Latest / The Scotchy Bourbon Boys / Hillbilly Gangsters And Barrel Strength Bourbon with Steve Smith Co Founder of Uncle Boogie's Distillery

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Hillbilly Gangsters And Barrel Strength Bourbon with Steve Smith Co Founder of Uncle Boogie's Distillery · The Scotchy Bourbon Boys

• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: For 11 generations, the Neely family has been making whiskey.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Long before there was a distillery in Sparta, Kentucky, there were family recipes, copper stills, moonshine runs, and a tradition passed from one generation to the next.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Today, that history lives on at Neely Family Distillery.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Here, whiskey is made with sweet mash fermentation, open-top cypress fermenters, and copper pot stills.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: But history here doesn't just sit behind glass.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: An original French absinthe still, built in the 1890s, is still producing spirits today.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: And now a brand new three-chamber column still begins another chapter.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Old World Tradition.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Eleven generations later, the Neely family is still doing what they've always done.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Making whiskey.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Nealie Family Distillery.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Come find your bottle.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: For more information, visit Nealy Family Distillery.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_06: It's not just about putting whiskey in the bottle, it's about Kentucky family history and generations of whiskey making.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_06: Tonight we welcome Steve Smith, founder of Uncle Bougie's Distilling Company.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_06: Welcome, Steve.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate the time.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: Appreciate you getting invited.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's great to be here.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_06: Super, uh, we, you know, I we saw your presentation at Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_06: CT and myself and Super Nash, we all were right there, got to taste the whiskey, and we were, we really were impressed.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_06: We came away with your presentation on the history, but also the taste of the whiskey.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_06: And then you know, that whole sit that whole situation.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_06: But the one thing that will start this off for everybody here, and I I'm gonna ask this question because I really don't know.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_06: Who is Steve Smith?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_06: And how did this how did you get into the whole crazy journey of what you're doing?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first, and thank you again for having me.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: So you can see behind me, let's see if I know how to do this.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's my my grandfather in in the general store in Howardstown.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, the whole thing started about 15 years ago when my mother died.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think as we all get older, we kind of wonder where we come from and and want to know the history of our family.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And after, you know, several years, I discovered that, you know, my my I was from a Kentucky crime family, basically.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we've been making whiskey, illegal whiskey.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: We've been in the illegal, what do they call it, untaxed manufacturing business in for since 1785 is when our family settled in Kentucky.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: Scotch Irish by heritage, of course, Scotch Irish brought the whiskey making tradition to America.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then as I explored, you know, with my uncles, my mother's one of 11.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: I've got 33, 32 cousins, big family.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I kept asking my uncles, and they started sharing some of the family recipes with me.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then the last recipe I discovered in an old book that was from the Howard's Journal store.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's pre-Civil War, which, you know, I think is close, as close to the origin story of bourbon and whiskey making in Kentucky as anyone's gonna get.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I'm excited to share it with you tonight.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's not available on the market yet, but I'm always interested in what you think and and how what you think of our uh our bourbon.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I'm I'm excited.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_06: So just a little bit like you know, I you you know, you found out you were part of that part of the family, and you we'll get a little bit in more into the history, but who was Uncle Bougie or how did the nickname come about?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so Uncle Bougie's my great uncle and legendary bootlegger, and you know, my sweet man behind me was, you know, he doesn't he doesn't look like it, but you know, he was part of one of the largest.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: So the Howardstown gang, as they called them during Prohibition, were the largest distributors of illegal whiskey in the Midwest.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_01: We estimate that they were, well, we know from oral interviews and old manuscripts that they were whiskey was selling right out of the barrel in 1924 at$30 a gallon.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: We're shipping about 400 gallons a day.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So each trip in in if you adjust for inflation, each trip is worth about$240,000 in today's money, which is extraordinary.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And if you do the math, you know, they're shipping somewhere between$50 and$60 million a year in today's currency standard on an annual basis out of this little tiny town in the hills of the Rolling Fork River in Nelson County.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we're right along the Nelson County, LaRue County border, is where Howardstown was.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um still is.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_06: It's kinda so my wife is a an eighth Scotch Irish, her her grandmother was Scotch Irish Welsh.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_06: So that kind of but she married a pure a pure Sicilian.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_06: So it made for some interesting, interesting, interesting things.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_06: But but like you said, one of the things that we found out about the uh the their grandpa was he eventually got into insurance and he in Milwaukee, and he was they were in Milwaukee, but there was a time before he was into res when he was a young man where he got in a car crash and they found a cyst on his liver.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_06: And but the car crash that he was in was he was distribu he was doing a run for people in Milwaukee, and and that was when he got out because the the actual you know it saved his life because they found that that that was there and they were able to based off the car crash, but it was very unique to find out all of a sudden years later that when he was in this car crash, he was doing, you know, a moonshine run or a you know a run.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_06: His bootlegging.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, his bootlegging.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_06: And you know, people would do that because you would do run one run and you do it successfully, and it was very valuable to the people to be able to do that.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_06: It wasn't like he was a part of their any, you know, but they would they they did it all the time, right?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I you know, the and I I don't know about Milwaukee, but I can speak for the people in the mountains, in the hills of the Appalachians.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in rural Kentucky in 1924, the average wage is probably we've got a document around$15 a month.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: And during prohibition, we're paying$25 a day to work in the stills.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, you can see the money, right?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And there's three to four hundred men, eighteen illegal stills operating.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it it's a machine that was extraordinary.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And we distributed whiskey to to the mob in Chicago and and all over the Midwest.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: You probably had ties to Remus, right?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean Yeah, large-scale manufacturing process.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_06: I know, I know that when you read about Remus, one of the things was is that there was so much money involved that he would just give you two years' salary.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_06: Most people, if you were just given two years' salary just to be quiet, you would be quiet, right?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, it was just like that that's how much money there was.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we have it documented that in in 1928, this Mr.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: Jesse Spaulding, who was my grandfather's partner, they were bribing the federal officer in Louisville$3,000 a month.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And in today's math, that's$750,000 a year, right?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody's on the payroll.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the poor people in the mountains that went to jail.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: But lots of judges are on the payroll, you know, politicians.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's on the payroll.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_06: The attorney general.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_06: He was a big one.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_06: Too bad that um back then was too bad that president had to had to pass away.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_06: Because that was that was rough on everybody because everything was out of place after that.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_06: So look, you were talking, I mean, where do you want to where do you want to start?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, do you w like I know that you were getting into some I think we got to start at the beginning.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I mean, do you how do you want to do this?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to taste a little whiskey and then tell us?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, well.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_06: Well, let's let's get one in my glass.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_06: So yeah.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, why don't you pull out the rye?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I think this rye barrel that uh I sent you is extraordinary, right?
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Let's just go into the and I think that proof is uh is that written on there?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_06: It's yeah, 131.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna I I'm gonna like it because I've I found out through I thought initially I wasn't a rye fan.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_06: I drank some very terrible tasting rye's.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_06: Some of the flavors almost are rancid to me.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_06: But then once I started getting into barrel strength rice without realizing it, anything barrel strength I liked.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_06: And I was doing a tasting at a distillery that does in Pennsylvania that does a lot of rye, and the wife of the distiller was like, it's just it's not that you don't like rice, you just like you don't like lower proof rice.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_06: She goes, You lower proof rise.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I like the I like the barrel strength rise.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now this barrel I think is extraordinary.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I I've got about 10 of these barrels that I put away.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's nine years old, and you know, I don't have a lot of it.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I matter of fact, the barrel you're tasting right now has probably half dozen bottles left in it, but I think that is probably the best, one of the best ryes I've ever made, and it just came out right.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_06: It's up there.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, wow.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_06: Caramel.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_06: A little bit of minus maybe.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_06: Finishes with a little bit of an just a touch of anise.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I never tell anybody, you know, it's one of the things we never do, or I don't do, at the distortion.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: I never tell anybody how to taste, right?
