrel pick today. You guys get a name it, your name's gonna be on the bottle, you're gonna get some like six-free bottles, like it's it's gonna work out great. And so that's what we did. And we had another one, we had some customers that were moving, and so I called him up and I said, Hey, I know you guys are moving, let's do a barrel pick. You get a name it. They name theirs bourbon and steel, but steel isn't like the steel mill that's down the road from us because he was retiring. So when we do have cool names for him, a lot of times it's because we did something special for someone.

SPEAKER_04 26:11

Okay, that's that's that's totally cool. So, part two, you now are getting so aged whiskey. And you guys, we've

Blending As Whiskey Gets Older

SPEAKER_04 26:24

we've known you for a while. So, how are you dealing with your palate? Where early on, a lot of times you were, you know, you had the single barrels or whatever, and you started blending. And now that the barrel is starting to influence, and and that's one thing that people don't realize that, especially with pots still, I think, like what you guys do, I think there's more oils and flavors left in, yeah, that's awesome, into the whiskey. And at three, four, even sometimes five years, the barrel hasn't started to completely start to mix with the grain. So there's a point where the grain stays forward, then there's a point where it starts mixing with the barrel, and then now we're getting to the point where the barrel is influence is starting to take over. How have you managed that as far as blending? Are you do you do you embrace it and or are you are you kind of trying to find out like some of your keep doing some of the younger stuff, but then also do some of the older stuff. You know, you know what I mean? I'm just saying from that that standpoint.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

I totally get what you're saying. I totally understand what you're saying. Yep. And and actually with the barrel pick that the McBriars did, that one was actually a pretty barrel-heavy foregrain for us. Because a lot of times our foregrounds, like you can taste the oatmeal like very easily. And that one was like one of the older ones that we've put out. It was 60, 60 something months. I think it was 60 months, which is not super, that's not super old, wasn't a 25-gallon barrel. So that was a lot older for most of our four-grains that we usually do. They're usually around that four-year mark in those 25s. And it's definitely way different. And so for our like normal people that are coming, like, because we have people that absolutely love our four-grains. And they we've got some friends up in Ohio, they drive all the way down, and like they always come and get those. And this one would be off profile for them, technically. And so it wouldn't be exactly what they would always be expecting from it, which you know, it can be good, can be bad, but for people who really love some of those young, like I don't want to say younger flavor profiles, but where you're you are getting all the the distillate to it still. It is kind of a weird experience for that. And, you know, when we were blending the new tenure that we have coming out, like that too is like, okay, we're working with a completely different animal here. It's, you know, it's not gonna be all those bright notes that we always find. It's definitely gonna be a lot more oaky and a lot more of those like deeper profiles to it. Where I really think it's fun when you find all those different fruits and you find a lot of the florals and all those things. And once it gets older, you do kind of lose out on a lot of that stuff. And we don't know, we have people ask us all the time, like, what when are you where are you gonna stop aging at? And it's like, well, we're still a young distillery, so like we don't know where we cap it at. But there are plenty of bourbons out there that, you know, it's kind of like, well, maybe it's you should stop aging it after that age. And we don't know when that is yet. And we, I don't think we'll know for a while. And hopefully there isn't one. Hopefully it just keeps getting better, but it's a little bit more oaky. You get a little bit more of those like deeper hazelnut notes and a lot of that kind of deeper stuff that you find in those older bourbons. So we don't really know and we'll cap that off, but I'll just keep playing around with it and blending. I mean, with our newest hidden barn batch, the Tea Party batch, which just got shipped up to Ohio, which is also very exciting for us. Yes. This is these are seven-year-old barrels in this one, and it is still very bright. And I really love that about it. It's really layered, which I think is fun. Blending with Molly was a blast. We just found all these super cool barrels when we were out there digging through. We I think we went through like 40 barrels the first day, just finding stuff that we knew that we were gonna enjoy.

SPEAKER_04 30:28

I know what they're saying.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

By the by the end of the day, especially how we were doing it, we weren't necessarily being easy, I guess, about it. And so that first day, all we did was go through and we just found barrels that we really enjoyed. And we like put together, we like kind of did a little like kind of micro batch, and I was like, you know what, we gotta call it because like our palates are blown out at this point. Like, there's no you're not gonna be finding a great blend after that on that first day. And so she came back the next day and we sat down and got to revisit everything that we really enjoyed, and like we just found so many cool barrels, and like we didn't even use all the ones that we found. You know, we found like like a lemon barrel and we found a Christmas barrel and we found like all these really fun ones, and we didn't use the lemon one or the Christmas barrel because they just were not appropriate for what we were trying to do. And it was fun to blend with Molly because we've got similar personalities, and she's got such a great palate, too. And so that was a blast, and just the way that we do things just kind of flowed together, I think, in a really nice way.

SPEAKER_04 31:42

And we came up with the tea party, yeah, and that's a great name, and you're sending it to Ohio, and it's gonna and that's such an exciting thing. Talk about how it came about that you guys finally are venturing up, up, up here. I understand it makes

Breaking Into Ohio The Real Story

SPEAKER_04 32:00

sense to come up here. Now, is it as hard as everybody says it is to actually get into the state of Ohio as a distillery? Because every single time I went and I talked to people, they're just like, you I'm like, you need to be in Ohio. The people will love your stuff. You already know this because everybody coming down from Ohio stops there and tells you. But was it was it that hard? Was the paperwork seriously that hard?

SPEAKER_00 32:26

So I didn't do all of that, but I did take part in some of it.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

I did take part in the shipping of things up there and talking to the the DCs or the distribution centers. And everyone made it sound like they were just awful and mean and terrible and horrible and like the worst people ever. And I hopped on a Zoom with them to do a training call, and they were the nicest people ever. So I'm not sure. No, it's it's it's I was like, You guys are so nice. And they were like, Oh my god, you know how to use your computer. And I was like, People don't know how to use their computers, and they're like, No, not everyone we talked to knows how to use their computer. And I'm like, What do you mean? They were so nice, and so I don't know how the rest of Ohio is gonna go, but the the one distribution center I dealt with, they were fantastic and they were so nice. So I don't know, and they also like when they're explaining things, like they're like, we want to make sure that like you don't get charged extra for because there's stuff that you can get charged for for for shipments, like things that like if you don't build the palette exactly how it's supposed to be built, you have the stickers where they're supposed to be built. But you know what? And I hate to say this, but it makes sense why they do all that because it is a nightmare when stuff shows up and it's the boxes are ruined, or the palette is falling over because it was a crappy palette to start with, or you don't know what things are because they weren't labeled correctly. It fucking sucks to have stuff show up to your place and it's not correct and it doesn't look good and it's a complete mess when it arrives. So, you know what? As much as people want to complain about it and say it's a pain, it completely makes sense why they do that. They just make sure they go, okay, you know what? And know what they probably dealt with people sending stuff up there for a while and it was just a nightmare. And they went, you know what? How about this instead? You guys are gonna start getting charged fines if you don't make sure that everything is right when it gets here because we're sick of dealing with it.

