Latest / The Scotchy Bourbon Boys / Behind the Barrel with Dixon Dedman Exploring Bourbon's Heart

Transcript

Behind the Barrel with Dixon Dedman Exploring Bourbon's Heart · The Scotchy Bourbon Boys

• 0:58
  Speaker 1: What's up?
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Scotchy Bourbon Boys fans, this is Alan Bishop of.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: If you have Ghosts, you have Everything.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: You may know me better as Indiana's alchemist in the Black Forest, but if you're at all interested in the 14, high strangeness, the paranormal and the unexplained, then you should tune into my new podcast.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: If you have Ghosts, you have Everything available now, wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, google Podcasts and Amazon.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: We're drinking, burning, sipping on some scotch.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: We do it a while.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: We're sure fun to watch.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: We love what we do.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: We're drinking every brew man, it's awesome.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: But we're telling the truth.
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we're the scotchy burning boys.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, alright, welcome back to another podcast of the Scotchy Bourbon Boys.
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: Tonight we have pretty much everybody in the house, everybody except Roxy, and she's upstairs in the house.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: So that cut, she kind of comes.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: She might chime in a little bit not on camera, but we've got whiskey, we've got CT, we've got Super Nash and we've got Dixon Deadman.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: Welcome, dixon.
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: Thank you.
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: I only kind of heard it, maybe through your headphones.
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: Earlier it sounded like Taylor Swift here.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: Did he sing your?
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: intro song I couldn't quite tell.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: That was just CT.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: He likes to dress as Taylor.
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: Actually it's Kenny Fuller.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: He was part of the band for Luca Mariano and we were doing a podcast and he kind of was like, well, I'll do your theme song.
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: He was doing a little thing and I'm like, yeah, put a little John Cougar Mellencamp in there.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: And then he came up with it and sometimes I think the theme song is so much better than the podcast.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: It's really professional.
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: So I mean it's a cool thing Anyways.
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: So Thank you.
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: Thank you for the opportunity, the invitation.
• 4:14
  Speaker 5: It's cool.
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: We kind of connected through mutual friends who think the world of you guys.
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: So you know I said, yeah, let's do it.
• 4:29
  Speaker 5: So really appreciate the detail, but not with me anyway.
• 4:35
  Speaker 7: Yeah, we think a lot of James too.
• 4:38
  Speaker 7: He's a really good friend of the group and he really promotes us a lot, uh, everywhere he goes and he does get around too.
• 4:46
  Speaker 7: So thanks again, james, and uh, he is watching and he says, hi, dixon yep, he's a special guy yeah, he's, he's, it was really kind of cool.
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: I'm sitting there watching TV with my granddaughter and all of a sudden I got a phone call and he's like you want to talk to Dixon?
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, I do, it was just you guys were there and he was, so it was, it was really kind of cool.
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, we, we have not that, we've never met uh in person and I look forward to that.
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: And then also, uh, this is I think the first time, besides on the phone, that we've gotten to talk, and one of the cool things is, believe it or not, you might, you didn't know of us, but uh, I've pretty much you know.
• 5:41
  Speaker 4: When you first first started, way back with the, with Kentucky Owl and your story, you know, and then the evolution of where you, where you've been and you know now where you're at, that's something that, in even before I was podcasting, was something you know out there.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: I mean, your ability and what you were blending at Kentucky Owl was so fantastic that throughout all the you know all the other podcasts that I watched before we podcasted, they were just, everybody was always talking about it and you know, it's an honor to have you tonight.
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: And, uh, we, we I think I speak for all of us.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: Uh, we, we really love the whiskey that you bring and put out there for everybody.
• 6:29
  Speaker 7: Absolutely Well that is.
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: that is very kind and it's very much appreciated.
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: Um, you know I this was the only week this week.
• 6:50
  Speaker 5: I think I have five more weeks after this of straight travel, but I'm home.
• 7:02
  Speaker 5: This week I coached soccer earlier.
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: We had dinner as a family.
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: My wife said can you go hose off the boys earlier?
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: You know all the things.
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: I think it's what's really amazing to me if I'm doing a hundred percent on it is when everybody says hey, you think what you're doing is cool or you watched what you're doing or whatever, and it's like I don't know.
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: I mean, I found myself in a position.
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: I really, most of the time I have a lot of fun with what I'm doing and I think that's what's important.
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: But I, you know, I just kind of went like everybody else and, you know, I met James.
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: He said Mr Dedman and I said James, we're not going to be friends if you keep calling me Mr Dedman because my grandfather was Mr Dedman and he said would it be okay if, on occasion, if I wanted to just see how you're doing, if I could send you a message on whatever Facebook Messenger or something like that?
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: And I said, james, here's a phone number, let's connect.
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: You're a good dude, you're a good human, let's hang out.
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: You're a good dude, you're a good human, let's hang out and these kinds of things are what have you got?
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: You guys want to talk to some rep from Kentucky.
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean, it's what bourbon and whiskey is.
• 9:03
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's just at that and it's one of the cool things that we've always found.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: You know that with bourbon you just.
• 9:20
  Speaker 4: But the friendship is what draws you to keep relaxing, having pours, meeting up with people, talking about your collection, that type of thing.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: But you just meet such great people and even from the few minutes that we spent with you, the people in industry does not?
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: They're hard-working people.
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: There's not a lot of.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: There's very few people who are arrogant, there's very few people who aren't humble and there's very few people who don't work hard and most people are family orientated.
• 9:56
  Speaker 4: That you know, and that's one thing.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: That's that I love about the industry and why I love to do the podcast is because we get to meet the people and people like yourself.
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: But then, like you said, you become friends with them on a level of just.
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: You know the whiskey's there, but it's just like you know it's.
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: You know regular friendship.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: It's not anything above and beyond that and it doesn't matter if we're talking with you, or we were with Mark Carter a couple weeks ago, or we're with Fred Noe.
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: It's throughout the industry, or you get to meet Jimmy Russell.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: It seems to be throughout the industry.
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: It's just something that, if you meet somebody who isn't that way, that is such a rare thing.
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: And I, you know, I think that one of the true privileges that I've had growing up in Central Kentucky.
• 11:01
  Speaker 5: Growing up in central Kentucky we were in a different industry that I grew up in, but either the hospitality industry, the restaurant, hotel industry, but kind of a let me say I was the fifth generation in my family to run that business 100 plus years.
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: I was the fifth generation in my family to run that business 100 plus years.
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: And the relationship that they've had and been cultivated with the Russells, with Mr Rutledge and Alan, Young and being able to, you know, spend time with the Elmer T Lees of the world and these people.
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: And you know, you think, man, these are just kind of like good little boys doing a really cool thing, really cool thing.
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: And then you get to spend time with them and you think I want to be more like.
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: The further I got into this, the more I realized I want to be more like those guys like just easy cool.