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm always excited to see what other people think.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't like the suggestion that, you know, if I say I taste blackberry in there, you you feel dumb that you don't taste blackberry.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, everybody tastes different.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Women we find buy a lot more rye.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think women have two to three times the taste bud of men.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: And for some reason, we see lots more rye sold to women.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think this barrel is just, you know, spectacular.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: And like I've said, I've got about 10 of these.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think we're going through four or five.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Like I was telling you before we got started.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in the early days we put away a lot of whiskey.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And but, you know, we're gonna start putting away 200 barrels a year.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of our max that we're after.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: We just want to stay small and direct to the consumer.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're not really interested.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: We're not on any shelves, we're not in any bars.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: We just want, you know, we want people who understand great whiskey to come spend some time with us and enjoy our product and take it home.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_06: I I think that's uh that's a really good way to do it.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_06: And then do, you know, like your knowledge of history is exactly, you know, speak about it as much as you possibly can so people come.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_06: That's just such a great way to get people to come to your come to your distillery.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I I was talking before we got started today.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it the whole kind of origin story starts in 1779 when Thomas Jefferson is the governor of Virginia, and the Revolutionary War is raging.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, the the British are arming the Native Americans, which are the Shawnee and the Minga, Mingo, and and the Cherokee Native Americans that you know to b basically make a Hail Mary left hook.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: If they could invade from the Western Front, they feel like they can win the war.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: So Thomas Jefferson decides we need more settlers in Kentucky, and they create a land grant uh in May of 1779, where if you move to Kentucky and you build a cabin and you grow corn, nobody knows why he put corn there, and you do that for three years in a row, you can claim 400 acres.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, thousands of people made the journey.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'd say that, you know, I I don't know this number for a fact, but the survival rate was probably 50-50 at best.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, this is when the Rolling Fork River Valley first gets settled, and we have documentation that Wadi Boone and Stephen Ritchie, which is in the paper as issue, you know, are the first commercial manufacturers of whiskey in Kentucky, and that's in 1779.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: So they've already set up a still, they're manufacturing whiskey.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And really the Rolling Fork River Valley, which is where my family's from, is kind of the perfect storm for the whiskey making tradition.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I keep using the word whiskey because our our families are Scotch Irish, and they're using the word whiskey.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the word bourbon comes from bourbon county, and we can get into that whole story later, but you know, you're not going to tell a Scotch Irish, you know, to call his whiskey bourbon.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: But and so you've got you know, you've got the Rolling Fork River Valley, which is this escarpment that goes, starts at Fort Knox and goes all the way through you know central Kentucky, and it's stuffed with you know all the things you need.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's got uh thousands and thousands of limestone springs that feed the river, you've got lots of old growth timber, and you've got you know river bottoms to grow corn.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: But the most important thing is you've got the river that connects to the salt river that goes to the Ohio, where you can ship your products down to New Orleans, which are the earliest, you know, those are the markets for Kentucky bourbon.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, this the old saying is a mule can carry four bushels of corn on its back, but if you turn it into corn whiskey, it's the equivalent of 25 bushels of corn.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's always been a math problem, but you know, the the the Howards and the Spauldings and the Boons and the Athertons over the next 10 or 15 years created an amazing, you know, commercial industry, which is really the origin story of the commercial manufacturing.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: No, there are people making whiskey.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not claiming that we're the first people to make whiskey in Kentucky.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's documented there was a still at Boonesboro with Daniel Boone.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, lots of people would bring small stills over, but in terms of manufacturing and making large scale, and when I'm talking large scale back then, I'm also not talking about a ton of, you know, I'm talking about a hundred gallons, right?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, John McDougall Atherton is he's quoted in a paper saying that, you know, people would make 50 to 75 gallons, maybe a hundred gallons a season.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, they so they would, you know, in the spring, the creeks turn into streams and the streams turn into rivers, and they would float their product down the rolling fork into the salt and into the Ohio.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's about a thousand miles to New Orleans, which is a crazy story.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: You can imagine you'd be gone for three months, and then you'd walk home the Natchez Trace, which was called the Devil's Back, but another 450-mile walk home.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, you know, the inventive soul would just stand on the Natchez trace, shoot you, and take all your gold, and not go through all the trouble that you know everybody else went through.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the whole thing was a very dangerous ex, you know, expedition, if you will.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_06: There's there's it wasn't for the soft, soft person.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_06: It wasn't for a soft person.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_06: You bet that that walk home, like you said, you better you better have somebody, whatever, or be ready or be well uh well armed.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_06: It wasn't something where you go down there, or you should just stay down there, spend the money, and come back.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_06: You know, that's where Bourbon Street came right came in, right?
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_06: They all just they just spent the money there.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, Bourbon Street was named long before bourbon, but you know, it you know, mama was waiting at home with the seven to twelve children, so but yeah, you'd better get home or else you were in bigger trouble, I'm sure.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_06: So Right.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, I think some of them made enough when you got your money, you probably bought a horse, but still that didn't stop you from getting robbed or killed.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_06: It was more like or there was Indians, there was like you said, there was ra I mean it was an it was not a sh a safe endeavor, put it that way.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the first serial killers in Kentucky were actually the Hart brothers, and they, you know, they uh frequented the Natchez trace.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: So they they can estimate they killed between 50 and 75 people just for sport.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for 20 bucks of gold.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: So it you know, that's what's amazing to me, and and really the fire in the belly of of our whiskey is this the the origin story, right?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the the it's the story of every family, it's the story of everybody on here tonight.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, your parents take great risk, their parents took risks.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, everybody's trying to give the next generation a better life.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, we're proud that, you know, from 1785, we've been producing, you know, great whiskey in Kentucky.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: And and I can point to seven generations of people who have risked their lives so that I'd have a better life and we could be on here having a conversation tonight.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: So that's what this thing's all about.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_06: So they weren't sending the distillers on this trip, right?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_06: It was probably some of their cousins or their kids or people who would go there.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_06: And and it had to be disheartening to send them down on the trip and then know when they're supposed to be home, and it gets to be a month or two when they're not home.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: It just was like and then it wasn't like they I mean, it's no, there's no phones.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean it's it's it's insane when you think about it.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the other thing in the paper that I sent you is, you know, Abraham Lincoln.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: So the Atherton, you know, one of the one of the things that never gets told is the story of John Aaron Atherton and the Atherton family, which really was uh so it post-Civil War, John McDougall Atherton is the largest distiller in the nation, right?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: He's producing 20% of the nation's bourbon whiskey in can in Kentucky bourbon.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so and if you take 31E from Bargetown to New Haven, you'll go through Athertonville today.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: There's a cooperage there that makes barrels, but you know, the distillery in its day was the largest distillery complex in the nation.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, he sold out in 1899 and then to the whiskey trust, and then you know, with prohibition it all went away.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: But it was it was a community of hundreds and hundreds of people.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, just like we were talking earlier, overnight, you know, everybody's lives are ruined and everybody's out of a job.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's just an extraordinary story that's.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of been lost to history, but the Athertons were the kingpins of whiskey in in America, you know, from 1865 all the way up until 1899.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_06: And then I I mean in the paper, you were talking about Thomas Lincoln, right?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_06: And his association of being a part of putting it on flat boats, but not actually have documentation that he was putting whiskey on the flat boats, but he was sharing flat boats from what I take it with people who were shipping boats.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: So it's well documented that when he moved, so Thomas Lincoln lived about a quarter mile away.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: Lincoln's boyhood home is about a quarter half mile from Athertonville today.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And Thomas Lincoln is really one of the first Coopers of, you know, in Kentucky, right?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: So he's a furniture maker.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: He's Abraham Lincoln's father.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: They live on the Knob Creek Farm, which is where the Knob Creek, you know, bourbon brand comes from.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: My family actually owned that land.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so Thomas Lincoln was making barrels, it's well documented for Atherton.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it says that Abe Lincoln grew up, you know, spent time at the distillery.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then when they left Kentucky in 1815 to move up to Indiana, he floated, I think it's a hundred barrels of whiskey.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: So he was probably trading barrels for whiskey, but whiskey was a great currency, right?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't you could buy anything with a keg of whiskey.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so he floated his whiskey out.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: He he flipped over, lost a bunch of his carpenter tools, but he was able to put the barrels back on.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: And those barrels successfully made it to Indiana.