Latest / The Scotchy Bourbon Boys / The Journey from Law to Whiskey: A Conversation with David Mandell, CEO of Whiskey House of Kentucky

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The Journey from Law to Whiskey: A Conversation with David Mandell, CEO of Whiskey House of Kentucky · 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 of the 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 of the Time Distilling Institute on YouTube.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I promise you're going to learn something you didn't know before about the art.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: I reached out to do all sort of paper and printer went for the light cut Thought I had this in mind, so I'm going to remember.
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: All right, welcome back to another podcast of the Scotchy Bourbon Boys.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: We got a special podcast tonight.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: We have a special guest on first time that he's been on, david Mandel.
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Welcome, david.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: David, thanks for having me.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: It's great to have you here.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: So David is the CEO of the I got to get this right the whiskey house of Kentucky, and that is something that you're going to be hearing a lot, a lot more of, and normally I give a bunch of promotion type stuff, but tonight there's a lot to get into.
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: So let's, let's get right into it with David.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: I'm so excited to have you here, and already we were in the pre talk.
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: You've been given us so much information already, but just to start off right now, talk about what you did before you ever got into this.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's just like it was a completely different profession, right Then.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: Then this.
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: Well, if you're yeah, we'll start that.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: We're going way back.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: And I hate saying that now because I'm starting to realize you know how old I'm getting and that is not fun at all.
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: What are you like 38?
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: God bless.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: I mean that's just great.
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: Let's pretend that that is the case.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: So when I started my career.
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: I started as a lawyer practicing law, and Philadelphia.
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: I went to law school and I went to undergraduate.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: I watched you and I was a history major and English minor and, you know, never did I imagine frankly ever really imagine that I would ever be in business?
• 4:33
  Speaker 4: I certainly never meant, never thought that I would be an alcohol.
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: But, it was one of those things where you know life.
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: You know, is in many ways a process of elimination.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: I think you figure out what you don't like fast, and then you figure out what you do like, and so for me it was very much, you know a journey and you know I was practicing law firm in Philadelphia and great firm blank room and you know I had in my career so many people gave me, you know, really wonderful opportunities to take leadership roles and they, you know, and they were opportunities that you know that come to you and you you know you have to run with them and I had an opportunity at the time I was asked we did a lot of work in Philadelphia.
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: We, frankly, we did a lot of actually election law work and I was asked to go on the recount for George W Bush at the time and.
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: I was sent to Florida and I was given three counties down there to do military ballot arguments to remember back in the days with the hanging chats.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: That seems like so long ago.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: There's a whole different issue on the West Coast and I did that I came back after the Supreme Court ruled and I wasn't going in my early 20s at the time and the chairman of the firms asked me if you know I was interested in the political position.
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: You know, sure, yeah, of course, right, I mean I don't know what I mean my early 20s is.
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: So I ended up this is right before 9-11, going down and interviewing the White House after 9-11.
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: I ended up with the chairman of the National Transportation.
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: Safety.
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: Board as her counsel, spent a year there and she was appointed administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration.
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: I went over there as chief of staff.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: I spent almost five years with her there and it was, you know, during that time I was on a trip and we came up and was out drinking Red Bull in vodka with my roommate, dan Lind, who was a CFO of Bardstown and one of the founders of Bardstown, and this is a CFO and one of the founders of Whiskey House.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: We started the first caffeinated alcohol, caffeinated vodka, you know, at the time and that's how we got into the spirits business, knowing absolutely nothing about what we were doing.
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: Oh, okay.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: So this is a question that I find that when you're in the spirits industry, especially in the whiskey industry, and then the bourbon industry, the whiskey industry and the bourbon industry are similar, except with whiskey.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: As you start to expand out and you get into scotches and that type of thing, the, what would you say bourbon, the bourbon industry is so close knit and tied together amongst the distilleries, even from state to state.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: There's people in Indiana that know, people in Kentucky, there's people in Ohio that you know everybody's the, the, the actual making of that whiskey, that industry.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: You know people from other states come up Texas, they come up to Kentucky, they Kentucky people go down to New Orleans.
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's just like when it comes to bourbon there's this, it's almost like a family.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: Then when it comes to whiskey, then you're adding in the cousins and the aunts and the uncles.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: But then when you but if you, I found, when you expand out to the other, you know, you know vodka, tequila, the other spirits it all of a sudden becomes a little bit more sales, marketing, business, glitz and glamour.
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: It's just like you don't have quite the, the relationships into that area.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Did you find that when you were making Well, it's, it's really so.
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: We were in vodka, you know, at the time, and it was a very different.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: You're right, it's a very different, it's a very different community Again.
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: The whole spirits industry is actually still at one level, like small.
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: But then, you know, it really does break down and I have certainly found that the bourbon industry, the whiskey industry, is much closer than the bourbon industry, absolutely.
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: But even at the time.
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: So we, you know, we started that company out of the two bedroom apartment lower east side of New York in 2006.
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: This was pre craft spirits.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: You know, this was really early stages of craft cocktail movement.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: In fact, I'll tell you, it was funny when we started and there's a product that I was called Pink Vodka and before, right before we sold the company, we had developed an entire line of caffeinated products.
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: It was a flavorless caffeine and guarana formula infused into, you know, exceptional spirits, and so we had what we felt tequila, a rum, a sake, and we did a white whiskey with.
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: Hudson, remember, in New York was one of the original craft distilleries and we went up there early on and we were sourcing their white dog, which was just delicious, and so we had made a caffeinated white whiskey and this was like really, really early before you know, before any of this.
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: And so, yes, I mean to your point, it was a different it was a very different kind of group of people and interaction.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: I think that's still very much the case today.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: There is no doubt that the whiskey industry and particularly the bourbon industry, particularly in Kentucky, it is a really tight knit and, you know, collaborative and cordial working group.
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: Okay yeah, that's answered my question.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: So, so you did, you were into that, and then you you're.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: You met the group of people that eventually started Artstown Bourbon Company.
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: So I didn't meet them.
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: We were all working together at the time and Peter Lofton, who became my business partner, was the main investor early on in Artstown and so we were developing.
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: We were working on a whiskey project and we're introduced to him actually through a college roommate of mine who was a fraternity brother, who was an attorney at his and he wanted to get into the whiskey industry and so he invested with us and we developed.
