Latest / The Scotchy Bourbon Boys / How An Iconic 1936 Rickhouse Became A Modern Home For The Old Louisville Whiskey Co. Where Amine Karaoud is Blending, Bottling, And Kicking Ass

Transcript

How An Iconic 1936 Rickhouse Became A Modern Home For The Old Louisville Whiskey Co. Where Amine Karaoud is Blending, Bottling, And Kicking Ass · The Scotchy Bourbon Boys

0:58
SPEAKER_02: Look at that water bottle.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: That's cool.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: The one thing is this little glen makes it look like you're drinking a lot more shit than you are.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Like it's so small.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: Like that's a half ounce pour, right?
1:11
SPEAKER_01: You sell us on that, okay?
1:12
SPEAKER_01: Tasting is great.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: I want a regular glass.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: What what I got barred?
1:18
SPEAKER_01: What'd you get?
1:18
SPEAKER_01: Old Louisville?
1:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you suck.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: What do you got?
1:23
SPEAKER_01: Well, I have no choice.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I should have got like an old Louisville penny.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: He has an actual Glen from Old Louisville.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't come record something like this with uh mini collection of the mini when you want it.
1:36
SPEAKER_02: It's like he just calls it a mini me.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: There's no tiny glass.
1:41
SPEAKER_02: Tiny glass.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: Tiny glass.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: And record it with tiny.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: Tiny glasses.
1:48
SPEAKER_02: Alright.
1:49
SPEAKER_02: Welcome everybody to Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
1:53
SPEAKER_02: Woohoo! We are here! We've got Amin.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: Cheers.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: What's your full name?
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Carud.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Karud.
2:04
SPEAKER_00: Caro.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: It's not very common in the US, and it's not even common in my country.
2:10
SPEAKER_00: Don't try the burnout to the right.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: Amin is here with his own leg rest, there's no doubt.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: And it needs, and his leg needs rest.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: But we're here with CT, we're here with Super Nash, myself, Tiny, and we're just having a blast today.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: Uh for Friday.
2:26
SPEAKER_02: I think this is our most productive Friday as a podcast.
2:29
SPEAKER_02: I feel like we're we've got some things down a little bit, right?
2:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, I like to say the most productive day as far as drinking.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's uh well the most productive day was yesterday.
2:39
SPEAKER_01: Cheers to that.
2:43
SPEAKER_02: You got many singers there.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: Come on, dude.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've we've been we've been here since last Saturday.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah.
2:50
SPEAKER_02: Every single second and moment has been filled.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: And I've got a special pour to pour with you today.
2:57
SPEAKER_02: Oh yes, I do.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: That we'd be honored at this point.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: That he's touching his leg while he's talking.
3:05
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I have a special pour for you.
3:08
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's really let's this is what's your name again?
3:12
SPEAKER_02: This is the 24 karat gold plated uh Bromwell flask.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: So I've got that, and that's this the first whiskey that's ever been in it is a 1946 Dowling.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: I made it Dowling Deluxe whiskey.
3:28
SPEAKER_02: So you can uh once we oh you cracked your glass.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: No more for you.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: There's gentle, Chris.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: There's gentle four glasses left.
3:39
SPEAKER_02: Have you heard of the word gentle?
3:43
SPEAKER_02: I can't help it.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: I thought he broke the the flask.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: I know I saw your face.
3:48
SPEAKER_02: $1,000.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that dolling.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: We were able to bring that on.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: Dusty knows right there.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: Is this Lonelsburg, Kentucky?
3:59
SPEAKER_02: This still it I don't know.
4:02
SPEAKER_02: No, actually, it was Barstown.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it was uh distilled in Barstown and bottled.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: So yes, we don't know any of the 1946 distilled in 1938.
4:16
SPEAKER_02: It's an eight-year.
4:17
SPEAKER_02: It's it's uh it's older than older than me now in a plastic cup.
4:22
SPEAKER_02: I would have gave that is him.
4:24
SPEAKER_02: It's like down this and pour this.
4:26
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like being at Applebee's without the appetizers.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: Let's give this poor uh the proper Ross.
4:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and honestly, I mean, um, it's an eight-year, so it's like something that you don't serve, you don't do anything younger than a seven.
4:45
SPEAKER_02: And so yeah, seven and a half eight is now the youngest, so right.
4:49
SPEAKER_02: So it's it's right there for your sweet spots.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: I love the nose, and uh it's wonderful to share with you.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like a lot of them from that you would think from that age.
5:03
SPEAKER_02: We've opened up quite a few.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're supposed to sharing guys.
5:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no problem.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: We'd like to share it with all the special people, our friends, and I want to thank you, I mean, for sponsoring the podcast.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's been great.
5:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, thanks.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's like it the the barrel bottle breakdown that we're gonna do of your bottle today, that that segment.
5:26
SPEAKER_02: I we try and do it at least once a week when CT started it.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: Uh I thought, you know, well, this is a good way to get he's he like sold me on the kind of thing, and this is a good way to get him on once a week, you know what I mean?
5:38
SPEAKER_02: No, he likes to hear you.
5:40
SPEAKER_02: No, exactly.
5:40
SPEAKER_02: They're there for a while, and then all of a sudden he's like, You mean you're doing two barrel bottle breakdowns a week?
5:46
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Yeah, it's just like I'm if I'm gonna break a bottle down, it's a barrel bottle breakdown, it's an old whiskey comp, you know, and we talk about everything.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: But I would like to you know get into a little bit your moving, yes, and that location is gonna be a lot different than what where you're at now.
6:04
SPEAKER_02: Yes, so talk about that a little bit because it's really kind of special.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, yeah.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: So we're moving, we're staying in Louisville, we're not moving anywhere else, so we're still gonna be in Louisville, but we were lucky enough to purchase one of the original Seagrams warehouses.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: So Seagram's opened uh a distillery and eight rick houses in Louisville, Kentucky, back in 1936, right after prohibition.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: In 1983, when the whiskey industry was slow, they actually shut it down.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: And since 1983 or 84, these warehouses, the distillery, none of the 42-acre campus have held any whiskey.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: And we just bonded this warehouse.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: We rolled barrels last week to this warehouse.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: So it's very exciting to take a piece of history, piece of American whiskey history back to its original use.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna move our operation there so we're gonna have the experience, the tasting, the bottling, and obviously the barrel storage all in the new facility.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: So it's very, very exciting for me as you know, brand owner for the brand, and who knows in the future, hopefully for my kids when I hope they take over, but we'll see what happens.
7:15
SPEAKER_02: Well, what's really I it sounds like the space is a lot bigger, yes.
7:22
SPEAKER_02: Oh and I know in your space, you know, your rick house that the ri that you've built into that space, when you're there, it feels decent, but you know, you can tell you're outgrowing, you feel like you're outgrowing it.
7:37
SPEAKER_02: This space seems like that, like when you get there, it's you're gonna be like on the other end, like it's gonna drive you.
7:43
SPEAKER_02: You I mean it's gonna allow you to have a lot more barrels, yeah and and do do some things, and then you just put together your still.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: So are you gonna keep it at the old air old space or are you moving it?
7:54
SPEAKER_00: No, so once we move to the new facility, everything's gonna be moving.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: We don't own the exist like the uh the current location right now, so we're just leasing once we move, everything's gonna be moving.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, we are moving, we're going from 6,000 square feet to 105.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: That's so we grow a little bit uh space-wise, it's it's gonna allow us to bring our barrels all in one roof under one roof.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna allow us also to expand our bottling line and attract more copacking business because we copac for smaller brands.
8:33
SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna allow us also to hopefully reach out to other customers that need co-packing with maybe a bigger volume of barrels so we can host their barrels, do their blends, we do their bottling, that you know, basically get it out from vision to product.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: And I think what's cool about that is people that are starting a brand that don't have a place to store their barrels, yeah, there's different places here and there, but to store it in an iconic spot like what you've got is totally different.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're talking about a building that was built in 1936 or four?
9:12
SPEAKER_00: 1936.
9:13
SPEAKER_00: They they broke ground on that campus in 1933, right when prohibition ended.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: So Seagram's already bought the land, knew that prohibition is gonna end, and they broke, you know, start construction in 1933.
9:27
SPEAKER_00: They completed that campus in 1936.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: So they were operating in 1936, distilling warehousing and modeling.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that is two years prior to when the what's in your glass was distilled.
9:43
SPEAKER_02: You know, now that wasn't probably distilled there, but at the same time, when you think about that, how cool is that?
9:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: Now we were with Greg Schneider, who used to work for Snegrims, and and he talks about how he walked those those roofs and everything.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: So I think at one point that grain elevator would be great to have him come down and give you some of the of his experience of working there.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that's that'll be amazing.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: I heard nothing about good things about Greg.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: I would love to meet him in person.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: I've never met him in person.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: And I would love to meet people in the industry.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: So that campus, a lot of people in the industry retired from there or were the cut their teeth.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: Cut their teeth in the in the whiskey industry in that facility.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of history, and I'm hoping to get some information, get some old pictures, meet some people that actually retired from those buildings and maybe have a wall that have their name on it or something.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Like we just we need to get as much as we can from the historic standpoint and see how we can like you know honor those people that are you know retired there.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: You rode the elevator with me, right?
10:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's some people that worked and retired moving barrels from floor to floor or from the rick house to the bottling or distillery to the rick house, literally riding that elevator daily.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: So it's very amazing to that's what Greg was talking about.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: That elevator he said I've been still operating, yeah.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: Still operating.
11:10
SPEAKER_01: I think he called it a six-barrel.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Did he call it a six-barrel?
11:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he called it a six barrel barrel elevator.
11:17
SPEAKER_00: Like when we had capacity is exactly 3,000 pounds, which is six barrels.
11:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Seagram's even like the plant in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, they still operated.
11:27
SPEAKER_00: There was a freight elevator, so the operators were supposed to load six barrels, go to that floor where they're gonna need to go to, and call the elevator from that floor.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: You were not supposed to be riding it because it was too much.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people got stuck.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: That's why there were stairs, right?
11:46
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people got stuck there.
11:48
SPEAKER_01: And what's cool is when it goes up to whatever floor, sixth floor, third floor, whatever, is when the barrels come out of the elevator, there is a system set up that they had to ride the barrel along to go down like almost the tracks.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: And then once it was ready to dump, they went all the way down to the basement, and at that facility, they ran them underground to the bottling house.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: They never saw the light of day from the time they were in a RIC to the time that they went to bottle, they were underground.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: So Seagram, um, there was a couple things.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Seagram said we build the tunnel system so people, the public don't see the barrel.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: But actually, somebody, a historian, told me there was a tax that was imposed on barrels moved on trucks.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: So, what they did is they built a tunnel system connecting all the rick houses to the bottling, to the distillery, and they moved barrels underground.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: So, back in the 60s, if you walked by or drove your car by that plant, you never see uh yeah, it's like a Disneyland.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you never see barrels moving around, right?
13:04
SPEAKER_00: They're all on the ground.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: Greg was saying that that's with the tunnels we asked them because he he asked them, and Greg was just talking about that's how they move the barrels.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so so that's exciting that you're getting in there.
13:15
SPEAKER_02: Now, one of the things that my experience with old Louisville Whiskey Company is always pretty much with you.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:24
SPEAKER_02: Now, at this point, is there a time?
13:28
SPEAKER_02: Do you is are you just there all the time by appointment and everything?
13:31
SPEAKER_02: And that's always everybody kind of gets you because you're the master of the barrels, or do you have others where people come in for tours and you you know so we started July 2022.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: I basically did everything up until last year.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: I hired one person helping me, Adam is helping me in production, warehousing, pretty much my handwrite guy.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: And recently, a couple months ago, I hired somebody part-time to help me with tours.
14:01
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're we're growing, but we're like very, very conservative.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: We are afraid of like trying to expand too quick.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: Well, we don't want to hire somebody, and then six months later be like, we're not busy enough.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: So when we hire somebody, we want them to be with us, be part of the team forever.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: You know, our first podcast on Zoom with you there, with the barrels behind, talking about the barrels, and your knowledge of what you've what you've purchased, what you sourced, and your knowledge of that is like that's what you get with your experience.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: That's that's always so amazing.
14:37
SPEAKER_02: It's so you know, it's funny because one of the things I love about you is like you enjoy being with people, and then when they you you know your whiskeys, and you're letting people taste through and whatever, and it's like you like to just say it's almost like your face lights up when you see someone drinking it, it's like he'll laugh at you a little bit, and like what you know, you get the personal, he gets that personal enjoyment out of just watching have a great literally coming here.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: It we left 45 minutes ago.
15:07
SPEAKER_01: It was I am not kidding.
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Like Adam and I said, we were like, this is gonna take way longer to get him here because every time we would move five inches, somebody came up and they're like, Oh, I mean, and it's like, but that's but that's great.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: That's that's that's what it is.
15:24
SPEAKER_02: That's just a testament of the old Google whiskey company, and and what kind of a person you are and how you interact with people, and people love it, and you're you're in this because you love whiskey, and you were able to get barrels, and you got to the point where you had a lot of whiskey, and you're like, what am I gonna do with this?
15:43
SPEAKER_02: And you know what I mean?
15:44
SPEAKER_02: And you've done a great job, and it's great, it's been so great to know you, and you've been supportive of us, and we really appreciate that.
15:52
SPEAKER_02: But let's get into the newest bottle now as well.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's talk about changed.
15:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so for the first three years, we basically we released nothing about MGP.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: We sourced MGP.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: I love their distillate.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it's the old Seagram's, so there is a lot of respect of what they do, how they distill, the consistency, and everything else.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: We also sourced some barrels from Barbara Company, and they just turned eight, eight and a half, and we got a lot of feedback from the market that they want more reasonable or affordable bottle from us.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: So everything we'll be we released was anywhere from 89 retail up to 400 bucks.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: So, what we did is we took our Kentucky barrels and we created another brand called Kentucky Series by Old Louville.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: So all the barrels are actually from Kentucky, which makes complete sense, yeah.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then the fun part with it is just one day I come up with the idea is what about collectible letters like for the bottles to spell Kentucky?
17:00
SPEAKER_00: And our designer, she's amazing.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: So you give her an idea, she ran with it, had a very classy, clean label, and we used our barrels from Kentucky.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: Eight.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: So the philosophy is the same thing, nothing younger than seven and a half, eight.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: So we choose 11 barrel for this first batch for this.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Six of them are eight and a half, five of them are eight.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Same mash bill, 78 corn, 10 rye, 12 barley,$59 retail and 100-proof.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: So we're it's very competitive, even with a heritage distiller.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: So because we keep our overhead minimum, we don't have a lot of employees, we don't have overhead, that's crazy.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: We can be on a shelf for a very competitive price.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: It's very hard for craft distiller to put eight years old, 100-proof,$60 retail.
18:35
SPEAKER_02: And this is and that's not the story he told me.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: He said that this is not the Kentucky brand, it's the CT brand.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, it does.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: We we can spell a lot of things with it, but I have proof that it spells C T.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: You can't spell Jeff.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: No, you can't spell Jeff.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: Well, we don't got we almost could we almost could have got more tiny.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: It only spells one, and that's me.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: Um but I think that the other thing about it is in the eye, is Bart is this not some of the oldest Bardstown distillate going right now?
19:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so the eight and a half years old barrels that we blended in this batch, they were one of the oldest distillates from Barstown Burber Company.
19:19
SPEAKER_00: So BBC started distill in September 2016.
19:23
SPEAKER_00: Six of these barrels were distilled November of 2016.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: And I believe, if I'm not mistaken, the first six months of BBC production went all bulk contracts.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: So they didn't even hold on to anything.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: They were trying to get money, yes.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think their first business plan was to be just strictly bulk, and I think then they decided to do branding, something like that.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: I I have to be I have to check my I'm pretty sure that they started out that way, but they were planning on a brand all the time.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: Okay, because when you go to whiskey, when you go to Whiskey House now, that that's one thing that they don't do is they're not gonna brand, they're just contracting.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: That's that's a whole thing about between the two.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, that was one of the things I don't think they even could that the ownership of them who's now them, that they didn't want to be able to compete against that brand.
20:14
SPEAKER_01: That you know, they just want to yeah, but definitely some that distillate is one of the oldest BBC in the market.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: So people can go out, they can find all the letters if they wanted to, or they can find a few, but it is the same same distillate in each of the eight bottles.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: Yes, and in future, this is going to change, correct?
20:35
SPEAKER_00: So we also have some barrels from Wilderness Trail.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: They're only five and six years old right now.
20:41
SPEAKER_00: One when they hit that seven, eight and they're ready to be batched.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: If we use them for this brand, we'll change the color.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: So if you see a color change, you know the mash bill or the the uh or the distillery change.
20:53
SPEAKER_02: And the distillation change.
20:55
SPEAKER_02: So I mean, honestly, being the mad scientist of maturation that you are, because you've I've seen that's a big title.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, mad scientist.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: He's good at it.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: But what you're good at, but I mean, honestly, what you've always been good at is putting putting getting the barrels and then holding on to them for longer.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: So I'm sure you didn't just make a blend with all those you're gonna let you probably pick a couple barrels to go further down the line from Bardstown, right?
21:21
SPEAKER_02: That's that's what you love to do.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: And then you're also if you did that, but you actually could mix brands, you could put you could put a little bit of everything in.
21:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because you know it's cool because that's one thing when you go there.
21:34
SPEAKER_02: I've been to a lot of places, and when I see people's bottling lines, and I know that they actually distribute in 34 states, and you see a bottling line that fills four bottles at a time, and they hand label every bottle, you think about how insane that is.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: But your bottling line is a lot bigger than most bottling lines that you see at so you're able to, I'm sure, use that bottling line for many different things, and and that's that's one of the things.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: But then also you have a blending tank.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: So most of the stuff when people are sampling from barrels, there's a lot, a lot of really good single barrels that you have, yeah.
22:11
SPEAKER_02: And that's kind of how you initially, but you're able to put together blends for people, or and you know, being small like yourself, what's really cool is if someone comes to you with an idea, you're like, Yeah, shit, let's try it, right?