SPEAKER_04 34:33

Oh, and it and it's and it's better for you that you do it this way so that your palate doesn't you don't have broken bottles or you don't, yeah, and it gets it gets to the store.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

And we're sending ours out like that anyways, like nicely, but I'm sure that there's plant places that like it's not always great. And so I hate to say that I like I understand why Ohio's like that.

SPEAKER_04 35:00

I I mean I'm in recycling, and that's just what you just described is my everyday as far as we get everything with the and then I tell my my employees like why is it like this? Why is it always because I said because if they did it nice and neat, they wouldn't need us. It's just that simple. It's like we take it, we do what needs to be done, and that's our jobs, you know what I mean? But I get what you're saying because sometimes you're just like, well, just make a phone call, and what you but but if it cut would be coming like that, just imagine all the different distilleries and they're all shipping it crappy, and then it's on you, and then the things are breaking, and yeah, it's that's that's yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Yeah, they just want stuff they they want to be able to go through your stuff correctly, they don't want to lose your boxes, so they want you to have all these stickers on your boxes, which makes sense because guess what? We've shipped stuff places, and I'm like, I know that I sent you this many cases, and they're like, Well, we can't find them. And I'm like, how can you not like it was on that palette? Like, I know it's so I don't know. Yeah, no, I just no, you I think they're running a tight ship, and I respect them for running a tight ship.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

You're in.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

I'm not gonna say that we're perfect, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 36:18

I'm I'm in, I get it. Yeah, you're gonna do the best you can and you're gonna make sure that the ship is.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Yeah, and it's it gonna drive us crazy, yes, but also we're doing it correctly, and it makes sense to just have things neat and tidy and on a palette that's not breaking and labeled nicely and wrapped nicely. They don't want any, there's like you cannot have any broken, like tore-up boxes on there. That all makes sense to me, right?

SPEAKER_04 36:47

Yeah, I mean, and then uh it's like it has to leave in good condition because there's so much that can happen to it on the way up. Yeah, there's no doubt.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Always just and always just take your pictures when it leaves your place. You take your pictures, and then if something happens in transit and they go, You sent us crappy stuff, you show them the pictures, you go, wasn't us, it was the carrier.

SPEAKER_04 37:08

Yeah. The other the other thing is with coming up to Ohio, are you guys coming up for the release?

SPEAKER_00 37:15

We are hoping to do a release, yes. We'll post about that on social media when we get all the things figured out for what exactly we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_04 37:23

And what, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

We have there's two different places that we're discussing. I'm not gonna drop them on here because I do not know which what's gonna be the first. It'll be in the Cincinnati area, though.

SPEAKER_04 37:35

Well is where it will be first. When it happens, I will do my best to make the trek down.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Yeah, we would love to have you down for sure.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

So, yeah. All right, so when you so you know the difference in the blending. Has it been fun? Are you just having a great time? I mean, because you know, watching your career, because that's what it is, and or your life, because that's what it is too. You've done lots of things, you've been promoted a lot of different ways, you've worked with a lot of different people, and uh, you know, and talking to Royce, he knows how good of a blender you are, and I think you enjoy bourbon in the way that so many people drink bourbon and like you don't have any problem working with somebody else as a teamwork or yourself. So the direction you're going, I mean, is do you see more exciting partnerships going forward? I mean, because you guys, I mean, you are Neely. I mean, so you can pretty much do what you guys want to do. There's nobody telling you what you gotta do, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:48

It's the but it's the best part, honestly. Just be able to do whatever we feel like. I mean, there's definitely some collaborations that we've been in the talks with, with some different like distilleries and things like that that we think would be a lot of fun. And so there's some like chances of some cool like blends or mixing of barrels, different stuff that we may do in the future with some other brands that everybody really

How Blenders Protect Quality Every Time

SPEAKER_00 39:09

loves, which I think would be a blast. Like, I think that that's a lot of fun. And I think you know, the blending is it listen, I I've got great single barrels out there for days. Like single, I love single, and I'm a single barrel coordinator, okay? So like I love single barrels. Absolutely, I love single barrels. But when it comes to blending, like it's it's such a an art that like people do not even realize that it like there's because it's like cooking, right? Like you you you might add in, like there might be an ingredient that you would never eat by itself, right? Right. And you're like, no, that's disgusting. I don't like it. But you add it into when you're cooking, and that's what makes the entire meal. Yeah. Yeah. Right? Yep. That's what blending is. It doesn't mean it's not a matter of blending together, oh, I've got eight single barrels that are all the best thing I ever had in my entire life. Surely to God, it's gonna make the best blend I've ever had. No, it might make the nastiest blend you've ever made in your whole life. Yeah, it might be the grossest thing you've ever had, but sometimes putting together things that's like, well, that one, I don't I don't know if that if it's if I like it or I don't, I'm not saying put a gross one in there. No, but just sometimes those things are surprising when it comes to blending. And so it's just really like it is like baking or cooking. I I should say cooking because baking is like precise things. Although blending, you know, if you don't have you need to kind of know where your barrels are at when you're drilling into them and know that like you're you don't want to drill in the bottom of the barrel when you're pulling out samples, right? And the reason being, right, because like you've got a barrel. This is my North Dakota, it's funny that's straight like North Dakota. I'm like, it's just a square, it's North Dakota. So like this, let's just say this is the front of it. If you know you drill your little pilot hole up here, and then let's say it's the very bottom of it. If you drill the very bottom, when you're pulling out samples for a blend, if you drill all the way down here to get whiskey out, okay, yeah, you got whiskey, but how do you not know that what if it's only full up to here?

