Exploring the Spirit of Whiskey: Tradition, Innovation, and the Metaphysical Journey with The Alchemist Alan Bishop

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Sure, and I can come down Friday next Friday and I'm
staying the night, so I'lleither just walk around and you
can tell me to get the hell out,and I'll go over to the brewery
or you know whatever.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Whatever, I would like to see a master blender.
Jason Giles has brought backRosewood Tr Rosewood by
purchasing plus contractdistillate barrels of bourbon in
Kentucky and Indiana.
Once they mature, he ships themto Texas.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
I have to defend myself against this rye thing.
Mueller, there's a reason Ilove Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
The Rosewood and the Rosewood single barrels offer a
unique bourbon and ryeexperience.
Please drink responsibly andnever drink and drive.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Is that all.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man,I've drank a lot of that.
Listen, the main thing that I,if I am drinking whiskey of any
kind right now, unless it'ssomething like, you know, cheap
tractor whiskey, like Sazerac,it's either Stolen Wolf or

(01:11):
Liberty Pole.
Most of the time, Scotch andBurden boys.

Speaker 3 (01:25):
Amazingly, hell, we're making some noise.
Yeah, we're the Scotch andBurden boys.
We're here to have fun.
We hope you know we're here tohave fun.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, all right, that was Kenny Fuller singing our
Scotchy Bourbon Boys theme songon Tiny.
We got Super Nash and a specialguest, guest star, I have to
say guest star tonight.
Uh, alan, bishop of oldhomestead, if you have ghosts,
you have everything and onepiece of the time distilling

(02:17):
institute.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Welcome alan and distillers talk and distillers
talk.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Yes, are you still doing that?
Does christy still go on that?
Oh yeah, absolutely, absolutely, she sure does yes, excellent,
but uh, so great to have you ontonight.
I'll just quick do itwwwscotchiebourbonboyscom for
all things scotchy bourbon boys,glenn karen's t-shirts, and
then also check us out onInstagram and X and all the

(02:44):
major podcast formats Apple,spotify and iHeart mainly, but
whatever format you listen to,like, listen, subscribe, leave
comments and make sure that youlisten.
I covered the—.

Speaker 4 (03:02):
Are you okay?
Did you smell a toaster?

Speaker 1 (03:04):
No, make sure you leave good feedback.
I had it all down real quickand then at the end it just
wasn't there.
That's how it is lately.
It's like the greatest thingever is trying to remember
somebody's name, where you canpicture everything about them.
You know what they said lastnight, but you can't remember
their name.
And they were on TV.
You know they're that famous.

(03:28):
You're just sitting there goingwhat is that actress name?
You might sit there for 15minutes.
Then all of a sudden it goesaway and all of a sudden, oh,
that's the name, but it's out ofcontext.
It's like I think, uh, and Ihaven't been drinking, all right
, so we have alan coming on.
It's sponsor week.
Everybody, welcome.
Uh, it's.
Uh, this is this podcast.
We've already been talking alot about different things.
Uh, we were just finishing up.

(03:49):
Uh, we were.
If you guys want a pre-game,always you've got facebook,
we're live facebook and youtube,so that always on there.
But if you're just listening,you want a 45 minute fix of us,
uh, just keep listening on allthe podcast formats.
But I will say this when you, asa podcaster, so what I found

(04:09):
out about YouTube and Facebook,the longer you're on.
I learned this from my son,who's a video game and the main
video game people that havepodcasted and became famous on
YouTube or whatever.
They basically play video gamesfor eight hours a day online,

(04:31):
so they're playing the game andpeople come on at all times so
they get this giant viewershipbecause all they're ever doing
is playing the game.
So I have this thing I want tocome up with and I might do it
with Martin Kennedy.
I have this thing I want tocome up with and I might do it
with Martin Kennedy.
He makes Buah Irish whiskey andwith Pat Burns down in Columbus
and he's in Ireland, brings itback and then he tells me about

(04:54):
what's coming over on the ship.
But it's Ohio Irish whiskeymade in Ireland.
And Martin Kennedy used to workfor Talamore Dew that's how he
was a rep for them.
So they're doing that there.
But I was thinking I'd just godown to the Irish pub at 8
o'clock in the morning, I startthe podcast for Facebook Live
and YouTube and just go all daydrinking Irish whiskey I mean

(05:21):
ultimate podcast, right forwhiskey.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
Then I'll get known for the guy that just drinks all
day.
What did jj say?
He said can we drink for eight?

Speaker 1 (05:31):
hours.
Yes, sure, you can join usthere anytime, and it doesn't.
I mean they have bourbon,whatever, but it's irish and
that.
So it's kind of like that'swhat I found that the longer I'm
on YouTube, the way more viewsI get, but it's live, so as soon
as it's over, nobody like keepschecking lives.

(05:52):
They want to watch it live.
You know that's what it's therefor.
So anyways, let's get back onthe discussion.
Alan on rye whiskey.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
Okay, so let me clarify, and I'll try to do this
delicately, jeffrey, jeffrey.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Not Mueller Jeffrey.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
I have always loved rye whiskey and I always loved
Solomon Scott.
I think I know what you weredriving at or what maybe you
were remembering.
So I do not like 95.5, and I donot like 51% rye.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
Oh, you did say that's okay, so then yes, okay.

Speaker 2 (06:30):
I love rye whiskey, though, and hence my two, two of
my favorite distilleries of alltime.
You guys are drinking a nightLiberty pole as well as stolen
wolf from the appropriate ryewhiskey state of Pennsylvania,
not Kentucky.
Right, and I love Kentucky aswell, but it is not a rye state.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Although I and and I understand what I'm about to say
is going to be controversialamongst the people that you run
and maybe with you, but I thinkin my own honest to God opinion,
knowing Dan McKee, thatMichter's makes the best rye
that comes out of Kentucky andit's almost paying homage.

(07:13):
It pays homage to what comesout of Pennsylvania to an extent
, except I think there'sdefinitely the bourbon part of
it.
It's those caramels andwhatever where the the
Pennsylvania rye can havewhatever, but they are
definitely um, as, as I've beengoing through them, there is

(07:36):
there is a definite aspect ofPennsylvania reclaiming rye.
That needs to happen becausethat's what they were doing now
in indiana.
We were talking about a littlebit about the rye and whatever,
but I really think, from whatI've been tasting of everything
that you've done, that I reallythink indiana was good at apple

(07:58):
brandy like damn good at applebrandy, because the apple brandy
is that you make apple brandytaste and then you also age it
and so apple brandy almost islike whiskey, and that's not how
I've ever thought of it.
I've never.
When I had apple brandy before,it usually ended up with me and

(08:21):
the toilet having arelationship, and that's not the
case with what you make.
It's a totally different thing,right right, yeah, yeah, no,
absolutely.
That is the heritage of Indiana.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
for sure there's other heritages there that I
haven't ever touched on.
All right.

Speaker 4 (08:37):
I got to say this because Kev just said this and
this is meant to me and Jeff,I'm pretty sure If you break him
, you keep him until he's notbroken anymore.
Ask Aunt.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Angie when he's broken.
Well, yeah, that's absolutelytrue.
I haven't been broken for alittle while, so thankfully,
hopefully, that won't be thecase, but there's always the
opportunity for a shirtless pick.
Yeah, and I agree with you.

Speaker 4 (09:08):
I haven't been broken since.
I was broken with Ames the lasttime at German on the banks oh.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Jesus.
As a real quick aside, I agreewith you.
Mickers does a fine job.
I'm just saying take it homewhere it belongs.
I also have personal feelingsabout that because of the way
that, yeah, that's a wholenother thing, but I said I am
well aware of what that is andwhat happened, and, and, and
we're the whole.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
so I agree it's probably wasn't the people
making those moves and we're notandrea Dan, exactly.

Speaker 2 (09:44):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
And I love you know that's one thing.
Initially, when you first start, you hear all the stuff about
everything and people talk abouttransparency in the industry
and yes, I think in a lot ofcases transparency can be done
and used to your advantages.
There's a couple Irish whiskeysthat have so much transparency.
It's insane.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
Just hear me out.
Here's a couple Irish whiskeysthat have so much transparency.
It's insane.
Just hear me out.
Here's a marketing idea.
I'm just saying I'm throwingthis out there for funsies, just
for funsies.
I'm just saying that that riverconnects to another famous
river in Pennsylvania and youcould get some steamships to
pull up in Louisville, loadthose stills on those steamships

(10:26):
and move that whole thing backhome where it belongs.
And what great PR that would befor the world.
Super expensive, sure, butawesome.

Speaker 1 (10:37):
It's not like, at this point, when you look at it,
they have the money.
I mean it's right, but but what?
What I will say one way oranother?
Um, I think pennsylvania is isdoing what it needs to do and
and and and.
Yes, you have different kind ofthings, but it's kind of cool

(10:59):
to see pennsylvania come backwith the rye.
Uh, it's you like, they do ryesfirst and it's kind of like
cheesemakers, I was explained tome.
Either you make mozzarella andcheddar or you make Swiss, but

(11:20):
you can't do both Because theSwiss and it's just like it's
the same thing.
In Pennsylvania, they're makingrye.
There you go.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
In.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Pennsylvania they're making rye and then they'll do a
bourbon, but it's the rye thatthey're making that you taste,
whereas in Kentucky it's goingto be a bourbon and secondary
rye, there's no doubt.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
We've got to give a shout-out to Laura Petruzio
because she has definitelyhelped pushing to bring that rye
back to Pennsylvania and ryewhiskey and doing a great job
Shout-out to her.

Speaker 2 (12:05):
She's done a fantastic job and she's in a
state with, again, liberty Polefolks and also Eric and Avi, and
JJ is down there.
Somebody needs to put that boyin a distillery and give him
some major ownership in thatdistillery, because you're
missing out on one of thegreatest distillers in the

(12:26):
United States, greatest youngdistillers with a bright path in
front of them.
If somebody just gave him aship that he was allowed to sail
.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
He just said he does live at the Confluence.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Right, See, they can take them stills right up there.
Drop them off and hire JJ.
Everything will be made rightin the world.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Well, let's even just order them and put them up
there.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Right, put the small set up there.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
Just send them up.
Yeah, that would make sense.
And they got all the stuff.

