Ep. 185: Pursuit Spirits with Kenny Coleman and Ryan Cecil

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hey folks, welcome to what I think is going to be a very special episode of the whiskey ring
podcast today. I am thrilled to welcome on. Uh, two
guys who you almost surely know about if you're listening to my podcast.
Um, and you definitely seen around in the whiskey and the bourbon scene in
America. I'm thrilled to welcome on Ryan Cecil, Kenny Coleman. They
are the founders of such diverse

(00:24):
pursuits as bourbon pursuits as pursuit spirits. And,
uh, well, I just glad to have you guys on. So welcome.
Yeah, appreciate the invite. It's awful nice. As Ryan said before we
got started, it's fun to be on the other side of the microphone. That's
Just show up and answer questions instead of having to think of the question. I'm

(00:46):
I hear you. So in that vein, I thought I'd start out with
Kenny, a quote of yours from his interview
That's right. So you said, quote, podcasting is
more challenging than one would think. Sitting down with the guests, hitting the record button
and talking for an hour is the easiest part. There's a lot of

(01:09):
time invested in the front end regarding scheduling, equipment, shipping, idea
gathering, and guest vetting and the backend for editing, EQ,
publishing, and constant promotion. To
be on top of your game, you have to treat this as a business and
it takes a real commitment that can range from 15 to 40 hours a
week. End quote. As

(01:31):
you guys said, looking past the success, the millions of
downloads, the thousands of listeners, three shows a week,
guests, community round tables, there's a lot of work that
goes into what you guys do. And
now a full fledged spirits business with Pursuit Spirits. Realistically,

(01:51):
Well, I would probably say that I'm not what you would call a model
citizen when it comes to a healthy work-life balance, by
any means. I have an addictive
personality when it comes to finding something I'm really into,
turning it to 11, and not slowing down. And
maybe that's just kind of been the venture that I've kind

(02:13):
of made for us here. No,
I think that the better way to kind of position this is to
kind of look at well It was kind of a snowball effect on how
all this happened going from an idea that
Ryan had as a part of the making making the podcast and
then knowing that we don't know who's on

(02:34):
the other end of the headphones the
speaker whatever it is and who's listening to us and And
when you get feedback and ideas and people just spitball
stuff to you, you know, I mean, that's kind of how we took a little bit of
a left turn and, and made Pursuit Spirits out of it. And
now, I would say that, you know, with doing the podcast

(02:56):
and Pursuit Spirits, and finally relieving myself
of a day job, I'm getting myself more into a healthier
40-hour work week. But to be fair, I'm
not. I'm still working. To be
fair, I'm doing it to myself. I still work five

(03:16):
to six hours on a Saturday or a Sunday. And it's
just because I see what we have ahead of
us. And knowing that we have large projects, a very small team, and
I have skills that I can flex when it
comes knowing it's like, hey, we need to, we know that we're going to
come out with some new products. But to be able to do this, you have

(03:37):
five other bullet points you have to hit before then. So you've got to get product
shots, you have to get sell sheets, you've got to get presentations made,
you got to get these distributors. And so I spend that time trying
to lay that groundwork knowing that we have to make things look pretty. And
we just can't throw something against the wall and see
what sticks, or we just can't put something out in the market and hope for the best. But

(03:58):
there's a lot of groundwork and planning that has to happen. And knowing
that the podcast is still playing a big role in not
only just making sure that we stay relevant with inside of the whiskey
world, but it also helps us continue to talk about our brand, how
we can continue to position it, And the podcast and
the brand have really been going hand-in-hand for a while. The one thing

(04:19):
that we do love about this is that I feel like we might have
the best R&D lab than anybody else in
bourbon. We get a lot of bottles sent to us. We know exactly
what's good, what's hitting, what's missing. We'll
have these post-mortem conversations all the time going,
how the hell are these guys selling so much whiskey when it's not even that

(04:41):
good? But then we'll go, okay, is it the packaging? What's the hype
about? And so we have a lot of these internal debates all
the time and just trying to figure out how are we positioning ourselves
versus somebody else. And so the podcast is still playing a very big role
So as you're talking about, you have the balance between the podcast and the and

(05:03):
pursuit spirits. I keep wanting to say the spirits thing and
it's jogging my, uh, my vocabulary, but again,
this was you Kenny, as of, uh, also 2022, this was in whiskey and
leisure. You saw the dynamic is at that point, it was a
podcast with its own bourbon and
you wanted to see it flip. So where the bourbon brand would lead and have

(05:25):
its own identity with, you know, its own each
having its own long and fruitful future. This
is two and a half, three years after that initial thought. Where
Yeah, I'd say we're still probably
50-50. We're getting closer to that point where The

(05:49):
seesaw is kind of balancing towards the
other edge. The podcast
had to play a role in this, and that's when people come to us. They see
the value. That's how we get a lot of people that know about us to come from the
podcast. that's starting to flip
a little bit. One of the things we have inside these

(06:10):
walls here is that Bruzel is the gift that keeps on giving because he's
done a lot of stuff for the whiskey world
and especially even here at Pursuit. He loved our double oak.
He's done barrel picks with us. He talks about us quite often.
And would he have done that if we didn't have the podcast? He
probably would have. And he's done that for a lot of great craft

(06:32):
distillers out there. We're also very We're
glad that we have a great team here, here at Pursuit, that
are knocking out of the park when it comes to creating really
good experiences. And that's now starting to blossom
where we have, I just saw this weekend, like 182 five-star

(06:53):
Google reviews. And that just allows us to have people
find us and continue to connect with us, build those connections. I
still think that we're on the trajectory where people will
look at this and they'll know the Pursuit Spirits brand that, oh, it
was started as a podcast, but I care more about the whiskey than the podcast.

(07:13):
Because the reality is, is the marketplace... You're going
to have a lot more bourbon drinkers than you are going to have podcast
listeners that also drink bourbon. And we want to make sure that
we capture that larger audience, but we can still have
that inner circle of super fans. And, you
know, David, you including, I mean, you wore the uniform to today's show, right?

