Ep. 170: Luca Mariano Distillery with Founder Francesco Viola

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of the Whiskering Podcast. Today, I'm
thrilled to be welcoming on a guest whose company I've actually been talking
to for a couple of years now. I got to see them back in 22 at
the Kentucky Bourbon Festival when I was down there. And it's been
a long time coming and I'm really happy we made it happen. So please
welcome on with me, Francesco Viola from

(00:24):
Luca Mariano Distillery. The distillery is in
Danville, Kentucky, but Francesco is joining us from his home in
So the first intro I
got to Luca Mariano was, I don't

(00:44):
even remember at this point if there was a reach out via email or if
kind of bottles just arrived on my doorstep, which either one happens sometimes
and I'm not quite sure, but I can't wear them. I
was intrigued by the story of this Italian heritage, which is
not one frequently seen in the distilling scene,
I would argue, at least in America. So,

(01:07):
but you did have some distilling in your past. So with that, I wanted to just give you
an opportunity to tell the origin story of Luca Mariano distillery,
including the initial distillation that you
Perfect. Yes. So my family has
a rich history in distilling and back

(01:28):
in the early part of the 1900s, my
great grandfather, Baldassare Viola, he came
over to America and he was here illegally and his job that
he had at that time was distilling. And
then he got sent back home because he wasn't here
legally. And then in

(01:50):
1920, when Prohibition began, he got a knock on his door. My family,
my parents are from Belastrade, Sicily, which is not
too far from Palermo. And he got
knocked on his door, and the Sicilian mafia said,
hey, we need you to go to Ontario, Canada to
run our distilling operation there. And so then that's

(02:14):
where he went. He left the family, moved to Ontario, and
ran stills during Prohibition. And later he became legal
and came to the United States legally. And then my family came
over in the, like, late 60s, early
70s, and then I was born in the late 70s. So
I never got to meet Baldassare. I got to

(02:36):
meet his wife. She outlived him. But
I got to really learn from my grandfather, his
son, how to distill in the 80s, I was about seven
years old when I first started distilling, learned how to grow
tomato plants, canned tomatoes, do a bunch of things in our family, and
it was a lot of fun, really enjoyed that time with my grandfather. His

(02:57):
name was Mariano, and that's part of where the name comes from. My
son's name is Luca Mariano, that's his middle name, and
so you got Luca and then Mariano, my grandfather, and
we really grew a we really built
our bond together, distilling together and doing
other things. And he and I were very

(03:19):
close. And then in 1999, he passed away. And the one
thing that he gave to me was his distilling equipment. And
then, you know, I was just starting my life, graduated from Michigan State University
in 1999, first viola to graduate from
college. And so it was a big deal. And so
I was focused on building my career and working. And

(03:40):
then in 2010, I
decided to take his distilling equipment out. And
I was smoking meat at the time. I was really into barbecuing
and smoking meat. And so I was kind of doing these activities
on the weekends. And it was a lot of fun. And then I really started
to get passionate about it. And I turned my garage into a full-blown,

(04:04):
small, mini distiller. I had eight fermenters going around
the clock. And I did that for a few years. And then I
decided, well, you know what, I'm going to get my license. I found
out during this time from a neighbor, he's a
sarcastic type of guy. He's always giving me a hard time, which
is fun, playful banter. I

(04:26):
didn't believe him at first that it was illegal to distill in your garage, because,
I mean, I had been doing it my whole life, and why would this be illegal? But
I asked my attorney, Matt, and he confirmed, yep, it's
illegal to distill in your garage. So I asked Matt
to get me a license, and we went through that process. And

(04:48):
I guess it would be New Year's Eve, of
2013. I think that's when we got our license. So at 11 a.m.
on New Year's Eve, so we're about a week away from celebrating that
anniversary. But we had, so after we got our
license, I decided to step things up. I

(05:09):
was able to work with a guy I met at Moonshine
University, which I was the second graduating class of
Moonshine University in 2013. And his
name was Ross Caldwell. He worked with Whiskey Thief.
He owned Whiskey Thief at the time. And so he
let me use his distillery, ran several much larger batches

(05:32):
there, and really kind of perfected what we were doing. I did a
soft launch in Nashville in 2014. I
had at that time, I owned a bar there, which I thought
I was going to make Tennessee whiskey for
a little bit. I had a beautiful bar that was right on the river there, downtown
on 2nd and Broadway, where all the action is

(05:53):
today. And so I was going
to do that, and good thing that didn't work out. We
had You know, I'm glad, first
of all, to be in Kentucky. You know, I'm glad our journey took us from Michigan to
Tennessee to Kentucky. But where
we would have had our bar and where we would have had, approval,

(06:15):
believe it or not, at that time was crazy. We had approval to put 5,000 to 6,000 barrels
in our bar, which in a downtown area, which was crazy.
I don't know how we got that, but they allowed us to do that. And
that area there got blown up on Christmas Eve a
few years ago. So, I mean, just think if something bad would have,
if we would have had, if we would have been successful with Tennessee Whiskey, you

(06:37):
know, part of Nashville would have been burnt down. So,
we got lucky there. But
we ended finding our way to Danville. We
found a real estate agent. His name is Dan Campbell, which
we named our first rec house after. He helped us find
the perfect piece of property. And I asked Dan from

(06:59):
Danville, I said, hey, help me find a piece of property. So
we started off in Danville. We went all the way to Bardstown, Louisville,
Frankfurt, Lexington, all the way back to Danville. And
we saw everything. We spent weeks looking at every single farm
that was for sale and farms that weren't for sale. And
I was drawn to the farm

(07:22):
in Danville. And so that really worked out. It
wasn't for sale. We asked the owner if they'd
sell it to us. And we pieced together several pieces of property to
build what we have. We have 553 acres
on our farm currently, looking to expand it as time
goes on. We have great stories

(07:45):
that are on the property. There's the oldest. Stone
Home in Kentucky is the William Crow Stone House, which
we'll build a brand around that at some point in the future. We
have, and he actually had, it was just printed
recently in one of the distilling books that he, that William Crow had
a license to distill, one of the first licenses in

(08:08):
Kentucky back in the early 1800s. So
there's a lot of history of distilling on our property. During Prohibition,
you have Guy Jones, He
had a prop plane. I mean, think about it. We're in 1920, and
a guy has a plane in his backyard in a runway. But
what he would do is, in the silo that we have on our property, he still has

(08:30):
broken scraps of his still. He
would cook and distill in there and kind
of have it as a decoy, being in a silo. And the way it
was structured, the smoke wouldn't just go straight up. It'd kind of puff out
the sides. So you couldn't really tell what he was doing. he
would deliver his spirits throughout

(08:54):
from Kentucky to the north, going all the way up into Ontario. and
he would, as a decoy, he would land somewhere, he would drop
off his packages to
whoever he was selling it to, and then he would give
dollar rides to kids and to families, and so that was, he
was a decoy. But the cool thing is, is there's no real

(09:17):
documentation, but my great-grandfather was in
Ontario, and there's documentation of him going to
Ontario to pick up more product and then delivering
on his way home and refueling. So, kind of
neat. They may have met. I mean, it was a
much smaller world back then than it is today. You know, there's less people.

