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Exploring the Legal Tangle of Bourbon: History, Myths, and Modernity with Brian Haara · The Scotchy Bourbon Boys

• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Hey Scotchy Bourbon Boys fans, this is Alan Bishop, Indiana's Alchemist of the Black Forest, so I'm tuning in here today to tell you all about the One Piece at a Time Distilling Institute channel on YouTube.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: If you're at all interested in the art of distilling whether it be home distilling or professional distilling, and the intense geekery that goes into that process, then check out the One Piece at a Time Distilling Institute on YouTube.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I promise you're going to learn something you didn't know before about the arts.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Scotchie Bird and his boys.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: We're here to have fun.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: We hope you enjoy.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: We're here to have fun, yeah, yeah.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: All right, welcome back to another podcast of the Scotchy Bourbon Boys.
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: Tonight we have a very special guest, brian Hara.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: There you go, I got it.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: There you go, welcome, welcome.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: I appreciate you having me.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: It's going to be fun.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: It should be a blast.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: Uh, I'm, I'm excited having you on because, um, this is something, uh, for a long time you know it's.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: It's kind of like when you watch somebody, um, you know over and over, and you get to know, uh, personalities, that type thing, and then also respect them for their knowledge.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: It's kind of cool to be able to have you on the podcast.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: So thank you for being on.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: It warms my heart.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: It's another way of saying I've done this longer than I ever would have dreamt.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: I mean it's kind of crazy and it's still going on.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: So I'm loving every day of it and it's still going on.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: So I'm loving every day of it.
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: That's awesome, and it's kind of good to be now through that whole experience of the last couple years.
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: You have to admit right, oh, absolutely 100%.
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: So you for anybody, you're a lawyer, correct?
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: Lawyer for the day job.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: I do a lot of business litigation and and bourbon law so that I've been able to marry kind of together the I'm a law nerd, I like that, or some bourbon uh, and let's call it enthusiast instead of nerd, and uh got to put those two things together so and and you know what's really cool about the bourbon industry, I found it's kind of like a shiny polish on it because you know it has to get on the shelves and they got to do all the advertising, the promotion and commercials and everything, but at the same time it's still, at its core, a business you know Absolutely and it's a you know some of them are factories, so it's a.
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: It's a.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: You know some of them are factories, so it's a.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: It's a manufacturing business.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: And you've got all of this.
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: You've got so many dynamics going on with international markets and what's going on in our market and you've always got pressures from 10 different directions.
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: It's a.
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: It's a high stress business.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: But I think you're right, A lot of people you don't see that because you're just focused on the celebrity ads or the you know what's shiny and new and has a horse on it that's on the shelf this week and there's.
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of glitter and lights and smokes and mirrors right and but then like yeah, exactly, and then, um, our whiskey.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: Uh, he's one of our podcast group.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: He's a top insurance salesman in the country, so one of the things that he's been doing as he gets into this is that now he's really because of being on the podcast, being in the industry, meeting the people he basically knows they all need insurance.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: So he has been streamlining to do, you know, bourbon distilleries, you know, and insuring and that type of thing.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: So the same kind of thing I'm sure that you know legally, they all need, they all need legal representation or guidance, right?
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: They need the legal side, they need the insurance side.
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: They all need legal representation or guidance, right?
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: Sure, they need the legal side, they need the insurance side, they need the accounting and especially tax side.
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's so tax heavy so they need all those professionals.
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: So one thing I've learned through this is I've always liked what I joke around as my day job.
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: I've not been one of those people who say I'm dreading Monday morning or anything, so I've always liked, you know, what I joke around as my day job.
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: You know I've not been one of those people who say, you know, I'm dreading Monday morning or anything, so I've really liked it.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: But it's been so much more enjoyable when I can work on something for a bourbon client.
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: You know, a new vintage spirits bar opening up or a new brand.
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: You know some guys coming in from out of state trying to start a brand in kentucky, doing it the right way.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: It's just so it's.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: It's warms my heart to have those kinds of clients and and help help somebody in an industry that I love so much yeah, and then also one of the things, uh, you, you wrote a book called bourbon justice and, uh, and from from everything that I've, what would you say, researched about it, is that, uh, history, um, is recorded in court documents, and I never would have guessed it.
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, go ahead, go ahead.
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: Right and that's something, but the court documents for the most part, because we, you know, sometimes we get stuck in that we are making history, you know, and because we're in modern times and it's somehow different than what they did back then.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: They didn't have as much technology and all that stuff and it wasn't as big of a country, but in reality, I'm sure at the time they were thinking how far advanced they were compared to 100 years before that.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: The same kind of thing we do and now we're 100 years past it and it seems like it's way in the past and somehow we're so much more advanced, you know.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: You just sometimes have to realize what part we're playing.
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: That's right and it's.
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: It's just this progressive advancement.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, when these guys were starting, everything was pot still, the way you know way Alan likes to do it, and you know columns still started coming in and when they started it was all.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: It was not only just a pot still, but it was open wood fires and then they started going to boilers and steam heat and all these sorts of things.
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: So there's all this advancement that they were experiencing and trying to deal with and trying to understand the science of it.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: We've got such a better handle on the science now.
• 9:06
  Speaker 4: I mean it must have been something else growing up in the bourbon industry in the 1800s.
• 9:11
  Speaker 4: There's just so much to keep up with, so many changes.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: And yeah, and well, even how can you say that there's not, that there's a lot of changes now, and that's one thing as, like you said, I mean the laws in Kentucky over the last five years, just to be for what you can do, like at.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: You know, I remember going to the 2019 Kentucky Bourbon Festival, the 2019 Kentucky Bourbon Festival, and you, basically, it was the first time ever that if you had something you could walk around with it, you could take it with you.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: You know it was, that was that's all you could do, and before that you couldn't even walk around with a bourbon or a drink.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: And now, when you look at what you're going to be able to do this year at the festival, and you know, and then you know by by being this year at the festival, and you know, and then you know by by being a part of the festival somewhat, I've learned so much about non-distilling produce and listening to the round table.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: You know the ndps and whatever, and you know, as far as that goes, I mean, and you're, and you being a lawyer, I, anybody who wants to get into it from that standpoint such as, what Kenny and Ryan did you have to?
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: They have to have a lawyer to tell them what they can and can't do right.
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: You better.
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, some people have tried it without it.
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: I mean it can get expensive, but you need a lawyer on your team.
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: You need a CPA on your team who understands the taxes you need when you're working with your distiller and hopefully even as a merchant bottler.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: You're working closely with your distiller and you're working on the mash bill.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: You're working on what the char is on the barrels.
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: You need somebody who knows to guide you.
