May 16, 2025 • 68 mins
A Weirdly Timed Episode...
Let's get the awkwardness out of the way - I had the pleasure of interviewing Mel Maddox, now-former Master Blender for Old Elk, on May 2nd. A few days later, it was announced that Old Elk had been acquired by Middle West Spirits (a previous guest!) and, subsequently, all workings at their Fort Collins, Colorado location were ceasing. This included laying off all production staff, including Mel.
This was still a wonderful conversation in which I learned about Old Elk, but my favorite part was learning more about Mel. The way she looks at whiskey when creating a blend is synesthetic, hard to describe to those who haven't experienced what color something tastes like or the what shape a mashbill makes in your mind. It's a beautiful talent (my version is seeing sounds in color) that is at once intangible and singular.
Long story short...I don't know what the next steps are for Old Elk, or for Mel, but I wish them both the best. I think Old Elk was putting out the best stuff it ever had, and clearly her talents were on full display in blending and finishing. We as whiskey enthusiasts can only hope her next role continues to rely on those talents.
Thank you to Mel for entering the Whiskey Ring!
Thanks to our Presenting Sponsor, BAXUS
Baxus is the world's leading collectible spirits marketplace, with user-friendly options for buyers, sellers, and collectors looking to vault their collections. Use my link below to visit the BAXUS.CO website and sign up!
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Old Elk Distillery
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of the Whiskey Ring podcast today. I'm thrilled to welcome on
Mel Maddox. You will probably know her best from her
time where she is now at Old Elk Distillery in Colorado. Mel
has also some background in, well, you know, I'm
just going to let Mel tell the story instead of me blabbering on. So Mel,
(00:22):
Hi David. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be
a part of the podcast and yeah, thanks for giving us a
Absolutely. I do have to say, I know this is usually an audio only podcast. Um,
I don't have any old elk swag, but I do have
a remiss shirt and that's like the closest I could get by proxy at the moment.
(00:43):
So, um, we'll do that. We'll do our best on
that one. Um, I, but I'll be out in your neck of the woods in,
So, Oh, fun. Yeah. So we're, uh, for
listeners, if they don't know, we're in Fort Collins, Colorado. And,
um, This is a beautiful time of year to be in
the Rocky Mountain area. So hopefully you'll
(01:05):
be able to stop by and see our production facility and visit
So it's on the itinerary for sure. So let's
jump right in. I'd love to hear and share with listeners, you
know, your origin story and how you
got to Old Elk. I will say, I'm just going to say
that listeners may have heard the origin story of Old Elk itself
(01:29):
while Greg was heading up things there. So
I'd say, yeah. You know, let's focus on your story,
but, you know, throw it, throw in the
Sure. Yeah. Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't
for, um, everything that came before, but also where
I've been for the last six years with Old Elk. Um, so
(01:52):
I, I actually have kind of a non-traditional background when
it comes to, uh, getting into the whiskey and
spirits industry on the blending and distilling side of things. I
was actually on, uh, hospitality was my
focus. I was, I wouldn't, I won't say raised in
restaurants and bars, but it felt like that. I started at a very early age working
(02:14):
in, uh, the restaurant industry, bartending, serving
everything back of the house, front of the house managing. And
that really gave me an appreciation for flavor
for the craft that goes into, you
know, creating. an experience for people that gets
them excited about flavors and taste and
(02:37):
aroma. And then you add in the
layers of education that you can start to build on, you
know, whether it be becoming a sommelier and, you
know, learning as much as you possibly can about wines, or in
my case, learning as much as you can about spirits, which then led me
to where I am here now with Old Elk. And I
(02:58):
was in that realm of
things for about 20 plus years and kept kind
of pushing a little bit, didn't know exactly where I was going to end up. You
know, when you make a career out of the restaurant business,
you either end up owning, directing, or,
you know, sometimes the darker side of things, you might go down another path, but it's
(03:20):
a career that I think is respectful. And it's great that people
now actually can make a career out of it. There was a time in
my life where my family was like, what are you doing with your life? You know, Are
you truly going to be a bartender forever? Is this what you're
going to do? And I think that pushed me to be
curious about what the, you know, what it was in the
(03:41):
glass, what it was on the plate, why that was so exciting to
people and how those flavors came together. And so throughout
the years, as I kind of got tenured and older in my history
and in my career, I had many opportunities. And so before
Old Elk, I was in Boston. and running some beverage
programs there. Really great city for access to
(04:04):
just education and to the bigger kind
of world of spirits and brands. And so I'd started competing,
bartending competing, and doing, you know, what people will
call mixology, but I like to still say it's just bartending. It's
just a different level of bartending. And throughout that,
I actually was the 2018 most
(04:28):
imaginative bartender finalists for the Northeast region.
And then I went on to the finals in London. And what
got me there was I had actually started to experiment with distilling on
a small scale. And so I was using a vacuum still to create
cocktails, to create the ingredients, to put
together flavors and still out the alcohol and then put it back in a different
(04:50):
form. And that got me curious more about, you know,
how is it made? And again, why are people
excited about flavors and what is it about, you know,
one thing that makes it really good and quality and exciting for people.
And what is it about something that maybe doesn't, doesn't get that kind
of attainment. So, um, long story short, that
(05:12):
was 2018. And then 2019, uh, old elk approached
me and asked me to lead up their national beverage program and
start working with them as they were developing, you know,
their footprint in the U S. And I came to Colorado and
opened their tasting room with them and was managing that
and then doing education and training as well. And
(05:33):
then fast forward a couple of years through the pandemic and 2021. And
there was an opportunity to start working with Greg on the, um, production
side of things. And so that launched me to present
And so the first thing that came to mind was, I
don't know how things are in Boston, Massachusetts, but in Colorado,
(05:55):
I believe, if you have a, I'm just thinking of
my previous conversation with the family Jones also around there, where
if you have a bar at a distillery or at a restaurant
Is that something that you had to do before? Like you
said, you were experimenting with the vacuum distilling to try different flavors
(06:17):
and things. Was that out of necessity or pure interest?
No, that was pure interest. It was curiosity. The
program that I was running at the time was called Earl's Cocktail Lab.
And so the idea was that we'd have lots of different equipment
to work with, rotor evaporators, that kind of thing and
(06:38):
just kind of geek out and get, get, you know, nerdy about,
um, cocktails and flavor. And
so for me, it was, it was, it was, and
still is always about flavor first and foremost,
and then what the consumer expectation is of it and
why it's appealing to them and exciting. And so,
(06:58):
um, the challenge that you're mentioning that we have
here in Colorado of not, you know, we can't bring in a,
say an Aperol or something like that to add and make, you
know, an Aperol Spritz or a paper plane cocktail or something like that.
Yeah, you have to create your own stuff. So if it's not
something that the distillery has created, you're not able to bring it in.
(07:19):
So it's a challenge, right? But I thought that was in
a way pretty cool because you could show that you don't need to throw 10 ingredients
at something to make it taste good. You can take, you know, what
is, Lucky for us, Old Elk is a delicious whiskey
on its own by itself. So you can take that wonderful base and then build off
of it using natural ingredients, you know, fresh
(07:41):
veggies, fresh fruits, make your own syrups, that kind of thing. So
again, the approach was more about creating and then
about educating, you know, a little
bit into, I would say, traditional cocktail
mixology and even just pre-prohibition style. Because
if you think about it, there weren't a ton of different spirits to work with
(08:02):
than either. So for me, that's where my background had kind
of come into a good place for
Fantastic. So with that, you can
do a slightly different timeline than I usually do. So normally I would go into, you know, the history
and then kind of step by step and then to
(08:22):
production. But for this one, I want to jump ahead to production just because we were
introduced through the release of
So it's a more recent release. It's a new
addition to the lineup. And, you know, I'd say it was something
that I really enjoyed. I've been aware of Old Elk for at least
(08:45):
a couple of years now. I think I had gotten a single barrel or two through probably
following Bourbon Pursuit or one of the other streams that I used to follow that
had, you know, groups would bring in bottles. And so
that had been my kind of the limits of my exposure to it. And then there had been a
couple of years gap. where for one
reason or another, I just hadn't been exposed to the new products
(09:07):
or whatever else had come on. So then the slow cut comes in and It
was fun because I was able to go in with a pretty much new palette. Like I look
back at some of my notes from back then, but that was five, six years ago. So palettes
change and products change. And, you
know, I, I really mean, I, I did really enjoy this
bourbon and a couple of things about it that we'll go into that.
(09:28):
I think why I really enjoyed it, but let's just start with
the slow cut process. So walk us through what you
Yeah. Um, so slow cut for us is it's,
it's about our proofing process. It's where we take the liquid from
barrel strength to bottling strength. And, uh, slow
cut is our proprietary term for that method that
(09:51):
we use. It's not something that we, um, you
know, we, we did not come up with this concept, uh, this, this
concept of slow proofing or preserving flavor with
how fast you're adding water to the liquid to
bring it down to proof. Um, you know, that, that dates back to even
just, you know, days of cognac making back in
(10:12):
the, back in the beginning. And Nancy freely actually is a big
proponent and one of the, um, kind of originators
of it coming over to the U S and being popular Maggie Campbell. She's, she's
talked a lot about it, um, as well. So, uh,
you know, the, the process isn't like new science, however, the,
the science behind it is important, I think, for people to,
(10:35):
to, to know about. So. For us, when you're
taking something that out of barrel at cast proof, let's say it starts
at 114 proof is where it was. And then we want
to bring it down to 88 proof. You know, we have to add a
certain volume of water to get there. We always do everything by proof,
everything by weight for the most exact method. And
(10:57):
if you add all that water at once, you get what is called an
exothermic reaction. It's basically a
boiling off of flavors or a heat increase in the
liquid. And so if you think about it, whiskey
is alive. It's doing its own thing
in its glass. And when you add water to it or ice, you're going to
(11:17):
taste that and how the change is happening. You
might see it depending on how cold your water is or how high
the proof was. That concept on that microscale
of what's happening in your glass is the same thing that happens when you do thousands
of gallons of whiskey. And so if you think about thousands of gallons of
whiskey and then you're adding hundreds of pounds of water to
(11:38):
it all at once, that reaction is going to be, you know,
that much more proportional and the amount of flavor
that you might be losing with that heat reaction is
going to increase. And so what we do with the slow cut is we slow
down the water process. We, um, you know, we
like to say like four to five times longer, but honestly, In
(11:58):
my mind, and if we have the time, we'll stretch it out for as long as possible,
because really, the slower you can go, slow
cut, and the more you can let the whiskey rest with
that water cutting, the better the flavor profile is going to be. And
so it's exciting to hear that you liked our slow cut new
release. It's not something that is just used
(12:19):
with that bottle, that profile
of ours. We use this slow cut method with anything that
we're bringing down from cap strength. The difference with
the slow-cut bourbon is that we wanted to showcase that
because this has always been a part of our proofing that
process. It's always been at the DNA of Old Elk's liquid. And
(12:40):
it's something that we've been very proud of, but we haven't necessarily had
a spirit that we could highlight such a difference in, you know,
the 88 proof to say 114 to 120 proof range. So one of the reasons is you get this big you
For sure. And just before I go to the next question, uh,
(13:01):
just to make sure it's this bourbon is the, is this
Great question. So it's actually a blend. It's a new blend of ours. Um,
yeah. So if people are familiar with Old Oak, uh, and have seen
Old Oak blended straight on shelves for a while, that
was one of our flagship offerings that we started with back in 2017. And,
(13:24):
um, that was just our straight 51% corn, 34% malted barley
and 15% rye. Uh, nothing, uh,
nothing else landed in there. No other mash bills and other grains. The
slow cut is a new release for us this year. Again, not only highlighting that
proofing process, um, but with a kind of
nod to. My bartending history, as well as
(13:46):
really what people have been asking for for a long time. Old Elk's always been a
premium brand. We've always been a little bit on the more expensive side
of things. And consumers and people in general have just
said, like, when are you going to come out with a $39, $40 bottle,
right? When is this going to be a little bit more accessible to us? Why
are you so expensive? Part of it is that mash filter
(14:06):
we were just talking about. Having that much malted barley in there means
it's a very expensive mash filter to be making. When
you look at most of our bourbon that's on shelf right now, currently it's
all going to be between like six and seven, eight years old. So
obviously the older it is, the more costs associated with it,
the more barrel loss you see, all kinds of factors going into it. The slow
(14:29):
cut is a blend of those barrels. So
we've got seven and eight year, this
high malted barley mash bill of ours, our custom mash bill. And
then we're blending that with a high rye bourbons. And
so we're taking Um, a couple of different sorts, uh,
So if you have to, if you had to estimate, um,
(14:52):
unless you, unless you know the exact number off the top of your head, I do it because I
make it true. Fair enough. Um, so
I'll switch the question that says, you know, if you can share, um, I'm
Uh, the final barley percentage is going to be much
lower, probably more around that traditional, like high end
(15:16):
It's funny. I'm asking that mainly because for
me, American whiskey is, and this is kind of
across the board, accepting single malt so American whiskey is
from corn rye and wheat. for
me tend to be kind of thin and just
too watery, below probably 90 proof, sometimes
(15:38):
closer to a hundred proof. And what
I've been seeing recently is I've had the opportunity to taste a couple of what they've
been calling malted bourbons. So
the corn itself is not malted, but it's got the malted barley
as the primary flavoring grain, as opposed to
rye or wheat. And for
(16:00):
me and my palate personally, those have stood up so much
better to a lower proof. And in this case, I mean, 88's
not, it's certainly higher than 80, but it's
relatively lower in terms of what I'm normally drinking. So when
I taste an American whiskey that's at that proof, but still
has flavor and mouthfeel, it didn't feel watery. at
(16:21):
all, like it had been too watered down, which, I mean,
you know, you've tasted so many things you can taste when there's too much water added to something. Yeah.
