Latest / The Scotchy Bourbon Boys / From Bar Owner to Bourbon Brand Builder: Aaron Chepenick Co Owner and CEO of Smoke Wagon

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From Bar Owner to Bourbon Brand Builder: Aaron Chepenick Co Owner and CEO of Smoke Wagon · The Scotchy Bourbon Boys

• 0:58
  Speaker 1: What's up?
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Scotchy Bourbon Boys fans, this is Alan Bishop of.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: If you have Ghosts, you have Everything.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: You may know me better as Indiana's alchemist of the Black Forest, but if you're at all interested in the Fortean High, strangeness, the Paranormal and the Unexplained, then you should tune into my new podcast.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: If you have Ghosts, you have Everything available now, wherever you get your podcast, including Spotify, google Podcast and Amazon.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, look at that, there you go.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: There's a technical difficulty, here we go, let's try it again.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Oh, look at that.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Alright, welcome to another podcast of the Scotchy Bourbon Boys that there was Kenny Fuller of the Luca Mariano old Americana band, and we are back for another exciting podcast.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Tonight we have a very special guest and I'm going to let Aaron you introduce yourself because I just want to make sure everything gets your title and who you are this way, because I don't want a technical difficulty and fuck it up.
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: There you go.
• 3:27
  Speaker 5: Hello, my name is Aaron Perfect.
• 3:30
  Speaker 5: Alright, I don't really have a title.
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: I'm one of the two owners of the VAT agency Distilling.
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: We do Smokewagon Bourbon and that's what we're mainly known for.
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: When we started we had the bourbon and the vodka, but it's pretty much all about the bourbon.
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: Now I do all the blending and everything and design everything and just kind of figure it all out.
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: I don't really have a title, I guess.
• 4:04
  Speaker 6: You're the Instagram guy, though I am the Instagram guy.
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: That was not planned at all.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I'm not even remotely, but that's how the internet works.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: When you're trying to promote yourself on social media I do it a lot it's kind of like you find your niche.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: It could have been some other media, but that's the one that takes off.
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: And then, once it takes off, it's almost like an addiction, right yeah?
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: Well, it was free.
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: First of all, free marketing.
• 4:39
  Speaker 5: Because of the analytics, it was very easy to figure out what worked and what didn't work.
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: We have a YouTube channel and what works on Instagram does not work on YouTube.
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: Everybody loves the out-of-the-bottle tasting stuff and the short reels and all the skits I do on Instagram, but they don't care about that on YouTube.
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: When I was doing longer videos, I really liked that on YouTube, but it's so hard to do in the space now because it's so busy, I can't stand there and do a long video the way I used to.
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: But when I started, my success in the bar business all stemmed from I was always in the shadows.
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: It was never about me.
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: It was never like here's my bar, check me out.
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: It was always about the customer's experience and the staff and everything.
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: When it came time to be with Bourbon, this was 2016.
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: Everybody had a bullshit story.
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: My great-grandfathers died and we found his recipe in a shoe.
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: His last dying words were make the bourbon the way I did.
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: During Prohibition, I was like I'm not doing any of that shit.
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: It's just about the bourbon.
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: The way the bars are.
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: About the bars, everything was just bottle pictures.
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: I remember it was actually the beverage director for the win.
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: I did a presentation for her and she was like you're the story.
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: Nobody's talking the way you're talking.
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: You need to get in front of the staff.
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: I was like, okay, well, maybe I should talk about this stuff on Instagram.
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: It resonated, fortunately it was like.
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: It took me a while to get into it and figure it out.
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: It wasn't like, oh, I want to be a big Instagram star or I want to be the bourbon guy.
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: It was always just supposed to be about the bourbon, but we had no money.
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: All our money went into making sure we laid down new fills.
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: I was just trying to figure it out.
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: I'd see, okay, when I do these dumb videos joking around people like them.
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: When I do informative videos about the industry or what I'm doing, they don't get as much likes but the engagement's huge and it gets exposed to a lot of accounts that aren't following us.
• 7:09
  Speaker 5: Bottle pictures get all the likes, but it's only people that are following us and nobody comments and nobody's really being exposed to the brand.
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: I just would try to figure it out between all those things.
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: The crazy thing is, before COVID, I was out all the time trying to sell a brand or doing events.
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: You cannot advertise retailers on Instagram.
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: The TTV sees it as unfair.
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: You're giving one retailer an unfair advantage over another.
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: The Instagram was really lame for the most part.
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: Then there was COVID.
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: I was like well shit, I'm just sitting around smoking scars drinking bourbon.
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: I'm a fool Not everybody has a fool, but I'm sure it's what everybody else is doing Then I was spending a lot more time at home and so I could start posting more.
• 8:06
  Speaker 5: That's when I started doing the uncut, unfiltered posts about what I was drinking.
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: Then we blew up, so spending more time in the stillery and no time out in the market.
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: I could really.
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: There was a lot more content because I was doing a lot more Way things worked out, man, it's crazy.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd like to also let everybody know that CT is joining us here tonight.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Ct, yeah, because they haven't figured that out yet.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: No, but you got to remember that audio.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: You were on there but nobody could see you on the audio.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: I have to make a point to let everybody know you're here.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: You're here.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I myself, tiny.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: It's great to have you here, aaron, when you were talking exactly the time period when you were doing that is right when I was getting into bourbon and then deciding to do the podcast.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: We started the podcast in November of 2019 and COVID was hitting in March of 2020.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: At that point, that March, I was like we were stunned because you didn't know what to do.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, all of a sudden, you're home and it's like everybody was.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: People weren't working.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: I was working because of essential services and you kind of got into this tumble.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: But as you were tumbling, you kind of rolled out of it right into starting to push a little bit harder, because it was everybody was home.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: So when you did the videos, all of a sudden 5,000 people were watching and you're just like what is going on here?
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: You're getting all this exposure.
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: So that was great.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: But also, you also talked about how when you first started out and you were going out and you were selling a certain way right and the people were very in my opinion when I first got into this and in that time period, everybody was so critical about what bourbon was.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: It's like I just remember I'd be on the groups and that people would be like that's a finished bourbon, that's not real bourbon, and they would hand it out if you were wrong about something.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Those would be our biggest podcasts.
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: If you said the wrong mash bill to the, you would just have hundreds of people just bashing the living hell out of you.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: And then COVID hit and it was going and it started to light and everybody started trying different things, right?
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: I mean, all of a sudden, the market, like all these bourbon snobs you know what you like to call.
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: They kind of got pushed back out of the way because there was all these new people drinking whiskey and bourbon at home.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: Abinem's shipped to their house and everything that they started exactly with and they started paying attention to what was unique and what you were doing with on your Instagram.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: It was unique, right?
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: Nobody talked the way you talked.
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, because we're very trained.
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: Even now, you know, I still get messages about people saying you are the most transparent brand I've ever seen.
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: You know, because I talk about everything that goes into what, every blend and what I'm doing and all that, and it is funny.
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: So in 2016, when I was doing tastings and stuff, I'd say I got oh, you're just source bourbon, blah, blah, blah.
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: And that was.
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: We had already started putting it, still in Indiana, from the beginning, before the TTV was enforcing it, and then, when TTV started enforcing it, everybody started doing multi-state blends so they could be a blend of straight bourbons and take the state of distillation off the back, and then they'd be like oh yeah, we blend our.
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: We still are on the boat and I just had the attitude was like, look, if you don't like it, then don't buy it.
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: And if you do like it and you're not going to buy it, because if you like it and you think it's unique and you're not going to buy it, just because I'm not the distiller, I don't want you drinking it, because I don't want you associated with the brand, because you're probably a fucking insufferable country and you probably walk into the room, mr, like, I'm going to know this shit out of everybody with my bourbon ideas and things, and I don't want to be a brand associate with people like you.
• 12:50
  Speaker 5: And that was that was like literally, you know.
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: I was like if you like it, you know, look, all I can do is make, do what I can and either like it or you don't.
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: And if you, if you do like it, cool, thank you, and if you don't, hey hey, I like it.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: Go on to the next one.
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: I mean there's there's not a bourbon on the planet that every single person loves.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: I mean there's styles of whiskey and I always find where it's aged, you know, and different regions, especially with bourbons, and they all kind of have their own, you know, terroir or whatever, and it's yeah, everything's different.
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: Like nobody has an oval form, so all the barrels are going, all the woods going to be different.
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: I see people get obsessed with age.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: I'm like, well, I can give you a four year bourbon off the sixth floor on a south facing wall, that is almost over roads, or I can give you a 12 year on the first floor.
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: That's perfect.
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: You know, it's like an age is relative to warehouse position and temperature swings and aging conditions and everything.
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: And yeah, you know it's just.
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: But to sort of what you were saying, a lot changed during COVID because, well, hey, first of all, whiskey, alcohol, was not sensitive content content on Instagram yet.
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: So you got a lot more exposure.
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: And then people were buying stuff to put on their shelf and take shelfies and show off their collection and all of a sudden, it didn't matter if it was sourced or not sourced or even if it was good or bad, it was just is it rare?
• 14:38
  Speaker 5: And if it was rare, people were buying it and not even drinking it and taking pictures of it and everybody's liking their pictures and their serotonin's flowing and they're feeling good.
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: And then, all of a sudden, instagram took all that away by making outfall sensitive content.
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: Covid was over and everybody's going back to work, so they're not on their phone all day looking at people's stuff.
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: And then you know gas is expensive, people are driving, they don't have as much expendable income as they used to and like, well shit, I should start drinking some of this stuff.
• 15:15
  Speaker 5: And they realized that some of those $100 four-year verbons that they bought that were rare, tastes like dollar shit and you know Well.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: CT.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: Do you got anything for Aaron?
• 15:32
  Speaker 6: No, but I think he's right.
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: It started a movement of collectors for sure, because they're still doing it today and, even though they may not be posting on Instagram and telling people about their rareness or whatever, there are definitely a lot of people that just go out and look for certain bottles just to have it.
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: They're not planning on opening them and drinking them and that's, I guess, to each their own.
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think we're all in this, the thing that we like to open.
• 16:00
  Speaker 6: We want to open it.
• 16:01
  Speaker 6: Try it.
• 16:02
  Speaker 6: I have no idea how many open bottles I have in this room, but it's a lot, and I want to enjoy them with people.
• 16:09
  Speaker 6: And, like you said, you're going to have a bottle of $200, $300 bottle of Elmer tea.
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: Lee, you're going to open it and be like this tastes pretty much like other stuff I've had.
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: Well, and the thing is, it's like opening a bottle doesn't preserve it.
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: There's nothing going on.
• 16:29
  Speaker 5: None of these seals are airtight Like everything is for security purposes, and so you can drink it and still keep it forever, as long as you know.