(07:35):
I got it out of storage. I mean, just kidding, it was just in the drawer. But yeah, it's
the old, I think I got this for, yeah, it must have been like six month Patreon
support. Yeah. Yeah, from a long time
ago. To your point, you've said Bourbon
Pursuit, it's such a niche, the podcast itself, that we
don't think of it as a niche because you've got to someone

(07:55):
like me, this massive following. But
A, you have to listen to podcasts. B, you want to listen to podcasts about
alcohol. C, it needs to be about whiskey. And D, it has to be about bourbon whiskey.
So necessarily, you always knew you
We have to have a broader audience than just

(08:15):
the podcast, even though quote unquote, just the podcast is
a lot of potential audience members to
The podcast is, you know, a lot of our supporters
of our brand that help us grow the Pursuit Spirit side are
actually our ambassador program that Kenny so
brilliantly put together. But we have. you know, diehard podcast

(08:39):
fans that go out and represent our brand for us out in markets, and
they're an extension of the podcast and of the brand. And
that's been, you know, none of this is possible without the
podcast. And as Kenny mentioned earlier, we learned so
much from the industry and all the bright minds in
the industry that we were able to, it was like, it

(08:59):
makes sense looking back, but that wasn't our intention. It's like, like
each episode we're interviewing someone learning from
them and then it like gave us this education
and learning that no one else has going into starting
a bourbon brand you know it just gave us this Kind
of like, uh, understanding of what it takes and

(09:22):
what, and we're still learning what it takes. It's not like we got figured out, but anyways,
it just, it, it looks like it was a planned out thing that, oh,
you start a podcast, then you start a brand. It wasn't, it just kind of organically happened
I think it works out better that way than saying, I'm going to create a
brand and then start a podcast, because you're just not going to
be able to get the followers. I mean, we were just very, very

(09:44):
lucky, fortuitous timing. We
had a good, healthy amount of curiosity starting
into this, and we wanted to just go on that mission and find as
much information as we could and share that with the world. And we've been fortunate to
And, you know, Ryan, I promise I will have questions that are directed

(10:05):
to you for you to start off with. I
know Kenny's more popular. He just does more interviews
is really the thing. There we go. You know, we got
I'm always up. I mean, that's why you're here. But Kenny,
you know, you've said yourself, you're a to use your words, a

(10:27):
piss in your Cheerios type. So definitely more
pessimistic. You know, you had to look into podcasting before
getting into it. There's really only one that stood out to you is WhiskeyCast with
Mark Gillespie. The rest were mostly guys just sitting
around in a group
of two or three and tasting a couple of pours. I

(10:49):
find as a fellow, sometimes pessimist, I
find it interesting that you seem to have found a
passion in what you guys do in the
podcast, but also in Pursuit Spirits. Was there something,
or is there something about bourbon and whiskey that

(11:09):
either shoves that pessimism to the side or gives you
enough optimism to be like, you know, I'm not going to piss in the Cheerios today. I'm going to
Oh, gosh. No, I try to piss in Cheerios every day. But
that's just my kind of take with it. And
maybe it's because I always strive for something

(11:32):
bigger or greater or what's after this. I'm
never complacent in anything that I do. Because
it's like, oh, cool, we won the championship, but
that's just state. Now we've got to take regionals. Now we've got to, you know,
whatever it's got to be, right? It's like, it actually goes the other way, right? It's regionals,
then it's state, then it's nationals, right? So that's the

(11:55):
kind of way that I look at things, knowing that the
job is never done. And when it comes
to like the just the sort of the pessimistic side
of me It's just I think it it helps my my
grit determination to know that I can continue to improve
on things I can make it better and I hope that translates

(12:16):
into something that we do here that
I can help push us and I know Ryan has always been one of
those people and thankfully he humors me when it comes down to
it, where he'll bring me a blend and be like, what do you
think of this? I think it's great. And I'll go, no, it's not that good at all. And,
you know, we have this sort of this back and forth relationship where

(12:36):
we can trust each other and know that I say it with
the best intention, because I know what he's capable of. I
know what we're capable of. And I know what
we think the consumer wants. We know that that's a moving target
every single day. But we feel that we're very confident in what we
can create as a really good standout product. But

(12:57):
that doesn't come with just being complacent and saying, hey,
it's good enough. And that's where I think I feel that
We wouldn't be in the position today with Bourbon Pursuit if
we thought we were just going to come out with something and be like, it's good enough, we'll see what
happens. That's where I feel that we have to
continually try to reinvent ourselves or find

(13:21):
a better mousetrap, a spin on a new angle, whatever it is, to
You know, and I think once you're into this
space for a long time, like we just celebrated 10 years
this year, and it's easy to become pessimistic about everything because
you kind of, you understand that there's a lot of romance, a lot

(13:41):
of marketing in the whiskey space, and don't
get me wrong, there still is, but a lot of stuff is just,
you know, I've been saying this a lot, but I think
it was, was it Steve Beam or somebody said 51% corn,
49% bullshit. And, you know, you kind of can, we
can sniff the bullshit and to what gives us optimism. And

(14:03):
I think why we created Pursuit Spirits, especially being a non-distilled producer
is like, you know, as a non-distilling producer, you know, a lot of folks
are taking the same whiskey, doing things, but telling
a story, you know, that helps sell the brand and what,
brings me optimism, and I think Kenny as well, is that we're
trying to do something a little bit more authentic, you

(14:25):
know, with partnering different distilleries, highlighting that different
states can produce, you know, really beautiful whiskeys, highlighting
the art of blending. We're really, you know, excited about what
we're crafting here at Pursuit Spirits, and it comes from a place of
authenticity. We're very transparent about what we do. There's,
you know, we're not, We're really bad at

(14:45):
marketing, you know, so that's because we are so open
and honest and transparent. But I think that's what has resonated with
folks. And that's why they trust us, you know, from the podcast, but they also
I can see that. I mean, I know some of the people that you've brought
on as your ambassadors to tell the story and speak,

(15:07):
and there are certainly people who, if you follow, you know, bourbon
too, whiskey, graham, whatever combination you want to throw in
there, you're going to know at least one of those people, probably multiples.
And that speaks in a lot of ways to a thought process of speak
with not only authenticity, but also a fairly hefty
dose of call it authority. Kenny,

(15:31):
like you said, you've tasted so many things at this point that
even if that mark of what a consumer wants is an ever-changing mark,
you've got a pretty narrow band around it as opposed to just
I feel like we're always shooting wildly too, but I'm glad you
say that. It always has a feeling of imposter syndrome

(15:52):
when it comes to myself because I've never been
good at tasting notes. I can taste something and
I can go, yeah, this is good, but I'm glad I have somebody
like Ryan I can lean on to say, okay, we need legit
tasting notes because people actually give a shit about them. And that's
when we need people like Ryan to step up. bring the graham

(16:13):
cracker and the fruity pebbles and the Count Chocula and
whatever else we need to help sort of make
There's a spectrum there. There's Dixon Dedman on one end who is
like, screw the tasting notes. If they're going to taste what they're going to taste, just
tell me where it's hitting in the mouth. And then on the
other end, you've got the guys that found North Canadian

(16:35):
whiskey, where Nick is purposefully writing just
incredibly florid tasting notes that
are, even if they're accurate, are just ridiculous. So,
and then just add in ones that you get from like Whiskey Advocate, Whiskey Magazine, where
you're getting desserts and things you've never heard of that haven't been made in 40 years.

