Ep. 188: BlackFork Farms with Tyler Gophen

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Levine (00:00):
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of The
whiskering Podcast. Today. We'rescratching another state off of
our list that we have not yetbeen to on the podcast, that is
South Dakota. And to talk aboutSouth Dakota, to talk about, in
particular, black folksdistillery. We have Tyler
goplin. He is currently theproduction manager and on a as

(00:21):
he said before recording a verysmall team, we're talking five,
six people, depending how youlook at it. So Tyler, welcome
on. Yeah,

Unknown (00:28):
nice to Thanks for having me. And so this is a new
thing for us. We haven't been onany podcast, so I appreciate you
reaching out and having havingus on your podcast.

I was going to say, usually I do you know, as
much research as I can for foran episode of looking into other
interviews and stuff, but youguys are, I don't know if it's
like, tight lipped or, you know,you're owning your backyard kind
of thing, so it's more local,but in some ways, that makes
them just as much of achallenge, because then I got to
think of other questions, youknow, yeah, yeah.

Unknown (00:59):
That adds a whole, new challenge for you, I suppose
that is, that is one thing thatwe've, I, you know, for just to
give you a kind of, more of areason on that, yeah, that's
that you kind of saying thatwe're targeting our backyard.
That's actually, you know,basically all we focused on,
just since we're able to selfdistribute in the state of South
Dakota, you know, that's wherewe've focused mainly on up

(01:20):
until, really, last summer,where we added our online store.
We've really just been focusingon South Dakota. So our our
audience is quite small comparedto the the national bourbon
audience. So that is probablyone of the, the main reasons
that we haven't gotten as asmuch, you know, podcasts and
other other things of thisnature.

Gotcha. So we should say it. South Dakota is
not a control state. It's not adoes no liquor control boards or
ABCs over there. But before weget to the state, let's start
where we always start. Does thatsome context? And that is the
origin story of black forkfarms? Sure,

Unknown (02:03):
yeah, I'll well, so I'll start at the beginning. It
there's a for the for thispodcast. I'll give the more
complete explanation. So just togive the listeners a little more
full understanding ofeverything. So really it all
started, it'd be so Gordon omen.He's the the owner. He's the one

(02:23):
that founded this, thisdistillery. So I really would
start with, oh, geez, forgiveme, if I get the greats, the
number of greats wrong, but it,it starts with his great great
grandfather, I believe, don'tquote me, there might be one or
two more greats in there, butit, it starts with it, I believe
his great, great grandfather,it'd be Poppy J Omen, and he

(02:44):
came over to the US fromGermany. Sorry, I can't remember
the year. It's the same yearthat South Dakota declared
statehood. So if, if any of thelisteners want to look that up,
it's the that's when Poppy JOmen originally came over from
Germany, and he started farmingin southwest Minnesota, and then
eventually through basicallyfrom him to Gordon's father,

(03:06):
they came up here to Brant,South Dakota. Through those
couple of generations, theymigrated a little bit further
north and west and got intoSouth Dakota, and that's
actually where the distillery isnow. We are three miles off of a
tar road, and we are on the samebuilding site that Gordon grew
up on, so it's where Gordon grewup on. The yard has changed

(03:27):
significantly. There's no househere anymore. So it's pretty
much the whole yard revolvesaround the distillery, in the in
the farming activities thatrelate with or go with the field
to glass. So not, not much of ahousehold yard anymore in the
country, but it's mostly just adistillery and and storage so
but that's kind of the familyhistory behind how we got where

(03:50):
we are today, geographically,and then really the the
distillery side of thingsstarted with Gordon. He He's a
worldly traveler. He reallylikes traveling, seeing
different places around theworld, and I believe it's the
stories on our website, and itmay be able to tell better than

(04:11):
I I've talked to Gordon aboutthis several times, but it all
started in Budapest, whereGordon was actually traveling.
And he was there, and he was ata bar in Budapest, in the hotel
bar, and he asked if they hadany fine bourbon. And they pull
this bourbon off the shelf, andit had, it was a field to glass,
small distillery from the fromthe US. And he, you know,

(04:31):
thought, because he had, still,you know, we're still farming
the land here. And he, you know,he figured, hey, we got crop
ground. We're right in the areawhere it's really we have good
growing conditions to grow smallgrains, good growing conditions
to grow to grow corn, and that'sreally the main things you need
for for whiskey production. Sohe, you know, he, his wheels

(04:53):
started turning, and it kind ofstarted snowballing and and then
we eventually pay. Shared wellthrough the building process,
because this building that we'rein now is all brand new as of
construction started in 2020finalized in 2022 and and you
know, this is everything's newhere. So the building process

(05:15):
took several years, years. Sothrough the planning processes
and all that, we paired withanother distillery, and they
were custom distilling our grainand putting it into barrels for
us, and then we would take theproduct back, just so by the
time we had a distillery builthere, we had, you know, some,
some product to sell, so weweren't sitting idle for, you

(05:35):
know, the, that's the, I guess,the main issue with any startup
distillery, but, but, yeah, sothrough that, and now we've been
producing here since May of 2022and yeah, that's, I guess, the
if you have any questions, I'msure I missed some spots. So no,

we're, we're good, we're we can jump right in from
there. So the first thing I justwanted to mention was, you know,
partly in just in fulldisclosure, but also to mention
it is, you guys were kind enoughto send me a sample pack. It is
beautifully designed, like thiswas, and get don't get me wrong,
you send me a sample in any way.I'm going to enjoy it. But this

(06:18):
is a purposefully designed boxof, in this case, eight samples,
eight different products, 50 milsquare bottles. And I just, I
loved it. At first I thought,like, they went really far out
for this, you know, podcast. Iwas like, Oh no, this is a
regular release for them. Thisis awesome. So that's the first
thing. So thank you for that.But yes, I was looking on the

(06:38):
back of the bottles. And we'llget a little bit more into this
later, but I did notice it saiddistilled in Wisconsin and age
and minimum of two years. Andboth of those things have
significant caveats, I would sayto them that will that will get
into. So before we go too farinto that, just I want to set a

(07:03):
little additional context forthe state of South Dakota. So
again, this is the first timewe're just, we're talking to a
distillery in the state. Thereare not a ton. I know the
distillery trail.com website isa little bit out of date, but
they're only, like, fewer than adozen, I think,

Unknown (07:20):
yeah, to my knowledge, there are there, well, I guess
it depends on on, as far aswhiskey, distilleries that that
have a have a bourbon lineup,not just, you know, your broad,
you know, vodka, producing vodkaand gin and whatnot. I believe
in the state, there are only twoor three distilleries that are

(07:40):
producing whiskey. And really,to my knowledge, I'm a I believe
I'm aware of all of them. We'rethe only ones that really focus
focus on Bourbon. I mean, wedidn't have just so viewers
know, we didn't have a clearspirit option until last summer,
really, so we had been sellingbourbon for several years

(08:02):
before, you know, we had anyclear spirits, and that was just
so we had, you know, just to addthat to our lineup. So we had
that to offer, whether that be,you know, if, if people in, in
groups that were were sellingto, you know, maybe they aren't
bourbon drinkers, but they're,they're vodka, gin drinkers. So,
just to, just to kind of roundthat out, but, but, yeah, it

(08:23):
there ain't a whole lot of ushere, that's for sure. So

if you consider, let's say just like two or three
others, so maybe for youproducing a bourbon whiskeys. I
guess the the kind of obviousanswer to my question that I'm
about to ask is population sizeof the state. Of like, why
aren't there more? But we'vealso seen smaller states have a

(08:47):
good number of distilleries. SoI guess, where were you guys?
Where was black fork? In termsof like, were you the first one
or two before you? And what doyou think are maybe other
reasons for why there aren'tmore distilleries like whiskey
distilleries in South Dakota?Yeah,

Unknown (09:09):
yeah, for sure there. I believe there was really before
us, you know, talking in thatlike 2020 when we really
started, starting for at leastsome products, really, in that
time frame, there may be, oh,geez, I don't know for sure, but
there may have been only oneother distillery that, I think,

(09:30):
and they're out of the west sideof the state. So, I mean,
they're on the they're on thecomplete opposite side of the
state as we are. We are just so,you know, people don't have to
look up where Brant South Dakotais. We're pretty much on the
we're six miles from Minnesota,so we're right on the Minnesota
border. And if you look at themap, and there's that little
crook out of the corner ofMinnesota on the west side,

(09:50):
we're about 30 miles south ofthat, so we're, we're kind of in
a pretty desolate area, but, butI guess the the most populated
side of. State is, I guess isthe east side of South Dakota,
besides Rapid City, but, but,yeah, there was really only
probably one when we startedselling products. It's, it's

(10:11):
just there's not as much your,you know, your for craft
bourbon, at least the stuff thatwe're really pushing there just
is not a large audience in thestate of South Dakota, but
that's really for the scale thatwe're at, we're still able to
capture, you know, this, youknow, what we're targeting, you
know, you know, with with whatwe that's why we really haven't
pushed, pushed to do moreonline, you know, online sales.

