December 17, 2025 • 51 mins
The Gin of Texas Hill Country
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Waterloo Gin
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
David Levine (00:02):
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of the whiskey
ring podcast, where this week weare actually going to be the gin
ring podcast. That's right, thisis only our maybe second or
third episode that we're goingto be focusing more on gin
exclusively. And I like doingthis from time to time, because,
as some of you may know, wholistened for a long time, gin, I
feel like, is anunderappreciated spirit. It's
(00:24):
not the clear vodka that's gotkind of could go anywhere. It's
not usually the bourbon or thewhiskey that's got the age on
it. We'll get to that hesitationin a moment during the
interview, as to why this brandcan hesitate on that, but it can
show more than any other spirita very quick and easy sense of
place with flavor, botanicalsand style. So with all that ado,
(00:49):
I'm thrilled to welcome onJustin Meigs from Waterloo gin,
based little west of Austin,Texas, in Hill Country. And
Justin, welcome on. Thanks somuch for having me, David. So to
to kick us off, we've got threeproducts that we're going to be
tasting through throughout theinterview. We've got the
Waterloo number nine gin. It'sthe original core range. We have
(01:11):
the Waterloo barrel aged gin agetwo years in New American oak
barrels. And we have one of thenewer releases, which is the
Waterloo prickly pear and Roset.So with all of that, we're going
to talk about how you get to thedifferent botanicals, the barrel
aging. But first I want to startwhere we always start, which is
the origin story of Waterloogin. So I'll throw it over you.
Justin Meigs (01:33):
Yeah, sure. So Waterloo, as you mentioned, is
from Dripping Springs, Texas.The the name of the brand
Waterloo comes from Waterloobeing the original name of
Austin, Texas. So that's kind ofa fun little piece of history
that a lot of people don'trealize. But that's so that. So
the name does have some meaning,which is fun. And then in
(01:55):
addition, from from that, thegin is a Texas Hill Country gin,
so all the botanicals are TexasHill Country inspired. You know,
the from the limestone filteredwater to the lavender to the
grapefruit, all these thingsare, are found in the Texas Hill
Country, and they make for aphenomenal gin. And so that's
how, that's how we've gottenhere today.
David Levine (02:18):
And this brand, we were talking a little bit before
hitting the record button. Thisbrand was around before you guys
joined. So it was really arelaunch, if you will, in
September 2025, just a couple ofmonths ago, that was under new
ownership, new thought processto regenerate the brand. So how
did that process come about?
Unknown (02:38):
Yeah, we got really lucky with this brand. We you
know, this brand is owned byJohn Paul degoria. I work for
his family office. And we wereexploring various spirits
projects, and we came acrossWaterloo through exploration,
on, on another project, and justfell in love with the liquid we
we knew it was something trulyspecial. And, and, and could be
(03:03):
something much bigger than itwas. And so we found a way to to
peel it off from the originalowners at treaty oak and and
take things over. We did a firstthing we did is a package
refresh. We took it to a companycalled Sandstrom partners out of
Portland, Oregon and, and wespent, you know, every bit of
1011, months on, you know,redesigning the package and
(03:27):
really elevating it to a levelwhere we thought that the
package, you know, emulated whatit was inside the bottle and the
quality of the Spirit. And welanded in a really awesome
place. We're very, very excitedwith, with how the brand has
come out and and we're hearingit from from people in the
market as well. People are overthe moon about the package. So
it's been a lot of fun.
David Levine (03:47):
It is. It's very, you know, on some level, it's a
simple bottle design, very ginesque, if you will. Which I
like. It's gonna fit on shelf?Well, it's not super tall, which
has been driving me nuts latelywith bottles that are super
tall. And the label is verysimple, like you're gonna see it
from across a bar and be able toread the fact it's Waterloo gin.
The etchings in the in thepaper, the design of the paper,
(04:10):
it's the different botanicalsthat are in there showcase the
color of the Spirit, which youwant to want as well, especially
for those two that are not clearabsolutely with the Hill Country
on your website, in previousinterviews, Waterloo plays up,
if you will. I mean, then, inthe positive way, plays up the
(04:31):
sense of place that hill countryis in the spirit and can be
through the botanicals andthrough what you know, where
you're aging it, for the barrelaged gin. So we know for gin,
you've got to have juniper.That's kind of the one
requirement. You got to haveJuniper in there, true. But
beyond that, you've got, andthis is just for the number
(04:54):
nine. Got lavender, grapefruit,pecan. You say pecan or pecan.