(16:56):
It can be a little challenging for
a new consumer to get in there, especially if they don't really know much about bourbon
or rye. But in that vein, I think there's
an interesting generational parallel, and this is going
to sound like I'm calling you guys old and I really don't mean to. So this
is around the question of knowing your audience. So you, again, Bourbon

(17:19):
Pursuit right now, it's the largest whiskey podcast, certainly the largest bourbon podcast out
there. And you said, as I said before, since the beginning, you
don't want to be that just two, three guys talking around sitting, sitting
around talking. There we go. But rather more
like a WhiskeyCast type show where it's informational,

(17:39):
there's something more, but there's also that sense that when you guys started 10 years
ago, Ryan, as you noted, there really wasn't
much out there. It was pretty much Mark and maybe a handful of YouTubers
around. So you could really create whatever you
wanted to. Now he started in 2005, 10 years before you
started. Now you started in 2015 and now 10 years later. Ken,

(18:06):
you said in a business spotlight interview that the podcast now
is, you know, it's the best it's ever been. You're not asking generic questions anymore. Uh,
you're, you can really get down on the weeds and ask, you know,
business oriented questions, uh, production questions.
And there's a dynamic of a more educated consumer that you're approaching.

(18:27):
Now I've listened to pretty much every episode you guys have
done, at least to the main show, for sure. From the earliest ones
were like Al Young and, uh, God,
Arlan Wheatley, Mike

(18:54):
You know, I'm curious when you felt the dynamic
shift in the whiskey community that you were reaching, where
you felt you could kind of outright skip the, let's call it 101 stuff,
and go for the 201, the next level?
I think it was at a point where we finally got

(19:14):
the confidence. I mean, to be fair, it took us about
100 episodes to really find that groove where we felt that
I mean, the early days we would go on interviews and we'd be driving around
central Kentucky and we'd be driving the truck. I'd be sitting there
with a notepad and we'd be scribbling down questions. What are we
going to ask today? When we talk to Jimmy Russell, what are we going to ask him?

(19:37):
Now we don't do any of that. Now we just go in blindly and just wing
it. And that has been... It's a good and a bad thing, right?
I kind of wish that we could do a deep dive like you're doing today, David,
and go and find these nice little archives and nuggets to be able to talk about.
Time isn't as generous as it used to
be when it came to that. I

(19:57):
think there was just a point where the confidence was really boosted into
us. I don't know the exact turning point. It
might have been when Fred joined the show and gave
us more validity than we had before. Maybe it
got to the point where we just kind of said, we don't give a
fuck, and we're just going to ask whatever we're going to ask now. And we

(20:17):
don't have to really worry about, is
this good? And it just became more of a place that if
we're going to find it interesting, then other people are going to find it interesting.
And we just had more, I guess, I
don't, I don't really know what the word is, but we just had, there was a, there was
a spark there. There's a passion there. And there was just

(20:39):
enough education that we could get over those surface level
questions. And maybe it's because we asked so many surface level questions, the
same exact people or Multiple people just in different ways
that we got bored ourselves And so we just tried to figure out better ways
to harness our our interviewing skills And yeah, and
I think that's just kind of goes into what we said today. I don't think

(21:00):
the show is as good as it's ever been You'll
have some naysayers out there that don't think so because we
don't bring in all the old Titans of the whiskey world
like we used to but that's because we're in a position now
that Mostly everybody that comes on the show they come to us
We don't travel with equipment anymore or anything like that and that

(21:22):
has I wouldn't say we did some people out But it certainly doesn't
make it as easy for them to come But hopefully when we open our
spot on Whiskey Row in downtown and have that recording studio there
that's gonna be more of a permanent space that we can invite people in
to be able to have some of those connections from a long time

(21:42):
And we should note that that location should be open
relatively soon, right? I saw your painting, you had the drywall up
Yeah, hopefully 45 days, maybe 60 days.
That's kind of where we're at right now, as of April 14th,

(22:03):
Not a bad goal, I think. Worst case, knock wood, worst
case. You're certainly going to be open before the KBF and
run banks and all the shows when people come down. So, and
I really do hope to get down there hopefully soon
to see the new space once you guys are open. Now,

(22:25):
just a couple more questions on the more podcast
side. I do want to obviously give some time to Pursuit Spirits,
what you guys are doing now, the new location, and also the
P Club, which I'm a member of. Really looking forward to,
you know, the bottles that I
chose from the, from the list, very excited for

(22:46):
them. Um, I had to ask this question because
I didn't hear an answer in other ones, which is, so
I know what I knew you guys get so many bottles sent
to you. Um, I've had this struggle of
like, where do I put them? I've got a two bedroom apartment with a baby. Um,

(23:07):
not a lot of room. So I
have heard the answer to what you do with the bottles in terms of, you're basically an
open house when people come over, they
can try it and here, take a bottle if you can, if
you will, please. I'm curious though,
to hear over the years of podcasting, single barrels,

(23:28):
community of Patreon members, and
now to your own spirits company, how have your drinking
Good question. I would say it's
probably, well, thankfully it's not COVID anymore, but it's probably tamed
down a lot since then. You know, when

(23:50):
you talk about space, the good thing is, is now that we
have a 16,000 square foot warehouse, we don't have
a shortage of places to be able to put bottles anymore. So that's
great. I will say that my collection at home does
tend to dwindle because anything that ends up here rarely makes
it back home. So there's more along the
lines of depleting reserves at my house than it is to continually

(24:14):
replenish them. And as my drinking habits, I
don't know. I guess I still enjoy my neat pours on
a couple nights a week. I still find myself,
now's the time of the year when I start bringing out cocktails, summertime
cocktails, RTDs and everything like that. I'm still
very, you know, bullish on the category. I think it's

(24:37):
still going to be here for a very long time. But I don't think
that maybe the only thing that's probably changed a little bit is maybe my
age when it comes to it, because I can't recover as
easily as I used to. So my nights of saying having
like, 5-7 neat pours is probably
down to maybe 2-4 now. That's kind of

(24:58):
what it's come to. But that's okay. Just come
Yeah, and for me is consumption. You know a lot of
my consumption is focused on the spirits brand you
know a lot of times when I'm drinking other stuff people's
whiskey is for whiskey quickies or if Brian who's

(25:20):
works with steel box has a neighboring office to us, and he has something interesting
he wants me to try but mostly a lot of my Tasting
and drinking is our actual product, you know, tasting through
barrels, sampling, tasting notes, you
know, categorizing for blends and putting them in spreadsheets and
our databases. And that's really where a lot of my consumption

(25:42):
is. Uh, you know, sometimes I get froggy on a weekend when
it's somebody's birthday and have some, but most times when I go out,
I'm going to have cocktails. I'm not going to have knee pours. I love cocktails,
especially, you know, at restaurants and dinners and
whatnot. But, um, yeah, a lot of my consumption has moved

(26:04):
And we'll definitely come back to that a little bit later, because Ryan,
you've really taken the reins on the tasting notes,
even including, Kenny, what you said, like you're not big on tasting notes or,
well, actually, I don't know. You didn't say you're not big on tasting notes. You said you
I don't feel like I'm big on them at all. Give me the