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: Now you'll learn it along the way and you'll figure out those laws, and some of the laws are made to more or less let the owner be the one to figure it out, like you can figure out your own certificate of label approval.
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: You can do that.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: You want your co-packer to be the one to actually take care of it.
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: But you can figure out those things.
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: You can file your own trademark registration.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: Now, an attorney might be able to do a better search, but there are some things you can do for sure.
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: But boy, you better have those professionals in place A hundred percent.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: And then so.
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: So let's just like take Kentucky, anducky, and you got rashir as the, the governor right, and it seems like the legislature and the governor are have been on the same page.
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: To take kentucky, where they were being restricted and as the rest of the country is like taking off like handcuffs that just they're not, they're still restricting it, but they're actually taking off, they're just starting to take off, the handcuffs of almost like I'm not letting them like Indiana, for you couldn't even for the longest time you couldn't even distill there.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: I mean it's it's pretty new to the state of indiana, whereas now kentucky seems where, as those states were kind of catching up to them, that they're have good legislature and good rules to to make it start to work so that that the distillers can get the whiskey to the people and then at the same time then they can make more money in taxes.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: Well.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: I think, that's right.
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: That's a really good point and I think what you need to rely on to get the law changed is someone who takes an interest in it, and in Kentucky we've been pretty lucky to have a guy named Eric Gregory at the Kentucky Distillers Association.
• 13:03
  Speaker 4: I mean he's just had a fantastic idea is that he's been able to help talk to members of the General Assembly about get some interest there, get them to understand why there should be direct-to-consumer shipping, how that's going to help the small distillers and the large ones at that shipping, how that's going to help the small distillers and the large ones at that.
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: He's the one who can get in there and help convince the people, the legislators, and get them behind, allowing things like you're experiencing at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival or when you go on tours.
• 14:21
  Speaker 4: If you went on a tour 10 years ago, you got a sample that was about that deep and that's all they could give you.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: So now you can get a little bit more for your sample, actually taste the bourbon that you're there to get, and they've got gift shops now where you can buy the bottle of something that you just tasted.
• 14:38
  Speaker 4: So there's been so many advancements and I like the analogy.
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: You're just you're taking off the shackles, you're taking off the handcuffs, you're letting the industry provide exactly what the consumer wants.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: So all right.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: So let's get into history.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Talk about the distributors, so the history of distribution, to where we are now, and then a little bit to the point where are we as far away from distribution?
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: Um, as we think we are?
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: Are we in the modern times of distribution, or are we a veil over the top?
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: That distribution hasn't changed that much since whence, you know, prohibition was lifted.
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: We're still stuck to a large degree in my opinion Now, the three-tier system which a lot of people have heard.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: That phrase came out of prohibition.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: It was basically you know, how can we still be paternalistic, how can we still try to protect the consumer, how can we still try to separate the producer from the consumer?
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: And they came up with these three levels.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: So you've got producer at one, you've got the wholesale slash distributor in the middle, and then you've got the retailer and the rules are you can't own more than one of those.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: Your ownership has to be solely one of those three.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: And then beyond that you can't as a producer, you're not supposed to be dictating what the retailer does.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: There's a rule called a tied house rule.
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: You basically can't have a retailer that just sells one type.
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: You can't provide as a producer, you can't provide a lot of benefits to the retailer.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: You can't set the retail price.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: Even that is done.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: That's out of your hands once you get it to the wholesale level.
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: So we're breaking through that a little bit.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: There are a lot of different kinds of restrictions in different states.
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: Tennessee had a rule where you couldn't be an out-of-stater if you were a retailer.
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: So there was a total wine case about four or five years ago Total Wine was trying to come in and they couldn't in Tennessee.
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: Now does everyone need a Total Wine?
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: I don't know about that, but still it gets down to these really kind of oppressive rules that govern and regulate the entire spirits industry.
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: Now, when we get to direct-to-consumer shipping, that breaks down the three-tier system, when we have on-premises sales, that can help break it down, and I think those are smart things to be doing.
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: It doesn't need to be as strict things to be doing.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: It doesn't need to be as strict.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: I think there's I mean even I'll admit there's some value in some level of separation, but it is just, it's just way too strict.
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: It just throttled innovation and it throttled the little guy especially.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: And I will.
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: But coming out of prohibition you're talking about, the distributor was the people who were distributing it during prohibition?
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: And so the government was like you know what you got to produce.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: They're going to start producing, we're going to tax them, but don't think that now that it's legal, that you just get to distribute it and you don't have to pay taxes.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: So that's really what it came down to.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: I know that.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: And then it came.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: You know, once they distribute, then the retailer comes in.
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: Now in the state of Ohio, when it's controlled, the state of Ohio basically takes over for the distributor.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: It's basically they buy from and then they have the right to tell the retailer what to say because they're the government, right.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: So that's where the you know.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: When you think about how you know, you got your federal government and then you got your state, and when they're all in one, that's a lot of taxation.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Now, initially that was a bad thing, until there's this bourbon boom.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: And now, all of a sudden, for the state of Ohio being able to actually get sought after allocated bourbon at MSRP and you really do have a shot here is actually a good thing.
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: But up until that point it was horrible.
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: It's great for you, but now you're seeing people from border states coming in.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's Kentuckians, especially in Covington, that just stream over the border and buy all the Weller or whatever it is of the day that is popular, and they'll try to get that and bring it on back.
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: Well, and then you have Ohioans just buying all of it up and then they distribute into the states because they'll go down and trade it.
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: You know now Kentucky on that end has actually really kind of curbed that.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: They kind of cracked down on that.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: You know, with the retailers trading with, you know the people from you know that used to be something, but that you know.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: Now I wanted to talk about that because this is where, realistically, I want to know your opinion on this whole thing.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: Enforcement so that's always been a problem in the United States.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: We have lots and lots and lots of laws right.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: Enforcement on the level of any law, and we've kind of coming through, I think coming through COVID.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of laws that basically had the ability to enforce it challenged, you know, even stuff that shouldn't have been, you know.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: So it really comes down to now two things the consumer breaking the law or whatever.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: You know, as far as trading or reselling on a secondary market, that in itself itself is in most cases illegal and and uh.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: But at the same time the consumer is the one that's buying the alcohol.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: And if you, if the government, goes in and puts the people who are breaking that law in jail, then you, you kind of trash the market in itself because I really believe there's a place.
• 21:11
  Speaker 3: Not that I'm serious with this.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: I don't participate in the secondary market.