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: Every once a year or depending where you live, you tilt the bottle, let the first, second, let that fork get wet, or if it's a screw top, it doesn't matter, and it's not going to go bad, and so the only reason you wouldn't open it is like if you never wanted to drink it and only had it to sell it, which I don't know, or you're waiting for a really special occasion?
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's you know like if it's got a date on like a bottling date or a barrel dump date and it's like your kid's birthday or your anniversary or something.
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: I mean.
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: I have stuff that I haven't opened yet, but most of the stuff.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: So how did you?
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Your guys are in Nevada, right Las Vegas, yeah.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Yep so how did you end up there and then decide to, you know, make a whiskey brand out of Las Vegas, Nevada?
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: I mean, when it really comes down to it, there's not a lot of brands that are hitting the shelf that are right in that area.
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, there's a reason for that.
• 17:43
  Speaker 5: You can't age it, it just all evaporates and turns into nothing.
• 17:49
  Speaker 5: So you know, like I said, it started off with the vodka and so at the time I was still splitting my time between California and LA.
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: I was trying to figure out what to do.
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: And even at one point we're like, oh, we should go to like Central Coast California, like a task at the arrow around there, and buy a big ranch or something and just have a big spread.
• 18:11
  Speaker 5: And we're like, no, we got to get out of California, it's too expensive.
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: Nevada is great for business.
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: We have a great relationship with the city.
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: I, like you know, I wasn't really spending any time in California anymore.
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: I was spending all my time in Nevada because I and so we're like, ok, and then with the block, we're like, yeah, and then we should get in the casinos.
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: You know which is the irony of that is no, you will never get in the casinos.
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: It's all money you want to get in there.
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: Like nobody cares about the local brand, it's you got to, you got to spend big to get in there.
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: That has changed with independent operations like cosmopolitan.
• 18:53
  Speaker 5: You know, blocks of Venetian, you know we're in all those places but like the corporate compliant places, no.
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: And then it was I had stopped drinking vodka and started drinking bourbon and people like, oh, you should do bourbon.
• 19:07
  Speaker 5: And you know everybody's like, oh, it's going to be so interesting to see how it ages there, because we have really, we actually have cold winters especially at night, it gets below freezing and hot summers.
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: You know it's like, oh, what's going to happen?
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: And what happens is everything evaporates.
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: And so when we started the process, we had five fermenters and a vendor, and a vendor is an event on 250 gallons which we still have.
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: The state allows me to use that for vodka, because there is no license for us to distill bourbon on the scale we're doing it.
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: You can be a craft distiller or or, if you own a farm, like Frey Ranch, you can be an estate distiller, which I believe allows you to 100,000 cases a year.
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: I think it's 100,000.
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: I don't know if they measure in proof gallons or if it's volume, like the federal government managed measures, and proof gallons Like we can't really be considered a craft brand anymore because the Craft Distillers Act covers you up to 100,000 proof gallons and we sell more than 100,000 proof gallons within six months of the year.
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: So, you know, it was just like, hey, let's do this and hire a consultant.
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: And they're like, ok, well, here's your setup.
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: We're like, OK, I guess we'll just sell the vodka until the bourbon comes of age.
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: You know, this was 2012,.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: Right, like to start in 2010, 2012.
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: Like well, you know, you can just go buy barrels.
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: It's like no, I didn't fucking, I don't know shit, I don't know anything.
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: I didn't know you could go buy barrels and like, oh yeah, you can go buy barrels.
• 20:43
  Speaker 5: And so, you know, so there was no real strategy.
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: We just kept trying to work with the hand we were dealt, and so it was like, ok, we're going to go in the back, ok, we're going to go to Nevada.
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: We love Las Vegas.
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: We love we want to kind of get out of California, really do it here.
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: And and then when we started designing the brand and everything, my love, coming from the East Coast, I love the West, I love the desert, it's why I love it here, I love me.
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: And so everything was like it's not going to be, like, you know, las Vegas.
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: It's going to be more in Nevada and more of Old West, because that's what I love here.
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: I love the history of the old Spanish Spanish America Trail, the fact that Nevada has the highest population of wild horses in the country, and burrows, you know, all dating back to the 1500s from the Spanish and, and so that's what we tried to sort of tie into the brand.
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: And then also, coming from the bar business, I always designed my bars to look like they'd been around for a hundred years.
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: That way when people would walk in they're like how did I miss this place?
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: Like, and they just feel like there's some place, like, you know, it doesn't feel like it never gets dated because it already is dated, and it just feels like a place that they should be familiar with, you know.
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: And so I adapted.
• 22:08
  Speaker 5: I adapted that with designing all the packaging and everything, and I tried to make it look like bottles were a hundred years old.
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: And and then that coin in the middle is pretty cool.
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: Oh, thank you.
• 22:21
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a neat that's.
• 22:23
  Speaker 6: That reminds me of that old West kind of feel.
• 22:28
  Speaker 5: Definitely I think it originated with bottles from the 1700s.
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: They would be bribe bottles, would be blue, with like blue glass, like kind of stuck on the front and because they nobody could read, and corn whiskey would be clear.
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: And then, but all the bourbon bottles I could find from late 1800s were amber.
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: And and then, but the silver dollar vodka which I don't have here that has a replica of the Morgan Silver Dollar where the wax is, and that's that's what I designed it all for.
• 23:01
  Speaker 5: And you know it's just like it was made.
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: It was just like this process.
• 23:07
  Speaker 5: So we buy these barrels, you get these big giant tanks to put all the barrels in, because we're going to dump them.
• 23:11
  Speaker 5: We're going to dump these five year seagull barrels and pull off those till our stuff comes of age.
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: City never improves the tanks.
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: And and then, and then three years, three and a half years ago, by, and all of a sudden like hey, you know, we just started cut.
• 23:27
  Speaker 5: Your new contract is still with MGP.
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: But we also bought a bunch of distillate when we bought those secret barrels and I was looking at our inventory of like oh shit, those are going to be four years old and the whole plan was to take the eight year barrel, to take the eight year barrel, some eight year barrels and use the four year barrels to make it taste like the five year we liked.
• 23:51
  Speaker 5: And I tried that and tasted like shit.
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: I was like this is not going to work, so I just spent.
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: I just spent three days.
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: Back then, all I had was one location of eight year and one location of four year, and I spent three days blending until I got something I really liked and I my business partner he was I was like hey, man, when you be back in Las Vegas, you really got to try this.
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: He was like I really like this too.
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: And I was like I like this better than anything else.
• 24:18
  Speaker 5: I think this is like really something special here.
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: And so, now that we weren't using those tanks, we got all our our permits approved to open and so we would go to the state and when we started there was no distillers license.
• 24:35
  Speaker 5: You would get a rectifiers license and a letter from the governor giving you permission to distill, and by the time we opened, that was gone because it was a craft distillers license.
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: So you had to be a craft distiller if you wanted to distill, or a rectifier if you want to import barrels and at this point we had 2,200 barrels in Indiana from what we bought originally and what we had started contract distilling.
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: And so also a guy opened up locally and he was a craft distiller and he answered the question what will happen to barrels in Las Vegas if you age from day one?
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: Because he lost 50 percent his first year.
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: Wow, yeah, wow.
• 25:25
  Speaker 6: The angel share is pretty deep out there.
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, not only is it hot, but it's dry.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: So it's dry.
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: You know that desert just sucks the moisture from the wood and then it starts sucking the moisture right out of the.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: So you know, there's no doubt.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: That's what it is and what you have to do to keep it in a cooler place.
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: It's almost impossible.
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: Well, the temperature doesn't matter, you have to humidify it.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: And there's like no water, you know.
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: And so so people.
• 25:58
  Speaker 5: So it was like the writing was on the wall.
• 26:01
  Speaker 5: You know, we had this binary decision you want to be a rectifier or a craft distiller?
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: And I was like, well, can we distill the vodka if we're rectifier?
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: And because in the state said, yes, because you distill vodka, you start with neutral grain spirit, it's.
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: You're not distilling from scratch.
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: I said, yes, you can do that.
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: And I said, well, this is what we're going to fucking do, you know, and like everyone's like, oh, don't release small batch the way you blended it.
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: Make you know small batch four years in a day and then put your your eight year stuff in an age statement bottle.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: I was like this is what we're doing.
• 26:36
  Speaker 5: We're releasing, we're sourcing or in contract distilling.
• 26:41
  Speaker 5: There's no way around it.
• 26:42
  Speaker 5: If I'm not blending, I'm not creating anything unique, I'm just doing what everybody that hates on source bourbon does.
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: And so this is it, this is what we're doing.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: And Well, but, like, like you said, you're a blender.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, so we've had experiences with certain distilleries where their their bourbon isn't the greatest to start off, but then they bring somebody in who's got a really nice palette understands the market and all of a sudden, the quality from the same distillate that they've been making for you know six, seven, eight years and they start putting stuff in.
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: All of a sudden the quality goes up and it tastes good and then in one case the owner let them all go and now it's back to hit or miss.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: It's like sometimes it tastes like shit and other times it's okay, but but it because it, because that distillate.
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: It wasn't the problem with the distillate, it was a problem with who's blender.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Like you said, that first blend tasted like shit, right, and it's just like oh my God, you know, and I've always found and I've asked a lot of distillers and blenders this it's like I was a tasting something and they were having us blend it and on one hand there was one that had like a chocolate mint and the other one was like a caramel, right, but when you mix the two together, there was pineapple like, and there was no pineapple on either one, and all of a sudden it's like strong pie.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: And that's one of the cool things about when you do the blending, right.
• 28:27
  Speaker 5: That's what I tell everybody, because I see these people that talk about blending and they're not blending because they're treating it like they're baking a cake or a mixology and you're not taking these flavors again and you're not taking these flavors and combining them and 90% of the time nothing tastes good on its own and when you take, when you take everything, they're all different proofs and when you blend them together that's going to create a chemical reaction, Because even though you're not adding water, like one thing might be 118 proof, another one's 116 and another one's this, and that chemical reaction produces heat and it changes everything and you have to try to figure out how to get each one to interact with the other to cause all the bad flavors to go away.
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: You can't like bury a bad.
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: Sometimes everything tastes bad, Everything's like bad on the finish.
• 29:23
  Speaker 5: So you just have to figure out how to get it all in a rack with each other.
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: And I love it.
• 29:28
  Speaker 5: I mean it's way harder in the wintertime because, especially this past winter, it was cold and humid in Las Vegas or stuff didn't change when I brought it out of here.
• 29:37
  Speaker 5: It was extremely cold in Indiana.
