Latest / The Scotchy Bourbon Boys / Unlocking the Secrets of Mizunara Oak: A Whiskey Journey with Master Distiller Gregg Snyder

Transcript

Unlocking the Secrets of Mizunara Oak: A Whiskey Journey with Master Distiller Gregg Snyder · The Scotchy Bourbon Boys

0:58
Speaker 1: Tiny here to tell you about Whiskey Thief Distilling Company and their newly opened tasting room.
1:03
Speaker 1: Whether you are up for a farm-to-glass distilling experience on the Three Boys Farm in Frankfort, kentucky, or an out-of-this-world tasting experience in New Loo, you won't be disappointed At both locations.
1:18
Speaker 1: Their barrel picks all day, every day are like none other.
1:22
Speaker 1: Each location features stations with five barrels, each featuring their pot distilled bourbons and ryes.
1:29
Speaker 1: Once the barrels have been thieved and tasted, you can make a selection and thieve your own bottle A day at Whiskey Thief, with their friendly staff and ownership, will ensure you many good times with good friends and family.
2:24
Speaker 2: Remember to always drink responsibly.
2:25
Speaker 2: Never drink and drive and live your life uncut and unfiltered.
2:23
Speaker 2: We'll be what we do.
2:21
Speaker 2: We're drinking every brew man.
2:23
Speaker 2: We're talking some shit, but we're telling the truth.
2:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're the Scotch and Madden boys Raising some hell and making some noise.
2:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're the Scotch and Madden boys.
2:36
Speaker 2: We're here to have fun and we hope you enjoy.
2:40
Speaker 2: We're here to have fun.
2:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, woo, yeah.
3:05
Speaker 3: All right, Welcome back to an exciting podcast of the Scotchy Bourbon Boys.
3:10
Speaker 3: This is a big night.
3:12
Speaker 3: We've got Greg Schneider, master distiller of chicken cock whiskey and master distiller extraordinaire and friend of the Scotchie Bourbon Boys, and he's proven it by doing.
3:27
Speaker 3: At first I was thinking it was our 10th podcast, but it's our 11th.
3:32
Speaker 3: He's crossed the 10 and into 11.
3:35
Speaker 3: The closest is Alan Bishop, who's been off it for a while and he's down at 9 at the moment.
3:41
Speaker 3: So you're just taking the lead, Greg.
3:44
Speaker 4: It's nice to have you here it's always a pleasure to connect with you guys.
3:48
Speaker 4: I don't know about taking a leave, but anytime I can connect, talk whiskey with good buddies of mine, it's always a fun night.
3:54
Speaker 3: So thank you, and we don't we also have super dash in the house.
3:59
Speaker 3: Who is?
4:00
Speaker 3: I mean, he's got so much chicken cock whiskey on his bar, his glass table with the Scotchy Bourbon Boys.
4:07
Speaker 3: He's had to zoom out and there's all these bottles and then you see his little tiny head down there.
4:14
Speaker 3: You know I'm backed off just a little bit to show it on the bar, but you got him way back there.
4:20
Speaker 3: So all you people on YouTube that are watching you can see on the screen that is Super Nash.
4:26
Speaker 3: That's about an eighth of an inch high on your phone.
4:30
Speaker 3: So just know that he's back there and you'll be able to hear him.
4:33
Speaker 3: Welcome, super Nash.
4:36
Speaker 5: I did have to adjust the camera back tonight because I did want to showcase all the chicken cock whiskey because that's what it's all about tonight and uh so proud to be a friend of Greg Schneider and uh grain and barrel spirits, uh, chicken cock whiskey, uh, that they brought back, uh, it's, it's just a pleasure and an honor to to be here well, just so you know there.
5:03
Speaker 3: You didn't know about this, but I'm.
5:04
Speaker 3: I'm offering up the chicken cock challenge tonight there, nash, and the goal is to drink at least a pour out of each bottle and see at the end where you're at now.
5:18
Speaker 3: Sherry, I am sorry, that was just a joke, I'm not being serious.
5:22
Speaker 3: Hey, she's sitting right over here.
5:25
Speaker 3: Of course, of course she is.
5:27
Speaker 3: I knew she'd be sure.
5:28
Speaker 3: Yes, so anyways, all right.
5:34
Speaker 3: So, um, we're wwwscotchiebourbonboyscom for all things scotchy bourbon boys.
5:40
Speaker 3: We got glennirns, we've got our t-shirts.
5:43
Speaker 3: You can check us out on the website.
5:45
Speaker 3: But this weekend there's Mr Greg Schneider's drinking out of his Crystal Glencairn, and now to do that you have to be a part of the Glencairn Club.
5:57
Speaker 3: So if you want to know about getting in there, there are a select few for everybody.
6:04
Speaker 3: If they want to contact me for information on that, it has to do with our barrel picks and also what you get when you dive into the different memberships.
6:17
Speaker 3: But what I will say is also this weekend me and Roxy will be making our holiday bourbon balls, so that'll be right in time to bring them down for you, mr Schneider.
6:33
Speaker 4: I can't wait, man, that's such a treat.
6:37
Speaker 4: So thank you, yeah, that's awesome.
6:39
Speaker 3: So we will be bringing those down.
6:40
Speaker 3: So, if you're interested, we've already got pre-orders from about five different people and I haven't even made them.
6:47
Speaker 3: I can guarantee you that the pecans will have been soaked 10 months or longer, so this batch is going to be pretty special.
6:56
Speaker 3: And then also we're on all the social media Facebook, Instagram, YouTube X, and then also on all the podcast formats Apple iHeart or Spotify and all the other ones.
7:10
Speaker 3: But if you're listening or watching or whatever how you do it, but please like, listen, comment, leave good feedback.
7:24
Speaker 3: Make sure that you leave the good feedback.
7:26
Speaker 3: So, with that said, we're about to get ready with this fantastic Chicken Cock extravaganza.
7:33
Speaker 3: So what we got happening tonight is that we're here specifically for the newest release.
7:40
Speaker 3: I'm pretty correct, that's your newest release and the newest release in the tin series.
7:48
Speaker 3: This is the fourth.
7:50
Speaker 3: The Mizunaro finished bourbon.
7:55
Speaker 3: Greg's here to tell us all about how this specific one came about, because the story is really interesting, because you're talking about that japanese.
8:05
Speaker 3: It's a japanese wood wooden barrel.
8:08
Speaker 3: It's not cheap, but tell us about it.
8:21
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, so just with a unique LTO limited time offer.
8:25
Speaker 4: And four years ago we came out with the first in a series of tin tin series in a tin can.
8:32
Speaker 4: The Chicken Cock Cotton Club was the first one, and then we came out with Chicken Cock Chantecler was the second one in a tin series.
8:41
Speaker 4: Chicken Cock Chanticleer was the second one in a tin series.
8:44
Speaker 4: Last year was the Chicken Cock Red Stay, which is our bourbon, finished in Petit Syrah barrels.
8:50
Speaker 4: The Chanticleer was our bourbon, finished in French Cognac barrels.
8:56
Speaker 4: And then this year the fourth edition was Chicken Cock Mizunara.
8:58
Speaker 4: Now Mizunara oak is Japanese oak.
9:01
Speaker 4: It's very unique, very limited, very expensive.
9:06
Speaker 4: Mizunara oak grows very, very slow If you look at the species of oak throughout the world that you can make a barrel out of, because you can't make a barrel out of every oak tree.
9:22
Speaker 4: White oak, which is the predominant, what we use in the US, contains a substance called tylosis.
9:27
Speaker 4: Tylosis is a membrane that sits on the inner surface of the cell and when you quarter saw that wood, that membrane collapses and it clogs the cell.
9:38
Speaker 4: So when you quarter saw it, it won't leak.
9:39
Speaker 4: Red oak, pin oak, black oak, live oak, maple, cherry, walnut, you name it.
