Bobby with Blind Barrels!

Thank you to Bobby DeMars, founder of Blind Barrels, for joining us for an interview!

Be sure to check out Blind Barrels for a great tasting experience, and a chance to try and buy hard-to-find, craft distillery bottles!

https://blindbarrels.com/ 

https://www.facebook.com/BlindBarrels/ 

https://www.instagram.com/blindbarrels/

https://x.com/blindbarrels

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjfXTjgL0SydfSjuXvxPzwQ

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:10

The whiskey tastes we talk about the whiskey detector. Either must have interviewed the police this week's episode of the whiskey tasters.

SPEAKER_04 0:29

We've got a special guest on today. We've got Bobby from Barrel Blinds. Welcome, Bobby. Thanks for having me on, guys.

SPEAKER_06 0:39

So how did uh how did blind barrels get started?

SPEAKER_00 0:42

So blind barrels got started. This was uh really a COVID baby. My buddy was doing blinds during, you know, while we were all isolated and quarantined, and you know, you can only put up so many accent walls and install so many bidets. And uh, you know, check all the toilet paper from Costco, remember that? Oh, yeah. And uh people were running out with all the toilet paper. I'm like, what? And um, my buddy, my wife works at uh a big financial firm, and one of the guys there was doing setting up just some blinds to kind of hey, let's all jump on a zoom, we'll taste some whiskey, it'll be cool. Just kind of this idea. And I had never done it with whiskey before. I'd done it with wine plenty of times. I'd never really done a blind anything with whiskey. And I don't think I ever really thought of whiskey as being nuanced, you know, or diverse or interesting. Or I mean, it was always something I drank, or you know, I was a Jack and Coke guy in my 20s, you know. And uh after the call, after like the first taste, I was like, dude, this feels like a business. This is I don't know, this is there's something special about this. And uh he's like, Yeah, okay. I said, I'm gonna go figure this out. Now, this is just a live pro tip. If you ever need legal assistance, you can generally get a free hour-long consultation with an attorney because they're trying to get you to hire them, okay? And you get a lot of information. So I called an ABC alcohol beverage control attorney, and it was I had an hour with them with less than seven minutes, and I said, Here's what I'm gonna do. I was gonna put it on and send it out to everybody's like, There's seven federal laws that you're gonna break if you do that. And I'm like, Oh. My buddy did it, but he's like, Yeah, well, you're pouring samples, friends, that's kind of different. Did he drop them off? Yeah, you didn't ship it. No, okay. Um, so then I did 16 more free hour-long consultations with different ABC. I just kept calling people, and and yeah, some of them really short, a couple of them really gave some interesting ideas of some problems that were solved, and then I kind of pieced together all these different elements. I called one of the attorneys that I liked, I said, What if we do it this way? She said, Yes. So I went out and raised, you know, not a ton of money, but enough money to kind of really give us a shot at, you know, building the site, creating the packaging, custom bottles, getting a location to get some licenses, all that stuff. And we really did that all through 2021. We then came up with a better way to do what we're doing legally. You know, the all three tiers have to be involved. I mean, you guys know about the three-tier system, right? Prohibition ended. The people that make it have to give it to a wholesaler or distributor, and then the retailer can buy it and give it to a consumer. And so we need to make sure that we can't be in all those tiers, but I can manipulate and work with all the people so we can make it work. And then we launched in 2022, a lot of grassroots, didn't really have a marketing budget, and you know, got a couple hundred people, which is great, and then had a local radio DJ really get the word out. Um, he's the number one like Southern California FM radio DJ and became a close friend, and that really helped us grow within California and the area, and then we really kind of started thinking about marketing and partnerships and expanding. And yeah, now we've got over 5,000 members in 44 states.

SPEAKER_04 3:40

Wow, it really took off.

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah, I mean, it did well. I mean, it grow, I mean, it took four years, you know. So you you're just growing about 28% a quarter.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

So you get you kind of stuck with it then, huh? Uh did you like do this full time or was it like a slow transition?

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Or uh that's a great question. You know, it's funny. The so my main bread and butter over the years has been I've made documentaries, I've done a lot of film projects, I'm a screenwriter by trade. But while those are all technically risky ventures as well, but I've been like the number one test prep guru for SAT, ACT, uh graduate test prep, college application essay storytelling in Southern California for the last 20 years. And so, you know, it's good money, it's a flexible schedule, allows me to take other risks. You know, you can't really go out and take risks, you can't be creative and desperate at the same time. Those two things can't really coexist. Because at the end of the day, people invest in ideas, but they really invest in people.

SPEAKER_01 4:34

And if you're, you know, if you're like, oh, Gil from The Simpsons, God, Gil's gotta get a sale, he's gonna get it done.

SPEAKER_00 4:39

You know, you're Jack Lemon and, you know, Glenn Gary, Glenn, and Ross, you know, that desperation is very palpable. And so that's been my main bread and butter. And so starting this has been a full-time job. So I was a college athlete, um, you know, did 80 hours of football uh and and balance that with being in both the business school and the film school at USC. So um that I think trial by fire, doing that for like five years, you know, does give you a certain work ethic and and efficiency. And so, and and and the reality is if you if you're putting, if you're breathing life into an idea, whether it's a film or a concept or a product or a company, there's there's just an energy behind it and that you don't feel like you're working, right? And yeah, sometimes I'm I am doing 60, 80, 100 hours into blind barrels. And the reality is you can't really take a draw from that because you need to scale, you need to grow. So you bring on more people and you make profit. Well, if you don't put that into marketing to get more people and more packaging, more bottles, more whiskey, and all that other stuff. So that's where like scaling is really difficult. If you ever watch like Shark Tank, and it's like, I quit my job to do this, but I gotta pay my mortgage, right? And so they can't grow. Or some guys like, well, I'm still working my job, and they're like, Well, then you're not committed. And I'm like, Well, well, which one is it? Right. And so I basically told our investors, I said, until we hit 2,500 members, uh, I'm not gonna take a draw from the company. And then I actually uh technically didn't do it until we hit 5,000. So um I did that because I wanted to alleviate the stresses and how do you grow without taking on debt? Um, so yeah, it's been full time and it's funny because people are like, Oh, you're still you're still helping kids get into college. I'm like, yeah, well, I'm expensive and so I don't have to do too much of it, so it's really good money. So there's that, you know, there's bougie people here in Westlake, they want to get their kids into Stanford, and uh, you know, Bobby's not gonna do that, but Robert will, you know. Uh you know, so there's kind of a brand element to that. And yeah, I'm gonna I got a beard, I'm gonna be in shorts and flip-flops, it's gonna be standard. But I do like doing it. I like mentoring and and motivating these kids and getting to play a pivotal role in the catalyst for the rest of their life. So I really do enjoy that, but it gives me that freedom to build a team with this company and continue to let it grow and you know, get some key people in here that can take over some of the things that uh were burdening me, you know. So, but yeah, it's it's always been full time. Some people are like, You're still doing that? I'm like, so they think that this company is a hobby when it's it's not.

SPEAKER_06 7:05

Nice. Uh has your opinion of whiskey changed then now that you've been into all this, that it's not just it has some nuance to it. Have you gotten into the tasting end of the whiskey part of it, or are you mainly just the business end?

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Oh, I mean, the the tasting, the first tasting that my buddy did the blindie said, uh I I instantly knew just how interesting and awesome it was. And so, you know, he was you can understand he was also being very generous where he was putting like an old fits like dusty that he got for 60 bucks back in like 2004 that's now worth like 800 bucks and was charging it, oh I paid 60, and you know, there's 25 ounce pores, and these are all 50 mls, and I'm making you know, like he's doing the math, so he's dividing that 60 by 25 and charging you like 240, you know, essentially for an ounce of unbelievable whiskey. So we were all very spoiled in that period because that was super generous. Uh, but yeah, no, I have and I get it. Some people are like, well, doesn't whiskey just taste like whiskey? And it's like, well, then you haven't, you know, noticed, um, yeah, everyone thinks all rice are spicy or that all bourbons are sweet. And most bourbons are sweet, but I mean, rice can be floral and they can be fruity, and you know, tasting everything blind, you don't always know if something uh you even not all single malts are super obvious because not all single malts are smoky. And we just had a single malt on the lineup from Southern Star out of Statesville, North Carolina. And uh you can only get it if you're at the distillery, and that's kind of what the cool thing is. If you're a member, not only can you buy a full bottle, but you can buy it for the same price and oftentimes less than if you were at the distillery yourself. And so that they make that single malt like a bourbon. And so if you taste it blind, you don't always know that it's a single malt. And you would think I could pull out a single malt anytime. Blind, you'd be surprised, Chris. Do you hear that?

SPEAKER_03 8:50

Yeah, exactly. I I always say, uh, when people say, you know, all whiskey tastes the same or whatever, like because I equate whiskey to art, and and I just think that okay, so you go to a museum and you look at one piece of art and you leave, they're all the same. Like, no, like no, that's not how it is. So I I I think that that that's like you said, somebody hasn't experienced it or hasn't experienced a lot of it, might say all whiskey's the same, but um yeah, my brother-in-law still does that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:18

My brother's like, but whiskey's all the I'm like, I'm like, dude, you're drinking you know the the the Jim Beam honey over a giant vat of crushed ice. Like we're not the same animal over here.

