Latest / Dishing with Stephanie's Dish / Bentley Gillman, head Distiller at Tattersall Distilling, forager and cocktail book author

Transcript

Bentley Gillman, head Distiller at Tattersall Distilling, forager and cocktail book author · Dishing with Stephanie's Dish

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everybody and welcome to the podcast Dishing with Stephanie's Dish,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: where we talk to cookbook authors,
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes we talk to makers,
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: and today we have someone that has written a book and the book is available for pre-order.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Cocktails in Bloom, but he is also a maker.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Bentley Gilman and he is the head distiller and forager working at Tattersall Distilling.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: How are you?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing so well.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I haven't seen you like face to face for a while.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it's good to get my eyes on your face again.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: It has been quite a bit.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: How is it with you guys being primarily now in River Falls?
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I know you still have your cocktail room here, but you're migrating that.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I've heard some rumors that maybe you might open something down the road smaller in the Twin Cities.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: But is there any news on all of those fronts?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, right now, yes, production has moved to River Falls.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: The cocktail room helmed by Brian and Erica is still doing really well in Northeast.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: So please come and see us.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: It's our last year there, and it'll actually be our nine-year anniversary on July 8th.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: in that space open to the public.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: So that'll be kind of a cool thing.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we're planning some kind of little farewells stuff to that spot.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, as you know, we've outgrown it.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we're over in River Falls now, but we still have a lot of love for Minnesota.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: So it won't be long.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So you do live in the Twin Cities?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you driving back and forth to go to work at 530?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I go I miss most of the traffic being that I leave when I do
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why would you leave as somebody who works in a cocktail environment and who is a head distiller?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious why you would go to work at 5.30 in the morning.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: That seems very counterintuitive to what I would think.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, luckily I'm not working behind the bar.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: We have...
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: fantastic and qualified people doing that i'm just making stuff in the back so we
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: fire up the stills early so we can get the most out of the day um you know when
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: we're running production it takes it can take quite a while to to run a large batch
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: um as we do daily so having all that time you know 10 plus hours a day to get
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: everything done
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: This is kind of the best way for it.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Plus got two little kids at home and getting home for dinner is very important.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm so glad to hear that.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So you are a really interesting cat.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: So when I first met you,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: I met you behind the bar,
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: but I know that you've always had like this outdoorsy side to you.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm curious to hear how that has translated into the book, Cocktails in Bloom.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's 68 pages and it's available for pre-order and it is a forged cocktail book.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So have you always had like a love of the outdoors?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: Growing up, it just was part of life.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And when I,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think when we first met,
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: I was working up in Dayton's Bluff at the strip club,
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: along with Dan,
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: one of the founders of Tattersall.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I mean...
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: That was cool because,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: again,
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: I would be out in the woods early in the morning,
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: come back,
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: wash up,
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: head to work.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it's always been something that I've done and that people who know me have tried
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: my experiments and weird stuff.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: And this this cocktail book really is kind of a.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: The idea was to make the botanicals super accessible and the recipes super accessible too.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: So this was kind of combing through
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Some of my back pages of recipes and things like that that I knew would be they
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: would prove really well for people when they went about trying them.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: They could find most everything really just in their backyard and,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: focuses quite a bit on invasives and stuff,
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: too.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: So just kind of that sustainability aspect,
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: removing invasive species from the natural setting as much as possible.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Give people different experiences of potentially plants that they consider noxious
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: weeds and spend all this time and effort putting spray down on them and things like that.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you can kind of just change people's opinions on some of these things, everything has a purpose.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny when you start to look at your outdoor environment like that.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I think we saw with COVID that was so nice was everybody
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: sort of reconnected outside and we spent a lot more time outside.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know for some people that has sort of gone away a little bit,
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: but I think some of us have really tried to keep that as part of our daily living.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Can you give me an example of something that would be like a noxious weed in our
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: backyard that somehow you're going to make into a cocktail?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I think I saw in the book Creeping Charlie.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so another common name for it is ground ivy, which I feel like is such a prettier name.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: Its Latin name is not very pretty.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's like glaechoma, so that's not very nice sounding either.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so ground ivy.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we are making a ground ivy vermouth in the recipe book.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's got this aroma, if you've ever mowed it or walked over it,
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of sage-like.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: It is in the mint family.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it has this kind of almost honey-like character to it, especially when it's in bloom.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's really, really pretty.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: And just a very, very simple preparation for that.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: We call it a ground ivy vermouth.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, it doesn't have wormwood in it, so it's not technically a vermouth because that's where...