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: Like the guys you want to have a border with, not the guys that you want to say hey, walk me through a seminar on what this national combination is going to give you from a flavor wheel perspective.
• 12:37
  Speaker 5: Can we just shoot the?
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: Can we just like?
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: I'm so trying to watch my language here.
• 12:46
  Speaker 5: I was going to say shoot the breeze, I guess, is what I'm going to say.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: No, you don't have to watch your language Help.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Hey, jeff, in true Scotchie Urban Boys fashion, I think we're having some audio issues when so Dixon is cutting in and out of my audio on zoom a little seems like little seems like that's happening for ct as well okay.
• 13:58
  Speaker 4: so, dixon, it seems like if, yeah, your audio is just a little, we hear you and then you kind of go off.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: I, I'm monitoring it and it's recording pretty good.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: I mean I don't have any, it just goes higher and lower for me at the moment, but I do.
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: There was a couple times.
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: But if you're facing straight forward it seems to be working the best, but if you look away then it kind of goes a little bit softer for the microphone.
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: I will not learn.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: Anyways, all right.
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: So you guys questions and let's talk about what you're doing now with the 2XO and you know, I think, is your current batch the batch four or is it five?
• 14:48
  Speaker 5: Totally.
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: We just launched the Kewa.
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: The Kewa is the fourth one.
• 14:53
  Speaker 5: Okay, that's out right now.
• 14:57
  Speaker 4: Excellent, we've got.
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: So Super Nash here.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: You were in South Carolina and he was racing to get to the liquor store that you were signing bottles and he just missed you.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: What was it?
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: By 15 minutes there, super Nash, Is he not there?
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: Can you guys hear me?
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: I?
• 15:25
  Speaker 6: can hear you, I don't know.
• 15:27
  Speaker 6: Okay, nash's frame is still.
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: It doesn't look like he's moving anymore.
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: Well, he's moving to me, but let's see, hold on, he's not muted, all right Still stone face.
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know if he can hear us.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: He probably can't hear us.
• 15:45
  Speaker 6: On the Zoom.
• 15:45
  Speaker 6: He's literally not moving on the Facebook page, oh, on the Facebook, all right.
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: So, anyways, he raced to get he should come back in soon but he raced to get the bottles and he missed you like by a couple minutes.
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: But he picked us up both the Kiowa and the which one, the Tribute.
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: We got the tribute, but he also picked up the gem of kentucky.
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: You can see right here, right and uh, that one was, uh, he picked that up and is that nash's urine?
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: sample he mailed you.
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: You can tell when he gives us samples I mean, look at that, look at that.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: He puts labels on it.
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: I mean it's just, I don't even know how he does it.
• 16:37
  Speaker 4: That's a mini bottle with a label, so anyway, so we've got that.
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: I did open up and get every you know, the sample of the Kiowa blend.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: And then Nash was excited about that because, being from South Carolina and the story about being out there, and that's where he was very excited.
• 17:00
  Speaker 4: You could tell right now he's trying to get the audio working.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: I don't know why his audio went out, but it did Walk back out and walk back in Nash, You'll be all right, try talk about you know going from Kentucky Owl and you know moving away from that and then starting this brand.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, I've, you know that story people like to hear.
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: You know how you go about it.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: But also, you still do run.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: You still are in the hospitality industry, or no?
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: I think the we passed the analog.
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: I shouldn't say pass it off, but I had some cousins.
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: They wanted to take a run at that in June of 2020.
• 17:57
  Speaker 5: We're coming up on two years and it was really kind of a perfect time.
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: It was a good thing because I was about to go back down the road of kind of you know, I did that when I did the Kentucky Owl thing and it was not easy.
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: Some people you know I would get a lot of money more when I did the Kentucky Owl thing.
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: It was not easy Some people you know I would get up on a Monday morning at like 3.30 and drive to the end and pick up the reports and payroll and then get on a 6 am flight to wherever I was going to do.
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: But on the flight I would do the payroll and and fill in the sales numbers and all that stuff and be gone and land on thursday and kind of work the restaurant and and thursday, friday, saturday and try to see my family on sunday and, uh, do it all over again and that is not.
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: So.
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: There was a period where I was looking to really period where I was looking to really get invested in launching this 2XO brand again, and also my parents were really horrible taxi drivers in terms of running the mkini business.
• 19:45
  Speaker 5: It's like let's get you retired and settled and I want to go do this thing and these family members of ours want to do the end, which was amazing.
• 20:00
  Speaker 5: So it all kind of worked out, kind of at the right time, which was really cool.
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, you know, I think that looking back on the last whatever 10, 15 years of my life and think about, you know, when I decided I was going to do the Kentucky Owl thing, it was like I need something else, like I need a hole in the head but I've always been wired in such a way where people said that's too hard or you probably shouldn't try that, or I don't know if that's a good idea and that generally just makes me say, oh yeah, watch this, um kind of thing, and you know.
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: So I'm feeling um, through all of that I, I, I learned a lot.
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: I I traveled, tribulations, what you know, what the big corporate spirit world is like, what it's like you know, with that and learned a lot of things that I was able to say, hey, if I were ever going to do this again, I would not do this or I would do this differently, or I'm going to remember this because I think it's going to come up again, kind of thing, and so I mean we all were affected by that weird pandemic.
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: Right, everybody has their own stories about that, but I don't think there's any question that for me and the company that I was aligned with doing, the Kentucky Outing had significant repercussions and they, they changed they had significant repercussions and they changed, their outlook changed, their destruction changed and it just wasn't a good fit for me after that Not that what they were intending was bad, doing just not a lot with you know what I thought was important and where I thought.
• 22:46
  Speaker 5: So you know, it was great.
• 22:48
  Speaker 5: It was like we just, you know, I just finally decided I'm going to go do me and I went and did the consulting thing, which I was kind of biding my time.
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: Consulting is a huge thing, yeah, because the consulting is like putting out fires for people who shouldn't be in the business anyway.
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: So that was like yeah obviously he knows.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: You know, the opportunity presented itself to uh with with some people that I really wanted to I had worked with previously and we were very much aligned on opportunities and kind of looking at what we thought was an interesting portion of the market was maybe not being fully touched, and it kind of leaned into my wheelhouse a little bit.
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: So we decided to take a run at it and let's take all the things that we collectively have learned and been through and the challenges and wins, and you know let's do it and it's.
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: You know we run it on a slightly larger scale, but simpler scale.
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: Yeah Well, what's your plan?
• 24:30
  Speaker 5: I'll tell you when we get there.
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: You know we're just going to have fun, like we're just going to have a great time, so yeah, so, Dixon, when you decided to go this route, obviously the name.
• 24:47
  Speaker 6: I think most of us know what it came from and why it stands for what it stands for, but I'm sure that wasn't the only name.
• 24:54
  Speaker 6: So how long did it take you to actually come up with a brand name?
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: for this Funny from the branding perspective.