9:46
Speaker 4: They don't contain tylosis and so if you try to make a barrel out of those pieces of wood they would leak.
9:52
Speaker 4: Well, in Europe, and most wine, high-quality wine, is Asian, french oak or European oak.
9:59
Speaker 4: American oak is called Quercus alba, that's the species name.
10:03
Speaker 4: In Europe they have Quercus rober or Quercus petrea, which is the two species of European oak, primarily French oak, hungarian oak and other areas of Europe, but they don't contain as much tyloses as American white oak does.
10:19
Speaker 4: So you really can't, you've got to be careful.
10:21
Speaker 4: When you you can't quarter saw, you've got to split it so it follows the grain and then you can saw up to stay in the head.
10:27
Speaker 4: Well, mizunar oak is even less porous or higher porosity, I should say.
10:33
Speaker 4: So you have to be very careful, but it grows real slow.
10:37
Speaker 4: So most of the trees of mizunar oak that are harvested are over 200 years old.
10:42
Speaker 4: I mean it's very slow growing, very old oak, and so hence the barrels are very expensive.
10:50
Speaker 4: So they have to split it, then they cut the stays and head.
10:52
Speaker 4: So for these particular barrels that we bought, we bought 10 barrels of mizunar oak.
10:57
Speaker 4: The oak was processed in Japan, it was shipped to France.
11:02
Speaker 4: It was a French cooperage that actually built the barrel and then shipped them to Bardstown, where I went down the day they arrived and inspected them to make sure they were okay.
11:11
Speaker 4: Again, it's very coarse so you have to be very, very careful with it.
11:18
Speaker 4: Now, one of the things that I did different because I never had any experience.
11:22
Speaker 4: I worked in the cooperage industry, as you guys know, for nine years of my 12 years at Brown Foreman and as a cooperage operation, but I never had any experience with Mizzenar Oak.
11:32
Speaker 4: But I did some research, talked to a number of people who have used it in the past and kind of got some insight to what to expect.
11:40
Speaker 4: So the bourbon that we put in these barrels was about five and a half year old bourbon actually, and so when we built the barrels I told them I don't want to char these barrels.
11:51
Speaker 4: I've got five and a half year old bourbon going into it.
11:55
Speaker 4: The char layer basically works as a charcoal filter.
11:57
Speaker 4: I don't need to charcoal filter that five and a half year old bourbon.
12:00
Speaker 4: All I want to do is create flavor and extract that flavor out of that mizzenar oak.
12:05
Speaker 4: And so what we did is we didn't char them, we just gave them a deep medium plus toast and tried to convert all that chemical composition and the flavors that that oak had to the pizazz that we could extract.
12:18
Speaker 4: So when they built the barrels and we had a deep medium-plus dose, they shipped them to the United States.
12:24
Speaker 4: Now these barrels like I said, this is a very rare, fairly rare oak species.
12:30
Speaker 4: Each barrel we bought 10 barrels.
12:33
Speaker 4: Each barrel cost $5,000 apiece just the empty barrel.
12:38
Speaker 4: A normal whiskey barrel is somewhere between 275 to 300 barrels of peeps.
12:43
Speaker 5: Okay so they were give you a comparison, so they were brand new oak barrels.
12:47
Speaker 3: So if you would have charred them, it would have stayed bourbon, correct, I mean?
12:53
Speaker 4: technically, absolutely.
12:55
Speaker 4: It's bourbon once it goes into it.
12:57
Speaker 3: Right, it's just you're finishing that bourbon in a secondary barrel right, but because you toasted it, that makes it like finished, whereas the other one would have been Mizunaro French.
13:08
Speaker 3: Whatever, it would be a double-oaked bourbon, correct?
13:11
Speaker 3: No?
13:12
Speaker 4: You could call it double-oaked.
13:13
Speaker 4: We could call it double-oaked now if we wanted to, but you didn't.
13:16
Speaker 4: I didn't want the charlotte.
13:18
Speaker 4: No, I get it.
13:19
Speaker 3: I know and I understood charling.
13:19
Speaker 3: I don't know I get, I know I and I understood it.
13:20
Speaker 3: I'm just talking technically, that's all I'm saying.
13:23
Speaker 3: I'm not.
13:23
Speaker 3: I understand why you did it.
13:25
Speaker 3: You don't need another level of char.
13:27
Speaker 3: And I understand why you toast because you want to activate those wood sugars so they caramelize.
13:32
Speaker 3: But you don't.
13:33
Speaker 3: You don't need that charcoal flavor in there, adding in call it double oaked.
13:37
Speaker 4: But we did.
13:38
Speaker 4: We just wanted it's our, you know, chicken cod bourbon finished in a mizunara oak barrel.
13:43
Speaker 4: The mizunara flavor, it's very unique, got a lot of Asian spices in it and I'll let you guys kind of tell me what you taste out of it.
13:51
Speaker 4: But again, I didn't want to filter the bourbon flavor out.
13:54
Speaker 4: I had some great bourbon flavor going into it.
13:56
Speaker 4: All I want to do is create the flavors that that oak barrel had and then get that.
14:03
Speaker 4: When they arrived in Bardstown I didn't fill them right away because part of the feedback I got was you know, the initial extraction out of that wood can be very, very harsh.
14:13
Speaker 4: Some of the phenolic compounds are very bitter and pungent, and so what I did was when I showed up at Bardstown I put reverse osmosis water in all those barrels, filled all 10 of them up with water and let them sit in for about a week and just kept rolling around, make sure that it really absorbed.
14:30
Speaker 4: Number one what that did is it absorbed into the wood and pulled out a lot of those pungent, undesirable flavors, overpowering flavors that I wanted to get out of it, so kind of leaching that out.
14:43
Speaker 4: But likewise it kind of soaked into the wood.
14:45
Speaker 4: So it minimized the amount of bourbon that I would lose initially into the wood.
14:50
Speaker 4: I still got the penetration of the bourbon into the wood and extracting it out.
14:54
Speaker 4: Because what we did is we put those barrels, put that bourbon in the barrels and we put them on the top floor of the warehouse, seventh floor of the warehouse.
15:01
Speaker 4: So it sat in there a little over 10 months total, so full summer season, and I mean it pulled out, extracted some amazing, amazing flavor.
15:18
Speaker 3: Yes, walker, it's Japanese oak, but to be bourbon it can be any kind of oak you want it to be, as long as it's charred oak barrel for bourbon.
15:21
Speaker 3: But when you finish it now, what did they smell like?
15:24
Speaker 3: I mean, did you know what kind of you?
15:26
Speaker 3: One, you shipped it across an ocean, correct, and then, two, they get there, they, you know it's.
15:33
Speaker 3: I've smelled almanac finished barrels where they come in, those big, huge, um, what do they call them hog barrels, where it's like a lot 60 gallon or whatever.
15:45
Speaker 3: And then and then you smell it and you can smell the wine, you know, and a lot of times when they're dry, you pick up the wine and the wood.
15:53
Speaker 3: Sometimes, when it's wet, you smell more of them.
15:55
Speaker 3: But what was?
15:56
Speaker 3: What was the smell like?
15:58
Speaker 4: so these didn't have any liquid in them, right they?
16:01
Speaker 5: were new, so the wood smell, you get.
16:05
Speaker 4: Again, I, personally, I got a lot of Asian spices and that's, I think, what you're going to taste and the flavor of it.
16:12
Speaker 4: I don't know what Turmeric cumin, I mean, there's so many different Asian spices that you can.
16:21
Speaker 3: I'm picking up MSG, just kidding.
16:24
Speaker 3: That too, msg yeah.
16:27
Speaker 2: That's an Asian spice flavor.
16:30
Speaker 4: But you know, and it's not put in there, it's just the natural flavors and aromas of the oak itself.
16:39
Speaker 4: So it's very spicy, very spicy the oak itself.
16:47
Speaker 3: So it's very spicy, very spicy.
