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How Echo Spirits Builds Big Flavor In A Small Distillery · The Scotchy Bourbon Boys

0:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm here to tell you about Whitney Distilling Company and their fully open tasting world.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Whether you are up for a farm-class distilling experience on the Three Boys Farm in Frankfurt, Kentucky, or an out-of-the-world tasting experience in Newfoundland, you won't be disappointed.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: At both locations, their barrel fixed all day, every day, are like done.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Each location features statements with five barrels of each feet point, their fat is still perfect and ride.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: Once the barrels have been feet and take the feet, make a selection and fifth your own bottles.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: But they have with their friendly staff and ownership, or you many good times with good friends and family.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: Remember to always tweak responsibly, never twist and drive and live your life on filters.
3:20
SPEAKER_08: Hey guys, are you?
3:22
SPEAKER_00: Yep, great to have you.
3:23
SPEAKER_00: And then we also have your Cleveland representative, Matt Lysen.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Matt.
3:30
SPEAKER_09: How's it going, guys?
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Along with CT.
3:34
SPEAKER_00: How's it going?
3:35
SPEAKER_10: Hey, I'm just I'm just here for the show.
3:38
SPEAKER_10: I'm just here for the show.
3:39
SPEAKER_00: That's yeah, right.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Uh CT says that, but we all know CT is the show.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Nope.
3:47
SPEAKER_00: He goes, nope.
3:48
SPEAKER_10: CT, I need one of those shirts.
3:50
SPEAKER_10: Hey, you know, I bought I got this shirt at Echo, I think, about two years ago.
3:56
SPEAKER_10: The first day I got it, I messed up the sleeve, whatever I got on it, screwed up the sleeve on it.
4:01
SPEAKER_10: And so I always know when I look through my black shirts, if it's the Echo shirt, because it's got these reddish orange specks on it.
4:10
SPEAKER_10: Did you flash too hard and it stretched it out or something?
4:13
SPEAKER_10: Or is it I appreciate that, but no.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: He says it and you appreciate it.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Me, you want to punch me.
4:23
SPEAKER_07: You're not wrong.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: So, so you got you guys, this is your first time on the podcast, and I'm really excited about it.
4:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, having you guys on.
4:34
SPEAKER_00: You know, between I I really gotta give Joe, I give you credit for making me aware of you.
4:42
SPEAKER_07: Abusively so, yeah.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, uh when we I mean, first time I met you, I think it was at a Starbucks on the strip.
4:53
SPEAKER_07: Uh yeah, yeah, like a parking lot, uh dropping off.
4:57
SPEAKER_07: What was that?
4:58
SPEAKER_07: That was one of the Ohio Distiller's guild blends, wasn't it?
5:00
SPEAKER_00: Right, it was the second, the second one.
5:03
SPEAKER_07: Okay, yeah.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, and that tells you it was a while ago.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: And I and I have to say, you were just asking, all you were asking for is what I thought as far as and what we thought.
5:13
SPEAKER_00: So I we and and it was good.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you guys, it was a good, you know, I I it's sad not to always have those coming out all the time, but you know, that just it doesn't work that way as much.
5:25
SPEAKER_00: But then stopping by, we would we were always down at uh a couple other distilleries, and we stopped by just to see the still and and see the place, which is like I think one of the coziest distilleries around.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, it's very vibe, that's in it.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: Yep, yep.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: And but then CT, you just talk a little bit about you know how you kind of hook, you know, hooked up with them and all the things.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: And then we've also seen you at the festival the last couple years, you know, and you initially invited me to the festival, and ever since I I don't miss it.
6:07
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, and I'm I'm not gonna lie, for a long time, like I've been to Echo, I've been on barrel picks with uh different groups there, and run into Joe and Nikhil, that you guys are always at all the festivals and stuff, so I see you there.
6:24
SPEAKER_10: I'm terrible with names, so I haven't always I'm like, I remember, especially Nikhil.
6:29
SPEAKER_10: I I'm like, dude, I I can't remember his name.
6:35
SPEAKER_10: So if I ever forgot your name or called you by a different name, I apologize now.
6:41
SPEAKER_10: Um what I've always what I've always thought of.
6:44
SPEAKER_10: That's fine, Dan.
6:45
SPEAKER_10: That's fine.
6:46
SPEAKER_10: Your space is you guys sit, you know, geographically, for people watching or listening, they don't all know.
6:52
SPEAKER_10: You're in Columbus, Ohio, but you're you sit between two other distilleries almost, you know, between watershed and high bank, and the camaraderie that you three share is what I love.
7:06
SPEAKER_10: You know, we set just a month ago, for the March Madness, we sat at a table at High Bank, and it was the go's there.
7:18
SPEAKER_10: We've got, you know, we're we're just hanging out, having a good time, and then Ryan's there from watershed, and then you know, Adam comes over from High Bank, and it's like that's that's what I love.
7:31
SPEAKER_10: Like there's no, it's not like hey, you're taken from me, or I'm gonna beat you with this.
7:37
SPEAKER_10: It's like everybody's working together, and you three are so close in proximity.
7:42
SPEAKER_10: There's not too many other places in Ohio that have that three locations, and then Middle West is just down the street, so pretty cool.
7:52
SPEAKER_10: Middlewest down the street, and Endeavor is right next to us too, and they do a little bit of the selling.
7:56
SPEAKER_10: Endeavor, and then you know, and again, not far, Leather and Oaks, not far from you.
8:01
SPEAKER_10: So it's like it's in that little area, there's so much going on, but you three really are the closest, I feel like, right there together in Grandview area.
8:12
SPEAKER_10: For sure.
8:12
SPEAKER_08: We I mean, you know, we're we've all kind of become close over the years, and and you're right, it's it's it's a it's a camaraderie.
8:20
SPEAKER_08: We're not my they're not my competition.
8:23
SPEAKER_08: I'm not worried about them.
8:24
SPEAKER_08: We invite each other to do stuff more often than than we, you know, uh than our sales reps are arguing or anything like that.
8:33
SPEAKER_08: You know, my I'm not trying to take a chunk out of them.
8:36
SPEAKER_08: I'm not really trying to take a chunk out of anybody, but but you know, you could name some huge brands, of course, that yeah, maybe I'd like to take a menu placement or something like that.
8:45
SPEAKER_08: Um maybe get their bottle back on the shelf, that sort of thing.
8:48
SPEAKER_08: But you know, we're we're just all looking to grow our businesses and and you know it's the it's definitely the you know higher tides flip more boats kind of mentality.
8:57
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I was gonna say Joe used to say that all the time.
9:01
SPEAKER_06: Higher tides raise all boats.
9:03
SPEAKER_06: He says it all the time.
9:04
SPEAKER_10: Well, you guys have you know, if for a small facility, which it's it's it's not big, people get there, they're gonna realize, you know, hey, got the got the food truck out there that hopefully those people do make it back over after they get done with their craziness.
9:18
SPEAKER_10: Tomorrow.
9:19
SPEAKER_10: Tomorrow.
9:20
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, tomorrow.
9:22
SPEAKER_06: No, they they told us they're coming back tomorrow.
9:24
SPEAKER_10: So but when you go in, you the vibe, like Jeff said, is killer.
9:29
SPEAKER_10: Like you guys have this really nice bar, the cocktails, which I think Akhil, you talked about it the other night on the podcast with Austin that you guys are always winning awards throughout Columbus for your cocktails and always up for new ones.
9:45
SPEAKER_10: And I think that's what people really like.
9:47
SPEAKER_10: And then they're like, wait a minute, you can bottle your own bourbon while we're here, we can do this, you know.
9:53
SPEAKER_10: So you guys offer something that very few places do.
9:58
SPEAKER_08: We we try to do, you know, we are certainly compared to our uh local friends, we'll we'll politely say bootstrapped everything.
10:08
SPEAKER_08: So we're always kind of looking for those you know, creative ways to sort of gain an edge and and you know, bat above our weight a little bit.
10:19
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.
10:21
SPEAKER_10: I mean, I think it works.
10:22
SPEAKER_10: I mean, how many how many places in Columbus are doing a rum?
10:27
SPEAKER_08: Well, well uh not many, that's for sure.
10:30
SPEAKER_00: I will ask, not and and I'll I'll ask you this right, Joe.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: That the rum is was what you were were doing before you were distilling the rum on your pot still right there.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: That was one of the things that you were doing in-house right away, correct?
10:47
SPEAKER_08: That that was always the first, yeah, you know, again, when we first kind of started planning the idea of Echo Spirits, which actually really started out as an idea to open a brewery way back.
10:58
SPEAKER_08: Uh we kind of looked around town and and it was really just watershed in the Middle West at the time, and they really had the the vodka.
11:07
SPEAKER_08: And then I mean I remember when they put out their bourbons, their first bourbons for that matter.
11:12
SPEAKER_08: And we kind of said, well, let's maybe we need they've got a head start.
11:15
SPEAKER_08: So no matter what we do, we're gonna be behind that.
11:18
SPEAKER_08: Let's let's look at the broader spirits landscape and like what's that other clear spirit that we could put out first, and that's that's where we went with the rum option.
11:29
SPEAKER_08: You know, and and really honestly, at the time, at the very, very beginning, distilling it in the garage, which is a little bit less illegal now than it was even two weeks ago, which is fun.
11:40
SPEAKER_08: Um you know, we didn't necessarily have that specific passion for rum.
11:46
SPEAKER_08: Man, that really kind of just developed over time.
11:48
SPEAKER_08: As we I mean, you know, partially as we figured we were figured out we were pretty decent at it.
11:52
SPEAKER_08: That kind of gives you that motivation to dig a little deeper and and figure things out.
11:57
SPEAKER_10: Now, now wait a second, you say decent at it.
12:00
SPEAKER_10: What have you done with your rums year to date?
12:03
SPEAKER_10: Like I feel like it's been more than just decent.
12:06
SPEAKER_10: It's it's it's it's pretty good.
12:08
SPEAKER_08: So yeah, we we came out with our white rum.
12:11
SPEAKER_08: We had a pineapple rum, which is a little bit still on the shelves right now, but we're kind of slowly backing away from just to kind of tighten up the portfolio a little bit.
12:20
SPEAKER_08: We've got our spiced rum, which is killer.
12:22
SPEAKER_08: Then the real big one I think a few of us are drinking right now is our oh the blur effect is not gonna make that work.
12:29
SPEAKER_08: There it is.
12:31
SPEAKER_08: Oh, come on.
12:32
SPEAKER_08: No put it in front of your face.
12:34
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
12:35
SPEAKER_08: Get it up.
12:37
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: You got it.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: There we go.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: That's a good one.
12:40
SPEAKER_08: There we go.
12:41
SPEAKER_08: The uh queen share rum that has won double gold at San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
12:48
SPEAKER_08: What, 22, 23, and 24, which won us a platinum medal.
12:53
SPEAKER_08: Uh we didn't enter last year because I didn't want to risk it.
12:56
SPEAKER_08: We felt like they proved everything we had to prove.
12:58
SPEAKER_08: Are you sure?
12:59
SPEAKER_08: So that's the that's the San Francisco World Spirits Competition.
13:02
SPEAKER_08: That's kind of the Oscars of all the spirits competitions.
13:04
SPEAKER_08: That's the big one.