(26:25):
stats. If you've got to sit here and tell me it smells
like blueberries, I'm like, I don't give a shit. All
I want to know if it's good or not. It's funny because I
had, you mentioned P Club earlier, and some
people had responded back and they're like, hey, I need the tasting notes of this
to see if I want to buy it. I'm going, can't you just look at the stats of

(26:45):
it and the price and figure out if that's what you want based on
who it's coming from? Because if I told you it
was hazelnuts and fig newtons, is that going to change your
mind? If it is, I'll just put that for every single release. Because
it doesn't really matter. It's going to change by the person. And it's
going to change whoever is saying it. Whatever he

(27:07):
says is not going to be the same thing that I say. And he might say dreamsicle, and
I'll say orange curacao. There's all kinds of just different
ways that it's hard to find something that I think that would work
Although, you said blueberry, and I'm going to have to have you try some Bren
French whiskey, which is pretty much universally considered blueberry

(27:27):
muffins in a glass. Ryan,
you said this, and it's something that I do the same thing on, which is when
you've tried so many things, When I go
out and I get something out, it's usually a cocktail. Like it's pretty

(27:48):
rare that I look up on a shelf of either restaurant or even a bar and see
like, okay, something I either don't have at home or haven't tried before.
So. I definitely, that's not
really a question. That was just more of a statement. I definitely feel the same thing on that one.
So I'm going to take a step
back to the 30,000 foot view for a second. based

(28:11):
on something Kenny, you just said about, you
know, having the old Titans on the show. And again, this
is an inflection point question of how things have changed. So how
has your relationship with the industry as
a whole, the bourbon industry changed from
being a podcaster to having a podcast related single burial series

(28:37):
Well, I'll actually push that one to Ryan. I feel like I'm hogging the microphone. But
I honestly think it's probably as best it's ever been, if not
better. People really look at us as authorities
Yeah, I think we have a great relationship with
almost everyone in the industry, and they've been. I think

(29:00):
we were at a time in 2015 where whiskey was growing, and
I'm not saying that we helped whiskey grow, but
we definitely had an impact, I think, of educating fans
and helping them become more loyal to the category. And we
brought a lot of free publicity to a lot of these great distilleries,
and I think they're thankful for that. I think they think we're good

(29:22):
stewards of the industry, which I think we are, because the
industry's been great to us, and we want to be great back
to it. And so, I mean, they've
been really awesome. You know, just
with having our own brand, you know, they've all been through kind
of the stages. Problems or anything we're

(29:42):
going through somebody in the industry has been there before and so it's
like we have a you know in my phone I'm you
know we have a issue with bottling or proofing or this or? Distributors
or whatever you name it you know I have somebody my phone that I could pick up
that will answer my call and help me Talk me
through you know what we're dealing with and so that's been

(30:04):
very cool and so Yeah, I mean, it's great.
I mean I do You know, sometimes there's probably I think.
We get invited to, you know, a ton of, you know, events and
stuff for brands and this and that. And it's harder and
harder for us to be able to like, whereas in the early days, I'm like, yes, we're
going to go and support that brand and do this event and cover it

(30:26):
for them. But it's so hard to do that now with, you
know, with our own brand, focusing on that to, to
really give the attention to brands, other brands like we used
to, but I think they understand that and respect that. And so it's
Sure. And with that, we'll move over to more

(30:46):
of the current venture. Again, Bourbon
Pursuit still going strong. You guys are doing the three episodes a week, which
still boggles my mind. Um, even if, even if you say the whiskey quickie
is a quick one, still boggles my mind. I
want to intro Pursuit Spirits a little more in
depth by saying that you guys are very active

(31:09):
on social media. You do a great job of
promoting the brands that way, for sure. You have a lot of followers, Facebook,
Instagram, whatever platform you use. Recently,
it was Sensory Training Day and
I have to ask, have the guys in the plant, including

(31:31):
Tim Van Riper, also at Single
So Joe who works here brought those in and he
was like, I don't know He's like I found these and I was like, I've never used
one of those before I'd seen you know, like boxers or

(31:52):
athletes use them to get hyper weightlifters. And
so He was using I hit it and he
put it under my nose like oh my gosh I was like, that would be a funny video like you hit
it. That's hilarious not But Yeah,
I just thought it'd be a hilarious idea. I've had this idea of doing,

(32:12):
you know, because Kenny was talking about tasting notes and, you
know, the allure of tasting notes in the
whiskey community, we always look at you
know, what's going on in the industry and what people think are important. And
it's like, where are the holes that we can poke and
make fun of type things? It's like, and tasting
notes is one of those. And so I have this idea of like, okay, sensory

(32:36):
training, like, you know, let's poke fun of like, you
know, having this training methodology so that
we can get our noses in the best shape. And so that's, We
really try to find, you know, make bourbon as a category fun and
humorous because it can't, as we know, you get on Facebook
forums and groups and you have a bottle

(32:57):
share and people get really serious about, you know, these
whiskeys or these bottles and the stats and details and that's all
great, but it's like two whiskeys supposed to be fun and we try to
I mean, I really enjoyed it. I honestly don't scroll
much on social media anymore, just because I'm usually posting on it. then

(33:18):
I'm just tired. So whenever one of your guys' videos comes
up, it makes me want to watch it. I'm curious. So
granted, the smelling salts might've been kind of an out of the box thing,
but is the idea of pushing that new kind
of sensory analysis a normal thing
that you have implemented or is it more like you just wanted to mess with

(33:42):
Oh yes it was total joke like I mean
I do like so I'm a huge Nancy Frehley fan
and she has like her sensory flavor wheel
of you know it's got I don't know 200 different but
one the reason I like hers is because it like ties. like
a note to an actual like chemical compound in the

(34:05):
whiskey and what's creating that. And so I've tried
to train my nose and palate using that. I'm
never going to be Nancy Frehley. She's got like, you know, one of
the best noses and palates, whatever. But, you
know, as far as training goes, we don't really have a training regimen here.
I will mess with that. I really how

(34:27):
I train my nose and palate is, you know, just when I'm out
in the world when you're taking a walk and you smell like honeysuckle
or you know fresh violets or fresh cut grass or you're at
the market and you pick up a an apple or a blueberry or
you know any type of produce or if you're at a restaurant you
have a meal I try to like capture those moments and be present in

(34:50):
the moments where it's into my memory it's so like whenever
I take a sip of whiskey and it's those I
have those things in my mind or memory that it triggers. And
so that's kind of how I've trained my nose and palate for
tasting notes. But no official regimen. I wish we did. Nope.
There's no Olympics of tasting around

(35:12):
I know some people who have sensory
machines that they'll send a particular thing through either
a pyrolyzer or a I
don't know, let's just say a machine. And if the person can't
pick up a certain note on it, they're not in the program. So