SPEAKER_07 41:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

So whenever I'm drilling barrels for doing blends, I'm drilling like right in the middle of that barrel to see to see how much, like if there's whiskey there. Yeah. I need to know that there's at least half a barrel of whiskey in that barrel. Because if it's lower, that's gonna throw my entire blend off. And that happened once before to me. And I was like so excited about blend, and I was like, oh, it's great, it's gonna be perfect. And I called up Brian at the distillery. I said, How's my blend taste? And he said, You're gonna hate it. And I went, son of a bitch. I am and I had to fix it. And so you have to like, and that's another thing that's always crazy to me with some of these places that do their own, like they do a blend of something, and then they I know that they're tasting it after it gets blended, and then they're like, oh yeah, it's not really what we thought it was gonna be. But then you bottled it anyways. Like to me, I'm like, if I do a blend and it didn't turn out exactly what I want it to taste like when like right before putting it in the bottle, I'm gonna get another barrel. Like, I understand there's a cost involved with that, but it's gonna be a bigger cost to your reputation if you put out something that is undrinkable because you didn't want to spend some more money and get another barrel and try to or or just like maybe adjust the proof on it. Like there's things you should do. If like you know that your blend wasn't perfect in the first place, then you should probably try to adjust.

SPEAKER_04 42:41

I I would agree with that. I think some of the larger places there's an you as you know, there's an 80%, which isn't your market, and that's one thing that I always try and right now, in my opinion, there's a part of the bourbon industry that's about 80%, which is Jack Daniels, which is Jim Bean, just all that that that's the everyday drinker, what kind of thing. And that's where a lot of people, where some of the people are of that generation, is they're aging out of the and and the young people aren't aging into that. Whereas what you guys do, there's an experience, you get to meet you, there's there's personal, you know, interaction, you know, even in a lot of cases friendship. And that's where I see the bourbon industry going. That's why all this allocated stuff, it's like people love to get their allocated stuff, share it with their friends. That's the part of the industry that, and that's the part that you guys are in. So you don't see that downturn of, but that's the that 80%. And when the 80%, half those people are drinking it and they're not in it for the taste.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Yeah. So I can I completely agree with you on that. Like that's that is definitely the the market, the market shifting when people are like, bourbon's down, bourbon's down, it's going down. And I'm like, no, uh, we like we're not I I think that stuff that's like mass-produced and it and also is just not good, doesn't have like any passion behind it. Like, yeah, stuff is down that like people never really cared much about in the first place.

SPEAKER_04 44:27

Well, it was yeah, drinking that type of whiskey and getting hammered is down. That's what's down, and it's not down a lot, don't get me wrong, but that's where, yeah, they were making word when you have this many millions of barrels in Kentucky, they're making a lot of it for that 80%. And that's kind of why where the the pause is. I mean, it's funny because you know, like Jim Beams, they're closing uh for a year, they're the clear amount is is is closed down. They didn't they didn't lay off anyone.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Exactly, yeah. It's like being closed. They closed it, they're closed. They're gonna whiskey's over.

SPEAKER_04 45:08

Yeah, no, no, they didn't lay off anyone. They're making up for it at other places, and people are going there, plus they're gonna revamp it because they just made a shit ton of money. Exactly. It's like so that's how it goes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:22

So yeah, it's uh I I keep, you know, I keep hearing that that whiskey's over. It's it's the the the the worst term. I hate this fucking term so much. The bourbon bubble has burst. And I'm like, oh my god. I'm like, please stop saying I don't know who coined that term in the first place, but like I hate that term so much. Like the bubble has. Burst, I'm like, okay, like, is there another like is there another analogy that we have that we could use?

SPEAKER_04 45:51

Like, how bad has it burst when Potter Jane for the last two years has been selling white dog and still in business? It's no, it has not. So, all right, so this is the fun part. You have to talk about for everybody. One of the things that Neely has done from the start of the first from the first time I met you

Absinthe Rituals And A Four-Year Barrel

SPEAKER_04 46:16

is your fantastic award-winning absinthe. I I got what's which which one's older? The black top or the orphan black top. This is the older one?

SPEAKER_00 46:32

Black top is older, yeah. And that's still the Fear and Loathing in Kentucky label, too. So hold on, hold on to that label. Which one? The black top? The black top, yeah. Because that's our old label that we did. Okay. So never get rid of that. Just refill the other one into that one. But that one is super, that one's super old. Yeah, I actually was the one that I still I told Royce, I said, can we stop using these fucking ugly ass black tops on these? I was like, they look cheap, and this is an expensive absent. I was like, I hate that top. I said, we need to put a better cork in there. Okay. I was so sick of that cork. So I like the I like the neutral color to the cork better. I think that one looks prettier. I love our absinthe. Something that we're doing this year that is an exciting thing is we're gonna have our first uh we're gonna have a four-year-old aged absinthe that we're putting out.

SPEAKER_04 47:22

A four-year-old?

SPEAKER_00 47:24

A four-year-old aged absinthe. And it is awesome.

SPEAKER_04 47:29

Does it pick up proof?

SPEAKER_00 47:32

Aged in a barrel? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 47:36

Aged in a barrel. And so, and we entered it into the barrel. I want to say at 110 or 115. It says on the barrel. I can't remember exactly what it was, but the proof was. And I haven't actually tested it on our hydrometer either. Oh, there we go. Are you gonna light it on fire?

SPEAKER_04 47:50

Yeah, I love to light it on fire. Good. Light it on fire. I mean, and when people say that that's not what that's not the way or whatever, I'm like, I'm a wait, I'm a caramel guy. I love the caramel out of the charred barrel. You know what I mean? That's what, and it's like caramelizing sugar is what I want. Uh, you know, there it's just like, well, you don't, so I definitely I've got my water here, I've got that there. Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 48:24

No, it's going. Okay, it is. I see the heat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:29

It's bubbling.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

And then something that I would suggest doing is so, and you can't do it right now because you probably don't have one, but is get like use one of the old bottles and get a pour, a slow pour for the top of it and just fill that with water, and then you can slowly pour it over the sugar cube later on, and it makes it so much easier to do an absent pour over.