Speaker 4 (13:01):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
But, like I said, I was getting into transparency.
But there's a certain aspectwhere some distilleries they're
not trying to fool you because Idon't think you can fool
anybody right but they producedamn good whiskey and that's
that's.
That's the key in the end.
It's like whether you'retransparent or or produce damn

(13:22):
good whiskey, you know, it's sofunny, all the transparent
people with you.
Look, it's just like peopleleave and they all tell you what
.
They don't tell you what a mashbill is.
They don't not telling you allthe details that everybody.
But at the same time you lookon online and they'll say, oh,
this is what the mash bill is,because obviously they've had
workers there and they mighthave been sworn to silence when

(13:45):
they were there, but when theyleft they weren't.
You know you can't stop it.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
So but right, well, and it's that's.
That's one of the reasons why Ilike the minor leagues, like we
were saying before this gotstarted.
Right, and I've worked at thesmall distilleries, because
here's the way you always haveto look at it.
Obviously, you have to makemoney.
Everything has to be profitable.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
Right, but then has to be profitable, right, but
then you, so you have art, andthen you have money, and then
somewhere in between, on thatscale, there's integrity, right,
and so, yeah, I'll stay withthe small guys.
Well, yeah, I I so weirdbecause, uh, two of the our
friends, our biggest friends, isyou're, uh, like one of our
biggest friends, and then ourother biggest friend, greg
schneider, who's the, and youguys are very you're.
You're the same in yourpassions, but different,
different total paths to get towhere you at, where you're at,

(14:36):
but at the same time, you bothwere in a same, similar
situation and both ended up withleaving one, and then he's in
the process of where he's goingto go, and you're already at
where you're going to go.
But at the same time, it's likeas a whiskey person who start,

(14:57):
start, I was just I mean, youalready had been through so much
and whatnot, but I was justlike a baby when and you
basically took us and it's andsame thing with greg and
explained so much to us and thatwe were so grateful for that.
Um, and he did it, you know,and we promoted and grew up with
your brands but, right, as thebrands were hitting their peak

(15:20):
whoosh.
And then it's just like it's sohard because it's kind of like
cheering for, or a quarterbackplaying for the football team
the first time they're with alltheir people the same age,
couple, veterans and they do itall together.
They, they win and whatever.
And if you're a greatquarterback, then all the other
players leave and you start overand you do it again.
And if you're tom brady, thelast time you go to a different

(15:43):
team and everybody's like 20years younger than you and you
might do it, but it's a totallydifferent experience from all
three different levels andthat's the same thing for me.
Now I've never experienced myfavorite person leaving his
whiskey which was my favoritewhiskey and then all of a sudden
trying to drink that whiskey.
And now it's like my favoriteperson isn't at the place.

(16:06):
So then you look in the glassand you're just like you see
what you want, you, I'm likelittle teardrops in and then I I
don't see your face in thereanymore and then I'm like I
don't want to drink that whiskey.
It's just like it doesn'tchange.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
it doesn't change the integrity of what's in the
bottle, though, which is great,I'm telling you 100%, alan.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Drinking whiskey with you makes whiskey taste better.
It's just like.
It's just no way around it.
Okay, it's the same thingdrinking with Greg.
I've got all these bottles ofwhat I won't say behind me.
I'm like I don't want to drinkthem anymore.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, and to be clear , we can say Spirits of French
Lick, because the truth of thematter is, I hope that Spirits
of French Lick lives on,regardless of whatever it is
what it is.
You know, that is what it is.
It's a lot of my legacy my IPbecause the way laws work in the
United States is not my IP, butI'm proud of it.

(17:06):
I'm proud of it.
I just hope that they can keeptheir boat righted, or get their
boat righted and find a starand sail it by that and stick
with it, because they can'tfloat off of my reputation
anymore and I won't let them.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Right, I'm going to try and find out, I don't know.
Ok, it's like still sponsoringus and I've been talking to them
and for whatever reason, when,when I was with you.
I'm just it's not whatever, butit was hard to get consistent,

(17:40):
consistent out of them, orconsistency out of them for me.
Consistent out of them, orconsistency out of them for me.
But, now they're damn straightright right on it they don't
want to lose it.
So I guess so, but I got to findout because I'm I don't know
how I could put who's therecurrently on an actual.

(18:03):
I don't know if I want to putthem on a podcast.
I don't know what that would do.
So I've got to figure out whatthe hell is going on, how to do
it.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
I'm still.
I don't know who's therecurrently, but yeah, you
actually do know who's therecurrently.
I'll reserve my commentary.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
What I will say is this I know and whatever, but
I've got to find out, so I'm notgoing to find out for bad
purposes for you.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
I'm just going to find out what's going on.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
Thanks, Alan, for what you were saying earlier
about him.
Yeah, and I have all therespect in the world for Greg in
particular.
I really think he's a great guyand look up to him.
I bet he and I are very muchalike in terms of the way that
we we live our life and what weexpect in life.
And I just happened to bet andI don't know him well, just

(18:53):
through you guys, I justhappened to bet that he's
probably about like me.
He's really not that hard tomake happy, really not.
No, no, and you know,distillers are going to distill
and they're going to put theirheart and soul into it.
If they're real distillers, andthen whatever the company does
with that is on them, yeah well,that's what it came down.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah, it just came down to and just for the same
thing.
It was the same exact scenariosetup and it's just like so it
became.
It was becoming successful andthey wanted to take away.
And he's like working his assoff.
I mean he was boots on theground tastings um barrels, so

(19:38):
you know single barrelselections, and and then he was.
Then he was picking out stavesto make the barrels.
You know he was a came from thecooperage and then he was.
Then he was picking out stavesto make the barrels.
You know he was a came from thecooperage and then he distilled
it with.
You know, when they did theyput it, he was there for the
distilling, made sure, and thenall the blending was done, and
every time they made a purchaseof whiskey that wasn't up to the

(19:59):
standard, he figured out a wayto fix it.
It's like you know, they boughtwhiskey from 2012 that was put
into used barrels because therewas a barrel shortage back then.
He bought a crap ton of it.
They tasted it and he's likeyou can't put this out.
So he's like, well, here's whatwe'll do.
We'll buy brand new French oakbarrels, we'll dump it in there
for six, eight months and we'llcall it double oak and it's a

(20:20):
damn good whiskey.
So he could fix it.
But there was noacknowledgement of whatever they
they.
They just feel that that was aformula that they can pick and
whatever.
I mean, I don't know who's evengoing to do the blend and it's
just me and you know it's an art.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Yeah, yeah.
Well, one day, many years fromnow, I'll tell them, I'll tell
my story, and then, now, I'lltell my story, and then
everybody will be like what Iknew the story enough man.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
You did a fine job.

Speaker 1 (20:50):
Honestly, what happened?
You looked at it like it was ajob that got you to where you
needed to go and, honestly, ifyou want to believe in a God in
one way or another, it's like inthe end, in my opinion, god
guided you to the perfect exit.
I mean, I don't think you couldhave played that out better.

(21:11):
You could have wrote it in amovie and it wouldn't have
played out any better than whatit did I think somebody kind of
made a little short movie.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Yeah, that was the much more unhinged version of
myself, for sure.
No, yeah, I have said that manytimes about my life in this
industry and my wife can verifythis and people that have known
me the whole time If I everactually wrote, really sat down
and wrote out all of thesethings like for for a small

(21:46):
craft distiller not distillerydistiller for somebody that came
from the family that I camefrom and where I came from, to
be able to have pulled off theshit that I've somehow managed
to pull off and I don't have alot to show for it, I don't have
a lot of money or anything, butcertainly there's been, you
know, plenty of attention paidto it.
Oh, no, you have.
You don't have a lot to showfor it, I don't have a lot of
money or anything, but certainlythere's been plenty of

(22:07):
attention paid to it.
Oh, no, you haven't.
You will not believe the shitthat I have been through just to
stay in this industry.
It's insane.
It's insane.
I literally not at Spirits ofFrench Lick, but the other
company I literally worked for aguy that I'm convinced was one
of the villains from lethalweapon 2.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
I'm not even playing.
She was electrocuting you in a,in a, in a sour south african
accent, just oh no, just a wholething.

Speaker 2 (22:38):
But yeah, that's all, that's all behind me, it's all
good, I got.
I got cool stuff going on,though I I got all kinds of cool
stuff.
I mean, we got, you know.

Speaker 1 (22:45):
It's a path.
Just know that it's a path.
I mean and, and, and.
If you get out and you wake upevery day, you're breathing, you
have a great family, you haveland, you have your, you know
your, your dad and mom,everything and what you're doing
, and now you're doing it at aplace where you know you, you're

(23:07):
part of it, you're actuallypart of it's part of you, and
then you know you.
This time everything washands-on, with you involved, to
do what you wanted to do.
And now you're.
Now you're the mad scientist,it's an alchemist, but I, I, you
know what you're gonna.
You make absinthe, you makebrandy you're the mad scientist,
it's an alchemist, but you makeabsinthe, you make brandy,

(23:28):
you're making and you have that.
You still want to make somestuff that you know the standard
, people come and they know andwhatever, because you know it's
going to sell.
I mean, I don't know if youmake a limited amount of bourbon
.
I mean just like people aregoing to be dying for that crap
kimberly said no one would everbelieve it because it's

(23:50):
absolutely unbelievable.

Speaker 4 (23:52):
But it's 100 true.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
She lived it.
You're living it, man, stillliving it.
Just, uh, have a differentperspective on it now, I think
in a better perspective, or atleast a somewhat healthier
perspective on it.
So, yeah, you know, I don'thave anything to complain about
and I don't listen.
This is the last piece I'll sayon Spirits of French Lake,

(24:16):
other than to talk aboutproducts.
I don't begrudge the owners.
I don't begrudge the owners.
Listen, people are who they areand they can decide to change,
be different, be better, if theywant to, and if they don't want
to, that's their goddamnAmerican right to not do it.

(24:37):
So you know, I might wake uptomorrow and decide to be an
asshole, so you know, and it iswhat it is.
But uh, moving on from that, Igot all kinds of cool stuff
going on.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
Otherwise, but at the same time, the only thing I'll
say about it is I just wish they.
So when you go this is what II'll you basically search and
you find, and you find atreasure box okay, but you don't
got the key or the tools toopen it, right.

(25:09):
So you basically work with itand try it and then, when you
finally open it, you look inthere and even though there's
like a million dollars worth ofgold coins in there, you go well
, I guess I don't want that andyou close it up, lock it back up
and go on to the next thing,and that's kind of what they did

(25:31):
, or some people.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
They get to a point and instead of anything else,
rather than coming to a goodconclusion, they put a stick of
dynamite under and blow it up,and then they just ruin it all.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
They ruin everything trying to get the locks open.
Take the effect and make it thecause.
So here's a little piece ofadvice for people who want to
start distilleries, since we'regoing through a little reset
with distilleries when you hirea distiller who you know,

(26:12):
verifiably knows that they knowwhat the fuck they're doing,
make it worth their while towant to stay with their company.
Make it such that they arecomfortable enough that they
would never have a reason toleave, and make it to where they
feel like they are involved,even if you have to bend your
will, your ego, on yourpocketbook just a little bit and

(26:36):
you'd be surprised by how faryou'll get.
And I'm not the.
I'm not even necessarilytalking about myself, but I've
watched many, many of my friends, very talented distillers, be
screwed by people who have money, who have no connection to
liquor.
Otherwise, because owners suck,because they don't pay
attention to their product, theydon't care as long as that

(26:56):
bottle is selling and theycommodify everything.
And yes, it is an industry andyes, you have to make money, but
take care of the people whotake care of you.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Well, ok, that's true .
But from somebody who's been inother industries.
Ok, so it's not distilling.
That ownership is like this.
So people now I'm not talkingabout generational money, I'm

(27:27):
talking about people in generalwho are really really good with
managing money.
Okay, whether they're good atso you're good at distilling.