(09:37):
So, it's just kind of a neat neat
story that, you know, the property has a rich history dating
back all the way to the early 1800s. And
so we'll be telling those stories, and Guy Jones has
tunnels throughout the property, from the house to the silo, exiting
the house, and we're going to be renovating those

(10:00):
at some point. And having that be part of our tour, so
that's something to look forward to down the road. But now we're, we're
getting ready to open up tours here in
the new year in 2025 and it's going to be it's
going to be fun. We. Everyone thought when I was building that
I was going to be bringing Tuscany to Danville.

(10:22):
And I said, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to build something that's
appropriate for Kentucky and for Danville. And
our style of rickhouse and our style of
our distillery kind of models a tobacco barn,
which tobacco was a big part of our farm for many years. but
it also has a function too. So there's first

(10:44):
the function and then the style. And so
the, the Rick House has
four times more windows than other distilleries. And
it's modeled after, you know, Heaven
Hills, Deetzville, Rick House is the cake style, which,

(11:04):
you know, I really studied those guys, admired what they're doing and
wanted to You know, be different, not be them. We'll have our
own, you know, value in in the industry, but I
feel like they're doing a lot of things right. And I looked at what they
were doing and there. That
stuff, I believe, comes from those rec houses. So we looked

(11:26):
at it, brought in engineers, and we copied some things that you see
in Key West before air conditioning
where there's a lot of air movement. You create this
attic where the air kind of comes through the building and then goes through the
attic naturally. And then it
just creates massive airflow. And that's the most

(11:48):
important thing when distilling,
or when you're aging, is the airflow. You've got to have... Can
you hear me still? Yeah. Sorry. You
Yeah, my computer keeps doing something. Sorry.

(12:08):
So not to get off track there, but it's
making noises. So I thought maybe you couldn't hear me. Nope,
all good. So the REC House, the design
of it allows you to age the product a little bit
faster and give you a little bit more in-depth flavor during
the time it's aging. And so that airflow is

(12:29):
very important, very key. And even though the first
floor is always going to be a little bit cooler than the top floor, The
difference in heat is a little bit less than your
traditional style rickhouse, so that you
really have sweet spots throughout the entire building,
and you have very little... We

(12:50):
haven't found one barrel yet that doesn't meet our
requirements. So far, the theory works that
there's not a bad spot or a cold spot in our distillery or
in our rickhouse, so that's great. But
yeah, so we were very excited. We're very happy. There's
a lot of cool things we're going to be showing our guests when they come by. And when

(13:15):
people were asking, are you bringing Tuscany to to Danville?
You know, I know we're keeping the traditions of of
the American culture and in Danville, except we're
going to kill everybody with Italian hospitality. So that's
that's that's the angle that we're coming from, where where
everybody is going to really enjoy what we have to offer, because we're going

(13:37):
to do things with a hospitable way, like
if you were in Italy. And
I think everyone's going to enjoy that. Lots of drinking. I mean, not
in a bad way, but lots of drinks, lots of food,
lots of warm energy.
It's just exciting music, stuff like that

(13:59):
to keep people happy. How
I agree. Even
distilleries where I haven't necessarily liked the product, I
still maintain even there. Everything tastes better at a distillery. Everything
feels better at a distillery. That's why I have to taste things at

(14:23):
home because otherwise everything would get a good rating. points
I'm definitely going to come back to throughout the interview. One of them, of
course, being those warehouses, also your initial
start. I do want to ask just quickly, people ask you, if
you're bringing Tuscany to Kentucky, do

(14:46):
you ever take a moment to go like, look, family's originally from
Sicily or in Northern Italy for a little bit, but
I almost don't consider Tuscany Northern Italy, like the
No, I would say Tuscany is more in the center. Yeah, it's
central, yeah. Yeah, more center. I mean, it's maybe not legitimately

(15:06):
considered center in Italy. Maybe it's like the northern center or
the southern northern part. But to me,
It's north of Rome, but it's a lot more farther north
Yeah, it's far from Sicily. And Sicily is

(15:27):
Yes. Even Southern Italy is different from
Tuscany. We're taught, and this is just a side tangent of my own history, which is, I
was taught Italian for five years. Can't speak it still. I
can read it, but I can't speak it. And when
I went there, you know, when you're in Tuscany and Rome
and kind of the more touristed areas, you

(15:50):
can speak the Italian they taught you in school and everything's
fine. I go south to Bari and Nope.
A whole different language. And from what I've heard, Sicily
is almost literally its own language because of all of
the different cultures that have been there and the different
influences that it has. So the culture of Sicily, I've been

(16:13):
to Italy multiple times now, but never made it down to Sicily. I would love to,
at some point, just to see and to visit a
Yeah, Sicily is great. And the food there
is the best. I mean, all of Italy has great food, can't go
wrong, but they just do things differently there. And it's

(16:33):
desserts, if you like desserts. You've never had a
cannoli before or a quesada cake or certain things that
you may get your hands on in New York
or other parts of the country. But when you go there and you actually have it
made there, it's absolutely amazing.
One of the

(16:56):
first questions I had was that initial
distillation that you did in Nashville in 2014 or
so. As
you said, eventually moved to Kentucky, actually shortly after you moved to
Kentucky and continue your path there. Besides

(17:17):
what you said about, obviously, there were potentially
zoning questions that someone might ask, not on
your part, on the city's part or the state's part. Besides
that, though, what else led into
the decision of Nashville, it's definitely growing, it's
becoming what it is today, which is this Bachelorette Central in

(17:39):
NashVegas, but Kentucky is the place that
we really need to be. Tell me a little bit more about that
Yeah, so going back even further, you know, I own a
small piece of property in Michigan. So I originally thought I
was going to make Michigan straight bourbon until somebody
said that word to me. And I'm like, that doesn't make much sense. Michigan straight

(18:02):
bourbon. So I abandoned
the idea of making you know, our bourbon in Michigan. And
then I started looking, and I was doing a lot of business in Nashville.
I was in Nashville quite a bit. My main business that
pays for everything is a screen printing
business. We create heat-applied transfers, and

(18:23):
you screen print on paper and heat-apply it on a garment. And I do a lot
of work in the Nashville area with And
so I would be there a lot, and I saw that the city was transforming
from 2005 to 2013, 2014. And
so I thought, well, you know, this would be the perfect time
to get in while things are starting to turn

(18:45):
for the better. And, you know,
even though I'm you know, I was born in America and American, you know,
having deep Italian roots, you don't always
see things as clear until you live it and
live through it. So at the time, you know, I, you
know, I enjoyed Jack Daniels and other forms

(19:06):
of whiskey. And so I thought Tennessee was going to be a really great
spot for us to build a distillery. And then, you
know, I feel like there's some divine intervention along
the way, because I had my heart set on Nashville, but
you know, just things didn't work out. And I would have been, you
know, selling Tennessee whiskey rather than American,