Unknown (04:59):
I. I say pecan,
David Levine (05:02):
lemon zest, coriander, anise, ginger and
licorice root. So on one level,except for the pecans and
lavender, a American style, forsure. But of those botanicals,
how do you take those botanicalsand create an American style gin
(05:26):
that has the Hill Countrycharacter in it?
Unknown (05:29):
Yeah, so the junipers is, is very much toned down. And
so I guess the big thing for usis this, this spirit does not
overpower with juniper, Juniperas many traditional London dry
style gins. Do you know we comein with heavy on the lavender,
heavy on the citrus, becausethey just pair so nicely with
(05:51):
with the with the otherbotanicals in the gin and the
base the base botanicals, thepecan is an interesting one,
because pecan doesn't impart alot of flavor on the gin, the
pecan is actually introduced tothe gin for mouth feel. And so
you'll notice when you take asip of the gin, it's got a very
nice, velvety finish. And itjust, it just makes for some
(06:15):
exceptional cocktails. I was
David Levine (06:21):
wondering about that. That is nice. Don't do
what I don't usually do. I don'tusually taste on air. But in
this case, because we're talkingabout botanicals, it really
wants to do that. It's so mouthwatering, yeah, which in a good
way, but I see what you meanabout the pecan. Like, I don't
really taste the pecan in anutty sense, right? But this
(06:44):
definitely has a, what I callkind of an oily or a fatty
element to it, sure. And at 94proof, it's also not going to
just dissipate it. It hasstaying power in the mouth,
yeah, which, so this at 94proof, too. I can imagine we
usually think gin is cocktailsfirst. But this is also one that
(07:08):
can be sipped a 94 proof prettyeasily, absolutely.
Unknown (07:13):
And I think, you know, the number nine is one that,
more often than not, we see itmixed into cocktails, or, you
know, all the classic, you know,gin cocktails, and although
toned down on the Juniper, itstill comes through very much as
a gin and holds up very well inthe classic cocktails. I think
when you get to the other skewsthe prickly pear and Rose and
(07:34):
the barrel aged. Those ones overice or Sydney or over ice, or as
a straight up martini, are justphenomenal spirits. So but, but
yet, you this is, this isabsolutely meant to be a sipper
as well as a mixable cocktail.
David Levine (07:49):
Gin. Awesome. So to while we're tasting through
these and talking about thecountry, Hill Country, excuse
me, a question that kept comingup in my mind was because we
don't talk about Jen as much onthis podcast. It can be very
whiskey focused. We talk aboutstate of the industry and trends
and such. Where is the ginindustry right now? In America?
Unknown (08:14):
It's, it's a pretty fascinating moment, I think, in
gin, just globally, you know,gin is is one of the most
innovative and fastest evolvingcategories. So, you know,
there's that piece, but then inthe US, it still has so much
room to grow, you know,especially amongst younger
(08:35):
drinkers. So what we found andis that younger drinkers are
looking for approachable,vibrant, modern expressions of
gin, and we feel like Waterloofits that gap very nicely.
David Levine (08:51):
And the has the markets, well, I guess a little
different, because you don'tgenerally have to age gens
again. We're talking excludingthe barrel aged version that you
have. But has, have you seensales slow grow pretty standard,
as the Spirit market hasplateaued in the last year or
(09:14):
so?
Unknown (09:14):
Yeah, we're so we're, we're seeing really nice growth
with Waterloo and, you know? Andso Waterloo was, was founded in
2009 so it's been in Texas and afew other markets for a long
time now, and it's got a reallynice cult following. What's so
fun for us is we've been able toexpand up. You know, it's, it's
(09:36):
got 16 years of business in thestate of Texas, and so it's,
it's in a lot of places, but westill are seeing significant
growth even in Texas. I mean,it's, uh, it's shocking that,
that there's, there's the cultfollowing that it does have, but
then there's still so manyaccounts or so many customers
that haven't heard or seenWaterloo. And so we're seeing
great growth in in Texas and inFlorida and the markets that the
(09:58):
brand was already in. And, youknow, since. We've taken over.