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: What were the early stages of Artstown?
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: We came out with the idea that we wanted to build a distillery.
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: We actually at the time was very funny we looked at a number of different places.
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: We looked at the idea of maybe buying an older distillery and rehabbing it.
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: We looked at a number of the properties that are.
• 12:21
  Speaker 4: We looked at property that ultimately became Castle and Key.
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: We looked at a couple of really interesting things, but we ultimately decided that building something from scratch was not only was it more cost effective, but again, that actually developed in business.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: And it wasn't until I moved to Barstown and we really kind of got firmly ingrained here that we began to kind of see the evolution of the business.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: Now it's not as if we started day one and it was, if we all sat down and said here's the idea, this is what we're going to go do.
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: It was something that developed and evolved over time and so Dan and I had gotten involved in whiskey after we sold the vodka company.
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: We got very involved in a number of different projects and started seeing again.
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: This was 2009, 2010, where whiskey was headed.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: We were involved in the early stages of what ultimately became Hill Haven Lodge, which is no longer in the market.
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: The Brett Ratner put out with Diageo.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: We worked on that project in its first year of its evolution and we did a lot of research in whiskey and so we really saw where things were going.
• 13:34
  Speaker 4: And then, when we came to Barstown I came out to Barstown for the first time in 2013.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: And we saw the property, we bought the property.
• 13:45
  Speaker 4: We developed a wonderful relationship, early relationship with leadership.
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: Here we hired Steve Nally and it was as we did that we got the idea for the collaborative distilling program because we saw we were living in the market.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: We were part of the market.
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: We saw what brands were needing contracts getting cut off with the big guys because they needed to keep the capacity.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: We were here, we were building this facility and we said why can't we do provide a service here that exists in every other industry but does not exist in whiskey, which was complete custom whiskey production at the time, and I went out, I sold that concept and we sold the distillery out, the capacity of the distillery before we had even finished building it, and then we had to figure out how to actually do it.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: That was really.
• 14:34
  Speaker 4: That is honestly one of the stories that is probably the least known about Bardstown and it's also one that led to the evolution.
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: It's what has led to whiskey else, because we learned this business, we learned everything that we took from what we created at Bardstown and when you very rarely in life have the opportunity to take something and do it all over again with all of the lessons that you've learned, and that is what we've been able to do and it's really a wonderful opportunity.
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: Well, that's really cool that you said that, because that's exactly what this feels like and it's funny.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: In any other industry it's tough to you build something successful and then someone comes and buys it and they keep it going.
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: But then to have an industry where you can then do that is that's socially.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: It's like, most of the time, if you sell your clothing line, they're not gonna let you come out with another clothing line under that same and then trash that clothing line.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: But that's what Bourbon and whiskey is doing right now.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: That's what you're kinda doing, but at the same time it's not that big of a deal because you're gonna meet a demand that throughout history has never been met.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: It's just like I think that's absolutely right and there's plenty of room in the market for many different players in this industry.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: But what we're doing at Whiskey House, really it solves a very unique problem in the marketplace and, as I mentioned, I think, when we were chatting before we started the podcast, I think fundamentally for me business has to be transformative.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: for me, that's what excites me.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: The business should be transformative.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: You have to really have a purpose and you have to solve a problem, and so Whiskey House has both of those elements, and that's one of the things that's so exciting.
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: And, of course, having the opportunity to work with John Hardgrove, who is my business partner in this, who was the COO of Barton's Humberman Company, who was absolutely responsible for that distilling operation and what you see there, when he joined us in 2017 for Barton and took us from 25,000 to 50,000 to 100,000, has some certification, has their certification.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: He led and built that team.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: And then Dan Lin, who was a financial mastermind behind that.
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: So the three of us were able to get together about two years ago and we said there is a fundamental issue in the marketplace now and the need for what we started with the collaborative distilling program, the need to be able to continue to evolve that and take it to the next level, is needed now more than ever.
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: And so that problem really kind of presented this way.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: So over the past couple of years you've had consolidation in the contract distilling market parts down in Green River and now loaned by the same private equity firm you have.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: Willanus Trail was sold to Campari and its contract customers were all and told to exit upon that sale.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: And then you have the what I would call the pure investor barrel, and so that is something that has developed over the last several years.
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: This is institutional money coming in and buying liquid without a clear pathway to where it's going to go, and that's because people were seeing with whiskey, appreciate their really high numbers.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: So what has that done?
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: So it is, you have a lot of new fill capacity that is going towards these barrels pure investor barrels where they're buying it, holding it, distributed pricing up.
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: It's caused barrel pricing to go up.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: It's taking up capacity for brands that really need this and so brands that really need exceptional customer service, long-term contracts that they can guarantee in a facility that is focused on them.
• 18:47
  Speaker 4: Because when you were producing contract in a facility, that's making its own brands and running hospitality.
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: There's always an inherent conflict of interest.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Are you?
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: focused on me?
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: Are you focused on your brands and what happens when you sell Am?
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: I going to go the way of what happened with Wilderness Trail, and so you have all of these kind of conflicts and the brands are saying we just want great production.
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: And so Whiskey House solves that by coming forward now with we have designed a facility from scratch to do nothing but custom Whiskey production.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: So even when we did Bards Town, we built it, we added this on, we added that on, we added here, we added there.
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: You don't necessarily design the same facility when you say you know what, we know exactly what we're going to do.
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: We're going to design it from scratch.
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: And so the ability to do that we're taking the principles of advanced food manufacturing, which is the industry of John originally came from before joining Martin.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: It's a background of Quakeroads and Frito-Lea and Pepsicov, and so we have designed an absolutely state-of-the-art facility that is focused on doing the highest quality, most efficient, large scale but flexible contract custom Whiskey production for an exclusive group of brands.
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: No pure investor barrels in a facility where we guarantee warm-term contracts.
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: There's no hospitality for the public, it's not open to the public.
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: So I think Willy Wonka of Whiskey Manufacturing in the facility that is on, you know, a property that has their fully enclosed campus but the most exciting part of Whiskey House is the technological backbone that the facility is built on.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: So we are taking stilling to where advanced food manufacturing has been for the last decade, and that is in data collection, data development and analysis, high efficiency manufacturing.