(19:28):
you know, bourbon. But it just didn't work out like there's
not a really a good answer just it just the bar and
everything that we were putting together just things fell apart and
and Then it brought me to back to Kentucky and at that
time I was making product in Kentucky at
whiskey thief So it was I was wasn't even making

(19:49):
Tennessee whiskey yet. I was making Kentucky, you know bourbon
whiskey, so it was a I I
was still without realizing it, still in
Kentucky, but trying to move to Tennessee. So it
just I just kept getting held back. So then I

(20:10):
after that didn't work out. That's when I was like,
you know, I'm starting to learn a little bit more. We did a couple
shows in in Tennessee because we were distributing at that time. And
I met with the guys. They were next to us. Gosh,
I can't think of their name right now. They're right next to

(20:30):
Heaven Hill, up above. Shoot. Will
it? Will it, yes. Yeah, sorry. Hopefully you
Yeah, I know who Will it is. I'm having a little... It's
a little cold up here, my brain's freezing. But no,

(20:54):
I was talking with the guys from Willit, and
we were just going through some things, and I learned something from
them at that moment in time that, you know what, I want to take things
up a notch, and I want to be elevated and respected. and
the only way to do that is to make
a good quality Kentucky straight bourbon and

(21:14):
Kentucky straight rye, and it has to be done in Kentucky. And
then, you know, how things worked out, I mean, what better place
to be than in the center of Kentucky, right in the middle, and
in Danville. And so, everything kept, you know, bringing
me back, and I look at Danville as being the bullseye, you
know, of Kentucky. It's It's our

(21:37):
bullseye. It's been a really great place to be. The
people there have been very welcoming. We've had a lot of great
success with everybody there. And I'm really
happy to be able to bring something special to the community and
do what we're doing there. Hopefully that

(22:00):
Yeah. Just to add in one more facet
to the where question, You
said before that you considered for a moment doing a
Michigan straight bourbon. Now,
we've had a couple of producers from Michigan on the show now,
but obviously at the time when you're talking about, even some

(22:22):
of those distilleries hadn't started yet. And there were just a
couple in Michigan at the time. So
there wasn't really a proof of concept, if you will, that a Michigan
distillery could survive long-term, could
produce a Michigan bourbon, Michigan rye, Michigan whiskey. and
be successful. So 10 plus

(22:47):
years later, the answer to that is yes, you
can. We can make Michigan bourbon, Michigan whiskey, and very
good whiskey at that. Even
with the success that you've had already in Kentucky, the
welcomingness of the community, everything that's fitting into place, have
you had any thoughts, just looking back now, being like,

(23:09):
you know, Michigan could have worked out. Might've been a little tough,
You know, I haven't really put much thought to
that. But now that you say that there, you
know, it may have may have worked out in
Michigan. You know, I just had my once I
got focused on Kentucky, and I had my I

(23:32):
gave myself my own marching orders. I just was focused 100% on
what I was doing. But now that you say that, yeah, I mean,
I think we could have made something possible. It
would have been possible to build something in Michigan. It
would have been in Plymouth in between. Detroit
and Ann Arbor, kind of right there in the middle, a little bit closer to Ann Arbor than

(23:53):
to Detroit, but great spot. Would
have been, would have been, used to be an apple orchard, the
property I own like a hundred years ago, but it's,
it's still a great spot. I mean, I do have a
Michigan DSP number and I do have a Kentucky DSP
number, so maybe, maybe I, you're

(24:19):
Multistate blends are becoming more of a thing. And there's
a lot of interest to be found there. So just had to ask
that question. Otherwise, I'd be getting a question or two from my Michigan
guests, Michigan listeners being like, I don't think what
he said. So just covering, I'm seeing both of us on
It's a great idea. Like, I mean, Michigan is my home where

(24:40):
I lived my whole life. So, I mean, I love Michigan and
I'm not, so I'm not saying anything disrespectful to
it. It was just, you know, when you're, when you're, when you're thinking
about bourbon, You think of Kentucky, and
I know that nowadays people are starting to see that you can make
a different type of expression in different places. And

(25:01):
that's great. But, uh, I think at
the end of the day, and like what we've built at our distillery is the
old fashioned way of making bourbon from like the beginning of
bourbon making years and, uh, and brought modern
modern technology to that. So like, we really want to go back to
the traditional way of doing things. And, um,

(25:23):
which my great grandfather called the old Americana way
of distilling. And, like, we have a product called
old Americana. And as a result, and so we kind
of call our way of making bourbon, the old Americana way. But
we do have, you know, it's fully automated. We have
sensors that you can even follow on your phone if

(25:44):
you want to see, you know, certain things are running the way you
want it to be. But it's a fully technologically advanced
and we have, you know. great
chemistry lab as well, so we can always monitor and make sure
everything's to the highest level of our
satisfaction. But we're doing things a little bit slower,

(26:06):
doing things the old-fashioned way. And that's where you get the flavor, you
know. If you're cooking a pasta sauce, And
you can make a nice pasta sauce in 30 minutes and
really put it together. But if you let it simmer all day, it's going
to be full of flavor and have a lot more depth to it. And that's kind
of what we're doing with our distillery. We're taking our time. We're

(26:27):
not pushing gallons per minute out of there. We're trying to let
each batch come to where
we want it to be. without putting limitations on
their time and certain things. So
it's different than I think most people. Most people are trying
to push gallons per minute. And we're also working with,

(26:51):
we have the largest recorded well in Kentucky. And that's one
of the main reasons why we decided for Danville, because there was other
farms we liked. But we saw that there were fractures
on the property where looked like there'd be large reservoirs
of water and we tapped into one of those and
it's now the largest recorded well in Kentucky which is great

(27:13):
because it's a deep well and it's got
good clean limestone water whereas a lot of the newer distilleries
nowadays are using city water, and you can read about that, you
know, with Bardstown trying to limit that water supply, and
there is a difference. If you use city water

(27:33):
with all the chemicals in it, it will come out different. It still
can taste good, but there is a difference when you're using limestone
water. It just, it does taste better, and it is
a smoother, more in-depth product. And so that was
a, A big deciding factor for us
was the water supply. And then we have

(27:55):
an area where we have a pond. And one day, we'll turn
that pond into a 16-acre lake. And then
that will also be part of our distilling process, too. So
that will also be beautiful, because
you've got to have things that make sense function first. But you also got to have to
make it look pretty. So that also makes things look pretty on the property

(28:18):
And to me, that's something that was mentioned in other interviews as well, this
idea of, and I think it's very, to
me, it's a very Italian sensibility, this sense that, yes,
it has to be a good product, but it's also got to be aesthetically pleasing. And
by product, in this case, you're talking, in that interview,
it was specifically about the whiskey, but I'm hearing it also about the property, about what

(28:39):
you're going to be attracting people to the property with.
you want it to look good. You want people to be taking pictures there, want to
visit there, want to come there potentially with their families, not even just
because of the whiskey. So that all to me comes together very
cohesively. I think that's
a good segue into also your process

(29:03):
and your team. So as you said, you got one
of the most advanced automated
systems, certainly in Kentucky, if not in
greater areas. But you've also got both
David Phillips, master distiller. He

(29:25):
was announced during the 22 KBF, I think. That's correct. Yeah,
as you got him. And then just very recently, Amanda Kaufman, who
was formerly at Makers, joining
as a chemist. And so I'd love to hear a
little bit more about, you know, David, about Amanda, how you came

(29:49):
So the cool thing about when we built our
team is we didn't advertise, we didn't
put anything out there that we were hiring. Um, we,
you know, just just people I've known in the industry, it's.
We're in 2024 right now, and I've been doing this since 2010. so
I've gotten around. And I met a lot of people.