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: So everything contract, sucked all the Tamins and all the impurities out of the wood and I was like man, this is fucking hard.
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: But you know, now it's summer again, it's like it's super easy.
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: And but yeah, you know, people are like oh, you've got the good barrels.
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: I'm like you come and try these samples, you know, tell me how good they are, yeah.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: I mean there's no doubt.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: I mean there's a lot of people that are picking up now, like you also.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: What's nice.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Now, how are you dealing with when you started?
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: You started buying MGP barrels like and you're very transparent and and we and now though you know you were there from the do they?
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Do they cut you in where you can keep going, because I know that that's that kind of that amount of whiskey that was available to you back then has kind of draw dried up.
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: Oh, I mean, there is no inventory really, it's all, it's all contracts, it's all stuff.
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: So then you started.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: You started going there having them make what you want.
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: So those are your barrels and they're all aging and you've caught up and now it's basically yeah.
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: So, especially next year, this year, this year we have some stuff.
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: I bought a bunch of stuff that was like 12 months old, that no one was buying, because all everybody was doing was buying stuff they could sell, because nobody cared about the future.
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: They all thought they were going to get bought out.
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: We never want to get bought out, and so when I was buying all these barrels, my sales are MGP is like what are you going to do with these?
• 32:15
  Speaker 5: Like I don't know, do the future?
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: You know like we're going to need them one day, like we have holes in inventory and and then we just started, so we bought all that.
• 32:24
  Speaker 5: We just started.
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: Contract is dealing as much as we could, which really hurts, you know, because you can't sell it, you don't write it off to put it in the bottle.
• 32:32
  Speaker 5: It's a very hard thing to do, especially because you're you know it should be like maybe 15 or 20 percent of your, if that of your, income, but then for the future you know it's like 15, 60 percent, and so you have all these huge sales, you're not making any money and but now, man, everybody's fucked and that's why I can have straight, you know, low 30s, under 30 with programming and uncut the younger low 40s under 40 programming, because it's I think they won prices for the display and I mean eventually everybody could get there, but I don't think they're going to last long enough.
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: You know, 150 brands went out of business in the past six months and when we're talking about selecting and all that stuff, that price point of over $60, that market has fallen off a cliff.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: Well, we just had a brand that last year we were able to pick up for a single barrel for $129 at Kentucky Bourbon Festival and that was a stretch on my pocket.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean, especially as us as podcasters we get I mean I get a crap ton of whiskey sent to me, you know just to taste and have on.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: You know samples Most of the time when people want to.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: You know I'm all for samples and I'm so.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I like the 375 milliliter bottles because, even overall, because I just keep getting more and more whiskey plus I'm a I like to go out and get the name brand and keep up on it because with the podcast, as the batches come out and the what people per se you know generally in the groups want and are looking for, if you do the, the tastings of it, you got to kind of keep buying it.
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: You know keep up current.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: They're not interested in what was the 2020.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: They want to know what 2023 tastes like, you know, and so I'm out there always looking.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: But I mean, now I had gotten to the point where I was buying some of these collector bottles, like 300.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: I think the most I've spent retail for a bottle was $330.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Out of the right, out of the gift shop, it was signed and everything.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: Really nice, bottle Delicious.
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: But you know, is a, you know, a $20 bottle of Jack Daniels compared to a $330 bottle.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: Is that bottle $310 better?
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely I don't think.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: I think I love bourbon.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: I do not think that gap is ever there, you know, but you're paying for the beautiful packaging, the marketing and the special limited.
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of stuff where I look at the packaging I'm like, oh my God, that packaging is like insane.
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: I don't even know what it, what it translates to retail.
• 35:35
  Speaker 5: I've only had one expression that was close to that price and that was the experimental series for the Rai.
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: And that's just because I bought it at eight years old and it was super.
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's a very expensive mash bill on day one.
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: You know day one price.
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: I think we pay $1100 a barrel for that, and bourbons like $700 a barrel, and so it like it hurt to buy it, but there's only 22 of those in the world.
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: So it's like, okay, we got to do it, you know.
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: But like a lot of my stuff, the limited stuff, the way I price it is not necessarily what you see.
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: It go for it, cause I agree with you.
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: I mean, like a $300 bottle, it's not scotch, well, and then it's got to age for like 20 years, you know, it's like it's bourbon, it's aging new.
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: Oh, it's got hot summers, cold winters.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of movement, it's, you know and there's so many different places it's being done.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: I mean, and you know, initially when you started the podcast we had some scotch, some Irish and bourbon and then a few rise and then we got really bourbon centered.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: You know we were doing the bourbon centered type stuff and then I started reaching out to regions.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: But you know, if you know some of the regions, I like the stuff coming out of there and I like pot stilled really good pot stilled whiskey, there's no doubt about it.
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: But then you know you've got that.
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: You're talking about that.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: I always call it the Kentucky brand, where you got the big bold.
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: You got the.
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: You know the flavor of the char and the wood and the caramels and the.
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: You know the dessert kind of bourbons.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: But then you know, but it's funny, like you said, with scotch used barrels, used bourbon barrels, and then it's in there and it's in a cooler climate and they can sit there for 20 years and you know it's the fine aspects.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: But, like you said, aging if you started aging bourbon and you know, right in the middle of the desert there, by the time it's three years old, there'd be almost nothing left and it would be like an oak bomb, right, all that would fit and add like 160.
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: So I've had stuff that I brought in at eight years old and I let it age for oh no, it's 10 years old.
• 38:03
  Speaker 5: I let it age for five years and it came out 160 proof.
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: But man, it is, it is.
• 38:13
  Speaker 5: I mean, we got like five cases out of the barrel and it's so thick it's like maple syrup and it's 160 proof.
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: And it drinks like it's 90 proof because like you feel it, like you have something and you're like oh, hey, hey, but drinking it because it is all the water's evaporated and all it's left is sugar, fat and alcohol and it's so good.
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: But if you brought but that's starting with something that was 10 years old, if I had a day, one barrel and it all evaporated in three years, it would be like over-oaked and not aged all you know, cause you'd lose so much so fast that there's not enough contact with the wood to actually to do anything.
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean.
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: So so you're, you're what you're distilling, contract distilling.
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: Right now are you aging it in Indiana too.
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, for most of the time.
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: I mean now I have eight year, seven year and six year that's been in Las Vegas for a long time that I only use and I'm trying to filter because the evaporation is so great.
• 39:23
  Speaker 5: The price point's too high for a small batch or anything else.
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: But but even like up hold for your barrels and if they're not ready we'll let them sit.
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: And then usually we let them, we forget about them and all of a sudden they're five or six years old.
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: We're like, oh hey, let's use these 24 barrels for an uncut and filter.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: So do you go there, pick the barrels that are ready and then have them shipped to you there.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Now do you do the bottling in Las Vegas.
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: Oh, everything happens in Las Vegas.
• 39:53
  Speaker 5: So I have a barrel inventory and I plan everything depending on warehouse location.
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: I figure out what I'm gonna pull it Like all the palletized stuff, and the six floor is gone before it turns five years old.
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: I burn through all that stuff and then I've stepped on the second floor and third floor that you know I'll probably wanna start pulling that till it's seven or eight years old.
• 40:20
  Speaker 5: And so we do a truck week now about 90 barrels a week and we just just kind of try to rotate where we let barrels sit and then so when the new barrels come like we dump the older ones and store the newer ones.
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: But yeah, like all the blending and everything that makes it special happens in Las Vegas, we do all the bottling ourselves.
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: And that's one of the.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: So, when you think about it, your price points.
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: That's an expense that some people don't have to have.
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: You have to get, you're distilling and aging in one place, and then you've gotta get those barrels to the and then age a little bit in another place and it's not close.
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: That was a mile, 1200 miles wasn't it?
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not too bad, it's like.
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: But the thing is it's like because we contract still so much, it all balances out because there's no way I could distill myself for the price that they contract still for me, based on water alone.
• 41:32
  Speaker 5: I mean, mgp sits on aquifer, they pull water out of the ground.
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: I figured it out.
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: We do 1200 barrels a month contract distilling.
• 41:41
  Speaker 5: That's over a 3,500,000 gallons of water a year for MASH.
• 41:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, if I'm paying the city of Las Vegas for that water.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we need to be dropping, yeah, exactly.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: We have a good source, yeah, if you were using that water in the desert, they'd have to have days that you can't water anything.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: No water days.
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: So it's like I think I mean, obviously I can't do something like benchmark full proof for $25.
• 42:18
  Speaker 5: I don't even know how they do that, because Well, even top shelf is 16.99.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: And it's I hate to say it, I'll just say it right now it's fucking fantastic bourbon.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: For that you just go.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: What is going on?
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: How did they do it?
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: Well, and then you don't want to buy it because it's so cheap.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: You got it and you know I'm not drinking that cheap bourbon, even though it tastes really good, and usually it's just sitting over there on my barrel and I'm just like hitting it and I'm like I can't tell anybody.
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: I like this.
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: Well, I mean, when you look at some of this like a full proof, like you know, 125 proof I mean the tax per bottle is like 320 to the federal government and so if you do your basic minimum margins, or okay, you're spending $3.20 to the federal government.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: So you're going to mark that up, it's $3.20.
• 43:17
  Speaker 5: So now that $7 of your FOB to a distributor and by that time it gets to the retail, that's like 14 or $16.
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: So $16 of that price is like tax alone.
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: You know and you had to make it yeah.
• 43:36
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I agree.
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: Wow, I think the one thing that you do well, aaron, as your price points are awesome.
• 43:42
  Speaker 6: Thank you To be from $29 for the entry level.
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: I think uncut, unfiltered in Ohio is $69.99 or it might be $64.95.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: I had in Kentucky.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: In Kentucky I paid $79.99 for that bottle.
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it's cheaper in Ohio actually, which is odd, no.
• 44:02
  Speaker 5: But it is.
• 44:03
  Speaker 5: It's not supposed to be, because we gave this state pricing so that it would be the shelf price in Kentucky, so nobody on the other side of the river would get mad.
• 44:15
  Speaker 5: So it should be in the 70s.
• 44:18
  Speaker 5: Maybe somebody was like selling up a cheaper.
• 44:20
  Speaker 5: But yeah, you know like when everything was hot, everyone was like you should raise your price and then you should charge $100 for this.
• 44:27
  Speaker 5: I was like, yeah, but all this is going to end.
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and also you know they say what you should do and you know what you want to do is bring good bourbon to people.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: And you're not and you need to make money.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: I mean your ship it's not and whatever, but you're.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: You don't need to gouge people, like some of the places that you know that there's a gouge in there, and when you do that, I just think that that affects the long term aspect of your brand.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: You in your truck.