SPEAKER_02 9:28

Um American animal, you know, you you know, you go drink that screwball, that peanut butter whiskey.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Like I'm telling you, like, I don't mind flavored whiskey, like a little bit of it. I w I don't want to have several glasses of it, but I don't mind it. And I don't mind if somebody wants use ice, not use ice. I don't like I don't like when people use a like a ton of crushed ice. That's kind of my pet peeve. Like that shaved ice. Yeah, you change yeah. Well, you're pouring like 88-proof bourbon on a crushed ice, and now you've got a watered, you know, like you're drinking water. So, like, what are we doing here? You just destroyed all the nuances, whatever it is that you're drinking.

SPEAKER_03 10:03

Oh, even the change in temperature on that will will change the molecules and the structure of the really so what is how does that how does that happen? Oh, science, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 10:14

So we we do reverse osmosis is this is it are we deionizing things? Science words. Science words, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Science is happening. Well, no, it's it's I mean, all the science of it sometimes. I like I got a guy named C Bass, who's my chief tafing officer, he's chief tasting officer, and he's you know, he can talk about the esters and the way the yeast affects it, and yeah, I mean, there's there's literally just so many components that go into whiskey. And I know water obviously can open up the flavor, you know, putting some water and dropping it in there, especially you know, you're gonna proof it down a little bit so it's not so hot, but it can make it more interesting, and there is obviously a yin-yang to that, but making something cold because people like cold whiskey, and it's just like uh you know, people that do those uh doing the ice bong, you know what I mean? You can take a bigger hit. I don't know if that's who knows.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

I didn't take a much bigger hit out of it.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

I I've always like I'm like, Oh yeah, I guess maybe it's smoother going down, but I'm like, look, if you're just trying to get drunk, then take some shots. Yeah, but that's what vodka is for. Yeah, that's what vodka is for, right? Just to take some shots or but but you know, tequila, obviously, there's some tequila you want to shoot and some you want to sip, right?

SPEAKER_04 11:25

Oh, absolutely. So speaking of which, the idea that you have some whiskeys or alcohol you want to sip and some you want to shoot, you have this box very uh strategically laid out, from what I can tell. You've got four bottles in it, A, B, C, and D lister on it. On the back, you've got where it's distilled or where it's from, roughly. Like state, you've got some special eyeglasses on there. I don't know. I don't know. Well, I feel that because so we've had a few uh friends or people will do like blind stuff, and they don't go in depth. It's A B T and D, have your fun. Guess what it is? There's no details, there's no path of learning what are you tasting, what are you smelling, what's the proof point look like, where's it distilled? None of that in their minds uh matters. Because whiskey is whiskey all whiskey will taste the same. But what we've learned in doing this podcast and club you can tell differences from the states where it's made, where it comes from, even from what I love the fact that you've got that listed to an extent on the bottles.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

It's well that's legal. That's just a legal requirement. So you you have to have the status stilled in, you have to have the ABV, you have to say uh pregnant women can't drink it, uh, you have to say that it's whiskey. Um, there's certain things. Um, so the TTB, the trade tax bureau, um, you know, every round this has to go through COLA certificate of label acceptance. And so all these things can have to run the parameters. Now, what's I think fascinating um as a side thing, if you'll notice under A, B, C, and D, do you see on the bottle, it actually has the word sample on it.

SPEAKER_04 13:26

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

We're the only TTP approved bottle that's ever had the word sample on it. Really? And that's because they fucked up. Um, well, what meaning like they said yes to A, and then they said no to B, C, and D. And then because they said yes to A, they set their own precedent. They had to say yes to B, C, and D. And then every time, you know, these things have to get filed every time because if it's a different state, you can change the proof, but if it's a different state that hasn't been an A, B, C, or D, it has to pass cola again. So every time this passes cola. So for the first year and a half, they kept saying no, because you can't have a sample in the bottle, and then we're like, but you said it already, and then they had to go back to it, and then they just stop, and now they're really used to it. Past practice. Yeah, um, but the QR code, so there's a QR code in every bottle, there's a QR code on the tasting table. You know, we converted the wheel into a table to help people pick out notes, the educational component, and there's a game. So you can guess the age, the proof, and the type of whiskey, and you'll actually get a score that tells you how accurate your palate is. Oh, uh nice. And for getting above a 40%, that's really good. So I think people think of percentages in terms of grades. We're thinking about putting a grade scale onto it just to make it easier for people to determine, you know, if they did well or not. Uh, and then you don't have to get proof on the nose. If you get close to it, you'll get more points than if you're further away from it. Same thing with age. And then obviously the mash bill, we give you four different options. So, you know, if it's a we won't just say bourbon rye, um, single malt and wheat. Yeah, if it we get more specific in that, like it's like, oh, one of these is a weeded bourbon, you know, one of these is a rum finished bourbon, you know, one of these is uh, you know, like a cast strength bourbon. So there's these different things that are in there, so that way it helps them with the categories a little bit. And then the reveal page, there's a tasting video with my guys that'll walk you through the tasting. People can join our lives, we do live tastings, and then each sample, yes, it tells you the distillery, the age, the proof, all the aroma, all the tasting notes, all the finishing notes, and then the backstory of the distillery. So you get all that information there.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

You guys have really come up with a really clever kind of a thing here. Did you come up with all of that? Or did you have a little bit of help?

SPEAKER_00 15:28

Or I mean, I I was like coming up with okay, how do we make the packaging awesome? Like I've never made packaging before, or or custom glass. Custom glass is a whole other thing. Enclosures in this industry is a whole other deal. I can get into that all day. Just coming up with how do you make the bottle and the enclosure kind of work together and make all those things and building the box from inside and out. Um, so a lot of this was we were trying to figure out along the way. So I'd say initially we didn't have um, we didn't name all the kits, we didn't say release one, two, and three. We just sent out a generic the thing that was the same thing, but the QR code was different every time. Um, then we started putting the QR code on the bottles. Um, then we started kind of really building out more facts. We did always have um the age, the proof, the type, the aroma. We did always have that from the beginning. Um, so my guys, which had been you know drinking whiskey longer than I had were definitely a part of that. I'd say one of the biggest steers from the get-go that we always did was we always wanted to focus on craft, mainly because we didn't want we didn't think there was anything special about putting you know, maker's mark and bullet in the lineup. Right. But there's nothing wrong with you know brown forming or any of these big brands that are making really good whiskey and are now actually following craft trends. But there's 3,000 whiskey brands you haven't heard of, and half of them you don't need to, but half of them are pretty damn good and making killer products and doing really weird, interesting things, and you know, finding varietals of grain that that they're bringing back to life that didn't exist. Um, they're they're coming up with new distilling processes, um, they're doing weird finishes that that you would think are weird that are actually phenomenal. They're doing blends, they're doing all the things that are setting the tone for what the industry is doing now. Um, so distribution prevents these brands from really getting the shelf space um in in both bars and in liquor stores, so that you're only seeing a very, very small, less than 1% of what actually exists in the marketplace at your local liquor store or or even your your total one at Bedmore, Liquor Marn, Benny's, whatever, whatever the big thing is in your area, you're only seeing a very, very small selection of what's available. So a lot of times we feature brands that only exist in their native state that you literally can't get anywhere else. So the most people come for the blinds, we're giving them a dope experience, right? I would say we're a wit, we're we're an experienced company, not a whiskey company, but we're giving you access to something that you couldn't access. And and we're even getting even more fine tuning. Like, can we get something really special? So, like if we're gonna put pinhook in the lineup, then we need to put something in there that doesn't exist anywhere else, that only exists in our box. That is an unbelievable, one-of-a-kind blend. The first double barrel offering, something that's really off the charts good. And then we're gonna sell you that full bottle for a bottle that you probably can't even get for less than if you were at the distillery or less than if you could actually find it if you found it in the wild.

SPEAKER_03 18:14

Yeah, if you could even find something like that.

SPEAKER_06 18:16

Yeah, we're in Ohio, and Ohio is incredibly strict on their on their alcohol. So everything is state-owned here. So we're even more limited than other places. We oftentimes make trips to Indiana or Kentucky or something like that to buy bottles because it's just so so limited here. Uh you got Middle West, come on. Yeah, exactly. Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:36

Middlewest, man. Come on. That's one of my favorites. Middlewest is just they're all bangers and affordable. I was just talking with them today because I'm like, dude, I need to, I need like more. We had their cash drink weeded in our December lineup, and that used to be really expensive, actually, and now it's unbelievably affordable. You know, we had the Middle West. Well, they're they're they source for a ton of brands too. So, and and they're they're distillates so clean. Um, and I mean their Ola Rosa finishes, their Calvado. I mean, anything that comes in a tube from them is top shelf. They sent us some cool stuff over Christmas, and yeah, I mean, we're helping them. Um, we're helping some people in the area do barrel picks for them. You know, we're super fans and we're always in their corner.

SPEAKER_04 19:18

You're speaking our language when it comes to craft, by the way. We we are craft guys through and through, which has a place in my heart. And I love the fact that you want to go after them because, like you said, while the big names have a place, it's kind of a starting point. And then you dive into craft. And once you dive into craft, you're like, ooh, yeah. Anybody that's really into whiskey is is doing that.

SPEAKER_03 19:43

And it's kind of what we're chasing.

unknown 19:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:45

More of the craft experience or or or or things you can't get, um, you know, in other places, unless you go searching for it.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yeah, the allocated, you know, it's like like J have you guys had JT Mellick?

SPEAKER_06 19:57

No, no.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Have you heard of JT Mellick?

