February 13, 2026 • 41 mins
Join us for an epic episode of Bar Cart Friday Presented by Keg N Bottle with Ryan Cecil, Master Blender and CEO of Pursuit Spirits — the adventurous American whiskey brand born from the world-renowned Bourbon Pursuit podcast!
In this show, Ryan sits in the studio and breaks down:
In this show, Ryan sits in the studio and breaks down:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank God Friday. It's been a long week and the
fellows are thirst stop just got stopped. Air goes down
down until my bad times into the weekend. Big Rich,
TD and Fletch present Bar Card Friday Rocking by Kegan
Bottle with the best selection of bourbon, whiskey, tequila, Private
Section bottles and more. Probably I drink too much, way
(00:21):
too much. I got my doctor your especially it was
on all of it. Now let's for some drinks.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
We are having a good time here on a bar
Card Friday with Pursuit Bourbon in studio. How about that?
You have Buddy Ryan from Pursuit Spirits behind the bar,
Ryan the self proclaimed dumbass.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
That's me.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Not only my wife called that, but all my friends myself.
Oh man, oh, there's not enough time.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
He just hates me all day with he verbally abuses me.
Is that your podcast co host?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
That is, yes, in your podcast you've been doing for
over a decade, Yes, which.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
You March and twenty fifteen in my basement with a
crappy MacBook and a crappy USB microphone. I had no
idea being San Diego on a radio station.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
So coming into the radio station, it's like you're back
to your roots. It's right, yeah, my safe place unless
you're still working out of a basement.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
We are in a basement now. We actually opened a
spot on Whiskey Road downtown Woisville, full tasting room, cocktail bar,
and we have a podcast studio Legit podcast studio now
right next to our cocktail bar with Legit microphones. Really
cool to have a permanent home that we've been doing
in my basement, in Kenny's basement, then in a warehouse,
and so now it's very cool to have our spot
(01:37):
on Whiskey Road.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The studio's rad by the way, it's a bourbon pursuit podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Is the podcast you're you're looking for.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
But the studio did a brick backdrop and you've got
you know, bottles of pursuit on either side of you,
stacked up.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
It's beautiful. Yeah, with the banks are good at lending
money and we thought we'd use it. So what came first,
the bourbon or the podcast? The podcast?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
So we started the podcast in twenty fifteen, partnered with
Tony did a ton of barrel picks. Kind of became
the influencers. I hate that word in the Whiskey space,
but people really trusted our palettes and our knowledge, and
so twenty eighteen, somebody was like, guys, you are making
all this money for other distilleries. It's starting to get
competitive with barrel picks, other YouTubers and podcasters, and so
(02:20):
we decided to go and create our own path with
pursue Bourbon. We had been interviewing these the brightest minds
in the industry and doing all these barrel picks, learning
from the master blenders, the tasters, you name it, and
so secretly we were building up all this knowledge and
to build up our own brand. And so while it
wasn't easy, we had a better launching pad than most people,
(02:41):
and we already had the community of fans from the
podcast that they trusted us when we released a product
that they knew we were going to put something good
into a bottle. And if you're born and raised out
in Kentucky, yes, sir, grew up in Bartstown, Kentucky, where
you know Jim beam Maker's Mark, Kevin Hill will It Distillery,
all the you know, the the legacy brands. Quite frankly,
half my life, no one cared about bourbon. It was
(03:02):
just kind of like a factory job. But in my thirties.
I could kind of see people getting more interested want
to know understand because you go to a liquor store
and you're like, what the heck is all this? There's
tons of options in the small batch, single barrel, all
these words, buzzwords, and you'll learn that Bourbon's fifty one
percent corn, forty nine percent BS, A lot of marketing
correct a lot of stories. So we try to break
(03:22):
break out all the marketing the BS and really give
whiskey fans knowledge and power when they go to the
store to make conscious and good decisions.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
So when you started pursuit Bourbon, when you started your
own what year was it?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It was in twenty eighteen, twenty eighteen, you dial it in, man,
what was it? This good right out of the get go.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
No, it was.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
About a year and a half, two years of R
and D and development. So we were not distillers were
so we're called non distilling producers. So there's obviously distillers
like keaven Hill or Maker's Mark, they make their own
whiskey and they have brands under there, and then there's
also brands that are non distilling producers that buy whiskey.
Distillers will make a excess whiskey that they sell to
(04:01):
brokers and brands that they can bottle and sell their themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So we looked at the landscape and like, how can we.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Be different as non distilling producers because there's only about
three or four sources you can buy excess whiskey from right, right,
And so we wanted to be different. And I said, well,
through the podcast, all these new distilleries we're sending us samples,
like how's our distiller taste?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
What do you think about it?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And we discovered all these amazing distilleries, not only Kentucky.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
But outside of the US, and so I thought, I looked.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
At Kenyo, was like, I think it'd be really cool
to start blending different mash bills from different distilleries throughout
the country. Because bourbon, while love Kentucky, does not have
to be made in Kentucky, it can be met anywhere
in the United States. It's America's native spirit. And so
that's why our brand's called Pursuit United, because we partner
with three distilleries for our bourbon mash bills and two
(04:50):
distilleries for our our rhyme mash bills.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Man, it's it's some good juice. Yeah, and it's thank
you good. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Like I said, I'm too insecure to put some crappy
into the bottle, so I want to make sure it
tastes good.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, that's a good way to that's way a good
way to run a business. That's right before we taste
one of these.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
Do you remember what the first bourbon or whiskey was
that made you think, oh, I'm ready to dedicate my
life to this.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, so it was a battle of Noah or sorry.
Rowan's Creek twelve year. It's a will it distiller has
a brand called Rohan's Creek and at the time they
had a twelve year bourbon, and I remember it was
the first time I wasn't like mixing it with coke
or shooting it or putting it on ice and old.
I was about thirteen. Oh my gosh, kidding, because I
(05:33):
remember college.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
It's like you plug your nose, you just take the
shot of jacket whatever someone gives you.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Most of my early it's like anyone else. I was
drinking Evan Williams Black Label with Ginger Ale bourbon and
Ginger still my go to mixer. Like I don't understand
how people do bourbon and coke. It's like sweet on sweet.
At least the ginger like contrasted a little bit. But
that's how you get your start. Then you go to
some ice sud water, and then you kind of like
remove the ice, and then you go to Neat, which
(05:59):
is just straight bourbon. And I remember drinking that Rowan's
Creek twelve and being like, oh my gosh, there's so
much flavor. It doesn't need a mixer like it. They're
just like oak and cherry and leather and tobacco and
all this stuff. And it just like all these light
bulbs went on me and they just sent me down
this rabbit hole of like in two you have to
realize that growing up in Barstown, like Freddy Know who's
the grandson of Booker, Know who was the master still
(06:22):
or Jim Beam. His family's been at Jim Beam for
three decks or even longer three deck day maybe one
hundred years.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
He was in We were in high school together, played football,
had access to, you know, great whiskey out of the
gay Drew Colsbing was a good friend from will at Distillery.
So I got exposed to like really good whiskey at
a young age and really grew appreciation for it. Then
saw just like it just blow up, like people were
just going crazy. And a lot of that's due to
(06:50):
like Pappy van Winkle. You know, it's obviously one of
the best bourbons out there. I would argue that's not
the best bourbon, but it is really good. And you
just saw this like boom and people getting interested and
excite about it. And it was very cool growing up
in Barstown because it Barstown's a small town, is about
ten thousand people, about an hour south of Louisville. Not
many people would go there, but as soon as bourbon
(07:12):
blew up, they start wanting to visit, starting to taste,
when to learn more. And so it was just really
cool to see that for our community in our state,
that we have not only just horse racing, but we have.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
This bourbon that you can drink and the whole world
can enjoy together. And you do think of horse racing
when you think of Little.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Or Kentucky Fried Chicken, but they just moved from Kentucky,
so it's there in Dallas now.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
But yeah, no way, that's right. Wait wait wait wait
wait wait wait what Kentucky Fried Chicken moved to Dallas.
They did. They were wait were they were? They purchased
by raising canes right.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I don't know, raising canes Zaxby's or something. Now, So
they moved their headquarters to Dallas. They still have an
office in Louisville, but they did move their headquarters to Dallas,
which broke my heart.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Also, I mean, I'm moving out of California. They got
so much backlash they said they'd stay. They did. Man,
I also think of baseball bats when I think of
a little of them. That's true. The bats think, yes,
thank you.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Our Our downtown location is right next to the Louisville Slugger.
There's a one hundred foot tall bat and I'm like,
who the heck wants to come see a bat factory?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But it is cool once you go in there, and
I mean every day, even.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
On like Mondays, It'll be like nine am and there's
people lined up to go get their miniature bats and stuff.
So it's it's Louis' is a great town. You can
go visit the Slugger Museum or Churchill down and see
horse races, and then Bourbon's really done a great job
of You don't have to go to Bardstown or Lexington
or Versailles or Frankfurt and drive all across God's Green
or to visit these stillers. They put a lot of
(08:38):
tasting rooms in downtown Louisville, so people come, they can
hop around to different tasting and experiences.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Get your bat, you know, head right right right, of
course you're gonna need it by night time. That's yes, yeah,
a lot. You've been drinking a lot, been drinking a
lot walking by yourself?
Speaker 6 (08:52):
You know?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
To you, how often do you record podcast episodes?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So we, uh do we do? Record once a week.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
We have this show called This Week in Bourbon where
we talk about It blows people's mind that there's relevant
news every week in Bourbon. But it's a fascinating industry.
People are interested in the liquor. Laws are new releases
right now, there's a big thing going on with a
brand called Uncle Nearest.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
If you look it up, there's.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
A huge lawsuits and defaults on loan and so whiskey
fans are one to keep track of it, and so
we're constantly updating them on what's going on behind the
scenes in the bourbon industry. Bourbon fans are a lot
like sports fans. They are like they have their brand
that they love and they're like die hard and if
you like something bad happens or something good, like they
just you know, it's like a sports talk radio show
of most but about bourbon that we call us ourselves
(09:42):
whiskey geeks, and we're just like it is kind of strange.
Like my wife's like, what the hell are you all
talking about? You know, and just talking about bourbon all day?