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: Yeah, the goal was straight and I got the younger was always to make up for the low margins with volume, because it's four year.
• 45:09
  Speaker 5: I mean right now there's three year in it.
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: That'll probably end in two more months or so.
• 45:16
  Speaker 5: And I only did that because I was looking at the market and I was like, man, if we wait until October, really blow this up, it's going to be too late.
• 45:25
  Speaker 5: Because everyone people were charging like $100 for uncut the younger.
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: I was like what is happening?
• 45:30
  Speaker 5: This is ridiculous.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: So but that's, that's your marketing, that's your marketing play.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's like uncut the younger.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: It's like I looked at it.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: I remember looking at that bottle and I and just quite quite frankly so how I've expanded out.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: I haven't.
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: You know, I drink.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: So many people are sending stuff.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: So I'm starting to be able to expand out because I'm getting stuff from Texas, I'm getting stuff from Michigan and I'm getting stuff from Tennessee and that's not places I can go get it or you know it's that distance is getting to the point where it's got to be a vacation for me to go out there.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: You know, now Vegas is a little different because you know every single state has just direct cheap flights to Vegas so you can get there quick.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: But overall I, honestly, when when smoke, when I started seeing smoke wagon on the shelf, I mean I had the bottle in my hand 20 times because it's such an intriguing bottle.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: But I wasn't, I hadn't gotten a chance to taste it, so I hadn't, you know, gotten that bottle.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Now, this past November, when I bought the Christmas bottle, I was, it was there and the price point was perfect, and so I'm like I got to try this, but then I got yelled at by Super Nash.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: He was supposed to be on tonight but he had a problem car problems coming home tonight or a van problems, but anyways, he's just like.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: That's not what you're supposed to be buying and I'm like what I'm supposed to.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: He's like uncut, unfiltered, he goes, he goes.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: What, what are you thinking?
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: I'm like, what do?
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: You mean?
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: What am I thinking?
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: I?
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: just want to try the entry level first you know, and it's just like but then you get the, that marketing of the younger, how you put that.
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: I just think it intrigued people because they like you know, you hear so many people like smoke wagon.
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: You know there's, they get so excited about it.
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: There's people you know talk about age and everything.
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: Everybody says they want a hundred year old bourbon but there's mass loss of people that like uncut the younger better than regular uncut, unfiltered, because it has no oak and it has no tannins, so it drinks softer yeah.
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: And then what you got A lot of that's the blending to get a fucking three and four year to taste like that.
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: Yeah, those small feet.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: No, it's your palate.
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: And the other cut that I have here is actually a higher proof than the uncut, unfiltered yeah.
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: The younger is actually a higher proof.
• 48:07
  Speaker 5: So there's two things one in Indiana, because it's so humid, the proof will go down over time.
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: The other thing is uncut, unfiltered.
• 48:15
  Speaker 5: That seven, the seven year that I put in it, that came out of the subbasement.
• 48:21
  Speaker 5: We've had it in Las Vegas for almost a year now and it's finally up to like 108, 109.
• 48:28
  Speaker 5: But when I got it it was like 102 proof coming out of the subbasement.
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I've been taught now that once it's in the barrel, there's points where I've tasted some people's distillate at.
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: You know, 36 months.
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: You know, and you're like, well, that's not, that's a younger version of bourbon.
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, two is, you know, when you get to be straight but and you taste that 36 months and it tastes like a six, seven year old bourbon with a ton of sugar.
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: And it's kind of like it really every every barrel, like now when you have 22,.
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: You can't, it's hard to taste through every barrel, but as you find those barrels, I mean there's just sometimes it's ready to go earlier because how you know what the weather was?
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm under a belief that the probably the last six, seven years, the summers of in this country everywhere have been hotter and the winters are still.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: You know, just not.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: I think they were just average.
• 49:37
  Speaker 5: Not here, man.
• 49:38
  Speaker 5: We've had cold winters, and our summers are like nothing.
• 49:43
  Speaker 5: Now it's July and then it's over and that's it.
• 49:46
  Speaker 5: It's insane.
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: So that that probably helps, because you're not sucking as much stuff, it doesn't get as hot.
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: But but those 39 month old barrels, they saved me in the winter because the four years were so difficult and so overrope already and then the 39 month ones were like so beautiful and um yeah, and to tell you how much the market changed, I released that.
• 50:15
  Speaker 5: I remember telling my business partner I was like I'm gonna put 39 month stuff and I cut the armors, like oh you know, should we change it every month?
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: And like do a countdown to four year again?
• 50:27
  Speaker 5: And I said no.
• 50:28
  Speaker 5: And he was like well, what are the haters going to say?
• 50:31
  Speaker 5: And I was like it doesn't matter.
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: I just it feels.
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: I said.
• 50:35
  Speaker 5: I said I can tell you how I feel.
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: If I think about waiting till October to really push this, when all these barrels start turning four years old and it fills me with anxiety, I feel like we're going to miss a window.
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: And I can tell you how it makes me feel.
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: Put 39 month in, it's going to be great.
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: And he's like, okay, do it.
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: I did two posts.
• 50:59
  Speaker 5: One was my video saying hey, uncut, the younger is not doing what it's supposed to do, it's too limited, it's too expensive and I'm going to put 39 month in it and I'm going to do it so we can prank the shit out of it and get it out there and do programming and try to get it under $40.
• 51:22
  Speaker 5: And I guarantee you it's going to taste good, because there's no point in doing all this and pushing it and exposing it to people If it tastes like young dog shit right, and everybody's like thank you, you're amazing.
• 51:37
  Speaker 5: This is why we love this brand.
• 51:39
  Speaker 5: Thank you for looking out for us, thank you.
• 51:42
  Speaker 5: And then I did a post about the first rare eliminated in over a year and a half.
• 51:47
  Speaker 5: We're over two years ago.
• 51:50
  Speaker 5: People have been like I'm going to trade my kid for that, I'm going to find it and like who gives a shit?
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: I'm never going to get one.
• 51:59
  Speaker 5: And retailers are going to all.
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: It's going to go straight.
• 52:01
  Speaker 5: Everything was negative and if you reverse that, like two years ago, but in 39 months, everybody's like this brand's dead, it's over.
• 52:11
  Speaker 5: It's done, and you know, and it's as long as it tastes good, as long as you make sure it tastes good and using young stuff, as long as it brings you to an affordable price point, it's okay.
• 52:26
  Speaker 5: If I was like here's my 39 month old product for $85, then all of a sudden you know you're not even yet.
• 52:34
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's like what are you doing here?
• 52:37
  Speaker 5: Oh sorry, I wasn't planning for the future and we're still buying aged juice and all that's out there is 39 month old stuff and I'm paying for a random barrel for it, you know.
• 52:47
  Speaker 5: So here it is for 85 bucks, but because it's all stuff that I either bought young or or a contract, still, it's like, yeah, we're doing this, but it's to get more out, make it always available and, specifically, bring the price down.
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: I think what you saw, was the death of the bourbon snob.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: That's just what happened in the last couple of years.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, he used to be that person, used to be out there, and now people get so excited over all the different stuff.
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: But, like, like I've noticed and you mentioned that $129 bottle the state of Ohio did a pick with the same art label and everything, and that was 149.99.
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: And for me to pick a barrel, have a barrel pick and I love the brand Okay, I love the, the actual brand, it's one of my, it's a favorite of mine but that's 79.99.
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: And then you do a barrel pick with a special label and all this and then it's 129.99.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: That was kind of my cutoff.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: And now that it's 149.99, it's still.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: You know they've released barrels and it's all gone.
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: Before you get there at noon, you know to the store and then they've released barrels, that's it.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: And it was, as of yesterday, still on the shelf just sitting there because I think they went over the price threshold.
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: It's going to be there a while, sitting there for 149.
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: You know, there's a lot of stuff that's sitting there.
• 54:21
  Speaker 6: It's pretty great and we're at a point, I think, where people, like you said earlier, and is that people are not going to continue.
• 54:31
  Speaker 6: I think buying those really, really expensive everyday bottles there are looking for the $50 to $80 range is kind of probably the hotspot.
• 54:41
  Speaker 6: But once you eclipse $100, that market's different, unless it's a collector piece or it's a flipper thing or you know whatever.
• 54:49
  Speaker 6: But for an everyday thing to grab off the shelf, that's $129 that you can get readily.
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: I don't think that's happening a whole lot.
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's pretty interesting too because, like I've been some some bourbon Facebook groups and it seems like all the real bourbon people have left.
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: Like I never see anything interesting anymore.
• 55:13
  Speaker 5: It's definitely people that are 100% uninformed consumers trying to put on air as a being like a bourbon enthusiast, and you don't see like any mixtures.
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: You don't see any of the Willett stuff.
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: You don't see any rare four roses.
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: You don't see any rare like bean products.
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: You don't see anything that's like interesting.
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: All you see is like what you know, you would expect from like someone that didn't know anything about bourbon, and it's all like stuff that isn't really that good.
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: But because there's cashier behind it, I'm like what happened?
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: All the real bourbon drinkers you know it's like they've all left these groups or something.
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: Well, they have left a majority of the groups.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: They've gone.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: I've actually I belong to bourbon groups because we're we're shared to like 70 of them right now and I've try and belong to the groups where the admins are.
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: They got the perspective and then, you know, they let me, let, let us post in there because we try and bring good content.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: Not only do I all day long post our content, but I find content from distillers and releases and whatever, and I'll share it and when they appreciate that I mean one you know they're trying to.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: This one group was telling me, telling me I was spam.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: I was just posting once.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: Every time I did a podcast, I just put a link to them and they were like you're spam.
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: And I'm just like, how am I spam?
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: As if I'm spam, then every single guy that's in his car with his steering wheel showing you I mean, is this group just about looking at pictures of what people picked up or what they drank last night?
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: And I understand that's part of it, but when every single, like you know, post is that there should be some educational value to being in a group with some cool posts.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: You know some writer, you know some articles and you know there's a lot out there on the internet on everything like that.
• 57:24
  Speaker 5: The post that did it for me I think for this one group was someone wrote what's your favorite age range for pervin?
• 57:32
  Speaker 5: Mine is like 12 to 18 year and I was like, oh.
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: And everybody was like, oh yeah, I like 25.
• 57:42
  Speaker 5: It's like, shut the fuck up.
• 57:43
  Speaker 5: You have the agent in a subbasement where it never gets warmer than 50 degrees, so it's all totally.
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, it's all totally artificial.
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: All masters still are, say, five to seven years is a sweet spot.
• 57:59
  Speaker 5: Obviously there's exceptions depending on floors, but seven, eight, a year ago, people be like dude, age is relative, drink what you like, it's all going to vary on the conditions.
