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How The Kentucky Bourbon Festival Sold Out Like A Rock Concert with president Randy Prasse · The Scotchy Bourbon Boys

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here to tell you about Whiskey Thief Distilling Company and their only open tasting world.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: 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 York, you won't be disappointed.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: At both locations, their barrel picked all day, every day, are like none of it.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Each location features stations with five barrels, each featuring their pot-distilled bourbons and rye.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Once the barrels have been cleaned and tasted, you can make a selection and clean your own bottle.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: A day at Whiskey Thief with their friendly staff and ownership will ensure you many good times with good friends and family.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Remember to always drink responsibly, never drink and dry, and live your life uncont and unfiltered.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: And tonight is a very special podcast.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: We have El Presidente, Randy Prassi, in the house, president of Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is going to be a fun one.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I am pumped for this one.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Pumped up.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Pumped pumped.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then we also have CT.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: CT.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_07: I applaud your enthusiasm.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have as much as I do?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And have we had Super Dash?
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: No one has no one has no one has as much as you.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Superdash!
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_08: Woo!
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Finally.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I know.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_06: It's been a few weeks.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_06: I know.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, it's been on hiatus.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's really kind of cool with with uh Randy coming on, oh, Presidente, and then all three of us together.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: I think Roxy wanted to be on tonight, but she couldn't because she's just getting over the what I had was like a sniffly nose and kind of thing last week, and I got through it, but she got the cough part of it.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: And they they're calling it the parent flu because there's so many people with it, but the kids all it kind of spread through the kids and then kids, and we picked it up from our granddaughter, so that was a lot of fun.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: But she wasn't able to get on because of that, because she's got like a laryngitis.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: It finally led up.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the last couple nights for her have been hell, but last night was okay.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So finally we're getting on the other side.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_06: My son, that's exactly what he caught when we did this nursery last week, or the first part of last week, and he's got the same exact symptoms as the cough and the and the sniffling and stuff.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_06: And you know, he's like, no, it was that chemical plant.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_06: I was like, no.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it helps.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: It it does that that irritates it.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: She was she's missed a couple births because of it and everything, and then she had done some and whatever, and then was moldy in one place and whatever.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I never got the cough, so I was glad about that.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: But let's besides that, here we are.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: We are ready.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is it.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited for this sold-out freaking festival.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think this year, the coolest part was is that last year you didn't you sold out within like the first week, right?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's what it was.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_08: The first three, but the total was this time you sold out like a rock concert, and that was 28 hours of the open to the public sale, and the the other we sold everything else in the pre-sale to the bourbon insiders, and you know, VIP sold out again in like minutes, and even the the president president's club sold out in I think we actually sold them out before we started selling them.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, that we offered right at first refusal to last year's, and that sold out.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_08: And even the Sunday sampler, the Sunday one day ticket completely sold out.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_08: So that would believe what you hear and read about the industry, the the the engagement, the sips to lips to the consumer and the distillery and the buying the bottles, it's still very, very much a big thing.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_08: So yeah.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, think about it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like I don't care what anybody says.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just say there is a little as far as purchasings, but as far as enjoying bourbon, all of us are uh, I mean, I I can enjoy bourbon.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: I have about 1,500 bottles, I can stop purchasing the rest of my life and still leave eight, nine hundred bottles to my son and kids and everything.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I just because everybody's not buying to increase their their their, you know, we grew our collections.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: It used to be people in Kentucky had these collections of these sizes, and now the whole country people consistently, and there's even some more, you know, really, really awesome collectors that allow, but everybody's here to share.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, that's the thing.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: The Kentucky Bourbon Festival isn't just about purchasing whiskeys and bourbons, it's about tasting them, but it's about getting together with family and friends.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_08: And it's always been that.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_08: It was that before it was buying, you know.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_08: We started this revisioned based on that the social piece, the the interaction, the camaraderie, the ability to talk to the distilleries, and then in the sampling.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_08: But then when the sales came in, it changed.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_08: But I never want to lose that.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_08: You know, the core of this is still the social aspect of getting together with friends and you know, the bourbon buddies, which was kind of the first year's theme that we never actually got off the ground because of COVID.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_08: But I mean, that was the whole thing is people get together, it's a big reunion.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_08: Sometimes people only see each other at the festival.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_08: You know, you see each other hugging on Friday and then Sunday hugging, hey, see see you next year.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_08: And I love that about this thing.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: I I remember though that COVID auction that I you were pulling pulling the names out to see who won the bottles, the signed bottles.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And as I'm watching, this is I remember this, it's like Harlan Wheatley, Blanton's, Martin Nash.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's and I'm like, it's Super Nash.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, whatever, he's gonna call me.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I call him, and he's like, no, I was cutting my grass.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I got to tell him, but that was like even a moment of online friendship right there.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: So even that was something you were able to just jump through the computer screen and make me, you know, so that's kind of cool.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_08: And that was before that was before he was officially super Nash.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_08: That's right.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_08: He was Martin still at that point.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_08: Uh-huh.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, actually.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, you got him to be Super Nash because because we came down for the sip in September, because the when the festival was physically canceled, we came down.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then this was in October.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: So so even though we you didn't have a festival to throw, you came over to the house.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that was awesome.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, you had named him Super Nash.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_08: I was thinking that the house.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I was thinking the house was the following spring after the October.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_08: I thought, oh, yeah, you're right.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_08: You're right.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_08: It was instead of it was the weekend that we're supposed to be doing the festival.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_06: I still have that that bottle.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, I would just had gotten that name from you a couple months before.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_08: He's so here we are.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_08: 27 days and 20 hours from opening.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_07: It it always seems like it's it's over, and then you're like, oh man, it's it's it's a year away, but it gets here so quick.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_07: Oh god, six years.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_08: This is the sixth year, so you know, it's the 35th year total, which is amazing, and that's a testament to the community, and a lot of you know, a lot of the distilleries that stuck us out before we changed, and then you know blew up.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_08: But I I have a barrel head here that was signed by nine master distillers, and that was the nine distilleries that were involved in the 2019 festival.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_08: And then we forget about 2020, and then we went to 34 in 2021, and and half of them, 17 were craft, which was the first time we were all out of craft, and now we're I think we're at us, I think we're actually at 72 brands, distilleries and or brands, and well over 300 SKUs, different things that you can you know sample and buy.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_08: So, and still probably over half now are in craft.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I I think we're God, I think we're 45 or 46 craft brands, and they're balanced or the you know, the mid-size and the big eyes.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_08: And they love it.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I've had I've had a few distilleries that said, you know, there's whiskey events all over the country.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_08: We've given up on all of them.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_08: We're going all in for you know Kentucky Bourbon Festival, which is humbling and but also kind of a testament to what we've all collectively built here.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_08: Very simple recipe, you know, focus on the distilleries first and then make sure that we have the right bourbon.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_07: You've seen it, you've seen it progress since since the COVID year.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_07: You've seen it progress every year.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_07: There's been not only what you are doing with the different VIP sections and the double decker smoking lounge, and you know, you can name all these things that you and your staff have done, but then the distilleries have upped their game significantly.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, last year they build a smoking deck, you know, and and you're you sit there and watch a Wednesday building this actual deck like on the side of somebody's house, just in the middle of nowhere.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_07: Just appearance.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_08: Um and we've finally it took us a few years, and I I can't I can't say that the this you know the spirits industry and the bourbon segment, they're not that quick on the up uh pick you know picking up something, it's taking they're really slow to adapt and grab and and really start doing something.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_08: But you know, bottle sales took us a little while.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_08: But we've been saying like you've got the the top bourbon enthusiasts from around the world now.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, US for sure, but they're starting to do like the consumer electronics show is for tech, you know, the iPhone release and things like that.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_08: We've got several distilleries that are launching new product lines at this festival.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, they've been ramping up for a year and they're planning their entire production and marketing and everything around uh bringing it out at the Bourbon Festival.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_08: And I I always knew we'd get here, but to see, especially the bigger ones, you know, the the small craft distilleries, it's easy for them to, you know, boom, let's do that.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_08: But when it comes to the larger ones with all the, you know, they they got bookkeeping and the finance and they got legal department, to see them actually be able to stay true and diligent and actually get this, you know, get it through.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_08: So you're you're gonna be really blown away by some of the products that you see getting released for the first time at the festival, and in a couple cases, only at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_08: We've got a couple of things that you'll never be able to find anywhere outside of the three and a half days of the of the Bourbon Festival in Barstown.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: So well, that totally makes sense.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean on that go ahead, go ahead, C T.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_07: On that note, you're saying there how many barrel picks did you are are you guys doing this year?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_07: Because there's a lot.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_08: If Stacy's on here, she might need to help me in the notes, but we're we're oh we're right around 30.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_08: I really wanted to get to 35 because of our 35th.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_08: And Stacy and I agreed early on that we wouldn't tell someone no if we went over, but if we were close to 35, I wanted to encourage a couple.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_08: And we've been as high as 44 and as low as 11 the first year, but that 30 just seems to work.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_08: And we've never told anyone no.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_08: We've had a couple of picks where we're there, and we can't make a decision between one or two A or B.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_08: So we end up you know bottling both barrels and then and going for it.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_08: So but it's so fun.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_08: And we literally were just sitting up at the you've been at the bar upstairs in our office, the new bar.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_08: And me and uh Todd Magner, who's the president of Cutter Construction, recently retired actually, but now he's one of our main volunteers and he's actually on staff.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_08: And Rick, who is a volunteer from the community, we're sitting there talking about that first that maker's mark, the very number one first single barrel we ever did, even before I knew what I didn't know what a single barrel was.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_08: And Denny and Jane and Rob Bill, Thomas Bolton, who's on our board, donated a barrel because they love the direction of the festival.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_08: And we're sitting there, we opened one, a couple stashed up there for you know, just for archives, and uh we were talking about the first year, and you know, I went to rabbit hole.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_08: We were the first rabbit rabbit hole and the KBF was the first single barrel collaboration they had ever done.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_08: And then we went and did you know knob creek, and then we were four roses, and you know, just it was just a pretty fun way to start this thing off, and then to see it blow up to I think we ended up at 22 the next year with Justin's house of urban, and then we're at like 20.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_08: And then Stacy got involved and really took ownership of this thing and almost a full-time job just doing barrel picks.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, we had 44 one year, you know.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_08: I I couldn't keep going to them all.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_08: If you even look at a calendar, you take 40 40 days out of anyone's calendar, that's a lot of time.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_08: And you know, so anyway, I mean Stacy's really taking a hold of this thing and blown it up.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Well, she's she's an expert.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: She sent 37.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh we made 30, you made the 35 for sure.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_08: I'll I'll say as far as Stacey Stacy's a rock star.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, you know that Stacy's a rock star.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_08: She's organized, and she's but she's got an amazing palette, and she, you know, she knows she knows what she's doing, so that's that's fun.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: She said three brands they're the the first barrel picks they've ever done at the festival this year.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: The first barrel picks.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: They're for three brands are doing the releasing.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and then I'll say initially, I just remember going to the Bourbon in the air in the one year where you guys had where you could sell bottles for the first year, and Kevin Hill was releasing some of the stuff they couldn't release during COVID that they had gotten ready, and people started losing their minds, and that was like for me the starting point of I would say the word for this year that I really didn't always hear, but a lot of people in the industry always hear it.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: But when you're talking when when the general public is legitimately hearing the word skews, you know it's gonna be big because everybody wants, yeah, people are bringing it.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and if you think about the skews off the first year that you did the barrel pick with Justin's House of Bourbon, it wasn't even close to that 300 skill.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's just like it's crazy how ready people are when they're there and how much they just love the festival.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you got the tasting in the festival, and then you've got this special bottle collection that you that that the distilleries are realizing there's they know how many people are there.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: So if they can, they there's a demand.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: So if they're gonna release something special, they can make sure most people will get it.