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, vermouth obviously gets its name, but it's something in that vein.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: So we take about a cup of ground ivy clippings,
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: which takes about 30 seconds to clip if your yard is taking over about it.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then you're going to macerate that with about a quarter cup of sugar,
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: less or more depending on your taste,
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: but you can always adjust more on the back end.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I tend to err on the side of caution and then just toss that in a bowl with the
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: ground ivy,
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: kind of massage it a little bit.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And let it sit in your fridge for 24 to 48 hours and then pour a bottle of cheap
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: white wine over it and let it sit in the fridge for another 24 hours and then
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: strain it.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: You can taste it at that point if it needs a little more sweetness to your tasting.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got a really dry white wine, you can adjust the sweetness up.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: But then you can use that in a bunch of things.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: Very simply in just a spritz garnished with a little Creeping Charlie or Ground Ivy.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or you could do, it's really fun in a martini, really simple martini.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: But it's also just really amazing to kind of taste it and you get the aroma.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: But you get all these new things going on in its preparation method.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: And if you make it with NA wine,
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: which is becoming more and more bountiful and available,
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: you can have a really awesome NA option.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's really kind of the other fun thing that has occurred because obviously
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Tattersall were known for spirits.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: This book also gave us the opportunity to,
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: each of the botanical headings has its own,
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: we call it a free spirited selection.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: So there's different preparation methods.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them have their own wild pan, wild bar item.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_01: and some of them use the wild bar item but in a different mocktail or na selection
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: so that's been pretty fun too i feel like i'm totally gonna do this because my
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: neighbor and i were just lamenting her amount of creeping charlie and she has an
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: organic yard and there's flowers on it right now it's actually kind of pretty yeah
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: it's it's prime time right now yeah it's
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime I've gotten the opportunity to talk about the book,
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like that is just one of those set it and forget it super simple recipes where,
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: you don't have to do a lot of thinking about it.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: It just requires, oh, that looks good.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that smells good.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: Throw it in a bowl and pretty much done.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't matter what the white wine is.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we used everything over the years in R&Ding it.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: I've used NA wine before.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've used,
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: the cheapest box white wine to make large batches of it for get togethers and
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: things like that.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Really, really doesn't matter.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: I would err on the side of a drier wine just because you can always adjust the sweetness on the back end.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: But that's really it's really, you know, the world is your oyster when it comes to this one.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think I have like, you know how people come over and they bring you wine.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they bring you the wine that they don't really like at their house,
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: but they think maybe you'll like it.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so I think I have a bottle of crappy, a few bottles of crappy Chardonnays.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's going to be perfect.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm going to do this.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you've been at Tattersall for a long time and have done a lot of cool things with cocktails.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about like how you're all just sitting around and the Forager book came to light.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because I also don't think that people realize Tattersall has an amazing app for making drinks.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we do.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's kind of just...
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: the spirit of Tattersall, you know, one of our guiding principles is redefining expectations.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's kind of what we continue to strive to do,
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: whether it's through putting forward an app that's got,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: 400 plus drinks that is searchable for your through base spirit and the like,
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: or,
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: just sitting around kind of figuring out a way in which to,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: to tell the story to people and talk to people.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: Being that foraging and especially like foraged cocktails has been something that
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I've always done for myself and for my friends and family.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: It just was kind of a natural extension of like sitting around.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_01: It was actually two years ago and we're like, should we make a foraged cocktail book?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it just kind of was like, yeah, let's do it.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: Again, it's that redefining expectations.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: We've been really focused with the new facility on upping our sustainability game.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just kind of a natural extension of those efforts, which has felt really good.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you,
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: when you think about cocktails and you think about all the resources that are
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: available to you to make cool stuff,
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: did you start with foraging food first or has it always been a cocktail focus?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Well,
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: when I was a kid,
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: it started with foraging,
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: just like black cap raspberries and thimble berries and that kind of stuff.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: So it was very food focused.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then it also kind of grew into this just fascination with differences in plants.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like I remember...
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: gathering.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: I was born close to Halloween.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I think I have like that spooky thing going on.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I would have like jars of potions and things like that of different plants.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And over time, you know, got some directions from some people that I knew as a young kid.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: I had a friend of mine's mother knew tons of plants and
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: she didn't always know exactly the uses of them, but she could tell you the name of them.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_01: And then I could find out about,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: what they were,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: what they were used for,
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: different things like that.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And it just opened this doorway to, oh, wow, there's so much, the earth has so much to offer.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that's just kind of always been something that's been
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: exciting for me.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't really ever turn it off.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Just when I'm out and looking around, noticing what's coming up and when it's coming up.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just this kind of constant running thing that's going on.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Walks with me can sometimes take a while when things are in bloom.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: So do you always carry like a knife and a little bag?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it depends on where I am.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I if I'm going out to a place where I know, you know,
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: harvesting is okay uh you know i'm familiar with the local regulations or i'm going
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: to somebody's land and they're like no one's ever been out here to tell me what it
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: is absolutely i will bring i will bring a bag um mostly i just also very much like
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: to
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: take the plants in just visually too.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I think that is part of the listening that is, is, uh, innate in all of us as human beings.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: And it's when a plant draws your attention,
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: it's,
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: it's calling to you,
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: we externalize our psychology on everything in our environment from tarot cards,
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: the tea leaves to whatever's growing around us.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: And, um,
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: when it draws your attention there's a reason it's drawing your attention and maybe
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: it's because um it has something to offer you you know there's plenty of evidence
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: of late neolithic hunter gatherers and even neanderthals who had you know plant
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: material in their teeth and in their satchels that were for the ailments that they
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: we can now see they had so there is this
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: a natural language that we can partake in,
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: and sometimes the thing that's calling to you isn't edible at all.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it might be toxic, but that might be teaching you something that you need to learn too.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: it's you,
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: the way you speak about that sounds very much like the way that Native Americans
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: interpret their environments,
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: the food,
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: their belief systems,
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: the medicines that they use.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: Did you ever read the book, The Seed Keeper?