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: But everybody was like, oh, it was all, like just people who didn't know anything and it's like all the guys that stuff be gone, or something I agree with that because there's a couple like when they put the 10 years out or the 12 years out.
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: I always find that like, if you're like, for instance, one brand rebel, rebel yell I always find that the the 100 proof rebel and the rebel the actual, you know, rebel yell, that's just right on the shelf, that's a harsh spicy.
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: Go to the concert and get drunk off your ass whiskey for shooting, right.
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: So then they release some of these cast strength rebels and they, they still are cut and they still have that flavor profile, okay, and it's that sitting there at six, seven years.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: And then they released the 10 year rebel and it wasn't even the same frickin.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: It was now mellow and smooth, you know, and I don't or silky.
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: There was.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: The spice of that brand was completely gone, there was no pepper and it was just like and I enjoyed it but it's like you know, like you said, there's that brand, where it is the brand, and then when you start to take it further, you're starting to get into something different, you know.
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: Well, yeah, I mean, that's like Desert Jewel.
• 59:43
  Speaker 5: People are always like when are you gonna do Desert Jewel again?
• 59:46
  Speaker 5: I'm like I don't even know how that fits in the profile, really because I had 35 barrels on the fourth floor that were 10 years old and they were totally overrope and I was like you know 35 barrels.
• 59:59
  Speaker 5: Back then I was like what am I gonna do with this?
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 5: So we, I had to get.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: I couldn't even sell 35 private barrels at that time.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: So I was like we're gonna, I gotta get it out.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 5: And I even proofed it down to cut down on the oak.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 5: And all these people are like that's the best thing you've ever done.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: I'm like, well, when I used to taste it at liquor stores, it was not the best.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: Like one out of 12 people liked it and everyone else thought it was too oaky and too harsh.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: But there's.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: But that's the great thing about bourbon, is that?
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: So you know the proof hounds, everybody.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: There's these guys where, like, if they won't even touch something, that's 80 proof, because somehow they're so much better than you that they drink 125, 115.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 5: That you're just a- 80 proof, because if it's 80 proof it's chill filtered.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 5: So it's gonna be saying it's not gonna have a, it's not gonna be as textured, or.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 5: But I, I totally agree.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: I agree with that.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, but when you get the ad?
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: I just last night did a podcast with one of the neighbor women and she drinks, but she doesn't drink bourbon because 30 years ago she had a bad experience with whiskey.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: So I had her on the podcast, okay, and I showed her how to like bourbon and I gave her a basil hayden and it was 80 proof and she was like her eyes were lighting up and popping out of her, out of her head.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: But I got to a booker that 125.6 and she's like, oh, that's really good and it's just like that flavor.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: But it really comes down to your taste buds.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: Because I find if you're, if you've drank a lot of whiskey, you can't taste what's in an 80 proof because it is thin.
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean and so the you know there's a lot of people who are just coming into it and they can taste it because they haven't, for whatever reason, their taste buds aren't gone, they haven't burned them off or whatever, and it's just those guys just need.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: I've met a guy that has to have like a certain kind of whiskey because he can't taste the whiskey otherwise.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: Right, A lot of those proof hounds.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: You go to their Instagrams and they're drinking on ice.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 6: That's the chilled filter.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: They're like I only want hazmat.
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: And then you go to their Instagram and they're like I love this hazmat and it's on ice, like yeah.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 5: Yes, I don't want hazmat anymore.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: No, I'm not going to sit there and say I don't enjoy pouring it on ice.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: Every once in a while I find it.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: When I pour it on ice.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: I'm not looking for that flavor, I'm looking kind of for a refreshing, cool drink.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: And you know, and as the ice melts, it gets waterier and waterier and it goes down easier and easier.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: I blended small batch specifically to be versatile.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 5: And the way it opens up on ice, it never gets watered down.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 5: It tastes like fruit punch and so for me, uncut on a filter, I've blended that to taste the best neat, and I do not like it on ice because it does get kind of one dimensional and but yeah, it's like drinking, however you want.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: Like I don't give a shit.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I know a bunch of one dimensional delicious $22 bottles of, but that's.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: You know, that's when I'm at my fantasy of baseball or football draft.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: I don't mind putting that, I like the taste.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: It's one dimensionally good and then you're not.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: You know, when you're doing a draft or something, you're not looking.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: That's what you're about to drink right now.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 5: I mean it's not super complex but it's good and you know, hey, if you're out it might be nice to drink something.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 5: 92.5 proof and not 117, 118 proof, so you can have more than one.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and try it home.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no doubt I mean and that's what I always try and tell people, you know like for me I can't really settle on something that I really like, because all the bottles when you're here, most of them are open, because I've had to taste them and tell people what we thought.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: But then to revisit it it's almost impossible, because I've done a Monday night podcast, I'm doing a Tuesday night podcast, I'm doing a Thursday night podcast and then when I go up, then some I got to be with friends on a Saturday Well, if I'm drinking full out and I'm trying to empty these bottles, I'm dead eventually.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so when I'm at home drinking, I want to get unfiltered because I want to savor it and pick out flavors and everything.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: But if I'm out doing events, I'll drink straight or small batch because I don't, I'm talking and I'm being social, I'm not, I don't want to sit there and I just want to drink something yummy, like you said right, and I don't have to think about it or pick out flavors or control yourself as much, because you can be drinking that and then you can have a couple with everybody, opposed to when you're doing uncut All of a sudden and it's funny because it doesn't matter who we are, we've all been big it's like how the hell did you wake up the next morning?
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 2: And you're like, oh God, that should not have happened.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 6: So and you can.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 6: What's the so?
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 6: Not to get off that, but the future for the brand which.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: What's your vision going for the next couple of years?
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 6: What are you, what are you targeting?
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 6: What are you looking at doing?
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 5: Well, you know, trying to get in every state.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 5: Now that we have the ability to bottle more and our inventory is coming of age especially, you know, by the end of the year, beginning of 2024, we'll be in our new facility.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 5: Finally that we bought that lands, I don't even know, maybe 2021.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 5: And that's going to be awesome.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 5: It's four and a half acres, a block from the stratosphere, and so we'll be able to do tours there.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's an incredible piece of property it's a new jumping.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 5: What's that?
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 6: Bungie jumping off the stratosphere.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 5: Yeah Well, strippers with full auto machine guns and All right Depending zoo for the kids.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 5: You know you have the whole experience.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and so, and that will give the brand more exposure.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 5: You know, because you can only go so far with with Instagram and everything we really wanted to do, and so people are always like, hey, how much you want to do it.
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 5: I was like, you know, it's all looks like not really fun anymore and then we'll scale back a little, because the whole reason I got out of the bar business and got into this was, well, a the bar business.
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 5: The lifestyle has expiration date due to age for me.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 5: I didn't want to do it anymore and also I'm not relevant.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 5: I don't know what kids want.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 5: I'm not wanting, I don't understand what they want.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 5: You know, like people tell me, hey, we're going to do this at the bar, like that's the stupidest shit I've ever heard and it's totally successful.
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 5: You know, so and I don't really have that lifestyle.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 5: And when I have a bourbon lifestyle, I like to sit alone and drink and smoke a cigar.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 5: And and then also it's when I wasn't part, when I stopped partying and everything.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 5: I just sort of realized that the bar business, there was no creativity of just managing shit.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 5: And with this I'm always being challenged and I can be like hey, I want to design a t-shirt or I want to design a new expression or do a new label, or even the blending I'm always learning something blending.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 5: And so it's just, I'm always being intellectually challenged.
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 5: And there's I like working and I die.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: If I retired I would, I'd enjoy it for about four days.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: But, but you, but technically it is work but you enjoy it so much that that's like with the.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: That's why the podcast we're.
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 2: We are setting this podcast up so that in a couple of years, when I retire from my day job, this is what I'm going to do.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've already been really antsy and wishing because if I was doing it full time I could do so much more.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 2: You know, and at this point I can only do what I.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: You know, there's a bunch of times where I have a bunch of ideas and you know it's getting to be 11 o'clock at night and when I was younger I'd be gone till one in the morning and finish it all up.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: And now it's 11 o'clock at night and before you know it it's 11, 12 and I'm sound asleep because we're not getting younger.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: But it's so much fun, right?
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: That's what it what it comes down to when you're joining.
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: So you're doing, you are almost technically retired because you're doing what you're doing.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: No, you're doing what you love.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 5: There's a lot going on all the time, Right but who?
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: but you said, if you stopped you'd die right.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, if I stopped I'd die.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 5: You know there are moments where I lose the balance and I'm working too much, but those are getting more and more temporary and especially the more successful we are.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 5: And then once we move and I have places to actually put people, I can hire people to do the things I don't want to do and just blend and do the fun stuff and plan big picture things and yeah, you know, and then I love it and like, and we've turned down big offerings, like you know, people are like, oh, are you next?
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 5: And like they came to us first.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 5: Man, like you know, I don't, what would I do?
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: I mean, and you, it's like the money is insane, like you know, cause we're still not really we're doing okay, but Jonathan and I, my business partner and I, we're not making like big money yet.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 5: That'll happen, you know, within six to eight months.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 5: But you know, if you sold, all of a sudden you have more money than you can spend in a lifetime.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 5: If you're like, oh, my God, I can't believe you didn't, you don't take the money, you're stupid or whatever.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 5: And it's like, well, you know, one day that money will be nothing, cause I have confidence in the brain, and the other thing is it would just make everything disingenuous, in my opinion.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 5: Like I really, we got here with the support of the fans and I just feel like everything would have been bullshit and I wouldn't feel good about it, like, hey, thanks everyone.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: See, you know cause.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 5: There's no way we could do it the way we do it.
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 5: If you sold, we would lose the soul of the brand, and you know cause they.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: And then also, it's not like I could sell and walk away.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 5: They would want to keep me you know Well, I mean Penelope straight up Penelope, they did it, they, whatever they were doing it.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: And then they, they're still there.
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: They didn't, they didn't just kick them out, right.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 5: They're not still there.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 5: They're there for like another year and then they're gone.
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: And then they're gonna be gone.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: They'll have to get the numbers up and that's it.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 5: And once they get the numbers up, they don't even have to be there for a year If they get the numbers to a certain point.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: They're gone.
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: They're gone.
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: Okay, do they want to be gone?
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: I think so.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, I've met them, so you've actually talked to them.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 5: Yeah, when I was in Illinois.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 6: Cool that's actually.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 6: I can appreciate that, aaron, that you're invested in it like you are, because I mean again, if it was about the money number one, you'd be selling the bottles for more than you're selling for.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 6: You know, let's be honest, it's not just about the money.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 6: It's about a love of something that, at the end of the day, you're fulfilled, you feel like you're doing something.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 6: That means something, that you have something that has your name attached to it your face.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 5: It's funny.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 5: You just said you'll fulfill and I always do that.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 5: That's the first time that, like anyone's put a word to it.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 5: It's such an obvious word because I always talk about if I sold, what would I have?