SPEAKER_04 48:50

I have a fountain because then that won't happen. Just so you know, I actually have a fountain. Yeah. I just didn't.

SPEAKER_00 48:58

We don't even have a fountain in our house, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_04 49:01

I have a cool fountain. It could you could have mistaken it. I definitely have a rag. A bar rag. All right. So, but I will look at the loosh on that too. Yeah. Nice. And I love the licorice that you pulled off on this absinthe, and you just consistently do it, do it, but it almost my butt. So there you go. Oh, there, there's a nice one. Wow, there's so I got this in New Orleans the first time, and I mean, I love the topper. I mean, it's just like, you know, it's funny because when you look at it's almost a perfect match with with with the label, right? Yeah, with me. Yeah, it's like you're on you're on top of my absinthe fountain.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

That's a good fountain.

SPEAKER_00 50:01

I like that.

SPEAKER_04 50:01

Yeah, and it's perfect, but what would I what I want to as I break it? When we I was just like, you know, initially when I got into absinthe as an artist, it it's the the properties of it are if you drink a couple, it's high proof, and you drink a couple shots, and you you will get the buzz, but you don't lose your fine motor skills. So you can a lot of people write and paint on it, and I was painting and having a great time doing it, but I was like so disappointed when I learned about all the things about absinthe when I was learning about it. I'm like, an absinthe fountain? What does that mean? It's just a fountain with cold water in it.

SPEAKER_01 50:51

I know, right? It's like you hear absent fountain and you're like cool a whole bunch of things. Yeah, but wait, wait, why is it fountain?

SPEAKER_04 50:57

Wait, why is it the absinthe in there? Why did you need it?

SPEAKER_00 51:02

What do you mean? So it's just water. It's like, how boring is that? Yeah, I find myself, you know, you're not technically supposed to drink it straight, but when I have my friends over, like we go through a lot of absent, then it's just us taking shots of it and having it just a great time. And it's it's a really fun product for us. And we've created a ton of absinthe drinkers, like so many absinthe drinkers, and I think it's fantastic. We have tons of people that just come in specifically for absinthe. And like, I think that's great.

SPEAKER_04 51:32

So you know, you have your speakeasy. You should have once a year an absinthe night where you get a cool fountain and you basically that's what everybody sells tickets, everybody's gotta dress up.

SPEAKER_00 51:51

I don't think that's a bad idea. I I think I don't even have any absinthe in my house right now because I drink all of our absent in the house.

SPEAKER_04 51:58

Isn't that what it most of the time that's what happens? You don't have any.

SPEAKER_00 52:02

We literally have tons of absent that we just made another batch. It's at the distillery, and I don't have any absinthe in my house right now.

SPEAKER_04 52:09

I need to get some absinthe. Are you still distilling on that the absinthe still? Yeah, that's what you're doing in it.

SPEAKER_00 52:16

1890s, yeah. 1890s absinthe still. Still we're using every single time. And it just works so beautifully for the absinthe, and it keeps all those herbs away from we were never using our big 600-gallon still for our absinthe, anyways. We were using our 110 gallon still or experimental 10-gallon still. And so we we were keeping it away from our regular stills, anyways, but it's nice to have a dedicated still just for absinthe so that none of those flavors get mixed into anything else. Because you don't want, not everyone wants Star Anise, the stuff that they're tasting, you know? Right. And so it's really cool that we've got that still, and we love it. We love showing it off. People love seeing it, and you know, I I think it's do you reason it's it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 53:05

Do you have people from across the country coming just to see that still and drink and buy your absinthe?

SPEAKER_00 53:13

We do have a lot of people that come just for the absinthe, and there's a lot of them that see the still online and they're like, I want to see that still because it is a beautiful still.

SPEAKER_04 53:22

It's the it's not only beautiful, it's cool. It's cool as fuck. I mean, when you see that, and I remember seeing it in pieces. I saw it in pieces and then I saw it together, and now you guys have it displayed really nice. I haven't yeah, no, has as far as the new distillery where you put the the three chambers pot still, is that been moved or is it in the same place as it was in the regular distillery?

SPEAKER_00 53:53

The so the three chamber got a whole new building of its own.

SPEAKER_04 53:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

So it's right located right next to so everything is still the same in the distillery. We just built a whole other edition on

New Stills And The Small-Team Grind

SPEAKER_00 54:02

for the three-chamber room.

SPEAKER_05 54:03

Okay. And so absent still is where it's always been. Yeah, last walls up when we were there last when I was there last, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:13

Yeah, we were there. That's when we were there for right now.

SPEAKER_00 54:17

So every everything is still in the same same places as they were before. Nothing's gotten moved around too crazy. Now, here's a fun little fact about something that hasn't this is some new news. We're gonna be putting in a outside moonshine still. Like fire, like fire ran, like a moonshine still outside that we can run under the moon outside, which I think is gonna be pretty cool. I'm not sure when that's gonna go in. Royce got the still for it, but we'll be able to do some actual moonshine and outside, which I think will be pretty cool. That would be awesome. Yeah. You could do classes. Exactly. Maybe it'll be it'll be pretty cool. And then our, you know, our our we've got a quite a diverse uh still collection at the distillery at this point.

SPEAKER_04 55:11

Yeah, I would say so. It's just like, plus I mean, that's gotta keep Royce busy.

SPEAKER_00 55:19

Yeah, we are the busiest. We are so busy all the time. Well, it's like, and we already like we run a very small staff, anyways. And me and Royce do, you know, I do all the social media, I answer all the phone calls, I respond to all the messages, try to, so I'm sorry if you message and I missed it. I do try to answer everything, you know. I do all I do payroll, I do, you know, I do uh literally everything. I do, you know, take the photos for all the social media posts as well. And I have to taste the whiskey for everything, and I work in the gift shop. It was funny the other day, a guy came in, I think it was Russ that came in, and he said, It was so great seeing Royce. And I was like, Yeah, and he goes, It was great seeing you too, but I see you down here all the time. And I was like, Yeah, I was like, I am down here all the time. So, like Well, and you know how to run a computer.