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: I was kind of adamant about a couple things and not to sound obnoxious, I have no disrespect to any other but I had done the heritage brand thing, told the story of my great-great-grandfather receiving a distillery in 1876 and creating the brand called Kentucky Owl and I felt like that you know in this space right now every time you turn around.
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: It's like old milk jug, old water tower, you know bad colors, you know.
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: It was like yeah, this brand is named after a fuel that holds slop up a hill in 1856 or you know, whatever I didn't want to go down that road, Like I didn't want to create a brand that was supposed to look like something that could have been on the shelf in 1945.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: And I really was against that kind of like mentality and that heritage play.
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: And then the second thing I didn't want to do and I see it all the time and it's fine, but I see it all the time, it's fine.
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: But you know the brands that are trying to sell you a product because of some obscure element of their process Like, hey, we only use corn grown by Amish farmers that use grass-fed alpaca manure to fertilize the fields, or something like that.
• 26:47
  Speaker 5: Like I don't, I don't really know how that.
• 26:50
  Speaker 5: I don't really want that a bottle, but okay, you know whatever.
• 26:55
  Speaker 5: So, um, you know, what I decided is that, you know, we wanted to create a brand that was really built around the story of the liquid itself.
• 27:07
  Speaker 5: What is the liquid?
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: What is in that hop?
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: And really about making something that stood out, that had a different kind of look and feel, maybe had a little more of a modern, you know, but it was about the process of the development of the liquid.
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: But it was about the process of the development of the liquid.
• 27:30
  Speaker 5: You know, you guys have amazing collections behind you, or can flip your screen to put amazing collections behind you.
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: And the idea is that you know.
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: Every one of the people responsible for those bottles behind you or around you would tell you that, in truth, 15% of what makes those products good is distillation.
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: 85% of what makes those products great is natural.
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: Understanding percent of what makes those products great is naturally.
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: It's understanding how that liquid interacts with the barrel during the maturation process.
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: I decided to build a whole brand on amplifying that maturation process.
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: Amplifying the oak exposure during the process of maturation process.
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: Amplifying the oak exposure during the process of maturation to create unique flavor profiles and unique components on the palate in the finished product.
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: 2xo stands for two times oak.
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: Everything in the line has additional oak interaction during the maturation process.
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: That's what I think creates a unique flavor.
• 28:54
  Speaker 6: Do you on that note, dixon do you get all of your barrels?
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: Are they always from the same hoop ridge when you go for your two-time or the second barrel length, or are you picking different barrels from different cooperages?
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: The barrels that we use for the double barreling all come from Independence State.
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: They play with different char levels, but yeah, I mean, I don't think people quite realize they will.
• 29:25
  Speaker 5: It's going to happen.
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: But in bourbon we don't want to talk about allocated bottles.
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: Allocated, All of these are allocated.
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: It's a Saturday morning raffle.
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: I've got to give away a you know first kid after I supply your example or whatever.
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: What do you mean this is about to happen in American whiskey, I don't know.
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: The only thing more allocated than high-end bottles is new charred white oak barrels.
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: Barrels are harder and harder and harder to come by those barrels behind you.
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: It takes 25 plus years for those trees to mature, to be able to be cured and cut into stays.
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: You weren't laying down.
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: Nobody there wasn't.
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: You know, Johnny White Oak Seed wasn't walking around 25 years ago throwing white oak seeds all over the place.
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: The biggest challenge for me in terms of building a brand on additional oak has been how do we create access to that oak?
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: You're right, We've had to be.
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: You know how do we create that oak and you're kind of working with people like Interstave to create those chains of white oak for the American oak product as opposed to removal and put into new chart oak.
• 31:23
  Speaker 5: But oak is a thing you know.
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: We say in Kentucky you can't swing a disc without hitting somebody that claims they're building a $200 million distillery.
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: That's the truth.
• 31:35
  Speaker 5: They're popping up everywhere.
• 31:36
  Speaker 5: It's crazy.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: One of the things that is going to happen with that is that they can make all the disc where they want.
• 31:44
  Speaker 5: But if you do, the access to the area where you put that dissolution in and it's a whole different issue.
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: Especially for startups.
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: And there's so many, like you said there's like four, I mean and the size of the startups are just absolutely enormous.
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: They're going to, they could go out.
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: You know it's not like you're putting in a limestone branch distillery with a pot still where they're doing one barrel a day.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: I mean you're talking they, right off the bat, can be doing 200 to 300 barrels a day and to supply that, like you said, and with it all coming online.
• 32:24
  Speaker 4: That's why I see american whiskey having a, having a place and like, like you know, there's so much creativity going on with the barrels.
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: Where you send the barrel, they take it apart, they take the staves apart, they shave off the the.
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: You know they'll shave off the, the char, put the barrel back and then either rechar it or just toast it and use that as a used barrel.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: The flavors, that's just such an experimental kind of thing.
• 32:55
  Speaker 4: There's so much that can be done, but it still comes down to that it's a used barrel.
• 33:01
  Speaker 4: And you know we've seen reverse, where someone ages it in a used barrel for seven years and then puts it to finish it in a brand new French oak barrel to add the flavor on the end instead of you know.
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: It's just very unique what's going on.
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: I agree.
• 33:21
  Speaker 5: I think there are two points you made that are very interesting and you know I have no crystal ball.
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: I'm wrong a lot more often than I'm right one of these days.
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: To see them change some piece of that legislation to allow you to take a used barrel five years you're 80 proof every day, $20 bottle.
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: That's just in the interest of trees.
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: That's going to happen.
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: The other thing that's going to change the landscape, in my opinion, is that there is this big rush of all of these investors to get into this industry.
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: They were just thinking, oh man, what a great return.
• 34:49
  Speaker 5: I can buy 20,000 barrels of bourbon at 800 bucks at a new film, and they're telling me that somebody's going to buy these things at $4,000 when they're four years old and that speculative investment really spurred on this story to grow.
• 35:20
  Speaker 5: You know, it's like you can go to the distillery, you know, and if 40, 50, 60% of your production in year one is sold out, that's weird.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: It's like that's bird in the hand right.
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: That's cash coming in to pay for you, pay your bills and all that stuff.
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: The problem is like the market.
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: There's not a market.
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: There's not a market.
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: There's not those barrels.
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: Those four year old barrels aren't selling for $4,000.
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: Now you know there's not.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: There aren't brand.
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: You can't buy a $4,000 four year old barrel and turn it into a product that's going to move any volume like real volume.
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: So it's not a that's going to move any volume like real volume.
• 36:06
  Speaker 5: Who does that?
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: So it's not a bubble bursting, it's a bubble shrinking and so that's, you know, the next five years that's going to play out significantly.
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: And when they started those programs, they were all convinced that the big beans and the bumper trees and the wild turkeys, they were all going to be buying barrels off the market and all of those guys said, we're just going to build another building and put in another still and increase our own capacity.
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: They're not.