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: I never have.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: I've traded a couple times, but not to the point of you know where it's.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: Like my friend has a bottle and he wants this and we trade.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: I mean that's it.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: But the secondary market, in my opinion, wants this and we trade.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: I mean that's it.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: But the secondary market, in my opinion, really gives one, the producers, a really good knowledge of what they're making.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: Okay, so they, if that secondary is going crazy, they know they're not making enough or whatever.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: It's a good study point for them.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: But it also comes down to, um, they all nobody wants to put anybody that they're, they're a consumer in jail.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: I mean they don't want.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: They don't want to find them, they don't want to make this something right now.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: It's such a fun thing to do.
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: They don't want to, you know.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: So enforcement really comes down to it, right, and it's always been the problem.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: So what do you think about that?
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: You know what's your opinion.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: Man, there's so much going on in that I mean, it's tough to even know where to begin, but I do have a couple of thoughts on it.
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: So, as far as setting the price, you're absolutely right about that.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: I mean, I remember when you could go to the Will it gift shop and get you know a 20 year Will it and you used to just absolutely choke.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: That it was, you know, like three hundred fifty dollars.
• 22:34
  Speaker 4: You know just an outrageous price in you know, 2013, 2014.
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: But what drew would find is people would in the parking lot, would be posting a bottle for a thousand dollars, fifteen hundred dollars, and yeah, it's just from a retailer just to see 10 seconds later the bottle that you just sold.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: You put your heart into going for fifteen hundred,500 instead of the $350, one.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: It kind of sucks because you didn't get that, but it helps.
• 23:03
  Speaker 4: You know what your value is and you saw Willett prices in the gift shop go up and I think it's.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: You know he hadn't told me that, but I think you can see it happen and I think it's a direct correlation.
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: So it helps set the retail price.
• 23:19
  Speaker 4: Now, eventually the producers would charge the wholesalers more for it and then the wholesalers would charge the retailers more and that's going to raise it too.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: And now we're in a world where you don't bat an eyelash now to have $150, $250, $1,000 bourbon, whereas 10 years ago I remember writing some post that you know I wasn't going to spend more than $50 on a bottle.
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's just, it's crazy talk now.
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, there's wishful thinking then and it's crazy talk now.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: So you're right, that helps it.
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: The illegality of it?
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: You're right, it's.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: It's illegal in every state for someone to to sell on the secondary market.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: You can't sell if you're, if you're not, a licensee.
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: So you've got states like Kentucky that, in 2018, passed the vintage spirits law.
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: There's still some dispute over really what qualifies as a vintage spirit.
• 24:18
  Speaker 4: Still some dispute over you know really what qualifies as a vintage spirit.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: You know, if it's a 1934 old granddad, yeah, that's a vintage spirit.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: The law actually says if you can't get it from your distributor, if a retailer can't get it from the distributor, then it's vintage.
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: If it's a single barrel selection, it's immediately vintage because you can't get it anywhere else.
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: You can't get it from a wholesaler.
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: So that's why some of the shops here in Louisville and other places in Kentucky have people go up to Ohio or they have people in Ohio come down and they bring us all of your blends, because if you're a retailer in Kentucky you can't call up your distributor and say, hey, send me 10 cases of Blanton.
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: It's a laugh at you.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: So that's being considered vintage, even though it's a current release of Blantons.
• 25:13
  Speaker 4: And the Kentucky ABC I don't think really agrees with that, because they're the ones who have who've rated Justin's House Suburban and and are trying to make that argument.
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: They rated Doc Crow's.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: They took bottles off the shelves from both Doc Crow's, which is a restaurant downtown, and from Justin's.
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: So it's it's kind of the wild west out there and those cases are still working their way through the administrative system and and I'm totally watching those I want to see how those shake out.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no doubt.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: And then I know Brad Bonds personally what he's doing up there with Vintage Spirits.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: Revival.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, revival, and I really think he's doing a good job, plus his partner's, a lawyer, revival and.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: I really think he's doing a good job, Plus his partner's, a lawyer, and Shannon just to tap her a little bit one of the best spirits attorneys in the state and to be able to pair her with Revival is well one, it's genius, but they've got a good thing going on at Revival.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you get the feeling that they really know what they're doing, although they get, you know, people challenge them.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: They're being challenged at a lot of different levels but you know, it's Brad.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: He definitely is such a great personality and he enjoys doing it so much.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: You can just tell he wakes up and he pinches himself how much fun he's having.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: You know, and yeah, I think part of what's happening from the standpoint legally, how they try, you know, the city of, or the city of covington and what he's, those, those issues they've been having um, I really think that's fun for him to.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: To an extent, I think him and Shannon uh are enjoy enjoying getting through it because they know they're going to get through it, because they know they have the legal, you know, uh, standpoint.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: But you know there's, as we know, in this day and age it's not always legality and that's once again their enforcement.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know that you can have rules, but if the judge decides for some reason he doesn't, you know he likes the, the somebody else down the street.
• 27:26
  Speaker 3: He might rule against you.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: That's, I guess, well, why we have judges well, that's why we have appellate courts, I guess is why we have that.
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: But uh, it's're right and anything that is open to any kind of interpretation is is just ripe for litigation and a lot of expense, because Justin's and and Doc Crow's has had really good legal arguments and the ABC had their own legal arguments and now it's.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: You know, you've got to go through administrative process on some of that.
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: One of those has a case in Frankfurt going on right now.
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: That's kind of waiting for the administrative side to go through and you just got to let it all shake out and it's a time consuming, expensive process.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Intensive process and so right there, I mean this is all being documented and basically they're making history that somebody in the future will be able to and it doesn't.
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: What would you say?
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: For the most part it's factual.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: It's not being told over and over and changing throughout time to make somebody look better or grander than they were.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: You know it's, it's just the facts correct.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's really what it is.
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: That's exactly right.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: And to to shift back to your earlier comment about the book, I mean, that's that's what I ended up finding is because during prohibition, everyone threw away their damn records.
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: You know they.
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: Alcohol was dead.
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: There was some, you know, medicinal manufacturing, but as far as handing your distillery down from one generation to the next and you all distilling and you all, you know, knowing what's going on, no one, no one, wanted that.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: You were the is is a kind of a black sheep thing to do, and so all of those factual records were lost.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: Well, and they wanted to lose them because they were basically not only were they, I mean, but they were closed and they were told they couldn't make money.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: But yet they were making money.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: But they didn't want records of what the hell was going on.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: And that's why you know it's funny, because you know Prohibition ended in.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: What was it?
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: It was 12 and a half years total.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: I think it was almost 13.
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's right at about the time that all the stock in Kentucky was running out.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: I mean you know all the all the politicians and everybody.
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: The whole time, while they were trying and busting everybody and breaking it, they were all drinking.
• 30:05
  Speaker 4: The politicians had plenty.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: That's, that's the hilarious thing during Prohibition.