Yeah. It's like the flavors there, but it's a little, yeah, it's like the,
you can see the flavor there, but it's, it's a little far away. So,
you know, there, so there must be something enough of that barley still
in there to kind of hold it together. The,
(16:44):
with the slow cut process in particular, uh, one question that came to
mind too, was, as you said, it's a proprietary process.
So certainly, you know, we've had a couple of
guests just on this podcast alone that do a slower cutting
process of their own. Um, but
although it has gone further, you actually trademarked slow cut process.
(17:06):
Uh, I'm curious if you can share what you feel
and maybe you already said this, but. what do
you feel was important enough to trademark it rather than just say, this is how we're doing it?
I think that it's a couple of things. So
our background, we're owned by a family of entrepreneurs who
(17:26):
created the OtterBox phone cases. They
also have many other lines of
business in different fields of business. I
think they understand that it's important to
identify what separates you from others. Um, especially
in a market, you know, like the whiskey world, it's, it's, there's a lot of
(17:47):
whiskey out there. And so highlighting, you
know, our process and creating a way to
talk about that, that's both educational, um,
you know, and everybody loves the word innovation and no,
we did not innovate this necessarily, but it is, it isn't, you know,
it is a different way of doing things. Um, and like you said, there are other distilleries
(18:08):
that are doing it, but maybe they're not necessarily talking about that process
partly because it, you know, it is proprietary or maybe they haven't, you know, identified
how they want that, um, you know, how it affects their
whiskey necessarily. In our early days, we knew that doing this,
we could tell side by side in a glass, right? Like this tastes different than
a fast cut, right. Versus a slow cut. And over
(18:30):
time we've been able to identify exactly what that proof point change needs
to be, how many days it needs to be at a minimum, how
many maximum where you kind of like, level out and don't get any
more benefit from doing it, right? So
I think that's part of it. And I do think that as
being, you know, currently a non-distilling producer, it's
(18:52):
important to talk about the things that separate us, you
know, not just the slow cutting, but the water that we're using. The
water we're using is water here in Fort Collins that is
run off from the Rocky Mountains. It's glacial water. It's
really pure. We don't add anything to it. We're using UV
filtration and reverse osmosis, but we're not needing to add
(19:13):
any enzymes or anything like that to, you
know, add any kind of body. And similar to
the high malt mash bill that we use in this blend, you
know, we like to talk about that as well too, because like you identified, there
is a mouthfeel and a body and a richness that
you do get from that malted barley having it so high, that affects
(19:36):
the overall flavor and you can get
a whiskey down to a lower approved and still have a very rich
mouthfeel. Some great spice as
well, too. So, you know, I think it's partly like being just really
Makes sense. The Oh,
(20:02):
two questions. I'm going to go there. We'll go, we'll
go this one first. Um, this is a, uh, I'm
asking you to go into the hypothetical here. Uh, as
you said, they're very good at hypothetical. Okay. So, um, we,
one of the people who have spoken, you know, very forcefully about this idea
of, you know, don't fast proof things, um, is, uh,
(20:28):
Uh, they're doing more American single malt, but the concept is
the same. Um, now he'll talk about it more in
the lens of saponification. So, uh,
just to compare those for, for listeners, maybe new Mel,
you were talking about how flavors were kind of evaporating or
boiling off because of the exothermic reactions. He's talking about
(20:48):
it from the sense that you are creating other ones, creating other
esters and flavors as well from these reactions that can be soapy.
Uh, or, or floral or, you know, off flavors from it. Now,
fun thing for me has been looking at this divide of people who talk about the
importance of slow proofing. And then once
(21:10):
you are basically like, I don't care, it doesn't make a difference. Now,
to me, I tend to go towards you guys of, of yes,
it does make a difference. Now the juxtaposition
I want to throw at you is at MGP, Ross
and script. The only reason I'm doing that is because the
whiskeys are distilled there and Greg came from there. So there's
(21:33):
a link there. I was on a stream
with Ian Starsman, who's currently the master distiller at MGP Ross
and Squibb maybe two years ago now. So it's been a little bit,
but I asked the question in the
chat, do you guys fast proof or
slow proof because you're making whiskey for millions
(21:54):
of gallons of whiskey for for hundreds, at
least thousands if not hundreds of companies around the country and elsewhere.
And he's like, No, we don't really do it doesn't really make a difference. And
it was fascinating to me hearing that, knowing the volume they're
doing, hearing the importance of it as described by you, by Colin,
(22:14):
and knowing that Greg was kind of a link in between the two of, you know,
he clearly saw the importance of the slow cut process. So
I know there's a lot to throw at you, but I'm wondering if you can kind of
explore why, maybe why they
wouldn't see much of a difference for Ian and why maybe you
(22:37):
Um, I can't hypothesize too
much on, you know, their business model, but I do think
that has something to do with it.
Um, even in the beginning days of us adopting this approach,
there is resistance at a certain level because. Slow
cutting takes time. It slows down the process and you've
(23:00):
already waited all this time. You're, you know, it's an investment in
time. It's an investment in flavor. And so there was definitely
a convincing that had to happen. Um, so I can, I can imagine maybe
at the quantity that they're doing, there might not be production
capabilities. You know, it, it is, I won't
say it's a logistic nightmare, although
(23:23):
at times in the past, um, we, we had a different facility that was
offsite and it at times was challenging. There
might've been some tears a few times where you're, you know, you're like, we have to stick to this SOP.
We've got to stick to, how I do things, you're also
telling me you need this product tomorrow. It's not going to happen. So there
is that pressure that happens at times. And
(23:46):
it's almost like a game of Tetris a little bit, especially, I
would imagine, at the volume that they're doing. We're putting out pennies
compared to them. And it still is
challenging when we've got many products that we're blending together, whether it be the
slow cut in some of our core or the cast finishing you
know, you've only got so much tank space. You've only got so much time.
(24:10):
And so there is like that very real just
production nightmare of doing something like that. So I can see, I
can see there being resistance. Um, I
don't want to question anybody's palate, but
there are, there are, there are levels
of what people taste. Some people are really good at, um, you
(24:32):
know, Greg, for example, is very good at taking, new
make, you know, distillate off the, off the stills and
finding the flaws in there or not finding the flaws. And
my skill is in the finished product and making sure that we don't have flaws there.
So I think, you know, it's a little bit different approach
too, right? If you're bass cutting in the beginning versus bass
(24:53):
cutting at the end, um, the barrels are going to help with
that sort of maturation and resting process. Does
And I feel like I'm trying to be, I don't want to say like they're wrong.
If somebody wanted to hire me to blend their whiskey, I'd say we
(25:15):
That's fine. You're being very diplomatic, which is exactly what you should be
doing. I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble. It was just too tempting
So, you know, you mentioned... Yeah, I don't, you know, Greg was one of
the last to go through the Seagram's Blue Bible training.
And there is a commitment and a
(25:38):
level of quality
commitment that he will not step away from. And he has been very
vocal and very good about making sure that those commitments
(25:58):
So this is a jump to another product, but one
that really highlights your work as well, which is the
Cigar Cut. So this was your first product
that you were really able to own solo.
That's not to say no one else worked on it, of course, but
you were able to put your name on this one. You
(26:19):
already mentioned Nancy Frehley and you'd stop, you said on stop
mainsplaining me in late 2024 that the company learned the
slow cut, sorry, the yeah, the slow cut technique from Nancy Frehley. In
leading into the cigar cut, you know, a lot of brands and
talking anecdotally, I don't know how many, but a lot of brands have put out in
the last couple of years, a cigar blend of bourbons or
(26:42):
whiskeys. Some
have hewn close to what Nancy's original idea of what that
is. Some have gone way off the rails of
what that is and just kind of are taking the name and it
being in the zeitgeist and using it for marketing purposes. But
because of that connection with Nancy, it seems
(27:05):
like the way that you put together the cigar cut was much
more in line with her thinking of how this should be done. So
I love to hear you describe what
your process was like in creating this and leaning
into the ways that cigar smokers talk. I'm not a cigar guy, so I can't speak
(27:27):
Yeah, it's an art and it's a ritual for sure. For
me, the concept of
blending, the concept of creating flavors, is
never about like a cheap thrill. It's
always about something that is going to last and
(27:48):
make an impression and elevate,
like elevate the base that was there already. There's nothing
to hide, you know, in Old Ox whiskeys. Greg
made phenomenal whiskeys and Everything that we've worked
with in our CAS program has been products that was made by Greg, you know,
either under his supervision or while he was IMGP. And so the
(28:10):
liquid itself is already such a high quality that I
would never want to outshine that. The idea is to really
just like put a new spin on it and to make it
something that can pair, you know, pair well with cigar
smoking is obviously the the easy connection to
make there, but I, I've kind of started to talk about it more as like almost
(28:30):
just a pairing whiskey, because it can be paired with chocolate, with
a good meal, with other whiskeys, you know, with, with an experience and,
um, that approach to not wanting to,
I guess, just, I don't want to say cheapen, but just, it's not there
again, there's no shortcut to it. The
(28:51):
idea is to make something that is going to, almost
make your brain just kind of dance a little, you know, and think about like,
wow, what is in here? And also put a little bit of a different
spin. I mean, if you taste one of our cigar blends next to, um,
say our bourbon, our Rita bourbon, you're going to, it's very different.
You know, it is almost like it's a completely different whiskey, but there still is that kind of
(29:12):
core, uh, quality and richness and, and
the malt does come through. And so that's just
my approach. And when I was in my mixology days, bartending days,
Same idea, I had a very traditional cocktail background, even
though I was playing around with new and exciting, different kind of
ways to create things like with the rotary evaporators and
(29:34):
stuff like that. It wasn't so much about, again,
it wasn't so much about like, ooh, here's this shiny, flashy thing, but
behind it is no substance. There always needs to be substance and
it always needs to come from, you know, more
traditional methodologies, whether that be
how the whiskey is made, whether that be how, you know, cocktail building
(29:57):
is approached. You'll never find in my history, I'll
never find a cocktail that had 10 ingredients on it. Cause that just isn't, you
know, that's not how you do it. Um, you might find that with our,
our Islaynd blend cigar cut, there's actually a couple of,
uh, a couple of finishes and a couple of base mash
bills, which, um, initially people were like, not giving us
(30:18):
flack for it, but they definitely were like, this is concerning. Like, why are you doing so much?