16:48
Speaker 3: So I actually have really started to like, think about how I do the tastings, and a lot of times you do a fresh crack and that is a whole different thing.
16:54
Speaker 3: So I've been opening up the bottles.
16:56
Speaker 3: I opened this up, I believe, on Saturday.
16:58
Speaker 3: I let it sit with the top open for about 15, 20 minutes while I was doing some editing, then put the top back on, so it's the.
17:07
Speaker 3: It's the first pour out of it.
17:10
Speaker 3: I was tempted to taste it, but I'm like I've already tasted it.
17:14
Speaker 3: We did that when we were doing our um, our little tasting.
17:18
Speaker 3: That's what they brought.
17:19
Speaker 3: You guys, I mean nash, you had this with us when we did this.
17:23
Speaker 3: We've tasted it before and and.
17:25
Speaker 3: But you know, the, the oak is so fascinating and I I would think like when you're doing this, you know you're so into the different chemical compounds of the, the different woods.
17:38
Speaker 3: Did it when you filled it with the water?
17:41
Speaker 3: Did it?
17:42
Speaker 3: Did it have?
17:43
Speaker 3: Did it hold?
17:44
Speaker 3: Like an American oak barrel, where the, where you know all the joints are holding together?
17:50
Speaker 3: Did it hold the water the same way, or was there some leakage or how did that work, you know?
17:55
Speaker 4: there's some leakage, and that was the thing about, you know, Mizunar oak.
17:59
Speaker 4: It's a lot like Porcus rover and Porcus vitrea.
18:01
Speaker 4: The European oaks is that they don't contain as much tylosis, and so if they're not processed properly they will tend to leak, more than an American oak, porcus alba barrel.
18:12
Speaker 4: So that's one of the reasons why I wanted to put the water in it as well, kind of swell up the areas that might tend to leak.
18:19
Speaker 4: Swell up the areas that might tend to leak, but also leach out some of the harshness that existed on initial extractions.
18:28
Speaker 5: I wanted to ask you if the mizunara oak had, do they have as much wood sugars as what the white oak does?
18:43
Speaker 4: As far as the hemicellulose and lignin, I don't know what the percentages are, quite honestly, martin, but they're fairly comparable.
18:53
Speaker 4: I mean they're going to have adequate amounts to create the flavor.
18:56
Speaker 4: As far as compared to Quirkus Alba or American white oak, I don't know what the comparison is off the top of my head the Quirkish Alba or American White Oak?
19:02
Speaker 4: I don't know what the comparison is off the top of my head, but it's just.
19:04
Speaker 4: I think.
19:04
Speaker 4: Well, the unique thing about the Mizunara is the spiciness that you get out of it.
19:09
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's the key flavor.
19:11
Speaker 5: You know I was getting the spiciness when I tasted it with you, but I was also getting the sweetness and I was kind of wondering if I was getting a little extra sweetness from the Mizunara oak when it was added to that as compared, you know, to the five and a half year bourbon that you know it already extracted from the white oak.
19:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, the initial product.
19:32
Speaker 4: It's already five and a half years old, it's in the barrels that we aged it in and so it's picked up all the great caramel vanilla, the sweetness, the opalactones of the American oak, and then, when you inject or put it into the subject, it to the Mizunaro.
19:47
Speaker 4: Now it's picking up the flavors from the Mizunaro to kind of complement the sweetness and the caramel vanilla flavors I totally differ from, like the baking spices and all that you get in like in a rye.
20:03
Speaker 5: You know it was totally different to me.
20:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, very unique.
20:06
Speaker 3: Yeah, very, very unique.
20:07
Speaker 3: I loved it.
20:08
Speaker 3: I'm picking up I don't know why on the nose.
20:14
Speaker 3: I got it it's like a lemon citrus and I'm picking it up on the now.
20:23
Speaker 3: What I will say is this reminds me more of a Japanese whiskey, but it still has the harshness of a bourbon, usually those light, lighter Japanese whiskeys when you they're, they're always more because they're so scotch influenced, right, um, you taste them and they're very.
20:49
Speaker 3: A Japanese whiskey is very, um, complex but drinkable.
20:53
Speaker 3: Like if you want to drink through the complexity of a Japanese whiskey, you can get right through it and you can.
20:59
Speaker 3: I mean, I would have no problem drinking a lot, of a lot in one sitting.
21:04
Speaker 3: You could just sit down.
21:05
Speaker 3: But there's not a lot of hug, you know what I mean.
21:09
Speaker 3: There's not a lot of, but this has a lot of those flavors To me, like you said, those Japanese spices.
21:18
Speaker 3: And then the oak is very, very, very interesting what the flavors.
21:23
Speaker 3: But then it pulls off that little bit more the caramel.
21:28
Speaker 3: Your caramels are so subdued by it, you know what I mean.
21:32
Speaker 3: And then you still have the spiciness and the and the hug which you normally off these flavors.
21:40
Speaker 3: That's usually not the case when you get if you're drinking a scotch that has those fruitier flavors.
21:46
Speaker 3: A lot of times, and a lot of times I pick up some like you pick up a cherry on a bourbon and it's rich and it's it's very, very like a thick cherry, cherry flavor with big body.
21:56
Speaker 3: When you pick it up with uh uh japanese whiskey, you usually pick it up like you're tasting a cherry blossom.
22:03
Speaker 3: It's just the hint of it when this has like that's the problem, I mean.
22:07
Speaker 4: Japanese whiskey 90% plus are aged and used bourbon barrels.
22:12
Speaker 4: They don't use mizunar oak.
22:14
Speaker 4: Mizunar oak is very rare, it's a very unique animal and, again, just because of the cost of it it's not used very often.
22:21
Speaker 4: There are some Scotch whiskeys, Most Finnish whiskeys, Mizunaro are Scotch whiskeys and they sit in those barrels 20-plus years because it takes a lot of time to soften it and really extract the flavors and let them mellow out.
22:35
Speaker 4: Because, like I said, it can be very overpowering.
22:37
Speaker 4: The flavors of Mizunaro can be extremely strong and overpowering the flavors of Mizunaro can be extremely strong and overpowering.
22:43
Speaker 3: My take on it is you are 100% correct not to put any more char on it, because it almost this.
22:55
Speaker 3: I mean this is like drinking a higher proof scotch, like there's a lot of stuff going on in there.
23:05
Speaker 3: I mean you get the char, your initial char, which I'm sure at the time was pulling out a lot of caramel.
23:08
Speaker 3: Right, you were dropped in that initial five and a half.
23:11
Speaker 3: What you dropped in had a lot of caramel.
23:12
Speaker 3: Where this, I'm picking up a lot of the char, almost like you pick up some of that peat.
23:18
Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
23:18
Speaker 3: It's not peaty flavor, but it's if I would have the caramel with this.
23:23
Speaker 3: So it's very, very complex and unique.
23:26
Speaker 3: There's no doubt about it.
23:26
Speaker 3: You've created now what was your entry proof before it went in to the Mizunaro?
23:35
Speaker 4: So it was coming out of the barrel.
23:36
Speaker 4: So it was going to be right around 125, 123 to 126.
23:40
Speaker 4: So right around 125.
23:46
Speaker 3: So then what did it come out?
23:47
Speaker 3: I know you proved you got it back down to 105.
23:49
Speaker 3: So what was that process like, taking it down to 105 it?
23:52
Speaker 4: was coming out of the barrel because it was in there only about a little over 10 months, so it was still in the 125 range.
23:57
Speaker 4: Uh, because again, it was on the top four and so you know it can actually increase the proof.
24:02
Speaker 4: The 105 came about.
24:04
Speaker 4: As I do with basically most, if not all, the chicken cock products, I usually go to the lab there at Bardstown Barrel and Company with Travis Cantrell, their quality manager, we've been in it.
