Small Batch | Tariffs Hit Home

Truth in the Barrel Small Batch Episode : Tariffs Hit Home

Our own Denver Riggleman tells Amy McGrath what his own distillery has been going through since President Donald Trump’s tariff stunt. Amy points out that according to her own pocket constitution, Trump’s tariffs may not have been legal in the first place. 

*This episode was recorded on April 18, 2025, and aired on April 21, 2025. 

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About Truth in the Barrel: 

Amy and Denver are both military veterans, political junkies, and whiskey lovers who sit on opposite sides of the aisle but have one thing in common: they love the United States of America. 

Truth in the Barrel was born of Amy & Denver’s commitment to country, the Constitution, and a well-curated collection of the world’s finest bourbon. 

Join them weekly for deep dives into timely topics, interviews with recognizable guests, and a dose of call-in fun. 

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https://www.sbdistillery.com/

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Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hi everyone, I'm Amy McGrath.
I'm here with Denver Riggleman and this is Truth in the Barrel Small Batch.
Today we are talking about tariffs and how they affect small businesses and it is no joke.
And this is such an important topic.
Denver, you run a small business.
What is going on?

(00:25):
I got problems with this.
I got problems.
Let me tell you.
So about 3 days ago, you know, we order bottles and pallets at Silverback Distillery here in Afton, Virginia.
As you're saying, I'm wearing my Silverback Distillery hat.
This is a well-used hat, by the way, Amy, as you can see.
So Christine calls me.
She's the CEO and master distiller, my beautiful wife, and she's beside herself.

(00:47):
Now,
You know, it's interesting.
The tariffs actually haven't, I would say, technically hit yet.
But we went ahead and our shipper charged us a tariff fee.
Sorry, I just lost it here.
Sorry about that.
I'll start with there.
Let me start again.
Sorry.
Doug, I want to start again from after Amy asked the question.

(01:10):
Yeah, yeah.
Clap it in.
Amy, I'm not happy.
You know, you talk about small businesses and how they're affected.
As you know, my wife and I own Silverback Stillery here in Afton, Virginia.
And we've had to deal with a lot of weird things.
You know, when COVID happened, we had all these COVID surcharges and all of our flow downs and all of our supply chain stuff.

(01:32):
It almost ended us during COVID with the shutdown at the same time.
But we were able to sort of get through because we had stockpiled.
On accident, by the way, it wasn't because we were brilliant.
We just were in a really good place before COVID.
And we had stockpiled and got bottles cheaper at that time, which if you're smart, you'll up your inventory when prices go down.
This is economics one to one.

(01:53):
So anyhow, I get a call from my wife about 3 days ago.
Now we're still paying on many of our, I know, Amy, this is going to shock you.
We're actually still paying COVID surcharges from twenty twenty one and twenty twenty today.
So she calls me and she's beside herself.
And we had just gotten 2 pallets delivered to us of bottles.
She goes, honey, I got to tell you something.

(02:13):
I'm like, oh, because we just got a retroactive tariff charge.
But, yeah.
Yeah, our bottle prices went from one-oh-one a bottle to 155 a
So they're preemptively jacking up the prices
Yes.
Is it because of the uncertainty, right?

(02:35):
I think when you see instability
at this level talking about tariffs that can affect manufacturing and supply chains all over the country.
There's absolute terror.
There's 2 things that happen.
There's terror from the actual company itself, either on the wholesale or distribution side, right, on the shipper side.
But there's also this profit-taking up front that they're going to do on goods that weren't already, right, identified with those tariffs,

(03:05):
So that's interesting, right?
And we're really angry about it.
The issue is you can't accept – they won't let you accept the bottles unless you pay.
It's not like we can just say, oh, no, we want the original price.
Right.
It doesn't work that way.
And you're like, well, why is that so bad?
When you're working on small margins, there's a cascading effect.

(03:26):
We have a budget.
You've got a budget.
So there's a couple things I can do.
Number one, right?
We try to, there's 3 things.
We just, we try to go with existing inventory until we think things are going to go
It's really hard, really hard.
Maybe we can make it through.
The second thing is you decrease labor.

(03:50):
You fire people, right?
Good jobs.
Yeah.
Good jobs.
third thing is you pass the cost on the consumer.
Now, we're not even to tariffs yet, people are like, oh, wait a minute.
Tariffs haven't happened, retail Denver and Christine.
How dare you?
We're already getting charged on supply chains, just not bottles.
It's corks.
Yeah.
It's shrink wrap.

(04:11):
People have no idea, right?
Corks, shrink wrap are specialty bottles.
Wax.
I think what a lot of people maybe don't realize, and I didn't even realize it until now, is we read about tariffs and, oh, when they go in effect and this is who they're going to impact.