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: They're not going to like what we're talking about.
• 36:58
  Speaker 5: So there are a lot of barrels out there and there are a lot of barrels out there and there are a lot of people that open barrels on very expensive homes and I'm not sure that that's going to happen.
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: We've all you know.
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: We just talked about barrels and the amount of barrels that are being used, and that's been.
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: We've been talking about that for a little, for a couple years now, and the same thing.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: It's like when is the bubble going to not burst but shrink or, you know, return to a normal pace?
• 37:41
  Speaker 4: And it seems to just all the sudden, like and like.
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: If you really want the reality of it, it's like you know you get, you're starting to get news that everybody, you know, this week, you, if you read the article on heaven hill, uh, they were talking about they're not going to hire anybody else, they're talking about attrition, um, they're not going to replace people who quit, but yet they're in the process of building a brand new distillery.
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: And they basically said what, the people that we've got, we're going to run that distillery.
• 38:16
  Speaker 4: And the, the union was like um, wait a second, that's not how this works.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: But at the same time, when you start to see stuff like that, you, they, they see it coming there's.
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: You know, the, the, the amount of push is starting to now meet the demand of what everybody wants, except for the allocated.
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: That allocated market still just goes crazy, because there's a lot of people who are chasing stuff that they only hear about, not what they know about.
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: It's more like the game that they're playing opposed to the whiskey that they're buying, you know, and that's kind of that.
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: That hasn't.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: We haven't seen a slow up of that, but everything else seems to be just kind of.
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: You know, I don't see a back off, but when you think about how much the demand, how much more bourbon they're putting in barrels, and then you think if it's leveling off now, at one point there's going to be an awful, awful, awful lot of barrels that, to your point of that, will not be selling for four thousand dollars a barrel when there's this many on the market yeah, I, I just need and this is probably not at all where y'all are hoping- hijacking or whatever.
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: But like I would be curious, like before you all, do you still go out and try to like get excited about the new brand, the new label, the new I haven't seen that before.
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: $75 bottle or $80 bottle do you have that same energy that you did, you know, a couple years ago?
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: Because in my experience, if I travel or whatever the majority of you know, the retailers are like, yeah, people were in that and they're moving back to moving back.
• 40:31
  Speaker 5: I'm going back to the old standby, old staples and things.
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: I know that I trust, like I've.
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: I've been far too many times where I said, oh okay, so review, pot a pot.
• 40:45
  Speaker 5: It was exciting, somebody did a review on it and I got to know them and I was like huh.
• 40:54
  Speaker 4: I think when it comes to distillers, I'll say it real quick and then everybody take a turn.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: But when it comes to new distilleries, yes, I still get excited.
• 41:05
  Speaker 4: If they're making their own distillate and their distillate is evolving and it's starting to come, you know, six, seven years, I still get excited about what they're because it just keeps getting better.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: But when it comes to like the mgp, uh new brand that there's been so many of them and or you know, the, the blending, uh, the people that have been doing it and that are good at doing it, I'm excited about.
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: But when you're talking about those new brands, it's it is been tedious lately that's the word I would use for that and nash, you go next uh, that's what I was gonna say because I I was like I was the bourbon hunter.
• 41:44
  Speaker 7: That's how how I got into this group five years ago.
• 41:48
  Speaker 7: I was excited, I was all on the hunt, going out to these places looking for that new bottle, looking for that new blend.
• 41:57
  Speaker 7: And these last couple of years, yeah, that has sort of lulled for me because of getting out there and finding it and then getting it home and then tasting it and then not living up to the expectations or the reviews thaters that are coming about.
• 42:15
  Speaker 7: That I'm sort of excited for now and I do want to get out there and taste it.
• 42:34
  Speaker 7: But as far as the new distilleries that are coming out, it's I'm not really excited about, you know, gung-ho about getting out there and going out there and tasting their new product and all, but because I know that it's going to take time and that most of the stuff that they're going to be putting out there is going to be something that they've acquired from somewhere else and blended or did something to get them by until they're really up and running and putting out their own product.
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: So that's my kind of standpoint for them.
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: Ct.
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: I'm probably a little different than everybody else in this panel, because I'm newer to it.
• 43:20
  Speaker 6: But also I am constantly… I love that fire collection by the way.
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: Don't worry about that.
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: Listen, I love bourbon, I love whiskey, I love tequila.
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: I like everything just about, other than I'm not a fan of vodka, I'm not a big fan of gin, but I like good spirits.
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: If it's a cocktail and it's good, I like it.
• 43:45
  Speaker 6: If it's a good beer, I like it.
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: I'm fond of bourbon, but I I have not found myself backing off Like I still get excited for certain allocation days because I like to go out with friends and see what happens to fall that day.
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: You know it's, it's kind of nice.
• 44:02
  Speaker 6: It's the camaraderie that comes from from what this industry has brought me, uh, for the last several years.
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: That may be different than everybody else's.
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: I I don't go to get a bottle to try to sell it, to make money on it.
• 44:17
  Speaker 6: I get a bottle to try it to see if it fits my palate and then to share it with people and then to hopefully maybe give somebody an idea of just like yours if they see 2x0 on the shelf.
• 44:30
  Speaker 6: But they're like what the hell is 2x0?
• 44:32
  Speaker 6: And you're like, okay, wait a minute, they talked about it, let me.
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: Let me try that.
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: I don't think that that's slowed down as much as people might think.
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: I think that there's still a lot of people.
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: Today, for instance, the state of Ohio did a random drop at six o'clock at the OHLQ stores.
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: People are in line in 10 minutes and lined up 20, some people deep at these stores.
• 44:54
  Speaker 6: It's not slowing, it's changing.
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: There's a lot of brands, so for me I'm still excited.
• 45:01
  Speaker 6: Every barrel you know we've all drank a barrel that's set right next to another barrel on a rig for the same amount of time with the same distillate and you crack them open it's like holy shit, this one tastes completely different than that one and I don't know.
• 45:17
  Speaker 6: For me, that's kind of my thing is like my god, I'm excited for there to be that next barrel.
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: They're that next one that just like holy crap, that that's the one.
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: So I I'm not slowing down and uh, I I don't think a lot of people are.
• 45:35
  Speaker 6: I don't go back to a lot of the, the basic stuff.
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: I have a lot of like 20 bottles and yeah, I'll go back to them once in a while and try them.
• 45:44
  Speaker 6: There's a complexity that's completely different in those, because there is none.
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: It's a one note.
• 45:52
  Speaker 6: It's a good drinker, it's easy.
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: But chasing that bottle of 110 to 120 some proof that's been aging for 7 to 10, 12 years is like man.
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: That's fun.