We've expanded to 14 markets,and so we're seeing, you know,
tremendous growth nationallywith the brand, and the
reception to it so far has beentremendous question, though, I
just, I think I, I wanted toadd, you know, there was this
moment 15 or 20 years ago withtequila, where tequila was,
(10:21):
wasn't a huge category in theUS, and it has absolutely
exploded, as I'm sure you know,and and I think that's that's
kind of happening with gin rightnow. You know, consumers are
much more curious, and I think,you know, bartenders are getting
much more creative and wantingto work with other spirits. And
so to me, it feels like premiumcraft gin is really gaining a
(10:46):
lot of traction right now.
David Levine (10:49):
And from a price perspective, it's I feel like
I'm somewhat unfamiliar with ginpricing, to be honest, because I
just don't I have a couple ofbrands of gin that I go to, but
I don't make cocktails at home,so it's usually one bottle
that's just kind of hanging outfor me. Hanging out for me,
unless I'm really on a kick,usually in a groaning kick, if
I'm being honest. So priced atbetween 3499 and 3999 for these
(11:13):
products, does this fit intokind of a slightly more
premiumized Gin category asopposed to a more general
category?
Unknown (11:21):
Yeah, well, I think you're, you're right there in
the sweet spot for gins. 30 to40 seems to be the sweet spot.
And we, all three of our SKUsland somewhere in that range. I
think, you know, it's it,
it's, it's not a one size fitsall.
You know, situation there theyou see some very expensive gins
(11:43):
having very good velocity andselling very nicely and
warranting very high pricepoints. But you know, we also
wanted to provide a superpremium gin for an approachable
price. We have approachable ginat an approachable price,
gotcha.
David Levine (11:58):
And with the ramp up using you're already in 14
other states. Texas itself is ahuge market, but in the press
release that accompanied therelaunch in September, a stated
goal was by the end of 2026 wewant to be in all 50 states. So,
yeah, already. You know, that'scertainly ambitious. I've seen
(12:20):
it done? Sorry, but I've seen itdone. Yeah, I am curious to ask
that is also that does alsorequire, I would think, a ramp
up in production. Yes. Well, soare you distilling yourselves?
Are you working with a partner?
Unknown (12:39):
Yeah, so we are distilling water. The Gin
company is distilling at treatyoak distillery, which is where
the brand was founded. So wewere lucky enough to work out an
agreement with the distillery tostill be in there, making the
gin, continuing the productionas it always has been produced.
And so nothing has changed withthe liquid, even you know some
(12:59):
of the guys that work on thebrand you know, are from the
original crew there at treatyoaks. So it's a well oiled
machine over there, and wedidn't want to make any changes
if we didn't
David Levine (13:13):
have to, fair enough so that that means that
they will need to accommodateyour increased capacity needs as
well. Yes, was that written tothat agreement? Like we've got a
vision. We want to bring thisfurther out. So we're going to
need more capacity on yourstills than you were using
yourselves.
Unknown (13:31):
Yeah, we're, we are, we're pretty close with the
group there. And so we, we haveregular production meetings and
and, you know, forecastingmeetings and things like that,
and so they're well aware of ourfirst three years of plans, and
they're very aggressive. Andthere doesn't seem to be any
issues with with the aggressiveplan. So we're we're doing
everything we can to go afterthose and expand rapidly, as you
(13:56):
mentioned previously. We ourgoal is to be in all 50 by the
end of next year. We were at 14.Now we have control states,
which I'm sure you're aware of,that they have, you know, it's
very similar to, like a grocerystore reset and where they only
bring on brands at certain timesthroughout the year. And so we
(14:18):
were at the at the liberty ofsome of those things from, from
going fast, as fast as we'd liketo, but we do have a lot of
great control states coming onin January. And, you know, we
have six or seven more statescoming on in q1 so we'll be,
we'll be pretty well on our wayto getting there at the end of
q1
David Levine (14:37):
nice, nice. So that. So we covered the number
nine. That's the original gin,the core gin that things branch
out from, as we're tasting.Should I do prickly pear and
Rose next, or rose? Sorry, nextand or the barrel age next?
Unknown (14:53):
Yeah. Why don't you go prickly pear and Rose?
David Levine (14:55):
Prickly Pear and Rose? All right? Yeah. Do.
Right? So while I'm pouringthat, see if we can get a nice
pop here. Don't do that enoughon the podcast. Oh, that was a
nice one. So prick the pear andRose, beautiful pink color and
pink gen two has been on a realtrend recently, something I
(15:20):
didn't really realize until Ilooked into it, like, oh yeah.