But I think it came together really nicely. Um, so yeah, I mean,
inspiration, obviously I also lucky that I can, you
know, I can look at some of these great whiskeys that are already been
made. I can taste them and I can use that as part of my library
catalog of flavor to pull from and say, cool. I
(30:40):
like what Nancy did with this. Let's do this a little
For sure. And that just
reminded me of with the Islaynd Blend, you
were on Bourbon Showdown. This was last year in March, so
March 2024. And you were trying Islaynd Blend on that
(31:01):
show. Maybe it had just come out, I think. So
I did look at
it online. I haven't had the opportunity to taste it, but I
get that. Like looking at it on paper, part
of me is like, okay, whoa, there's a lot
going on here. But, you
(31:22):
know, there, I used to look at that
and kind of just immediately shy away, like they were trying to hide something. But
now I look at it as kind of a challenge. Like if you're going to put, you
know, whatever the matrix is, three times two, like six
combinations or permutations of things there, then Either
(31:43):
you're going to end up hiding something because just there's too many flavors
going on, or maybe somehow if it's done skillfully,
then you got this really nice product at the end that highlights some,
you know, rum characters, some of those fresh fruits that you
get the dried fruits from something else and the vanilla from the bourbon cask. And so
again, I haven't tried it, so I can't speak to it from my own palate, but
(32:05):
I can see how it would work, how it can work. As
long as you do it as you're saying like skillfully and with a vision in mind for
what this is going to end up being. It's actually
a great transition into another question
I had this was. when you
were on Black and Brown, I think this was also last year. Yeah.
(32:29):
When you were on Black and Brown, you were describing your process and you
said at one point that you see flavor in your mind when you're thinking about a
blend. Now to me, that
immediately kind of sounded synesthetic. And
I was wondering if that's kind of what you, what do you experience, what
Yeah, I think it's a, It's
(32:55):
a really interesting feeling, because
it is like a feeling and a thought when
I'm thinking about flavors. And it's almost like
I can feel it three-dimensionally in my
brain. And I can also see the flavors
coming together. Sometimes they're in shapes. Sometimes
(33:17):
they're in colors. It's almost
like an object that moves around a little bit. texturally
feel it. It's an interesting, it's hard to explain. When
it's really strong, it's like, I can see it, think
it, feel it. And I can almost taste it at the same time too. And
(33:38):
that's just like thinking about the flavor. It's not necessarily like having anything
in front of me. I think, I
think, I think again, part of it is something you
can, you can build on that. You can build on your flavor catalog, your library, and
you can start to associate For me, I've always seen
flavor first and then identified in a way like,
(34:01):
where did it come from? Whether it be like a fruit or a piece
of chocolate or something like that. And then again,
it becomes this texture almost. It's a hard
Look, I have a touch of it myself of different things. Like
(34:23):
I'll taste things or experience things and I'll hear music in
color, for example. Um, so, or
Yeah. It's
just another, yeah. Like sometimes it can be an image. Um, um,
(34:46):
I don't know if you experience this or people who have this experience this,
but even when you see an image, like see a beautiful painting
or see a certain color, it becomes more than just the
visual for you. It does. For me,
it's not sound. I haven't had that. That's not my
thing, but it is, I can, I can see an image
(35:07):
and it becomes flavor. It's like a reverse kind of
Sure. I mean, whenever you get the senses mixing like that, it's, it's
a lot of fun. You're right. It is very hard to describe. Uh, someone
said it's like trying to describe what
the color nine tastes like, you know, like this
doesn't make sense, but unless you can do this, unless
(35:32):
Yeah. And to me, it's almost like, um, like
relative and absolute pitch. So, um, for,
you know, like for musicians, you can, if you've got absolute pitch
or perfect pitch, you know, it it's, it's just, you were
born with it. Um, it's Maybelline you're born with it. So,
um, you can have relative pitch where you've built
(35:53):
it up over the years and. there are people with relative pitch who
are just as accurate as a perfect pitch. And
in some cases may have a better harness on it because they've just been trained and
trained better. But there is something to that innate nature of
just having those things come to you. Like I love tasting something. And
even if the flavor doesn't match up perfectly, I immediately get an image in
(36:15):
my mind, like you said, a sense memory of it's
not just an apple pie, but it's like an apple pie on
the glass table in like the fifties, you know,
there, there's a whole ecosystem around it. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Like there's like elements of the details into it that don't, um,
yeah, they go, they go beyond just, just calling on a specific
(36:39):
memory that you might've had. It really is like kind of a, I
don't want to say like a, what's the word like
an archive, like an archival, you know, like, or part
of like your DNA, you know? So there's just like a
Those are my favorite whiskeys. The ones that do that to me, that give me an immediate sense memory, because
(37:01):
that means there's something about it that is really intoxicating.
And I'm trying to think of the word that I'm looking for
and I'm failing to find it. So let's just go with that one. But no,
it's something fun. And even if it's hard to describe, I
would almost say, I feel like that would be fun to add to tasting
(37:21):
notes. Yeah. You know, like I'm
thinking of people who put out weird tasting notes
of all kinds of things that we've never tried before and desserts that haven't been
made since the eighties. And, um, you know, but
if you say you're like, I'm no
Maddox, I'm the master blender at
(37:42):
old elk. I made this product. And when I made it. This
is what I'm seeing in my mind. And,
you know, you might not taste the same thing. You might not feel the same thing, but. could
be, I don't know, that could be a fun thing. And just like the slow cut process, it
would be something very unique to you at old elk to, and to
just embrace that, uh, part of your process
(38:06):
so that it's more of you on the page. Um, purely, you
Yeah. I think there's, there's a part that is hard when
you're in the process to, um,
analyze maybe, you know? Um, and
I do think, you're not wrong. I think, I mean,
(38:27):
it's interesting to me, but I also, it's just me,
you know, but for people who maybe don't
have this or have a touch of it, it's
far more interesting for me right now to talk about it with you because you
can relate versus in a way when you're trying to
explain it and people are just kind of like, that's cool, but I don't understand what you're saying.
(38:47):
So I like the idea of how can you tie, how can you tie
that into tasting notes or a way to sort
of not educate, but maybe just share
it with others like a way that they might be able to see it. You've already got my brain
No, I mean, I think it's cool. I think I think I've seen with some people. There's
(39:10):
a there's a woman who's started to get into her
own blending, she owns a. A spirit shop,
and she's started doing some blending stuff privately, and she similarly
will visualize on paper flavor, but
she visualizes it more as a shape. And
I can relate to that. I think that there are sharp shapes, and soft
(39:33):
shapes, and square shapes, and how does that tie into your
palette? So it's
I love it. And we could go on
much longer for that. I only have you for a limited time, so I'm going to
(39:55):
So there are, you know, a couple more questions I've got for you just want to make sure that we
hit a few things for the audience. So as I said, it had been a few years since
I had tried Old Elk products and been exposed to it. You've
grown quite a bit since then. So beyond just the single barrels, and
I believe you started with the wheat, rye, and
the custom mash bill. The
(40:16):
bourbon, you've got, you know, the, the master blend series, you've
got specialties, you've got sour mash, you know, single
barrel program all coming out and being rolled out. You
do specialties and customizations on the label and the topper that
kind of make it stand out when people get their own barrels. Having
(40:38):
taken the reins over from Greg, who, as
you said, he's got this immense lineage of his own, and
you're now part of that lineage going forward, while
of course, still having your own agency and your own right. You
came in, started working with him in 21 in production side, in
23, you're putting out Cigar Cut as your first
(41:01):
release, and it got such great reviews and such a
great response. Bye. What,
how did, I'm asking two questions at once here, which I have
a tendency to do, it's terrible. But the first one is kind of what was the
transition like from, you know, Greg having the reins to you
taking the reins fully and where do you go
(41:25):
when, when your first release with your name is received so well,
how do you approach going forward with things like the master
blend series and Sour Mash and all these different things that you're doing next?
Great questions. The
transition, so Greg has, he
(41:47):
is not one of those people to micromanage. He's really, he's an excellent, I
don't wanna say trainer, but he's an excellent mentor in the sense of he will share
with you anything and everything you wanna know. And he will
make sure that you have the foundations of what he thinks is important. And
at the same time, recognizes
(42:09):
and is curious too about why you
might see something differently or have a curiosity. And
so with our cast program and
later with the blending, but initially with the cast program for
him, that was also kind of a new thing. And he said, I
have as much to learn here as, as, as
(42:31):
you do, you know, in some ways learn from, from you.
And so there was a sharing, There was
a sharing and just an acceptance. And also when you feel, when
you feel both like respect for, you know, your
mentor and you feel like trusted and you can ask questions and
that there's a curiosity there, I think that creativity can
(42:54):
come out of that, you know, to a much stronger degree than
if you had somebody who's saying, this is my way and this is the only way we're going to
do it. And nothing outside of that, um, you know, lane
is going to happen. So there was a lot of asking
questions. How would you do this? And then he's,
again, he's been very transparent. He shared the blue Bible with the
(43:16):
team. He never wants held back his
secrets on. This is how I put together these masters blends. This
is what I'm looking for. And then there's been a natural, um,
I feel like I'm bragging and I am in a little bit, but literally a hundred percent of
the time when we do a blind tasting, Greg and I pick the
same things. So. It's just naturally
(43:39):
we both had a mutual way of seeing
flavor and what we think of as quality versus not quality. So
again, there's like a, just an immediate trust that happens when you see that happen over and over
between people, you're like, well, we must, you know, we must align
here. Obviously you don't want to have something like
that to the, to the degree where you can't then see outside of it.
(44:00):
And so anytime we do like a tasting panel or put together a new product or
launch anything, there's. at least three panels that we put together beforehand
that have, you know, anywhere from seven to 20 people. And
we're weighing everybody's feedback, you
know, the same way. Although I would say at some point you, you start
to narrow it down to like, this is Greg and Mel's feedback,
(44:20):
and this is, this is marketing's feedback, this is sales feedback. And
so those have different, different degrees of influence
over the final product. But you know, the, again,
just the transparency that he was, he was willing to, to share.
And it was never like, this is my secret. I don't want to keep back from
you what I'm doing. So, you know, he would, he
(44:41):
would pass over basically these formulas and say, okay, go make my blend.
And then he would sign off on the final product. And so I think there was just a ton for me,
it's hands-on it's always been hands-on learning. And
he didn't shy away from kind of giving the reins of that
and saying here, this is, this is your, you know, protocol,
this is your procedure to follow and I trust you to do it
(45:03):
and then bring me back what the final result is. In
doing that, I would say where that started
to influence how I do things is that similar
to anybody who comes
up with a recipe or has their own approach to doing something, you might like hold back
a little bit, right? You know, if you've got that family recipe that you are very proud
(45:25):
of and that people love you for, you might not put in there that it's
actually, uh, you know, an eighth of a teaspoon of salt, right?
You might not add that little element. You might do it on purpose. You
might not do it on purpose. So there was out of that, you know, I would
say over time, we figured out that we wanted to mingle our spirits and rest them longer
than we had been. And that was something that I ate Lee was
(45:48):
kind of, I noticed I was like, wait, if we don't bottle this right away and we
let it rest, for a week, it tastes very
different than the flavor that we got the day of blending.
And so we started to incorporate that into our SOPs and into how
we did things. And I
think those are elements of control that Greg's,
(46:10):
because it hasn't interfered with the quality or the final product, he's
for your own history as coming from bartending background
and not just
bartending as we've had other guests on, but really an accomplished bartending
career on top of that. Like not just exposure, but innovation,
(46:33):
trying new things. When you are looking
at the whiskeys now and saying, or even the past few years and saying like,
okay, this needs to age a little bit longer. This might be good as
it is. This maybe would fit well with the finish. How,
how often do you feel like you're thinking about this from,
okay, this whiskey would work really well in a cocktail versus work
(46:57):
really well on its own, or maybe with like one, uh, modifier.
Uh, I think so with the
slow cut blend that we just released the I'm excited
to hear is kind of reintroduce the brand to you. I think there'll
be a lot of people who are excited about it because it is. I
wanted to ask you, actually, are you typically more of a more spice, maybe
(47:24):
Oh, I go all over the place. More
Yeah. Um, I, I could probably describe for you what I like
more by what I don't like than what I do. So like, I don't like
it too thin. I don't like it too woody. Um, astringency
is fine in moderation. I just don't want to like, I don't want
(47:45):
to, I don't want it to taste like I'm chewing on a stave. Or
like my mouth is being stabbed by pepper and spice.