22:27
SPEAKER_02: That's that's just that's you, and that's one of the great things that we I mean.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: I love it about, and I know CT loves it about listen.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: We only have one rule, there is only one thing that can't be blended at his place, and so far we haven't had a problem.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: But if he ever decides that that barrel is is able to be blended there, I you can't do it.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, you're over your phobia.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: I it's no, it's not a phobia, it's phobia.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: So, but there is some when the the great thing about when you go to a means place and you have like I we were there the other day, we were there, I was there two weeks ago.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: People come in and they're like, Man, I really like this, and you have a barrel, like the cognac barrel, and somebody comes in and like man, I really like cognac.
23:22
SPEAKER_01: Do you have and you're like, Well, I actually have a bourbon finished in cognac, and and people, I think that's the great thing about what he does is there's so many different variations.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: It's not, hey, this is the only way I make it, hey, this is the only bottle I have, they're all single barrels, to the point that Adam, when I was there for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival pick, he's like, Chris, before you leave, before you go to the new facility, he's like, You gotta try this rye.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: And he had finished that rye in a brandy barrel.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I'm like, so I drink it, you know, we thief it, and I'm like, oh, wow, that's and he's like, Yeah, isn't that amazing?
24:05
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Yeah, oh wow, that's so good.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: So we come back.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: This was when Amin was in a not mobile state, so I bring Amin back, and Adam's like, Chris, I'm sorry.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, what are you sorry about?
24:20
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, that barrel's gone.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, what?
24:24
SPEAKER_01: You just I just drank from it.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, the guys that were just here bought that barrel.
24:29
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, what?
24:31
SPEAKER_01: But that is what you get when you go there, is because somebody can come in and they try something and they love it, and they can buy a bottle or they can say, hey, we're on a barrel pick, we want the whole thing.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I I mean, like you said, your overhead's low and you're really working hard at this level, and you get that personal experience, but we all know you gotta sell it when it's sell when it's that's you the deals you you know, you can't do it.
25:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's funny because CT, the comfort level that he has with you, even on the podcast, he's he'll talk the sometimes.
25:09
SPEAKER_02: He's very, very laid back.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: He looks at me like Jeff, you know, you talk too much.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: And I do, I admit, but I'm but this this this the comfort level that we've all we've all gotten with you, and you know, we just we appreciate everything that you do, and and and it's like there's a lot of stuff that everybody does when you go there.
25:30
SPEAKER_02: I remember I think you're the first person to fill a bottle with plastic gas pump siphon.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they were sitting there and watching, he had the old-fashioned one that you drop in, it's got the little metal and everything, and then he's like filling it with he fills it on, and then I'm like, he goes, What you want a bottle of this uh double?
25:50
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Yeah, and he's like pulls that baby over there.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: My my bottle was it was like he's pumping it.
25:55
SPEAKER_02: So I mean, there's a lot of things that happen, and you know, he and it's he you enjoy yourself, but everybody's gig pretty much gets the personality of Amin and his love for whiskey, and that's one of the things, the bonds that this this between owners and everybody doing, and I think that's why you got into it because you really enjoy people.
26:16
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the the guy that hugged me that time and hugged the glass right out of me.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: That you know, those are you could tell Amin just loves bourbon people, and for the most part, when you go there, you're gonna get a one-of-a-kind experience with him, and he will let you taste some of the most fantastic whiskies out there.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I had to sign a waiver that I would never ever all barrels that we move from now on have to have the bung on it.
26:42
SPEAKER_02: So I knew that was coming.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: I knew it was coming.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: We'll never hear the end of that.
26:47
SPEAKER_01: Listen, that barrel video, I watched that and I'm like, I can't believe that much spilled out.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I saw it, and I'm like, I saw it.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean it was still doesn't want to release a video because there's a video.
27:00
SPEAKER_02: There's video video of it.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: No, I'm somewhere.
27:03
SPEAKER_02: Just so you know, all you gotta do is go to SketchUp there.
27:05
SPEAKER_02: It's there.
27:06
SPEAKER_02: That's when you watched it.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: But it's way worse in this video.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: Oh boy.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: No, no, I don't know.
27:13
SPEAKER_02: I have a deal with him.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: I can't release that video if he don't release the one of me.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: Listen.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, hold on to the middle man.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: Skeleton, skeleton closets or from outside of the deal here.
27:30
SPEAKER_02: So then I gotta now have you you really yesterday.
27:34
SPEAKER_02: We once again we talked about this chart, but it's like so earlier on we were at Sandy Noah's house, right?
27:40
SPEAKER_02: And and he doesn't he hates tomatoes.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: And on Facebook Live, we made him, we we had him eat a tomato, and his reaction to it is so classic.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sitting there going, Do you realize you just made yourself a hero because you won't eat a tomato?
27:57
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, what is going on?
27:58
SPEAKER_02: You're just always the hero, right?