SPEAKER_04 56:16

I do know how to run a computer. Always a good thing. I can run a computer. Yeah, but but that's but that's the part of the business that you know it's funny, and and Royce will say it all the time. It's just like there's a certain amount of things I I do a lot of stuff for the Scotchy Bourbon boys, but when it comes to invoicing, sending out contracts. Now, my wife is so busy right now being a midwife that sometimes it's a little bit slow, but overall, there's an aspect of what you do that is so important on all levels. Plus, you're doing the blending and the whiskey thing, but you're also doing those day-to-day operation things. And then Royce has what he does, and you guys are making like the perfect team to be able to do what you're able to do. And and when when you get bigger and those things get allocated to other people, you have to have the right staff and you have a small staff. So obviously, your small staff is the right staff to be able to run what you guys are doing. But it's you're making enough whiskey now compared to what you were, let's just say six, seven years ago, what you're putting in those barrels and then the Rick House and everything. You just keep getting going forward. But this is how somebody who does this, this is like a blueprint to be successful. You're not growing too fast, but fast enough.

SPEAKER_00 57:51

But you do have to work your ass off. Like that's just how it is. Like, we like when it comes to even vacation, like I still like doing payroll when we're on vacation. Like that, it's not getting passed off to somebody else. Like, I'm still the one that's doing that. And I'm and I also have the distillery phone with me when I'm on vacation and I'm answering the phone calls, regardless of where we're at. I'm answering the phone, nearly family distillery. And, you know, that's just the way it is. And like we're not looking to grow any more than where we're at at this point. Like, we are big enough and we have enough going on as it is. And so we're not gonna get any bigger, but I think we will get busier. And so that's just something that we have to be, you know, aware of when it, you know, because how we how we run everything.

SPEAKER_04 58:37

Does producing more whiskey make you bigger? I'm not talking about physically bigger. You're probably at the point where what you've added that you can produce enough whiskey that you can to the point where you need to want to go.

SPEAKER_00 58:51

Yeah, we we could even make more whiskey than what we do make if we wanted to. You know, we've got two cookers. Like we could do, we could run two cookers every single day if we wanted to. We just don't think we need to. And so we don't. And also now adding in the three chambers still, that adds in another barrel a week that we can do. But we just we're happy with where we're at when it comes to how much we're making. I you know, me being the single barrel coordinator, I'm always kind of like, well, we can make a little bit more because I just don't want more barrels. But you know, so far everything's been going well.

SPEAKER_04 59:28

I mean, and so all I can tell you is you just released into Ohio. And Ohio is a monster, a whiskey pit that then, but but you guys, the key to Ohio is you when you guys come up, you get you befriend us. I mean, everybody who comes up, when they sit there and they're sitting, you meet these people and they go to the store, and then all of a sudden they can buy your whiskey and they've met you. Ohio responds to that. We love Ohio. And I'm I'm telling you, you have me. Now you're spot as you're you're sponsoring, and I will, and you're in Ohio. This is this is like the most exciting news ever.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:18

I'll make you I'll make you make more whiskey.

unknown 1:00:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:22

And listen, we like Ohio just made sense for us because I mean, for one, so we can show we get we have an online store as well. It is very, it is very depleted right now. And I'm sorry, please do not call and yell at me. We need to restock it. We've just had a lot of things. We're like working on getting it restocked. I'm hoping to get a couple pallets out there prior to bourbon festivals so that everything is good. So that's what I'm working on doing right now, but it will be restocked eventually. But when we're looking at our numbers for our online sales, one of our best states that we ship to with our online sales is Ohio.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:59

Like it was like Ohio and like Arizona were like some of our top states with where we were shipping stuff to. And so it just like makes sense like we should get into Ohio because I have so many people that come down and they're like, Yeah, I live in Ohio. And so, like, whenever we do get down this way, I like to make sure I come in and like stock up on this or that or another thing. And so that like that's they come down specifically just to see us.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:25

Well, and and honestly, Rebecca, you are there consistently, and people get to meet you. And when people get to meet you and understand what you guys are doing, there's mad respect. I mean, for how hard you work, how everything you're doing. I mean, we we I s it's funny because I hung out a little bit with Royce. I I I've not actually hung out a lot with Royce before.

The Surprise New Orleans Wedding Saga

SPEAKER_04 1:01:55

A lot of times he's busy and I've hung out with you, but you were working the the the um New Orleans Bourbon Festival, so I didn't get a lot of time, but I got to actually sit down with Royce and talk to Royce, and then the that whole wedding thing. I mean, I was gonna have Royce tell a story, but you tell the story of the morning of Macaulay's wedding and what the hell he was asking for and what what it eventually. I mean, that's like the most, I mean, it's it's intriguing on so many different levels what what how that happened. But you know, Royce tells me the story, and I'm just like, my mouth was just like, well, how do you even answer the question? But you know, go through what he went through.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

So Macaulay had for one asked him, he said, he said, hey, I'm gonna get married.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:48

It was supposed to be in Key West.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:51

He was supposed to get married in Key West like this coming January was the plan. And then he said, We're getting married like tonight. And Macaulay had told Royce, he said, I want so I want a sword. And he's like, What? And he's like, I want a sword. He's like, for the wedding. And Royce was like, All right, buddy, he's like, I'll go find us some swords. And so Royce went out like down to the French quarter, and him and Jordan Morris like wandered around and they found some like vintage shops, and they found these like super old like dress swords. Real, right? Real dress swords, yeah, like like vintage swords, like actual, like real swords. And uh he found it, and so that was his gift to Macaulay for his wedding was a sword. Yeah, but so he bought both him and he both he bought Macaulay a sword, he bought himself a sword. It wasn't cheap. And so they they both had swords, and then I get a phone call as I'm getting ready because and I didn't even like know this. I I got asked to be like not really the maid of honor, but like the kind of yeah, to walk with Avery down the aisle, and I was like, okay, like, yeah, for like for sure. And so I got asked for that, and and in my head, I'm going, okay, like I have to still work. Yes, like I have to work, run the boom. And so I'm not like I can't be like, I'm not gonna be dressed up for a wedding. Like, I need to be dressed up to like be selling whiskey and like do tastings. I'm like, and then I'll just I was like, I'll just make sure I look like decent, I guess. And then I get another call. It the whole day was another call, and I got another call, and so I got another call, and it's McCall and he says, Hey, I'm gonna be getting ready in in your hotel room.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:46