I want something that shows, even at high proofs, that
it was, it was thought out. It was created for
a profile. Um, and that, that's kind of why I'm asking your
process too, because I love to know intentionality. And if,
(48:07):
if you say I'm aiming for this and
I taste it and I'm like, all right, I don't get this, but I
see how it could get there. Or maybe I do taste that. Then to me,
that's a better marker of me liking something than
just having kind of stats on a page and expecting to
Okay. Yeah. I like that. That's that is helpful. Um, It's
(48:32):
true, more of what you don't like, right? Or don't want to see
in something. The slow cut, I mean, that was, it's always
intentional, right? The cigar blend started from a place of
what is the cigar smoker's palate? What are other people doing
in this category? And what are people
liking about it, not liking about it? And then of course, complexity
(48:54):
is, I guess, I would start to say is becoming maybe
a little bit of my own trademark where I have built
these complex blends, but they're also kind of light and
approachable at the same time. They're not so complex that somebody
who's never had a sip of whiskey before is going to be just hit
in the face with a ton of flavor and not understand what they're drinking and
(49:15):
not like it. The slow cut, that was 100% years of us talking about
as a team, we need a whiskey that can be really made for you
know, not just the first time whiskey drinker, but
also for cocktails, for the on-premise, for
(49:40):
bartenders who want a good whiskey to mix
with. They want it to have, you know, this nice spice background. It
needs to have some body to hold up to whatever the modifiers or
citrus or whatnot are happening in there. And then it also needs to
be affordable. So there was all of those factors at
play. And part of that is why the blend is what it
(50:00):
is. And there
has been some fun, I
don't want to say, at this
point, it's not experimentation anymore. There was over the years experimenting
with what we had and how, you know, maybe
conversations where people on the team would say,
(50:23):
why aren't bartenders mixing with us? You know,
and it was like, well, we are outpriced in that category. but
also our whiskey, our current portfolio does not speak
to a cocktail. It doesn't, it doesn't have what
it takes to make a great whatever, you
know, it's not going to hold up. Um, and so that
(50:45):
was part of the underlying kind of
reason for this. And then also for
me, it's been fun to tweak it a little bit. And so, As
we do each blend, because we're bringing in high-ribe bourbon
barrels, we're working with what we can get our hands on for the best quality and
(51:06):
what's available on market. It's been some slightly
older stock. It's been some younger stock.
As a blender, it's been fun because when I'm playing around with the different aged whiskeys,
I might see a deficit somewhere, and then I can pull, say,
a sour mash barrel. from our inventory and
(51:28):
put a little bit of that in with the blend to add some of the complexity back
Yeah, it's been fun. I think anybody similar
to you and your appreciation would
enjoy that process because it does
(51:53):
speak to the ability to take a
kind of a snapshot of
your inventory, what you have, and pull out
the different things that you're going to need to create both a consistently good,
and this is why I don't hold anything
(52:14):
against NDPs. I think for
a while, and you've said in the past, MGP was a bad word for
a while, and then sourcing was a bad word for a while. NDPs
for some reason also can be, but they
certainly don't have to have plenty of them on the show. For me, the
thing is you have to do something with the whiskey, you
(52:36):
know? Um, so, and which obviously clearly
you are, and it, the way you're talking about it reminds me
of another, um, another brand. I won't mention the name right now, but, um,
friend of mine does some blend does blending for
this company. He had an idea that he wanted to create a
bourbon blend that evoked memories
(52:57):
of, you know, old national distillers bourbon.
I didn't know that when I tasted it and
I tasted it and like Old Crow Chessmen is my favorite
bourbon. It goes against most of the things that I like. It's low proof, it's,
you know, but, but I love it. And so
(53:19):
I tasted it and I was like, I'm getting these like 60s, 70s Old
Crow notes out of this. And he
wrote back, he's like, that's exactly what I was going for. I,
that's why I like to hear intentionality. Cause I want to, I want to know everything
has intention, like you said, but we don't always know what that intention is.
(53:40):
Most brands don't put out what their intention is. They've got a batch product or
a kind of consistent product. What's
Yeah, I think that's, I think that is, um, that's a really good question.
And I think that a lot of brands don't think
about the liquid that way. They're thinking
(54:02):
more about maybe their consumer in
a certain realm, and they're not necessarily listening
to the feedback that they're always getting, or the negative feedback is
just as important, honestly, or what's perceived as negative, right?
This is lacking. We want more of this, or why aren't you doing that? And
I think we have. I think we've done a great job of that as a brand, really
(54:24):
listening to the consumer and also,
I mean, clearly, put their trust in
me, you know, at some point. And so they're, you
know, we look internally to our team too and who can we,
who has talent here and who can, who can create and
lead and help us create something better. Side note,
(54:47):
Old Crow was the first bourbon that I fell in love with. I
don't know if you, if you knew that. And I have, I
have some, I have some friends from my like early twenties who literally
made fun of me today. Still. They're like, I remember when you were drinking like jugs of
Like the, the post 87 beam owned
(55:10):
old crow. It's got its place. It's not a bad
whiskey. It's just, it's got its place for sure. But yeah,
there's something about that. The old, old crow there's, I
love it. Um, Unfortunately, each of
those chess pieces is like $1,000 a piece, if
I treated myself on my 30th birthday to getting one.
(55:35):
So I know I've only got a couple minutes left with you. And there are really two big
questions I want to ask of you. So
the, the first question of the last few is, um, on,
uh, on whiskey women, this was back in, uh, 2022. And then I should
know we've had Blair co-host of the show on
(55:56):
the podcast, representing mild and green podcast is
no longer on the air, but it was great show to listen to.
You were on it, like I said, 2022. And you said. you
were seeing more women, females
promoted and breaking stereotypes, which was great. But
that ageism was the next thing to conquer. And
(56:20):
you had said in your own words, you were young, blonde
and pretty, and you were passed over for a job because of it. Certainly
not asking you to reveal that job. I'm curious though,
maybe three years later, Now you're master blender. You've achieved
many things in your own right. Uh, that are, and
I had to say, it's hard to ask this question without sounding condescending and I hope it doesn't sound
(56:42):
like that, but like, I'm
curious how you feel about it. Three years later, having achieved what you've achieved,
um, for yourself, but also from the lens of a
Yeah. Um, I don't think that's condescending. Thank
you. No, I think, I
(57:05):
think ageism is something we're going to have to continue to battle. It
just is not, it's laid in with the rest of
the, sadly,
or not sadly, but for women it's more prevalent, I think, because
there are obviously stereotypes
(57:29):
and preferences and prejudices that are based around
a woman's worth. And, um, a
lot of times it has to do not with what they can,
you know, physically create. Right. And so I think,
I think that ageism plays into that more, especially at
(57:51):
a certain point where women
start to, it's both good and bad for,
for women, where you start to, be seen less
as female and more as now
like sort of non-gendered, but then older
women, uh, mature maturity. And, um,
(58:15):
I think that's just like a hard thing for, for women to deal
with normally anyways, and then factor in
your place and what is still, you know, fairly
male dominated. industries and it
becomes a good thing and a bad thing still, because you're, you're
(58:38):
fighting off, uh, in a way you've
now come to a place where people are listening to you and respecting you for maybe
the thing you've created, or they're not necessarily looking at your looks
first. And so that bias can
be set aside. These are just inherent biases. You know, everybody has them. People
have them. It's part of our culture. Um, and so you
(58:59):
can start to get more recognition for the thing. That
you're doing versus you. I
like it, I think, like, in the sense of it's. This
I just want to narrate this. Again, it's
(59:22):
an audio only. So Mel is clearly thinking
hard about this question. She's really, like, the wheels are turning. There's
steam coming out on this one. So she's
really thinking about this. And I'm sorry I left this to the end to
(59:43):
Well, as we get older, we get wiser, right? That
is an ageism that I'll lean into for
sure. And I think from
experience wise, can start to shed some
of those superficial, just
superficialities that are kind of inherent to how we
(01:00:06):
view females. And you can start to
stand on your own It's not to say that people
don't already recognize talent or
capabilities, um, or whatever, you
know, but I do think that it becomes easier to maybe see through some of that, like
bullshit basically. And, um,
(01:00:28):
to start to, yeah,
I guess, recognize, um, I
think three years ago, I was probably more afraid. to
get to the crux of your question, I was more worried about
ageism continuing to have a negative
effect on my life. And I'm at a place right now where I feel
(01:00:51):
very good about the age I'm at, the,
what I'm, what I'm producing, the recognition that
I've started to get. And I also feel frankly,
like more attracted to women who are either my age or
even older in the sense of like, I want to be in
their orbit, you know, like I want to learn
(01:01:14):
from them. I also want to recognize and support them.
And I, I, I value them. So I hope that
I likewise will be able to, you know, that younger women are looking at
me in that sense. And, and younger people in general, not just
women, but, um, people, cause I think there's just a, a
place that we all struggle with our sometimes, especially.
(01:01:37):
you know, I've had bartenders over the past couple of years, um, even just
recently an event where like, I'm a bartender and I want to get into this and I don't like,
how did you do it? And I don't, I don't think I can do it. You know, do I have to go to school?
I'm not a chemical engineer. And so having a
sense, like a platform, even, you know, even here, this is a
platform for this. So the reality is, I
(01:01:59):
think there's a lot of worth that we all have.
And I think that women, when we can start to like lose
some of this, again, the superficialness and the stuff that's kind
of like infringing on how we're seen. And
we got some cool stuff out there to share.
Love it. So with that, I'll ask you one
(01:02:20):
last question. This is an adapted legacy question.
Usually I'll ask about, you know, what legacy do you want to leave? I'm
going to change it up a little bit. So you've spoken and
Greg did a lot of podcasts and interviews of his own while he was at
Old Elk. Hell, even before he was at Old Elk, while he was still at MGP and distilling for Old
Elk. And then, obviously you've been doing
(01:02:44):
on your own. One of the things that
keeps coming up in the origin story to kind of bring origin into
today is this idea that even though Old
Oak started with going to Greg and getting this customized mash bill.
He felt that wheat whiskey was the next big thing after the
(01:03:04):
rye wave, but it needed more time to age. And
by all accounts, 10 years plus after that
first introduction, he was right. The
wheat is one of Old Elk's best sellers. It's,
it's arguably one of the products you're most well known for, or most
likely to find on, you know, a random store shelf as opposed to
(01:03:26):
kind of a specialized audience. So, as the
new face, not so new face anymore but you know the newer face of
old elk. I'll
throw this to you to add in
your production. You've seen the rye wave come, the wheat wave come, and
(01:03:51):
That's a great question. I think, I mean, single malt is definitely, American malts
are getting their time right now. I think the
next, I
don't think we is done. I think that we still has quite
a, quite a bit of, um, just like recognition
(01:04:14):
and notoriety to, to see and to, to see
other distilleries and, um, crafters producing
with and making products out of it. So I am not,
I don't think that that wave has come and gone. I think we're still like in
it a little bit. Um, I do think we're
going to continue to see cast finishes and just specialty finishes. be
(01:04:37):
exciting for people. I think that that wave might be
kind of finishing right now. No pun intended.
And I think just like anything in cyclicals, that will
come back because there's only so much innovation that
you can come up with. There's only so many new things you can do before you have to challenge
what the rules are around what you're doing and how you categorize that.
(01:04:59):
So if anything, that's a whole separate conversation. But
I do think you're going to see more lobbying
and just law changing when
it comes to what it is to define American
whiskeys. That being said, I think
(01:05:19):
we're going to get back to maybe,
in a sense, more younger
stuff might become a little bit more popular for a while. I
don't know that's going to be the next best thing, but I think that there will
be maybe just younger whiskeys will
start to be like what's sought after because you're, we're going
(01:05:40):
to, there's a lot of whiskey that's maturing out right now. And
with it comes a higher cost. Um, maybe
the market, the market's going to become a little flooded as well. So I think people will
start to search for what is, you know, that next affordable
thing, but also what is unique. And in my mind, that's
gotta be smaller distilleries that are producing unique
(01:06:03):
mash bills. So, Can I say it's going
to be one type of Asheville or not? I don't think, you know, I
don't think so. I think it's going to be more about even just if
anything, regionality will start to become more of
It's fun to see how that affects, you know, not
(01:06:26):
just regionality, but you know, where, where the inspiration
comes from agriculture tying into the,
And I see that embracing a little more of like, you know, Texas has its own thing, of
course, but then interviewing some places from the Carolinas, like
low country, having their stuff, the mid Atlantic with Maryland,
(01:06:46):
Pennsylvania rise, upper Midwest having there. So
then of course, Pacific Northwest. I love that idea of the regionality coming
forward and being the next wave. And who knows, we'll have to
have you back in 10 years and see what, what shook out. A
lot can happen in 10 years. And
for craft, even more so. A lot can happen in one
(01:07:08):
Yeah. I think the next few years will be, everybody's saying
it, right? They're going to be interesting. They're going to be
hard. But out of stress comes good things too. So, and
Just remember yeast gets stressed and that's how we get good flavors. Right. So
with that, Mel, thank you so much for taking the time to come on with me going over
(01:07:30):
time. In fact, to answer a few more questions, I really appreciate it. Hang
on me for just a minute after I finish recording. Once again, we've
had Mel Maddox, she is the master blender at Old Elk Distillery in
Colorado and Thank you all for
listening. There will be show notes in the end and tasting notes for the
(01:07:50):
slow cut, which again, I really enjoyed highly recommend it. Thank
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of the Whiskey Ring podcast today. I'm thrilled to welcome on
Mel Maddox. You will probably know her best from her
time where she is now at Old Elk Distillery in Colorado. Mel
has also some background in, well, you know, I'm
just going to let Mel tell the story instead of me blabbering on. So Mel,
(00:22):
Hi David. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be
a part of the podcast and yeah, thanks for giving us a
Absolutely. I do have to say, I know this is usually an audio only podcast. Um,
I don't have any old elk swag, but I do have
a remiss shirt and that's like the closest I could get by proxy at the moment.