(30:11):
So I had my eyes set on a few people that really wanted to
be part of our team. And then as we
were, you know, as time went on, I got
introduced to other people. But everybody that works for me has
been hand selected by me and a few other people that
I work with. And we couldn't be happier. They're

(30:31):
all extremely talented, really good at what they do. passionate,
and they come from, you know, some of the best distilleries in
our industry. I mean, David Phillips, he
ran the Booker Noe plant for several years, I think 13 to
15 years, somewhere in that range. And then he got hired on
by Bullitt to run their distillery for

(30:55):
about five years. So you got Jim Beam, you
got Bullet, Diageo, you have Makers Mark
with Amanda. We have guys from Wilderness Trail that
work for us and a handful
of other distilleries. And they're all great and
they all bring different perspectives. But the one thing that's really

(31:15):
great about everybody that works for me is, you know, I was able
to communicate how I'd like to do things. And how to how
I would like to approach the industry from a different angle. And
they're all open to it, even though they may have come from an
area where they had a box that they had to be within. They came
and they opened the lid to that box and they're willing to

(31:36):
expand that box or even get rid of it and try and push things a
little bit differently. So we've been very fortunate. We have wonderful
people on our team and they have
a lot of energy and they're very excited to tackle some
new things. And, you know, our industry is changing.
there's, there's, you know, American malt just got

(31:57):
defined last week. And we have a 10 year
product that's a bourbon, but it's a 51% corn and
the balance is malted barley.
And that's won all sorts of awards. It's really great. And,
you know, now that we can push the boundaries and maybe go to 100% malt,

(32:18):
you know, we've been talking about some things and we already had
it in our schedule. We're making that this week
with a twist. It's going to be really something
special. So they're all excited about it. And it's
just, we have different ways of approaching the industry and
we're excited to try and bring new things to the to the

(32:39):
industry and we building a smaller distillery I
mean it's still much to me it's a large distillery but it's much
smaller than a lot of the newer ones out there we
have we each batch will do roughly 25 barrels
so you can you're not committing to hundreds of
barrels per batch you're committing to 25 and And

(33:02):
so that gives us a little bit of flexibility to play around with some
And that 5149, that's the Gianna
My signature, yeah. So I,
as I said, I've known the brand for a bit. I was looking

(33:24):
through the brand. I think the only two that I hadn't tried
were at that signature must've been one of them then. And the,
and the Gianna cause that the Gianna came out after
I initially spoke
with the brand, got introduced and all that to the products and such. So I'm
going to make it a point to try to grab

(33:50):
Yeah, the general run has really people love
it. It's kind of turned out to be the fan favorite in
many ways. It's
45% corn and basically 55% rye. And
so it's people just like it. It drinks
kind of like a bourbon, but it's a rye. It's just has different characteristics

(34:14):
of it than just, you know, 95.5 rye or,
you know, a rye bourbon. So it's really been, you
know, quite successful for us. The gianola
rum we kind of held off because we already have a you
know, a lot of brands out there that we released. So we wanted that to

(34:34):
age and to be a certain age. And we do have the
general run bourbon is a weeded bourbon, which we
just, we just haven't ever introduced it because we
have a lot of brands. So once the distillery and we have people coming,
we'll probably have the weeded just at the distillery for now. And
I think that's this year is seven years. things

(34:58):
can be six or seven years this year. We had we would have had 10 year
product, because we made wheat from the beginning. But
I sold four years of our bourbon
barrels to help buy the farm. So I had a had
to do certain things. And, and I,
I'm not bound by a non disclosure

(35:21):
agreement, but I figured out where those barrels went. And
total line They bought those barrels and
they won some awards with that. So it's something to be on the
I love when
those stories can actually be told because NDAs, I

(35:45):
Yeah, we're going to try to be very open as
much as we can be, you know, but and
when we do contract distilling, I have no secrets about it. And
I want part of the hospitality that the
Italian hospitality is whoever we contract to still
for our distilleries, their distillery. They can come, they can
do they can bring people, bring guests. They can walk around freely

(36:08):
around our distillery. It's our house is your
house. You know, we want we want to be very you know, open
and hospitable. So, you know, we can even put
their name up and they can come and, you know, feel like it's
a part of what they're doing as well. And
when I was making my product after Whiskey Thief, I started making it

(36:31):
at Wilderness Trail. And Wilderness Trail
made their first 40 barrels. And then the next 240 barrels
were my barrels. And in the
early years, they allowed me to be there and be a part
of it. And I was making it with their team and I was leading
the way. But then we know their success story, they got

(36:51):
real big, they started doing really well. And then I
wasn't allowed to do that anymore about four or
five years into it. So, but it was okay. It
I was going to ask is, I saw the growth over the first few
years was tremendous, you know, 240 barrels
the first year or two, and then 480 in 2017, 750 in 2018. You're

(37:17):
planning at least a thousand for the next year. So the growth was there,
but I hear you in that, you know, Pat and Shane, they're fantastic guys.
They've been on at least once, twice
now that I think about it. And they're mentioned quite often because
of both the distilling side, but also
firm solutions. So, but I

(37:39):
get that at a certain point, they, people
are going to get kind of sized out, if you will, which
is unfortunate, what happens, but now you've
got your own contracts capacity, which is, which
is fantastic. One more thing I just wanted to
ask about the, the automation and the staff is

(38:00):
that you, so you have this automated, system, but you've also got
people who have significant credentials and
experience. So for you as
an owner, as the founder, the person
who wants their distillery to be represented
and presented in a certain way, where do

(38:22):
you want them to draw the line between technology
So, I mean, so you want to know, like, where you
draw the line between science and, and the
art of distilling? I mean, so the

(38:43):
main thing is, is we want to always
be distilling with the art of distilling. It's always got
to be the old way of distilling the way it was done back in
the day, but How we
monitor that through chemistry and how
we monitor that through modern technology will allow us

(39:05):
to see if there's something that's slipping or something that's
not going the way we want it. A fermentation isn't taking
off the way it should or certain things aren't happening the way we
would like it. We're then notified and then we
can make adjustments. But it's
more of just using what we have now that we're in the future and

(39:27):
making sure that every batch comes out consistently the way we want it
and having pretty much zero tolerance for failure.
We don't want
to dump a batch because it didn't go right. We want to
be able to rescue it if
we can. And so, I mean, mainly we're keeping

(39:49):
the principles of the old Americana way of distilling, but
watching it along the way. And you don't want contamination as
an example. I mean, if you have contamination, you know, it might still
slip by, might still get, you know, distilled, but
then it might have a funky taste and nobody wants that.
You know, after five to 10 years of aging, you spend all that time and