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that's I mean, last year, what um old Forester was doing with their 375 releases, that was like I was the 117, you know, that that was like so exciting to be able to walk away.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I bought three different ones, and they all were something that I'm not able to get when I'm here in Ohio.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I mean, it's just it's just fantastic.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_08: I how did that Barstown Bourbon County Cathedral work out for you last year?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, that worked out fantastic.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's up on my top shelf right here.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's signed happy birthday.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, that one right there.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's still, it's that's that's we we we put a little dent in at the Packer game.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you this, my friend.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: I I my ticket source is the he that works for the paper company retired, but his son works for the paper company.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: And today when I was on the phone, I was talking to him because my cousin's in uh Croatia right now.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was talking to him and I asked him, you know, your dad got us some tickets, will those still be available?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: And he's like, Oh yeah, sure.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got I I got him getting some dates for the pack, so I'm excited about that.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that could that cathedral was fantastic.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_08: You're tearing, you're tearing up now.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_08: You you tear up every time I see you.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_08: Of course I did.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_08: You teared up, you cried when I gave you that cathedral.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_08: Well, that was that was a special bottle.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_08: I think I gave it.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_08: How could I how I mentioned close parking though when you got out of the truck and you were crying?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_08: So I mean I'm I'm just used to that.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's what I do.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_07: Andy, the uh other than other than Jeff crying, the one thing I think for people that have been to Bargetown that's changed a lot, in my opinion, is the town is significantly transformed in the last three years.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_07: Like there are more shops, there's more things to do.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_07: Uh I'm not saying outside downtown Barstown, because the actual Barstown area for sure has, but downtown area around the square with the addition of like chicken cox place and and evergreens, evergreen liquors, and then it's just kind of morphed into more and more.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_07: And every year it's like the town is growing around this festival as well.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_08: Well, and neat.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, the bar, you know, in the old newspaper, you got Mr.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_08: Tubbs, you know, I mean, old Steelhouse opened their tasting room.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_08: There, you know, Liam Liam Ash actually expanded, and and so yes, there's a lot of good things going on.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_08: And you and you all know, I mean, that the town was not extremely warm to the changes that we made early.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_08: But now that we got six years under our belt, the business community certainly gets it.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, they understand, you know, the cash register rings, and it it's it's a great weekend for them.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_08: So and we always knew it would be.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_08: It was just a matter of kind of I had to duck a lot and you know, kind of make sure I had my groucher marks, you know, it's got us on.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_07: And and they gotta buy in.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_07: They gotta buy into the process that it's good for everybody.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_07: It's not just something that you're doing for yourself or a few people, it's it's a community thing.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_08: Uh well, and the cool thing, last Sunday, last year on the Sunday, I was out in the you know, the bourbon breezeway, the church parking lot that we actually put turf down.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_08: We were standing out there in front of lofted spirits, and I got talking to one of the Oris President's Club members, and that's the$7,000 or 24, you know, limited to 24.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_08: And Kyle, local kid, and he was against us.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_08: He was one of the ones that really disliked what we did the first couple years.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_08: And then somebody gave him a free ticket to come.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_08: Like, I'm I'm gonna say 2023, he came on a free ticket.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_08: 2024, he paid for a ticket.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_08: 2025, he's like, I'm I'm gonna go VIP if I'm gonna do that.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_08: Um his words were I'm gonna swing for the fence, and he bought the$7,000 VIP experience, and he brought two or three guys last year on a free ticket and kind of started that whole cycle again.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_08: So slowly we are winning the community over.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_08: The bourbon drinkers in Barstown are getting it.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_08: If you're if you really aren't a bourbon drinker and you just wanted to be kind of the outside looking in and you're just gonna be mad because we put a fence up and and dare to charge a ticket, we're not gonna convert them.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_08: But if you really truly are in the industry and you know working in uh in the warehouse or you're in the you know distilleries, you know by now that what we're doing is good for the business, right?
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, especially now with the the market kind of normalizing and refiguring out what it what post-COVID looks like.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_08: We're important now.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, we are a blip on the financials.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_08: You know, CFO is looking at the Bourbon Festival before it was all expense.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_08: And now they look at it, and what's this big spike in September?
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, that's bourbon festival weekend.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_08: And so I you know, we just knew if we stayed the course and keep producing a great event focused on the distilleries.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_08: The consumers would fall in line and then love what we're producing.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_08: And you know, here we are.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_08: Well, but we don't take it for granted.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_08: You know, we're always always working to make it better and make sure we're re you know, revisioning and retooling as we need so we're relevant.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_08: We don't want to be irrelevant to the industry.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, also, I mean, it's it's legitimately you're setting up, but it's a four-day, uh three-day, four, what, three night, right?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: A three-day, three-night festival.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Sunday night the festival's over, but Thursday night's when it starts.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: And if the local people, and and when you visit Bardstown, they haven't.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you can't even, what would you say?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: Not only has this festival just exploded on this weekend, but it's led to other things that happened, like the week of the the National Bourbon Day on a la, which was sun that 14th of a Sunday, June 14th, I think, right?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: Wasn't it?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_08: Or now it's yeah, it's now it's National Bourbon Week.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, not then it goes the Burk.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_08: Next year it starts on National Bourbon Day, Monday, the 14th, National Bourbon Day, and it runs that whole week.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right, but and that's turned to huge numbers.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that's the fest, that's so much happening in Bardstown.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's not the festival, but that's because of the festival.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_01: This has exploded in the city, and then they come up and do all these other things because you you basically bardstown is completely on the map with this.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like the whole country, it's no different than Canton and the Pro Football Hall of Fame weekend.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_01: When the Hall of Fame is with the inductees and everybody's here, this town is rocking, but then the rest of the year, the town goes back to being it has the Hall of Fame, and you still have the the museums and you have all the distilleries, it goes back to being Bardstown.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: And if you can't handle that locally, then you're really you're not a fan of bourbon in the area, and you should probably not if you if you're not a fan of bourbon and you live in Bardstown, you're kind of wasting your time.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: You can live in about 2,000 other little cities that don't have bourbon as the main theme, right?
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_08: For the record, my disclaimer is that I didn't say that.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_08: I said it.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_08: That was Tiny's thing.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I said it.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_08: If you live in Barnstown, you love Barnstown, stay there.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_08: I don't care what you enjoy.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_08: I love Barnstown.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, no, but I'm but I'm just saying overall, Barnstown, when you go there, everybody's everybody in the industries at the restaurants, at the bars, it doesn't matter what weekend you're there, you're going to see somebody.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we I was there and and we ran into uh Potter Jane.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: What okay, why am I Danny and Jane?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, just Jane.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: We just we just ran into Jane and she she was talking to Marcy from they're having lunch from preservation, and I talked to them both at a table, and that's just the normal day.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's the normal Thursday.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_08: Is that where the restraining order started, Tiny?
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_08: No.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: No, but I've what I'm what I'm saying is it's just like it's it's it's amazing when it's just the regular town, and and then when it this weekend, it's so much fun.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it it and and like you said, and like like I heard someone say, at first people were upset that you had to pay$20 a ticket, and now they're upset that they can't get, I believe this year was$175, was it?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_01: What was it?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_08: $220,$225.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_08: And then if you bought them on the insider, they were$205.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, 2055.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_08: Okay, first year 2021, the tickets were ten dollars.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah,$20 for all weekend.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right, for the whole weekend.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_08: And I got and I got I got the big target put on me for that one.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_08: No, but no, but you're right.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_08: Danny and Jane, Michelle Lux, you know, and Don, you know, Lux Luxigo, Lux Row, Jim Rutledge, you know, it gets seen around there.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_08: It's just Will and Rob Samuels.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_07: I mean the legends and i even this that barstown just sounds a great vibe.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, when you go through the different areas of Kentucky, and you know, Frankfurt's got their vibe, and Louumba Bill and Lexington have their vibe, but Broadstown just it it's it's a totally different kind of feeling there.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_07: And and all of them are bourbon communities.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, let's be honest, you go just about anywhere in Kentucky, it is, but Bardstown just got a neat old, quaint feel to it.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_07: You know, the other thing that's happened, and we're talking about the things that it's done for the area, but look at what it's done for the bed and breakfasts and the hotels.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_07: You can't get a bed and breakfast during the week of KBS if you haven't booked it over a year in advance.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_07: Uh hotels are very similar if if you want to stay at some of the the special ones like the trail.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_07: What is it?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_07: The trail?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah, the trail.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_07: You know, what a what an amazing place.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_07: And again, would they have done that?
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_07: Would that exist the way it does if it weren't for the festival?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_07: And it probably wouldn't.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_07: I mean, people come to visit the distilleries, but the the what this brings to town makes it possible for something like that to exist too.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_08: I I take a little bit of a variance, and thank you, CT.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_08: But I I I I believe people are coming, you know, because of the distilleries and everything that they've done.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_08: I think sometimes they choose the time of year to come because of the festival.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_08: And we've had that conversation with the Bourbon Trail.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_08: There's a lot of people coming to the Bourbon Trail in September.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_08: Now, if the festival was at a different time, I think people would still come and do the trail and they would just kind of schedule their visit around whenever that festival could be.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_08: We could be in June, we could be in you know April, and people would come to the festival and that would spike you know attendance and everything.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_08: So I think they they I think the festival influences you know when people come and how long they stay here for sure.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_08: But I don't know that if if the festival wasn't here, I do believe people would still be coming.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_08: And we we free date at 35 years old.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: We freeze.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think the festival is every bit a part of the trail.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: The festival before you, because I was there in 2019, and I did the bourbon trail that year.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: I finished it.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: I did the whole bourbon trail when I was down there, and the festival had that year was a year that it was a little bit different.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: They still had the whole kind of fair thing going, but they were able to the nine distilleries that were there were eight, you could um be in VIP and you could you could walk around with a with a drink.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: But things have changed so much.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I'm just telling telling you the shine and the polish when people come and now people are coming because of the festival, that that's how why it sells out, and then when they get there and they see what the rest of the story is, I mean, and it is the rest of the story, the distilleries, the people, the collections, everything that's happening, the the parties at all the distilleries outside of the festival, that just brings a vibe that people want to come back and experience Bardstown.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: And even now, like you said, the restaurants and whatever, like the Trail Hotel, I don't think in 2019 survives the way you've it the festival has evolved that the trail to go through Bardstown, and now people will stay at that hotel all the time, year-round.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_08: Whereas before And I agree, I agree with that.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_08: I I agree with that.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_08: I think we attract a high-end consumer that appreciates quality and is willing to go off of the value level, you know, people that are like driven by a$109 room rate versus the trail and they're at$259 or whatever.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_08: I I do I do agree.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_08: I think we attracted a higher-end clientele from a consumer.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_08: Now, there's always room for corporate hotels.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_08: There's all these distilleries and they have corporate headquarters, you know, beam centauri and everything.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_08: So I think there's always probably a room for a higher-end lodging.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_08: But I do and the people who come to the Bourbon Festival, we know that they come back several times during the year.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_08: So and I love that.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, we are an economic driver.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, we're tourism, it's more than just the three or four days of the festival.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_08: We're an economic driver for the week, you know, for that weekend.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_08: And but we know that people come back throughout the year.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_08: And that's the whole trail.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, Frankfurt, Lexington, Owensboro, I mean, they all get and Louisville, certainly downtown Louisville.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, they get uh a bump.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_08: Well, also the exposure that they've gotten, maybe as a result.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And as you keep going, the experiences of the distilleries that they're giving at the that they're figuring out at the festival kind of makes them you you're there and maybe you didn't know about dark arts and they give this experience and you have whatever how they set up.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: I don't, I don't know how actual physically they're setting up the the tent, but as you keep these people keep doing this, that makes you want to go to their distilleries.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that's an it's an advertisement along.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: So talk so let's talk about some of the cool new things that you've that that that have happened as far as the polish that people can expect when they're going in.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: What's what's what's the exciting things that are happening this year?
