Podcast appearances and mentions of lincoln henderson

In this REMIX Episode of The Bourbon Life Podcast, presented by Liquor Barn, Matt and Mark spend some time hanging out in The Bourbon Life Studios with Owen Martin, Master Distiller, from Angel's Envy. This Episode originally aired as Episode 233 on July 26, 2024. The guys talk with Owen about his impressive background and education, which included a stint in Scotland for a degree in brewing and distilling, his move from Stranahan's in Colorado to Angel's Envy to become its first Master Distiller since the death of original Co-Founder, Lincoln Henderson, and his view on the art of finishing, blending, and crafting Bourbon. They also taste and review Angel's Envy's 2023 Cask Strength Rye, their new Cask Strength Bottled in Bond Bourbon (Angel's Envy's first ever unfinished Bourbon release), and a sample of their yet to be released 2024 Cask Strength Bourbon (we are the first people outside of Angel's Envy to get to taste that expression). This Episode of The Bourbon Life Podcast is sponsored by Three Chord Bourbon and The Kitchen Table at James B. Beam Distilling Co. Check out all of our amazing sponsors online at:  www.threechordbourbon.com www.visitthekitchentable.com

Wes Henderson retired recently from Angel's Envy, the whiskey brand he and his father, the late Lincoln Henderson created. Retirement didn't suit Wes well, though, and he's back in the Bourbon business with True Story's finished Bourbon and Rye whiskies. He's also building a $92 million distillery in Versailles, Kentucky and upgrading the nearby Kentucky Castle boutique hotel and event space to make it more Bourbon-focused. We'll talk with the busy Wes Henderson on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, a port strike on the U.S. East Coast is over, clearing the way for shipments of whisky from Europe. We'll also have the trophy winners from this year's International Wine & Spirits Competition. 

In this Episode of The Bourbon Life Podcast, presented by Liquor Barn, Matt and Mark spend some time hanging out in The Bourbon Life Studios with Owen Martin, Master Distiller, from Angel's Envy The guys talk with Owen about his impressive background and education, which included a stint in Scotland for a degree in brewing and distilling, his move from Stranahan's in Colorado to Angel's Envy to become its first Master Distiller since the death of original Co-Founder, Lincoln Henderson, and his view on the art of finishing, blending, and crafting Bourbon. They also taste and review Angel's Envy's 2023 Cask Strength Rye, their new Cask Strength Bottled in Bond Bourbon (Angel's Envy's first ever unfinished Bourbon release), and a sample of their yet to be released 2024 Cask Strength Bourbon (we are the first people outside of Angel's Envy to get to taste that expression). This Episode of The Bourbon Life Podcast is presented by Liquor Barn and is also sponsored by Penelope Bourbon, Limestone Farms Bourbon, Pappy & Co., Old Dominick, The Stave Restaurant, Three Chord Bourbon, James E. Pepper Distillery, and The Kitchen Table at James B. Beam Distilling Co. Check out all of our amazing sponsors online at:  www.liquorbarn.com  www.penelopebourbon.com www.limestonefarms.com www.pappyco.com www.olddominick.com              www.thestavekentucky.com  www.threechordbourbon.com www.jamesepepper.com   www.visitthekitchentable.com

Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Famer Wes Henderson founded Angel's Envy with his Father, Lincoln Henderson, and they forever changed the landscape of bourbon whiskey in the US. In this episode, he breaks down exactly what that process looked like and how it forever changed the labels that we see on whiskey shelves today. If the debate of "bourbon" vs "finished bourbon" sparks your curiosity, you won't want to miss this one. Find Wes on Twitter and Instagram: @kybourbonmaker Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/whiskeynoobs

Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Famer Wes Henderson founded Angel's Envy with his Father, Lincoln Henderson, and they forever changed the landscape of bourbon whiskey in the US. In this episode, he breaks down exactly what that process looked like and how it forever changed the labels that we see on whiskey shelves today. If the debate of "bourbon" vs "finished bourbon" sparks your curiosity, you won't want to miss this one. Find Wes on Twitter and Instagram: @kybourbonmaker Support the show on Patreon: patreon.com/whiskeynoobs

On this episode of Chill Filtered, Cole and Robby have a special treat in store as they crack open their sample bottles of Angel's Envy Cellar Collection #2-Tawny Port Finished Bourbon. They talk their upcoming Matt Madness round together, Robby's other nicknames, Cadillac custard, history of Lincoln Henderson and more. On Whiskey World News, Robby shares an article about the "green" Scotch. And on "What Whiskey VWould You Choose?" Cole poses a question that's sure to get the whiskey lovers' wheels turning: What whiskey would go best with Bush's Baked Beans? Tune in as the guys sip on this very rare Angel's Envy release and ponder the intricacies of barrel aging and finishing. Will this bourbon take them on a journey to the heart of Kentucky and beyond? Or perhaps to the rolling hills of Portugal, where the tawny port casks used in the finishing process originated? Listen and find out!

Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of chatting with Chris Morris, Master Distiller at Woodford Reserve and we talked about his rise and the process of going from assistant under the legendary Lincoln Henderson to the Master Distiller role.  Two weeks ago, my email box held a message that another assistant was getting that honor of moving up to the Master Distiller role and today, its my honor of chatting with the new face of distilling at Woodford Reserve, Elizabeth McCall. Join me as we find out about her journey to this position and where her focus will be going forward.

There are new investments made into multi-million dollar distilleries every week it seems. There are more brands and product extensions popping up everyday. Yet, there's a shortage of barrels that are putting a strain on existing production. But when all this evens out and everything gets produced as planned, are we going to see an overproduction and what could be the result? Russell's Reserve is coming out with their new limited edition Single Rickhouse line extension. Sure, it features barrels that are selected from the former Camp Nelson C, but does it warrant a price tag of $250? Lastly, we look at the announcement of Angel's Envy hiring Owen Martin to be their next Master Distiller. Angel's Envy hasn't had a Master Distiller since the passing of Lincoln Henderson in 2013 who co-founded the brand. Is this an attempt to fill a void that is missing after Wes Henderson announced his retirement? Show Notes: Above the Char with Fred Minnick (@fredminnick) talks about who might be the next Dave Pickerell. There are more brands and product extensions popping up every day. This is a side effect of the boom but what will happen when everything evens out, production goes as planned, and then we see an overproduction? Russell's Reserve has debuted an all-new, annual limited-edition collection: Russell's Reserve Single Rickhouse. However, the price tag is $250. Is this deserving of that premium price tag? Angel's Envy hasn't had a Master Distiller since the passing of Lincoln Henderson in 2013 who co-founded the brand. Is this an attempt to fill a void that is missing after Wes Henderson announced his retirement? @breakingbourbon @fredminnick @drinkseelbachs @bourbonr @sippncorn Support this podcast on Patreon

“Taste is never an accident” is a quote that Angel's Envy founder Lincoln Henderson always believed in and lived by when it came to whiskey. The 4th release of the Angel's Envy Cellar Collection represents the first time a rye whiskey makes an appearance in the lineup. Angel's Envy Rye Whiskey Finished in Ice Cider Casks is a bold and spicy rye that has rested in an @edenciders cask for an entire year! The result, well, you'll have to listen to find out. Will the fellas think this whiskey is worth every penny? Happy #Fryeday y'all -------------------------- Socials IG: https://www.instagram.com/themashupky FB: https://www.facebook.com/themashupky TW: https://twitter.com/themashupky Music: All the Fixings by Zachariah Hickman Thank you so much for listening!

Chris Morris is only the second Master Distiller at the Woodford Reserve Distillery. He had an important role in the development of the Woodford Reserve launch in 1996. The whiskey is one of the world's fastest growing bourbons. He's the mastermind behind Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, Rye, and Master's Collection. Chris began his career in the spirits industry in 1976 as a trainee in Brown-Forman's central lab. In 1997, he found himself as an understudy to Lincoln Henderson, Woodford Reserve's Inaugural Master Distiller, who in 2003 Chris succeeded. In the years that followed, Chris was responsible for creating the world's first bourbon finished in Chardonnay and Pinot Noir Barrels. He's also credited with developing the world's first maple barrel; a difficult feat made easier when you command your own cooperage. Woodford Reserve is the presenting sponsor of the Kentucky Derby. Follow Woodford Reserve on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Buy Woodford Reserve online here. Follow the My Fame Explained podcast on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Chris Morris knows whiskey. As the second Master Distiller at the Woodford Reserve Distillery, Chris was an integral character in the development of Woodford Reserve. As head Master Distiller of one of the world's fastest growing bourbons, he spends his days innovating and planning future releases.The mastermind behind Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, Rye, and Master's Collection, Chris knows the keys to making good whiskey are time and patience, but having a sense of good craftsmanship is also a talent that goes a long way.Chris began his career in bourbon in 1976 as a trainee in Brown-Forman's central lab. In 1997, he found himself as an understudy to Lincoln Henderson, Woodford Reserve's Inaugural Master Distiller, who in 2003 Chris succeeded. In the years that followed, Chris was responsible for creating the world's first bourbon finished in Chardonnay and Pinot Noir Barrels. He's also credited with developing the world's first maple barrel; a difficult feat made easier when you command your own cooperage.Join us as we speak with Chris and learn more about his passions and hear many incredible stories!

The reaction to last week's bonus episode with Stephanie Macleod of Dewar's was so positive that we're doing it again this week! Wes Henderson of Angel's Envy joined us Friday night for the #HappyHourLive webcast, and we talked about everything from the construction underway at the distillery in Louisville to lab-created whiskies and what defines a "master distiller." That's something Wes knows well, since he co-founded Angel's Envy with his father, the late master distiller and original Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame inductee Lincoln Henderson. Wes joined his father in the Hall of Fame two years ago, and answered many of your whisky questions during the webcast, too!

This episode features an interview with Wes Henderson, the co-founder and chief innovation officer of Angel's Envy, who chronicled the history and development of the revered whiskey brand and how the company rapidly scaled while staying true to its values. This podcast also includes a conversation with the founders of two innovative brands that focuses on how each landed placement in their dream retailers. Teresa Tsou, the co-founder of better-for-you snack brand Pipsnacks, and Andrew Suzuka, the founder of organic, vegetable-infused tomato sauce brand Otamot, discussed the key steps along their respective paths into Whole Foods and Sprouts. Show notes: 1:05: Wes Henderson, Co-Founder & Chief Innovation Officer, Angel's Envy -- In an interview with Taste Radio editor Ray Latif, Henderson opened up about the inspiration behind Angel's Envy, which he co-founded with his father and master distiller Lincoln Henderson, and how he successfully intertwined family and business. He also discussed the behind the brand's iconic bottle, how the brand grew while maintaining its identity and positioning, the emotional aspect of selling the business to spirits giant  Bacardi in 2015, how he's involved in the next stage of development for Angel's Envy and how his passion for civic service and flying helped him become a better leader. 38:12: Interview: Teresa Tsou, Co-Founder, Pipsnacks & Andrew Suzuka, Founder/CEO, Otamot -- The episode continues with Tsou and Suzuka, who joined us for a discussion about how they got their brands into their dream retail chains. Initially featured on social media platform Clubhouse and recorded for this episode, Tsou and Suzuka spoke about the vision for and launch of their respective brands, how they initially secured meetings with retail buyers from their favorite chains, the keys to curating their pitches and how they're supporting the brands in-store. Brands in this episode: Angel's Envy, Pipsnacks, Otamot

Truly knockin on Heaven’s door with Angel’s Envy Rye! Brothers discuss the bourbon legend Lincoln Henderson and touch on the bourbon community.

We tell the story of the Brick Lady. We also talk fixing games, John Williams, and the American judicial system. Alcohols Reviewed: Angels Envy Bourbon from the cellars of Lincoln Henderson, and the Knob Creek 9 year single barrel reserve from Knob Creek Distilling Co. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

On this week’s episode, we sit down with the co-founder of Angel's Envy, Wes Henderson, as we discuss the inspiration of the brand and the Angel’s Envy product line. Wes is the son of bourbon hall of famer, Lincoln Henderson. Wes and Lincoln had a vision to start their own independent distillery and make unique products by barrel finishing their hand-crafted whiskey. On this episode, we discuss everything from their standard product offerings to their limited edition Cellar Collection releases. We dive into the resurgence of Whiskey Row in downtown Louisville and the role Angel’s Envy played in making Whiskey Row what it is today. Wes also reveals what his daily sipper when he is at home relaxing. It may surprise you what an owner of a bourbon distillery sips on in the comfort of his own home.  If you haven’t had a chance to try the new, limited release, Tawny Port Finish Bourbon, from the Angel’s Envy Cellar Collection, you may want to do yourself a favor and get your hands on a bottle before they are all gone. So kick back, pour yourself a bourbon, especially an Angel’s Envy, and enjoy the conversation we had with Wes Henderson. Cheers! We would appreciate you giving us a 5 star rating on your podcast app and please leave us a written review. This will help others discover our podcast and will help us expand our reach. Also, be sure to follow us @BourbonLens on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter. If you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, please email us at TheBourbonLens@Gmail.com. Visit our website BourbonLens.com to check out our blog posts and see what we are up to. (Stock photos for this post courtesy of Angel's Envy)

In this episode the ladies discuss what it's like to be a dog owner, there are good times, and bad times and sometimes it's a Poopocalypse! Thankfully, they have the story of the Knight's Templar and Roslyn Chapel to keep them on track. The famous Dan Brown book, The Da Vinci Code was inspired by this place and it seems he's not the only one who has the Knight's Templar spirit. Many ghosts seem to call this place their home, a ghost dog, some monks, the White Lady and many more. The featured whiskey of this episode is from the cellar of Lincoln Henderson, Angel's Envy Finished Rye (finished in rum casks).