(27:52):
I might be good at art.
For instance, if you're a bigdistiller and you're producing
high-end allocated bourbon butyou also make vodka, tequila and

(28:14):
other things, or gin which youknow doesn't have to age and
people drink it in mixed drinkslike crazy, right?
What makes the most moneyallocated bourbon or vodka and
gin?
So a lot of times they're.
They're looking at that bottomdollar and they look at it and

(28:36):
they see everything.
Now there's where they reallyget in trouble.
What I seen is if what theirmain product, like the vodka or
gin, is starting to falterbecause of marketing, because
all that is is marketing.
You're convincing people todrink stripped spirits to get

(28:57):
drunk.
I still, to this day, anybodytries to tell me that it's a
good vodka.
That just means that personmade it taste like water.
That's the ultimate goal ofvodka is to have no taste or
smell.
It's like the dumbest thingI've ever heard.
But that's just me.
But realistically, they're justall it's like.

(29:21):
They can't, they're not able tothink creatively.
So this is where the disconnecthappens.
They're just looking at thatand then, because they because
what the power of money says tothem is status or you know their
place it becomes very, whatwould you say?

(29:44):
It makes them arrogant and meanto somebody who's passionate,
doesn't care as much about moneyas them.
That's why, usually, whenyou're doing something, and if
you don't need as much money assomebody who only cares about
money, you know what I'm saying.
So it's a it's.
I see it in all businesses.

(30:05):
I can see it Now.
The other aspect is the biggeryou get, the less control you
have of your money.
So all of a sudden, more andmore people are doing and then
the less the.
You know as a person at thedistillery where you are, where
you control pretty mucheverything, right, alan, or?

Speaker 2 (30:22):
less.
Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
And you might have a distiller that does that.
I have a question when you hada distiller before not naming
any names if they were doing thedistillate, did they do a
pretty good job of carrying onwhat you wanted, or is there a
lot of times that it wasn'texactly how you would have done
it and you had to kind of eitherfix it or figure it out?
Just personal, that's just apersonal question.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
And you dig in deep tonight.
Hold on, jeffrey, okay.
So first of all, you're correctin what you say about the money
side of things.
Now here's the other side ofthings.
So the difference with craftdistilling versus a lot of those
other industries and there areother industries like this,
let's say, small batchdistilling, because I'm sticking
with that, me and Paul Mintaand several others are working

(31:07):
on this as a thing so thedifference is that quite often,
the person who has been hired tobe that distiller has been
hired because they are the onlyperson in that company that has
any industry experience not justdistilling experience, but
industry experience in generaland so what that means for them
is that there is thisexpectation from day one that

(31:28):
you're going to go far above andbeyond what any normal employee
would in terms of promoting,talking, writing stories, coming
up with label text, coming upwith intellectual property.
That's a whole otherconversation I could get into.
In this industry, it's allkinds of fucked up, and so

(31:51):
that's more what I'm driving at.
If so, if your brand and yes,there are a lot that are making
their money off vodka or gin orwhatever they're making but if
your entire lineup and yourentire existence as a distilling
company is predicated upon.
We make very unique, very offthe wall expressions that demand

(32:13):
a bit of a premium, and thatpremium is created because the
craft of the distiller allowsthat premium to be created.
Then the owners need to kind ofget the fuck out of the way and
and go out of their way to makesure that person does not leave
one million percent, or they'llleave every time.

(32:34):
And I encourage them, Iencourage distillers to do that.
Don't work for carpetbaggers.
Don't do it.
Fuck them.
They ain't got the talent to doit on their own.
Fuck them, let them go.
It is what it is and you know,brains come and go all the time
and it is what it is.
Uh, as far as training otherpeople, so, or having someone
take over for me, um, I onlyever gave that a go one time.

(32:56):
It's a french lick with justin,quite obviously.
I thought he did a really goodjob on the psych gen that was me
throwing him, quite honestly,into the deep end of the pool.
I volunteered him to do a smokegin for the fucking eclipse and
I knew my time was coming to anend and I thought he pulled it
off wonderfully.

(33:16):
They did not give him a chanceto prove himself after that?
Unfortunately, uh, for whateverthat's worth now, I'm doing it
again now, but it's not so muchthrowing somebody into the deep
end of the pool.
I have a still hand now who, uh,is a home distiller or was a
home distiller, is not anymoreused to be and has grown up
around it and knows his wayaround.

(33:37):
A still, I mean this boy, I canturn him loose, I don't have to
tell him shit.
He is watching every video Iever made, read everything I've
ever done.
He intrinsically understands mystyle of distillation, um, in a
way that would be hard to putinto words without actually
having to physically sit downand train every single thing
that I was doing.

(33:58):
Um, don't get me wrong, I still, I still talk to him about
things, still, give him ideas,et cetera.
But there's a first time I'veever met somebody that was
already on a level of oh, I canfucking turn you loose and tell
you what I want, and that'sexactly what's going to happen,
which is awesome, because I'venever had that before Before.
It was always like listen, if Iget sick or something, you guys

(34:20):
are fucked.
You know, if something goeswrong, you're just shit out of
luck.
Uh, so that's.
This is the first time thatI've had that where it's already
sort of intrinsically there.
He already had that knowledge.
I didn't.
I'm I'm giving him moreknowledge, deeper knowledge that
I wouldn't normally give youknow on one piece at a time, etc

(34:40):
.
I get it, but but he alreadyhas that foundational basis to
build off, build off of you knowbut those are no.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
I honestly I know what you're talking about.
It's just kind of like there'sjust certain types of people in
the world and where it comesfrom sometimes surprises you.
I mean, I've managed enoughpeople.
I mean, what's what?
What I really have to do issometimes and I've learned this
over time I do have to not gooff the first impression,

(35:12):
because sometimes someone willsurprise you, not very often,
but like 90% of the times.
I know people who are going towork out and if they're for this
or that, but I'll give them aweek, a week or two just to see
if they'll surprise me, becausethere has been those surprises.
But at the same time, that'sreally cool that you found him,
because not only does he knowwhat you want, but he has the

(35:32):
skill and the desire and itreally does come down to the
desire.
I honestly think I know, I knowI'm not a home distiller
Martin's way better, but if Icame to work for you, I.
What I do know is I understandwhat people are looking for when
you're being taught.

(35:55):
I've been taught certain things.
I was an artist.
I learned to be a really good.
First I was an airbrush artist,then I was a computer artist, I
learned it all.
But from the standpoint is, wasI always trying to please my
dad the whole time it washappening.
He would always come up withthis or that.
The the same thing if I was towork for you not saying I'm
applying for a job or anything,but I get.

(36:16):
There's certain people who getpeople.
I know what you're trying toaccomplish and you're not trying
to accomplish what I want.
You're trying to accomplishwhat you want and you want
someone to help you, but bysomebody like him, showing that
he's willing to do that extra,to find out or know or do what
you want and listen.

(36:36):
So, like you, tell him onething and the next time it
happens he he had listened andhe doesn't let the whole still
blow up yeah well and even evenmore than that too.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
I gotta say've got to say this about Tyler.
So the cool thing about Tyleris and first let me say about
Justin I sincerely hope thatJustin gets into a distillery
somewhere.
That's really what he wants todo.
I hope he finds somewhere wherehe can do that at absolutely.
He did not get a fair shake atSpirits of French Lick, and they
can take that however they wantto.

(37:09):
I don't care, but he didn't.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
I don't care, uh, but he didn't, he didn't set me for
a loop when he left Cause allof a sudden things were going.
I had a direction and all of asudden somebody else was running
the doubler.

Speaker 2 (37:20):
The long and short with Tyler is that, uh, it's not
even just distilling, right?
If I asked Tyler to clean thewindows, I don't have to go look
at them.
They're clean.
I know they're clean.
Yep, If I say, tyler, when youget a minute, I know you're busy
as hell because there's onlytwo of us here and we're running
around everywhere trying to runthree stills at once and do two

(37:42):
mash-ins at once, and I say,when you get a minute, can you
mop that spot over there?
I don't have to come backaround later and say, hey, tyler
, remember, I asked you to mopthat spot.
It's gonna get done.
He's gonna do it, he's gonnatake care of it.
And I've not ever had that kindof help before.
Short of, there were two guys.
They had no, no interest inbeing in the industry full, full

(38:04):
time for the rest of their life.
I don't think.
Two guys I had a copper andkings guy named darren leeo went
to school with big shout out tohim.
And uh, another guy named natecox who had worked for uh
sazerac for a minute buffalotrace for many years.
Um, that's the only time I'veever had that kind of thing now.
Now tyler has what they had,but he also has the distilling
experience, which is, which isphenomenal.
You know, if I mentionedsomething theoretical about

(38:26):
distillation to tyler and I sayhey, tyler, what do you think
about this weird thing that Alanwants to do over here, that
Alan would do at home if he wasat home distilling?
Tyler has enough experiencethat he can immediately wrap his
mind around exactly what I'msaying and then he can also pro
and con it for me, as opposed toit just being a thing in my

(38:48):
head, which is great, becausenow I can bounce that stuff off
people.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
So now we're going to get some good Frankenstein
whiskey right there, becauseyou've got your Igor.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
Oh, I very much so do , I very much so do.
He's a beast.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Awesome, that's.
That's awesome to hear Super,and I bet you he doesn't miss
much work.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
He, no, no, he doesn't.
And then, of course, you know,I've got Jolie there too, which
has been the goal is to get backtogether with her and do
something for a long time, andthen my dad will be coming back
part time as well.
And then, of course, we've gotSteve and Heather, and it's a
it's a, it's a team effort andit's and it's going to be a big

(39:32):
fucking deal is what I would say.
It may not be.
It ain't going to be a 50-statedistillery.
It doesn't need to be.
It's an experiential distillerywith limited distribution, but
it will become a distillery thatthose people who the people who
are at the lake will already bethere, but the other people
that want to learn distillationand see distillation, it's going

(39:55):
to become a thing where they'regoing to want to travel to come
see this thing in a way thatvery few distilleries can be so
do you have your rickhouse?

Speaker 1 (40:03):
we do okay.
We do okay because, honestly,based off what I saw when I was
there this summer, distributionfor outside you might hit some
outside liquor stores that youknow and love you and everything
, but as far as distribution man, it's going to be hard to get
out of there.
It's going to be like a whiskeydeep thing You're just going to

(40:25):
, it's just going to be from thestore.
You already see it with thewines and I'm not gonna say that
I it's just like, but in my youknow, the beer, the brewery is
done, you know really well.
And then you're good, you havewine barrels and beer barrels
and all that you'll be able todo.
Plus it seems like they're justeverybody's on board.