(00:43):
So, um, we'll do that. We'll do our best on
that one. Um, I, but I'll be out in your neck of the woods in,
So, Oh, fun. Yeah. So we're, uh, for
listeners, if they don't know, we're in Fort Collins, Colorado. And,
um, This is a beautiful time of year to be in
the Rocky Mountain area. So hopefully you'll
(01:05):
be able to stop by and see our production facility and visit
So it's on the itinerary for sure. So let's
jump right in. I'd love to hear and share with listeners, you
know, your origin story and how you
got to Old Elk. I will say, I'm just going to say
that listeners may have heard the origin story of Old Elk itself
(01:29):
while Greg was heading up things there. So
I'd say, yeah. You know, let's focus on your story,
but, you know, throw it, throw in the
Sure. Yeah. Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't
for, um, everything that came before, but also where
I've been for the last six years with Old Elk. Um, so
(01:52):
I, I actually have kind of a non-traditional background when
it comes to, uh, getting into the whiskey and
spirits industry on the blending and distilling side of things. I
was actually on, uh, hospitality was my
focus. I was, I wouldn't, I won't say raised in
restaurants and bars, but it felt like that. I started at a very early age working
(02:14):
in, uh, the restaurant industry, bartending, serving
everything back of the house, front of the house managing. And
that really gave me an appreciation for flavor
for the craft that goes into, you
know, creating. an experience for people that gets
them excited about flavors and taste and
(02:37):
aroma. And then you add in the
layers of education that you can start to build on, you
know, whether it be becoming a sommelier and, you
know, learning as much as you possibly can about wines, or in
my case, learning as much as you can about spirits, which then led me
to where I am here now with Old Elk. And I
(02:58):
was in that realm of
things for about 20 plus years and kept kind
of pushing a little bit, didn't know exactly where I was going to end up. You
know, when you make a career out of the restaurant business,
you either end up owning, directing, or,
you know, sometimes the darker side of things, you might go down another path, but it's
(03:20):
a career that I think is respectful. And it's great that people
now actually can make a career out of it. There was a time in
my life where my family was like, what are you doing with your life? You know, Are
you truly going to be a bartender forever? Is this what you're
going to do? And I think that pushed me to be
curious about what the, you know, what it was in the
(03:41):
glass, what it was on the plate, why that was so exciting to
people and how those flavors came together. And so throughout
the years, as I kind of got tenured and older in my history
and in my career, I had many opportunities. And so before
Old Elk, I was in Boston. and running some beverage
programs there. Really great city for access to
(04:04):
just education and to the bigger kind
of world of spirits and brands. And so I'd started competing,
bartending competing, and doing, you know, what people will
call mixology, but I like to still say it's just bartending. It's
just a different level of bartending. And throughout that,
I actually was the 2018 most
(04:28):
imaginative bartender finalists for the Northeast region.
And then I went on to the finals in London. And what
got me there was I had actually started to experiment with distilling on
a small scale. And so I was using a vacuum still to create
cocktails, to create the ingredients, to put
together flavors and still out the alcohol and then put it back in a different
(04:50):
form. And that got me curious more about, you know,
how is it made? And again, why are people
excited about flavors and what is it about, you know,
one thing that makes it really good and quality and exciting for people.
And what is it about something that maybe doesn't, doesn't get that kind
of attainment. So, um, long story short, that
(05:12):
was 2018. And then 2019, uh, old elk approached
me and asked me to lead up their national beverage program and
start working with them as they were developing, you know,
their footprint in the U S. And I came to Colorado and
opened their tasting room with them and was managing that
and then doing education and training as well. And
(05:33):
then fast forward a couple of years through the pandemic and 2021. And
there was an opportunity to start working with Greg on the, um, production
side of things. And so that launched me to present
And so the first thing that came to mind was, I
don't know how things are in Boston, Massachusetts, but in Colorado,
(05:55):
I believe, if you have a, I'm just thinking of
my previous conversation with the family Jones also around there, where
if you have a bar at a distillery or at a restaurant
Is that something that you had to do before? Like you
said, you were experimenting with the vacuum distilling to try different flavors
(06:17):
and things. Was that out of necessity or pure interest?
No, that was pure interest. It was curiosity. The
program that I was running at the time was called Earl's Cocktail Lab.
And so the idea was that we'd have lots of different equipment
to work with, rotor evaporators, that kind of thing and
(06:38):
just kind of geek out and get, get, you know, nerdy about,
um, cocktails and flavor. And
so for me, it was, it was, it was, and
still is always about flavor first and foremost,
and then what the consumer expectation is of it and
why it's appealing to them and exciting. And so,
(06:58):
um, the challenge that you're mentioning that we have
here in Colorado of not, you know, we can't bring in a,
say an Aperol or something like that to add and make, you
know, an Aperol Spritz or a paper plane cocktail or something like that.
Yeah, you have to create your own stuff. So if it's not
something that the distillery has created, you're not able to bring it in.
(07:19):
So it's a challenge, right? But I thought that was in
a way pretty cool because you could show that you don't need to throw 10 ingredients
at something to make it taste good. You can take, you know, what
is, Lucky for us, Old Elk is a delicious whiskey
on its own by itself. So you can take that wonderful base and then build off
of it using natural ingredients, you know, fresh
(07:41):
veggies, fresh fruits, make your own syrups, that kind of thing. So
again, the approach was more about creating and then
about educating, you know, a little
bit into, I would say, traditional cocktail
mixology and even just pre-prohibition style. Because
if you think about it, there weren't a ton of different spirits to work with
(08:02):
than either. So for me, that's where my background had kind
of come into a good place for
Fantastic. So with that, you can
do a slightly different timeline than I usually do. So normally I would go into, you know, the history
and then kind of step by step and then to
(08:22):
production. But for this one, I want to jump ahead to production just because we were
introduced through the release of
So it's a more recent release. It's a new
addition to the lineup. And, you know, I'd say it was something
that I really enjoyed. I've been aware of Old Elk for at least
(08:45):
a couple of years now. I think I had gotten a single barrel or two through probably
following Bourbon Pursuit or one of the other streams that I used to follow that
had, you know, groups would bring in bottles. And so
that had been my kind of the limits of my exposure to it. And then there had been a
couple of years gap. where for one
reason or another, I just hadn't been exposed to the new products
(09:07):
or whatever else had come on. So then the slow cut comes in and It
was fun because I was able to go in with a pretty much new palette. Like I look
back at some of my notes from back then, but that was five, six years ago. So palettes
change and products change. And, you
know, I, I really mean, I, I did really enjoy this
bourbon and a couple of things about it that we'll go into that.
(09:28):
I think why I really enjoyed it, but let's just start with
the slow cut process. So walk us through what you
Yeah. Um, so slow cut for us is it's,
it's about our proofing process. It's where we take the liquid from
barrel strength to bottling strength. And, uh, slow
cut is our proprietary term for that method that
(09:51):
we use. It's not something that we, um, you
know, we, we did not come up with this concept, uh, this, this
concept of slow proofing or preserving flavor with
how fast you're adding water to the liquid to
bring it down to proof. Um, you know, that, that dates back to even
just, you know, days of cognac making back in
(10:12):
the, back in the beginning. And Nancy freely actually is a big
proponent and one of the, um, kind of originators
of it coming over to the U S and being popular Maggie Campbell. She's, she's
talked a lot about it, um, as well. So, uh,
you know, the, the process isn't like new science, however, the,
the science behind it is important, I think, for people to,
(10:35):
to, to know about. So. For us, when you're
taking something that out of barrel at cast proof, let's say it starts
at 114 proof is where it was. And then we want
to bring it down to 88 proof. You know, we have to add a
certain volume of water to get there. We always do everything by proof,
everything by weight for the most exact method. And
(10:57):
if you add all that water at once, you get what is called an
exothermic reaction. It's basically a
boiling off of flavors or a heat increase in the
liquid. And so if you think about it, whiskey
is alive. It's doing its own thing
in its glass. And when you add water to it or ice, you're going to
(11:17):
taste that and how the change is happening. You
might see it depending on how cold your water is or how high
the proof was. That concept on that microscale
of what's happening in your glass is the same thing that happens when you do thousands
of gallons of whiskey. And so if you think about thousands of gallons of
whiskey and then you're adding hundreds of pounds of water to
(11:38):
it all at once, that reaction is going to be, you know,
that much more proportional and the amount of flavor
that you might be losing with that heat reaction is
going to increase. And so what we do with the slow cut is we slow
down the water process. We, um, you know, we
like to say like four to five times longer, but honestly, In
(11:58):
my mind, and if we have the time, we'll stretch it out for as long as possible,
because really, the slower you can go, slow
cut, and the more you can let the whiskey rest with
that water cutting, the better the flavor profile is going to be. And
so it's exciting to hear that you liked our slow cut new
release. It's not something that is just used
(12:19):
with that bottle, that profile
of ours. We use this slow cut method with anything that
we're bringing down from cap strength. The difference with
the slow-cut bourbon is that we wanted to showcase that
because this has always been a part of our proofing that
process. It's always been at the DNA of Old Elk's liquid. And
(12:40):
it's something that we've been very proud of, but we haven't necessarily had
a spirit that we could highlight such a difference in, you know,
the 88 proof to say 114 to 120 proof range. So one of the reasons is you get this big you
For sure. And just before I go to the next question, uh,
(13:01):
just to make sure it's this bourbon is the, is this
Great question. So it's actually a blend. It's a new blend of ours. Um,
yeah. So if people are familiar with Old Oak, uh, and have seen
Old Oak blended straight on shelves for a while, that
was one of our flagship offerings that we started with back in 2017. And,
(13:24):
um, that was just our straight 51% corn, 34% malted barley
and 15% rye. Uh, nothing, uh,
nothing else landed in there. No other mash bills and other grains. The
slow cut is a new release for us this year. Again, not only highlighting that
proofing process, um, but with a kind of
nod to. My bartending history, as well as
(13:46):
really what people have been asking for for a long time. Old Elk's always been a
premium brand. We've always been a little bit on the more expensive side
of things. And consumers and people in general have just
said, like, when are you going to come out with a $39, $40 bottle,
right? When is this going to be a little bit more accessible to us? Why
are you so expensive? Part of it is that mash filter
(14:06):
we were just talking about. Having that much malted barley in there means
it's a very expensive mash filter to be making. When
you look at most of our bourbon that's on shelf right now, currently it's
all going to be between like six and seven, eight years old. So
obviously the older it is, the more costs associated with it,
the more barrel loss you see, all kinds of factors going into it. The slow
(14:29):
cut is a blend of those barrels. So
we've got seven and eight year, this
high malted barley mash bill of ours, our custom mash bill. And
then we're blending that with a high rye bourbons. And
so we're taking Um, a couple of different sorts, uh,
So if you have to, if you had to estimate, um,
(14:52):
unless you, unless you know the exact number off the top of your head, I do it because I
make it true. Fair enough. Um, so
I'll switch the question that says, you know, if you can share, um, I'm
Uh, the final barley percentage is going to be much
lower, probably more around that traditional, like high end
(15:16):
It's funny. I'm asking that mainly because for
me, American whiskey is, and this is kind of
across the board, accepting single malt so American whiskey is
from corn rye and wheat. for
me tend to be kind of thin and just
too watery, below probably 90 proof, sometimes
(15:38):
closer to a hundred proof. And what
I've been seeing recently is I've had the opportunity to taste a couple of what they've
been calling malted bourbons. So
the corn itself is not malted, but it's got the malted barley
as the primary flavoring grain, as opposed to
rye or wheat. And for
(16:00):
me and my palate personally, those have stood up so much
better to a lower proof. And in this case, I mean, 88's
not, it's certainly higher than 80, but it's
relatively lower in terms of what I'm normally drinking. So when
I taste an American whiskey that's at that proof, but still
has flavor and mouthfeel, it didn't feel watery. at
(16:21):
all, like it had been too watered down, which, I mean,
you know, you've tasted so many things you can taste when there's too much water added to something. Yeah.