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Okay, So your wife is just like the wives of
Big Rich, TD and Flash, whereas none of their wives
listen to the show and don't.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Know them to talk about. Doesn't listen to your podcast, No,
definitely listen to any of them.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
She has for like thirty seconds that tracks we know
exactly that she here's my.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Forest and just just cringes up already.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So your your wife back in uh in Kentucky. Then
you're you're out this way for work, Yes, but no,
she traveled with me.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
She comes a lot helps me with like we do
a lot of During the day, I'll go and meet
with liquor store buyers owners, have them taste our products,
hope to get shelf placement. But then at night I
do a usually a tasting event or last night, Like
I did a private dinner with a whiskey group. About
seventy people came and I just tell them our stories.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, where did you guys go?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
It was in Huntington Beach. It was a place called Stacked. Okay,
really cool venue. But it blows my mind. I show
up to these things and people have been fans of
the podcast. They're like, really educated me in bourbon like you, Like,
I'm just so thankful for you. Like I was lost
like one hundred pounds walking to you know, to your podcast,
and or like I was doing cancer treatments and Coo
(10:58):
listened to your podcast and it got me and you're like, wow,
this is it, mind blog. I just thought it was,
as you said earlier, dumb ass ryn Cecil from barks Down,
Kentucky talking about bourbon. But it's really cool that our
fans will come meet us and then I get to
sign their bottles, take pictures. They show me their whiskey collections,
and I'm like, man, that's awesome. That's pretty fun. Yeah,
it's pretty fun.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, let's let's taste one of it.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
So we we tasted the uh, the United.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yes, we had the Triple Mash Bourbon, which is the
eighty eight proof and then the double oaked bourbon. Okay,
and now we're really ramping it up. And this is
our barrel proof bourbon solof so it has not had
any water added to it.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So it comes up straight out of the cask. Whatever
proof it is TD, I have no water added to ever. No, no, no, no, no, no,
unless it's unless it's through the distilling process.
Speaker 7 (11:47):
Let's get out, let's taste this coffee, right right, right right, yeah.
So I hand select like my five very best cast
for these. They this is like what whiskey officionados want.
They want it straight out of the barrel. No, you know,
adulteration with water. So even though it's one hundred and
nineteen proof, obviously it's gonna have some burn to it.
(12:09):
But I try to pick the casts that are really
like approachable, delicate, decadent, rich, and so this is like
what real enthusiasts want to enjoy our barrel proof.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
At one hundred and nineteen proof, it actually doesn't feel
like it. I know, it's dangerously Yeah, would you say
the word till? What? Was I gonna say? Smooth?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, that's a say smooth. I wasn't gonna say smooth,
come on, I know, I word, I'm sorry. I wasn't
gonna say that. I just but and when you say
add water to it, you call that tempering down right, yeah,
just or proofing it down. So yeah, So a lot
of bourbons on the market are predominantly in eighty six.
To be a bourbon has to be at least eighty proof,
(12:48):
but so it cast strength. Obviously you're getting that one
hundred and twenty to one hundred all the way up
to one hundred and forty proofs. So what you get
to get it down to eighty six to ninety proof,
you're adding a ton of water. So with that you're
making it more approachable, but you're also losing a ton
of flavor with my adding water. But sometimes adding water
to a cash drink will open up more flavors. So
(13:09):
a lot of fans like getting in a barrel proof
because they can kind of be in control of how
much water. If I want to add water, what flavors
open up, I can drink it at the proof I want,
versus what the distillery decides to proof it.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
At this This is wonderful. Yeah, how long has this
been in a barrel?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
So those have been five to eight years old those barrels, Yeah,
which is a long time when you're laying down twelve
hundred We wait, we lay down twelve hundred barrels a year.
It costs about one point two million dollars finance that
with a bank. Then you got interest on those. You're
just staring at it, just waiting six to eight years
for I can bottle this stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
And please don't let a rat in.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
A hole in the barrel, or please lightning striker win
blow this warehouse downs like an insurance money.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Just just let it be a natural disaster. Yeah, so
it's very just got to be a natural disascer too
happening out there. I mean it's happened.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
In nineteen ninety six, heaven Hill had a lightning strike
caught one of their rick houses on fire. A rick
house is where the barrels are stored. There's about usually
anywhere from ten thousand to fifty thousand barrels in a
rick house. They caught on fire. Barrels started rolling out
of the warehouse, slamming into other rick houses, catching them
on fire, and they lost about ten warehouses in like
(14:24):
ten years worth of bourbon. And a cool story about
that at Bourbon's a very uplifting community, and so like
Brown Foreman, actually it was like, man, it sucks your
distillery caught on fire and you lost all these barrels,
but will actually help you make your Bourbon for you.
So Brown Forman stepped up. Let them use their facilities
to help make Bourbon, to get Heaven Hill back up
and running. But also too, there was a warehouse collapse
(14:47):
there where there's a beetle that ate the inside of
because all these workhouses are made out of wood, and
this beetles started boring out some of these rafters and
beams and all this.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Then there was like a windstorm and this.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Whole rick house collapse and barrels were rolling down the
creek and this and that. So it doesn't happen very often,
but it does happen from time to time.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
You guys are Elvis fans, then yes, I hate the Beatle.
Really it is an awesome community.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Remember we had Whiskey Nomad here Tony and her house
burnt down in San Diego, and I think you were
a big part of it. But a lot of people
in the Bourbon community stepped up and helped her replace
a lot of those bottles.
Speaker 6 (15:32):
Oh God, replaced the bottles go fund me and she's
doing well.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Now that was crazy.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
But she came into Barcard Friday, like the day after
her house burned. Oh my gosh, it was bottles.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Great content on her channel. She's really great educat consumers,
not only on Bourbon but all kinds of whiskey.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
So she does a fantastic job. She is awesome, she's
super cool. And she pops up Yeah, no doubt. She
pops up and does like top five different different things
that I I watch and save.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
So, oh yeah, Bourbon fans, they're they're like all other humans.
They love listicles and top fives and top tens, you know,
just because that's us humans like numbers.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. The do you want us to taste
the next one first? Or we we've made a drink
as well.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I think we go for the cocktail.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
For the cocktail, let's blow out our palates with the cocktails.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Is that is that wrong? Yeah, it's up to you all.
I don't care. Wait wait, that's not the that's the
way we're.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Supposed to You really want to taste the whiskey. If
you go from a cocktail to tasting and neat You're
gonna be like, this tastes just like whatever I had previously.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
It's gonna taste.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, it's just for the record, that was Fletch that
had that idea.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, that's all right, man, oh man, is that to
teach you the ways? We'll teach you the way. The
next one, the rot it is. Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
So we have our triple mash rise. So it's a
blend of three different mash bills. Uh, raw whiskey. Growing
up in Kentucky, absolutely hated raw whiskey because I'm bourbon
sweet corn guy. And so when the rise of popular
category and so developing our rye, I wanted a lot
more corn in our rye mash bills. So to be
a rye whiskey has to be fifty one percent rye
(17:07):
or higher than your mash bills. So I did barely
legal rye fifty two percent rye forty three percent corn.
And then I blend into ninety five five, which ninety
five percent rye, five percent malted barley, and I blend
those three mash bills together. So you'll notice with our
rye whiskey it's a lot of butteriness brown sugar also
some nice like strawberry lemonade candy, and also some like
(17:28):
herbal mint tea on it. So our Rye whiskey, which
is in the cocktail that we're about to enjoy, but
super versatile, super flavor.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Fact. I gave the bottom a little shake. It was
holding the bead for a long time, and I'm like,
whoa man? One hundred and twenty almost four.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
Proof right, trying to fire the whole is trying to
Did you wikipedia everything first?
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Did you pour them the barrel proof?
Speaker 4 (17:48):
No?
Speaker 6 (17:48):
I know the one you have in is eighty eight proof. Yeah,
this is eighty eight proof. The next one is gonna
be the one twenty.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Five I watched. I watch Moonshiners, which I believe is real.
It's one hundred percent sure.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
You remember you heard the forty nine percent vis.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
That's all for.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
So this is as bourbon as a rye can get.
Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Correct? We call it a bourbon drinker's rice.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
So because a lot of Rye whiskeys are made uh
at ninety five percent rise, so Rye. You think about
rae bread, it's pung it, you know, bold, spicy. So
a lot of consumers are like, oh, I hate rat whiskey.
It's too floral, it's too it's too bready, it's too spicy.
So adding in that corn just makes it a lot
more sweeter, much more palatable for the American palate, because
(18:31):
Americans love sweet stuff. Yes, as you all have donuts, right,
what's part of our rider here to work at? iHeart
San Diego. We're required donuts every morning part of the regimen. Yeah, yeah,
that's basically our vitamins.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
And what I like about this one he was talking
about the malted barley. So you guys probably don't know.
It's three times probably more expensive to use, right, and
it gets a third of the yield, so it's it's
you know, expensive for you to use it. So I'm
glad you guys use it in there. But it adds
that smoothness.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
It does, yes, malted barley. So Scotch is one hundred
percent malted barley. In Bourbon we typically use five to
ten percent. And what it does it helps convert a
lot of enzomatic, not without getting too nerdy, but it
helps convert sugars into alcohol. But it also softens the
whiskey and makes it more nuttier, more delicate, more uh
(19:23):
kind of bready, yeasty to where it's not just like
straight alcohol.
Speaker 6 (19:27):
Yeah, it's almost like I was gonna say, you know
how we add bitters and things and other modifiers. So,
but maulted barley works almost like a modifier.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
It does.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
It's an answer, yes, as flavor cancer does.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Does it matter what yeast you use to give it
a difference?