(40:47):
So you won't, you're not goingto have any kind of backlash or
whatever.
You might even have say-so in,like I really want to do a
finished bourbon or whiskey inthis and can you make that kind
of wine?
And they're like oh, yeah, wecan.
Or make this kind of beer, yeah, we can.
But as far as how many peoplecome in and what they do, it's

(41:09):
just like they are the epitomeof it gets pretty crazy over
there.

Speaker 2 (41:14):
Oh yeah, I will say I do think, even with the lake
and everything, we probably arestill going to end up being in
time, not initially, but in timewith the whiskeys.
It's probably going to be afive market distillery, is my
guess.
That's about that's probablygoing to be a five-market
distillery is my guess.
That's probably going to beabout the sweet spot.
And when I say five-market, itdoesn't mean the entirety of

(41:35):
five states.
It means five really goodmarkets within probably five
separate states or a couplemarkets in one state.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
I'm putting in you've already had Ann on your podcast
for if you have ghosts and youneed to talk to her, because I'm
putting in for ohio to be oneof those five states, so that
right.
Yeah, it'll be fun.
If it's one of the ohio's oneof those five states, that means
you might come up here andvisit me that's true that's true

(42:04):
and we could get in a lot oftrouble up here I could well,
you know, kim I could break themand keep them for a while.

Speaker 4 (42:14):
I just want to refer back to Kim's rule number two If
you can't take it back to alone car, you've got to take
them home.

Speaker 2 (42:24):
I could see Ohio in particular.
I would say this, Jeff Giventhe number of home distillers
and the passion for homedistilling in Ohio in particular
, I could see some of ourweirder products actually doing
pretty damn well in distributionin Ohio and I think I've got
enough followers there that itwouldn't be a problem.

Speaker 1 (42:43):
I think you do Plus you got us.
I mean you start putting that,we're supporting that, and then
also, you know you got mashing.
I mean you have support forohio and ohio is one of the
largest uh whiskey markets thereis.
Plus, they're actually takingtheir knowledge of whiskey and
just applying it to all spirits.

(43:05):
So I don't know how good thatis, because now it seems like
Ohio's like drinking five timesmore than it was five years ago.
But we gamble and drink at amassive amount.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Train keeps rolling, brother, listen, neotemperance
is a thing.
They can dry up any other state, but don't dry up Ohio or
Indiana.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
And marijuana is legal up here now, and so they
took away our director from OHLQ.
That really brought it back andthey put him in charge of the
marijuana.
So this is going to be a wildstate pretty soon.
Yep, yep.

(43:46):
Between gambling, drinking,drinking and smoking, they got
it covered right now.
I mean, the sports gambling wasinsane.
The amount that that ohio ohioleads, it's just like per day.
They're just like putting outthese stats and I'm like that's
insane.

(44:06):
Oh, yep, anyways, all right, solet's get in a little bit of
detail.
Okay, so talk about if you haveghosts, you have everything.
What are the best podcasts?
Where you're talking about bothends of of this, both spirits

(44:30):
aspects, the spirit industry,with the spiritual things
happening?
What was like the best podcastyou did where you're actually
taking both of your worlds andblending it together?

Speaker 2 (44:45):
I?
I don't I don't know if I if Ihave one I can pick, like that,
because there's been so many ofthem.
Some of them have been highlypersonal.
I will tell you that one ofthem that probably and he and I
are not on the same spiritualwavelength, but the one that
probably moved me the most wasWhiskey Shaman Randall, down in
Texas and his story with hiscancer and finding God and and,

(45:10):
uh, getting into the Septuagintand all that stuff, uh, that
episode was pretty, prettyfucking special.
Um, I think the some of thestuff I did on, like the how do
you see God thing, like, uh,having Kevin Rose, who's an
evangelical and again,spiritually we're not the same
uh, but we're brothers and Ilove him to death but having him
here in the bedroom telling histhing, or even we had Randall

(45:32):
and DJ Henderson on together,those were great.
The ones that I really reallylike the most, though and I
mentioned before we starteddoing the actual audio of this
podcast that I do If you haveGhosts for myself, I figured out
that I'm doing it for myselfand I'm good with that.
I like that.
The ones that I like the mostare the ones where either kim

(45:52):
and I get a chance to worktogether and tell a story, or I
like the ones where I'm actuallydoing the exposition um,
because then I can.
Then I can be a little moretheatric, I can be a little more
creative, I can touch on somespiritual stuff, literature and
stuff, or esoteric or occultstuff that might be a little

(46:14):
difficult to carry onconversations with other people.
I will tell you one of theissues with If you have Ghosts,
you have Everything is.
You would be surprised and partof this is because I'm picky
you would be surprised how hardit is to get guests consistently
for that show, and part of thatis because I have a pretty

(46:40):
tight bullshit detector when itcomes to if I think you're lying
to me, and I can tell you thaton this computer right now
there's about four episodes thatwill never see the light of day
because I think you're full of.
Never see the light of daybecause I think you're full of
shit.
And most of the time I'll tellthem if I think they're full of
shit.
Actually, I think I've told allof them that that aren't
getting released.
I think they're full of shit.
It's not about.

(47:00):
It's not about gettingattention, it's not about going
on as many podcasts as you canand telling the same tired story
over and over again, especiallynot with it if you have ghosts,
because despite the fact thatGhost is in the name, it's
really a show.
As much about cryptids or the 14, and more so about spirituality
in terms of high magic and lowmagic, both folk magic and

(47:23):
ceremonial magic, philosophy,theosophy, all those sort of
things which I'm much moreinterested in most of the time
Not always Most of the time I'mmuch more interested in those
things, especially practicalmagic, than I am in.
Here's another ghost story.
Right, yeah, ghost stories area dime a dozen.

(47:45):
They exist, they're out thereand I love them, don't get me
wrong, and I'll do episodes onthem if I find them compelling.
But the practical magic interms of, like folk magic and
what I mean by that god, right,miracles are a god thing.
But the things that you canaffect, that might have

(48:13):
scientific reasoning, that wejust don't quite understand or
never can really understand, thethings that are unlikely but
somehow do happen, that you seemto be able to have some effect
on, that humanity has playedwith for millennia, that stuff
really, really interests me verymuch so.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
So I'm, I'm, I'm all the part.
Honestly, the part about it allis that I know I have a certain
talent within me, but I justwonder at this point, like if I

(48:51):
just keep going with the way Iam and I only use it when I feel
I think I would say more safeor it's worth it, opposed to if
you tried to.
Actually, it's like, it's's likethere's such a a thing aspect

(49:18):
of when I tried to start todevelop it, when you're talking
about healing people and makingthem understand that if you're a
diabetic and your spleen stopsworking when you're 12 years old
, there might have been a reasonfor that and that you might be.
There might be somethingstopping it, or there might be,
and they don't believe you.

(49:39):
But then you help them.
You have the permission throughthe universe to help them,
universe to help them and thenthey come back at you when
they're feeling better, or theywon't, they'll avoid you because
they're feeling better or theyit's working, and then, all of a

(49:59):
sudden, you find out about thatand it's just so hurtful that
you that, that they didn't wantto tell you because they didn't
want you to take credit, or theydidn't want you to do this or
you don't, and it happensbecause we we live in a society
now in general in the westernworld, where those things are

(50:20):
not appreciated in the way theyshould.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
There's no there.
There is.
Let's be honest, here there isno room and this goes beyond
politics on either side.
There is no room and this goesbeyond politics on either side.
There is no room in Westernsociety polite Western society,
for better or worse for any typeof anything that cannot be

(50:43):
scientifically dissected andexplained, and even those who
are in the magic, and all theproof you need of this is to
jump on TikTok for five minutesand look at all the people who
are claimed to be witches.
And yet, listen, what are youdoing?
You're doing a little bit ofyou doing a little tear over
here, but you also.
You got to have all the.
You got to have all thepiercings.
You got to have all the weirdhair.
You got to buy all the deadshit.

(51:04):
Don't process the dead shityourself.
Buy that stuff off eBaysomewhere, because you're not
being authentic.
You have a stage show, you havean act.
That's as close to miraculousas we can get is.
I've got 300,000 followers.
I must really have somethingspecial about me.
No, you don't.
If you did, you'd put yourselfout there and it would actually

(51:26):
be integrated into who you areas a person and as your career,
as part of your career, justlike distilling is for me and
and with your, with your, withyour healing process.
Do you have people push back onit because they don't want you
to have credit, becauseeverything becomes about credit
people?

Speaker 1 (51:45):
are always raving, raving about.
I just know, I know to be.
People are always raving about.
I just want them to be feelingbetter.
I want that, whatever it is.
And there's, you know, thereasons of why I can do it in my

(52:08):
mind.
If I explained it to me, itsounds like I'm insane, but it's
like I know what it it is, butit makes no sense.
There's no explanation for whatI'm doing, but I understand it
and it's so.
I so when, when I don't all Iwant to do, when I help the
people that I helped and I'vehelped probably 30, 40 people
and every single time it's deadnuts on, but I'm not looking.

(52:32):
I just want them to feel better, or I want them to be able to
deal with what they're dealingwith, because I can remove
what's causing it.
Right, and when I explain it tothem.
But but then to come back andsay somehow I want credit, I
don't want credit, I just wantthat Let me know it's removed
and I'm happy.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
I'm not trying to you know what I mean.
No, no, that's not on you,that's not what I'm saying.
What I'm saying is that's onthem.
People are credit seeking foreverything all the time,
constantly, all the time andmore than that, like there's,
there's there would be a millionexplanations for what you do
and how you do it, buried industy old texts that people
don't really bother to read orunderstand anymore powwow texts

(53:13):
and cunning man texts and thingsof that nature.
But people would probably feelless comfortable if they knew
what actually was motivating anyof those things or causing them
Like.
Does it matter as long as itworks?