(35:32):
that's the more extreme end of things, but that's
more in Scotch though. They can get a little crazy. So in, in starting
your own brand, Being
in Kentucky is a unique challenge. And

(35:53):
I've been, you know, I've been fortunate to talk to brands from around the
country, around the world, uh, at this point. And a
lot of them will focus on this idea of owning your backyard before
expanding and not stretching yourself too thin. Now,
um, you know, in that same business spotlight interview, Kenny,

(36:14):
you kind of addressed this. You said it's, it's. You
want to own your backyard, but that has to come with the asterisk of
unless you live in Kentucky. So,
you know, in the, in
the way that you've had to build a brand in Kentucky where
it's so saturated and people are expecting perhaps

(36:35):
a certain thing, how have you adapted that
own your backyard model to still
I feel that we haven't abandoned own
your own backyard. We are building our spot on

(36:55):
Whiskey Row, but that's not to own
our backyard. We're not gonna be able to go
and convince one out of every five
people in the city of Louisville to not drink Baker's Mark and to start
drinking Pursuit. It's just not gonna happen. So
we've had to pivot and shift and find interesting ways to...

(37:18):
get into an audience that does actually care about us.
The Whiskey Row location, that is going to be for the
foot traffic that is going to be for people that are visiting here. We
can't deny the fact that tourism and
bourbonism is just a huge driver and we need to
be able to capture a part of that. And I think that we have a

(37:39):
story and a presentation and a whiskey that is completely
different than anybody else's. And so we want to make sure that we are putting
our best foot forward when it comes to that. But, David, to your
second point there is, how do you go and do
you own your own backyard? And how do you find that? And
I feel like we're doing that with P Club now. That is

(37:59):
a way that we are getting to our customers that
will come back to us again and again and again. It is
how we are giving them access and we're able to
go beyond just making sure
that people have one bottle united at their house, but it's
making sure that their whole shelf, they have a shelf of

(38:21):
stuff that can come from Pursuit Spirits and we give them access to
interesting and rare and unique barrels or whatever it is that
you know, would only be accessible if they were here in our
backyard. And so by being able to kind of turn
that model over on its head, because most of
the time you talk to anybody that's a consultant, they'll say, own your backyard. And

(38:43):
that means you know, going to bourbon and bow
ties here and whatever, like Brian said, other 50 other
events that happen per month here in Louisville, it's just not happening.
You just can't do it. You would go broke just in the process of
trying to sponsor all that, staffing it and everything like that.
But you're also competing with the other 30 brands that are

(39:04):
also going to be there every single time. So this allows us
to be able to leapfrog that and be able to find
an avenue that we can get it into the hands of people that actually give
a shit and not just hopefully praying and getting in
Yeah, Kentucky's – we do well in Kentucky, but

(39:26):
I think it's because of the tourism aspect. I'm not sure
– obviously our friends and family support us and
buy our bottles, but I don't know that the general consumers that
aren't fans of us because they have the Woodford's, Old Forrester, Maker's
Mark – you name every legacy store, they've had them. You
know, they've been fans of those brands for a hundred years. And so, um,

(39:51):
I think if Kentucky was missing that tourism aspect, we
wouldn't do as well here, but thankfully there's a lot of tourists coming here,
a lot of podcast fans. And so we're able to capitalize
I'm glad you guys were able to find a space on Whiskey Road
too. It's going to be in the, in the 700 block across from Michter's
near the Louisville Sluggo Museum. So lots of,

(40:13):
lots of places to go by. There was another place next
door to you that Ryan, you mentioned earlier was a seal box
Well, they have an office in our warehouse on Whiskey Road will
Victor's is right across the street. Frazier down the

(40:36):
In a way, you kind of have a good micro-neighborhood,
if you will, too, of these newer brands. And
I'm including Mictors as a newer brand as its new iteration. So
new brands that have made a name for themselves in Kentucky, using
Kentucky products, or I mean, in your case, using New York, Kentucky,

(40:57):
and Tennessee, still new
brands who have broken through. I
am curious because you've got Fred on
the show. When creating the brand, I heard
that Fred advised you that from his
time in the wine world, everyone who tried to create their own brand in

(41:20):
the wine world just crumbled. And
you've clearly seen enough from where you sit
of people who've tried to create their own bourbon brands and whiskey
brands and have not succeeded or who are now struggling
with a downturn. When Fred

(41:40):
gave you that advice, was there a particular response
that you guys had or was it really something to reflect on as
Yeah, I think I remember when Fred said that to us and You
know, I think I just have, you know, Kenny's always a
pessimist. I'm always like the, you know, glass half

(42:03):
full and opportunity guy. And so I was
like, yeah, but that's wine. And, you know, and I
don't know, I just had faith and confidence that we could, we could do
this because, you know, we, you
know, people in the wine world, reviewers, this and that, they really, you

(42:24):
know, build their, Their legacy kind of
like Fred has as as a reviewer. I don't think Kenny and I have ever
like positioned ourselves as Reviewers to
as as our mark like we we were more informational
more knowledge more getting this
these pits and pieces of information to our fans and us

(42:47):
learning about that and I think if we
were just reviewers, I think that would probably
put us in a harder position because then you lose your credibility. You
have, you know, you're trying to review for other
brands and how do you, how can you be, I guess,

(43:07):
honest and able to do that when you know that you have your brand over
here. And so I think there's a tension between those two
things. And so, I don't know, when he first said
that, I probably should have listened to him, because starting the bourbon brand, it's
been the hardest thing we've ever done. It's been very tough. And, you
know, I think we naively thought it was going to be easy, but, you

(43:28):
know, nothing is easy. And we're having
the time of our life. I mean, there's days that we're like, what
the hell are we doing? But we get to be in the whiskey industry,
And for a lot of us on, on the listener side,
I think it's arguable that you guys are, you've taken

(43:49):
hold of the dream that a lot of us want to have, that we've got
our, you know, our name behind a product. And I
think on a second level, on top of that, not just a name on a product, but a
product that you are doing something with. You
know what I mean? You're, you're actively blending,
you're seeking out different sources, you're Yeah,

(44:13):
you're just, you're doing something with the whiskey rather than just emptying it out of someone else's
barrel, slapping a label on it and putting it out there under
a new one. So it's for me, at least
that's certainly something that is kind of living the dream, even
if it is hard, a lot of debt, a lot of
asking friends and family for help on that one. So I,

(44:36):
for me, I definitely look forward to hopefully doing that someday, but
that's, that's a long way off. So
I want to go back to, again, to 2022. There
was a lot of stuff in 2022 that came out in the research. You
were at the Kentucky Bourbon Festival and talking to the

(44:57):
guys over at Scotchy Bourbon Boys. And in
listening to the interview, to me, it came across as kind of a, the
producer's moment. You know, you've got, at that point you had a lot
of barrels in inventory, asset-based
loans, you know, the things that you would do to create a business and get
the financing you need to move the business forward. However,