SPEAKER_06 19:59

No, I don't think so. Uh uh.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

So so these guys they're they're crawfish farmers in Louisiana, right? That's good. It's a it's a it's a fish company, fish food company, basically, right? Although there's I think crustaceans or whatever. Um, and they mainly deal in like seafood, um, not fish food, but seafood. And they started making whiskey out of the rice that they grow the crawfish in. And I'm telling you, I think I got a bottle of it behind me somewhere, and there's a crawfish on the bottle, and you're like, what the fuck is this 100% rice whiskey? Is this just like a really hot sake or something? It is like one of the deepest, richest bourbons. And for people that are out here, I mean it's it's now matriculated into people that are going for the wellers and the B-Tax and all that. Like, like they're trying to find that JT Mel cast strength, and we have it, and it's phenomenal, and it's off the charts stellar, and it's just one of these like rare finds that I'd say it's cross-pollinating that the people that want to go get the blantons and you know, the weller single barrels, I get it. I have all that too. And if I see uh, you know, if I see an old forester single barrel for, you know, 80 bucks a total wine, I buy it because I love it. I know it's gonna be awesome, right? There's nothing wrong with getting uh an allocated bottle or MSRP. Um, there's there's there's there's fun in that hunt, right? But there's some of these other ones that people don't know that are rare or that are harder to find. Um, and it's it's trying to get them to realize no, you should be chasing some of these too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Kind of digging deep a little bit. Deep cuts. Deep cuts, that's right.

SPEAKER_06 21:25

So we just had A. And so we were just drinking.

SPEAKER_03 21:28

I think it's weeded.

SPEAKER_06 21:30

You think it's a weeded? Yeah. Okay. Uh Nick, what do you think?

SPEAKER_03 21:33

It was good. It was good, it was really good. It was it wasn't uh hand with the it was friendly.

SPEAKER_06 21:38

So we'll uh we'll go ahead and scan this and see what this is. But your your vote is a weeded. And what were you thinking?

SPEAKER_00 21:44

I can tell you what it is. I know it all the lineups are.

SPEAKER_06 21:46

All right, great. Yeah, what what is A?

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Oh, that's I can tell by the little thing of white cone of the cord. That's the prestige. Yeah, prestige. Okay, nice. The prestige. Yeah, that's uh that one we were donating to live dots day. That's why I saw the Live Not Stay. Live.stay. Yeah, it's uh oh yeah suicide awareness. Uh so a is out of uh Ranger Creek, but they're out of San Antonio, Texas, and Ranger Creek. This is a weeded bourbon. Um, and I think this is 98 proof, 96 proof, it's somewhere around there. And yeah, so weeded bourbon, I think it's four years, it's three or four year. Um, you know, that that heat in Texas makes any three-year taste like it's five or six or seven. Absolutely. Yeah, um, that maturation rate. And these guys were essentially brewers, right? They're making beer. They make their beer there is awesome. They got all these killer beers there. We were visiting them a couple years ago, and um they wanted to make whiskey. And the owner, he was like, I don't know, he was this European, you know, all my European accents always sound like Malkovich for me.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

So it's like, I don't want to make the whiskey. Um he puts his flash in the pot. Um that is Malkovich.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

But I think he's like a Swedish guy. It's like, we're not making we're not making whiskey. See, it's not far from that, right? Swedish is like you're giving directions, it's finished feet and make it, bro. Right? Uh, and uh they said no, and they went off and just made the whiskey anyways. A couple years later, he's like, Hey, try this whiskey. He's like, This is really good. It's like we made that. Um, so they started making whiskey, and man, they'd got we were there, and that was maybe the first when we go on these trips, it's great because you're hanging out with the owners, they're popping barrels. They probably pop like 30 barrels when we were there. I mean, it was uh that's a good time. We were hydrating, and it was just like we got a red, white, and blue one.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

We're like, What's that? We're like, it's red corn, it's blue corn, or it's white corn, and we got it all in one spot. We're like, we're gonna try that. Uh we're gonna try that.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

And I said they sent us all their stuff, and I said, Do you have anything that like isn't out yet? They're like, Well, yeah, it's gonna become a flagship like version of what we sell, but it's not gonna be available for another four months. But we've got this Ouija bourbon that we think is really special. And I was like, I'd love to have that in the lineup because once we try that in the sample blind. And so once we know a brand that we like, then they send us samples. So we don't really choose brands, we choose whiskey. So a lot of brands we don't know about, they'll send us whiskey, we put it in a blind. Um, there's some brands that we really love. Um, you know, Ben Halliday, we we know we want them in the lineup, so it's more like, what are we gonna put in the lineup when they're in the lineup? Um, we know Frey Ranch, so it's like, can we get a barrel pick of the ride? Can we do something really cool with them? Right. Um, so it's more about then trying to fine-tune it if it's a brand that we already know that we like and we love. Uh, like I said, Pinhook, the CEO reached out to me. They're in one of our lineups, and um, and I was like, Look, I love Pinhook, but you guys are everywhere. You're probably one of the most like accessible on premise. Like, you'll go to bars and you'll see Pinhook everywhere. And because it's really good. And their blender, Sean Joseph, he's a buddy now and golf them, he's awesome. But I'm like, let's do something that like I was trying to get their 10-year vertical.

SPEAKER_01 24:50

I'm like, can we get three barrels of the 10-year vertical and like smash it together and make a custom blend out of the 10-year vertical?

SPEAKER_00 24:57

And he's like, maybe. And then he called me, he's like, Can't fuck. Uh, so we did something that was really cool from them. So we're always trying to find something that's really fine-tuned, like Cobalt, Cobalt was in our lineup, and I'm fine with Cobalt. Um, really, I'll tell you the owners are really interesting and awesome, and you know, they make a kosher whiskey, they're out of Chicago. Um, but I was like, You guys are pretty well distributed. I mean, I was in Japan like last summer, and you guys were in one of the bars. So that guy was an expat from Chicago, so that was kind of a biased element. So, but they made a Thresh and Windows series um of uh like a higher and allocated thing, and they did 100% millet. And I'm like, Millet? I didn't know they could make whiskey from millet, and it's totally interesting and out there. Honestly, it wasn't it's I didn't dislike it, but it wasn't like my favorite. I wasn't like, oh, I want to drink this all the time. But people love that in a blind because it's unique and awesome and interesting, and their bottles, one of the most gorgeous bottles you've ever seen. I think people just, you know, they gravitate towards it. But that's an allocated bottle that's like 110 bucks that we sold for like 80 bucks.

SPEAKER_03 25:59

It's always interesting. It's nice to try something that you wouldn't normally have. And typically you wouldn't do that unless you have a situation like this, right? Somebody, somebody picked it out or something, and oh, I got to try this. It might not be my jam, but I'm glad I tried that experience, like with the millet.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yeah, I equated it to when we were doing this, and my buddy was like, We should do craft. I kind of equate, I had a friend that did um like an international candy subscription, and every month he gets all these candies from around the world. And I remember I had this one from the Sudan, and it was like, I'm like, does it have to be chalky and spicy? Like this thing is fucking terrible. But I was also just like, you know, I didn't like it, but I really like that I got to try it. So I would say like there's things that are in the lineup that we categorize as too weird. You know, we had one where they they put hops in at the end, and so is the single malt, but we noticed the word whiskey wasn't anywhere on the lineup because the fact that they put hops in at the very end all of a sudden made it not whiskey. Now, that doesn't negate it from being in the kit. We've had things that technically weren't whiskey. I mean, everyone knows like the Templeton story, or like, oh, we were providing Al Capone with the whiskey, and it was all fucking made up, it was just MGP, right? Well, this guy's grandmother was a woman named Lorraine Sextro, and she was the most well-known female bootlegger during the Prohibition era. And the train would stop by at the back of their farm and they would load it up, and it was supposedly like Al Capone's favorite whiskey. And this Iowa legendary bottle is this this the grandson basically found the blueprints for the still. It was a 26-gallon still, so he replicated the 26-gallon still and made like 20 of them. And it has basically four ingredients: it has water, bread rye, yeast, and sugarcane. Okay. And that was the actual prohibition recipe, the actual prohibition recipe that they were drinking back then. Now, once you put sugar in it, it's not whiskey anymore. Okay. And it says Iowa Legendary Rye. It doesn't say the word whiskey anywhere on it, right? But I'll tell you what, you put sugar in something and you put that in a blind, people go, What the fuck? This is awesome. But it had a story, it was authentic. And yeah, that was a hundred dollar bottle we got to sell for 70 bucks. So it was just this um killer bottle with the killer story and unique and awesome, and now it's so left to center that it's gonna turn people off.

SPEAKER_06 28:16

So, how does that work in in terms of you being able to sell it for less than the distillery and stuff? Is it just because you're buying so much of it, you're buying three bottom barrels or you know, or whatever that they they kind of mark it down for you? Or is it like an advertising benefit kind of?