Speaker 1 (53:30):
that's all that really matters.
Yeah, that's fine, I can do itand it does work.
But then I sit there, feelguilty, like you were talking
about guilty.
He felt a little guilty thatyou weren't doing the podcast.
You know what I mean?
It's the same thing.
I've almost.
There's a guilt aspect of.
Well, there's one person that Ihelped and it was working, and
then they, they pulled away andthey didn't want anything to do

(53:51):
with me because they thoughtthat somehow, so I, to try and
prove something to myself, I,everything that I did, I took
away and they went and they went100 percent back to feeling
like total shit.
Okay, I just took it, I didn't,I just stopped doing what I do

(54:13):
and part of it is a connectionwith a human being, and I know
this is not a whiskey podcastanymore, but we're talking about
if you have ghosts if you haveeverything.
So the spiritual and I thinkthat's why we're drawn together
a little bit, because you dosense we've talked about certain
things.
I mean, I really felt that yourconnection to what you do and

(54:33):
what you research and everythingand your wife and what she does
, because I understand, becausewhen I was a kid I did a lot of
tarot card readings.
I didn't understand why I wasable to do it.
It was just it just basically,it wasn't all about the cards,
it's about what the cards wouldtell me and then the feeling and
the whole mutual thing and Icould be right consistently and

(54:56):
it kind of freaked me out backthen because I was young and I
so I stopped, stopped doing that.
But getting into this onceagain, it's a connection with a
spiritual thing that I had.
You talk about gods, right, youtalk about this God, that God,
this God, my spiritual moment.
When I was being taught, I hada vision and I saw that all gods

(55:22):
, all of them, are part of it.
There's not just one, they'reall there, they were all there
for me.
It was like the vision I had.
It was woke, it was clear asday.
They all appeared to me, all ofthem, all of them.
They were like it's the sameGod, appearing to different

(55:46):
people based off of who theywant to see.
It's not Christianity, it's notJudaism, it's not Hinduism,
it's not Buddhism, but it'sstill the same God as one, but
appears as all.
That was the moment that I andI actually physically had that

(56:08):
thing.
So you live your life completelyand totally different.
The fact that they're there,that there's something after,
and when you know something'safter, it's a whole different
experience.
So you have this experience andthen you try to go out with it,
but you get burned and thenyou're like, okay, so help the

(56:29):
people around you.
But then I sometimes feelguilty the fact that I could
help more people.
I mean, but some people don'twant help, they don't believe it
.
I mean you offer it and theysay no, you can't help people
who don't want help.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
Alan, this past summer I really gained a lot
more understanding and respectfor spirits and I guess you'd
say supernatural, because Iactually experienced it
firsthand.
With my wife we went to Hawaiiand she's Choctaw Indian and
almost 90% and her sister is too, and they always had this thing

(57:25):
about being drunk, spiritsbeing drawn to them and things
like that.
Well, we went out to the USSArizona and I just happened to
be filming and looking down tothe sunken ship and Sherry was

(57:47):
on the other side, just on theother side, and a spirit came up
out of the water towards herand I mean literally just scared
her because she didn't expectit and came right at her.
She came running over to me,right behind me as I was filming

(58:09):
, shaking, scared and all thatand telling me about it.
And then all of a sudden and Igot it on film and everything
all of a sudden the water.
I mean it was cold as could beand all of a sudden the water
just started rippling rightacross where I was filming, down

(58:30):
into it.
Then all of a sudden, this rushof air pressure.
It was like nothing I've everfelt before in my life and it
was like it just I could almostjust see like I missed or
something.
But that air pressure andeverything come right up off of

(58:51):
that water straight likestraight through me, like it was
coming straight to her, and shefelt it.
And at the same time as I wasjumping back too, she saw it and
felt it too and it was just Iwent like the rest of the day.
I called Jeff later that day.

Speaker 1 (59:13):
Yeah, I mean what happened for us all is with
multiple people.
So you've been around it, Alan,right.

Speaker 4 (59:24):
At the same time we also, you know, realizing that
there was over a thousand peoplethat went down with that ship
and spirits and all that werewithin that ship and it wasn't
like and it's like she wassaying it wasn't like it was
trying to hurt her or anything.
She said it felt more like itwas just wanting them to know

(59:49):
that they were there, that itwas just wanting them to know
that they were there, that itwas there Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
It was just enlightening.
So, alan, what I found is thatthe movies always go towards the
bad experiences right, the badexperiences, right, they don't
tell, they're not telling theenlightening.
But at almost every singlething that I've been involved
with isn't anything like themovies.

(01:00:20):
It's mostly enlightening, butat the same time, when I dealt
with something very, verynegative, it's nothing like it
at all.
You know, it's almost like whatthey portray is just almost
like when you're saying bullshit.
It's almost like most of thestuff that's been portrayed in
the movies is almost likebullshit.
Because you know, you know thewhole exorcism thing played over

(01:00:44):
, over and over and that it'sall evil and it's all this.
But when you, when you usuallycome across something that's
negative or evil, it's usuallynot an aggressive thing, I find
it just, in some cases, justruns away of the spiritual

(01:01:12):
aspects, of higher ceremonialmagic or lower folk magic, the
paranormal 14, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Even in mainstream media, anything that really gets
into like oh, what's causingthis thing?
Or what's you know, anyanalytical thing, like very
rarely are you ever going tocome across anything that really
has any real substance to it,and there's only just a very few
things that come to mind.
And so Ridley Scott'sPrometheus and Covenant and the

(01:01:39):
most recent Alien movie.
They've got some things inthere that are pretty
interesting, but you really haveto be up on some of the Gnostic
stuff and also on some of theEdward Kelly stuff.
Anything Philip K Dick ever didis imbued with high magic, and
anything that he inspired theMatrix.

(01:02:00):
The guys that came up with theMatrix should just write the
Philip K Dick estate a giantfucking check, because all they
did was rip Philip K Dick offcompletely.
But even the humor in thingstoo ripped Philip K Dick off
completely, but even the humorin things too.
So another great example wouldbe if you've not watched it in
many years and you have to goback to the original one, and
especially the stuff that Peowas really involved in, but go
back to the Smurfs.

(01:02:21):
There's a lot of stuff, a lotof stuff in the Smurfs.
There's a ton of stuff, a ton ofit.
So, yeah, especially you goback to that, the, the animated,
uh, uh magic flute.
There's a, there's so much inthere, um, with alchemy and and
cunning folks and uh, all thatstuff.

(01:02:42):
The other thing that I getreally aggravated about with
modern day people and I run intothis on the podcast sometimes
and I like, I like dann, I likeJoe Rogan as much as the next
blue-collar guy does.
Don't get me wrong, but I'm sofucking tired of hearing this
thing about how psychedelics arethe way into the spirit realm.
And, yes, just like alcohol,yes, there is an effect there.

(01:03:04):
It's not the only fucking wayand it's not the only way that
humanity has done it throughouttime.
I call it falling into apothole.
That's what it is.
If you're a pothead, you'regonna fall into a pothole
eventually.
Right, they're not wrong withsmoking weed either, but when
that becomes the only focus ofhow we can we can communicate
with these things, I have nointerest.
Um, it's diversionary, it's,it's abusive.

(01:03:26):
In the same way that if I toldyou as a distiller, like the
only way you can find God is todrink spirits, right, there is a
spiritual aspect to drinkingspirits, or writing stories.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
You're saying well, the only way to find God is
distill your own spirit and thendrink it, and then you can find
.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
God, yes, too much yeah exactly Well magic is
everywhere, it's a spiritualityis everywhere.
So I got to tell you guys this,a little piece of philosophy
and these philosophies that I'vedeveloped over the years, a lot
of the stuff I kept back frompeople for a long time until I
got the courage to write thefirst book, and now I'm doing
the distillers almanac yearlywith things I learned when I was

(01:04:03):
growing up, things I learnevery year, little things that
are magic, that you don't thinkof.
So when I get in in a place andI told a very dear friend this
the other day she lost her jobwith a major distilling company
in a very shitty way and sheneeded someone to talk to.
And I was kind of walking herthrough some things and trying

(01:04:25):
to give her some advice becauseshe needed to talk to somebody,
and so I told her a few thingsthat I repeat in my head from
time to time just to rememberthings right, uh, or just for
positive affirmation or whatever, which sounds like a hippie
bullshit sort of thing, butthings that really have meaning
to them.
So one thing, so a real simplepiece of magic that people,
people in everyday life can useevery single day, is literally

(01:04:47):
to say the following words.
I do it every morning when Iwalk out the door on my way to
work.
I'm on the earth.
The earth is not on me, right?
It's not on you, you're on it.
Take advantage of that.
And the other one is, if I amin a, in a mood or something, if
I even get two seconds to walkoutside and look somewhere and

(01:05:09):
you can do this even if you'rein the city you'll find
somewhere like this.
Anywhere you ever go, no matterhow urban, blighted it is, there
will always be some littlecorner where the concrete is
cracked.
There's a few little shrubs ortrees growing up that nobody
planted.
They came up on their own.
There's briars and shit inthere, and amongst that little
hedgerow there will be anynumber of useful plants.

(01:05:31):
Maybe you do know the uses ofthem, maybe you don't know the
uses of them.
There will be any number ofanimals trying to escape the
suburban sprawl, as it were, atthat point in time during the
day, and those trees are subjectand witness to all of the
things that we do that we thinkno one sees, and so I always
think to myself the hedges havesecrets.

(01:05:52):
All the magic of the world isin those places so I look at the
world through a logical way.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
So if you're a spirit and we are spiritual and we
actually do become part of theuniverse when we go in and we
have a consciousness that can goanywhere, any place and do
anything, ok.
So I always felt that if youcould do that, the only way that
you end up here inside a bodywith the amount of pain that's

(01:06:26):
put on it is this is a prisonplanet.
This is where, when you've beenbad, you're, you're basically
your jail cell is your body, andthen all the things that
control your body is how seriousyour sentence is.
Like.
I always look at it like, let'sjust say, a baby's being
birthed and then all of a suddenit passes away and there's a

(01:06:50):
ton of pain for the peoplearound, but the baby passes away
.
I look at it that the baby justgot a one-nighter.
It was just a one-nighter, wason the earth and whatever, and
got released back its soul,whatever.
It's just different ways oflooking at it.
But at the same time, I reallybelieve if you're put into this,
you're here to learn a lessonwhile you're there and

(01:07:11):
everybody's got differentlessons to learn, like the
amount that you know, somepeople that get in a car crash
and they're a ton of pain.
You know some people whosebodies fail them.
You got all different types ofthings that happen right.
So I've always looked at it thatway.
So when I wake up in themorning, I just basically go
that I know the sun's coming upand it's going to go down and

(01:07:34):
the goal is is just to be thenicest, happiest person I can be
, no matter what happens.
Now, it doesn't always work,trust me, but it's my goal on a
day, because while we're here,we all try and stay here so hard
, right, like your goal issurvival.
You know, every single secondof every day you're trying to

(01:07:56):
survive.
You're trying, not, you don't.
You don't jump in the water anddrown, you don't.
If you can't swim or whatever,you don't do stuff to get off
the planet.
But at the same time, if you,it would be such.
The greatest joke on us all isif, when you do leave the planet
, you're like, why the hell wasI trying to stay there for so
long?
But most people are likethere's nothing else.