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 5: I just have money or money.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't have anything.
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 5: And I always like, oh, I don't know if it's ego or what to be the smoke wagon guy, but it is.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 5: It is.
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 5: It's a fulfilling experience.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: Well, just the fact that you do Instagram you know you did Instagram it tells me you have an ego.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: That's being true, no, but not a not of overinflated ego.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: You basically thrive on doing something and being successful Now, and what's awesome is you're not selling, and I really appreciate that aspect, and not that I would have anything if you did.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: You know there's so many people that did it and then the brand goes and you know, then there's a lot of money.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 2: But if you guys take it to that next level, not only will you have your ego still intact, you'll have all the stuff and all the jobs, but you also have the money and it's like you have it all that way.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: But you got to be patient and you know if you sell, you have one thing.
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 6: If you sell, you have one thing you have money, yeah, and that's it.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 6: And if you keep it, you have your employees, you have your friendships throughout the industry.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 5: And they have a great life.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 5: You know, because we have.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 5: You know I might not be making tons of money yet, but the company has tons of money and I make sure they're taken care of.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 5: They all get paid a lot.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 5: They all have like the best benefits you can get.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 5: They all have.
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 5: You know what do you call that?
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: They all have pensions, they all have life insurance, they all have everything and I'm pretty fun.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 5: I'm pretty fun to work for and we've got a good team and you know it's cool.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 5: Like you feel like you're making a difference.
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 5: You know what I mean.
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well you know, this is the first time we've met or even talked.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't think we've even talked on Facebook.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: But you know, ct set this up and I really appreciate it.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: But I can tell you one thing it's kind of like what was you know, meeting you, and then your personality and everything, and then how you're doing something.
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: You've got everything, and then now when I go in and to purchase a bottle or see a bottle, I'm going to be wanting to purchase it because you know and that's how that works, and I think there's a lot of people that just you know, watched here on Facebook and then also, as we put it up on YouTube and out there, we'll get the, you get the word out.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: And when you understand somebody who's put what you're putting behind it, you know, and there's places you know big places, you know that have families and you see them putting the same thing behind it.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 2: You know they're they.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 2: They do a lot of stuff.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: Although the big conglomerate might be running everything at one level, they're still running what the quality is and you have that same kind of thing.
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 2: You know going where, and it's kind of exciting to see how passionate you are and when you tell your story.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 5: Oh, thank you, man.
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 5: Like, look, it's like I did.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 5: I did a post on my Instagram.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 5: I did this huge event in Illinois at Finney's.
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 5: I was the only brand owner behind the table and it was a two-part event.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 5: The first is all the Vinney's employees from all 30, whatever stores they have, and then it was all their whiskey people and so all these other owners were there and they had like brand ambassadors behind the table.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 5: I'm like, well, that's what big brand you know, because these guys they were like, well, it'll be like a big brand.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 5: Well then, what's separating you from a big brand?
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 5: If you're not having a real connection with your fan base, then there's no.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 5: Why would they choose you over a big brand especially?
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 5: I mean, let me tell you, big brands have been cranking out the juice.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 5: You know, there I might be ahead of the game with uncut, the younger or whatever, but they'll all get there.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 5: And then, all of a sudden, that will be the market and I, you know, hopefully I will be still perceived as you know, an individual who it's my palate.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 5: I'm there, you know who's doing it, you know who's blending it, and that's what will separate me.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 5: But then you'll have all these other brands and they're not going to have any cast-iron bourbon in that price point and it's just like.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 5: Well you know, because the big brands, they have advantages and disadvantages.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 5: The disadvantages takes them forever to act, they're so slow.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 5: The advantages they got money, man, and money doesn't.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 5: It's not just oh well, we can lay down all this juice and we can reach these price points.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 5: They can buy all the data.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 5: They can buy all the data from distributors.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 5: They can buy all the data, all the Nielsen data, from stores.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 5: They are totally in tune with what the market is.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 2: Right, well, I mean, they can even take your bourbon that you you're like just, let's say, uncut, and they can get a.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: They get a bottle, they can analyze it from a chemistry level and if they want to produce something that's similar, they can do it if they want.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 5: That's how detailed it gets.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 5: I don't know if that's real, because you know, when I do uncut we'll do four batches all the same brand.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 5: They have the letters and every time it's a little bit different.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: Right Now, once again that's what that's see you exist in what the industry has evolved into, because up until the nineties, consistency in a brand was the hardest thing to do.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, to make that year after year taste exactly the same was a very difficult thing to do.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 2: You had to be skilled with a great palette and an understanding of what you, what you did.
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 5: And then the nineties.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 5: That's what I try to do is straight and uncut the younger to differentiate them, you know, but it always they're your pal, they're your familiar friend, right?
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 5: You always know what to expect when you know, when you, when you get it.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: So then when you start making those blends, you're trying to get that same, you're trying to stay consistent, but with the uncut people there's so many people that have jumped in, especially the younger people who love the diversity of that.
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: And I love the fact that when I'm tasting through some of these newer, because of the aging process right now, how the climate is in their certain areas, I find that the bourbon from year to year has been getting better, even on the low end of the brands, because of the fact that those barrels are aging the way that you haven't had any weird weather phenomena for whiskey.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: You've had.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 2: You've had like the stream end of the best of it and it just keeps staying there.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 2: Get a little bit hotter, you know what I mean.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 5: Well, I also think that you know, blenders are finally getting prestige and and and that's what they don't understand about.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 5: to still master distillers is those guys are chemists, you know, and?
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 5: And people are like why don't you distill, you know?
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 5: Besides the fact, the water and everything is like if I was going to still myself out, hire somebody.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 5: That is not my forte, right?
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 5: And the guy who wants to sit there and create a chemical reaction every day that's identical to the chemical reaction before.
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 5: It is very hard and you have to have the personality for it.
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 5: I do not have the personality for that.
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 5: I have the personality for it.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 5: Woo, give me all the stuff, man, Let me mix it together and see what happens.
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean that's why there's, like you know, old Forester.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: They hire young women to be the blenders.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, their, their palate's phenomenal, so they put, they can produce some really good.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: They get all the shit and you can.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: You know it's when it's distilled properly.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 2: Then it comes down to what you release it to, right, yeah, and and uh, I look, look what they did for Freddie know, at Jim Bean, I mean, they built, they built it, named it after his dad, but that's his distillery as far as what he can do, because he was trying to do it on the big stills and he he would just the maintenance.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: People would just like go crazy, because you know they have it all set up to produce Jim Beam or Booker's or you know, and it's just what they produce every day and he's trying to produce, you know, you know bourbons with an extra grain of.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 2: You know you throw rice into the whole picture.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: It doesn't distill the same way, you know, and that's why they built that distillery.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: So it's exciting times, right.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, Well, that was the thing too, Like when I went to MGP for the first time and they were like, though you want to meet Greg, their master of silver, I'm like, yeah, where is he?
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 5: Is he like rubbing grains together, you know, is he in his overall sniffing the distillate?
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 5: Like no, he's in the control room.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 5: Look at the computer screens, what are you talking about?
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 5: And you go to the control room and there's all these computer screens, and the computer screens have the chemical in real time, the chemical composition of the distillate, because they have a methanol sniffer.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 5: And then you go, so they're making sure the chemical composition of the distillate is exactly the same every time.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 5: And then you start thinking, well, hey, you know, if there's acetone in it or methanol, it's going to be more than a blind and die.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 5: You know, it's kind of.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 5: I would want a methanol sniffer telling me when to do my heart cuts and not my temperature, or like smelling it and tasting it.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 5: You know, because you know, and that's and that's what you want.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 5: You want that distillate to be exactly the same so that when it goes into the barrel you can have some sort of idea.
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 5: That's where the magic happens.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 5: And so I think if those master distillers didn't have the skills that they have, they would have.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 5: There's just too many variables to be too unpredictable.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: Well, you know that's like modern day distilling.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 2: Okay, but you still need somebody who understands what you know, like what they're trying to do.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: So you can't just like you hire the distiller and tell them this is what you need to do.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: You just match these little numbers and they're on the screen.
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: It's like you need somebody who, like, is like looking to take those numbers specifically distilled before, and then make their process that they've come up with perfect.
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: And that's just kind of like.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 5: I've just seen some really good, you need someone at the tail end of it, taking the finished product and knowing what to do with it, because everything's going to change depending on the weather.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, again, nobody has an oak farm.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 5: You don't know, like, where that oak was grown or what kind of flavors it's going to impart, and sort of do warehouse management deciding when to pull what, depending on its location, and all that stuff.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 2: Well, the cool thing is is one of our friends of our, we know, greg Schneider, and he's doing bringing back the chicken cock brand.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 2: But one of the things he did was because he was head of the Cooperage at Brown and Foreman.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: He got a West Virginia company to make the great barrel company and there but he basically kind of told them how to set it up in exchange for he basically picks every stave for his barrels from wood oak that grew on the shade side of the mountain that they pulled out and then he picks every single one and he keeps the consistency of the tree that he picked what kind?
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 5: of barrels does he do Anondone?
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: He's doing 600, he does 600 bourbon barrels and 600 rye barrels.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 2: Now this year they went to I think they went 900, 300 on the bourbon.
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 5: I do 1200 a month.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 5: I don't think we could pick this.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 2: Oh no, no, he knew he knew that eventually would end.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: But he basically did the seed and it's like he initially started distilling at Barnes Hall and Bourbon Company and it basically had it was him, nick Smith and Steve Nally all three of them.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 2: So he had like three master distillers working on getting the perfection of this and he was just buying regular barrels.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 2: But for the last four years he's been doing this with the barrels and I'm just they just switched over to the barrels that they were purchasing from what they were doing before that, where they were blending a little bit of some of the younger, their younger stuff was stuff that they had purchased for sourcing.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 2: But, now, this year was the first chicken cock that was 100% there for a year out of the barrels that they just purchased normally.
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 2: But, like you said, when the stave companies are making the barrels they're not like trying to keep the tree separate.
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: You could have all the staves come from all different trees and if that's the case, there's never a time where it's all the same.
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 2: And that explains always the difference of the taste of the whiskey, right.
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 6: Aaron, since you're sourcing through them, do you have a choice on where the barrels come from, or do you have to use what they set up for you?
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 6: I?