24:19
Speaker 4: We just start doing, you know, trials, and we'll start out a certain proof, barrel proof, and we'll knock it down a few points, try it, knock it down a few points, try it until we find what I call the sweet spot, where the alcohol burn subsides and allows the flavor to really overtake the profile without too much burn.
24:36
Speaker 4: And so, for this particular product, 105 was the sweet spot on this one.
24:41
Speaker 3: So you were saying the flavors.
24:43
Speaker 3: So I know that Drew's tasting along with us.
24:47
Speaker 3: And he said clean sand.
24:48
Speaker 3: It's funny because I just read this and he goes I'm getting a clean sandalwood and lemony scent Sandalwood is a big dominant flavor in Mizuno, absolutely.
24:59
Speaker 3: It is definitely.
25:06
Speaker 5: How many barrels did you take to fill those 10 barrels?
25:16
Speaker 4: Oh gosh, mark, it was like 12, maybe 12 barrels, 12 barrels, something like that.
25:21
Speaker 4: Yeah, what?
25:23
Speaker 3: about.
25:23
Speaker 3: So that's how much was absorbed.
25:26
Speaker 4: When you were filling it into the newer barrel, it started Again new barrels can absorb and one of the things, by filling it with water, helped minimize the absorption rate.
25:34
Speaker 4: Okay.
25:35
Speaker 4: So from a yield perspective, I want to try to maintain a decent yield, but by the same token, don't overdo it.
25:42
Speaker 4: I want to extract the harsh bitter components out of the Misenar oak, not char it, because I didn't want to strip out any more charcoal filtering of the five-and-a-half-year-old bourbon.
25:53
Speaker 4: Let's create the flavors by medium-plus toasting it and let's get it in there, absorb it.
25:57
Speaker 4: Pull those out in, uh, in the hotter temperatures of the warehouse this is definitely a unique uh experience.
26:04
Speaker 3: Now, if I'm not mistaken, when I was at independent stave and I'm sure you did this, when you, when a barrel's made and it's put, it's filled with water to make sure that it's not leaking, correct not filled with water.
26:18
Speaker 4: They'll put a couple gallons in there with air pressure, okay, so they'll spin that barrel and that air pressure will push that water, just like you know checking up a, you know a flat tire that you fix.
26:28
Speaker 4: You know, you put some soap water on it and it'll bubble out, or you'll see the air pressure and it'll push the water out of out of any leak.
26:35
Speaker 4: So it's, they put a couple gallons, you know gallon or two of water in there and air pressure.
26:40
Speaker 3: So here's another question.
26:42
Speaker 3: So I mean, have you heard of anybody ever buying the barrels and buying them made charred and everything, but then putting them outside for more seasoning before they actually fill them?
27:44
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say no, no, you're just asking for trouble things.
27:47
Speaker 3: So that'll cause.
27:49
Speaker 4: It's going to dry out and leak, like I said.
27:51
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're drying them out even more.
27:53
Speaker 4: You want to do all the processing as far as wood drying and the seasoning of it.
27:56
Speaker 4: You want to do that before that barrel's even filled, because that's part of the drying process.
28:00
Speaker 3: So, as soon as you get those barrels, you want them filled, because that's to to make sure that what they did at that they're the closest they can be to not leaking, as it was from when they were shipped.
28:13
Speaker 3: Absolutely okay, that was I.
28:14
Speaker 3: That was just a question.
28:16
Speaker 3: You've answered a question that I didn't know.
28:18
Speaker 3: So, um, what do you say?
28:20
Speaker 3: Do you have a mizunaro?
28:21
Speaker 3: Are you sipping that right now?
28:23
Speaker 3: That's what I've got here, okay, so the color is beautiful and you said it was 10 months.
28:29
Speaker 3: So this is about.
28:30
Speaker 3: You said it was about a five, about 10 and a half months.
28:32
Speaker 4: Okay.
28:33
Speaker 3: So this is a six year, six years in two different barrels.
28:40
Speaker 4: Six, almost seven years actually, before it was actually so, in fact, it was seven years.
28:44
Speaker 4: No Six, no Six.
28:47
Speaker 4: Yeah, six and a half years, you're right.
28:50
Speaker 4: Six years, that's right.
28:51
Speaker 5: Six and a half yeah.
28:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, about six and a half, a little under seven.
28:54
Speaker 3: Right.
28:54
Speaker 3: So my question is do you enjoy this tin series in the way that it's kind of like like you know, after being in this industry, in whatever, but it's so it kind of takes you out of your wheelhouse.
29:14
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of stuff that, but you enjoy that challenge.
29:18
Speaker 3: As far as making a bourbon or a whiskey, you know, at that point you know, I mean honestly, we've talked many times about some of the dinners that have been put on your plate and how you know it's just kind of like it might not be up to the quality of and you're kind of like the a head chef, so you always seem to be able to make something into a gourmet meal.
29:45
Speaker 3: But that's, I think these, you know the tin series is really about, like, where you're talking about the highest end kind of thing.
29:55
Speaker 3: I mean five, how many barrels did you use to make this batch?
29:58
Speaker 3: You had 10 barrels.
30:00
Speaker 3: Did you use all 10?
30:03
Speaker 4: yeah, they didn't bottle all 10 initially because they wanted to see how it took off again.
30:07
Speaker 4: That's not my call, that's the operation side, but I think you hit it on the head when you said challenge.
30:14
Speaker 4: You know, every year we come out with an LTO.
30:17
Speaker 4: It's a challenge as far as the 10 series goes, because we've done other LTOs that weren't 10 series.
30:21
Speaker 4: Right, and the Island Roosters, what I'm thinking of, comes to mind.
30:25
Speaker 4: It was fabulous, I still.
30:28
Speaker 4: To me it was the best after-dinner drink that I've ever tasted.
30:32
Speaker 1: It was a rye-finishing Caribbean rum.
30:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you.
30:34
Speaker 4: Thank you, Barney.
30:35
Speaker 4: I mean, it's so good.
30:37
Speaker 1: The year of the.
30:37
Speaker 5: Rooster as far as the 10 series.
30:39
Speaker 4: You know it's a challenge.
30:41
Speaker 4: You know me, I'm old school, I grew up making bourbon and I made other whiskeys as well.
30:47
Speaker 4: But bourbon is what I know and what I love, and today's consumers are looking for something new.
30:56
Speaker 4: I think that's kind of what has prompted this bourbon boom and keeps it going.
31:03
Speaker 4: So they're looking for something different, something new, different flavors, and so that's what the LTO's, the 10 edition, has done.
31:09
Speaker 4: You know, the first 10 edition I honestly had nothing to do with that was, you know, the founder of Grain and Barrel Spirits.
31:16
Speaker 4: He wanted to pay homage to the brand back 100 years ago when it was a Canadian whiskey.
31:20
Speaker 4: During Prohibition, when they sold the brand to the Southern Canada, he found some 20-year-old Canadian rye, and so you know that was his baby.
31:29
Speaker 4: He did a great job.
31:30
Speaker 4: I think it's a great idea.
31:31
Speaker 4: So that was the first in the 10-can series.
31:33
Speaker 4: Okay, from there we started looking at and I got more involved with okay, from a palate perspective, the first one Chicken Cock Chanticleer.
31:43
Speaker 4: So you know I love bourbon, I love great French cognac.
31:46
Speaker 4: I think you can really marry the flavors of both into something phenomenal, and so I think we were able to do that.
31:52
Speaker 4: I won a double gold medal at the San Francisco Whiskey Competition that year.
31:56
Speaker 4: Last year we didn't even enter any competition, that's it, yeah.
32:00
Speaker 4: And so last year we came out with Chicken Cock Grand State, which was our bourbon that I finished in Petite Syrup Again, that's what happened so fast.
32:11
Speaker 4: That's what happened so fast.
32:13
Speaker 4: We didn't even submit it to any competition and it sold out before we even had the opportunity.
32:18
Speaker 4: And then this year, quite honestly, personally, I thought you know, $5,000 a barrel is my business, I'm going to spend it.