(45:19):
at that time, at least the way you were describing it, Kenny,
was that the barrels were worth more
than the business. Um, so
that to me, that's why the producer comes in. It's like, you know, you can make more money with a
flop than with a hit in some ways. Uh,
you know, three years later. In some

(45:40):
ways, it's great to have the inventory, but also we see barrel prices coming
down, costs coming down, contractions in other ways. Has
that dynamic with the costs involved continued
in such that the barrels are still worth as much as the business? Let's

(46:02):
Yeah, so no, it's flipped a little bit because
now that we can value the business based on sales, and
so we can see exactly what our revenue dollars are per year, we
can look at some of the... The
way that we go through an evaluation is you can look at some of
the prior sales. Penelope sold

(46:22):
at top of the market, and that was, I think, like 10.5 or 11x. revenue,
and so when we take that into account, we say, okay, we can drop that by a few points,
and we can see exactly probably where we're at today. The
thing that's probably hurt us the most when it comes to the barrel prices is
getting the loan-to-value ratio of what we need. If anybody out

(46:44):
there works at a bank or knows lending, that's
probably the thing that's probably hurt us the most in the short term, because we're
just a couple years away from the business being able to bankroll itself, and
we don't need to worry about having bank
loans to be able to satisfy what we need to be able to carry our inventory,

(47:04):
but instead the business will be able to buy the barrels, fund
it ourselves, and not have to rely on that outside capital. But
until then, like I said, we need about two years, maybe three
years until that happens, because we've got about five years underneath
our belt right now. So the part that kind of
hurts is because when Kentucky bourbon

(47:25):
at four years was worth $4,000 a barrel,
well, I could go ahead and I could get a new fill for 750, 800 bucks, and
within a month, it's worth 1,200. you
know, do the math and so on and so forth. So we could use
the collateral of the old barrels to essentially pay for

(47:46):
all the new barrels the following year without actually having to go
into our pocket. We haven't, we have yet
to miss an interest payment. We have yet to miss anything from
our banks. But the banks are getting, and
even a lot of them are getting a little skittish nowadays because of the
oversaturation, the excess inventory, and so the loan-to-value ratio

(48:06):
is coming down, which does mean that we'll have to go into our
reserves, which isn't good because that
was money that we were hopefully going to not have to spend,
but it is what it is, and maybe it just means that we don't
have to pay it all back in the future, but,

(48:26):
I mean, you said people We
all spent a lot more during COVID than we had previously, like
spending on premium spirits in particular, but just the
whole spectrum, people were spending more. And we
took a step back in 2023 and especially like
July and August. For myself, I had a couple of single

(48:49):
barrels come out at that point. And I remember the ones that came out in July and
August sold almost immediately. The one
that came out in September just sat. And it
was fascinating to see the light switch just turn
off in that way. Now, overall,
that trend has continued and you just described

(49:10):
in some ways how you're preparing pursuit spirits for this, how you're forecasting
for that. It's perhaps a Kentucky
specific question, but I think it's relevant in that sense. Are
the Banks in Kentucky now more
familiar with the whiskey industry insofar that
new companies can come in and say, Hey, I want to start a whiskey company.

(49:39):
So it is easy, and that's what we've, I forget
when we talked about this, might've been on, I don't know what episode, we
said, you know, is now the best time to start a whiskey company
Yeah, and it's kind of maybe the same
thing as, you know, when's the best time to invest in the stock market, you

(50:01):
know, last week, right? And I still
think that, probably holds true still, even
today, you're not going to have, you're going to have a, the
good thing is you can come in today and you have options, right?
You can, there's going to be availability. There's some interesting barrels
that are on the market and, and you can get those and, you

(50:21):
know, you can make your flash in the pan and, and you can do a,
a fun one-off sale. But
that just kind of goes back into the ethos of what we had at United
at the very beginning of why we didn't do that. And
that's because you don't have control of your inventory. You don't
know what the future is going to look like. Yeah, I mean,

(50:43):
David, as we were sitting here, I actually got an email from a broker that
says, hey, we've got some eight-year beam barrels that are
all clocking in over 141 proof apiece.
Are you interested in getting them? And the prices were actually really good.
But what's the problem with that, right? It's like, cool, I can do
a one-time release of a couple of barrels I can get. Then what?

(51:05):
Then I'm searching for my next lunch. And that's not
what we wanted to get into, because you're always constantly
chasing after the next thing, and you can't have any
sort of consistency whatsoever. So I still feel a... very,
like we made a good sound decision to continue to keep doing contract
distillation. We can do spot purchases when necessary. But

(51:28):
that contract distillation, even though that we're not getting the loan to value that
we may want, as we did have, but it secures our
foundation for our future, knowing that we're going to have the
whiskey that we need to be able to hit the goals that we need to hit as well. I mean,
we want to be about a 50,000 six pack brand,
right? I mean, that's really what we want to be. For a

(51:50):
small brand, it's nothing to shy at. For a big brand, they'll
probably laugh at us because that's like one
release of Elijah Craig barrel proof per year, and they do three
of them. So it's still small in regards of
the overall category, but for us, it's something that we feel is
Fair enough. I mean, I had

(52:13):
a question to follow up and just went right out of my head. In
looking to create this P-Club, this membership
subscription driven club for
Pursuit Spirits, were there other, let
me rephrase that. You don't have to

(52:35):
name names if you don't want to, unless you want to, but were there other membership
services or subscription services that you looked
at to determine, okay, this is what we do like, this is what we don't like
Well, to be fair, when it came to the subscription service,
I didn't feel like there was anybody that was doing it well. I mean,

(52:57):
you had... Beam and Maker's Mark,
and they were kind of doing it, but it was very
restrictive on what you could get, and you couldn't do
a whole lot with shipping. And I'd say
probably the best analogy we saw was probably Barrel King.