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 5: have to use what they said.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 5: I mean, if I wanted to pick, I could do, like you know, maybe some special runs where we would do hand-pick the barrels, but the cost I'm sure would be exponentially higher.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so by sourcing.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 6: Not only sourcing the liquor, the bourbon from them, but you're also sourcing the barrels through them as well.
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so they primarily.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 5: Now it seems like they primarily use space-side and independent.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 5: Stave, I really don't see Kelvin too much more anymore.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 5: I have to go back and look at my inventory.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 5: I know they're all tied stuff, it's all space-side or all independent.
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 5: I can't remember which one they liked better.
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 5: And then I'm the only supplier that gets to specify sidefill rack.
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 5: So all my contract is still in your sidefill rack and doing 1200 barrels a month, that is the maximum sidefill rack they can do of a single matchbook.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 5: So all the 36% rye that is racked in the old Seekers warehouses is mine.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 2: So on your distillate.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: What's your match bill on your bourbon?
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 5: Oh, it's the 36% rye, 4% barley, 60% corn that used to be the hardest Seekers.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 5: That's where that comes from.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, and then what's your barrel chart Four, four, because what I pick up that Smoke Wagon has is that I can taste the char.
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 5: That's in there and definitely now with this I like to blend out the tannins but leave the char.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 5: So it's got like that char on the back of your tongue.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 5: There's like a little bit of bitter black tea, but it never gets to that point where it's like really tannin heavy.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: I would say that's exactly what I.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 2: You've just explained exactly what I'm tasting, because I pick up the char and it almost reminds me that it drinks like a Scotch, A little bit like a Scotch.
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: It's got that, you know.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 2: Now I can tell you this particular bottle.
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 2: I'm picking up the char with a little bit of a fruity note there's a little.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 2: But this bottle I pick up the char with the chocolate caramel note.
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 5: So that the Christmas straight that should taste the same all the time.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 5: The uncut what batch is it?
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 2: It's the 168D the 168D.
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 5: So is that summer?
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: It was a bottle, january 26, 2023.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 5: Okay, wintertime batch, yeah.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 5: So it's gonna be heavier and earthier and have deeper flavors.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 5: Okay.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 5: That's batting 66.
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 5: 66?
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 5: .
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 5: Holy shit.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: And that tells you right there how long he's been drinking your product.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 5: There you go.
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 5: It's funny.
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 5: I was just talking to someone and this guy, his bourbon group, was like oh, smoke wagon has gone so downhill in quality.
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 5: He's like okay, well, aaron says the best batches are from like beginning of like summer 2022 and this year.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 5: Because I fucked with him way too much when there was hype behind the brand, I was so stressed out every time I was doing an uncut blend I would keep blending past where it was ready, just to make sure it was the best it could be.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 5: And finally I said, fucking, I really liked this, we're going with this.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 5: And I said, consistently they're the best now.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 5: And he said that all the new batches and the blind taste, the newer batches were chosen over the older batches and even uncut the younger.
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 5: He just threw it in not telling anybody and people preferred uncut the younger over the old batches.
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 5: So it's like well, shit, I should sure fucking hope so.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 5: I mean, I've been doing it for seven, eight years now.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 5: I hope I've gotten better and our inventory is so vast.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 5: People like talk about old uncut batches, like we're using like 50 and 40 year old bourbon.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 5: It was still as four and eight year.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 5: Now it's four and a year and six year, sometimes five year, seven year and eight year.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 5: So it's not like it went from being like this and, oh my God, they no longer use that 20 year old bourbon, they're using four year.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 5: It's like, yeah, it was always four year.
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 5: And the craziest thing is when I learned that people don't know what age tastes like is during the high-peatiness type of the brand.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 5: I did uncut batches with no four year and sometimes no four five year, and everybody was like these uncut batches are so young and so harsh, oh my God.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 5: And I was like actually there's all old juice and you don't know what old tastes.
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 5: These people don't know what old tastes like because most old stuff is charcoal filtered or chill filtered, and so your moves a lot of the tannins and all you're left with is like what you're saying an hour ago it's a very smooth, and they don't understand what old tastes like because they're not drinking unadulterated stuff and so it's just.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 5: I mean.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 5: And, by the way, and that was helping with the evolution of uncut the younger, because when I first did uncut the younger, I too was like, oh my God, I'm going to uncut the younger and I tried to leave some age in it and everybody's like it's too young, it's too harsh.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 5: And I was like, oh well, let's see what happens when I blend all the age out and just 100% fruity time, no oak at all.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 5: And like let's really make it a cast-frame version of straight, maybe some char, but no oak, no bitter black tea, no tannins.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 5: And now everybody loves it, you know, and it's a trend.
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 5: So also you just look at what's behind you.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: I mean that's crazy.
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 2: And so you kind of understand the market in the fact that you're never going to make everybody happy, like you said, you know.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 2: But at the same time there's so much of a vast difference of palettes, of what people want in these whiskey pockets, right?
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 2: So what opened me up to it is I went on a bunch of picks with the Kentucky Bourbon Festival.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: We've done a couple of picks ourselves.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 2: I went on a couple of group picks and when you're on a group pick or you're picking that one barrel, you're looking for a special barrel, something unique, maybe not even on brand, but you're looking for, you know, big, bold flavor or just something that's really complex, weird and funky.
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 5: you know, that's what I think single barrels should be.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah but then you go on a pick with the state of Ohio and actually I did it with Greg Metz for Old Elk.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 2: You know he took that whole.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 2: I mean basically they don't say it, but he basically produced a malt, a high malt bourbon.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: I mean it's the malt, 34%, it's the rye that's down.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: And then you know, with the corn, and when we were picking, we picked, we had 40 barrels to taste through.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: There was finished barrels, there was wheat, whiskey, there was rye, there was, you know, and we went through 40.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: And when you're picking for the whole state of Ohio, you're not picking for that one barrel.
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 2: They basically picked 36 of the 40 barrels and there were just a couple of them that you could tell were off.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: But then when I, when I talked to Jim, Jim Canepa, who's the head of OHLQ, I, you know, I asked him and he's like there are so many different palates in the state of Ohio.
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: We just have to make sure when we're picking barrels, if someone offers it to us, that we know they're going to buy it, but we have to make sure that it's a good way.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 5: That's why I go through every barrel and improve what is going to be offered as a pick and what's not, because I know there's going to be somebody out there with a shit palette and they're going to like some off barrel for some stupid fucking reason, and then 99% of the people aren't going to like it and it has my name on it and they're going to try it and go.
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 5: Well, this is terrible, you know, and so I can't let.
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 5: I will not let that happen.
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 2: So now, now you want me to come out to Vegas and do a pick with you.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 2: You got to be fast.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 2: There's no, don't bring a notebook and start right now.
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 5: It's like yes or no.
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 6: Yeah, that barrel you wanted is half gone.
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 6: In an hour it's already yeah.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 5: Oh, my God, man, when I used to sneak bourbon groups in back in the day and show up with their notebooks and everything, and I'm like, I'm like, guys, you're on vacation, I'm not on vacation.
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 5: Like, just please, like, tell me which one you like better.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 5: Like, let's keep it moving.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 5: No, like you teach the.
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 5: I think I teach the cherry that.
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 5: I mean like, dude, you see the like it or you know, it's like come on, I've been doing these videos and people are like, oh, I'd love to do that with you.
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 5: I'm like we just did 24 barrels in 35 minutes.
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 5: Okay, it's like you know you would slow us down.
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 5: We got to get this shit done and and you know, because it's either good or it's bad, it's bad, it doesn't make it.
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 5: If it's good, it makes it, you know, and but yeah, and then also back to the weird part.
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 5: Like there was one.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 5: There was a group where I handpicked a barrel for them, cause it tasted like it was infused with jalapeno, and I gave them two and they picked the one that was like really delicate and soft.
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 5: I was like, why are you guys picking that one?
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 5: I only kind of gave me two just so you had a choice, but really there was no choice.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 5: Is the jalapeno barrel and like well, this one we could drink every day.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 5: Like I got fucking all these other expressions.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 5: You could drink every day.
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 5: That should be like special time, you want to drink that bottle of note.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 6: That's where it came from.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 6: Yeah, there's only so many bottles of it.
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 5: It's like memory in a bottle.
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 5: You know it's like that's the one you want to bust out when you're in the mood for that, like if you want them to drink.
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 5: I agree, I agree.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: It's like.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 2: It's like when you pick for our group Okay, there's ones you know that you can't drink every day.
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 2: There's ones you know that will just sell.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: It's just like, well, that one will sell, everybody will love that one.
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 2: And then there's that one that that sitting there, that was all complex and it was like the most unique kind of thing and it was changing and doing all this shit and I'm like that's the one I want.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 2: And then everybody's like, well, but you could sell that one.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: And I'm like I want people, when, when you're doing picks, to think that you're going to be getting them something different than that.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 2: And just you know if they want something that just sells.
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 2: And it's just a version that's right on a flavor profile of the actual small batch, it's like no.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean as long as there's nothing unpleasant like even the girls are picking today for Ford and Megan, because they didn't taste good but there was weird ones, but everything was good.
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 5: You know, it was just like whoa, there's a lot going on here, but it wasn't.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 5: Nothing was unpleasant, you know, but I know what you mean.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like if you want something smooth, just don't go.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 5: You know, drink or drink, or drink, or drink.
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 2: Why are you on a barrel pick tasting barrel straight bourbon if you want it to be smooth.
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 5: No, yeah, I agree, I think it should be interesting.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 2: Alan Bishop from the spirit of French.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 2: Look, he's the distiller there.
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: He did a video on he goes.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 2: You should never use smooth as a description on he goes as a distiller.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 2: It's like what the fuck does that mean?
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 5: Tell me what smooth means Easy drinking, you know, no bite.
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 5: I mean again, it's like when you, when you give, when I give inexperienced bourbon drinkers all the core expressions anything straight is the most expensive because it's the easiest to drink, and so they associate that with like having no bite is luxury, you know, and yeah, well.
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: And then I also find if you got, if you have women, they'll like make faces at 80 proof and they'll be like, oh, like that's so hot.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 2: And then you give them 125 proof and they're like, oh, I like that, it's just like it's.
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: It makes nothing ever makes sense.
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 2: And that's what I love about whiskey it's like you could be.
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: You know, you're doing for a consistent thing and really putting a lot of time and effort and it's showing in your products.
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 2: So you know.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's still a lot of fun Most of the time, you know.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 6: I'm excited to see more of it in Ohio.
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 6: I think you were in Cleveland.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 6: What a few weeks ago.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it was a little unfortunate.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 5: The broker kind of treated my trip like a normal brand coming to town and so, oh, it's been way too much on premise sales focus, when I should have been doing tastings and bottle signings.