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: They wanted, you know, they wanted to make sure they had their own supply.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: So when that started running out they're like, oh, we better start making it again.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: But also they put the country in a Great Depression.
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm a firm believer they don't teach this in the school books, but when they did that you're talking about, the farming community suffered because we no longer were making grain spirits.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: What did you do with the farm, the corn, when you grew too much?
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: It would just go to the.
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: So they stopped planting that much and after that many years it wouldn't make sense to plant all those seeds and not sell it right.
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: And so then you're not buying equipment and you're not hiring farmhands.
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: And the economic side of prohibition is one that I don't think people talk enough about.
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: But if you look back at the pre-prohibition era, when the distillers are arguing against it, they're not arguing based on alcohol is not dangerous or alcohol is great.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: It's great for people.
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: They're not making those arguments.
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: I mean, those would be dumb arguments to make.
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: They were approaching it from a wait a second.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and control this.
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: Control my industry, control my livelihood, but think about the tax consequences we have been paying.
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: Every time there's been a war, we've been paying for it.
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: When the Civil War started, you reinstituted the distillery tax.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: We paid for that war.
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: You kept it on.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: We have been keeping the federal government humming this entire time and if you shut us down, you lose all those downstream economies, you lose that incredible tax base.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: And they rang those bells and you know the prohibition movement didn't care.
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: And then also it.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: It's just like then it gets taken over by organized crime and they make all the money.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: They, they import it, they they sell the stock, they do everything and they make and there's no taxation on it.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: So they said, during prohibition people drank more than they did pre-prohibition.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: But also the government was naive in the fact that I didn't realize this until I started getting in this.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: But in 1916 was the first time they established was it income tax or was it property tax?
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: One or the other right?
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's the income tax, yeah, so they thought, now that they're getting income tax, that they're just going to be, they don't need the taxation from the alcohol.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: And little did they know that when you eliminate so many jobs of in the farms and the making of the machinery and everything, the income tax is going to go down.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: But you know that that part was, I think that part they thought was going to be covered by the income tax.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: You know making it up and it didn't even come close.
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: But I always now tell this is something that I heard, I don't know it for sure, but Al Capone, I heard that they always say so.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: When you think about it, they only implemented income tax in 1916, right, so prohibition's.
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: Four years later he gets into it, he starts making all this tax-free money that he never has to pay taxes on, so he goes through all prohibition.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: So then when they make it legal, they said they got him on tax evasion, right to put him in jail.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: But it wasn't from whiskey.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: I heard that he actually has this quote.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: Why would I keep selling whiskey when I can own dairies and everybody drinks milk?
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: And they actually got him on tax evasion from his dairies, now his dairy farms.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: I've never heard that that's.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: That's a story that I heard and I'm not sure if it's true, but it's like that, you know, when you think about it.
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: And it would make sense because, coming out, he never paid taxes.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: So he starts a dairy farm.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: He probably wasn't paying because he was al capone and they got him.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: Everybody always assumes it was from selling and making the money from that, from that's what I assumed, but no, he's right, everyone drinks milk.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that quote.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: He did own dairies, so interesting, right, yeah, All right.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: So let's talk about the counterfeit.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: What do you know?
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, as a podcaster, all I do is hear things about, and I know the Buffalo Trace products coming out of China that's what I've heard and the Pappy's and the EH Taylor's that they're matching the labels, even the markings on the bottles, to a T.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: So is that something that's you know?
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: Is that really happening?
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, what do you know actually, what the government knows, and what are they trying to do at this point?
• 35:14
  Speaker 4: I've heard those rumors too.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: I don't know factually whether that's really going on or to what degree it is, but I mean I don't doubt it.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, if you're in China and you can do pirated DVDs and pirated software and all those sorts of things, sure why not do what the hot commodity is now?
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: So I think that's definitely happening.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: All of the distilleries are working on anti-counterfeiting measures.
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: Some of them have the near-field communication chip on the closure, like Buffalo Trace has done with the BTAC line.
• 35:55
  Speaker 4: But I tell you they have to worry.
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: I think, before they worry about China, the thing to worry about is consumers, about people listening to your show who are active on the secondary market.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: They got to worry about guys doing refills.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: I mean that's the fraud that you and I or anyone on the secondary market is going to experience, because there are a thousand ways to figure out how to get a label off cleanly and to put it on another bottle.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: I mean you still go to eBay now Anyone right now listening go to eBay and look up empty Pappy Van Winkle and you can pay $150, $200 if you get the velvet bag with it.
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: You can come away with an empty Pappy Van Winkle and you can pay $150, $200 if you get the velvet bag with it.
• 36:40
  Speaker 4: You can come away with an empty Pappy Van Winkle.
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: You use that label, you fill it up with something else, you get a new closure, you figure out how to fool somebody and you sell it for $10,000.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: That's, I think, what people need to worry about, and that's harder to check in some ways but easier in others.
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: You know when the deal is too good to be true, it's too good to be true.
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: You know nobody out there.
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: Please, please, please, don't buy bourbon off of anyone on Instagram or Twitter.
• 37:09
  Speaker 4: You know there's some easy things to do to not get tricked.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, even I get asked all the time.
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: You know, because I'm in a lot of bourbon groups and someone will ask me do you know this person?
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: And I'm like I don't.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: I tell them straight up, unless if you're trading with somebody, know them.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: You know you shouldn't be training somebody that you don't know really well.
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: I mean somebody who's not going to.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: You know them enough not to rip you off.
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: I mean it's just that simple.
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: I mean you know and that's just trading.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about just trading.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: If you're talking about buying secondary, you know that's a whole different story.
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: But once again I'll just say the same thing Know the person, because if you're doing it with, with a stranger, you know somebody who you just met or whatever I mean.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: But you know how many times just on on a podcast do I get, oh, if, if you does anybody need any bottles, I've got bottles and it's like it might be a.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: You know, we just had lawrence berg on it's like you don't have any bottles it's just like it's just pure scam right off the bat right 100 scam.
• 38:23
  Speaker 4: I mean it's, it's crazy.
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: And we just had a news story last week locally about someone buying whiskey on facebook and they, you know, went to the local news station because they never got it.
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: Surprise, surprise, they never got it delivered to them.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: It's like, okay, you're an idiot.
• 38:39
  Speaker 4: But the trouble is, when you buy a counterfeit bottle on the secondary market, are you going to go to the police about it?
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: You know, nope, okay, you just did something illegal.
• 38:54
  Speaker 4: So, no, you're not.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: Um, so there's, there's not a lot of enforcement out there on the secondary market sales.
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: It always makes the news.
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: You know, if something happens in pennsylvania, you know it.
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: It makes the news.
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: When there's a bust in some random town, it makes the news.