SPEAKER_00 28:31

Uh no. So sometimes we will get good deals from the distributor, right? Because we're doing a volume play, and we don't have clauses in California where we have to sell it in certain capacities, right? Now, if I sell it for less than you can get it at the distillery, I get permission from them. I'm like, hey, do you mind then I'm selling it for less? And some of them say no, and I go, okay. And then it is what it is. But and we do shipping discounts, so we just try to do all these things, right? But so if you look at the distillery, it has an FOB, and then that's what it gets to the distillery, that's what it gets to the wholesale, and the wholesale is gonna mark it up 30%. So let's just say it's $40 FOB. You take 30% of that, all right. That's gonna be $52 that they're gonna try to sell it right to me for. And then technically I would do a 30% markup and sell that for $15.60 on top of that. And then uh that would put it at uh $67.60, right? Now, if I can sell that for $60, right, and I'm getting it for $52, and I got shipping discounts and Shopify's taking a P. Now I might make three or four dollars when I sell that bottle, right? You know, I don't want to lose money when I sell a bottle, but I don't mind if we don't make, oh, I didn't make $15 on that bottle instead I made five or six bucks. Like for us, the bottom line is more about can we keep our members happy? You know, so we're a subscription, but we're really a membership. Like you can buy one off, you don't have to become a member, but the benefits of the membership is you can get these bottles. So, like right now, I'm getting some allocated bottles. We're gonna start a thing called Bobby Stash. So, you know, I got some old fits bottled and bomb, you know, we're gonna sell that for 60 bucks. I got some midwinter nights dram instead of 180, we're gonna sell that for 130, right? And basically give people access to allocated bottles. So, you know, if you buy five allocated bottles from us, it technically is paying for your membership because you would have paid, you know, much greater MSRP somewhere else.

SPEAKER_03 30:22

I mean, you always end up getting a deal when you when you join something. And I and I think that that buys people in too, and then it becomes more about the whole experience and less about the just the product.

SPEAKER_04 30:34

I also love the fact that you guys sell bottles for what you sample out. So the podcast got started out of a club. And what you guys do sample-wise is kind of what the club does where we come with a bottle that maybe one or two of us have had at this point, but no one else has. And it's something unique, something different. It's the idea of growing and challenging at the same time with eight other guys, right? The fun thing for you, what I love about this is you now get to become the person that shares that bottle. So if I like a sample, I can buy that bottle and now I can take it to a group of friends and be like, look, I got this bottle from this experience. I got this sample in a blind. It's wonderful. Let's try it together. Let's do this and have a glass and have a talk. And I love that the idea of community that that brings together, right? It's no longer, oh, I mean, if I did it by myself, I could just keep it in my collection and just drink it by myself. But you also have the opportunity to share something new with someone else that I may not be able to get anywhere else.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

I may never see this again. I love that analogy.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

In fact, I'm already thinking about a whole marketing campaign around what you're like you know when you get to share that bottom like we do this every quarter, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:01

And you're right. There is there is that great, it's kind of like that, you know, when you play somebody that song from that band that nobody's heard of before they got big and they sold out, right? Uh, you know, whatever it was.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

And uh it's like, God damn it, Penelope, you didn't have to sell the MP, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:17

Although I love Michael Danny's, they're awesome. That that there's this element to like finding something, discovering, and then sharing it. And you hit on it like we're very much a whiskey community and and we're proponents in of the whiskey community, and and respecting the history of it. I mean, the first thing that was ever taxed in the country, you know, was a big part of the barter system, you know, as currency, you know, in in the 17s and 1800s, and and you know, even small parts of the 1900s in certain parts of the country. But it's also one of the few industries where, you know, we were traveling through Texas, great example, and you know, we were at the end of the trip and we're like, where else have you been? You know, we're talking with Still Austin, we did a two-barrel blend with them that was off the charts.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

And um, I'm like, oh, we were over at uh Iron Root and we were like, Oh, we love those guys. And they're competing with them, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:04

But they're rooting for Texas whiskey, and you do not see that in the wine industry, you do not see that in other industries where everybody's hoping everyone else fails and they succeed. There's some quiet camaraderie that exists, you know, when when um what was it, you know, what was the rickhouse when Heaven Hills Rick House burned down, right? Like people didn't go piss on them, you know, like, oh, let's put out the flames and piss on them. No, they said, hey, do you need any whiskey? Can we help out? Like, what do you need? You know, Buffalo Trace flooded. Oh, this Buffalo Trace doesn't need our help. Everybody stepped up. You know, they lost a lot of barrels to that, a lot of infrastructure that, you know, the their supply chain got screwed up. Like people step up and say, Can we help you? You know, some cool things come out of that, like the buff turkey, right? There's some different things that can happen and different sourcing, you know. I mean, there's people that are sourced in MGP, they're sourcing from Middlewest, they're sorting from Southern Star in in Statesville. And so it's this interesting group and community within the industry itself. And then there's the communities that you guys formed, which is the cool part about whiskey, the communal part, which is I have it written on the our wall in in graffiti, which is great, whiskey is meant to be shared. You know, you're not gonna find a bottle at my house that isn't opened up.

SPEAKER_06 34:16

Yeah, that's the the other cool part of this is you know, a lot of times we feel bad when we're on the podcast because we'll open this one once-in-a-lifetime bottle that is, you know, that's it's long gone. It hasn't been around for anymore, and we're telling everybody how great it is. And it's like, well, good luck though. We can't you can't get it anymore. It's gone, you know. The bottles disappeared. But it's cool that you can let people share it and then they can buy the bottle like that.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I mean, there's nothing. So there was um, there was a company that came out that was doing blinds, and uh, I won't talk about it because it's a different they were so they were trying to do a blind experience, and um, and I joined it. We had already formed our company, we were on the way, and I'm like, oh my god, somebody beat this, beat us to it. And I went and joined it, it was really expensive because the person that started it was like, I'm doing this, and uh, I'm like, okay, and they sent us these samples and I drank it, and I'm like, Okay, this is good. And then I was like, How do I find out what it is? And there wasn't anything that told me what it was. And I emailed the person, I was like, All right, so when do you tell us what it is? And they were like, Well, it's blind, and I was like, Well, yeah, that's a blind tasting, right? They're like, But then you find out later.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Yeah, and then they're like, No, it's blind the whole way through, and I'm like, Well, no, like, what are we doing over here?

SPEAKER_00 35:33

Like, you have to look up the definition, tell me what it is, you know, and it was uh it was a custom blend, right? So it wasn't like it was they they were sourcing a bunch of stuff and blending it, and and I and I I get that, but uh I was also relieved I'm like, oh well, that's not what we're doing, you know. Some people don't understand, like um when we were talking to Ben Halliday, it took us a while for the us to get them in the lineup because somebody in their department, like they said, well, we're not allowing anyone to white label our whiskey. And and so you know, white labeling is taking other people's whiskey and just put it in the in a thing and not doing anything to it. And we don't really let anybody in our lineup set are white labeling in terms of if you're sourcing, you have to be blending it, you have to finish it, you have to do something to it, right? Uh, and and but otherwise there's not a story there, it's not interesting enough for us. And so I'm like, well, we're not, I'm like, technically, we are white labeling. We are putting your whiskey into our labeled bottles, but we are not positing it that way, right? The whole thing is that we're marketing your product in the in the industry, they call it liquor on the lips. The the marketing, the hardest thing to do is to get people to try a product, you know. Otherwise, they're making decisions on price and how cool the bottle looks or what their friends say. But you guys know, you guys get together and you all bring a bottle and not everybody likes the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 36:45

Right. We've had a few that some guys love, others are like, This is I'm all right. I don't need another glass. I don't I don't need to try this ever again.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

Yeah. And when we get together quite a bit and do that with multiple bottles, and it it will be interesting that say I'll take a safe sip of something and I'm like, wow, you know, this is quite fantastic. And then somebody's like else is drinking it. You're like, Oh, you you liked it? I'm like, yeah, you don't. No, it's not I don't like it, but you know, you can you can see that it wasn't like they didn't have the same experience that I did. And I think everybody's different. Yeah, that's a whole another fun thing to to to sit down and do together.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Are you guys on sample B yet? Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:25

Yeah, sample B is right here. I think that's a rye, I believe. It's a hot rye. Uh my I know, mine's gone. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Are you on sample B or C? B.

unknown 37:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 37:38

Before we find out what this is, you made a comment that I love because we've gone through for the podcast and for the club this idea of uh a year of resource bottles. And the idea not is it good or is it bad, but is it worth it? Because a lot of companies, there's quite a few companies out there that get started sourcing. But what are you doing? What are you doing to it? Are you blending, are you finishing, or are you just taking whatever you bought from someone else and put it in a bottle and then you put it on the shelf and you make a profit? The fact that you guys are willing to go after companies that store, but they have to meet certain requirements. I respect that a lot because they're doing something to it. The requirement of you have to do something other than we slapped a label on it and said it's good, buy it.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

But dark art, have you guys had dark arts before?