(53:17):
I mean, they were doing a really good job of creating a
subscription, a membership model, and having that be
the thing that people get. But it kind of
goes back to what Beam and Makers was. It's like, you get whatever
they're putting out. There's no customization. There's
no like, oh, let me add this. Let me do this. It's like, you

(53:40):
subscribe. Whatever gets in the mail is what's there. I've heard
other people say that it's a once a month kind of thing, and
that's too much. what I
wanted to do is figure out, how can we retain people
for the longest time? Because if you are,
if you were doing a bottle a month club and you do something literally one

(54:02):
bottle per month, how much are you spending in shipping costs
that you could sit there and say, well, let's condense this to a
quarter. And if it becomes too much, well, let's
give people the opportunity to skip the release. Like you don't have to buy
it this time, but We want you to stick around for
next year or the next time or whatever it's going to be. And

(54:23):
it was quite a process to go and try to find the right software
solution out there. A lot of times they said, oh,
yeah, you need to be running on Shopify. We run it all through there. I'm
not replatforming my entire operation to
be on Shopify just for this one thing. And there
were some that said, oh, not only do you, not

(54:44):
only can we take care of your POS, but we have our own homegrown POS and our
own online. And it's like, okay, I don't want some half-baked
solution by a tech company that when I'm
looking at this, like I've worked in tech, I know what a good user
interface looks like, and this is not a good user interface. And
so it was a very kind of needle in a haystack moment

(55:04):
to find, but finally found somebody that was able to
integrate in with our existing POS, which is Square. We've
been big fans of using Square for quite some time. Being
able to not only make it feel like it's
a frictionless sort of way
to make it happen is because it's like, David, if you came and

(55:25):
you visit us at Pursuit and you're a P Club member, well, you have
a digital membership card, you should be able to just scan that, and
anything that's in the gift shop, you know, besides alcohol, now you get 10% off.
I shouldn't have disparate systems that can't talk to
each other and stuff like that. So finding something that would, all
inclusive and all integrated, it was tough, but finding that actually

(55:48):
finally happened, Could there be, could
it be better in regards of like, the user
experience and maybe some better lipstick on the UI? Yeah,
probably. But for what it is, and having this sort of
launchpad moment, I feel like it's been very successful.
I've talked about on the podcast before, when we launched P Club, I was hoping to

(56:10):
have 50 people as a part of P Club when we had our first March release. And
as of yesterday, we're sitting a little bit over 450 people. And
that is absolutely amazing. Now my goal
of having 500 by the end of the year just jumped to a thousand and
our goal was to get to maybe around 5,000 members

(56:30):
in the next two to three years. Like that's where we want to be with it because
that is And again, if you listen to the podcast, you
probably know this already. It's like, I look at that as
annual recurring revenue from a business perspective. That's how
software businesses are built, because you can build it based on a subscription model.
And that allows you to essentially invest for

(56:53):
the future, knowing that I've got this money I can count on coming in
time. And I don't have to worry about what can happen if
I don't make sales this quarter. It's like, okay, I know that I can count on
this happening at least per quarter that we can go ahead either invest
I love it. I, I don't mind being a, uh,

(57:13):
call it a beta user. It's not really in this case of beta user, um, because it's
a full launch, but, um, to be the first, you know,
10%, let's say of, of what you're looking to get to, you
know, I don't think any POS is perfect for the UI. That's
I mean, personally, I didn't find any difficulty with that. Uh, and there's

(57:34):
also always going to be one person who complains anyway. So I'll take
that for what you will. Yep. So just in the last, you
know, 15 minutes or so, I've got you, I've got three
more questions. I think I'm going to ask you and I'll hold off the rest for, for
others to dive into. So
I'll go back to the beginning to go to the future. So the first question

(57:55):
of the three is, you know, this whole environment of
ventures you've got started with
the origin story that your wives knew each other, you and Ryan's
wives. Now that
you're 10 years in and you've got all this happening and all that, do
the wives ever hold it over you like, you know, this wouldn't happen without us?

(58:20):
Um, my wife does like to remind me all the time how
this was all her idea. And so, uh, whenever
we have a good moment or wherever we are talking about something, she'll, she'll
hang that over our head. There are times when
I get to have conversations with Tiffany as well, because Ryan
is, Ryan's really good about not working on

(58:42):
the weekends and I am not. And
so knowing that we're opening up downtown, I
kind of talked to her. I said, hey, it would be really great if we could have
Ryan for some Saturdays here and there because people are going to expect him to
be in there and so on and so forth. And she just
gave me the most evil eye that I think I haven't gotten since in

(59:04):
a very, very long time. But that's because their kids are
very active. They have a lot of different activities
that they're all, they have different commitments for
already. And it also goes back into the days when,
so Tiffany's a hairstylist, and so she used to do a lot of
stuff for weddings and stuff on the side for that. And so Ryan

(59:26):
used to complain to her that she was working too much on Saturdays. And
so now it's being flip-flopped, where then
she says, no, you told me I couldn't work on Saturdays. Now you're not allowed to work on
Saturdays. So it's all kind of being flip-flopped that way.
But to be fair, the
girls are very supportive. They're

(59:48):
cautiously optimistic as well, because they're not
pessimistic, but they're not They're
not like, oh my God, this is going to go to the moon sort of thing. They're
just making sure that we don't lose every penny that we've earned so
All right. And so from
the beginning, we go to the future, which is, you've

(01:00:10):
spoken of wanting to make this a generational business, if
possible, and one that could be passed to either your children or someone
to whom you can entrust the business going forward after you've said, I'm
good, I'm retiring, down the road. Many,
if not all newer distilleries, NDPs
alike want this. They want that generational transfer

(01:00:34):
and for their brand and name to live on. Yet
you and I both know from seeing brands over the years, large
and small, that not a lot are going to achieve that. There
are plenty that are going to be one and done, or maybe two generations.
If not, if they make it past the first. In
your estimation, how are you setting pursuit spirits up

(01:00:56):
to succeed where others will inevitably fail?
I'd say the one thing that we've been very smart about is
that we haven't tried to go too big too fast. You
know, just doing small market rollouts, smaller blends, making

(01:01:17):
sure that we are not putting stuff in the market and letting
it sit on there, backing the market up with support and
ambassadors. We have made sure
to not overextend ourselves. When
we talked about that long-term goal
of 50,000 six-packs, that's something I feel is attainable for

(01:01:38):
Ryan and I. We can manage that with a small team. And
I think that's very possible of having maybe one,
two people focused primarily just on sales, having
somebody in production. We got our team that runs everything on Whiskey
Row. And Ryan and I, we dabble some things here and there.
I think we just need to hire a compliance and finance person

(01:02:00):
to take some more stuff off our plate. But once
you get beyond 50K, it becomes a whole different animal.
It's a different beast of trying to get to 100,000 six
packs a year. I mean, that's just a lot of whiskey to go sell, and
it's a lot of market recognition that you need to have. And
we just felt like we

(01:02:22):
could manage it at that point, but beyond there, we couldn't. Other
things we're doing to try to set this up for more success is
making sure that we are making the right moves when
it comes to our product and the
market. Product-to-market fit is probably the toughest thing
that you can find in this industry because there's no There's

(01:02:48):
no secret sauce when it comes to whiskey and bourbon. There's nothing
that nobody else can come up with that somebody
else can't copy. There's no IP in this world. I
mean, I'm looking at a bottle of Penelope's old-fashioned
peach whatever thing that just came out. We
could do the same exact thing tomorrow. If they come out and

(01:03:08):
they have a huge hit, we'll undersell them by a dollar and
we'll just go ahead and play that game. And that's the unfortunate thing
about this business, is that there's nothing that really stops
anybody from doing that. For
us, when we talk about product-market fit, is looking at our own packaging and
saying, what do we have right and what do we have wrong? We