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: So what you're gonna see come out of Whiskey House is really gonna be a thought leader and an industry leader in advanced manufacturing in the silver for Whiskey.
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: It's exciting and amazing.
• 21:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: So if somebody was to buy Whiskey House, they're buying the way it is.
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: They're not going to be like you were saying with Bardstown, now that they have a brand.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: Not only are you buying the contract is still in but you're also buying the Bardstown bourbon company brand.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: And if you were somebody else, you could decide to go whatever direction you wanted.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: You could, you, you can change everything, but this model is set up so that it's long term.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: So if somebody was actually if you down the line someone bought it, they would be buying exactly what it's set up to be.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: That's kind of what you're thinking.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: And I'll start with the very clear proposition you're not looking yourself.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: So we're going to start by myself, john and Dan.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: There's no private equity in the business.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: We love this business.
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: This is something that you know we plan to do for the rest of our careers.
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: We really enjoy it, and so there's nothing more that I love working directly with our customers and giving them that kind of customer service.
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: You know we built that culture originally at Bardstown.
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: Every business changes when the founders leave a business Right, right, right, right.
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: And so you know, for us, that energy, that passion, that excitement that is part of every aspect of this, and the beauty, you know, with this facility is that we're not focused on our own brands, so we get to put all of our energy into innovative liquid production.
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: That's where the focus is, and why is this so important?
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: Because for our customers and for brands, the end of the day, differentiation is going to be a driving factor going forward.
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: There is so much liquid that is all the same now that is out there from these investor models that's going to be coming into the market with no clear pathway as to where it's going and what brands need.
• 23:00
  Speaker 4: Brands need innovation, they need very innovative liquid and they need to be able to create it in a facility that they can do it cost effectively.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: It's completely flexible, with a team that will make anything that they want to make, and so that's really important.
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: And so we never we were never able to take Bardstown to that level.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: So we're really excited about being able to do that now because, again, this, you know, the kind of technology that you're able to put in when you start from scratch is incredible because you know it's an older business.
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: You know something called technical debt, right, and it becomes too expensive to be able to get, for example, all of the systems to talk to each other.
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: But if you start with that, we're making huge investments $110 million project starting day one in phase one, first phase of the building, with a significant amount of that or the technology side.
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: So imagine, you know, at the end of the day, we give the customer all the information that their fingertips, you know that they need about their production, the portal or inventory, or their financials, but you're able to then be able to take a single barrel at the end of the day and look back and be able to have all of the data from where the grain came from, where the barrels came from, all the manufacturing data from the enzymes in the east, the manufacturing specs all the way through to ultimately being able to see the barrels and 3D in the warehouses be able to have the conditions in
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: the warehouses, all of that data there are.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: We have written, you know, thousands and thousands of lines of code and create engineering team and firm.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: Our engineering team is led by Roger Henley, who's a former head engineer at Bardstown.
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: John Hardrow leads as a president.
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: Ceo leads the operation.
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: That's amazing people joining the team.
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: Jim hunger ran operations and being an important and we're starting to put together will be the best team hands down and we see, I have no doubt, the team that is going to join we're going to assemble If you were the only.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: If you were an, a team operator and you really fit, you know, hold yourself in a high regard in terms of your skill set.
• 25:20
  Speaker 4: The house is going to be the place for you, because we have a culture that we are building.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: Of course, salary and benefits package has to be the best, but in terms of operating culture and infrastructure for the employees is going to be second.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: We know you have to have that in order to build a customer service oriented team that ultimately is going to deliver for our customers, which are, you know, some of the best friends in the country, in the world.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: That's.
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: That's so as far as the actual, what would you say, public access.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: Are you planning like to be open to like for distillery tours, or it's just a production facility?
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: The only thing you're kind of building is the aspect of bringing Brands in and then where they can be taste, tasting what, how, where it's, you know, as it ages in the labs, and everything.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: That's what.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: That's what you guys are concentrating on Brands will be able to.
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: You know the brands.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: We have special facilities that we were building inside for the brands.
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: The brands are going to be able to bring their sales teams in their distributors.
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: All of those components in terms of the public facility is closed is actually extremely secure, completely fast and great security protocol.
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: It's important because you know we'll have hundreds and millions of dollars of you know of people's inventory in there and frankly, you know it's crazy if it's not all completely fenced in and secure.
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: Not all facilities are.
• 26:59
  Speaker 4: We have just sort of assumed over the years that you know they know nothing's going to happen, but you know you do have little things.
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: But the fact of the matter is you know we would never treat any other inventory Without this kind of security.
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: So it's a completely secure facility.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: What I will tell you that we are looking at the future which is exciting as we will, at the right point in the right place, have whiskey house tasting rooms.
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: We actually can have two of them under the Kentucky law.
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: We will be able to showcase the products that we produce and so that we will operate as a great benefit to our customers.
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: That are part of the program.
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: So that will be an added benefit that you get to enjoy, but they will not be on site.
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: Law in Kentucky now allows you to have one within 10 miles of the facility and then another one anywhere else in the state.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: So you plan to take full advantage of that utilize it.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, to be able to taste it, to be able to taste the product, okay, well, maybe you have a podcast room.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: Baby, baby, probably not, he does probably not.
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: Alright, We'll see.
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: We'll see it in the festival.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, for sure.
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of other places to do the promotion and that type of stuff.
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: So so that's that's awesome news.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: It's you're opening up in July right now.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: The other question so after Bardstown the whole thing goes down where you guys from the get go.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: Was it just an offer that you couldn't refuse, or did they come Coach you?
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: How did the whole Bardstown bourbon company thing go down?
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: That's something that is confidential.
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: Okay, really can't get into those details.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: On this podcast.
• 28:54
  Speaker 4: But I'll tell you, the sale of Bardstown was one of those Moments.
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: Like in anything with any business is always kind of has, especially for the founders of a business, you know it has.
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: It's like exciting and happy moments.
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: There's always, you know, a kind of lost component.
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: You know because it's going in a you know in a different direction, but it's, you know, for me it was a.
• 29:20
  Speaker 4: It was a wonderful opportunity and it gave us the wherewithal to be able to do what we're doing, you know, right now.
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: So I look at all of it extremely positively.