32:25
Speaker 4: That's crazy money, okay for an empty barrel.
32:29
Speaker 4: But the marketing team wanted to do it.
32:31
Speaker 4: They said, okay, we'll give it our best shot and it turned out pretty good.
32:33
Speaker 4: I'm pretty proud of the way it turned out.
32:38
Speaker 3: You know the price point.
32:39
Speaker 3: A lot of people can argue about the price point.
32:41
Speaker 3: No, you cannot argue about the price point of this one, okay, of this one.
32:49
Speaker 3: Okay, in my opinion, you're, you're right there with it.
32:51
Speaker 3: It's out of my price point, there's no doubt about it.
32:53
Speaker 3: But at the same time, the sales on what?
32:57
Speaker 3: the brand has established the sales are that were good and that marketing that you have done and that that ground.
33:08
Speaker 3: You know boots on the ground sales aspect of this and when that came out because the established whiskey drinker, scotch, whatever, they understand what how much those barrels cost, they're're not cheap.
33:24
Speaker 3: So now you've got justification in my mind for that bottle because you really are putting you're talking about at $50,000 investment and that doesn't include anything to do with whiskey.
33:42
Speaker 3: And then you're taking aged whiskey where you've already got an investment of the whatever and then you're putting it in there and then you're taking another 10 months.
33:50
Speaker 3: Then you've got to bottle that.
33:51
Speaker 3: You've got to make a whole new, you've got the tin, everything that that collector wants.
33:57
Speaker 3: I think it culminated Plus, in my opinion, when you're talking about that high-end connoisseur.
34:05
Speaker 3: They like bourbon but if they're going for a caramel bourbon that they love, they'll go buy chicken cock off the shelf for 60 bucks and get that, that Kentucky great bourbon.
34:19
Speaker 3: But when you're talking about a collector or somebody who wants something different, you've done it.
34:24
Speaker 3: I mean, this is not in any ways there's nothing negative about this.
34:31
Speaker 3: It's completely a different experience, but it's a positive experience with whiskey and I'm going to tell you that 105 proof, it's got the hug of like 115 proof.
34:42
Speaker 3: And then the flavors not what you always get out of Kentucky, but at the same time you don't want it.
34:50
Speaker 3: Uh, like I said, you want to taste what that mizunara barrel tastes like, and you've done it, you know.
34:58
Speaker 3: And so for me, that one, the, the, the actual, there.
35:02
Speaker 3: You're not going to get something like this anywhere else.
35:04
Speaker 3: And so you got packaging, marketing, the guy making it, you got the whole thing.
35:10
Speaker 3: So, in my opinion, I would say that, out of all the, out of the four of them not that this is the most tasty to me in my palate, it's the one that justifies and the cost and the experience is there for the money.
35:26
Speaker 4: You know me.
35:26
Speaker 4: I mean, I've been doing this for over 46 years and I'm an operations guy and so you spend that much money on the barrels.
35:35
Speaker 4: I convinced the management of Banner Barrel.
35:37
Speaker 4: I said let's not grill those barrels, let's use them again.
35:40
Speaker 4: So coming up next year, a little foresight here we're going to put our rye I actually have you put our rye whiskey into those same Mizunaro barrels.
35:50
Speaker 3: So finished Mizunaro bourbon barrels with, then you're going to age rye in them.
36:00
Speaker 3: That's it.
36:02
Speaker 4: And that was your idea.
36:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, Talk about.
36:06
Speaker 4: I don't know if I'll be around to taste it, but we'll see.
36:11
Speaker 3: You know, if you're not around, I got you covered.
36:15
Speaker 3: We'll do a barrel pick.
36:23
Speaker 5: I mean honestly, you know I'll definitely find a bottle and get you a bottle.
36:31
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm like I'm just, you know, I basically have been praying to the powers of the spiritual light and God that you stay with this brand and usually when I do that it happens.
36:48
Speaker 3: So let's hope, because, honestly, that's another thing we can talk about here now.
36:54
Speaker 3: Not, it's nothing negative, but I will.
36:57
Speaker 3: I want to send that out to everybody listening the people who's you know everybody on this podcast.
37:02
Speaker 3: Uh, bourbon's about the people you drink it with.
37:07
Speaker 3: It's basically, yeah, whiskey is great and everything, but the whole culture of bourbon and the people you meet.
37:16
Speaker 3: You basically have the whiskey, you participate in the whiskey, so you can meet the people.
37:23
Speaker 3: As you know, when you go across this country Greg, you do it more than I do and you're basically you know the Cotton Club, whatever bottles have sold since the last two years or whatever it's what you're selling when you go on the road, because you basically I've seen your presentation.
37:45
Speaker 3: It's excellent, there's no, it's just straightforward presentation.
37:47
Speaker 3: It's excellent, there's no, it's just straightforward about what you're getting and when people hear and see that and you know a share, pours, a tasting and pours with you, that just makes them want it Because you're a part of it, you were part of it.
38:05
Speaker 3: You made it, you were part of it.
38:06
Speaker 3: You made it, you were part of the blending.
38:08
Speaker 3: Now, not on that, but you're also part of the sales and marketing and there's so much of you in this and to think about.
38:15
Speaker 3: You know I'm following you.
38:17
Speaker 3: So when you go, maybe we got to start, maybe at one point we start this all over in a different situation.
38:23
Speaker 3: I'm for that.
38:24
Speaker 3: But at the same time I will tell you if you do leave.
38:29
Speaker 3: I can honestly say I've experienced this through other distillers or whatever.
38:34
Speaker 3: It's not the same, it just isn't.
38:35
Speaker 3: It doesn't feel the same, it's not.
38:37
Speaker 3: There's a certain aspect.
38:38
Speaker 3: We've grown up with you.
38:40
Speaker 3: You know this whiskey that we're tasting and all the stuff you put in the barrels is 100 percent what you know when we're talking, when I talk to drew and walker and jamie and everybody out there that follows it.
38:52
Speaker 3: You know getting together at the christmas party that we're doing this year.
38:55
Speaker 3: Honestly, it's just like you get together and what makes it taste so good is the times you're having with the people you're sharing it with right absolutely.
39:06
Speaker 4: You know how this is.
39:07
Speaker 4: I mean this business is relationships.
39:10
Speaker 4: You know that's what builds this business and it's so important and I've been so blessed to have friends like you guys and so many people I've met over the last 46, almost 47 years now in this industry throughout the world, and I'm thankful for that.
39:23
Speaker 4: Nobody can take that away, and so you know you cherish those friends and those times and enjoy the products that we're able to enjoy, and so it's all about life.
39:35
Speaker 4: It's precious.
39:36
Speaker 4: So thank you, guys, I appreciate it.
39:38
Speaker 5: Yeah, and thank you.
39:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, the time that we've had since we met you and the people that we've had since we've met you and the people that we've met, that you've introduced us to, has just been incredible, and being able to share the whiskey and the times that we've had with them has just been amazing, and I want to thank you.
40:00
Speaker 3: We've been.
40:00
Speaker 3: I mean New Orleans, kentucky Bourbon Festival.
40:05
Speaker 3: Last year we came to your house.
40:07
Speaker 3: I mean I can't believe it's about a year now we're coming up on a year when me and Super Nash came and we're sitting in the kitchen and you know, you just went into the pantry.
40:18
Speaker 4: I think it was three years ago.
40:19
Speaker 4: You came to my house and sat downstairs and drank some 15-year-old oh yeah, that was too yes.
40:27
Speaker 3: I bet you're.
40:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.
40:28
Speaker 3: And and, um, you know matt lies and says me too, brother, it's 100, but drew um wheelin is, is his drink, is sipping on this, and he said this is rich yet delicate piece of art in a glass.
40:38
Speaker 3: Hats off to you, greg, it's fantastic.
40:40
Speaker 3: So I mean, I mean, that's like, like I said, it's unlike anything I've ever had.