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_08: Well, I'd like to think that the first thing that people will see is that we've listened, and I mean, we knew it last year, watching it real time, you know.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, but we listened to feedback from the customers before they even get to the gates.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_08: You know, people were camping out, and it was something like we've never seen before, a blog going around the block.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_08: But this year we added a second gate for general admission.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_08: So we used to have the main gate where you go through like the Rick House structure, and that was it.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_08: And then we had the VIP gate.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_08: And so this year we added a second GA gate.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_08: So if you're waiting in line, we're gonna have two gates to get people in twice as fast.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_08: The VIP gate, we're gonna protect a little more, be you know, respectful of our 800 VIPs that pay a lot of money to have their own private entrance and an early entrance to the to the grounds.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_08: So to the VIP people that might be watching or and hearing this, we heard you.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_08: You're not gonna have general admission people you know coming in there.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_08: So from 11 to 1 every day, it's gonna be VIP only.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_08: And the G8 folks, who we love, they're gonna be sent to the other two gates further down close to the craft area to get in.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_08: And it you're still gonna get in quickly now, but it's just we're trying to make sure that the VIP experience is protected, but we are also taking care of our general mission friends that are coming in.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_08: That'll be the first thing that you see is just how how we're getting people into the festival.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_08: This is probably the first year that we've not done major changes to the layout.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_08: So if you were at last year's festival, for the most part, everything is gonna be where you remember it.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_08: You know, you the craft distilleries, you know, that area has grown.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_08: The VIP tent is still the exact same tent.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_08: The main stage with the Bourbon 30 show is gonna be in the exact same spot.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_08: The main lawn in front of Spaulding Hall, except for a little bit of reconfiguring and a couple of the smaller craft distilleries, you know, stepped up onto the lawn and have a bigger presence there.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_08: It'll still feel, you know, beams where they were, Spaulding Hall and the Oscar Get's you know, museum, the Bourbon History Museum is there, obviously.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_08: You go out into the St.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_08: Joseph's parking lot, the bourbon breezeway, as we call it.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_08: It's still gonna be it's gonna be carpeted and it's gonna have you know the big fans and the sunscreen.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_08: Hopefully it's sun, not rain shelter.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_08: The big difference probably is there's more distilleries out there, and the great tent, which is what our premium education is moved back in kind of closer to where it was when it started the first year.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_08: But other than that, it's not really a big change.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_08: So you kept like the layout last year.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_08: We've tightened it up a little bit.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: So you kept the the media tent.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_08: Media tent in the same place.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_08: Media tent.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_08: No, that media tent is gonna be down closer to like where the operations down by the brick house restaurant down below there.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_08: Still air conditioned, still private restrooms.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_08: Just it doesn't need to be right in the middle of the festival rounds.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_08: And we had several distilleries that wanted bigger spaces, so like we haven't announced it.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_08: And I don't know that it's we're gonna plan it now, but whistlepick is in this year, so they stepped up.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_08: So they'll be in there with Mickters and barrel craft spirits.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_08: You you've got chicken cock, Lux Row, you know, Rabbit Hole, Angel Zenvy, whiskey house, the double deck structure is gonna be right inside the main gate.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_08: So kind of years ago where preservation was, right inside the main gate, that's where the double deck whiskey house of Kentucky is gonna be.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_08: Uh but again, it's gonna be very similar.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_08: The one thing we did new this year, and I've been trying to roll this out, is more of this corporate hospitality.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_08: If you remember a couple of years ago, CT, you mentioned about like this the double deck or the second floor, the smoking lounge.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_08: If you picture that, it was like a larger space and then had three smaller suites.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_08: We took that same concept and put it on the ground.
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_08: So where right where Media Tent was last year is a new place called the Speakeasy.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_08: So general mission people could buy a slight upgrade and get into kind of a VIP light, I'll call it.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_08: They walk in and they sell a bar, they'll get drink tickets, and then you can upgrade from that and get one of the smaller suites.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_08: I'm trying to roll out the whole corporate hospitality, more like what you'd see at Churchill Downs for the Derby Week or at PGA at the different golf outings.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_08: People maybe not want to just buy tickets and maybe they don't want to be a sponsor, but they want to entertain their own clients and bring their friends and family in.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_08: We're slowly launching that.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_08: So this year is kind of the debut of that concept.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_08: And next year we'll blow it out to where it'll be the whole you know, hospitality village for lack of better terms.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_08: But but you will walk in and basically feel at home, you'll feel like you remember, it feels familiar, it'll be a very similar thing.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_07: It's good to think it's where people look it to know where they're going.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_07: You know, they come in and if they were there last year and they know they want to go to Heaven Hill or whatever brand it is, it is nice to have familiarity with where you're going.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_07: Absolutely.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_08: Well, and we needed to change the first couple of years because we are all kind of what what works, what flow works, what layout works.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_08: But to your point, CT, I mean, Heaven Hill is gonna be in the exact same same spot they were last year.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_08: Makers Mark will be next to them.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_08: Lofted Spirits and Artson, Bourbon Company, Green River is going to be closer to the church side of the lot where like where the great tent was.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_08: But we've got preservation, four hoses.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, so we've kind of reconfigured that, but it's still gonna feel and it's a small venue.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, three days you can see everything.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_08: But I I like to change and listen to the distilleries and listen to the guests, but I also don't want to just keep changing for the sake of changing.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_08: And this is the first year where I feel like we've gotten to the point where we don't need to make these just wholesale changes.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_08: The craft area is gonna be exactly the way you saw it last year, with the exception of maybe five or six new distilleries, you know, and it so it's it's a it's a fun venue.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_08: Everybody wants to be.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_08: We actually had some of the larger distilleries that wanted to stay where they were, but they wanted to have a second location down in the craft area because that's a you know, kind of a cool place to hang out.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_08: And uh, we didn't let them do that because the craft world is you know where they need to you know make their mark.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_08: And we've had more of the craft distilleries, and it's very humbling, but several over the years that have come up to me literally in tears and say that their brand may not have survived for another year had it not been for the connections that they made and impressions with the consumer that was made at the Bourbon Festival.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_08: And you know, we take that very seriously.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_08: We know we're playing sometimes with people's you know careers and and lifetime savings and investments.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_08: And uh so that's that's also very fun.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_08: And every year there's someone new that emerges.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_08: You remember EJ Curley came out of nowhere, you know, the first and second year.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_08: You saw last year Macaulay with dark arts.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, we knew he was good, but we didn't had no idea.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_08: You know, in between pursuit, you know, Kenny and Ryan showed up, you know, they were doing you know the podcast thing and had their own brand, and all of a sudden the brand took off.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_08: So that's really the what I love seeing is you know, you can't crystal ball.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_08: Who's gonna be the hot and the who knows?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, whistlet coming in is gonna be a big, big ad for us for sure.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, there's a lot of anticipation.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_08: We've got commitment this year that wild turkey is coming in in 2027 in a big way.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_08: Awesome.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_08: For those of you who have been following us for a couple of years, the they wanted to be there.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_08: Wild Turkey never not wanted to be at the Bourbon Festival, but there's some out-of-market you know, ad agencies and some you know, compari and some different politics, but they will be there this year walking and observing and taking notes so they can come back and kill it next year.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_08: So that's just a little tease for next year.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_08: You're not gonna see Wild Turkey here this year, but they will be in and they're gonna be a serious, serious player.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: So is it just 1792 again or is Trace back in?
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_08: No, 1792, which is amazing, but we have conversations going, and we're talking like David Mandel to Sazrek president conversations going on with Sazraq.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_08: You know, we missed out.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_08: We got whistle pig in and we got wild turkey in this year, which are good pickups for us, but it never stops.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_08: So when people say, What do you do the rest of the year?
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_08: This is what we do.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_08: We're we're constantly talking to the decision makers on these brands.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_08: And the festival is more relevant and more important now than it was a year or two years ago, even because bottle sales is what it's about.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_08: And so we're not just a marketing and a you know an event.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_08: It's now it's a serious business decision that people are making to be at this festival because they know the long-term, you know, short-term immediate bottle sales, but the ramifications of that is long when people are going to their own bottle shops back home.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_08: The connections and the impressions that were made in Barstown now influences you know decisions to the consumer when they're standing in front of those shelves in their hometowns.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it makes sense, honestly, that Sazerac has 1792 there and Buffalo Trace kind of takes the like the one year it took a little back seat, but then they're not because Buffalo Trace doesn't need any help selling bottles.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: And 1792 as a brand, I think the festival it can really shine at the festival.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that makes a lot of sense why where they're coming from.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's like it's they have a hard.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_08: I'll tell you a little, yeah, I'll tell you a little side story on that.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_08: And you and you all remember when VIP was upstairs the first year, and Blanton's was going to be the official bourbon of VIP.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_08: And they backed out right before, and it wasn't they've never not believed in the vision, they didn't have the product, and more importantly, there's seven people that were on the staff for Blanton's, like the actual front office.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_08: So they said, Randy, we can't do it.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_08: We don't have the product, we don't have the manpower.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_08: So they gave it up, and I went to 1792, and they immediately took that.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_08: And that first bar when you came off the elevator was the 1792 activation.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_08: And I was just so happy because 1792 was always kind of the redheaded stepchild, maybe, of Sazraq.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, Buffalo Trace and all the brands always got from back then.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'll give you that.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_01: Back then, yes.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_08: So I was so happy to see 1792 step up and own that, and they've never looked back.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_08: And then you know, Ross and his team are you know near and dear friends.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, they're amazing partners, they're year-round friends.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Ross is amazing.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_08: I've never been in a big, big hurry to go out and really spend a lot of time on getting everyone else from the Sazerac stable in.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_08: We've got 1792.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_08: Now we will welcome Buffalo Trace in and decide that they want to come in.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, but it's like Blanton's Blanton's is gonna be there this year.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_08: Aaron Aaron Lawrence, who is like the main guy at Blanton's, emailed me the other day and said, Hey, Randy, can I get a couple tickets?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_08: We want to come out and see the festival and see all the amazing things that are happening.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_08: So there's brands that want to be here, they just need to kind of like build the case with powers that be that maybe are outside of the market.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, while Turkey has always wanted to be here from the local people, it it was always that Kampari now is a whole new layer of you know decision making and out-of-market decision making, which is tough to get around.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_08: But I'm patient.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_08: We'll wait.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_08: You know, I'm not gonna go chase people, but they they'll figure it out and they'll be here.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_08: And and you know, Stacey's got the little waiting list now.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_08: We've every year we always have a waiting list, we always work to get everybody in because we don't want to tell people no.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_08: But hey, there's some cool stuff coming up for 2027.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_08: We're not even into 2020.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_08: 26's festival, and we're already looking at some really cool stuff for 27.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_07: Tim Dant asked, What about Horse Soldier with their new facility there in Kentucky?