(01:08:18):
But you look at that and that'salmost kind of how I look at it
.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
I certainly think that there and this goes into
more that higher magic sort ofthing but there are aspects of
this place that is definitely asoul school.
For sure.
We are a sublunar species andeverything that we do is
dictated to some degree by themoon.
We are spiritual, but the otherpart of that and this is where
I'll tie it back intodistillation, so that we can

(01:08:46):
also touch on a little bit ofthat too but spirit is a thing
that people don't understandspirit and soul and they get
them confused quite often.
So your soul is yourconsciousness, your soul is your
mind.
And when I say mind andconsciousness, I don't mean mind
and consciousness the way thatmost people think of it.
Think of it as the thing thatis a receptor for a program that

(01:09:08):
was laid out long before youever got here.
And it's not fate, it's whatyou pick up from, what is coming
from.
Whatever the ultimate fount ofthis emanation of this world is,
that continues to play outregardless of what happens to
you.
Say you get paralyzed or you'rebrain dead, right, your
consciousness is playing thatout.

(01:09:29):
It still exists.
It is a separate thing from you.
That is your soul.
Your spirit is your vitalprinciple.
Your spirit is the animatingprinciple of the body, uh,
what's called the vitus, um, andthat is a thing, a concept that
has been been explored veryheavily for a very, very, very
long time in humanity, but it'sthe thing that makes all the

(01:09:50):
physical parts actually haveanimation and have life to them.
Uh, the spirit of the vitus isthe, the quintessence of what
and who you are here in thislifetime Currently.
Uh, one of the goals I thinkthat humanity is supposed to
have or should have, uh, to be adecent person.
I think you certainly shouldlook at life this way, and if

(01:10:15):
you can't look at life this way,I might argue that you're
probably a psychopath.
But one of your goals hereshould be to build or create or
contribute beautiful andsignificant in their own way,
things that help you and yourown people, and that can include
things like alchemy andcreating spirits.

(01:10:35):
Uh, we use that word spiritbecause we're capturing the
quintessence of something thatonce was here, that is no longer
here but is trapped within theenvironment.
Uh, tying that back in thestreets.
That's why I always name thingsafter people whose story didn't
get told.
It's a form of positivenecromancy.
You're bringing people backfrom the dead who didn't get

(01:10:57):
their due diligence in life.
And when you put that into aspirit, and you put that
intention into a spirit, andpeople drink that spirit and
they read the story, there'ssomething they can connect with
on a very primal way, what somecultures, like in Africa, for
example, or even amongst NativeAmericans, might call ancestor
worship.
You don't have to be directlyrelated to somebody for it to be
ancestor worship, but thatspirit is entering you, just

(01:11:18):
like a spirit can enter youright, and it's causing a
physiological change.
And so you're hoping that thatphysiological change, as an
alchemist, when you're creatingthese things, is for the
positive and that it helpspeople and it's something that
is beautiful and creative andnot used or just disabused in
the wrong way and I've certainlybeen guilty of that in the past
myself.

(01:11:38):
Um, but those are.
Those are sort of some of thefoundational philosophies of
what I do and what I'm trying todo, and it's very hard to it's.
It's taking me a long time tofigure out ways to express that
that makes sense to other people, but that's sort of the short
path to it.

Speaker 1 (01:11:54):
I agree what you said is exactly taking that one step
.
But what I would where I wasgoing initially about where your
spirit is.
Just imagine if a tree, whenyou were bringing up the trees,
right, and people are lookingand watching, and so if you're
really bad in spiritual, well,your spirit gets stuck into a

(01:12:17):
tree.
So not only are you on theearth for 80, 100 years, but
you're basically stuck in aposition and you can't do
anything except watch.
You get to get rained on,frozen, you, whatever you go
through the seasons, but all allthe like you said, all that
tree can do is watch for a longtime.

(01:12:37):
Right, it's just like I alwaysthought of it that way, exactly
how you were saying are theywatching?
Well, if it's a spiritentrapped, that was, that could
be another form of worsepunishment than being a human
being.

Speaker 2 (01:12:53):
Or it might only seem worse to us.
From our vantage point it mightactually be better.
You're still with nature.
The physiology is obviouslydifferent, but certainly trees
would seem to be much moreuseful to the other things on
earth humans than what humanstypically would be to any other

(01:13:17):
species.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
I would say well, that's true, except for the fact
I just imagine anytime I'm keptand forced to stay in one place
for any period of time, it'sjust pure torture.
So so I like to keep moving.
So for me, you stick me in that, that would you know, that'd be
pretty rough.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Right, right, I don't , I don't know man, you put me
next to put me next to a littlestream, and yeah, I say that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
And then I got COVID and I had to sit around for
three weeks not doing anything.
I almost lost my mind.

Speaker 2 (01:13:51):
Oh, you're doing all kinds of stuff.
You're being you're beingsexually reproductive in a cycle
.
You're, uh, you're creatingchildren every year.
You're uh, you're shelteringanimals.
You're creating sustenance.
You're part of an ecologicalsystem.
Uh, you get turned into badassmushrooms after you die.
I don't know, it might not betoo bad it might be okay.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
All right, I'll give you that.
Okay, so we've been on for along time.
Um, we, you talked about, youknow, the distilling aspect, so
and then you're gonna, you'reworking on some.
So you got the stuff up rightnow the stills are all running
right.
I mean you got everything andit took you a little bit to get
that to that point all of themgoing because you did some

(01:14:32):
really unique things to yourstills.
I mean, you have different ways?

Speaker 2 (01:14:37):
yeah, it was sort of twofold sort of thing.
Um, first of all is, uh, well,you know, when you're building
the distillery in the middle ofnowhere and I learned this at
spirits of french lick and alsoat a lot of other places I've
consulted for you know, you'reyou're dealing with your local
contractors, and your localcontractors have never built a
distillery before, so they'renot, uh, they don't know
necessarily what you need done,they don't necessarily know the

(01:14:59):
workflow, and so you've got toget to know those guys and, uh,
you know, hope that theyunderstand you and hope they
understand what your process is.
And then the other part of itis that old homestead is, to my
knowledge we are the largest allelectric distillery in the
United States.
So everything there is electricelement in uh jackets.
So 500 gallons, still two, 250gallons, stills, 500 gallon

(01:15:22):
cooker, all electric.
Um, that's a lot of three phasepower, um, you know, and that's
that's a lot of electricalengineering.
And we just so happen to luckout and we have an electrician
that works with us who is a homedistiller and a great guy to
boot.
But it did take us a littlewhile to figure out what we
needed, as far as theelectricity went, to be able to
get everything online.

(01:15:42):
So from July until actuallyreally until January, from July
until January it was just theone 250-gallon pot with a double
thumper and we made severalthousand gallons.
I mean that still has been runover 160 times since July.
If that puts that inperspective for you, I don't
know if you ever tried to make afew thousand gallons of liquor

(01:16:05):
25 gallons at a time, but it isa feat for sure and a lot of
that was done without any otherinfrastructure really in place.
You know, just us mashing intobarrels, having a single pump,
et cetera.
So everything is kind of wewere distilling in the middle of
a massive construction zone andwe still are to some degree,

(01:16:26):
because it's a slow burn and aslow build to get everything
into place.
But yes, now all the stills areonline and so now we get to
really explore.
What we were really focused onpreviously was getting all the
sunshine and the Black ForestSpirit stuff going.
So sunshine is basicallyanything that's going to have
sunflowers in it, which is atribute to my brother, mike

(01:16:49):
Stallings St Sparrow as we callhim, moonshine Mike Stallings
who distilled with sunflowers alot, and so I kind of took that
and took it and put my own spinon it and did a lot of malting
and roasting and we came up withseveral products there, as well
as Newton Stewart, which is atraditional corn-based moonshine
.
We call these all sunshines,because moonshine is an illicit

(01:17:12):
product made by lie of the moon.
Sunshine is a legal productthat's made during a lie of the
day and using sunflowers, whichis pretty magical in and of
itself.
Uh, we made a lot of, um, reallyreally interesting liqueurs.
So there's sort of two lines tothat.
There's a, there's a line thatis the very sweet kind of almost
syrupy sort of stuff, uh, whichis based on sunshine and that's

(01:17:34):
going to be like your oldapothecary flavors like cinnamon
and root beer and butterscotchand all that sort of thing.
But then there's also, yes,lemon as well.
There's also this sort ofhigher end, uh, liqueur stuff
that we're doing that's notquite as sweet, and so that's's
part of the Black Forest line,and so that's going to be things
like the Nine Herb Charm, whichis based on an old English poem

(01:17:55):
, based on Woden, which is aversion of Odin, of Norse Odin,
and the nine charms thatrepresent the nine different
realms.
It's kind of like chartreuse.
We've got a peach brandycordial.
We're going to have a cherrybrandy cordial.
Uh, I have a heritage chocolatecordial, which is really cool.
So this heritage chocolate isactually made, uh, in the style

(01:18:17):
of colonial era chocolates, uh.
So I did a lot of those things,got that out of the way and now
we're into whiskey production ontop of it.
So every day right now we arecurrently mashing in one of the
sunshines and we're mashing in awhiskey, and then we're running
typically all three stills.
So we're typically running a500-gallon stripping.
Still.
We're running a 250-gallondoubling still with the offset

(01:18:38):
gin basket and column.
I'm not running a column onthat very often right now.
And then we're running the potwith the double thumper and
we're able to manipulate a lotof different things.
It's all open-top fermentation.
We're able to manipulate a lotof different things.
It's all open top fermentation.

(01:18:58):
I really want as much of thelocal microbiome as what I can
get.
We're running two yeast strainsright now, but we have others
that we'll introduce.
They're all self-propagated.
We're not using any commercialyeast whatsoever.
So we're running my Kvikestrain and we're also running
the Newton Stewart strain that Igathered from one of the old
towns.
It's now underwater at patokalake and, uh, with the whiskeys
we're able to do really coolthings.
So we're focusing on americanwhiskey because that's something

(01:19:18):
that people should be proud of.
Right, it has america in thename.
Right, that should be a thing.
It's made in america, it'samerican whiskey.
It is what it is.
I'm not trying to bourbon.
This is much more in line withthe way that I would make apple
brandy.
So it's barreled at a littlehigher proof.
It still isn't a new charredoak barrel.
It still meets all the otherrequirements almost for being a

(01:19:41):
bourbon or a rye, but it's not abourbon.
But what we're able to do is wewill do some of those
fermentations using kvike yeastand going into stainless steel
open top fermenters, some ofthem using newton stewart yeast,
and going into our barrelfermenters made out of wood.
Uh, open top on both of themand then we distill in three
different ways for every mashbill.

Speaker 1 (01:20:02):
So yeah, your fermenters, which you said
stainless steel.
How many gallon?
500.
How many gallon on the wood?

Speaker 2 (01:20:14):
So there are 53 and 62 gallon barrels, so typically
250 gallons is what we'll.

Speaker 1 (01:20:20):
So you're doing actual barrels with the wood?
Yep, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
Yep, and there's a rationale behind that too.
And the rationale behind thatis that Cypress is cool, but it
is a pain in the ass to keeptogether and to keep clean.
It costs a lot of money.
Whiskey barrels are cheap.
If something goes wrong, youjust put a new one in there.
It ain't no big deal, right?
No, no.