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: It was such a wonderful team that we built a Bardstown.
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: Many of those people that are there know are ones that you know I hired personally.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: You know that we hired and it's great to see them continuing to flourish, continuing to do great, and I said there is so much room in this industry.
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: Just, you know we see everything growing, continuing to grow.
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: Look, it's going to have its ups and downs.
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: We know we've got some you know headaches coming out of covid, that these are short term in many ways.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: In my personal opinion, I think the long term prospects for the bourbon industry in general are extremely favorable, unless everyone is wrong.
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: And so you know, heaven hills doubling, ground form is doubling, you know, you just go on doubling.
• 30:17
  Speaker 4: And it's not just for domestic growth, it's for international growth.
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: And so, while you know, the market may go like this over time, it's going to go like this, but it's going to end up, you know, in that opportunity trajectory that you know, that's my personal opinion.
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean honestly what?
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: As the liquid keeps getting produced more, even now, I can see the results of the push.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: You know, seven, eight years ago.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: When it was first, though and the distilleries were, you know, 2012, probably right at that point is when they all were like well, we better start making the.
• 30:57
  Speaker 3: Every year, they were making more and more and more, and then their predictions kept.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: They still weren't getting enough liquid to the market, and just this past year, I feel that it's starting to.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: You know, it's the stuff is.
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of stuff that a lot of people can't have and always wanted to get, and they're starting to be able to obtain it without having to pay.
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: You know, astronomical secondary prices, so that you can notice that there's some stuff on the, there's some stuff on the shelves.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: You know people, you know, wait in line for the specific stuff, but at the same time, there's 10 other bottles in there that you could buy.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: That's probably better than what you're waiting for.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: So, as you know, you know, as everybody knows, it's always about what we can't have.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: It's just.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: Right and that I think that actually applies to all of life.
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, we all want what we can't have and then when we get it, we just want to find something else we can't have, right?
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: So, and the industry's been doing a good job of coming out with limited editions and that type of thing, and it's the you know where this goes down in the time period of whiskey and you're part of it is that this was the time where all the old distilleries and all the old brands could be.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: There's enough money to bring them back.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: There's enough money to make new brands and set up and revamp all the equipment.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: You know and everybody knows.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Eventually there'll be another time when you know, when everybody there's, you know certain time periods, all, all the time, where they'll be in charge of just watching over the inventory.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: But you know, I'm sure the you know, when Stitzelweller went out of business and the Van Winkles kept their inventory they're, they were really glad they did so, because even now they don't put enough to market right.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: But they're, but they're putting in 20 and 23 year old whiskey out to market every year.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: So I mean, and that's a hard thing to do, consider, especially in Kentucky, considering the yield of that barrel, you know.
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: So, all right, that's absolutely right, all right.
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: So you went from Bardstown and you had a moment at Kentucky Owl, so just just was just talk about what that was like in between.
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's, I'll tell you it's great.
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: And so I know the Stoli family and the owner of Stoli you know personally, going back early on was part of helping introduce Stitzelweller to them at the time.
• 33:39
  Speaker 4: And then we got the contract at Bardstown to produce Kentucky Owl.
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: It was one of our earliest, honestly one of our earliest contracts that always maintained a great relationship.
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: So when I step back as CEO of Bardstown, you know they Stoli approached me and asked me if I would help them reposition and try to get the Kentucky Owl project here back on track.
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: And and you know, and frankly, it's a beautiful, it's absolutely a beautiful project.
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: It was one that I was extremely familiar with with day one.
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: There are wonderful groups that are involved in it.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: You know that that it was basically a year and having the opportunity to work with Shignirman, which is one of the best architecture firms in the world, one of the most creative, just some exceptional people, and it was ultimately the, you know the former CEO of Stoli, damien McKinney, who I knew very well in the past, that you know, convinced me to come and join them.
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: And you know I live here in Bardstown.
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: You know I love that project.
• 34:42
  Speaker 4: I want to see it, you know, succeed, and I stayed there.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: We reworked the project, we got it on a you know a different trajectory and then, when Bardstown sold, I had to.
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: I had to tell them, you know, I had something else that I needed to do now, and so we brought Lorenzo, who is great.
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: He is overseeing the project right now, you know, and it's you know he's getting there.
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: Lorenzo is great, isn't Lorenzo amazing?
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: Super yeah, he's a perfect, perfect person for it and you know, I think you know, it has all of the right elements, you know, to succeed.
• 35:23
  Speaker 4: It's like a lot of things.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: You know, just these things sometimes take.
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: They take time, and so I couldn't, you know, say more wonderful things about the group that I worked with there, and you can't like everything.
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: I wish them the best of luck.
• 35:40
  Speaker 4: We just had their whole team here during the Burman Festival.
• 35:43
  Speaker 4: They released the bottle that's sitting right in front of you, continuing to make some, you know, wonderful things and great expressions.
• 35:52
  Speaker 4: I still think it's one of the you know, the great Burman brands out there.
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: It's truly iconic, and Dixon did a wonderful job in creating that.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: Soleil has done a really nice job in extending.
• 36:04
  Speaker 4: You know, with these you know some of the innovations, and so I look forward to seeing them all again this year.
• 36:11
  Speaker 4: One of the bubbles when you were there?
• 36:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a kumis edition.
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: It's a great one.
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: They're really just amazing, amazing blends when you put really creative people together and do very neat things.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: Well, dixon almost did too good of a job because that was hard he left.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: It was just like the community there.
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: But but they, I think they've done a really nice job While you were there.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: There's no doubt that's one of the things that you, that was happening, and then going forward like, like you said, that that piece of property is just, and what they want to do with it, there's a lot of you know.
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: It's like I see what you're doing and you're talking July and I swear to God I but it was just announced and it was in my brain a month ago, and now all of a sudden you're talking July and then with them, you see it and we're still you know, they're still trying to do it.
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: Listen, I'll tell you what we're doing at Whiskey house is, honestly, is unheard of in terms of speed, and the reason we're able to do it is a function of a couple of things.
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: First, john Hardrow, who is I mean, it is absolutely incredible in every respect in terms of not only designing and managing the construction of this facility.
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: I know you guys don't look at me thinking that I'm responsible for managing the day in and day out of that project.