And I'm like, Rock on Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:50

I I said, uh, all right. And so he got over there with David Pete, and they were just fully got ready in my room, and I'm trying to get ready in my room. Yeah, I'm trying to get ready for work. Okay, like I'm working that night. And so I'm like, okay, that's fine. And I get over there and I start working as they're getting, they're still getting their stuff ready, and then I get another call, and it's you need to go and get, you need to go get Avery, but you need to stall her. And I said, What do you mean I gotta stall her? And they said, You need to don't let her know, but her dad is gonna be here. They said, So you need to stall her because he's not here yet. And I'm like, Okay. And so I'm hanging out in the lobby, and we're I'm like, trying to stall her because she can't know that her dad is here because it's a big surprise. So I'm like hanging out. I'm like, let's go take some shots of tequila, of course. And so I'm stalling her, and she's like, What is like doing what why can I not be down there right now? Like, what's going on? And finally I got the message that you know we could bring her down there. And I'll tell you what, what a paparazzi wedding that was.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:02

Oh, it was it was okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:04

I and I have never been part of something where I felt famous, and I wasn't even the one. Like, I the coolest thing was was I saw some photos after the fact, and I was like, I look like, you know, back in the day when like it was like Paris Hilton was like the one, and then like Kim Kardashian was like trailing behind because she was like her stylist in the back or whatever she was, like her best friend that wasn't important. That's who I felt like because like in all the photos, I was like like holding her flowers for him, like holding her dress forever. Picking up her dress, yeah. I felt like I felt so cool. There were so many cameras everywhere. It was like it was such a blast.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:39

Like, what a what I was freaked out because I talked to Macaulay. Then I went to his dinner and he told me, I'm thinking of getting married. Okay, that was on Friday night, right? And and and he's like, he tells me and Avery are getting married, and then whatever. So so Friday night we're that was no, that was Thursday night. So then Friday night we're at the floor. Thursday night, yeah. Yeah, then Friday night we're at the actual at the actual festival. And and I said to him, like, I just streamed the festival and YouTube went crazy, right? I had like really good numbers and whatever, and I was telling him, he goes, Do you think you want to stream the wedding? And I'm like, I looked at him and I'm like, he goes, could you? And I'm like, I can. And so he's like, You're streaming my wedding. So what's crazy is the microphones, like I've had so many problems with microphones over the years with the cordless or whatever, you know, and and and that night, so when you do a wedding like normally, because I've shot Video, I've videotaped weddings and shot weddings a couple times commercially. And there are so many rules with a wedding that you in a church or whatever that you can't do this, you can't do that. And Macaulay's like, Do you want to mic me? And I stuck the microphone underneath this Cumberbutt, you know, whatever, it's like little thing. Oh my god. And basically, nobody really could hear what they were saying except for all of Facebook. Oh my god. Because he was him and Avery were perfectly miced. That's amazing. And so I was just like, I'm like, wow, I really came through on this. I actually, you know, Macaulay's like, do you think I could get I I it was like on Facebook, so I I I I recorded the screen recorded the whole wedding part, leaving out the the the stalling because he was mic'd and then all of a sudden there was stalling, and and that was crazy what they were saying. At one point, one one one woman says, for God's sakes, turn off the mics. I'm like, but I don't know what's going on. Yeah, because you know it's Macaulay, he has no filter. He was talking to he was talking to Royce, who's telling Randy to Randy sit down and yeah, I bet that was pretty crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:10

It was really fun walking through like old like Avery looked beautiful too. She like looked perfect that night. She looked so beautiful, and it was so fun like walking behind her and like being the girl with her. It was it was really a blast. And it was like, I mean, it was such a fun time. Yep. And I mean Royce had a blast. Yeah, like the whole thing, yeah, the whole thing. And though, and then it was funny because it was like, then it was over, and I was like, I've got to get back to my booth.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:37

Yeah, and then that's where I saw you. That's where the picture I took of you and Royce was back at the booth after the wedding.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:47

I've got to man the booth. I had our distributors take care of it, and I'm like, you guys gotta man the booth while I'm gone. And like, what else do you do?

SPEAKER_04 1:09:56

Well also, what remember Grad Keeley from Larrican, he had the frog. What what I didn't even under I I was trying I had to try and understand this, but I did eventually. But you know, he was the same thing. He was like, he was just the ring bearer, I guess. Yeah, but he was the only, and there was something about never mind, we won't go into the details, but but he was the only person at his booth. There wasn't even you know, so when he did that, it was just wide open.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:28

Exactly. And the frog, funny enough, so Macaulay bought Avery that frog in Key West when they were down there with us, actually. And so that was funny that that they had the frog there too. They brought it with. Yeah, totally cool. What a time.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:45

All right, tell everybody how they can get a hold of you. Now, it's kind of early, but do you have a little bit more time for me to bring some people on after we end the audio? We'll end the main podcast. But on Facebook, we usually we usually share the zoom for a bunch of people so they can ask questions. And do you have questions, Super Nash?

SPEAKER_05 1:11:06

Before we get into all the closing out part, I wanted to ask you Kentucky Bourbon Festival is coming up. Uh so have you got any exciting things planned for the festival?

SPEAKER_00 1:11:18

A great question.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:20

Yes, we almost

Bourbon Festival Drops And Dress Like Papa

SPEAKER_05 1:11:21

missed that.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:22

Yeah, very important question, actually. So we have we're gonna be releasing our first 10-year-old bourbon. It is Papa's Legacy Reserve. It is a 10-barrel batch, 110-proof, and 10-year-old, which is pretty cool. It's gonna be in a fancy box that we had made. And it's got a cool, like the like everything is like there's a a Papa medallion on it. It's gonna be, it's gonna be really a cool bottle, and we're excited to release that. We're gonna release that both at the Bourbon Festival and at the gift shop. So it is not gonna only be a festival release because frankly, that's not fair to just our normal customers. No, because we have so many people who like it. There's so many people that are not going to the festival, and there's so many just normal people around here that support us and love what we do, who are just they're not people that would go to a bourbon festival. And so we'll be releasing it both at the distillery and at the bourbon festival, which I think is gonna be really awesome. So we'll have that. We'll have our newest tea party batch with Hidden Barn there. We'll also have the my banana batch, which is our four-grain. We had a four. Did you guys taste the four-grain last year? The bottled in Bond four-grain? This? Not that one. That's Papa's single barrel. But Nash has it.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:39