Speaker 1 (01:20:45):
I get why.
But you have the stainlesssteel fermenters up.
Why so?
And then, but you have thestainless steel fermenters up,
Because you know, when I wasthere the last time, like you
said, you were running the onestill and you were pretty much
using everything and anything toferment.

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
It was pretty cool Right, yeah, yeah, but I get it
so that's going and a 500-gallonfermenter.

Speaker 1 (01:21:06):
So what is your?
Do you have?
Where's your blending tanks?

Speaker 2 (01:21:19):
How big are those?
Uh?
So right now I've got two 500blending tanks, uh, and then
various other sizes, you know,50 gallons stuff like that, just
depending smaller stuff, yep,yep.
And then there is a, uh, afourth still as well.
Actually there's five, totalsix, but there's one at the
winery we haven't hooked up yet,uh.
So there's a little absencestill, which is a little
17-gallon.
But you're starting withhigh-proof alcohol to begin with
.
You basically get back out whatyou put into it.
So if I put 17 gallons in there, I'm going to get 17 gallons of

(01:21:41):
absinthe back out, or prettydamn close to it.
One way, shape the other, bythe time you proofing everything
.

Speaker 1 (01:21:47):
Are you distilling that currently, or is that?

Speaker 2 (01:21:51):
not yet.
Yep, we've been distilling it.
It'll be there when we open up.
So there will be two varietiesof absinthe essential or first
off and then there'll be a thirdvariety introduced later, maybe
a fourth variety, we'll see.
We will have a pretty extensiveabsinthe program on a small
scale, but we're going to reallytake you through what absinthe
can be in the United States in away that nobody else ever

(01:22:14):
really has.
I mean, there's some greatabsinthe out there and I love
what Ted Brough does, but Tedfocuses on the traditional
absinthe and so what we're doingis we're taking that, as I said
, sort of the motto there at OldHomestead is pushing the
envelope while respectingtradition.
So you know, we're taking thetraditional things and we're

(01:22:35):
putting our spin on them, we'reputting a folk spin on them,
we're putting a home distillerspin on them, very much so.

Speaker 4 (01:22:43):
That was one thing that I enjoyed when we went down
to New Orleans bourbon festivallast year.
When we went down to NewOrleans bourbon festival last
year, when we went down toBourbon Street, me and Jeff went
down to the Absinthe Bar downthere, yeah, we did a couple of
tastings of some differentabsinthes but Alan, they lit

(01:23:08):
that shit on fire yeah, they didthe Bohemian thing.
Honestly, I don't know how youcan't.

Speaker 1 (01:23:13):
I mean, I think you should just have a special night
during the summer where youjust light the shit out of it,
and then all the other times youdon't.
Because, honestly, that thatthat sells, that that's a
marketing play that sells aliving crap out of it.

Speaker 4 (01:23:27):
It is, and plus that was another thing there was
almost completely dark in therein in that absent bar.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
it was like that high , that high off the glass.
I mean that girl, that girlwent.
I mean, even for myself, I Idon't mind the bohemian bohemian
process.
I understand it's not pure orwhatever, but I personally like
the sugar.
Like, if you're going to put asugar cube dropped in there, I

(01:23:57):
like shit burnt.
So you do that.
I like that flavor that it addsto the licorice.
But I mean for me, are yoursgoing to be mostly anise?
Are you going to do cinnamonones?
Are you going to do other ones?
Are you going to do other ones?
Are you just going toexperiment?
The hell out of it.

Speaker 2 (01:24:14):
So they're all based on things I've done in the past
at home when I was a homedistiller.
So there will be a verytraditional absinthe, there will
be a purple absinthe that ismuch more earthy, there will be
a yellow absinthe that has a lotof flowers in it, um, and
things of that nature.
And as far as drinking goes anduh, this might come as a

(01:24:35):
surprise, just like me not justbeing a straight double pot
still guy, but um, had to docertain things a certain way at
french lick because we weretrying to, we're trying to, I
was trying to present somethingvery specific with that.
The truth of the matter is I'mpretty fucking agnostic.
As far as, however, somebodywants to drink their alcohol, if
they want to light theirabsinthe on fire, fucking have
at it.
I don't care.
Just let me tell you the storyfirst and explain to you what it

(01:24:58):
is you know, and then you know,then go from there.
That's fine, I don't have any.
Some of that stuff's notnecessarily for me.
You know, like, obviously, thesunshine stuff that we're doing,
the more syrupy type stuff, isnot, um, that is not my, that's
not my wheelhouse, but you know,I will say this.

Speaker 1 (01:25:18):
I could say you make it really well.
I got to taste some of it andyou might not.
It's not your wheelhouse ofwhat you drink, but it's.
It's certainly what sells, butthere's this.
Are you doing that?

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
oh, yeah, yeah, the purple absinthe?
Yeah, absolutely, or is thatthe black?
That's the black one I sent youyeah, are you gonna do black?
Probably at some point in timeum, maybe around halloween, we
might do a little limitedrelease of that.
We might also do that as alimited release.
When we have, we might do likea paranormal conference or
something like that, sometime inthe winter time, so maybe we

(01:25:53):
can coincide the release of thepainting, because I finally got
the wrist to the point.

Speaker 1 (01:26:00):
At last weekend I called the painting up again
because I hadn't really.
After I broke my wrist, I itwas like there's a lot of fucked
up shit that was going on andit finally fell.
So I did a little bit on it andit was working.
So I figured out probably Ishould be able to finish by the
summertime.
Awesome and awesome.
Yeah, you, you've got to makelike uh, uh, let's see a 30 by

(01:26:24):
60 space in your house to hangit, because it's going to come
to you and then every day you'lljust be able to look at
yourself no, I'll hang that injolie's office she'll be all
about it right next to hersasquatch poster.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
Um, real quick, though.
Jumping back to the whiskeypart of it, though, too, is uh,
so you know, we're using thosetwo different yeast strains of
two different types offermenters, but then I have
three different methods ofdistillation for each mash bill,
for every mash bill.
So, uh, I can do double thumperand pot, I can do double pot,
still distillation, or I can dopot and column, and, uh, it's

(01:27:03):
going to get three verydifferent, very unique profiles
that go into their own separatebarrels, which then can be
chosen as single barrels or beblended together.
And there's all kinds of littlehome distiller's tricks that go
along with that adding somesweet corn to a thumper on a
corn-based product, or addingsome rye to a thumper, or

(01:27:24):
various other things like that.
There's a lot of reallyinteresting things that we can
do, and some of these sunshines,I think, are going to surprise
people, uh, even people who arenot interested in moonshine.
This, this, this is notmoonshine.
It's an entirely differentthing.
It's much more along the linesof home distilled things.

(01:27:45):
Um, some of the flavors are notthe, not the post distillation
flavored stuff.
But some of the flavors weactually can create during
distillation using differentprocesses and different
ingredients, I think are reallygoing to blow people's minds.
The sunflower thing has its ownalmost mezcal sort of a flavor
to it, Um, but we also playedaround with a thing that we call

(01:28:07):
rise and shine, which is a rye,a malted rye base.
Of course it's still got sugaradded to it because it is a
shine.
But then we have differentvariations.
So one of them is I went andcollected hickory bark from my
woods and toasted that likeyou'd make hickory syrup and put
that into the thumpers, andthat has a unique thing.

(01:28:28):
One of them we threw some cacaonibs and we did a shit ton of
different citrus into thethumpers, and that has a unique
thing.
One of them we threw some cacaonibs and we did a shit ton of
different citrus into the thumpbarrels.
Another one we did jasmine andchamomile into uh, and so
they're.
Those are very unique spiritsthat have gone into barrels.
They are getting some barrelmaturation, uh, short term.
Um, trying to think of some ofthe other really weird ones that

(01:28:51):
we did, there's been severalthat we did over the summertime.
There's one we call WycliffeBell, wycliffe Bell, sort of a
tribute to uh, to Welsh style.
Uh, something like Irishpoaching, but it'd be a Welsh
style.
So it's a Pete smoked oats.
Um with uh.

Speaker 1 (01:29:11):
Pete smoked apples, apples, and then that's Pete
from, so it's coming from.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
Ireland is where it's coming from.
You're pulling it from Yep andthat's going into a number three
char barrel, which is somethingI never do.

Speaker 1 (01:29:17):
So you got to get the , the Pete that they're using at
Thornton.
There you got to get someIllinois Pete.

Speaker 2 (01:29:25):
No, I got it.
We got Indiana Pete.

Speaker 1 (01:29:26):
You got Indiana Pete.
You don't like?

Speaker 2 (01:29:28):
yeah, that's I do like it.
I do like I didn't want it forthat product, though, so we will
use it for other things, butyes, uh, that's what I use it on
the whiskey witch at spirits offrench lick was indiana pete.
Okay, so, um, but yeah, that'llbe.
That'll be something in thefuture that we used as well.
Uh, we're making some singlemalt.
Uh, I'll be starting on thatprobably, uh, in the next few

(01:29:49):
weeks.
Here, that's actually analder-smoked malt, which is
pretty cool, and there's somebeach-smoked stuff too.
We'll be making a malted ryewhiskey, but it won't be.
It'll be 100% malted rye, butit'll probably be a base malted

(01:30:11):
rye and then a modified maltedrye on top of it.
Um, yeah, and those will all gothrough the same kind of
variations.
We'll run those through allthree systems and we'll run them
on both different yeasts right,wow what people don't know is.
I cannot wait it's gonna be funwell, it going to be fun.

Speaker 1 (01:30:29):
You'll have some stuff for me to sample when I'm
there, right oh, yeah,absolutely, um absolutely I will
tell you that I do.
Did you know when you do getinto scotch and you're talking
about malt, you know, singlemalt, whatever the pot still
still to this day they say, isthe way to do it.
I mean, I mean it's notsomething that converts to the

(01:30:52):
column still, the column still,it's like it's pot still.
I mean the definition is potstill.
Yes well and there's a lot ofAmerican single malts that are
being made on column stills andit's just like it's almost like
a slap in the face.

Speaker 2 (01:31:10):
This is approach too, approach to from again.
There's the, the traditional,but pushing the envelope, uh,
pushing the boundaries.
So it is pot still, um.
But the other part of that isobviously it's alder or
beechwood smoked, which ispretty weird.
But now alder, and beech alderin particular, was uh sacred to
the Gauls, the Vikings, etcetera.

(01:31:32):
We're using Kvike yeast forthat, and it's my strains of
Kvike because it's multiplestrains.
But one thing that we do quitea bit differently there's a few
distilleries that do this in theUS, and I did this at French
Lick too, but none of it's beenreleased yet.
So I don't larder and sparge.
All the grain goes in, all ofit goes in.