Yeah. It's like the flavors there, but it's a little, yeah, it's like the,
you can see the flavor there, but it's, it's a little far away. So,
you know, there, so there must be something enough of that barley still
in there to kind of hold it together. The,
(16:44):
with the slow cut process in particular, uh, one question that came to
mind too, was, as you said, it's a proprietary process.
So certainly, you know, we've had a couple of
guests just on this podcast alone that do a slower cutting
process of their own. Um, but
although it has gone further, you actually trademarked slow cut process.
(17:06):
Uh, I'm curious if you can share what you feel
and maybe you already said this, but. what do
you feel was important enough to trademark it rather than just say, this is how we're doing it?
I think that it's a couple of things. So
our background, we're owned by a family of entrepreneurs who
(17:26):
created the OtterBox phone cases. They
also have many other lines of
business in different fields of business. I
think they understand that it's important to
identify what separates you from others. Um, especially
in a market, you know, like the whiskey world, it's, it's, there's a lot of
(17:47):
whiskey out there. And so highlighting, you
know, our process and creating a way to
talk about that, that's both educational, um,
you know, and everybody loves the word innovation and no,
we did not innovate this necessarily, but it is, it isn't, you know,
it is a different way of doing things. Um, and like you said, there are other distilleries
(18:08):
that are doing it, but maybe they're not necessarily talking about that process
partly because it, you know, it is proprietary or maybe they haven't, you know, identified
how they want that, um, you know, how it affects their
whiskey necessarily. In our early days, we knew that doing this,
we could tell side by side in a glass, right? Like this tastes different than
a fast cut, right. Versus a slow cut. And over
(18:30):
time we've been able to identify exactly what that proof point change needs
to be, how many days it needs to be at a minimum, how
many maximum where you kind of like, level out and don't get any
more benefit from doing it, right? So
I think that's part of it. And I do think that as
being, you know, currently a non-distilling producer, it's
(18:52):
important to talk about the things that separate us, you
know, not just the slow cutting, but the water that we're using. The
water we're using is water here in Fort Collins that is
run off from the Rocky Mountains. It's glacial water. It's
really pure. We don't add anything to it. We're using UV
filtration and reverse osmosis, but we're not needing to add
(19:13):
any enzymes or anything like that to, you
know, add any kind of body. And similar to
the high malt mash bill that we use in this blend, you
know, we like to talk about that as well too, because like you identified, there
is a mouthfeel and a body and a richness that
you do get from that malted barley having it so high, that affects
(19:36):
the overall flavor and you can get
a whiskey down to a lower approved and still have a very rich
mouthfeel. Some great spice as
well, too. So, you know, I think it's partly like being just really
Makes sense. The Oh,
(20:02):
two questions. I'm going to go there. We'll go, we'll
go this one first. Um, this is a, uh, I'm
asking you to go into the hypothetical here. Uh, as
you said, they're very good at hypothetical. Okay. So, um, we,
one of the people who have spoken, you know, very forcefully about this idea
of, you know, don't fast proof things, um, is, uh,
(20:28):
Uh, they're doing more American single malt, but the concept is
the same. Um, now he'll talk about it more in
the lens of saponification. So, uh,
just to compare those for, for listeners, maybe new Mel,
you were talking about how flavors were kind of evaporating or
boiling off because of the exothermic reactions. He's talking about
(20:48):
it from the sense that you are creating other ones, creating other
esters and flavors as well from these reactions that can be soapy.
Uh, or, or floral or, you know, off flavors from it. Now,
fun thing for me has been looking at this divide of people who talk about the
importance of slow proofing. And then once
(21:10):
you are basically like, I don't care, it doesn't make a difference. Now,
to me, I tend to go towards you guys of, of yes,
it does make a difference. Now the juxtaposition
I want to throw at you is at MGP, Ross
and script. The only reason I'm doing that is because the
whiskeys are distilled there and Greg came from there. So there's
(21:33):
a link there. I was on a stream
with Ian Starsman, who's currently the master distiller at MGP Ross
and Squibb maybe two years ago now. So it's been a little bit,
but I asked the question in the
chat, do you guys fast proof or
slow proof because you're making whiskey for millions
(21:54):
of gallons of whiskey for for hundreds, at
least thousands if not hundreds of companies around the country and elsewhere.
And he's like, No, we don't really do it doesn't really make a difference. And
it was fascinating to me hearing that, knowing the volume they're
doing, hearing the importance of it as described by you, by Colin,
(22:14):
and knowing that Greg was kind of a link in between the two of, you know,
he clearly saw the importance of the slow cut process. So
I know there's a lot to throw at you, but I'm wondering if you can kind of
explore why, maybe why they
wouldn't see much of a difference for Ian and why maybe you
(22:37):
Um, I can't hypothesize too
much on, you know, their business model, but I do think
that has something to do with it.
Um, even in the beginning days of us adopting this approach,
there is resistance at a certain level because. Slow
cutting takes time. It slows down the process and you've
(23:00):
already waited all this time. You're, you know, it's an investment in
time. It's an investment in flavor. And so there was definitely
a convincing that had to happen. Um, so I can, I can imagine maybe
at the quantity that they're doing, there might not be production
capabilities. You know, it, it is, I won't
say it's a logistic nightmare, although
(23:23):
at times in the past, um, we, we had a different facility that was
offsite and it at times was challenging. There
might've been some tears a few times where you're, you know, you're like, we have to stick to this SOP.
We've got to stick to, how I do things, you're also
telling me you need this product tomorrow. It's not going to happen. So there
is that pressure that happens at times. And
(23:46):
it's almost like a game of Tetris a little bit, especially, I
would imagine, at the volume that they're doing. We're putting out pennies
compared to them. And it still is
challenging when we've got many products that we're blending together, whether it be the
slow cut in some of our core or the cast finishing you
know, you've only got so much tank space. You've only got so much time.
(24:10):
And so there is like that very real just
production nightmare of doing something like that. So I can see, I
can see there being resistance. Um, I
don't want to question anybody's palate, but
there are, there are, there are levels
of what people taste. Some people are really good at, um, you
(24:32):
know, Greg, for example, is very good at taking, new
make, you know, distillate off the, off the stills and
finding the flaws in there or not finding the flaws. And
my skill is in the finished product and making sure that we don't have flaws there.
So I think, you know, it's a little bit different approach
too, right? If you're bass cutting in the beginning versus bass
(24:53):
cutting at the end, um, the barrels are going to help with
that sort of maturation and resting process. Does
And I feel like I'm trying to be, I don't want to say like they're wrong.
If somebody wanted to hire me to blend their whiskey, I'd say we
(25:15):
That's fine. You're being very diplomatic, which is exactly what you should be
doing. I'm not trying to get anyone in trouble. It was just too tempting
So, you know, you mentioned... Yeah, I don't, you know, Greg was one of
the last to go through the Seagram's Blue Bible training.
And there is a commitment and a
(25:38):
level of quality
commitment that he will not step away from. And he has been very
vocal and very good about making sure that those commitments
(25:58):
So this is a jump to another product, but one
that really highlights your work as well, which is the
Cigar Cut. So this was your first product
that you were really able to own solo.
That's not to say no one else worked on it, of course, but
you were able to put your name on this one. You
(26:19):
already mentioned Nancy Frehley and you'd stop, you said on stop
mainsplaining me in late 2024 that the company learned the
slow cut, sorry, the yeah, the slow cut technique from Nancy Frehley. In
leading into the cigar cut, you know, a lot of brands and
talking anecdotally, I don't know how many, but a lot of brands have put out in
the last couple of years, a cigar blend of bourbons or
(26:42):
whiskeys. Some
have hewn close to what Nancy's original idea of what that
is. Some have gone way off the rails of
what that is and just kind of are taking the name and it
being in the zeitgeist and using it for marketing purposes. But
because of that connection with Nancy, it seems
(27:05):
like the way that you put together the cigar cut was much
more in line with her thinking of how this should be done. So
I love to hear you describe what
your process was like in creating this and leaning
into the ways that cigar smokers talk. I'm not a cigar guy, so I can't speak
(27:27):
Yeah, it's an art and it's a ritual for sure. For
me, the concept of
blending, the concept of creating flavors, is
never about like a cheap thrill. It's
always about something that is going to last and
(27:48):
make an impression and elevate,
like elevate the base that was there already. There's nothing
to hide, you know, in Old Ox whiskeys. Greg
made phenomenal whiskeys and Everything that we've worked
with in our CAS program has been products that was made by Greg, you know,
either under his supervision or while he was IMGP. And so the
(28:10):
liquid itself is already such a high quality that I
would never want to outshine that. The idea is to really
just like put a new spin on it and to make it
something that can pair, you know, pair well with cigar
smoking is obviously the the easy connection to
make there, but I, I've kind of started to talk about it more as like almost
(28:30):
just a pairing whiskey, because it can be paired with chocolate, with
a good meal, with other whiskeys, you know, with, with an experience and,
um, that approach to not wanting to,
I guess, just, I don't want to say cheapen, but just, it's not there
again, there's no shortcut to it. The
(28:51):
idea is to make something that is going to, almost
make your brain just kind of dance a little, you know, and think about like,
wow, what is in here? And also put a little bit of a different
spin. I mean, if you taste one of our cigar blends next to, um,
say our bourbon, our Rita bourbon, you're going to, it's very different.
You know, it is almost like it's a completely different whiskey, but there still is that kind of
(29:12):
core, uh, quality and richness and, and
the malt does come through. And so that's just
my approach. And when I was in my mixology days, bartending days,
Same idea, I had a very traditional cocktail background, even
though I was playing around with new and exciting, different kind of
ways to create things like with the rotary evaporators and
(29:34):
stuff like that. It wasn't so much about, again,
it wasn't so much about like, ooh, here's this shiny, flashy thing, but
behind it is no substance. There always needs to be substance and
it always needs to come from, you know, more
traditional methodologies, whether that be
how the whiskey is made, whether that be how, you know, cocktail building
(29:57):
is approached. You'll never find in my history, I'll
never find a cocktail that had 10 ingredients on it. Cause that just isn't, you
know, that's not how you do it. Um, you might find that with our,
our Islaynd blend cigar cut, there's actually a couple of,
uh, a couple of finishes and a couple of base mash
bills, which, um, initially people were like, not giving us
(30:18):
flack for it, but they definitely were like, this is concerning. Like, why are you doing so much?
But I think it came together really nicely. Um, so yeah, I mean,
inspiration, obviously I also lucky that I can, you
know, I can look at some of these great whiskeys that are already been
made. I can taste them and I can use that as part of my library
catalog of flavor to pull from and say, cool. I
(30:40):
like what Nancy did with this. Let's do this a little
For sure. And that just
reminded me of with the Islaynd Blend, you
were on Bourbon Showdown. This was last year in March, so
March 2024. And you were trying Islaynd Blend on that
(31:01):
show. Maybe it had just come out, I think. So
I did look at
it online. I haven't had the opportunity to taste it, but I
get that. Like looking at it on paper, part
of me is like, okay, whoa, there's a lot
going on here. But, you
(31:22):
know, there, I used to look at that
and kind of just immediately shy away, like they were trying to hide something. But
now I look at it as kind of a challenge. Like if you're going to put, you
know, whatever the matrix is, three times two, like six
combinations or permutations of things there, then Either
(31:43):
you're going to end up hiding something because just there's too many flavors
going on, or maybe somehow if it's done skillfully,
then you got this really nice product at the end that highlights some,
you know, rum characters, some of those fresh fruits that you
get the dried fruits from something else and the vanilla from the bourbon cask. And so
again, I haven't tried it, so I can't speak to it from my own palate, but
(32:05):
I can see how it would work, how it can work. As
long as you do it as you're saying like skillfully and with a vision in mind for
what this is going to end up being. It's actually
a great transition into another question
I had this was. when you
were on Black and Brown, I think this was also last year. Yeah.