No, Nash has it. You that's what you are holding. Is that the four? Yep. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:43

So we did that one last year, the bottled in Bond version. So this year, I was going to do another bottled in Bond four-grain. But when I dumped the barrels, I was like, God, I was like, I really love this at cast strength. And I was like, I just don't think that I can. And I tasted it proof down. It was still really good at 100 proof. But it just like there's just so much, like, there's there's so much to it at that cast strength that I'm like, I've got to, it's we're gonna have a four-grain batch again, but it's gonna be cast strength, which is 112.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:22

So you're telling us that somehow we're supposed to be disappointed that it's not a bottleneck and bond. No, I think it's a cast strength. I know that's it. And then it tastes like if you call it a banana batch, so obviously banana is.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:35

Yeah, it's got some really cool banana notes to it. It kind of and now mind you, even if you don't like bananas, you'll you'll enjoy the like you should, anyways, enjoy it anyhow. But there's some cool, like, kind of like banana runt flavors to the nose on it.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:48

That's what I love about Old Forester. The if as soon as you get the into the bananas, there's some old Forester like barrel picks that that are peppery with no banana. I want banana. So I'm this, I'm in on I'm in on this.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:04

This is this is your banana. This is the banana batch, and I'm really excited about it. I was pumped when I dumped it. I was like, I like this one so it's fantastic. And so we'll be we'll have that at the festival as well. We also have a really cool papa's birthday barrel, like you just had there a second ago, Tiny. We've got a good single barrel for that right now, also, that we just bottled up. Yep, those ones. We love those. It's again, it's gonna be a seven and a half year old weeded single barrel, and it's great. We are I was actually down there bottling that today. Well, some of my other tasks that are bottling. Okay. And so we'll have that down there. But no, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:42

You have to tell everybody so they can bring their costumes. That too, yes. Come on, you gotta tell everybody. This is this is an exclusive on the Scotchy Bourbon boys, and this, if you're going to Kentucky Bourbon Festival, you need to listen to what she's gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:58

So I just listed off all these things that you get a taste and buy there. But if you dress up like Papa for the Bourbon Festival, then you get I think it's 10% off, I think. Is that what Royce said? Yes, something like yeah, you get 10% off your purchase that day, and it could be any day of the bourbon festival as long as you dress up like Papa, which dressing up like Papa, let me flash a picture of him on the screen here so you guys so people can see him. I've got him actually saved here in my photos.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:29

Like that fish and cat.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:31

Yeah, so you gotta have a it's gotta be a bucket hat.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:34

Nash already looks looks like Papa. He just needs a hat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:38

I mean, really, it's like it's like Dicky pants or something similar. I'm not sure if you can see him there. Yeah, like a plaid, prefer. I mean, he did both long sleeve and short sleeve, but a plaid shirt, but he always had a can of chew in his pocket, a bucket hat. He also always had on like these like sketcher slip-ons. Now, how intensely you dress up like Papa, that is up to you. But you know, I think that the bucket, I think the bucket hat and like the plaid shirt would probably qualify. Let's see, he had some of the but yeah, some those that counts, some slip-ons. That's perfect. That's it. That's perfect. But so yeah, since, you know, I mean, here he is. If you bring it, if you bring a cat with, then even better yet. But there you go. But yeah, you just up like Papa, you get some you save some money, which I think is a blast.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:31

That's cool. I mean, I and and talking that last festival that he was at, I mean, it was so special. Well, you gotta admit, he It was you guys, you guys were just you guys were at the epitome of peaking, and at that festival, he came and he got to people loved him. You knew people loved him, and it probably helped him a little bit because at the you could tell he was he was hurting at that point and everything, but it was just great, you know. It in and there's no doubt about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:08

We still talk about that. That that was so great that he got to be there for the festival, and so many people got to meet him, and he was just a celebrity because he is, or he was, anyways, and it was just it was a really exciting thing for us, and that's another reason why it's exciting to be releasing this at the Bourbon Festival, because so many people at the festival got to meet Papa, and you know, it's it's you know, it it sucks and it's it's such a loss that he's gone, but you know, that's what happens to all of us eventually. And the coolest thing about it is that you know, at least we get something that we can remember him by, and it's gonna it's gets to be all these different barrels and bottles that Royce likes to do. And I think that it's you know, well, it's it's cool, cool to have something that's named after you as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:53

I really think it's part of the process. I mean, it's part of the process, I and it's not, you know, he's gone, he lived a good good, long, long life, and then you know, he was there for Royce. I mean, I just remember being there, and and he would be just sitting in the distillery enjoying everything about it, but he also Royce, there's an aspect of them being a team, and you know, now now Royce is on his own, and that's part of the process. Even when you when you even you look at like Fred No with Booker No, and there's a lot of people early on that weren't very happy with what Fred No did, but you then now you look at Fred with Freddie, and and that's all part of the process, right? And I think Royce is really coming into his own in that you know the three chambers still, and having you as his wife, I don't think I don't think I don't think he could have done you guys as a team are this this is definitely both of you, and there's so much of that you bring to the table that he brings to the table, and as a team, it's fantastic, and we really appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:10

We work really hard to work together on a lot of things, and it's you know, like I said, it's a lot. Like we do, there's working with your husband or wife is a lot, especially if like it's a small business and it's we're with each other 24-7. I mean, we're always with each other.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:30

And that's you're with each other as husband or wife, or the team that the team is.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:36

Exactly. And so like it's we're we're with each other at work, we're with each other at home, and you know, I think we do a pretty good job of like we we've gotten to figuring out how that works for us. And it that takes time figuring that all out, you know?