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah, So there's thousands and thousands of different yeast trands
that if you want your whiskey to taste more banana
or more fruity, or more uh cereal type or sweeter
the yeast which are the bacteria that are feeding on
the grain converting those out that that's sugar into alcohol. Well, yes,
it makes a huge difference on what yastrand you use.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
How do you know when the mash is ready? Is
it sweet at all or is all salur?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, So when you start a mash, you'll start to
see the yeast. After about a day or two, you'll
start to see it bubbling on top. And once once
you get it starts out as a beer. Okay, So
you make a beer, you grind up the grains, you
mix it with water, and so that's your mash. Then
you add the yeast in After about twenty four hours,
you start to notice bubbling. After about three to five days,
(20:28):
sometimes seven days, you'll notice this like really thick layer
where it stops bubbling cake and that's when you know
it's ready.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
So a lot of there's a lot.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Of automation now in distilling where they have sensors and
this and that they let them know like, okay, there's
a thing called a bricks meter that will tell you
how much sugars are being converted into alcohol. And they're
taking greetings and they know kind of with instruments. But two,
there's like on moonshiners or people that don't have fancy equipment,
they just stick their finger in mellet taste it, and
(21:01):
it's ready.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Let's go. Let's make that, you know, yeah, stick my
finger in and taste it. That's right, that's right. You know,
it's it's kind of gross.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
You go on a bourbon trail tour and like all
these people and they're like, you know, stick your finger
and there's like fifty people just sticking their finger in
the mash and like sticking their that's the grossest thing.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
You used to like clean your finger.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, exactly, So it's good you know what when I
when I was a kid during you know, Halloween time,
they would do bobbing for apples at my school and
I'd be like, I'm not putting my head in that.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
No, that's a good choice.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Actually so gross, and like people are like taking selfies
and I'm like, how many cell phones have fell in
these you know.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Cell phones with their hands and face oil all over it? Yeah,
no doubt.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
But all that mash gets cooked up to two hundred
degrees and it is still and so anything that's in
there gets you know, sanitized by that. Hopefully no one's
eating the mash. You can, I mean it's good protein good,
you know, really you can? Yeah, yeah, yeah, all though
take alcohol. They will take the solids from the mash,
and cattle farmers actually pick up all that excess mash
(22:05):
to feed to their cattle, their hogs or wow. So
it's like free feed and whiskey. You know, these whiskey
producers produce millions of gallons a year of whiskey and
they have millions of pounds of excess mash that they
have to get rid of. So these farmers are gladly
taking it off their hands.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
That's cool. Reducer use recycling. Actually that's the fatten up
the cows. So we did eat them, right.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
There's a breweries in town to do that same thing, yep,
and the farmers love just heading over there afterwards and picking.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Up that's free feed man. Man, how do you know
that fletch? I know some guys. He's a professional drug
of a couple of okay, flench also a free feeder. Yeah,
I will. I will take whatever excess mash you have.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
So I just poured you the one you're looking at
that you thought there was one.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Twenty oh oh, this is the one right here. This
is Wait, which one was in my hand? That was
the eighty eight rise, So which one do you want
me to take? Taste that first before you go blow out?
Go to the really high proof. But okay, so this
is the eighty eight rye. What's the proof on this guy?
This is eighty eight proof.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Sorry, we try to try to sometimes it's it's hard.
I know, I thought it was bottled at eighty eight.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Well uh yeah, well you know for Strainger things.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah, well, I don't know, got it from someone else.
The number can mean whatever you wanted to I wanted
to mean.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So you'll notice it's really buttery, really smooth.
But also with the rye whiskey, ray has a lot
of nice citrus notes, so you get a lot of
like lemon and bright strawberries and also some like mintiness
on it. So rye whiskey has a ton of flavor.
Bourbons traditionally more caramel, vanilla, chocolate, sweeter. This has more
(24:00):
fruit and vibrancy to it, so it's a it's a
fun spirit. And rye is best used in cocktails because
cocktails you're adding usually a simple syrup or a sweetener
in those, and bourbon's already sweet, so rye has spice
and fruit that will kind of stand up to that sweetness.
So always tell people if you're making cocktails, don't use bourbon.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Use raw whiskey.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It's said it does have the mintiness because your mouth
feels almost cool.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, nice and tingly menthol Yeah, fresh breath now yeah
yeah yeah, I'm also I'm about five deep here. Yeah
that's what happens. Yeah, this is this is tasty man. Yeah,
thank you, I appreciate it. This is the good stuff.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
The next one we're going to have is the triple mash.
Rye is that we said, yep, I guess I should polish. Yeah,
triple mash.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
So we're we're going from eighty eight proof, so that's
going to be a lot more delicate. This is this
particular batch of things, one hundred and twenty three point eight.
So this is our barrel proof rye I hand select
our five very best cask for this expression. It is
one three, but it's dangerously delicious of tread lightly.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
But this one has a totally different nose, totally.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah, it's gonna have a lot more richer brown sugar,
some butteriness. Uh, there's not not quite as sweet, not
quite as sweet, but there's also gonna be really like
nice baking spices coming out. So you think of like
tardam and nutmeg, type of those types of baking spices.
And then you'll you'll notice a little hint of minton
as well.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
When when you guys did the bottles, I mean, it's
just this is a this to me is just a
like a classy, classy bottle. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Thank it just looks good, just says pursued on it
the label down low.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
The thing looks good. That is this something that you
came up with?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Well, so we had a different bottle to start because
we were poor, and so we used a stock bottle,
so you can buy stock bottles from a lot of
glass manufacturers. And we had our label, and as we
grew up and started to save some money and knew
when we were going to expand out into other markets
and not just kind of sell to our our whiskey
geek fans, and we need to make it appeal to
(26:01):
consumers because in whiskey and any consumer good, there's a
lot of vanity over sanity, and you have to make
it look good on the shelf because people wanted to showcase.
So we this mold cost eighty thousand dollars just for
the mold. To get our custom glass in, we looked
at a ton of bottles and found some really cool
pre prohibition bottles that had this raised lettering with the
(26:21):
white screenprints on it.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
And so we want to tie in like cause we're
a new.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Brand, we don't have legacy or history or any family money,
so we want to be modern but also tie into
some vintage aspects of that too. So we thought it
just came really well together. I did not come up
with it. Kenny did not come with it. We had
a package designer come up with.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
It, right, not having a legacy out in Kentucky, how
do people accept you?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, so it's tough when you're in Kentucky because people
have been drinking Bourbon there for years and so they're like,
I only drink Woodford, or I only drink not Greek
or this is that. And then so you got these
you know, we're young. I'm forty now, but when we
were launching the Branos thirty five and you got these
young whipper snappers, because there's usually you're like, oh, your
great granddaddy was this guy or and this, and you're like, nope,
(27:08):
I have none of that and so right, and they
are consumers. They're just like no only went Buffalo Tracey one.
So it was it was challenging at first, but it's
a liquid elipse industry, and once people tasted our products,
they were like, oh my gosh, you all are doing
something special, unique in the category.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
And so that's I'm gonna interrupt you because that's for
people that didn't know you.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
That's right. Oh right, But a lot of people know
these guys. Yeah right.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
The two of these guys are super well known in industry.
Anyone actually drinks bourbon knows who Suburban pursued is. And
and I think you guys, even though you didn't have
that legacy of of you know, great Grandpa was, you
know whoever, what you did have is what you guys
put together, that you and Kenny put together, So you
should be very proud of that.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah, we had the we had the community behind us
that we build. But two, we didn't have legacy. But
all the major distilleries, we've been promoting those guys for
free for years and build great relationships with them, and
when we announced that we were going to start our
own brand, they were very supportive, like they were like,
how can we help, Like you need to learn how
distribution works, or how we're getting on shelves or sourcing
(28:12):
your grains or sourcing your barrels. And so we had
all the industry helping alongside, which was very cool because
we've been very good stewards of them and they've been
super helpful for us. So we kind of had an
unfair advantage, but it did take us a decade to
build that advantage through the podcast.
Speaker 6 (28:27):
Yeah that's okay, I mean, honestly, they had a springboard
and they're awesome and everyone loves them. And they're actually
Kenny's in Northern California. So they're launching Fornia this week,
dividing and conquering. Wow.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Nice cool? How about that? About that? Very cool?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
I remember flying here to California and I'm like, I
can't believe I'm launching a brain in California.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
That's fun. That just blows my mind. When you come
to California, what's the first thing you do? Does it
go to in and out?
Speaker 6 (28:52):
No?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
I went to my hotel because we didn't get here
untill like nine thirty at night.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
We're staying Yeah, yeah, yeah, we clearly know that too,
laid out if it's nine thirty.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
And then I learned that the freeways suck, and like,
because I flew into Lax you don't have to say
anywhere else. Gosh, the freeways. I think I've only seen
freeways and liquor stores this entire trip. That's all we have,
got all we have I left. I was in Huntington
Beach last night. I drove down. We had to be
here at like eight forty five, so I left our
hotel at like six am, just so I could go
walk to the water for five minutes and see it,
(29:27):
because I've only seen the freeways.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
And uh, liquor stores. So yeah, so Huntington Beach. Well,
so I would say the two worst freeways in the
plant on the planet or the four five in the
ninety wild.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
You're right there, four O five is dreadful. I don't
see how people live deal with that every day. I
guess that's why our podcast does so well because they're
stuck on the four five.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
That's right. People get enough money who drive the four
or five, they move down to San Diego. That's right,
that's what happens.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Are you going to have time to go to any
beaches here in San Diego?
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
We recommend, that's right.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, well, I'll have to do it the next time.
So when we do a market launch like we do,
we try to jam pack it to see as many
buyers meet as many whiskey fans as possible, because that's
where you've got to build a relationship with alcohol. There's
a three tier distribution where you have to go. I
can't sell directly consumers, so I have to build relationships
with our distributor partners and our retailers and build those
relationships show our products off. So you try to jam
(30:20):
pack as many meetings as you can, and then you're
doing an event at night.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
And so people think this, oh, you have a bourbon brand.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
You're living this clamorous life, you know, doing this, and
I'm like, I'm just on the freeway. And then the
back room tastes back stock room of a liquor store
trying to convince buyers to buyer stuff. I mean, it
is cool, but it's not as glamorous as one might think.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Each people also show their products off. That's right, all
their products.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
It is our local nude beach gets a cool social
media as long as you got the blur, you cannot do.
That's the thing. You don't film people there. You don't
film people if they know. That's good advice.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Actually I've actually never been there, maybe either having never
been talks about who in this room has been there.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, I go to black Speed. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
Oh what do you do at black Speech? You hang
out so ron you can't get there, like you've gotta
hike together.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
You do down like it's it's like it's a little
quick hike down the cliff side.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Fifteen minutes. Wait, it takes you fifteen minutes to get
down the cliff side about it can't be honest. What's
the ratio to like people that look like you versus
old dudes hanging brain? It's more old men. Sweet. Okay,
I think we're gonna leave Black Beach out.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
But before, before you go hike down, do you get
ready for black speech?