(40:11):
energy and you bottle it and you're like, huh, that
didn't really work out very good. So those are the things
we're trying to avoid. Um, and. We're
not into the flavor whiskey, so we don't want to take a bad barrel and
flavor it so that we disguise, you know, the bad taste
in it. And most of what we do is a single barrel. And

(40:33):
I think that's going to be what we do well into the
future. And so each barrel is going to be unique and
have its own flavor, but we want to put the best
possible juice inside going into it so
that when it comes out, it has the flavor profiles we
want. You can't hide a bad

(40:54):
barrel in a single barrel. You can maybe hide
it in a batch, maybe
even a small batch, but you can't really hide a bad barrel
No. Even in batch and even in large
batches, I've been God,

(41:14):
that's my fourth year podcasting. I think one of the first things I
learned was initially that the only thing you couldn't
blend out would be mustiness in
a barrel. And I think I
agree. I think a second thing needs to be added. You can't blend
out contamination. Like if you've got a barrel that goes sour, like some

(41:37):
vegetation gets in, you know, something goes wrong there. You
know, you can blend out over oak or under oak, you can blend out other
things, but at a certain point, those barrels just need to
go. But to your point, if you're mostly
doing single barrels. it's, it's
easier to at once let that see if you can rescue it. There's

(42:00):
also less of a loss if you decide, all right, this barrel is just,
it's, it's contaminated, it's, there's just no way of saving this one.
It's not as much of a loss if you've already, as it would
be if you had already brought it into a blend. There's
multiple barrels at a time. So
one of the themes that kind

(42:23):
of keeps coming up in my mind and through the timeline is
transitions. So you've had the transition from the home
distillation to legal distillation, from Michigan to
Tennessee to Kentucky, from Nashville
to Danville, from Whiskey Thief

(42:45):
to Wilderness Trail, and now to your
own distillation, which as of recording, you started cooking
and mashing just this past week. So this
is brand new, it's happening, it's real. And
sorry, one more change that I thought of, which was, I think

(43:05):
for most of the distillery's history, you'd been
using ISC Char 4 barrels. And
then I saw, I think just yesterday, a reel of the first Kelvin
barrels coming in. That's
right. So we'll get a little bit more into that too. So there are a lot of different changes

(43:27):
that have taken place over the course of the brand, of the production style,
of all these different things. How have you managed to create
a fairly consistent product throughout
The product that we have now is all with Cooper Select

(43:49):
barrels from Independence Dave. And so
what that means is our wood was aged for 18 months
and then assembled, and then it was char
number four. My goal all along was to work with
Kelvin Cooperage. To me, they really
have perfected the art of barrel making.

(44:13):
And what we did was we still worked with a great product.
There's nothing wrong with what we have and what Independence Dave does.
I mean, most of what everybody drinks comes from Independence Dave.
They're quite a large, you know, Cooperage.
But what I'm looking for is taking things to
the next level with our distillery and being a craft distillery.

(44:36):
And the things that I'm able to do with Kelvin is a
little bit different than what I could do with Independence Dave. Independence
Dave has always been great to me. They're good people,
but I'm probably their smallest customer or
one of their smallest customers. So to do something special
for me is very different than working with Kelvin Cooperage.

(44:58):
And they've been very accommodating. We've gone over many different things
I'd like to do with our barrels and different mash
bills that we plan to put together, and they've helped me dial in
and customize things that I can only do there.
I mean, it's, and the way

(45:18):
they assemble the barrels, which is really, you know,
important, and with the style of rickhouse that we have,
what's really important is having With
their barrels, we're going to have less loss, less angel share. The
way they assemble it, they're tighter. There's very little to
no leaks ever. And the

(45:41):
way it's assembled, you know, and with our airflow that's going through
our rickhouse, we should be able to maintain higher
levels of whiskey and retainage in our
barrels than what we've had in the past. And not
that there's anything wrong with it. We're in industry standards, but
with their barrels, it's going to allow us to get more flavor and

(46:01):
more whiskey yields at
the end. And so all around, it's going to
be a good fit. And I
can call them anytime, talk to them. I can even change what I want. the
day that they're making it. I mean, they're very flexible with me and that's
what's important when doing the things that we

(46:28):
And this ties back my mind to the choice of rickhouse design as
well. If you have a rickhouse that
perhaps favors a slightly faster maturation, especially with
all of the windows, with the attic structure and
the three-tier, On the flip side of that, you'd
also want a barrel that is as tight as possible, because you

(46:49):
know you're going to have more angel share. Otherwise, you're going to have more
evaporative loss and barrel interaction. So if
you can have that barrel interaction, but keep it inside the barrel as
much as possible, then you
want that. And I totally agree with what you said. The industry standard
is ISC. Kind of

(47:09):
like the Apple of like, if barrels were
mobile phones, they would be Apple, you know, have an iPhone. It's
just what it is. But, you know, Kelvin was, they
were an early guest because I knew nothing about cooperages and I needed to learn
that. So I had the folks from Kelvin on, talked about their process, which
was a great, I remember that being a great interview. So, anytime

(47:32):
I see people working with Kelvin, I just like it because I
know the work that they do. And it's, like you said, it's great
And that's what it comes down to is barrel craftsmanship. I mean, one
thing that's different between their barrel and others is
that they're not using gas when they're toasting

(47:54):
or charring. They're actually building a fire with wood and
then putting the barrel over it. You don't want
that gas introduced into the barrel. It will change and
give it flavors that we're not looking for. And
so when you're using, just like when we go to bottle our bourbon, we're
not using air or some sort of chemical in our bottle.

(48:16):
We're using the same bourbon we're bottling to rinse out the bottle. So
I mean, it's the same idea with the
barrel. If you're using the wood that it came from, the scraps, and
then you're toasting it and then charring it, And when
you do that, there is it's not not a perfect science. And
that's the art of cooking, too. Like even with even

(48:37):
though we have all these tolerances that we're trying to meet. we
are letting certain things slip, because we want flavor. So
every single barrel has its own characteristic, because you
put it on the flame, it starts burning, and it's
supposed to burn for 40 seconds, and that one might have burned for 60 seconds, even
though we wanted it to be 40 seconds. It just

(48:59):
happens that way. And so each barrel is going
to be different, give
different flavors, give different characteristics, and that's okay. That's
what you want. You want everything to be a little different, but
So different and the same within, like you said, within the tolerances of

(49:21):
what you want the brand to and your products to taste like
So it's exciting. It's a really exciting time
for us right now because we We have
been trying to build this distillery for about eight years
now, six, seven, eight years. And, uh, now

(49:41):
that we're here, so we've had a lot of time, a lot of discussions for,
for, uh, I mean, since I started in 2010, it's
been almost 15 years now, but, uh, had
a lot of discussions and talks. And now that we're, we
know exactly what we want to do. We, we know what we need to

(50:03):
Fantastic. So in the last
third of our show that we've got you for, let's
hit on a couple of different things. So the first one is
a slight detour. And
I do want to say, we haven't been going too deep into
each of the products themselves, as we were saying, the Old Americana, the Luca Mariano single