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: For seven to 10, 12 years is like man, that's that's fun.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, whiskey.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: You know, when I started getting excited about bourbon, every time we travel out of state I'd buy every brand that I couldn't buy in my home state because there wasn't distribution, and what I have is about 35 bottles of awful bourbon with about 15 or 16 real gems.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: So for me, I find it interesting, I'm still buying allocated bottles, even though I might have two or three backups in the bourbon closet, and I'm not sure why I am other than you know we do some charitable donations and some things, but it's like man, this is hard to get.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: I should buy it because I can and I'm like at some point you need to just say no.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: I mean not to be brand specific, but there are some Frankfurt originated products that I'm literally looking at going.
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: This might be a lifetime supply in my hands.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: So but you know, I'm still.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: I'm still intrigued by and still buying good whiskey.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: For For me, when I started out, if something was $70 or $80, that's about where my breaking point was of trying something I've never tried before.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Now it's nothing to drop $300 on a bottle I've tried and loved.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: So I think to Tiny's point.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: I think to Tiny's point, I think some people are devolving, going back to their Tennessee whiskey or wherever it is they came from.
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: I think some people are still coming into bourbon and that is still kind of a wave that's crashing against the shore of people that are trying those $80 and $90 and $100 price point bottles.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: And then I think there is a smaller segment that is now looking at bourbon almost like it's wine.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: You know, it's nothing to have a fantastic wine bottle from a winery that has an amazing reputation, that was just bottled and hits the shelf at $500.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, there's a couple of brands that everyone knows that people drop $200 a bottle for in the restaurants and, to be honest with you, they're good.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: But are they $200 good?
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: I think they're chasing the label, right, they're chasing the label, not the grain.
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: Um, I think in bourbon people are starting to chase the grape and not the label.
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: So I think there's, I think I think we can draw some parallels to what has occurred historically in wines, to what is happening in bourbon.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: But I mean, I don't think the craze is over by far.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: It's not.
• 49:15
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm going to agree with you.
• 49:18
  Speaker 5: I think that two points I would make.
• 49:21
  Speaker 5: One is that, yeah, there are great wine parallels with American whiskey there are also great craft beer parallels with American whiskey.
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: And you know 15 years ago there was a craft brewery and the ones that either got acquired by big guys or they went hungry, and you know what I'm saying.
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: Like there's that.
• 49:59
  Speaker 5: Like that's already happening in American whiskey.
• 50:04
  Speaker 5: That's already happening in American whiskey.
• 50:08
  Speaker 5: You made a great point, which I think is incredibly valid.
• 50:12
  Speaker 5: One of the things that was really important to me when talking about the lessons learned.
• 50:17
  Speaker 5: I remember spending a lot of time going out when I was still, you know, carrying the Al flag, and people were always like, yeah, I just absolutely love, love the blender love what you got going on, but I hate the price point.
• 50:44
  Speaker 5: I hate it.
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: My comment was always well, here's my business card.
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: It says Blender on it, it doesn't say Pricer.
• 50:52
  Speaker 5: And you know, I think that's what's been, you know, been a lot of fun.
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: We have a lot of let me see additional costs involved and additional O during the.
• 51:10
  Speaker 5: But to still be able to do those icon blends like you have in front of you, at 100 or sub-100 price point, which is not I don't think it's out of bounds, um, not, I don't think it's out of out of bounds, for you know what is like that.
• 51:36
  Speaker 5: I was quoted in new york times not long ago saying that in bourbon, you know, 75, I was 35.
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: Um, but to be able to kind of create a brand, I think that plays with american oak and the sub 50 price point.
• 51:58
  Speaker 5: And then you have allocated releases twice a year that are still, you know, 100.
• 52:02
  Speaker 5: I mean 100 or some 100 like, because at the end of the day, I don't.
• 52:07
  Speaker 5: It's cool.
• 52:08
  Speaker 5: It's really cool when people buy your models.
• 52:13
  Speaker 5: But when they buy your models, they, yeah, I don't know when I would ever.
• 52:18
  Speaker 5: You know, I don't know when I'm gonna like you don't put all the work and sweat and like the effort into creating something.
• 52:28
  Speaker 5: So somebody puts it on the shelf and says I'm not really sure when I would ever open like you want to make something that people say, yeah, I opened this, it was awesome, and then I was with my guys and we finished the thing off or whatever, and you've kind of filled that gap with the American Oak version that you brought out to kind of help that person who's maybe not wanting to spend $100, correct, yeah, I mean the American Oak.
• 53:01
  Speaker 5: The whole intention of American Oak is, you know, that's the core.
• 53:04
  Speaker 5: I mean, I didn't design that to be anything but and it doesn't work out to me that's a kill it on Tuesday, replace it on Wednesday bottle oh boy, that's a bad night you don't have to think about it, you just enjoy it.
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: It's just something that you say hey, this is an easy drinker.
• 53:31
  Speaker 5: I have three or four things that are on my shelf.
• 53:41
  Speaker 5: The things that you say.
• 53:48
  Speaker 5: I don't want to have to get too deeply involved in what's going on here, I just want something to help my day, that's it yeah, there's, there's all.
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: There's different levels of.
• 54:05
  Speaker 4: There's, there's, there's all.
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's different levels of, you know, there's that.
• 54:08
  Speaker 4: That price point that's reasonable, which used to be, I think, which used to be like high 20s, is now high 30s for that type of a bottle, but it's the one where it tastes good on one level and and you, every time you drink but you don't have to think about it, you don't.
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: There's no complexity to it, it just has that one taste, whether it's caramel or you like it, you, or it has that bourbon, uh, but it's not.
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: Oh, you know, you don't have to think about it, it's over oaked or whatever, and that that is definitely a.
• 54:40
  Speaker 4: Uh, you know that type of bourbon and I think that you've always tried to make that that type of bourbon and then, but that complexity that you put in your other bottles, you definitely have the ability to make something that tastes really good and complex at the same time.
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: Your batches through Kentucky Owl, through 2XO, I mean, my wife is as picky as it gets.
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: She doesn't bullshit me ever, so to find a whiskey or a bourbon that she absolutely loves is rare and she loves complexity.
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: But there's certain things she doesn't like, and when she tasted the kiowa blend, she, absolutely, she loved it.
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: She the.
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: The sweetness was perfect, the you know all the stuff that was happening.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: Now we have the gem of kentucky that, uh, nash picked up and I have it in my glass and when she tasted that that was less for her.
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: She didn't say it was bad or whatever, but she was excited about the Kiowa blend and that's what whiskey is and that's why it's so much fun and you're supplying that and giving it on all different levels and that's a really good thing.
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: And you could tell by meeting you tonight how good you are at this and you really understand what bourbon is and what it should be.
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: Go ahead.
• 56:12
  Speaker 7: When I picked up the puddles Dixon, I had just missed you by about 15 minutes over in Rainbow, south Carolina.
• 56:19
  Speaker 7: That morning.
• 56:22
  Speaker 7: I was headed over and I got a call that came in and I was going to be there, like about 10, 15, and all of stores all over the upstate that you had signings at all day.