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_01: He I talked to the guy who runs the Lincoln Museum over in Illinois, and he believes that he made two or three trips.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: He would bring you know certain cargo, but when they came over, they did a ferry.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, that this whole kind of group of people are, you know, it's kind of, I mean, nobody ever talks about you know Thomas Lincoln being one of the first Coopers in Kentucky, but he was definitely making whiskey barrels for the Roland Fork River Valley.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_06: Well, that wouldn't even make sense with Lincoln's tie during the Civil War of how he was, you know, there there was the temperance movement had gained steam, and they they were on the close of at that point making, you know, a prohibition, you know, the Volstead Act kind of thing.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_06: But when the war came, that changed everything, and Lincoln was always shipping barrels of whiskey to the troops from what you know.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_06: I've I you know he was making sure that they were getting because whiskey was a lot of different things at that time.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Abraham Lincoln actually took two two flap boat trips to New Orleans, too.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if you look at the history on him, he took two of those trips with this is when he lived in Indiana, but yeah, he definitely understood the importance of Louisville from uh, you know, a a uh you know, a strategic standpoint, and the Union Army moved into Louisville fairly quickly.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: As you move into Barchtown, that would have been, you know, Confederate land.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the whole Civil War thing.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the Civil War is really where the illegal whiskey trade starts because in 1863, 1862, whiskey is selling for about 25 cents a gallon.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's cheaper than milk.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then in 1865, the government puts a$2 tax on whiskey, which the multiplier is 28 times.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine the it's an extraordinary amount of money that nobody had.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it was all designed.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_06: It was bartering, you can't yeah, it was just get the small stills stopping because they weren't making there was no money to pay.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, my family's like, well, screw that.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, we'll sell what whiskey for a buck seventy-five and we'll get rich.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what they did.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we we have a document, it's actually there's a document on our website of a U.S.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Marshal coming in 1868 with, you know, a couple hundred men, and they kidnap this guy, they're gonna hang him, and my fourth great grandfather or Uncle Joe stops them.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: And but, you know, there's a bulletin called Flakes Bulletin, and makes the press makes it in Texas.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: And this Merriweather guy says, you know, there's an armed resistance of three to four hundred men.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they're ready to kill over this trade, right?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's the only thing keeping them alive and the only thing making them money.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, that's really most people, you know, talk about prohibition, but the whiskey making, the underground whiskey making tradition really starts in 1865.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we start voting counties dry in 1874 in Kentucky.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time we get all the way to prohibition, there's only 14 wet counties.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: The rest of them are all have voted themselves dry.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, every time another county votes itself dry, the price of a legal whiskey goes up and we make more money.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, and also the demand goes up because less people are making it in that county.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, it's as you go through crazy.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_06: So, in other words, even like today, as we all know, the government, the their their stance on everything, what once again, it all comes down, in my opinion, even though today is a little bit more organized, but it still comes down to enforcement.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_06: Because there's so many different rules and regulations that are out there that even, you know, modern times of let's just say sh bringing whiskey from one state to another or whatever, there's a lot of those rules still on the books that are everyday being broken by everyday citizens.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_06: And there's no way you could ever enforce it.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_06: And they and the amount of whiskey being bought, I would I wouldn't even understand why the government would want to enforce it.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_06: The goal isn't to stop make people get them in trouble and make them stop buying whiskey.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_06: The goal is for them to buy whiskey so it's taxed, correct?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, it's uh it's like a two-way street.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm too old to go to federal prison, right?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: I don't look good in orange, but so you know, we we have to proof our barrels several tons a day.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: We I mean we go through extraordinary lengths because again, we're keeping straight out of the barrel into your bottle, which is uniquely done.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you got these big bottling lines, you got all these machines, they put the exact amount.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: So we have to be very careful.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, you know, as long as I pay the taxes, when you walk out with the bottle, I'm fine.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: But when you get into three-tier distribution and all that other stuff, it just gets more and more complicated every day.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, you you'll you'll work yourself out of business really quick just with compliance.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, our compliance, our legal fees every month for compliance are just extraordinary, but you know, it's part of the program.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: So you just got to follow the rules.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_06: So we're at prohibition.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_06: We've gotten up to prohibition.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_06: Let's see.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_06: We did get a super chat.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_06: I got history.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_06: So uh Kirk is enjoying, he said he is enjoying this.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_06: He likes history.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_06: So you got a guy.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: You got a guy making a first of all, do I get a do I get a spectacular on the on the rye?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what what where do what do I get there?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_06: What do you get?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, so I I got the I got the note, okay?
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_06: So so we always do, we do barrel bottle breakdowns with with knocks on the barrel, but uh we won't break this one down, but for a rye, it is very, very good.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_06: I give you that.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_06: I'm getting actually I figured it out.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_06: It was a bubblegum note off of it.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_06: It was interesting.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, like a bazooka.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_06: It's opened up a little bit.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_06: Like a like a like one of those.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_06: I've never heard that.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_06: It's it's it goes, it's caramel, and then it kind of gives you a nice.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, it's not overly spicy.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_06: It's not over overly hot.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_06: At 131, it's drinking really good.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_06: And then I uh what what I thought was a licorice note, like that anise, really, it's like a biz like a bazooka bubblegum note.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_06: That's pretty.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, it's it's it's it's for for rye.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_06: I you know, if I'm liking your rye, right there's a plus.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_06: I I've I've I've spit rye's out.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_06: I've I've I've described them in ways that weren't very nice.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_06: I like like you said though, like you said, some people taste different, you know.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_06: Not everybody loves lobster.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, just you know, it's just that simple.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_06: All right, yeah, so you get a really good, I give you it gets a thumbs up.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_06: I'm liking the the the mouthfeel is fantastic.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_06: Good, that's a good job.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_06: Thank you.
• 33:23
  unknown: Thank you.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_06: All right, so now comes the really cool part of the story.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_06: And what is that?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_06: Well, with the the illegal trade.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, you you were into some depth on the hotel, this you know, the seal box in Louisville.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, that was I I was intrigued by that.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_06: I'm always intrigued by that.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, I loved um Boardwalk Empire.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_06: I really wasn't into whiskey, but it really kind of got gets you into even though they took took the whole the whole part of it and just condensed it all in one.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let me kind of set this up in so everybody can follow the story here.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: You know, 1865, 1874, and 1899, Tom McDougall Atherton sells out, and and he sells for millions of dollars.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_01: He's already worth millions of dollars.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: And just to understand, let's say you're worth$5 million, which he probably was in 1900, the multiplier is 20.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: So that means he's worth 100 million in today's money, just to put it in perspective, right?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the richest guys in the Midwest, and he moves to Louisville and he builds the Sealback Hotel.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: So if you ever come to Louisville and you stay in the Sealback Hotel, and it's so, you know, we keep manufacturing illegal whiskey.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_01: This we're in 1905, 1910 now.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_01: Almost all the counties in Kentucky are voted dry.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I don't have documentation from the 1910s and 1912s on what whiskey was selling for, but I do know we do have documented in 1924 white whiskey reached its peak, and at least in Howardstown, of$30 a gallon.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is white whiskey coming out of the still.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so in today's money, that's$600, right?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: We also have documented that we're shipping 400 gallons a day.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: That makes each trip worth$240,000 in today's money.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_01: And we're, you know, and we're shipping six days a week at least, right?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: So we estimate that that out of this little tiny town in the middle of nowhere, you know, I call them kind of referred to our families as hillbilly gangsters.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: We're shipping between$50 and$60 million a year in a legal whiskey, all in cold hard cash.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: So I interviewed an old, you know, a distant husband of mine, who was 95 years old, this is about a decade ago, and I said, What was life like?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: And he I said, Everybody, didn't they build mansions?
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: He goes, Nope.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody lived in their old crummy houses, you know, they had you know outhouses, they they didn't have any heat, they had fireplaces, but there were three brand new Cadillacs sitting in the front yard, right?