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: You know, that is all the credit goes to John there.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: And the second piece of that equation is used in construction, and so we created that relationship and I'll never forget it.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: I met music the first day.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: Basically, that came to Bards Town and we were starting to look around at construction firms and we were introduced to them and we had, you know, attorneys.
• 38:09
  Speaker 5: I was saying, you know?
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: look at the big guys.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: These are the big guys.
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: They build them.
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: And I was introduced to.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: Amit.
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: Blanco and Donald Blanco, and they were building, you know, all of our houses at the time and state they still do.
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: It worked on basically on every distillery project, but they had not built a distillery from scratch.
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: Tommy sat me down and he said, david, we can build this, we'll do it, we'll be fair, we'll work in a very close team together.
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: We won't go, we'll get it on time, we'll keep it on budget and that's what we did, and we did it with a handshake and I'll tell you that that meeting.
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: There's still a maintenance day, construction team meeting, which I ran every week and, of course, when.
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: John came in, he, you know, he took it over and I sat in it and added where I could, but that Wednesday meeting still exists and you're now a decade later and so that relationship was critical for us.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: It was critical for abusive.
• 39:07
  Speaker 4: Busek went on them to get the Luxor of contract.
• 39:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, long still, jim Beach, stillhouse, head and Hill, the new distillery.
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: I mean just go to one and one.
• 39:17
  Speaker 4: And so they they have so many exciting projects and when it came time to build Whiskey house, tommy but you always said to me if you need anything, david, you call Never took him up on that, although we always had some really funny jokes that we were going to play on him for that.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: But I called him up and I said, remember, now I need it.
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: And we did.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: We got the 18 and with John, and with him and the team we have assembled, they were able to move the lightspeed design a facility while we were, basically while we were acquiring the property at the same time as we are purchasing equipment for what we have in design, so we can get way ahead of the schedules.
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: That's how we got everything way ahead.
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: We got all the vendor, all the equipment in the facility and both of them already.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which is which is insane.
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, I know a lot of people that are out on Vendome, but yeah, you hear a lot.
• 40:17
  Speaker 5: You hear a lot of stories from a lot of other stores and stuff and they're backlog and Vendome, whereas, like I say, you guys jump way ahead of the game and jump out of it and then we were able to you know again.
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: This is all.
• 40:32
  Speaker 4: This is because of John and because the team, the construction team, we were able to work that way.
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: It's non-traditional, you really admit.
• 40:40
  Speaker 4: I can't even imagine any other circumstances where you didn't have that trust level.
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: You wouldn't be able to do it.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 40:47
  Speaker 4: They're wonderful, wonderful people is a family owned business and it really is honestly a testament to again what we were talking about before the podcast started, which is the importance of, you know, being part of the local community and giving back and living here.
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: I mean it is, it's so, so important to business because that that not in the case we wouldn't have been able to do this, it wouldn't be possible.
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: I mean it is technically what you're talking about.
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: It's like the family, that of the bourbon industry and everybody and their relationships.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: I mean it's just insane.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: You know, I was there in 19 for Kentucky bourbon fest, first time I was ever down, and I remember going to Bardstown and it basically was the distillery in the field, with the, with the Rick house and maybe two I might there might have been two, but I don't?
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: we had a couple.
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but but when you got off the highway it was, you could see it and what the main thing that stuck out was in the middle of everything was the patio with the furniture and the fireplaces, and but there was really that was.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: That was all that was there.
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, it was we had just opened the restaurant.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: You know, at that time, you know, and you know we had a 2019, we were open probably six, seven months, but you know it was.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: You know it really had just gotten going.
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: I was there early in 2019, but you're right.
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: And then you go out there today you know, when I stepped down, we had, we had designed the bottom of the facility.
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: We were ready to break ground on that.
• 42:33
  Speaker 4: That was all done you know we had basically every inch of that property laid out, the only thing that's real, one of the fundamental differences from where we were taking it from work went after the founder stepped back as we had the hotel deal basically done you know we were putting a hotel right across from the distillery, a beautiful concept that would have looked, you know, and mimicked what that distillery looks like.
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: So it would have been about an 80 room hotel with, you know, rooftop garden, spa and to you know, I, frankly, I think it would have been, from a hospitality standpoint, an absolute game changer.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: You're seeing it coming, Makers is doing a little bit of it, but you know, when we talk about, you know, the evolution, you know, and pushing the boundaries of business, you know those, you know, those are the honesty, those are the kinds of things that you know that are exciting, you know, to me.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: And that was, that was our, that was our next project.
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Log still has that Hotel in the cabins yeah, but we have.
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 43:46
  Speaker 4: The thing that's gonna be closest to what we were gonna be going to Bards town is coming now and it's the trail hotel, and so Keep an eye out for this.
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: These are this is will and Alicia Hardy.
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: They are newcomers to Bards town that came here in the last a little over.
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: It's been now almost two years.
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: He's made a little bit more, but they bought the old holiday in property.
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: It's out on right on the blue grass.
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, under construction now.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: It is gonna be an absolutely beautiful facility and it's gonna be an incredible addition.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: This is gonna be the first hotel of this size, caliber, quality here for the, you know, for the bourbon community forest.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and I would say I would say that is one thing, that, yeah, that's needed and you knew.
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: But based off of what you were doing at, you know, our sound bourbon company with that and yes, there's no doubt there's a lot of what would you say?
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't say subpar, but average stays there where Everything else is way above average and high, high experience, where that just doesn't make sense, that you don't okay because I Think that's right.
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: We're making headway, you know what we've gotten, you know we.
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: You know, the first thing that needed to be done for us.
• 45:05
  Speaker 4: I was get the room.
• 45:06
  Speaker 4: So what we had is we had new lodging.
• 45:09
  Speaker 4: So at a more of a business like traveler, you know, level is fine, right, there's nothing wrong with that.
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: It's needed and we needed it all, and now what you're seeing is more boutique.
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: So parts about motor lodge I was involved in that project and bringing that in.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: So you're getting a little bit more of kind of the unique.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: You know the unique Experience you get the restaurant at the pool, the bar We've taken, we took the, we took it.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: You know, old 1950s motel getting a facelift, much like you see in Napa Valley.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: That's it.
• 45:42
  Speaker 4: That was a great addition.