SPEAKER_04 38:34

No, I've seen them, but I haven't had it.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Yeah, yeah. So there's some bottles over here, and and we got the julipier finished s the front choke staves. And and this guy, you know, uh McCauley, who's kind of their master blender over there, was working over at Wilderness Trail with Dr. Pat for a while. And um, I mean, this guy's does a lot of mushrooms, and uh, you know, he's really into the mushroom. And whatever he's doing, he's enhancing his life experience. But this guy, his palette and the way he blends is so off the charts good. Like, why wouldn't we want to include the artistry of that? Okay, you're not making uh a product. There's a guy out in in Raleigh, North Carolina. Uh it's called Old Raleigh Distillery, and he's got this big still and the whole thing, and he never used it because then he just realized he's really good at blending and sourcing unbelievable stuff. Have you heard of World Whiskey Society, the the Doc Holiday bottle with the bullets in it? So, so so they sent us a bunch of bottles, and we were gonna put them in the lineup because it and we usually narrow that was really good. They had a tequila finished bourbon that was really good. The rum wasn't overly rummy, which was I thought, which most rum finishes are too much rum. Um, and then you get like a seagrass, which is the perfect balance, or you get something like that. And then they sent us the doc holiday bottle, it was a six-year doc holiday. And I was like, Is this did you guys make this? And they're like, No, it says MGP, and I went, Oh, okay. I was like, So it's just a white label, and they were like, What's white labeling? And I'm like, You guys white labeling white label is I'm confused. And then uh, and they said, Well, can we send you the tenure? And I'm like, I'm not gonna say no to the tenure that they're gonna send me because I'm curious of what you know, I'm sure tenure MGP is awesome. And I drink it and I'm like, Holy shit. I'm like, is this tenure MGP? This is so off the charts, deep, rich, dude it was like, I mean, it was so unbelievable. And they said, No, they're these barrels that we found in Texas. And I went, Okay, uh, what had you find them? What happened? They said, Well, there was this guy named Carlos Lavelle, and he was in uh he was in Georgia, and the whole family, the Lavelle family for like five generations were making whiskey illegally. And you know, they'd evade the feds and they bounce up to the Appalachians and they come back. And when this guy was in his 70s, his daughter convinced him to go legitimate. See, when people start making whiskey, um, they're not always good at it, and sometimes they never get good at it. If they apprentice or they come from a wine background, or you know, they understand the wood or like the Ranger Creek, the brewing background, um, you know, they they usually have a better chance of getting good at it. Well, this guy was making what since he was like seven, and so he started side mount distilleries. Distillery was so good. This this Sour Mash Georgia bourbon, just as white dog, unaged, was so good. People loved it. But then he was aging some of it six months. And then three years into the operation, he died. And these barrels that were going to be aged six months sat there for four or five years.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

Barge Town got word of it, bought a bunch of it, put in their fusion series, their explorer series. Um, some of it ended up in an Art of Alchemy blend um with Jim Rutledge's barrels with Castle and Key. And then the rest ended up in Texas for another five, six years. And now that five years in Texas is like nine years, right? That maturation rate, that heat level. They found the barrels, they brought it back to Georgia, got 10 years. So if you see a Doc Holiday bottle and it's 10 years, sometimes it's it's it's from Kentucky. I mean, I don't know where they sourced all their stuff from, but you you can tell the state that it's distilled from. But this one, if you find one that has Georgia on it, um, and they were selling this for like uh $80 to you know $220, and it's gimmicky and there's bullets in the casing and whatnot, but you can't find these barrels anymore. So when they said that to us, I said, look, we've never put a bottle in that's white labeled, or we're gonna make an exception. You need to put his story on the bottle, his legacy's in that bottle. So we we put a neck tag on the bottle. I think we our members got it for like $120, which is wild. That was just me telling the distributor, I said, here's the deal, I'm gonna sell this whiskey out of existence. So just give me a good deal. I'm like, my members are middle class to upper middle class, like let's take care of them. And then I said, you know, as it started going, like, I'm like, they're like, Are you selling? I'm like, yeah. I called the guys, I said, Can you just hold back two barrels and let it get to 12 beer? Because so now there's just two barrels left in existence um from this distillery, and we have them both, and it just hit 12 beer. And now, and they've never made a 12-year doc holiday, so they got to create a whole new label for it or whatever. And so our members are gonna get that. I'm hoping, but when I put in a blind for my guys, because like I said, we do blinds, we don't we don't choose brands, we choose some whiskey. My guy whose palette is phenomenal, he calls me, he's like, Bob, are you fucking with us? Because I'll fuck with him. I'll put like my guy's like a four roses guy. I'll put like a limited edition four roses in there to see if he can be minus.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

I'm like, Oh, you love, you hate the thing that you love. What does that feel like? How do you sleep at night? Oh, it's terrible for you.

SPEAKER_00 43:13

And uh he's like, Are you are you fucking with is this William LaRue? Did you put William LaRue Weller like in a blind? You know, like I'll pop in little unicorns in there just to test there. And I went, no, we can have this in the lineup. And it's I I I will say it's it's the it's the best whiskey I've ever had. It's phenomenal. It's so deep and it's rich, it's not overly oaked, it's just and it's funny because here's this craftsman that grew up in this industry doing everything illegally, and and we get to kind of share this spirit and this thing that he created. But he never intended it to become what it became. He never really was they were all they were just making moonshine. They were making unage product or aged at six months. So the barrels were kind of this side component, and the fact that it got as old as it did was. really happenstance. So it's it's one of these interesting, deep, rich, amazing stories that that we get to tell that story. We get to share the bottle and we get to tell the story.

SPEAKER_04 44:11

I'm gonna change my opinion. I don't think this is rye. No, no.

SPEAKER_06 44:16

No neither.

SPEAKER_04 44:16

It's sitting too sweet.

SPEAKER_06 44:18

I think it's I think it's high proved. I don't think it's a rye. Yeah. I think it's I think it's a we I think it might be more of a barbecue. It might even be a it might be some it might be heavy corn.

SPEAKER_03 44:29

Yeah or whatever. Yeah. Yeah it could be it might just be higher proof.

SPEAKER_04 44:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:32

So this is B. So so it's uh so this is uh this is a bourbon. Okay. But there's a finish on it. Can you tell what the finish is what barrel? And this is what what why we pick this is we've never had this finish in the lineup and I've had plenty of samples finished like this sent to us but it's it's always you know it's just trying to find that balance of whether it works or not. This one I was like oh this is right on the money. Usually like wine finishes you can really pick up on it right like especially like a port because it it's so deep and and and you kind of like go oh is it more age and it's usually much darker and this is the rum barrel finish. Oh okay okay but it's not very rummy it's not very rummy at all and I and I and I think it's because they aged it in there for they didn't really I don't even know if you can call it a finish actually because it's it's in the you know so I think it was five year and then it was and then it was put in the rum barrel for like another year. No seven years. Two of them were in cruisant rum barrels. So it's five year bourbon and then it what happens when you put it in a barrel longer is it it mellows out. Like so we we did a we did a a thing with Pinhook where it's the first double barrel that they'd done where they took a three year and then they rebarrel it for another three years. And when you put it in that new wood you're gonna get all this wood influence but what happens is after about a year and a half it mellows out and that and you get the right you get this deep rich texture in the six year that really tastes like a 10 or a 12 year it's 103 proof so this is at a West Fork whiskey uh company this is in Indiana you guys can go visit them. This is old hammer and um yeah this is the $75 we sell for $6499. We have a guy around here one of in the business park that does some of our print work for us or uh helps us with trade shows and he was over here hanging out and we had all these 10 different things we're having to try and he kept pouring this bottle he wouldn't stop he's like oh man this is and that for me when I see it's one thing with people like things or they prefer things but when I see a magnitude like I I learned to listen to not like oh well let's have this isn't like Finland like we got three second place votes and four first place votes if you know anything about Finland's voting system.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

But uh you're like what the finished thing he said this was a finished whiskey I think it's a finished whiskey.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

I'm confused. But if somebody if one of my guys is fawning over something I take that in a whole different capacity. I put a heavier magnitude to it. But yeah I think this is a just an easy pour and you know I like that we're getting things that are above 100 proof but aren't so hot that it's scaring off some of the newbies you know for sure yeah yeah it's very approachable it holds that finish well without it being overpowering yeah yeah you're right I would have never caught that it was a rum finish not not until it sits with you for a little bit almost it's subtle yeah most most rum finishes uh when I drink it I'm like this tastes like rum yeah yeah it's on the nose yeah it should just literally be rum yeah you're gonna get some vanilla notes you're gonna get traditional rum notes and I think on the nose you can if you you know I can inception you and make you I'll say that and you'll smell it right or especially you empty the glass out and you'll smell it. You're like oh I'm getting a lot of vanilla on that I get that. But after the fact but I like that it's subtle um you know something that's overly finished so something that's like you know we just had uh from Jay Rieger Kansas City style whiskey and that so so Kansas City style means they're putting like two percent 15 year like um sherry into the whiskey it's not even a finish they're like two percent of the whiskey is sherry it's not whiskey anymore it's Kansas City style whiskey right which is very unique.

SPEAKER_06 48:08

Yeah we've had some we've had some of that it's very good but it is very different.