13:05
SPEAKER_08: That's the one that uh if you guys are familiar with Thai Bank, of course, that's the one that they win all their major awards.
13:11
SPEAKER_08: That that's the one they're going for.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, San Francisco is well known with throughout the as far as the American, when it comes to that's that's the when it comes to the American competition, that one definitely is right up there with the rest of the national ones.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the one that.
13:30
SPEAKER_00: But that yeah, I mean, I'm tasting this.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: CT gave me a sample of that, and it is now he's having it, I'm having it just neat.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: And once I am now.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: I guess you are.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: I I thought you just poured.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: And and when I first, when I first, I think I when I when I first visited, I tried your I tried your rum, and yes, you are a bit more better than decent at it.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, congratulations on that.
14:07
SPEAKER_10: Real quick before you go off of the rum, what so when people, if they were to want a bottle or they they inquire about it, what is different about queen share from your typical rums that you do?
14:20
SPEAKER_08: Sure.
14:20
SPEAKER_08: So the queen share is actually a process.
14:24
SPEAKER_08: It's sort of the historical process when making rum.
14:29
SPEAKER_08: So okay, you got to know a little bit about stills.
14:31
SPEAKER_08: I assume everybody knows kind of pot still, you know, moonshiners, that sort of thing.
14:35
SPEAKER_08: A column still, those are the big Kentucky guys.
14:38
SPEAKER_08: We have a column or uh sorry, a hybrid still, which is the pot with the column on top of it.
14:44
SPEAKER_08: Looks like looks like that, right?
14:48
SPEAKER_08: These the stills are are very flexible, but they're kind of inherently inefficient, meaning the cuts, the heads, hearts, and tails, the good parts and the bad parts of the you know, the ethanol kind of blend together.
14:59
SPEAKER_08: And normally you just toss that back into the next run and redistill it and you recapture some of that flavor.
15:05
SPEAKER_08: The queen share process is instead of tossing it into the next batch, you save it, you set it aside.
15:11
SPEAKER_08: Though those kind of the parts that you wouldn't necessarily want to drink on their own have lots of good stuff still kind of stuck together with them.
15:20
SPEAKER_08: We save it up until we have enough, and then we load all of that back into the still and one do one final distillation, one pass.
15:27
SPEAKER_08: And so basically it's the most like flavor-rich, intense version of our rum, which then we barrel age, usually in a used bourbon barrel.
15:37
SPEAKER_08: We have done bourbon barrels and apple brandy barrels before, but this most recent batch, so we release one barrel a year every November.
15:46
SPEAKER_08: It's kind of our like uh sort of Thanksgiving sort of release every year.
15:51
SPEAKER_08: But batch five was the first one we've done in a new American white oak barrel.
15:57
SPEAKER_08: So it really amps up the uh you know, the whiskey notes.
16:01
SPEAKER_08: It's still very distinctly a rum, but it's got the caramel, butterscotch, vanilla, oak kind of amp way up compared to the usuals.
16:08
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, I was just gonna say, and I'm sure Jeff, you would say the same thing is it's not like a typical rum that's just so sugar heavy.
16:17
SPEAKER_10: It actually does drink more bourboness and still has that rum characteristic, but not just like, wow, here's this sugar bomb coming at you.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, just like what happened with tequila and after the whiskey, this whiskey now, now it seems like lately rums, the creativity that's happening with rum is really starting to come out.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: You you know, there's this people are doing uh like a spiced rum, they do their blended spiced rum, they'll blend it and then they dump it into a barrel.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's so much creativity that you know instead of just having a clear spirit or whatever, and you just see it happening everywhere.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: So that kind of thing, you could kind of see that happening with rum.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: It happened, you know.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: I just hope I don't I just hope it never happens with vodka.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I don't want to know what a barrel-aged vodka tastes like.
17:18
SPEAKER_00: I really don't.
17:20
SPEAKER_09: I kind of was thinking that if they took the rum and put it in an ambirana barrel, then my like might make through a level.
17:27
SPEAKER_09: You know what I'm saying?
17:29
SPEAKER_10: That may work.
17:30
SPEAKER_10: Hey, do you guys you guys did we invite did we invite him for a reason?
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because we wanted to hear more about Amberana, because you as you both know, it's like Matt loves Amberana, so there's no doubt about it.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: But really quick, since Matt piped up, it's great that you did.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: You were talking about hitting out of you know, hitting, hitting heavier.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: And I really feel that ever since I've seen Matt, you guys, I think you guys did a great thing because you know he's up there in Cleveland and you are in Columbus, and he allows that reach, and I think he's doing such a fantastic job of m of moving, you know, every single tasting you go to, by the end, he has nothing left.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: It's like what more could you guys ask for?
18:19
SPEAKER_08: I know he's he's constantly are you are you batting for a race for him, Matt?
18:22
SPEAKER_08: Did you set him up?
18:23
SPEAKER_08: Um no, he no, Matt does a great job.
18:26
SPEAKER_08: He's always texting us after tastings.
18:27
SPEAKER_08: Hey, you need to restock everything at whatever store because we're out.
18:31
SPEAKER_08: I'm like, okay, again, what happened?
18:35
SPEAKER_08: That's a good problem.
18:37
SPEAKER_10: Well, it's the thing that happens is people drink it, and it doesn't matter which batch it is, you drink it and you're like, wow, this is this, and it's only this, and it's yeah.
18:50
SPEAKER_10: Everything you guys do is is delicious.
18:53
SPEAKER_10: I mean, there's nothing that I've drank yet.
18:56
SPEAKER_10: Single barrels, barrel picks, whatever it is.
18:59
SPEAKER_10: They're all just hitters.
19:01
SPEAKER_10: It's good stuff.
19:03
SPEAKER_08: We try to be really proud of anything we put our name on.
19:06
SPEAKER_08: We, you know, we we reject more barrels than we keep, all that, you know, all that kind of stuff.
19:11
SPEAKER_08: Take a real pride in the process and the name and and the building of the brand and getting it out there.
20:03
SPEAKER_08: And then try to be reasonable on the on the other side with the yeah, I'm not whatever big name company.
20:10
SPEAKER_08: I can't just put it out there and expect people to pay$100,$150 for it, something like that.
20:16
SPEAKER_08: We're you know, the you know, our barrel for bourbon is what$55, I think.
20:20
SPEAKER_08: I don't even know.
20:21
SPEAKER_08: So, you know, we we try to keep it all reasonable.
20:24
SPEAKER_09: So it all pretty much sells itself as long as you're just in there like, hey, try this.
20:28
SPEAKER_09: I know you haven't had it before.
20:30
SPEAKER_09: Like it always just works.
20:31
SPEAKER_10: Matt, what what in Cleveland, what is the most the uh what you set up on the table, which if anybody's watching and they haven't paid attention, when Matt sets up Cleveland on the rocks, he'll go up there and set up Freco and he'll have his table.
20:47
SPEAKER_10: It's always kind of the same picture because you've got that that array of colors on the table.
20:53
SPEAKER_10: What do people typically lean towards that you see?
20:57
SPEAKER_09: So, like a couple months ago, like I was super hot on rise.
21:00
SPEAKER_09: Everyone wanted rise, and then I ran out of rise.
21:04
SPEAKER_09: So then the engineer always goes super well.
21:08
SPEAKER_09: But we we recently have our rise back.
21:10
SPEAKER_09: So anybody that's watching, we do have the rise there, they're fantastic.
21:14
SPEAKER_09: Still come up here, we'll have some, it's great.
21:17
SPEAKER_09: But our rum's been selling really hot because it's summertime, and up here, it's real easy to go with rum because it's the easiest thing.
21:25
SPEAKER_09: Hey, you don't wanna you don't want a 110-proof bourbon outside.
21:29
SPEAKER_09: How about a rum with uh Dr.
21:31
SPEAKER_09: Pepper?
21:32
SPEAKER_09: Or a rum in an old-fashioned or and you can you can throw rum in there for summer drinks, and it kind of works better in the sun for me.
21:39
SPEAKER_09: So but honestly, the engineer series is probably gonna have to be gone up here in Cleveland here soon.
21:44
SPEAKER_09: So I don't know how many we have left in the bunker there, but I'm gonna see how many of these are left at the end of like the next couple weeks here.
21:53
SPEAKER_10: So how many engine so talk about engineer series for people that don't know what that is, because and how many renditions of the engineer series have been put out?
22:05
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, so engineer series, we kind of we we call it kind of our bourbon blending workbench.
22:11
SPEAKER_08: The the goal there is to take different barrels from different distilleries.
22:15
SPEAKER_08: You know, across the country, certainly, you know, so far to date, there's been a lot of common sort of base layers that then we sort of play with other barrels on top of it.
22:24
SPEAKER_08: But the goal is to create totally different blends.
22:27
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, you got the kind of each blend has a little, I pulled out an oldie, kind of a little merit badge style sticker on the side there.
22:35
SPEAKER_08: I think we've all got different badges maybe.
22:41
SPEAKER_08: And the goal is to create just something.
22:44
SPEAKER_07: Which one do you have?
22:45
SPEAKER_07: No, I don't have one with me.
22:47
SPEAKER_07: You don't have one.
22:48
SPEAKER_07: Oh wow.
22:49
SPEAKER_07: I know.
22:54
SPEAKER_06: I look really good for bars, though.
22:56
SPEAKER_06: I actually I was thinking I was looking for something to drink today, and I was like, I don't have anything here that's not like a super like unique bottle.
23:02
SPEAKER_06: Like I have the first bottle of Queen Share, I have a first bottle of the weeded bourbon, like stuff that we don't have any more stock of, so I can't really open it.
23:11
SPEAKER_08: But so anyway, the point is, yeah, the point is to take different barrels from different distilleries and make every batch totally unique.
23:20
SPEAKER_08: You know, kind of we make three, four, or five hundred bottles at a time, usually.
23:27
SPEAKER_08: So it's a blend of two, three, maybe four barrels, kind of depending on the age.
23:32
SPEAKER_08: Once it's gone, it's gone.
23:33
SPEAKER_08: The moment's kind of passed.
23:34
SPEAKER_08: We're never gonna make that one again.
23:35
SPEAKER_08: You never could.
23:36
SPEAKER_08: I mean, we're we're dealing with you know such a specific limited number of barrels that you'd never really be able to recreate that flavor.
23:44
SPEAKER_08: even if you took the same mash builder or that sort of thing.
23:47
SPEAKER_08: Or trying to get something special, something unique, something that's that's there and then it's gone.
23:52
SPEAKER_08: And boy, if you if you liked it when it was out, you better get it or wait till the next one.
23:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:58
SPEAKER_08: It's a ton of fun.
23:59
SPEAKER_08: It's a kind of we look at it like you know kind of like a chef working with different ingredients, right?
24:05
SPEAKER_08: And I would say blending process that way.
24:07
SPEAKER_00: It's right around like Blood Oath.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean seriously it's like the same kind of concept of blending.
24:13
SPEAKER_00: You put together, you make the blend.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: You're never gonna they always talk about different pact you're talking about the engineers, you know, different kind of things and it works out because it's exactly it's what people want.