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: The trail coming in a couple more of these.
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: We have several more of these Motor lodge style properties in Bard's on it.
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: You know, if you look down, you look in the future, you're gonna see.
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: You know those, what we did at the motor lodging to see more of that with those as well.
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: Well, it also seems like the younger crowd really loves that motor lodge, you know, kind of, because they got the pool and it's just that little.
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: You know it's not a giant pool that you get at whatever in, they're all out there.
• 46:11
  Speaker 3: And that you just at the festival that side found that you know that late 20, early 30 crowd was just yep, they were, they were Going at, they were going at it all weekend, that's for sure.
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: It was a party at the motor lodge all weekend and it was it was a lot of fun and so you know those kind of unique Hospitality offerings.
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: You're gonna see more of that coming to Bard's town You're gonna see some tasting rooms showing up From other other brands and other the stories now that the law has, you know, allows that in Kentucky.
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: So just you know, you keep an eye out.
• 46:50
  Speaker 4: We've got some great things.
• 46:51
  Speaker 4: Everybody liquors came in on Thursday put in a beautiful facility.
• 46:55
  Speaker 4: That is, yeah, you know, thursday, friday.
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: Saturday.
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: And then don't mention bar in there, don't mention the around the corner thing, because I like that right the way it is.
• 47:07
  Speaker 3: It's a secret.
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we could talk about the Most.
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: I'm just like that.
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: Just that, that whole experience between the two is was fantastic.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: And you know, I think there's that's one thing that Bard's town is starting, you know it's.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: You've got the level of what you know, what you guys have done, the Brindiamo, you know Penthouse suite and.
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, and then everything that's happening there, the level and experience is going up and you're on the board for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, but I think also it's a year-round Position.
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: I mean, you guys are talking about the festival, probably within a week or two of it and starting for the next year, but it also is very Connected with all the distilleries and then all the hotels and restaurants around and I really think that that culture that you guys are Developing through the festival, how you've taken that festival to another level, I mean locally, as far as initially, how it was what you had to do.
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: It was very difficult and rough on you guys, but I think, as you keep going forward and you could talk about this, that everybody's starting to see how awesome you know, even down to, like, the experience of the locals.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: Experiences are being up, like the lighting up of Bard's town always have been, but there's more places to go when you do that now, right yeah right.
• 48:44
  Speaker 4: I love it.
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: Change isn't easy anywhere, you know, and in a small community.
• 48:48
  Speaker 4: You know it also, particularly here.
• 48:52
  Speaker 4: So you know we changed your festival.
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: You know it was something, you know it had to be done.
• 48:58
  Speaker 4: But you know I look at what has happened with festivals of Randy.
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: Prossie, who we brought in, who is the absolute exceptional job running that Sam Lacey, who runs Bourbon Guild and the Bourbon Capital Community Alliance.
• 49:10
  Speaker 4: That was, you know, a organization that we created to help create Ambassadors within the community and that is, you know, tied in, supported by the bourbon industry.
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: So we get the Guild working together with the festival yeah, in the same, occupying the same space, and bring the ammo coming in and supporting it.
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: You see, all of these things come together in these synergies, which are really incredible.
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: You know what I just noticed my computer is about to die here, so I'm gonna continue talking to you, okay.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, get the plus.
• 49:46
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna disappear for a second and get the plus yeah that's fine.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: All right.
• 49:52
  Speaker 4: But you know that what you see is you see Community coming together, you know, in a physical space here.
• 49:59
  Speaker 4: So you know I'm glad you mentioned that, I'm glad that you appreciate what has been created at the brilliant of penthouse.
• 50:08
  Speaker 4: And you know, frankly, you know Jeff I'm higher and Jeff Steinberg, who leads the ammo you know they are extremely generous in the money that they've donated to build that, to help us outfit our space.
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: You know we, you know we rely on those donations To be able to do that, and so that was really important.
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no doubt it's a really cool space.
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: I you know we're gonna change views here very quickly.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: Okay, so I'm gonna walk with you.
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: A little bit Unusual here in terms of podcast.
• 50:49
  Speaker 3: We've done it all, don't worry.
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Actually, tonight's going pretty well as far as technical for us, that's for sure.
• 50:54
  Speaker 3: And and, yeah, and, thank you.
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: Thank you for not letting your computer die, because it would just be like also.
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: I've actually not.
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: I've done a podcast where the computer died and then we're still live Facebook and we're still live on YouTube.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: So I had to go upstairs while they talked and get the cord, plug it in, and then the the podcast software came back up and was still recording.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: I was just like, well, there was a gap, obviously, but it was.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, we've done things, yeah for sure, alright, so you know that that sense of community, like like even like you said, some of the people that work for you know, that are on can, part of Kentucky Bourbon Festival, are also part of the guild.
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: But just when you go to can, you know you go to the festival or you go down to Bardstown.
• 52:02
  Speaker 3: All those people are Part of the community and are consistently out in the community promoting bourbon.
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: Stacy's Pritchard, shout out to her and I'm Glad that you noticed that, because that was the purpose Of creating the field, and so you know one of the things that we said when we created the cap, the community capital alliance.
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: And this goes back to a meeting that- myself and Bill Samuels had with in Houston going back to 2015-2016.
• 52:32
  Speaker 4: We said we really need you know, the distillers are making these investments we really need Bardstown to help step up and invest as well, because we've got to do this together the opportunities there.
• 52:45
  Speaker 4: You know, louisville had its was launching its five-year, you know, plan.
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: At the time, mayor Fisher and we said we have to have a plan here, we've got to create that Bards down.
• 52:56
  Speaker 4: We need Bards down to grow and invest alongside in the distilleries.
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, kim Jumped right to it to.
• 53:06
  Speaker 4: We created VCCA, which was the bourbon capital community alliance, which is funded by donations from the distilleries with a mission to help do these things as well.
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: And so Creating the guild was one of those where what we saw is we really wanted.
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: We wanted when people came to town, we wanted to make sure that there was a, you know, a contingent here of people that were well trained, well educated on bourbon, loved it, served as ambassadors to the community, could go out and help.
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: They're volunteers for the festival, like all of those things.
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: That's what the guild created.
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: And so the guild you join the guild and the distilleries help support it by creating those unique events, and it becomes this, you know, becomes this group that is really at one top of everything happening in bourbon, and you and you see it.