SPEAKER_00 48:12

Yeah it's unique it's great in a blind and yeah our members can get it for 45 bucks it's kind of like a good win-win so you're in California how do you go about finding these out of state craft brands and distilleries to go after I mean my guy had a list from the beginning my guy was that was pushing craft and um you know some of them it's funny some of them are so big now that like we we almost don't want them in the lineup now like a Westland or something like that right but like we've had Westward in the lineup they're kind of one of the OGs of the craft movement. You know so some of the ones we reached out to a lot of them didn't return our call because you know we didn't even have a website like when we were reaching out right luckily we had a distributor that made a lot of different um introductions for us and formed a lot of relationships for us which is great. And some of them just don't understand because there's really two different parts of the component when you work with the distillery there's the sample form there's the liquid and then there's the full bottle form and everyone understands the full bottle form because that runs through distributor and that's pretty traditional sample form it's harder for them to wrap their head around. So we didn't want to do what some brands do when they make samples which is to say hey we're marketing your product you got to give it to us for free. You know we're working with small American craft distillers we want to showcase and uplift them rather than say hey what's in it for for for us alone no how do we make this a symbiotic relationship and that's why you know now we just you know had our 17 releases so there's been 68 technically there's been a couple that we retred it on so we've had roughly you know 60 something distilleries that we've worked with and we have 60 friends that are in the industry now. There's some that we reached out to and it didn't work out and then my guy makes a post about it and then their president you know their founder reached out like how do we get in the lineup I'm like we tried like three years ago you know and you know this is what happened you know um and so well since we did a partnership with Fred Minnick um so Fred Minnick we did a kit with him a couple years ago and it did really well it was not one of our lineups it was a separate kind of kit lineup you know Fred Minnick offering and then we now our March lineup that's just shipped out yesterday um is a pure collaboration with Fred. So it was like hey look Fred you used to shit on craft like 10 years ago now it's like 80% of your top you know 100 lineup you know and he's really come full circle on that and he's become a really good friend um you know since we worked with him the first time. I was like can we just sync up on a lineup it's really hard for me to create two lineups at the same time. He's like sure so we synced up and made a really cool killer lineup and I think having that cachet you know being kind of the only whiskey brand that Fred's partnered up with in a certain capacity that in retail um that wasn't just like a barrel pick or something like that. He's given us a little bit of cachet you know and just you know if you search Fred Minnick and whiskey you know you'll find our site you know so we have a lot of brands that reach out to us now which is great. Every September so that's why I was asking you guys got the prestige kit the September one was called is called Inception which I'm like god damn it we did two Christopher Nolan movies in a row like what did we do? That wasn't intentional huh like December we just did Best of the best which is like a fight movie from the 80s. If you haven't seen a karate fight movie it would it's awesome and then we just did um vision quest for because Fred's a big wrestling fan um and these are all visionary so I'm like oh my god we did another fight movie two in a row um so the inception kit was like the idea of we're doing an inception on the idea like if you say hey I'm getting cherry notes someone will get cherry like you say that the fact that I said oh you're gonna pick up vanilla on the glass and you will so the our members did an inception on us and made suggestions on brands that we should have at the lineup. So you know we get like a hundred suggestions we reach out to all of them a third of them get back to us mainly because these are small business owners that don't answer all their emails and we try all the samples we do everything blind and we create a lineup from that. But that lineup ended up being having some bangers in there I mean um I don't know if you guys have had high wire um out of South Carolina.

SPEAKER_06 52:07

Yeah we have yeah yeah we have I don't remember why or how but we have had high wire yes I think we just good yeah I think it was just a random thing.

SPEAKER_04 52:16

I think so yeah that's how we find a lot of it is random yeah that one was just phenomenal like the nose on that bourbon is maybe one of the best noses of any whiskey I've ever had where I'm just like oh my god I don't have to drink this I can just smell this for hours you know I'm gonna drink it and coming out of a coastal state that's pretty rum heavy or like vodka heavy not a ton of whiskeys coming out of South Carolina North Carolina that east coast region that aren't rum yeah that aren't rum or something to do with rum. It's a lot of fun to find those because they do it well. They they do whiskey well for beach drinking that's what we have found.

SPEAKER_00 53:00

And that's hard to do yeah and there's some um you know laundering operations going off on the coast over there too.

SPEAKER_03 53:07

So I'm gonna say we we went to some distilleries and I saw some like 8000 gallon stills and I'm like oh my god how many barrels do you make I'm like we're making four a month and we're like something's not adding up here going on over here like this for sure the tours just to this little section they're like that's off limits over here.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

Oh yeah this guy's like why don't we get on my jisky he's gonna play pickleball and I'm like oh it's definitely there's cocaine somewhere I don't know what's happening we're gonna take these barrels off and it's gonna be full of cocaine I don't know what's happening have you guys ever had southern star uh weeded bourbon no so I'll tell you what if you get a uh a cast drank southern star weeded bourbon at the distillery it's gonna be you know 75 80 bucks um I've got barrel pick cast drink southern star bourbon our members are getting for 50 bucks and uh I gotta tell you um so so Pete Barger so they have Southern Star and Southern Distilling Southern distilling is their source so they're sourcing for like 120 brands out there uh if you ever see North Carolina on the bottle you know just like if you see Indiana we know it's MGP if you see you know Heil on the bottle and they're like wait there I'm like wait a minute like yeah that's Middlewest right and and if you see North Carolina it's southern star and so Pete sent us we we did a barrel pick with them in our box it was called Some Like It Hot it was all barrel picks including the hazmat that was a 26 year 151 proof um you know it was it was uh it was a bourbon barrel pick from Frey Ranch it was a uh weeded bourbon barrel pick it's it's maybe one of our my favorite lineups of all time it's so it's one of these ones that it's so hard to top because we just sold everything out so quick and people got mad at me because they waited like two months to do the lineup and everything was gone. And um he sent us five samples one of them was like he said don't look at the color whatever you do don't look at the color and I went okay all right so I had to like find like non-translucent like opaque looking glasses for my guys and sure enough one of them is the darkest whiskey I've ever seen in my entire life and it's a four I'm like it doesn't make any sense it's not finished or anything I'm like the fuck is going on and sure enough I put it in a blind and it destroys it just like everybody's like oh my God and so um I call P and he's like I was really hoping you weren't gonna take that and I'm like okay well uh he's like I already bottled it I was gonna give away his gifts for the rest of the year and it was an experimental barrel. Now it they they had two barrels that I later on found out because we just visited them that they groved out the inside of it. So it's this new technique where they create more surface area with inside the wood okay and it's groved out like especially inside the barrel. And it's a really kind of interesting special process. So one of the barrels won the New York Spirits competition outright. The other barrel was our barrel and this thing I got to tell you I mean it was just off the charts and it was funny you know to prove that like we were talking about earlier you can't please everybody there's some guy that's had like he's a big Southern Star fan and he's the only guy that like everybody I didn't if I had 80 people in a room that you're gonna find few people that hate A, B, C, or D. It's gonna happen. Nobody would hate on this one whiskey but the one guy that really knew Southern Star he's like I got all these things from Southern Star none of them taste like this. And he was mad about it and he sent he sent me like five of his samples from barrel picks I'm like no I know what their whiskey tastes like I'm very well well aware of that you know uh with Frey Ranch we picked that barrel we went out there with Colby and Ashley and we we hung out with them in the room and it's such a special experience you get to pick a barrel with an owner and there's one that was really bright that was really I would say reflective of of their their their core distillate and um there was this other one that was just it was kind of vegetal and mushroomy and different and and not in a bad way but dusty had this dusty note and I'm a sucker for a dusty note and I keep drinking this fucking thing. And um and and maybe that was just me but it was my first time really picking a barrel personally that my guys were like you pick it and but my guys being my guys because they're not snobs they listen they're so great they listen to everybody and there's this elderly woman over in the corner of the room well I'm not gonna say elderly but older okay uh she's like she's like 98 years old and she just comes out of the shadows with one eye uh no she it was the distiller's wife she was probably like 50 something 60 or whatever and this and and my guy goes what do you think and she's holding this glass like it's like a chalice from like you know Last Supper from like anime fucking she steps out of the shadows and she goes I keep drinking this one and and the head distiller Russell I just remember him side eye her because he was like shut the fuck up Nancy like that's nothing like any of our distillant he didn't say that but I felt like that's what he was saying with his eyes and um it turned out that this barrel was a cooperage that fray ranch never uses ever. So it was this left of center and I'm in my mind I'm also thinking you know what let's do something special let's do something different and we went with that and yeah it crushed and not everybody loved it but if you want some Southern star barrel pick cast drank bourbon for 50 bucks um I'm telling you you're never gonna find a better whiskey for that price ever. Other than Middlewest which is where you guys are from I will say we all all your shit you know fucking bomb speaking of stuff you won't find C C what is C where's it out of what's this Indiana MGP guy right uh yes so this is this is MGP um this was technically aged in Indiana for four years and aged in Texas for five years. Oh it's like chocolatey dark and dark really dark and it's so that that five years in Texas is like an is like an additional four so this is almost like a 13 year if you really think about it. It's like a multiplier.

SPEAKER_04 58:55

It is so what's crazy to me is so this will be the second uh MGP product out of Texas that I've had and there's something about Texas that if you age it there or do something there in Texas with it it just it takes it from being bright MGP to a dark like a dark roast coffee.

SPEAKER_00 59:20

I mean it it changes it drastically yeah well it's like you know it's funny like Garrison Brothers which is really becoming like the the the face of Texas whiskey and I've had some Garrison brothers that I love and I've had some that I'm like ugh um that's not my vibe right and what's really interesting and what I've found and now years later I've kind of figured it out like if you put some water into something that's overly bold it it really makes it more nuanced and and not maybe as like like you know like just make you kind of go hmm I don't know um and so I agree like this is just one of these things now this is I think just in my opinion in this lineup this is this particular nine year was was is is one of my favorites and this this was something that didn't come out I think for another five months after this released.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:13

Chris and I really don't like the young MGP stuff fair we've had a few older MGPs that were like 10 plus we we've had so much of it too this drinks nothing like no I no usually we can say right away and yeah I did I saw Indiana I was like I don't know but uh it's really good.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:34