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Are you ready at the top? What do you mean
by you even bring the top? I mean like, are
the top? No? No?
Speaker 4 (31:47):
You know, you hike down in whatever you have on
and you take it around, then you get comfortable.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
What if those old men steal it? Though they do,
I don't know they purchased it from you online.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
See why you have trust issues with me? I know
these guys that I work with. I don't think she's
getting any dates.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah, if you're unaware, Ryan, No cat will sell you
her socks.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
They are they are for sale online. They're not. There's
not for sale online. But if you range out.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
To me, then maybe we work out a deal.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
We'll do some pursuit socks, a special a special limiting edition. Yeah,
that's also a cat. A barrel pick.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
You put the whiskey in the barrel for a while
and then you just have to wait. You gotta wait
with the socks two and a half years.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
We can put our bottles in these socks and put
them on children, kind of like the Crown oil bag.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Wow wow wow wow wow. That'll require two signatures. It
is the day before Valentine's Day.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
So if if you happen to be anywhere in the
San Diego area on February thirteenth, head on over to
K and B Bistro until Sarah right off the eighth
and College, because Ryan, you're going to be there signing
bottles and doing a tasting a couple of hours. That's
taste all of our expressions, and then if you are
buy a bottle, I will devalue it by putting my signature.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
You know what's funny is all of these signat sign
bottles that I've gotten from Keg and Bottle, which you
can buy them online at Keg the letter in bottle
dot com. I keep them. I don't open them. They
just they sit on the sh one to stop right
at the top of my bar. I don't even think
it's a good whiskey, is it.
Speaker 6 (33:28):
Of course, banana whiskey is great, actually.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Actually great whiskey that you can get keg the letter
in bottle dot com flat it's Howler ahead, what howerhead UFC.
Speaker 6 (33:38):
You know Dana White, that whole connection we have, and
that's how we got Patty the Batty to sign all
those bottles. But I have a cool flavored whiskey story
that involves this man right here. Do you remember that story?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
No, I don't.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
It's refreshman with peanut butter whiskey. Oh that's right, screwball Screwball.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
I remember you sent us this before it even like
was even a thing, before it was a thing.
Speaker 6 (33:57):
And so I was in the basement with Kenny. I
don't think you were at that that that recording. So
we did a recording. We did a whistle pick pig
pick as well. Okay, I remember the story though.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:07):
So we're we're there and I'm like, hey, uh, Kenny,
I brought you a gift and he goes, what did
you get me? And I go, I got your bottle
of screwball. He goes, what the f is that? While
peanut butter whiskey is yeah, yeah, I don't want it.
I said, mark my words here on this and you
can go back and find this live podcast. This will
be the next big thing, next big thing, This will
bring fireball down. And sure enough the guy went huge,
(34:29):
went big, you know, and Screwball now is nationwide.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I remember when I said earlier Americans love sweet stuff.
It is sunk, right, it is. It is like dessert
and a bottle.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
Yeah. So that that same weekend, that was the gala
right in oh yeah, bown in Bardstown. So like an
adult prom. It's an adult prom.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
It's kind of fun to go to.
Speaker 6 (34:50):
Yeah, we're in a Lima bus with four Roses and
all the execs, you know, and so I have this bottle.
I'm going down the Lima bus giving everybody a shot.
And what's the late gentleman from four ros is? His name?
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Al Young?
Speaker 6 (35:03):
Al Young? Al Young is sitting sitting in there with
his wife, and I'm like, you gotta try this, And
he has this crazy look on his face, like what
the heck is that?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
That's horrible.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yeah, we don't like flavored anything and all. We like
it as natural as possible. Yeah, I got to taste.
I haven't tasted the Triple Mash Rock TD.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Oh my god, oh fire in the hole. Come on,
what do you think? Whoa, whoa? That's insanely good. That
is so good.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
This is our rising star. If you see a bottle
of it, it's selling out fast. I've been going up
and down the coast and like everywhere go they're like,
we sold out a triple mash rock or barrel proof,
Like it's we can't make it fast enough.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Tony, do you have this cake?
Speaker 6 (35:49):
We have it available today, There will be I want
to say, twenty four bottles of this bottle available.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Twenty four that's all you got. How did you get
twenty one four? Mario? I know everybody's been mad at me.
They're like, holy god, six or you know this one.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
That's wow, Well you're gonna have twenty three because I'm
buying one.
Speaker 7 (36:06):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
There is absolutely phenomenal. Wow, that's fantastic. And then we
have to try this. We have to I know we're
up against the clock and get on the road. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
So this is our Rye Rita. This came out of
an accident. I was on my my wife's parents boat.
They love Margarita's. We ran out tequila. I had a
bottle of our Rye whiskey. I was like, oh, I
was just substitute our Rye whiskey for tequila and let's
see what they think. And it works, and it worked.
It was so good and to like being Kentucky. And
obviously tequila is blown up and it's popular, but I
(36:40):
want to showcase that our our whiskeys are very versatile.
Not only can you drink them straight, but you can
put them in cocktails and enjoy them just like you
would with a tequila margarita. So this is our Rye rita,
dangerously delicious, perfect for the summertime, so good refreshing.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Is this just this is all I want. This is
only Trader Joe's margarita makes this is so this.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Is Tracer Daves marguerite to mix. So you do three
ounces of this and an ounce and a half of
our Rye whiskey. If you want to do it fancier,
which we do at our cocktail bar, we do a
ounce and a half of our Rye whiskey, ounce of
a Govey nectar, ounce of lime juice, and half ounce
of curosel.
Speaker 7 (37:18):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
And so you can make a bougier version at home,
but I like simplicity, and so the trace of gove
is pretty pretty pretty good with this, the Rye whiskey.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
That is so fund man, that is tasty. That is tasty. Man.
Thank you for coming in to thank you for having me.
This has been a blast.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
This is fantastic. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, this was This was
a good day. If you want to learn more, follow
us on bourber Pursuit podcast. If you're one, you'll learn
more about bourbon. You'll be excited. If not, you'll be
bored to death. But we'll teach you anything and everything
about the bourbon industry. And then also to our brands
Pursuit Spirits, Pursuit United as our Bourbon and Rise and Too.
(37:55):
If you come to Kentucky, come physit us in Louisville, Kentucky.
We have a great tasting room showcase all of our bourbons.
We have great experiences. And then our cocktail bar called
Trial and Air, which is based off my blending process.
Are the branding teams like tell us about your blending process.
I was like, I don't know. It's a lot of
Trial and Air like that's it. And I was like, really,
I just paid you all the money for them, but
it works, and.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
So man, you know I should ask though, as I
mentioned that you come out, if you come out to California.
You should go to In and Out. I feel like
that's a very in and out. It's what's the burger
of choice out in Kentucky?
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Is it burger?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Is that we don't We don't have any, Like they're
not really in good fast food. There's there's a Toasty's
Tavern and that has the best smash burger.
Speaker 6 (38:37):
But there's the barbecue. You guys took me to barbecue
one time. Yeah, that was feast of barbecue.
Speaker 7 (38:42):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Is it a chain or just one off? Just one off?
We don't. We don't have any good chain burger restaurants.
Five guys.
Speaker 6 (38:48):
I mean that's that's that'sclar But if you want a
really good burger, go to Toasty's Tavern and will incredible
smash burger.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
It's absolutely insane.
Speaker 6 (38:57):
And if you want to have a crazy experience doing
the uh.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Oh yeah pursuit paluza. So so once.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
A year we invite one hundred and eight of our best,
our our our loyal fans for the podcast and we
do a crazy three day or two day event where
you come to Louisville, Kentucky. We get two charter buses
because we have great relationships with all the distilleries across Kentucky.
We'll ask them to do exclusive experiences for our fans.
We'll charge around to four or five different distilleries.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Tony did it. It's a. It's a. That's why he
was blackout for four days.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
I mean, it's a great time. But make sure, yeah,
you get an IV before you.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Come and schedule. Is it in July. I'll be in
Nashville in June.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
It's always the second or third week of June. But
it's a great time, Okay, But it sells out extremely fast.
Last year it sold out in about twelve minutes.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, only one ticket available. That's right.
Ryan's mom bought it, but just want to get in.
I like it. That's I like it. Yeah, man. Uh,
it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for coming
on today, Ryan.
Speaker 6 (40:02):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
The podcast again is Bourbon Pursuit, and you can find
that anywhere you listen to podcast art radio. That's right,
iHeart radio where you listen to it. If you would
like to pick up a bottle of Pursuit Bourbon, head
on over to keg the letter in bottle dot Com.
Tony Kanja will ship it right to your right to
your and you don't sell out today, I'm gonna have
(40:23):
him sign all of them.
Speaker 6 (40:24):
You might get a sign bottle.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Okay, that's that was my next question. That was my
next question, which that means you got it by two,
one to stock, one to rock. That's right, that's how
we did it. I stole that from somebody. That was
the that's the whistle, big guy. That was that was.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
We had heed what a storyteller sounded cool?
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Like I can come up up really awesome.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
I'm gonna steal that one is good. So uh keg
the letter in Bottle dot com. It's where you go.
Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so
much for joining us here on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Make sure you like subscribe, follow because we're gonna do
it again next week. It's a Barcard Friday. We will
see you guys next week. Cheers
Thank God Friday. It's been a long week and the
fellows are thirst stop just got stopped. Air goes down
down until my bad times into the weekend. Big Rich,
TD and Fletch present Bar Card Friday Rocking by Kegan
Bottle with the best selection of bourbon, whiskey, tequila, Private
Section bottles and more. Probably I drink too much, way
(00:21):
too much. I got my doctor your especially it was
on all of it. Now let's for some drinks.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
We are having a good time here on a bar
Card Friday with Pursuit Bourbon in studio. How about that?
You have Buddy Ryan from Pursuit Spirits behind the bar,
Ryan the self proclaimed dumbass.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
That's me.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Not only my wife called that, but all my friends myself.