Former Seven Grand Bartender Luke Ford is back with us on the podcast and he's brought some Incredibly tasty treats from the Woodford Reserve Masters Collection! If you heard the last time we had Luke joining us, you'll remember his famous whale joke; be sure to stick around til the end of the podcast when he brings another fantastic one!--What we drank:Woodford Reserve Kentucky Straight MaltWoodford Reserve Kentucky Straight WheatWoodford Reserve Chocolate Malted RyeWoodford Reserve BourbonWoodford Reserve Kentucky Straight RyeWoodford Reserve Double Oaked--About the Woodford Reserve Masters Collection (From WoodfordReserve.com)Chris Morris knows whiskey. As the second Master Distiller at the Woodford Reserve Distillery, Chris was an integral character in the development of Woodford Reserve. As head Master Distiller of one of the world's fastest growing bourbons, he spends his days innovating and planning future releases.The mastermind behind Woodford Reserve Double Oaked, Rye, and Master's Collection, Chris knows the keys to making good whiskey are time and patience, but having a sense of good craftsmanship is also a talent that goes a long way.“The idea is to create new and different things with an artisan's touch, Chris said. “Things nobody's ever done before while maintaining the essence of Woodford Reserve that everyone loves.”Chris began his career in bourbon in 1976 as a trainee in Brown-Forman's central lab. In 1997, he found himself as an understudy to Lincoln Henderson, Woodford Reserve's Inaugural Master Distiller, who in 2003 Chris succeeded. In the years that followed, Chris was responsible for creating the world's first bourbon finished in Chardonnay and Pinot Noir Barrels. He's also credited with developing the world's first maple barrel; a difficult feat made easier when you command your own cooperage.In the early 1800s, our Woodford County Distillery, thanks to owner Oscar Pepper and Master Distiller James Crow, was the site for landmark discoveries and innovative techniques in bourbon-making.Pepper and Crow are credited with refining and defining key processes such as sour mashing, yeast propagation, copper pot distillation and the maturing of whiskey in new, charred oak casks. Their work defined bourbon and subsequently rye whiskey as we know them today.Woodford Reserve Distillery's Master's Collection™ honors the pioneering work of Pepper and Crow, applying their handcrafted methods to a variety of grain recipes, fermentation styles and maturation processes to create a range of unique whiskeys.Follow us:spiritguidesocietypodcast.comfacebook.com/spiritguidesoctwitter.com/spiritguidesocinstagram.com/spiritguidesocyoutube.com/c/SpiritGuideSociety/?sub_confirmation=1--Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This is the final roundtable for 2019 as we head into the new year. And this one packs a few punches. First, we dive into Instagram news where the number of likes are now hidden from your view. How will it impact bourbon Instagram stars? Then we roll into the meat of the podcast talking about Pappy and Sazerac vs The Secondary Market. Lastly, we share what we are thankful for in 2019. I also want to take this opportunity to say thank you to you, the dedicated listeners and viewers of Bourbon Pursuit. We really appreciate the hours you spend with us every week to hear us talk about bourbon. Show Partners: Barrell Craft Spirits works with distilleries from all over the world to source and blend the best ingredients into America’s most curious cask strength whiskies. Learn more at BarrellBourbon.com. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Distillery 291 is an award winning, small batch whiskey distillery located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Learn more at Distillery291.com. Show Notes: Warehouse X: http://www.experimentalwarehouse.com/ Marianne Eaves at TEDxBroadway: https://www.tedxbroadway.com/talks/2019/11/19/making-the-impossible-and-doing-the-unthinkable-marianne-eaves This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about vintage whiskey collections. Instagram removes likes. Does this impact bourbon influencers? Do Instagram posts drive people to your content? Will the lack of likes deter people from using influencers? Should Instagram hide the number of followers? Do you think Sazerac is behind the secondary take down? Why make the Van Winkles the face of the blame? Should they raise the SRP of Pappy? Do you think other distilleries are happy they took action on the secondary market? What are you thankful for with bourbon in 2019? Thanks to Blake from bourbonr.com, Nick from BreakingBourbon.com , and Brian from sippncorn.com for joining. 0:00 me think about it if you're like a craft distiller you work your ass off like making it all anyone ever asked like, was it? Did you distill it? Yeah, yeah, we produced it. No Did you distill it? 0:13 Right there the label 0:15 and then and then they then you taste it like oh, that sucks. I'd rather have MGP 0:32 Happy Thanksgiving everybody. It is Episode 229 of bourbon pursuit and I hope you're out there, drinking a little bit of Turkey today and just taking it nice and easy. Now Buffalo Trace just wrapped up its second experiment utilizing its custom made experimental warehouse x. Now this experiment began in 2016 and focus on how temperature affects the aging process. The first experiment ended in 2016. And that one focus on natural like keeping barrels various stages of light for two years. And the second experiment, which just ended a few weeks ago at the end of October, determined how barrel activity correlates with temperature changes, keeping to the four warehouse chambers constant and vary the other two chambers. And throughout the experiment, they track temperature fluctuations from five degrees to 109 degrees Fahrenheit, and monitored the barrel pressures ranging from about negative 2.7 psi to a positive 3.2 psi, in total 9.1 million data points were collected during the second experiment. And now the next experiment will expand on the distilleries temperature experiment by focusing on how temperature and these swings affect whiskey activity in the barrel. And there's gonna be a two year experiment and that's going to begin in late November. Buffalo Trace estimates that it's going to collect more than 70 million data points by the end of this 20 year project. For more information about warehouse texts, you can visit the experimental warehouse.com good friend of the show Marion Eve got it. chance to tell her story on nothing else. But the TED stage. TED talks are a personal favorite of mine. And I feel that she did an absolute amazing job on this. Not only do you get to hear her story of getting into bourbon, working your way up the ranks at Brown Forman, delete for castle and key and her eventual departure from castling key but she really shines a spotlight on bourbon as a whole. It's a 10 minute TED talk that was from TEDx Broadway. And you can watch it with the link in our show notes. This is the final round table for 2019. As we head into the new year, and this one, it packs a few punches, we first dive into the Instagram news where the number of likes are now hidden from your view. And if that's going to impact our bourbon Instagram stars that are out there. Then we roll into the real meat of the podcast talking about Pappy and saceur act versus the secondary market. There's lots of good ideas and theories behind this one. Lastly, we share what we're thankful for in 2019. And I also want to take this opportunity Say thank you to you. We really do appreciate the hours that you spend with us every single week to hear us talk about bourbon. And I hope each and every one of you have a happy Thanksgiving. Now it's time for Joe to tell us a little bit more about barrel bourbon. And then you've got Fred minich with above the char. 3:18 It's Joe from barrell bourbon. We work with distilleries from all over the world to source and blend the best ingredients into America's most curious cask strength whiskies. Find out more at barrell bourbon com. 3:32 I'm Fred MiniK. And this is above the char. This week's idea comes from Ian, that bourbon guy on Twitter. Ans what are the top 10 vintage Bourbons everyone must chase on their whiskey journey. That's a great question and it's one I've actually thought a lot about because I like to collect vintage whiskies. For me it all starts with the distilleries you want to have like a whiskey from every distillery that matters to you or every state. For me, I can't speak for everyone else. But I had to have some Mexican bourbon and some Canadian bourbon in my collection. So when I started my hunts, I captured some of those that so these are historic Bourbons that would have been made in these markets before the 1964 declaration of bourbon being a unique product the United States so those are two right off the bat. And the Mexican bourbon was not so good. The Canadian bourbon actually pretty pretty good. And then I have to always have something from national distillers national distillers was really good parent company that used to operate old Taylor and Old Crow they sold to beam in 1987 and Old Crow turned a shit in thankfully says rack acquired old Taylor from beam which was slowly To shit as well. So I always have to have something from national distillers. And then I like to go for my favorite distillers of all time. And that would be someone like Edwin Fudd, or book or know or Lincoln Henderson or Parker beam, you know something that these great legendary iconic distillers would have touched. So that's not really a brand per se, but you got to do your homework to find out where they worked and what they did and what brands they touched on that and so that is that is one tool that I have always used as well, and you got to get something from the 1800s. I mean, it's kind of a it's a difficult acquisition. But if you can find the old bottle from the 1800s you feel pretty special about it. It's a pretty pretty cool feeling when you hold in your hand something that was created during President Benjamin Harrison's time I also like to always have a bottle from stetzer Weller Wild Turkey, old brown Forman products like old old forester from the 1960s the President's choice, and something I'm very fond of as getting those private labels that they used to make. Back in the day places like Macy's and grocery stores, they would all have private labels a bourbon. You're starting to see a little bit of a comeback of this, but it was really popular back in the day. One thing I like to stay away from though are the decanters, especially the Jim Beam decanters because you really never know how much is left in there. You know, some of them might be like too much lead in there, whatever. But there's a lot of decanters that I will not touch of course, that completely contradicts what I'm about to tell you. And that is the Old Crow chespin piece from the 1960s. It was absolutely it's absolutely the greatest bourbon I have ever tasted. And if you've never had the opportunity to taste it, you can go check out a bottle at the Bardstown bourbon company, the library there I curated. So those are really some of my key points when I'm when I'm looking for vintage whiskeys and they're all very personal you got to remember whiskey is is about your own journey as well as the hunt. So find out what it is you like and what stories means something to you and what people meant something to you and go chase them. So that's this week's above the char thanks a lot T and for that great idea and if you have an idea for above the char make sure you hit me up on Twitter, Instagram, or even YouTube now. Just search my name Fred MiniK. Until next week, cheers 7:39 Welcome everybody. It is the bourbon Community Roundtable number 39 and this is bourbon pursuit the official podcast of bourbon. This is one of the most favorite times of the podcast especially for us because we get to bring on all our good friends with inside of the community here the best bloggers around some of the best lawyers around that know about bourbon as well. And to be held in accountants. I mean, we got two accounts. Yeah. Got it, we're gonna we're going to start creating our own trade business at the end of this. And not only that is you know, we have people from all around the nation that are joining and watching us live and being a part of this conversation as well. Right now we're sitting around 63 concurrent viewers, hopefully gets 100 by the end of this. But with that, let's go ahead because we've got a whole lot of information to talk about, and I want to kind of get into this. So, Ryan, Fred, here we are again, man. You guys look looking forward tonight. 8:31 Yeah, I think this is a very important discussion to have tonight, and maybe it's one we've all wanted to have. 8:39 What are we discussing? 8:42 What happens what happens when you don't do the homework? Yeah. 8:45 I'm super excited to discuss that too. 8:48 Nice. Nice. Alright, so let's go ahead and round in our first one. So Blake from bourbon or how are you? I'm 8:53 doing well doing well. Thanks for having me, guys. Yeah, into my introduction. Yeah, I guess it's just our usual thing is usual Alright, I'm Blake from bourbon or if you're watching this you probably already know this is the, you know, longest standing tradition of making the roundtables, like call me the kin, Kendrick. Ken Griffey, also Cal Ripken of the round table but that's a follow me on all the social medias. Bo you are Bo and r.com as well as seal box calm, only have URLs where you have to spell it out and people are caught on What was that again? So seal boxes. Es el ba ch s. 9:36 And you got a new one right Southern barnburner I have that 9:39 one. I don't know. Is that is that you 9:43 know, is there a southern bourbon or out there? Yeah. 9:47 Yeah. Someone's copying you. 9:49 Talk boy hop on those URLs. Blake. Oh, yeah. 9:53 Go ahead and put that cease and desist out. 9:55 I'll get it together tonight. 9:57 You know, speaking of that, the kind of fakes and stuff that Come out there. Remember Ted Finnick? Remember those articles? Yeah, that 10:04 was whatever happened he had like a solid two month run and then all the sudden 10:08 it happens every now and then someone will come out and try to, you know, impersonate me or do some kind of, you know, fun satirical deal. And that's great. I love it. But what they don't realize is if you're going to try to impersonate me You better try to keep up because I go fast and 10:25 they realize like oh man this this is work now like 10:32 I'll just go back to making fun of him and in a Facebook forum you know and that's good 10:38 all right, Brian, you're up next buddy. 10:40 Yeah, thanks guys for having me again is Brian with sip and corn you can find me on the all the socials as sip and corn and you can also find me at bourbon justice calm. Look forward to a good show tonight. Guest 10:51 fantastic and Nick. 10:53 And I'm Nick with breaking bourbon calm. April 1. Breaking vodka calm that's been known to happen. But only that one day. And I can find us on all this socials at breaking bourbon. And thanks again for me on guys. 11:08 Absolutely. It's always great to have all of you on especially everybody else that's here in the chat. So let's go ahead and kind of start with our first question. If people in the chat they have something that they'd like to say with us as well speak now, we're going to be like to be able to put it out there for you. So the first we're going to talk about is the new change that happened with Instagram. Now, this is something that kind of, you know, maybe impacts the bourbon world a little bit, but more or less, just like the influencer market that's out there. So one of the recent changes that happened was they removed the ability to see the amount of likes that an individual has on a specific kind of post. And this can be for a few different reasons. You know, there's a lot of things that you know, you can buy likes out there, that's, that's not unheard of. You can buy followers as well, but one things you really can't buy or, you know, good comments or engagement and stuff like that. So I guess the one thing I'll kind of hand it over to what sir, who has the The most followers I'm it's either between bourbon or breaking who's got the most followers or aging? Probably. 12:05 Yeah, I'd have to check. I think we're just under 70,000 12:08 Yeah, okay. 12:12 I got 7070 12:16 Yeah, there's there's no thousand after it, 12:18 you'll get it. I mean, you know, I'll say this you know, our, it's all 100% organic we we've never gotten into, you know, anything where you sign up to get followers in some way, we pretty much just post What we want to talk about what we're drinking. We try to keep it light on there as much as possible, of course, will will post new content and that kind of thing. But we've really made that clear with you know, anybody who wants to, you know, be sponsored in some way that you know, really it's about what we want to do so sure, if you want to send us a sample of something, or a bottle That's fantastic, you know, we'll maybe review it maybe do a TNT you know, maybe it'll show up and Instagram but really, we still, you know, maintain and control that you know, from the like personal active, you know, we certainly use it as a gauge as to what, you know what people want to see, you know, what, you know, what times a week or times a day, you know, maybe that the times when more people are going to see those posts, you know, generally speaking, you know, number of likes, you know, you'll you'll gauge that it's kind of the, the, the, you know, that metric outside of kind of next next met metric, which is the interaction. So the number of comments on the post, which is, you know, some posts, we see a huge volume of comments and others, you know, not really much I think, sometimes when we direct people off to the site, we actually lose comments on the Instagram post itself, and people are getting pulled right off to the site to read the review. But that's the intent. You know, the idea is to kind of share that message, let people know there's something new up on this site. You know, what I think is interesting about this whole thing is it's being proposed as, and maybe there's some truth and validity to it, that, you know, it's to help with people's mental well being that kind of thing. But that being said, I think there's a part of That believes at some point, you know, these companies that want this data on, you know, unlikes are going to be able to buy it on the back end, they're going to be able to see that data, you know, through some kind of payment to Instagram, they're going to be able to figure out, you know, who the best engaging influencers are, if that's what you want to call them. And they're going to use that as a metric. Because right now, if you think of these, you know, these companies, if they're looking at, you know, number of followers, and they're looking at number of likes, those are really kind of just surface that just touches the surface of what's going on, you know, as far as the interaction goes, and they really want the interactions, they want people that are interacting with the community and in depth and really, you know, connected with the communities that they're talking to. And those couple of metrics, I'm not really sure, you know, fully, you know, fully show that so I think what we're going to see is I think we're going to see Instagram, really starting to take a bite out of this pie of, you know, these influencers who are making money on this journey, they want their piece and I think that's what's eventually going to come is you know, ways for those companies to kind of engage that data? 15:02 Nick, that's a fantastic answer, by the way. 15:04 next subject. Here we go. 15:07 Do you ever gauge your post between you and Jordan and just to see who has the most likes? 15:12 I think Jordan does that he's keeping track five state. Not really. We have I mean, we have fun with it. We're running scoreboard. 15:22 We do get excited. I will say when there's actually when there's comments is when we really get excited, I think I posted actually was the three of us together, we went to a local store, and he kind of let us in the back or he's got way too much. That's not like generally for sale. But he kind of said, you know, take what you want, you know, what do you want and, you know, we weren't we didn't go over Barba which got three bottles and stuff you just don't see. And you know, we kind of put them arrange them in group. So this is what each of us got, you know, my group, George's group, Eric's group when you just said which, which one would you pick? One, two or three. And we were amazed by how many comments we got. Matt, you know, because it's really interesting to see, you know, that dynamic of what people gravitated towards, you know, with the bundle or the one particular bottle they felt like was the strongest, you know, that kind of thing. So, we get more excited about I think interactions than just just plain old likes at this point. 16:16 Yeah, I kind of the question for you know, between you and Blake, you know, when you look at this, you know, the ultimate goal is that none of us are like making money off Instagram, right? None of us are. I guess the question is, is that what we want to do is want to figure out how do we convert these people that are looking at our stuff on Instagram to actually listening to a podcast or reading one of your articles, like, do you see Instagram as a medium to actually make that happen? Or just are people just excited to just be like, Oh, cool. Nick has a bottle of Pappy 20 all like that. For me. 16:45 I think it's just, you know, it's all part of the big big flywheel. So you know, there's, there's people who come to just see the Instagram and may see a blog post or something like that, and, you know, so it's kind of connecting it all. But I think Instagram is a good discovery tool. 17:02 So 17:04 somebody may not be you just Google searching and find you, but they may see you on Instagram. They're like, Oh, they have a blog they posted a review now I'll look at that. So I think it's it's really good for that just for discovering new new blogs, new new websites, all that kind of stuff. So it's not as big of on the likes, like I didn't think that was that big of a deal, at least in the whiskey industry. You know, I think Mikey putting the comments about, you can still see the inside. So companies want to see your analytics of how many likes and comments you get per post, they could still see all that it's more of like that forward facing just that vanity number of Oh, this post got 1000 likes it is crazy. I think they just took took away that and I mean, that's fine to me. I don't think it really affects anything that us do. Because, you know, like Kenny said, No, no one's really making money off of Instagram. At least I haven't figured out a way yet. So, you know, it kind of removes that removes a little bit of the vanity. 18:09 And so I think it's pretty good thing overall, 18:11 I think this is very important for the consumer. What this does is it kind of, it kind of deflates a trend that we've seen in, in whiskey in that there's been a shit ton of people who bought a bottle of bourbon five weeks ago, and suddenly they're an expert. And so, you know, Instagram seem to be a breeding ground for people coming into the game. And I, as you all know, I will help anybody trying to get into this business at you know, to create interesting content or ideas or videos, whatever. I am all about furthering the education and the conversation. And even if you are a new bourbon consumer, and you're bringing people into that journey, And you're just posting a bottle. There's nothing wrong with that. The the problem that has surfaced from these, you know, some of the what we would call influencers is that they were like, overnight experts, and they would they would post themselves as that I mean, and someone like, you know, Brian and myself has been doing this for more than a decade. You know, he just kind of kind of look at that and scratch your head. But at the same time, I have seen the impact of what the influencer community can do for for events and getting people to show up or even watch something. And I think it's really powerful. There's a guy scotch and time I thought I that what he has done has been really remarkable in that he kind of vetted a lot of influencers that would touch scotch whether they were a cigars or They were car people. And like with it, you know, with a flick of a finger or a reach out through Instagram, he would have all those people talking about an event. And before you know it, you know he touches a million people. And those are real people. And so I think there's an incredible amount of value to it. But we just have to be careful that we don't get ourselves in a situation where we're not providing real information or a real story that matters to somebody 20:32 kind of just the back of what Fred says, I think I love Instagram and I waste countless hours of it. That's why I've mostly delete social media during the week not to waste time on it but with Instagram, it's like you have shallow short and like you know what contents going to grab you at that instant and it's like, everything has to be epic and it makes it like so like dramatic and it's sad that we have to like remove likes because people put So much self worth, like in those that we're trying to fix, you know, people's mental health because they don't realize this is a highlight reel of someone's life or their life like when Blake's, you know, dropping a brisket and it wobbles, and he has to put, you know, juvenile 400 degrees on it. It's not because he's living this epic life. It has kids screaming in the 21:22 room in the background, like everybody's going crazy. That's why I have to put music over every single. 21:32 Like, those celebrities are like, look at me, I'm so epic, because I'm with my boys and we got like 10 bottles and we put like 40 filters on it to make it look like the craziest photo ever. But, you know, that's just my thought on it. 21:45 I will say that when I got when Instagram verified my account, and I got that little blue checkmark. I mean, there's there are a few things that I have celebrated. More than that, that was like in a weird way, it was like, you know for 22:03 let me interrupt few things you've celebrated more than that. 22:07 Well, in terms of like social media, I was about to go down, go down that road, like, I hate social media. But when I first started, like trying to, you know, sell books to publishers, they were like, you need Instagram followers, you need Twitter followers, you need this and now it's fucking YouTube. So you know, you have to have all of these things to be encompassing and so that's why you know, I've worked on that is because it's what the people who you know, put on events and you know, buy books at the publishing level or films or whatever, that's what they want. And at bourbon and beyond, you know, we assess bands based on you know, like a new up and coming band, we can assess a band based on the metrics from YouTube or Instagram, that's real life data. So when I got that like blue checkmark because I know how important that is for like, event planners And that's basically how I make a good chunk of my living is doing events around the world. And when I got that blue checkmark, I was like, I've made it. 23:10 I had no idea I was That's crazy. I mean, I was late to the game didn't get on to my daughter got me on. And it's it's eye opening to 23:18 actually just put a green check after my name. I think it's something similar to that. Blue check. I think it 23:24 will. The green check emoji. Yeah. 23:28 Yeah, it's pretty close. I think it'll pass in some places. So yeah, I mean, like I said, I think that was a really good kind of way to touch on it a little bit. And I guess the last thing that will kind of look in here is, you know, as if you're a company and you're still looking for that engagement, that influencer following I mean, it is this can be a deterrent for you not being able to see that or is it going to be like okay, now we have to get more data out of this person, try to figure out if they're actually a true influencer or not. I think 23:53 it's going to cause the companies to dig deeper 23:56 sites that give you those analytics. I mean, there's sites like You know, don't on it down 24:02 follower by user. 24:03 Yeah, by account. And I think it's I think Instagrams going to use that data, you know, I think they're going to collect more data, I would think that they, at some point are going to try to be in between, because if you think right now, if there's transactions happening between companies in between influencers she got in, it's happening outside of Instagram, but then the post and the activity, the thing that they want is happening inside of Instagram, I gotta believe that, if I'm Instagram, why wouldn't I want a portion of that? Why would I want to be the one to connect those two entities? And if anything, we may see a lot more of that because right now, it's really pretty ad hoc, you know, especially if you're not somebody that's, you know, a huge Instagram personality that's got it figured out, you know, or a big company that's got it figured out you know, you've got smaller companies seeing it seeing like seeing followers thinking, Okay, there's a big audience here. Maybe they don't understand that but they might want to throw some money. They may not know how to connect with quality, the influencers I think we may see a lot more connectivity there, you know, between between these two parties with Instagram actually in the middle taking a portion of it, which to me that's even a little bit more scary you know, because as of right now you got to be cautious about what you're seeing and reading because what's really what's really behind it, you know, and there's certainly some markets out there where just about all the information that's out there is got somebody money behind it is very difficult to find real information, you know, that somebody has put together on their own without the influence from somebody money. 25:33 Okay, last question as we kind of tail off on this. Should Instagram also hide the amount of followers that you have, 25:40 I think that would start to deter even more from people reaching out to you know, influencers and all that kind of stuff. So I think that would hurt their, you know, they can kind of get away with hiding the likes and you know, gets a nice PR push, but if they started hiding followers and all of that. I mean, you know, the whole mental health thing I get, but it's like, if somebody is drawing value in their own life, because of how many Instagram followers, they have Instagrams not gonna be able to solve that problem in their life, you know, it's going to take something more. And, you know, it's a sad thing to say, but it is true. Like, if that's where you're deriving value from with your life, like, you need to take a step back in general. And that's just a small byproduct of I'm sure some deep seated issues. 26:34 So 26:35 kind of a, on a serious note to bring it back. 26:39 No, like, what's the point that I mean, you know, we're all on there to build a bigger following and reach bigger audience. So take it for what it is. It's a tool to talk to more people about whiskey. It's not something that you should be waking up in the middle of the night thinking why don't I have 100,000 26:56 followers every time my posts don't get as much likes his kidneys. I'm liking that. You're in a funk. You know, 27:07 I who cares what they do? I mean, I just all I mean every, every day, they're all changing their algorithms and you know, one day it's all going to go away or be changed and highly regulated. Just, it's not worth worrying about or even thinking about. It's all stupid. 27:24 Yeah, like speaking of stupid, let's go ahead and move on to another stupid topic. So some fun. 27:28 Yes. Alright. 27:30 Cool. So, last week, Blake broke a lot of hearts out there across the nation, as he got rid of you know, he always has to be tech map, but he said this year, and never again, will there ever be another Pappy release map. And so that kind of led into a good blog posts that kind of talked about really the problems that he sees with it. You know, even if you do find a bottle, Pappy. odds are you're not going to be paying retail because I think he said there's about it. Maybe a two to 5% chance that there's that's all the retailers that are left across the nation that are actually selling theirs at suggested retail price. And so this kind of leads into the sort of the next question and it also kind of tails off on a lot of things that we had discussed or kind of took the the brunt end of it. A few weeks ago when we had a counterfeiter on the podcast, and people were talking about, okay, well, you need to go talk to Sandra, you need to pull you need to put them online, they should be responsible for this. Like they need to answer the questions that people we reached out to saceur and PR, and we asked for somebody to come on the show to try it and provide some transparency. And we knew this was going to be a sensitive subject. And we're willing to give all the questions up front just in case they wanted to prepare their answers. However, resizer at the respectfully declined our offer, and they do not wish to answer any of our questions. So we're going to do what we do best and make all sorts of frivolous claims and conspiracy theories. 28:53 Thank you. lations. 28:54 Yes, so everything you hear from this point forward and me button right now. 29:00 Go ahead and throw that Brian's 29:02 way. 29:04 So anything that you hear from here on out is our own opinions. Nothing that is factual or true or anything. This is just something that we're all just kind of talking about as just kind of friends and kind of just putting our ideas out there. So, the first thing we kind of look at here is, of course, we all know that the van winkles were kind of the face of the secondary market take down we talked about it, you know, we recorded it bourbon and beyond. We put it out there the whole world got to hear. However, I kind of want to put it out there for you all. Do you believe that there, you know, there are bigger wheels in motion behind this. And it's actually Sazerac as a whole. And it's really the Van Winkle is just kind of had to be the puppet in this. 29:42 We're not going to fall on the sword with you, Kenny. Let's you're on your own. 29:47 When you look at it, it's kind of like the perfect storm. So the Van Winkle is have the face where everyone knows Pappy and everybody wants to get Pappy and that's you know, that's I'll step out and say that's the majority of what was being sold and traded and everything on the secondary market. It helps when you have a billion dollar company that also hates the secondary behind you and that's that's where azurite came in. So you know where I think Preston said where he fail which was you know, he hated the secondary market and all this stuff but more Julian and everyone else falls I don't know. But you know, to me and I just think it's really misguided Is this the best way I don't want to say it's dumb or stupid because I think they have their reasons but I think they missed out on they're actually targeting their their biggest you know, cheerleaders and their biggest promoters by going after the secondary market in you know, to go after the secondary market and not just put some, you know, anti counterfeiting measures on their bottle. I think that's the biggest thing. And I have a, you know, my prop is in the background of how much I feel like they actually do care about the consumer. And you know, you look at the 2017, Pappy 15 year, they put the wrong foil cap, they put the red cap on the bottle instead of the black cap and just let it go out to market. I mean, I can't think of any other product where they put the wrong cap on it just like who cares? Send it no big deal. And that's to me that was like a bigger slap in the face that actually going after the secondary the fact that you know, these things are how crazy people go. And it wasn't like there was a press announcement meant before it was just like they started popping up and for like, hey, the 15 years got a red cap on it this year. Like oh, bottling mistake, it's good. So, it took us 20,000 31:55 bottles before we realized screw let it go. 31:58 Like I just You know, we send one sticker out wrong and you're going to get a reply automatically you send it out, Hey, sorry, we sit around sticker, whatever. So that to me was just kind of like, what are we really going after here and ultimately, Cedric says or ex defense of the three tier system, which they are strongly embedded in, they believe in the three tier system, they think three tier system should be there no matter what. And they see the secondary market as, you know, a deterrent to the three tier system or you know, impeding the three tier system. And ultimately, it's not about taking down the secondary, it's about making sure that that three tier system is in place, and ongoing forever. 32:44 They were even against like the da Vinci spirits. 32:48 Lucky. So, you know, for me, like that's what the secondary market was was to go and enjoy looking at those beautiful old bottles. That would occasionally pop up from the 50s and 60s, I gave two shits about Pappy. And, you know, but that's what led the conversation in it really, it comes down to it comes down to every single year for that company. They have the hottest Bourbons that everybody wants in every major city in the country and the small ones in every country in the world. How do they get there? How do they get it there? And then in between those these things that happen, they're staffed within their own company. You know, there's small little counterfeiters here and there you got ridiculous hype, you know, driving around it, like from like the from the fortune story about billionaires can't even get a bottle to help us talking about it. I mean, for God's sake, I mean, I've my whole Pappy versus the field thing on YouTube. Was was an experiment for me just at halftime. I'm fine with it, but, but it was like, you know, I'm part of the problem. So I guess, you know, before we kind of jump into some other questions here, does anybody else kind of think that? You know, was it really like why make the van winkles the face of this? 34:18 With the careers of master distiller spanning almost 50 years, as well as Kentucky bourbon Hall of Famer and having over 100 million people taste his products. Steve nalli is a legend of bourbon who for years made Maker's Mark with expertise and precision. 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Like, is anybody else have a kind of theory about behind that? 36:24 Well, I mean, do you think that says rack is making the Van Winkle face? Or do you think the van winkles are recognizing that of their own volition and in you know, driving and as well themselves? 36:36 This is all theory, man. So if you think that, you know, they had the wheels in motion behind this, and they're just like, hey, Preston, we're going to go ahead and let you be the punching bag. This today like what what do you really think that was it or you really think that maybe the vein winkles actually do legitimately care about the secondary market? 36:52 I think they were the face no matter what I mean, if four roses came out and tried to do the same thing, it's like well You know, you the small batch limited edition gets flipped a little bit but and nobody's going to step up from a bottle from 1950 you know, some old still Weller nobody's going to step up and like try to shut it down on their behalf so I think they were just kind of already the face. 37:19 But I don't think anyone else really, I guess could be the face in a sense of, you know, if you think about it is a very family business in a way you know, if you look at if you look at says rack and that company, you know, that that teaming up with the van winkles and partnership was a fantastic move, you know, for their product line. You know, that whatever caused Van Winkle and Pappy Van Winkle, you know, all the things that, you know, you look at the dominoes that fell years ago that just caused the popularity to skyrocket. You know, there's no question that that's overflowed into you know, a lot of says RX product And now we've got this, you know, we've got this this kind of like beast that's feeding itself in a way, because we've got us as, as bourbon enthusiasts, as drinkers who talk about this stuff all the time, who buy this stuff and want this stuff. I mean, I look in my, in my, in my collection here, and I've definitely got like a high percentage of Sazerac type products that I've kind of like stocked up on just based on that, geez, I don't think I'm going to see it again for a while. I better buy a few of them, as opposed to Yeah, I see it all the time. I'll just get one. What do I need three, four, you know, and so then we've got the distributors using it to hold over the retailers as a product to buy more products and is not just sanitary products, but it's stuff they want to move as well, because they're in it to make money. You know, you know, so you've and then you've got the retailers who don't put this stuff on the shelves. So no matter how much they're making, it appears to be a ghost, whatever it might be, even though there might be a lot of it because of a retailer's holding it back and taking you by You know, by the by the shoulder and saying by the arm and saying, Hey, I got something special, you're, you're a good guy like you, you want to, you're suddenly saying, I am special? I do want that. Absolutely. And then it's not even a question about it, you know, so get everybody really believing that all these products are insanely hard to get that's causing people to hoard them, stockpile them, and buy more of them, and then that's what's causing the price to go up. So the secondary in a way, has kind of helped their cause in a sense, you know, at the same time, you know, it's, they're, they're a company, you know, you got to look at say, what are you doing to stop, you know, counterfeit bottles to stop these things from going on to prevent illegal activity? You know, so how much of it is them really wanting to stop it versus just okay, I suppose we really should, you know, apply and make it look like we're doing something over here, 39:46 Nick, I think it's more than just that that helped them. I mean, it's the horse they wrote, it's the it's the reason that those brands are as popular as they are today. And now there's at least 15 turn their back on that secondary market but that's that's what made them and maybe once you make it that big you can turn your back on it and you can try to take this holier than thou attitude toward it, but it got them there and I mean maybe it'll push them back down if they if they push back against, you know Corky Taylor from peerless when I asked him about this you know at bourbon and beyond he he said that he's like this is like it's a mistake, that this whole thing was like punishing the the hardcore consumers that really has brought, you know, bourbon to where it's at right now. But I'm telling you all the van winkles in the 90s every single day they were near closure, you know that that's a company where 40:51 everybody wants to hate on them, but it was they had a long road. Long Road to get here and You know, and they, they get probably far more hate mail hate mail than all of us combined on on a yearly basis, because people can't get bottles and they get all these stories that are connected to them. And so I think a lot of what we caught on that stage in September was frustration, and I don't think saceur i don't think i don't think sads rag put then we close up to this, I think they wanted to do it. And I think Preston on that stage that day wanted to get it off his chest and you know, they, they're angry about it. They're angry about the fact that someone can sell a bottle that that's who's not a licensed retailer, they're also angry about the people who are jacking up prices and liquor stores. And here's the thing as they say they can't do anything about that, that that's true. So the liquor stores who are price gouging, you know, are protected by federal laws that prevent, prevent alcohol companies. From dictating pricing, so, like Mac and these like ambos, they they like fixed their prices and prices and retailers can't, can't do they can't jack the prices up alcohol cannot do that. And that all goes back to the 40s and 50s. And ironically, the Pappy Van Winkle testified in Congress talking about all the price fixing that was going on in the industry. So they are in a hard spot. And I, you know, it, it's, it's a know when to know when if they jack up their prices to kind of like, you know, meet the demand, they're in trouble. You know, they get yelled at, you know, and if they don't do anything, they get yelled at, but, but what it came down to is they made a business decision. And, and they, I think, I don't think they made the best business decision, but they made what they thought was best for their company. 42:53 Fred to piggyback on that, you know, I think that they do internalize what they went through and I think there's got to be a part of them that says, if we raise our prices today, this, you know, we've kind of gotten lucky in a way. I mean, if I were them, I would certainly feel like, man, we really got lucky over the years with how popular our product has become, what if we push it too hard, and we lose what we've gained. And we're back to where we were? Yeah, so I gotta believe it for them. That's got to be going on. I mean, that's a human thing to feel. I would think if any of us in that position would probably be, you know, thinking the same thing. 43:28 You know, and this is this is all kind of coming back around because, you know, Christopher Hart and a few other people with inside the chat, you know, they were saying like, Oh, it's all the vein, winkles. It's not SAS rack. And I'm kind of saying, I'm kind of the opposite. And I'll kind of give you my, my theory on this. Because, you know, when I look at this, I look at, you know, the vein winkles is the face of this and they come out saying that the main argument is behind counterfeiting, and that's a pretty weak excuse, like, actually, it's a shitty excuse my opinion, like because they're not doing anything to prevent it. They're not doing anything to invest in it to make anything happen me Blake made a pretty good example about that even quality control at Sazerac was poor enough to even see that happen. And what was the real point of just going after the secondary market? So if I think about this, and I think a few steps back, and I think a little bit higher up the ladder, I'm like, Okay, well, I want to put these people to faces because the most popular brand out there, and it's something that people are going to recognize. And if it's coming from them, all these bourbon nerds, you know, crazy, they're going to talk about it. And people are talking already on on here that saying, you know, we're doing it like we're giving them the more press that they're already going to get right. So we're giving free marketing. And this is another theory that I kind of heard from somebody else as well, is that sazzle is expanding. I mean, they've got more warehouses coming out, they've got more distilleries coming online. And the goal behind this is to not have so much focus, being on just a few select brands. Instead, what they want to be able to do is they want to be able to try to spread the pie even further. Get these hands and get these bottles in the hands of more people, not the allocated products, but the stuff that's coming online. And you got to be able to get it in such a way that people aren't just talking about the same five bottles all the time. Now, I also kind of look at this in another way is that this is a, this is a very bad thing for bourbon. Because we know Fred talked about a little bit earlier. And, and I think we've all had that same feeling that when we're able to sit there, and we're able to scroll, and we're able to see these cool bottles from the 50s and old Miller antiques from the 70s. And like all these like, you know, old Willett wax tops, and people are just going you know, they're going crazy for it. And they just want to rip it away for why for counterfeiting. Like, that's bullshit. Like it's bullshit, right? There's got to be something that's a little bit little bit higher here to make this a real a real claim and a real excuse and it can't be counterfeiting. So I'm just saying that there's there's some dots in my head that aren't connecting. To make it say that counterfeits are really the real angle 45:56 here when the Attorney General's 46:00 For the country all the states basically issued a joint letter saying that they're going to be cracking down on secondary market that's that the bad week goes guys 46:10 I'm sure Julian has 46:11 some connections but for to get 47 out of the 50 Attorney General's 46:17 and let me tell you, they're all playing on that date the Dominican Republic, minibar stuff and the whole seller world boy they seize that opportunity better than you know it. Yeah, anything since prohibition I mean, my 46:35 god, 46:36 they're like all see, look what happens here when we allow shipping. You can die. You know, you could die from alcohol poisoning and vultures will be eating your guts on the beach. It's just ridiculous. how far they took that? 46:52 I don't think says right really gives a shit as whiskey geeks we think would they care these whiskey brands care about what we think and like These really high end bottles matter that the reality is, those things are like 5% of their business. It's like low on the totem pole. It's more of a pain they asked for them. They're thinking more grander bigger. I just don't think that counterfeiting or the Van Winkle. I mean, yes, they wanted but I just don't think they would put all these resources in it into that when they're just there as on how much fireball how much Buffalo Trace, can we push out there and do it globally? Not that that's what they're focused on, I think. 47:31 Yeah, I think if anything, it's a reaction. I can agree with that to Ryan and the van winkles. It may be more internal, you know, they're invested in it. 47:39 But I think I think the van winkles it's like Fred said, they've got so much sweat equity and all this and, you know, it's their family history and they're just for lack of better term butthurt about it. You know, that people can flip it on the market for 10 x what they you know, because a $300 bottle, they're probably making you know, 9200 bucks on it you know and then and then it's selling for 1518 $2,000 i mean you know that's probably more of it for me but 48:07 but okay here's the thing like they can control that why don't they do it? 48:10 Well they could I guess but for they can just why don't they sell it for two grand but the same amount of hate from the other side saying well you sold out you 48:21 know what Booker's do when they raise the $20 they're like hell fuck the head 48:26 I kind of nonsense 48:28 yeah their perspective you know they I can't imagine the amount you know as Fred said they probably get the amount of hate mail all of us combined on a daily basis you know, it's probably pretty frustrating to get like they think they're doing the right thing by just keeping the prices lower and I'm sure every random you know guys email them saying oh, I used to buy your bottles for $50 a bottle and loved it now I can't get it. And you got a you know, I'm sure it's millennial thrown in there somewhere who's ruining it or like You know a guy in skinny jeans and a flannel shirts probably the reason why they can't live happy anymore. But you know they're probably frustrated with that like I would be too I don't you know i don't blame them but I just think they're taking the wrong approach 49:16 doesn't keeping that bottle at $90 encourage secondary flipping 49:22 you know, but indirectly if they crease it so so say they came out next year and happy 15 was just $500 I guarantee you they'd get even more hate because of that. I think but I could be wrong. I mean, ultimately I you know, I think it like Ryan said this is not a big I think all these limited releases is something they want to get behind them. You know that we Jordan an eye toward heaven Hill, and it was crazy the amount of spirits that were flowing through there and bourbon was, I mean, we saw way more watermelon vodka and flavored rums and all this stuff that we had never seen just, you know, hundreds of thousands of cases moving through their Eliza correct 23rd year was not even on the radar of what was what was important and what was, you know, kind of moving the profit loss statement. So I think it is kind of that necessary evil they want, they want to have it they want that, you know, the history and the heritage and everything else. But at the end of the day, that's not what makes these places profitable for raising prices really, 50:35 I mean, well, it isn't, it's still, you know, flips for double for you know, instantly it 50:40 will, it will it has a little bit because will it that that affects the bottom line and a little bit more, you know, if you double the price of something that is affecting your bottom line by like, point 05 percent, 50:52 you know, it's only one to 2% of their total business like that. They cut almost All their gift shop sales of it because it became such a pain in the ass. They were getting ABC letters from people saying like, or not from people that from the ABC, that people were turning them in, you know, saying like, well, they're just selling to certain people and you know, then they're like, well, the hell with it, we're not even gonna deal with anymore because it's just do this for the, you know, the whiskey and this is turned into a more headache than than it needs to be. 51:23 So I want to bring something up that Kenny said at the very top, and that's like, I want everyone to know, like how hard we work to get a representative from Sazerac to come on and talk about this. And we thought we had someone across the finish line, but we did not say Hey, come on this show. You know, we respected that person's position and his future with with that respective company. And I just want to tell you that anytime we have we've all given a lot we've sung a lot of things haven't hills way. Anytime I have ever written anything. Negative about heaven Hill, they reach out to me and they explain anytime I've ever written anything about Jim Beam, they reach out to me and explain and you know, sometimes they won't talk to me for six months, but they will they will still have a conversation with me. What we're looking at here we are looking at a very, a very closed in organization. Arguably it's the best whiskey that's out there and hungry consumers who want to know more. And if anyone from saceur acts listening, I'm just telling you that the playing it like playing the game of like not talking about this is only hurting you is only hurting you and and you got to come on you got to talk about this because people people are fascinated about it from a business perspective as well. I mean, in addition to Kenny's like, right vein popping up over here when he's got a blood draw tomorrow, you know, I'm getting concerned about him. People are absolutely fascinated with the business. A bourbon. So let's talk about one of the most key issues in our industry. And that is allocation. How do you decide to do allocation? I would love to have that conversation. 53:13 And so there's one other thing I kind of want to also bring up as we were talking about raising prices in this just kind of like just jogged my memory a little bit, you know, when Blake came out with his article, you know, saying that maybe there's like 5% of retailers nationwide that are actually still selling at us, Rp. And let's, let's be, let's be generous. We'll give it the 8020 rule say 20% of retailers nationwide are still selling it SRP 53:34 even if they generally are state run, you've got state run to start with, right. Okay. So then there's all them and then you've got the other ones with a lot of big retailers are doing lotteries 53:44 across the board. Even if they said rk Well, guess what the new SRP for Pappy 15 500 bucks. There's still 80% of the country that's still going to charge more than 500 bucks that's fine. Right in the 20%. That's there. Yeah, sure. little bitch, but whatever. Like, I think most people get over it. And, and not only that is most people, if they have the offer to buy a $500 bottle, most people are going to do it anyway, because that's the only time they're ever gonna get their hands on it. So I don't really see a whole lot of blowback, even if they were to raise the price in the back end. However, I've always been one to always say, you know, kudos to Sazerac and the entire portfolio of actually kind of sticking to their guns and really not raising prices across the board on any any allocated bourbon, you know, so it's, it's one thing that is cool to be the bourbon consumer and just say, like, hey, it's always a good deal. If you can find it a retailer, right? If I could find the owner to leave for $45. Cool, great deal. If it's 150. Maybe it's a pass. So that's just one of the things that, you know, over the over the years, I'm just really surprised that we stuck with him. And kind of like the last question I want to throw as regards to this. You all think other distilleries are happy with sizer x actions here or Van Winkle, his actions whoever it is to actually take down This, this singular, or should I say the big secondary market groups? 55:04 I think that's an even more interesting question, because so far nobody has jumped on board to publicly say, yeah, we're with them. We should, you know, be doing something to combat that. And maybe it is because, you know, if we look at it says rack are the leading products in the majority of that, you know, it's it's dusty bottles, and it's 55:26 sad, it says right products. 55:29 But I do think it's interesting that nobody has really kind of jump in to fight the battle with them. And you know, whether that's because they disagree or whether that's because they want to see how it you know, the consumer is going to react, I don't know, but 55:46 the longer other distilleries stay out of that fight, I think it's better for the consumer. 55:53 Well, I think here in the United States, you know, I think the market is just very, very small, relatively speaking. You know, maybe there's counterfeiting going on and other countries where it's more of a massive problem that we're just not in tune with that we don't know, you know, you see videos pop up on YouTube have these like mass production type situations where people are bottling, you know, something in in a counterfeit nature that it definitely appears to be in a different country, you know, where it's going to be, you know, sold in some black market. But here in the United States, you know, I think it's really resolved mostly to the enthusiast crowd, you know, to the crowd is trying to be istock bars and restaurants and high end places like that, you know, as a percentage of sales. I it's got to be really small. What I would really like to see and I know, you know, I know producers distilleries Listen to this. I would like to see a movement from producers and distilleries, you know, from somewhere to kind of create this market. How do we, you know, people are going to buy and sell, they're going to if this stuff is going to change hands, it's going to happen. You know, the market is going to find a way because somebody has it, somebody else will it plain and simple, that's just how it's going to work. Right? So if it's not this thing, it's going to be the next thing. So I would like to see a movement to get behind that, you know, in a way that doesn't encroach on the new production, the new businesses, stuff that does go through the three tier system, the normal way, there's plenty that doesn't, you know, there's plenty of stuff like Fred mentioned, you know, the older stuff, the stuff people find in their grandparents basements, that somebody else wants, that is of no value to the person who found it, but have tremendous value to maybe somebody else. And in some cases, maybe a lot of other people. You know, as we've seen with these charity auctions, and things of that nature, where these bottles can raise a tremendous amount of money, there's certainly a market for it. And I really believe, you know, the producers, especially the big producers should get behind that kind of, you know, they're behind the culture, if they're, you know, touting the history and those kinds of things. put your money where your mouth is, and make it so that we can have them market that everybody wants and is going to have anyway. 57:56 You know, what's funny is there was a secondary market called classified ads forever. Like, in through my research, I found so many bottles for sale and like small newspapers and people would just, you know, go and buy him but I'll say this like, Christopher Hart brought this up, Ryan and I were on his show. It'll be I think it airs this week as well. But I brought up the fact that I do think that second you know, he brought up two factors like the secondary market is will always survive in these forums in some way, shape or form. And not I do not believe that I am seeing an uptake of federal authorities getting involved with this. I mean, this is a very serious issue. The same people who were involved and taking down Big Tobacco in the 1990s you're starting to see them focus on alcohol while at the same time you have a incredible large movement within the health community try and ban advertising. So the second the all this alcohol stuff falls under kind of like two battles one you have one trying, you know, one side trying to block the lead Sales and you have another side, you know, for whatever reason they're trying to block illegal sales on the other side, you have people who are trying to ban alcohol and social media. So you've got, I mean, right now it's coming at to France. And in some ways, that's why it's kind of mark Browns head has always been a very he's always been very conservative about this. And so if like if you were to put yourself in his shoes of like you're trying to protect what you do protect your company in the best way you think is possible. You know, you may pursue something like this to prevent it. But the fact is, is what no one ever seems to grasp. Is that us, the bourbon fan, the consumer, you know, I just feel like all of these, if anything is, is going to change. It has to come from us. You know, there was a few years ago, New York tried to ban fantasy, fantasy gaming, you know, within five hours every Saturday In New York, I had heard from people in their area that never even considered politics, and they changed it just like that. Now we can all play fantasy football and make money off of it. So if if we are going to save any, you know, semblance of what the secondary market is or what a meant to us, it's got to come from us. And we have to start like, pushing it. We have to, like, you know, write our congressmen and our state senators and say, like, you know, this is an issue that's important to us. And, believe it or not, you know, if Wade Woodard and people like that multiply, I mean, who can handle 20 letters from Wade water today? 1:00:43 And Fred, I go bigger than that. I mean, the three tier system is antiquated. It's rooted in Prohibition era, sentiments and law. I mean, that whole the whole system's got to go and if part of that is a more even more robust vintage Law then we already have that really resembles what the secondary market looks like. So be it, it'll be a safer market. If folks like Sazerac and the other producers, take anti counterfeiting measures, it'll be a safer market. We've got to go to more. I mean, I'm always an open market guy. But here I really am for partly out of self interest, but that's where we've got to go. We've got to go to less regulation and more openness on it. 1:01:26 Yeah. Let's say let's stage a DC protest. Hey, hey, three teams gotta go. I don't know how 1:01:34 to go to DC and drink bourbon. 1:01:37 Next to the 30 other picketers 1:01:40 actually, what would happen is everybody would just end up with jack rose, and no one would go do anything. We pretty much 1:01:47 like that idea. 1:01:48 We need some members of Congress while we're there, though. 1:01:51 Yeah. 1:01:52 What guy with a retail license in DC so we can maybe set something up, I think, Oh, yeah. Let's do it. 1:02:00 Trying to get the RV let's go 1:02:01 gas it up 1:02:02 alright so let's go ahead we'll kind of wrap this up on a little bit higher now because this is this is the Thanksgiving episode so happy Thanksgiving everybody Hope you're if you're driving you're maybe you're just starting to try to fall asleep to some trip the fan little slip or something like that but let's go ahead and kind of go around a little bit and kind of talk about you know what we're thankful for and bourbon in 2019 if there's something that was awesome that happened to you whether it was growing or do anything like that or just laying a cool bottle 1:02:32 we're like in height 1:02:36 Sure, why not in with 1:02:39 I'll jump in. 1:02:41 So, 1:02:42 first I'm going to plug an article that's coming this week. And some bourbon are always do an article about, you

Ashley Erwin grew up in rural, northern Georgia. In her words it was the “Type of place where fertilizer goes to greeting ya soon as the front door went to close, where cow tipping and horse jacking and bonfire-truck-meet-ups with blue label sodas stacked heavy in ice chests were the norm, and where ‘mams and sirs were added on to ever’thing less a slap upside the head were what ya’s hankering after.”   In this episode, Ashley Erwin and Marjorie Alexander cover: Why Angel's Envy is teaming up with the Arbor Day Foundation to plant trees and how you can get involved What makes bourbon…BOURBON? Why, the trees of course! The family history of Angel's Envy, including Lincoln Henderson, the creator of Woodford Reserve, Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel as well as JD’s “Gentleman Jack”  What techniques go into making Angel's Envy bourbons and ryes so unique   *** Use the hashtag #ToastTheTrees along with images of Angel’s Envy cocktails, neat pours and bottles. Let's give Ashley lots of trees to plant next year in Kentucky! ***    Connect with Angel’s Envy, Ashley Erwin and the rest of the Whiskey Guardians: AngelsEnvy.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AngelsEnvyBourbon/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/angelsenvy/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Angels_Envy Ashley Erwin on Angel’s Envy: https://www.angelsenvy.com/people/whiskey-guardians/los-angeles/ashley-erwin/ Ashley Erwin on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bonfirebooze/ The Angel’s Envy Whiskey Guardians: https://www.angelsenvy.com/people/whiskey-guardians/   Suggested Resources from Ashley: 500 Main from Angel’s Envy has insider stories, events and limited whiskey releases: https://500main.angelsenvy.com 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos by Jordan B. Peterson: https://amzn.to/2lHMdDk

Wes Henderson grew up in bourbon, but he didn't realize just how special his world was until later in life. His father, Lincoln Henderson, was a hallmark in the whiskey world, serving at Brown-Forman for decades, developing incredible products including Woodford Reserve. Going to work with his dad was always cool, but it wasn't until adulthood that the desire struck to join his father in the creation of something special that they could call their own. We sat down with Wes to get to know him and more of the brand story on this week's episode of the #502LeaderSeries Podcast as part of Bourbon Heritage Month! The timing is perfect as Wes was inducted into the Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame during the Kentucky Bourbon Festival this past week. A well-deserved honor he shares with his father & no doubt hopes to one day share with his sons. For more check out YesLouisville.com!