• 56:34
  Speaker 7: But fortunately I went ahead and picked up a couple of bottles for Jeff, a couple of bottles for me of the Kiowa and the Tribute blend each, and then I picked up one bottle of the Gem of Kentucky and I sent them up samples of it and made the little mini bottles for them with the labels what?
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: number is that?
• 57:10
  Speaker 5: What number?
• 57:12
  Speaker 5: Gem of Kentucky is that.
• 57:15
  Speaker 7: The 63.
• 57:16
  Speaker 7: I believe yeah, 63.
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: It's funny, and I think I mean pretty.
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: I'm going to start with this.
• 57:32
  Speaker 7: That was a total death mark in South Carolina that's what I heard, that had you running that day the thing about.
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: Like the blends or Jim in Kentucky.
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: Those are builds that I loved 63, I don't have a dozen white lab coats that have clipboards and are saying, yes, this meets a criteria or no, this doesn't match, or you know whatever.
• 58:13
  Speaker 5: That you know, generally speaking, is a true single barrel.
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: 63 is different from 64, which is different from 22, which is different from 45.
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: Every one of them is different.
• 58:26
  Speaker 5: You know they have different starter levels on the secondary barrels.
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: They're different ages, they're from different lots, they're barrels that I really like.
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: One thing that funks is when people say I like, like Kewa Black, who thinks one, I've made two different whiskeys.
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: That people can't do and they gravitate towards one or the other Right.
• 59:05
  Speaker 5: Honestly, the second part is they've tried them both and that makes me feel really good too.
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: So you know, I it's.
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: The whole project in Kentucky Isle was kind of the same way and, and if I'm being honest, the reason that I decided to go away from it because they were, I didn't try to take that away from it.
• 59:33
  Speaker 5: Maybe it's because I don't work well with others, which is fair, but maybe it's because I just, you know, I like what I like.
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: Sometimes I like.
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: I make a blend that's very spicy, and sometimes I like something that's very rich and soft.
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 6: That's why we all like bourbon is because it can vary from bottle to bottle, to barrel to barrel.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 6: That's what it's all about about is being able to pick up something that is every time unique and different and share with your friends yeah, there, there are those staple bottles out there in the market that you can pretty much drink and they're 100% the way they tasted the last time you drank it.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 6: But that's where I feel like the market people really do enjoy something that's unique.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 6: You know, they may drink that staple, but they, if they're with friends sitting around the campfire or whatever it is, they like to talk about something a little different yeah one of the things that.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 5: I'm very, very fortunate about it as well is the liquid in our program.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 5: It feels like on your right that tributing blend.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 5: You know, when I was doing the dump, that dump lab, that dump on that blend was, I think, 111.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 5: That new blend was a little over 112.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 5: So you know, bottle of that 104, there's not a lot of dilution.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 5: The entry-proof is 110.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 5: So not a lot of dilution.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 5: Which is why to me, when I really with 2XO I want to use mouth feel viscosity, weight on the pallet, and then we have these low exit proofs like 110 to 112, bottle these things at 104.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 5: You know they're not watered down, they're not.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: They're not one trick ponies like they still carry all this weight, all this viscosity, this movement across the pallet from, you know, sweet to spice and things like that.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 4: So you know I'm I very very important to have some pretty liquid you know to work with, play with, to make these things.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: Why I think whiskey or bourbon, and whiskey has exploded the way it has is like even like it was 2017, 2018.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: And you would make a comment on on Facebook about a Finnish bourbon or you made the wrong comment.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: There was a bunch of people that were there to basically tell you you're full of shit or that's a finished.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 4: They would be just like that's a finished, that's finished, it's not a bourbon, that's we, we need pure bourbon.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: And then we've got you go to 2019 and then into the what pandemic and so many people came in and the evolution to instead of it just always tasting the same and that desire to always make you know that consistency.
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: All of a sudden that was gone.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: Where it's still good to make consistency, it's a hard thing to do.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: To make a consistent batch year after year that tastes the same.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: That's not an easy thing.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: We all know that batch year after year that tastes the same.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: That's not an easy thing.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: We all know that.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: But the whole group of people that came in, they want, they love the.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 4: You know the, the difference of all the different flavors, all the different finishes.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: They're looking for something different.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 4: And now when you say a finished bourbon, nobody says anything, anything about it.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: You don't hear anything bad about a finished bourbon, I mean, but overall you still.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 4: You know you don't get that.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: I agree 100%.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 5: I mean it's funny.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 5: It's like when I first started at Kentucky Owl Kentucky, when people say you're an NDP, that was supposed to be the most cutting remark that they could come up with.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 5: Like, oh, you're an NDP.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 5: And it's like oh, how dare you.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: My whole stance was well, I read, barrel everything and I do monitor maturation.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 5: My whole program was around maturation but NDP was like, yeah, fighting for it.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 5: I remember being on this panel in Louisville one time in front of 300, 400 people there and Mr Rutledge who was kind of my mentor and a very close friend of mine and so I admired greatly.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 5: The world is black and white for Jim Rutledge.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 5: Admired greatly, you know, but he, he like, the world is black and white for Jim Rutledge.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: You know either Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey or it's not.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 5: And you know he was railing against, uh, other brands who were saying Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, finished in this, and he was like, and by the law.
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 5: Who were saying Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, finished in this, and he was like that fundamentally and by the law, not a reality if you take Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey and you put it in something else it just.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 5: I personally am a truest at heart, I believe you're proud of what it actually means to be Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: Bourbon whiskey, I think that's.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 5: I would actually side with Jim in that argument in terms of if it's something that is not outside the new chart of container.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 5: Then in my opinion it becomes a whiskey or a finished whiskey, but you lose that very, I think, pride and those words on our model that say Kentucky straight burrow whiskey.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 5: That means a lot.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 5: There's a tradition and a legacy there that is important to me and I think you know when we went designing 2XO and they were like what do you want to do with this?
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 5: How do you want to do it, you?
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 5: One of the things that was really important to me was coloring well within the line of what it means to be Kentucky straight bourbon.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 5: We were going to stay within the lines using additional new chart oak.
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 5: I mean maybe using different color crayon, but we're still additional new chart oak.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 5: I mean maybe using a different color crayon, but we're still well within the lines of that.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 5: But I think it's very healthy with the category that they're making straight.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, dixon, you said that you make yeah, dixon, you said that you make a statement on the website about the gym of Kentucky and I think that's pretty cool that you say that that is the only double-barreled, single-barrel Kentucky bourbon that exists, correct.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 5: Well, I, to be honest, I don't stand off on everything they put on the website, but um, yeah.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: If his business card says blender, not a marketer?
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 5: Right, yeah, I think that there are one-off double-barreled, single-barrels by people that do this LTO.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 5: This is a I don't.
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 5: I think I'll scream at marketing tomorrow, but I can tell you one thing you know I did, uh, I think, 24th of May, to select another 85.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 5: Um so, we, you know it's, it's an ongoing program.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 5: I don't, I don't, I don't know of any other double barreled, single barreled.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: That is an ongoing regularly.