(04:31):
the reality is it's already impacting.
It's here.
Because it's the uncertainty of this man in the White House who doesn't know what he's doing, who's just throwing everything into upheaval.
And that has cascading effects.
Even if tomorrow he waved his wand and said, I'm just kidding.

(04:54):
I'm not going to do these tariffs.
It's already having a damaging effect.
What's he going to do the next day, though, Amy?
He's going to change his mind again.
And you know, this is a guy who doesn't pay his vendors, right?
A guy who I don't actually think understands supply chains.
You know, people think car building, oh God, complex.

(05:16):
You know, you think about Ford.
Ford, the day that he came out with the tariffs, they had their stupid thing where they came out and said, oh, you could buy our vehicles at employee prices.
Guess what Ford just announced yesterday?
We're going to have to up our prices, right?
Yeah.
We knew that was coming.
Oh, come on.
Right.
The reason they could do that at that second is they were hoping to dump inventory.

(05:37):
Yeah.
As fast as they could before the tariffs kicked in.
So it was a gimmick.
Right.
Well, you know, you know, then all the all the mega, you know, Trump people were like, oh, look, it's already working.
Look at the prices.
Yeah, they're working.
All right.
People are like, yeah, just wait.
Just wait a sec.
You know, and of course, I actually saw, I think it was ABC Morning News, Amy, talk about Ford doing that because of the terrorist.

(06:02):
But are they reporting as heavy and as propagandity, you know, as ridiculously, you know?
Why did I just think, I don't know why I just thought of Zoolander.
But anyway, so I just, I don't understand, you know, the ridiculously good looking.
But I don't understand, you know, now the news isn't blaring out the negative news from all this as hard as it was like, oh, look what happened there.

(06:24):
So it's just interesting to me.
But personally.
Christine and I had to talk about who to cut if this continues.
And people we love, they don't get it.
And I told Christine, okay, to make up 54 cents on a bottle and the small pennies, maybe it's 90 cents to a dollar 5 more we're paying on wholesale gross for a bottle, corks, wraps, all that.

(06:50):
Do you know how much I have to charge more for a bottle in order to make just that money back?
4 dollars.
Yeah.
I just now start to multiply that over your whole inventory schedule.
And I think that's what people need to understand is that small businesses, right?
And our business is probably valued.
I don't want to say it out, but I mean, it's in the few 1000000, right?

(07:12):
Right.
Small businesses that have for us between twenty and twenty five full time and part time employees that are working in the manufacturing space with the supply chain line.
Absolutely devastating.
And it's because of economic uncertainty.
And when the tariffs hit, we're going to get more charges.
It's even worse.
And then the cascading effect is an absolute nuke.

(07:32):
Yeah.
Anyway.
This policy is so dumb.
But here's something that we could actually drink on, okay, that I think is a positive.
Recently, a group of small business owners have filed a lawsuit this past week arguing that Donald Trump is that these tariffs are illegal.

(07:53):
Governor Gavin Newsom in California has filed a lawsuit arguing the president does not have the power under the Constitution to enact these tariffs.
And actually, you know what?
I pulled out my pocket Constitution.
The other night, because I was thinking the same thing, because, you know, I taught the Constitution.

(08:14):
I thought to myself, gee, nowhere do I ever remember the president in Article 2 having any of these powers.
So I looked up Article one, Section 8 in the U.S.
Constitution actually says that Congress has the power to, quote, lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises.
and grants congress the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations and also that all relates to tariffs in addition congress article one section 9 that clause prohibits states from imposing tariffs on imports and exports without the consent of congress so here's the thing

(08:53):
Nowhere does it say the president has this power.
All of the powers reside within Congress.
So in my mind, all of these lawsuits are going in the right direction.
It's just a matter of one, will the courts read the Constitution?
And then 2, will our president follow it?

(09:15):
Well, maybe the Tickle Me Elmo Congress shouldn't roll over and show their belly to Trump and give away all of their article on responsibilities to somebody who doesn't know what he's doing.
And I think that's where we're at.
And Amy, I want to say one thing.
Thank you for caring.
for doing this small batch for me to show people how tariffs affect real businesses and real people and how it can affect people's lives in a way that people cannot understand unless they're running a business with a supply chain issue and tariffs that affect it.

(09:43):
And for that, ma'am, cheers to you.
Amazing.
Thank you.
And I tell you what, if people aren't actually subscribing to the show on YouTube or they're not downloading us on their favorite pod, they don't get to drink with us anymore.
That's just the way it is.
And we got a lot more coming.

(10:03):
We got a lot more coming.
Amy, it's good to see you.
Thanks.
All right.
Cheers.