What happens when you get master distillers from two largest rivaling brands together? Actually, some pretty good jokes. Fred Noe, Master Distiller at Jim Beam, and Jeff Arnett, Master Distiller at Jack Daniel’s, take the stage at Bourbon and Beyond to field questions asked by Fred Minnick. They talk about BBQ, celebrities, mash bills, the Lincoln County Process, and if Jack Daniels is actually a bourbon. Bourbon and Beyond 2019 will take place September 20th through the 22nd so if you want to be there in person to hear sessions like today’s podcast, go get yours at BourbonandBeyond.com. Show Partners: The University of Louisville now has an online Distilled Spirits Business Certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry. Learn more at business.louisville.edu/onlinespirits.  In 2013, Joe Beatrice launched Barrell Craft Spirits without a distillery or defied conventional wisdom. To this day, his team sources and blends exceptional barrels from established producers and bottles at cask strength. Learn more at BarrellBourbon.com. Check out Bourbon on the Banks in Frankfort, KY on August 24th. Visit BourbonontheBanks.org. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about drinking in moderation. What kind of music have your brands been part of? What is your BBQ connection? What is the history of your distillery? What is your mash bill? What is your proof point off the still? What do you think of the Lincoln County process? How do you train your tour guides? Tell us about Gentleman Jack. Tell us about Jim Beam. Is Jack Daniels a bourbon? Do you ever feel competitive against each other? What does your average day look like? What was it like to hang out with Mila Kunis? What celebrities are connected to Jack Daniels? How often do you introduce new products? 0:00 Hey everybody. If you have a bachelor's degree and live anywhere in the United States, there's now a way for you to take your bourbon education to the next level. The distilled spirits business certificate from the University of Louisville is an online program that can be completed in as little as 15 weeks and will prepare you for the business side of the spirits industry. It's offered by the AA CSP accredited college of business. And this certificate was developed in partnership with industry experts to be one of a kind and it's going to prepare you for your next adventure. Learn more about this online program at business.louisville.edu/online 0:36 spirits Why is that? Why your barbecue sauce the Jim Beam barbecue sauce tastes so good. America's Got Jim Beam in it that's why 0:47 you made for it. And have you had the jab he had the jack daniels barbecue sauce. I'm sure they do. Um, no. I mean, if you had a VDD like Tyson Yeah. 1:00 add Whiskey and anything it's good for 1:16 everybody welcome back. This is Episode 214 of bourbon pursuit. I'm one of your host Kenny and buckle in strap up whatever it is because we've got a lot of news to roll through. Kentucky al has announced the release of batch number three rye this Kentucky out Kentucky straight rye whiskey carries a 10 year age statement and will be bottled at 114 proof in the press release Dixon dead man who's been on the show previously and episodes 27 and 160 has assumed the title of Kentucky Al's master blender, but he commented, there is a lot of older juice and right number three, but it's the 10 year old stocks that really give it that richer, thicker, syrupy mouthful and bring the blend forward. And as you know by listening to this 2:00 That the youngest whiskey in a blend is the one has to be shown in the label. So this will be making its way out to major markets across the US this month with a suggested retail price of wait for it $199 and 99 cents. Last week I had the opportunity of joining the fine folks over a liquor barn here in Louisville to select the very first of not just any barrels, but the very first barrels from a newly launched single barrel program. From bullet bourbon. We had the opportunity to tour the grounds and do some blending for fun. And during that blending process. There was one that just blew me away. I picked it up and I just knows that and I couldn't set it down. I just kept smelling this bourbon and I kept tasting and I told the master Blender whatever is going on here with sample number six. Just give me this single barrel and call it a day. Come to find out. They gave us samples of 20 plus year stencil well a stock that they had sitting around to just have some fun with blending. But you better believe I took no part in 3:00 lending that in savored every last drop. It was a tease, but a special treat nonetheless to have that experience with those folks there. Then we headed down to the barrel tasting room where we had different barrels and different bottles with different mash bills and different strains to come away with a total of three different barrels. And these will be available at liquor barn locations across the state of Kentucky in a few months, and I'll be sure to let you know when they do drop. Last week we had the opportunity to head over to Bardstown, Kentucky, where we were in a very unique opportunity to select two barrels of Elijah Craig from six that were rolled out. For anyone that has been on a quick pic before you know that three is usually the standard. We are fortunate that the heaven Hill team pulled some strings and got us a six barrel lot. We came away with an 11 and a 12 year old bourbon and both were just killer at barrel proof. But we also proved it down to us bottling proof of 94 just to make sure it's still held up and of course it did look forward to these going on sale to our 4:00 Patreon community in the upcoming few months, and a special shout out to keg and bottle in Southern California for making this all happen. Find out more about our barrel pics and what we have going on@patreon.com slash bourbon pursuit and you can find out more and get bourbon delivered to your door from keg and bottle go to keg the letter in bottle.com. And speaking of barrel pics, we had one go on sale this week, our riff you like a hurricane from new roof is going to be available to purchase to our Patreon community. Now you've heard it on the podcast already but we will be in Frankfurt at bourbon on the banks next week, August 24. Go get your tickets. We hope to see you there because we're going to have our own booth will be talking about bourbon pursuit. However, we will also be sampling our pursuit series for all those who haven't gotten the memo yet. And speaking of pursuit series, it's now official. We will be bottling our first Kentucky bourbon next month that will go on sale sometime in the October timeframe. And we're ecstatic to be the first time 5:00 let you know that we have partnered with Will it distillery to bring this experience to you? I know it's still surreal to even hear myself say that we're partnering with Will it and we purchased two barrels of their high rye bourbon recipe that will be bottled as pursuit series. Cats drink non chill filtered the works, you know how it is in this high recipe. It's not even available to liquor stores or distributors that are selecting their own bullet family private state pics right now. So we feel super excited and super lucky to be able to bring this as a one off offering of what we're able to do. And we selected not just one but two of these barrels two months ago and they just landed our bottling facility this week. We're going to be the first independent bottle of Willett distillate and who knows how many years and we've got more news to announce with this but we're gonna have to make you wait just a little bit longer until we cross our T's and dot our I's. Now today's podcast it was recorded last year at bourbon and beyond in 2018. 6:00 Since we were there, sort of in a passive capacity, we had one session, but we didn't have the ability to kind of record. We got this after the fact and that means we don't have any video. So if you're watching this on YouTube or Facebook, I'm sorry. It's like we're going back one and a half years before we started doing video. But if you're on the road or you're running or you're just listening to audio as usual, then just continue as normal. But as you know, verb and beyond is just around the corner. It's taking place next month in Louisville, Kentucky from September 20 through the 22nd. The festival has expanded from two to three days and you will get the chance to see a lot of familiar faces there. Ryan and I will both be moderating panels. And you've also got the entire roundtable making a presence. Jordan from breaking bourbon, Brian from sipping corn and Blake from bourbon are all leading their own panels and workshops. Of course, you're gonna have Fred Minnick there too. It's an opportunity to drink some bourbon, listen to some bands, go listen to a bourbon workshop or seminar then go back out there and rock out was the headliners. 7:00 This is covered in a single ticket price. So if you want to be there in person to hear sessions like today's podcast, go get yours now at bourbon and beyond.com. We'll see you in Louisville. Also, let's toast a bourbon to the weather gods and hope for no rain and clear skies this year. Now, let's see what Joe from barrel bourbon has for us today. And then you've got Fred Minnick with above the char. 7:25 Hey everyone, Joe here again. In 2013. I launched barrell craft spirits without a distillery and defied conventional wisdom. To this day, my team and I sourcing blend exceptional barrels from established producers and bottle a cast strength. You can find it on the shelves at your nearest retail store. 7:41 I'm Fred making this is above the charm. This past week in the Philippines, a lawmaker put forth a bill to ban the sale serving and consumption of alcohol and alcohol beverages and streets, pathways, plazas, alleys, sidewalks, parks and parking areas. They're building 8:00 leaf is is that this will be a proactive response in the growing problems of alcoholism in the Philippine. And this is a quote directly from a doctor, their alcoholism and violence have clearly become key public health issues that require urgent attention. Hence, it is imperative for the country to initiate a national policy to curb alcohol consumption in public places in quote. So here's the thing Philippines, this has been done before. And it didn't work, prohibition in the United States basically open the world to the mafia. And it also showed that it didn't really curb drinking at all. What it did do was it increased the sale of bad liquor, and people would die from drinking the equivalent of ethanol or gasohol. And today when we see areas where there are dry counties, you have moonshiners, so people will find a way to drink 9:00 And I'll also say this, that the efforts to ban alcohol or alcohol advertising, they're growing. And they're growing because we have never really been able to figure out as a society, how to drink responsibly. So, when you're getting your fellas together your girlfriends together, think about this for a moment, you could be an example used of drinking responsibly. What does that mean? Well, Google drinking in moderation, you definitely don't want to get behind the wheel. To me, a big part of drinking in moderation comes down to the taste. I like to sip and savor and analyze every single molecule that's hitting my palate. And that's been a big reason why I've been able to develop my palate using mindfulness techniques. I also believe that there's a project out there called the mocktail project that would be great to include in your parties that would help push the drinking in moderation and someone sober, doesn't want to have a drink. They can have a 10:00 mocktail that's basically a folk cocktail. That's just as tasty as the cocktail would. And of course, the culture. We live in a society that does not want to educate young people why they cannot drink until they're 21. I have a five year old and he can tell you exactly why he is not able to consume the same bourbon that his father and mother do. Now, I'm not saying that parenting is easy, but I do think it's important that we educate our children that alcohol is not the devil. It is not some evil thing that demons cast upon you and the only way to not be caught up in its evil spell is to avoid it. And all honesty, if we just teach our children that drinking is bad for your body until you reach a certain age and your body is able to handle it. To me that is a more appropriate and honest and truthful way to bring someone up in this world. But 11:00 It's just easier to band stuff. Just ask the Philippines. And that's this week's above the char. Hey, if you have an idea for above the char hit me up on Twitter or Instagram at Fred Minnick, that's at Fred Minnick until next week. Cheers 11:18 gentlemen please take your seats to my left here is Jeff our debt master distiller for jack daniels. 11:28 And to my other left, Fred noe master distiller for Jim Beam. 11:37 Gentlemen, it is such a privilege and honor to MC what is an absolutely historic seminar, jack and Jim, what's the difference? The two world best selling American whiskeys. This is awesome. Now, both of you all have had a lot 12:00 of musical connections. Tell us let's see what the difference is starting there. From the music perspective. What kind of music has Jim been been a part of? Well, I guess the first one was my dad met Hank Williams Jr. So it got a little name that's a little name drop right there. And you know we've played with McGovern Gentry for a long time country. And then we're trying to ease into the rock a little bit with Nickelback. And in our latest buddy was a kid rock. So we've, we've kind of hit different john years of music so you like people who like to drink? mostly people like to drink Jim Beam. All right. 12:46 All right, Jeff. Now, I think there's a musician that's pretty well connected the jack daniels. What's the history there? Well, if you go back in our history, it goes all the way to our founder who was pretty world traveled considering he was born. 13:00 In a small town in Lynchburg, Tennessee, so he purchased some instruments he created a group called the silver cornet band had them play on the square in Lynchburg because he learned that music and whiskey and kind of go together. They're both very social. So he's kind of solved the connection. So it began very early for us, but I think the game changer and jack daniels history was back in the 1950s when Frank Sinatra first held up jack daniels on stage, he called it the nectar of the gods. Our sales doubled from 1955 to 1956. But he was a lifelong jack daniels drinker. It was after that as you started to see jack daniels not just don't rock stages and music stages, but also in a lot of movies. But Frank was loyal to death. He literally was buried with a bottle of jack daniels in his casket. So we were honored to come out with a whiskey that that honored his love of the brand a few years ago. Now there's also some photos of like Jimmy Page, drinking. jack daniels backstage, the Rolling Stones. 14:00 Lemmy from Motorhead slash from Guns and Roses. These are people that are pretty iconic, you know in the rock world. And definitely love jack daniels and we have we're very fortunate we've got a lot of people in music who love jack daniels. And once we find that out, we don't feel like they should have to buy jack daniels t shirt, so I write a lot of letters and send out a lot of T shirts to people to thank them for their love. Now, Fred, jack daniels used to employ a guy who made sure that Frank Sinatra always had jack daniels. Has Jim Beam ever done anything like that? What do you mean my chili Goblin like? So there was a gentleman from our buddies right? Frank Sinatra. Never he always had a case of jack daniels nearby. So they employed someone who basically from what I understand, just basically drove around with him made sure he was always with jack daniels are we when people are on tour, whatever market they're in, our sales force shows up and breezes them pretty well. So your 15:01 I haven't heard any of them complain about not getting plenty of Jim Beam. Alright, so that's, that's just a little touch on the music about what's the difference between YouTube. You're also both really big into barbecue. really big into barbecue. Now Jeff, I was a judge with you last year at the big jack daniels BBQ. Tell us about your big barbecue connection is jack daniels. Yes, we the fourth Saturday in October. in Lynchburg. We sponsor what we consider to be the Super Bowl of barbecue. It comes very late in the season for the Kansas City barbecue society circuit. But it's the top 80 teams typically 20 of those have come from outside the US. So they're representing countries like Switzerland, Estonia, Canada, Australia, England, but usually it's about 50 or 60 of the best us teams who show up there to win the jack daniels international Invitational barbecue is a great time. I know and I have served as a judge on 16:00 The shade tree only where I judged the major meat categories, but I could hardly walk. When I got up on the table that day. I did not pace myself very well, but 42 samples in about three hours and you better know what you're doing. So I know we've got some judges out here in the audience today who were looking on who can attest to that. 16:18 Now, Fred, you are a great barbecue pit man. You're also a great ham maker. You've got a personal connection to barbecue and why is that? Why your barbecue sauce? The Jim Beam barbecue sauce tastes so good. Because God ZM Amen. And that's why 16:40 you made for it. And have you had the jab. He had the jack daniels barbecue sauce. I'm sure they do know I mean, if you had ever 16:49 seen it, do you like their Tyson? 16:53 whiskey and anything? It's good Jeffrey, what's wrong with you? 16:58 Does anyone 16:59 know 17:00 Go customer for was over. Yeah, well, I had a plus or minus, you know, I should have said we should have a cuss word counter out there with you. You know, are you sorry, I'm a potty mouth. We can trust Jeff to be a gentleman but Fred boy, he can get go. I'm not a scholar, so don't even go there. 17:18 Now both come from very historic distilleries. Very, very historic. Tell us about how jack Daniel got started. Well, for those who don't know jack daniels life story. He was orphaned at a very young age, so he found himself without either his biological parents when he was a young teenager. 17:38 He was one of 13 children born to his father, one of 10 born to his mother, but he ended up moving away to work for his room and board on a neighbor's farm. That neighbor was a Lutheran minister and a farmer. More importantly, he owned the general store that still stands on the square in Lynchburg today, and of course back in the 1850s and 60s, small town general stores had to serve a lot of functions. 18:00 And that community had to be a small scale department store had to swear you picked up telegrams, but also would be the pharmacy of the community. So jack started out making medicinal whiskey for a Lutheran minister that was sold to the townspeople of Lynchburg at the general store. So from very, very modest beginnings, he was out there for at least a decade perfecting the craft and ultimately bought the distilling equipment and moved it to where we are today and that happened in the 1870s. So you know, in jack daniels history, other than prohibition every drop of jack daniels has been made from a cave spring in Lynchburg, Tennessee. It's one of the things I think that makes us really special. It's one of the reasons why we're is I think, consistent as we are. It's a great water source and and the townspeople of Lynchburg have made it their passion to carry on the mission of jack daniels in his absence since he he passed in 1911. And since since we've been able to become the number one selling American whiskey today. So Fred, you guys also 19:00 Have a lot of your connection to your family's history is also connected to the water. Tell us about that. Yeah, our, I guess my great great great, great grandfather Jacob been migrated into Kentucky a little place called harden Creek. And they were given away land to get people to come this way from the northeast. That's how bad things were back then they were given land away, just to come in here and grow corn. Yeah. And what is now the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Jacob came down, got his parcel of land. He was a Miller of grain. Then he found out making whiskey was a good way to preserve preserve the grain. In fact, come to find out is whiskey making skills were better and more profitable than the milling of grain. So our family started making whiskey. Oh jacobin. And then as time went on, and railroad came through, his son moved it to Bardstown. Then prohibition came along shut off 20:00 is down 20:02 and along with a lot of other folks here in Kentucky, and after prohibition, Jim Beam started the old Murphy barber distillery backup spot right down here in Clermont, where he had been milling are grinding stone, limestone rock, there was a big spring there and a distillery. And so that's where we got moved from Harding Creek to Bardstown to Claremont, where we are today, and eight generations later, we're still there. So we're looking at both water sources. They're both limestone filter, they both very come from really strong natural areas of limestone, filtered x, you know, great access to the water. So we have a lot of similarities here. You know, from a cultural perspective, they're both very involved with music. They're both very involved in barbecuing, you've got some cool barbecue competitions as well. You both got barbecue sauces, and there's a lot of connections there. And then the water is pretty much 21:00 The same. Now let's talk about the recipes a little bit. Now, Jeff, I love you. You'll tell me exactly what your recipe is your mash bill, Fred, what's the Jim Beam? mash bill? How many years you've been trying to get that out of me for it. 21:14 I figured this would be the moment you would open up and share it. Not when I put me in that coffin, they might give it to you. I'm not going to give it to you because I know you want it so damn bad. It's true. It is I do want to bend the thing is Fred. If I gave you numbers, they ended up to 100 would you know if I was telling the truth? 21:34 I would make you put your hand on my book and swear it's the truth. So it's the book of bourbon. It would have to be the truth. wouldn't have to be shit. 21:46 fishes out for you. It has been a long time. It has been a long time. So let's just say that jack daniels is very sharing with their recipes. With now they share it and you guys been very protective of it for me for years. 22:00 But we can say that you're at least 75% corn. 22:06 You're more than 51% corn. Now we're more bitty 1% or then 51% corn. I'm not giving anything. Okay, because pretty soon as at how much raw, oh, you'll be able to figure it out but give you with this with the gentleman from Tennessee tell us from the mash mill recipe for jack daniels. I will you know, with the exception of the raw whiskey that we've just introduced, that's a 70% raw 18% corn and 12% malted barley pretty much everything that you've ever had from jack daniels shares what we call the old number seven rest, right? It's 80% corn is 12% malted barley and 8%. Raw. And I know Fred doesn't want to talk about it. But I would just say in general, jack daniels is about a half to a third of the typical raw content of a Kentucky bourbon. So when you start to contrast and maybe some of the differences, obviously whiskey and Kentucky bourbon that it begins at the grain, there was a deliberate choice to maybe go a little bit less on this 23:00 Ice that would be associated with Ryan going a little bit higher and corn and make it a little bit sweeter. So jack tends to push out into that sweet range a little bit. I think it's fair to say, I think I know your grain bill, but I won't tell anybody 23:12 with a brother, Jeff, you can say it here. No one's listening. No one's watching right now. They used to talk about it. 23:20 Actually, Chuck Cowdery had a good story about your dad and the issue of bourbon plus over there, you gotta go check that out. But sorry, so are our mash bills. The recipes are pretty close, you know, so they're pretty close to being the same them. And then let's look at the distillation perspective. You guys are both using column stills both using column stills. What are you coming off the still at what's your what's your proof point office Still, we we actually all of our stills are made out of copper. So there are columns still each is equipped with a blur, so it'll be a single pass but a double distillation process. We target 140 points. 24:00 roof and with the still design that we have, we can maintain that plus or minus one proof point. So we have a really tight range around our target. So 131 to 139 would be the range 140 is the target. What is your office still proof? Jim Beam? Yeah, that's where we'll change our taste is with distillation strength. But we go off the first distillation 125 second distillation 135. OK, so again, both very similar in distillation technique. And now med one med 132 to 140. And by law, they cannot go any higher than 160 proof. So that's actually telling you right there that they are deliberately going lower, so you can get some more of the characteristic from the grain in there. So they're both doing very unique things. And now 24:57 we get to that point where we start saying 25:00 A difference. Now, Fred, you you guys go and get Maple charcoal and filter your whiskey right before it right? No, wait, no, that's not Jim Beam. That's jack daniels. 25:13 Did you do any damn research before you? 25:20 Sometimes I apologize for my buddy here, you know, what do you think of the Lincoln County process? I mean, yeah, it's tradition. That's what I do. It's good. That's what makes them special. Well, do you like it? I enjoy what they do what they make. 25:38 So tell us about the Lincoln County process. And by the way, I didn't know I was trying to set 25:43 it up there a little bit. You know, even though Today we're in the second smallest county in the state of Tennessee, both by population and geography. You'll hear this charcoal Melling process often referred to as the Lincoln County process. So we're in Moore County, but don't get confused back in the 1860s lunch. 26:00 was in a larger county called Lincoln County. More county wasn't formed until the 1870s. But this was a regional variant of bourbon. It was just something that that popped up among local distillers and back in Jack's day, even though we're the only one you'll find there today. Back in Jack's day, there were dozens of different distilleries littered throughout the hills around Lynchburg taking advantage of the limestone water that we have in abundance there. But they began to charcoal filter 26:29 right after they would distill the whiskey and before they would put it in a barrel they would filter it through hard sugar maple charcoal became the variety of wood that was most preferred. People have asked me before the jack us any other different types of wood other than hard sugar maple and I wish I could answer that question. I think if he were here today, that's probably one of my top questions that I would have is what all did you experiment with before you settled there, but I will tell you this about hard sugar maple it's an indigenous word. It's all throughout the hills around Lynchburg. So it's it's a 27:00 easy to find, even after 150 years that we've been out cutting it and burning it for charcoal. The key advantage that I see from it is that it's a very low ash wood. And we're going Of course, we're going to take our whiskey through that. So we don't want a lot of ash coming out of the charcoal getting into the whiskey and going into the barrel. Today with modern technology, we could process that away if we needed to. But what I noticed is that there's really not much in the way of ash that comes off of it. So oak actually has quite a bit of ash. Maple does not so jack was not just known to use hard sugar maple in the charcoal mellowing process, but he felt that it was very important to change it frequently because he recognized that it was like a sponge and eventually a sponge will get full and get saturated. And so you need to do more than just pass through charcoal, the charcoal needs to be fresh enough to make a difference. So we're tasting our events every week, changing it out on the frequency necessary to make sure that it's making the difference removing the fatty acids cleans up 28:00 The grainy knows it comes off much lighter, sweeter on the foot, both on the palate and also on the nose. 28:07 Fred, I don't know about you, but I heard I listened to the process and I've seen it before a million times. And it just sounds like so much more work. 28:18 I mean, do you think that's why in Kentucky that they stopped using that process? We're just a little lazier probably 28:26 wouldn't have gotten around or in the 1700s. I mean, look at them. Oh, but I'm not really. But now. I mean, that's just that's what Jeff and them do. And I've always done it. So we use it. We used to do it in Kentucky. You know, the the bill distillers actually used to do a similar process in the 1800s. It just did not. It was not very popular here. And so it went away. We did some charcoal filtering after aging. Yeah, to kind of smooth out some of the whiskies back in the old days, but now we've done some different different techniques and filtering now 29:00 Your tour guides Jeff. They like the lumps and mortar rounds toward Kentucky. And they just say this makes us better. Kentucky bourbon. Yeah. Now I gotta say as a Kentucky and although I tried to be neutral and is my skin crawls a little bit when your tour guide start making fun of Kentucky now what do you trade? What he traded him over there? Well, of course I think it's friendly competition. I think it forces us both to be the very best at our game. And I think people when when we feel like we need to step up our game and mind our P's and Q's to make a better product. You know, I know that we've had people who've come and taking the tour jack daniels who've recently taken the Kentucky bourbon trail and some of them have come up and tell me that I asked the tour guide. They wouldn't say which distillery it was. But you know, why isn't that y'all don't charcoal mellow like jack daniels does. And the standard response you'll get is that all hail that's, that is nothing but a shortcut. And of course, I looked up shortcut. I looked up the definition of IO and it's amazing guy 30:00 was Fred know, well supposed to say shortcuts are supposed to save you time or money or both. And it's something that we invest days in that we spend over a million dollars buying wood and burning it and replacing it. So it's it's something we're pretty passionate about. But it's to Fred's point, it's one of those things that makes a Tennessee whiskey unique. It makes it worth exploring. The same way I think, you know, no, to Kentucky barbers are pretty much going to taste the same. This was something that was a regional choice to make Tennessee whiskey is different. And it's something that we feel like we perfected over the years and that we're pretty proud that we still do today. All right, let's go through our tasting here. The one on your lap if I'm correct, is jack daniels. My right so we can be? Yeah, the one on your left is jack daniels. For us up on stage is the one that's closest to you. Are you going to be You got it? 30:49 I got so we're serving here is a gentleman jack. Can you tell us a little bit about gentleman jack? Yeah, of course as a Tennessee whiskey, we charcoal mellow and we were talking 31:00 about that process being somewhat different than what they do in Kentucky to make a bourbon but that's right after we distill whiskey and right before we put it in a barrel, it slowly passes through 10 feet of hard sugar maple charcoal. So that's this is the distinct step that we do that makes jack daniels at Tennessee whiskey with gentleman jack. This was our first new whiskey since prohibition we introduced it in 1988. It was the only whiskey that we've ever done. We had charcoal melt it twice so it gets one pass of charcoal before it goes in the barrel it gets another one after it's been fully matured in the barrel and before it's bottle. So this is the double mellowed version of jack daniels. And what you'll notice about it is that it has a very distinct absence of oak finish. For people who a lot of times if people struggle with bourbon or with whiskies in general it will do it will have to do with the aftertaste of oak, some people find it pleasant, that's what makes them like bourbon for other people. It's a block. It's a reason why they can enjoy it. So gentlemen, jack was literally meant to be an approachable form of whiskey. 32:00 Using charcoal all natural this is. This is all water grains, barrel and charcoal. So there's nothing artificial added in here. But this kind of displays the art of mellowing by doing it twice. All right, Fred, what do you think? I'm Dyson idea. What do you been doing the whole time? I've been smelling that I All right. Yeah, that's fine. 32:21 I think I drank the whole damn thing. 32:25 That's bullshit. Yeah, when it comes when it comes to this one in particular, I often describe it as being very, very clean, 32:33 uncomplicated, but it has almost a citrus banana nose on it has an absence of the earthy wood notes in it. Very clean and light. The great Lincoln Henderson actually had a big hand in the development of gentleman jack he did Lincoln work for brown Coleman for 40 years. So between the people of Lynchburg and all the the whiskey making expertise we have at Brown Forman, which of course includes some great bourbon brands and now also scotch whiskey and a new Irish whiskey. 33:00 Brand we we cover the whiskey world pretty well today except with the exception of Japanese whiskey. We even have Canadian. So we're a whiskey company at our core. So Lincoln Henderson is the founding master distiller for both angel's envy and Woodford Reserve. He's in the bourbon Hall of Fame he passed away in 2013. great man. So there's a little bit of a bourbon iconic figure connected to that whiskey now let's taste a little bit of Jim Beam here. This is the this is the one we see Mila Kunis talking about all the time. 33:33 This mask about you know the person this is the world's best whiskey their words not ours, according to see. Yeah. So what let's look at the Mila Kunis and a little bit but tell us about what we're drinking here with the Jim Beam black champion. Black is our gym being Nashville. Which I'm not going to tell you Fred. I know. 33:57 You're not one. But we do. We aged long. 34:00 RGM been white label stays in the barrel for years. This is a six year taste profile. So we're putting barrels that are older than six, some that are six, and some are a little younger than six. That way we keep the product on the shelf with a domain curve. All right, I got it. I got interrupted here. I gotta interrupt you. Okay, there wasn't once upon a time it had an eight year old age statement on there. If you go back farther, it had 101 months. 34:29 History he was ready for me damn right. 34:32 Fred you remember we've done this ship before? Yeah. 34:36 You ain't sent me out man. I might. 34:39 I might look dumb, but it's just a disguise. 34:43 I still you know, the thing is, it took me a while to get over by still buy it. I'm glad to see it. But the big thing on this ad it's 86 proof. So it's got more age, higher strength. So gets a little bit more of what and I think bourbon is all about no more word. 35:00 Which I did notice gentlemen jack doesn't have that much wood on the nose and finish. But I mean if you want a little more the if you like the oak, then you know the Jim Beam black is more than the GMBYI Let's take a taste. You didn't do that good talking to you in the jack daniels Did you? Yes sir. Oh you did I miss that. You want to watch it? Should you always try to set me up? I'm not trying to set you up. So now here I am trying to set you up. You're setting me up. Here we go. No, I'll give you the my spiel is a drink thing. I'm drunk enough to give me that loaded. Sorry. 35:34 Is jack daniels a bourbon? 35:39 Hey, it's Kenny here. And I want to tell you about an event that's happening on Saturday, August 24. Because I want to see you in historic downtown Frankfort, Kentucky at bourbon on the banks. It's the Commonwealth premier bourbon tasting and awards festival. There's live music and over 100 vendors of food, beer, wine, and of course, bourbon. But 36:00 Guess what even will be there in the bourbon pursuit booth. You can check out all the events including tastings with the master distillers that you've heard on the show before and the People's Choice Award for the Best bourbon out there. You can get your all inclusive ticket for $65. Plus, you can join on the free Friday night event. Go and check it out. bourbon on the banks.org there are more craft distilleries popping up around the country now more than ever before. 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Use code pursuit for $25 off your first box. 37:24 Is jack daniels a bourbon? 37:26 Well, no, I mean, let's look on the label. You see the word BOURBON on her anywhere. It's in the North American Free Trade Agreement. 37:36 I political Oh, man. 37:40 Come on. JACK. Is jack daniels a bourbon? You know, according to NAFTA? Yes, it is. Oh, there we go. Thank you so much for coming. If you want to trust if you want to trust the view of our government, you know, you'd have to say that it is if you want to make your own decision about that. That's fine too. But if you look at everything in the federal 38:00 codes that define what a bourbon whiskey is. There are no exceptions when it comes to what jack daniels is our grain bill in the fact that were made in America, our grain bill, our distillation proved the fact that we only use new barrels or even make barrels for ourselves as a whiskey company. The only way to do that there's nothing that would disqualify us. But there's always been this argument that well, if you go to charcoal mellowing, it does distinctly change the spirit. Yeah, it changes the nose. It changes the mouth feel of it. And the actually it was the US government. Back in 1941. Who petition jack daniels This was after prohibition it ended. They wanted us to change our label from jack daniels, Tennessee whiskey to bourbon, they were trying to kind of go around and clean up who's operations and what they were being labeled as and they said, we've looked at your process. There's no exceptions. The what defined is bourbon, so why not just re label yourself so they submitted samples before and after charcoal mellowing, my salespeople actually offer those educationally today. 39:00 And they tasted it. This was the alcohol Bureau in Washington DC there actually was such a thing back then they tasted the product. 39:08 Government, they wrote us a letter, and 1941 that basically says we've tasted your product. And we have to agree that you don't have the character that's typical of bourbon whiskey. Therefore, if you want to label yourself a Tennessee whiskey, we won't contest it any longer. And of course, the US government has a way of changing their minds. So we can we've kept a copy of that letter just as evidence that we don't want to revisit that. We feel like the arguments been one. But we all we also say that it gives us hope, because it's the one evidence that we have in the last 75 years that our US government got any decision right. So we take that one 39:44 political angle. 39:46 You don't get me in trouble jail. Fred, I know is going to get me in trouble. So Jeff, 39:54 do you ever get tired of people asking you that question? Is jack daniels a bourbon? No, no, no. 40:00 Really I think as long as people are curious, that's part of the battle. You know, for the longest time whiskey from the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s whiskeys were all the rage. You know, the whiskey cocktails were what people ordered. But then we saw some pretty lean years as whiskey brands, the 70s, or the 80s 90s and 2000s. Were not necessarily so kind. So I think just having people to be bourbon curious. 40:26 Whiskey curious. 40:29 As part of the battle, you know, I always say if we can make whiskey interesting, collectively, but the rising tide will raise all ships. So I feel like jack daniels success doesn't necessarily have to come at the expense of Jim beam's. And I think probably Fred would say the same. That we can both have extremely successful brands because we we do have unique flavors, we have unique brands. And that's going to appeal more or less to different individuals. But I think just having people be curious about whiskey is the biggest part of the battle if they're open to trying it. I think they're 41:00 Something in the whiskey category that are going to like, all right, Do you guys ever feel competitive against each other, like you want to own the well over the other? 41:10 You know, the thing that, you know, the guys in production, were buddies, sales guys on the street. That's another damn store. 41:21 I mean, I'd have to agree. You know, Fred. Now, this is very rare that we would be on the same stage together. But we met about eight or nine years ago, in Berlin. It was amazing, because I think that was Fred's first comments. That means like, we're a state apart, and we had to come all the way to Germany to even meet. So we, we were at the Berlin bartenders convention and had a chance to actually we were representing American whiskey versus the other categories of global whiskey. So we decided against the devil Yeah, instead of having the fence between us. We were actually on the same side of the fence there. So we were we were in violent agreement I remember about the importance of limestone water and mixing up grains and using new 42:00 barrels, making it all natural not using colorings or flavorings and things of that nature. So, you know, there's so many things that are common about Jim Beam and jack daniels, of course, the one variant being charcoal mellowing, and people can decide if that's right for them. But I think as long as they're willing to to order a whiskey, there's a good chance that they're going to like something there. There we were, essentially, Jeff and me against the world. I don't think we did pretty damn good. 42:28 Well, we were lucky, because it was in Germany, and Jim Beam is pretty strong in Germany. And so all our sales people were kind of on one side and they were probably a little drunk. I think. 42:41 I think there's one thing we could agree to I actually have some friends who are what I call Doomsday errs, you know, who created fallout shelters who got Mr. ease and, you know, bottled water stacked up to the ceiling. And a lot of them have basically told me that I'm not I'm not hoarding cash. I'm basically putting bottles of jack daniels. 43:00 Whiskey and stuff like that because if the currency fails, they're absolutely certain that a bottle of whiskey is always going to be worth something regardless of what happens. 43:11 But but but Baka would not be. Yeah, I think if we go back to bartering, it's gonna be good to be in the whiskey business. What do you say? 43:19 Bam, right? You get more with a bottle of whiskey and you can handle the money. I guarantee it. 43:27 Well, gentlemen, it's been a real pleasure here. This is such a rare opportunity to have these two on the stage. I would actually like to take some questions from the audience how bad it would you like some light shirt from folks like that some questions? 43:42 Anybody have any questions out there? 43:45 What is a regular day for Fred? No. And Jeff Barnett. 43:51 I get up about 630 here down the August 1 thing, look at emails is like every other person. So do 44:00 Deal with meetings conference calls. And then I get to have fun and go down to the distillery. taste a little white dog right off the steel and then usually hit by the lab and taste some as liquor and then hang out at our visitor center, shake hands, take pictures, sand bottles, and then hit home but then the day they send me to 44:25 your liquor stores and bars, all days signing bottles, taking pictures, doing presentations, I'm sure Jeff's when he's on the west side. I'm usually on the east. 44:37 That same place. 44:39 You can see who's been ahead of you when you go into a liquor store. You see bottles on the shelf that have been signed by Jeff Arnett or Jimmy Russell or whoever is it well shit, I'm definitely behind him. You know, don't put dates on them so you don't know. Or maybe x coming. I'm not going to store and see bottles son from the last visit. And I think what shipping 45:00 Selling enough 45:04 one too many 45:06 I got out they don't let you get away. You know I think the the one word in that question that that puzzles me the most is regular I don't know that I've ever had a regular day as a master distiller because every day is it's different to me I feel absolutely blessed to work for jack daniels you know I'm a native Tennessee and argue that is probably the best known product from our state so have to have any hand in working at jack daniels to me was a dream job. But 80% of my time is spent in Lynchburg. The one thing that I'm most fortunate about is that I don't have to travel between facilities we make every drop in one spot using a water source which allows me to keep everything as consistent as I feel like it needs to be. It allows us to leverage you know, employees who have you know, several generations of experience making whiskey I think that I'm not the strength of jack daniels it is the people of Lynchburg who've committed over the years since prohibition to 46:00 Keep the brand going and growing. But I do spend about 50 to 60 days a year out on the road. So, you know, you become a little bit of a 46:09 celebrity in the world of whiskey. You know, it's amazing what passes that celebrity, you know. But you know, to to a whiskey fan, they want to meet you, they want to get a photo, they want to get a signature. And that's it's always an honor to do that. But we are sold in 170 countries today in 10 years. I've actually by the end of this year, I'll have visited 39 countries so cover a lot of the ground in a few days of the year. So let's talk about celebrities for a second. Let's go to what's it like spending time with Mila Kunis? My one man 46:41 I mean, it could have been worse, you know? Now Mila she she came here to Kentucky a couple times and we hit it off right off the bat. You're gonna love this story. I might as well go on and tell it. Surely I won't get any trouble since I've already cursed a little bit going on with Mila first came. They wanted to make sure that our first 47:00 meeting was on film. They didn't want us to get to know each other. And so she came to our home there in Bardstown. She was in the house. They were getting her hair and makeup wardrobe. You know, I pretty much do all that stuff myself. I don't I don't have hairdressers that go with me, kind of no reason to me anyway. My wife went into the house and was talking to me over there and she had her dog when Mila and her boyfriend at that time, Ashton Kutcher had to put her dog sleeping on Neil or something. So she got pretty emotional was holding Sandy's dog. And she said, I'm a little nervous to work with your husband. And Sandy said, Why? She's a walk curse a lot. 47:45 And my wife said, You're good. 47:48 She's a no you don't understand. I say fuck a lot. 47:53 She said, You're still good. 47:58 Sandy came out 48:00 And she came on was laughing I said, What's the funny? So Amelia is nervous to work with you. I said Why? She was he causes a lot, so it's no big deal. I know what she's worried about saying fuck around you. So we did our little meeting. It was on film, everything was cool. Cut, take a break. I got her ear and I said fuck it. 48:22 We're gonna get along just fine, big boat. 48:25 That's how I was. I was tell someone that after having met Fred I realized he was truly a master of the English language because he can take the F bomb and use it as every form of the English language in one sentence. 48:40 Yeah, all right, Jeff, as I play bartender here on stage, why don't you tell us one of your celebrity stories? Oh, goodness. Um, you know, we're very fortunate. Like I said, we've had a lot of people especially in the music industry. We were fans of jack daniels. So especially in country music, a lot of people and they think of, of Tennessee. If they don't 49:00 Think of jack daniels when they think of Tennessee I think they largely think of country music so I've had a chance to spend time him he 49:08 music table we even work, you know had a chance to hang out with with Zac Brown and 49:14 and his wife and his children and also now with Eric church, and to find out that his wife literally grew up about 30 minutes from my hometown, and what real and really good people that they are. I think that I think that's the most surprising thing that I find is that celebrities are not a lot different than we are, you know, some of them maybe are but the ones that I've had the privilege of meeting I've been always really surprised at just how humble and what good people they are. And of course if they love jack daniels even better, we got plenty to talk about if they do. I know you. You are partial to the ones that favor Jim Beam and I definitely have a I feel like a big fan base out there both in Hollywood and all over the music industry, jack daniels as well represented there. All right, everybody. Let's have another question. Who's got a 50:00 Question out here. Yes, ma'am. Right here in the back. coming to you with the microphone. 50:06 How often do you introduce new products? And when will your next one be introduced? 50:12 I'll answer for jack daniels. You know, how often do we come up with new products? You know, for the longest time we didn't, we had one brand that carried us for over 100 years. We introduced gentleman jack in 1988. We introduced single barrel in 1997. We didn't introduce any new products from jack daniels for about 14 years. And that wasn't necessarily due to our lack of interest of offering new products. It was really more about is the market even wanting a new product from us? Are they happy with what they have, but as as whiskey has taken off again, I think that's what we're seeing has changed the most is that people do want to try a lot of different things, including the loyal jack daniels people and that includes, you know, our newest grain bill that's come out is raw. So we have two different versions of it to me that's that's our new product and for this year, that's what we're going to continue to focus on. 51:00 Because to me, I think it's very different for people who maybe have never been a fan of jack daniels before. Maybe one of the reasons is the fact that we're very low and raw. And if you do like a high raw whiskey, we now offer that, you know, jack daniels, you know, like I said, we're very fortunate we have just a rabid fan base. And I think besides Harley Davidson, we just recently got named the brand that's most likely to be tattooed on someone. So, you know, people have asked me why, why did you come out with a rye whiskey? And it's like, well, my fear was that there's going to be this big burly guy with a tattoo that says jack daniels on his arm, and he's gonna taste rye whiskey this out. He really likes that. So we need to give him a jack daniels option. That way, he's not going to have to go and get his tattoo taken off. So but you know, to answer that question, we've come out with one new product a year for the last seven years. So we've gone from three to 10 in a really short period. So we're just kind of trying to maybe decompress a little bit from doing that and focus on what we've got out there. We feel like we've got a really strong profile. 52:00 There's something in there that out of those 10 that I think everyone's gonna like. 52:05 Now you were about to dispute the tattooed thing for No, no, no, no, I asked him. I was going to ask Jeff for his was, oh, I couldn't show you on stage. I'm sorry. 52:17 Between me and my wife, you're lucky, you're lucky. 52:21 Now, we do a lot of innovations. 52:26 My son actually, Freddie, he's he's got a project who just had a baby, by the way, or his wife had a baby. Right? Congratulations, grandpa. 52:36 Paul, I was holding Booker last time. 52:39 It was kind of cool. But Freddie's got a brand called Little Book, which so my father called him from the time he was a baby. So every year, he's going to make a straight whiskey or straight spirit blend. And so every year it's going to be another chapter into chapter one was 52:59 either 53:00 No easy. The second one's no easy task. First one was the big easy, but he's taking spirit streams from within the beam Suntory portfolio around the world, which he's got a pretty unlimited canvas. When you look at all the whiskies we have which, with this year, he did a 40 year old Canadian 16 year old Canadian rap, an eight year old, Kentucky straight raw, 53:24 all cash strength, just like his grandfather. And so we're doing innovations, probably one or two a year. And then we'll within our play knob Creek will go we've done single barrel rise, single barrel Bourbons, can strength. We do different things, all limited releases, because folks like Jeff said, they want different stuff. They don't want the same thing over and over and over. If we see something that really hits hard, like we did a base right and dark raw, which was, oh, I've got an idea that we could maybe execute for next 54:00 years festival Why don't we do a blend of jack daniels and Jim Beam for bourbon and beyond 2019 54:09 I go say won't ever 54:12 talk somebody 54:15 and they'll tell you what how drunk were you to when you agreed to 54:23 have your people talk to my 54:26 so you get this ball rolling Fred 54:29 should we have it for next year? 54:34 I would say this so I think it when you're looking at Tennessee and Kentucky you're definitely looking at some of the world's best spirits when it comes to whiskeys and you can't go wrong if you will explore around I think you're going to find there's something they're just gonna like. Oh yeah, for sure. So what you're saying it's better than Canada. 54:50 Well, it's different than Canada we have different rules. We have Canadian whiskey brand is 54:56 people like and more power to them. We got scotch whiskey brands. 55:00 get us in trouble. Yeah, we got Canadian. You know, I've recently become a fan of shared scotches oh you know students don't smoke repeat but I'm open to trying new things. 55:11 Well gentlemen, if you all if anyone in the audience has anything lab, I know you to do. I just poured you like four fingers there. Grab what you have a lap. Let's toast it to, to Fred know and Jeff Barnett chairs and now you all 55:28 chairs Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Chris Morris and Elizabeth McCall are no strangers to the show so we're excited to have them back on again. This time, we explore the controversial topic of “what is a master distiller?”. How is a title like that earned through years of service? How is Brown-Forman laying the foundation for Elizabeth to take over when Chris is ready to retire? We also talk about barrels from their cooperage, the influence of char on their whiskey, and this week's Whiskey Quickie, the King of Kentucky. Show Partners: The University of Louisville now has an online Distilled Spirits Business Certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry. Learn more at business.louisville.edu/onlinespirits. At Barrell Craft Spirits, they take blending seriously. They spend months obsessing over hundreds of combinations until they figure out the perfect blend for you. Find out more at BarrellBourbon.com. Check out Bourbon on the Banks in Frankfort, KY on August 24th. Visit BourbonontheBanks.org. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about rapid aging. Lawsuit challenges out-of-state retailers' ability to sell, deliver and ship alcohol to Kentucky consumers - https://www.wdrb.com/news/lawsuit-challenges-out-of-state-retailers-ability-to-sell-deliver/article_4881080e-acc4-11e9-9dbc-8b443dc97b9e.html Join us on barrel selections and see what other perks await. Support the podcast at https://www.patreon.com/bourbonpursuit Come drink some beer with us at 3rd Turn Brewing on July 26th from 4-7pm https://www.facebook.com/events/327452114804983/ Elizabeth, tell us about your role. Do different Master Distiller's have different styles? Is there a Master Distiller training manual? What do you think of everyday people becoming Master Distillers without significant training? What is a Master Distiller today? How do you know a bourbon will be good once it's aged? What flavors or notes do you consider defects? Are we going to see more single malts come out of Brown-Forman? Why is there such a fascination with making malts work? Tell us about the latest Distiller's Select? Are there two different char levels on the double double oaked? Talk about owning your own cooperage. Tell us about King of Kentucky. Why did you chose this label? Is there any pressure on Elizabeth to live up to Chris? How did you feel when you became a Master Distiller? Recorded live at Down One Bourbon Bar in Louisville, KY. 0:00 I love bourbon, but I'm not ready to restart my career to be a distiller. I have a bachelor's degree and I want to continue to use those skills in the whiskey industry. So check this out. The University of Louisville now has an online distilled spirits business certificate that focuses on the business side of the spirits industry like finance, marketing and operations. This is perfect for anyone looking for more professional development. And if you ever want to get your MBA, their certificate credits transfer into Ul's new online MBA program. Learn more about this online program at business global.edu slash online spirits 0:38 the king right there brother 0:40 if you want to use if you want some of that make sure you crack it open now because it's not open. Oh, I feel 0:45 that is it yours? Yeah, I product Yeah, open it. 0:49 Like always calls Kenny $1,000. 