24:24
SPEAKER_00: You know you have your consistent bourbon going you know the bourbon that you put out your right you know that's what that's where you want consistency when people when people they want that flavor that that flavor profile they want to make a drink they want the you know everything to be the way it is but when it comes to this this is unique and everybody it's kind of like mad scientist shit where you're putting and blending and putting everything together but every year you come out with another another version and it's really good for in my opinion like the state of Ohio because it gives so many it's each one doesn't taste exactly the same and they're different and in some cases from what I was tasting so different and it would appeal some can appeal to this type of whiskey or bourbon drinker and another can appeal to this kind of bourbon drinker and another can pill you know you got that creativity even if you wanted you know just do something different to it one year you could not that you have but you could finish it or one year you you know you have so much open up where then people are always coming back for you know what did you guys do next right that's that's exactly you know not a lot of places have that but you guys got it it's it it's fun to make it different every time it's a challenge for sure you know we don't have a giant warehouse of barrels you know or anything like that to to kind of choose from when you're sort of doing this sort of experiment.
25:48
SPEAKER_08: If I'm trying to work with three different distilleries well I gotta I gotta get in a bunch of barrels from those three different distilleries.
25:56
SPEAKER_08: You know it's it's a winds up being a big risk on our part to make sure we can get something.
26:01
SPEAKER_08: But yeah it's been fun we've done I mean of course we started out with you know a fair bit of different MGP blends we've done Bardstown blends the paging Dr.
26:10
SPEAKER_08: Dad was a well I signed an NDA but it's a northern Kentucky distillery a big one about 10 years old that's on the river that's kind of the base from that the let's see the trail mix that was a blend of Bardstown with other Bardstown that we took in double oaked that was a ton of fun that's probably my favorite batch so far.
26:36
SPEAKER_08: Yeah the Won't You Be My Neighbor B-E-E that was Bardstown base with was it other Bardstown oh my gosh I'm forgetting Kentucky Artists and distillers blended or aged in a uh a mead barrel from Brothers Drake meetery who's right down the street from us.
26:59
SPEAKER_08: So just trying to you know get in creative doing all sorts of different stuff trying to keep it fresh interesting the each one is not for every palette right you're gonna like some and you're not gonna like others and and that's our challenge too is often when we're blending sometimes I'm trying to blend something that I don't like but it's you have to kind of objectively separate the is it good from the do does it just not meet my palette and try to kind of appeal to it to somebody else who you can maybe kind of get them to jump in on the series.
27:33
SPEAKER_08: Yeah so how many probably what six variations so far of that we have done if you kind of include the original barrel proof bourbon we put out that we kind of retrofitted into it we've done you kill seven does that sound right yeah the sweater or whatever is yeah one of them won't you be my neighbor won't you be my neighbor yeah I don't know why I don't have that one but I need to I need to pick it up because I saw it and I didn't get it.
28:05
SPEAKER_10: I th I think I have some at my store on Saturday.
28:08
SPEAKER_00: So there's a not driving to Cleveland because then I'll drive up there and you know what you'll say oh we're sold out sorry I'll be like I saved you one see because I'm nice we've got we've got bourbon in barrels saying he's he he's digging Joe everything and he he kind of watches a lot but he said that he he said they're empty in Montana so you need to get some up there that'd be well we'll take that we'll take that on the short list for the next markets.
28:39
SPEAKER_08: I mean that that is kind of one of our big big crazy goals this year is to start entering other states.
28:46
SPEAKER_08: We we were briefly in Kentucky and here you know a little behind the scenes kind of knowledge it's not easy to enter other states as a small distillery because it's not you know doing the paperwork and you know that's easy.
29:02
SPEAKER_08: Getting a distributor that okay it depends that can be easy that can be hard getting sales to be worth staying there that's something else entirely so one of our goals this year is after we kind of exited Kentucky a couple years ago step back kind of reevaluated is to kind of approach it from a different angle make sure we're kind of supporting it we've got the right resources available and kind of start you know getting ourselves out there again.
29:28
SPEAKER_08: Yeah let's do some festivals festivals festival season is upon us you you watch out your weekends will be full for me we're we're we're at we're two weeks from now we're in the side of Columbus at the Buckeye Festival.
29:45
SPEAKER_08: Buckeye Lake Winery Whiskey Festival yeah so this is sort of an offshoot of the of the Ohio craft whiskey festival that we do every fall up at Henmick Farm Brewery and Farm this one's a little bit more all inclusive I mean it is still mostly whiskey but there's a few other things there but it's out at Buckeye Lake Winery uh it's May 2nd similar setup you know tickets are I think they're$45 and you get eight tastes from different distilleries you can buy more from that but that gets you access to the festival grounds you have the live music all that kind of stuff and and you know those those events are always just a great time fun time to see everybody and chat with people.
30:25
SPEAKER_08: Will the state of Ohio be setting up uh on-site store at the uh so right now that's that's the plan we do have kind of a ticket threshold that we've sort of committed to cross for them to make sure it's worth their time as well as their you know their liquor agency that they have to contract with that is worth their time we're not there yet so if anybody's thinking about going buy tickets now uh snash those up help us out we'll share that that'll that'll ensure that a ticket gets we'll share that tomorrow I'll make sure we share it on the the site and on our Facebook Instagram and everything because yeah for the money it's a great experience but the other thing that that ohio does well with that and I know you're involved in that uh that group more so than probably what you're saying right now but everybody's there you know this is the chance that you can go meet people that are the face of these brands and that uh have put everything that they got into it and it's a chance to kind of fall in love with these different brands and what they're offering.
31:31
SPEAKER_08: So it's uh yeah it's a it's a it's a pretty good deal I mean you get access to I believe there are going to be 22 distilleries there.
31:41
SPEAKER_08: I think that's the number we're up to 22 distilleries each bringing two products with them two two things from their portfolio.
31:48
SPEAKER_08: So you could try you know you could you know keep buying extra tickets and try up to 44 different spirits from around ohio really really cool stuff you know a lot of them a lot of people wind up bringing sort of the specialty things that are only available in their shop so you know it's an opportunity to get to try those without having to travel and then again if the if the uh pop up liquor store continues as planned you know then you can you can buy it and take it home right from there.
32:17
SPEAKER_10: Yeah yeah that should be a lot that should have a pretty good day yeah a lot of fun that's for sure so I'll ask a question that's kind of for for both of you guys being that your brand what is your favorite thing you've put out so far bottle wise what's what's your favorite bottle and it can't be the same you gotta both pick a different bottle I promise you we will not I promise you we will not be the same without without even communicating our palettes are very different boy single barrel but it's gotta have a name it just can't be oh it was this barrel that randomly floated down the river and we picked it no what bottle that had a name or a barrel pick that had a name would be your favorite bottle I think I might be on the trail mix train yeah engineer series 25a the first one from 2025 that that one that whiskey at least whiskey wise that hits all of the notes for me like that that just is is the the the that that one was designed for my palette exactly with maybe a close runner of the double oak rye that we put out a couple years ago okay that you say like oh we have completely different stuff but I would say that that trail mix is probably my favorite of the engineer series so oh of the but I won't pick that but I won't pick that I think it's kind of a it's kind of a tie go back and forth either the the uh single barrel we did that we did a while ago that was that was really good or mostly because I probably had it last night because I had it like two nights ago the uh Bavarian Rhapsody that was that was very cool and you guys being scotchy bourbon that's kind of a fun that was a almost kind of like a scotch what we did was we had we had a bunch of malt extract that we got from our friends over at North High when they closed down their brew on premise and you know normally when you distill you're not going to use extract because extract is really expensive and so what we did was we basically just took all this leftover extract.
34:38
SPEAKER_06: We don't know exactly which ones they were so we can't reproduce reproduce it at all and then we uh distilled that so it was an extract we didn't use any enzymes and then we put it in a used I want to say rum barrel um we put it in a used barrel I think it was a rye wasn't it a uh yeah wasn't it one of our 30 gallon rye barrels?
35:01
SPEAKER_06: Was that what it was because the after then in the rum barrel one of the two was in one of the two was in Chad from 451's rum barrel.
35:11
SPEAKER_10: I can't remember which one was which afterlife after life was in his rum barrel yeah but anyway it was in a used barrel so you know it hits all the scotch particulars except for not being in Scotland but yeah that one that one was uh that one was really good super chocolatey flavor to it which are awesome that's the beauty of doing what you guys are doing here yeah you get to you get to play around with different things and just like you know the Thunder Bitch bottle that's in a and I I don't even know I haven't even been to that brewery but when I drank it I'm like okay this is working what is going on here but it's that's kind of the cool thing of being and we talk about craft distilleries which Ohio I I would say were all craft except for maybe Middle West you know obviously isn't if they're not they aren't but well they but they they still are there they're there's they still are but they aren't but but yeah but you guys can play around with all these different uh expressions and different barrels and different relationships that you have friendships you have in the industry to be able to do some cool stuff.
36:24
SPEAKER_08: It's fun to be able to be kind of small and and nimble with that you know as we grow you know we'll be the first ones to admit that's that's getting harder in some ways and in in in other ways getting easier maybe as we're a little more experienced with it.
36:40
SPEAKER_08: So hard harder in the sense that you know our time is pulled a bunch of different ways but those are the those are always the ones that are kind of the passion projects the fun ones to do.
36:50
SPEAKER_08: And that's sort of where that engineer series idea kind of came in was hey we we really like this scratching the creative itch side of distilling but we just can't commit to the number of special releases and things that we used to be doing.
37:07
SPEAKER_08: Our time is in in running the business often so the the kind of blending aspect of it really really lets us scratch that creative itch every couple months and and keep it interesting and and fun and you're not just making the same thing over and over and over.
37:25
SPEAKER_08: There's you know well once you got the rum recipe dialed in okay cool this is this isn't as fun on a daily basis to just kind of rinse and repeat the exact same thing over and over and over again I mean speaking of rare Matt's got in front of him something that not a lot of people are doing in the green label.
37:46
SPEAKER_10: That's one that you use in the bar isn't it it's that's the seven year rye oh no that's not the that's not the rye okay the rye is not what I'm thinking what's the bottle that you guys are doing that you use in the bar of the elusive the elusive elusive I don't I didn't bring one of those out on Matt.
38:05
SPEAKER_08: I got I'll grab one you got the elusive so what's the story of that like yeah what brought that around so elusive is boy other things I sign in the a's about the the letter it's not quite the same the letter from the monks that we have framed in the office says that we're not allowed to say certain things.
38:28
SPEAKER_08: It's odd so there's a certain herbal liqueur that is with an A ends with an N.
38:36
SPEAKER_08: Not that one the other green one the other green one the other one that starts with green we can say we're not we're not directly comparing it green chair crews is is not available in most of well most of the world at this point.
38:52
SPEAKER_08: Basically the monks who are making it it's that classic 400 year old recipe only two people know it at a time they can't be on a plane together that kind of thing they as the spirit became more and more popular pre-COVID and then particularly once COVID hit and and home cocktailing started becoming really popular they couldn't keep up with demand and that's not their thing.
39:16
SPEAKER_08: They're monks they want to do monk things.
39:18
SPEAKER_08: So they kind of capped their production and said we're not going to make any more which sent all of their distributors and retailers and everybody kind of into a frenzy prices started going up the bottle no longer available when you can find it the bottle that used to be$35 is now a hundred and fifty in some places just because you can't get it our bartenders kind of took took exception to that I suppose they wanted to be able to make certain cocktails.