• 53:59
  Speaker 4: And of course, jeff came in and helped us outfit our offices to create a place for it.
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: And it has educational facilities in it.
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: So, like again, like the these things are, it's evolutionary, but it is happening, it's working Really.
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: I'm so glad that you said that, because that is exactly the purpose.
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: It's exactly why we created it.
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: Well, and then you see the distilleries themselves Feeding off of it.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: But also it's so unique to see on a consistent basis the distillery people getting together, Like the.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: I see tons of photos with Stacy and she's at Jim Bean, but then she's with someone with heaven hill.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: They're all Interacting, they're all a part of all the different distilleries.
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: But then there there's events.
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: Like you know, there's Local.
• 54:55
  Speaker 3: There was a event at the barge, some an event at preservation were everyone.
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: Coming up Thursday at heaven hill.
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: Yes, I'll be there.
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's uh.
• 55:04
  Speaker 4: You know it's great and Sam has done an excellent job Programming it.
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: You know, because again, it's like one thing you know, you create these kinds of organizations and then they don't do anything and then they kind of like die.
• 55:17
  Speaker 4: He has done an exceptional job, working, keeping it active, Finding really good things, working with the distilleries, and so you know it is, and now, you know, over time will be expanding the membership so that more people can get involved in it.
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: So you know it's great.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: Well, and then you'll also see Freddie know at one of them at heaven you know they're, they're not.
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: You see that that family, you see that that family Of of distilleries, and then every once in a while you'll see Jimmy Russell come down or whatever it's.
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: But but when you go to Louisville you don't really, you don't see that old forest or interacting.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: They're all kind of separate up there, how it, how it is.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: But then and then in frankfort you've got A lot of stuff going on there but you don't get that intertwining of community between the distilleries.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: You know, I don't, I've never been at a place where, let's just say, bruce Russell was there and then you know, harlan Wheatley, they just aren't hanging out all together in Frankfurt like the community does in Bardstown.
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: You know, if we go out with Sandy, no, and she sees everybody, I mean everybody from everywhere, because most people, most of the people like I think what it is is, most of the people have worked at multiple distilleries.
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: So they might have worked at Jim Beam but now they're at Heaven Hill or they're, you know.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: And so because it's so intertwined the community now has, you guys have created so much to do.
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: There's a lot to do.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: They're not just, you know, it's a small town and a lot of times I think maybe even 10, 15 years ago there was a lot of not so much going on, and now there's always something going on.
• 57:10
  Speaker 4: And now there's so much going on and you know, and even the same people that are involved in the industry are also opening up businesses.
• 57:16
  Speaker 4: You know, music construction, donald.
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: He opened with his business partner, scout and Scholl.
• 57:21
  Speaker 4: I mean, we'll be right, you walk in there.
• 57:25
  Speaker 4: You think that this business has been here forever.
• 57:26
  Speaker 4: You know they opened that what?
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: Three years ago now?
• 57:29
  Speaker 4: And they opened that business to give back to the community and that was one of Donald's and his family's contributions to say we're gonna build this and David Jones, who's also in the industry, is quite a partner in it.
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: We're gonna do this, we're gonna give back.
• 57:46
  Speaker 4: And you have just seen, just right for the festival, newman Miller, who ran the restaurant makers, who was a staple, you know, in the culinary side of the industry, just opened up Mr Tubbs, which is the old lawns are met here.
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: I mean I just went by tonight.
• 58:00
  Speaker 4: They've got a party and event going on there.
• 58:02
  Speaker 4: They got the pizza oven going on outside.
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: I mean it was rocking and you know, and you know these are the things you know that are happening.
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean Denny Potter.
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: When we were down there, denny Potter was there.
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: Lisa Roper-Wicker was there.
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: Her daughter runs it, I believe.
• 58:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's Rachel, and Rachel was also a board member when we reconstituted the board for the Festival of Rachel's part of the original board team when I started as chairman.
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: That helped make all the changes about Rachel Pleasant's board role in that.
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, wow, that's cool.
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's cool.
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: The whole, like I said, the whole community.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of things I learned this past festival of what I want to do after the festival.
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: I just I'll throw if Stacy's still watching.
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: Basically, I'm just going to tailor.
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: I mean you couldn't have a better person.
• 59:01
  Speaker 4: Stacy joined, you know, as Stacy joined the festival, she has been a tremendous addition to the team.
• 59:08
  Speaker 4: You've obviously had a wonderful you know you've had a great opportunity to work with her.
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: She's got energy.
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: She's connected to the community, you know she's bringing everybody together.
• 59:16
  Speaker 4: You're telling the right person if you want to go out and board this town.
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, we're going to be coming down there.
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: I think we're going to be in Louisville on Saturday, so I'm going to be trying to because she's I mean, who has that's residents in Barstown and Louisville?
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: That's the girl.
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: The girl is connected and her Louisville is just all about the festival and all the connections.
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: So, yeah, definitely we.
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: She laughed, she put a, she put a, ha ha.
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: What's even better is that she's actually watching us.
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: That's the other thing.
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: She watches us.
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: I think she usually chimes in when we do these podcasts, and if she's not, if she's not running around somewhere else, but she'll chime in, that's for sure.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: All right, so let's, let's finish up what.
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: What kind of?
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: Just tell us the whole thing about you know?
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: Just wrap up what.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: What's about to happen in July?
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: You know, you know the marketing part.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: You know it's a very quiet.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: You know you don't see, you know Whiskey house advertising doing that kind of work.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 4: We have relationships with the brands, with the customers, their longterm.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: You know, much of what we do is word of mouth.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 4: It's a very exclusive group of companies, the brands that come, you know, in does.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 4: We're very selected in terms of who we work with, but we've got an incredible customer base.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 4: We've got a list, you know, a waiting list, two of others for you know, our services.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: We're sorting through some of that as we, you know, as we go forward here.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 4: We've got, you know, expansion plans for 27.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, like any good business, the most important thing is to you know, do you know a handful of things really well and right.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: That's what we're focused on.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: We're focused on getting open, developing the business, you know, working with our customers, fulfilling all the promises that you heard me mention when we opened this segment, and so that's a lot, and so you know that's that will be our focus and you know, you'll continue to hear from us.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: While we won't be open, the public will have, you know, press inside the facility.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: We'll certainly be looking forward to telling you about what's happening and you know you'll hear about a lot of the exciting things that are taking place at Whiskey House.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: We're also going to be big supporters of the festival going forward.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 4: You'll see us there.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: You know I absolutely, you know believe in the festival.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: You know the time that we put into it.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: You know, and we will support that as a business too.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely, it's great to have you on the on the on the on still on the board.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 3: I mean that's just great.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: And then, ness, do you have any questions before we go?