(32:29):
When you were on Black and Brown, you were describing your process and you
said at one point that you see flavor in your mind when you're thinking about a
blend. Now to me, that
immediately kind of sounded synesthetic. And
I was wondering if that's kind of what you, what do you experience, what
Yeah, I think it's a, It's
(32:55):
a really interesting feeling, because
it is like a feeling and a thought when
I'm thinking about flavors. And it's almost like
I can feel it three-dimensionally in my
brain. And I can also see the flavors
coming together. Sometimes they're in shapes. Sometimes
(33:17):
they're in colors. It's almost
like an object that moves around a little bit. texturally
feel it. It's an interesting, it's hard to explain. When
it's really strong, it's like, I can see it, think
it, feel it. And I can almost taste it at the same time too. And
(33:38):
that's just like thinking about the flavor. It's not necessarily like having anything
in front of me. I think, I
think, I think again, part of it is something you
can, you can build on that. You can build on your flavor catalog, your library, and
you can start to associate For me, I've always seen
flavor first and then identified in a way like,
(34:01):
where did it come from? Whether it be like a fruit or a piece
of chocolate or something like that. And then again,
it becomes this texture almost. It's a hard
Look, I have a touch of it myself of different things. Like
(34:23):
I'll taste things or experience things and I'll hear music in
color, for example. Um, so, or
Yeah. It's
just another, yeah. Like sometimes it can be an image. Um, um,
(34:46):
I don't know if you experience this or people who have this experience this,
but even when you see an image, like see a beautiful painting
or see a certain color, it becomes more than just the
visual for you. It does. For me,
it's not sound. I haven't had that. That's not my
thing, but it is, I can, I can see an image
(35:07):
and it becomes flavor. It's like a reverse kind of
Sure. I mean, whenever you get the senses mixing like that, it's, it's
a lot of fun. You're right. It is very hard to describe. Uh, someone
said it's like trying to describe what
the color nine tastes like, you know, like this
doesn't make sense, but unless you can do this, unless
(35:32):
Yeah. And to me, it's almost like, um, like
relative and absolute pitch. So, um, for,
you know, like for musicians, you can, if you've got absolute pitch
or perfect pitch, you know, it it's, it's just, you were
born with it. Um, it's Maybelline you're born with it. So,
um, you can have relative pitch where you've built
(35:53):
it up over the years and. there are people with relative pitch who
are just as accurate as a perfect pitch. And
in some cases may have a better harness on it because they've just been trained and
trained better. But there is something to that innate nature of
just having those things come to you. Like I love tasting something. And
even if the flavor doesn't match up perfectly, I immediately get an image in
(36:15):
my mind, like you said, a sense memory of it's
not just an apple pie, but it's like an apple pie on
the glass table in like the fifties, you know,
there, there's a whole ecosystem around it. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Like there's like elements of the details into it that don't, um,
yeah, they go, they go beyond just, just calling on a specific
(36:39):
memory that you might've had. It really is like kind of a, I
don't want to say like a, what's the word like
an archive, like an archival, you know, like, or part
of like your DNA, you know? So there's just like a
Those are my favorite whiskeys. The ones that do that to me, that give me an immediate sense memory, because
(37:01):
that means there's something about it that is really intoxicating.
And I'm trying to think of the word that I'm looking for
and I'm failing to find it. So let's just go with that one. But no,
it's something fun. And even if it's hard to describe, I
would almost say, I feel like that would be fun to add to tasting
(37:21):
notes. Yeah. You know, like I'm
thinking of people who put out weird tasting notes
of all kinds of things that we've never tried before and desserts that haven't been
made since the eighties. And, um, you know, but
if you say you're like, I'm no
Maddox, I'm the master blender at
(37:42):
old elk. I made this product. And when I made it. This
is what I'm seeing in my mind. And,
you know, you might not taste the same thing. You might not feel the same thing, but. could
be, I don't know, that could be a fun thing. And just like the slow cut process, it
would be something very unique to you at old elk to, and to
just embrace that, uh, part of your process
(38:06):
so that it's more of you on the page. Um, purely, you
Yeah. I think there's, there's a part that is hard when
you're in the process to, um,
analyze maybe, you know? Um, and
I do think, you're not wrong. I think, I mean,
(38:27):
it's interesting to me, but I also, it's just me,
you know, but for people who maybe don't
have this or have a touch of it, it's
far more interesting for me right now to talk about it with you because you
can relate versus in a way when you're trying to
explain it and people are just kind of like, that's cool, but I don't understand what you're saying.
(38:47):
So I like the idea of how can you tie, how can you tie
that into tasting notes or a way to sort
of not educate, but maybe just share
it with others like a way that they might be able to see it. You've already got my brain
No, I mean, I think it's cool. I think I think I've seen with some people. There's
(39:10):
a there's a woman who's started to get into her
own blending, she owns a. A spirit shop,
and she's started doing some blending stuff privately, and she similarly
will visualize on paper flavor, but
she visualizes it more as a shape. And
I can relate to that. I think that there are sharp shapes, and soft
(39:33):
shapes, and square shapes, and how does that tie into your
palette? So it's
I love it. And we could go on
much longer for that. I only have you for a limited time, so I'm going to
(39:55):
So there are, you know, a couple more questions I've got for you just want to make sure that we
hit a few things for the audience. So as I said, it had been a few years since
I had tried Old Elk products and been exposed to it. You've
grown quite a bit since then. So beyond just the single barrels, and
I believe you started with the wheat, rye, and
the custom mash bill. The
(40:16):
bourbon, you've got, you know, the, the master blend series, you've
got specialties, you've got sour mash, you know, single
barrel program all coming out and being rolled out. You
do specialties and customizations on the label and the topper that
kind of make it stand out when people get their own barrels. Having
(40:38):
taken the reins over from Greg, who, as
you said, he's got this immense lineage of his own, and
you're now part of that lineage going forward, while
of course, still having your own agency and your own right. You
came in, started working with him in 21 in production side, in
23, you're putting out Cigar Cut as your first
(41:01):
release, and it got such great reviews and such a
great response. Bye. What,
how did, I'm asking two questions at once here, which I have
a tendency to do, it's terrible. But the first one is kind of what was the
transition like from, you know, Greg having the reins to you
taking the reins fully and where do you go
(41:25):
when, when your first release with your name is received so well,
how do you approach going forward with things like the master
blend series and Sour Mash and all these different things that you're doing next?
Great questions. The
transition, so Greg has, he
(41:47):
is not one of those people to micromanage. He's really, he's an excellent, I
don't wanna say trainer, but he's an excellent mentor in the sense of he will share
with you anything and everything you wanna know. And he will
make sure that you have the foundations of what he thinks is important. And
at the same time, recognizes
(42:09):
and is curious too about why you
might see something differently or have a curiosity. And
so with our cast program and
later with the blending, but initially with the cast program for
him, that was also kind of a new thing. And he said, I
have as much to learn here as, as, as
(42:31):
you do, you know, in some ways learn from, from you.
And so there was a sharing, There was
a sharing and just an acceptance. And also when you feel, when
you feel both like respect for, you know, your
mentor and you feel like trusted and you can ask questions and
that there's a curiosity there, I think that creativity can
(42:54):
come out of that, you know, to a much stronger degree than
if you had somebody who's saying, this is my way and this is the only way we're going to
do it. And nothing outside of that, um, you know, lane
is going to happen. So there was a lot of asking
questions. How would you do this? And then he's,
again, he's been very transparent. He shared the blue Bible with the
(43:16):
team. He never wants held back his
secrets on. This is how I put together these masters blends. This
is what I'm looking for. And then there's been a natural, um,
I feel like I'm bragging and I am in a little bit, but literally a hundred percent of
the time when we do a blind tasting, Greg and I pick the
same things. So. It's just naturally
(43:39):
we both had a mutual way of seeing
flavor and what we think of as quality versus not quality. So
again, there's like a, just an immediate trust that happens when you see that happen over and over
between people, you're like, well, we must, you know, we must align
here. Obviously you don't want to have something like
that to the, to the degree where you can't then see outside of it.
(44:00):
And so anytime we do like a tasting panel or put together a new product or
launch anything, there's. at least three panels that we put together beforehand
that have, you know, anywhere from seven to 20 people. And
we're weighing everybody's feedback, you
know, the same way. Although I would say at some point you, you start
to narrow it down to like, this is Greg and Mel's feedback,
(44:20):
and this is, this is marketing's feedback, this is sales feedback. And
so those have different, different degrees of influence
over the final product. But you know, the, again,
just the transparency that he was, he was willing to, to share.
And it was never like, this is my secret. I don't want to keep back from
you what I'm doing. So, you know, he would, he
(44:41):
would pass over basically these formulas and say, okay, go make my blend.
And then he would sign off on the final product. And so I think there was just a ton for me,
it's hands-on it's always been hands-on learning. And
he didn't shy away from kind of giving the reins of that
and saying here, this is, this is your, you know, protocol,
this is your procedure to follow and I trust you to do it
(45:03):
and then bring me back what the final result is. In
doing that, I would say where that started
to influence how I do things is that similar
to anybody who comes
up with a recipe or has their own approach to doing something, you might like hold back
a little bit, right? You know, if you've got that family recipe that you are very proud
(45:25):
of and that people love you for, you might not put in there that it's
actually, uh, you know, an eighth of a teaspoon of salt, right?
You might not add that little element. You might do it on purpose. You
might not do it on purpose. So there was out of that, you know, I would
say over time, we figured out that we wanted to mingle our spirits and rest them longer
than we had been. And that was something that I ate Lee was
(45:48):
kind of, I noticed I was like, wait, if we don't bottle this right away and we
let it rest, for a week, it tastes very
different than the flavor that we got the day of blending.
And so we started to incorporate that into our SOPs and into how
we did things. And I
think those are elements of control that Greg's,
(46:10):
because it hasn't interfered with the quality or the final product, he's
for your own history as coming from bartending background
and not just
bartending as we've had other guests on, but really an accomplished bartending
career on top of that. Like not just exposure, but innovation,
(46:33):
trying new things. When you are looking
at the whiskeys now and saying, or even the past few years and saying like,
okay, this needs to age a little bit longer. This might be good as
it is. This maybe would fit well with the finish. How,
how often do you feel like you're thinking about this from,
okay, this whiskey would work really well in a cocktail versus work
(46:57):
really well on its own, or maybe with like one, uh, modifier.
Uh, I think so with the
slow cut blend that we just released the I'm excited
to hear is kind of reintroduce the brand to you. I think there'll
be a lot of people who are excited about it because it is. I
wanted to ask you, actually, are you typically more of a more spice, maybe
(47:24):
Oh, I go all over the place. More
Yeah. Um, I, I could probably describe for you what I like
more by what I don't like than what I do. So like, I don't like
it too thin. I don't like it too woody. Um, astringency
is fine in moderation. I just don't want to like, I don't want
(47:45):
to, I don't want it to taste like I'm chewing on a stave. Or
like my mouth is being stabbed by pepper and spice.