(50:27):
barrels and such. That's kind
of the way we do the podcast. We don't usually talk about individual products
too much. It's more about the kind of grand overview. But
I want to point out that the Luca
Mariano distillery website, there's a ton of information on each
of these products. I'm going to find

(50:49):
my notes from tasting and bring those back as
well. So there will be more information on the individual products themselves when
this episode goes live. Just want people to know
that I haven't forgotten that this is whiskey distillery and they are producing whiskey. I've
just got other questions that I know other people
have gone into that thing and will continue to go into those. So

(51:10):
I got to ask the different questions. So one
of those though, around the product itself is bottle design
and aesthetics, going back to that concept. Now you
worked with Flow Design to create your bottle
designs, labels, et cetera. I'm
not sure I've come across them before. I've come across

(51:32):
just one or two design companies that work with bottlings and such,
but Flow Design I haven't worked with. So describe to
So I have a little fun story about those guys. So
when we were getting into the industry, this is early on, before

(51:53):
2013, I'm trying to find someone to design bottles and
all these things for me. And we met with guys
from California, I think somebody from the Carolinas. And
we were all excited about it. And
then one day I came across Flow Designs and
I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. So I drive

(52:15):
right by his office every day to go to work. And
literally, it's right there on the corner that I drive by every
day and if I hang a left, I'll go pick up a Starbucks right a
block away from his office. And I'm thinking, there's no way
There's somebody local that can do this. But I
decided to give him a chance. And Dan's great. We

(52:39):
have a lot in common. Grew up in kind of the same area. He's a
little bit older than me. But he went to Michigan State.
I went to Michigan State University. So we had a lot in common. And
so it's been a lot of fun building and designing with Dan
and his other designer, Dennis. Been
great people to work with. But yeah,

(53:02):
when we sat down, I went,
I said, I want, I kind of painted a picture of
what we're looking for. And, you
know, he brought it to life. I mean, we
nailed it, in my opinion, you know, like we have. in
the bottle design there's consistent between each brand there's there's

(53:25):
a these nice little v cuts that are in
at the bottom and my last name is viola so that kind
of resembles the v for viola but also adds a lot of a
lot of you know it gives it a lot of uh aesthetically pleasing
looks especially when the water or in that water when the bourbon comes down to
to the end it still makes the bourbon look nice and

(53:47):
comes out We took my
family crust from Sicily that we have
had in our family for a few hundred years, and we were
able to design that into the bottle, which has been, you know,
it was very important to me, something that my grandfather, Mariano,
would really wanted us to, you know, carry on.

(54:11):
And so that was really neat that we were able to put that on.
But we have different brands And
each bottle looks different and unique, but they look like a
family. If you have a brother or
sister or mom or dad, you all look different. You're all different ages,
different sizes. But it was really important

(54:33):
to us that everything looked like a family. And so
we kept things throughout each bottle. My
daughter's bottle it's her name is general run.
That's her 1st and middle name. We want her bottle to
be, you know, masculine. But still feminine as,
you know, to resemble. You know, for females and.

(54:58):
We're really proud of Gianna Loren. I
don't like to talk about it too much because people
always beat me up on this, but it is the first female
named bourbon. We trademarked that years before Other
bourbon female names out there. It's just we were making

(55:19):
the product and it was sitting in barrels Waiting for
it to come of age before we made it to market
So those guys were able to beat us to market but we
had the trademark and the barrels sitting there waiting to come to market and
But it's among the first female-named bourbons,
and we felt like that that was a really great thing to bring

(55:41):
into the industry and to represent. And
so each bottle, you know, has
a different price point. And one thing we're going to be getting
aggressive with is with our Old Americana line. We're going
to be lowering the price next year to kind of make that more of a
entry-level, excessive, or more,

(56:04):
I can't say the word, accessible, you
know. But it's really important to
us that people, no matter what their economics are,
or where they're at, or if they just wanted something to
drink today that's not as expensive, and
then something that's more expensive, they have that choice. But

(56:25):
with the Old Americana, our goal is to get somewhere between $29.99 to
$34.99 in that range, depending on
what market we're in, so that it's more
easily available for everybody. And
it's a five-year, and that's the only small
batch we do. It's five barrel small batch. And

(56:48):
we do that For economic reasons, it's easier and
less time consuming to bottle a little bit of
a small batch, and then we were able to bring the price down. But
it's still a very good quality product, five years and
five barrels, small batch. But yeah, the flow designs,
he was easy to work with. He came up with concepts. He

(57:10):
even did a 3D print of the bottles before we
committed to it and did the mold. And he
really listened and was able to do like
small touches. Like the cork has my signature
on it, which is kind of in its real cork, which is something
that you see in Italy from a vineyard. You

(57:32):
get a wine bottle from somebody there and they
write their signature or put something on the cork and he
brought that to life. And so he's really helped
us out. And even though I own a screen printing
business and I have plenty of designers that work for me, he
helped me design the t-shirt too that we have that says born in italy

(57:54):
perfected in danville kentucky so he he he
went across bottle design and label design and helped us with our
t-shirts as well and he did the he
did the artwork for my for dan campbell's face on our rick house he
did the artwork for what will be on our our
distillery of my son and my grandfather saying

(58:16):
luca mariano so it's You
get a little bit more than just a bottle from him in
the label. You get, you know, it helps you out with other branding as
Sure. I, this is why I love when
I can ask about the design questions, which is not every episode, but

(58:36):
whenever I can, I guess that those stories you get, how
do people think about stuff? So not knowing that story, I
remember looking at the bottles and thinking there
were two inspirations that came to mind from the consumer
perspective of it. One was the old Americano
I was It reminded me in a

(58:57):
way of the Wild Turkey Kentucky Spirit bottles, the turkey
tail, the fantail. But
more so the line itself, as you said, you want it to be recognizable
as a family, even if they're slightly different bottle shapes and sizes
and labels. It to me came

(59:17):
off in an art deco
meets glass minimalism. And I
liked that. It was very streamlined. The V that
you said works great for that scalloped art
deco idea. And I'm from
New York, art deco is everywhere. So it's constantly in my design

(59:41):
vocabulary. But no, the bottles themselves, they were just aesthetically
pleasing. They weren't ridiculous shapes, which
I know means something for home bars. It means something for bartenders if
you've got it at a bar. where, and
like we'll throw out, we mentioned the will it guys is really positive
stuff before I got to throw out that pot still bottle. Good

(01:00:03):
product, but that bottle is impossible to put anywhere. Bottles
can fit wherever they're going to fit, which
is like something you have to think of in
home context, bar context on off premise. So, but
And that's an important point, too, that when you work

(01:00:25):
with a designer, you need to trust
that they know what they're doing because there's things you don't know. You don't even
think about. Even though I bartended before, it's not
like I didn't have any experience behind a bar. I wasn't
thinking about the size of the bottle on the bar,
wasn't thinking about the neck and the way it would pour and

(01:00:47):
all these different things that are very important to bartenders. and
for them to do their job. And Dan at Flow Designs,
I mean, he thinks about all those things. I mean, he and Dennis, these
guys, they know what to do. And they're looking
out for you even though you don't even know what to look out for,
if that makes sense. So, but it's... I've

(01:01:11):
been very happy with those guys. And they've done a great job. And we
have some other things that they're working on for us for the future, too.
Some other exciting things. And that's
the thing. When we do contract distilling for other people,
we have those connections. And we plan
to explain that to people. If you need us to make introductions, we're

(01:01:41):
transition to our kind of final segment talking about the current
and future Le Cameron distilleries. So one of the
things that you just mentioned that is going to be a big part of it, well
I'll let you tell me how big or small a part of it's going to be, is the contract distilling
part. Sorry, I'm still working
my voice back it seems. So right

(01:02:04):
now you you installed an 18 inch copper
continuous still from Vendome. You can do
I think it was about 15,000 barrels a year or
Between 15 and 18. It depends on how many
we're going to be barreling around 110 proof.