40:47
Speaker 3: And you know, there's certain times I look at bourbon and when you really pull out all those caramels, I think of it as, like the desserts, bourbon is like the dessert of whiskeys.
40:59
Speaker 3: You know, you could pull out vanilla and caramel and it tastes like an ice cream sundae.
41:05
Speaker 3: But then there's some bourbons where it's not that sweet and it's got that bourbon flavor that you smell when you go into a rickhouse where you smell the wood and the oak and the leather, all those things that come across, and so some people it's not quite as caramelly that people love that balance between a little bit of the wood, sugars and then more of the bourbon flavor, and that happens in Kentucky so much.
41:28
Speaker 3: But this is on a different level.
41:31
Speaker 3: This is on a level that you can taste the oak and the lemon.
41:35
Speaker 3: So it's kind of fantastic.
41:38
Speaker 3: All right, so I'm going to finish up with this year's.
41:43
Speaker 3: I just got to get some dessert bourbon in me.
41:46
Speaker 5: Greg, I want to thank you.
41:46
Speaker 5: You have made me so much of a better whiskey appreciation guy and with your knowledge and everything, and making me want to learn more about it, about not only the history of it, because I've learned so much about the history and your experiences in the industry but not only but the technical side of it, about the wood and how much you go into the making of the barrels and what you do with it, and then also all through the process of it.
42:18
Speaker 5: I've learned so much from you.
42:19
Speaker 5: It has just enriched me so much that, like I say, I just want to say thank you and I appreciate you so much, brother.
42:27
Speaker 4: Thank you, Mark.
42:28
Speaker 4: It's interesting because I have been blessed to work with so many of the icons in history over the years and learn so much from them.
42:34
Speaker 4: It's a pleasure for me, especially with the Bergen boom there's so many people that are so interested in it.
42:41
Speaker 4: When I started sharing some of the experience and knowledge I've gained in the last 47 years, I can start sharing some of the experience and knowledge that I've gained in the last 46, almost 47 years, and you know you read people's eyes.
42:50
Speaker 4: You can see them getting engaged and they just lock on to every word that you say, and I love it.
42:53
Speaker 4: It gives me an opportunity to share my love for the industry and something I've done all my life.
42:58
Speaker 4: So thank you for saying so and I appreciate you guys so much.
43:03
Speaker 3: Well, you learn from all the I mean we're talking about.
43:05
Speaker 3: You knew Booker, you knew Harlan, you knew Elmer, you knew Harlan, you worked with Jimmy, I mean, and then you're unique as becoming a master dist instance at Jim Beam.
43:26
Speaker 3: If you're going through their process and learning everything, like Freddie and Fred, where they're on the bottling line and they go to, you know where they go, you know they go through all aspects of that.
43:38
Speaker 3: They don't have a Cooper's at Jim Beam.
43:40
Speaker 3: They're buying their barrels, whereas when you started you were making barrels for Seagram's and then Brown and Foreman.
43:46
Speaker 3: Right, that's what you did.
43:49
Speaker 4: Brown and Foreman.
43:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, I worked Brown and Foreman as a chair.
43:51
Speaker 3: Right.
43:51
Speaker 3: So what you did with this brand when you had a chance to actually distill it yourself?
44:00
Speaker 3: Now, before this, did you actually distill?
44:03
Speaker 3: Did you work on a?
44:05
Speaker 3: Still, I mean, were you part of Seagram's?
44:09
Speaker 3: Seagram's, okay.
44:10
Speaker 4: I started in 1978 as a frontline supervisor, seagram's.
44:14
Speaker 4: They had a great program.
44:16
Speaker 4: Well, I was lucky If you kept your nose clean.
44:20
Speaker 4: You worked hard, you picked up things quick.
44:22
Speaker 4: They kind of put on a fast track and the five-year deadline was open.
44:25
Speaker 4: Because they shut down 1983, because that's when the whiskey industry was on a decline and all the big companies were consolidating.
44:30
Speaker 4: That's when they shut down the Louisville Cigar Facility and moved everything up to Lawrenceburg, indiana, which is now known as NGP, in the barrel warehouse filling barrels, empty barrels, putting barrels in rigs, taking barrels out, aging tanks, dumping barrels and blending, filtration, processing, receiving, shipping, bottling, scheduling, planning, bottle procurement, quality, package or package quality, product quality, maintenance.
45:03
Speaker 4: I mean literally every single department within that facility I worked in and got exposure, got exposure to it.
45:09
Speaker 4: That's unique.
45:09
Speaker 4: Not a lot of people do that.
45:10
Speaker 4: A lot of guys like one department for 30, 35 years and then retire.
45:12
Speaker 4: Not if not if you want to actually manage.
45:16
Speaker 3: I'm serious, like my cousin when I started managing I.
45:19
Speaker 3: I come from the.
45:20
Speaker 3: I I managed an art studio.
45:22
Speaker 3: So I had a whole six artists at one point and I had to manage them.
45:26
Speaker 3: So they did the work and whatever, and I knew how to do the work.
45:28
Speaker 3: I knew everything.
45:29
Speaker 3: I did the same thing when I came into recycling in a plant, very tow motor, which I had never the first day I was there, and he's like get on that.
45:39
Speaker 3: I'm like what?
45:39
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
45:50
Speaker 3: So I mean, and at that point I realized I gotta learn everything if I'm gonna manage these people.
45:56
Speaker 3: But you have to know what you're doing to manage people.
45:59
Speaker 3: But if you do that and learn how to do it and you do it and then you treat them as people, as you do, they will want to work for you.
46:08
Speaker 3: You don't, you know, opposed to managers who don't know what they're doing really and they start screaming and yelling at everybody because they need them to do this.
46:16
Speaker 3: People don't want to work for you and it's the same thing.
46:19
Speaker 3: I mean, I can tell how you do everything and everybody around you I mean from everybody you meet everybody understands, you know your shit, but you want them on board the same way and you're willing to share anything with them.
46:38
Speaker 3: Because that's the way you do it, with hard work, and you just keep working hard.
46:42
Speaker 3: Because working hard makes the day go by fast.
46:45
Speaker 3: Because I'm telling you, I know when you're sitting around and kind of relaxing, get a little bit antsy after a while.
46:53
Speaker 3: You've got to keep yourself busy, right, you've just got to keep.
46:55
Speaker 3: Susan keeps you busy because she keeps you exercising.
46:59
Speaker 3: But now we're hitting that time of the year where it's hard to get yourself motivated to exercise when it's cold like this, right?
47:08
Speaker 4: You know it's amazing.
47:10
Speaker 4: The thing is that I work with so many great mentors.
47:14
Speaker 4: You know I was a singer I don't know if you guys know that Ed Foote or Bill Friel, I mean it was a master distiller at United Distillers.
47:26
Speaker 4: You know it was the Joe Schimley plant, the old Stitzelwood plant.
47:27
Speaker 4: Bill Friel was a master store at Barton Brand after Seager shut down.
47:31
Speaker 4: Dave Sherrick was a dear friend of mine, even to this day, dave's master store, boondocks Distillery.
47:36
Speaker 4: Jim Moorhead, ovehaney you remember the name Ovehaney.
47:40
Speaker 4: Ovehaney was master store at the old Prentiss Distillery which is now for roses, where Jim is sick of it.
47:46
Speaker 4: So so many great guys.
47:47
Speaker 4: And again you just, you know you shut up and learn and you listen.
47:52
Speaker 3: So did you know anybody when you first got into the business that was coming out of that?
47:58
Speaker 3: That went through prohibition?
48:03
Speaker 4: Gosh man, Even working in the street.
48:07
Speaker 3: But I mean, were there a couple of oldtimers that were there that had gone through it?
48:11
Speaker 4: No, we were all gone by then, I believe, jeff.
48:13
Speaker 4: So yeah, it was.
48:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, in 1978, you know, we still had the rumors sometimes we had got employees that we provided them an office and they would come every morning and show up in the admin office.