28:00
SPEAKER_02: No, I'm not.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: So yesterday, honestly.
28:03
SPEAKER_02: Oh, don't start with it.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: No, no, stop.
28:05
SPEAKER_02: This is asking a question.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Do you eat pizza?
28:08
SPEAKER_01: He only likes white sauce.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: I don't I will eat pizza and I will eat red sauce, but I do not like a whole tomato.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: And that video shows it because Sandy swore to me that yellow tomato was so sweet.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: And oh my god, it was awful.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: And so, anyways, so yesterday you never hear somebody say sweet and awful in the same as she was sweet, the tomato was awful.
28:35
SPEAKER_02: So, yesterday, we're all racing home because bourbon in the air is happening.
28:39
SPEAKER_02: We all gotta get cheese, he's going off to whatever, and I come up, me, me, Nash, and Roxy come up behind, and he had been in his truck, and his truck's parked in the middle of the road between two people, and we're like, What is going on?
28:53
SPEAKER_02: And there's some people on the other way, whatever, and we look over, and there's a woman, a young girl, a 20-some year old, who had gone off the side of the road, and her car basically flipped around, she was sideways in the woods, and we're like, Oh my god, and Chris wasn't in his truck, right?
29:12
SPEAKER_02: So we get out to see what's happening and out of the woods to come see me with her in his arms, and she's crying.
29:24
SPEAKER_02: I mean, okay, the car didn't start on fire, and the airbags went off and did their job.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: They did their job.
29:31
SPEAKER_02: It didn't matter if the car was on fire and she was in debt, he would have done the same thing.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
29:37
SPEAKER_02: And we are so happy that she was alright, but I know he was recording.
29:45
SPEAKER_02: I've never seen anything like that.
29:47
SPEAKER_02: I think I know here let's go back and reenact the glass.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm not reading that.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: I think seriously.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: What are we drinking there?
29:55
SPEAKER_01: White dog?
29:56
SPEAKER_01: It's it's white dog.
29:58
SPEAKER_01: I I hope to god that she is okay because she seemed okay.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: She looked like a little bit cut up, but I mean they had a choke up pretty bad, right?
30:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it was it was it was turned around and then sideways, and he got he actually pulled her out from the of the car from the top, and she he comes out and he's got just scratched up from thorns and I got I got my thorn marks over here.
30:26
SPEAKER_02: You got a tick too.
30:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's probably a dick on it.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: No, this is this.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: I got that at your tent.
30:35
SPEAKER_02: Anyways, all right, so let's let's barrel a bottle breakdown with I mean so uh uh done this chair.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: Very it's very light.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: It's as much water.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: Water down, water down, water down, watered mine down to zero proof.
30:50
SPEAKER_02: You can't throw one there as you don't bottle earth.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: You can't barrel bottle break it down unless uh you get some more in there, my friend.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: I got mine down to zero proof.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: That's the first time ever.
31:03
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: Alright, I'm ready.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm ready.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: All right, the barrel bottle the the okay Kentucky Bourbon Festival barrel bottle breakdown sponsored by the old Louisville whiskey company.
31:15
SPEAKER_02: Old Louisville Whiskey Company, Kentucky Bourbon Festival, barrel bottle breakdown of his Kentucky bath.
31:22
SPEAKER_01: So much shit I can't even remember it all.
31:26
SPEAKER_01: No, the rating scale.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: Can you repeat it?
31:29
SPEAKER_02: The old whiskey company and the same bourbon festival, barrel bottle breakdown.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: Now, the thing I've got down because of you, because we had to change it from bashing or whatever, as the barrel bottle breakdown.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, worked out.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: All right, so first is the note.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: First it you can the nose, the body, the taste, and the finish is how we rate.
31:51
SPEAKER_02: For the nose and and the body, you can give up to four back knocks on the barrel, but we don't got a barrel here.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: So we're just going to give it four.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: You want me to step out and do your rating?
32:04
SPEAKER_00: No, I want you to get the five.
32:06
SPEAKER_01: No.
32:07
SPEAKER_01: I want you to know.
32:08
SPEAKER_01: We were gonna have Brent Elliott in here for it, but he said he was busy, so he's not coming in for your barrel brothel breakout.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: Now I will say, you need to.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: I'm putting you on the spot too.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: Oh this is your batch.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: So on the nose.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what do you what are you going with?
32:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, I get a nice caramel, I get a butterscotch, nutty, very nutty nose.
32:34
SPEAKER_00: I agree.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: You know what's nice is for$59.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: No ethanol.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: That's you have a lot of money.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: I do have a love for uh malt.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: And this is 12% malt.
32:43
SPEAKER_00: This is a very classic barstown recipe, by the way.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: 78, 10, 12.