SPEAKER_04 1:19:51

Well, also I will tell you because when I was when I was younger, I worked for my father's business, and his fat his business initially was in our family home. So when I was starting out, it was basically I was living at home before I met Roxy, and I would just go, I would wake up and go downstairs into the basement, which was all redone, and I would do commercial art with my dad. And it's the same thing. You guys, sometimes it's hard. Well, I don't think you actually you've you've you've illustrated that you don't even get away. You can go to Fiji and you're still answering the phones. But but at the same time, what's really nice is when anybody who's not been to the Neely family distillery, but when you go there, you just look out on top of the hill, and that's your home.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:44

So you guys know I'm just no, I'm looking down, and I'll I'll be down there in five minutes if you need me. Actually, about one minute, 30 seconds. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Not always though. I've I've made sure to to stop just always giving up my time, my free time to people all the time because and I do try to if I can make it down there, but sometimes I'm like, I'm on the couch, I'm in my pajamas, I'm like, I'm not coming down on the no, you should you shouldn't.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:09

You should you you need, but I will say that at least it's a spectacular home.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:17

It is a nice house. Yes. I have built me a very nice house.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:20

Yes, definitely. And that's what you need because when you're gonna work your butt off, you need someplace, even though it's just a a minute away.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:31

I it is nice that way though, because it is nice to be able to just pop over there if I need to and like just stop down and you know, like I I pretty much if we're if we're not gone, I am down there almost every single day of the week. And it might only be for five minutes on one day, but I'm down there almost every single day when like during the week, if we're if we're around here. And you know, sometimes I like pop in and all of a sudden like someone just stops it and I'm like, what the heck are you doing here? Well, like Stephen Fontaine will just pop in on every once in a while. And you're just Tori stopped in just the other day just because he was driving by. Like, we never know who's gonna just pop into the distillery, and it's always like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:17

But it but that's the cool part about it. It is a fun place, so it's not like a crappy place to go work. I don't dread going there. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:26

Let me let me make sure that's clear. I I enjoy going there, otherwise, I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:31

And you have the speakeasy if you need time alone.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:34

Exactly. And I do. I'll like walk back there and I'll like, oh, I'm just gonna hang out for a second.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:40

Well, let me know if someone famous comes in. I'll be here. But otherwise, leave me alone. Exactly. All right, Nash. I'm gonna leave up. Okay, so give us uh website if how they can, you know, buy online and everything like that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:57

Yeah, so

Where To Buy, Watch, And Stay Connected

SPEAKER_00 1:22:58

you can find us at Nealyfamily Distillery.com. You can find us at Nealyfamily Distillery on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, even. We're not super active on TikTok, but we do have some good TikToks up there. You can find me at Miss Becca Sue on Instagram, and that's 1K no C's. You can also find me on Facebook, but I probably won't add you because I have been shutting down a lot of people that I just don't know because I want to see my family and friends on my Facebook a lot of times. So I suggest Instagram if you want to reach out at Miss Becca Sue.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:29

All right, perfect.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:30

And our online ordering, too. I should clear this up. That's also on our webpage, just at Nealy Family Distillery, and go to the shop option.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:38

Right. And and your your website, I I suggest anybody go to because it's spectacular. And so Bo Cumberland released a documentary when we were at New Orleans Bourbon Festival. How can they see that? Is it on the website?

SPEAKER_00 1:23:58

It is you can there is a link on the website, I think, to purchase it, but you can actually download it on Amazon Prime. You can either rent it on there or you can buy it on Amazon Prime, and so you can watch our full family documentary. It's about an hour and six minutes long, and it's fantastic. I mean, people really have enjoyed the documentary, I think.

SPEAKER_04 1:24:20

Well, I enjoyed it at the theater. So, so, so going to New Orleans this year was unique. There's no doubt about it. Macaulay steals the show by getting married. There's no he he does that, but you guys, one of the cool things, they the uh I'm the director, is it who's taking over for Barb and oh Ron Green. Yes, Ron Green? Yeah, he did a fantastic job, but I think this year the venue has all amazing possibilities, and you guys actually use those amazing pop possibilities this year by release by showing that documentary in a movie theater and with free popcorn. Exactly. Like I thought that was so cool. I mean, so I look, I wouldn't probably if it was still the same, like I would do this New Orleans like every other year or whatever. I know you guys are there and you you gotta be there, but from from my standpoint, but this year I'm definitely going back to New Orleans because I want to see what they do with that venue because they basically have the movie theater for the whole Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and they were like talking about they're just gonna do documentaries of whiskey peop whiskey places in the movie theater. I mean, that was really cool to see it in the movie.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:55

As they should. Bo Cumberland has a lot of those documentaries out that they should probably show on in like different theaters.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:00

Yeah, he could have he could just have his stuff running full day. It's like binge watching Bo Coverland's videos. So Bo has gone on our bus tours. This year he's not coming along, but he's for for the last uh this is I believe the fifth, so he's he's done of the four before, he did three out of the four, and he's putting together one, uh, a whole compilation for us right now. But and and he's like, Don't worry, I'm working on it. And I'm like, okay, that's great. But what what but he basically I was watching his stuff one? I just put it on the screen because I got a big screen TV right over there, and I was just doing a bunch of stuff and cleaning up and getting ready for a tasting, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, he like starts talking about the scotchy bourbon boys, and I'm just like, Bo, thank you. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:57

Isn't Bo just the greatest? Yeah, he really is absolutely he's so fantastic. He puts he does so much work on he's he's done so many videos for us, and he's done so many videos. He probably has the most bourbon documentaries out of like anyone, like I don't know who who has more documentaries and it's like film documentaries than Bo does, and it just keeps getting better and better. Yeah, yeah, and they're all great, he does such a good job, he's he's got an eye for it, so he's got a passion for it, too.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:28

Yes, he does, and he's such a great person, there's no doubt about it. He's he's quality individual, and I just at one point he will be recognized. Hopefully so, as he should. Because, you know, everything as he goes about doing this on all the different places and what he's done for you guys and everything, it's just been amazing. All right, so now I'm gonna finish up so we can get a couple guests on. I don't know. Perfect. With still people watching. All right, everybody. I'm gonna say the promotion, Nash, and you tell everybody what they, you know, the you finish up. You got this. All right, www.scotchyburbonboys.com. For all things scotchy bourbon boys, you can get Glenn Karen's, you can get t-shirts, and we're just working. I was talking about Roxy doing some bourbon balls, and we gotta, you know what? We gotta talk about doing bourbon balls for you guys with with your bourbon and getting getting moving it in the gift shop because you've had our bourbon balls, correct? Delicious, yes. All right, anyways, and then also we're on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X, and also on Apple iHeart, Spotify, or anywhere else you listen to a podcast, we're there.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:53

And remember drink responsibly, don't drink and drive, and go out and live your life uncut and unfiltered.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:04

And AI is about to take us out.