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_07: Are they slated to be there anytime, or is that still in the works?
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_08: I will be honest, as to Stacy, if Stacy's still hanging on here, I know there's a lot of like contract distilling going on and brands that are coming in under their contract distillers, and then there's new distillery licenses that are coming out and new you know production.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_08: So if if Stacy, if you're still here, if you can give a yes or no answer that that that the boys can see.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_08: But horse, they're definitely talked about.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, there's no doubt that there's they're on the radar screen.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_08: She said no.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: We both got it at the same time.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_08: Okay.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_08: Well, I mean, the whole thing beyond being a associated as a Kentucky bourbon, they have to be actually they have to actually have a distillery's license, or whoever is contract distilling for them has to be in the festival and have to bring them under their umbrella.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_08: So which is no, there's several of those between whiskey house and loft it's carrots, barks on bourbon county.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_08: There's a lot of brands that are coming in that don't even know about the Stacey would know.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, in this in this this thing, so the Whiskey House is the Packers and Bardstown Bourbon Company is the Bears.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_08: Once again, that's that's your analogy.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_08: I'm not gonna say yes or no.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: I you should have been.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, they're rivals.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, watching and listening.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're rivals like the Packers and the Bears.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: They're like they they want to play every year, and one wants one wants to be able to say, I won.
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's there's no doubt.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I hear it, I just love them both.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_08: Literally, literally, Dan Callaway from Lofted Barcelona Bourbon Company is my board chairman, and David Mandela Whiskey House is my vice chair, who's chairman elect.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_08: So I mean, I love them both, and they both are supportive of what we do.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_08: So I'm always very careful with uh you know conversations about that.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_08: You're the you're the NFL.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: They're just teams of Roger Goodell.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: I do not want to be Roger Goodell.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_01: Anyways, but what what's what the competition to me is so amazing is that like I've been dealing with uh the rep the rep from from Barstown, and so Amy, she's like sending me samples, plus then we are gonna the the Thursday morning before Kentucky Bourbon Festival at 10:30, we're in the whiskey library and we are doing a podcast straight from Barstown Bourbon Company with David with Dan Callaway, and then I'll try, you know.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I have not even been to the whiskey house because it's not a public thing.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: And last year I got to talk to David, you know, in a with an interview, but I'm so far, you know, looking forward to you know exactly uh you know what they're doing, but they're brands.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like she's like, well, there's if you want to talk, we're bringing some people in under the umbrella, and that made me excited because you guys are doing everything you can to get as many brands in, you know, because because like when when that would have been a with Greg Schneider, chicken cock could have come in under that umbrella at the time because they were distilling, and then they at this point they would have had to do what they did with the tasting room and uh and still in downtown Bardstown, but that's a good thing they did, you know what I mean?
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: They did that whole thing so they could be what they did.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's part of Bart the birds, yeah.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, yeah, they they absolutely needed to do that.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, the fact that you can get in under under the contract distiller's umbrella, that sure, but they needed to make that investment, that brand, and they needed to have that presence.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_08: So and I believe that I believe that the festival was the thing that actually ultimately drove that decision, that that that that was a safe investment.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_08: You know, the old Harrison Smith house, and you know, so I I know the festival has those influences.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, there's a four-day out of 365 days, there's four days at the festival, but a lot of decisions, a lot of things happen, domino effect uh that comes out of that.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_08: You know, I like that.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_08: I love that part of it.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_07: So, Randy, people are coming in, could be Wednesday or Thursday, but let's let's say people watching, they're like, hey, we're coming in Thursday night.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_07: If they don't have Bourbon in the air, or is that still available?
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_07: Or what what what's what would you recommend they do?
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_07: Because there's a lot going on in Bartstown, I'm sure Thursday evening.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_07: What what are things you would suggest they do in preparation for Friday?
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_08: Well, and to your point, uh, Bourbon in the air has been a very limited number of tickets anyway, so no, they're not available.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_08: The the Bartstown Tourism Office has like the calendar of events of all the things that are going on.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_08: And we try not to be like the concierge service, you know, an itinerary planner.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_08: So we always direct people like looking for things to do to go to the official tourism office to look up.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_08: But I mean, if they if they have tickets and they're coming for the three-day, I mean, in all seriousness, it's a it's a marathon, it's not a sprint.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_08: So hydrate and get some rest.
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_08: And you know, if I I know several of my friends that are coming in as groups, and they'll do the you know, the rock, paper, scissors to see who has to be DD on Friday, and then and everyone else gets to have fun.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_08: That because we want people enjoying responsibly.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_08: And I had a meeting with the Barstow police chief yesterday, and and again, I'm knocking on wood if we hear in the background.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_08: Six years of this event, and considering what you're doing, you're sampling bourbon for three straight days.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_08: We've not had any incidents related to the festival.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_08: And again, I'm I'm knocking this is not a jinx thing, but we have smart, we have smart friends that make sure that they're they're helping and managing their friends and they go home safely, they come back year after year.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_08: And so that I mean that's the big thing.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_08: But I would say if you're if you're in town and you're looking for something to do, I mean the bourbon trail is right there.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_08: And but go to Barstown Tourism and and take a look at what they have going on.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_08: And you know, a lot of the restaurants and bars are doing their own promotions, a lot of the distilleries are doing their own kind of like bar takeovers where their representatives are gonna be out.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_08: Evergreen right down the street.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, they're always doing events and doing you know limited bottle sales, they're doing engraving, you know, customizing of bottles.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_08: So I I guess I would start, I was starting on third street and go up and down, but start at Evergreen and talk to them.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_01: Or just call CT because he'll know he'll know the hot party.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_07: Or you can be like Jeff and bring a tent and camp out at Heaven Hill.
• 52:56
  SPEAKER_08: I was reminded yesterday by the police department there is an ordinance about uh camping.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_08: You cannot camp out.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_07: Oh, there you go, Jeff.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_07: Hey, you're in trouble.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, hey, just so you know, podcasting is not camping out.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you podcast overnight, it's still not camping out.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: I have pictures of you sleeping on the bench.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_08: That's just loitering.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_08: I think I got that same picture.
• 53:22
  SPEAKER_08: It's a misdemeanor.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_08: Loitering is a misdemeanor, so you can still be he's born in cathedral.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, of course, in honor of my friend.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_08: It's your show, guys, but let's let's show what we're all enjoying tonight and and why.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_08: Well, I'm Jeffrey, you just have it.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_08: You got the cathedral.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: I just pulled out the cathedral, and that one is a very special, but I feel like when you're on the podcast, we're together, so it's something.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, McK.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's an amazing that that bottle is across the country right now, just on fire.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Heaven Hill did a really good job to get that out there.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_01: Everywhere I go, I see it.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and it's like funny because I believe it's$69.99 at what at the you know at the the liquor store or the agency.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it I remember paying$65.99 when it was the bur, you know, Jim Murby, Jim Murray's bourbon of the year at the at the distillery, wanting to get something, and that was available, thinking how cool that was.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_01: And now to think this many, and it still is such a fantastic pour.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: I love the flavor.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I enjoy this bottle a little more than other bottles, even if if it's because someone very near and dear to me gave me this, which is what bourbon is all about, right?
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, you're sharing and and there's memories, and someone gave this to me to kind of cheer me up and to make sure that I had something to enjoy.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_08: So I'm gonna drink it down to maybe the last drop or two, and then I've got uh something that I'll keep the glass out for.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_08: And I'm pretty sure that that person is still kind of following along here, so thank you.
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: There you go.
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_07: Um well mine is way more or what's Nash, what are you drinking?
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_06: I'm drinking Booker's the reserves that I picked up at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival last year.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_06: And uh that's the reason I'm having a pour.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_06: It's real good.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_06: And I stood in line for about probably about an hour to uh get it.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_06: And it was a release, you know, released at uh the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_06: So that's why it's kind of special to me.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, you guys are partners, but also you're consumers and you're important to us and the industry.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_08: So thank you, Nash, because that that hour of time investment too is makes makes a big difference.
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_07: You know, that's the thing.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_07: People probably don't think this, you know, but it not just us as podcasters, but there's a lot of podcasters that go.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_07: But we go, we are just like everybody else.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_07: Like we go around and we try different things, we buy different things, we we don't expect anybody to say, hey, here you go.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_07: We enjoy buying bottles, not only they're rare, but are rare to us.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_07: Like there's these barrel picks.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_07: I'm drinking chicken cock, seven year was one of the last ones I think that Greg did before he left.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_07: And we we did a lot of barrel picks that were just you know, I they're all great.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_07: The old Forester ones, the you name it, Jim Bean.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_07: You know, we've had some really good barrel picks.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_07: I I saw Jeff had earlier.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_07: Did you have that Augusta bottle, Jeff?
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, that one, that one now open for a little bit too.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's just oh my god, is that good?
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_07: Wait, wait until you see this year's.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_07: They have not even released what we don't even know what the age statement is on the bottle.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_07: They haven't even released it to the to the people yet.
• 57:03
  SPEAKER_07: It's going to be revealed at the thing.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_08: Well, and Ct Kai, like just for like an asterisk on the on your statement that you're a podcaster, but you're also there like buying.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_08: For everybody at home, the three of these guys come in on Tuesday and they're volunteers on the hottest couple days of the year.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_08: They're unloading distilleries, they're carrying two-wheel dollies, they're carrying product, helping our distilleries get ready to open on Thursday night.
• 57:32
  SPEAKER_08: So thank you for that because it's more than just talking about us and promoting us during the year and being friends and coming to the festival and being friends.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_08: You're there for three or four days before we open to make sure we can open.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_08: So I I I'll I'll cheers to that for you all.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_08: Cheers.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_08: Cheers.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's I all I can say is you they're where you all they're wearing the staff.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's fun being staff at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that's great is to form relate relationships with the people, also the people that are hired to set up the festival year in and year out.