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody was uh spending money like it was going out of style.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful cars, you know, tearing up cars, all this type of stuff.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, but I want you to try the double oaked real quick, but before we can get into the Mr.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Jesse story.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_06: So I was excited to try the double oaked.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_06: We can uh I think this is nine years old, right?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_06: 117 proof double oak.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have a age, but yeah, it's nine.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm 99% positive that's nine years old.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_06: Well, 117 proof is in my wheelhouse.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: So when you come to Uncle Bougie's, everything is uncut and unfiltered straight from the barrel.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_06: Just like the Scotchy Bourbon Boys.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, right.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_06: Exactly.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_06: Uncut and unfiltered.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_06: And honestly, we don't cut and we it's a whiskey podcast, so there's no filter, so we just fit that just like you guys.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_06: The nose on it trying to get the It's almost like a kind of walnut nose with a little bit.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_06: Like a toast with a toasted oak.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_06: There's very little for one seventeen you have very little ethanol on the nose.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_06: You know, sometimes with that you'll when you pour it.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_06: Right?
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we we've got a secret that we use to take a you know, to kind of get some of that ethanol out of the barrels before we put them on the floor.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_06: That's that's uh I'm liking that.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_06: There's you you're picking up with the double oak.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_06: You that I mean double oaks are like my wheelhouse.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_06: I there's very few double oaks out there that I don't like.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_06: I like this one.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_06: This and it it almost gets um, what is the the finish?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_06: That's what I'm trying to get.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_06: So it drinks whiskey-ish.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_06: Like you're talking, I always like to say whiskey bourbon.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_06: There's a flavor in there, and then where you go from that, how much wood sugar gets in there, and that type of thing, or how much, you know, then all of a sudden that'll make different.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_06: There might be a fruity flavor, or there might be a bubble gum flavor, or there might be a caramel like dessert ice, you know, caramel vanilla flavor.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_06: But then there's that just general bourbon flavor, you know what I mean?
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_06: That's that's still it's whiskey, but it's not a dessert.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_06: And that's what this one's coming across with me.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_06: There's not, it's not, it's not a sugary, but that finish the final finish.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_06: I gotta say touch a tobacco, it's like a sweet tobacco, but then I mean it's not cherry.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_06: It's it's more like a a van a a van a toasted, it's got like a toasted oak with a little bit of vanilla.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it's very complex.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_06: So tell me about what your second uh what did you put it as far as the second oak?
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_06: Was it a new barrel or was it a used oak?
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a new barrel.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the we don't talk about our mash bills, but we we will say that we use a number three charrel.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: I like a lot of char and a lot of flavor.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and so that's about the only thing we we talk about.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I it's picking up now that it's now that it's opened up.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_06: I hit it a couple times.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_06: It's like a to me, it's a nutty, like almost a qu a sweetness of a pecan, but the aspect of a walnut.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_06: You know what I mean?
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_06: You're picking that up.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_06: It's not peanut.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_06: It doesn't, it reminds me of a bean product just a little bit in the nutty flavor, but it's but they usually pick up like a peanut flavor.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_06: And this one is I think it's spectacular.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's very nicely done.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_06: Well, for for being a whisk, a burr, this is a double oak bourbon or a whiskey?
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_06: Double oak bourbon.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, so for being a burr, this this is what I would if I was in 1890 going to the bar and I uh ordered a bourbon.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_06: This is what I would want.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_06: This is what I would expect.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, oh, it's fabulous.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: I got great legs, great color.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_06: It's like I said, every single time.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_06: Now, that time, that sip, picked up a little bit of dark chocolate.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_06: I think that's it's funny.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_06: It's getting sweeter as I go.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_06: That's unique and it's nice.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_06: As it opened, I guess it's opening up a little bit in the glass, but it's I mean, it's not like you didn't put it in the bottle, ship it to me, and it's it's it's been opened.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, that barrel's been on the floor for about a month, and so you know, it's been stirred a lot, it's it's been opened a lot, and you know, the oxidated oxidation actually helps it mellow and calm down a little bit.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_06: So well, it's your oxidation, in my opinion, in most cases, especially once you purchase something in a bottle.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_06: I've very rarely had the oxidation have a negative effect on a bourbon.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_06: I find sometimes the higher priced ones won't they'll be good.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_06: And then, you know, if it's a really good high, higher priced one that's finished or whatever, they don't change too much with oxidation.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_06: But I find a lot of times I've even had, you know, one that I opened up one day and I thought it was about rated about a 60.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_06: And then by the next day, when you taste it, it was up around a high 70s or low 80s.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_06: You know what I mean?
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_06: It'll actually change that much with depending.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_06: But yes, again, fantastic.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_06: That's what I like to hear.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_06: You guys are that's one thing that we that you know, you can give me a presentation on history and everything, but that is something that stood out that day to me was the whiskey was good.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_06: And I didn't know what to expect based off your name.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_06: You know what I mean?
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_06: Never seeing you or not knowing much about you.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_06: You know what I'm saying?
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_06: So it was kind of like I was very intrigued.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, I like surprising people.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we waited a long time to roll out our brand to make sure that our that our shit didn't stink.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_01: How's that?
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, we want to make sure our whiskey was good and and we've been trying it with our friends and family, but we just opened our home place last year.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, and and we don't have a lot of the early stuff, but it is spectacular, and it you know, it's giving us the the fuel to put more away and and and build into the future.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_01: So but let me uh let me go into the story that we talked about.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: So uh 1899, John McDougall Atherton, and that's why I I told you the names in the beginning, because you got to remember if you're getting into an illegal business, you get into a legal business with people that you trust, right?
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: And the Scotch Irish were a group of all these early settlers along the Rolling Fork River Valley in 1779 were all Scotch-Irish.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and they were a you know, I call it unbreakable kinship, right?
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_01: They they have a kinship that goes back thousands of years.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so our families have been doing business, the Boons and we're all interrelated, and the Boons and the Howards and the Spauldings and and the Athertons.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so as John McDougall Atherton opens up the Silvach Hotel, which is in in 1905, it's the grandest hotel in in the Midwest.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: You've got the wealthiest people in the world coming to Louisville, to the Kentucky Derby, the Vanderbilts, and you know, the Belmont family, and all these great New York families, the the Whitneys and all these people are the horse racing is in its heyday.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so the SEO back is the place to be, right?
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_01: It is the most fabulous place on the planet.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: And Mr.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_01: Jesse Spaulding, my relative, and and so the the way the the the organization, I'll call it my Kentucky crime family worked was Mr.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_01: Jesse was the politician and he was the salesperson in Louisville.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: And then my family grandfather, FM Howard, was the operations guy and the money guy and Supply chain back in Howardstown.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so Mr.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_01: Jesse, we have proven now, this is the story we rolled out that he was at the SEO back from 1912 to 1932.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_01: And for those people that study American literature, uh F.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_01: Scott Fitzgerald was part of the paper that's going to get published next year.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: We've proven was at the Sealback Hotel and in the company of John McDougall Atherton from 1915 to 1918.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Most people have always said he was only in Louisville for 30 days, but we've proven that he was there for three and a half years.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, the uh basically uh what the paper will prove when it's published next year is Mr.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: Jesse and my family and the Howard's and the whiskey you're tasting next is the not only the origin story of the bourbon-making tradition in Kentucky, but it's also the origin story of the great Gatsby.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we have proven is that Mr.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_01: Jesse, uh to my satisfaction, is Gatsby.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so all of this will be coming out in the next 12 to 24 months.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: The paper is under peer review right now with the Philson Society and Historical Society in Louisville.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, we have it all documented, and it's a collection of old manuscripts and tapes that I have in my possession that were I've inherited that gives us all the detail and the information, and then my book will hopefully come out next fall.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I'm anxious for you to take so the next bottle uh that that I've given you there is what I gave you a little bit of at the at the Bourbon Festival.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: And and this is an old grain recipe that is pre-Civil War in an old ledger from the old Howard store.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: And uh in a footnote in lower corner that nobody'd ever noticed.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started putting this away five, six years ago, and I asked John Hargrove at Whiskey House about the recipe and Dave Mandel, and and they'd never heard of it before.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they'd never the the recipe is a unicorn in the industry today.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but as we trace it back, it you know, it makes lots of sense.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I had a a writer in this about two weeks ago, and he described this as some of the best uh bourbon whiskey he'd ever had in his life, and he gave it a spectacular, but it's very unique.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a unicorn.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know anybody else that's that's making this mash pill.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I got about four barrels of this that'll come out next year.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so there's only gonna be 500, 600 bottles of this.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_01: Because you know, when you start this stuff, you you I mean, you don't want to make 300 barrels of something and it turn out like garbage should go broke pretty quickly that way.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, but anyways, well but tell me what you think.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_06: So, so okay, so it gets released, and you've been making a certain amount, whatever, as you go have gone through.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_06: So, if based off its success, do you start to lay down more to start building the base?