So technically this is white labeled but the reason why it worked was they did something to it they brought it to Texas for five years which was they they it it sounds stupid it sounds really dumb. You know it's funny you go to all these places like you go to whiskey acres and you go like where's your Rick House you know what they use in most of these places when you go to Texas they put them in these uh storage containers really when these damn storage containers get so hot and it's it's just like that that heat there they're not just they're cooking their fucking whiskey um the maturation weight in the wheel barrel pick we so we picked two barrels with still Austin so we own a uh the trademark called the smallest batch the smallest small batch can be which is two barrels and um so that was the first of our smallest batch series and if I could have just I we should have blended three barrels because if I could have just had like 250 of these bottles to sell instead of like 120 I'm just saying like because there was only after five years there's only like 30 gallons left in the barrel with the maturation rate. There's a dude so so we were traveling we do a whiskey trip every year and this last year this last fall we went from Atlanta visited our people whiskey society went up north and we visited Pete Barger we went to a place where they converted a penitentiary into us still that place was wild some ghosty shit going on there's some black mold we had to get out of there and then we kept heading north and went all the way to DC and one of the places in South Carolina before we hit up our our buddy uh Brandon over at Old Rally was this place called Broad Slab. And it's in the middle of fucking nowhere. Okay. And we get there and and the thing is like we've seen some hillbilly stills we've seen some like crafty like overly crafty crazy shit we've seen a guy that like put a bowling ball on a jackhammer and banged out a soup kettle drum from the navy and made a fucking still out of it and all sorts of crazy shit right that guy's got nine little weapons like in his distillery at all times I'm like oh shit this is some Terminator 2 shit going on like this guy's like fucking waiting for his son to fucking do you know make fucking skynet self-aware whatever the fuck it is and uh you know so we get there we get on a tractor and he fucking takes us to the back and this guy like his accent and I'm not judging people's accent but his axle was so thick like in like like deep like South Carolina thick like you're like this guy's never read a book in his life and we get to this place no we we we get to this location and he the craftsman of what he built himself with his master and his still is probably the most amazing I mean this guy's this like hidden genius you know what I mean he's like this beautiful mind where he thinks the spots are coming out from but he's building some stills and he's getting it done and so this guy's like built this thing out of like nothing and he built the Rick House and and he's like got you know 700 barrels in there he's like when I hit a thousand I'm retiring that's my retirement in there. Now what he's doing broad slab they named the town broad slab because there's one piece of the tree that they can't use it for and it's called the broad slab and this town figured out a way to use it to become a foundation element for building roads. That's where broad slab comes from and this guy had no father his stepfather raised him on this farm he's got two boys and they just want to get in the dirt they just want to grow things and so this they're not really into the whiskey but he's really into the whiskey and what he did in South Carolina is he's taking these barrels and he's putting them after they're two years old into the flu where they age tobacco and in the flu it gets 170 degrees in that and for every hundred barrels he puts down in there three of them explode because it gets so hot. And these barrels come out all fucking warped and shit but it comes out dark and like and part of me is going like all right is there like you know maybe unsafe levels of nicotine in this thing and like I don't know I'm worried I'm like and and there's tobacco flavors and there's no nicotine in it and he trademarked and patented this process and sure enough this motherfucker came up with a way that I'm trying to find a way to get it in the lineup because it's so wild out there and really good and I'm like I don't know if he's gonna understand the math and mechanics for being a sample in our lineup and I'm really hopeful we can convince him but this guy's doing some you know I he's making his own whiskey he's doing all the stuff right but he's doing something that nobody's ever done and I love that and can we find a way to do that and I think Texas is just if they're just cooking the whiskey in a different way and if they're putting it in these storage lobbyers or whatever the other you know yeah it's hot already I gotta expect some of them to blow up there too probably come in one day and there's just whiskey pouring out of the storage container but no sure enough like there was like seven places we visited and they're like I'm like where's the rick house and I'm like uh just follow us and like there's like rows of like you know storage containers and I'm like okay like they open it up what do you need I'm like is this a bitch to get to the barrel that's in the back and they're like yeah we got to dig out and I'm like okay so they're kind of batching rows of containers like they got to pull out the container you know it's not it's super accessible. So what company was that number three Prideful Goat Prideful Goat okay and this is the nine year so you know there's been some different age statements a lot of Prideful Goat are six and eight years so I said hey can we get something special and they're like we got some that's nine year we got to change the label and all that I'm like do it change it like let's do something fucking really cool. I remember they didn't send us a picture of it in time so I had a I had a six year Prideful Goat and then I had my guy on the website I'm like can you put this Can turn it into a nine because like they just fucking flipped it. So, like on our site, that's like a Photoshop. The funny thing is, the real bottle looks exactly like that. I think they did the same fucking thing. It's hilarious. Yeah. Sometimes they're like right against the wire.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:12

I'm like, how do we get the thing on?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:15

I have to figure it out. Uh so you guys are on sample D now? Sample D, yep. All right. Now, as you'll see, kind of like we did in this, like uh, you know, Ranger Creek was I think 96 proof and then 103. Uh, I think that prideful goat was like 117, one 118.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:31

Oh wow, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

Right. It was it was higher in proof. Yeah, let me just confirm.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:35

I didn't think it tasted very high proof. Yeah. Um, prideful goat.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:39

It's 117. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:40

117. Wow, nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:41

95 rye, 5% that classic 95.5. Yeah, you know, MGP. MGP is known for, yeah. Yeah, that classic, that classic MGP. And then so sometimes we we tend to go up in proof. I mean, obviously, if we have a hazmat, we have to put it last. Uh, we've had a couple hazmats in the lineup. We had this one out of Colorado Springs. So the reason we did Prideful Goat. So um, you know um Randy Sullivan from Bourbon Real Talk. Um, we did a collab with them a year ago, um, last March. So everything in that lineup was his picks. And I will say I love Randy because he got us JT Mellow, he got us Ben Halliday, um, he got us just killer stuff that we had been trying to get in the lineup for years, uh, that he did with a phone call, which pissed me off and made me love him too. Um and um we what we did was kind of as a tip of cap to him was we put his Prideful Goat, which is his brand, um, before he actually exited out of it, which was later last year, in the June lineup. And then uh a nonprofit, so um, he had a brother that committed suicide. And so his nonprofit was Live.stay. So we donated a portion of every box from our June lineup from last year to uh the Live Stay project. So it was kind of a way for us to kind of put our arms around Randy, uh, let him know we love him, we love his cause, and uh also, hey, we're gonna put your whiskey in the lineup too.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:57

I know what this is.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:58

Well, it's no way you do not know what sample D is.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:01

Slightly cheated beforehand. I was gonna say he looked it up, but so I have a an old college. When you said you know what this is, you're like, uh I know what I'm saying. Oh, hold on, hold on. So here's the story. I have a roommate that lives in Texas, an old college roommate. And we went down there probably two, three years in a row and did this huge whiskey society event down there. And uh year two, I want to say. One of the uh tables that was there was local to Texas. And I never had their stuff before. And uh his business partner actually bought into this distillery and I tried it there and I went, holy crap, this is some of the best stuff I've ever had. This is my third time having this since then. This is that it reminds me of that night that this is iron root. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:03

Was it was that was the event in Fort Worth? Uh Houston. Oh, okay. So that was this major slip from uh Fort Worth. In fact, we started our trip in Fort Worth and ended in Houston, which was fucking dumb because it was like a five-hour drive from our last stop before that. We didn't really need to see anything in Houston. Um well, we love Houston, but the distillery-wise, you know what I mean? Yeah, they don't really have much distillery-wise. Yeah, there was a few that we reset that we wanted to, we didn't get into, and we visited Giant Distillery, which is out there, and they make they're they're kind of a rebottler, but um the so this is out of Denison, they're just like 40 miles north of uh Fort Worth, the the home of Sully Sullenberger from the famous right. Uh uh, and um, I don't even want to why I know that, but yeah, we love these guys. These guys were one of the one of the guys that started, he was gonna be a lawyer, he passed the bar and everything, and then he, you know, kind of left and ended up going this route. And um, and and you know, if you've ever seen the prestige, um you guys seen the prestige for Nolan? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta watch it a few times. Any Nolan movie that like his brother wrote, because that whole film is about duality, right? Um, obviously that you have the twin brothers, right? Um, but there's duality built into the whole thing, like you know, with Hugh Jacksman, you know, Hugh Jack, Hugh Jackman, Hugh Jackson, you guys know the coach of the Browns that was in, you know, the head coach of the Browns that was in the prestige, and uh, you know, like his girlfriend dies from drowning, and he he dies from drowning later on, too, again and again every night. And the same thing, the other guy's wife hangs herself, the other guy gets hung. Like, there's all the there's duality just lays throughout the whole thing. Although the internet movie, I get the chills every time when you know he goes, Everyone, you don't know if you're you're the man on the stands and the man in the box.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:48

What are you doing? And and and he looks at him and he goes, It was it was the looks on the face.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:57

I get the chills every time, dude. Yeah, every time you jack when does that, I love it. But but this this guy, like the duality, like he was going, he was pursuing a law degree, the the duality of Indiana versus Texas for the prideful go, the duality of the brewery that then also became uh a distillery, the duality of the old Hamer brand, that the old mix of the new and and the finishing. So there was a kind of thematic element to it, and everything that we had at Iron Room was phenomenal. And so this was our second in our smallest batch release, in that it was a blend of three barrels, and these are ancient um like varietals that like like don't even like they took five ancient varietals that don't even exist, and then so these barrels were crazy experimental, and then they blended the three together. And the only thing is we were not involved in the picking of the barrels of the blending, so we weren't involved in that, so we were kind of going like, please don't fuck it up.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:50

We were just crossing our fingers, like we like to get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:57

Um, but it's unique. I think this is 128 proof, if I'm remembering correctly.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:01

Yeah, it's up there, but that smell, that nose 30.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:05

That nose and that flavor is craft, but it it's unique to Texas.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:12