39:49
SPEAKER_08: So they kind of made their own thing it's it's not a direct replacement it's not a direct you know it's not a clone in that sense but it's kind of its own thing that's intended to work in the exact same scenarios that the original is so it started out just as a behind the bar infusion to be able to make those cocktails whenever asked to make them they started scaling it up because they wanted to make it or put it in in recipes on the menu and kind of make it a little more regularly available.
40:20
SPEAKER_08: So then it kind of hit this sweet spot of pain right whereas before they were making okay you're making a gallon or two at a time that lasts you six months that's fine well now they're making 10 or 20 bottles at a time and okay it doesn't last that long and they have to keep making it and we just kind of said well hey this is good and people are reacting really positively to it like should would you guys want to put this into a bottle and and they're like yeah that'd be super cool.
40:45
SPEAKER_08: And so it really originated behind the bar and we kind of took what took it and ran with it from there.
40:52
SPEAKER_08: It's a ton of fun we could never do it without our bar staff I mean they're definitely the ones who came up with the recipe so like full credit to them on that.
40:59
SPEAKER_08: You know there was a little bit of shock on their part when we had to kind of take it and operationalize it.
41:05
SPEAKER_08: You know when when you're making 10 bottles of time versus 500 there's certain things you can't do and there's like sacrifices and things you have to make or hey we have to change this process or this part of it and does it does it materially affect the flavor and all those kind of things.
41:19
SPEAKER_08: So even after they you know it probably took them a year and a half two years before they were really regularly using it behind the bar and then it took us another year and a half before we kind of put it out in bottles just kind of sorting through it and it wasn't a super high priority project.
41:35
SPEAKER_08: We said hey this will be fun this will be a passion thing we don't know how well it's gonna do and right now I think I think it's outspalling our bourbon which is super cool.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: So in other words they started so the monks couldn't fly together because if one they you know the recipe and everything so then they've decided to do something to help out the monks and then now your bar staff can't fly together.
42:01
SPEAKER_00: That's a little track I mean that's really a kind of a cool story.
42:09
SPEAKER_00: But speaking of stories what you how did you guys meet and start Echo I mean that I've I've actually there's a lot of distilleries I've heard their their stories but I never actually got your guys' story from you guys.
42:25
SPEAKER_07: Sure.
42:26
SPEAKER_06: They were among the yeah we're and I'm gonna get the thunder bench button it is it is it is Catholic related kind of we both went to that's yeah you know what you're honestly not that far off that's reasonable yeah yeah yeah we're uh we both went to uh Catholic high school here in uh in Columbus we went to bishop waterson together and um I don't know like sophomore junior year we uh we basically met on the uh basketball court after school differing opinions on who won that game but sure who had the flask wasn't it probably wasn't me who had the flask you guys had to be drinking no until much I I know we we both picked up that habit fairly late really yeah yeah I I didn't really drink at all until I was 21 just uh then did very quickly move on to good stuff right I mean it it didn't take long before we kind of went down the rabbit hole yeah we were uh we were first through high school and then uh I went to college down in Cincinnati he was up here at OSU and we uh every time I came home for the weekend we you know think about doing some beer and uh started brewing beer like a couple years into college and since then we started do trying everything else went to wine went to sake went to all sorts of stuff like we might have mentioned earlier did a little bit of home distilling and at some point we're like hey let's just start something I feel like this is a lot of stories that we hear like we just had Danny on from Penelope and like they started it just in a conversation like you know what we should do we should start a brand and like we're gonna sell it out of our car and it's you know like you think about it like if Matt and I met tonight and we were having cigars and and trying some stuff pretty much that conversation is going to come up at some point we're gonna be like you know what we could do this we could do this but you guys actually did we we we did and that was the I mean and we had those many years though yeah I mean like I said it started as an idea to open a brewery and for years it was just talk it was talk and and oh okay you find you design a logo on the side or something you have fun you're like oh what would we make and all these these ideas and and eventually it got to the can I swear yeah swear I don't know it's a whiskey podcast I figured but but but I just I don't think anybody's dropped a bomb yet or anything but it but it got to the the shitter get off the pot stage like it it literally just got to the we have been talking about this for so long it it almost there was a little bit of stubbornness on certainly on my part about it.
45:15
SPEAKER_08: There's been enough times where I said I was gonna do something and I didn't that that was starting to become my personality to some people so I said I'm gonna do it this time and prove you all wrong.
45:26
SPEAKER_08: Nice.
45:27
SPEAKER_06: Yeah there was a lot of there was a lot of that involved my favorite thing was we went on tours of like Middle West and one of our one of the tour guys there like you know we're we're talking to him and we're early as possible like hey we know we're just starting our own distillery we're doing all the stuff and this guy the the tour guide there is like yeah I've Heard it a million times, whatever.
45:45
SPEAKER_06: Like, not not believing any of that stuff.
45:47
SPEAKER_06: And then, like, you know, four years later, he's sitting at our bar.
45:50
SPEAKER_06: He's like, God, you guys actually did it.
45:52
SPEAKER_08: Well, that was uh if you if you guys know Rudra, I'm sure you know Rudra.
45:56
SPEAKER_08: Yes, we know Rudra.
45:57
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, yeah.
45:58
SPEAKER_00: That was yeah, he's awesome.
46:00
SPEAKER_00: I will say that one of the cool things, if you haven't been to Echo in Echo Spirits in Columbus, you gotta stop by because one of the things that was so unique to me was when I went, I was I went and went into the bar, and then you've kind of got the as you said, the garage still off to the side.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: And but the bar, when you walk in, the bar is such it, there's there's a hominess of it.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: There's the it's not a huge, it's not huge or anything, but it just has such just like it's like it's like your home, like when you walk in, you feel like you've been away from home for a while, and now you're back in town, and this is the bar you want to that you that was that you would consider home.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: Down to your staff and everybody talking, the closeness, and then how it's set up, it just has such an awesome feeling, you know.
47:01
SPEAKER_08: And and it's it's meant to be, you know, very yeah, warm, inviting.
47:05
SPEAKER_08: You know, it's it's definitely upscale cocktail in terms of like the menu, but our goal, you know, the the and again, I gotta give credit to the bar staff for this one, really.
47:18
SPEAKER_08: Um but like the directive was like, how come, or the question was, how come every time we go into a really great cocktail spot, you just kind of naturally feel and I don't want to throw the cocktail industry under the bus or anything, but certainly at the time five, six years ago, it's like, how come I just feel like I don't know, uncomfortable or something like that?
47:43
SPEAKER_08: How come I feel like I need to be dressed up or that sort of thing?
47:46
SPEAKER_00: It's polished.
47:47
SPEAKER_00: It was very polished.
47:49
SPEAKER_08: Make it, yeah, polished, yeah.
47:50
SPEAKER_08: Make it make it make I I want this to be the brewery or the neighborhood bar feel, but with upscale cocktails.
47:59
SPEAKER_10: You're right though, Joe.
48:00
SPEAKER_10: Like a lot of times to get a good cocktail, you have to go to a Ruby's, you have to, you know, you have to go to an ocean club to get a higher elevated cocktail.
48:10
SPEAKER_10: But you guys have redefined that for sure.
48:13
SPEAKER_10: And I'm sure that you've had an effect on other places too, because you can walk in there and just like you said, being flip-flops, tank top, whatever you want, just hanging out at the bar, drinking some great stuff, and you can go over and play taboo, Uno.
48:28
SPEAKER_10: I mean, you you you guys, it's just a nice chill environment.
48:33
SPEAKER_08: It's just chill, it's meant to be casual, inviting, and and and well, yeah, fun.
48:38
SPEAKER_08: Even even it's about the it's about the experience.
48:41
SPEAKER_08: It's about the the I mean the listen, the drinks are great, but all of this, all of the bottles, all of the everything, it's about the people around it.
48:49
SPEAKER_08: It's about the environment you're in.
48:52
SPEAKER_08: The drink, the bottle, the you know, whatever.
48:55
SPEAKER_08: That's that's just a kind of that carries the moment, but that's that's it.
49:00
SPEAKER_08: It it's about the people you're with and and the the environment here.
49:03
SPEAKER_09: And I would say the fact that you don't have to have a powdered shirt on, you can come in with a t-shirt and everyone is still happy in there.
49:10
SPEAKER_09: It's awesome.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: I've been at a lot of distilleries, restaurants and bars, okay?
49:16
SPEAKER_00: And it's always there's the distillery and the restaurant and bar, and when you they're even though they're the same place, you don't get that they're connected.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: When you go in, it's like that's a restaurant, that's a bar, even though it they serve all the things.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: I I mean I I've been to many of them, but in this case, when I came in, you guys are a distillery, but I felt the bar and the the whole thing that was up, I would say upstaging not the whiskey, but the whole that was the experience.
49:56
SPEAKER_00: Like that's what you guys are.
49:59
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
50:00
SPEAKER_08: And absolutely.
50:02
SPEAKER_08: That's the you know, we we it it's definitely not something we anticipated getting into the business, into the industry, really, but very quickly, and part of this is you know, we're a product of the era we kind of started in.
50:16
SPEAKER_08: If it was COVID, it was that's all we had was the bar once we got that open.
50:21
SPEAKER_08: You know, we we started at the wrong time, distribution was hard, all that kind of stuff.
50:25
SPEAKER_08: That mo most people's first experience with echo is at the bar, right?
50:30
SPEAKER_08: Like it yeah, especially back in the early days.
50:33
SPEAKER_08: We didn't we didn't have Matt, we didn't have other people going and tasting, we didn't have tours, we didn't have any of that stuff yet.
50:40
SPEAKER_08: Most people's experiences the bar being forefront, and then I mean that it it's it's funny with the name distilling company on the sign and it's on the door, and we've got the big glass windows showing you the distilling space, you know, when you're sitting in the bar.
50:59
SPEAKER_08: But the number of people who it takes them a minute to realize we're a distillery, it it's not small.
51:06
SPEAKER_08: It's not small.
51:07
SPEAKER_00: No, yeah, and and you have the spirits that you have and everything, and now that you're growing, but you know, I always like like I said, when I it just was such an inviting atmosphere.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: Even the music, the playlists, I mean, it's a certain vibe that uh I'll just uh so I I used to go to Magiano's in Chicago when it was just one restaurant.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: It was the restaurant that Al Capone ate at.
51:33
SPEAKER_00: It was a phenomenal Italian restaurant.
51:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you'd sit at the bar, there's and that restaurant just was like oozed history and and the city of Chicago.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: And now they've franchised it and they put it in 15 different cities, and you can go go to it.
51:53
SPEAKER_00: It it doesn't, it's not even close to the same.
51:55
SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of what you guys you're not just your your bar is is like part of now Columbus, it's where it's at.
52:06
SPEAKER_00: You walk in inviting, and then as you keep growing with your spirits, there's no doubt that it's the brand is doing what it needs to do to go out and what you're doing, but you kind of give that aspect.
52:18
SPEAKER_00: But I hope you always keep that little bit because people have, you know, when they stop in, they're gonna get a that's that's like a piece of you guys.
52:27
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
52:28
SPEAKER_00: That could be you could preserve that forever.
52:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, you might go into a bigger space, but I would always keep that that bar is what I would keep.
52:37
SPEAKER_08: Well for sure.
52:38
SPEAKER_08: And that that's always the you know, it's it's funny you bring that up.
52:42
SPEAKER_08: I mean, we're we're not ready to move into well another another space yet or anything, but we always talk about man, we're this is really tight.
52:50
SPEAKER_08: We need more production space.
52:51
SPEAKER_08: We're like, well, we can't we can't leave this.
52:53
SPEAKER_08: We can't we can't leave what is there, right?
52:56
SPEAKER_08: So you have to figure out a way to kind of preserve that and and make it continue along with the rest of the business.
53:03
SPEAKER_10: And so we've talked about all the I think we've hit on most of the spirits from different things that you do.
53:10
SPEAKER_10: But the other thing we haven't talked about was like your your beverages that you now have that are available in the cooler when you walk in.
53:19
SPEAKER_10: So talk about those because obviously that's a big market.
53:22
SPEAKER_10: People like to be able to pick up a can of something and you have a vodka-based one, you've got a bourbon-based one.
53:30
SPEAKER_10: Well, tell us about those so that people know.
53:34
SPEAKER_08: Nikhil, you wanna you got the cat right there?
53:37
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, we can walk again on the two cats while we walked away.
53:42
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, he's he, you know, he's a cat for a little bit.
53:44
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, the two cats, uh can cocktails.
53:46
SPEAKER_06: We uh we partnered up with our friends over at Seven Sun.
53:49
SPEAKER_06: They have a cat, we have a cat, so we decided to call it two cats.
53:53
SPEAKER_06: You know, they yeah.
53:55
SPEAKER_06: But yeah, so we have a vodka, blackberry, all three of the cans that we have are are made with uh uh with our spirits, and then you know, they put it together over their location because they got the canning and the actual manufacturing space to really do it.
54:09
SPEAKER_06: But yeah, so we have uh we have a vodka blackberry lemonade, we have a bourbon smash, and we have a tropical daiquiri, which is kind of like a guava patch or guava three orange guava, I believe.
54:24
SPEAKER_06: Okay, orange.
54:26
SPEAKER_06: But yeah, they're they're really cool little sippers.
54:29
SPEAKER_06: Um we're we're all over the state.
54:30
SPEAKER_06: Some recently got a new distributor, so they're they're also being distributed around uh around Columbus a little more.
54:37
SPEAKER_06: What was to say?
54:38
SPEAKER_06: The yeah, I mean they they do a good job putting it out there.
54:42
SPEAKER_06: I don't know if I actually we haven't talked to them a little bit, but I know they have uh they have like a they had it in the Whole Foods and stuff too.
54:49
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, and it's a bye.
54:54
SPEAKER_06: Not exactly yet.
54:55
SPEAKER_06: We were we were working with um with those uh with the same guys that we're working with to potentially put it up there, but we have not gotten it up there yet.
55:01
SPEAKER_10: Matt, you haven't made it to that level yet, okay?
55:04
SPEAKER_10: This is level 18.
55:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
55:07
SPEAKER_00: Just imagine imagine Matt pouring those for everybody that walks in the store.
55:12
SPEAKER_00: Holy man! So simple as I will I will give you give you a shout out.
55:19
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give Matt a shout out.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: So we're at New Orleans Bourbon Festival, you know, and he definitely was, you know, was talk talked to you guys guys up, but we got we were I got to see his skill just firsthand.
55:35
SPEAKER_00: Larkin Greg Keeley from Larrikan had was there with his own the booth.
55:40
SPEAKER_00: He's the only guy running the booth.
55:42
SPEAKER_00: He came down, he drove all the way down, set it up himself, and then manned it the whole time.
55:48
SPEAKER_00: And so it's like an hour and a half left on the last night, I think that was Saturday night, and he's like, hey Matt, hey Tiny, come over here.
56:01
SPEAKER_00: And we come over and he's like, I really, really have to go to the bathroom.
56:06
SPEAKER_00: Can you man the you know the booth?
56:10
SPEAKER_00: So we're like, Yeah, sure.
56:12
SPEAKER_00: So for he would he asked for 15 minutes.
56:15
SPEAKER_00: So when we came up, there was nobody at the booth.
56:19
SPEAKER_00: All right, so all of a sudden, we get Matt hit Matt looks in the in the case and he sees the stuff that was on the side that's not on top of the table.
56:30
SPEAKER_00: He put first thing he does, it he pulls it the cigar, it was a cigar, but whatever, he pulls it out, and then he's like, everybody's still walking by, and all of a sudden Matt's like, Hey, you want to taste something like you never?
56:45
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden, so 15 minutes later, me and Matt are just talking to everybody.
56:51
SPEAKER_00: There's a line six deep, and and Greg comes walking by and he looks and he sees now there's a line.
56:59
SPEAKER_00: He's like, You you could just see, okay, and he goes off for another 15-20 minutes to go get some food, and then he comes back.
57:06
SPEAKER_00: So we worked that booth for a half hour, and and basically Matt got both the bottles that he pulled.
57:14
SPEAKER_00: He he was pulling, he was, he had a mom and a daughter there and got them to taste it, and then they went and got their grandma.
57:26
SPEAKER_00: It was the most awesome thing.
57:28
SPEAKER_09: I had to do a whole sleeve of cups within like 30 minutes.
57:31
SPEAKER_09: I'm like, dude, this is how it's supposed to be.
57:33
SPEAKER_09: Like, this is so funny.
57:34
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, it was so what when he came back, he's like, he's like, that's the most people I saw.
57:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, it's Matt.
57:42
SPEAKER_00: Because I could, you know, he was calling people, he was calling people over, you know.
57:46
SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure that's what he does when he's at proof up there.
57:50
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't let anybody get by.
57:53
SPEAKER_10: And and when you do get those cans, that is that's a super easy sale.
57:58
SPEAKER_10: Because I don't like vodka, but the the vodka blackberry is like such a good summertime sipper, like that thing, and and the truly the the bourbon smash is really good too.
58:11
SPEAKER_00: So so you supply them with uh with the with the spirits, and then they do the adding the flavors and getting it to the right proof to sell it in a can.
58:22
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
58:24
SPEAKER_00: We worked on actually like making the uh the recipe and stuff we all worked on together two years ago now, I guess.
58:30
SPEAKER_00: And now they just do it over and over and over again.
58:34
SPEAKER_00: So so is the bourbon smash hard to keep because I mean you're I mean it's like there's gotta be a decent amount of bourbon you're supplying them.
58:47
SPEAKER_06: Um I mean the the sales are okay, but like they're not they're not so big yet.
58:51
SPEAKER_06: Yeah, but it is we're not like probably.
58:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but you're gonna be cuz summer's coming.
59:01
SPEAKER_08: After this podcast.
59:02
SPEAKER_08: I mean, I know yeah, it's we're gonna be the next truly.
59:06
SPEAKER_10: We're gonna we're gonna we're gonna make search for it for a Buckeye Lake that says ditch the white claw and take on the cats.
59:14
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, that's true.
59:17
SPEAKER_09: We sell these in singles or are these like four pack packs?
59:20
SPEAKER_10: Or how does it four packs, four packs?
59:23
SPEAKER_10: It it really it comes in it and to talk about another brand that does well in this in this market is Town Branch with Burbanola, they do a really good job with their four-pack of this.
59:37
SPEAKER_10: It's it's very similar.
59:39
SPEAKER_10: And obviously their spin is a cherry coke flavored bourbon, but yours is really good, and I think the problem is not the flavor or it's people don't know about it.
59:53
SPEAKER_08: It's the that that's kind of our ongoing biggest I don't know, good problem to solve or whatever.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_08: It's recognition.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_08: We're we're still the small guys, we're still the one of the two kind of quote unquote new guys, and there's there's the general.
1:00:09
SPEAKER_00: But my qu my question is you're growing at the way that you're setting you've set yourself up to grow.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_00: If you grow too fast, does that become that problem?
1:00:23
SPEAKER_00: You don't you want to just keep it now?
1:00:26
SPEAKER_00: As far as the the the the canned drinks, I think that that you want to grow fast.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_00: But as far as your spirits, I mean if you start to grow too fast, that just means that there's longer and longer times without you being out, you'll be out.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, growth for sure.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_08: Growth, growth, yeah, the beh behind the scenes industry stuff, the growth costs money.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_08: Growth is great, but you gotta pay for bottles and labels and corks and bourbon and and sugar and and all sorts of stuff months before you ever sell it.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_08: So let alone the issue of kind of like forecasting it all and and making a reasonable guess at how much you're gonna sell, and and you'll be wrong.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_08: And I mean, even you know the the guys who have big money invested into being right about that have been wrong, as we've all seen by some of the big distilleries kind of closing production for a year.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_08: It it takes money to get on the shelf to make money, hopefully 30 to 60 days from now.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_08: Right.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_08: Well, and it's and it's a fast growth is hard.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's also a skill because you can get hot, but then you're gone because you don't you can't supply it, and then all of a sudden, when you're gone, they're on to the next thing.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_00: And it's just like you got to make sure you go where all of a sudden you're there and people take notice that you can keep up with that production.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know that you know, I mean, there's some it's just there I wouldn't call it a pause.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like they know that their their production can go down at this point that they've made enough that they can do like like in the case of the of Beam, they're they they're they've never updated that distillery as far as they've done upgrades, but never went through.
1:02:22
SPEAKER_00: And you know, the the Bardstown bourbon companies and the Kentucky House of Kentucky distillery down there, and they're all like modern, full out, complete control distilleries while Beam is still trying to deal with those distilleries, they got to upgrade at one point, right?
1:02:41
SPEAKER_00: To become more efficient.
1:02:44
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, I think everybody's kind of, you know, if we're talking about the larger industry, obviously a lot of people are kind of wondering what this means, or does this signal big changes or anything like that?
1:02:55
SPEAKER_08: And you're absolutely right that like, okay, they they saw an opportunity right now that they haven't had in probably a hundred years to upgrade everything all at once, and it's in the grand scheme of things, a a small blip on the radar, and they're gonna be back in business and and bigger than ever and more efficient than ever.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_00: And a yeah, in a year, plus they run their Boston distillery, they they can probably upgrade a little up up, they can bring up the production a little there, and then they've got, I mean, they've got distilleries.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_00: You make a left the wrong turn in Frankfurt, and you end up at the old granddad distillery, which makes old grandad and basil Hayden.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're just like, you know, you make you go by, there's old, you know, there's so many different distilleries that all these big guys have, and then you think about Jesus God, how much whiskey do we actually drink in this country?
1:03:55
SPEAKER_00: And and it's all taxed, and that's why America's the greatest country in the world because we all drink whiskey and we have to pay taxes to do it.
1:04:05
SPEAKER_09: Matt, here's what we're gonna say something.
1:04:08
SPEAKER_09: So Matt, I did have a question about how many bottles in an engineer series would be would come out, like how many of this engineer series, the newest one, are there all together?
1:04:22
SPEAKER_08: So all we we always put all of the details of the blends, like down to the percentages and the mash bills and the distilleries and everything on the website, including the number of bottles per batch.