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_06: Is that kind of how what do you think?
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like in the next month, we're gonna start.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I mean I've been laying some of this down, 10, 20 barrels, right?
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and but we're gonna start laying down 200 barrels of this.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_06: Well, and considering you're associated with the whiskey house of Kentucky and you know, and their distiller, I mean, it's not like when you you've you've guys have been tasting this that they've been telling you it's bad.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_06: You knew you know it's you've known for a while it's pretty damn good, right?
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we knew for when we knew the white dog was spectacular, right?
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so now this is five and a half years old now, it's 125 proof.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: So think about that.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: Five and a half years is gained, it went in the barrel at 118, and and I there's nothing like it in the world.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, I just I think it's the most complex bourbon out there, and it's a unique, it's the the master spill is a unicorn.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I mean, you have the good people, you know, David and the master distillers, John John Hargrove.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, John, yeah, John.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_06: Both of them.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, John used to be at Barton, and then he he started uh Bargetown Bourbon Company.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: And now he's and and John said this, you know, John was there with us at the uh at the Bourbon Festival, and you know, he he he he he reinforced what I'm telling you tonight.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_06: Well, put it this way, uh he's really come like from Barton's to Bargetown to Whiskey House.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, he definitely has evolved his skills so perfectly that it's it's impressive what he's doing as far as how he's helping people produce some whiskeys that are not standard whiskey.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_06: It's not just the standard, you know, with it's not what would you say, a process that is just streamlined for volume.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_06: You guys are doing a lot of different stuff.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the nice thing about it is the way they've set up their thing is they're designed for small makers like me.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: And so they can make 200 barrels.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, it's you can get the grain all day long, but John knows how to get the flavor, you know, from one side of the still to the other.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: And but I I don't know.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_01: You tell me what you think.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_06: I I I it's exactly what I thought when you were talking about.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_06: It's basically like you said, it's history in a bottle.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_06: It's what I would expect.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_06: Now, as you said, probably when you had your white dog initially and it was a clear spirit, that's what we've been talking about mostly, anyways.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, when you're talking about your family in the 1700s and then the 1800s, clear spirits, I mean, were what people were mostly buying.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_06: And then as far as getting it in a barrel, barrel barrel aging was based off of shipping, correct?
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, you weren't just you weren't just you weren't putting it on the farms in the mountains in a barrel to add brown to the color.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_06: You were selling that at$30 a gallon, the way it is.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_06: You weren't trying to add more expenses, right?
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: No, they were poor.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, they were trying to turn turn capital.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: No, they were they were creating, you know, they they did have a a kiln.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: They so they were storing all their whiskey in their attics, and and they were also had a machine that would heat the whiskey up to turn it red, because red whiskey was more valuable than white whiskey.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, you're exactly right.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_01: In 1780, when you're you know, when you're going to New Orleans, the whiskey's probably six months to eight months old.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: There is some evidence of you know, whiskey being aged two years, but nobody's aging whiskey eight, nine years old.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: And what I'm most excited about is the quality of this whiskey at five.
• 53:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this this whiskey was spectacular at one.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_01: It just kept getting better and better and better and better.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_01: It had that color and that flavor, you know, starting early on.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and John and everybody told me, this is gonna be amazing.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I I'm not uh I'm not a distiller.
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't I don't know anything about distilling, nor do I care to.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's better people at distilling than I'll ever be.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_01: I can guarantee you that this recipe is pre-Civil War.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think it dates from the early 1800s, and it is, and I believe it is the origin story of Kentucky bourbon in America.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, period.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_06: I'll give you my tasting notes.
• 54:01
  SPEAKER_06: And I it's like I understand it says origin story, but it tastes like a payday candy bar.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_06: You got caramel, peanuts, and chocolate, along with some nougat in there.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_06: And so it'd be cool to name one of the batches payday, because that would make sense back then.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_01: But you would but you would on your bottle.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: When I put this in a bottle, I'm gonna write payday on the label for you.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, that's pretty, that's pretty impressive.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_06: And that's what it I like people don't understand what people were people drank whiskey back then from different reasons than they do now to some extent.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_06: There was a there it was for the longest time, it was the only medicine on the planet.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, people use whiskey for a lot of things, coughs, colds, you know, that type of thing.
• 54:57
  SPEAKER_06: Then they also sometimes substituted it for, you know, clear whiskey for water because you didn't know what your water source was.
• 55:05
  SPEAKER_06: Although I've always said Exactly I've always said that there should have been no bad water for people in the mountains that were running a distillery because all you had to do is just distill the water.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_06: It would have taken care of it.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, listen, the problem was not in the mountains.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we in in one of the memoirs that we've got, you know, Archie Spaulding and his father is Mr.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: Jesse, you know, and proving is the origin story of Gatsby.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: Archie's telling us, you know, he's talking to the guys from Chicago, and and they're making runs to Howardstown.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, think about that.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_01: How in the hell does the mob from Chicago find a little town in the middle of nowhere in Kentucky?
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, these gravel roads, you can't, it takes forever to get there, right?
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_01: And they're driving down, picking up whiskeys.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: St.
• 55:53
  SPEAKER_01: Louis, Chicago, Indianapolis.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_01: We have it all documented.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_06: But that's that's how they got away with it.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, those those those roads were the cover by the cover of night was how they were able to get it out of there without getting in trouble.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_06: And, you know, and Remus was pulling it, he he he was pulling it for, you know, for them through, you know, all over the place.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_06: And then you've got, you know, like you said, it was also Capone.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, he, you know, where depending on where you were, they were they needed it to supply everybody.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_06: And it and also it's not a no coincidence that at 12 years, when when all the whiskey was almost used up, all the supplies, all the good bourbon out of Kentucky had been shipped out.
• 56:44
  SPEAKER_06: There's a that's when that's when we have the only amendment that's ever been, you know, reversed, when the politicians no longer could get good bourbon.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_01: Right, exactly.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, so it's just a fascinating you know, the reach of the Rolling Fork River Valley's whiskey and the traditions are just extraordinary.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's the whole goal for me is to make great bourbon, to make lots of friends, but really to tell the story of these folks and and the risk and the trials and tribulations.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what they did was crazy, right?
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, driving, you know, Archie tells us what type of car he drove, six hours to go on back, he'd turn around and do it again.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, but they were making, think about that, each day they're making a quarter of a million dollars in a little tiny mountain town, and everybody's, you know, everybody's poor, and then overnight everybody becomes millionaire.
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_01: So we estimate that Mr.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Jesse was worth three to five million dollars in 19, you know, 1924, 1928.
• 57:55
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, you know, he'd be worth$100 million today, right?
• 57:59
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just in in all in the middle of nowhere.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so, but it speaks to, you know, their their born fighting attitude.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_01: There's a great book by Jim Webb for anybody out there that's got Scotch Irish heritage.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: It talks about the Scotch Irish, uh, it's called Born Fighting, which I'd highly recommend if if you've got that heritage in you.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, and Unbreakable Kinship.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's just amazing what these folks did and how they stuck together.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think that the whiskey speaks for itself, right?
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you gotta just share that with your best friends now.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: There's some left over there in that.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_06: There's a lot left.
• 58:41
  SPEAKER_06: I will be sharing it with the with the other people on the podcast for sure.
• 58:44
  SPEAKER_06: I we always share that that type of thing.