It's put a little put like a just a touch of water into it. Don't like pouring in there, just put like a little water in there, and I'm telling you, this one explodes. Like anybody that so this this was kind of a polarizing pick, if you think about it, because it it's so it's so deep and rich that people go like it's almost too much, right? And I think if you put just a touch of water into it, I'm like, it kind of solves that problem if you think that's the problem. But we love their story, we love their whiskey. They had this one there that was called the violet, and it was a barrel pick, and what was it called? But it had this, it had this deep, rich violet vibe that was going this violet crumple thing that was going on. And they gave us like a 200 ml of it that we or 375 that that fucking thing we were trying to bring at home and it just never made it home. We just kept drinking it, and it was just every night we would have a little bit of that because every barrel was so unique, wildly unique.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:07

This is really cool what you do. Yeah, and I I love the fact that you draw your your clientele in with a blind, but you guys also willingly share not just what it is, but the story. Here's where it came from, here's the story behind the distillery, or the owner, or how it got started. Yeah, it's such a big part of whiskey that I feel like a lot of people don't realize or they don't grasp onto. They want the shots, they don't want the and whiskey is so much about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:41

We got it.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:43

Whiskey is so much about the structure and the talk and and the history and what went into it, and how it got started, and why does it exist and why does it matter? There's so much of that involved with it that it's almost got lost along the way.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:58

Yeah, we get some some people struggle and and and call us a little bit of a marketing podcast over a whiskey podcast. Um, because we talk a lot about the history of the bottles and the look of the bottle and all of that stuff because the the whole experience of it, because the bottle is part of that experience, and the marketing of it is part of that experience and the story that they tell, whether true or not, and then whether or not it is true or not. Some of the best true stories aren't true.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:24

Yeah. Look at the Frey Ranch bottle, you know, that emblem is the is his great-grandfather's uh belt buckle that he wears every day. You know what I mean? And his wife Ashley, like, you know, designed the whole thing, but it's very much authentic um, you know, to their brand and what they're doing. And so there is an even interweaving and an overlapping of it. And and so I it's interesting, like so the people that are chasing the bourbons and the wellers, uh, you know, the the blands and the wellers and stuff like that, I say they're harder for us to convince them that we're doing something cool. I will say when they cross over and they join us, they stay with us and they go, Oh, yeah, okay. I totally get it now, right? But if they start doing the math and they're like, so I'm paying like 1050 per you know per ounce, and you know, they'll start doing that weird math. And I'm like, look, shipping laws suck. It's not easy. Look, we're not in a basement with a funnel. Um, it's there's there's a reason that nobody's done this before. It's a very complicated process to get um these blind samples made and to deal with these smaller brands that are often, you know, nobody's set up, no, none of these brands have 50 mls in existence, right? So there's a whole process, even the bottling, even the washing of the bottles, all of this is a very complicated, in-depth process. Um, and so if it's funny, they'll do the math on that. And I'm like, well, you just spent $50, $15 on on Weller SR at the bar. Like, there's nothing special about that. You know what I mean? Like, you get it for $25 in Arizona, and maybe it's $80 in your state, you know. But but you know, perception does trump reality. And we always want your perception or our members' perception or taster's perception to be your taste. Have it all be based on what you like. You know, we don't tell anybody, drink it this way. Um, we don't tell anybody what to like. Um, we are curating tasting kits, but we're really doing we're curating experiences, right? And we want this to be a diverse lineup. I mean, none of the samples that you guys just had are anything like any of the others. That's what we're shooting for.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:19

You're not you're not getting into this for like a uh a cheap way to get good bourbon. You know what I mean? You're getting into this for what we just experienced, yeah. And you're willing to pay extra for that, even you know what I mean. I mean, the fact that you guys are going out of your way to curate this whole setup just adds to that. Like, not only are people not gonna be able to get this stuff on their own most of the time, but it's also like the fact that you guys are kind of making these series is you're you're putting them together where it does flow, you know what I mean? There's so much that's going into this that you're not you're not getting this and you're trying to save money, you're getting this for the experience you're gonna have.

unknown 1:16:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:59

Well, well, and the funny thing is, is is now it's like now that we have the allocated line that's coming out and these bottles, um, I do think people really understand the value of the full bottles. That I always say, first of all, if you see something in our lineup that you like, I dare you to see, I dare you to see if you can buy this. Like that iron root bottle only exists in this box. We we're the only people that have that bottle. You can't get that. Go try to buy it, the nine-year prideful goat. And if you can buy it, I bet you you can't get it for what we're selling it for or anywhere close to it. So, you know, you can get unbelievable. We we don't do markups. There's um, you know, there's a big competitor that we have that um, you know, they do they do um three samples, uh, they're not really blind. Like they're they're they're technically they're blind, but you don't know they're blind. Like you you know what the three things are, you just don't know the order that they are. So that's what's called a single blind, right? Ours is a double blind, which means you don't know at any of those stages until you get to the end or you want to know. And the things in their lineup aren't that special in the sense that they're very accessible. It's not that their whiskey's not good that they're using, it's just when they sell you that full bottle, there's an additional 15 to 20 percent markup off of normal MSRP, and it's a bottle that you can go get down the street. So I look at that like that, like that's either a lazy or a less sophisticated consumer that is purchasing those full bottles.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:19

Speaking of the marketing, so is this a monkey? Is that what that is?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:23

Uh technically it's a chimp, but we call him a monkey.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:25

Okay, but yeah, it reminds me of the gorillas that band a little bit. Oh, yeah, or that band. Well, so what's the so what's the story behind that? They just came out with a new album last Friday.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:36

I don't know if you know, and it was fucking weird. It didn't sound like anything I've ever heard from them before. So, so whenever you're creating anything, um, I would do this with with you know films that I was trying to get made. Um, you either want to make a movie poster or you want to make a sizzle, you want to make a sizzle reel, something that's tangible, something that makes it feel real. So when I went to go pitch the idea to people, I went out and I created a logo. And the idea behind it was gonna be, you know, there's the see no evil, the speak no evil, the hear no evil monkey. And so this was gonna be a see no evil monkey, and it was gonna be kind of him covering up his eyes with his tail, and then he was gonna be drinking from it. So that's the idea that started from it. And I I went onto this site called a thousand, it's I think it was called Thousand, uh no, called uh Hundred Designs or something, and Vistaprint brought it now. So for $300, you get 100 designs, and it's basically you get 20 people giving you the same design with different colors, or you get one person giving you 20 designs of the same color, and you get like five of those. And um, and I got some, I got one that was very much exactly like, and this is kind of pre-AI, so this was all very much designers, probably from India and whatever, just trying to throw a hat in the ring because it's a contest where the winner gets like 60% and second place gets 30, and then like the other top five get tenths, but whatever. I don't know how it works. And this dude comes in with this steampunk monkey, and I'm like, what the fuck is that? That's like a million times better. Like, you know, it had it really has all the things you wanted to brand, and that it was both modern and classic at the same time. And um I reached out to him, and he's a self-taught designer from Brazil, and he tried to start a clothing line built around uh the chimp or the monkey, and and he never got it off the ground like 10 years ago. And so when he saw somebody wanted a monkey or chimp, he threw it in there and made some adjustments to it. And yeah, he's my guy. So we're like getting ready, we're we're doing a rum kit right now that's gonna be all rum from it's not gonna be like Virgin Island rum, it's gonna be all from the you know, the 48 interlocking states, and um, it's not gonna be a subscription, it's just gonna be a rum lineup. And um, and I didn't realize how different and interesting rum could be. That really blew my mind. Um, was going through some of these barrels that were from Texas and Georgia and all this other stuff. So we're we're adjusting it. The the foil is gonna be blue, you know, he's gonna be in a pirate hat and it's gonna have palm trees behind him. And so we're just doing a different iteration of uh the box within a different experience. And eventually we're gonna do tequila and and we got a restaurant model we're rolling out, so we're doing all the things.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:03

Yeah, so where can where can people find you guys? If somebody wanted to reach out about blind barrels, where do they go?

SPEAKER_00 1:21:09

Uh so you can find us on Instagram uh at blind barrels. Uh, you can find that on YouTube, you know, X, any of the Facebook, any of the stuff X blind barrels, you can find us on all those platforms. Uh, if you send us a DM, everything will come to me. Um, you can obviously go to blindbarrels.com. Uh, you know, what's great is if you do an annual, you're prepaying for the four shipments, so you get four custom tasting glasses, but you also get a fifth bonus kit uh that's included in that. So with shipping and everything, you're getting it for $60 a kit, um, and that's landed at your door. Um, you know, you can use the code um one that we kind of always have that's evergreen in case someone listen to this later is Whiskey 10. It'll take 10% off anything, whether it's a one-off kit or a quarterly subscription or an annual. And then yeah, like if you join us, don't sleep on doing the live tastings. Like we gave away sample of Papi23 a couple of times, the last one. And you know, we give away a couple rare bottles uh, you know, when we do the live tasting. So uh some people just don't show up to those. And the ones that do always come back because they're like, oh my god. Uh, and you know, the real large numbers, you know, probability you're gonna eventually win if you come to enough of them. Um, and then yeah, like you know, if we have a special offering that only exists in the box, I would just say don't wait to buy the bottle. You know, as a member, you'll get a massive discount. Um, you know, we did flat rate shipping, you can get four bottles, flat rate shipping to 20 bucks. And I'm telling you, the best value you can we've had bottles that in the secondary then go from you know that are $100 that go for $600 a couple years later. So some people just you know get a couple bottles of that and then they sell it and that pays for their year. So they can do that too.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:42

Well, thank you so much for for doing this.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:44

Well, thanks for having me on, guys.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:45

I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:46

I really appreciate it. Yeah, so thank you. And uh we'll uh next next week we'll we'll talk to you guys again.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:51

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:52

All right, cheers.