1:04:35
SPEAKER_08: I think the smallest one we've done is maybe 350 bottles.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_08: The largest like true engineer series we've done is maybe 700 bottles, Nikil?
1:04:50
SPEAKER_08: 800 maybe?
1:04:52
SPEAKER_08: No, but but like relatively uh small numbers in the grand scheme of things.
1:04:58
SPEAKER_08: And and and the target and and when I say though those numbers, we increase them based on the number of stores that Ohio Liquor Control kind of allocates toward us.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_08: So the 300 number is not necessarily significantly uh less than the 800 number based on the fact that when the 800 number came out, uh we were in two and a half times as many stores, for example.
1:05:28
SPEAKER_06: So we tried the yeah.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_06: I would say like the the first the first three were the like 350 each, but we also had all three of those come out at the same time, too.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_06: Right.
1:05:39
SPEAKER_06: That was kind of like a starting point, right?
1:05:41
SPEAKER_08: Sure, that was the starting point, yeah.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_08: So so the goal is always to kind of do about three of those a year.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_08: So we're selling out from them in about three, I mean, I guess four months.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_08: That that's kind of what we're targeting.
1:05:54
SPEAKER_08: So we change product, we change the number of barrels and therefore the number of bottles we're getting based on how many stores we're in, how fast it's been going recently, and then you know, trying to get it gone in in a couple months.
1:06:12
SPEAKER_08: Let it be out of stock for a little bit, build up a little hype, build up a little demand, and then on to the next one.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_08: So do we have our next batch ready to come out?
1:06:23
SPEAKER_08: Not yet.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_08: No, we we started talking about that last week, two weeks ago.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_08: We've been talking about internally for a moment.
1:06:30
SPEAKER_08: We've been talking about it internally.
1:06:32
SPEAKER_08: And this one's gonna be fun.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_08: Uh I think we're also gonna we're gonna simultaneously work on the second one and the probably 26B, so again, we name them 2025, 26 ABC.
1:06:49
SPEAKER_08: 26B will probably be uh blended by our bar staff, trying to do something fun and cool with them.
1:06:58
SPEAKER_08: But just knowing that they haven't done the whiskey blending you know exercise as much, we're gonna give them a little more time.
1:07:06
SPEAKER_08: So we're gonna kind of work on those simultaneously and probably see which one comes out first.
1:07:11
SPEAKER_08: They bring out a new menu right now, so we'll wait for that.
1:07:14
SPEAKER_08: They're also working on a new menu right now.
1:07:16
SPEAKER_00: So my question is so has the everything I've been hearing, the the barrel, what's on the market for what you can buy compared to when you started, and even compared to a year and a half ago, the barrel prices have come down a lot from what I'm hearing.
1:07:40
SPEAKER_00: So, does that allow you?
1:07:41
SPEAKER_00: Are you tempted now that the price?
1:07:44
SPEAKER_00: Price isn't quite as much for the same liquid.
1:07:47
SPEAKER_00: Some people are like going buying something that's like the same price, but it's like instead of they were dealing and they were getting some six, seven years, they were they're buying nine, ten year stuff for the and putting out a batch like that, opposed to where if you stay in the same realm of what you were doing, that your price could you could put out bigger batches.
1:08:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, which way are you going with that?
1:08:13
SPEAKER_00: Because that definitely, from what I've been seeing, has been a great thing for when you're blending.
1:08:19
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, so so especially for our you know small batch, which is still sourced, the goal long term being to move that in-house, but with barrel prices right now, it's like uh that's a really hard argument to make.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_08: Or the engineer series, which is entirely and will forever be sourced.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_08: I mean, maybe with some of our own stuff mixed in, but the the intent is to have you know source stuff in there.
1:08:47
SPEAKER_08: It's hard.
1:08:48
SPEAKER_08: It it's hard right now to figure out what what direction to take, where to be.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_06: I mean the engineer series is kind of interesting because like like like Joe was mentioning earlier, it's the one that we play around with, right?
1:09:04
SPEAKER_06: Like it's it's real small groups of barrels.
1:09:07
SPEAKER_06: So like even if we want to make a big batch of it, like you know, what do we do?
1:09:12
SPEAKER_06: Add an extra barrel into it?
1:09:13
SPEAKER_06: Well, that's to change the taste.
1:09:15
SPEAKER_06: You know, we're being really bespoke about it.
1:09:18
SPEAKER_06: So, like, really more than 800 bottles is kind of hard to put out in in one of those, because now you're just adding a lot of extra stuff.
1:09:27
SPEAKER_08: It's hard to do, and and and I mean, like I I think I mentioned earlier, we reject more barrel ri by reject.
1:09:33
SPEAKER_08: I mean, you already got their yours, you gotta figure out what to do with them.
1:09:38
SPEAKER_08: We don't use in our core product line more barrels than we use.
1:09:48
SPEAKER_08: So when we buy, so okay, again, behind the scenes industry, you you buy four barrels at a time.
1:09:55
SPEAKER_08: You gotta buy a whole pallet at a time, right?
1:09:57
SPEAKER_08: So you're buying four, eight, twelve, sixteen, however many barrels at a time.
1:10:02
SPEAKER_08: And when they come in, the first thing we do, taste them all, pull a sample of everything, taste them all, and kind of figure out the flavor profile for all of them.
1:10:11
SPEAKER_08: So we had we had four barrels of the mash bill that goes into our small batch bourbon arrived, what, two weeks ago, maybe.
1:10:22
SPEAKER_08: First thing we do, pop them on their side, pull the bung, pull samples, taste them all.
1:10:28
SPEAKER_08: And two of them were like, yeah, this this is the profile we want for our small batch.
1:10:34
SPEAKER_08: The other two were like, these aren't bad, they're just not the right profile.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_08: So we gotta figure out what to do with them.
1:10:39
SPEAKER_08: So that that even though we're sourcing that being very selective, the process is very important to us.
1:10:49
SPEAKER_08: What doesn't make the cut doesn't make the cut, it's it's not that label, it it becomes something else.
1:10:55
SPEAKER_08: Now, that's where we have outlets like the engineer series, like our barrel picks, like our bottle your own bourbon, right?
1:11:08
SPEAKER_08: It doesn't mean those other barrels are bad.
1:11:10
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:11:11
SPEAKER_00: They're not the flavor profile that you're looking for.
1:11:13
SPEAKER_08: It just doesn't meet the profile.
1:11:15
SPEAKER_00: Right.
1:11:16
SPEAKER_08: A lot of small person blindly dump them together.
1:11:22
SPEAKER_08: You know, that's thinks, and that's what gives that's that's what gives sourcing a bad name.
1:11:27
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
1:11:28
SPEAKER_06: And when we have stuff that's really tough, we try to finish it with something else or put it on like a different barrel, you know, blend it, figure out something to do with it.
1:11:37
SPEAKER_06: I mean, there's still a couple, there's still a couple barrels that have given us trouble.
1:11:40
SPEAKER_06: I mean, made a stage.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_06: I mean I mean older.
1:11:44
SPEAKER_08: Well to be to be truthful, like Thunder Mitch, that was a barrel blend that was giving us trouble.
1:11:51
SPEAKER_08: And and we figured it out, right?
1:11:54
SPEAKER_08: Like it's it's delightful finished in the Thunderwing barley wine barrel.
1:11:59
SPEAKER_08: I I'm gonna before that it was like I don't know what to do with this.
1:12:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna tell you, finishing anything in barley wine barrels, I mean, you can finish the uh we we were at a thing, I was up there with Matt at Masthead, and they had a barley wine beer finished.
1:12:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't know what it is, but it just and and and the and the thunder bitch, I really like that.
1:12:25
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I CT gave me the sample, and I'm just I was just like, I like that.
1:12:31
SPEAKER_00: There's almost like uh, it's got the barley, you just like you said, it's the barley wine finish, but there's almost it almost tastes like the same flavor that's on your your rum is in that.
1:12:43
SPEAKER_00: It's like there's a like a thing together with it, and I was just like, I was impressed.
1:12:48
SPEAKER_00: It's just like some nice different flavor profiles of what the the whiskey and the bourbon industry has evolved to where people are always looking for that unique, different thing.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_00: When you know they they have their things that they like and they go to, but at the same time, when you're tasting and doing things, it just makes things way more exciting.
1:13:11
SPEAKER_10: That that pick was specifically because, like sitting there drinking it, it was so unique, it's still bourbon, but my god, it was this is fun.
1:13:23
SPEAKER_10: This is like we all drink so many different things, and you know, all the time you get different things thrown at you.
1:13:30
SPEAKER_10: That was just a very unique expression, which you still have that in the shop there, correct?
1:13:36
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, there are still some bottles in the shop, and and there's a strong likelihood that that makes its way the other kind of the bourbon collective kind of committed to a half barrel there, and that the other half barrel winds its way into another engineer series.
1:13:55
SPEAKER_08: Yeah, we'll see what happens.
1:13:59
SPEAKER_09: Yeah, you know, same thing stuff in the barley wine barrels or the spout barrels always work.
1:14:05
SPEAKER_09: I don't know why.
1:14:06
SPEAKER_09: Virginia Sterling Company has a Goose Island barrel rusted bourbon that's fantastic, and I don't know why it works, but it works.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_09: It's so weird.
1:14:16
SPEAKER_08: And it's even it's that grain forward.
1:14:18
SPEAKER_08: I think it's that like grain forward, grain heavy aspect of it.
1:14:22
SPEAKER_08: You taste what you if you described whiskey or bourbon to someone who had never tasted it before.
1:14:33
SPEAKER_08: It it's got those note, it it that's what it tastes like.
1:14:37
SPEAKER_08: It it is a barley wine or a stout.
1:14:41
SPEAKER_08: You think that's what they would picture?
1:14:44
SPEAKER_09: If I could get you a masthead barrel from one of their stouts that comes out and bring that up there and put some stuff in it.
1:14:50
SPEAKER_09: Like I feel like one of the winged ones that's giving you a problem.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_09: I feel like that would work so well.
1:14:54
SPEAKER_08: Like that'd be great.
1:14:56
SPEAKER_08: There's always ways to yeah, you you no matter how much you run into trouble with specific barrels, you just can't get it.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_08: It's just not right, it's just not what you want.
1:15:07
SPEAKER_08: There's always a way to fix it.
1:15:08
SPEAKER_00: Put it in another barrel, like you said.
1:15:10
SPEAKER_00: Yep, let it age a little longer.
1:15:14
SPEAKER_08: You slammed it in the Ambirana and sell it to Matt.
1:15:16
SPEAKER_08: I don't know.
1:15:17
SPEAKER_08: That fixes everything.
1:15:18
SPEAKER_09: I was gonna say that, but I was like, Chris was already cringing thinking that was gonna, so I was like, you know.
1:15:23
SPEAKER_10: The fact about Ambirana is that it will definitely overpower anything that went in the barrel.
1:15:31
SPEAKER_10: It depends how many days you put it in.
1:15:33
SPEAKER_08: Because it's days that you have to put it in.
1:15:36
SPEAKER_08: It is days.
1:15:37
SPEAKER_08: So there's a a brewery local to me.
1:15:39
SPEAKER_08: I'll I'll throw I'll throw their name out there, Derive Brand Company.
1:15:43
SPEAKER_08: They're possibly the best brewery in Columbus right now.