Oh man, oh, there's not enough time.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
He just hates me all day with he verbally abuses me.
Is that your podcast co host?
Speaker 4 (00:54):
That is, yes, in your podcast you've been doing for
over a decade, Yes, which.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
You March and twenty fifteen in my basement with a
crappy MacBook and a crappy USB microphone. I had no
idea being San Diego on a radio station.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
So coming into the radio station, it's like you're back
to your roots. It's right, yeah, my safe place unless
you're still working out of a basement.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
We are in a basement now. We actually opened a
spot on Whiskey Road downtown Woisville, full tasting room, cocktail bar,
and we have a podcast studio Legit podcast studio now
right next to our cocktail bar with Legit microphones. Really
cool to have a permanent home that we've been doing
in my basement, in Kenny's basement, then in a warehouse,
and so now it's very cool to have our spot
(01:37):
on Whiskey Road.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
The studio's rad by the way, it's a bourbon pursuit podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Is the podcast you're you're looking for.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
But the studio did a brick backdrop and you've got
you know, bottles of pursuit on either side of you,
stacked up.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
It's beautiful. Yeah, with the banks are good at lending
money and we thought we'd use it. So what came first,
the bourbon or the podcast? The podcast?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
So we started the podcast in twenty fifteen, partnered with
Tony did a ton of barrel picks. Kind of became
the influencers. I hate that word in the Whiskey space,
but people really trusted our palettes and our knowledge, and
so twenty eighteen, somebody was like, guys, you are making
all this money for other distilleries. It's starting to get
competitive with barrel picks, other YouTubers and podcasters, and so
(02:20):
we decided to go and create our own path with
pursue Bourbon. We had been interviewing these the brightest minds
in the industry and doing all these barrel picks, learning
from the master blenders, the tasters, you name it, and
so secretly we were building up all this knowledge and
to build up our own brand. And so while it
wasn't easy, we had a better launching pad than most people,
(02:41):
and we already had the community of fans from the
podcast that they trusted us when we released a product
that they knew we were going to put something good
into a bottle. And if you're born and raised out
in Kentucky, yes, sir, grew up in Bartstown, Kentucky, where
you know Jim beam Maker's Mark, Kevin Hill will It Distillery,
all the you know, the the legacy brands. Quite frankly,
half my life, no one cared about bourbon. It was
(03:02):
just kind of like a factory job. But in my thirties.
I could kind of see people getting more interested want
to know understand because you go to a liquor store
and you're like, what the heck is all this? There's
tons of options in the small batch, single barrel, all
these words, buzzwords, and you'll learn that Bourbon's fifty one
percent corn, forty nine percent BS, A lot of marketing
correct a lot of stories. So we try to break
(03:22):
break out all the marketing the BS and really give
whiskey fans knowledge and power when they go to the
store to make conscious and good decisions.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
So when you started pursuit Bourbon, when you started your
own what year was it?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
It was in twenty eighteen, twenty eighteen, you dial it in, man,
what was it? This good right out of the get go.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
No, it was.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
About a year and a half, two years of R
and D and development. So we were not distillers were
so we're called non distilling producers. So there's obviously distillers
like keaven Hill or Maker's Mark, they make their own
whiskey and they have brands under there, and then there's
also brands that are non distilling producers that buy whiskey.
Distillers will make a excess whiskey that they sell to
(04:01):
brokers and brands that they can bottle and sell their themselves.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
So we looked at the landscape and like, how can we.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Be different as non distilling producers because there's only about
three or four sources you can buy excess whiskey from right, right,
And so we wanted to be different. And I said, well,
through the podcast, all these new distilleries we're sending us samples,
like how's our distiller taste?
Speaker 1 (04:22):
What do you think about it?
Speaker 3 (04:23):
And we discovered all these amazing distilleries, not only Kentucky.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
But outside of the US, and so I thought, I looked.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
At Kenyo, was like, I think it'd be really cool
to start blending different mash bills from different distilleries throughout
the country. Because bourbon, while love Kentucky, does not have
to be made in Kentucky, it can be met anywhere
in the United States. It's America's native spirit. And so
that's why our brand's called Pursuit United, because we partner
with three distilleries for our bourbon mash bills and two
(04:50):
distilleries for our our rhyme mash bills.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Man, it's it's some good juice. Yeah, and it's thank
you good. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Like I said, I'm too insecure to put some crappy
into the bottle, so I want to make sure it
tastes good.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Yeah, that's a good way to that's way a good
way to run a business. That's right before we taste
one of these.
Speaker 5 (05:06):
Do you remember what the first bourbon or whiskey was
that made you think, oh, I'm ready to dedicate my
life to this.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, so it was a battle of Noah or sorry.
Rowan's Creek twelve year. It's a will it distiller has
a brand called Rohan's Creek and at the time they
had a twelve year bourbon, and I remember it was
the first time I wasn't like mixing it with coke
or shooting it or putting it on ice and old.
I was about thirteen. Oh my gosh, kidding, because I
(05:33):
remember college.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
It's like you plug your nose, you just take the
shot of jacket whatever someone gives you.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Most of my early it's like anyone else. I was
drinking Evan Williams Black Label with Ginger Ale bourbon and
Ginger still my go to mixer. Like I don't understand
how people do bourbon and coke. It's like sweet on sweet.
At least the ginger like contrasted a little bit. But
that's how you get your start. Then you go to
some ice sud water, and then you kind of like
remove the ice, and then you go to Neat, which
(05:59):
is just straight bourbon. And I remember drinking that Rowan's
Creek twelve and being like, oh my gosh, there's so
much flavor. It doesn't need a mixer like it. They're
just like oak and cherry and leather and tobacco and
all this stuff. And it just like all these light
bulbs went on me and they just sent me down
this rabbit hole of like in two you have to
realize that growing up in Barstown, like Freddy Know who's
the grandson of Booker, Know who was the master still
(06:22):
or Jim Beam. His family's been at Jim Beam for
three decks or even longer three deck day maybe one
hundred years.
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
He was in We were in high school together, played football,
had access to, you know, great whiskey out of the
gay Drew Colsbing was a good friend from will at Distillery.
So I got exposed to like really good whiskey at
a young age and really grew appreciation for it. Then
saw just like it just blow up, like people were
just going crazy. And a lot of that's due to
(06:50):
like Pappy van Winkle. You know, it's obviously one of
the best bourbons out there. I would argue that's not
the best bourbon, but it is really good. And you
just saw this like boom and people getting interested and
excite about it. And it was very cool growing up
in Barstown because it Barstown's a small town, is about
ten thousand people, about an hour south of Louisville. Not
many people would go there, but as soon as bourbon
(07:12):
blew up, they start wanting to visit, starting to taste,
when to learn more. And so it was just really
cool to see that for our community in our state,
that we have not only just horse racing, but we have.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
This bourbon that you can drink and the whole world
can enjoy together. And you do think of horse racing
when you think of Little.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Or Kentucky Fried Chicken, but they just moved from Kentucky,
so it's there in Dallas now.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
But yeah, no way, that's right. Wait wait wait wait
wait wait wait what Kentucky Fried Chicken moved to Dallas.
They did. They were wait were they were? They purchased
by raising canes right.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
I don't know, raising canes Zaxby's or something. Now, So
they moved their headquarters to Dallas. They still have an
office in Louisville, but they did move their headquarters to Dallas,
which broke my heart.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
Also, I mean, I'm moving out of California. They got
so much backlash they said they'd stay. They did. Man,
I also think of baseball bats when I think of
a little of them. That's true. The bats think, yes,
thank you.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Our Our downtown location is right next to the Louisville Slugger.
There's a one hundred foot tall bat and I'm like,
who the heck wants to come see a bat factory?
Speaker 1 (08:13):
But it is cool once you go in there, and
I mean every day, even.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
On like Mondays, It'll be like nine am and there's
people lined up to go get their miniature bats and stuff.
So it's it's Louis' is a great town. You can
go visit the Slugger Museum or Churchill down and see
horse races, and then Bourbon's really done a great job
of You don't have to go to Bardstown or Lexington
or Versailles or Frankfurt and drive all across God's Green
or to visit these stillers. They put a lot of
(08:38):
tasting rooms in downtown Louisville, so people come, they can
hop around to different tasting and experiences.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Get your bat, you know, head right right right, of
course you're gonna need it by night time. That's yes, yeah,
a lot. You've been drinking a lot, been drinking a
lot walking by yourself?
Speaker 6 (08:52):
You know?
Speaker 4 (08:53):
To you, how often do you record podcast episodes?
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So we, uh do we do? Record once a week.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
We have this show called This Week in Bourbon where
we talk about It blows people's mind that there's relevant
news every week in Bourbon. But it's a fascinating industry.
People are interested in the liquor. Laws are new releases
right now, there's a big thing going on with a
brand called Uncle Nearest.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
If you look it up, there's.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
A huge lawsuits and defaults on loan and so whiskey
fans are one to keep track of it, and so
we're constantly updating them on what's going on behind the
scenes in the bourbon industry. Bourbon fans are a lot
like sports fans. They are like they have their brand
that they love and they're like die hard and if
you like something bad happens or something good, like they
just you know, it's like a sports talk radio show
of most but about bourbon that we call us ourselves
(09:42):
whiskey geeks, and we're just like it is kind of strange.
Like my wife's like, what the hell are you all
talking about? You know, and just talking about bourbon all day?
Speaker 4 (09:50):
Okay, So your wife is just like the wives of
Big Rich, TD and Flash, whereas none of their wives
listen to the show and don't.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Know them to talk about. Doesn't listen to your podcast, No,
definitely listen to any of them.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
She has for like thirty seconds that tracks we know
exactly that she here's my.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
Forest and just just cringes up already.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
So your your wife back in uh in Kentucky. Then
you're you're out this way for work, Yes, but no,
she traveled with me.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
She comes a lot helps me with like we do
a lot of During the day, I'll go and meet
with liquor store buyers owners, have them taste our products,
hope to get shelf placement. But then at night I
do a usually a tasting event or last night, Like
I did a private dinner with a whiskey group. About
seventy people came and I just tell them our stories.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Yeah, where did you guys go?