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: And it makes the news because it's so rare that law enforcement does anything about it.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: There's rampant counterfeiting out there, right?
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: but just from the standpoint of this crime, we've got our own issues with police having problems with just people doing crimes where they're hurting people and they can't even do any.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: There's so much right now that realistically, the only thing that gets hurt on a counterfeit thing for the from the police standpoint is your pocketbook and you could write that up as you know.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: There's all the warnings out there, right?
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: There's all the warnings and you're engaged in an illegal transaction.
• 39:59
  Speaker 4: So you know I'm with you on that.
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: There's all the warnings and you're engaged in an illegal transaction.
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: So you know, I'm with you on that.
• 40:06
  Speaker 4: I'm not criticizing law enforcement for not going after that.
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: I don't think it should be a necessarily a top priority.
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: I hope they do pay more attention to areas of town where there's actually violent crime and folks vulnerable people that they need to protect.
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: So I'm a hundred% in favor of that.
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: But it's just funny there's no enforcement because there's just not the resources for it and you've got people getting swindled left, right and center and they think they're going to get a 20-year-old pappy from some dude they never met on Twitter.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, year old pappy from some dude they never met on twitter.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and and just, you know.
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: Also, I think the secondary market's smart enough that if they're gonna, if they're gonna refill a bottle, they refill it with um, jim beam or whatever.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: They're not putting in something that's gonna kill somebody.
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: Because if that started to happen, you know you're all of a sudden getting sick or whatever.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: That'd be a whole different story of enforcement needing to be done.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: You know you're all of a sudden getting sick or whatever.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: That'd be a whole different story of enforcement needing to be done.
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: You know, it's not like.
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: You know you're getting bad, you're getting bad heroin and dying because of fentanyl.
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's a.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: That's a whole different breakdown, right, I mean, of what we're talking about.
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: So, and they can't enforce.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: If you haven't noticed that they can't even enforce that.
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: So this is probably the least thing on their radar.
• 41:25
  Speaker 3: But yeah, so now the last thing.
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: I will not the last, but one of the things.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: As far as like, talk about like, from my standpoint, our group does barrel picks.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: We've just finished up our Elijah Craig barrel pick.
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: Being in the state of Ohio, I can do the pick through Ohio.
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: But I'm basically similar, I'm worse than the retailer because I basically have to basically buy it and then for retail and then it's just got to be straight across retail to retail kind of thing, which is not a problem because you get the fun of doing the barrel pick and then all the people in your, in your, you know, get to do it makes it worth it.
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but talk about, um, I see a lot of people that do a lot of the picks.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: But then they want to go in and start their own brand because they sold so many barrels.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: You know they sold their barrel picks left and right all day long and they're selling.
• 42:38
  Speaker 3: So then they think that well, if I just buy some barrels, I do a blend, I can sell it as a my own brand and it's pretty much the same thing.
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: Similar, so does, from a legal standpoint that that's got to be a pretty big jump it's a huge jump.
• 42:57
  Speaker 4: I mean you're depending on what you're picking.
• 42:59
  Speaker 4: So you're elijah craig, would you get about 120 bottles out of it?
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: 72 so you had a low barrel.
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, I got a short barrel oh, I got lucky though I, I had, um, I had vouchers for pre-sale and they were that was everybody and I hadn't cut it off yet.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: But then I had probably 40, 50 people waiting for it to get delivered and they were just gonna.
• 43:28
  Speaker 3: You know, they were weren't gonna do the pre-sale and when I, when I found out what the the barrel was, I believe they said 72.
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: And I was at 60.
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: No, I was at 78.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: But one of my podcast, you know, the person in the podcast had purchased 10.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: So I backed him off and everybody was able to get.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: But it really now going forward, all people are asking when's your next pick?
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: And I didn't get any.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: So it's almost like you know what you can't have kind of thing.
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: So it's been making it so much more popular, just tapped into the buffalo trace marketing campaign strategy and I didn't, and I didn't even do it on purpose now, but you're, you're right, it's.
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: It's a totally different ball game when you start and I didn't even do it on purpose, no, but you're right.
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: It's a totally different ballgame when you start with your own brand, because now, all of a sudden, you've got to be, you got to have a permit from the federal government, from the TTB.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: You got to get licenses from whatever state you're in, from Kentucky ABC or wherever it is you're doing it.
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: You're buying bulk from Brindiamo, some kind of broker, maybe you have a deal from a distillery that is selling, and they're going to give you a nondisclosure agreement.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: So you've got all these legal obligations to deal with.
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: If you move to that next step, that's to go back to your earlier point.
• 44:57
  Speaker 4: That's when you need an attorney.
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: If you're going to start doing that, you better get an attorney.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: That makes sense.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: People have said that I've been offered people saying well, you should start distilling, or you should start because you know, as you know, when you're with the people in the industry, a lot of the smaller you've, you do a lot of, you participate in a lot of the business.
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: The business is huge.
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: Now I run just a history.
• 45:28
  Speaker 3: I'm I'm in recycling, I'm the plant manager of my cousin's paper recycling plant, the.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: The running of it is pretty much like a distillery.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: I mean it's not.
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: You're basically running large hydraulic machines where safety is a huge issue.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: You don't want people getting bailed, you know that's the kind of stuff.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: And then training is very, very important.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: Worker attitude Now I think in the distilling industry the worker attitude is a little bit better than in the recycling industry, because they come to work where they make spirits and we basically recycle.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: We feel good about ourselves that we're saving the planet, but they feel good about themselves because they're making something that pays for everything.
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: So but yes, I see similarities.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: And that was if I wanted to.
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: You know, get out of it now.
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: But I'm almost 60 now, so I'm not getting out of it.
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: But you know they're like well, come in and do a brand, or do this in and do a brand, or do this, and I'm just like one, I'm having too much fun, because that's.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: The other thing that I noticed is that if you do a brand, you're no longer the person who goes in and sees what Jimmy Russell's doing and, yes, the industry is open.
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: But now you have to concentrate on that brand so much because if you don't put your heart and soul into it, it ain't going to work.
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: I mean, and so that's all you people will see right through it.
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: That's so true.
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: People are getting more and more perceptive.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: I mean, 10 years ago, if you would have started a brand, you could have put any swill you wanted in there, put a pretty label, and I hate to tell you, but you'd be a millionaire.
• 47:19
  Speaker 4: Now, now you do it, it's going to be a little tougher.
• 47:22
  Speaker 4: The consumers have been hit so hard over the head with so many brands.
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: They've been burned by a lot of brands.
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: They're going to look a little bit deeper into it and they're going to look to make sure that whoever it is that's hawking this has the passion well, and then the you know non-distilling producers.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: Uh, I just feel right now the mgp ndps are just at, they're at their limit.