1:15:47
SPEAKER_08: Fantastic stuff.
1:15:49
SPEAKER_08: You're you're gonna see them winning some big awards in the coming months, I think.
1:15:55
SPEAKER_08: Known those guys a long time, they're right down the street from me.
1:15:58
SPEAKER_08: Last fall, they had a I I forget what it was, but it was I was talking to Pete, the owner, and he's talking about uh, oh, it's in an Ambarana barrel.
1:16:07
SPEAKER_08: And and I was joking with him.
1:16:09
SPEAKER_08: He's like, oh, he was like, that was only in there for uh I don't know, three days.
1:16:13
SPEAKER_08: 20 seconds like that.
1:16:14
SPEAKER_08: It was like yeah, 20 seconds, yeah.
1:16:16
SPEAKER_08: I was like, we'll we'll make it 45 seconds, and there's your Christmas beer for the year.
1:16:21
SPEAKER_08: Like, what's the wrong with it?
1:16:24
SPEAKER_08: Amber Ambirana is wild.
1:16:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, me and uh Matt and I in New Orleans.
1:16:30
SPEAKER_08: We if if we're talking if we're talking weird experiments, I did do a uh a va our vodka with some Amirana chips in it, and there was a sweet spot, it tasted like nothing, it tasted like nothing, tasted like nothing.
1:16:45
SPEAKER_08: There was a sweet spot where it was cinnamon toast crunch vodka, and it was delightful.
1:16:51
SPEAKER_08: That sounds fantastic.
1:16:53
SPEAKER_08: And then I let it sit for another 17 seconds and it was awful.
1:16:59
SPEAKER_00: We uh we in New Orleans we were part of the the judging.
1:17:04
SPEAKER_00: We got to sit in, uh, me and Matt got to sit in, and so it was all blind, and it they didn't have categories.
1:17:12
SPEAKER_00: But the last the last tasting, the 31st whiskey that we tasted was an ambirana from Dark Arts that was in the barrel for a year.
1:17:28
SPEAKER_00: That was that was nuts.
1:17:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't even know.
1:17:36
SPEAKER_09: But I like the other two Ambaranas in there.
1:17:38
SPEAKER_09: Number 26 and number 28 were fantastic.
1:17:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, but that one but that one, it was almost like when you when you tasted it, it was a solid.
1:17:50
SPEAKER_00: You could chew it.
1:17:51
SPEAKER_08: Did you just regenerate a cinnamon stick at that point?
1:17:54
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was just in it it was a bitter, weird cinnamon.
1:18:00
SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, it was it wasn't good, but for some reason it did all right, and you know, it it said Amberana on it, so I think he sold it all.
1:18:11
SPEAKER_10: So, yeah, real quick back to the to the spot there in Columbus.
1:18:15
SPEAKER_10: So if somebody wanted to come in, they weren't necessarily gonna go to the bar, but they wanted to experience what Echo is.
1:18:24
SPEAKER_10: You do have a bottle your own experience.
1:18:28
SPEAKER_10: And I know we touched on it, but we didn't really talk about it.
1:18:31
SPEAKER_10: So talk about it, like what what is involved with it?
1:18:36
SPEAKER_08: So yeah, so our bottle your own bourbon experience, so unique to Columbus, you know, there's a couple in Ohio, none with the apparatus, as we call it, that we have.
1:18:49
SPEAKER_08: Uh come in, you take a tour, you get to taste a couple barrel first bourbons, right?
1:18:55
SPEAKER_08: Pulled fresh right from the barrel.
1:18:57
SPEAKER_08: You decide which one is yours, right?
1:19:00
SPEAKER_08: This is this is mine to bottle, uh, the one you like.
1:19:06
SPEAKER_08: You get to go up and pull, there you go, pull pull the levers, pull the pull the bottles right there.
1:19:12
SPEAKER_08: Oh, was that Valentine's Weekend?
1:19:14
SPEAKER_08: Good for you.
1:19:15
SPEAKER_08: Oh, I yeah, oh yeah.
1:19:17
SPEAKER_08: 217.
1:19:18
SPEAKER_08: There we go.
1:19:19
SPEAKER_08: Last year, okay.
1:19:20
SPEAKER_08: Um and you get to you get to pull it, pull it out, pull it down, and go through the full kind of experience, you know, fill the bottle, cork it, you'll you'll have shoulder issues afterward, like we all do.
1:19:32
SPEAKER_08: Slap the label on there, and and you get to learn a little bit about like the hey, this is why this is on a label, this is why this is on a label, this is what it means.
1:19:44
SPEAKER_08: Hand handwrite everything, kind of customize everything, and walk out the door.
1:19:48
SPEAKER_08: It's something that's kind of, you know, we like to say there's there's a lot of uh there might be a couple bottles like it, but this one's yours.
1:19:58
SPEAKER_10: I think that's that's always the fun experience, no matter whether we've been in Kentucky or whatever state, to be able to bottle your own is just a very neat experience, especially if you go with a group.
1:20:12
SPEAKER_10: So I would say to anybody watching, listening, that this is a great time to take a group of guys, girls, doesn't matter, and go and have that experience together because that bottle then just kind of becomes that symbolic thing that like every time you get together, you're like, Oh man, you remember when we did that, and that bottle comes out, and whether you're at this person's house or this person's house, they have it, and it's like you want to share that because it shares that memory again.
1:20:43
SPEAKER_10: So I think that's a great experience that you guys do.
1:20:45
SPEAKER_10: I think that's that's really cool.
1:20:48
SPEAKER_08: Not like you said, not too many places are doing it, so yeah, it it's a ton of fun, and the tour guides are great.
1:20:54
SPEAKER_08: That's where you get to taste stuff that we don't put out in bottles.
1:20:58
SPEAKER_08: You know, we try to make sure that pretty much everything that's up there is something unique, special.
1:21:04
SPEAKER_08: I think right now we've got a it's a barrel-proof version of our small bash bourbon.
1:21:12
SPEAKER_08: So, like again, not something that we put out, and a a barrel-proof wine-finished bourbon.
1:21:19
SPEAKER_08: The wine barrel is from our location up in Powell, which is also a winery, which I don't know if we've touched on Echo Springs on the Vine.
1:21:29
SPEAKER_08: It's our northern, you know, it's our well, not for you, Cleveland guys, but our Powell spot.
1:21:39
SPEAKER_08: Uh great spot.
1:21:40
SPEAKER_08: So it's our yeah, great spot, seasonal location.
1:21:44
SPEAKER_08: You know, we'll be opening toward the end of May for the year for the season, probably through October, something like that.
1:21:51
SPEAKER_08: It's a very seasonal spot, large outdoor space, you know, live music, food trucks, that kind of thing.
1:21:58
SPEAKER_08: But it's it's on six acres, most of which is grapevines.
1:22:05
SPEAKER_08: So it's a winery primarily, and we just kind of take over that spot for the bar side of things, and then our our partners at RS Vineyards produce the wine and get it out the door, and then we kind of get to trade bare garnels back and forth.
1:22:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so good spot.
1:22:24
SPEAKER_10: That's a that's a great venue, and then again, another way that Ohio connects, because the time I got to go there, you you guys were doing an event for MO Spirits, yeah, that wasn't even had nothing to do with you, but you were supporting supporting King Doug and supporting that whole situation.
1:22:44
SPEAKER_10: And then lo and behold, we're there, and Wendy comes, you know, so Wendy shows up, and it's just a great way again of the camaraderie of Ohio, especially central Ohio.
1:22:57
SPEAKER_10: I feel like this is really rally around each other and make the best of everything going on.
1:23:03
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's really cool, Joe, your connectivity throughout the whole state.
1:23:11
SPEAKER_00: Like you're you're open for it just like you're you you can get wherever you can get barrels, you're always looking for or other places to promote the state of Ohio.
1:23:26
SPEAKER_00: And I really think with what what you what everybody's doing right now in the state of Ohio, they don't we all realize that the grain, the the the the whole, you know, condition of Ohio right now is probably what you know it's getting, you know, whatever.
1:23:48
SPEAKER_00: The way the climate's changing, to be able to age and and how the grains grow is like setting up to be the perfect climate for whiskey, and then we've got everybody, you know, you know, we've got things happening here that you never would have thought would happen in Ohio, but they're happening.
1:24:09
SPEAKER_00: And it's just kind of like you you yourself are so like CT was saying, intertwined in the community.
1:24:18
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're a big part of the Ohio Craft Distillers Association.
1:24:24
SPEAKER_00: You're you're active in there.
1:24:26
SPEAKER_00: Everybody is, you know, they all talk, and you know, when you all when you get together, you know each other, and it's kind of like a great community.
1:24:36
SPEAKER_00: It's not the one thing whiskey's not anywhere is a competition.
1:24:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't care what, you know, that's why it works in Kentucky for the most part.
1:24:45
SPEAKER_00: Everybody, if you make good spirits and you do the the right things, the whiskey's gonna sell.
1:24:54
SPEAKER_00: It's when you try and cut corners or you try and do things differently, but the or you don't want to put the work in.
1:25:01
SPEAKER_00: It it's just like people don't realize how much work it is.
1:25:05
SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not an easy thing, but if you put the work in, you get the results, right?
1:25:14
SPEAKER_07: You hope so.
1:25:16
SPEAKER_08: Well, you well yeah, they the the point, I mean your points are valid.
1:25:21
SPEAKER_08: Don't don't cut corners, build camaraderie, build friendships, build community.
1:25:28
SPEAKER_08: The rest the re I uh we we built this business on the belief that the rest will follow.
1:25:34
SPEAKER_00: And has it been letting you it's not letting you down, right?
1:25:39
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's it's following.
1:25:46
SPEAKER_08: It's got it's it's got its moments, we'll say.
1:25:48
SPEAKER_00: Well, it has challenges.
1:25:52
SPEAKER_08: We've enjoyed it.
1:25:53
SPEAKER_08: Uh there's certainly lots of memories there, and we have a lot of hope for the future.
1:25:59
SPEAKER_10: Well, you guys are on the right path.
1:26:01
SPEAKER_10: You have a lot of good things going.
1:26:03
SPEAKER_10: The portfolio.
1:26:04
SPEAKER_10: I mean, if you're looking across the board all the way from rum to uh you know, your your back of the bar liqueur, I guess you could call it, basically.
1:26:14
SPEAKER_10: You know, you guys have so much going on.
1:26:17
SPEAKER_10: I think that the sky's the limit.
1:26:21
SPEAKER_10: And and hopefully the next time we talk, you'll be in a secondary location for barrel reasons, not because of the bar.
1:26:30
SPEAKER_10: You're gonna be there doing that, but there's gonna be that secondary location that you're aging some of those barrels that you're buying, and there's nothing wrong with that.
1:26:39
SPEAKER_10: The one thing I hope people understand is buying barrels from another distillery that is has an excess amount of product, and then finding a way to make it even better is good, it's good for all of us.
1:26:56
SPEAKER_10: Like, there are so many things we've drank that have been a combination of somebody's brand and another person's brand, and then they've made some killer stuff out of it, and and we love that.
1:27:10
SPEAKER_10: It does not have to be organically from one place, it does not have to be one barrel.
1:27:16
SPEAKER_10: I I think that's that's the future for people like us that are connoisseurs, I guess you could say.