(10:34):
As of now, we're starting to getinto some of our bigger barrel
class years where, where we'regoing to be able to push a
little harder on marketing. Wereally, to be honest, we have
not done a whole lot of ofmarketing, just because we
really haven't needed to,because we've been selling, you
know, as much of the class yearsas we really want to be, you
know, because we'd like to holdsome over for longer, aging and

(10:56):
what have you. But so we reallyhaven't done a whole lot of
marketing up until, now, and inthe next year or two, we're
going to be cracking into someof the larger the class years of
barrels that that we had startedto produce, really right at the
beginning of when we wereproducing here, right in the
transition period we started tohave a lot more whiskey produced

(11:17):
and and whatnot. So we'regetting there slowly, so we you
might see more of us, hopefullyyou will in the next couple of
years, as we try to, you know,market into other states

for sure. So, I mean, you've so you have been
around for a number of yearsnow. It's, you know, 2020 ish
for, well, 2022 for the newfacility, when it's being when
it was opened, and then 2020building on the new facility.
The you do have some barrels andproducts that are pushing, I

(11:51):
think nine years was the

Unknown (11:53):
Yeah, yeah, that's when. So I believe Gordon, the
whole, the Budapest story, whenit first was a concept, I
believe that was late. You know,almost that 2008 2010 era. It
might say the exact year on ourwebsite. It was a while ago. And
really it took a few years forthe the idea to tumble around,

(12:16):
long enough to to generate, youknow, physics. You know,
physical results. 2015 was whenthe custom distilling contracts
started, so to start building abarrel inventory. So that's
where that the early productcame from. Was that the first
couple of years of product thatGordon had distilled with our

(12:36):
partner distillery for the firstsix years of our really the
business before we were sellinganything. So 2015 was, yeah, the
first barrel year. We actuallyonly have one of the those
barrels left, so they weren'tvery big class years, just
because it it's hard to go fullswinging. You know, it's such a
volatile industry, especially inthe state of South Dakota,

(12:57):
because you have no clue what,you know, what you're going to
be able to sell. So it kind ofstarted out pretty small. And,
you know, we've been slowlygrowing those class years over
time to where we are at now.We're still really only
producing about 100 and forbourbon, you know, straight, you
know, that stuff that's going tobe put into a bourbon bottle,
we're really only producingabout 130 barrels, and then

(13:18):
another 40 barrels or so of justeither rye whiskey or just
whenever I have free time, sinceI'm the so I'm the only one that
does anything from grain tobarrel, and then the really, the
the rest of our team here is isfocused from, you know, bottling
and distribution. But sowhenever I free time, I produce
corn whiskey. So usually Itarget to produce, like, 20

(13:41):
barrels of corn whiskey to putinto our used barrels, just to
you never know what they'll be,you know, you can do fun stuff
with them later on, so when wehave time, but, but, yeah, so
we're, that's where those earlybarrels came from. Was, was
that, you know, right, whenGordon decided I'm going to do
something here, you know? Andthat's when the, really, the
planning started. It took manyyears to facilitate, because a

(14:03):
lot of our like our stills are,are, are designed by, built by
frilly, which is a, you know,European company. A lot of,
actually, the distillingequipment in here is, is
European. So it just took a lotof facilitating to put all the
pieces of the puzzle together.But, but, yeah, yeah,

I was gonna say, I mean, you're, you're not only
dealing with a state whereyou're not really sure what the
response is going to be. It's,it comes down to it just not
having a lot of predecessors ina way, to to look at and say,
Okay, this is a South Dakotadistillery. This is how they
were received. This is how theygrew. I'm curious a couple of
different things I'm curiousabout, as always, but the first

(14:43):
one being in those initial yearsof growth. As you said, when you
were you had product that wasready to sell. So maybe not 2015
but like, you know, a coupleyears later, you had product
ready to sell, maybe the newfacilities online yet. But
you're, you're growing, youknow, an advantage of. Talked
about in control states is thateven if you're a very small
distillery, if you've got aLiquor Control Board or an ABC,

(15:06):
then if you get in with them,you don't really need another
distributor. You can justthey'll say, All right, we'll
put you in all of our storesbecause you're from the state,
and we want you to represent us.But you know, South Dakota not
being a control state is stillon you guys to figure out
distribution, reaching people,and even if it's just within the
state and locally around there,you said, you know, you didn't

(15:30):
do much marketing. Was thegrowth just kind of organic word
of mouth?

Unknown (15:34):
Yeah. I mean, a lot of it, I would probably attribute
to that. Yeah, I will say, Idon't. Maybe I may be wrong when
I say this, but just from, Imean, the general population in
South Dakota, if you if you'reable to put a, you know, made in
South Dakota, from South Dakota,grain, you know, any, anything
of that realm, there's a lot ofpeople that I believe put a lot

(15:56):
of value to that, just because,you know, we're in a part of the
country that not a lot of steps,you know, there's Not a lot of
stuff that can say that justbecause we're, we're, you know,
in parts of the, you know, morerobs, you know, rural areas of
the country. So there's a lot ofpeople that are in the state
that I believe, you know,probably put a pretty good value
on, you know, when they see thatin a liquor store. And then it's

(16:16):
also, you know, that's kind ofthe big thing that, really, when
we were at the infancy and we'redesigning our bottles and all
that stuff. Gordon, at thatpoint, had traveled quite a bit,
or just to quite a few otherdistilleries, tried barrels that
weren't, you know, released bydistilleries that were just
starting up. And what he hadreally found is that there is a

(16:37):
lot of, you know, smalldistilleries that have really
good products. And then if, youknow, if there's even a, you
know, a slight deficiency in themarketing side, or just their
bottles, they're gonna have areally good product, and they
just can't get it to sell. Andand that's one thing that he
really didn't want us to happento us. So he put a lot of time
and effort into into the designof the bottles, the packaging,

(17:01):
so when people buy it, they havenot only a good product and just
more of a talking piece too. So,you know, and it's sitting at
their bar at home, you know,they want to talk about it.
That's one thing that we'vereally focused on. And so far,
you know, that can obviouslyonly get you so far, but so
that's what we've, you know,done a lot with so far, and
that's worked. We're now juststarting to last summer, we

(17:24):
opened our online store, as Imentioned a little bit ago,
earlier, and we're just startingto tip tone of that market. It's
just that market is so muchdifferent than what the market
that we've been pursuing so far.So it's, you know, all that
stuff comes with new learningcurves and whatnot so but, but
it's been interesting. You know,it's, it's, this whole industry

(17:45):
is, is, is evolved a lot, evenover the past decade, from the
study and I've done and whatnot.But it's, it's pretty
interesting.

Even, as I said earlier, the packaging that I've
seen has been something peopleare going to talk about. It's
going to catch your eye. It'sgoing to be a talking piece. I
love it. I was, I was veryimpressed by it. My last
question for you, specific toSouth Dakota, for the moment,
is, did you, or are you facingany kind of like legislative

(18:18):
barriers in place? So I don'tknow what the legacy of
prohibition was like in SouthDakota, but we know a lot of
states didn't start having anydistilleries for a long time
because you weren't allowed to,or some other legal barrier. So
what was that like in SouthDakota?

Unknown (18:35):
It I'm fortunate enough, I guess I wasn't
directly involved with thestartup process. And I, I still,
I, you know, I deal with the,you know, all of our reporting,
you know, federal reporting andwhatnot, since I'm the one
producing the product andwhatnot. But it, I was
fortunate, I guess, not to besuper directly involved with

(18:56):
that process, which I, I mean,in any state, I think it's going
to be headache because it's aton of paperwork. I mean, at the
end of the day, you're, you'reproducing high proof alcohol,
and it's definitely not the sameas a brewery or a winery.
That's, that's one thing that wefound, especially in South
Dakota, is it as soon as soon asthat alcohol prove, you know
anything north of wine, it's theregulation increases

(19:18):
exponentially so. But you know,it, to my knowledge, it wasn't,
you know, a super big deal. Youknow, recently, when we've been
trying to tiptoe into the onlinemarket, that's been a little
more of a challenge where. But Ithink that's, you know, pretty
general everywhere. Is, is thisthe online markets? You know,

(19:38):
it's relatively new, so, but sowe've, you know, we've been
working a little bit on, onlegislation on that and but so
that's why we did partner with,with a it's actually distributor
in Washington, DC, so they'reable to ship to, but don't quote
me, I believe, like 42 states,it's like, like, there's eight
states or six states that we.Can't ship to, so just because

(20:02):
it, I think there, I thinkthere's only about five states
that we currently could ship todirectly, direct to consumer
here, from the state of SouthDakota, and it's, yeah, that's,
you know, we've been working onthat, but it's all that, that
process is a mighty slow one. So

there's a reason these distributors go to DC.
It's, it's not a state, so thereare different regulations and a
lack thereof. So our favorites,you know, seal box, my own
store, same thing. Mashnetworks. Are a lot of them
based in DC, for that reason,because you can do DTC to, yeah,
all, but those like eight statesthat nobody can ship to, not

(20:43):
wine, not liquid, nothing. So,you know, but that's eight
states out of 50. Why did thattake me so long? Wow, eight
states out of 50. So that's nottoo bad. So going in, moving
into the next phase of things,you know, we're going to talk
about things like theproduction, the technology you

(21:04):
guys have invested in, just thefact that the number of products
that are available from from thedistillery. Well, one of the
first thing want to talk aboutis the grain. So you guys are
using, as far as I could see,it's all, or nearly all, South
Dakota grown grain.