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: I mean I, I'm at my limit, I can't, I take.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: You know, my goal is to taste a lot of whiskey and it's and I'm not going to say that it's not good, but what's happened?
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: Is I really?
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: Now that's one brand I can tell you.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: There's a few brands that have been able to do it in a way that it just doesn't instantly say it's MGP.
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean, you know it.
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: Now, it's good.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: There's some distilleries that used it to get on, you know, get off the, you know Ring block Right right.
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: I mean you know it's funny because you mentioned New Riff is an example.
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: I mean he owned a liquor store, but that means he's a retailer, so he's an agency a retailer.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: So when he built the distillery he couldn't own the liquor store.
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: So he sold it yeah, he sold it to his, his employees.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: He's out of it, but that liquor store is in his parking lot.
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: It's like you know, there's a lot of ways, you know, and then you can keep your friendships.
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you just can't keep your ownership Right.
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: And now let's talk about workarounds.
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know I'm getting out of the where we were and we've talked about that a lot, but there's workarounds and if you have, if you're doing this in a good state, they'll help you work around right.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: If there's something you want to do and there's a law, well they're like.
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: Well, maybe, if you do it this way and you do this and this, then it won't be that.
• 49:20
  Speaker 4: I think that's really going to depend on your particular ABC, your version, whatever they call your ABC in your state, in your state, because I know there aren't workarounds for a lot of things and there never will be in for Kentucky ABC as far as workarounds go.
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: They're going to look for a change in the law and that's where you finally get that law passed and they have to let you do something another way.
• 49:47
  Speaker 4: But I think what they are good at is teaching you what the parameters are.
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: You know you've got to.
• 49:53
  Speaker 4: You know some people want to push the envelope and they'll tell you where the line is and you can then go up to that line, as long as you're hearing that from the ABC.
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: And do you find that the ABC?
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: Let's just say you were doing something and you weren't doing it on purpose.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: Let's just say you were doing something and you weren't doing it on purpose, like, just, I mean, because you, you they're pretty much like you're doing this, stop, right, I mean, they're just not going to go in there and try.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: And I'm not talking about breaking a legitimate, solid, you know, rule that everybody should know.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: I'm just talking about because there are so many intricacies of it nowadays, right, I mean it's so heavily.
• 50:37
  Speaker 4: I mean there's no way people are going to know what all of the rules are.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: But you can.
• 50:42
  Speaker 4: But for example, in Kentucky you can't bring alcohol onto a licensed premises.
• 50:49
  Speaker 4: So in a lot of states you know they have a, you know a corkage fee and you can bring your own bottle of wine in or whatever.
• 50:55
  Speaker 4: You can't do that here.
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: You literally will get in so much trouble if you bring alcohol onto a licensed premises.
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: I think everybody knows that.
• 51:03
  Speaker 4: But another example, on the vintage spirits.
• 51:05
  Speaker 4: Back to the vintage spirits law, the retailer is supposed to put a sticker on every bottle that they get through the vintage spirits law that they buy from an otherwise a consumer.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: And some retailers didn't do it and the ABC just came down on them with just rains of thunder.
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: And you know they're not, they're not allowing any workarounds, they're not doing any.
• 51:32
  Speaker 4: You know coaching on on what to do.
• 51:35
  Speaker 4: They went and they seized it and I mean that's a shame to me, it's, it's a freaking sticker.
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: Um, and that's what you're going to get them on I don't know well, and and so in ohio there's two different there's, there's, there's the.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: They actually have a private sector and the government sector the government sectors in charge of enforcement, where the private sector is set up for advertising and you know, it's part of the government, but and, and you get that now people, it's part of the government, but and and you get that Now people.
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: It's just like who we've had in charge over the last couple of years really turned the state around because of the fact that they understood what bourbon was.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: They understand what.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: You know what it's going and they've really made.
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: Now they've taken that bourbon boom and they've got their website.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: They're just doing it into the whole.
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: You know, a boom for alcohol in a, in a very professional, responsible way, and it's, it's, it's.
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: You know they were able to do that.
• 52:46
  Speaker 3: You know, like, I'll go to their website and it for a while there it used to be really, really heavy whiskey.
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: Now you'll go there and it's, you know, sees, mixed drinks and different things and different spirits, and you know, and they're then doing picks.
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: They've been doing barrel picks here for our state and which is great, but now they're doing barrel picks of tequila and they're doing.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: It's applying to the rest of the industry, which only helps our schools and our roads I think, yeah, it helps everybody.
• 53:20
  Speaker 4: I mean it's people you know they like to put the syntax on it, but it pays for so much.
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: Um, you just gotta it's tough to turn down turn down.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: Well, you can call it what I mean.
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: Most of the people who we promote drinking responsibly.
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, yes, there's that other aspect of it, but just because you've proven you stop making it, don't do it, they'll find a way to do it, the people will always find.
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: So it's good that you know at least we're using it for other things.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: For instance, you know, as we're going through the legalization of marijuana, first medically, which they're mirroring exactly what they did with prohibition, you know it was medicinal for 13.
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: And then they brought it back and that's kind of recreational comes in and that gives them all that actually allows them time to set up the distribution and everything.
• 54:24
  Speaker 3: You know you can't just start off and just it's a huge endeavor.
• 54:30
  Speaker 4: But I've talked to some cannabis attorneys, which is actually a thing and they are, they say they're, they are taking the playbook, um, from the pro you know, the repeal of prohibition and they're taking the playbook from the whole alcohol industry.
• 54:43
  Speaker 4: I mean, they, they let us be the test run for everything and they're doing great.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: now they're turning it around, but before we did this, people bought weed and marijuana.
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: They didn't not smoke it, everybody was smoking it and the government makes no money, so nobody gets any money from it.
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: It's just the drug dealers get the money, whereas now you make it legal and through that, all of a sudden that money that's that tax money actually can be used for people who don't smoke marijuana or whatever you know, participate using something the taxation.
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: That's fine with me.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: You're using it, you know it's.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: That's what a toll road makes total sense to me.
• 55:35
  Speaker 3: You're driving on the road and you got to pay a toll to do it so that they can keep the road smooth, and you pay the people, fill the potholes right right, and so you hope that when you're on the toll road there's not a bunch of potholes.
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: But you know, that's beside the point.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: You know, but at the same time you if that's why I never have any problem you know paying the.
• 55:57
  Speaker 3: When people talk about the taxes, it's almost like you're buying that and you know the Yellowstone brand.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: A dollar of each bottle goes to the national parks, but then the taxes go to you know.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: So you're doing your part, right, right, yeah.
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: Taxes.
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: You're keeping the schools open.
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: You're keeping the parks open, you know.