(01:03:32):
came into this not wanting to just buy a bunch
of 14-year-old barrels, make a splash, and then figure
out where our next barrels are coming from. But instead, we wanted to
focus on, let's create something completely different that is ours.
How do we find a taste profile that is uniquely Pursuit?
And we found that. The one thing that we

(01:03:53):
are failing at is making it easier for
the customer to understand. So that is what we're excited to be able to do with
our new launch of an updated packaging, is to be
able to make it easier for the consumer to
look at it and know exactly what it is. We did that right when
we did our double-oaked bourbon release with our current

(01:04:15):
United line, because it says right on there, double-oaked bourbon.
It's big, it's loud, it's hard to miss. But when you look
at what we call our oak collection bourbon, our toasted bourbon, you
had to squint. You had to read the lines to see what it meant.
And it had all these sort of like hidden things everywhere. And
that was just the wrong thing to do. So now we've learned

(01:04:37):
from our mistakes. We're going back to basics and saying, how can we
make it easier on the consumer? When they look at it, they don't have to
think, what am I buying or what does this mean? But
instead, it just says it right there in front of you. So we're doing that with callouts and new
labels. The new packaging is going to be, I
love it because we're hearkening back to raised

(01:04:58):
glass with white lettering on top
of it, which is sort of reminiscent of very pre-pro
and a little bit post-pro packaging. And
it just kind of really just pops and it looks good on the shelf. I
don't have one here in my office to be able to show you right now, or
I would, but that's one of the things that we're really looking forward to

(01:05:21):
and making sure that we're setting ourselves up for that near-term success to
be able to make sure that we can hit that 50,000 six-pack goal. Beyond
there, I mean, David, it's a lot of just flying
by the seat of your pants and making judgment decisions and
taking feedback from our team when they say, hey, we should be here,

(01:05:42):
or we should be doing this. Or ambassadors say, what do you think about
doing this event? Or how do we donate bottles
to here that might get some more eyeballs on us? And it's
good. It takes a village to be able to build a bourbon brand. Maybe
not a village, it probably takes an army, to be honest with you. But
those are the things that I feel like we're setting ourselves for success. I

(01:06:05):
don't know what the future is going to hold, whether it
would be generational or whether it would be something that, you
know, Diageo or Constellation or Brown Foreman would
look at us and go, oh, they look like a good acquisition target. We'll
see if that day ever comes. Right now, I don't feel
that it will be anytime soon, knowing that all the big drinks

(01:06:27):
companies are hurting right now. But we'll be
able to weather the storm. Like I said earlier when I was talking about how
big we'll be, that's still so small. That's very niche in
regards to the size of the market. We would need somebody like
them to actually go beyond there. and figure out how we could make
it bigger than where we're at, because we only

(01:06:48):
have so much money that we wanted to put on the line, get
it from banks and everything like that. And so we'll kind
of see how time will tell with that. But right now, we're
in a very good position with not only just the
the business direction, as well as financially
and with, you know, Ryan and I just being able

(01:07:14):
So what you're saying is you
No, no, there's none of that yet. In fact, knowing
that we just had to submit our taxes, I probably need to figure out
that loophole of how we pay our kids to make
sure that they have something that we can deduct on taxes. Yeah, all that sort

(01:07:35):
As long as they're 14 or older should be fine. So
for, for the last question, normally I've been asking a legacy question
as a final question, but it's rare that I, I
mean, this is a different kind of interview. So. I
want you to ask a question. It's going to really reveal my, the depths of my
geekdom, my nerddom here, but it's because you've

(01:07:56):
had so much exposure to the industry and its history and everything that
goes into it. So I listened to the history of
Egypt podcast. And the host, Dominic
Perry, great interviewer, he asks, whenever he has
an Egyptologist come on for an interview episode, he always finishes by
asking if there's one thing you could know for certain about ancient

(01:08:17):
Egypt that we don't know, we have no idea, we're
unclear on, what would it be? So I'm going to adapt that
question. and say, knowing
everything you know about bourbon, American whiskey history, if
there's something, one thing that you could know for certain that is unclear

(01:08:43):
I probably have two. One is more historical
based and then the other is probably just going to be
scientifically based. The
historical question is, how
did we get here with bourbon? We all know
the stories of Elijah Craig and all

(01:09:04):
this fictitious shit that nobody really has any clue
of how it happened. But it's unfortunate that we
have this huge category that people devote
their lives, people devote their hobby and
their time, their money, their... all
this other kind of stuff, too. Yet there's really no answer

(01:09:27):
of how... I mean, hell, maybe it's just the reason
why people believe in Jesus and God. It's like, it's
faith, right? But at least we have bourbon. We can still drink the
bourbon today. But I look at
that and I think, you know, how great would it be to just be like, okay, at
least we have a founding father or we have something that we
can look back to. And so it'd

(01:09:51):
be kind of good to kind of know that if we could put a bow on that, that'd
be nice. From the scientific
perspective, I would say proof,
proof in a barrel. Understanding exactly how
proof changes, where we put something in

(01:10:11):
at 120, 125 proof and then sometimes
people look at it and they're like,
oh, it's 141, it's the best whiskey that has ever been around, right?
And it's like, you know, how does something go from, from
just that into, you know, scientifically, I want
to know. I mean, we all know proof changes in the barrel, and it

(01:10:32):
can be from, you know, the water inside there,
to the oxidation, to a lot
of different things that do contribute to it. But, like,
if you were able to programmatically plot that
out to know how to mimic
that. And so it happens every single time, from a scientific perspective,

(01:10:57):
You can see the tech background working in your mind,
Yeah, what a reverse engineer, like, like, how can
I start with something 120 proof and end up with over a 140 every
single time, because we know what the today's consumer wants. But
then again, if they're all over 140, would anybody care?

(01:11:21):
Yep. And then you'd have to put everything on top of Coy Hill. Yeah,
exactly. So that's
as much time as we've got. Thank you, Kenny. Thank you,
Ryan, for coming on. It's been a blast to have you guys on the other side
of the screen and the other side of the mic for me. Hang on with just
a sec for me after we close out the recording. That's right. Sure.

(01:11:43):
All right, it's been another episode of the Whiskering Podcast. Thank you again
to Kenny and Ryan from Bourbon Pursuit, from Pursuit Spirits, from
so many appearances and podcast episodes. Catch
up on them all wherever you get your podcasts, wherever you get your shows.
There will be of course links in the show notes, but you probably have them already still.
Go like rate, subscribe, go to the,

(01:12:06):
where you have the Google reviews. Let's get it up over. Let's say you had
about 250 or 150. What do you say about 180 right
now? So yeah, let's push it over 200. We can do
that. We've got a small listenership, but we can do the over 200. So let's push it over
there. And with that, this has been another episode. Thank

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