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: I have not, no.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'd highly recommend it because it's a book written by a Native American woman
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: who's from Minnesota and she won a bunch of awards.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's basically the idea of how multiple generations of Native Americans were
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: able to transfer and keep their seeds and grow and plant as they were nomadic people.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds really like it.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds super up my alley.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I think on a long enough timeline.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I completely agree.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: It has very much that that same intention.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we go back.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: long enough in our collective history.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And at some point,
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: all of our ancestors were living off the land and living in connection to it.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's something that everyone really yearns for either consciously or,
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: or subconsciously this connection to the planet and to each other through the
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: planet and to the natural world.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: When you started thinking about the book,
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: like how long did it take you to write the recipes,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: write the text?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of the recipes for the actual different ingredients were close to made.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean,
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: there were some tweaks because all of these recipes,
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: I say it in the beginning of the book,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: you can absolutely sub out,
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: whatever spirit you'd like,
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: but these are formulated to work really well with the Tattersall flavors,
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: the Tattersall spirits.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: So there was some tweaking there to make it just sing exactly with the,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_01: with the specific Tattersall spirits.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of these are things that I've made over a period of many years and kind of tweaked
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: over time.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: So with some of the finished cocktails,
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: there was some writing and then just,
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I could talk about plants longer than anybody would care to listen.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I, that was not very much a problem.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: And yes,
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: there is a,
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: there's a bit of storytelling in there and a bit of talking,
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: but it's a lot of,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: it's very recipe driven.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that part came very easily.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Who designed the book or who helped you with the design?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's pretty beautiful.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: So Aaron Stottlemyre of Mammoth Creative,
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: who is our graphic designer who does all the amazing Tattersall labels.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you see our stuff and you're like, wow, that looks good.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's Aaron.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: So he...
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: I was the creative director for the visuals and did some amazing stuff.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll mention all pre-orders of the book before release come with a bandana that
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: has all of the different botanicals that he illustrated for the book on the bandana.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's really beautiful.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_01: And bandanas are one of my key foraging tools.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: I probably have a roll of bandanas everywhere.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_01: and a knife in answer to your earlier question about a bag,
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: because I feel like,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: like a low basket,
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: a handful of bandanas,
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: you can,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: you can wet them,
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: you can wrap them,
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: wrap things up.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's,
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: it's,
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: it's a nice way to keep things organized,
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: do a little bit of field prep of stuff so that you're not having to do all the work
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: when you get home.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: I like this because next week I'm going foraging for my first time with Alan,
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Alan Bergo,
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: the forager chef.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, awesome.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Tell him I say, Hey,
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: I will.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to record some television stuff.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I was wondering, like, should I wear boots?
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Should I wear like like what do I need to bring?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: What does one bring when foraging?
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I would wear pants.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: I would wear a long shirt,
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: even if it's not,
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: even if it's going to be pretty warm,
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: just cause I mean,
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: I like to get in there,
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm ripping through the brambles and whatever.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you'll take a little bit more of a cautious step than I will,
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: but I,
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to get all the way up in there.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm, if I'm going, I'm going to wear a button down shirt and pants typically.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Is there something right now?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: So Tattersall has a million, not a million, but a lot of varieties of spirits, right?
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: You guys have whiskeys, you have gins, you have vodkas, you have, and you make all of the liqueurs too.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: You have like so many of those that you use in the bar.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that impressed me the most and continues to impress me about
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Tattersall is just the breath.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the variety of stuff that you guys make, it's pretty extensive.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And now you're into, like, the ready-to-drinks and the seltzers.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And are you guys doing any kind of THC items as well?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: No, we're not doing any THC beverages, being that most of our production is in Wisconsin now.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously, there's ways you could do that.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: But, yeah, we've stuck...