32:48
SPEAKER_00: So higher mold than rye.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Heavenhill does a lot of uh distill it with that mash bill, and obviously BBC distilled this matching Heaven Hill mash bill.
33:00
SPEAKER_00: 78 corn, 10 rye, 12 barley.
33:02
SPEAKER_00: So you're gonna get the caramel nose.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: You should get plenty of nuttiness there because of the higher mold percentage.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: Almost like toasted almond.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:12
SPEAKER_02: And what's the the proof on this?
33:15
SPEAKER_02: Hunter proof.
33:16
SPEAKER_02: So bottom both bottled in bond.
33:17
SPEAKER_02: Right.
33:18
SPEAKER_02: We don't so it's got you.
33:20
SPEAKER_00: I haven't wrote anything on uh label to say bottom bond, but we could.
33:25
SPEAKER_00: There's just I think it's just uh any more bottom bond is a marketing term.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all the warehouses are bonded.
33:32
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I would say I would say if you do a bottled in bond and you put it there, it makes people know instantly it's a hundred-proof.
33:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's the thing.
33:40
SPEAKER_02: So you you know that way that is it easier to read this.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: Is it easier to read 100 proof or is it easier to read the whole sentence?
33:48
SPEAKER_00: Bottled in bond.
33:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
33:51
SPEAKER_01: Or can we go to the nose?
33:55
SPEAKER_01: Kentucky Bourbon Festival Barrel Bottle Breakdown.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah, I got it.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: All right, good.
34:00
SPEAKER_01: All right.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: Alright, I I like the and and what I like about the nose is$59 price points usually have had enough water added to them that the ethanol is strong off the nose.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: There's no ethanol.
34:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: So what what we did with these, we slow cut them as well.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: So we took the barrels, we start adding water slowly.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: Every week we'll add a little bit of water.
34:23
SPEAKER_00: In the barrel itself.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: In a barrel.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: So that's in the in the industry we call it slow cutting.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Because when you add water to alcohol, ethanol that we drank, that was a creates a cognac thing in France.
34:36
SPEAKER_02: They like to do that too.
34:37
unknown: Yeah.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: From what I'm saying.
34:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they're ahead of us.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, they've been distilling for 600 years.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: We're we're a new country, so yeah, but that's not that's not the norm.
34:46
SPEAKER_02: But I that makes sense.
34:48
SPEAKER_02: It really makes sense to get a little bit of water added in to get your belt, and then you know, that way the the it still spends more time and gets to be so you do two things when you slow cut.
34:58
SPEAKER_00: When you add water slowly, not in the tank, you allow that chemical reaction, which is water added to ethanol, creates heat.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: So you allow that chemical reaction to complete to be done.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: You also extract a little bit more out of the wood when you add water, because most of the stuff we extract out of the oak is actually water soluble.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: So when you slow cut, you benefit from allowing that heat to dissipate a little bit, extract a little bit more out of the oak at the last you know, stretch of maturation.
35:28
SPEAKER_00: So when you do your last cutting, it's very, very minimal.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: Like you're already one-on-one.
35:34
SPEAKER_00: You don't have the water fighting the alcohol.
35:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, even yesterday, one of the things is like you said, for whiskey to mix with water, it takes there's time, it has to happen, and then you got it, it just keeps working with it until so.
35:51
SPEAKER_02: If you would just do it and bottle it, it's that does that that alcohol doesn't have time to actually chemically bond with the water.
35:59
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, one of the things that I did once was I had a bunch of one of my favorite is wood for double oak, and I had a bunch of barrel picks, and I they were all down to this much.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: So I put them all in 750 milliliter decanter decanter, and I tasted it, and it tasted funky.
36:19
SPEAKER_02: But after letting it sit for three, four months and revisiting it, it now started tasting back more towards what that wood for double oak would take because they were in.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it actually, and and you don't realize that whiskey is a chemical compound, and mixing it together right away, it doesn't just bond instantly, they kind of stay separately, and when you do that, it's all wonky, and you uh that's gotta be the same when you mix barrels, you gotta let it restitute, right?
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so mingling is another term that we use in the industry.
36:50
SPEAKER_00: So basically, if you're blending backing, you you dump everything in a barrel or a tank, mix them together, and you let them mingle.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: So in the wine industry, they say vetting, basically put it in a vet, let it sit.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: By doing that, you allow that same chemical reaction because you have barrels that are higher, some barrels that are lower proof, to allow that chemical reaction of water, you know, lower proof, add it to higher proof to adjust.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: And then also you allow that integration to happen.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: So typically you don't see it a lot with the big producers because uh then you know they're tied to production schedule.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: Some of the good craft distillers they do mingle and allow the whiskey to mingle for three days, up to seven days.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: Like our first batch of old Louval, we allowed it to sit in a vet for over a week.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: We dumped 19 barrels, we allow them to sit together for over a week, and then you can taste it every day.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: You see, the whiskey will tell you when there's nothing changing now.