• 58:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we we always see the the the volunteers are consistently the same, and then the people that that that set up the festival are fantastic.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: You you know how how you how you go about it, it's top the bottom from the the people who set it up to the and tear it down to the people who work there to the people who volunteer.
• 58:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the quality of people is the bourbon industry and it's the bourbon lifestyle.
• 58:36
  unknown: Go ahead.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_08: CT, I don't were you there first year?
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_08: I know I don't think that was 21, 22, I think was the first year game.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_08: So my the first year, it was me.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_08: I was the only employee and I had uh one or two people that are still with me now or with us now, and that was it.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_08: Volunteers weren't signing up to help because we were still very toxic, and I mean it was it was stressful.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, it killed me.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I you know, but year after year, I remember last year we had we had over a hundred volunteers, and I don't think that's counting you three.
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_08: And now now it's safe to volunteer, it's fun to volunteer.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_08: You know, you're not getting chastised by your neighbors for volunteering to put this event on.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_08: And I've got probably, I mean, Stacy aside five, five or six people that are absolute top of their games in the event industry.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_08: Three of them were people that I hired and worked with at Churchill Downs to put on the Kentucky Derby.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_08: So our team now, I surround myself with people that could put on the Super Bowl and put on the All-Star game and can, you know, and and they and they're basically volunteers.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, let's face it, I don't have much money to pay people.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_08: They're they're highly compensated volunteers, considering what they could really be making if they're out there in the market doing events of this nature.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_08: But they do it because they love all of us, they love the family, they love, I pay them in bourbon now.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, half these people leave home.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_08: You know, Stacy sets them up with 12 bottles of bourbon.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_08: You know, it's like a shopping spree before they go home, but they remember that.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_08: We take care of them, we have a fun environment, we put them in good hotels, we feed them well, we we make sure that they have bourbon and glasses and swag shirts and things to go home with.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_08: Not every festival and event does that.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_08: You know, you come in, you get paid to go home.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_08: And these people come back and during the year they take vacations to come back so they can really enjoy Barbstown and hang out and do tastings.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_08: And Stacy is like giving, you know, giving people tours and tastings, but they talk about that all year round.
• 1:00:53
  SPEAKER_08: So I mean, you guys coming in is is amazing to me, but it's taken me six years to assemble a team that we literally could go anywhere in the world and put on an event.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_07: And and this year, Stacy got the shirts right last year.
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_07: I think this was the first year she actually liked these shirts.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_08: Well, and next year, when we do this one year from tonight, when we do our like match our shirts, we're all gonna have staff shirts, and but they're all gonna be hot pink.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_08: Oh, I'm in.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it's in wrong.
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, but but well, isn't it September breast cancer awareness?
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_01: If you guys are watching this at home, yeah.
• 1:01:32
  SPEAKER_08: You see how I keep changing colors?
• 1:01:34
  SPEAKER_07: I keep going from like blue, green to red, and your phone, it does that auto.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_07: The new iPhone does that autofocus thing, and it does that.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_07: That's why I have to use my old phone to do that.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_08: So this is a so the light this is a bad ring camera that I now remember why I put it in a box and then I took it out of the box and hooked up tonight.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_08: Now I remember why I don't use it.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_08: So this will be the one and only time I use this camera.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_08: Okay.
• 1:01:58
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_08: Don't call 911.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_07: I'm not having a stroke.
• 1:02:01
  SPEAKER_07: It's it's okay.
• 1:02:02
  SPEAKER_07: So you look very tan, and then you don't look so tan.
• 1:02:06
  SPEAKER_07: Exactly.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_07: I'm not tan.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: So so pretty much at this point now.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just you've come this far, right?
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: And as we kept going, as we go year to year, and you keep going further and further down this road, and we know, congratulations, you're with the festival for a few more years, that's for sure.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: You just made sure of that.
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's great to be appreciated.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: You you came from a once you came from Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby, and you came into this as uh aware of whiskey, but not, and I wouldn't say, but you were new to bourbon to some extent, except from your exposure at the Kentucky Derby, right?
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: And now you've been on probably hundreds of barrel picks, and this festival has evolved.
• 1:03:11
  SPEAKER_01: Are when you're doing it, when you were doing it year to year, did you think you get to this point this quick?
• 1:03:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's pretty damn quick.
• 1:03:23
  SPEAKER_08: It sneaks up, it sneaks up on you.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_08: And and I'm first of all, I'm never embarrassed to admit that I don't know what I don't know.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_08: So when I came into this in January of 2020, I didn't know what a barrel pick was.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_08: My next door neighbor, I lived over by Westport Whiskey and Wine, who was one of the original, you know, in Louisville area, that they, you know, pioneers in that.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_08: And so I went and talked to them and learned, learned about it.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_08: And I asked people like, do people like these barrel picks?
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, if we put our name on something, is that gonna help motivate people to buy?
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_08: Well, in the early days, no, because nobody knew who we were.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_08: But now I feel like you know, Stacey, you know, doing some really bangers.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_08: Um, I think that we've built that up to where it means something now to buy a bottle that has the Kentucky Bourbon Festival on it.
• 1:04:12
  SPEAKER_08: But when when I was at Churchill Downs, I had a collection of bottles that were the annual Derby bottles from Woodford Reserve.
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_08: You know, every year the bottles came out, one you know, Derby 141, 142, all the way to 159 and or whatever.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_08: And so I bought it, but I never intended to drink it.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_08: And I get this job, and all of a sudden now I gotta learn.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_08: I gotta like open bottles and start you know enjoying it.
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_08: And what I know now compared to what I knew in January of 2020, I've not seen the evolution, but like Steve Coombs, who was there on day one, he welcomed me on my first day on the job to where we are now, and we spoke this morning for an hour.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_08: He's like, Randy, you you can't believe the you know what the evolution.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_08: And then I see someone like Stacy or Steve or our friend Shannon that you all know, the palette and the expertise that they have.
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_08: I'm I'm six years in and I figure I've got I'll never stop learning.
• 1:05:09
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I immerse myself and I I always admit that I don't know.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_08: But when I lived in Gettysburg for a couple years, I I knew Gettysburg was a Civil War battlefield.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_08: But when I left after three years, I could have been a battlefield tour guide.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_08: You know, I mean, I just Churchill Downs, my first day on the job, John Asher, who anybody knows Churchill Downs history, he was the guy.
• 1:05:29
  SPEAKER_08: And I just said, what what book do I need to buy?
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_08: What do I need to do to immerse myself and learn about the Kentucky Derby?
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_08: So I'm always been, I believe in diving in and figuring it out.
• 1:05:40
  SPEAKER_08: And and it's just it's been a very fun journey thus far.
• 1:05:45
  SPEAKER_08: And tiding to your point, I got five more years minimum.
• 1:05:49
  SPEAKER_08: And and I'm building it, you know, I'm building a secession plan.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_08: You know, right?
• 1:05:54
  SPEAKER_08: We've got younger people that were conditioning and bringing them up, you know, a couple of the old timers that you know they're only hanging around because it's me.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_08: So if I leave, a couple of them leave, but we need to make sure that the next generation of you know festival event planners and producers and you know that can execute this thing won't let it slip when when I finally do you know walk away from it in a couple years.
• 1:06:17
  SPEAKER_01: But but I mean you're there five more years.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: I will say Kirk says great show, and he's drinking Russell's reserve.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_01: We're we'll probably private private barrel selection, but I will say that we should wrap it up in a a little bit quicker so that we can bring some a couple people on to ask some questions that are so excited because we don't always hang.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a nice one.
• 1:06:43
  SPEAKER_01: Brandon single barrel nine 14.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's my latest.
• 1:06:47
  SPEAKER_08: And and Fred signed it for me somewhere here.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_01: I saw your I saw you at the barrel pick when Freddie stopped by.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_01: That uh that was pretty cool.
• 1:06:59
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:07:00
  SPEAKER_08: For everyone watching the Knop Creek pick, it's a 12-year-old, which does not happen very often.
• 1:07:06
  SPEAKER_08: To do a 12-year-old in a single barrel program, and then to have Freddie No come along with with us and endorse it.
• 1:07:15
  SPEAKER_08: It's a it was a pretty pretty big day for us.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_08: He's looking, he's he's knob creek is amazing.
• 1:07:20
  SPEAKER_07: He's starting my favorite bottle, this 12-year-old knob creek of theirs.
• 1:07:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh I'm gonna buy that bottle.
• 1:07:27
  SPEAKER_01: I when I heard that, I'm I was like, in I haven't gotten a new knob creek off the festival for a while.
• 1:07:32
  SPEAKER_01: But I will say this your next five years, I have the new motto for you.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it is go big or go home.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_01: That should be the next five years.
• 1:07:45
  SPEAKER_01: We've already done that.
• 1:07:46
  SPEAKER_01: No, we're talking about big, big.
• 1:07:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking about big guys.
• 1:07:52
  SPEAKER_08: When the next time we talk, it'll be after the festival, but before the next one, I'm going to blow minds with what we have in store for this.
• 1:08:01
  SPEAKER_08: I can't wait.
• 1:08:02
  SPEAKER_08: And I'll be ready to talk about it.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_08: I'm telling you, it is it is some stuff that will it but the distilleries are counting on us to do that.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, they're counting on you.
• 1:08:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah.
• 1:08:21
  SPEAKER_01: You don't want to leave you want to keep doing this and not leave anything on the table.
• 1:08:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's and there's lots of possibilities for everything.
• 1:08:29
  SPEAKER_01: I will say that like just from the standpoint we're friend, you know, we're good friends now, but it's so awesome to just see all along from the point when I knew that I was look, you know, I didn't realize well, yeah, actually I do.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_01: So in February of 2020 is when I first contacted you on Facebook.
• 1:08:54
  SPEAKER_01: One of the coolest things.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_08: Wait, wait, are you are you saying that we're friends?
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I am.
• 1:09:04
  SPEAKER_06: I was I was stupid at the time and when you really paid attention.
• 1:09:08
  SPEAKER_06: Sorry, I think it's a good thing.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I just remember reading about it, reading in January about you getting the the after going to the festival, reading that there was a new Kentucky Bourbon Fest, you know, and and you were you were a Wisconsin person who grew up in Wisconsin, you had ties to the Wisconsin State Fair through the and I'm just like this this person who is now taking over at the you know, and I knew that you had uh somewhat of a knowledge of bourbon.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: You might not have known certain things, but when you're doing the Kentucky Derby, bourbon is such a big part of it, it's not like you didn't know it existed.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I still respect the fact that you like beer, but we're from Wisconsin and you can't get it out of us.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_01: But knowing that you had those ties to Wisconsin, similar to what I had, I reached out to you on Facebook and you were right off the bat accepting and you know, and it was just kind of a really cool thing to get to know you as far as meeting you and then seeing, and then but but once I met you.
• 1:10:25
  SPEAKER_08: I was scared, I was scared at I was scared at first.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_01: I get it, but I didn't I but but the attention to detail on a festival, whether it's bourbon or it's a fair or it's the Kentucky Derby or it's a something at a football game, your attention to detail was something that I picked up right away, and I knew that that you would be able to take this festival to and every single time I was there, I always have the ability to visualize what could happen.