0:52 Bottle every every time it comes over I lose $1,000 1:07 Hey everybody, this is Episode 211 of bourbon pursuit. I'm one of your host Kenny and let's go through a little bit the news. Woodford Reserve has announced the release of its newest permanent expression. The Woodford Reserve Kentucky straight wheat whiskey with wheat as its dominant grain at 52% followed by 20% malt 20% corn in a percent rye. This whiskey was created by master distiller Chris Morris and more said that Woodford Reserve now has all four whiskeys as a part of its permanent family of brands. You have Woodford bourbon, Woodford rye, Woodford malt and now Woodford wheat. The Woodford Reserve wheat is 90.4 proof with a suggested retail price of 3499 verse 750 ml. That's quite the segue into our guest today, but we'll save that here for him. It was just a few weeks ago, we talked about the Supreme Court ruling that lifted the ban on out of state retailers in the state of Tennessee that could potentially affect shipping across the nation. Well, I think we're about to start witnessing the start of the domino effect. A Louisville attorney recently filed a lawsuit in federal district court against Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, Kentucky Attorney General Andy this year and the executive director of the Alcohol Beverage Control, Norman, our flag. This complaint argues that the law is unconstitutional because as we've said before, it violates the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, because by quote, It discriminates against out of state wine retailers engaged in interstate commerce. It also argues that it violates the privileges and immunities clause of Article four section two of the United States Constitution because it denies non resident wine merchants the privilege of engaging and there are occupation in Kentucky on the terms of equivalent those given to the citizens of Kentucky. And that's all according this lawsuit. We are going to continue to pay very close attention to see how this plays out and other states in the upcoming few months. On Monday, this week, we got to take a trip over to Cox's Creek with a few of our Patreon community members and select two barrels of four roses. The team came together and selected a nine year six month old BASF and a 10 year six month OVSK we're really looking forward to getting these barrels out to the art community sometime in September. We also selected a new riff barrel once again. You know if you want to see more about all the perks that are offered by supporting this podcast like going with us on barrel selections, please do us a favor go to patreon.com slash bourbon pursuit and get more information. Now if we rewind the clocks back to around February of 2018 all the fellas from the bourbon Community Roundtable we met up in Frankfort, Kentucky to select a barrel of Buffalo Trace what happened next With that said barrel is the next part of this story. When you have a used bourbon barrel you want to repurpose it. And what better way to do that then letting it age with some delicious Imperial stout, we teamed up with third term brewing and did just that. We aged a stout at 12.2% ABV and let it rest in that barrel for an entire year. And now it's time to release it. On Friday, July 26. from four to 7pm. Ryan and I we will be at third term brewing located in JA town in Louisville, Kentucky and we want to share a pint with you Please come on out and try this beer on tap. And if you really like it, you can take home a crawler for yourself to take home. We hope to see you out there. More information about that can be found on our Facebook page under the events section. Now today's podcast was recorded while ago when we were on site at down one bourbon bar in Louisville, Kentucky. So if it sounds like we're recording in a bar, no, it's because we were, however, Chris Morris and Elizabeth McCall. They're no strangers of the show. And we're excited to have them back on once again. But this time, we're excited to hear them talk about the job of master distiller and how that title is earned through years of service. And really how brown Forman is now laying the foundation for Elizabeth to take over when Chris is ready to retire. We also talked about the barrels that they have in their own Cooper bridge, the char and this week's whiskey quickie that ended on Tuesday, the king of Kentucky. All right, you've heard me talk long enough. So let's hear from Joe over a barrel bourbon. And then you've got Fred Minnick with above the char. 5:50 Hi, this is Joe Beatrice from barrell craft spirits. I work with a team that takes blending seriously, we spend months obsessing over hundreds of combinations, until we figure out the perfect blend for you. 6:01 You can find it on the shelves at your nearest retail store. 6:05 I'm Fred Minnick, and this is above the charm. Every week I asked listeners to send me an idea for above the char, I get so many. But the one request I get most of all, is what do I think of rapid aging. This is the process that new distillers or chemists use to try and make bourbon faster. And I want to tell you, this has been going on for a very, very long time. In technology, they like to seek solutions for problems. And the fact is making Bourbons biggest problem is the fact that making it right and making it tasty, can take anywhere from four to 15 years. So if you're a businessman or woman, and you want to make some money, it sure looks good if you can make a six month old bourbon taste like it's 15 years old. Now a little history behind this. The Romans actually employed rapid aging techniques and wine and spirits. You know, the mid 19th century we saw incredible amounts of people attempt rapid aging technology. In 1867. a Frenchman use a roadable wouldn't paddle to agitate barrels like a butter churn. Using a similar concept. The 1871 us patented peifer and Richards apparatus place barrels on roller slats and a heated room and agitated the barrels back and forth. The inventors claim that this ripened whiskey within a few weeks, several others hit the market in the 1870s to include a heat and motion device that offered practical value and utility. We'd also see ultrasonic radiation center in the 1930s. And the Germans would do things like raise the Ester content up to 120%. And wind is toilets, they also used sound technology. By the 1960s rapid aging fell out of fashion, it was not considered very satisfying. In fact, you would see distillers openly speak out against this. Today we have seen the rise of smaller barrels claiming that it's aged faster. We've seen people play heavy bass music to make the whiskey come out quicker. There's been chemical reactions there have been agitators very similar to you know, mixing a paint can. There's been all these efforts to make whiskey faster, and I've tasted almost all of them. They all lack a certain depth, a certain mouth fill a certain flavor that makes you want to buy it. In fact, I'd say the thing that we should really look at here, is there a problem with whiskey. And the fact is there is not. The problem is is in the making money of whiskey. So as long as you somebody could make money trying to figure out a solution to getting good whiskey to your doorstep, we will always see rapid aging technology. And I will always give it a shot. But I have yet to taste one that is better than even some of the worst craft distilled whiskies. Rapid aging technology doesn't add anything to the quality of the whiskey, at least from what I've tasted. Instead, it strips out a lot of character, and it doesn't have the time that's really required to be a good or great bourbon. So what's the old saying, if it's not broke, don't fix it. And let's face it, Bourbons now broken. And that's this week's above the char Hey, if you have an idea for above the char hit me up on Twitter or Instagram. That's at Fred Minnick again at Fred Minnick. Until next week. Cheers 9:55 Welcome back to another episode of bourbon pursuit. The first of the Live podcast we doing here at down one bourbon bar in Louisville, Kentucky, Fred Ryan and Kenny back here. Once again, and we this is a this is a new home, this is actually going to be pretty fun because Ryan and I had a tasting here last week when we did this. But this is going to be a new adventure bringing a guest Yes, I'm looking around and like I'm remembering our first time we record a podcast was in my basement. And like, just me and you and a laptop and like there was nobody there. And now there's like, like 15 people around us watching there's all these lights, we got master distillers here, there's reserved tables even though they're not for us. 10:37 But people thought they would act like there is it's like kind of crazy. You know, it really is and, and I'm Fred This is how many times you've been down one. 10:46 So it's a problem anytime I actually been here so often that I got my own car back there in the closet of things getting too far. But this is a this has been a fun bar to kind of see it develop. There's been a lot of talent from Louisville, Kentucky. I'm from here and go on to be brand ambassadors for for distilleries and go on to like other opportunities. But this for me is this is one of the places where I come in, and I assess talent for for things that I'm doing and they do a great job here. And of course, they're connected to the Galt house or part of the Galt house family. And so and never hurts from a purchasing opportunity, you know, for a bar to have that kind of purchasing power to be connected to someone like the Galt house, so they they get a lot of good things that a lot of smaller bars don't 11:35 and hold on. I want to know about this scouting report. 11:39 Like Like are you like NBA Scout, you know, going around? Well, 11:41 I you know, as, as you know, Kenny and Ryan, I do a lot of festivals. And I'm also on a lot of education committees for for for, you know, cocktail cocktail. And then I try to do things I try to create content for live festivals and and I usually have to tap into bartenders. And bartenders have to In my opinion, from a career perspective, they have they are a lot like an NBA player. Yeah. And like some people come in are like, really great for two years and then they're gone. Some people come in and they're wanting to the cocktail world. It's true. It's true, like bartending talent is something that from an education perspective, you have to scout you have to find the people that will you know, put on good seminars and can actually make a Daiquiri in a grown in an old fashioned and a man had don't they don't they serve the great Chris Morris the right way. 12:45 Don't give him the cocktail get give him the right cocktail that you know, he asked for 12:51 a frozen concoction. It's amazing Jimmy Buffett, 12:54 but but the Daiquiri actually was not meant to be 12:57 a blended 13:00 auction. Although it's tornadoes. 13:01 I love the blended 13:03 a bottle and you put a margarita or blender and shake it up, and it's ready to drink. But 13:09 all right, Kenny said about to explode. We got him. 13:14 Chris, as you may know, our friend candy here. He's a little he's all right. 13:23 We got it. We got him taking off the guardrail. Sometimes we gotta bring it back in focus. But that's really what we're talking about today's not cocktails and we are talking about bourbon and most important, we're talking about Woodford Reserve. So today we have Chris Morris the master distiller at Woodford Reserve and Elizabeth McCall, the Assistant master distiller at Woodford Reserve. And both of these people are alumni of the show. I believe it was back in the episode 40s and Episode 60s when when you made your parents so welcome back on. Thank you. 13:50 Thanks for having us back. So have you been 13:52 Yeah, and get to get this kicked off a little bit. Elizabeth, I kind of want you to kind of give people another recreation of really what your role has progressed to since the last time you're on because you were in the lab. You are the head taster, I believe and now your assistant master distiller so what what's what's that look 14:10 like back when we go back in time as Chris's wonderfully made Manhattan made its way to him. So when I last was speaking to it was master taster and senior quality control specialist at Woodford Reserve. Working production part of the time and the other part of the time was working with Chris on innovation and of course, tasting batches and all of that and it shifted to more focus on really getting in the weeds of trying to understand how Chris's mind works. Which 14:42 Hold on wait that out. 14:44 I have not figured it out yet. He's kind of 14:47 nice. You know how your mind when I respond 14:48 to emails as genius? I do he so he's being very embarrassed. But I really do because I won't ever be able to understand fully how his mind works and how he puts patches together and how he pulls in history and an actual where's this the market going? I mean, all that is very interesting, but I try to learn as much as I can. So I'm trying to just follow in his footsteps and learn that and that's just spending as much time with him as possible. He gives me projects. And he's like here the other day. I'm like, Okay, how do you build a new grain recipe? And he handed me the book of corn. He's like, I read this on a trip, like one string of corn. Yeah. 15:30 Like a Bible. textbook on corn. 15:32 Yeah, there's a book on corn. There's a book on corn. And I mean, that's the kind of thing Morris does when he when he thinks there's a lot of conscious thought. 15:40 It's amazing Kenny, but actually authors write things. 15:43 Yeah, let me know when it turns into an audio book. And I'll 15:48 forget on Audible 15:49 or the movie, the movie version. 15:52 But that but that's a lot of what I've been trying to learn that and then of course, still learning in the production side of things I you can never, you'll never know everything. I still have a lot of learning to do in terms of getting my hands dirty at the Cooper bridge and other distilleries outside of Woodford Reserve. So my and then education. I work with Chris and the team of other masters Stiller's at Brown Forman on educating our sales force and distributor folks on the whiskey category. So there's just lots of things nuances that go into it. 16:22 I got a question for you to Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt but like, so does the master is still or just do each different distillers have different styles or methods? Or is it more like plug and play? Or like, what is Chris's style? And what's yours? Or like, how are they different? Or same? Or? 16:38 Well, certainly, in my experience, 16:42 we see differences good talk with Fred before we stepped in this afternoon, that each company has its own criteria. For the job. There's no uniform, what is a master distiller what is the distiller it varies from company to company. And we're are of course, very proud to be the oldest spirits company and in America, the the round form and parent company. So we think we know what we're doing. And I am the seventh in the history of the company. And Elizabeth is, is working away to number eight. But we have criteria that differ from other companies. But you do see a difference in style. And interpretation. Of course, I everybody knows my mentor. My first boss in my whole life was Lincoln Henderson. And I'm very different than link. In fact, my palate is different than Lincoln. Near the end of his career, we would have arguments, because I was tasting things he didn't taste and he would get upset. Sorry, that's the way that it was. Because we know as people age, their sense of taste deteriorates. So a younger person will have a better sense of taste. I know that 17:58 I trying to say that you already kind of like see inevitable coming is that was that was happening, and you're trying to groom her to do 18:03 that. That's part of the process. One of my key roles today is to develop Elizabeth, to succeed me. So that's part of our brown Coleman process, passing on the mantle from generation to generation, so that nothing changes. Wink wink, things will change. Because Elizabeth is not Chris. Yeah, I wasn't Lincoln. 18:26 But we got a ways before we see that change, right, Chris? 18:32 I hope so. But not that I don't want Elizabeth and 18:38 I have a lot to learn. 18:39 But we're having such a good time together. And we got our new master taster over here. Katie joining us tonight. But that's that's just if you're making 100% natural product with reserve is corn, rye, barley, or how many whiskies? It's the limestone water, its yeast, its exposure to copper, and maturation and an oak barrel. It's as natural as you can get. And as you put those batches together, based on your perception of our standard, it will evolve. Because again, we're all individuals. And I think that's one reason people will love a brand, like what preserve it is our collaborative interpretation of this product. And again, it will change with the changes are subtle, the changes are evolutionary. But the The bottom line is it's it's it's a real product that somebody or some persons a team are putting together. It's not artificial, it's not manufactured. It's not a committee in in some corporate office, it's real. 19:54 Yeah. So is that like training manual? Is that something you do? Or is that something that, you know, brown Forman has like, here's how we want it done. And Chris is like, Yo, this should be done. Like so how's that kind of work in that process? Brian Yeah, 20:09 it's an audible book I had, 20:10 I had produced for me or developed for me. The that manual before it didn't exist. And when I was coming up, it was a guidepost for me, you know, sort of tailored to me, and, and that was back in 2019 years ago. And, and I've taken those that original work as as we've evolved and developed and tweaked it. And now brown Forman does have a professional development guide for master distiller, which means assistant master distiller we have a professional guide for master taster that both Elizabeth and of course Katie have gone through courses of the destruction experiences. 21:04 Let's take it Okay. All right. So you're just talking about like all these manuals you have and all this effort that you put into the terms and titles master distiller master taster system master distiller when I can just go right down the street, and get a diploma from a moonshine University, and then come out, start my own distillery, or Heck, I don't even have to go there. I can start a distillery tomorrow and say, I'm a master distiller even watching YouTube channel, I could watch it and 21:32 say, I'm a master distiller in the old Ascot brand takes off from there, 21:36 that's right, was shaking her head. What in the world is happening to American whiskey right now, where you have one company who's going through all this effort for the titles of distiller and then you have some random schmo wearing wherever and USA saying that they're a master distiller and they haven't done a liquor distilling What's going on? 22:03 Yeah, Elizabeth, I kinda wanna get your take on that one. Because you're, you've been, you've been trying to groom yourself for this role, and you've been really putting years of effort into it. So 22:10 so I only have 10 years in this industry, and which some people are like, Oh, my gosh, that's a long time. Long brown Forman that's not baby. And, and in this industry, in my opinion, that's not I don't feel it's a long time. And I am very, very much very proud and I think you hear it when I talk about Chris's going nowhere, I hope anytime soon, because I have a lot of pride in the fact that I'm assistant and that in implies a great deal of learning I had still have to do and the respect I have for the title of masters Still, if they were to tell me tomorrow, you're going to be masters still or I would have serious issues with being called that for especially for a brand like Woodford Reserve or or any of our brown Forman brands that have some much weight behind them. Um, it's just a title to me that I look to and I think of somebody like Chris Morris, who is a it has lived and breathed bourbon and whiskey his entire life. And it's not just about running stills, anybody can learn that skill. You really can you 23:20 think anybody can run a still. 23:23 If you have the right manuals, and you go out and you spend time training. Now you can't just walk in off the street and do this. No. But can you learn anybody can learn how to do that. A lot of people can learn maybe not anybody, 23:35 but there's a lot of people in backwoods that have stills before 23:41 you can learn how to do these skills. And but there's time and thought and experience that goes into something that really makes you want to believe that your product like what Chris Morris, I mean, what he's done for Woodford Reserve is unreal. You look at the like we sit down and we talk about things and we talked about brand planning. He introduced like, was he there for the start of the actual bourbon. No, that was he was with a different company at the time. But when he came in, we have right we have our masters collection that came out you have our malt you have wheat that's coming out soon. And that's not all out of just willy nilly. Like ma this would be fun. It's it's a lot of it is well thought out when you look at history. And when you look at what's the plan we we talked about flavor with Woodford and I mean, that's his genius and experience in the industry that led him to that path and that guided vision for brand and that takes nothing but time. I mean time is Yeah, I think is so hear 24:45 what you're saying there like with with with branding and everything like that. I think we don't know, as a society when I when I say society, I mean bourbon society. What a master distiller in so Chris, I'll bring that to you. What is a master distiller because it meant something in the 1800s and the 1950s? It means something different today. What is a master distiller? 25:12 Well, of course there is no, there is no criteria. In terms of industry, there's no set of requirements. As I mentioned earlier, it varies from company to company. And I believe ground Coleman believes. Number one, you're responsible for the overall quality of the product that your name is associated with the distillery associated with. And as Elizabeth said, that means a whole lot. If you're our colleague, Jeff Barnett at jack daniels, you're the master distiller of jack daniels. That's sort of important. Woodford Reserve, my gosh, old Forester, you know, those are important brands, not only to our company, but to the history of our industry. So there's there's a lot of gravitas, there, there's a lot of response ability. And also, I think it means your brands that you have helped create and develop, have won awards are recognized as good brands, you're, you're a master of what your master of a brand that is acknowledged to be of the utmost quality. You haven't won an award. I don't know how you can be a master yet. But again, that's our opinion, not a global opinion of any degree. 26:27 So again, I think it's a nice baseline. I mean, Kenny, wouldn't you agree that it's at least a baseline for what is a master distiller you have to have a wonderful an award when you have so many? 26:39 I don't know. I mean, you kind of you kind of take the anti part of that, right? I know that you're you're a judge at San Francisco, and then you've got the other group of bourbon enthusiasts out there that say, don't don't take that as as gospel. Right. You take that as as a as a way that you can start learning about a spirit or anything like that. But when you see gold, double gold. 27:01 Well, in fairness, I wasn't thinking about San Francisco. Question. I was thinking of like best bourbon at San Francisco, or, I mean, one of the three medals there. I 27:13 think that's what Chris was thinking to, or I could just pay off the 27:15 Forbes writer that I know Yeah. 27:20 Let me add maybe as a close to this, or we continue. But that's one thing brown Forman and the Kentucky distillers Association because this was the this was a subject of discussion years ago with the the membership, and we don't think anyone company organization can define or impose any restrictions on the rest of the industry. As Fred said, if a little startup distillery wants to call its whatever person master distiller that's up to them, that's fine brown Coleman is not gonna say you can't do that. It's not our job to improve punk upon the industry, our opinions. This is America, we don't do that. So I think the ultimate, the ultimate, the bottom line is, our brand speaks for itself. 28:13 Does it taste good? 28:15 Good. taste. I think that's fair for for the professional side. But now we're starting to see like this growth within like, the bar community. And everybody's saying they're an expert, about whiskey. And you in and Kenny brought up, you know, the judging competitions and what is best. There was just a gas station whiskey, that one world's best whiskey. And I seriously question how that one, you know, and I'm a judge or a lot of those things. And I and I know like people have to pay entry to get in that. So there could have been like a low point of entry, there might not have been a lot of, well, Chris, what do you think about like this rise of so called x books that are tasting things and putting their names on on things and hosting podcast hosting podcast, 29:09 full disclosure, we always say, and we 29:12 never ever named a whiskey of the year, you to have never done anything like that. So like, now we're in a situation where there are 1500 different, you know, whiskey, Somali A's, or experts or whatever. And, you know, they're not coming from the ilk of brown Forman. And you may even think that I'm that, too. But I'm curious as to what your thought is, in terms of like the people who are tasting. Consider the tasters of the community, 29:41 I would just be curious to know I mean, for me, like, you know, we're tasting and we want to know quality. Do you know what are the all the defects you can find in bourbon, whiskey distillate? And when you find them, like, Can you describe like, well, what did they taste like? What are those those defects? Where did they come from in the production process? How do you troubleshoot and work around that and get through all of that, and 30:09 I guess it important to know how to fix it, or it's just important to spot it as a taster. 30:14 As a taster, you probably don't have to know that if you're going to be a master distiller, you have to know how to do that. 30:19 But a taster can't fix it. Because it's already the 30:22 case. Yeah, you're tasting it at the end of the year. It's already out there too late, I guess. But you could maybe you could talk about but if you're a taster, you should know. I don't know. I mean, will will does this as if it's a new mic. Does it stay in new mic? What happens to that defect? Does it age out? Is it something that and so if you're tasting it something at New make and then you're tasting something? That's a finished product or maturing? How do you troubleshoot it on that end? If you don't know where it comes from in the production process? I don't know. I don't those things are important, I guess because my background and where I 30:56 that's an interesting question. Are you talking about how it push through the age and improve? How How much does that like experience like with Chris, are you like, you know, that like, what are those some of those notes? I guess that you're like, well, that 31:10 that is this is going to eventually work itself out? That's where 31:13 experience helps. Yeah, but sometimes you're surprised either positively or negatively. But that's an interesting point that everybody's bringing up. How has this person this expert been trained? As Elizabeth said, we're professionally trained, we're trained. We have PhDs on staff for professional professionals in the sensory science. Elizabeth is a sensory scientist, has her beginnings at Brown Forman. We have sensory science consultants come and test us and work with us. So we're, and these just aren't whiskey sensory scientists, they work for food on aroma only like perfume companies. These are experts, and sensor science. And so it surprises me and sometimes alarms me. When we taste a whiskey, and we note, defects. And a person critiquing that whiskey is just singing its praises. And you're like, there's these obvious defects in the whiskey. And this person either doesn't understand them doesn't recognize them, and 32:25 what they want in their 32:26 whiskey or they like defects. And so things become more complicated, Fred, when I almost had when I started the industry, because there was nothing like this in the industry. But when early books Gary and Marty Reagan and way Mac and Harris and the legendary Michael Jackson are starting to write about whiskey when nobody's right about whiskey. 32:52 It was a very tight 32:54 sorority and fraternity of whiskey riders and everybody knew each other. There weren't that many whiskeys. You know, there were a handful of Bourbons a handful of this. And they had there was nothing that we see today pre micro distillery movement. And pretty much everybody was on the same page, you understood what you're talking about, right? And as bourbon and rye and whiskeys have become popular, and everybody jumps on, which is fun. Again, that sort of dilutes the level expertise. And I think today, people well can be self styled experts, but what is their their base. So again, we leave that to the consumer. To the side, somebody says something good about a brand new glass of whiskey, try it, if you like it good for you, if you don't learn from it. So we can't impose upon the entire industry. Our views, again, we just have to hope people pay attention to what for reserve and what we're doing and, and go from there. 34:00 So I kind of want to educate some of the listeners and the watchers out there. Because, you know, you've talked about and both of you have talked about trying to find defects and whether it's in new maker whether it's in aging whiskey, and you know, today we brought these, I'm going to put words or words in Elizabeth now here, we brought our Bourbons to compete is because last time we talked, you said that compete is where sort of the, the way that you like to use in the tasting room to kind of get the most flavors, Adam because of the tool of shape and stuff like that. But I kind of want to pick your brain a little bit. What if there's somebody that's at home, and they're listening? And they want to try to understand what flavors to pull? And what are those possible defects that they're buying, or they're finding. Now, of course, not coming in at Woodford Reserve or this double out. It's definitely not going to be in this. But however they're going to go and they're going to find some random bottle you ever heard about and they're gonna buy it? And they're going to taste it and be like, Oh, what is this? So what what are those some of those of those flavor, those notes that you really think are the biggest defects that 35:04 that any good master distiller should be able to find. And before Elizabeth jumps in, again, we're looking at two sides of the coin, the first four sources of flavor, which is our mantra of the five sources, what is the water, the grain, the fermentation distillation bring to the palate. So that's our new make our new spirit. So we judge that. So it has a set of criteria. And we're looking, of course, you never look for good things, because you, you assume the good things are there. So we do look for defects. And at that point is too late, unless there's a certain defect, or saying forget this. But we want to know that defect is there as we barrel and then adjust as we go forward. But we use those defects to then go back into the distillery and say, something's not working here. Let's fix it, because where do you go to first to fix it? What do you like? 36:00 This is probably mostly the 36:02 reverse engineering part of it was 36:03 that you go to grain you go to fermentation, you go to distillation, yet one of the one of the three, the water, the water is going to be solid. And then we go into the would go into the barrel for maturation. And then of course, 678 years later, there could be different defects, because now the wood character has come into play. So it depends on where we are that we're looking for certain defects. Because as Elizabeth said, some of the new mech defects can be overcome by maturation. They're still there, you just don't know them because the wood has taken lead wrong, but you don't want them there in the first place. So we now have two places to adjust. New make means we adjust the distillery but what's in what's there can't be adjusted. But we can do that on a week basis. Years later, we adjust by bashing barrels together. So we can fix what we have in front of us except for one defect which is unfixable and, and go forward from there. So bad, she becomes very important, you know, a couple of barrels of this with 98 barrels of that are going to be okay. We don't like that. But it's 37:25 just one one bad apple makes them all bad. There's the one defect that we can't hide it. We can't hide 37:31 it. And what is that? Oh, my god yesterday. That's right. Jackie told us. We probably 37:37 got a little bit of that going on with all this rain right now. A lot of mas probably going in those non Pete cycle. Yeah. warehouses. 37:45 Yeah. Or if you have a leaky roof. 37:48 I got I want to switch gears a little bit for a second. 37:53 Brown Forman is such a dominant American whiskey company. And then last, like I'd say, 10 years there's been a such a dynamic effort to pull in malts like to try and do like, not necessarily a single malt, but some kind of like malt mash, or the five malt released from a few years ago. And I was and I know your passion, you have so much passion for single malt scotches. You have a you have a real like, craving for those and sometimes, Chris, but are we going to see a stronger effort from Brown Forman on the American single malt category that's just taking off and I know we've had some releases of late, but are we going to see more of that? 38:45 Yes, that let Elizabeth talk about our particular products. But 38:51 yes, I'm a big fan of single malt Scotch, if that upsets anyone, I'm sorry. 38:57 He's not really sorry. 39:00 And of course, brown Forman owns three single malt Scotch distilleries, which we Elizabeth and I visited back in July that we're just so proud of that. But I am the only Kentucky bourbon distiller who's a keeper of the quake. I'm the only Kentucky bourbon distilleries been honored by the Scotch whisky Association, which I'm very proud of. So scotch whiskey, of course, is our is our ancestor, you know, the bourbon tradition is, is the evolution of scotch whiskey evolving in Kentucky, in the 1770s through the 1850s based on our environment, so we love We love that, that that touchstone of Scotland and Ireland are is where our tradition comes from. But we released a Masters collection as as this group knows, and maybe many of the listeners do not know we released a Masters collection do I many years ago, that was 100% single malt, or hundred percent malt question say that was our distillers malt, it wasn't painted. It wasn't smoked. It was the same malt we make our wood reserve bourbon with. And we distilled that 100% malt fermentation and inner half of the volume produced and used Woodford Reserve barrels so they'd held Woodford Reserve bourbon one time. And then we barrel the other half of the volume produced a new with reserve barrels. And that became season seasoned malt and new cast some silly name. I can't remember what we called it, because we didn't want to call it single malt. Because at that time, if you said single malt and probably to this day, if you say single malt people immediately go to Scott. Hello malt. Yeah, you know, some 40:58 change up the verbiage and malt 41:00 and they weren't. They didn't. They weren't very popular. 41:05 You know, I remember the, some of those like, there was one classic malt. 41:11 Right. Thank you for remembering. Yes. 41:15 And there was classic malt in there straight malt. I can't remember which one I like more. He has a good memory. 41:22 But I liked one of them more than the other classic was 41:25 that you liked the I liked the the straight malt. I knew Cooper edge. 41:31 It might have been but, 41:33 you know, 41:34 I've always and I wrote this in one of my reviews. And and I have to tell you, Chris, I've always appreciated the fact that if I've ever been critical of your stuff, you've never taken me to dinner and yelled at me for an hour. 41:46 I've never taken a dinner. Yeah. But 41:52 I'm one of them. I was just like, what and what in that review set I the one that I didn't care as much for I think said I wish they would do more focus on bourbon. And the thing is, is that you all are such brilliant bourbon distillers. I wonder why it is that there's such a fashion fascination for making malts work. Okay, 42:18 well, so the malls came out. And of course 10 years ago who was buying bottles of would reserve masters collection, bourbon drinkers. And bourbon drinkers don't drink scotch by and large. And so it didn't go over very well. And I can understand that they wanted bourbon. They wanted seasoned oak finish, they wanted to cinema cherish Chardonnay finish, they wanted sweet mash, and we forward Don't forget 401k. And we sort of let them down, which is the way it goes. But we learned a lot in terms of the process of making malt heavy whiskey. And in my bottom line, lonely was going back to our earlier conversation of taste, he's just sort of boring. He's just sort of boring. Hundred percent malt again, we don't have this smoky that PD characteristics of some of the European malt or Japanese malt. And we're not, we're not aging for 20 3040 years, and we don't have port pipes, cherry butts, it was all American oak. And they were sort of born. That doesn't mean that they didn't taste good, but they were sort of born. And that learning leads to our new release of last year, Kentucky straight malt whiskey, which is a permanent member of our family. It will be coming back this late spring, early summer. 43:42 And it's it's a member of the family. So Elizabeth, have you been doing well? 43:45 Oh, yeah. 43:47 Yeah, it's been doing really well. We released it last June. And 43:51 it all sold out right away. I mean, people were like, six months later, like, Can we are you making more like, what's the deal? And, you know, Chris, and I get approached like, well, how can we make this you know, get get to the shelves a little quicker? Can we adjust something with our process or our quality? You know, we're like, Nope, can't do that. But we humored them and we put it into a little bit in the last Oh, there's a lot of pressure for that because 44:16 what 1910 from old for sir, 44:18 there's a lot of pressure because people really like we put out good products at Brown Forman if you didn't know and people get excited about it. But you know, the job of a master distiller you know, is to say no, I mean Chris's name is on that bottle. So you know, at the end of the day, yep, it's when things go wrong. They're like Chris and that was you know, he's the one who has to talk about it. And so when with the mall, it was very popular we did a Kentucky straight malt whiskey and we fought for it to stay at the process where we released it that we released that and because the taste you even a year makes it mean that there's a time difference with agent you know, you've got to let it go to what it should be. I got a 45:06 question dinner up just because I'm clueless about Malton. And I assume you're making these malts are you doing them in the call a copper still or Chi Stiller. 45:16 Yeah, it's both and they both okay. It is a if we're going to produce something and put it under the distiller select Woodford Reserve distillers select bourbon rye malt wheat that's coming out soon is always going to be that that batches of column and pot still because that's 45:30 all I'm from Shively and then the pots from were for sale. 45:36 Yes, yes. Because because we were tasting some Kings County I was Tom and it's a 80% corn 20% malted barley and we thought we were tasting like young younger notes and their distiller said hey, that's not younger knows that's our our pot still. And it's creating like some different buttery for me kind of funky flavors. And so I 45:58 like stuff figuring it out. Yeah. 45:59 So I was curious to get your take on that. Like, you know, funk. 46:02 He's not one of our don't say 46:04 funky. Okay. No, I was just curious. But 46:07 no, I mean, I think that I wasn't around at the beginning of starting our pot stills. But from those that I've spoken to figuring out how to run your pot stills is a challenge. We have gotten to a point with Woodford Reserve we've got it figured out. done all the hard work over the years to figure it out. But the notes you get from a pot still are big, bold, oily notes. You see the grain come through more. I mean, Chris, if you wanted to add it, I mean, that's there's a distinct difference between the two types of dis focus 46:37 on we normally use them wrong. Yeah. 46:42 You know, you don't you don't use it very often whiskey. 46:45 Yeah. 46:46 But if you're gonna it's probably coming from a pot still. Yeah, no distillation level pots. 46:54 But here's here's a fun bit of our story. And Elizabeth will tell you about our recipe is one thing that I've drawn on from inspiration is the history and heritage of our industry in Kentucky and certainly brown Foreman's history and heritage and started research on malt multi malt whiskey in the history of Kentucky. And one thing, brown Forman has a tremendous archive again for the the oldest spirits company in America 140 849 ish years old right now. We've got a wonderful archive it which is housed at the Frazier History Museum. And we have a we have a complete set of the wine and spirits journals from from the 19th and early 20th century, much less our own documents. And we found that there were there were malt whiskies made in Kentucky before prohibition, brown Forman had a brand called marrow malt MAROW. And when you look at the old Sanborn Maps, which are diagrams, schematics of distilleries for insurance purposes, you'll see these at the University of Kentucky at the Phil center, University of Louisville. And of course, in our collection, we see that the original brown Forman distillery had a mult floor and a malt kiln. We were sort of we were a Scottish distillery in the 19th century. And that's incredible. And that in the history of our state, their first Malthouse, and remember, we don't have a malt house in Kentucky any longer. The first multi operation in Kentucky 1785. Before we were Kentucky, is in Woodford County. So I thought what better provenance than a brown Forman brand made in Woodford County to be what is now the only Kentucky straight malt whiskey on the market, or Woodford Reserve malt is the only one of it's a 48:56 miracle. 48:57 That may be true. But folks crave the bourbon. And as they 49:02 as they did back all goes back to birthday. 49:09 Hey, it's Kenny here. And I want to tell you about an event that's happening on Saturday, August 24. Because I want to see you in historic downtown Frankfort, Kentucky, at bourbon on the banks. It's the Commonwealth premier bourbon tasting and awards festival. There's live music and over 100 vendors of food, beer, wine, and of course, bourbon. But guess what even will be there in the bourbon pursuit booth. You can check out all the events including tastings with the master distillers that you've heard on the show before and the People's Choice Award for the Best bourbon out there. You can get your all inclusive ticket for $65. Plus, you can join on the free Friday night event. Go and check it out bourbon on the banks.org you've probably heard of finishing beer using whiskey barrels but Michigan distillery is doing the opposite. They're using barrels to finish their whiskey. New Holland spirits claims to be the first distillery to stout a whiskey. The folks at Rock house whiskey club heard that claim and had to visit the banks of Lake Michigan to check it out. It all began when New Holland brewing launched in 97. Their Dragon's milk beer is America's number one selling bourbon barrel aged out in 2005. They apply their expertise from brewing and began distilling beer barrel finished whiskey began production 2012 and rock house was the club is featuring it in their next box. The barrels come from Tennessee get filled a dragon's milk with your twice the mature bourbon is finished in those very same barrels. Rocco's whiskey club is a whiskey the Month Club on a mission to uncover the best flavors and stories from craft distillers across the US. Along with two bottles of hard to find whiskey rack houses boxes are full of cool merchandise that they ship out every two months to members in over 40 states go to rock house whiskey club com to check it out. And try a bottle of beer barrel bourbon and beer barrel rye use code pursuit for $25 off your first first box 51:03 that may be true but folks crave the bourbon and as they 51:08 as they did back all goes back to 51:11 bourbon you know I it's hard for me to sustain now 51:15 no no I agree with that. But so Woodford Reserve is the home of innovative whiskeys first and foremost that's the big thing for us is that we can we have the with what our distillery we have the ability to be flexible and to play with Greg sorry, 51:28 but hold on folks. Let's just have a moment for King King Kentucky. I am this is good. Yeah. So good. 51:37 As good as names on 51:41 those labels to 51:42 every every one of these is like man it's just like a trip down like great whiskey bro. Holy shit balls. 51:51 I'm glad I can bring that least you let me open it with some 51:53 goodbye. There's so there's so many complicated notes in this. I did I know even Yes. And this was one of my This was one of my top whiskies of the year last year. And you know, the craziest thing is I went into like a blind competition. This was like my front runner to win it but you know how blind tastings go you just you just never know how it's going to go but 52:16 it's so good. 52:19 It's so good. 52:20 Kenny I'm gonna get us back my buddies get us back on the rails here. Because you were kind of interrupted her because she was kind 52:27 of talking I'm sorry I apologize. 52:31 bourbon like it is 52:32 because she started she 52:34 started going I love Barbara What can I say? That wrong? 52:37 Yes, drinking a beer. So 52:38 what I'm saying is that we're the home of innovative whiskeys and so we do a lot of really fun things and I you know, with the with our malt whiskey, we are 51% malt 47% corn and just 2% right, so we're right close to that bourbon requirement. You know, 47% corn, you know, the way malt is a gateway mall. But the thing is, is that yes, it's a gateway market who really knows you know, what, what is American mall? At this point in time? We're still defining what that really means. It's not it 53:09 was the marrow balter. Do you know the recipe that 53:13 was on your corn book? 53:16 Pick up a glass slipper. 53:19 What is American mall? There's actually incredible debate about that. I think the greatest mall producer in this country is Lance winters from St. George he's been making American mall you know since the 90s. Or there abouts legally 53:36 but it's not a category I mean, like it's not a category it's not something that people are really seeking out so why why do we produce these things and bourbon is is Woodford big thing Why are we producing more Why are we introducing we were introducing what why are you introducing this makes no sense. We are flexing the muscle muscle in fact that Woodford Reserve is the home of innovative whiskeys and we can play in flavor. It's all flavor so you look at our Woodford Reserve distiller select product and it's balanced and complex you can find 212 flavors in a glass of Woodford Reserve bourbon buy them all 54:13 start with the eighth at the gold order go 54:16 within you get into 54:17 acid TO acid 54:22 within you look at him and everything is done with purpose. I told you earlier Chris Morris is a genius when it comes to bourbon and understanding it and when we're planning out Woodford Reserve it's not just all willy nilly like oh, wouldn't it be fun to do a mall? How cool nobody else is doing it? Let's do that. No, it is thought out because you look at we got our distiller slick bourbon which hits all five areas of flavor. Then you have our double oak which came out in 2012. It's sweet, aromatic forward, it hits that we want you to know we want you to taste sweet aromatics. Then we've got our rye which is spice forward trying to hit that area of flavor. Then you've got our malt which is this grain wood notes coming through and then with our wheat will complete it with our our fruit forward notes, but then also going back to 1939 when they establish the TTP establish what are the four types of American whiskey, bourbon rye, malt wheat we're hitting all those so not only are we covering flavor, but we're also looking at from a historical standpoint as well. 55:27 Yeah. And you're doing a lot of the experimentation that hopefully bourbon geeks are really trying to trying to harness and on because you do it, you do it you know the you have the standard, you've got your double load but then you also have your distiller select series, right? These these sort of one offs that people really kind of they gravitate towards because it's something you knew is something unique. What's been the the latest one that has come out that that sort of garnered some attention? 55:51 Well, the latest one is our good old favorite. 55:53 Double, double, double, double, double, 55:56 double. Okay, okay, I don't know how many doubles we're on now. 55:59 It's just double double it's it's double ups but ah words of the 12 months 24 months. But man, I mean, it's, it's a totally shifts the flavor profile completely from our double oak. And people are obsessed with this. 56:15 How many? How many when you start taking over how many doubles are going to be on this? 56:19 Well, I just want to interject here like there was I got my Christina the story. I my wisdom teeth taken out one year. And I like where this is I died after for like three months, I couldn't taste anything. The only thing that I can taste from like that I could assess was double oak, and double double oak. And it is what I think barrel finishing is the hardest thing to do in American whiskey right now to put out like a really good product because you can screw it up so easily. And what they you have done with double o n double a double double. 57:04 Double yeah. Oh, 57:05 yeah. As I say we're getting some data is so hard to do it. I know. I am sure you guys went through a lot of batches to get that flavor. Right. But my God, is it? Does it feel like a dessert on the palate? Oh, no. Does it feel like dessert? Well, 57:22 thank you, Fred. That now to Fred's point. Barrel finishing has been around for quite a long time. Give Dr. Bill Lumsden who I'm very familiar with at Glen Margie as the the modern father of barrel finishing back in the early 90s. But when all of us because we finished we finished with reserve, as you all know and our masters collection and cinema treasures Chardonnay barrels and Pino voir barrels. We didn't make those barrels. They were used before it's and I'm a good prayer. finishes are typically completed in barrels that came from somebody else and had been used before. So in the development of double oat, we have created the first and only whiskey in the world finished in a barrel made specifically for it. by it. Having our own brown Forman coupe bridge has allowed us to make a second barrel brand new charred on the inside to finish Woodford Reserve specifically and it took two years to develop. And we take full limiter, Woodford finish it in the second barrel for up to a year, as Elizabeth said, and we have double hooks, it's the only whiskey in the world scotch Irish, Japanese, you name it, the only whiskey in the world that has been in two barrels, the original in the finish barrel that were both new made for it by its own its own coop bridge that's unique. And as Elizabeth said, we're in that second barrel for approximately one year for the word preserved double o double double we go two years in the flavor changes, but it's the 59:14 same barrel for two years. Yes, you don't leave the barrel. It's that 59:18 I think there's a misconception that there's two barrels. 59:21 And then we Yes, we have gone three years we have gone for years. And is it triple double is a quadruple double what we're going to call it, but we have decided that that flavor profile gets a little too intense, a little too far afield from what we want. And we have decided that double double is as far as we go career. So we continue to experiment. You may have said this and I apologize if you did. I was 59:47 distracted because somebody had a question online and like I was like trying to get it over here. But somebody was asking, Is there two different type of char levels on each barrel? 59:56 Yes, yes. So 59:58 you didn't say it did you know? 1:00:01 Alright, sweet, so you're gonna hear it right now. 1:00:03 But that's also what makes it so great. And the fact that we have our own Cooper is so we can build our own barrels I always jokingly call it couture barreling because we're making barrels specifically for each brand. And so with the with the double ocean we started out we have our Woodford Reserve distiller select barrel which is going to be a nine month seasoning, we do a 10 minute toast and 25 second char on that barrel, then that's age five to seven years then we go into our double oak barrel. The double oak barrel has the nine months seasoning a 40 minute toast and a five to 10 second char. So we're flash charging as we like to call it. But what we're doing is a long toasting process which gets into the lignin layer of the wood, which is where a lot of the Van Halen lives. So when you knows double oak to get those they've only been what's been battling, battling. 1:00:51 Battling 1:00:52 Okay, sorry, nella Sorry, no, that's okay. 1:00:54 I'm an idiot. I just 1:00:56 that's why it's 1:00:58 so that that's kind of where you get all those really really sweet aromatic notes. And you're going to find that with WOQU you get the color too. So it's really getting 1:01:09 so Elizabeth you and Chris, this is going to be exciting conversation probably just for the two of us here on the on this will start one over here. 1:01:22 But you talked about how you're the only distillery that has their own Cooper HO of 1:01:27 our size if you want to go there 1:01:30 with no no I'm no I mean, Elizabeth on our side. 1:01:36 So that story starts in like the 1940s when there's a lot of these acquisitions going on from the larger parent companies of the time, national Shanley you know Sega drums a lot of these kind of companies, brown Forman, instead of those companies were out there acquiring distilleries that could not meet the mandate for making alcohol for the war effort. instead of chasing that carrot instead of chasing those distillers to buy independent distillers they were purchasing Cooper juice. And when they did that, they kind of got themselves a lump in hundred 1:02:20 and 50 years, 1:02:22 we're going on ground for me. It just it was like it was like one of these brilliant business moves in the 40s and 50s. And then they later acquired a little company called jack daniels. Yep. You know, I mean, so there's like, all this week. business acumen within brown Forman and I always like when I hear you all talk about like, we're the only distillery that has our own Cooper bridge. I think of the guy who was in a boardroom, who thought in the 1940s is like, Hey, why are we going after distilleries when we can get what everybody needs? And that's the Beryl. 1:03:00 You know, Fred, that's a good point. I've never really heard that story. And I don't know if Chris if anybody knows it, Chris would know that story of just because that's probably like the Woodford Reserve story when it the Bourbons giants like hey, we want to acquire we want to buy a bourbon distillery and start a new brand and people are like, Are you crazy? So I'm sure it's the same kind of thought with our with our Cooper's? 1:03:21 Well, Fred was that was certainly pointing in the right direction. So coming out of the Second World War, the big distilleries, the big companies I should say, who had many distilleries, Shin Lacey firms national Linh more, and others had their own Cooper, just all in local or the local region. And they were making their own barrels. And that men barrels were hard to come by there is a fierce demand and therefore a fierce competition for barrels. And small independent companies. Were having a difficult time. So as Les Brown, the first son of our founder, George Garvin Brown, decided, well, we need to have our own Cooper edge if we're going to survive. And that led to the purchase of a wood making plant in the Highland Park neighborhood of Lobel that had been making of all things, plywood for the war effort. And it made rifle stocks. It had been a furniture factory. And we purchased that wood making plant and converted it to a coop bridge. So we were just one of many distilleries at the time that had its own Cooper edge. So it wasn't abnormal. It wasn't a big deal. It was sort of norm but 1:04:45 it was a step. It was a step toward the direction that you all became in the 50s you acquired 1:04:52 jack daniels and then and then by and large, those big famous distilling companies went out of business. Their brands were broken up there, distillers were there distilleries were closed and consolidated and little brown Forman kept plugging along. And here we are now today, as the only major whiskey company in the world. There are some small companies that make their own barrels, but we're talking tiny, tiny companies, but we make all our own new barrels. And that has allowed us to expand and develop the range of jack daniels products. Old forester obviously Woodford Reserve the unique barrels that Elizabeth told us about king of Kentucky Cooper's craft. Again, it's amazing to think that we're not the biggest whiskey company in the world by any stretch of the imagination. We are the top five but only and only we make our own barrels. And then when those barrels are sold on the open market, because we use them only once for our products. And certainly what for barrels are in high demand double oak barrels are in super high demand on the open market, from brewers, wineries, tequila producers, rum producers and whiskey producers of any strike. That brown Forman supplies annually, half the US barrels to the world. Wow. So there's not a scotch whiskey, there's probably not a rum, tequila, etc. That doesn't have a little Woodford Reserve, brown Coleman flavor in it years from now as they age their products. So our flavor is, is very much in demand. 1:06:31 So that's a that's actually pretty awesome, because you got some history there. And I kind of want to even bring the history up just a little bit too today as we started kind of close this out. And Fred sort of jumped the gun a little bit because we are we poured some king of Kentucky and Fred and myself we are at the the media gathering for it, we got to be there with you, as you kind of gave us a breakdown of the history. And really what this means is brown form is coming out with a new product. So I kind of want you to talk a little bit about what is in and I guess just give it like a 32nd overview of like what is king of Kentucky most of the whiskey geeks out here already know what it is, but kind of talk about what the future of this product line is going to be as well. 1:07:10 Well, we want to be transparent about the king good tequila. And you guys remember we told we told everyone we're very proud of it this this new make began as early times it's it's 79% corn 11% raw 10% malt, early Tams yeast. If we bottled it at four years old, it would have been early times hold another 10 years, it becomes something completely different. And holding a barrel that long for us whether it's Woodford Reserve, early times old forester is extremely special because we heat cycle our warehouses. And you can virtually double the age when Liz was said we're making with reserve from 5678 year barrels batch together, that's 10 1214 year old barrels based on the maturation profile because heat Cycling is an aggressive maturation process that dates back to the 1870s. So can give Kentucky this 14 year old bottle as a 28 year age persona. But it's not 28 years of course, it's 14 years. So it is chemically made sure we analyze the King and I showed everyone the chemical signature which is the molecular flavor structure versus early times four year old one 100 proof bottle and bond is completely different. So again, transparent how it was made. This is a revitalization or return of an old label king of Kentucky which goes back into the 1880s Why did you choose this 1:09:01 label because you guys have a plethora of 1:09:07 fantastic labels in Kenya why not bring back marrow I kind of like that. That would be cool. You know? 1:09:16 Well there's there's several reasons and