48:24
Speaker 4: It was about 5 or 6 of them and every morning you'd give them a list.
48:28
Speaker 4: You told them the building that had alcohol in it and you wanted to work in it.
48:31
Speaker 4: So they would go out and they would unlock the government locks of those buildings.
48:33
Speaker 4: Wow, the shift started at 7.
48:36
Speaker 4: At 3.30, when the shift ended, you better be out of those buildings because they're coming back and locking back up In 1980, when Reagan became president.
48:44
Speaker 4: You know it's kind of similar to what's going on now with the.
48:46
Speaker 4: You know the efficiency part of the government.
48:50
Speaker 4: As Reagan went through it, he said you know, we've got so much fat in government it's crazy.
48:53
Speaker 4: And so that's when they said no more revenues.
48:56
Speaker 4: We're going to take the keys and hand them over to all the stores.
48:59
Speaker 4: Here's the keys.
48:59
Speaker 4: You guys do the work, you fill out the paperwork, you pay the tax and pay the tax, and if you screw up one little bit we'll be all over you.
49:06
Speaker 4: We're going to be all over you from time to time, and so that was in 1998.
49:09
Speaker 4: And so it's amazing, because there was a lot of fact like that in government time and I'm sure there is today.
49:13
Speaker 4: So I'm going to make a little statement.
49:15
Speaker 3: We'll see what it goes.
49:16
Speaker 3: No, we'll see.
49:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, and honestly, when you look at the history overall tasting room, why it's so hard for me and Super Nash to do it.
49:28
Speaker 3: Because all we've been hearing from you is Paris, kentucky, I believe, 1849.
49:36
Speaker 3: That's why my brain always that's when the whole thing started, correct, that's kind of how you, that's what you've all said that year.
49:42
Speaker 3: So when you say circa 1856, that kind of screws us up.
49:46
Speaker 3: It's 1949.
49:48
Speaker 4: There's a there.
49:49
Speaker 3: I'm exactly when, uh, jay miller broke ground in 1856 is when it actually starts, so okay so then, so, as you know, I was in paris, kentucky, this past, this past fall for um, and I I'm going to remember the name, but anyways it was a distillery that's open there.
50:11
Speaker 3: So it was very meaningful to me to know that's where you know it was coming from and where bourbon started there and the whole.
50:19
Speaker 3: You know the whole aspects.
50:21
Speaker 3: You know it's so funny because, um, if you're american and you like bourbon, you kind of gotta like the french I just went up south I got a South Korean track.
50:35
Speaker 4: I do with a bunch of Bush, nicholas and Kentucky.
50:37
Speaker 4: We did about two weeks before Thanksgiving and one of the guys went to do this.
50:39
Speaker 4: He was sharing a story with me that he met this lady, a little lady, in Paris, kentucky.
50:44
Speaker 4: She owns a bar what a proud year and apparently the farm she owns is where the original Chicken Cock story was located.
50:51
Speaker 4: Her name is Miss Ridley, as in Rick, charnock and Rayfield oh yeah, in rigging chernobyl and rayfield oh yeah, she's with ray family, apparently.
50:58
Speaker 4: You know she's got a big farm there and I'd sign a bottle.
51:00
Speaker 4: He gives her chicken cock.
51:01
Speaker 4: That'd be cool that she talked about.
51:03
Speaker 4: Yes, the original chicken cocktail, rich, was on her property.
51:06
Speaker 3: So and you signed the bottle for her oh, absolutely, I mean deep down you really wanted to meet her, right.
51:12
Speaker 3: I mean that's, that's, that's fantastic.
51:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember in in, uh, when I was in the art industry I started selling in the early 90s in Chicago and I was selling.
51:26
Speaker 3: I went to the rig building which is just right there on the river and I went up in it.
51:31
Speaker 3: I was dealing with the company, that agency, that had really good gum and everything and whatever, and I was in there, you know, selling, and at that point you know, because I was like Cubs fan and then I also knew that the Wrigley's were in the 20s on Lake Geneva.
51:48
Speaker 3: They built huge giant mansions up there, wisconsin, on Lake Geneva, and it was just like it's personal, the perspective of history just don't realize that, although what we do now in a hundred years will feel like what happened a hundred years ago, you know what I mean To the people at that time.
52:08
Speaker 3: As you're going, once you establish it and it goes in, it takes a while for history to kind of settle in for people, right, absolutely.
52:18
Speaker 3: But you know, when you're dealing with alcohol and you're dealing with what you, honestly, greg, I hope that I mean, I think, this brand, why I hope you keep with it.
52:30
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be an established brand in the industry that hopefully can survive you what I mean and it's just like it did.
52:41
Speaker 3: I have doubt that it will.
52:42
Speaker 3: I mean look, look at all this I mean it's gonna survive now with you.
52:47
Speaker 5: I just you know, we, we just hope and pray you stay with it I mean, if you look at all these right here and I can see they outnumber every one of those that I've got up there on the shelf behind me.
53:02
Speaker 3: Well, I think I see what you've done with this brand and established it in all different levels, and then you've got this fantastic bourbon right on the shelf.
53:08
Speaker 3: You've got to be super proud of what you did, because it's not I honor you.
53:13
Speaker 3: You always talk about you were bringing the brand back, and yes, you were, but I think it's back.
53:18
Speaker 3: You always talk about you were bringing the brand back, and yes, you were, but I think it's back.
53:20
Speaker 3: I think that this last year kind of what happened at bourbon festival kind of illustrated it for everybody.
53:25
Speaker 3: I mean that was where you guys were and respond when you're there.
53:29
Speaker 3: I mean, do you have hand cramps or are you in shape for all the?
53:32
Speaker 4: things.
53:35
Speaker 4: I'm proud of having the opportunity to resurrect the brand, bring it back to the high-quality premise of the brand.
53:42
Speaker 4: You know for many, many years what the future holds.
53:44
Speaker 4: That's not my head right now.
53:46
Speaker 4: That's in other people's hands.
53:47
Speaker 4: So we'll see where it goes and if it plays out great.
53:49
Speaker 4: You know my heart goes to this thing.
53:51
Speaker 4: It's been for seven and a half years now and you know if the future says it's not getting more, so big and life goes on.
53:57
Speaker 3: Well, like I said, we're with you if life has to go on, but we hope that you keep on.
54:01
Speaker 3: You keep taking all of you, keep making that blend.
54:05
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, every year you put those barrels in the bottle and you make that blend for just chicken cut and we are.
54:13
Speaker 3: I remember you saying that, god willing, we'll be around for this.
54:17
Speaker 3: And guess what?
54:19
Speaker 3: This year it's coming up and you're going to be putting in those barrels.
54:23
Speaker 3: I am so looking forward to it.
54:25
Speaker 3: Really, I can't wait.
54:27
Speaker 3: I think somehow we have to be together.
54:30
Speaker 3: I'm going to buy it off the shelf and you got to do that, baby, you know, because you know what.
54:35
Speaker 3: You got to be around at least to make the first.
54:38
Speaker 3: It's just are you already working on that with the, with the barrels?
54:42
Speaker 3: Have you started putting that, putting it together to make that?
54:45
Speaker 3: Next, what you're gonna put a bear from those?
54:48
Speaker 4: right is already in.
54:50
Speaker 3: Visit our talking about the 600, 600 barrels you laid down.
54:54
Speaker 3: It was a year ago with your barrels.
54:56
Speaker 4: Oh, 2013.
54:58
Speaker 4: I'll need to check with the operation guys.
55:00
Speaker 4: I think they made our dumpers ready, so I don't know for sure.
55:04
Speaker 3: So when you dump them, do they put them in the hold tanks and you come in and perfect the blend.
55:11
Speaker 3: They're not dumping the spreadsheet, are they?
55:16
Speaker 4: Pretty much.
55:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, unless it's small bag, you eat pretty much really so damn it.