It and like, oh yeah. This isokay. This is a significant
segment of the up and coming ginmarket. So as you were, I don't
know if the right word ispurchasing the brand,
transferring the brandownership, taking over the brand
and relaunching it was thisimmediately part of the plan
(15:47):
that you wanted to implement?
Unknown (15:50):
Um, great question. I, I wouldn't say it was a part of
the immediate plan. Um, we, weknew we wanted to be innovative
with this company. We knew wewanted to bring new gins to the
market. And we when we thoughtthat, you know, we need to, we
need, you know, we need to havea wide range of offerings for
(16:14):
the average consumer who has notbeen introduced to gin. And so
we felt like the prickly pear,you know, and the trends with
pink gin globally and and, youknow, we wanted to do a pink gin
the Waterloo way, you know, wewanted to stay authentic. We
wanted to stay rooted in place.You know, Texas Hill Country
(16:38):
botanicals, not overly sweet.You know, the prickly pear and
Rose is exactly that.
David Levine (16:47):
I do enjoy prickly pear. Rose can kind of go either
way for me. I'll be honest.It's, it's, you know, if you use
it right, it's a great flavor.If you use it too much, it's
soapy, you know, or or perfumey,but no and the nose is quite
nice and has a very sweetflavor, as opposed to floral.
Unknown (17:05):
Yeah, to me, the rose, it gives it an elegance. Or, you
know, aromatics that you'relooking for that balance out the
gin, but they don't overpowerthe core gin character. And so,
you know that one for me is it'snewer. So it's, it's, it's the
one that's been getting a lot ofmy attention when I'll have a
(17:26):
cocktail at home or, or have oneof our accounts that has all
three. I like to, I like to gowith the prickly pear lately
and, and truly, because peoplehave been so creative with it.
You know, I'm, I'm, I'm socurious as to how people will
work with this product. I loveto drink it, you know, just with
soda. I think the prickly pearand soda is phenomenal. But some
(17:47):
of the cocktails that we've seenout in the trade, you know, in
bars and restaurants, they'rethey're so fun and and everybody
should get an opportunity to trya lot of these prickly pear and
Rose cocktails.
David Levine (18:02):
It's really enjoyable. I'm it has, it's cut
the the, I don't say harshness,because that's not really what I
mean. But the sharpness,perhaps, from you get from the
original gin, that just that,it's kind of a gin namesake. You
know, you get a lot of tentaclesstraight up front. This is what
you're getting with the pricklypear and the rose and hibiscus
(18:25):
as well. Added to the originalNine botanicals, you're getting
the color, which has thatpsychological effect of calming
it down a little bit. But thereis a sweetness, a fruitiness, I
agree with you. The rose issomewhat understated, which I
think is handled really wellhere again, if you've got two
flowers in there, so twopowerful flowers, yes, in the
(18:45):
hibiscus and the rose added tolavender already, and the
prickly pear is really theelement that shines. Will you
consider the the prickly pear tobe of those three, the most
authentically hill country.
Unknown (19:05):
They I don't think so. I mean, they're all pretty hill
country. You know, you're I willsay that prickly pear is very
much a popular flavor and allculinary and and drinks right
now, we didn't know that whenwe, when we first started
developing the prickly pear, wedid not know that we, we kind of
(19:28):
feel fortunate on this one, thatwe brought this one to market,
and it just so happened thatprickly pear is kind of
exploding in a lot of markets,not not just where it originates
or where it's, you know,naturally grown, but,
but, yeah, we the prickly pear.
It's, it's a phenomenal it addsa phenomenal flavor to the gin
(19:51):
and and they just it. It's, it'sso well balanced. And it's a fun
one. We're excited about theprickly pear. I mean,
David Levine (19:57):
as you can imagine, we don't grow a lot of
prickly pear. There's pricklypear cactus cacti there we go up
in New York at any time of year.But yeah, it was a flavor I
wasn't really aware of, becauseit's not, it's not local, it's
not, not a heritage prickly pearplants around here, until local
taco place started makingprickly pear margaritas and
(20:18):
frozen ones at that. And Godhelp me, they are addictive as
hell, because there's somethingabout that prickly pear that has
the sweetness, the tartness,everything you want in kind of a
fruit component of a cocktail.And then you add in, is it the
hibiscus, the rose petal? Andyeah, I can see this going
(20:39):
really, really, well, I'mcurious to see how it would hang
up in a in a classic Negroniwith a really powerful Campari
in there, because you've gotsuch nice citrus notes on the
number nine that come out brightand citrusy, whereas here the
(21:00):
citrus and the tartness istamped down a bit, not like the
flavor is lost, but it's morerounded. And so I'm curious how,
when you're having a cocktailwith it, how it cuts through
the, let's call it orangeness ofthe Campari and of the vermouth
(21:20):
as well, where you have thesweet too. So is it more
complimentary, or does it justcut through those two flavors?