1:27:24
SPEAKER_10: We are all connoisseurs.
1:27:25
SPEAKER_10: We love differences, we like drinking that special single barrel.
1:27:30
SPEAKER_10: That's something you guys have got a niche into that uh I think is gonna be even more so in the future, it's gonna it's gonna work for you.
1:27:41
SPEAKER_08: I've always said there's I I think that if if I had to say that craft uh beer, craft distilling did itself any disservice, there was an era where the making it yourself was the most important thing rather than the end product.
1:28:05
SPEAKER_08: And you know, at a certain point, you know, again, we kind of we we step this back and we look at it like like we're chefs or something, which I don't know.
1:28:14
SPEAKER_08: I'm I'm an okay cook, but you know in a way you are exactly that I didn't but but I didn't raise the chicken, I didn't grow, I didn't I I maybe I made the bread, but I didn't grow the wheat.
1:28:29
SPEAKER_08: Like what's the like where where is that where's your personal dividing line right for what counts as make when you make making it?
1:28:42
SPEAKER_08: Well, no, those are very different lines.
1:28:45
SPEAKER_00: But there is, but there is a a whole history of whiskey in on in in on the other side of the world when you come to Scotch, okay, that they've already proven.
1:28:58
SPEAKER_00: So so when I first got into this in 2019, I was like, people were like this purist, it has to be bourbon, you can't finish it.
1:29:08
SPEAKER_00: You know, when I was getting into it, I mean I started in like 2016 and 17 to really start to get into it as far as I I drank whiskey my whole life, but where you start doing the tasting and everything.
1:29:19
SPEAKER_00: But but I mean, for God's sake, the number one, one of the most popular scotches that everybody likes marketing and everything is Johnny Walker Blue.
1:29:32
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at Johnny Walker Blue, they basically pull from multiple distilleries their best barrels and to produce a blend that then they call johnny walker blue i mean and johnny walker they don't they're not they don't just they're not distillers they're blenders and that didn't exist in 2018 19 and there's as it starts to go we are getting that you know and then we have to our our market has to evolve because at one time an NDP was a bad thing and then you know what I mean and but it's not if you but it comes down to if you have somebody who can has a talent for blending and they have a great palette whether they're doing it on a a four barrel batch a two barrel batch or a 60 barrel batch it's a skill and you know up until the 19th it's funny because everybody doesn't realize but up until like the 19th late late 1960s 1970s consistency was the biggest thing because it was the hardest thing to do and then once they obtained it the whole market just once you could do it every all of a sudden the market crashed and it took you know 90s and then it was like then it started being like you have to be consistent at being able to make small changes and now we're just at the point where you're just all mad scientists everybody loves it but but it's the same evolution you know scotch has been around forever so we're just trying we're trying to get there right so somewhere along the way the the the blending process and and you know you you have to look at the history in the last say 15 years you know and and the quality of some of the stuff that you were buying 15 years ago compared to now as as part of the factor but the reality is that through most of whiskey history most brands were not distilled by the people putting the label out that that's that that's the reality and you can make your own judgments based on that which is fair but ultimately what's in the glass is what matters.
1:32:07
SPEAKER_10: Yeah do you really do you really care if it's made by somebody else if it's good and appropriately priced I I think there are both people I do think there are people that want to drink something that was made from the distillery you know that absolutely made it from grain to glass and and nothing wrong with that I appreciate that I get it.
1:32:32
SPEAKER_10: Yeah there's that person and there's the the person that says I just want it to taste good you know so many people that drink bourbon do not get the notes that maybe we do you know you drink something and I pick up bubblegum and somebody's like are you kidding me?
1:32:50
SPEAKER_10: Where did you get bubblegum?
1:32:52
SPEAKER_10: You know they taste good bad they taste I like it I don't like it and then there are the people that are like hey I want it to be from an actual place that did it and distilled it and that's great because we have all those in in Ohio we've got people that distill it from the field to the glass and then we have other options we we cover all faces.
1:33:16
SPEAKER_00: The one the one big the one big distiller is is making it it's gonna make it easy for a lot of people to basically have brands and and it wouldn't make sense to distill it themselves it's like it's ohio they're in ohio they get it they can put it together there's there's a lot of it available and it's good so why why would you spend all that money to to put a still in and do it yourself and wait when you have the ability to do that and market it and put it out and and blend it in a way because it's not like the whole world's already doing that.
1:33:57
SPEAKER_09: You know what I mean people aren't sick of that palette yet I think I feel like there's so many different things that you can do to finish everything too.
1:34:07
SPEAKER_09: Depending on what version you put it in.
1:34:09
SPEAKER_09: What do you have well I I mean you know that's a good one for me.
1:34:12
SPEAKER_09: I'm sorry I'm sorry you know you got your Miss Nara you got your choke eye you have there's so many different woods you can put things in too that you could even take something that you don't think is the greatest put it into this new cask and then bring your new favorite thing out of it.
1:34:27
SPEAKER_10: Hey great great snyder talked about one one of the simplest casking re purposes was when he was with Chickencock and they had a a tanker full of a distillate that wasn't that good and he told them don't put it out and they rebarreled it just in new new barrels and double oaked it and all of a sudden it's delicious.
1:34:51
SPEAKER_08: It wasn't before it was light whiskey I mean I I think there's a everybody has their certification qualities or whatever right but like the and everybody has kind of their specs on what counts in their mind but to me as long as what's in your glass is good that's what we're looking for.
1:35:29
SPEAKER_00: That's the the point of the industry that's the point of the hobby that's the point of all of it is drinking something delicious and again sharing it with people and experiences that matter but I will say Joe also you and what you guys are doing and being out there and having experience with people that makes them want to drink your whiskey too right you guys are like out there that's part of it knowing the person who's blending it being out there it's like that's an experience that people want right hanging out with what you guys are doing and and you're at the the festivals and they get to taste it with you.
1:36:22
SPEAKER_00: So when they walk in and they see it they're like oh now I know and they'll grab it because there's you know if it's just it really comes down to people I mean that's what it is.
1:36:35
SPEAKER_00: I always call whiskey's the glue that holds people together.
1:36:42
SPEAKER_10: And and that's our our tagline you'll see on a lot of our bottles and stuff is know your distiller right yeah and and certainly from our perspective the original intent was understand and know who is making your spirits right like like from transparency perspective but it but it is know know the people behind the brand know who's blending it know who's doing this know who's doing that continued with the transparency but who's yeah who who who who are the people who's you know you go you go by Lady Bly Spicer Elton who's who represents that who who's the person who's the who's the thing who who benefits from that that that's sort of transparency is what we're all about yeah for sure I think lady bly is captain morgan girlfriend that's a good one i i think from from us to you guys we we hope that uh you guys in the next year or two are just continuing to grow and do what we think you'll do I think getting the word out is always key small distilleries small brands period craft whatever you want to call it and the fish fish in the sea of bourbon or small the advertising dollars don't exist the the money to just throw out there on a semi truck rolling down the highway doesn't exist so for you you need the local people to support the brand we need ohio people to support the brand that's that's what we're here to talk about is is that you have the opportunity and you see echoes sitting on the shelf and it is on the shelf in most places in Columbus it may not be everywhere in Ohio but it's around you can find it and if not it's probably a two hour drive from just about anywhere in Columbus to make the trip up enjoy the afternoon go visit a few other places watershed you can go to high bank you can go to Middle West you can go to Leather Oak.
1:39:04
SPEAKER_10: You can go to so many places in a two hour drive no matter where in Ohio visit you guys and what that does for the impact of this industry is huge.
1:39:16
SPEAKER_08: If they come in and buy a bottle whatever it is and take it back home and somebody's like wow that's great where'd that come from that's what we want that's that's what we need that's what you guys need to grow is is that uh that relationship to that bottle that people get so hopefully people see or hearing this we'll keep preaching it as much as we can but we we love you guys you guys are awesome every time I'm in there you you make it like home and like Jeff said you walk in and it's just like it's just a different feeling as opposed to most places where you just kind of I I'm not kidding there's a lot of distilleries I walk in and I'm like I feel like an alien you know not the case you walk into Echo and it's like instantly like you're home thank you guys I I I I appreciate that that's you've you've uh if that's what you're feeling we've done our job that that's exactly what we're looking for and and uh I feel good about that okay pump yourselves up tell everybody about your website how they can do where they can go how they can you know yeah so uh echo spirits.com follow us on Instagram Facebook as Echo Spirits also the bar at Echo Spirits on both of those platforms Echo Spirits on the Vine is our location up in Liberty Township Powell area that's also the social media for them Echo Spirits on the Vine that's our outdoor spot for the summer live music food trucks that kind of thing look for us all over Ohio mostly Columbus Cleveland area go see Matt at his tastings this weekend I assume and next and every weekend because Matt's great he's not gonna smile or anything there.
1:41:08
SPEAKER_08: No I'll be in Zoma next weekend if anybody's looking on Saturday.
1:41:14
SPEAKER_00: Giant eagle solen this weekend come check us out there mark uh 2nd at the Bacchake Winery whiskey festival as well as if you're northeast May 9th at the Medina Spirits Festival that's gonna be great as well and and pretty much every Spirits Festival from now till uh end of November probably just constant it's it's festival season let's go nice come drink with me so thank you guys for coming on tonight we appreciate it it's up to you we're gonna we'll finish up and if you guys want to stay a little bit to take questions a lot of some people can jump on but I'm gonna officially end it on the audio but we'll stay on Facebook and YouTube for a little bit and it's up it as soon as anybody's got to leave feel free you're not you've already given us your time we appreciate it but this is the point where we bring anybody who's watching on I send a link and they can jump in to the zoom and ask questions.
1:42:28
SPEAKER_09: You guys want to send James a link what if you want to if you want to copy your links to James if you guys could do it because my camera's up there.
1:42:36
SPEAKER_09: Steve James wants to jump on and say hi.
1:42:39
SPEAKER_00: All right all right everybody's gonna send him it earlier but I figured if he jumped on early he'd be right in the middle of the thing so I felt like I'd wait to the end but you know all right www dot scotchyburbonvoys.com thanks to the I mean echo spirits is uh fantastic and Joe and Mikkel you guys have been just great nickel right that's how it is right nickel right I know that I've met you multiple times but we just gotta call him Nick Nickel is that it's close right okay nickel I mean we gotta get the name if we have to nail down the name tonight so we never say it wrong ever again hey I feel like sheroff is just easier it's just Mr.
1:43:31
SPEAKER_00: Sheroff I go you wouldn't understand I go by Nick it's all good nick is good all right I'm I've got that I'm going right by that there we go I'm taking it he threw it he threw it out and I'm taking it all right so good good bourbon equals good times and good friends and you guys have I mean thank you so much for coming on I look forward to all the good times we're we'll we'll have I was I I the last time I headed to Whiskey Thief and Matt went with you guys it's like next year I'm headed with you guys.
1:44:09
SPEAKER_09: So we had a plan because I stopped up there on my way to Kentucky you're gonna come with me when we come up that way.
1:44:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah we'll see you in two weeks yeah we will see you in two weeks so see you in two weeks and remember don't drink and drive drink responsibly and live your life uncut and unfiltered and our AI theme song is about to take us out a Santa Santa Santa Sarah,