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: I think Peerless might have done one just recently, but it's probably an answer to you doing it.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 4: You're running, you know.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: I'm just just gonna tell you something, just between us girls.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 5: Uh, you know when, when I started because I I was anti, it was it was to to not have to deal with the you're just an NDP, Like you know the whole thing was like oh, you just buy their juice, put it in your bottle, slap your label on it, say, Jerry, no, I'm going to put my thumbprint on this liquid, I'm going to make it mine, I'm going to re-barrel it, I'm going to take different distillates and blend them.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 5: You know this, that and the other.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 5: And so I, you know we really leaned into that, into the double barreling, new, you know new barrels, different char levels.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 5: And not long after I did that, I got a call from a very, very high profile brand that I had known.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 5: Like you know, a friend of mine, or whatever, said I just want you to know, remember, imitation is the finest form of flattery.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: And I'm like.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: I don't know what you're telling me, but I think I know what you're telling me and that's very kind of you what you're telling me and that's very kind of um, but not not saying that I started the double barreling thing.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 5: Not saying that I, you know, but I mean that just to me.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: It made sense like I, I still want to make kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, I want to make mine, I'm going to put it in barrels, I'm going to do something different with it and guess what?
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 5: The whole double oak thing happened.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 7: I mean.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: I love double oak.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 4: I mean pretty much.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 4: I would be happy with the rest of my life if you were giving me double oaked bourbon.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: There's so many brands that it takes it to.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 4: There's a toasted feel to it.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 4: I mean there's a taste to it that I love.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: There's just everything about.
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: A double-oak also seems to open up the whiskey for a more complex palate.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: There's no doubt about it.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 4: More flavor more aroma.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's just, I agree.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: It doesn't matter Most distilleries when they're double-oaking that double-oaked blend that they come up with.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: It's so much better than the regular blend that you're dealing with.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: Even in some cases you cannot like their standard bourbon.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 4: But if they put it out in a double-oaked form it could take it to another level where you just absolutely love it, and I agree with you with you, but you're again it all comes back to
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 5: understanding maturation.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 5: You know, if you, if you double a horse whiskey, it's nothing, because the climate that those barrels are stored in whiskey, because the climate that those barrels are stored in are effectively refrigerated climate, you don't get the interaction.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 5: You'll get the movement.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 5: You know, um, but you know that's Again.
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 5: Once I was doing this talk and I was in a car in New York City called the Brandy Library and she was a beautiful, beautiful, six-foot-tall blonde woman with this gorgeous accent comes in and she tells me she said Hi, and Scotch barrels.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 5: And she just said you know, when are you Americans going to learn how to age whiskey?
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 5: And I said, okay, I'll buy the coconut.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 5: What exactly do you mean?
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 5: She said well, you know, mccall just released a 65, that just released a 65, that just released a 54-year-old and this other you know.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 5: But if you're going to 64 of you know of a rickhouse in Scotland.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: What's it like in August?
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: And that's probably about.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 5: Maybe you know of a rickhouse in Scotland.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 5: Looks like in August.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 5: It's probably about maybe 50 something degrees outside, like I don't know, the rain's coming sideways and it's windy and it's gray and it's nasty and it's cold and whatever you said.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 5: You were in theth floor of a rick house in Kentucky in August and she said no.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 5: And I said me either.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 5: And she said why?
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 5: I said because you can't go there, there's no oxygen, it's 140 something degrees.
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 5: And you last, you know, maybe you all get excited about these 50 plus world barrels of Scottish or Irish whiskey because they spend their entire lifetime effectively refrigerating you know, what a 50 year old barrel of whiskey looks like on the 5th floor of a rickhouse in Kentucky empty, 26 staves, you know, piled up with 6 metal bands laying on top of it.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 5: It's empty, it's dry and, you know, throw a match on it and it'll light on fire and meteor and she's like oh, that makes sense.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 6: So I feel like they have to be excited for something you've waited over 20 years to get a hold of right.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 6: You know like if I had something sitting around for 20, 30, 40 years, you would have to feel like it was great because you waited so long.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 4: Well, I mean the 65 year old, I mean the people that made it could be dead.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: I mean you're talking about a generational weight, but also that scotch is.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: That 65 year old scotch was probably put into a used bourbon barrel, so it's absorbed all the bourbon in the 65 years and it's been refrigerated to not not do too much in there and likely to give it flavor.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 5: It's finished in some sort of sherry cask or something like that, because it's a completely different situation.
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 5: Well, but?
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 4: but coming back to your point, it's like when you were being an ndp, you know when people were getting on you for being an ndp.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, the one thing that I've always known is if you look at scotch or irish whiskey, that's been around eight, nine, the, you know even, you could even say 1400 years, but but mainly for eight, nine, hundred years.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 4: Right now there's only like three or four distilleries making and it's always been that way.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 4: I mean, what's what's johnny walker?
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: They are and they don't distill, they buy it from all the different, they put it together and make a blend, blends up until we've we had this bourbon boom.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 4: That's, that was the main thing.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 4: I mean, you never saw a single barrel scotch or a or scotch was and and irish whiskey were always 80 proof.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, it was the proof.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: Now you're seeing some scotches, you know, in barrel strength.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: But that's only an answer to what.
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 4: What was happening in the bourbon industry.
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 5: You're pretty sure they acquired here and looked at this growth in the agave world.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 5: The tequila I mean tequila is the hottest thing in common.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 5: There's like seven tequila distilleries.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 5: It all comes from the same place.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 4: But they decided to do what bourbon was start aging it.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 6: seven tequila distilleries it all comes from the same place, but they decided to do what bourbon was start aging it in barrels and that all of a sudden changed the industry.
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 6: The difference is that tequilas are managed by almost mafia families, so it's not the same as good old Kentucky bourbon where you can walk in and just you know, meet everybody, have a drink, you go to a tequila distillery and you're going to have an armed guard and hopefully you have credentials.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 4: I think Steve Coombs went down there on that trip and he was doing all the tequila things.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good guy to have on one time to talk about that one.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, but One of my favorite people because he loves the only thing he loves more than bourbon Country ham.
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: Yep.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 5: He loves some country ham.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 4: So are you guys?
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: Are you going to be at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival this year?
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 4: I'm probably not.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 4: No, okay, but we come down during that time.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 4: We would love to do a podcast with you.
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 4: You know, live, if we could work that out coming up, that would be great.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 5: It would be awesome.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 5: Maybe we can talk about probably the things that you all hope to talk about on this podcast, instead of me side-checking, taking the conversation in a completely different direction.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: Oh no, that's a great conversation.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 4: That's what we enjoyed this immensely.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: You guys, you've got to agree To see your take and that's what you want real.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: And you gave us real.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: That's what I mean.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 4: You want real and you gave us real.