• 58:47
  SPEAKER_06: But that's very dil that that that one, the double oak.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_06: I would say you've got the origin story, is that frontier kind of that bootlet, you know, when when whiskey, you know, and then another aspect to talk about, and I was thinking about this today because I was reading the stories and everything.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_06: Right, the corn that was being grown, you talk about it, it was only we we're talking only, you know, first you they were given the land, and in Kentucky, it's not like corn was just growing around in Kentucky.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_06: When you drive around Kentucky, you look in a field that's not not being farmed, you're not gonna see corn.
• 59:34
  SPEAKER_06: And so that that those that those that corn being grown is first soil nutrient generation corn.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_06: And then the water has no, I mean, we didn't have the ability to pollute these streams and and like we did back then at the in the 1700s, there's no cars, there's no nothing and the rivers might get you know steamboats in them, but at the same time, they're just the the the branches and everything and the streams that feed the rivers are getting nothing except canoes.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the flat boat was a one-way trip to New Orleans, right?
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_01: We actually have it documented a couple different trips, and and they would take the flatboats apart.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: The flatboat was actually worth, you know, made of old growth timber, and nobody in New Orleans had seen a board that big.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the early houses in New Orleans were built with the remnants of the flat boats, they were worth about ten dollars, so which is a lot of money back then, right?
• 1:00:33
  SPEAKER_06: So you could go down the river and then sell your flat boat before you came back.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 1:00:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's why you probably buy a horse or walk back.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the whole trip would take about four months, and it's well documented.
• 1:00:47
  SPEAKER_01: There's a there's a a book called or Bound for New Orleans, which has a couple different flat boat, you know, journals in it.
• 1:00:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just fascinating.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, people getting attacked, getting killed, it's just, you know, robbers everywhere.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's just it's just a crazy, crazy idea.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: But they did it.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they did it to make money and stay alive.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, yeah.
• 1:01:12
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, there's probably there was probably a couple guys that were known to get it there and be able to come back.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:01:20
  unknown: Yeah.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_06: So let's talk about now.
• 1:01:27
  SPEAKER_06: Where are you located?
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_06: And are you are you open right now or are you going to be open?
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: No, we're open.
• 1:01:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're in downtown Louisville in a little neighborhood called Paristown.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh 700 Vine Street.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're open 10 to 5 every day except Monday.
• 1:01:48
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, we do a brunch on Saturday and Sunday if you're interested in coming down for brunch.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, you come down$35 to taste four barrels.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then, like I said, if you like the barrel, we'll hand you a whiskey thief and we'll fill the bottle right there.
• 1:02:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we never pre-bought, I mean, we do have some bottles on our bar, on our bar.
• 1:02:10
  SPEAKER_01: Archie always said that, you know, they would proof back in the early 1900s with the bead, uh, you know, in a mason jar, right?
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he so he he always said that, you know, the proper, they would sell their whiskey at 105.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_01: So on our bar, we serve bourbon at 105 in our cocktails.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have a beautiful cocktail menu.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, we would do a tasting with you, we'll tell a little bit of history, and then if you'd like the bottle, we'll hand you a bottle, we'll fill it right there and then package it up.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get some char in your bottle.
• 1:02:45
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, every bottle that you leave with is one of one.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_01: The barrels are constantly changing in flavor every day.
• 1:02:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and when that barrel's gone, they're gone, right?
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_01: So we we like to we're gonna stay small.
• 1:02:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're you know, we're not interested in being any place else.
• 1:03:02
  SPEAKER_01: We get, you know, it's fun.
• 1:03:03
  SPEAKER_01: We got friends in Michigan and they send their friends down to get call and say, is there so we also the the ladies in the the in the warehouse uh name all the barrels, and uh they're like, you know, is there any any of Monica left?
• 1:03:18
  SPEAKER_01: So they they name that double oak Monica.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so they'll send their friends back to get another bottle before Monica goes dry.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_01: But it's a lot of fun, and uh, you know we would appreciate everybody coming by.
• 1:03:31
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I hope that you'll consider supporting the small brands.
• 1:03:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we think we create not only make great whiskey, but we you know, you'll have a great time.
• 1:03:42
  SPEAKER_06: So the hunt for your barrel experience is that's what you're talking about, where you go through and you find the barrel and then you fill it.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 1:03:52
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_06: So uh what kind of uh so how long have you guys been open doing this?
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we started putting away whiskey a decade ago.
• 1:04:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I see your bottle of whiskey thief there.
• 1:04:06
  SPEAKER_01: Ross at Three Boys was the guy that got me started.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: He was the only one kind enough to make some of my early whiskey.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: And but we opened our home place last September.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, most of the whiskey on the bourbon on the floor is seven, eight, nine years old right now.
• 1:04:23
  SPEAKER_01: We've been, you know, we we don't have a lot of that inventory, but you know, what we do is spectacular.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_06: And when when you when you paired, when did you pair with whiskey house?
• 1:04:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh over the past few years.
• 1:04:37
  SPEAKER_06: So, you know, first barnstone and then and then to whiskey house, right?
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, whiskey thief, and and then no, we uh Ross made our earliest stuff.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and then and then we moved over to Whiskey House several years ago.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, perfect.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_06: Whiskey thief, that I did not know that.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_06: They're they were one of they're one of our sponsors.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: No, Walter's a great friend of mine, and you know, he does a great job down there too.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, that's excellent.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_06: That yeah, Walter is he just loves the industry, so I can see I can see that.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_06: I so that's fantastic.
• 1:05:22
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, so when now with these, with the actual origins story, are you planning to do anything different, like just bottle it into the the gift shop and do it as a relief?
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_01: Or are you gonna be No, it's gonna be so we're we're we're looking at creating a club of 150 members, and you know, the club will definitely get the first selection, but even the club, we ask you to come in and bottle your own.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, we've got some shareholders, so I we're we're gonna look at releasing next.
• 1:05:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're at the Bourbon Festival next year, you'll see a new bottle and new design, and and you know, we're gonna release 500 bottles.
• 1:06:03
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, I I want them to go to people who care about our brand, you know, the bottle flippers, and I I'm not sure how I feel about that whole part of the industry.
• 1:06:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've got a lot of people that come in once a month and buy a bottle from us, and those are the people that will sustain us long term.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: So the whole industry is very interesting right now, and and so we're trying to look at a long-term plan.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_06: The bottle flippers.
• 1:06:31
  SPEAKER_06: That's interesting.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_06: Like you said, in my opinion, there's a certain aspect.
• 1:06:37
  SPEAKER_06: If you're getting flipped, that means you're doing a bunch of right things.
• 1:06:44
  SPEAKER_06: Because they're basically you're bringing it to the market to people, and you're getting it to you'll be getting it to a fair amount of people at the right price, but you gotta remember there's a whole hell of a lot of people that don't actually can't actually get to Louisville.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_06: They might be in California or whatever, right?
• 1:07:04
  SPEAKER_06: And they are they have heard about how you gotta be good enough to be flipped.
• 1:07:09
  SPEAKER_06: You know what I mean?
• 1:07:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just whatever.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that that aspect I don't know how I feel about the whole thing, right?
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_01: I just I got mixed emotions about it.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I I agree, but they're what would you say?
• 1:07:23
  SPEAKER_06: They're a little bit similar to some of your ancestors.
• 1:07:26
  SPEAKER_06: They take advantage of the situation, you know what I mean?
• 1:07:31
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know what to say.
• 1:07:34
  SPEAKER_06: I'm not saying they're bad.
• 1:07:36
  SPEAKER_06: Right the market, well, I would it's what it is.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, there's nothing you can you can do about it.
• 1:07:41
  SPEAKER_06: I think the prices of today.
• 1:07:44
  SPEAKER_06: A lot of the things that's changed it a little bit, you know what I mean?
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_06: When when you were, you know, when Wild Turkey was releasing Russell's 13 at I think the first release was$79 a bottle, and now they got it up to$225 because you know because whatever.
• 1:08:05
  SPEAKER_06: But you know, at the same point point, you wish that they would be able to do that without the second, but there's no there's just no enforcing the sec to change the secondary market, you know.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's the wild west.
• 1:08:22
  SPEAKER_06: And again, I I always look at the secondary market as somebody's willing to wait in line for you.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_06: They're they'll go, they'll wait in line, they get get it, and it and you they'll get you something you can't get.