Peggy Noe Stevens is an encyclopedia of great information about many bourbon brands. You may not know it, but she's one of the biggest influencers behind many of the great distillery experiences while on the bourbon trail and outside of the state too. Peggy is a pioneer in driving diversity with her leadership behind the Bourbon Women organization and involvement with women-led panels. Peggy is an incredibly talented person that has shaped the industry from being in front of people leading them at bourbon tastings and crafting one of kind experiences behind the scenes. Show Partners: At Barrell Craft Spirits, every release is intentionally unique, and can’t be duplicated. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Find out more at BarrellBourbon.com. Receive $25 off your first order with code "Pursuit" at RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Use code "BOB2019" for discounted tickets to Bourbon on the Banks in Frankfort, KY on August 24th. Visit BourbonontheBanks.org. (Offer good through 6/30.) Show Notes: This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about Wikipedia. What is an experiential expert? Who have you consulted for these experiences? What value do you bring to these experiences? What was it like working at Woodford Reserve? How do you elevate the experience? How do balance the history with modern day innovation? Explain the difference between someone coming up the ranks in the bourbon industry vs. someone just taking it. What was it like when you were named the first female master taster? Do you feel like the media is better today that back then? What about diversity in the whiskey industry? Was Lincoln Henderson your Mr. Miyagi? What are you doing today with this master taster role? Let's discuss Bourbon Women. What was your inspiration for Bourbon Women? Tell us about the growth of Bourbon Women. How do you market the organization? What type of members do you have? What are visitors looking for in a distillery experience? How do you deal with a difficult person in the hospitality industry? How did you help pioneer the Bourbon Trail? 0:00 Did you actually consult him and say you should wear an ascot? 0:03 No, no, he he came. I want to make clear to all the audience that the Ascot was his idea. Are you suggesting I shouldn't 0:15 move forward with it? 0:27 This is Episode 204. of bourbon pursuit. I'm one of your hosts Kenny Coleman and per usual we have to go through a little bit of news on June 22. peerless distilling is releasing their four year bourbon. If you caught the Live podcast with Corky Taylor then you may have heard about it, if not no worries as it will be released at a later date. We are very excited for Corky Caleb and the entire peerless team for having the will to hold back sales until this product reached four years old. When we get a chance to try it. We're going to let you know what we think to Buffalo Trace to Hillary is now releasing their next installment in the old charter oak series called French oak. The old charter oak collection is designed to explore honor and celebrate the role of oak in making great whiskey. The oak tree is used in this brand vary from country of origin species, US date and even age there's century barrels that are being used from Oak trees that are 100 203 hundred years old. For this newest release Buffalo Trace contained a small number of barrels from France in 2007 and filled them with Nashville number one. This is the same Nashville used for standard Buffalo Trace Eagle were amongst a few others. The old charter oak is now been bottled and will be available for retail in late June. Last week, we ventured out to Barton for another 1792 foolproof selection, that they started out a little bit different than most because it was raining and there were storms in the area. That meant we had to do our barrel selection inside at the tasting bar at the gift shop instead of the red house because they don't allow people there during the chances of lightning. We made the best of it. And we had six barrels to choose from we narrowed it down to three. And that's I guess fortunate that we ran out of samples there with inside the gift shop. But wouldn't you know the skies parted and we got the sample our barrels inside the house to come away with a winner. After selecting it, we found out that it was barreled on to 29 which of course was a leap year. We were also joined by Father Matt, a fellow Patreon supporter and Catholic priests from northern Ohio, who blessed our bourbon for us to mean how often Can you say something like that happens, it was truly a memorable experience. If you want to join us on barrel pics, go ahead and sign up and be a part of our Patreon community@patreon.com slash bourbon pursuit. If you follow us on social media, you would have seen Ryan and I at will at this past Saturday. We've got big news to share. So you're gonna have to wait to hear more about that one. Let's just say we through 11 barrels and came away with two. That's enough for the teasers for now. For today's show, we have to just talk about Peggy because we love Peggy Noe Stevens, she's an encyclopedia of great information about mini bourbon brands. She was featured back on episode 198 talking about would influence along with bourbon and food pairings with the state as the rave. But this time we get to hear her complete story. You may not know it, but she's one of the biggest influencers behind many of the great distillery experiences that you get to see on the bourbon trail as well as outside of the state to Peggy is a major player when it comes to diversity in the bourbon world. She's a pioneer because she played a big role behind the bourbon women organization that we've also featured on the show previously. Peggy is an incredibly talented person that has shaped the industry from being in front of people leading them bourbon tastings to crafting those one of a kind experiences behind the scenes. Now with that, let's hear from our good friend Joe over a barrel burger. And then you've got Fred Minnick with above the char. 4:04 Hi, this is Joe Beatrice from Bell craft spirits. Every release is intentionally unique and can't be duplicated. Once it's gone. It's gone. Find out more at barrel bourbon calm. 4:16 I'm Fred Minnick. And this is above the char. When I was a little boy. One day, a man came to our house. He wore a suit, nice leather shoes, had a suitcase. He took my father to the table and pulled out a suitcase and dropped five nice leather bound books. He flipped him open. The pages were silky smooth to the touch. And he pointed at me. And he said, Sir, your son can learn the world through Britannica encyclopedia is my father very interested in my education. But the encyclopedias I just sat there for pretty much my entire life. I don't think I ever really looked Adam. Well, I might have pulled him out for a report here and there. But the encyclopedia man always struck me as like one of the greatest salesman in the world. And today, the encyclopedia is gone. So where do we go for information these days? Well, obviously, it's the internet. But there's one source in particular that seems to drive the conversation with most people. And that's Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not a site that I'm actually particularly fond of, because it crowd sources information. And a lot of the information is wrong to include people winning awards, you see a lot of political efforts there to kind of try to change people's Wikipedia pages. I have a Wikipedia page and you know, people go in there and tinker with that all the time. That's great. That is what it is. So side note, I was the most important Ascot where once upon a time someone else took that spot. But the fact is, is Wikipedia is where we go for information today as a society. Now go on there and look for Jimmy Russell, Jim Rutledge, Elmer T. Lee, Jeff Barnett, you name them any kind of prominent person and the American whiskey scene, and you won't find him. I don't know if it's the brand's fault for not trying to make sure that their iconic people are on Wikipedia pages. Or if it's simply that American whiskey hasn't really crossed over into the pop culture of the internet yet. But I think we really should change that. So if you have the abilities, get on Wikipedia today and add a master distiller go add somebody who's important to American whiskey. Because for a lot of people, if you're not on Wikipedia, you don't exist. And that's this week's above the char, hey, this idea came to me from a follower on Twitter, if you have an idea for above the char hit me up on Twitter or Instagram. That's at Fred Minnick again. That's at Fred Minnick. Until next week, cheers. 7:05 Welcome back to the episode of bourbon pursuit, the official podcast of bourbon, Kinney and Fred recording on site at one of our guests place. So we're actually honored to be on site again together doing this. But today that I had the opportunity of meeting Peggy few times, probably probably probably a few years ago was the first time and then the last time which I don't know if that's going to go out and recording depending on how this release counter is going to go but had the opportunity to record her at the higher proof Expo doing some stuff with bourbon and food and chocolate pairings and tasting and stuff like that. And so that was kind of like my really first time really meeting her and kind of knowing some of the the depth of knowledge that that she really had to offer. But, Fred, you've got even a more personal connection to our guest today. 7:54 Yeah. So Peggy, and I go way back and if it wasn't for her, hi would never have written the book whiskey women. And we've become friends. I would say, you know, I don't have a sister. She's the closest thing to a sister I have. And she's the godmother to my son Julian. So, so we are very close. And you know, when we talk about when we talk about bourbon coming back, you know, this woman has done as much for bourbon as anybody. She basically was a founder of the Kentucky bourbon trail. I mean, it was essentially her idea. She It was her idea to create the launch pad of the Kentucky bourbon trail at the Frazier museum. And she founded a little organization called bourbon women. And oh, by the way, she was the first female master taster. worked with a lot of iconic brands and like Woodford Reserve so she's very influential in this world of bourbon. And to me personally, just one of my best friends. Well, I think 8:56 I think we put up on a pedestal and padded that ego enough, we should probably go go ahead and introduce her. So today on the show, we have Peggy know Stevens, Peggy is the master taster and also an experiential expert. So Peggy, welcome to the show. 9:09 Thank you. I was thrilled to be on this, especially with you two guests 9:13 are you know, you you made it? All right, we're 100 and whatever episodes and we finally got you, and you 9:17 waited this long for me know if that's a compliment. I don't know why. 9:22 There was all these rejections because you know, Kenny and Ryan were just, they weren't, they weren't ready for you know, right 9:28 away. Yeah, we had to me to build our build our confidence is kind 9:32 of how it works. Actually, it's very true. They're, they're very sensitive to our various 9:38 crush your ego pretty quickly, there you 9:40 go. They'll look at the text messages. And you'll know exactly like how bad we can, we can really like hate ourselves. But anyway, I want you to first talk about what is an experiential expert, I have something I'm just going to guess that it has to do something with these these tasting pairing things that you do as well as a little bit. 9:57 I mean, that's part of it. Experience ensure, and a lot of people don't understand that word fully. But it's about the experience, someone has been interactive, hands on, you know, engaging a consumer touching them emotionally. It's all of those things. So for years and years in the beverage industry and managed visitor centers, and distillery operations for the consumer. And so through all of that, I learned how to really engage the consumer, whether it be on a tour or teaching or educating or food pairing. And so when I started my company 11 years ago, I decided that that's where I would put a big part of my focus. So I work with kind of the big boy brands and I work with craft distilleries all over creating experiences for consumers on a tour path. 10:47 And so give us an idea of who you've you've actually consulted for so when somebody goes in here, they're going to be like, Oh, I know that Peggy's had something to do with this place. Right? 10:56 Well, recent, most recent, I guess is the Luxe row distillery in Bardstown if you visited there worked with the Luxe family. And the Gosh, I guess that project was almost a two year project very enjoyable. And then the American steel house for Jim Beam. That was my very first project actually, when I started my company, and then that led to the urban still house, which we helped design, and also their Global Innovation Center, which we helped design the interior and what a distributor or retail would experience, you know if they went on tour there, so that was one of them. peerless distillery comes to mind which I have a little peerless today for you. after this is over, or during whatever you want. 11:40 A quarter we'll see what happens 11:42 a little bit on the victors project. And then of course, I go beyond the borders of Kentucky. So a couple Tennessee distilleries like old forge distillery, Thunderbird distillery, and have one up and coming, then it's going to be announced, I think very shortly, 11:58 will awesome. So I guess, one of those things that if somebody is trying to open up a visitor experience, you know, it kind of seems that there's, there's almost like a formula nowadays, you know, you have a little bit of history, get a little bit of retail, but what do you kind of bring to this table that they couldn't just go and say, well, I'll just go visit four or five places write down what I can find, and then we'll go build it ourselves, we need you to justify your job. 12:26 Well, I mean, technically, it is a process because I think that you have to design a visitor center and distilleries in phases, you know, from what is your story? You know, that's where I try to keep people grounded. Where's your authenticity? What do you want the consumer to care about? I call that the takeaway. You know, if you've ever gone on vacation, and you've had a great time, and you get back in your car, your airplane and you're headed home, you say, Wow, that was just a great experience, because you always have a takeaway. And that's what I try to get all of the visitor centers that I work with, to put their anchor in the ground and say, This is what we stand for. This Is Our Story, whether it be history related, or innovation related, or family related, you know, it just has to be true to them. You know, from that, we start to what I call three dimensional eyes it how do you bring that story to life, whether it be through exhibits, whether it be through the production process, or the engagement of the tour guide. And then once we design the exhibits, we work with architects and construction companies to help fabricate it. And after that point, you know, usually we're writing the script. So we'll help with script writing the product profile how we deliver a tasting 13:40 now, when you say script writing, this is like what when you say exactly like your word as much as I can. 13:46 That's right. We we are pretty granular in our business that we even teach the tour guides, how to tell a story, how to train and customer service, how to deal with difficult people on a tour. So 13:58 how to deal with Kenny, you're saying, Yeah, he one 14:00 that actually we teach how to throw out loud now? Yeah, but it's really no more. It's really soup to nuts. And that's what makes a great experience when you thread all of the things together that I just mentioned, because that's when you can say I had a surround sound experience. And so that's what we try to capture with consumer 14:19 DNA. When you had said like, you know, anybody can just open like a visitor center. To me, that's a little bit like, I've had a lot of people come to me and say, Oh, I can write a book on write a book. You know, that sort of thing. A lot of people think they can write a book. But then when they get down to writing a book, you know, they realize they can't do it at visitor centers are actually very complicated AR and and the United Kingdom, go around to the scotch whiskey whiskey distilleries, and you'll see how, how far ahead American whiskey visitor centers are from from those facilities. And actually, you kind of cut your teeth on probably what is considered one of the hallmarks of the bourbon trail and Woodford Reserve What was I did, what were those days like? 15:03 Well, I'll tell you I look back at my Woodford days is probably one of the best times of my life. 15:09 We're talking mid 90s. 15:10 Yeah, mid 90s and 1994 to be exact, and it was a two year renovation, give or take a few months. It was the brainchild truly allows Lee Brown, who I think was probably one of the most intelligent men that I've ever worked for, and worked with. And it was when the bourbon industry was having its resurgence that you know, we were seeing a difference in how we market and the consumer going back to kind of some of the retro cocktails. So it was perfect timing to create this vision for the distillery and so the beauty of it is the team that I worked with people like Kevin Curtis, Dave Sherrick, you probably heard those names. They were right alongside with me on the production level. And we were almost like a small entrepreneurial spirit ticket that Woodford Reserve to where it is the first year we opened. We were so thrilled we had 9000 people and we thought tremendous. And now it's well over probably 150,000 16:10 like in probably two weeks now. 16:12 That's right. But I was really fortunate. Because brown Forman gave me a really great pedigree. I was able to travel around with Woodford Reserve and see other experiences you just meant mentioned the scotch whiskey trail. I went to Ireland, Mexico, one of my fondest memories and one of the best still today for me, as far as an experience goes as a visitor centers choir vo literally we literally went out in the field with a machete and they taught you how to hack with the machete the A gob a plant in your in the dirt and it's hot and sweaty and gritty. That's an experience. You know. So those are some of the the small things that we learned, you know, to try to create Woodford and then I went on eventually to manage the jack daniels visitor experience and all the brand destinations, 17:03 I got an idea for you. So tell me you can bring it to bourbon now. Now you can say okay, we got to go out to the cornfield, you got to go get six Huff's of corn and you got to come back and you've got to get all the kernels off, and I'm going to give you a pest immortal and you gotta get what happened. Yeah, you gotta chop all these up, we're going to make your bourbon in one day. And that's 17:19 experience. That's it. I mean, that's experiential. Because see, I think the consumer these days are so well educated. They want to be entertained, they're dying to be entertained. And so all they want to do is participate with you. And I think that when the industry realizes that and they allow them to play a little bit at the distillery, it's much more memorable, 17:41 too much free labor to its its tracks, 17:43 it will put all the consumers on the bottling line. 17:46 Oddly enough, they'd be like, I'd love to exactly. But another question that kind of goes, I do want to ask you one more while we're on this topic, because you had talked about scripts earlier? Do you still? Are you trying to find people that are like, let's get away from the whole? bourbon 51% corn? Like, is this the same thing? You kind of hear repetitive over and over again? Now? Do you come through and say like, it's just part of like what it is you have to cater to the everyday person that might not know this? Or do you say like, well, maybe we can create an elevated experience that we can slide that in there. But let's not focus on like the basics for a lot of these people? 18:19 Well, actually, it's a little of all of that, I believe in tears of tours. And in other words, there's something for everyone. There's kind of your bourbon one on one tour, where you do learn some of the production methods, but then give the tourists an opportunity to go to that next level, maybe more of an intermediate tour where they dig a little deeper in the production process and the history and heritage. And then for the advanced lover, and true bourbon enthusiasts, you might have private classes or cocktail classes or so I really believe in those tears. It's just a matter of convincing, you know, the distillery that one size doesn't fit all, you know, that you really have to offer because our consumers today, I think it's more demanding than ever, don't you, Fred? I 19:03 do. And they also like to call things out more so than ever, and I certainly more avenues for them to do that. And you got Yelp, you know, you've got Google reviews, and then you certainly have the podcasts and the bloggers and that's right. And one of the things that typically comes up from these, some of these smaller groups that come out, they kind of create, they create a story, and then they talk about it on on their tour. Let's take Boone County, for example. They They told 19:30 us one of my clients actually, 19:31 yeah, that's right. I knew that and they use that heritage. And you know, some people, they're just like, just talk about the whiskey, we don't care about the heritage, we don't feel like it's, you know, genuine to buy this brand or anything. So do you do you ever? How do you balance that, that effort to, you know, to bring out like a cool story. And, you know, staying with, you know, the contemporary desire to not create false back stories. 20:01 I agree. And and I think it's what we all do or try to do is we have to respect our history, because even though it might not have been history of the whiskey, it was history of their culture, and their surrounding area. And that's what Boone was, you know, they talk about their culture of their backyard. And then they tied in, you know, to the whiskey, and so, respecting the history, but then also have any appreciation for the modern day and innovation. You know, where are we going today? So I think it's what I call a balance, kind of a juxtaposition between between past and present. And that's what you have to bring together. 20:37 Okay, we see a lot of these brands that, you know, talk about, like my grand Pappy carried the yeast back on this toes from the Atlantic. And that's not balanced. You know, that's, that's, that's too far. And so like, if you're, if you're in the boardrooms, and you're saying, guys, you can't do that, then God bless you. That's right. You know, because we, we've gotten tired of that over the years, and we still see it, but it's not as prevalent as it was, I'd say 10 years ago. 21:04 And I think because of all the craft distilleries, you know that I work with and for, I try so hard to say it's okay, if you're sourcing whiskey, just say so, you know, tell them where you're getting it, why you chose the barrel stock that you did, how long it's going to be before your product comes out. Because I think authenticity is really important. And that's another reason why I think the tourists don't want to go to distillery after distillery and say, 51% corn, because everybody's going to say the same thing. And it's just dinner in a movie. 21:37 Let's jump on that authenticity thing for sure. Get some of that. Some just hit me, Kenny. You know, we're in this. We're in this day and age where anybody can come in and say they're an expert, a bourbon. You actually became a master taster at Brown Forman. Explain to us what the difference between someone coming up the ranks in the industry and earning that title and and then someone just taking it? 22:07 Sure. Well, I think that in our industry, what so many people don't understand is that we didn't have a formal definition of for example, if you wanted to be a CMO, yea, then you do all the credentials associated with that you take all the tests and you become a summer. Yeah. You know, in our industry, it's kind of truly up to each and every distillery to decide titles of vocabulary credentials, and master distiller is very different than master taster. Master taster is very different than master blender. But each distillery is going to set the guidelines and training, you know, to advance an employee to become in that position. So again, I think I was in the right place at the right time. Lincoln Henderson was the master distiller at Woodford at the time. And I believe it was about 2001, where the general manager of Woodford Lincoln, they thought I had a really good palate, I kind of have a bit of a culinary background. So I think in food terms, and I think that helps so much and identifying and descriptive whiskey. So I had written the tour understood production, I have a bit of a science mind. So they asked me if I would formally trained with him to become a master taster at the time and my naivete. I think I didn't realize that there were no women master tasters in the industry, if you can believe it. So of course I was eager, you know, to learn love doing tastings really respected Lincoln, in his knowledge and years of experience. So we would do you know, sensory training, we would you know, drill barrels and, you know, pulled from it, and he would teach me the different aspects of that, I had to do quite a quite a few things in the production area. And it's kind of like the whiskey, you know, you're not ready till the master distiller says you're ready. And after a certain period of time, that's when they gave me my certificate. You know, it was putting the newspaper and that's when I first found out when it hit the newspaper, it hit the AP. Oh, wow. And went across. And it is big news, that a woman has become a master taster. In a male predominant, you know, predominant world. And the that's when it hit me that this was really something more special than I ever dreamed than ever thought. And I'm happy to say now there's many master tasters, Master distillers master blenders that are female, I just happened to be, I think, in the right place at the right time that that happened. 24:37 Share with us the 24:40 when that news broke the DJ who called you? 24:45 Well, when I mentioned AP, right, hit the AP, so 120 newspapers it hit. And of course, there was so much interest from radio stations, TV stations. And it was something I wasn't, I don't think I was quite mentally ready for in the fact that there was a particular radio station kind of a shock jock that wanted me to come and do a series or not a series but an interview rather. And they were kind of getting a kick out of the whole piece of the newspaper article that said, she doesn't swallow. You know, she swirls and spits. And they kind of wanted to play on that a little bit. And I remember that, that's when it hit me that I was going to be different. I was not going to go along, just get go along to get along. And I said no to the interview. Because I didn't think that that was going to ever be my persona. And that's not what I wanted to be known for. I wasn't going to joke along with it. I wanted women to be taken seriously. And in a way like men would be, you know, and I don't think there'd be too many radio stations that would ask a man to do that. So I said no to the interview. And, you know, it wasn't very favorably received. But so Obama stood by my values on that. 26:06 Do you think we're better today than we were? From a media perspective? 26:12 I think not really, from a media perspective you ask? So I don't think so. But I guess I want to expand that not just to whiskey. I think on a media level, there are plenty of reality TV shows that, you know, try to get the worst of you the angle to make you not look great. I think there are plenty, you know, of Facebook video, you know, you see this all the time in social media that someone's captured at a certain moment, YouTube video, all of those things. And so No, I don't think media is better about it. But it goes beyond whiskey. 26:54 Yeah. What about the whiskey industry? Is it obviously we've seen growth of diversity. But you still, I still get the sense from from from women, that it's not where they want it to be. In terms of the diversity, 27:12 right, I think we are on a great trajectory right now, I think there's never been a better time for women to be in our industry. The amount of executives and vice presidents CMOS presidents of the different distillery or spirits companies, it's really enlightening, and I'm so glad to see it. So there I think putting women in better positions has certainly improved. Look at the production side of things, we have more master distillers that are women. All of that's wonderful. My question, I think, to the industry is really, once you're out in the field, and when I say out in the field, as far as sales representatives go that are female, you know, marketing representatives who do kind of the day to day job of beating the streets and going to bars and restaurants and it's more of how are they treated these days? You know, that's that's the question mark for me. But I know, you know, internally, it has definitely improved as far as positions go. 28:15 Yeah, I can kind of see that. I can kind of see what you're saying. Because you're still going in to even probably the more male dominated culture of liquor store owners and retailers and bars and stuff that yeah, these people have to go and they have to sell their product. I have to probably put up with some shit every once in a while to I'm sure that's probably not far from the case of what you're what you're what you're hinting at here. You know, one thing I kind of rewind a little bit about that you had talked about going up and becoming the master taster with inside of just Woodford or brown Forman in general what was 28:48 Woodford Reserve decision with Woodford Reserve specifically, 28:51 kind of talk about what those that individual process means are like how was how was Wes? Like, your your Miyagi, if you will? How does he mean like in Lincoln? You mean like it? Oh, sorry. Sorry. How was Lincoln? I'm sorry, I apologize. How was Lincoln kind of like your Miyagi here and your Daniel son, if you will. So the wax on wax off sort of scenario, 29:10 he got so caught up on that scenario, that Miyagi? I know, I forgot. 29:16 It was like, it's like from The Karate Kid, you know, you gotta have you know, and you're maybe maybe a Yoda, if you will. Yeah. 29:24 Well, again, Lincoln to me was was so refreshing every time he came to Woodford Reserve because he wanted to be as much a part of it as anybody who worked there. And he was the master distiller, of course, but you know, had to go back and forth to Louisville, he traveled around the world, you know, worked a lot in Japan, etc. And every time he came in, we would have great conversation, he was a foodie. So we always had that culinary tag that we appreciate a good food, good whiskey. And I have to say he was so well liked by the tour guides, and in the management, because he always had just as calm demeanor. And the reason why I tell you all that is because I think that really helped me when I was learning because he took the time to explain things, the very first time that we met formally to train, this was my first lesson, he had a box of toothpicks, and a glass of water. And then he had all these empty glasses, and I thought, oh, we're just going to taste a lot. And he, as he was talking, he was breaking up the toothpicks and putting them in water. And it's the most bizarre thing I'd ever seen. And I just didn't understand it. And he goes, he goes, I'm gonna let this sit for a minute, okay. And I said, Sure, you know, go ahead, no problem. And then he came back to it about, you know, 10 minutes later, and he goes, smell this playing glass of water. I noticed it. And then he goes, nose, nose, the one with the the toothpicks in it, and I noticed and he goes, do you see the difference would can make? And it was just this? Was he trying to mess with 30:51 me as he means? Well, 30:52 I mean, it was just, it was just his way of teaching and Little things like holding a Glencairn glass, you know, in the small disk that goes on top to keep the aroma, and he would teach me how to move it back and forth, so that I could look, you know, like an expert, you know, tasting it and turn it off. And then putting it back on very quickly 31:14 reminds me of like somebody at the poker table, they're just roll the chip in their in their hands or something. But 31:18 but exactly, that's exactly where the basic so I guess what I'm saying is, I really honored the fact that he brought me to the basics. And then little by little, you know, we advanced her way into the distillery where I was drilling barrels and pulling samples and tasting. And so it was it was really a progression, I guess, is the best way to answer that question. And, again, it wasn't ready till he said, she's ready to conduct the tastings and send around and do tastings. 31:46 What are you still doing today? In regards of a master taster role? Are you actually helping with other distilleries in this sort of thing like trying to dial it in of what they should be releasing or what their barrel should be at? 31:57 I absolutely do several different levels for some spirits judge for the American distilling Institute. So every year, I go and taste product, you know, from craft distillers and rate it and sometimes identify if it's, you know, has been in the barrel too long or still was dirty, or the grains were mold, you know, so we have to give a lot of feedback. And that's kind of tricky. 32:20 That is, that is tricky. I gotta say that that job is that particular competition and that style of competition. God bless you don't do that running. 32:32 But I also think before we get too far from there, I also want you to kind of explain when you just said, How can you tell if something if the if there's something moldy in the still like, how can you How can you get that from the distillate, or I think everybody knows that it hasn't been in the barrel long enough, 32:48 it's a taste. For example, if this still isn't clean, you know, really clean, I can taste kind of wet corn husk that tastes kind of moldy. To me, there's a rubbery taste, you know, and that's, that means something else. So it's all in what you have memorized in your sensory, you know, as a good or not so great taste. And that helps guide me, any anybody who is interested in knowing how to taste, I try to break it down and say it's really pretty easy. It's about food memory, if you know food flavors, you know, like what burnt tastes like? Or what real great savory, juicy steak tastes like, you know, you can equate food flavors to whiskey tasting. And so the American distilling Institute, which we have tons of fun, you know, we have about 70 judges, I think now that come. So that's one area and then for my clients, I do tasting profile. So if it's a new product, I will actually dissect the flavors and come up with the vocabulary to describe it. And then teach the tour guides, you know how to deliver tasting. So that's a job that I do. And then of course, doing food programs, food and bourbon programs, food and spirits programs. food pairings are kind of my specialty. And that's probably what I enjoy the most. When I'm doing tastings. 34:15 Well, there's one other thing that she applies for tastings. Joe went out, tell me she writes for bourbon plus, yeah, well, 34:21 how can I possibly get 34:23 she does tasting notes for the magazine? Yes, 34:26 I do tasting notes for the magazine and do ratings at times when I'm asked but I really have enjoyed that. Fred's taken a very different way of approaching descriptions of food pairings and bourbon pairings. And so I've, I have really latched on to that, because that's, that's my joy. That's what I really enjoy is describing flavors and whiskey. 34:49 So talk about a typical thing that when you are trying to do a food and a whiskey pairing, or food and bourbon pairing, I mean, is it like, okay, on your left, we've got shrimp and grits next goes well with bullet or we've got this and that, but kind of kind of just walk through what's around on a plate here and how you would share? 35:06 Well, the first thing that I tried to have people do is just dissect the whiskey flavors in general. Because if you don't know what you're dealing with, there's no way you could possibly decide on what food that it's going to go with. And then I created something a long time ago called balance, counterbalance, and explosion. And the balance side is simply when you take the whiskey and you taste a particular flavor of the whiskey that's, you know, pretty predominant. And then you match that flavor. Let's say it's Apple, you match that flavor to the food and so it let's say it's Apple, you know, so a slice of Apple, you taste apple in the bourbon. So it's a balance nothing's overshadowing anything. Then counterbalance is when you take a food flavor or descriptor from the whiskey and you try to do something completely opposite. Very similar to if you were drinking a Riesling wine and eating occasion pecan. You know the reasoning is so sugary sweet that it takes over the spice of the Cajun pecan kind of dousing it. You can do the same with bourbon, with really heavy caramel notes and vanilla notes. I could take an Asian dish and have my bourbon with Asian food because it's actually going to that caramels going to wrap around that spice and it's lovely. And then a explosion is when I want to really do surround sound tasting and I might take a great for example, you know I've got a bottle of peerless here I'm I take a great chocolate note out of peerless rye, and then I'll have a really chocolatey, you know, truffle or majestic to go with it because it's almost like too much of a good thing. You know, you're trying to create a flavor that you can't even believe it's taken over your mouth. And that's explosion. 36:54 Fred, did you know that you can pair bourbon with egg rolls? Because apparently you can. 36:59 The only thing I have now I've been able to successfully pair bourbon with has been like fishier styles of sushi. Like I compare bourbon really well with salmon but like, like, let's say a spicy tuna roll. I've not been successful and fine. I've been able to pair a scotch with that, but not a spicy 37:19 scotch is so easy with seafood because it 37:21 really is. Yeah, but there's not. When it when it comes to some of those more flashy or tunas. When you hear those spices, they're hard to pair to. 37:33 I mean, most of our listeners, they would say well of course you want to go at Jefferson's ocean and because apparently it's supposed to bring in this briny, salty taste to it what would what would be your response to that? 37:43 Me? Well, I or or Yeah, I think Jefferson's ocean is 37:50 sometimes it has brightness to it. Sometimes it doesn't. I don't always get it. 37:54 Well, I remember I was very skeptical. The first time I heard you know valve and putting it on the sea, all of this and I thought you know what, I'm going to taste this thing. And surprisingly, salt is not a descriptor that I use ever when I'm doing whiskey profiles. And I will tell you, I really do get a little bit of that sea salt taste 38:16 as I did in the later batches, I it's been inconsistent for me. 38:20 So what I try to do if I'm if I'm pairing with Jefferson's is not to overdo the salt. You know not to have a real savory dish to pair it with because I think it can overtake 38:34 so go ahead. I you know, we're I don't want to get too caught up in all the tasting side of things because we really want to talk about you know, bourbon women. 38:49 Do you love bourbon? How about festivals? Of course you do. So join bourbon pursuit in Frankfort, Kentucky on August 24. For bourbon on the banks. It's the country wells premier bourbon tasting and awards festival. You will get to taste from over 60 different bourbon spirits, wine and beer vendors plus 20 food vendors all happening with live music. Learn more about bourbon from the master distillers themselves that you've heard on the show and enjoy food from award winning chefs. 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And, you know, your company was a consulting company you've you've been a you know, personal consultant. Yes. image consultant. By the way, She's the reason why I have a beard. 41:14 I told you I've been trying I've been trying with 41:16 Fred This is this when he was baby face when he had the goatee and you're like, you gotta you gotta grow it out some more. Or is it actually 41:21 it was it started with the goatee was the other It started with a goatee. And I said fill it in and fill it in. But yeah, that's one of I am an Image and Etiquette expert. And, and believe it or not, that's come in very handy because I work in the hospitality industry. And so it's about the look and feel of your employees and professionals. So Fred's 41:43 con wrote a book on it. 41:45 I wrote a book called professional presence. And I teach on that still, you know, too many organizations and corporations, but 41:53 when she's with bourbon groups, she just throws it all out the window. 41:56 Do I Do I dress down? No, I'm just so last thing is I 42:03 usually wear a coat and tie to see me today. 42:05 I did not Yeah, but I also usually wouldn't know which one of the nine spoons I'm supposed to use that are in front of me sometimes at a nice dinner as well. 42:12 Well, and you know, it's funny that you say that because that's where the bourbon industry is just been great because it's so approachable. And even though I'm an etiquette expert, and I had a woman at bourbon and beyond from California came up and she goes, Peggy, you're the Emily post of bourbon. And I kind of got a kick out of that, because I wasn't trying to take that she was no, you're really teaching us. You know how to do things and use things. But one thing lesson I've learned from all these master distillers who I really admire is to make it approachable, you know, teaching people what they can do and how to enjoy it, but not making it intimidating for them to enjoy it. Because we don't want to make it untouchable. 42:51 Scott's dictating 42:54 to listen, and he says his way or the highway. 42:57 So the inspiration for bourbon women? Yes. What was that? 43:01 Well, I think bourbon women, for me personally, my inspiration was when I was still working for Woodford, because I would travel around the world. And when I would conduct tastings, nine times out of 10 predominantly male, which was fine that there'd always be like a little trickle of women in the back. And they would only come up to me, after the tasting was over to ask questions, you know, or ask what I do for a living or, or expand a little bit more on my career. And I always found that very odd that they wouldn't raise their hand when a lot of the men would be flooding me with questions, you know, during the seminar. And then I attended a women's weekend and Kiawah Island. And again, this is back in the 90s, early 2000s. And it was a women's weekend not about whiskey. It was just a women's weekend where the hotel was doing different things, excursions etc, shopping, the normal thing, and they asked me to come in and do a bourbon tasting. And when I got there said how many women It was probably 100 women in this room. How many women enjoy bourbon? No one raised their hand. Nobody, no. Time is over. But then I said, Well, how many of you drink margaritas? They all raise their hand? Oh, yeah. Now we're talking Now we're talking. And I said, I'm going to teach you something now that I think you'll appreciate. You know, when you have a shot of tequila in front of you, you're probably less likely to drink that than you are to have a margarita. I said so we're going to start slow and I'm gonna teach you how to taste bourbon, and what cocktails you can put in bourbon. And then maybe you'll decide, you know, the Bourbons okay for you. And by the end of the night we were singing New York, New York and doing the cancan. Yeah. Yeah, it was it was wildly successful. The women had son, they loved it. And so I think that was part of my inspiration. Also, another event that I did, when I was at Woodford, I have a picture of it actually with Lincoln. We did a women's group, cigar and shopping night. And women came from all over Kentucky to attended Lincoln gave the tasting. We had a cigar aficionado there, you know, showing you how to smoke a cigar and then we shopped and it was wildly successful. So in marketing, because I was in marketing for so long, we'd be waving the flag saying there are all kinds of women out there that want to be part of our franchise, but marketing dollars or marketing dollars, and the demographic skewed always to the mail. And it was just really never took off. So when I started my own company, and there's a long way of explaining it, but when I started my own company, I said I'm gonna start my own damn thing. And so with bourbon women, I did focus groups across Kentucky, and I grabbed some really great friends and then in over Manhattan's, we said, you know, let's, let's test the market. Let's test these women. Let's see if they'd be enthusiastic about creating a platform a conversation. So we did the focus groups, I got all my research together, and I went to go see the one man in this industry who would tell me the truth. And that was Bill Samuels, and I sat down with Bill Samuels, and I said, Bill, I have an idea. And he was always great about listening to me, he truly was, even though I worked for Woodford for years, I was in my own company. He didn't have time, you know, to talk to people like me. But I sat and I showed him all the things that we did with focus groups, and he was like, You know what, I think you've got something here. He was the one I used the word earlier conversation. He was the one that said, Peggy, you're starting a conversation. That's what you gotta do, you're gonna start a conversation with these women. So that gave me all the power I needed to know that it must be something there. So we did an inaugural event at the governor's mansion. Fred was in attendance and you should tell that story actually. 46:53 Speech 46:53 Well, when when we gave the speech and in the catalysts for wisdom women. Okay, so 47:00 yeah. So when she, when she had came up with this, this idea to do bourbon women, she one of the things that she would talk about was like women were some of the early distillers and they were always a part of the industry. And kinda you know, how it is when, you know, kind of my calling card, especially at that time, was to find, you know, kind of call people out a little bit. And I was looking into that. It's like, when I saw that when she told me that all right, I'd saw it. I said, That's not true. You know that, you know, no one's ever written about this. There's never been any, any ads. Like I was like, surely if there's this is true, then brands would be all over you, we'd have all kinds of brands named after women. And I started looking at she was right. And not only was he right, I found women that the brands didn't even know about. And so I said, not only is this awesome, I have a book here. And so that was kind of the catalyst for what became whiskey women. And really at that book more than anything propelled my career to where I am now. But it all We joking, I 48:06 just want to say I haven't made a dime off that book. I don't have commission I don't have I don't have title. I don't have anything. movie rights. I don't have anything maybe 48:16 maybe Oscar Oh, like playing the NBA or something. 48:20 Oscars Fred son, by the way, it's my godmother. It's probably gonna be five, six. 48:24 Yeah. Likely, let's see can dribble Really? 48:26 Yeah. Well, the anomaly. 48:29 Beauty of that whole story, though, is that Fred was unlocking something that he couldn't believe no one had. And so I was unlocking something that I knew needed to be unlocked. Yeah. 48:40 And no, that was in that moment, that that's like, you know, you look back on life. And you know, there's probably a dozen moments where you're like, that will always stand out. And that was one of them. And to be honest with you, if you did not run with that, you know, I because now what Berber women was the first but now they're probably we 30 women centric whiskey groups. Sure. 49:03 National. Absolutely. 49:05 And it started with you. 49:07 Thank you. I appreciate that. We're really proud of the fact we were the first female consumer group to talk to the industry. And now we're in six cities formally. We have thousands of women across the United States that attend we've done over 200 events, if you can believe. And then we have our annual what we call sip podium, si p symposium 200. Women came in from 23 states this year to Kentucky to go on excursions, learn about whiskey, bourbon, the culture and heritage that surrounds our great state. And it's been I don't know how else to say it. It's more than networking. It's more than educating, which is what we stand about. But it's empowering. And these women come together from all over they've never met each other and the camaraderie and that's why I always say, bourbon brings us together. Yeah, it's a universal welcome. And bourbon women's not a demographic. We're a psychographic. You know, it's these women are love soft adventure. They're curious. They have bravado, confidence, a lot of them are really just professional women who want to have a little bit of an escape, you know, from the normal business life. It's been probably I would say one of the best things I've ever done in my career. 50:26 One of the things to Kenny that she's that they're doing is that they are getting data from their, from their members and what they released some data recently about where they like to go well, on the bourbon trail, right. And that was stunning to me. He was like, 50:43 Yeah, what do you think about that? I was 50:45 shocked. It was it will. So it was Maker's Mark and Buffalo Trace, they were kind of neck and neck. Those are the two that I always recommend. But then after that was like, who wasn't on there that shocked me like we didn't see us. That's a Weller. You know, we do didn't really see any of the craft brands. Woodford had a small pie, small piece of the pie. It was it was very stunning to me, like what was appealing to bourbon women. From a tourist perspective? Well, 51:12 I'm glad you brought that up. Because one of the things we do do is pride ourselves on some of our research. And what we're trying to do is kind of debunk the myth to the industry. This is part of our mission that you have to pink, a whiskey for a woman to like it. And so what we found universally, whenever we do tastings with the women, or whenever we're at an event, and we're doing surveys or blind tastings, they undoubtedly choose the spicier, more robust, and higher proof bourbon is a 51:45 memory serves. Booker's almost always wins these things. Yes, 51:49 yes. And also, heaven Hill did one more the Elijah Craig, barrel strength, oneness. So that's part that's really that's information that helps the industry because again, you don't have to dumb it down for women. They like it like you like it. 52:05 So as long as Jim Beam and Heaven, Hell are listening, you figured out a new target for these brands, you know, 52:09 our cohorts coming 52:11 along? We're seeing more, 52:14 or any our co host Ryan, you know, he like he's not here, but he he secretly likes flavored whiskey. So I don't think he would want the brands to listen to that part. 52:25 The other question I kind of wanted to roll with this as well is, you know, we've talked to groups about how they start. bourbon societies and stuff like that talk about what the the growth was here. And was it? Was it small growth at first, did you plateau? In the past six months? Have you seen a hockey stick? Kind of what did this look for 52:47 bourbon women? Yes, I would say we shot off like a rocket when we first began. And then just like when you're selling whiskey, it's easy to get into distribution. But then you need pull through or retention, you know, you need that second order. And because we were in Kentucky, I mean, it shot up. But until we went outside the borders of Kentucky we plateaued a little bit. And then once Indianapolis came on, you know, Tennessee, DC, Chicago, in these other cities wanted to be part of this. And that was the unexpected. I never designed bourbon women to be something that we make $1 off of. I never designed bourbon women to really be a national organization. It was it really wasn't there for me at that time. The women spoke to us, the women demanded it. And we listened. And we we stepped up and we said, okay, we're going beyond the borders of Kentucky. And that's when we really took off. 53:48 How are you marketing it nowadays? 53:51 Well, nowadays, of course, largely through the internet, largely through our website, invitations. We have branch ambassadors in each of those cities that I mentioned that are creating events for women and excursions that they can go on. So that's a big piece of it 54:06 are using like meetup com or something. 54:08 We we do event bright we do. You know, it might be what we call meet needs, which are just real simple meet at a bar and have some cocktails together just to enjoy camaraderie. Or it might be a really formal event. You know, 54:21 you said camaraderie, they're looking to make new friends in a new city. So So kind of what is that? What is that profile nationality is 54:28 the the freshest information I have is just us coming off a symposium in August. And it really took me back because the women I were meeting, they'd been to the last five symposiums and they keep coming back and coming back. But this time, for example, we had a woman that brought her five nieces, you know, all female nieces that were 21. And over. And they made an excursion of it. You know, there was an aunt, or I'm sorry, a mother, who brought her her mother and grandmother to this event. We have a mother that it brings the daughter who just turned 21 we have women's weekends, where a bunch of girlfriends are getting together, and they want to go away. And we're the tickets. So we're seeing all kinds single married, Grandma, you know, young 21, who just got her her, you know, driver's licenses says she can drink now. So all of those things, all of those things, it's a combination. 55:24 So it was there. Is there one that kind of fits more the bill than the other? Or is it just 55:29 say that, but we're all across the board. We are all across the board in age, we're all across the board. geographically. We're all across the board from mother, grandmother daughter. And, and I love it. I think that's that to me, said, this is how women come together. 55:48 Are you trying to do something that's that's unique as well just for just for an all female audience versus something that would just be for a general bourbon meetup? 55:56 Well, what's so interesting to me is more and more we're seeing and more men come to our events, because they think we do very buttoned up events and a very deep in the education, which is part of what we do, and we're proud of. So we're seeing more and more men, so men can come to it. But as far as the camaraderie of the women who are coming, it's the it's what they want it they get as much as they want, how they want it. 56:24 So I kind of want also rewind a little bit to some of the had some questions that were lined up from some of our listeners about distillery experiences and stuff like that some things that that they kind of wanted to know. Sure. And in one of them was kind of thinking about, what do you really feel that visitors are looking to get away from an experience there? Like you mentioned earlier, that they want to come away with some some vivid memory? Like, what, what else? Is there something that is? Maybe it's physical, maybe it is intangible? What else do you think is missing there? 56:57 Well, I you know, I've been in hospitality for 30 years. And when you really boil down hospitality, it all goes back to human needs. You know, everyone wants to be heard or listen to or feel appreciated or feel special. Those are human needs. And so to your question, you know, I think aside from saying I had a great experience, when they meet a tour guide that treated them a little bit differently. That's a great memory, 57:25 or they Eddie Johnson's the best ready 57:26 Johnson is magic. I mean, he's magic. That's what he does. So well, I don't care what level of person he meets, where they're from, what they look like Freddy Johnson's gonna make you feel like you're the only person in the world? 57:41 Do you think he could probably just go out and start consulting? 57:44 I don't think you can. I don't think he can teach what he has. 57:48 It's really an art. Yeah, it really is as much as we do customer service training at different distilleries, and it's an art. And I can almost tell the people who have it or don't after doing it this long, but to me, it's about human need, and making you feel like you're the only person in the room. And that's really what so many of our master distillers have done over there like Jim or Jimmy Russell, to me, I call him the gentleman distiller. He was always in Fred and I just did bourbon and beyond, you're on stage with us for the Jimmy Russell tribute. And that's what I quoted was, he had that magic about him, that there'd be 1000 people in the room. But he was only about you at that moment. So when you ask that question, what's the consumer looking for? What's the tourists looking for? They're looking for a special moment where they were recognized, or they had fun with you and being part of somebody's memory, their entire memory of all the vacations they've gone on? You know, that's a real honor. So that's my philosophy of hospitality is to never forget your part as you're part of a family's memory for the rest of their life. 58:55 I think that's accurate for probably 99.9% of them. But then there's the crowd the old bourbon geeks, 59:03 yeah, 59:04 there are. They're out there. What are you? How do you? How do you prepare your staffs for, for the guy who knows everything and won't hear it otherwise? 59:14 Well, the only way that you can deal with what I call a difficult person, and I see the sometimes in the tastings, I do, I'm sure you do. And you do. There's always one in the crowd. 59:26 There, they're always old ladies, for me, like I always have an old lady, lady bourbon has to be from Kentucky. 59:37 Well, first of all, my advice always to defuse the situation. Because usually when you have a difficult person, they love being in the spotlight. And they want to draw attention to themselves. So you have to kind of diffuse that person, like pull them aside and say, oh, let's have this conversation over here and get them away from the crowd. You know, or Oh, great question. Do you mind if when we're on break, you know, we we asked, we all answer that in just a little bit. Because when you defuse it and pull it away and kind of steal the thunder, it definitely helps. definitely helps. 1:00:09 One thing I don't think we did touch on that we need to before we wrap it up is about the the kind of how you pioneered the the bourbon trail as well. Oh, okay. Right. Yes, we definitely need to kind of talk about that be what the original process was the idea? Who did you say something to I heard it first, it was just a brochure like, 1:00:29 Oh, it was definitely just a brochure. But what's really a funny story, and it was more out of I think, trying to do our job, then it was great marketing, creative minds. There were two women in the industry. That one worked at Maker's Mark door, our, let's see, Don anally. And then Doris Calhoun worked at Jim Beam. And we were all visitors, center directors, I was at Woodford, and we were friends because and that's a great thing about our industry to even though we were competitors, we were also friends, we really enjoyed each other's company, we would travel to tourism shows, and we would drink each other's bourbon, you know, and taste each other's bourbon, and we just had fun together. But we were all in the same boat, we had to bring people to the visitor center. And so we start talking about it. And we said, you know, people are going to see you and they're going to see you and they're going to see me wonder if we did some kind of, you know, cross marketing, that these visitors could come to all of our facility and we mark it all together, you know, in a way that it's kind of a road trip. So that being said, So Daniel, who I don't know if you know that name or not Katie, he was the Eric Gregory of Katie a at the time. And we took it to him and said, Hey, why don't we bring all the distilleries together and put it in a brochure and market it so that, you know people have a choice to go everywhere. And maybe we'd save some money on marketing, and maybe we would get more traffic. And so over a million stops later, as reported, this past year, a million over a million stops on the on the bourbon trail. And I'm very, very proud of that. And Eric Gregory, in my opinion, when he came on board really brought the bourbon trail to life, and put it in a marketing, highlight and importance and priority. So that our infrastructure that all of our distilleries are investing in would pay off. And it's worked. And it's worked. So yeah, so I can't take credit, there was me that it was a small team of women. 1:02:33 How cool is that to say like, you were part of the team that spearheaded the bourbon trail, what is now probably the the most successful tourist 1:02:42 strategy in Kentucky. 1:02:44 Oh, easily. I mean, it's it goes hand in hand with with wine country. Yeah. 1:02:49 And again, I will say, I have not gotten a commission, or anything. we debated back to something's happening here. We'll get you a plaque. Oh, no, thanks, Kevin. I'm 1:03:00 getting something out of these visitor experiences. 1:03:04 People should have taken a penny from every transaction at every distillery and then you would be retired forever. It was, you know, 1:03:09 really, at the end of the day, when I think of the industry and how great it's been to me and the legacy that I want to leave. You know, these are the types of stories that I hope people will say, you know, and I hope I'm not finished. I think there's more to come. I got more 1:03:25 in me where we're starting to see the next wave of Peggy know, Stevens, and that's the writer. She's she wrote me some time ago and said, I'm going to be your best rider before it's all over. And competitive. I said, I said, All right. And her stories have been fantastic. Well, fantastic. 1:03:47 I appreciate that. I do have one more question about this bourbon trail map. How many were there on there when the first one was released? I believe seven. 1:03:54 And what do we have now? 23. Plus, 1:03:57 was Buffalo Trace on 1:03:59 he was called ancient age. Also agent at Buffalo Trace was on there. They were called ancient age 1:

We all know wood influences bourbon, but to what degree? This episode explores both natural and human impact to understand the chemical breakdown of what happens in the barrel. Peggy rounds this out by pairing it with food so you know how to train your palate. Peggy Noe Stevens is renowned for her ability to combine all of your senses into a memorable experience when you are drinking any bourbon. This session took place at the 2018 Kentucky Bourbon Affair and you can buy tickets to remaining 2019 events at kybourbonaffair.com. Show Partners: Batch 016 was a project that took Barrell Craft Spirits over a year. They selected 9 to 15 year old barrels with similar profiles from different distilleries. It’s deeply concentrated, but not too oaky and finishes with a toasted orange note. Find out more at BarrellBourbon.com. Receive $25 off your first order with code "Pursuit" at RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: Behind the Scenes of Four Roses Small Batch Select - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my9YR-fr95s Kenny’s Big Batch Mint Julep Recipe - https://www.patreon.com/posts/26331151 This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about who you would like to go out drinking with. All the magic of bourbon happens in the barrel. Overview of barrel making and charring barrels. Innovation with barrels. As much as we try to control barrels and warehouses, mother nature still controls a lot of variables. Barrels provide 6 basic food flavors: sweet, spice, wood, smoke, fruit, and floral. Understanding aroma and flavors. Tricks to neutralize your olfactory sense. What decisions affect the flavor of bourbon? What flavor does toasting a barrel provide? What flavor does charring a barrel provide? The chemistry behind bourbon. Importance of oxygen and water. Exploring the texture of bourbon. Where do the barrel notes hit the tongue? When is it over oaked? The Chew Down: bourbon and food pairing. 0:00 You know how we always talk about the angel share the evaporation of the whiskey going up. But I have to tell you that sometimes that evaporation takes on some of the off notes of a product. So you wonder if those angels out there are going too much tannin. Too much acid. 0:30 Hello, everybody and welcome to Episode 198 of bourbon pursuit. I'm Kenny, one of your hosts. And let's run through just a little bit of the news. Four roses small batch select has hit in five markets across the United States. You've got Of course Kentucky. You've also got New York, Texas, California and Georgia. We did a behind the scenes video with Master distiller Brett Elliot during the media day for this particular release. Brent shares a lot of the information on the mash bail breakdown. 1:00 which particular versions he wanted to go into this blend, and why even chose to do certain yeast strain runs years ago in anticipation for this, you can catch that video in our show notes as it was previously aired on YouTube and Facebook. Now the other kind of fun thing about this release is a full on as money. You've got to remember this is a product extension a line extension of four roses, that means it's going to be widely available, but the first bottle hits secondary in sold for around $200. And now that we know that the bottles just keep popping up that there's a lot of groups that are doing cost plus shipping. Plus, there's a myriad of retailers out there that are able to get this to your doorstep just through online purchases. So just a humble word of advice, don't overpay if you don't need to. The retail cost is somewhere between $55 and $65 depending on your region. Derby season is finally upon us and that means I get to make my annual big batch of money. 2:00 juleps and take to Ryan's Derby party. I use 100 proof bourbon and a 1.75 liter handle, mix my own simple syrup, marinate some mint leaves in there. And really this simplifies the whole process because instead of actually having to create individual drinks now I can just pour directly from the bottle and I promise you, it's a lot better than any pre mix that you're going to find out there on the market. Ryan likes to call it a derby party in a bottle. I've posted that recipe for anybody to access on our Patreon page. It's public, so go and check it out. patreon.com slash bourbon pursuit. And today's show is all about bourbon food and knowing how to really train your palate. It's a session that took place at the 2018 Kentucky bourbon affair. Now you're going to get to know Peggy know Stevens a lot more in a few weeks with an upcoming episode. But she has some real pedigree when it comes to bourbon, its history and her connections within the industry. If you're interested in know more about the events that are taking place at the bourbon affair, you can 3:00 See what Tickets are available at ky bourbon affair.com. on our end, we've got some new barrel selections that are coming up for sale really soon. Get to four roses barrels of Buffalo Trace barrel and an Elijah Craig barrel. It's a lot of bourbon, and you can get your chance by signing up and supporting us@patreon.com slash bourbon pursuit. And this is all possible thanks to our retail partner, keg and bottle out of the SoCal area. If you want to visit them online, you can do that keg the letter in bottle.com. Now let's hear from our good friend Joe over a barrel bourbon. And then you've got Fred Minnick with above the jar. 3:38 Hi, this is Joe from Barrell Bourbon. Batch 16 was a project that took over a year, we selected nine to 15 year old barrels with similar profiles from different distilleries. It's deeply concentrated, but not too oaky and finishes with a toasted orange note. Find out more at barrellbourbon com. 3:56 I'm Fred Minnick. And this is above the char Bourbons filled with 4:00 Some of the greatest characters of all time. There are so many that it's almost impossible to pick just one you'd like to go out drinking with. Whether it's on a golf course fishing pond or a watering hole, there are so many unique individuals, it would be tough to choose. That became obvious when I put this question out on Twitter. Who would you like to most go out drinking with and bourbon? While flattered many suggested me, I really am. Jim Beam spread No. Buffalo Trace is Freddy Johnson and wild turkeys Jimmy Russell were the leaders in the clubhouse. Then after all the obvious names were taken. Folks started expressing their desire to drink with deceased urban icons such as Elmer T. Lee Booker know and the Jim Beam. Perhaps the most touching came from Kyle Henderson of angel's envy, saying he'd give anything to have one more drink with his grandfather and master distiller Lincoln Henderson, who passed away in 2013. That thread got me to thinking 4:59 Who would I 5:00 Like the most go out drinking with first when I go out I mean really go out to have a good time. I don't want to stuffy turd who will complain about the bill being $5 too expensive. Nothing worse than the guy who complains about everything. No. I want a jovial laughing rip roaring. Good time fella. And my answer may surprise you, but I'd love to go out drinking with former 1800s era distilling great Cyrus Noble. Today Cyrus noble is an NDP owned bourbon that is owned by the same company that owned it in the 1800s the Hoss brothers, Cyrus noble was a savant distiller whose whiskey was so good that somebody actually traded a gold mine for it. That's right. a gold mine that later yielded $250,000 and high grade gold or here's the catch though with drinking was Cyrus. He was a big drunk at 300 pounds. He likes 6:00 Whiskey and was known to drink so much that he would fall over in the mash. And people would pull him out as he was swimming in his own fermented liquid. 6:11 But even if I had to pick up the drunken distiller, I'd love to hang out with the guy whose whiskey equaled a gold mine, wouldn't you? And that's this week's above the char. Let me know who you'd like to go out drinking with on Instagram or Twitter. You can find me at Fred Minnick. That's at Fred Minnick. Until next week, cheers. 6:36 For those of you who might know me or don't know me, I'm Peggy know Stevens, and I'm the founder of the bourbon women Association. And that's who is actually going to sponsor this today as well. But first of all, as people were coming in the door, I was curious. How many of you were here last year with me in my food pairing seminar? Yeah. Okay. And then how many of you this is the first time you've heard me speak 7:00 I've done a food pairing. Wonderful. Good. 7:03 I'm glad I got a few fans in the back of the room. Well, let me tell you that whether you have been through a food pairing with me, or not a food pairing with me, or if sipped bourbon and tasted bourbon with me, I've got some good news. I'm gonna put you on an even playing field today. Let me see a show of hands for those of you who like to drink bourbon. 7:24 Now, tell me if you really like to drink robust bourbon. Even better, even better. Heck, yeah. How many of you like food 7:33 and that means you like to eat. Right? So we're going to have a good day. We're gonna have a real good day. But I gotta tell you, I had a lot of fun with this topic today. That's why it's called the stave is the rave because I don't think our barrel gets enough credit. And I wanted to make sure that was very energetic today. I wanted to make sure that I had quite a bit of rest for you today. So I only drank Baker's 107 last night, because I knew we were going to do some big, bold bear 8:00 Strength Bourbons today, and we're going to pair it with food. So we're going to appreciate that because you know what the staves arrived today. So if you have any takeaway at all, for me personally, this is my little quote for today. grains are the recipe. Yeast may be the sole, but all the magic of bourbon happens in the barrel. And I'll tell you who taught me that all the magic of bourbon happens in the barrel is Lincoln Henderson. And when I was becoming a formal master taster, he taught me that, and I didn't quite believe him, because I knew there were so many variables to creating a great whiskey, right. But at the same time, I have to show you today all the secrets behind it. And the reason why I want to do that is because you see connoisseurs all the time. You see, experts like me all the time. We stand in the front of the room, and we go, Oh, it's got such lovely barrel notes. Oh, I just love the barrel notes. But we really don't explain what we mean. So what does that mean? We just smell wood. 9:00 know we have a lot of flavor and a lot of spirit, if you will, in the barrel. So with that, let's first of all show a little respect for the barrel. Because in the 1800s of course, the reason why the barrel even came into play is because it was kind of the UPS cargo of the day, right? That's how our whiskey or good Kentucky whiskey was transported down the Ohio River. I called that the superhighway of the 1800s. But it was transported down the river, because they would use the barrels and sometimes those barrels Believe it or not, they transported fish, apples, or whatever else they needed, and that's where charring kind of came into play. Because before they put whiskey in it, they needed to get out those other flavors of the barrel that they use apples, fish, etc. For so they char the inside of it. And little did they realized they were making something very special for Kentucky. And if you think about it, even our 10:00 Definition of bourbon, which was an act of Congress in 1964, requires actually for a barrel, new, charred, and white oak, we can never use a barrel a second time. But what I can say is that all of these pieces of the barrel are used. And I'm going to show you that in a little bit too. So let's have a little bit of respect and see what I left for you. This is a stage. 10:30 Do you feel the weight of this stave? Yeah, I want you to think of these as large blocks of sugar. Okay, large blocks of sugar because it has some things in it, some properties in it. And this is how I ended up pairing some of the products that you all have today. I noticed some of you are nosing it which is lovely, I love it. That's great you're supposed to but can you believe that 28 to 31 of these staves are used to make a barrel. You feel heavy and stiff. This is 11:00 Right, this is a barrel heads Dave. And what they do, it's a handcrafted method. This wood is bent best steam, okay to form the barrel so this solid wood is formed 28 to 31 and no wood glue, no nails. Okay, it's handcrafted, the hoops are put on. And that's what you have the barrel 100 pounds empty, almost 500 pounds full to roll that barrel. Okay, so that's just a little bit of that handcrafted Enos. But even more so what's happening in our industry today is a lot of innovation with barrels. And that's why I was saying I don't think that we pay homage as much as we should think about this. This is an actual barrel with some stave inserts. So in other words, after you age, the barrel, some distilleries are actually putting inserts in the barrel to add to the flavor, so they might season it for another five months or four months. call that the finish. 12:00 Another thing that's happening in the industry and innovation is infusion bags. Think about infusion bags. Everybody likes a tea bag every now and then steeping your tea. And infusion bag is a tea bag with bits and particles of wood. And they're steeped into the whiskey of the barrel. So you can see how creative we're getting brands like Devil's cut, that you've heard, they're actually soaking used barrels to get the best of that whiskey out of the barrel. And if you don't believe me, I brought a sample as a matter of fact, and hopefully I'll pass this around for you just don't hitting by in the head with it as you're passing. But this is how deeply the whiskey will soak into the wood. This is called the red line, the red line. That's how deep the whiskey when you empty it soaks into the wood pulling those flavors and karma so I'll kind of pass it around so you can see it. 12:56 But I'll tell you as much as we try to innovate 13:00 As much as we tried to control, you know, the situation with the barrel in the warehouse of the barrel, Mother Nature kind of has its way with us. All right, we can't fight Mother Nature. And let me explain what I mean by that. There are certain variables that Mother Nature controls, and sometimes it's temperature related for a barrel. Other times, you know, it might be weather related. And the beauty of it and this is what people don't know sometimes what happens inside the barrel inside the barrel. If you think of a big Mount Everest, which I have that first picture of Mount Everest. A lot of the whiskey has its main activity in the first two to four years if you can believe it, in the first two to four years now, I will tell you, if you have whiskey less than two years, I call that headache whiskey. All right, and you might say it's really sharp or a little too spirited. If it's too long in the barrel. 14:00 You leave that whiskey too long in the barrel and it tastes kind of a stringent etc. I call that overlooked. We call that long in the tooth and Kentucky. Okay. So think about climbing Mount Everest, all this work, it's really hard. But that's what's happening Mother Nature's making it happen inside the barrel, then we kind of go to the Rocky Mountains, the Rocky Mountains kind of not as hard to climb, but you're still working inside the barrel and you're still making that maturation of the whiskey. But it's kind of mellowing out a little bit. And then finally is the Appalachian, the Appalachian Mountains, you know, we're just over the years, you're not going to have a big climb at all, it's going to be a whole lot easier, but it just kind of gets complexity and color and those types of things that benefit. So those are the things that Mother Nature sometimes can bring to us. But you should know to more on a scientific basis. You know, there are a lot of compounds in this barrel. Okay, and this is where Mother Nature meets 15:00 There's a lot of compounds in this barrel that affect the flavors. And if you think about it, alcohol has a real affinity to wood. It likes wood. In fact, you know what it allows it to do alcohol in the wood allows us and again, Mother Nature helps us with this. But through evaporation, it sometimes sends out. Sorry about that. 15:25 Evaporation kind of sends out some of the not so great notes. All right in the whiskey, and then what happens what we want in the whiskey is it actually brings flavor notes inside the barrel. Okay, so that's a good thing for whiskey it actually helps churn it but the more sugar and the more tannins are in wine because of low barrel entry proof 15% barrel entry. So you know what I say to you one folks, 15:56 your sissies 15% 16:00 Come on now, really, you know when we're having 125 proof, whiskeys and barrel strength whiskies and you know, we're not scared and Kentucky, because we know that's going to bring complexity over time. We know that's going to bring depth over time. So I kind of get a kick that it's 15% entry proof on some of the ones that are put in. Also, when you think of a barrel proper, and let's just think about a barrel like it was a menu. If I never added any whiskey whatsoever to that barrel, and I just said to on that would chew on that word and tell me what you think what you're going to get is sweet 16:42 spice. would sometimes from the wood, you're going to get some nutty notes. Okay, and then smoke, fruit and floral. Now, do you see a little flavor and aroma grid to your right. Do you see that we're going to follow that pretty closely because 17:00 It's my job today to kind of break down in some of the flavors of this wood and its natural state, and in its toasted in charge state, because if I can dissect it down for you, you're going to really understand your prize at the end. And the prize at the end is we've paired in order with it, you're going to see how we build these up. Because by the end of this, there are three words I want you to use after drinking this whiskey that I've poured. And notice I didn't put the names of the whiskey, because I'm gonna see how good you are in guessing some of these right? But I want you to say their plush. Hello, Chrissy. I want you to say they're engaging. And I want you to say they're downright seductive. All right, because we're playing with the big boy Bourbons today. Alright, so let's get started. Here's how we're going to use this aroma and flavor grid. We're going to talk about food flavors first. Look at this little piece in front of you with an A on it. Okay, that is vanilla. That is 18:00 Want you to open that up, take a little note of it, dip your finger in it if you like. And also do me a favor. Once you're finished put the lid back on so we don't dissipate all of the aromas in the room 18:14 that knows that a little bit. That is a very important flavor or food flavor in the wood because there's what's called Van Allen in the wood. Literally there is vanilla waiting to be part of our whiskey. So Van Allen in the wood helps the extraction process and that's why you taste sometimes the first note of a bourbon can be vanilla. Now the second one I want you to kind of hold on to your seats here because it's intense. And this is close. I just want you to knows it. There's nothing to taste. This is the aroma sensory but your olfactory senses, frankly are sharper than your taste buds. Now the reason why I want you to think of that close even though it is intense 19:00 If you know what clove is, it's a spice, right? But it's a flower from a tree. And it's very intense. It could be warm, it can be bitter. You know it can be flavorful. So when you think of variations that happen with spice, you can think of other types of spices that come along the way like all spice, peppers, etc. But if I were to have my straight barrel, clove would be the first one to lead the process. Okay, now let's go to the next one here. How about oak? I know that some of you picked up your stage that's in front of you the Glen pick it up again if you didn't earlier and knows that one of my first training guidelines that I learned from Lincoln Henderson, when you want it to impress upon me, the presence of wood and whiskey is he had me knows a glass of water. So you have a glass of water in front of you so knows that glass of water. 19:59 We're lucky and 20:00 We have pure tap, right? We have great water. Not much there though, right? You don't want to smell much from a glass of water, and then smell the wood, the wood in front of you, because what he did was he took a bunch of toothpicks, there's a true story, took a bunch of toothpicks, and he put the toothpicks in water and let them soak and he said, Peggy, smell the water. 20:20 Now smell the water with the toothpicks in it. We've only been sitting here 15 minutes. Now can you imagine over the course of five to eight years with that alcohol sitting in the wood, what a different set presence is going to make right? So I was pretty impressed by that. Now how about we trash See, this is floral notes that come out from the wood. So what we did is we put a little bit of rose water because that's a pretty prominent floral note that you might find. And then other floral can come from that. You know you might have had viscous. You know you might have a little bit of honeysuckle but other florals along the 21:00 Way over maturation will happen. But I wanted you to heighten your senses. Because it's a very sensory exercise. I wanted you to heighten your senses on the actual floral notes. And then in front of you on a little plate or some dried cherries, I want you to understand the fruit note. So pick up a couple dried cherries, pop them in your mouth, chew on it a little bit and see what you think. Because would can bring out some cherry notes. Again, over time those cherry notes turn into other fruit notes. You know, fruit notes like apricots. You know, fruit notes like apple. You know, those are two very basic ones that would come out but I want you to have that baseline before we move in. Make sense? All right, good. So if you're not too full after eating two cherries, we're going to go ahead and move to the other ones smoke, the smokiness which also can turn very quickly to savory but I'm going to give you an example of 22:00 Your tongue lighter of what savory really means. So the smokiness of bacon made sense to me. So if you'll try a little piece of the bacon strip, if you don't care for bacon, that's just fine. But I want you to gain an understanding of what that does to your tongue that smokiness it's a little heavier, right, little heavier little bit more texture to your tongue. But we have a good understanding of that. 22:28 And as we move each one, just to let you know, you might want to take a bit of a rinse of your water if some of the nosing just to let you know if some of the nosing like the clove gets a strong sense for you. A little trick we use is to smell the back of your hand. It will neutralize your olfactory senses just smelling the back of your hand and that allows you to go to the next area. Okay. 22:59 So you can 23:00 See, as we follow along this flavor grid and aroma grid, the master distiller has a hell of a lot of decisions to make. There's so many variables to the barrel. In other words, when he decides to toast it and char it, which we're going to talk about and taste those flavors, how deep does he want to go? So this represents the coloring. This also represents does he want to start spicy, and go all the way to butterscotch? How much chocolate notes does he want or she want. So think about dialing up or dialing down what happens inside the barrel. Over the years, the master distiller needs to make that decision, and they need to make a lot of other decisions about what goes inside the barrel. And we're going to talk about that. So let's talk now about inside the barrel. In the second column of your flavor grid. We're going to talk about what I call interior flavors into 24:00 flavors are certainly the toasting and charring. Okay? But as far as the toast goes, many people think, Oh, well, once you toast the wood, you get more of the caramel notes. And I'm not saying I don't disagree with you. But many times when I do tastings, I talk about after tasting, I'll say it has it really. It's framed with toast, or it has a toasted framework. And the reason why I say toasted framework is because that toasting of the criminalisation is all working together for me. Okay, so it just has a light toast. Remember that when we start talking about our appetizers, so take a bite of the Cristini that's on your small plate. 24:44 Just take a little bite of that plain simple, but need you to identify that toast flavor and then there is a Carmel 24:56 on your plate. Go ahead and unwrap that into 25:00 A little bite of the Carmel now notice, I did not and it was purposeful. I did not do a dark Carmel. I did a light Carmel. You know, frankly, it's craft karma that you probably remember dipping apples in right to make candy apples, very light, very airy, you know nothing that's going to make it too heavy for you. But what we're doing when I told you that those staves are large blocks of sugar, we are criminalizing the wood sugar of the barrel. We're taking a flame to the wood, and just simply karma. So anybody like Kimberly in here, okay. It's like the topping of timber lay light and airy but not burnt, not smoked, dislike Mary. And so that's what we're going for with toasting. And as I mentioned, it certainly does move to the Carmel but it's not a heavy Carmel. And that's important to note. Now are you ready to kind of go into the fun part the 26:00 fun part is moving into the charming. The charming is taking a very intense flame to the wood and we're blistering the wood. You know why we're doing that? We want to open up the pores of the wood so that great whiskey soaks in and out and in and out of that would also attribute charring to that beautiful rich amber color. That depth of color we have in whiskey also contribute to that camp fire smokiness that we have in whiskey. That's so wonderful. So with charring, you're going to get many things. Okay, we're kind of moving from that Carmel that you just took a bite of to a little bit deeper karma and the best example I could possibly give you and you were probably wondering when you were looking at everything that I have for you to eat in one hour. That piece of chocolate that's in the white cup. Let me share with this is this has 27:00 special meaning to me because this is called a majestic. majestic is considered Louisville's candy. And my father This is what I grew up on frankly in Kentucky or majestic is my father. It was one of his absolute favorite candies. And now I know why because you could drink it with his bourbon. So what you're going to have here is dark chocolate. Marshmallow. All right. And then Carmel. So you're going to get the Triple Crown. All right of charming flavors. This is identical to charming flavors. So take a big bite but save half of it for later because I had a bit of it explosion Pres. At the end of this for your mouth, I promise. So save half of it for later. What do you think of that? You get that you get that chocolate caramel marshmallow wonderful combination. So that's what happens with charming it's like a little campfire. Like a small almost 28:00 I feel at this point, you've had a nice little preamble for your mouth. All right, you've learned a few flavors along the way. We're going to do a couple more. But at the same time, I have to turn because my inner geek turns out a little bit. during the session, I said toasting. I said charming. I said white oak wood, which is all extremely important. But there's a lot of chemistry that happens. And so this is where my inner geek comes out. So I want to share a couple things with you. This is just wood notes. And believe me, not all barrels are created equally. Alright, so when you go to a Cooper bridge, and you see sometimes the barrel staves outside, they're being seasoned, and they're outside and they're drying out, because what that does, when you season the wood, it actually lessens the density of that hard block that you just touched. All right, it lessens the density, so that air flows through 29:00 Whiskey throws flows through it a lot easier. Alright, so that's part of it. And also we're trying to bring out the esters. esters are just a fancy word for stay in flavors. We want wood sugars, and we want tannins, we want the best of wood sugar, we want the best of tannins. And then this is a sample of a woodblock, up close, and all those little dots and all those little veins, if you would, this is called tableau. See, Tableau see is very important. And the only way I can describe it to you of what happens in the barrel is almost like capillaries. All right. If I were to hold a handful of straws in my hand, very loosely, and I poured water over those straws, what would happen? water would go straight through, right? Well, what it does for us is if I were to hold those straws in, squeeze it a little bit, some are open, some are not open, you know 30:00 I might have a little bit of water fall through once I pour. That's what Tyler OC does, it lets the team and soak in a little slower. So it's not rushed. So that's what it helps us do. And that's a very important piece to helping with the flavor components and bringing out the right things that we want for our whiskey. So the next thing that's a variable to think about, and this is the hardest thing, oxygenation, or just plain oxygen and airflow to make it easy. This is the hardest thing for Cooper ej to really get their hands on. And I go back to Mother Nature helping us along a little bit. But oxygenation is really important, because the more air that's flowing through the more fruit notes, floral notes. Also what what we want to happen is oxidation. When people say well, what the heck is oxidation I have no idea what that is. Think of an apple if it were sitting on a table and you left it there a couple days. 31:00 It might brown a little bit and it actually gets sweeter as it goes sometimes. That's what happens within the barrel oxidation with the the Van Allen and the wood sugar is going to kind of oxidize and that actually mellows and brings more flavors. So you want oxidation inside the barrel. So that happens as well and it can also bring some earthy notes. Now once you to taste there's a little sliver of mushroom because I want you to understand what earthy notes bring in your palate. So take a little bite of the mushroom. 31:36 Everybody identify the mushroom, it almost looks like a brownie. 31:40 They saw it for me right? So it's good but take a little bite that is an earthy note. 31:48 That is an earthy note and you can get earthy notes from this and also from the next thing that I want to talk about and that's water. Water is key. You know the first point of 32:00 Water that we're going to experience with a barrel is what anybody know? 32:05 Anybody know the first time that we experience water with a barrel? 32:10 How about barrel entry? Now in Kentucky, of course, we can go up to 125. But some distilleries really debate what the barrel entry of their whiskey is going to be, you know, as low as 103. With Victor's, you know, 110 I think makers and Woodford Reserve us but you can go up from there. So think about when water goes with the whiskey inside the barrel for the first time, it's a bit of a marriage, right? It's a bit of marriage, they have to react together. So the more water that you put in the barrel for the first time, over time, evaporation is going to happen. And that's also a water feature, if you will, evaporation happens and when evaporation happens, the alcohol proof actually goes up because of the big 33:00 Operation Has anybody in here heard of the term Angel share. And you know how we always talk about the angel share the evaporation of the whiskey going up and we can lose 28 to 30%. So it's no joke that there's evaporation. But I have to tell you that sometimes that evaporation takes on some of the off notes of a product. So you wonder if those angels out there are going too much tannin. Too much acid. You know, we joke about it like it's a great thing. Yes. Okay. So, back to this. Another thing that is important is humidity. Think of the humidity that you have humidity actually slows the interaction within the barrel slows the interaction within the barrel, and then the water that you actually put when you pour a glass of whiskey, and you put some water with a splash that actually opens up the fruit notes of a whiskey so you can really focus on the 34:00 Fruit now to the whiskey 34:02 bourbon pursuit wouldn't be possible without the support of our Patreon community and with help of our following partners. 34:10 Now, I've never been inside a prison before, but that's exactly what the folks at Rock house whiskey club did. When they recently took a trip to North Carolina, behind cellblocks, east and west, they found barrels of bourbon being aged and it's entirely legal. Rock house whiskey clubs stumbled upon whiskey prison. It's the home to Southern grace distilleries at Mount Pleasant prison. 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Use code pursuit for $25 off your first box. 35:26 Now, before we get into texture, and I know you had that beautiful, majestic, right, take a sip of water, and I want you to taste one more thing before we go into the actual pairing. When you taste de de is what's called liquid smoke. Okay, liquid smoke also happens in the charring. But what else happens in my opinion is it aids in the texture of the whiskey, that smokiness now just take a little fingertip because 36:00 You don't need much. Believe me, not anything you want to drink. Just a little test on the tongue get that savory smoky almost wish to share. And go ahead and put your cat back on. 36:13 So dead and dead in your senses. Would you think of that? 36:18 Yeah, it's intense, right? It's really intense. And that's what I want you to know that it can go from that sweet chocolate marshmallow to that really intense smoke. And it will affect a little bit of that texture that we will now when I talk about texture, I'm talking about the structure of a whiskey. So dip your finger in your water glass, put it in your hand and slide it Okay, it's wet, right? But it doesn't slide super easy. It's just wet. If you were to take oil or corn oil, it would glide correct. same example of texture on your tongue. Water has a certain texture 37:00 oil has a certain texture. licorice has a certain texture. So you can see in the row of texture. There can be a soft texture, a sharp texture like licorice, you know that kind of leaves a readiness on your tongue. And when I call viscosity, so there's a little bit of jello because most people don't really understand the viscosity standpoint. viscosity is how heavy it is. So waters thin, right? Coke, if I were to drink a Coke is a little thicker, but then jello would be the thickest. So there's a little piece of jello in a glass there. Do you see that on that little plate and a spoon if you want to just get a feel for heavy viscosity? Why is this important? Because the barrel strength products that we're going to taste have a lot of texture. And I want you to be able to do this, just to balance is it no texture, wet TechStars 38:00 Dry moist rough, smooth, you know oily thin, because it really plays a role. 38:08 The barrel notes that we're getting ready to taste as well should have kind of a heavy sweet feel on your mouth. Now there's always those basic flavors, you know bitter, salty, etc. So we're going for big, we're going for bold, we're going for robust, and so I want surround sound. I want kind of a heavy mouth feel. So when we taste these whiskeys, you can tell me what you think about that. 38:32 And then the other side of the fence from all the great things that we're talking about, is how to identify a bourbon that might be a little overload. Now I want to make it clear there is no bad whiskey out there. There's no bad bourbon, but at the same time, sometimes things can get a little overlooked. So in that one column on your flavor grid, it can go from Gosh, astringent, kind of causes you to pucker. So after you drink a 39:00 Whiskey if it kind of pulls your self in with your cheeks heat, too much warmth kind of burnt cinnamon flavor. So if I taste something that's too heavy and cinnamon, you know, I walk away from it. Cool. A little bit of mint is a good thing. If you feel like you squirted some Colgate in your mouth, not a good thing. Okay, so something can be too minty. So those are just three little variables that you can look for, to judge some of the over openness, which is very rare to find. But sometimes when I'm doing I'm also a spirits judge. So I taste a lot of whiskies and so sad, very sad. Sometimes I can taste the difference of something that's overlooked, versus one that maybe is too sharp hasn't been in the barrel long enough. All right. So with that, are you ready to eat eat? We have tested your tongue. We have it's like calisthenics, right? We've built you'd like an athlete right now. 40:00 We've trained you. So now we're going to put it all together and so closest to you knows the whiskey. The first one closest to you and tell me what you think. What do you think it is? This is cask strength, if that gives you a hint. 40:20 This is Maker's Mark cask strength. 40:23 And let me tell you, this is an engaging whiskey for me. I think it's very exciting to drink because it truly took on this whole other element by doing a cask strength. So again, credit where credit's due to the barrel, right? When you knows it. 40:43 Sure, it has some elements for me, like makers that I'm used to those elements being honey notes, really nice honey notes, some citrus notes. I normally get that with Maker's Mark Of course, and have a nice body of work. 41:00 Meet with Maker's Mark. But with this cask strength, I have to tell you, I get maple syrup. I get big spice bigger than makers normally has in a spice Would you agree? I also get some walnut and some pecan, little bit of nutty note 41:19 in some of this barrel note, tell me what you get in the nose, anybody. 41:25 And again, feel free to neutralize 41:28 clothes, absolutely see clothes are kind of that baseline, and then things come out from there. So I would definitely agree with that. 41:38 Little bit of that roasted marshmallow 41:42 that we talked about. 41:44 Alright, so now we're going to taste it and for those of you just to let you know this is between one and 114. So if the proof level seems to overpower you, I'm going to show you a little trick that you can do anytime and I 42:00 specifically do this when I'm pairing food because it helps really bring out the flavors. I would not suggest that you do this at a bar when you're trying to pick someone up. All right, but let me show you this one. 42:15 I take a little taste of it 42:18 and then I blow out. It releases some of the alcohol. And when you start talking after that, you'll really be able to taste it. So do a little taste, save some for your food. Just take a little tiny taste of it. But save the other half for the food pairing that we have done with it. That I immediately get that marshmallow. I mean just absolutely get little cinnamon from it. 42:44 Little maple syrup. I even get a tad bit of mint, 42:49 tad bit of mint, that that maple syrup really comes out for me. And that's why I just want to tell you what we paired today. Again, starting on your left to right we have a smoked duck 43:00 With a citrus sorghum on a corn waffle. Now, let me let me break down the layers. Here's why we did what we did. The smoke duck brought to me these wonderful earthy notes that we've been describing. For the last hour. The citrus notes when I was nosing this and tasting this, I get always get citrus from makers, always. So I wanted to add a little splash to that. That was important to me. And then the sorghum. I said, I get maple syrup. So we wanted to add a syrupy note to it. And that's the sorghum put it on a corn waffle. Because that helps with a little bit of that sweet toasted framework from the barrel. And so take a really big bite of that. It's a duck. Again, smoked duck even more important with citrus sorghum, take a bite of that and then take a sip of that whiskey and tell me what you think. 43:59 What 44:00 I was going for just to let you know normally when I train for food pairings in anybody who was with me last year, do you remember this chart that I showed? I go for either balance, counterbalance or what I call explosion. And I'm going to I'm going to tell you about that. Balance is when I'm trying to match flavors. I'm trying to create what I call harmony between the food and the whiskey. I'm trying to complement the flavors that are already taste in the whiskey. counter balance is when I might go the opposite direction. For example, like taking a Cajun pecan and drinking it with a white Riesling or Riesling wine rather, you know, it's it's sweet, too hot. We're not doing counterbalanced today simply because these are barrel proof. All right, barrel strength. explosion is when it's almost too much of a good thing. It's dramatically rich. It's surrounded 45:00 sound in your mouth, it's it's, it's just almost takes your head off. And we've got one example of that today, which is going to be our last one. All the lines simply mean the level of intensity. And so as we're talking and as we're tasting you know if I say gosh, I get honey notes or cinnamon notes, you could say gosh, what level you know, just small cinnamon notes are really really robust cinnamon note, because that's how you can manage the balance of your food and your whiskey. So that being said, let's go to the second one. They might want to guess what the second one is. 45:35 This one is plush. I promise you. 45:39 I'll give you a little hint. It has a very Admiral, admirable texture to it. 45:45 Big texture to it. Very elegant nose. Do you agree? 45:51 Very elegant nose. I immediately have to say I get on the spice data get all spice fruit notes. 46:00 Get from Apple to blackberry on these fruit notes Would you agree? Four roses. Excellent. This is four roses hundred proof, single barrel. 46:12 One of my favorites. So easy to pair with, because you have these big all spice cinnamon ginger notes to me, you know, whenever you have a lot of spice to play with. You can make anything taste good, I promise. But I do get some light chocolate notes. Vanilla caramel, 46:33 take a sip of it, and that's when the heat will hit the back of your throat but I get an earthy note along with it. So taste it and see what you think. Chocolate for sure. Absolutely you do. They might get the BlackBerry that referred to once you tasted that. Isn't that interesting? And what about the texture? Remember, I said admirably textured. What's your tongue doing right now? 47:01 Nice, heavy, wet, not too oily. It's a long sweet dry finish, which I like in a whiskey. 47:11 It's just impeccably balanced. So here's what we did on number two, and it's your middle, the middle appetizer in front of you. It is all spicy braised pork 47:26 with a barrel aged maple. Okay. 47:30 So try that. That pork. Again capturing the earthy note. But notice I said all spice because truly with four roses, I get a whole lot of all spice nutmeg, cinnamon, little clove, and I knew it would balance okay. You like that one? 47:52 Which one did you like better? The first one or the second one? 47:57 Second one. Okay. 48:00 Did you get the all spice balance the harmony of all that. 48:05 And again, four roses is 100 proof. So we didn't have to work too hard, you know to pair with a food and let the food flavors come through which is nice. Now take a little sip of water. Because the next one I dial that up a bit. I definitely doubt it up event. Does everybody remember me asking you to hang on to the other half of your MMA, Jessica? Okay, good. I'm glad you did. Because 48:35 I want you to knows that third glass and tell me what you think it is. 48:42 I mean, it is it's really dramatic. Dramatic knows, I have to say. 48:48 I was at a bourbon women function. It was called Heaslip she sips and we had blind tastings all over the room. And this barrel strength whiskey 49:00 was the favorite among women, which should not surprise me. You know, I'm in seven cities with bourbon women. We have thousands of members across the United States. And we always go for the more robust, heavier whiskies. It's very interesting to me. 49:16 But isn't that knows incredible? Do you get immediate kind of smoky Carmel? Pardon me? Yes, allows your Craig barrel string Very good. Very good. And I have been so impressed because it's just lavishly built. This whiskey is just lavish. 49:38 So I get the smoky notes, of course, I get the heavy Carmel notes. I also of course, get a little vanilla and believe it or not on the spice side of things, a touch of paprika. 49:55 And I get a little touch of paprika you know, not too strong, not too harsh. 50:00 very subtly balanced in that not like the four roses where I get more of the spice notes if you will. So what I decided to do with this because where you're going to, frankly just almost freak out is the texture of this whiskey. When you taste it, let it sit, swallow and let it come back to you. I think you're going to be impressed with the texture and then I'll tell you what I paired it with. Take a little sip. Do you see how that fills your entire mouth with texture from the tongue to the upper roof of your mouth, the cheeks, everything in its surround sound. 50:45 I get dark brown sugar. 50:48 And this is barrel strength. And how subtle 50:53 how subtle but dark brown sugar for sure. Huge vanilla. 51:00 Huge Carmel. 51:03 And the chocolate notes just screamed at me. Did they scream at you? 51:08 And that's why I couldn't help myself. Take that much Jessica, pop that thing in your mouth. Take a sip of this, but leave a little bit for the dessert that I came up with. This truly my husband and I were sampling the majestic is with this. It was the best sugar buzz I've had in quite some time. 51:26 Promise. What do you think of that? Now again, this is between 128 to 140 proof what I decided to pair with this because on the fruit note side, I certainly got Apple, but also got a lot of heavy red pair. So what we decided to do was a poached pair with dark chocolate and toasted marshmallow. 51:52 So it's almost like eating a Jessica cake. So when you get a chance for that don't even rent Don't waste your time. 52:01 Just go for that poached pair cake. It's the last one there. And take that last bit of Alaska with you. 52:11 Good. 52:13 And that crazy good as not as good as crazy good. 52:17 Now I am confident that you have a ton of questions for me and I'm happy to answer them. We covered so much track in an hour. I can't even believe how much we ate in an hour. I don't think since the moment you sat down, you've stopped chewing actually. Which is kind of a good thing with a food pairing. Right? Do you feel like we've identified some real flavors of the barrel? Does anybody have a new respect for barrel notes? That when somebody says, Oh, I get a barrel note, now you can be descriptive and say Oh, are you getting a little clove? Are you getting a little floral? What are you getting? And even more important, you can actually pair food with your barrel strength. 53:00 bourbon, or it doesn't even have to be barrel string, it could be a bourbon, just find out the age of the whiskey. And you'll know what kind of barrel notes because remember, you know, short barrel notes, probably two to four years, you know beyond four years, you're going to get more complexity, more barrel notes, which I'm not saying that every whiskey has to be old and aged. We're not like those scotch folks, that it has to be a 20 year whiskey. We like to drink our whiskey, you know, while we're still alive. So that's important. All right. And you probably are wondering 53:36 why the heck did she put out a little packet a Mentos say my wondering what we're gonna do with that. 53:43 Because by the time I've had you all eat all that you've eaten in the last hour, if you go talk to somebody outside, you're gonna need this. 53:51 Alright, so we will make sure that you take your Mentos so they don't blame it on me. All right. Any questions? y'all been such a great group today? Okay, that's 54:00 A good question he was asking, you know, between your bites of Food Sampling pairing going to the next one kind of what's the timing? What's the timing of it? And I will tell you, yeah, yeah, you just start chewing and then take a big swig of the Spirit. That's important. The other thing I purposely did that I probably should have told you, I paid attention to the flavors of the appetizers. And I went from light to heavy. And I tried to do that also with what you tasted on the plate when we were talking about, you know, dried cherries to bacon. Notice I had you eat a Jessica first before we went to liquid smoke. Because I want you to gradually build your taste buds. I want you to gradually think about how to, you know build flavors. absolutely wonderful. I hope you've enjoyed it and enjoy the rest of the Kentucky bourbon affair. And we'll talk soon. Thank you very much. Thank you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