Unknown (21:25):
Yeah, it, I forgot what the regulation is. We're using
everything except on our maltbarley. It's especially out
here, it's just difficult to getsomeone to custom malt barley
for you. So there's just not,not really anyone that does it
anywhere close to us. So, but sowe outsource our malt barley.
But every so, you know, I thinkaveraging across all the mash

(21:47):
bills I make, which is about sixa year, I'm probably, it's
probably about 90, 95% SouthDakota grown grain that we grow
on, on black fork farms land soit, yeah, our, all of our So,
yeah, I mean, I guess I'll justgo, you know, dive kind of into
the grains we use. So, you know,the two, you know, intriguing

(22:10):
grains are, the are going to beour German rye that we use. It's
an older German rye variety. Andthen our Indian corn, Indian
corn kind of topping the cake.As far as uniqueness goes, the
rise is, you know, there's a lotof different varieties of rye,
but the the Indian corn is anoddity, for sure. It's, there's

(22:30):
definitely, now, I know there'sa couple other distillers that
are using Flint corn, or, youknow, Indian corn to some
degree, but it's, that's kind ofthe, you know, we it's just
interesting because it's notmany, just sourcing seed is
almost impossible. So as far asthe logistical side of growing
Indian corn, you have to reserveyour, you know, you have to
save, you know, up, up a seedbank in the event of a crop

(22:54):
failure where, you know, youyou're able to still grow that
crop in future years. So thatwhole, whole, you know, it's
just, it's just an interestingcrop to grow, I guess,
especially from an agronomicstandpoint, I, I guess I, I
farm, and my brother's anagronomist, so it's, it's just

(23:14):
an interesting crop to grow, Iguess, I don't know how to
explain it better than that,but, but, yeah, so we use the
the rye and Indian corn. Thoseare kind of the two, two
special, super specialty grainsthat we grow. Both of those are
also smoked, which we we ColdSmoke. It's kind of a
rudimentary system, but itactually we so we handle all of
our grain, just because we'renot using a whole lot of grain

(23:35):
in big, big plastic boxes withslide gates on the bottom. And
so I actually take those boxes,fill it up with Indian corn or
rye, whatever I'm going to besmoking, and then I put it in a
small, old grain bin, and then Ihave a little fan. And then
there's a air screw that I screwinto the tote. And there's a
pellet grill that that we it's,you know, Mesquite, Apple and

(23:57):
hickory, depending on what it'sif it's in the Indian corn or
rye, and then the fan pulls inthe smoke, and then inject,
basically pushes it through thegrain, and cold smokes the
grain, which I do from anywhere.It depends on, on how well the
smoke, you know, how much of itis actually pushed through the
grain. But it takes anywherefrom 30 to 36 hours for a tote,

(24:19):
and it, you can smell the smoke,what it does to the flavor. You
know, specifically, I'm, youknow, there's, I'm certainly not
the most trained tongue outthere, but it, it's definitely,
it definitely makes, there's aneffect somewhere along the line.
So we smoke those grains, andthen we do use some number two,

(24:39):
you know, standard number twoyellow for, you know, our
general mash bills that we'regoing to be using for, you know,
just regular corn whiskey, or,you know, our cheaper whiskey,
that are more economical whiskeythat we sell, but it, yeah, all,
but all of it's grown in SouthDakota, you know, within a
couple of miles of thedistillery here. So,

yeah. The so not every distillery that uses
either a heritage variety or a,let's say non yellow dent number
two variety mixes. Thispercentage public, but you had
on the website, or, sorry, thiswasn't the website. This is from
the whiskey wash a couple yearsago that you know the yellow
dent would give you somethinglike 230 bushels an acre, you

(25:23):
know, pretty solid yield.Instead the native corn, it's
giving you about 40 bushels anacre.

Unknown (25:29):
So, yeah, it takes a lot more land to grow, yeah, to
grow the same amount of bushelsit, you know, actually, okay, I
It's enjoyable, just becauseit's a neat crop. But as far as,
like, you know, my whole lifeI've grown number two yellow
corn and soybeans, you know,growing up on my family's farm
and, and, yeah, when you're usedto growing that, and, I mean,

(25:50):
it's so controlled, becausewe've been growing number two
yellow, you know, high yieldingnumber two yellow corn for, you
know, decades. And it's, youknow, that's, you know, the
amount of you know, you do thisfor this reason. And that's, you
know, it takes a lot ofstructure to get really any corn
to yield that much. And, but,yeah, it's, I mean, the I mean,

(26:14):
corn is, you know, originally agrass. It originates from Tio
Sinte, and it's, this is mybrother coming out in me, I
guess. But he, he's theagronomist, so I, he, I learned
all this from him. But yeah. Soanyway, corn is originally a
grass. And, you know, in Indiancorn, or Flint corn, is a very
primitive form of today, youknow, the corn that we grow
today. So, I mean, there's andit, it's just a challenge to

(26:37):
grow, because the ears are stillgrowing on the top of the plant,
so they lodge super easily. Thestocks are not very strong. You
know, if you have a big windstorm come through, it'll, it'll
flatten a field pretty easily,just because the, you know, the
plants aren't, you know, thatstrong, you know, they'll just
fall over. So it's, it'scertainly a challenge to grow.

(26:59):
It kind of makes you want to hityour head on a against a wall
from time to time, but, butit's, you know, it's, it's part
of the it's part of the story.And it's, it's certainly, you
know, a cool thing to do. So ifyou look at it from the bigger
picture, so

sure. And so you mentioned that you're, you know,
you're smoking the greens andthe, see the you're using. You
said, Yeah, Hickory, Apple ormesquite. So see the the Rye is
the Mesquite, yep, and then theIndian corn is the apple and and
hickory. Or is the hickory? Yep,a different

Unknown (27:33):
Yep, the Yep, the Indian corn is smoked with the
hickory and apple, and then therye smoked with the mesquite. So
it's, it's a blend of the appleand hickory wood for the Indian
corn, and then the other Rye isjust a standard mesquite. So,

and you said you you smoke for about 3036, hours,
depending on to get you knowwhat you're what you're looking
for, what's the ultimatedetermine just kind of like, pop
a grain in your mouth and say,like, this is this is ready?
Yeah. If

Unknown (28:00):
so, the easiest way, actually, is, so, you know, I'll
usually plan it so the thesmoker actually runs out of wood
in the middle of the night. Sothen, you know, when I get here
in the morning, it had beenpushing fresh air through the
tote for, you know, it's notlike there's lingering smoke in
the air. So then I'll, actually,yeah, I'll, I'll open the tote,

(28:21):
because the tote does have acover on it with just the hole
for the the air screw. And thenI'll, I'll smell it. And then,
yeah, usually I'll throw theIndian corn I won't chew just
because it's so hard and it's,you really can't gain anything
from it. But the, yeah, the therye, all you know, you'll throw
a kernel or two in. And really,the main thing is, is just how

(28:42):
the tote smells after you haveflushed it with fresh air.
Because really, any smoke then,at that point is going to be,
you know, in the grain. So any,you know, any of the smell
that's going to be coming fromit. So it's kind of a
combination of both. So it'snot, it's not an exact science,
I guess I'll say that. That's

why, that's where the art and the science kind of
meet in the middle. So that'sfor the so that's for the Indian
corn and the dark German rye.Are you smoking the yellow corn
as well?

Unknown (29:10):
No, no, not yet. You know, maybe we will the just
with the yellow. You know, whenwe're doing any of the the
bigger barrel runs, it's justit's harder, more of a
logistical issue when you'regoing through that, you know the
Indian corn is, but you knowthe, you know, the higher end
products, we certainly, you knowit doesn't take as many barrels

(29:30):
to fill the, you know, ourexpected sales for for those
products. So it's, you're notdealing with the quantity you
still are. But it's a lot ofthat stuff I can actually
prepare ahead of time a loteasier than the yellow corn,
just because there's, you'redealing with a lot of Bucha with
the yellow corn. But, yeah, no,it's just, you know, it's our
book is always open. We're opento try new things. But, but,

(29:54):
yeah, I know it's currently,it's just the Indian corn and

rye. I was going to say you got so five grain.
Overall, the two different typesof corn, the German rye malted
barley and wheat, sorry, six No,sorry, so two corn, the German
rye malted barley, wheat andoats. Yes,

Unknown (30:13):
yeah, the oats. Oats is Another oddity, I suppose. Yes,

I'm a huge fan of oat whiskeys or Oded bourbons. I
love what oat brings to thetable. And it's, it's very
underutilized. There's just acouple places making like Kings
County and Brooklyn made alittle bit of it. It's not
really, I don't know how muchthey have left. And then spoke a
while ago to Pine bluffsdistilling out in, oh gosh,

(30:42):
Montana. And they are are makinga noted bourbon. And I and they
have an oat whiskey that shouldbe coming out soon, actually,
now they think about it. So Igot to get back in touch with
them too to try that. Becauseagain, I just love those. So
with six grains to work with,you're smoking the first two,
the Indian corn and the Germanrye. I admittedly, I got through

(31:06):
half of the samples to tastethem before the recording. I'll
be able to taste the rest ofthem before it goes live. So I
was able to taste the weededbourbon, the poppy J single
barrel and the rye, because Iwanted to make sure I got at
least the, you know, the corerange kind of under my belt.