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: I mean that's what we want.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: And you gave us great bourbon.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: So anybody else have any final questions before we wrap it up?
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 6: My only question was just and don't have to be real in-depth, but just what's the future?
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 6: What's the next year to hold for you, dixon?
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 6: What's 2XO doing in the next year to two years?
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean to the American of a friendship version.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 5: We're going to add to the American oak a French oak version.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 5: So American oak is five and a half year old Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey and we insert charred chains of American white oak into that barrel.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 5: I did the same thing but I inserted the lower jar on French oak and we inserted that into the barrel.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 5: So that's coming out.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 5: So we'll have a second $50 entry-level program.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 5: Back to our initial conversation.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 5: You know the in terms of being on the lines.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 5: You know the says new charred oak containers, new charred oak.
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 5: It doesn't specify that it's American white oak.
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 5: So using French, we can still use that.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 5: You know it's the new charred French oak but it's new charred oak.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 5: And then actively working on the next iteration of that icon series, so the next one that we'll release in the fall is actually called the Sneakerhead blend.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 6: So that's what did you say the name of it was.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 6: I think you said sneakerhead, sneakerhead, yeah, like a shoe.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 7: Oh, yeah, all right.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 7: Looking forward to some more information on that when that comes up Each one of those comes from me, when I was.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 5: I do have a bit of a shoe problem.
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 5: Oh, you're a jordan collector knock off jordan on the uh you know, without the swoosh on the on the front label.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: Um, that was fun.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 5: And then, uh, you know, the next round at jimmy kentucky is is coming out as well.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 5: So you're like right, you know.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 5: I think that I think the best part about 2x0 is the partnership that I have and what we're doing we're not playing a game like, oh, it's got to be this amount of cases and this amount of cases and this amount of cases like building something that people can connect with and enjoy and share.
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 5: And so when I started it, one of the opportunities was to go down the partnership with Venture Capital, you know capital, private equity line.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 5: That's great, like I, it would have worked out fine.
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 5: But that path was people saying, how much money do you need?
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 5: And then how quickly can we build something that we can sell and, and you know, and make our money back, and I would have to bridge that transition to go work, you know, with or for whatever.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 5: Um, the partnership that we created for 2xo is thankfully, thankfully, thankfully, thankfully you know this this kind of you know, long-term thing and it's about hopefully building it into a, a brand with some sort of staying power.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 5: I mean, I tell people all the time, like when they say what, what's your end goal for 2XF?
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 5: My end goal for 2XF is that maybe one day they take my name off the front of the bottle and put one of my kids on.
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 5: You know, that's how I think about this.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 5: Like I thought that was going to be Kentucky Owl and it didn't.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 5: Whatever it is, it didn't work out.
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 6: So a legacy.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm not a serial builder of things.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 5: I said I'm going to take a shot at doing this.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 5: Take them whatever and turn it into something.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 5: And if that means that hopefully one day it's successful enough, I'm sure it will Not like successful money.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 4: Are you contract distilling too, or is it just purchasing the barrels?
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's kind of incredible about the whole program is that we have two contracts for our program.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 5: They are not from the big contract.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 5: I mean it's not BCC, it's not BCC.
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 5: It's not Rabbit Hole.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 5: These are major, major distilleries that make something specifically for this program and they don't do any other contract producing.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 5: We just were able to or they were able to work these things out for me, so we have them.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 5: We can grow them to you know whatever, I don't know, whatever rate the brand.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 5: Excuse me, the brand grows, so it's just I just kind of pinch myself all the time like I don't I don't have these, but we'll not Like, do your thing.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 5: Well, it's kind of evolved as it evolves.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 7: That way, I bet it keeps a lot of the pressure off of you too.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 7: You know, in the back set.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 4: I don't know if it keeps pressure off of you because, honestly, your self-motivating pressure is the, the to grow the brand.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 4: It doesn't.
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 4: I mean.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 4: You're out on the road doing it the same way that booker booker no, did it, did it the same way, fred and freddie no, do it the same way.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 4: Everybody does it.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 4: They go around the, the brands that people back and believe in.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 4: They go to the stores, they go to the distributors, they go to the distributors.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 4: They're out on the road and you're talking.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 4: You know that's one of the things you were talking about right away how much travel time you have to take to go out on the road.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 4: You're always making time for your family, but at the same time, it is what you have to do.
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 4: Brand recognition is everything when it comes to when someone walks in to a liquor store and they look at all this stuff that's out there, if, if you haven't been there and it's 2x0 and they, whatever they.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 4: But if they get to meet you and talk to you, when they walk in the next time they're like yeah, I, I got to try it, it was was good and I'll buy it.
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 4: You know that's something that has always been the same for a long time with the spirits industry and mainly with bourbon.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 5: And I totally agree.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 5: But also, you know, having a different perspective, I've really I really got the opportunity to meet people.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 5: People don't get the opportunity to meet me.
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 5: I get the opportunity to meet people Like you know I.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 5: It is a pleasure and honor for me to be able to go and when people are there and say, hey, you know, you're whatever, like that, you know.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 5: To me that's kind of a thing on top.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 5: Like you know it could be worse.
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 5: I could be Tommy Boy out there selling brain pads or whatever, you know lighting cars on fire on somebody's desk or whatever.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 5: But you know to get full circle with the guy that introduced us, you know it was my pleasure to you know it was my pleasure to you know an opportunity for me to meet and hang out and shoot shit.
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 5: That's the way I look at it.
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 5: I mean I don't it's like you're the.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 4: you're the artist.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 4: This is your creation, and as you share it with people, it's like you're the artist this is your creation, and as you share it with people, you love to see what they think about it.
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 4: But also, what bourbon is is creating friendships and opportunities to meet people, and so you get it all in this industry.
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 4: So sometimes, even though it's a lot of hard work, it doesn't feel like work at all right.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 5: I mean done the right way.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 5: You know, if you're proud of what's in the bottle, it's about being able and the privilege to go out there and share that with people, the fact that you want to come spend time with you, hang out, that's that's.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 5: That's awesome.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 4: I agree, alright, so we're gonna.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 4: We'll wrap it up.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 4: Thank you for your time, dixon.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 4: We really appreciate it.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 7: So much.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that was.
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 4: That was wonderful.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 4: We.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 4: I had a great evening and I look forward to meeting, meeting you in person.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 4: That would and share a pour and share a pour.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 4: So, everybody, thank you CT, thank you Super Nash, thank you Whiskey for joining us tonight.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 4: We're the Scotchy Bourbon Boys wwwscotchybourbonboyscom for all things Scotchy Bourbon Boys.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 4: Also, remember to follow us on Instagram, youtube, facebook and X, and then all the major podcast formats.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 4: But however you listen, remember, leave good feedback, make sure that you give us a like or subscribe and then, once again, we're sure, don't forget to share.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah for sure.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 4: Share, share and then remember,