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: And you're keeping the government and a lot of money to spend frivolously.
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: But that's you know, so talk about what's talk about your book real quick, you know, so I want you to do that.
• 56:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's called Bourbon Justice and it's basically to go back to an earlier point.
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: I found out that all of the facts about these distilleries are in these old lawsuits from pre-prohibition eras the earliest ones I have were from the mid-1800s and all of those records were lost during prohibition.
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: The only place they really are anymore are the archives in Frankfurt, which is our state capital.
• 57:01
  Speaker 4: All of the trial courts send, you know, they bundle it up and they send all their records to Frankfurt when their storage room gets too full, their, you know, when their storage room gets too full.
• 57:14
  Speaker 4: So I go there and I'm I mean, I'm holding exhibits from the George T Stagg versus EH Taylor case.
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: You know things that were used in trial.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: I'm holding the things and it's crazy, I'm reading the testimony and it's, you know, it's written in that old Declaration of Independence calligraphy and you know you got to figure out how to read it first, but then, once you figure out what the letters are, you know I'm reading his words and I figured.
• 57:36
  Speaker 4: What I figured is that's the.
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: That's the best place to find accurate facts, because maybe the only thing worse than lawyers are marketers, and the marketers in the bourbon world have just totally you can't believe anything they say.
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: So I figured that I can go to the source, I can hear these people what they were saying in the 1800s and I can tell an accurate bourbon story.
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: And as I was doing that, what?
• 58:05
  Speaker 4: I found is bourbon was lead on trademark law.
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: Bourbon was lead on workplace safety law.
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: All these things came out of Kentucky because bourbon was so damn huge and it all ended up working into a book.
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: You had mentioned Fred Minnick, I think, before we went on the recording, and he was a great inspiration for me on it At the time.
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: He had already written Whiskey Women and Bourbon Curious and a few other books and he's like man, Brian, you, you got to put this into a book and I kind of pushed him off for a little while and then finally he said well, I'll write the foreword for you.
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: You, just, you got to write this book and so I tried really hard not to make it a law book.
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: It's.
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: It's supposed to be a bourbon book, it's supposed to be a bourbon history book.
• 58:50
  Speaker 4: It's just my shtick, is my source material.
• 58:53
  Speaker 4: So it was super fun and I can't give enough shout outs to Fred for kind of helping me through that.
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: So so did a lot of the facts line up with the history.
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: That was there, the stories.
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: I mean.
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: Did you find there certain times where just that was like, oh, that was real then, and then other times it was completely?
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: different most, most, most of what I found it was that it was completely different.
• 59:25
  Speaker 4: I mean, so if you go on the maker's mark, which I love, I love the folks behind it, I love their distillery, I love the brand yeah, beautiful.
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: But if you go on that tour, every tour guide is trained to tell you the same thing.
• 59:39
  Speaker 4: It's like well, bill Sr and Margie, you know they decided to leave the family company.
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: They didn't like the rye whiskey, they baked bread in their kitchen, they liked the smell of wheat bread and you know they had pewter collections and so they came up with the name Maker's Mark.
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: No, no, the real story is in Bourbon Justice.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: Bill Sr got sued because what he wanted to name his distillery.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 4: So I'm going to leave that as a teaser.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: You got to go find that in Bourbon Justice.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: It is a different story.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: The facts are different in the lawsuits.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: So just Greg Schneider, who is right now master distiller of the Chicken Cock brand.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: He's bringing back the Chicken Cock brand.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: He started in Seagrams in 1978 and he went through the whole.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: He's worked at wild turkey, he's worked at jimby.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: You know through the whole thing and he just said that if you want to write some bourbon history, he's got 46 years to share with you because he knows excellent.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: It's funny because he knows the stories too.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: I mean, he knows, you know what, how the master distillers are presented and what do they, what are they?
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: You know there's, there's, there's a lot of times where they're the face of the distilling.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: Then there's been master distillers who don't just still anything.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: They over at all, yeah, they've got people distilling it they might help with.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: And then there's, you know, even blenders, like sometimes you think, uh, distillery, the distiller's blending, and then you find out somebody else is pretty much blending away, so it, but it had to be the same back then.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: I mean it was completely the same.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: So another story then that I found is eh, tayh Taylor, everyone calls him the, you know, a distiller.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: He didn't distill a damn thing.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: He hired a distiller.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 4: Every single distillery that he ever had.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: He hired a distiller.
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 4: And now you think of him he's like, oh, he's this great distiller from 1870 on.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: He's the old Taylor distiller, all that.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: No, he was a distillery owner.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: He was like the first chief marketing officer.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: He's the one who figured out all this bourbon tourism stuff.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: He did all of those things, all great things, but he was not a distiller.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: And that's, I think, exactly which point is he probably bought the stills and knew which he paid for it, yeah, and paid for it and knew which ones he wanted to buy, but he didn't, he wasn't running them and I mean, and you know he went from James E Pepper to you know what Old Fire Copper at the time right was the distillery and was doing both of them.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: It's just, you know, losing both.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: Right, right.
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: But then, just like any great entrepreneur, you know they'll lose everything.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: And they don't.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: They don't perceive it the same way, they don't.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 3: They just say, ok, that's gone, let's work on getting people involved.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: And that's one great thing about the bourbon industry.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: It's like people love whiskey so much, especially higher class people.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: The owner, you know the people who have the money for investing.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 3: There's a whole kind of thing.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: You know the politicians and because of that, it seems like if you can have the knowledge to build or make it, there's a lot of people who will support you and help you do it.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: Now, do they stick around when things go wrong?
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: No, everybody kind of jumps ship and then you take the fall right.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: That's what it's designed to do, as the owner, I think.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: Unfortunately and I mean that's what he ran into and it's something that plays out- time and time again.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: That's the other thing I found in this.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 4: There's almost nothing new under the sun.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, the same issues keep coming up and there's facts that are being laid out today in new cases that I mean might as well have been in the 1800s, and that part is fascinating to me as well.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: Well, even in distilling people think there's some innovation happening.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: But after prohibition we lost so much that if you get a distiller like a, that's running a pot still like alan.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: How brandies are made in all these different other spirits.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: They were all being made back then and they were all being what you know.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: And then when they came out of Prohibition, creativity had been stripped.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: They had to spend so much time just to produce to meet the demand for just whiskey that they weren't doing anything extra.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: And right now you see a lot of people doing some things, but most of the stuff that they're doing has already been done before.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: They're just bringing it back for a new generation been done before.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: They're just bringing it back for a new generation.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: Glad you said that, because I am shocked for that amount of time, which it seems like a short amount of time, for prohibition.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm sure it was long going through it, but in the historical perspective it's a blip.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 4: Prohibition's a blip and yet during that blip, like you say, we lost so much People.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 4: It's like they forgot how to distill the old way.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 4: I mean, once you come out of prohibition, you're trying to maximize capacity and so you're only using column stills.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: You're distilling to higher proofs, your barrel entry proof is higher, you're getting permission from the government to go higher on all those things and you're you're cutting corners wherever you can, and that mentality stuck around for ages yeah, I mean, and they, they did it really well and you know, and that, that one thing, they were it really well, that one thing they were doing really well.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: but it took everybody to.