(31:28):
First. In addition, we've alsogot three toastings the oats and
102 proof basic cast strengthversion. So with so you said you
have five or six different mashbills as, yeah,

Unknown (31:46):
yeah. It's really so the, you know, more of our broad
ones which, well, it'd be thesame as the the poppy j is, you
know, that's our longest age itShould we just do a single
barrel of basically the longestage bourbon that we have in in
house. We'll, we'll sample allof the barrels that are the same
age, and kind of pick one out ofthat class year, or Gordon does.

(32:08):
So that's kind of the that's athat'd be our, our four grain
mash bill, I won't say anypercentages and whatnot, but
that'd be, I'll just call it ourfour grain mash bill. That's
what I refer to it as. And soreally, that's, that's kind of a
standalone, you know, it's ourlong age four grain. Younger age
four grain is kind of what weuse for our more economical

(32:30):
products that we, we sell, youknow, in in smaller town, you
know, not well, not just smallertowns, but it just sell, you
know, more in bulk of as well.I'm sure, sure, you and a lot of
the listeners are aware, it'snot super easy to sell $100
bottles of bourbon in in reallysmall towns, especially in South
Dakota. So it's just the that'sthe truth of it. So we try to

(32:52):
have some products that kind ofhit everyone's, you know, range,
especially just being from SouthDakota, it's, you know, we're
trying to be big in our ownstate. So that's kind of that
goes along with it so, but yeah,so we have the, it'd be the
foregrain, and then the our highor high mash bill, which is what
feeds our, our it'd be ourtoasted, so the French,
Mongolian and American, andthen, really, like the oats. I

(33:16):
did this in the wrong format, soI should have just explained
kind of the breakdown that thatthat all of our products are,
but so we the then we have ournative grain series, which would
be our weeded oat and our rye,and all those are standalone
mash bills. And then we, as Imentioned, our foregrain pyri.
And then we also have our thecorn whiskey that you know, it

(33:39):
doesn't. We don't have anyproducts currently released with
with, just with corn whiskey. Sothat kind of sums it up. Yeah.
So really, the what four or fiveof them that we currently have
products out and then a coupleof them that are just kind of
experimental mash bills that wedon't have nothing out on yet,
so that are just sitting in abarrel aging.

And so I have here, let's say, so which one of
those is the cattle Baron mashbill?

Unknown (34:06):
So that'd be, that'd basically be the four grain. So
that would be our, the youngerfour grain. So our, one of our
products that are in that $50price range, that's our, it's a
cattleman's bourbon, or that'sthe name of it. So it'd be,
that's kind of where that, youknow, the they those names work
hand in hand. But yeah, that'dbe the our four grain, more or

(34:29):
less,

gotcha. So this comes to a question of of
inspiration, and this,obviously, you said, Gordon has
been around to a lot ofdifferent distilleries, and I'm
curious what the through line isfrom, you know, what
distilleries Did he see to? Whatdid he like to? What did he want
to, you know, bring to whateventually became black for.

(34:54):
And, yeah, so let's just go tothat like, what do you think
were some of. His inspirationson

Unknown (35:01):
the way, sure, you know, I'm not that is, that is
one area that I probably don'tknow as much as I probably
should, I guess. I don't, youknow. I don't particularly know.
I know it was he worked prettyclosely once, so really,
wouldn't I know when he's thewhole process started of, okay,
he wants a distillery to customdistill. You know, well, we're
building this facility. I knowit started with, you know, he's

(35:26):
got quite a few friends, andjust, you know, friends from
over the years that you know,they're all, you know, they've
all drank bourbon. So I know hegot a lot of, you know, family
friends together and kind of,you know, they originally just
decided what distillery theywant to try to get to produce,
you know, this whiskey for us inthe interim. So that's where it

(35:46):
originally started. And thenonce he they had picked out the
distillery they he worked prettyclosely with the with the head
distiller that that location,and that's kind of where the
mash bills started driving from,I know they did some practice,
you know, experimenting over,you know, the course of a year
or two to, kind of, you know,generate where we are at today,

(36:11):
and then, and then, basicallyfrom that point, they are
producing whiskey for us. That'sthe we basically tried to
emulate that, because they foundproducts that they that's, you
know, that's really what Gordonthe, you know, the flavor
profile that Gordon wants tohit. And then that's kind of
what Dr, you know, drove how weset up this production facility,

(36:32):
was basically to Emily emulatethat product. So then when we
make the switch from, you know,that product to this product,
there should be virtually,virtually little to no, you
know, change. Obviously there's,there's going to be some, to
some degree, but we try tominimize that as much as
possible. I guess so. And I'm, Iguess I'll wait, because I'm
sure you'll, you'll havequestions that touch on what I

(36:53):
was about to say, but I'll wait

so, so, you know, I take it, by the way, your
phrase these, you can't name thepartner distillery outright.

Unknown (37:03):
I, I don't know, I guess I

won't get you in trouble. So we'll say, No, I
have a gut instinct to where itis, just as I know some of the
ones in Wisconsin that have thecapacity to do that. But you
know, not gonna get you introuble there. But you, as you,
as you said, with wheneveryou're moving production from
one place to another, where,whether it's your own production
facility, moving to a new one,or a, you know, contract

(37:28):
distiller, while you're beingbuilt up and then moved to your
own you're you're trying to makeit as seamless as possible the
So, if I heard you correctlyearlier, so You had a six year
contract with that partnerdistillery, and then you started
producing at in Brant at 2022,so was that a full switch over

Unknown (37:54):
it? Yeah, that was kind of that was all. So I joined
black fork. It would have beenbasically two years ago. Now,
I've been here two years, sothat was, that was before I was
here. That was kind of duringthat COVID time. So they had
been distilling for us, youknow, several years pre COVID.

(38:15):
So I don't remember the fullnature of it. I know we had
slowed down on the products orthe barrels that we had been
getting from them throughoutthat time, just because I just
from looking at barrelinventories and whatnot. But
then, when we started producinghere, we're we basically jumped
directly to the quantities we'reproducing now, not quite as

(38:37):
much, just since we didn'treally have a full time, full
time distiller at that, at thatpoint, they're really, really, I
was the first full time personthat I was, you know, I was here
every single day all year, youknow, running the distillery,
which we actually only distillfrom October to May, which,
which we can get to that, youknow, when we talk more about
the facility itself, but, but,yeah, We kind of jumped from,

(39:01):
you know, just through thatCOVID time frame, I don't, I
don't know if we were justproduced less, just because of
the uncertainty with whereeverything was going. And then
we jumped basically into where,you know, the amount we're
producing now, which is in that140 to 170 barrel Ranger

year. Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, the, I ask them to
everyone who was, who was aroundat that time, like, Do you have
a COVID gap? Most places seemlike they either didn't, or they
kind of planned for it. Youknow, they pulled back a little
bit, but were able to backfullyafterwards. So when you had the
the switch over in production,how quickly did you also have to

(39:41):
move the barrels that were aging

Unknown (39:44):
it? That was, fortunately, we had some time
there. So I Oh, this is, this iswhen I really wish I could pick
the camera up and almost showus. To give you more of a
perspective, so you can maybeexplain it better to the list.
Owners, but it so when thedistillery itself was actually

(40:04):
built. So it started as thestill house, where basically
everything from mashing todistillation happens. And then
we have, which is actuallystyled after a Scottish malt
house. So it's a very tallbuilding. And then, then in the
building that is more or lessit's connected. It's more or
less the same building. It'smore of just a square with

(40:28):
square building with 18 footsides, and that's what I call
our grinding room, which iswhere all the grinding equipment
is to grind the grain. And sothat was really the first
building, as far as theproduction facilities are
concerned. That was built here,and then it would have been
basically a year and a half ago.We built the rack house, and it

(40:50):
was really only finished a yearago, which is attached to the
distillery through a breezeway,but it has the capacity to hold
about it could hold 600 barrels,really, but it'd be, it'd get
pretty tight in there, andthat's where we currently do all
of our bottling too. We built abottling area over there so we
didn't have to transport barrelsacross the yard to the building
across the yard to barrel orbottle in the middle of winter.