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: No, I think he's pretty much covered everything.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: It's just been great.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 5: Yeah, everything that I had in mind to ask is you pretty?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: much covered.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: And I'm just excited and looking forward to the future of Whiskey House.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 5: And I do have one question in July, can we get an invite for the grand opening?
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 5: We'd love to be there.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: We'd love to come up there live.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 4: Well, that would be great if we have you know, a public facing for that.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 4: We will absolutely absolutely include you for that.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 4: But I also like to say first of all, just thank you on you know a couple of fronts and thank you for you know having me on that, obviously very much.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: So also, you guys, the work that you do.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: You know we've talked to all of this time about supporting the industry and all of that.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: You know your podcast, your efforts.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 4: You know I don't think there's enough credit given to the kinds of things that you, you know, and you know many of your you know many of your colleagues do as well.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: In terms of you know you guys play an important role, not only getting the work out, keeping people interested, keeping people engaged.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 4: You know serving is a, you know, kind of conduit between the brands and the consumer.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: Being able to provide, you know, a forum to talk about things, to be able to, you know, to criticize this is all like really healthy stuff.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: You need to be able to do this and so you know I really appreciate the role you guys play.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: It's also why we were so excited to have you involved in the festival.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 4: And you know, please, just you know, keep up the good work and if there's anything that we can do, I can do.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 4: You just, you know, let us know.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: Well, thanks so much.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 5: That really means a lot coming from you, David.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 4: And we really do appreciate it.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 4: It's absolutely true.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: I think you know it should be said more often.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 4: I think in the industry we kind of sort of take these things for granted and this whole industry that has popped up and supported all of us on podcasts and Instagram.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: But it's true.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 4: I mean it's supporting industry in many ways.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: I work for my cousin in recycling.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: I'm the plant manager, so I understand from a plant manager standpoint of when I go into a distillery it's almost besides.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: I mean the hydraulics grinders, all, the almost all them.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: You know the motors are the same and the problems are definitely the same, but also the way things go and how the whiskey buying public perceives certain things like somehow because the liquid is in shortage, there's so many accusations.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: But you know, when you get to meet the people like yourself and the people making that directly and you can, you understand what they're trying to do and they tell you about the problems.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: And then also I know about problems like when you're building something or it doesn't, just, it just doesn't turn on and there's no problems.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: I mean you're, it's just getting something going.
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: It's a very difficult and stressful thing to do and but the more people and the better people you have working on it, the better the project goes.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: But, you know, like you said, you learned on that on your first project and now that you're doing it this way, you've met so many other people and you've kind of been but I'm sure you know it's not 100% but just with that said, knowing what it really is, and then have someone in the line while you're waiting tell you how it is and you're just you just kind of smile.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: So that's what we try and do with this is kind of bring to the you know, the people out there some sort of perspective to the industry that you know it's not just a scam to make a marketing play, to just make money.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 3: Now, I mean some people earn it honestly, but for the most part I find in bourbon, I mean, you talk to the distillers and everything and they're interested in making whiskey and they'll fight for the quality of the whiskey opposed to.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: You know it's a fight, but you know that's what we try and do.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 5: So I appreciate you acknowledging that Well, absolutely thank you and thanks for doing it All right and that to me.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: I try to like to bring a balance between the two to let the people know between the making the money and also to let the back story of the work and the people all of the great people that I've met that's involved in their stories and the passion that each and every one I mean, all the way down to the person that's grinding that grain, to unloading that grain or delivering that grain.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 5: Each one, it seems like they have a passion.
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 5: You know to making whiskey and bringing them all together, you know and you know being able to help tell their story and get it out there to the whiskey and bourbon lovers and enthusiasts is, you know, just kind of a little bit of a benefit to me?
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: Well, it's great.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: It's absolutely great.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: Thank you for doing it, because there's so many, so many wonderful stories and so many people that are involved in the process.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: That don't you know, that don't get the recognition, but you know.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 4: But they play extremely important roles, you know, in the whole of the industry.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: Well, what you're doing with the Whiskey House of Kentucky is really cool because you don't your backstory is you, and there's no romantic something happen that you guys are responsible about.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: If somebody's gonna restore a brand, that's on them and you basically make good whiskey for them and the way they want it made, and so I.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: It's a good, it's a great idea, and so I look forward to you know what's how it's gonna happen.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 5: We look forward to sharing more with you as we progress here, Absolutely, and thanks for sharing some of the insight and the stories and all the way back from New York and everything.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: And how you got here today.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 5: So, real interesting and amazing stuff and I'm sure a lot of listeners out there enjoyed it too.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 5: And just thanks again for being here.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: It's my pleasure.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: Thank you for having me.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: All right, everybody will wrap this one up.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: We're the Scotchy Bourbon Boys.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Dan.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 3: Oh my God, Dave, when my head is, I don't know, but anyways, and thanks, Supernash.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: Remember wwwscotchybourbonboyscom for all Scotchy Bourbon Boys, things Like our Scotchy Bourbon Boys, Glenn Carons, and also our T-shirts and Bourbon Balls With that.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: Remember follow us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and X, and then all the major podcast formats.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: Remember like, listen, subscribe and leave good feedback.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: Remember good bourbon equals good times and good friends.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: Make sure you drink responsibly.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: Don't drink and drive and live your life dangerously.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: Little Stevo's gonna take us out, Right.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: MUSIC.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, show me the way to the next Whiskey Bar.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, don't ask why.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: Oh, don't ask why.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: Show me the way to the next Whiskey Bar.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, don't ask why, oh, don't ask why.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 2: For if we don't find the next Whiskey Bar, I tell you we must die.
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: I tell you we must die.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: I tell you, I tell you, I tell you we must die.