(01:02:25):
So that's going to yield us more barrels per year. So So
we're probably going to be closer to 18,000 barrels with
Gotcha. That's a question I actually forgot before, which was entry
proof, because I didn't hadn't seen that one, but that was a detail. So thank you for
that. Do you have in mind a

(01:02:48):
set percentage of that capacity that's going to be this,
this is set for Luca Mariano. And
then contract is above that? Or are you planning
to be kind of flexible depending on your own needs and the demand
So, so we had many ideas of

(01:03:10):
what we were going to do as a distillery. Back
in the beginning of
2022, right before we were already breaking ground, and we actually were
doing the pad for that as well. But then I changed my mind and pivoted.
We had so much interest in contract
distilling that I thought maybe I'd pivot and be a contract distiller.

(01:03:34):
And so we actually have a plan. Where our parking
lot is now was going to be a mega distillery with three 36-inch
column stills. And I
looked at it after the pad was done. I'm like, what are
we doing? I mean, this is going against all of our
plans and who we are as a company. I didn't get in

(01:03:56):
this business to be a contract distiller. I got into it to
be a quality brand and bring something different to the industry. And
so I pivoted, I left that pad alone,
just in case, maybe down the road, we may expand our brand and
may want to, you know, revisit and build that big
distiller at some point in time. So then I put beside it,

(01:04:21):
what is now Luca Mariano Distillery. And we
thought, There is a couple reasons why I picked an 18-inch column
stills. The yields, I think, are more in
line with what we feel our demand will be in the short term and
long term. And also, an
18-inch column still, it's widely known by a lot of

(01:04:43):
distillers to make the best quality juice. And that was
really important to me. I really want our product to
be put in a position where it can be the best it
possibly can be. So we chose the 18-inch column still.
And the goal
is to do some contract distilling because,

(01:05:05):
I mean, it would be nice to
receive some money today while we're building. And I
don't have any... venture capital behind
me. I'm 100 percent owner. I don't have any, you
know, other people financing this. So it
would be nice to have a little bit of a bump for a

(01:05:26):
few years with contract distilling. But we didn't build the distillery to
be a contract distillery. We built it to make our own
product. So I think we'll probably need
to do contract distilling between two to four years. And
then after that, it'll be solely for our company.

(01:05:46):
I mean, just you
know and if we we do contract distilling for somebody and
we build a nice relationship you know we we won't you
know just abandon them we'll continue to work with them because once
you're part of the family you know you can't get rid of that little brother
or little sister you gotta gotta keep them there but i mean we're not gonna do anything

(01:06:08):
you know to disrupt their business or hurt them but the goal is
the goal behind the distillery was was to just build it
Another capacity question from the other
end of the production spectrum. You have this 553 acre
farm, you said in the opening, which answered one

(01:06:29):
of my questions I was going to ask, which was 553 acres,
is that the maximum you said you're open to expanding that if you
know if property becomes available, if the resources are
there. Something to mention is you're growing all
That's correct. Yeah, we're growing our corn and our wheat on
our property. Yeah, so

(01:06:55):
it's true. So part of the estate that we've built in,
and I don't mean any disrespect to any other distillery, you know, because a lot
of them were built not thinking to have guests at
their property, but, you know, and then
it was the guests who came as an afterthought. I
really want to build what I feel

(01:07:17):
is the first bourbon estate, where it's like you come there,
you have everything you need. you
know, shops, hotels, place to hang
your hat, entertainment, food. We
want to build an experience where people can stay there, you know, for
a few hours or spend a week there. And there's something that's fun

(01:07:41):
for everybody in the family to enjoy. Bourbon
has the main idea behind it, but there's other things
that we can do. You know, I know how to cook many
different Italian dishes that many people have never heard
of or seen, but they're really good. And so we'll be bringing some
unique things that everybody will like, because who

(01:08:01):
doesn't like cheese or bread, but done differently maybe. And
so we have a lot of cool things that we're going to bring. But
1 of the cool things is, is we want to do a vertical approach
and that's what we're working towards. Or we're farmed
bottle. We're. you know, you
take after, not everybody may

(01:08:24):
know this, but after you're done distilling, you
have what a byproduct called stillage, and you've
taken the sugars and turned that into alcohol,
and then you take that alcohol and you put it in the barrels, but
then you're left with, you know, a sugar-free oatmeal, you know,
per se. So the only way to get

(01:08:46):
rid of that is to feed it to cattle. That's the only way.
You can't throw it out on your field, you can't compost it, you
can't put it down the drain, so you feed it to cows. we
have an area on our farm that currently has
cows and we're going to be expanding that at some point too.
So then after we're done distilling, we have

(01:09:07):
that stillage that then goes and feeds our cows and then our cows will
be processed and then we'll feed our guests. So there's
a whole circle of life that we want to show and demonstrate
I like it. I like it. So Two

(01:09:28):
final questions. I'm going to kind of dip in tone a bit, and
then we'll end on the high note, which is, so
the first one is, with all the discussion
about Luca Mariana Distillery being a destination, visitor
center, restaurant, food, the 16-acre pond as well, It's

(01:09:53):
hard to look at it this way, just in light
of recent industry news. So in the last couple of months,
we've had a couple of major companies go under.
The one that comes to mind as most
relevant here is, you know, Kentucky Owl and Stoli, they were planning this huge amusement
park and like Kentucky Owl Park or Whiskey, whatever it

(01:10:13):
was. That always seemed a bit crazy
to begin with, just how crazy it
was. But nevertheless, there
is this sense that the industry is slowing down a little bit in general. The
demand is kind of peaked for craft and
so things are contracting a bit, perhaps as a market correction. So

(01:10:38):
we'll see in the next couple of years how much it corrects or
doesn't. Does any of this Do
any of these trends or events happening around you,
have you rethinking or changing any of their plans
Of course. I mean, I call it a

(01:11:01):
bourbon recession. A lot of people don't like to say that sort of
thing, or a bourbon crisis in some ways. And the
one thing that we've done is we're building a distillery for the long term.
So you expect ups and downs. And my family,
what What they I grew up with
a family that's in the construction business and there's always, you know, several good