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 5: And he was like, oh, we'll do that next time.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 5: Like dude, I'm not a brand ambassador.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 5: The owner of the company, I, it's like I it was only 12 months a year and look at how many states I'm in.
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 5: When do you think I can come back?
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 5: Like it's not going to be next month, you know, it's like it's just kind of a wasted opportunity.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 5: And the state I told the state I was like, hey, I felt like this is a wasted opportunity, we should have been doing this.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 5: They're like yes, that's exactly what you should have been doing.
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 5: You should have been doing tastings at, you know, liquor stores, agencies moving products, so that your 45 day sales goes up, so we order more.
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 5: It's all an algorithm and then everybody can get more if it's.
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 5: You know, if these, if these on premise places are buying one or two bottles a week, that's not going to change the algorithm.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 5: And I was like, yeah, the fans are kind of bummed because nobody got to see me.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 5: And she was like we were bombed.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 5: You know how long we want to get in the state and want to get you in here and nobody knew you were here and we didn't get to meet you, like no one was happy.
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 5: But yeah, I was in Columbus and then Cleveland.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 2: So next time you come let us let us know.
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 2: We'll do a pre podcast before you come and then we'll meet you where you're at and promote it because honestly, like I said, when people meet you, so that's the most, that's the most important thing.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: Although you're at in all the states, you have to do it there and they meet you because and then they know your story, because I find there's a lot of brands that launch here in Ohio and in.
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 2: People walk into the store and they see it and they're like I know nothing about that and then they're like well.
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 2: I do know, I saw that guy, you know, and that's why Instagram is so important.
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 2: They might, that might help you out, because I saw that, I saw him on Instagram.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 2: I'm going to try that bottle and that's the key to that's the key to everything right.
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 5: We in there and connect.
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 5: There's no, there's no, there's no.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 5: Stuff super being there and connecting with people.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 5: Boots on the ground.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's, you know.
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, that's how it's been done forever in this industry and it's still a very important thing.
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 2: But now you got social media.
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 2: So when you got boots on the ground, people are like I always wanted to meet you.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 5: Social media is good to generate like height and recognition and get, get, get it in the stores, but you got to go and like, connect with the fan base and everything to.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 5: And dinners dinners are huge because people will just go.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 5: People will go to the liquor store to meet you specifically for me, right, We'll go to dinners, just because they go to all the dinners that restaurant has and so they're being introduced to the brand for the first time and they're here and they're like oh my God, this was the best one I've ever been to, you know, because they're going fuck, fuck, fuck, blah, blah, blah, you know and like, and usually it's robots like oh, we create a yeast, this is the best yeast you know, and all this stuff.
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 5: And it's just like you know, when I was in Kentucky, everyone was like thank you for being a real human.
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 5: You know, doing stuff like the Louisville Bourbon Society or whatever, it's huge and there's tons of members, so all these brands want to get in front of them.
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 5: And they just said like a brand ambassador was like like yeah, we can read all this shit on the website.
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 5: You know, you're not even told us anything new.
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean.
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's just like that.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: We do Kentucky Bourbon festival and it's just such a great festival.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: I mean not just for for a brand, but to go there.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: All the people that are in Kentucky that are associated with making it, they're there, they're on premise.
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 2: You know, fred?
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 2: No, you know Dan McKee from Mitchell, all the people, they're all there and it's like it's not a normal festival.
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 2: Like you said, you go to a normal festival.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 2: You might, that you go to, you might be one of two people that are selling their brand, that are part of making it, and then the other people are reps and they're just pouring in it.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: I find they have a value because you get to taste the whiskies that you might not ever taste.
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 5: You know that's good for stores, you know, like if you can't get to every single store and the products not really moving.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know I are a rep to just let people try it, right, they don't even have to know what the brand's about.
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 5: They try and go yum, oh, look at the price.
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 5: I have.
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 5: That taste good and that price is great.
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 5: I'll buy it.
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 5: I don't need to know the fucking story.
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 5: But if you're going to a whiskey specific event, I mean I'm not going to go to alcohol events anymore, because there's people that are there for beer or whatever, or rum, and they're like which one of them they fucked up the fastest and like, oh my.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 5: God, that's way too valuable for this.
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 2: That's not what bourbon's supposed to be.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 5: But like bourbon whiskey specific events and everybody's like.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 5: Therefore, you know, yeah, they want to try it.
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 5: That's where I want to be.
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 5: You know, if I'm not doing a smoke wagon specific event, but yeah, like the store stuff, like doing bottle signings is awesome, but for me to go to like all these stores and do tastings, it's like that's not anybody can do that, right, yeah?
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 6: I think you would do well as somewhere like Fards town, where you could get your name out there in a positive way, where there's 50 other brands but people would meet you.
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's the key.
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 2: They meet you.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, you know, bottle signing and whatever.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 5: I mean that was like when I did that one whiskey fest at Vinny's, I was like I was like man, we didn't send you guys like table covering or or like a little, there was no smoke wagon anything and they're like wait, you don't need it, you're behind the table.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 6: Yep, it's important.
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 6: I mean, you know, brand recognition is by you just as much as the bottle, or you know, and a lot of brands don't have a face to go with the brand.
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 6: I mean it just doesn't happen.
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, or they try to fabricated, or like I've seen pictures like because we're successful.
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 5: You see, like these owners like rolling barrels around and brand new clothes and brand new clothes.
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, not, you look when you roll a barrel around, dude, and you will not see pictures of me anymore and I'm done Like he's just done your.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 6: You're out West, so you do you know Seth Broken barrel.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 5: I met him once yeah.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 6: So, Seth's a great guy and that's the one thing I can appreciate about Seth.
• 1:47:44
  Speaker 6: You know he's not.
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 6: He's not out there in a suit and tie, breaking barrels and putting stuff together.
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 6: He's like you.
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 6: He's working his butt off and trying to create a brand that he is the face of.
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 5: So I am not.
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 5: I don't have little barrels around anymore, though these are over.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's called, that's called smart.
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 6: But the question everybody wants to know is does the eight track player really work?
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, no, yeah, absolutely yeah.
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 5: The only sad thing is I bought a 73 and Alpine 73 90 for my 88 I rock, which was expensive and I sent it out to get it fixed, and eight my death level hysteria tape which is like a super rare you know metal, like whether it's CRO to take, like, and it sounded so good and then it stopped.
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 5: Oh my God.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: You just, you just brought back memories.
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 6: Last Tuesday we were at the death leopard concert.
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 6: No, I didn't know.
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was that was, they didn't lose a step.
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 2: Death leopard we there was Motley crew and death leopard.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 2: Motley crew definitely is showing their age, local age, but but death leopard.
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 5: I think that Nikki six doesn't play bass anymore.
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 5: Yeah, like they.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 5: Like he stopped playing in the track.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 5: But who?
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 2: the when you're there, okay, and this, this visual that they put forward.
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 2: I mean they are like taking like when death leopard was on the stage and you got the big screens.
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 2: It allowed you from the distance to see them, okay they put them up there and you could see who was singing, you could see who was playing guitar, but frickin Motley crew it was it was basically they turned their whole concert into a music video.
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was like they would like he'd be.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: You know, Vince Neil would be singing and all of a sudden he'd be.
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: You see him for like two seconds, you know, on the big screen, and then they like freeze it and throw all these special effects.
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 5: He was melting with lava and then the lights and the laser, I mean it was, it was like there's no like I mean those albums, especially like a studio.
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's so well produced.
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 5: Extra, and I mean Motley crew, is just like.
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there was the difference.
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 2: You know both.
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 2: I enjoyed Motley crew.
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't say I didn't like them, and I've heard that I expected worse.
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 5: Yeah, but.
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 5: But I mean, it is what it is, but death leopard just frickin, just went, it was nuts, how good it was.
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 5: I didn't feel they lost a step, like accomplished musicians on a very high level.
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, and the guy could sing Mary had a little lamb and you'd be like God, that's the best fucking rendition.
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 2: Well, but, but when he first was, when he started out the night, he wasn't pushing the high notes.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 2: Okay, so and then, but as the as it kept going and they just kept building towards their hits, he was just knocking the high notes out of.
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, it sounded like, I swear to God, rock of ages was better than the album.
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 2: And listening to that song, live, I was like that's better than the album.
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 2: And so when you say that about someone live, you know, and then they're, they're advanced age for a band.
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: You know, it's just like I wasn't expecting that, but I really thoroughly enjoyed it, right?
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 2: So all right.
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it's really late for you, yeah it's 11.
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: We had a Lisa Roper wicker on one night and it was I.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 2: When I finished, the podcast was like two hours and 43 minutes.
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: I actually apologized to her because we were just talking and whatever.
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 2: And I'm just like how the hell was it two hours and 43 minutes?
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 2: I cut it in half and whatever.
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 2: But you know we enjoy hanging out with you, so I appreciate the time.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 5: I do, I, it's I, yeah, I, if you, probably, if it started at four, I definitely could have gone to a person for me and it has been a long day.
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I don't want anybody to go two hours and 43 minutes but at the same time, it helps.
• 1:52:12
  Speaker 2: The longer you're just live on Facebook, the more people that you know you're getting out there too, so, and we really appreciate your time and I had a great time.
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 5: I hope I answered all your questions.
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, for sure.
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, everybody, we're going to wrap up.
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: We are the Scotchy bourbon boys wwwscotchybourbonboyscom for all Scotchy bourbon boy things Glen Karen's t-shirts, and we've actually got a new product.
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 2: That's going to be.
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 2: We've got bottle openers that go on your refrigerator with that made out of a phone.
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: It looks like it, but no, it was just like I couldn't believe the product.
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 2: But then it's like it really pulls off the barrel head, look right.
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 2: So, okay, and then it's a bot.
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 2: You know it opens the bottle and but it will stick right to your refrigerator.
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: So that's one of our new products that we're selling.
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 2: And then also remember, we're on all social media Facebook, Instagram, X and YouTube, and then also on all major podcast formats.
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 2: Check us out on Apple podcasts, I heart and Spotify and ask Alexa or Siri to play us, and you can but remember.
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 2: And thank you, Aaron, for joining us tonight.
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 5: Again, my pleasure.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 5: Thank you for having me and thank you to everyone who tuned in to Facebook live and then also people listening on the podcast.
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 5: I, if you're fans, I appreciate you all You're.
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 5: You're what makes it happen.
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 2: Thanks CT for doing that.
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 6: Hey, awesome, glad to be a part of it All right, so thank you.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 2: Good bourbon equals good times and good friends, and little Steve is going to take us out.
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 2: Is there outro All right?
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I tell you we must die.
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 4: I tell you, we must die.
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 4: I tell you, I tell you, I tell you, we must die.