(41:12):
We get, we get some pretty nastyweather in the winter. So doing
that wasn't always the funnestthing, but, but yeah, so, and
that's that, you know, that'sreally when we moved a lot of
them over here. We had beenbasically maxing out because we
were producing at the same time.So we tried keeping as many
barrels that we were activelybottling out of here as
possible, but at the same timewe had a very limited space for

(41:34):
what we were producing. Soreally, that first, first fall
that I was as full timedistilling. Here it was. We're
pretty cramped for space, I'mnot gonna lie. So, so really at
that, you know, year, about ayear ago, is when we made a big
move of barrels, and it tookseveral trips to get them all

(41:56):
here. But it, it was. It was along process, mostly constrained
by the space we had here. So,but, but, yeah, so all the
barrels are now on site. Wedon't have any barrels anywhere
else. So, which that's for me,myself, my that just OCD side of
me. It makes me happier. So

that's where we're i We're actually, I I jumped way
ahead of myself to maturation.Usually I talk about production
first. But, you know, we'll,we'll keep talking maturation.
What you said you have somepretty nasty winters, and some
you can get some nasty weatherdown there. I know can get, you
know, Dakotas is usually whereyou start getting the that
really blue, purple spot on themap when you get a cold front or

(42:39):
polar vortex coming through,yeah. So, you know, on a year
round basis, like, what is the,what is your climate and aging
climate look like,

Unknown (42:49):
yeah, so that is with any distillery. I think that's,
you know, that's part of what,what gives you your product, you
know, you know, a different, youknow, flavor profiles, just the,
you know, the environment it'saged in, and it, it's a unique
one up here, for sure, really,for so that is one thing that

(43:10):
when they were building thisdistillery, they they that was,
they kept that in mind. Because,you know, when we get some of
the dips, I mean, there'susually, usually at least once
or twice throughout the winter,we get, you know, a seven to 10
day stretch where it's negative20 out. So, and there ain't a
whole lot of aging if barrelsare in that environment. So
sure, it, it, we get prettycold. But yeah, so we actually

(43:32):
all of our where all of ourbarrels are are, it's our glycol
system for cooling, or thecooling capacity and the
distillery, or we actually haveinner coolers that are in I call
them cold storage. But really,when I'm producing, they're not
cold storage, because those heatexchangers heat, you know, the
cold storage on the distilleryup to 4550 degrees, even when it

(43:53):
gets cold out. So just becauseof the heat getting pulled off
of the glycol system, so thatthose were kind of strategically
placed to to provideenvironments that that fluctuate
in temperature, even when it isreally cold out. Because that's
really the biggest challengehere is, is just trying to keep
barrels, you know, in that, inthat temperature zone, that

(44:13):
they're actually, you know,doing something so and then
really, actually, bulk of ourbarrels, currently, our rack
houses, is climate, well, notair conditioned, but it's, it's
heated. So, you know, that staysat around that 50 degrees at
least all winter. So we do ourbottling in there. So it's, we
keep it warm enough to to tohave, you know, people not

(44:33):
freeze their fingers off whiledoing stuff. We usually keep
when people are working inthere. We usually keep it in
the, you know, the high 60s,normal room temps, but, but,
but, yeah. So that's currently,you know, 80% of our barrels are
over there, and then the otherbarrels are in our cold storage.
And we, I move those aroundquite frequently, just to

(44:53):
provide more of a balanced, youknow, Agent environment. So,
yeah, I don't if you. Have anyother piggyback questions? I
maybe did a bad job explainingthat. No,

no, you're fine. So the first question that came
to mind was, besides thetemperature control aspect of
it, where there's a minimumtemperature you're trying to
achieve to I said, keep itactively working with the wood,
which is usually around 50degrees minimum, you got to have
that above that, otherwiseyou're just getting oxidation. I

(45:25):
don't know if you have had thechance to either try this or
experience it, but if you havenegative 20 for like 10 days
straight, the and you have abarrel that's outside or exposed
to that temperature, now, thealcohol is not going to freeze
quite yet, but would it at thatpoint, would it start to

(45:49):
denigrate the wood, like, wouldyou have wood cracking, or
things like that?

Unknown (45:53):
That is a good question. I don't know. To be
honest, we've never actually hada barrel exposed to that low of
temperatures, just becausewe've, you know, it's really the
cool, coldest it gets in thecold storage because it is still
on the side of an insulated,heated building, actually, in
the, you know, in the winter,even when it's cold out the the
still platform, with the that Iaccess the top of the stills, it

(46:15):
it's almost 90 degrees somedays, just it gets hot. So that
building very rarely gets colderthan, you know, 20 degrees. But
that isn't a very interestingquestion. I do not know I would
that would be something that itbe kind of almost neat if we
just took one of our, you know,lower value porn whiskey barrels
and did something like that. ButI I'm not certain that is a

(46:37):
excellent question. It's one of

things just wonder about, because it's, it when,
when you talk to they're very,let's put it this way, there are
very few distillers andproducers who go through that
kind of cold, you know, theycould talk about a huge swing in
temperatures of 100 degrees upand down. But the low end is
usually around the freezingpoint, maybe 20, you know, below

(47:01):
freeze. 20 below freezing, notbelow zero. So it's just kind of
a unique question to you guysthat I haven't had the chance to
ask anybody else yet. So we'lltake it from,

Unknown (47:12):
yeah, that's I, you know, I'm I on I, that'd be, I'd
love to have an answer to that,but it's because now you started
wheels turning in my head. Butthat is, that is a good
question. I, you know, I do notknow. Really, it's because that
is one thing we, you know,that's, that's one of the big
things. Gordon, the owners, isreally trying to push us towards

(47:33):
the as is barrel management,and, you know, making sure that
those barrels are environmentsthat they're, you know, they're
helping us, not hurting us so
but yeah, no, that is, that isan intriguing question. If we do
an experiment, I'll let you knowhow it goes.

Yeah, please do. Please do. And I'm sorry in
advance if it costs you a barrelof whiskey in the process. So I
want to jump backwards a littlebit more process to to
production. So you've gotgrinding, mashing, fermenting,
distillation, all on site. Nowlet's, you know, take a verbal,

(48:13):
virtual walk through of what isthis look like from from
grinding to distilling.

Unknown (48:20):
Yeah? So it, yeah, as I mentioned earlier, there's
really the two main parts ofthe, what, you know, the
distillery facility, or theproduction facility as a whole.
And it's the first is, is reallywhere I'm handling all the raw
grain and grinding, which iswhat I call the grinding room.
That's where, where I bring allof the grain in and weigh it out

(48:40):
per the mash bill that I'mcurrently producing. And then
there's the still house, or theScottish malt house style still
house, which is where the twotwo men, oh, excuse me, the two
that are two stills are thestripping still in the spirit
still there. It's Henry P andpoppy J respectively. They have

(49:01):
named plates on them, so they'reboth after Gordon's
grandfather's great, great,great grand or the one I
mentioned earlier. And thenHenry P is Gordon's great or
grand grandfather, but Henry Pis Gordon's grandfather, So, but
anyway, though the two stillsare housed here. And then, you
know, we have pretty mucheverything else, our boiler, six
fermenters, a masher, and itall, I guess it all flows from

(49:25):
one end of the building to theother. So we have our grinding
room, which is the big squareroom grain handling. You move
into the still house, the firstthing you'll see is our masher
off to the left, two fermentersright next to it, and then we
have a four pack of fermentersoff to the right. And then you
go past the fermenters. And thenwe have our small column still,
which is where we do all theclear Spirit work, hot water

(49:48):
tank. And then, basically, ifyou look straight ahead, right
if you're on one end of thebuilding, you can see the stills
basically all the time. Thestills are on the end end of the
building with two. Glass windowslooking outside. So, and
they're, they're more or lessthe show piece of the whole
place. Like many distilleries,the the stills are kind of the,

(50:08):
the centerpiece of everythingthat's going on. But, but, yeah,
so that's kind of the, you know,the virtual and then above our
the platform to get to the topof the fermenters is where my
office is, which is where I'm atcurrently. It's kind of the
access point to the top of thefermenters. So that's kind of
the general walkthrough of thedistillery that was kind of

(50:30):
crude, but, but, yeah, it, it'spretty much everything. We
picked up some equipment off ofanother distillery that that
went had some financial trouble,but a lot of it is, for the most
part, new equipment. One thingthat I guess, for any of the
listeners that have been to afew distilleries, that one thing

(50:53):
that makes us somewhat uniquefor the size of distillery we
are, is everything is internallyplumbed. So I only have to touch
a flexible hose once a week, andthat is to unload my fifth
fermenter. Everything else isall internally plumbed with with
pumps in line. So it's as far asa that is one thing, I guess
I'll add to that, just to youknow what as why? Why that is in

(51:17):
it's because that this wholeplant was designed to be run by,
ideally, one person, at least upto 200 that 200 barrel range a
year ish. And so it's everythinghas really been designed for
just efficiency. As far ascleaning, you know, it's easy
for I, you know, I can cleaneverything. We have a full
cleaning place system. Soeverything's been designed, as

(51:40):
far as you know, aroundefficiency of time. So I can, I
can manage to do everythingmyself in a day, and not, you
know, it's, I'm not working 16hour days. There's a lot of 12
hour days, but no 16 hour daysunless something seriously goes
wrong, but, but so, yeah,there's a lot of internal
piping. The walls are basicallycovered in stainless so it's, it