• 1:08:35
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_06: And there's a certain and that's so you're still paying for the price of the bottle, same thing, but they're charging you a service.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_06: So it's almost like they're not really, they're not really flipping, they're giving you a service so that other people can get it instead of most of the people who complain are local people.
• 1:08:53
  SPEAKER_06: The people who are right there that are used to getting it all the time, and all of a sudden now the flippers are getting it.
• 1:08:59
  SPEAKER_06: That means the rest of the country gets some.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_06: Right, right.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, so going forward, so as you go forward, are you gonna just create new uh new expressions like you have here where you know you have your origin, you got your double oak.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_06: Are you looking at I mean now?
• 1:09:19
  SPEAKER_01: These three are our base, you know, this is what the business we're in.
• 1:09:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd rather focus on what I know works.
• 1:09:27
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I'm not, you know, and again, everybody can call me wrong, but you know, we make great bourbon, right?
• 1:09:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and we're gonna continue to make great bourbon.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the the special thing about us is if you come and bottle it at our place, it's the bottle on the bar that nobody else has.
• 1:09:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of one.
• 1:09:52
  SPEAKER_01: And and so, you know, there's no reason to do all this fancy shit.
• 1:09:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm not interested.
• 1:09:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it it's it's not part of our story, it's not part of our history.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's just great whiskey.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and that's what we're focused on.
• 1:10:08
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 1:10:09
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, my last the my last couple questions were in five years from tonight, and you did this podcast again, what do you hope for Uncle Bougie's to look like?
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_06: Are you just hoping that the name recognition gets out there and just people know about your history?
• 1:10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that's the you know, I uh this is my retirement plan.
• 1:10:32
  SPEAKER_01: So the the whole goal for me is to to honor the the man behind me uh and honor the legacy of my family.
• 1:10:45
  SPEAKER_01: And and so yeah, I mean we we don't need to be fancy, we don't need to be big.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when you walk into Uncle Bougie's, I want you, you know, we we say welcome home and we want you to be part of our family, right?
• 1:11:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's what that's what we're about.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_01: We don't need 10 million members in our family.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_01: We're we're happy with, you know, several thousand.
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I don't have the overhead that all these other places have.
• 1:11:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have a national sales team, I don't have all this.
• 1:11:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I can focus on making very bourbon and creating a great experience when you come to visit.
• 1:11:21
  SPEAKER_06: Well, yeah, I mean uh I the the when you come to the experience, I hope that and I and I can I can't wait to get there.
• 1:11:30
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, I come to Louisville often, so we'll make sure that we get there.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_06: But at the same time, when you're there, do you are you able to give at at the you know the distillery, are you able to give the people the hist is the history there when you get there and all that?
• 1:11:49
  SPEAKER_06: And and everything.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of history's on the wall.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of history's on the wall, a lot of the history's on our website.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and I'm there almost every other, you know, most days.
• 1:12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so we always love to tell a good story.
• 1:12:03
  SPEAKER_01: We make fabulous cocktails, I mean, beautiful cocktails.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_01: We create all our own, you know, syrups and and sauces and everything else.
• 1:12:13
  SPEAKER_01: So everything is handcrafted and everything is small.
• 1:12:17
  SPEAKER_01: And again, you know, it's the the home place is beautiful.
• 1:12:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you go online and look at the pictures, you know, it's got a great 1920s art deco feel, and we're just here to entertain people and and make them happy.
• 1:12:29
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want you walking out with a bottle and telling a story to your friend so that your friend comes back and and we all make new friends.
• 1:12:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the great thing about bird friends.
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_01: So it's about making friends.
• 1:12:41
  SPEAKER_06: When you come here come there and you have it, do you what the stories does the each person that come there gravitate to the different time periods?
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_06: Because you're talking about the late 1700s, you're talking about the 1800s, and you're talking about prohibition, all completely different.
• 1:12:59
  SPEAKER_06: As you said, they were bootleggers and illegal distribute distributors, but at the same time, when you think about it, each era is different.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_06: Uh what they were each what they were doing those during those eras were completely different.
• 1:13:14
  SPEAKER_06: Do you they're all there on display too?
• 1:13:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think everybody wants to be a gangster, right?
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh everybody loves the whole gangster story.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I kindly refer to them as hillbilly gangsters.
• 1:13:25
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the hillbilly's in the bottle and the gangster, we're designing a new bottle, and the gangster's on the outside.
• 1:13:31
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, it it's just a lot of fun.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're here to have fun, right?
• 1:13:35
  SPEAKER_01: I I I'm not, you know, I I if you I think we make great bourbon.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I hope you agree.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And rye.
• 1:13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And make good rye.
• 1:13:48
  SPEAKER_01: We're here yeah, we're here to entertain people, right?
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, and I think that's that's kind of what what whiskey I mean it whiskey and bourbon is all about.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_06: It's that's the glue that holds the good times together for the for people and getting together with your friends, something to talk about, something to do, something to relax relax to.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_06: It's just that's that's what it is.
• 1:14:16
  SPEAKER_06: And it and th and it survived the test of time probably better than anything.
• 1:14:22
  SPEAKER_06: As far as you know, it still has connotation of good times and enjoying yourself and getting together with people.
• 1:14:32
  SPEAKER_06: There's other parts of the United States that have stood this test of time, but those usually don't stand up to good times.
• 1:14:41
  SPEAKER_06: It's more like stress and arguments.
• 1:14:45
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 1:14:46
  SPEAKER_06: Right, exactly.
• 1:14:47
  SPEAKER_06: But I mean, those people have used whiskey for themselves to, you know, at least slow down and enjoy life, also.
• 1:14:57
  SPEAKER_06: So, you know, between whether it's the whether it's illegal organized crime or if it was politicians, it was bourbon was right there at the heart of it all, right?
• 1:15:10
  SPEAKER_06: Along with everybody else.
• 1:15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, everybody was getting paid, right?
• 1:15:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, everybody talks about the criminals.
• 1:15:18
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure who the criminals and who the crooks and who the good guys were, but none.
• 1:15:23
  SPEAKER_01: You know, from my family's perspective, we were the good guys and the rest of them were crooks.
• 1:15:27
  SPEAKER_06: So well, put it this way: when you were if you were in it, there was just different levels of danger of what you were doing.
• 1:15:37
  SPEAKER_06: You know, right.
• 1:15:38
  SPEAKER_06: Making it wasn't as dangerous as shipping.
• 1:15:43
  SPEAKER_06: Shipping always seemed to be the most dangerous, where, and it always was because one person was always trying to get one up on the other, right?
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_06: That's where it happened.
• 1:15:55
  SPEAKER_06: So, yeah.
• 1:15:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, that people were, you know, there were lots of bootleggers, but there were also lots of, you know, guys out there waiting for the cars to come by, hijackers.
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, everybody, you know, people are dying everywhere, right?
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then on top of it, you know, the government is poisoning rubbing alcohol, and people are making bad whiskey, you know, with radiators and everything else.
• 1:16:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, people prohibition was brutal.
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, people are going blind, people who talk about Jake Leg, they're talking about all this stuff, but you know, that's why our whiskey was so coveted in Kentucky, and bourbon was so coveted because we had spent, you know, the tradition is thousands of years old.
• 1:16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we made Kentucky was known for making great bourbon.
• 1:16:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there was another land between the lakes.
• 1:16:47
  SPEAKER_01: I can't remember the name of it, was another big outfit down there.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_01: But it's the mountain folks knew what the hell they were doing.
• 1:16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the people in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, they all wanted it.
• 1:16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it's kind of it's a lot of fun to talk about now.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_06: That was one of the reasons why Remus did so well, is that when he supplied the whi the bourbon and whiskey to the people to the people, the the they knew they were getting 100% bourbon.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 1:17:17
  SPEAKER_06: You know, Capone would cut it.
• 1:17:19
  SPEAKER_06: He'd buy it and cut it.
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_06: And you know, it was about making money, but at the same time, they they knew that.
• 1:17:26
  SPEAKER_06: So yeah, there's no doubt about it.