(01:31:53):
I want all that brand flavor, Iwant all that earthiness.
That's that's the americanstyle of doing things and that's
what we're going to do, 100million percent and it makes
total sense.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
We talked about this from the start when I first met
you.
It's like why the hell wouldanybody outside right now,
outside of Kentucky, try andmake anything that Kentucky's
producing?
It makes no freaking sense.
They produce so much of it.
They can produce stuff that'saged that tastes like caramel,

(01:32:27):
that tastes like butter,whatever that's aged that tastes
like caramel.
They taste butter, what doublewhatever?
So you've always made somethingthat's more towards you pull
out.
You're pulling out the grains.
You can taste the wheat, or youcould taste the corn, but also
your tape.
You're pulling out a fruitynote based off of your yeasts,
and so I I, the first time wewere podcasting, I think you I

(01:32:51):
did earn a little respect in thefact that I said you're making
Indiana bourbon and whiskey.
Because that's what?
Why would you try and makeKentucky?
It's like enough if it's beenmade.
If I want to go have Kentuckywhiskey, you can go and get it
off of like 50, but you can'tget Indiana tasting bourbons off
the shelf.
Go ahead.

Speaker 4 (01:33:10):
I just want to know who told you you were gaining
respect.

Speaker 2 (01:33:16):
Well and beyond that now, with this, this isn't even
Indiana-style stuff, this isBlack Forest stuff, it's one
million percent.
And I say that as not onlycarrying on the heritage of the
people who distilled here, youknow, a hundred years ago, but
also as the progenitor of astyle of distillation in a

(01:33:40):
region of Indiana that is soonto include three distilleries
between Spirits of French Lick,spirits of French Lick Actually
four now Spirits of French Lick,old Homestead, spring Mill, and
a good friend of mine who'sopening a distillery over in
Tell City, another friend who'sopening one up in Jackson County
, just north of here.
So it has become a thing, it isa legitimate thing now, and so

(01:34:04):
that is on me to continue totell that story.

Speaker 1 (01:34:07):
You don't include the other one.
They're not part of the BlackForest, so they're just outside
of.
They're closer to louisvillebecause, so they're outside of
the forest, okay and it's also adifferent.

Speaker 2 (01:34:17):
It's also a different uh branch of germans.

Speaker 1 (01:34:20):
Well, and it's and it's also more of a they're more
of a farm type distillery thanwhat you're talking about.

Speaker 4 (01:34:28):
Yeah, they're not, they're not traditionally
they're basically within theirown realm.

Speaker 2 (01:34:37):
Yeah, yeah, they're definitely, uh, and nothing
wrong with what they're doing.
They're just not.
They're not part of the blackforest whatsoever, right, and
that's not anything againstanybody else from anywhere else
in Indiana.
Just, uh, listen, I am veryparticular about the black
forest, two regions, the blackforest, and in switzerland
county, that's, that's, that'smy indiana.
That very much so.
Um, but another example, andthis will kind of tie everything

(01:34:58):
together for you guys, I thinkand it'd probably be a good
place to wrap up, because Igotta pee really bad um, so you
know, if you have ghosts, youhave everything.
And so I've always done this,like I said, the positive
necromancy, et cetera, and I'vealways said even when I was at
Spirits of French Lake, I wasvery honest about this I have
saved my not only my bestrecipes and my best ideas for a

(01:35:20):
place that could truly be hometo them, which is what Old
Homestead is, but also a placewhere they belonged, also a
place where they belonged.
And so I've never, ever, everand you guys know this leaned
into my moonshine heritage inany way, shape or form anywhere
until now, ever, and I've nevernamed anything.

(01:35:43):
Do what.

Speaker 1 (01:35:45):
You went to a place that accepted all aspects of
distilling that's why you'rethere and they built you a
goddamned distillery.
I mean, what more can you askfor?

Speaker 2 (01:35:58):
I also never um, you know I'm part of.
This is a tribute to mikestallings as well, who also was
from indiana, by the way, if youguys didn't know that he was
from shoals.
Um, but, uh, I never used anyof my personal ghosts.
I always used, you know,because I'm a historian of
southern Indiana in particular,more so than I am my own family

(01:36:21):
genealogy or anything like that.
But the product that we'remaking right now is called WP
Wilson and that's mygrandfather's name.
William Penn Wilson, to mydaughter is named after
grandfather's name.
William Penn Wilson to mydaughter is named after he
actually died the same day thatmy daughter was born.
So now I've introduced one of myown ghosts into this thing, and
when I say this, I can say thiswith a straight face and not be

(01:36:43):
lying, which is something thatvery few distillers in the
moonshine world or the legaldistilling world can say.
It is an actual heritage,fucking recipe that I have known
my entire life and been aroundmy entire life, and it is maybe
not made on the same type ofequipment et cetera that he
would have made it on, but it ismade appropriately enough that

(01:37:06):
he'd have walked over, patted meon the back and said that I was
doing a damn good job, thathe'd have walked over and patted
me on the back and said that Iwas doing a damn good job.
So that's a full circle thingfor me to get to name a whiskey
after my grandfather, who wasnot an outlaw moonshiner in
terms of the way that peoplethink of that nowadays.
He was a fucking character andhe was hilarious and he was just

(01:37:26):
a hell of a guy and had a hellof a cool life and he never did
anything outstanding.
You know what?
Because he didn't have to,because he took care of his
family and he did what he had todo for a living, and so to be
able to name something aftersomebody like that is a real
honor, truthfully.

Speaker 4 (01:37:45):
Do you talk to Michael's?

Speaker 1 (01:37:46):
wife still Stallings.

Speaker 2 (01:37:50):
Do what?

Speaker 1 (01:37:50):
Do you still talk to his wife?

Speaker 2 (01:37:52):
stop, michael oh, yeah, yeah, I still talk to
sandra, okay, yeah, yeah,because that was.

Speaker 1 (01:37:57):
I mean, I knew you at the time and but I also was
friends with him because of justwhatever, and watch that.
That was a horrible time.
There's no doubt about it.
There's not much anybody coulddo.
He tried and it was just quick.
It was pretty quick and fastonce it happened.

Speaker 2 (01:38:13):
He has a place in our distillery 1 million percent.
We have his 50-gallon still,named Sondra, on display right
there in the distillery alongwith the map that he drew me
when he gave me the still.
That's all set up whereeverybody can see it.
We'll use it for classes duringthe summertime outside.
From time to time.
We also have I have myseven-gallon that he built me.

(01:38:35):
It's on display in the tastingroom now.
So Mike will always be a hugepart of the distillery, without
a doubt, and happy to tell hisstory, because he never got a
chance to really tell his storythe way that he should have.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
Not at all.
But I mean, and he was like atthe beginning of what I was
doing and I didn't realize yourconnection until until the end,
when you were, because after itwas over, you, you guys, have
shown so some, so much supportfor what what her sandra, right
sandra yes, like yeah, it wasjust not a.

(01:39:11):
I mean, there's no doubt, it'sjust like my cousin.
It was just a, it happened andthere's nothing anybody could do
.
And he tried and it was justover.

Speaker 2 (01:39:20):
Mike was a huge inspiration and a very, very,
very dear friend, a brother.
I'm honored that he chose me togive his still to, and that's
why we call him St Stallings.
And so there are people thathave these.
These are little pendants,little magical items that are

(01:39:41):
for St Stallings, the patronsaint of heathen distillers, and
they're for people who spendtheir time actually
understanding what this art isall about.
So I owe some to a few otherpeople still yet and they will
get them, and other people canearn them over time, but it's
something that has to be earned.
I totally get that.

Speaker 1 (01:39:58):
No, yeah, he knew what he was doing and and he was
a damn from.
You could tell from posts hewas a good musician he's a very
good musician absolutely.
I mean absolutely.
There was many times he wasplaying right from his hospital
bed.

Speaker 2 (01:40:12):
There's a bonus hidden episode.
I'll throw this out there realquick for people that may have
missed it.
There is actually a bonushidden episode of If you have
Ghosts.
You have Everything that youcan only find on the One Piece
at a Time Distilling Instituteon YouTube, because you cannot
upload an episode of music tomost podcasts.
But I went through all thepublicly available or privately

(01:40:39):
available live recordings, cellphone recordings, et cetera,
that Mike did Not the ones hedid in the hospital.
There's an actual album ofthose that Sondra has for sale.
But I went through and I took.
I took the audio, cleaned it up.
Sometimes I would add a littlepiece of music here and there to
it, but there is an entireunreleased uh, michael

(01:41:01):
stalling's live album episode ofif you have ghosts.
You have everything on youtubeokay, there you go.

Speaker 1 (01:41:08):
Everybody go check that one out.
Alan has to go because he hasto go to the bathroom.

Speaker 2 (01:41:14):
I'll change my tampon .

Speaker 1 (01:41:18):
Let's end this on the regular one.
Speaking of weird things withYouTube, right now I'm in a
dispute because my guy, Steve-O,who did the cover song for
Alabama, all of a sudden RKORecords or whatever that owns
the Alabama song with the Doorsdecided that that was theirs.

(01:41:41):
So they started hitting up allmy podcasts that he did the
cover and it's a cover song ofthe Alabama song from 1923 done
by a german artist, and somehowthey're like saying that they
have the right to the cover songof the cover song.
Right, I have a dispute so Ican't play it at the end, so

(01:42:01):
we're just gonna end it.
Rememberwwwscotchiebourbonboyscom for
all things scotchy Bourbon BoysFacebook, Instagram, YouTube and
.

Speaker 4 (01:42:10):
X.

Speaker 1 (01:42:11):
Also on Apple iHeart Spotify like listen, comment and
subscribe, and then also makesure that you leave good
feedback and then remembereverybody.
Good bourbon equals good timeswith good friends, and that's
what we're all about.

Speaker 4 (01:42:38):
And remember to not drink and drive, drink
responsibly and live your lifeuncut and unfiltered, and go buy
my damn 2025 almanac fromthealchemistcabinetcom.

Speaker 2 (01:42:48):
If you're at all interested in folklore, magic,
distillation principles,agricultural principles, etc.
The Almanac is available.
You get it right now.
You get a digital copyimmediately.
The physical copies are comingto me next week and then they go
out to everybody that hasordered them.
So please buy that.
That is the thing that Ibelieve will be my lasting

(01:43:08):
legacy.
Alright, thanks, alan.
Thanks.

Speaker 1 (01:43:10):
Alan really do appreciate it.
That is the thing that Ibelieve will be my lasting
legacy.

Speaker 4 (01:43:13):
All right, Thanks Alan.
Thanks Alan, Really doappreciate every time you come
on here, man.
Yeah, love you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:43:17):
Good to see you, brother, Love you too brother,
you too.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

Intentionally Disturbing

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Exploring the Spirit of Whiskey: Tradition, Innovation, and the Metaphysical Journey with The Alchemist Alan Bishop

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Dateline NBC

Stuff You Should Know

Intentionally Disturbing

All Episodes

Exploring the Spirit of Whiskey: Tradition, Innovation, and the Metaphysical Journey with The Alchemist Alan Bishop

Dateline NBC