37:54
SPEAKER_00: We got you know that chemical reaction calmed down.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: Now we have integration ready to bottle basically.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: That's very it's difficult to do, you know.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Like for me, we only have one tank, we're gonna buy another mix-in tank to be able to do that.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so so I say this all the time, and it's no cut to any brand, so don't take it that way.
38:18
SPEAKER_01: But there are brands when you drink it at a low proof, it's hot, and I feel like those are ones that were cut and bottled very quickly, you know.
38:27
SPEAKER_01: Like, it seems like because there's a there's a heat to them that at 80 to 85 proof they may not have, they shouldn't have.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: And so people, so people drink, and especially people who are new to bourbon, they come into it and they're like, I tried this and it's hot.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: I wonder, and I've said this before, like, I wonder if that water fighting is still that the alcohol water contrast is going on so early because it hasn't had time to just to happen.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: It could there it could be a couple variables, you know, the age of the whiskey, then you know, the amount of water you're adding.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of variables, but yeah, I mean that's true.
39:09
SPEAKER_00: There's definitely a scientific approach to it.
39:13
SPEAKER_00: It does make sense to slow cut, but not everybody has the time to do it.
39:17
SPEAKER_03: So oh, okay.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all right, real quick.
39:25
SPEAKER_00: Let's just let's just do it.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: So nose.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: We're 15 minutes over, guys.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: We need to get out.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: 15 minutes.
39:31
SPEAKER_00: Nose?
39:33
SPEAKER_01: I love I like the nose a lot.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: For a it's hard because for the price point, you're like, okay, yeah, wow.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: So this is also non non-chill filter.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: So you see the oil from the grain are still there.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so it's oily, viscous.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: All right, so you rate your you you start it.
39:50
SPEAKER_02: I don't know how you guys you do your rating.
39:52
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna let you do the okay.
39:54
SPEAKER_02: So out of uh on the nose for this one, I give it a three out of four.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I give it a three.
39:59
SPEAKER_02: I give it a three.
40:00
SPEAKER_02: I'll take a three.
40:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all right.
40:02
SPEAKER_02: So now for 100 proof as far as the body, it goes everywhere, and you gotta really it it just like you it lights up your tongue, it's up there, but it's very, very that drinkable level.
40:16
SPEAKER_02: So out of four on that, I will still I will go with the three as far as you know, because I know I've had fours and and uh butt up up on it with some of your stuff, you know what I mean?
40:27
SPEAKER_02: When that you're drinking those 17 years that are you know Thai proof.
40:30
SPEAKER_02: So I give it a three.
40:32
SPEAKER_01: I would agree a three.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: I'd agree a three.
40:34
SPEAKER_01: I'll take my mouth bill.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: I've got six so far.
40:38
SPEAKER_02: So so so taste-wise, you could give up to five on this one.
40:43
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and honestly, for this, this is the most bourbon tasting.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: This this tastes like bourbon.
40:52
SPEAKER_02: A lot of your time, a lot of your stuff is there's really, really rich, and there's 17.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna get a ton of oak, and and and usually the sweetness or the flavor takes over, and you don't get so much of the rich bourbon on this thing, it's right there with bourbon.
41:08
SPEAKER_02: And as a bottle and bond, I will give it, I think it's its strongest point is the taste.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: It's like I don't always get that bourbon taste from a lot of the stuff that we've had, but that has the bourbon taste, and I just a very classic bourbon recipe, very classic Kentucky recipe, and it shows on the palette, it shows on the finish what you warn sweetness.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: I give it a four because I like it, it's super sweet, but for me, like okay, it doesn't go like here, here, there, but it's it's just a nice sweetness, so nice medium right across the palate.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm giving it a four, too.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: All right, so there it's okay, and last on the finish, medium finish.
41:50
SPEAKER_02: What'd you say?
41:51
SPEAKER_01: On what'd you say on the five?
41:52
SPEAKER_00: I like I didn't rate.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna let you guys rate.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: I like the finish.
41:56
SPEAKER_01: The the thing that the finish does for me just counting three, three, six, and four.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: Where the eight separate, yeah.
42:04
SPEAKER_01: For me, the eight year is where the finish comes out.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: The finish, the oakness of the eight year.
42:12
SPEAKER_01: I get a little of that dryness that I like of a tannin that's there, and I like that dry palette finish that it has.
42:20
SPEAKER_01: So I