This week on Barrel to Bottle, Pat and Roger sit down with Kentucky bourbon dignitary Wes Henderson. Along with his father, Lincoln Henderson, Wes created the category-defining Angel’s Envy by blending bourbons finished in Port barrels. Wes talks bourbon heritage, his brand new Louisville distillery, and what’s on the horizon for his iconic brand. Plus, Wes sticks around for our Q&A segment to answer your question about barrel toast and char.

I'm envious of the glitch @Angels_Envy Co hosts : Good ol Boy Mike, Good ol Boy Jason, Good ol Boy Greg, Mad Man Brent, Made Man Bob, and in spirit Good ol Gal Julieanna SIPS Episode – This episode we pickup another distiller takeover covering Angel's Envy. A product that is sourced by one of the best of the industry distiller's Lincoln Henderson. We cover a broad range of these products of both off the shelf and barrel selections.   Cigar Bar Blend – 30%/30%/40% The Whiskey Bar Blend – 60%/10%/30% Bourbon Mafia Blend – 8%/66.5%/25.5% Angels Envy Rye – 100 proof Angels Envy Cask Strength 2013 – 123 proof Angels Envy Cask Strength 2014 – 119.3 proof Angels Envy Cask Strength 2015 – 127.9 proof   No, your audio equipment is not busted, we had a technical glitch recording Julieanna's mic during this recording. What can I say, there was lots of whiskey involved. Your loss is also your gain. She had lots of great contributions and maybe we'll get to repair this recording in the future, for now enjoy it.   To make up for this technical glitch, just catch Good ol Boy Mike at a bar, mention the words “I'm envious of your glitch” and a dram of Angel's Envy is yours, free. He reserves the right to cut off this offer, but you should go for it.   Sips, Suds, & Smokes info@sipssudsandsmokes.com @sipssudssmoke Hosted online at Spreaker and available on iTunes, PRX, TuneIn, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and YouTube. Check out great bourbon blog news at: http://bourbondork.blogspot.com/ The Bourbon Mafia is a great fraternal organization of whiskey enthusiasts. http://thebourbonmafia.com/ Our thanks to our sponsor Fine Sprits and Wine where you can find most of these great products. www.finespirits.net and Aroma Academy – get your nose calibrated www.aromaacademy.us #smellbetter  Enjoying that cool new Outro Music, it's from Woods & Whitehead – Back Roads Download your copy here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/woodswhitehead2