(01:11:23):
years and it followed by several bad years. So kind of plan for
that. Um, and when. So,
and that we've kind of planned for that. Um, did
I think it ever get to be as bad as it is right now? I mean, not.
Not, not, not right now. I mean, if you had asked any industry
expert, I remember being at a party at, uh,

(01:11:46):
Donald Blanco's house to build their music construction. And
there was a bunch of people from all different distilleries. And
this was like in 2020 and they, they're
all saying that this was going to go on the boom until 2035, maybe in the
2040. I mean, they were like. thinking
this is never going to end. And here we are in 2024 and

(01:12:10):
experiencing it much sooner than anybody would have ever thought of. But no,
it's on my mind, but it's, uh, urban's not going anywhere.
People have a taste for it. It tastes better now
than it ever has. I mean, there's, you know, things in the past that people
may have shied away from because it, you know, They
would only drink it to be mean to each other and say, hey, let's put hair

(01:12:32):
in our chest. You know, we're a tough guy. We
can take that whiskey. But nowadays,
I mean, it tastes really good. It's not going anywhere. People are
going to drink it forever. And
it's just a hiccup and a little bump in
the industry. But it's going to come back. The

(01:12:55):
thing that I see, and I probably shouldn't even mention it because
maybe it's too controversial, but
the thing I don't like about the industry right now is
that you have small guys like me
that are really trying to do something special in the industry, and
then you got all these big money guys coming from

(01:13:16):
New York and Chicago and other places, and they're disrupting the
industry. They're changing things. In a way,
I don't really like I mean, you
see, it's not it'll it'll hurt people like
me and other people like me in the short term.
But in the end, if we can stick it out and

(01:13:40):
win and still stay in business, not me,
but other people like me and are able to hang
in there, we will win in the end. And what I mean by that
is, look at what's happening with Red Lobster or
TGIF or Chili's. All these restaurants
Or, with the exception of bread lobster, because it's fish place, but

(01:14:02):
all these restaurants are the exact same food, exact same menu,
but coming from the exact same source. But
it's just at
a different. marketed, you know,
restaurant and, and those places
aren't doing so well anymore. And these guys

(01:14:23):
with money that come into an industry and I
feel have are the reasons why we are in this crisis. These
guys have, have, you know, over-invested and
invested in ways, maybe even caused the, the, this
urban recession by pulling out and then selling things,
you know, for, for super cheap. But. They're

(01:14:46):
never, ever going to be able to compete with a company
like ours, because we are not about money. Yeah,
we have to make money to survive, but that's not why I'm
in the business. That's not why other craft distilleries
are in the business. We're truly in it to make a quality
product, give a quality experience, and to then

(01:15:07):
share that with the public. And
so it's going to be a little bit of a battle. You know,
it's not not going to be as easy as it could have been. Had
we opened up a few years ago when everything was, you
know. sunshine and rainbows, but

(01:15:28):
it's not something that we can't overcome. And we plan to
overcome and work through. And so
we're very optimistic for the future. We don't
think another category is going to replace bourbon. Some
people think rum's the next hot item, but
I just don't see that, or other

(01:15:51):
types of products. I think now with
the way bourbon has matured over the past, you know, let's
say 20 years, it's a
drink that's not going to go away. Americans are going to
continue to drink it. Canadians are going to drink it. Europeans
are starting to drink it. People in Asia and other

(01:16:12):
parts of the world. And it's not going anywhere.
And with that last question, you've now got
the distillery, you've mashing and cooking as of this week, the brick house
is built. And this is all to say, despite the
experience you've had, you're still a young guy. I

(01:16:37):
think. So you're
still a young guy. To me, you're not near
a point where you'd be retiring or passing on
the distillery, but that still brings up the question of now you've
got all this, what do

(01:17:00):
So, you know, the way the distillery is
set up is it's set up in a
type of trust so that it can be passed down through
generations. So, there's the tax liability and
all those things are figured out ahead of time so that, you know, my
kids can take the distillery and not have this tax burden and

(01:17:21):
pass it on to their kids. So, it's all set up in a way where I
can pass it down for generations to
come. Um, my son, he, uh,
he has, uh, you know, just side note, he has some allergies
at the end of school last year. He couldn't go to
school because of those allergies. And so he traveled with me.

(01:17:45):
from May, June, July, August for four months, and
he saw and did everything I did for four
months, and he's 16 years old now, and
he's pumped, he's excited, and he's looking forward to
the future of one day helping me run the company. My
daughter, she's graduating this

(01:18:06):
year. She has ideas of
what she wants to do and one day she plans to work
for the company as well. It's
set up to be a family business. It's set up to live
on forever. My goal
was to tell the story of my family in

(01:18:26):
our American dream. And it's really what we've built is the
American dream of why my family came to America and
the things that we came here to take advantage of.
And it hasn't really been about me. It's more about me telling
the story of my great-grandfather, grandfather, my
son, and then the future. So

(01:18:48):
I think maybe in the end, maybe
just like great artists have. Once
you pass on and die, then maybe they'll tell my story. But
at this moment in time, it's more about my family and

(01:19:08):
the other people. And I'm just going to continue
Fantastic. Well, Francesco, thank you so much for coming on.
Glad you finally got on the calendar to talk through Leukemia Mariana Distiller. I
think it's the perfect time to have you on.
There's so much going on and I really look

(01:19:29):
forward to sharing with listeners and what's you
know, what do you do in 2025 when people can finally come to the
distillery when they can try some of those distillery only
potential releases you've you talked about, and
just get to experience it. You're right there in the Whiskey Triangle easily
available during any visit to Kentucky. And

(01:19:50):
I guess I would highly suggest it and I look forward to visiting on my own.
Yeah, it's you're welcome anytime. And, you know, 1 thing
that we just did on December 5th for
the 1st time. And, uh, it's real exciting
as we did with the bourbon brotherhood. They came. It's
a big group, and they brought 10 guests, and

(01:20:12):
we did a single barrel pick where they got to pick a single barrel. We
went through that process, then we had lunch together at the
distillery, and then my team prepared
it in the bottling line. And then they bottled their
own single barrel, and they took it home that day. So it
was pretty exciting. So one of the unique things that we plan is

(01:20:35):
if anybody wants to do a single barrel, they can come and pick a barrel, bottle
it that same day, and have a nice three to four hour
experience at our distillery and enjoy that
process. And it was so much fun. And I'm glad those
guys took a bus. They had a
bus driver because they had a little more fun than I was

(01:20:55):
expecting, but it was a good time. All in
good fun. Well, when you come down, we'll at least
let you bottle one bottle and take it home. Or you
I appreciate that. Again, Francesco, thank you so much for
coming on. Hang on with me for just a minute after we finish recording. This has

(01:21:15):
been another episode of the Whiskey Ring Podcast. Thank you everyone for listening. Watch
for the show notes where you can find all the information you need to find
Lucumarium Distillery on socials, on email, on the website, and
where to buy as well. Thank you all for listening and I'll see you

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Ep. 170: Luca Mariano Distillery with Founder Francesco Viola

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