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: You know, just 2019, when I got in this, you know, started podcasting.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: When you mentioned Finnish bourbon, there was a good amount of the community that wanted to actually hurt you because it wasn't bourbon.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: What are you talking about?
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: Why would you ever want to?
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: I like bourbon, you know, kind of thing.
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: And now, as as we go through every single different wine barrel from every region in france that you can come up with, you know, you come up with it, it's like they're I think they're going to start making oaks up just because they're.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: You know there's there's not an endless amount of those and liqueurs, but at one point they're going to be like, yeah, this is it.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: And people are going to be like, yeah, I want that.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: It's now more accepted for those and some of them don't get me wrong it's good, you know what I mean and it's accepted, but there's so much of that going on, right?
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 4: I mean and what do you think made us accept that?
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 4: Because you're absolutely right.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 4: I mean, I remember people being ready to fight if they saw something finished.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 3: Well, and then you guys were talking about on one of the roundtables, the labels Like what was it?
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: It was an Irish-ish, american Wait.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, the Irish styleish America.
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: Wait, yeah, that was the Irish style.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: Yes, so Kings County came out with something that they called I'm going to get it wrong, but it was essentially an Irish style whiskey, because they used the pot still for it.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: And they what is I'm bad on Irish Is it double distilled maybe?
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: Double.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: Well, it's pot, Double pot.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, single malt, it's a single malt, one season, one distillery and then into it and double pot stilled.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 4: yes, so it was an Irish style and everybody was up in arms that they could dare put the word Irish on a label.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: It's like, come on, that they could dare put the word Irish on a label.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: It's like come on, Well, and it's just like you know you hear about over in England or whatever that there's people that put bourbon on the whiskey.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: It's not like they're selling it here, but it's over there and they call it bourbon and it's like who's going to do something about it?
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: It's an American law in Europe.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: Europe has to want to do something about it for that to happen, right.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so we've got a treaty to protect it just like we've got a treaty to.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 4: You know, no one here can put scotch on the label and you can't even use things that sound like you know lock, you know whatever.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: You can't put that on there either.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: So there's a treaty for it.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: But I think you're right that they in Europe maybe you'll get some interest in prohibiting it.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 4: But when you start getting to any of the bricks companies or anything like that, it's wild, wild west.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: There's I bet there's dozens of folks out there putting bourbon on labels out there and selling it.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah and and it's funny because they can call it corn whiskey and they could do that here.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: But once again, this is marketing, right?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's just once you have it stuck in.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 3: People are.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, realistically, we should be about the taste, not what it's called.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: But you know, we love what we can have, we love packaging and we love experiences, and bourbon can give you all of that and that's why it does so well.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: Anything else you want?
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: to add.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: No, it's been fun.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 4: I mean to find someone who lets me talk about bourbon history and law.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: I mean you're forever.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: You've always got my gratitude.
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: No, I mean, that's part of why I love it.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: I do love, I love the aspect of what's the untold stories and the reality of things where you know everything always mucks it up.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: So it's a lot of fun to you know, get into that, and the more I learn and know the, and then it's so much fun because, like, if you hang out with Fred and Sandy no, I mean, they're that's the eighth generation distiller of something that's been around forever and he's you of something that's been around forever and he's, you know, fred's been now Freddy, they're in charge of that, and then they've got all that history in their house and you know, just to be, you know, knowing them, you know they're going to talk about them.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: Well, not me, but them.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: Well, maybe I'll get as big as Bourbon Pursuit one day.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: No, I'm just kidding, keep at it.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: Well, that's one thing Persistence, right.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 4: That's right.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 4: You've got to be persistent.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 4: That's what all of the distillers from the 1800s on have taught us You've got to be persistent, don't give up.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because All right.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: So thanks for coming on.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate it.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: Uh, I'm just gonna finish up real quick with the ending and then, uh, when I'm done recording on, we're still facebook live and youtube live, and then I'll we'll just say a couple more words and then you can go all right yes, not that you could go if you wanted.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: Right now I'm not giving, but I'm just saying for the podcast purposes, if anyone on Facebook is doing comments or anything.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 4: Let me know, I'm bad at multitasking on my screen so I haven't had that up.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 4: So if there's anyone with a burning question or anything, let me know.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, jamie said that he loves your book.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: He said it was an awesome book.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: So and I'm, you know, after this, I didn't, I hadn't gotten a chance in reading.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: I've.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: I've get so many people sending me stuff to read that you know going out and finding your own thing, cause they'll be like I've got this book on distilling in Washington so I'll start reading that.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: Then I've got you know.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 3: So I, and you know it's I commend you for writing a book because when you, when it comes to you're a lawyer, writing a book, doing social running the whole thing, that's a lot of time and effort, that's for sure.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: I did not know what I was getting into.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: Let me.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: Let me just tell you that.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: I mean there's a reason why I do.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: I mean there's a reason why I do video and podcasting audio and video podcasting because I can't write.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: So if there was ever a book to be written about me, it would have to be with a writer, although I have to say, ai lately it's been crazy.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: Just turn it over.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they'll write your biography right there.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: It'll write the notes on the show.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: I just throw it on the thing and it writes the notes on the show for me and it uses words to describe things and it's learning.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: It even gets better as you go.
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: It's just like my mother-in-law told my wife did he take a writing course?
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: His writing's gotten better, not just better.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: He's like it's good and I'm just like going yeah, that's AI for you.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: All right, all right, everybody.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: Wwwscotchiebourbonboyscom for all things Scotchie Bourbon Boys Glen Karens t-shirts.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: Check it out.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: And then also check us out on Facebook, instagram, youtube and X and all the podcast formats Apple, spotify and iHeart mainly, but if you listen to it, please like, listen, subscribe and leave good feedback.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: It makes a difference and, with that said, good bourbon equals good times and good friends.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: Make sure that you drink responsibly, don't drink and drive and live your life dangerously.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: All right, everybody, little Steve-O is going to take us out.
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: Cheers, cheers.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: Cheers, cheers To the next whiskey bar.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, don't ask why.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, don't ask why, for if we don't find the next whiskey bar, I tell you we must die.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: I tell you we must die.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: I tell you, I tell you, I tell you we must die.