Speaker 3 (10:36):
It was in Huntington Beach. It was a place called Stacked. Okay,
really cool venue. But it blows my mind. I show
up to these things and people have been fans of
the podcast. They're like, really educated me in bourbon like you, Like,
I'm just so thankful for you. Like I was lost
like one hundred pounds walking to you know, to your podcast,
and or like I was doing cancer treatments and Coo
(10:58):
listened to your podcast and it got me and you're like, wow,
this is it, mind blog. I just thought it was,
as you said earlier, dumb ass ryn Cecil from barks Down,
Kentucky talking about bourbon. But it's really cool that our
fans will come meet us and then I get to
sign their bottles, take pictures. They show me their whiskey collections,
and I'm like, man, that's awesome. That's pretty fun. Yeah,
it's pretty fun.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Yeah, let's let's taste one of it.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
So we we tasted the uh, the United.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Yes, we had the Triple Mash Bourbon, which is the
eighty eight proof and then the double oaked bourbon. Okay,
and now we're really ramping it up. And this is
our barrel proof bourbon solof so it has not had
any water added to it.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
So it comes up straight out of the cask. Whatever
proof it is TD, I have no water added to ever. No, no, no, no, no, no,
unless it's unless it's through the distilling process.
Speaker 7 (11:47):
Let's get out, let's taste this coffee, right right, right right, yeah.
So I hand select like my five very best cast
for these. They this is like what whiskey officionados want.
They want it straight out of the barrel. No, you know,
adulteration with water. So even though it's one hundred and
nineteen proof, obviously it's gonna have some burn to it.
(12:09):
But I try to pick the casts that are really
like approachable, delicate, decadent, rich, and so this is like
what real enthusiasts want to enjoy our barrel proof.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
At one hundred and nineteen proof, it actually doesn't feel
like it. I know, it's dangerously Yeah, would you say
the word till? What? Was I gonna say? Smooth?
Speaker 3 (12:28):
Yeah, that's a say smooth. I wasn't gonna say smooth,
come on, I know, I word, I'm sorry. I wasn't
gonna say that. I just but and when you say
add water to it, you call that tempering down right, yeah,
just or proofing it down. So yeah, So a lot
of bourbons on the market are predominantly in eighty six.
To be a bourbon has to be at least eighty proof,
(12:48):
but so it cast strength. Obviously you're getting that one
hundred and twenty to one hundred all the way up
to one hundred and forty proofs. So what you get
to get it down to eighty six to ninety proof,
you're adding a ton of water. So with that you're
making it more approachable, but you're also losing a ton
of flavor with my adding water. But sometimes adding water
to a cash drink will open up more flavors. So
(13:09):
a lot of fans like getting in a barrel proof
because they can kind of be in control of how
much water. If I want to add water, what flavors
open up, I can drink it at the proof I want,
versus what the distillery decides to proof it.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
At this This is wonderful. Yeah, how long has this
been in a barrel?
Speaker 3 (13:23):
So those have been five to eight years old those barrels, Yeah,
which is a long time when you're laying down twelve
hundred We wait, we lay down twelve hundred barrels a year.
It costs about one point two million dollars finance that
with a bank. Then you got interest on those. You're
just staring at it, just waiting six to eight years
for I can bottle this stuff.
Speaker 5 (13:43):
And please don't let a rat in.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
A hole in the barrel, or please lightning striker win
blow this warehouse downs like an insurance money.
Speaker 1 (13:55):
Just just let it be a natural disaster. Yeah, so
it's very just got to be a natural disascer too
happening out there. I mean it's happened.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
In nineteen ninety six, heaven Hill had a lightning strike
caught one of their rick houses on fire. A rick
house is where the barrels are stored. There's about usually
anywhere from ten thousand to fifty thousand barrels in a
rick house. They caught on fire. Barrels started rolling out
of the warehouse, slamming into other rick houses, catching them
on fire, and they lost about ten warehouses in like
(14:24):
ten years worth of bourbon. And a cool story about
that at Bourbon's a very uplifting community, and so like
Brown Foreman, actually it was like, man, it sucks your
distillery caught on fire and you lost all these barrels,
but will actually help you make your Bourbon for you.
So Brown Forman stepped up. Let them use their facilities
to help make Bourbon, to get Heaven Hill back up
and running. But also too, there was a warehouse collapse
(14:47):
there where there's a beetle that ate the inside of
because all these workhouses are made out of wood, and
this beetles started boring out some of these rafters and
beams and all this.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Then there was like a windstorm and this.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Whole rick house collapse and barrels were rolling down the
creek and this and that. So it doesn't happen very often,
but it does happen from time to time.
Speaker 1 (15:08):
You guys are Elvis fans, then yes, I hate the Beatle.
Really it is an awesome community.
Speaker 5 (15:22):
Remember we had Whiskey Nomad here Tony and her house
burnt down in San Diego, and I think you were
a big part of it. But a lot of people
in the Bourbon community stepped up and helped her replace
a lot of those bottles.
Speaker 6 (15:32):
Oh God, replaced the bottles go fund me and she's
doing well.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Now that was crazy.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
But she came into Barcard Friday, like the day after
her house burned. Oh my gosh, it was bottles.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Great content on her channel. She's really great educat consumers,
not only on Bourbon but all kinds of whiskey.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
So she does a fantastic job. She is awesome, she's
super cool. And she pops up Yeah, no doubt. She
pops up and does like top five different different things
that I I watch and save.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
So, oh yeah, Bourbon fans, they're they're like all other humans.
They love listicles and top fives and top tens, you know,
just because that's us humans like numbers.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. The do you want us to taste
the next one first? Or we we've made a drink
as well.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
I think we go for the cocktail.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
For the cocktail, let's blow out our palates with the cocktails.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Is that is that wrong? Yeah, it's up to you all.
I don't care. Wait wait, that's not the that's the
way we're.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Supposed to You really want to taste the whiskey. If
you go from a cocktail to tasting and neat You're
gonna be like, this tastes just like whatever I had previously.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
It's gonna taste.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Yeah, it's just for the record, that was Fletch that
had that idea.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Yeah, that's all right, man, oh man, is that to
teach you the ways? We'll teach you the way. The
next one, the rot it is. Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
So we have our triple mash rise. So it's a
blend of three different mash bills. Uh, raw whiskey. Growing
up in Kentucky, absolutely hated raw whiskey because I'm bourbon
sweet corn guy. And so when the rise of popular
category and so developing our rye, I wanted a lot
more corn in our rye mash bills. So to be
a rye whiskey has to be fifty one percent rye
(17:07):
or higher than your mash bills. So I did barely
legal rye fifty two percent rye forty three percent corn.
And then I blend into ninety five five, which ninety
five percent rye, five percent malted barley, and I blend
those three mash bills together. So you'll notice with our
rye whiskey it's a lot of butteriness brown sugar also
some nice like strawberry lemonade candy, and also some like
(17:28):
herbal mint tea on it. So our Rye whiskey, which
is in the cocktail that we're about to enjoy, but
super versatile, super flavor.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Fact. I gave the bottom a little shake. It was
holding the bead for a long time, and I'm like,
whoa man? One hundred and twenty almost four.
Speaker 5 (17:41):
Proof right, trying to fire the whole is trying to
Did you wikipedia everything first?
Speaker 1 (17:46):
Did you pour them the barrel proof?
Speaker 4 (17:48):
No?
Speaker 6 (17:48):
I know the one you have in is eighty eight proof. Yeah,
this is eighty eight proof. The next one is gonna
be the one twenty.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
Five I watched. I watch Moonshiners, which I believe is real.
It's one hundred percent sure.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
You remember you heard the forty nine percent vis.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
That's all for.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
So this is as bourbon as a rye can get.
Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Correct? We call it a bourbon drinker's rice.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
So because a lot of Rye whiskeys are made uh
at ninety five percent rise, so Rye. You think about
rae bread, it's pung it, you know, bold, spicy. So
a lot of consumers are like, oh, I hate rat whiskey.
It's too floral, it's too it's too bready, it's too spicy.
So adding in that corn just makes it a lot
more sweeter, much more palatable for the American palate, because
(18:31):
Americans love sweet stuff. Yes, as you all have donuts, right,
what's part of our rider here to work at? iHeart
San Diego. We're required donuts every morning part of the regimen. Yeah, yeah,
that's basically our vitamins.
Speaker 6 (18:46):
And what I like about this one he was talking
about the malted barley. So you guys probably don't know.
It's three times probably more expensive to use, right, and
it gets a third of the yield, so it's it's
you know, expensive for you to use it. So I'm
glad you guys use it in there. But it adds
that smoothness.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
It does, yes, malted barley. So Scotch is one hundred
percent malted barley. In Bourbon we typically use five to
ten percent. And what it does it helps convert a
lot of enzomatic, not without getting too nerdy, but it
helps convert sugars into alcohol. But it also softens the
whiskey and makes it more nuttier, more delicate, more uh
(19:23):
kind of bready, yeasty to where it's not just like
straight alcohol.
Speaker 6 (19:27):
Yeah, it's almost like I was gonna say, you know
how we add bitters and things and other modifiers. So,
but maulted barley works almost like a modifier.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
It does.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
It's an answer, yes, as flavor cancer does.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Does it matter what yeast you use to give it
a difference?
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Yeah, So there's thousands and thousands of different yeast trands
that if you want your whiskey to taste more banana
or more fruity, or more uh cereal type or sweeter
the yeast which are the bacteria that are feeding on
the grain converting those out that that's sugar into alcohol. Well, yes,
it makes a huge difference on what yastrand you use.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
How do you know when the mash is ready? Is
it sweet at all or is all salur?
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Yeah, So when you start a mash, you'll start to
see the yeast. After about a day or two, you'll
start to see it bubbling on top. And once once
you get it starts out as a beer. Okay, So
you make a beer, you grind up the grains, you
mix it with water, and so that's your mash. Then
you add the yeast in After about twenty four hours,
you start to notice bubbling. After about three to five days,
(20:28):
sometimes seven days, you'll notice this like really thick layer
where it stops bubbling cake and that's when you know
it's ready.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
So a lot of there's a lot.
