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Russell's Reserve Private Barrel Selection with Denver Cramer from Denver & Liely · Aussie Bourbon Lovers

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  Incredible flavours, even better stories.
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  One Pour, 10 Minuts, Aussie Bourbon Lovers, Sharing Bourbon with Australia.
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  Nice one. Great.
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  Yeah, now tip it in the glasses for us.
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  Tell us what we're doing. What are we pouring?
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  We are pouring a Russell's Reserve single barrel pick from Kitty
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  Hawk and what's his name?
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  Harry Stubbs from 2019.
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  Oh, cool.
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  Tell us about…
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  Well, wait, hang on.
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  Before we get going, Hatch, this is Denver from Denver and Liley.
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  These glorious glasses. Hey, cheers, mate.
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  Thanks for coming on the podcast. Santé.
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  Santé. Oh, you've got them all going.
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  Good things. Oh, yes.
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  That's amazing.
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  Maybe before we go too far, it's a Russell,
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  so it's from the Wild turkey people? Yeah.
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  The family that runs Wild turkeys are the Russells,
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  owned by Campari now, I'm pretty sure.
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  But yeah, they're still involved.
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  So Eddie and their dad.
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  What's his name? Jimmy.
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  Jimmy, yeah. Jimmy Russell and the son.
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  Is it Bruce? Bruce, exactly.
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  You guys are better at names than me.
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  Yeah, just an absolute collector here.
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  They still run the thing.
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  Eddie and Jimmy.
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  Jimmy still rocks up to the shop, so you guys have been in there.
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  We haven't yet, but we want to go.
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  But he's always in the gift shop.
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  Is that the- Yeah, he has his Lexus and he just drives his SUV basically on the
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  nature strip in front of the shop and it gets out.
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  He's pretty old now.
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  We'll sit down and have a chat in the gift shop.
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  He still rocks up to work. I don't know.
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  I think It might be over 90 now.
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  But yeah, amazing.
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  When you know you love your job. When you still.
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  I think it's just part.
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  It's so integrated into that facility.
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  It feels like his home, literally He just goes in and does his thing and then
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  just cruises out whenever he wants to. So good.
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  Yeah, really good.
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  How does this story go?
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  So your name's literally on the box and on the glass.
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  How does it go that you go from just enjoying a nice pour.
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  Where did the bourbon interest come from for you?
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  Bourbon interest.
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  We started the company, Laila and I, in 2015, I think, somewhere around there.
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  It's just Basically, we released glasses of stuff that we're just
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  drinking at the time.
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  Don't follow any trends or anything like that.
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  It's just no market research.
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  Just things you enjoy drinking.
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  Yeah, and the technical aspects.
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  Both of us were into engineering, both industrial designers.
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  Just the technical aspects.
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  And the whole business wasn't meant to be a business.
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  I can't remember if I told you the story, but it was meant to be Christmas present
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  to a family and friends, the whiskey glass, the original one,
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  which we'll look at later.
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  But that was only meant to be 100 glasses.
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  Laila was taking 35, I was taking 35.
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  And then we were selling 30 externally.
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  And a friend's blog at the time helped us sell those 30 externally, which
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  was broadsheet in Australia.
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  The whole company started because we were talking about parking at Chatston, which
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  is a big shopping mall in Australia, and we didn't want to do that.
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  Why don't we just design a whiskey glass?
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  It started from that whiskey glass and then went to a gin glass, and then we
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  just happened to drinking more bourbon.
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  So why don't we do a bourbon glass?
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  But the first thing that we did was do a research trip to the States.
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  Because this thing fascinates me.
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  So everyone drinks bourbon out of a few different glasses, right?
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  Yeah.
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  So what happened?
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  How did you decide that you wanted to do something different?
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  And what were you going to do?
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  Yeah, we were just told.
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  There was a reasonable following from the States at that time for us.
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  And a lot of people were over here, people
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  were arguing, why do you need a bourbon glass?
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  And we were just like, oh, I'm not Sure.
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  I wasn't drinking as much bourbon as I have at the time.
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  I just thought the best place to find out is to go to Mecca.
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  Who was in the expert panel of trialling and testing?
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  Well, Laila and I first go and just don't tell anyone.
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  We just go and rock up, go and try everything and enjoy.
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  It's not just the technical aspects of understanding bourbon, but for us,
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  it's the cultural experience as well.
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  How does that fit into a culture?
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  We look at food and music and a whole bunch of different things and just engross
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  yourself into Kentucky and Tennessee, essentially.
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  Go to different things, go to gigs, go to whiskey bars, and also the distilleries.
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  Yeah, and you can't help but fall in love with it.
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  Yeah, we got into it.
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  It was pretty fun, but it was really eye-opening because how could you
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  be using a whiskey glass that's designed for grain, for malta barley,
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  and then try and fit that or shoehorn that into this culture, which is a completely
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  different beast because they're looking for different things.
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  They're enjoying it at a temperature 20 degrees celsius different
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  to the other one.
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  Also the process and just understanding all the technicalities, which
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  we're quite technically capable.
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  Laila is not in the business anymore, moved to New Zealand.
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  But we're technically capable, but I think we go well beyond that.
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  I don't think any of the other companies can…
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  They don't put the value on it.
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  It's not that they can't afford to do it.
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  They just don't put the value on culture, I think, as well.
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  Whereas we do.
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  Our wine glass that just came out, that was an eight-year project.
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  There's no other company that can do that in the whole world, to
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  do R&D for eight years.
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  They need to get it out there and get money back for the shareholders.
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  That's fine. How fun.