(52:04):
is very neat. I don't, I don'tknow if we have any pictures of
I know we're going to beworking. We're actually going to
be making a virtual walkthrough. That's one thing we're
going to be working on here,when I, when I wrap up
production in a month or so,just to do just, you know, for
the people that are not in theimmediate area. We're not, we're
not in a part of the countrythat you there's not a whole lot

(52:24):
to do if you travel to the area.So we don't pull in a lot of
tourists. So just to give thepeople that aren't in the area,
you know, an opportunity to seewhat it's what what the facility
is like here. So

no, I hear you on that with the let's just go get
a step by step with some of thenerdier questions for the
fermenters using in house tileyeast, or what kind of yeast are

Unknown (52:51):
using. You know, I'm not exactly sure on the specific
strain. So that all, I guess,that's where I guess to
piggyback before, you know, aswe enter into more of the nerdy
questions it, you know, I wasalways very interested in
chemistry growing up. If youasked me five years ago if I

(53:12):
would be the one distilling at adistillery in rural America, I
would have told you that you arefull of crap. But it's, I've,
you know, that's just thesciencey side of it has always
intrigued me. So I'm not, youknow, I don't have a, I ain't
going to try to tell you I havea full understanding of
everything, because I don't,but, but, so that's everything

(53:32):
has been tailored here, justbecause Gordon, you know, he
knew that it was going to get behard to get, you know, someone
that's distilled elsewhere, tocome here and distill here,
because it's, it's not likewe're producing that much, and
it's not like we're in a verywe're not next to a big city
that would draw someone to comethere. So it everything from,

(53:53):
you know, we have PLCs thatcertainly assist in everything
I'm to the point now where,where I'm, I'm confident, you
know, manipulating,manipulating, you know, cuts and
whatnot, the so that actuallythe PLC that runs the stills is
actually designed by freely, themanufacturer of the stills. And,
you know, I've worked a lot withwith them on and, you know, kind

(54:15):
of honing in on where we want tobe. It's just, it's a very, you
know, especially early on, youknow, there's, there's, you
know, it was very overwhelmingfor myself, I can assure you of
that. But it's you just have to,you know, ensure that everything
is, every step is verystructured. So, you know, your

(54:35):
your entry proofs and yourstills are very exact. All that
stuff has to be, you know, veryyou have to be on it, especially
when you're relying on, youknow, not yourself, to do some
of this work. You know, just forfull transparency, it's, you
have to be very structured, andyou have to be very detail
oriented to ensure that theproduct that you're producing is

(54:58):
worth drinking in in five years.Or 10 years. So that's something
I relied on Super heavily. Now,now I'm starting to be, you
know, I've, you know, I'vetasted enough product, and I've
tasted enough of other people'sproduct, and, you know, I've
played around with it, doingcorn whiskey. Corn whiskey is
kind of my playground time, Iguess, where I get to, I get to

(55:18):
kind of, you know, ifsomething's screwed up, it's
just corn whiskey at the end ofthe day. And we don't have a
whole lot of, you know, dollarsbehind, you know, a batch of
corn whiskey. So it's, that'swhere I get to kind of play
around with stuff a little bitmore so, so that, you know,
that's kind of the, you know,before I came here, I had, you
know, very little to no alcoholproduction. I guess I've always

(55:39):
been, you know, producing cornmy whole life on my family's
farm or with my family. It's,you know, ethanol is a huge
industry in this area of thecountry. So, you know, ethanol
plants are very prevalent. Soactually, that's where a lot of
the plumbing in here was done byby a plumbing company that
primarily does ethanol plants.It's just this was a neat

(56:00):
project for them to take a holdof. So, so it's, you know,
there's, there's a little bit ofa crossover there, but, yeah. So
anyway, I got way off track,but, but, yeah. So it's back to
the east question. It's a, it'sa safe spirit usw six, I guess
is the specific east we use foreverything. I'm not exactly sure
on the exact strain of it. Iknow it's out there online, so

(56:22):
if anyone wants to go look itup, be my guest, I guess. But,

but, yeah, no worries. No worries at all. So,
yeah, the the PLC, just in case,excited looks up. That's a
programmable logic controller.Yeah,

Unknown (56:35):
yeah. So that's the still the, I guess that the
still PLC. So we have two mainPLCs in here, the still PLC,
which basically automatesdistillation to an extent.
There's still a lot as you haveto do to actually run the still
and make sure that it's, youknow, all our purifier, pre

(56:55):
condenser on the stripping stillis all that's still all a manual
valve. And a lot of stuff isstill manually done. It's, it's
a very automated, integratedwith physical, you know, or, you
know, actual. So it's a veryintegrated system, you know,
where you work hand in hand withit. It's not just doing
everything, I guess is the bestway to put it. And then our
plant PLC, which basically doeseverything else, it more or less

(57:19):
just automate steps. So it moreor less just starts motors,
opens valves, closes valves,stop motors at certain steps
throughout production, mainlythat's used in mashing, I guess
is what I primarily use it forevery day. And then it also
automates our glycol valves onour fermenters. So I'm not
having to, you know, manuallycontrol, excuse me, manually

(57:41):
control a glycol valves on theon the fermenters every day i i
manually check them a coupletimes just to make sure that
they're they're operating and inin our temp range. But that
saves me a lot of time, I guess.But yeah, there's the two main
PLCs, I guess. Anyway, as

I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast, you
guys have, if you go to thewebsite, you have a lot of
products lined up. There,different names, different
strands. You mentioned a couple,like the Legacy series, the
native Green Series. So thethere are a couple that I was
really curious about, but Iwanted to start with something I

(58:20):
also alluded to earlier, whichwas on the back of the bottles
that I have for the samplebottles that were in the pack,
says age a minimum of two years.Now, I know you've been
producing at your currentlocations, 2022, so you know,
minimum, about two years plus orso. But some of these, like the

(58:44):
weeded bourbon, for example, Ithink I saw, as you know, up to
six plus years old, the poppy Jat might be nine, you know, the
two years for sure. So, I thinka question that I always ask for
craft distilleries when this isa possibility, is, why not put

(59:07):
the higher age statement on thebottle? That

Unknown (59:09):
is a good question. I don't know why we don't, to be
honest, it, I guess I'll tellyou just off head, because I'm
so I'm end up I do all of ourour bottling runs in our
reporting system. And currently,yeah, so the poppy J, that would
be our nine year bourbon. Thenthe next closest to that would

(59:33):
be our Henry P, which would bethat'd be about seven and a
half. Now it was seven rightwhen we released it, and now
that's, it's kind of crept upcloser to that seven and a half
mark. And then next would be ourcask 120 which is actually that
was a seven. So to anyone, Iguess, listening, currently, I

(59:53):
to my, my experience, you know,as far as our, I don't, I guess,
know exactly when theprinciples. Series that you have
with bottled the barrel that weare currently pulling out of
that's we're putting into ourCask is, I think, probably one
of the best barrels we've putinto a bottle yet it is our cask
right now is probably, by far myfavorite product. But anyway, so

(01:00:15):
our cask, which is currentlyright at that six and a half
seven, it'll be that'll bethat'll be getting jumped,
that'll jump back down to youngsex here, because we're kind of
on a, on a a class year gap. Sowe'll be jumping back down to
six just to pull some barrelsinto longer aging, and then
pretty much everything all thehigher or the our higher imash
Bill, so that all of the stuffthat feeds the French, Mongolian

(01:00:37):
and American everything in asquare bottle, I guess, is five
years at least. Just to make itsimpler, and pretty much from
five to nine, you know, areprobably. Average is six,
probably. So we're in thatrange. What, especially with the
weeded, which is, I don't, Iguess, I'm not sure what your
exact thoughts on it weretypically over the past year. So

(01:01:00):
that's been probably our, youknow, greenest whiskey that
we've put into just because it'sa weeded mash bill. So it, you
know, it doesn't, doesn't pickup that barrel, barrel as fast
as, you know, is like a rye mashbill, but, but yeah, it's,
they're all, you know, north offive in our square bottles. Our
round bottles are moreeconomically priced at that, you
know, the 50, $50 mark. Andthose are in that four range. We

(01:01:22):
really don't like to putanything lower than four into a
bottle, just because it's, it's,you know, when we're, we're such
a small market, you know, it's,it's, you really don't want to
release something that that isgoing to, you know, leave a bad
mark on you. So it's, it's,we're pretty picky as far as
everything currently is at leastfour, I guess, with the

(01:01:43):
exception, we have a new walleyewhiskey that we're releasing,
and that's just locally here,anyway, for the time being. And
that's just we're trying to, youknow, get into more of that, the
rail whiskey market, just in ourair, some, you know, our
immediate area, just to, youknow, try to get more products
into, you know, local bars andstuff, just with where we're at.