I’m envious of the glitch@Angels_Envy Co hosts : Good ol Boy Mike, Good ol Boy Jason, Good ol Boy Greg, Mad Man Brent, Made Man Bob, and in spirit Good ol Gal Julieanna SIPS Episode – This episode we pickup another distiller takeover covering Angel’s Envy. A product that is sourced by one of the best of the industry distiller’s Lincoln Henderson. We cover a broad range of these products of both off the shelf and barrel selections. Cigar Bar Blend – 30%/30%/40% The Whiskey Bar Blend – 60%/10%/30% Bourbon Mafia Blend – 8%/66.5%/25.5% Angels Envy Rye – 100 proof Angels Envy Cask Strength 2013 – 123 proof Angels Envy Cask Strength 2014 – 119.3 proof Angels Envy Cask Strength 2015 – 127.9 proof No, your audio equipment is not busted, we had a technical glitch recording Julieanna’s mic during this recording. What can I say, there was lots of whiskey involved. Your loss is also your gain. She had lots of great contributions and maybe we’ll get to repair this recording in the future, for now enjoy it. To make up for this technical glitch, just catch Good ol Boy Mike at a bar, mention the words “I’m envious of your glitch” and a dram of Angel’s Envy is yours, free. He reserves the right to cut off this offer, but you should go for it. Sips, Suds, & Smokes info@sipssudsandsmokes.com @sipssudssmoke Hosted online at Spreaker and available on iTunes, PRX, TuneIn, Stitcher, Soundcloud, and YouTube. Check out great bourbon blog news at: http://bourbondork.blogspot.com/ The Bourbon Mafia is a great fraternal organization of whiskey enthusiasts. http://thebourbonmafia.com/ Our thanks to our sponsor Fine Sprits and Wine where you can find most of these great products. www.finespirits.net and Aroma Academy – get your nose calibrated www.aromaacademy.us #smellbetter Enjoying that cool new Outro Music, it’s from Woods & Whitehead – Back Roads Download your copy here: http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/woodswhitehead2 You can now download our Android app to enjoy the show anytime on your Android device.

Bacardi took a step into the Bourbon business this week with its acquisition of Angel's Share Brands, the parent company of Angel's Envy Bourbon and the Louisville Distilling Company's distillery under construction in Louisville. The deal is a friendly one, since Bacardi had owned a small stake in Angel's Share since it was founded by the late Lincoln Henderson and his partners in 2006. Henderson's son Wes and the other Angel's Share executives will run the company as a separate division within Bacardi, and he joins us to discuss the reasons behind the sale on this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, Bacardi has also acquired a small share in Compass Box as part of a larger deal to supply whisky for the Compass Box blends, one of the whisky industry's major travel retail companies is being sold, and the Scotch Malt Whisky Society is changing hands, too.

Ger Buckley is the fifth-generation cooper at Ireland's Midleton Distillery, but had no one to pass the torch to. In fact, there hadn't been an apprentice cooper at any Irish distillery for nearly four decades...but Ger was able to convince Irish Distillers that the tradition needed to be kept alive for another generation. 21-year-old Killian O'Mahony has just signed on for a four-year apprenticeship...he and Ger join us for this week's WhiskyCast In-Depth. In the news, we pay tribute to the late Lincoln Henderson, Buffalo Trace plans to keep honoring the late Elmer T. Lee, and the latest on this year's Buffalo Trace Antique Collection. This week's tasting notes include Wild Turkey's new Forgiven...an accidental blend of Rye and Bourbon. 

Wes Henderson joins us to talk about Angel's Envy; his dad, legendary master distiller and Kentucky Bourbon Hall of Fame inaugural member, Lincoln Henderson; and life and work before becoming a distiller. Find our guest online: http://www.angelsenvy.com Music: Lorenzo's Music - Straight To Hell

Japanese whiskies are a mystery to many whisky lovers, and we'll get some insight to these special malts from Suntory consultant Lincoln Henderson, who spent most of his career making bourbons for Brown-Forman. In the news, Whisky Magazine's Dave Broom is honored, Penderyn finally makes it to U.S. stores, and profits flow at Pernod Ricard. Pour yourself a dram, and relax with Episode 40 of WhiskyCast!