55:26
Speaker 3: Well, you made such good shit that it's gonna taste good, but you know, oh, let's see it just.
55:34
Speaker 3: Oh, so okay.
55:36
Speaker 3: So you've been in this business for this amount of time.
55:39
Speaker 3: Is this what you're used to?
55:42
Speaker 3: As far as the evolution, how it works, I mean, does every distillery just do this?
55:49
Speaker 4: Not always.
55:49
Speaker 4: I mean everybody's there.
55:51
Speaker 4: You know having to do to a direct brand back and that right back it's high quality reputation.
55:57
Speaker 4: It'll be that accommodation of what I've put.
56:00
Speaker 4: My life's okay and how to do that is I've enjoyed it again.
56:04
Speaker 4: You know what was it.
56:09
Speaker 4: They can really get away great, even greater, and I don't know if it's better not to know, but it's not my part, so we'll see okay I mean because?
56:19
Speaker 3: because it just seems to be like when we first got in this and we established ourselves with a bunch of different distilleries and it seems like I hope that you don't run the same course, but it seems like all of them are running the same analogy, jeff, is 1978 when I was in business.
56:38
Speaker 4: Well, the urban industry was a deal Right, very slow.
56:42
Speaker 4: There was a decline and Sears, the head of the company, the finance folks, kind of evolved.
56:48
Speaker 4: They said, hey, you know, we're losing sales, we're in repair.
56:53
Speaker 4: In order to maintain the ability of the margins for the sales, we've got to cut costs.
56:58
Speaker 4: So in order to maintain the margins for barrels, we've got to cut costs.
57:01
Speaker 4: So let's look at the way we can cut costs.
57:02
Speaker 4: And so back in 78, you know, we used to go to barrels.
57:05
Speaker 4: They're not rotating barrels, so let's be smart.
57:07
Speaker 4: You make a bad whiskey, some of those are going to burst, some are middle horse, some are top horse.
57:10
Speaker 4: So, age, you get a good procession across the warehouse.
57:12
Speaker 4: You come out.
57:14
Speaker 4: We had guys be ground.
57:15
Speaker 4: The following day.
57:16
Speaker 4: The girls would be plated to the field of the plate and in check they were leaving.
57:19
Speaker 4: It was time to wormhole.
57:22
Speaker 4: You put air and water in the room but hot alcohol went by its way out.
57:25
Speaker 4: And it would be a day, two days.
57:27
Speaker 4: We plated and then we're all open.
57:28
Speaker 4: If it's a cock that else in, you can lose a car unless it scabs open.
57:33
Speaker 4: We had guys who would go around with thermometers and with slings, psychrometers, humidity, and they would make readings throughout every house, every day, sessions of the rest, of course.
57:44
Speaker 4: And then, before computer time, they would write down rings of records.
57:48
Speaker 4: They would write down a graphic, writer, a committee, you know pictures, and they would track this stuff for adding quality.
57:54
Speaker 4: And when it was so plastic they stopped doing it because it was a cost.
57:58
Speaker 4: One is that it's a company and so you know if you're looking at cost, mostly it's like four jumps.
58:06
Speaker 4: Mama always said it's like a bucket you never know what you're going to get.
58:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just seems that there's a cycle.
58:17
Speaker 3: I mean there's some people, yes, and it does come into.
58:20
Speaker 3: It seems that sometimes the aging process consumes the people.
58:26
Speaker 3: You know what I mean, because as the wiki starts to get better and better, as you go into that five, six years that you've been waiting for that to actually start making money.
58:35
Speaker 3: But then the further you go into that, the more constraints there are.
58:41
Speaker 3: And I mean I've just you know, we watched with before.
58:47
Speaker 3: Logstill Distillery was even a distillery.
58:51
Speaker 3: We met Ollie and then this past year, lynn Dan, who was their master designer.
58:57
Speaker 3: They're controlling everything.
58:58
Speaker 3: You know that's family and she got.
59:01
Speaker 3: You know it's just things that happen.
59:03
Speaker 3: I just don't know why, or whatever.
59:04
Speaker 3: At the same time I'm a boy, I realize you are too the world rotates on money and whatever they think.
59:14
Speaker 3: You know the people that have money, what they think.
59:16
Speaker 3: Usually they're not thinking properly when it comes to the artistry or the creativity of something.
59:21
Speaker 3: But who knows, I'm just gonna be hoping you could stay there, but if you don't, uh, we're definitely on board for that part of your journey.
59:29
Speaker 3: Whatever that is, even if it's just a friend eating at a moray, I'll just come down 10 times a year.
59:36
Speaker 4: You know, I'm too short, but yeah, I guess in my life for a long time.
59:38
Speaker 4: I've been okay for many years.
59:40
Speaker 4: But uh, you know, right now I'm leaving the car to the Baltimore.
59:43
Speaker 3: All I can say is anybody, I would say if you do decide you want to be somewhere else, at least this year 30 bottles right off the shelf and go into job interviews, put the bottle down.
59:57
Speaker 3: Say I'm not talking, you taste it, because that would be.
1:00:01
Speaker 3: I mean seriously, while tasting off this pick we did for the Scotchie Bourbon Boys, for the Kentucky Bourbon Festival, and you know, bad, actually, honestly.
1:00:13
Speaker 3: There was even a more carnal barrel that personally, I think I would have picked.
1:00:18
Speaker 3: There was even a more common barrel that personally, I think I would have picked.
1:00:21
Speaker 3: But knowing that this year is the year to pick the barrel, this is the year that your, your barrels are there.
1:00:25
Speaker 3: That's what we're going to do.
1:00:26
Speaker 3: So even if something happens, you're still in that barrel.
1:00:31
Speaker 5: Greg, I just want to say thank you to all your hard work, your dedication, your time and all your attention to your dedication, your time and all your attention to Chick-fil-A.
1:00:39
Speaker 5: Thank you.
1:00:44
Speaker 3: It's been a great ride.
1:00:45
Speaker 3: So, all right, that's your 11th.
1:00:48
Speaker 3: You put it in.
1:00:49
Speaker 3: I mean all right, everybody.
1:00:52
Speaker 3: I hope you enjoyed Greg Schneider, as usual.
1:00:55
Speaker 3: This wasn't a surprise guest, he was a scheduled, so I think you're just rumbling.
1:01:14
Speaker 3: There you go.
1:01:14
Speaker 3: I mean literally.
1:01:16
Speaker 3: So, all right, so, mizunaro, here's to the next podcast.
1:01:20
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, sure for sure.
1:01:25
Speaker 3: All right, everybody.
1:01:26
Speaker 3: Um, we're the scotchy bourbon boys, wwwscotchybourbonboyscom for things.
1:01:30
Speaker 3: Scotchy bourbon boys, uh, check us out, just know, this weekend bourbon balls are going to be made.
1:01:35
Speaker 3: We're on all the social media books and youtube and accent also on all the podcast formats, mainly apple, iheart and spotify.
1:01:43
Speaker 3: However you live or watch us, make sure you listen, subscribe and leave good feedback.
1:01:48
Speaker 3: Remember good times, and this was good friends and times.
1:01:57
Speaker 3: It equals good times and good friends.
1:01:59
Speaker 3: Don't drink and make sure you drink and live your life un-fucked and un-fucked.
1:02:06
Speaker 3: All right, little steve-o is gonna kick us out, cheers everybody.
1:02:16
Speaker 2: I'll show you the way to the next season, on the last one, on the last one.
1:02:22
Speaker 2: Show me the way to the next season, on the last one, on the last one.
1:02:29
Speaker 2: For you to find the next season, I tell you we must die.
1:02:35
Speaker 2: I tell you we must die.
1:02:38
Speaker 2: I tell you.
1:02:39
Speaker 2: I tell you we must die.
1:02:40
Speaker 2: I tell you we must die.
1:02:41
Speaker 2: I tell you we must die.