Speaker 3 (20:38):
Of automation now in distilling where they have sensors and
this and that they let them know like, okay, there's
a thing called a bricks meter that will tell you
how much sugars are being converted into alcohol. And they're
taking greetings and they know kind of with instruments. But two,
there's like on moonshiners or people that don't have fancy equipment,
they just stick their finger in mellet taste it, and
(21:01):
it's ready.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Let's go. Let's make that, you know, yeah, stick my
finger in and taste it. That's right, that's right. You know,
it's it's kind of gross.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
You go on a bourbon trail tour and like all
these people and they're like, you know, stick your finger
and there's like fifty people just sticking their finger in
the mash and like sticking their that's the grossest thing.
Speaker 1 (21:20):
You used to like clean your finger.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, exactly, So it's good you know what when I
when I was a kid during you know, Halloween time,
they would do bobbing for apples at my school and
I'd be like, I'm not putting my head in that.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
No, that's a good choice.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
Actually so gross, and like people are like taking selfies
and I'm like, how many cell phones have fell in
these you know.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Cell phones with their hands and face oil all over it? Yeah,
no doubt.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
But all that mash gets cooked up to two hundred
degrees and it is still and so anything that's in
there gets you know, sanitized by that. Hopefully no one's
eating the mash. You can, I mean it's good protein good,
you know, really you can? Yeah, yeah, yeah, all though
take alcohol. They will take the solids from the mash,
and cattle farmers actually pick up all that excess mash
(22:05):
to feed to their cattle, their hogs or wow. So
it's like free feed and whiskey. You know, these whiskey
producers produce millions of gallons a year of whiskey and
they have millions of pounds of excess mash that they
have to get rid of. So these farmers are gladly
taking it off their hands.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
That's cool. Reducer use recycling. Actually that's the fatten up
the cows. So we did eat them, right.
Speaker 5 (22:28):
There's a breweries in town to do that same thing, yep,
and the farmers love just heading over there afterwards and picking.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
Up that's free feed man. Man, how do you know
that fletch? I know some guys. He's a professional drug
of a couple of okay, flench also a free feeder. Yeah,
I will. I will take whatever excess mash you have.
Speaker 6 (22:49):
So I just poured you the one you're looking at
that you thought there was one.
Speaker 1 (22:52):
Twenty oh oh, this is the one right here. This
is Wait, which one was in my hand? That was
the eighty eight rise, So which one do you want
me to take? Taste that first before you go blow out?
Go to the really high proof. But okay, so this
is the eighty eight rye. What's the proof on this guy?
This is eighty eight proof.
Speaker 3 (23:07):
Sorry, we try to try to sometimes it's it's hard.
I know, I thought it was bottled at eighty eight.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Well uh yeah, well you know for Strainger things.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah, well, I don't know, got it from someone else.
The number can mean whatever you wanted to I wanted
to mean.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, So you'll notice it's really buttery, really smooth.
But also with the rye whiskey, ray has a lot
of nice citrus notes, so you get a lot of
like lemon and bright strawberries and also some like mintiness
on it. So rye whiskey has a ton of flavor.
Bourbons traditionally more caramel, vanilla, chocolate, sweeter. This has more
(24:00):
fruit and vibrancy to it, so it's a it's a
fun spirit. And rye is best used in cocktails because
cocktails you're adding usually a simple syrup or a sweetener
in those, and bourbon's already sweet, so rye has spice
and fruit that will kind of stand up to that sweetness.
So always tell people if you're making cocktails, don't use bourbon.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Use raw whiskey.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It's said it does have the mintiness because your mouth
feels almost cool.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Yeah, nice and tingly menthol Yeah, fresh breath now yeah
yeah yeah, I'm also I'm about five deep here. Yeah
that's what happens. Yeah, this is this is tasty man. Yeah,
thank you, I appreciate it. This is the good stuff.
Speaker 6 (24:37):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
The next one we're going to have is the triple mash.
Rye is that we said, yep, I guess I should polish. Yeah,
triple mash.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
So we're we're going from eighty eight proof, so that's
going to be a lot more delicate. This is this
particular batch of things, one hundred and twenty three point eight.
So this is our barrel proof rye I hand select
our five very best cask for this expression. It is
one three, but it's dangerously delicious of tread lightly.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
But this one has a totally different nose, totally.
Speaker 3 (25:05):
Yeah, it's gonna have a lot more richer brown sugar,
some butteriness. Uh, there's not not quite as sweet, not
quite as sweet, but there's also gonna be really like
nice baking spices coming out. So you think of like
tardam and nutmeg, type of those types of baking spices.
And then you'll you'll notice a little hint of minton
as well.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
When when you guys did the bottles, I mean, it's
just this is a this to me is just a
like a classy, classy bottle. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
Thank it just looks good, just says pursued on it
the label down low.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
The thing looks good. That is this something that you
came up with?
Speaker 3 (25:39):
Well, so we had a different bottle to start because
we were poor, and so we used a stock bottle,
so you can buy stock bottles from a lot of
glass manufacturers. And we had our label, and as we
grew up and started to save some money and knew
when we were going to expand out into other markets
and not just kind of sell to our our whiskey
geek fans, and we need to make it appeal to
(26:01):
consumers because in whiskey and any consumer good, there's a
lot of vanity over sanity, and you have to make
it look good on the shelf because people wanted to showcase.
So we this mold cost eighty thousand dollars just for
the mold. To get our custom glass in, we looked
at a ton of bottles and found some really cool
pre prohibition bottles that had this raised lettering with the
(26:21):
white screenprints on it.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
And so we want to tie in like cause we're
a new.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Brand, we don't have legacy or history or any family money,
so we want to be modern but also tie into
some vintage aspects of that too. So we thought it
just came really well together. I did not come up
with it. Kenny did not come with it. We had
a package designer come up with.
Speaker 2 (26:39):
It, right, not having a legacy out in Kentucky, how
do people accept you?
Speaker 3 (26:46):
Yeah, so it's tough when you're in Kentucky because people
have been drinking Bourbon there for years and so they're like,
I only drink Woodford, or I only drink not Greek
or this is that. And then so you got these
you know, we're young. I'm forty now, but when we
were launching the Branos thirty five and you got these
young whipper snappers, because there's usually you're like, oh, your
great granddaddy was this guy or and this, and you're like, nope,
(27:08):
I have none of that and so right, and they
are consumers. They're just like no only went Buffalo Tracey one.
So it was it was challenging at first, but it's
a liquid elipse industry, and once people tasted our products,
they were like, oh my gosh, you all are doing
something special, unique in the category.
Speaker 6 (27:23):
And so that's I'm gonna interrupt you because that's for
people that didn't know you.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
That's right. Oh right, But a lot of people know
these guys. Yeah right.
Speaker 6 (27:30):
The two of these guys are super well known in industry.
Anyone actually drinks bourbon knows who Suburban pursued is. And
and I think you guys, even though you didn't have
that legacy of of you know, great Grandpa was, you
know whoever, what you did have is what you guys
put together, that you and Kenny put together, So you
should be very proud of that.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah, we had the we had the community behind us
that we build. But two, we didn't have legacy. But
all the major distilleries, we've been promoting those guys for
free for years and build great relationships with them, and
when we announced that we were going to start our
own brand, they were very supportive, like they were like,
how can we help, Like you need to learn how
distribution works, or how we're getting on shelves or sourcing
(28:12):
your grains or sourcing your barrels. And so we had
all the industry helping alongside, which was very cool because
we've been very good stewards of them and they've been
super helpful for us. So we kind of had an
unfair advantage, but it did take us a decade to
build that advantage through the podcast.
Speaker 6 (28:27):
Yeah that's okay, I mean, honestly, they had a springboard
and they're awesome and everyone loves them. And they're actually
Kenny's in Northern California. So they're launching Fornia this week,
dividing and conquering. Wow.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Nice cool? How about that? About that? Very cool?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
I remember flying here to California and I'm like, I
can't believe I'm launching a brain in California.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
That's fun. That just blows my mind. When you come
to California, what's the first thing you do? Does it
go to in and out?
Speaker 6 (28:52):
No?
Speaker 3 (28:52):
I went to my hotel because we didn't get here
untill like nine thirty at night.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
We're staying Yeah, yeah, yeah, we clearly know that too,
laid out if it's nine thirty.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
And then I learned that the freeways suck, and like,
because I flew into Lax you don't have to say
anywhere else. Gosh, the freeways. I think I've only seen
freeways and liquor stores this entire trip. That's all we have,
got all we have I left. I was in Huntington
Beach last night. I drove down. We had to be
here at like eight forty five, so I left our
hotel at like six am, just so I could go
walk to the water for five minutes and see it,
(29:27):
because I've only seen the freeways.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
And uh, liquor stores. So yeah, so Huntington Beach. Well,
so I would say the two worst freeways in the
plant on the planet or the four five in the
ninety wild.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
You're right there, four O five is dreadful. I don't
see how people live deal with that every day. I
guess that's why our podcast does so well because they're
stuck on the four five.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
That's right. People get enough money who drive the four
or five, they move down to San Diego. That's right,
that's what happens.
Speaker 4 (29:52):
Are you going to have time to go to any
beaches here in San Diego?
Speaker 3 (29:55):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
We recommend, that's right.
Speaker 3 (29:58):
Yeah, well, I'll have to do it the next time.
So when we do a market launch like we do,
we try to jam pack it to see as many
buyers meet as many whiskey fans as possible, because that's
where you've got to build a relationship with alcohol. There's
a three tier distribution where you have to go. I
can't sell directly consumers, so I have to build relationships
with our distributor partners and our retailers and build those
relationships show our products off. So you try to jam
(30:20):
pack as many meetings as you can, and then you're
doing an event at night.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
And so people think this, oh, you have a bourbon brand.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
You're living this clamorous life, you know, doing this, and
I'm like, I'm just on the freeway. And then the
back room tastes back stock room of a liquor store
trying to convince buyers to buyer stuff. I mean, it
is cool, but it's not as glamorous as one might think.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Each people also show their products off. That's right, all
their products.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
It is our local nude beach gets a cool social
media as long as you got the blur, you cannot do.