Unknown (21:29):
It's complimentary, for sure. I think you know, you say
Negroni. And of course, any, anygin drinker will instantly
think, I wonder how this tastesin the Negroni. So, so we, so,
we did a
launch event in Austin
about five months ago or so,four months ago, and we had a
(21:51):
white Negroni on as one of thedrink offerings that night. And
they used, you know, the LevineBlanc in lieu of Campari. And it
and it came out. Just excellent.
David Levine (22:05):
Let's give that a shot. I said, I don't make a lot
of cocktails at home, becauseit's not I make so few that it's
not prudent for me to have, youknow, an orange rind ready or a
lemon ready at all times. But orNegroni is great, because you
don't need any of that. You justneed the three ingredients, ice
a shaker or a mixer, and you'regood. So I just want to note
(22:25):
too, as I'm nosing this withmore air, there's a nice vanilla
tone that comes out as well.It's not overly pastry forward,
but just enough that it addsanother element, and I quite
enjoy that. I I
Unknown (22:43):
don't know if I've gotten, let me grab a I'm gonna
grab a bottle here. I don't knowif I've, if I've gotten the the
vanilla note there, but I wantto, I'm interested to to give
that a nose.
(23:07):
Yeah, little, a little undertoneof novel of vanilla there, huh?
David Levine (23:11):
Yeah, it's way in the back. Came on the second or
third sip. It's, it's definitelynot a front forward, like I
wouldn't think this. There's avanilla pod somewhere, sure,
yeah, in the steam basket, butthe vapor basket, that's
interesting.
Unknown (23:25):
I hadn't quite pulled that one out yet on my own, so
that's great. It's fun.Everyone's you know, senses are
so different, and it's great totry to look at it from another
perception.
David Levine (23:35):
So for sure, so going more into the sense of
place in this hill country, soprickly pear, Rose, hibiscus,
all you said, all of the hillcountry. You couldn't
necessarily make an argumentthat one is more hill country
than the other. I was thinkingtoo. And feel free to say like
this was, you know, eitherbefore the transfer, or if
(23:57):
you're thinking of other ones, Iwould imagine in a place as lush
as the hill country, there areseveral botanicals that might
work really well in a gin tomake different branches off of
the number nine. This particularone, it works really well with
the prickly pear, Rose,hibiscus. Are there botanicals
(24:20):
that could work. But you'relike, I just don't, I don't
think that that fits our profileor works well with the as a
branch off from the number nine.
Unknown (24:33):
So I don't think that we've had an opportunity. I
mean, of course, we're going toremain innovative. We are, we're
going to explore other stuff.We've done a lot of test runs.
We have, we have experimentedwith various other botanicals
and trying to think about what'snext. But we haven't. We haven't
(24:55):
really had time since we'vetaken over to really dive fully
into that next. Is, you knowwhat is possible, or what's our
next skew, or any of thosethings just yet, all I'll say is
we are doing r, d, we, we havebeen having a lot of fun
selecting botanicals and andsome of the stuff is quite
interesting.
David Levine (25:14):
So that makes me think too. I think I saw in the
either tech specs, or looking atat the brand previously that
you're like you said, you'reusing tridioke as a distilling
partner, and the botanicals arevapor distilled, yes, so they're
all vapor distilled, right? Noneof them macerated. None of them.
(25:37):
So would you macerate? Or wouldyou add Pentacles that need
maceration?