(01:02:05):
There's not a whole lot ofpeople that go to bars around
here and they want, you know, a$15 glass of bourbon. They're,
they're more of the, you know,the lot of people around here
drinking that, you know, whiskeyand coke type deal. So we're
releasing our walleye rye, whichis going to be more of a product
to hit that market, buteverything else is at north of

(01:02:25):
four. So, I guess so, yeah,

David Levine (01:02:27):
that's, yeah, that's, that's where I'd say,
like, you know, it's, I hearwhat you're saying about the
local market, I guess I look atit as, you know, as you're
expanding into, you know, havinga broader distribution through
the DC channel, and then the DCTTC, if you will, and the, you

(01:02:48):
know, getting in front of morepeople and hopefully getting
more exposure for you guys too.Because I really, I did enjoy
these. You know, they're, Ithink of the ones that I hit,
the poppy J was my favorite. Ihaven't cracked the casks, the
cask one yet, so can't say quiteyet, but yeah, the I know, the
the two, is important forcalling it straight. But then

(01:03:10):
that four, even if you know, youknow, you don't have to make a
bottle and bond by any means.But when you get to that four,
people start kind of like,alright, I'll pay a little more
for this bottle because it's,they know, it's four years old
that's seen some wood, it'smade. And then they'll also
start asking questions like, isfour years old? In South Dakota,
equivalent to four years? Youknow? Where is it equivalent to

(01:03:33):
four years to certainly not likeTexas or somewhere, but, yeah,
where's Where is? And that'swhere people start asking
questions. You get more nerdslike me. So it's, and that's a
it ends up also being a purelymarketing thing too, like it's
really as a marketing decision.So just to throw it out there,

(01:03:54):
especially once, like I said,once I saw the Papi, Jay was
nine plus, I was like, Okay,this, that's a big difference
from two plus over there. Yeah,

Unknown (01:04:04):
yeah. And, oh yeah, the the poppy j, because last year's
Poppy J was eight years, becausethey were actually the, up until
now, all the poppy JS have beenthe that 2015, class year. So,
so they've all been, they'vebeen aging a year every every
release. I think we've releasedthree Poppy J barrels now it was
seven, eight and nine. Andactually, we're going to have

(01:04:27):
have some that's in that 10 yearmark, that because we didn't
fully bottle that barrel. Butanyway, yeah, so they're,
they're in that nine mark. And,yeah, that's, that is one thing
that is definitely, you know,that's, I don't I, you know, I'm
not experienced enough to tocompare. You know what? You
know, what is four years here,like, what does that compare to?

(01:04:48):
You know, I'm not, I'm notcertain that. Actually, that is
the few times that I've had aindependent bottler here, just
sampling I that's probably thefunnest times I've had here.
Here is when I get independentbottlers, or even, you know,
people such as yourself thatthat come here that have tasted
a wide, wide range of productsand tasted, you know, straight,

(01:05:09):
you know, just points, pullingout a barrel with a wine thief
and and trying it and samplingit. It is, it isn't. It's just
really fun to get their take onit, because they've tasted so
many different products from somany different places. It's
that's been some of the, youknow, when pulling barrels and
stuff like that, that's beenprobably the funnest, some of

(01:05:30):
the funnest instances I've hadhere is when we have have any
any person that's been aroundthe country and tasted products
from around the country. It'sjust very interesting.

And we should mention, in that independent
bottle or vein, you guys had abarrel picked by two souls, is a
six year old bourbon, yeah,yeah. That was one of your big
first, like, nationwideexposures.

Unknown (01:05:58):
That was our Yeah, our first, yeah. I That was the two
souls. Was the first independentbottle or that we've, we've had
here, we had here, yeah, andthat's, I'm trying to think of
when they first stopped outhere. I'd like to say it was
probably a year ago. I think soI because I think, I think they

(01:06:19):
came up here right when I was onthe tail end of of production
last year, so, or a year ago, soit'd be about a year ago, yeah.
And then yeah, we, we, we gotthat barrel to them, and that,
that turned out, that barrel waspretty good, especially for a
six year I don't know if you'vehad it or not, but that one was,
that was a pretty neat releasethat we that we had. That was,

(01:06:40):
yeah, that was the first two.

Yeah, I haven't tasted it myself. I know several
friends who were, they were onthe two souls distribution list
first, so sure try to work myway on there as well, just to
try, because that's how I findbrands like blackboards. You
know, those independentbottlers. Lost lantern has
introduced me to so many aswell. That's that's how we find

(01:07:06):
these with no disrespect meantto this term, smaller, you know,
more local guys who aresometimes making great whiskey
and just, you know, maybe peopledon't know about them.
Sometimes, by choice. Sometimesthe marketing hasn't quite
caught up yet, but it's toborrow Los Angeles thing. It's
shining a light on theindependent crafts. So I really

(01:07:28):
enjoy that.

Unknown (01:07:30):
Yeah, that is, you know, that is one thing that it
kind of goes back to the, youknow, the legislative or the
legal side of it is, you know, Idon't, I don't particularly
know, I've, you know, the craftbreweries have, you know, have
been very there's a lot of craftbreweries around here, as I'm
sure, like, there is everywhere,but there is, there's been a lot
of craft breweries that havepopped up. And I, you know, I

(01:07:52):
don't know what the distributionchannels are like for for a
brewery, but you know, it is,you know, to my understanding,
it is more challenging. Youknow, when you're you're dealing
with with whiskey, or reallyanything higher proof, and that
it definitely makes a challengefor, you know, getting, you
know, getting, getting stuff outthere, you know, more of a
national level, especially, youknow, for smaller people such as

(01:08:13):
us, like you, like youmentioned, which is, yeah, it's
not, not a bad thing. It's just,it's just hard for, hard for us
to, you know, get more of avoice to, you know, because
it's, you know, sure we cansend, you know, some, you know,
bottles around and stuff, but,you know, for samples and
whatnot. But it's, it's hard to,you know, at some point, you
know, you have to be able to getproduct to those people that

(01:08:35):
talk and by the word of mouthtype of deal. So it's, it's
definitely a challenge, forsure, and it's, you know, that's
every opportunity, you know, weget to do stuff like this, or,
you know, it's always neat,because we're, we're kind of in
an obsolete part of the country.

So just to cover a couple more of the products,
quickly, I wanted to ask about,I'm sorry. I'm gonna throw
another marketing question atyou. I'm so sorry. No, go for
it. But So you mentioned thereare three toasted series, the
American French and Mongolianand the so the American French

(01:09:17):
are kind of self explanatory,but I want to focus on the
Mongolian just for a second,because I know that so species
wise, it's the same as mizanara,okay, in Japan. And, you know, I
think on the website too, itsays, you know these casks for

(01:09:38):
for it says Mongolian, but itapplies to me zenara as well.
Like these casts can go for$6,000 go for $6,000 a piece
because they're and they're ontop of that, they're leaky,
they're fragile, they they'rerare. You know, all the things
that would make you not want tobuy it because it's ridiculously
expensive and not veryefficient. I'm curious, and feel

(01:09:59):
free to say. You don't know onthis one, because this one is a
real nitpicky question, butbecause mizunara has the name
recognition of being likeassociated with Japanese
whiskeys and super high end andexpensive stuff, I'd be curious
to know the choice to go withMongolian instead of mizunara,
because the only other one thatI know of that had used

(01:10:21):
Mongolian on a as a term aconsistent basis, was the
Charter Oak series from a coupleyears ago. Man is just like,
it's like, because people see meusing our and they're like,
Okay, I'm gonna pay, I know I'mgonna pay at least $100 for this
bottle. Most like, unless it'sunless it's the doers blend,
which is 30 bucks, but all theother reason ours are 100 plus,

(01:10:43):
if not 1000s. So just on thename recognition, I would be
curious of that choice, you

Unknown (01:10:50):
know, I don't, I'm not sure, you know for certain,
it's, yeah, those that barrelis, because that's for a while
we had, we had to use acombination of of, you know, a
Mongolian barrel and drop ins,just because it is right when I
first joined the team, here isright when we, we got our full
Mongolian barrel. And thatprocess took a long time. It is

(01:11:12):
not easy to get a full Mongolianoak barrel into the US. It, it
took a long time, and it, yeah,it certainly was not cheap. And
it, it's, it is a neat barrel.Don't get me wrong, it is a very
interesting barrel. That is one,you know, there's usually when,
when I do tours and, or we dotours here it, you know,

(01:11:34):
there's, I don't, you know,point out any specific barrel,
but that one I usually do,because it's definitely an
interesting, you know, there's,it's an interesting background
to that, and we're not, thereain't a whole lot of people that
do it, you know, on, at least myknowledge, on, at least on our
scale. So, yeah, I don't, youknow, I'm not exactly sure on,
you know, why, the the wedidn't, you know, change the

(01:11:57):
wording, or we chose Mongolian,but, but, but, yeah, that's, I'm
not, I guess, I'm not exactlysure, but it is one of those
products that's unique.