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  Then in terms of what we're looking at and how you get to this It's a cool
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  shape, which is such a cool shape.
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  The thing that I love about this is…
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  Can you nose this and tell me…
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  Because we've, spoiler, we've had some of these at home.
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  Side by side, these are You get that.
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  It's the nice, chunky, almost rock glass hole for you, but you
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  still get the tulip shape.
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  But then a good size opening, so you're getting lots of that-Aroma.
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  Beautiful aroma.
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  You don't get that…
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  I find the ones with the narrower tops, you get that very wafty The alcohol
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  often hits you in the face first.
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  With this, you don't get that.
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  No, because the shape is designed to blow off that volatile layer,
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  especially with something…
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  What's this sitting at?
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  What is that sitting at? What's it?
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  Yes, actually. Yeah, What's that?
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  I think 105, maybe. I don't know.
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  Making it up. 110.
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  It's drinking well. Yeah, 55.
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  It's beautifully made.
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  A lot of these single cast are like that.
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  You get like magic once.
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  It's really cool.
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  What was the question?
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  How much How much science, how much art goes into something like this?
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  Okay, yeah.
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  Basically, we look at how people are enjoying bourbon,
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  and then we hear from those people that are making the bourbon, the absolute
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  source of truth, as to how they want it to taste and smell.
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  The skill that we have is then taking those words and then turning
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  it into a physical form.
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  I'm not sure why the other companies haven't done that.
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  I feel like if you were to design any product in any other
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  realm in the regular world, like a microphone or a car or a pair of shoes,
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  you ask the people-What they want. Yeah, what they want.
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  Is it more of the tradition?
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  That's the traditional glass that they've always had.
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  It'll always stay that way. The other glass?
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  Yeah.
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  Are we allowed to talk about it? You can say it.
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  It's what we usually drink out of. It's a Glencan.
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  Yeah, Glencan.
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  It's all version, like every version of those glasses are all
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  smaller or larger, but the same shape, same-Yeah, it's It's a commercial decision
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  as opposed to experience decision.
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  If you are after a very cost-effective A to B bourbon glass, it seems strange,
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  but I guess you're buying a whiskey glass.
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  They've got great distribution and it's really good at what it
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  does, like a Toyota Corolla.
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  It can get you from A to B, very reliable, really cheap to fix.
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  You can just get another one anyway.
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  Whereas our thing is the pinnacle performance.
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  We make Formula 1 cars and we don't make anything else.
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  Both of them can get you from A to B, but in very, very different manners.
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  It's a completely different experience.
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  But if you're prioritising performance over everything
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  else like we do, then you'd buy probably our glass.
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  This is this thing, isn't it?
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  If you're drinking a bottle that you can get it, Dan's, and you haven't spent too
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  much on, it's totally fine to put that in a But if you're taking something off the
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  shelf that you've invested in or someone's given you a really special gift or
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  something like that, that you really want to rip into and experience everything
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  from, well, then you're doing yourself a massive disservice by not spending a
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  fraction of the price of the bottle on a glass that you enjoyed it.
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  Yeah, I would even argue Obviously, we drink everything out of our glass.
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  We're at home.
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  But even in the States, I'd be buying, I can't remember the name of it with the
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  green label, ended up getting various awards.
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  Not a plant since It was a lot of green labels, then.
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  Yeah, it was around 30 bucks.
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  We were trying to get the best with who we could for 30 bucks in the States.
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  This showcases their work incredibly well.
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  It's completely slipped from my mind.
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  But it'll be one of their following songs.
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  Is it one of those ones that they have in there that are cheapest chips,
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  but they've got heaps of them.
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  You can get them so easy.
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  Yeah, it was at the…
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  Oh, my God, I've completely drawn a blank.
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  I think it was in 20…
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  If I can send in their guesses.
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  Yeah, 2019, It was in 2020 that it ended up becoming like it won some
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  world bourbon of the Year or something like that.
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  But prior to that, I've been telling close mates about it and not telling…
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  Telling them, Don't tell anyone else. He's pretending he can't.
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  They were all single cask, that one.
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  It was like $29 for years.
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  Then all of a sudden it just shot up because then the demand
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  went through the roof.
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  But there are so many great bourbons below.
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  I could pick a few under 50 in Australia.
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  You make it taste it even better by using it.
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  Yeah, you frame…
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  What we're aiming to do is just frame the work that they've already put in.
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  There's so much craft and even terroir and all of those things that we talk
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  about in wine that exist in bourbon.
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  It just doesn't have the same limelight, I guess, or same…
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  I don't know.
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  I don't know why people…
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  It's some strange connotation in the world that it's not of the same ink as wine or
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  whiskey and stuff in some countries, but it's just It's just not the case.
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  Well, you can get them readily.
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  You can get them on your website, and you can get them at a few of the big
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  liquor stores around the place as well.
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  Any everywhere in the world, people listening overseas?
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  Pretty much.
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  As long as it's on an active warzone and there was another thing.
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  Fair enough.
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  Yeah, I can't remember the other condition.
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  There's a couple of rules. There's only two conditions.
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  But if you're in a safe place enjoying bourbon, you can probably
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  get your hands up. Pretty much.
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  You can get them anyway.
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  Mate, this has been magnificent. Thanks for sharing this, Paul.
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  We're going to have you back for more episodes because there's so many more
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  stories to tell, but really appreciate it. Cheers, guys.
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  Cheers. Thanks, Deborah.
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  It's hard to do the third cheers.
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  This is the fourth wall or whatever they call it.
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  I know we got to go out there.
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  Thanks for listening.
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  connected with us by clicking subscribe on your favourite podcast app.