• 1:10:57
  SPEAKER_01: That like I knew once the distilleries would understand what they could do here, that what you said this year was so exciting.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: They are gonna release releases that only people who go to the festival are gonna be able to get.
• 1:11:17
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, I could even see that during the time Bardstown liquor stores release festival releases along with the festival, so people who can't get into the festival can also buy the release in the area, which would then bring many more.
• 1:11:36
  SPEAKER_01: But there's so much, but the fact that those releases are just for the festival, that's just people are gonna go crazy because collectors love that kind of stuff.
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, oh, Jim Gaffigan's gonna be there.
• 1:11:48
  SPEAKER_08: Yes, brands with his you know, and I almost have a podcast booked with him.
• 1:11:54
  SPEAKER_08: You know, I I shy away from celebrities and celebrity brands.
• 1:11:57
  SPEAKER_08: I really do.
• 1:11:58
  SPEAKER_08: I'm always very leery of them.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_08: Not here, but I mean Gaffigan's legit, and you know, he's done a great thing for the industry with his you know stand-up bourbon.
• 1:12:08
  SPEAKER_08: And well, Jeffrey, when you were talking about that, I was uh briefly just kind of going down memory lane, and when the the uh search firm that the KBF board hired to interview people, and then when I got to the full board and started interviewing, the I I got asked this question like four or five times.
• 1:12:28
  SPEAKER_08: You seem to be overqualified for this role, why would you want it?
• 1:12:32
  SPEAKER_08: And I never thought of it that way.
• 1:12:34
  SPEAKER_08: I never said, Well, I used to run the Wisconsin State Fair and and I used to run the Kentucky Derby.
• 1:12:40
  SPEAKER_08: I've never once thought about that until they brought it up.
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_08: But but you know, it's like an event is an event, you know.
• 1:12:47
  SPEAKER_08: And if if you've ever planned a backyard barbecue or an anniversary party, birthday party, it's the same thing.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_08: Well, when are people coming?
• 1:12:56
  SPEAKER_08: They're gonna park, what are they gonna do when they're here, who's getting the cooler, who's getting the ice, what are we serving for food, who's cleaning up, when are they leaving?
• 1:13:04
  SPEAKER_08: Uh that's basically the recipe for putting on this event.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_08: And I never once thought that I was overqualified or whatever, and so I poo-pooed that really quickly, but well, but it's been the perfect.
• 1:13:15
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, that's what I'm saying.
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_01: They don't they don't know what you what you did in the past.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yes, you ended up at the Kentucky Derby, there's no doubt.
• 1:13:23
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why they're thinking you're overqualified.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_01: But overall, when you're talking about the Wisconsin State Fair, when you started and what you what it was and what you did to it, and where it evol where it took what you did and kept evolving into what it is today, you had permanent structures, you did everything, and that's something that I knew when you grabbed, because I've already I experienced what you did without even knowing you, because I went to the fair every year.
• 1:13:54
  SPEAKER_01: You never got rid of the cream puffs.
• 1:13:56
  SPEAKER_01: That was something that you obviously knew when you started that that was one of the big, you know what I mean?
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And now the cream puffs, you could go through the drive-thru and get them for everybody at work or take them back home to wherever you are.
• 1:14:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's certain things did you see in Canton?
• 1:14:13
  SPEAKER_08: Uh I know in Louisville they had a uh beer soft serve ice cream cone that debuted at the Wisconsin State Fair.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_08: And I'm watching Louisville news, Louisville television, WDRB and whatever, and they were getting for days the Wisconsin State Fair coverage of a beer ice cream cone, soft serve.
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_08: So I'm assuming that that was picked up in other television markets as well.
• 1:14:42
  SPEAKER_08: Maybe it's just Louisville, but there were three or four days straight of nothing but Wisconsin State Fair and the Soft Serve beer ice cream.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_08: And yeah.
• 1:14:53
  SPEAKER_08: So I mean I knew I knew Wisconsin is one of the top five state fairs in the country, you know, a million people a year.
• 1:14:59
  SPEAKER_08: It was a big deal, but it was a lot of fun.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_08: But there are things that I'm doing here that I picked up there and that I learned, and certainly, you know, the Kentucky Derby became a million people watching that from around the world.
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, that's a that's a big deal, but I never really took that.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_01: But when you looked at the Bourbon Festival, when you looked at it and you took that job, you looked at it the same way you look at everything.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_01: What can it be?
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Not what it is.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I don't know.
• 1:15:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I the dirt the derby over the years of the evolution right now.
• 1:15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it has tradition and everything, but every year they're always looking to improve it just a little bit.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what happens on TV is so much better.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_01: They've improved it the coverage on TV so much better than it even was, you know, five, six, you know, they they're always looking to do something better, but I knew that's how during the time that I was at Churchill Downs, they they spent a billion dollars, one billion dollars on improving the venue during the just during the time that I was there, you know.
• 1:16:04
  SPEAKER_08: And I was a part of every one of those you know construction meetings and and you know, part of that.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_08: But um But you're right.
• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, you have to scale it.
• 1:16:12
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, Barstown, Kentucky, the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, you see the potential.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_08: But I I the one thing that I had here that I've never enjoyed before in my career is I had a board that knew that it had to change or we were going to be bankrupt.
• 1:16:27
  SPEAKER_08: You know, so the board was not desperate, but it was this is the last shot we have.
• 1:16:32
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, they literally voted at one point to dissolve the organization and whatever money we might have left, you know, give it out to charities in Bardstown.
• 1:16:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then they got serious and put money into it, and they went out and they got me, and then I got Stacy, and then I got the team, and I got you guys, and I watched uh I just I remember meeting Stacey at the barbecue, uh, or probably a little bit earlier, but understanding exactly kind of well, I I also met her at Watch Hill Proper the one year she took us around Watch Hill proper and showed me around there.
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of there.
• 1:17:13
  SPEAKER_01: I I had met her at the barbecue, then Watch Hill Pro Proper, and then when when you hired Stacy, you know, I had been to a couple festivals, and what I knew at a festival is when when things started, there's always going to be issues.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_01: I remember Super Nash doing electrical work for you guys at the festival, making sure the power was getting to the certain places and that type of thing.
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you had to, like you said, you were literally the one guy running around.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_01: And when you hired Stacy, she all of a sudden you could you could actually get ask a question about something without bothering you because you had to concentrate you know what and Stacy Stacy was a life and game changer.
• 1:17:58
  SPEAKER_08: I didn't know who Stacy was the first year.
• 1:18:00
  SPEAKER_08: She volunteered, and I remember her being a volunteer.
• 1:18:05
  SPEAKER_08: But coming out of that, I had distilleries that either they knew who she was and said, You, Randy, you gotta get her on the team, or people were like, whoever that person is, you got to get her on the team.
• 1:18:16
  SPEAKER_08: So I was literally in the hospital right before Christmas for four days with pancreatitis.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_08: And I was writing Stacy's job offer in the hospital to get to get her, you know, ready to go.
• 1:18:33
  SPEAKER_08: So I mean, that's how important she is to me and to us that I'm laying there on morphine.
• 1:18:38
  SPEAKER_08: And maybe I wouldn't have done the contract the way I did it if I had been on morphine, but no, but I mean very important.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_08: But when when I see talent that can help us move the ball forward, you know, I I I get it.
• 1:18:52
  SPEAKER_08: And it's just and the board has always said if there's a profit after the festival, we're reinvesting in the team.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_08: Randy, if you if we have fifty thousand dollars left over that isn't already encumbered somewhere else, use that to you know, improve the team, get the resources.
• 1:19:11
  SPEAKER_08: We exist to put on this festival.
• 1:19:13
  SPEAKER_08: We don't have another mission.
• 1:19:15
  SPEAKER_08: There's not let's this isn't a fundraiser for something else.
• 1:19:18
  SPEAKER_08: We exist to produce this event, to educate people, to draw people to you know the burden capital of the world, and now to drive bottle sales and and hopefully you know tip the scales a little bit when it comes to the industry.
• 1:19:31
  SPEAKER_08: And so you know, we put that money back into the you know the mission.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_07: Randy, you just hit a thing I was wanting to know.
• 1:19:40
  SPEAKER_07: Do you know how many bottles were sold at the festival last year?
• 1:19:46
  SPEAKER_07: They never tell us.
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_08: God, I I mean the bigger distilleries, the mid to upper, if I if I know what a few of them sold, I'm going to say that the the top half probably sold 10,000 bottles.
• 1:20:08
  SPEAKER_08: And that's not counting the 45 or 50 craft level.
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, I'm just doing this math real quick on the fly.
• 1:20:20
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I mean, it's gotta be I mean, millions and millions of dollars in bottle sales.
• 1:20:26
  SPEAKER_08: Now I will I I will tell you that someone like Heaven Hill and Jim Beam, they've shared with me that the three days of the festival on site that those bottle sales outsell their bricks and mortar their year-round gift shops.
• 1:20:43
  SPEAKER_08: Wow.
• 1:20:44
  SPEAKER_08: So three days.
• 1:20:46
  SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I will I will tell I will tell you, Jim Beam last year, in my opinion, they were like they say there was the first day there was the lines for Heaven Hill, and people were getting frustrated that they waited two, maybe two and a half hours and they got nothing because Heaven Hill didn't have enough to meet that.
• 1:21:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then and then Heaven Hill the next day starts it off, and then all of a sudden, Jim Beam releases the most insane amount of whiskey on the planet, and everybody.
• 1:21:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, everybody and the line moved like crazy.
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, they had so much available that you couldn't just you could you you didn't have enough money to buy it all.
• 1:21:34
  SPEAKER_01: You actually had to pick and choose what you wanted, and and there was nobody.
• 1:21:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're talking knob 21, you're talking about that booker's that he's drinking right there, the reserves.
• 1:21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're talking about they had the bowling pin, they had all three hard and creeks.
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're just going through this and you're going, yeah, you guys delivered.
• 1:21:52
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't like people were in line for hours and hours, they were moving them so fast.
• 1:21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I and and I think 25, 30, 40 minutes, maybe you were in there, and you got whatever you wanted.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden, I saw everybody being happy.
• 1:22:07
  SPEAKER_07: They're really good.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_07: And Jen Bean, you hate me for having as many bottles as they're doing, they actually have good cocktails set up too.
• 1:22:15
  SPEAKER_07: They've got a great tasting area with the cocktails they do.
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_07: And I don't know, does Heaven Hill even have that?
• 1:22:26
  SPEAKER_08: I don't think so.
• 1:22:27
  SPEAKER_08: A couple years ago, they had the like the ice cream that they were selling or sampling or whatever.
• 1:22:32
  SPEAKER_08: But I mean, but we talked to Bean and Heavenhill and Baker's Mark year-round now.
• 1:22:39
  SPEAKER_08: I mean, you know, we we talked the thing that frustrates me most about this festival is we see it real time.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_08: Friday, Saturday, wow, that's an issue.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_08: Can we fix it and improve it now?
• 1:22:52
  SPEAKER_08: But then we live for 361 days until we can show how we can improve it.