No worries. That's it's something to think about.
You can definitely succeed withthe Mongolian, for sure. So the
last question I have on theproducts for for now, because
I'm sure they're going to beones that I think of after after
we're done podcasting, is thereare a bunch of private labels on
the site too. So just a coupleof them. You know, Bourbon girl,

(01:12:31):
South Dakota, whiskey, gun, dog,cattlemens in looking like, if
you're, if I'm a consumer,looking at at the site,
thinking, Okay, I want to buyblack fork distillery, whiskey,
where? What's the place of theprivate labels in your

(01:12:52):
portfolio? Yeah,

Unknown (01:12:54):
so I guess I'll to answer this question. I'll start
with the history, or theevolution of the products that
we currently have, just at leasta short story about it. So it
originally started with theAmerican, French, Mongolian.
Those were the first three, youknow, that that was our before I
was here, that was there, thepre release that we did, you

(01:13:14):
know right away was, was thosethree products. And from there,
it has evolved into noweverything else that we have in
a square bottle, which, all ofthe notable square bottle
products we have are, what's inthat, in the principal series,
that, that you have, which,that's, that's actually the
exact reason we have that is,you know, especially here, we
get people that come here thatsay, you know, our, my brother

(01:13:38):
in law is a big bourbon drinker.You know, we're going to
Christmas together, but I don'tknow what product he likes or,
you know, because, you know,every bourbon drinker is
different. They like differentthings. So that's, that's kind
of why we have that is to givethem that so they have a chance
to try, you know, try the all ofthem, and then if they want to,
you know, pursue their favoriteor, you know, something like
that in the future. You know,they, they kind of have it

(01:13:59):
narrowed down to what they want.But yeah, so it started with
those three products, and thenafter basically, when did this
start? Probably three years ago,we really wanted something more
in that the $50 price rangethat, you know, it's more more
accessible to, you know, more ofthe everyday consumer, I guess

(01:14:20):
$50 for a bottle still, youknow, it's still plenty to some
people. So we wanted somethingin that price range anyway. And
that's kind of where all thosecome into play is, is, is there,
you know, they're a little more,they're all round bottles, so
they don't carry our squareblack fork farms logo, which is
kind of, that's, you know,Gordon's baby. Is those square
bottles, which there? That'ssomething that he is extremely

(01:14:43):
proud of, is, are those bottlesand they are there. That's, I
mean, they're beautiful bottles.I don't want to celebrate you
when I say that, but they'revery square bottles are very
beautiful. So that's kind ofthose bottles are. You know,
more different marketing. Yeah,we have our bourbon Girl series
that it's we got currently,really two bottles that they're

(01:15:06):
both bourbon grill and one onehas a free ride, or it's called
free ride, which has a bikergirl on it, just being that,
motorcycles are a big thing inSouth Dakota, you know, with the
Sturgis rally and all that. Andthen we have our barrel racer,
which is which kind of hits therodeo side of things, just
because rodeo is pretty big inthe state as well. So those, and

(01:15:27):
then our cattlemen, they're allare slight, slightly different
variants of of just to hit that$50 mark more or less so, or 47
is what they retail for, mostly.So that's really the reason
behind those products andwhatnot. But I don't know if
that answered your question ornot. Feel free to bounce back or

(01:15:48):
if I if I didn't hit it, right?

No, no, you did it. It's, there are plenty of
places that do the privatebottling. Sometimes it's, yeah,
sometimes it's like a particularbar has their line that's under
a name or but I like this ideathat you're calling back for at
least some to the to the thingsthat are either unique to the

(01:16:10):
state or associated with thestate. And I like that, and it
gives you a little room toexperiment, to to play around
with it, which actually leads meinto my last line of
questioning, which is, soyou're, you're, and I say you as
in black fork Farms is in a kindof unique position. Gordon is,

(01:16:34):
you know, there's a sixthgeneration family farm. There's
a lot of commercial farmingdone. So I, in one of the
sources that I was using for theresearch, said, you know, while
some of the things are that youdoing are expensive, like, for
example, you were saying that wetalked about the the ratio of

(01:16:54):
yield for the Indian corn, thedifferent grains you're using,
the mostly new equipment for thedistillery, you needed an
investment upfront to be able tocontract distill and pay for the
contract distillation, then tobuild the distillery all while,
as you said at the beginning, upuntil last year, you didn't have

(01:17:17):
a clear spirits line, which isusually that's the lifeline for
for places while their whiskeyis aging, so they can keep the
doors open. So in one of thesources, it was the distillery
was described for for Gordon asquote, unquote, an oversized
hobby, because the commercialfarming side of the business

(01:17:38):
kind of takes over the financialconcern from your seat, as you
know, production manager andcreating working there every
day, these 12 hour shifts, not16, hopefully, the 12 hour
shifts, not

Unknown (01:17:56):
always 12, either. Some days when everything goes right,
right, I can get out of here byfive. That's not all the time,
but it does happen. I don't wantto make people think it doesn't
happen, but I should

add, in addition to those investments, having the
PLC in there and these thingsthat, while they may be
efficient and save costs longterm, are expensive upfront to
put in. From your perspective,does having that kind of
financial backing give you alittle more freedom to to

(01:18:28):
experiment, take chances andeven make mistakes, like putting
a barrel of corn whiskey outnegative 20 degrees?

Unknown (01:18:35):
We don't. That's not something I don't I don't think
we'll probably do that, I guess,just so that. But it's it, you
know, it's, yeah, Gordon's beenknown to make that comment every
once in a while that this is anoversized hobby. I won't deny
that. I'm sure it's, I know morethan a couple people. He's told
that too. So, you know, it'sjust something that, you know,

(01:18:56):
Gordon really had a pat. Youknow, passion for this is he had
this idea and he really wantedto pursue it. Just, there's,
there is an underlying drive,just from Gordon, because he
really loves everything thatthis entails, you know, he loves
the industry. He really like, heloves the people that it brings,

(01:19:17):
you know, you know, the, there'sfew industries that that, I
think, has the camaraderie, Iguess you could say, of, you
know, the bourbon industry,there's, you know, obviously,
there's, I'm sure you get out ofhere, you know, this area, and
there's, you know, there's a lotof competition too. But, you
know, as far as the consumerside of it, it's, it's a, it's

(01:19:38):
just a very fun industry to be apart of. It's been very
welcoming every every outsideperson I've ever talked to. It's
always, there's always aninteresting conversation to be
had, I guess is the way to putit. And Gordon loves that side
of things, so he's verypassionate about, you know, the,
you know, making of just finebourbon. That's something that
he's loved. And. A I guessthere, we have a sign up in our

(01:20:02):
in the shop here, that thatsays, Don't, don't, hate on me.
I'm sure it's a common thing,but it's more or less, says that
we make fine bourbon at a profitif we can, but at a loss if we
must. So that kind of just sumsup, you know, that's we are. Our
main focus is just producing agood product that that people

(01:20:22):
want to drink, not and that aregoing to have a good experience
with it, you know, that's,that's, that's kind of our main
focus. And, you know, that's, Iwould say, we're very, I at
least I'm, you know, I'm veryfortunate that that's, you know,
the mindset that we have, youknow, we're just striving
towards a better product. So,you know, that's, you know, as

(01:20:43):
far as you know that back toyour kind of question, as far as
the ability to, you know,experiment a little more, and as
far as the financial aspect ofit, you know, there's certainly
a lot of experimenting that wedo, but, you know, it's always,
always calculated. We put a lotof thought and time and into
everything that we do, justbecause, you know, obviously,

(01:21:03):
with only five people, there'sonly so many man hours in a day.
So that's, you know, everythingwe do is kind of calculated in
that regard, that, you know, ourtime is precious, just like
everywhere else. So, you know,we want to make the most of it.
So, you know, as far as you'reexperimenting and stuff goes,
yeah, there, there may be some,you know, it may cost us, but

(01:21:24):
it's always calculated. Andthere's, there's always a reason
why we're doing it. We don'tjust, I guess, blindly,
experiment all the time, but,but, yeah, I guess, I don't
know. You might have a rebuttalquestion to that, but, no,

no, I that's, that's perfectly fine. I mean,
that's, it's a fortunate thingto have. And I the only thing
that I would say is, I knowthere are a lot of distilleries
and producers who might listen,who are going to be jealous of
it, but that's, I

Unknown (01:21:51):
don't want to be the case. Yeah, it's, it's okay

to be, to be jealous of something. It's as
long as you're succeeding, it'sfine. So with that, you know,
Tyler, thank you for coming onif, and I hope I'm not, I won't
embarrass you by saying this. Icertainly don't mean to that if
you are listening to this athome or somewhere where you are

(01:22:16):
not in control of a vehicle,give a little clap. This is
Tyler's first ever podcast, andI think he made it through with
flying colors. He survived. Hedid it. He held his own. If you
are driving, do a mental clap.I'm not responsible for any
crashes that happen if youdecided to do a full clap. But
to talk about black four farms.Thank you again, Tyler for

(01:22:38):
coming on. Hang on with me forjust a minute after I hit the
stop recording button, it's beenthe whiskey ring podcast. Like
rate and subscribe everywhere.There will be links in the show
notes to where you can findblack fork farms and now where
you can perhaps order themnationwide, unless you're in one
of those eight states that can'tget with it. And with that, I

(01:22:59):
will see you all next week. You.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

True Crime Tonight

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

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

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ep. 188: BlackFork Farms with Tyler Gophen

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

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

Dateline NBC

24/7 News: The Latest

All Episodes

Ep. 188: BlackFork Farms with Tyler Gophen

True Crime Tonight