• 1:17:28
  SPEAKER_06: All right, so website to check check out your history and find out everything about it.
• 1:17:33
  SPEAKER_01: Uncle Bucci's dot, there's uh lots of, you know, so I I post uh a history paper about once a month, and you know, all the citations and everything are there.
• 1:17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've got another thing talking about the origin of the word bourbon coming up here in the next few weeks.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I spent a lot of time researching the history.
• 1:17:53
  SPEAKER_01: I got great, we got great people at the home place, and we got great people making our bourbon.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I I enjoy continuing to research the history and the folks of the mountains and their traditions, and you know, it's it's just been a lot of fun.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_06: So do you have the what the website?
• 1:18:14
  SPEAKER_06: What was it?
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_06: It's uncleboogies.com.
• 1:18:17
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, that's right.
• 1:18:18
  SPEAKER_06: All right, so that's that we got that under that part out.
• 1:18:22
  SPEAKER_06: So we're gonna finish up here.
• 1:18:24
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna do my thing, and then we do offer if do you have a little bit more time, because we will offer a couple people, and I think tonight you might get some some questions.
• 1:18:35
  SPEAKER_06: I just throw out the zoom meeting to Facebook while I fit once I finish up, and then we'll have a couple people join us and see if we could get questions direct, okay?
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_06: Okay, great.
• 1:18:47
  SPEAKER_06: All right, www.scotchybourbonboys.com.
• 1:18:50
  SPEAKER_06: For all things Scotchy Bourbon Boys, we got Glenn Karen's t-shirts and bourbon balls.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_06: Make sure that you follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube X, and also listen to us on Apple iHeart and Spotify.
• 1:19:02
  SPEAKER_06: No matter whether you're watching us or listening to us in your car, make sure that you support us, leave good feedback always on Apple.
• 1:19:10
  SPEAKER_06: Those five-star reviews are great.
• 1:19:12
  SPEAKER_06: And then make sure that you join our memberships.
• 1:19:16
  SPEAKER_06: We have memberships on Patreon, we have it on YouTube, and we have it on Facebook.
• 1:19:20
  SPEAKER_06: So we appreciate all the support.
• 1:19:22
  SPEAKER_06: And remember, good bourbon equals good times and good friends.
• 1:19:28
  SPEAKER_06: Make sure that you drink responsibly, don't drink and drive, and live your life uncut and unfiltered.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_06: And AI will take us out.
• 1:21:38
  SPEAKER_06: So if I push this, copy invitation.
• 1:21:43
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know what's going on with the all right.
• 1:21:49
  SPEAKER_06: We're gonna try to reload this.
• 1:21:54
  SPEAKER_06: Nope, it's not letting me do that.
• 1:21:56
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 1:21:58
  SPEAKER_06: There we go.
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_06: Now come in here.
• 1:22:05
  SPEAKER_06: I don't know why it won't.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_06: Let's try and reload this.
• 1:22:12
  SPEAKER_06: It's having problems like all right, we're gonna try and do it now.
• 1:22:29
  unknown: And reload this.
• 1:22:31
  SPEAKER_06: All right.
• 1:22:32
  SPEAKER_06: It's having problems like all right, we're gonna try and do it now.
• 1:22:39
  SPEAKER_06: Whoever thought that this would be becoming an issue.
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_06: Control V.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_06: All right, it's having problems like it's as if my uh keyboard doesn't want to work properly.
• 1:22:58
  SPEAKER_06: Control V.
• 1:23:04
  SPEAKER_06: It's as if my um keyboard doesn't want to work properly.
• 1:23:08
  SPEAKER_06: Let's see if I can do this.
• 1:23:10
  SPEAKER_06: And this I it was like a perfect podcast, just so you know, there wasn't one technical in issue at all.
• 1:23:17
  SPEAKER_06: Except now this is the podcast is over.
• 1:23:22
  SPEAKER_06: Let's see if I can do this.
• 1:23:25
  SPEAKER_06: It was like a perfect podcast, just so you know there wasn't a lot of fun.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_06: All right, here we go.
• 1:23:28
  SPEAKER_06: Let me see if I can at all.
• 1:23:31
  SPEAKER_06: Except now.
• 1:23:32
  SPEAKER_06: This is the podcast is over.
• 1:23:36
  SPEAKER_06: It's like for some reason.
• 1:23:40
  SPEAKER_06: It won't.
• 1:23:41
  SPEAKER_06: Alright, here we go.
• 1:23:42
  SPEAKER_06: Let me see if I can now.
• 1:23:46
  SPEAKER_06: This is the podcast is over.
• 1:23:49
  SPEAKER_06: It's frustrating.
• 1:23:52
  SPEAKER_06: I gotta think about if there's a different way I can do this.
• 1:23:55
  SPEAKER_06: Alright.
• 1:23:57
  SPEAKER_05: There we go.
• 1:23:57
  SPEAKER_05: Alright, come on.
• 1:24:01
  SPEAKER_06: If I cancel the zoom, then I'm canceling us.
• 1:24:04
  SPEAKER_06: So I don't want to do that.
• 1:24:06
  SPEAKER_06: I gotta think about if there's a different way I can do this.
• 1:24:09
  SPEAKER_06: Alright.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_06: There we go.
• 1:24:11
  unknown: Alright, come on.
• 1:24:12
  SPEAKER_06: Zoom.
• 1:24:13
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, I know how to do it.
• 1:24:14
  SPEAKER_06: I got it, I got it here.
• 1:24:15
  SPEAKER_06: If you cancel the zoom, then I'm canceling us.
• 1:24:20
  SPEAKER_06: If there's a different way I can do this.
• 1:24:22
  SPEAKER_06: Alright.
• 1:24:26
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, I know how to do it.
• 1:24:28
  SPEAKER_06: I got it, I got it here.
• 1:24:29
  SPEAKER_06: If you cancel the zoom, then I'm canceling us.
• 1:24:32
  SPEAKER_06: Alright.
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, I know how to do it.
• 1:24:41
  SPEAKER_06: I gotta I gotta do it.
• 1:24:46
  SPEAKER_06: It must be a whole computer problem at the moment.
• 1:25:00
  SPEAKER_06: It must be a whole computer problem at the moment.
• 1:25:03
  SPEAKER_06: All right, let's see if I can turn that down now.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_06: There.
• 1:25:06
  SPEAKER_06: I gotta turn down.
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_06: I know you're hanging in there with me.
• 1:25:11
  SPEAKER_01: No, I'm fine.
• 1:25:16
  unknown: All right.
• 1:25:17
  SPEAKER_06: Let's see if I can get Nash.
• 1:25:21
  SPEAKER_06: That's what I'm gonna try and do.
• 1:25:42
  SPEAKER_06: Oh my gosh.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_06: Hey, can you copy and paste the link in the on Facebook?
• 1:25:57
  SPEAKER_06: Because for whatever reason, my I sent it to you through, so just copy and paste it off your off your thing and then post it.
• 1:26:08
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, post it in the Facebook.
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_06: Alright, thanks.
• 1:26:10
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 1:26:11
  SPEAKER_06: The link.
• 1:26:14
  SPEAKER_06: There you go.
• 1:26:15
  SPEAKER_06: Call a friend.
• 1:26:20
  SPEAKER_01: So how did I do?
• 1:26:22
  SPEAKER_06: You did great.
• 1:26:25
  SPEAKER_06: No, I that was that was perfect.
• 1:26:29
  SPEAKER_06: I I would say that we covered it, but we didn't go into.
• 1:26:33
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, there was there's like one there was a bunch of people on all both platforms that enjoyed it that said that it was a great pod podcast and they loved the subject.
• 1:26:46
  SPEAKER_06: So here we go.
• 1:26:47
  SPEAKER_06: We're gonna go up a little bit.
• 1:26:49
  SPEAKER_06: Let's see if he can do it.
• 1:26:51
  SPEAKER_06: Alright.
• 1:26:55
  SPEAKER_06: I'm gonna keep trying.
• 1:26:57
  SPEAKER_06: It's that's very interesting to me.
• 1:27:01
  SPEAKER_06: Oh, that part I could uh