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_08: But yeah, so anyway, I mean Meme is really good about that, and Heaven Hill is definitely signed on as far as being part of the solution.
• 1:23:07
  SPEAKER_08: And I I don't think it's a it's not a top secret thing.
• 1:23:11
  SPEAKER_08: Heaven Hill estimated how many bottles they sold, and they also understood the problems that were created by bringing this highly allocated limited stuff when there's people are in line for hours.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_08: So, I mean, this year in Stacy, who we promoted, they're doing a basically suburban festival bottle.
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_08: It looks like it's our bottle, but it's a blend of a 10, 12, and a 13-year-old, so it adds up to 35 for our anniversary.
• 1:23:39
  SPEAKER_08: And other than our single barrel, that's what they're selling.
• 1:23:42
  SPEAKER_08: But that they've created enough of this enough product that everybody at the festival who really wants to buy a bottle can get that, and it's only available.
• 1:23:52
  SPEAKER_08: So, as far as being highly sought after and rare, you're not gonna go anywhere else, including Heaven Hill, to the experience of the gift shop, you're not gonna buy it there.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_08: You have to buy it at the Bourbon Festival.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_08: It's amazing.
• 1:24:06
  SPEAKER_08: Stacy gave me a sample of it, you know, like the little test bottle.
• 1:24:09
  SPEAKER_08: It's amazing, but it's only gonna be available at the festival.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_01: Well, now then they're and then they're making enough for everybody at the festival, which is awesome.
• 1:24:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you gotta do.
• 1:24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, have it all three days, have it so that people can walk up, they don't have to wait 40 hours in line, it's just always selling.
• 1:24:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that sounds good to me.
• 1:24:30
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, and I hope really more and more do that.
• 1:24:34
  SPEAKER_06: So sorry, Nash, go ahead.
• 1:24:35
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:24:35
  SPEAKER_06: One important question that touches right on what you're talking, just talking about, is like the last couple of years, one of the big things was how like Heaven Hill and some of the other bigger places, when they're doing their releases, that they only they know how many bottles that they have, right, to release.
• 1:24:58
  SPEAKER_06: And then you get lines out there that were extending, you know, you get four or five hundred people, but there's only 200 bottles, you know, just throwing them out there.
• 1:25:09
  SPEAKER_06: Is anything been talked about kind of and I'm sure it has to alleviate that?
• 1:25:15
  SPEAKER_08: And hours and hours and hours of like if if you're in line to buy this bottle from this point on, you're probably not gonna get it.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah, and and and I've always said people are gonna be disappointed if they don't get the bottle.
• 1:25:32
  SPEAKER_08: That's the reality.
• 1:25:33
  SPEAKER_08: I don't want them disappointed and then really mad that they stood in line and no one told them they working, you know.
• 1:25:41
  SPEAKER_08: And then it also takes that person out of commission that all these other distilleries could have been talking to them or selling them bottles, but no, I wasted an hour of someone's time in the line that they knew ahead of time they were never gonna have a chance to get a bottle.
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_08: I mean I mean and that's actually ultimately that that's why Heaven Hill did what they did.
• 1:26:01
  SPEAKER_08: They took one to disappoint and make sure.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_08: So that bottle, it's super rare, but it's gonna be easy to get.
• 1:26:10
  SPEAKER_01: So the the other thing I I thought that Makersmark did great is that their cash registers were down, and they just handed out chips to everybody.
• 1:26:19
  SPEAKER_01: So right off the bat, everybody was getting chips, and then at any time you wanted, you could go back because they had a certain amount.
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_01: They you got a chip, and anytime you wanted to go back, that bottle, you could just get that bottle.
• 1:26:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, Brown Foreman and you know, old Forrester, they they they released some really good stuff, but you didn't have to wait in line 80 hours for it.
• 1:26:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
• 1:26:43
  SPEAKER_01: That that was the and I think you guys have figured that one out.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody wanted that one specific bottle.
• 1:26:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in this case, everybody's gonna want it, but they're gonna have enough.
• 1:26:53
  SPEAKER_01: And if you know they haven't, if they you know they have enough, then you're not gonna, you can just get it when you got to get it.
• 1:26:59
  SPEAKER_08: Yeah.
• 1:27:00
  SPEAKER_08: Well, and the the reality is, and and I really don't like this about the way this festival has evolved, is there are people that are entitled.
• 1:27:09
  SPEAKER_08: It didn't used to be like that.
• 1:27:11
  SPEAKER_08: It was a sampling event, and then when bottle sales came in, people thought it was cool to have some, but then it's kind of evolved into where people feel like if they buy a ticket, they have to be guaranteed to buy a bottle, and it's never been my intention to use that.
• 1:27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, they well, I guarantee you if you buy a ticket, you get one bottle, you can buy a bottle.
• 1:27:30
  SPEAKER_01: It just depends on what bottle you're buying.
• 1:27:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, go over to the craft distillery and there's lots of bottles available.
• 1:27:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the the greatest thing ever that I ever saw at the festival was Macaulay last year was with his buff turkey.
• 1:27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that what that bottle was over$200, and he just went and got skew after skew.
• 1:27:48
  SPEAKER_01: He he supplied it all the way to Sunday.
• 1:27:52
  SPEAKER_01: He ran out, I think Sunday at like two o'clock.
• 1:27:55
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody who was in line for it that wanted it, I think he poured the last bottle into my mouth.
• 1:28:01
  SPEAKER_01: The last the last.
• 1:28:03
  SPEAKER_08: Yep.
• 1:28:04
  SPEAKER_08: He told us he emptied their complete inventory.
• 1:28:07
  SPEAKER_08: I mean now I I like that there's a fine line though between, and I don't want to get off too far off, but there's the flippers, and then there's the serious, like the three of you are serious bottle collectors.
• 1:28:21
  SPEAKER_08: You're buying to enjoy, you're buying to have them on display behind you and and and and to impress people with, and I love that.
• 1:28:29
  SPEAKER_08: And you're not flipping.
• 1:28:31
  SPEAKER_08: I never sold a bottle in my life ever.
• 1:28:34
  SPEAKER_08: No, but the festival's grown into that, and we have to acknowledge it.
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_08: I can't fight it.
• 1:28:39
  SPEAKER_08: I can't say that's never been my intention.
• 1:28:41
  SPEAKER_08: It was to create this, like, you know, the supermarket sweep or whatever that game show was where you got a you got a grocery card and you got 60.
• 1:28:48
  SPEAKER_01: But but but that's the great thing about the festival, Randy, because the what bourbon people are, you've incorporated exactly what they're what they are.
• 1:29:00
  SPEAKER_01: When you talk about a line sometimes in the festival, it's not the greatest look, but you don't you realize that the people in those line lines have stood in line at their liquor store.
• 1:29:13
  SPEAKER_01: They've traveled around the country, stood in lines at distilleries.
• 1:29:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's what bourbon people do.
• 1:29:19
  SPEAKER_01: They stand in line, and that's part of going to Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
• 1:29:23
  SPEAKER_01: You can stand in line.
• 1:29:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, you don't want them you want them to have an experience where they're in line maybe 15, 20 minutes for a bottle, but you know, two, three hours.
• 1:29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I like the line moving.
• 1:29:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:29:34
  SPEAKER_01: TSA.
• 1:29:35
  SPEAKER_08: TSA is a necessary evil.
• 1:29:37
  SPEAKER_08: If if you're moving a step or two and you keep zigzagging and you're moving that.
• 1:29:43
  SPEAKER_08: works last year i took my i i took my kbf shirt off last year and had a regular unmarked i was incognito and i stood in line and i just wanted to hear what people were saying and there was no complaints it was like don't complain i was ex i i would complain i hate standing in line i hate being hot but you know what people were doing and i watched it happen because the heaven hill line obviously was the one that was probably the craziest but they would have a friend go get samples from art like barrel has the incredible slushies and they would literally send somebody off to get slushies bring them back to the line and so there was always that kind and nobody ever said anything it was just a good you know there's a fellowship that people are just like hey we're having a good time doesn't matter are you bringing one thing we haven't talked about who is the title sponsor this year because last year new ref last year was new ref yeah last year was angels envy this year's new ref okay and and I mean they've they've killed it I mean every year makers mark was the first and then beam with Naruto Creek and everything and then it's Barter Sound Bourbon Company, Heaven Hill last year with Angel Zenvy you know this year is it's new ref every year one learns from the previous year and they get better and better and the and the product you know and how they activate it gets better.
• 1:31:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean and remember Randy as Matt Lisen says half the fun is talking to the people in the lines when you're in line that's when you meet the other people in the festival and for me as a podcaster being in line is the greatest thing ever.
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's where I hand out the most cards to the people attending.
• 1:31:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know so there that's where I get most of my footage from yeah people in line yeah so that's that's an important part of why the festival's so great you do have the out you've brought the experience of what bourbon people experience into the festival and now you've trafficked it properly now is the the people that do the barbecue every year in the parking lot are they they coming back this year?
• 1:32:00
  SPEAKER_08: I think they do the sandwiches right over by the lockers oh that's the church that's the church this is the church men's club yeah absolutely yeah yeah they they they make a good sandwich when you need one pork shop the pork shop and the ribeye sandwiches that's the ribeye I had a ribeye sandwich and it just went down so awesome.
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah that's and then the food trucks same thing la as last year food trucks all out out on the you got them on the streets and then is the market the market I said it was pretty cool pretty cool last year.
• 1:32:34
  SPEAKER_08: We brought the marketplace vendors in a little closer and a couple food trucks out there on Flag A which is the the kind of that little spur.
• 1:32:43
  SPEAKER_08: I mean we're always trying to make sure that our partners are making money and and last year even though it was a I thought a good setup the the marketplace vendors didn't get the traffic so we brought them in and the food trucks will be out there I mean it we're limited by what the streets can do.
• 1:33:01
  SPEAKER_08: Right.
• 1:33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Although although I was after last year's wagon wagon infiltration of the festival you should I know but but I was thinking one year you should just offer sponsored wagons for them to come in.
• 1:33:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was cool to have them walk I mean I understand they broke the rules and everything but it still was kind of what they did was kind of innovative and and worked because they were bringing that and it brings it it was bringing it to the people.
• 1:33:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah no I know I I respect that I told them that but I'm gonna walk around with my Red Rider BB gun this year I take out that's awesome totally kidding kidding people yes but now let's um I I know it's getting late so let's uh finish this up and have a couple people we'll invite a couple people on to ask questions and then you can go when you got to go but give everybody the website and all the promotion and then you know how next year you know the time when the tickets go on sale for anybody that watches and wants to come.
• 1:34:09
  SPEAKER_08: Yep kyburbonfestival.com that that that's it the festival dates we haven't officially announced them but they will be a little later more like what the festival used to be back in the day a little later in the month but the ticket on sale will still be right around mid-April but by the time the festival comes out we will be announcing the dates and it'll be in you know in print and before people are leaving the hotels this year they will be able to preserve their uh rooms for the following year but we will start sending emails out this week so anybody with tickets will sort of get the like the know before you go emails the FAQs what you can bring in what you can't what we're trying to do this year also is with the wristbands if you've set your wristbands to be picked up at will call then we're going out into like the fairfield and the Marriott, the hot the main hotels and setting up a little booth to where we can activate people's wristbands there as they're in the hotel checking in, they can get the wristbands ready to go so they're not doing it when they come to the festival.