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: to what we know there's a lot of people out there doing awesome stuff in that realm
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: and more power to them it's fantastic to have options out there but yeah that's not
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: something we're getting into but yes we do have quite a few spirits I think we'd
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: have to have some serious skew rationalization if we were going to add anything
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: more we always try and add more but we always have to be like okay and now creme de
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: cacao do we need to make creme de cacao anymore or what have you
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's at least 40-something spirits at this point.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: And if you include the one-offs, it's outrageous.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Or the cast club selections, it gets a little bit out of hand.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think my first conversation about low ABV alcohol and low ABV drinks was in
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Tattersall or maybe even with Tattersall with Dan and John just talking about
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: We were moving towards a trend coming out of COVID of people getting maybe a little
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: more conscientious about how much they had drank during those closeted times.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And people wanting to come out of that and kind of reinvent themselves and whether
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: they were getting sober or just trying to be more intentional about when they drank.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: How are you guys addressing that moving forward?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are seeing trends that younger people are just drinking less.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you'll see that in our canned cocktails.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_01: They're four and a half percent, 100 calories.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it's just that exactly what you're talking about there where
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know,
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: you can have one or two,
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: feel great,
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: be active and whatever people want when they walk through the door.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, it behooves you to to make it happen for them.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: So if people want low ABV beverages, great.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: That is the hospitality and that's the service that just needs to happen when you're doing the thing.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think people too, like we started out with so many breweries.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Then we're adding all the distilleries.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then we added the cideries.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that you guys always did so well that makes me feel a little sad that
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: the cocktail room is going to close is I thought you really approached hospitality
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: in a super thoughtful way and really offered that up to the guests.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like,
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: I never went and sat at your bar and felt like it was too she-she or too exclusive
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: or I couldn't ask questions about what it was that you guys were pouring me.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes that's kind of gotten lost.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: I do think it can get lost in those special places that still hearken to that level
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: of service and,
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: you know...
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's not dead.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's just across the river.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you come on over to River Falls.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: But yes, I do.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for saying that.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_01: That means a lot.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's what we strive for.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: With Dan's background, with where we've worked and everything like that, the hospitality is top tier.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's just making people feel...
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: heard understood um it's it's uh it's the opportunity to to give somebody a really
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: special time and yeah i think more and more people are nostalgic for that enough so
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: that it's going to make a comeback it's got to make a comeback it's human nature to
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: it's you know a cinderella story
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if we talk about your place in Wisconsin, it's very beautiful.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's very large.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was so surprised how big it was.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't it's kind of in multiple different areas.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't feel like it's just a cavern, but it is really large.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like you guys have huge facilities to do lots of things.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, yeah.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: The outdoor amphitheater, the event center, just the distillery proper, the restaurant, everything.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the nice part is it's not far.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's the crazy thing.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: As somebody who drives it twice a day, it is a 35-minute drive when there's not traffic.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's very, very simple.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you were trying to drive from St.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Paul to get dinner in Minnetonka, it would probably take longer.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's probably true.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Before we let you go,
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: another area of foraging with cocktails that seems to work really well is the conifers.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: So can you help us understand like something we might have in our yard that,
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: or our cabin that could be made into something good?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we've got a couple representatives in that category.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: In the
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: In the book, one of them preparation method is a little bit easier than the other.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: But we have a recipe for a spruce tip tonic in there that's bittered with dandelion root.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: So obviously everybody's got dandelions.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_01: Most of us have spruce trees around.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: It also works with, you know, fir trees as well.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's using the young tips.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: To make a tonic syrup using dandelion roots as the bittering agent.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's a little more involved.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: But the other one is just taking some eastern white cedar or arborvitae,
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: the pyramidal ones that you see kind of like as hedgerows and things like that.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Taking about a half cup of that.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_01: rough chopping it putting our tight line vodka over that and letting it sit for one
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: to three days just tasting it every day and then using that to make a really
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: awesome cedar maple collins so just like one to one and a half ounces of that a
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: little quarter to a half ounce of maple syrup topping with soda water it's just
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: like really interesting flavors the cedar and the maple work so well together but
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: yeah there's definitely a lot
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, you know, Earth has a lot to offer.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And this really this book is a is an invitation, but it really just scratches the surface.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's hopefully it piques people's interests, generates connection to the planet.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, because that's what it's all about.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: You can't be good stewards of something that you have no connection to.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I love it.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking to Bentley Gilman.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: He is the head distiller at Tattersall.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the book is Cocktails in Bloom.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put a link in the show notes.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you get your bandana if you pre-order.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: The book will actually be shipped in June.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm really excited to talk to you.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: This is something really cool.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to do what you said.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to send you pictures of the creepy starly one.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do that today.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to have some events associated with the book launch too.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: So just everybody keep,
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: keep,
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: keep your eye on the socials and you can go to our website and follow along.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks Bentley.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for your time and interest.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great day.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_01: You too.