I want something that shows, even at high proofs, that
it was, it was thought out. It was created for
a profile. Um, and that, that's kind of why I'm asking your
process too, because I love to know intentionality. And if,
(48:07):
if you say I'm aiming for this and
I taste it and I'm like, all right, I don't get this, but I
see how it could get there. Or maybe I do taste that. Then to me,
that's a better marker of me liking something than
just having kind of stats on a page and expecting to
Okay. Yeah. I like that. That's that is helpful. Um, It's
(48:32):
true, more of what you don't like, right? Or don't want to see
in something. The slow cut, I mean, that was, it's always
intentional, right? The cigar blend started from a place of
what is the cigar smoker's palate? What are other people doing
in this category? And what are people
liking about it, not liking about it? And then of course, complexity
(48:54):
is, I guess, I would start to say is becoming maybe
a little bit of my own trademark where I have built
these complex blends, but they're also kind of light and
approachable at the same time. They're not so complex that somebody
who's never had a sip of whiskey before is going to be just hit
in the face with a ton of flavor and not understand what they're drinking and
(49:15):
not like it. The slow cut, that was 100% years of us talking about
as a team, we need a whiskey that can be really made for you
know, not just the first time whiskey drinker, but
also for cocktails, for the on-premise, for
(49:40):
bartenders who want a good whiskey to mix
with. They want it to have, you know, this nice spice background. It
needs to have some body to hold up to whatever the modifiers or
citrus or whatnot are happening in there. And then it also needs to
be affordable. So there was all of those factors at
play. And part of that is why the blend is what it
(50:00):
is. And there
has been some fun, I
don't want to say, at this
point, it's not experimentation anymore. There was over the years experimenting
with what we had and how, you know, maybe
conversations where people on the team would say,
(50:23):
why aren't bartenders mixing with us? You know,
and it was like, well, we are outpriced in that category. but
also our whiskey, our current portfolio does not speak
to a cocktail. It doesn't, it doesn't have what
it takes to make a great whatever, you
know, it's not going to hold up. Um, and so that
(50:45):
was part of the underlying kind of
reason for this. And then also for
me, it's been fun to tweak it a little bit. And so, As
we do each blend, because we're bringing in high-ribe bourbon
barrels, we're working with what we can get our hands on for the best quality and
(51:06):
what's available on market. It's been some slightly
older stock. It's been some younger stock.
As a blender, it's been fun because when I'm playing around with the different aged whiskeys,
I might see a deficit somewhere, and then I can pull, say,
a sour mash barrel. from our inventory and
(51:28):
put a little bit of that in with the blend to add some of the complexity back
Yeah, it's been fun. I think anybody similar
to you and your appreciation would
enjoy that process because it does
(51:53):
speak to the ability to take a
kind of a snapshot of
your inventory, what you have, and pull out
the different things that you're going to need to create both a consistently good,
and this is why I don't hold anything
(52:14):
against NDPs. I think for
a while, and you've said in the past, MGP was a bad word for
a while, and then sourcing was a bad word for a while. NDPs
for some reason also can be, but they
certainly don't have to have plenty of them on the show. For me, the
thing is you have to do something with the whiskey, you
(52:36):
know? Um, so, and which obviously clearly
you are, and it, the way you're talking about it reminds me
of another, um, another brand. I won't mention the name right now, but, um,
friend of mine does some blend does blending for
this company. He had an idea that he wanted to create a
bourbon blend that evoked memories
(52:57):
of, you know, old national distillers bourbon.
I didn't know that when I tasted it and
I tasted it and like Old Crow Chessmen is my favorite
bourbon. It goes against most of the things that I like. It's low proof, it's,
you know, but, but I love it. And so
(53:19):
I tasted it and I was like, I'm getting these like 60s, 70s Old
Crow notes out of this. And he
wrote back, he's like, that's exactly what I was going for. I,
that's why I like to hear intentionality. Cause I want to, I want to know everything
has intention, like you said, but we don't always know what that intention is.
(53:40):
Most brands don't put out what their intention is. They've got a batch product or
a kind of consistent product. What's
Yeah, I think that's, I think that is, um, that's a really good question.
And I think that a lot of brands don't think
about the liquid that way. They're thinking
(54:02):
more about maybe their consumer in
a certain realm, and they're not necessarily listening
to the feedback that they're always getting, or the negative feedback is
just as important, honestly, or what's perceived as negative, right?
This is lacking. We want more of this, or why aren't you doing that? And
I think we have. I think we've done a great job of that as a brand, really
(54:24):
listening to the consumer and also,
I mean, clearly, put their trust in
me, you know, at some point. And so they're, you
know, we look internally to our team too and who can we,
who has talent here and who can, who can create and
lead and help us create something better. Side note,
(54:47):
Old Crow was the first bourbon that I fell in love with. I
don't know if you, if you knew that. And I have, I
have some, I have some friends from my like early twenties who literally
made fun of me today. Still. They're like, I remember when you were drinking like jugs of
Like the, the post 87 beam owned
(55:10):
old crow. It's got its place. It's not a bad
whiskey. It's just, it's got its place for sure. But yeah,
there's something about that. The old, old crow there's, I
love it. Um, Unfortunately, each of
those chess pieces is like $1,000 a piece, if
I treated myself on my 30th birthday to getting one.
(55:35):
So I know I've only got a couple minutes left with you. And there are really two big
questions I want to ask of you. So
the, the first question of the last few is, um, on,
uh, on whiskey women, this was back in, uh, 2022. And then I should
know we've had Blair co-host of the show on
(55:56):
the podcast, representing mild and green podcast is
no longer on the air, but it was great show to listen to.
You were on it, like I said, 2022. And you said. you
were seeing more women, females
promoted and breaking stereotypes, which was great. But
that ageism was the next thing to conquer. And
(56:20):
you had said in your own words, you were young, blonde
and pretty, and you were passed over for a job because of it. Certainly
not asking you to reveal that job. I'm curious though,
maybe three years later, Now you're master blender. You've achieved
many things in your own right. Uh, that are, and
I had to say, it's hard to ask this question without sounding condescending and I hope it doesn't sound
(56:42):
like that, but like, I'm
curious how you feel about it. Three years later, having achieved what you've achieved,
um, for yourself, but also from the lens of a
Yeah. Um, I don't think that's condescending. Thank
you. No, I think, I
(57:05):
think ageism is something we're going to have to continue to battle. It
just is not, it's laid in with the rest of
the, sadly,
or not sadly, but for women it's more prevalent, I think, because
there are obviously stereotypes
(57:29):
and preferences and prejudices that are based around
a woman's worth. And, um, a
lot of times it has to do not with what they can,
you know, physically create. Right. And so I think,
I think that ageism plays into that more, especially at
(57:51):
a certain point where women
start to, it's both good and bad for,
for women, where you start to, be seen less
as female and more as now
like sort of non-gendered, but then older
women, uh, mature maturity. And, um,
(58:15):
I think that's just like a hard thing for, for women to deal
with normally anyways, and then factor in
your place and what is still, you know, fairly
male dominated. industries and it
becomes a good thing and a bad thing still, because you're, you're
(58:38):
fighting off, uh, in a way you've
now come to a place where people are listening to you and respecting you for maybe
the thing you've created, or they're not necessarily looking at your looks
first. And so that bias can
be set aside. These are just inherent biases. You know, everybody has them. People
have them. It's part of our culture. Um, and so you
(58:59):
can start to get more recognition for the thing. That
you're doing versus you. I
like it, I think, like, in the sense of it's. This
I just want to narrate this. Again, it's
(59:22):
an audio only. So Mel is clearly thinking
hard about this question. She's really, like, the wheels are turning. There's
steam coming out on this one. So she's
really thinking about this. And I'm sorry I left this to the end to
(59:43):
Well, as we get older, we get wiser, right? That
is an ageism that I'll lean into for
sure. And I think from
experience wise, can start to shed some
of those superficial, just
superficialities that are kind of inherent to how we
(01:00:06):
view females. And you can start to
stand on your own It's not to say that people
don't already recognize talent or
capabilities, um, or whatever, you
know, but I do think that it becomes easier to maybe see through some of that, like
bullshit basically. And, um,
(01:00:28):
to start to, yeah,
I guess, recognize, um, I
think three years ago, I was probably more afraid. to
get to the crux of your question, I was more worried about
ageism continuing to have a negative
effect on my life. And I'm at a place right now where I feel
(01:00:51):
very good about the age I'm at, the,
what I'm, what I'm producing, the recognition that
I've started to get. And I also feel frankly,
like more attracted to women who are either my age or
even older in the sense of like, I want to be in
their orbit, you know, like I want to learn
(01:01:14):
from them. I also want to recognize and support them.
And I, I, I value them. So I hope that
I likewise will be able to, you know, that younger women are looking at
me in that sense. And, and younger people in general, not just
women, but, um, people, cause I think there's just a, a
place that we all struggle with our sometimes, especially.
(01:01:37):
you know, I've had bartenders over the past couple of years, um, even just
recently an event where like, I'm a bartender and I want to get into this and I don't like,
how did you do it? And I don't, I don't think I can do it. You know, do I have to go to school?
I'm not a chemical engineer. And so having a
sense, like a platform, even, you know, even here, this is a
platform for this. So the reality is, I
(01:01:59):
think there's a lot of worth that we all have.
And I think that women, when we can start to like lose
some of this, again, the superficialness and the stuff that's kind
of like infringing on how we're seen. And
we got some cool stuff out there to share.
Love it. So with that, I'll ask you one
(01:02:20):
last question. This is an adapted legacy question.
Usually I'll ask about, you know, what legacy do you want to leave? I'm
going to change it up a little bit. So you've spoken and
Greg did a lot of podcasts and interviews of his own while he was at
Old Elk. Hell, even before he was at Old Elk, while he was still at MGP and distilling for Old
Elk. And then, obviously you've been doing
(01:02:44):
on your own. One of the things that
keeps coming up in the origin story to kind of bring origin into
today is this idea that even though Old
Oak started with going to Greg and getting this customized mash bill.
He felt that wheat whiskey was the next big thing after the
(01:03:04):
rye wave, but it needed more time to age. And
by all accounts, 10 years plus after that
first introduction, he was right. The
wheat is one of Old Elk's best sellers. It's,
it's arguably one of the products you're most well known for, or most
likely to find on, you know, a random store shelf as opposed to
(01:03:26):
kind of a specialized audience. So, as the
new face, not so new face anymore but you know the newer face of
old elk. I'll
throw this to you to add in
your production. You've seen the rye wave come, the wheat wave come, and
(01:03:51):
That's a great question. I think, I mean, single malt is definitely, American malts
are getting their time right now. I think the
next, I
don't think we is done. I think that we still has quite
a, quite a bit of, um, just like recognition
(01:04:14):
and notoriety to, to see and to, to see
other distilleries and, um, crafters producing
with and making products out of it. So I am not,
I don't think that that wave has come and gone. I think we're still like in
it a little bit. Um, I do think we're
going to continue to see cast finishes and just specialty finishes. be
(01:04:37):
exciting for people. I think that that wave might be
kind of finishing right now. No pun intended.
And I think just like anything in cyclicals, that will
come back because there's only so much innovation that
you can come up with. There's only so many new things you can do before you have to challenge
what the rules are around what you're doing and how you categorize that.
(01:04:59):
So if anything, that's a whole separate conversation. But
I do think you're going to see more lobbying
and just law changing when
it comes to what it is to define American
whiskeys. That being said, I think
(01:05:19):
we're going to get back to maybe,
in a sense, more younger
stuff might become a little bit more popular for a while. I
don't know that's going to be the next best thing, but I think that there will
be maybe just younger whiskeys will
start to be like what's sought after because you're, we're going
(01:05:40):
to, there's a lot of whiskey that's maturing out right now. And
with it comes a higher cost. Um, maybe
the market, the market's going to become a little flooded as well. So I think people will
start to search for what is, you know, that next affordable
thing, but also what is unique. And in my mind, that's
gotta be smaller distilleries that are producing unique
(01:06:03):
mash bills. So, Can I say it's going
to be one type of Asheville or not? I don't think, you know, I
don't think so. I think it's going to be more about even just if
anything, regionality will start to become more of
It's fun to see how that affects, you know, not
(01:06:26):
just regionality, but you know, where, where the inspiration
comes from agriculture tying into the,
And I see that embracing a little more of like, you know, Texas has its own thing, of
course, but then interviewing some places from the Carolinas, like
low country, having their stuff, the mid Atlantic with Maryland,
(01:06:46):
Pennsylvania rise, upper Midwest having there. So
then of course, Pacific Northwest. I love that idea of the regionality coming
forward and being the next wave. And who knows, we'll have to
have you back in 10 years and see what, what shook out. A
lot can happen in 10 years. And
for craft, even more so. A lot can happen in one
(01:07:08):
Yeah. I think the next few years will be, everybody's saying
it, right? They're going to be interesting. They're going to be
hard. But out of stress comes good things too. So, and
Just remember yeast gets stressed and that's how we get good flavors. Right. So
with that, Mel, thank you so much for taking the time to come on with me going over
(01:07:30):
time. In fact, to answer a few more questions, I really appreciate it. Hang
on me for just a minute after I finish recording. Once again, we've
had Mel Maddox, she is the master blender at Old Elk Distillery in
Colorado and Thank you all for
listening. There will be show notes in the end and tasting notes for the
(01:07:50):
slow cut, which again, I really enjoyed highly recommend it. Thank
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