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_08: So we're trying to work really hard on the service side of things to make sure people aren't standing in line for way too long just to be able to get in.
• 1:35:28
  SPEAKER_08: So you can get in and earlier I mentioned we we've got two gates.
• 1:35:32
  SPEAKER_08: We've got the main gate that's been there for the last four years and we're adding a second main gate if you will that'll bring you right into the craft distillery area.
• 1:35:40
  SPEAKER_08: But you'll you'll still get emails you'll get your pocket folder with your wristbands in with the QR code you get to scan if if one of you bought tickets for everyone else you still have to go in and make sure that everyone else is registered.
• 1:35:54
  SPEAKER_01: So Jeffrey you bought the tickets for for CT and Nash CT and Nash have to go in and register to make sure we know who you are before you walk in the door so but it's it's crunch time 27 hours or 27 days sorry not 27 hours 27 days in 27 days so you'll have you'll have we'll call at the you'll have something set up at the hotels and then you'll also have we'll call right there at the festival I've never had a problem ever picking up the packet or whatever and and never thought that the line was was too long.
• 1:36:25
  SPEAKER_01: You got you've always you know they you're the people that run that no matter what happens they always seem to adjust really well I I mean I just never been a time where I've at all they worked hard very fortunate this year.
• 1:36:40
  SPEAKER_08: I mean the name Kurt Foreman doesn't mean anything to anybody but Kurt is from Racine.
• 1:36:46
  SPEAKER_08: He he's a Badger Packer fan for for Jeffrey.
• 1:36:49
  SPEAKER_08: But I met Kurt he was my mentor he was my mentor he was the one that really got me into the festival industry back in the 90s so he I'm fortunate he's our box office manager.
• 1:37:00
  SPEAKER_08: So I've run brew festivals with him I've run music festivals with him and that's one of those earlier on where I I I surround myself with people that are top of their game Kurt Kurt is my mentor and he's on our team right now so he will handle the he was there last year too right if I'm not mistaken.
• 1:37:18
  SPEAKER_08: No as a guest.
• 1:37:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes as a guest that's yes yes because I think you I met him last year as a guest and then this year that's all part of my recruiting I bring you in as a guest and then you just I just can't wait till till till you've got the I mean it just it just it just works out great.
• 1:37:39
  SPEAKER_01: Every year it gets better bigger more organized and and like any other festival all you can do is on the fly give that hospitality service to make the people you can't control all the stuff that can go wrong because stuff is when you have this many people same amount of tickets as last year if I'm not mistaken right and so you have that that level amount of it's not tens of thousands just thousands of people coming there everything can't run smooth no matter what it would be nice but that that's just not something that's not how this works but you always on the fly are always doing just such a good job to keep everybody that's that's it.
• 1:38:24
  SPEAKER_08: Thank you.
• 1:38:24
  SPEAKER_01: You want to have the but oh thank you but but it frustrates me to no end I've got people that have I'm 36 years in this business the Kentucky Derby all the things on my resume and all the people I have on this team and and we spent hours and months trying to anticipate what could go wrong and something still goes wrong and customers would be like well God if I was doing this I'd do that and so I try not to minimize the fact that frustration but you keep it but you're keeping it cutting edge I mean the ticks the tick star thing has now settled down but when you started with it it was new that was just something new and it's just like the it's just everything's always cutting you know there's so much technology that can be in involved with getting people in and moving people around and you know and then once the festival gets going that's when you well last year was a great festival because I saw you relax to some extent so let's just hope that that that's this year again.
• 1:39:30
  SPEAKER_01: This year I'm gonna be I'm gonna be in a big baby carriage and people just been pushing yeah but don't promise not to set your face on fire.
• 1:39:39
  SPEAKER_08: No I'm I am I am no more home projects I am out of that zone yeah unless it's the fire tip right the RFID chip you know the wristbands I beat Lollapalooza Coachella and South by Southwest festival to doing that the the wristbands with the RFID chips and so I feel like we're we're pretty innovative and I feel like the technology and the and the people there that to execute it worked.
• 1:40:06
  SPEAKER_01: And a little bitty festival I guess probably shouldn't be we should probably still be doing like the print at home tickets and that little barcode scan but we're not we're you know wristband beep beep beep you're in and and we're good at that now so but yeah Nash I'm the fire pit is no more it's a swimming pool now I'm done I I built a big wraparound deck I actually ran a two inch nail from a nail or into my finger but I did that in June so it's all hailed uh there's no blood there's no scarring I'm ready to go I would have died that I can't handle needles or nail anything impaling me I just pass out so that would have been it all right so uh Randy before we go we have to we have to have a tour yes on Wednesday Tuesday or Wednesday we have to meet you upstairs out of the special glass up in the in the office yes in your official glass out of that out of that let's make that a tradition special glass yes we did that last year and that was awesome uh brandy yes sir can you see me you guys are you the three of you and then Carl is not here but you're very special me and you know why and and Jeffrey you know the whole media program and media row started with you and I talking about what can we do and now it's a a 40 foot by 40 foot air conditioned tent with a bar and all and interview rooms but it all started with the Scotchy Bourbon boys in like the one little tent in front of uh spawning hall so thank you yeah I mean I never forgot yeah no problem for getting inspiration last year you got it down last year we weren't we weren't close to music uh somebody playing music and we had that little side tent and and then getting we did a couple morning the morning podcasts are fantastic before the festival opens I can that that works out the whole thing was I loved what you did with the media tent last year and I know you moved it but at the same time you didn't move it next to a band playing so that's all that's all that you can ask for.
• 1:42:30
  SPEAKER_08: Well and we've got Bar Sound Tourism is sponsoring that media tent and the little interview suites it's not perfect look I mean I get it I mean we're we're out in the middle of a temporary a yard you know park and no it's it's okay to have the the the the microphones are so good now you can have the little background noise of people behind you talking or whatever that's that's fine.
• 1:42:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's just you know the one year was like they were playing music and then it was like going up the top and dropping and it was just like holy crap how did that work but no but I think you really last year nailed it and I think this year and and the air conditioning was awesome in that tent the best it wasn't holy crap it was what the shit what the shit that year.
• 1:43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah yeah the one year was what the shit oh but that it wasn't what the shit let's be honest let's be honest I I I I gotta get back into doing the comic strip strip again because I got all the characters and everything but I love that oh but and every week every one ends with what the shit yeah and John John Ritt he he loves what the shit that half the time he just he just texts me in the middle of the day he just texts me and you've done it too you just text me in the middle of the day what the shit because that's the way and I think that's the way the world goes these days.
• 1:43:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's just that all you do me a favor Jeffrey what the shit Scotchy bourbon boys t-shirt hey CT let's CT let's make that happen what the shit Scotchy bourbon boys t-shirts I'll wear shit on the front and Scotchy bourbon boys logo on the back yeah now or maybe what the SHI uh with the S no just what the shit shit I mean we live in 2026 who who the hell thinks shit's a swear word anymore nobody I mean my god my 10 year old granddaughter dropped something and she just went shit we know what WTF means but what about WTS?
• 1:44:39
  SPEAKER_01: What the sh?
• 1:44:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah that's a good one too WTS yeah I'm a master marketer that yes you are WTS all right all right let's get some people let's get some people on rookie s what would tiny say what all right so what would tiny say what would tiny say or what the shit yeah that's that that works both ways what would I I like I still like what the shit WTS oh yeah what the shit WTS what the all right everybody remember wscotchyburbonboysall dot com and K KY Bourbonfestival dot com go there and check it out there they have way more merchandise than I do but we have Glen Karen's and we just had our crystal glencaron meeting and but I will thank you oh is that this year's nice wow that's pretty nice that for the VIP yeah awesome look at that the uh I I got I got last year's oh I love last year Nash I got you awesome I've got I've got last year's yep with the with the still yep that's cool I love it yeah that's the one I missed that one last year and then the first year with with the with the Canton Cooper so consider yourself covered I got you bro this this pen is badass it's it's lacquered it's clear lacquer nice and it's got the uh the 35 up here I probably can't see that maybe you got it yeah but it's it's the best damn pen I've ever had and so I'm I'm really that also with the American flag coincides with America's two 250th too and and look at this this is the new yeah that's a nice oh that's nice with the red band that's sharp it's watch number it's watch number five so I feel like I feel like at one point Randy you're gonna be do you you ever see that the our friends and neighbors with ham on and and someone's gonna come in they're just gonna be coming to your house to take one of your Orvis watches it's gonna be on that might even be an episode anyways all right so I'm plugging my my friends with Oris and Retro 51 and Jacob Bromwell yeah 3.3 pounds this is a little guy it's it's TSA safe and we're selling them at the festival this year so oh cool they'll have will they have a booth what the shit the shirt now there it is look at that that's a that's the shirt right there you like that Randy from what the shit that's the shirt with cigars and the Scotchy Burbid boys just make the logo on the barrel our logo and we got it CT.
• 1:48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Jeffrey oh that's nice you got the copper I got the 24 karat gold I do have I've got the 24 Kentucky rum it's called the Kentucky you got that one I got the 24 karat gold one last year for Father's Day.
• 1:48:24
  SPEAKER_01: I got the one the the that one and I I basically handed out the doweling 1946 dowling in that that that uh I like the gold decanters because you can leave something in there as long as you want and it's not sometimes with the copper ones you can't leave it in too long but that one you can leave it in and it's still good six months later if it was in there.
• 1:48:51
  SPEAKER_08: So I like that with that the only thing I don't like about the copper flasks is it oxidized right in the copper.
• 1:49:00
  SPEAKER_08: I I don't like that but the gold ones I mean it does not and you're on the way to a vatcher game and you drink it at the in the pregame before the you know while you're gating it it's good but don't want September now.
• 1:49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Next year Randy let's have the Prius club where if you you buy a special thing and you get a free Prius the Prius club I think he should do the BMW club I think yeah actually I think at one point he'll be able to have the Corvette club where it'll be and you get a Corvette when you it's just like 8500 I'll be selling my Audi next year so if you spend$10,000 you get an Audi and a ticket to the festival I get rid of my car.
• 1:49:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's perfect.
• 1:49:43
  SPEAKER_01: Put it yeah that would be awesome all right so I'll that's that'd save me on a rental buddy no need for a car buy this is anybody even watching yes lots of people are watching on YouTube and Facebook no tonight was a tonight was great.
• 1:50:03
  SPEAKER_01: So anyways Facebook YouTube Instagram and X and we're also on Apple iHeart and Spotify no matter whether you listen to us or watch us make sure you leave good feedback and also become a member or do super chats all that kind of stuff we use everything everything goes right back into the podcast and then remember good bourbon equals good times with good friends and you guys are good friends man and make sure you drink responsibly don't drink and drive drink and drive and live your life supernatch uncut and unfiltered AI will take us out and Stacy said leave leave herbs on the dead