That's the thing. You don't film people there. You don't
film people if they know. That's good advice.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Actually I've actually never been there, maybe either having never
been talks about who in this room has been there.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Yeah, I go to black Speed. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (31:05):
Oh what do you do at black Speech? You hang
out so ron you can't get there, like you've gotta
hike together.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
You do down like it's it's like it's a little
quick hike down the cliff side.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Fifteen minutes. Wait, it takes you fifteen minutes to get
down the cliff side about it can't be honest. What's
the ratio to like people that look like you versus
old dudes hanging brain? It's more old men. Sweet. Okay,
I think we're gonna leave Black Beach out.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
But before, before you go hike down, do you get
ready for black speech?
Speaker 4 (31:40):
Like?
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Are you ready at the top? What do you mean
by you even bring the top? I mean like, are
the top? No? No?
Speaker 4 (31:47):
You know, you hike down in whatever you have on
and you take it around, then you get comfortable.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
What if those old men steal it? Though they do,
I don't know they purchased it from you online.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
See why you have trust issues with me? I know
these guys that I work with. I don't think she's
getting any dates.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Yeah, if you're unaware, Ryan, No cat will sell you
her socks.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
They are they are for sale online. They're not. There's
not for sale online. But if you range out.
Speaker 4 (32:18):
To me, then maybe we work out a deal.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
We'll do some pursuit socks, a special a special limiting edition. Yeah,
that's also a cat. A barrel pick.
Speaker 5 (32:29):
You put the whiskey in the barrel for a while
and then you just have to wait. You gotta wait
with the socks two and a half years.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
We can put our bottles in these socks and put
them on children, kind of like the Crown oil bag.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Wow wow wow wow wow. That'll require two signatures. It
is the day before Valentine's Day.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
So if if you happen to be anywhere in the
San Diego area on February thirteenth, head on over to
K and B Bistro until Sarah right off the eighth
and College, because Ryan, you're going to be there signing
bottles and doing a tasting a couple of hours. That's
taste all of our expressions, and then if you are
buy a bottle, I will devalue it by putting my signature.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
You know what's funny is all of these signat sign
bottles that I've gotten from Keg and Bottle, which you
can buy them online at Keg the letter in bottle
dot com. I keep them. I don't open them. They
just they sit on the sh one to stop right
at the top of my bar. I don't even think
it's a good whiskey, is it.
Speaker 6 (33:28):
Of course, banana whiskey is great, actually.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
Actually great whiskey that you can get keg the letter
in bottle dot com flat it's Howler ahead, what howerhead UFC.
Speaker 6 (33:38):
You know Dana White, that whole connection we have, and
that's how we got Patty the Batty to sign all
those bottles. But I have a cool flavored whiskey story
that involves this man right here. Do you remember that story?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
No, I don't.
Speaker 6 (33:48):
It's refreshman with peanut butter whiskey. Oh that's right, screwball Screwball.
Speaker 3 (33:52):
I remember you sent us this before it even like
was even a thing, before it was a thing.
Speaker 6 (33:57):
And so I was in the basement with Kenny. I
don't think you were at that that that recording. So
we did a recording. We did a whistle pick pig
pick as well. Okay, I remember the story though.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6 (34:07):
So we're we're there and I'm like, hey, uh, Kenny,
I brought you a gift and he goes, what did
you get me? And I go, I got your bottle
of screwball. He goes, what the f is that? While
peanut butter whiskey is yeah, yeah, I don't want it.
I said, mark my words here on this and you
can go back and find this live podcast. This will
be the next big thing, next big thing, This will
bring fireball down. And sure enough the guy went huge,
(34:29):
went big, you know, and Screwball now is nationwide.
Speaker 1 (34:33):
I remember when I said earlier Americans love sweet stuff.
It is sunk, right, it is. It is like dessert
and a bottle.
Speaker 6 (34:40):
Yeah. So that that same weekend, that was the gala
right in oh yeah, bown in Bardstown. So like an
adult prom. It's an adult prom.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
It's kind of fun to go to.
Speaker 6 (34:50):
Yeah, we're in a Lima bus with four Roses and
all the execs, you know, and so I have this bottle.
I'm going down the Lima bus giving everybody a shot.
And what's the late gentleman from four ros is? His name?
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Al Young?
Speaker 6 (35:03):
Al Young? Al Young is sitting sitting in there with
his wife, and I'm like, you gotta try this, And
he has this crazy look on his face, like what
the heck is that?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
That's horrible.
Speaker 3 (35:12):
Yeah, we don't like flavored anything and all. We like
it as natural as possible. Yeah, I got to taste.
I haven't tasted the Triple Mash Rock TD.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
Oh my god, oh fire in the hole. Come on,
what do you think? Whoa, whoa? That's insanely good. That
is so good.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
This is our rising star. If you see a bottle
of it, it's selling out fast. I've been going up
and down the coast and like everywhere go they're like,
we sold out a triple mash rock or barrel proof,
Like it's we can't make it fast enough.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Tony, do you have this cake?
Speaker 6 (35:49):
We have it available today, There will be I want
to say, twenty four bottles of this bottle available.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Twenty four that's all you got. How did you get
twenty one four? Mario? I know everybody's been mad at me.
They're like, holy god, six or you know this one.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
That's wow, Well you're gonna have twenty three because I'm
buying one.
Speaker 7 (36:06):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
There is absolutely phenomenal. Wow, that's fantastic. And then we
have to try this. We have to I know we're
up against the clock and get on the road. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3 (36:18):
So this is our Rye Rita. This came out of
an accident. I was on my my wife's parents boat.
They love Margarita's. We ran out tequila. I had a
bottle of our Rye whiskey. I was like, oh, I
was just substitute our Rye whiskey for tequila and let's
see what they think. And it works, and it worked.
It was so good and to like being Kentucky. And
obviously tequila is blown up and it's popular, but I
(36:40):
want to showcase that our our whiskeys are very versatile.
Not only can you drink them straight, but you can
put them in cocktails and enjoy them just like you
would with a tequila margarita. So this is our Rye rita,
dangerously delicious, perfect for the summertime, so good refreshing.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Is this just this is all I want. This is
only Trader Joe's margarita makes this is so this.
Speaker 3 (37:00):
Is Tracer Daves marguerite to mix. So you do three
ounces of this and an ounce and a half of
our Rye whiskey. If you want to do it fancier,
which we do at our cocktail bar, we do a
ounce and a half of our Rye whiskey, ounce of
a Govey nectar, ounce of lime juice, and half ounce
of curosel.
Speaker 7 (37:18):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (37:19):
And so you can make a bougier version at home,
but I like simplicity, and so the trace of gove
is pretty pretty pretty good with this, the Rye whiskey.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
That is so fund man, that is tasty. That is tasty. Man.
Thank you for coming in to thank you for having me.
This has been a blast.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
This is fantastic. Yeah, absolutely, yeah, this was This was
a good day. If you want to learn more, follow
us on bourber Pursuit podcast. If you're one, you'll learn
more about bourbon. You'll be excited. If not, you'll be
bored to death. But we'll teach you anything and everything
about the bourbon industry. And then also to our brands
Pursuit Spirits, Pursuit United as our Bourbon and Rise and Too.
(37:55):
If you come to Kentucky, come physit us in Louisville, Kentucky.
We have a great tasting room showcase all of our bourbons.
We have great experiences. And then our cocktail bar called
Trial and Air, which is based off my blending process.
Are the branding teams like tell us about your blending process.
I was like, I don't know. It's a lot of
Trial and Air like that's it. And I was like, really,
I just paid you all the money for them, but
it works, and.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
So man, you know I should ask though, as I
mentioned that you come out, if you come out to California.
You should go to In and Out. I feel like
that's a very in and out. It's what's the burger
of choice out in Kentucky?
Speaker 1 (38:26):
Is it burger?
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Is that we don't We don't have any, Like they're
not really in good fast food. There's there's a Toasty's
Tavern and that has the best smash burger.
Speaker 6 (38:37):
But there's the barbecue. You guys took me to barbecue
one time. Yeah, that was feast of barbecue.
Speaker 7 (38:42):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
Is it a chain or just one off? Just one off?
We don't. We don't have any good chain burger restaurants.
Five guys.
Speaker 6 (38:48):
I mean that's that's that'sclar But if you want a
really good burger, go to Toasty's Tavern and will incredible
smash burger.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
It's absolutely insane.
Speaker 6 (38:57):
And if you want to have a crazy experience doing
the uh.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Oh yeah pursuit paluza. So so once.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
A year we invite one hundred and eight of our best,
our our our loyal fans for the podcast and we
do a crazy three day or two day event where
you come to Louisville, Kentucky. We get two charter buses
because we have great relationships with all the distilleries across Kentucky.
We'll ask them to do exclusive experiences for our fans.
We'll charge around to four or five different distilleries.
Speaker 1 (39:26):
Tony did it. It's a. It's a. That's why he
was blackout for four days.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
I mean, it's a great time. But make sure, yeah,
you get an IV before you.
Speaker 1 (39:36):
Come and schedule. Is it in July. I'll be in
Nashville in June.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
It's always the second or third week of June. But
it's a great time, Okay, But it sells out extremely fast.
Last year it sold out in about twelve minutes.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, only one ticket available. That's right.
Ryan's mom bought it, but just want to get in.
I like it. That's I like it. Yeah, man. Uh,
it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you for coming
on today, Ryan.
Speaker 6 (40:02):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
The podcast again is Bourbon Pursuit, and you can find
that anywhere you listen to podcast art radio. That's right,
iHeart radio where you listen to it. If you would
like to pick up a bottle of Pursuit Bourbon, head
on over to keg the letter in bottle dot Com.
Tony Kanja will ship it right to your right to
your and you don't sell out today, I'm gonna have
(40:23):
him sign all of them.
Speaker 6 (40:24):
You might get a sign bottle.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Okay, that's that was my next question. That was my
next question, which that means you got it by two,
one to stock, one to rock. That's right, that's how
we did it. I stole that from somebody. That was
the that's the whistle, big guy. That was that was.
Speaker 2 (40:41):
We had heed what a storyteller sounded cool?
Speaker 1 (40:48):
Like I can come up up really awesome.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
I'm gonna steal that one is good. So uh keg
the letter in Bottle dot com. It's where you go.
Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so
much for joining us here on YouTube.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Make sure you like subscribe, follow because we're gonna do
it again next week. It's a Barcard Friday. We will
see you guys next week. Cheers
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