Unknown (25:42):
Yeah, we, we've, that's another kind of component that
that we have started exploringand and will continue to
explore. You know, we're not,we're not anti any method,
really, you know, we, we want tomake the best quality gin. So
far, we've, you know, the waythat the distillery was
producing the gin for the last16 years is it's, it's, it just
(26:07):
makes a beautiful, beautifulspirit. And so we haven't really
done too much exploring as faras maceration. I have worked
with other gins in the pastwhere we did a maceration
process, and they work greattoo. So never say never. I guess
that's the answer there.
David Levine (26:21):
That's fair looking at the list of
botanicals you've got on thereright now. I know, obviously not
all of them would work in inmaceration, anything with with
leaves, petals, those are goingto be in a and usually the
citrus too are going to be inthe gin basket. It's usually
just the hard one, like thecoriander perhaps, or the roots
Judah prepares themselves. ButI'm always curious to do the the
(26:43):
A and B testing to see, hey,what is this? What does this do
for the profile on that? Yeah,absolutely.
Unknown (26:52):
With we do so we do very, you know, we use a 500
gallon Vendome hybrid still, andwe do because we feel like it
yields the best quality spirit.We do a 250 gallon distillation
run, and then we blend batchesto make it a full 500 gallon
(27:13):
run. And so it's a, it's not a,it's not a fast process. You
know, each of our runs takesseven or eight hours, and so
we're talking about two days tomake one 500 gallon batch, which
is, you know, it's, there's alot of time that's going into
this, this product. And wedon't, we don't plan to, you
know, change any anything withthe process. We're going to
(27:35):
continue to produce it the wayit's always been produced, and
small batches and and whatevermakes the best quality gin.
David Levine (27:41):
So if you're doing you have 500 gallons. You doing
250 gallon batches. You got alot of headspace in there. It's
gonna allow a lot of vapor tokeep up their automatic reflux.
It's gonna happen lot of coppercontact as well. I get the you
know, you're gonna need alonger, seven, eight hour
distillation points on therethat reminded me of the question
(28:04):
I was going to ask, which was,with a whiskey distillery being
the origin of of the gin, whatis the base of the gin? Corn?
Corn? Okay, and so you'regetting a really, still, a
really clean product out ofthis, you know, I wouldn't, I
had to ask. I really wasn'tpicking up, is this a corn? Is
(28:26):
this a wheat? Is potato? I mean,you never know. Yeah, you
probably not in Texas, but youknow, you never know. And I
think, okay, so you got the cordin there, how many? And you're
just doing the doubledistillation. That's it,
alright. So I think that comesthrough to like, like I said,
(28:47):
I'm not picking up that this isa corn based spirit,
necessarily, but it's, it'sstill quite clean. So it's
getting a mid line betweenhaving to distill a lot to clean
it up or not distill and keepthe oils and and things in
there. So when you and the teamare making our distilling, what
(29:09):
kind of you know, what are youbringing it up to or bring it
down to before you take it offthe still,
Unknown (29:18):
it comes off the still right around 150 proof.
And it varies. It's anywherefrom one, you know, 135 to to
160 or so, but it tends to comeoff right around that 150 range.
And then we'll batch the twobatches there at high proof, and
(29:40):
proof down to 94 from there.
David Levine (29:43):
Gotcha do a so that? Again, I'm not an expert
in gin by any means, but sothat's still, it sounds like
it's gonna be a lower cut rangethan the usual gin. So you've
got, you're not distilling itall the way to like a 194 grain
neutral. Spirit. You're doing itto 150 maybe 162 so you're gonna
(30:05):
end up keeping more of thoseflavors in there, and the the
oils in particular, might losesome of the more volatile ones
at the higher proof but the oilsare still going to come through
and keep the mouth feel
Unknown (30:15):
very much.
David Levine (30:18):
Are you when you're proofing down, is that
slow proof, quick proof,somewhere in the middle,
Unknown (30:27):
somewhere in the middle, it's, you know, it's all
we make sure to to use reverseosmosis water. And it's just,
it's a it's a process that theteam there has been doing for 16
years and and it's it seems tobe pretty effective and yield
this great spirit. So we don'tplan to make any any tweaks.
David Levine (30:51):
So as I'm opening the third one, the last one,
Waterloo barrel aged gym, it'sbeen aged two years in New
American white oak. So age justlike a bourbon or a rye, would
be correct. I'm curious, fromyour perspective as let me get
another good Quark pop, yep, so,from someone who has worked with
(31:16):
other gin brands before, iscoming into this a Texas Hill
Country gin, and one that hasput a certain way, it has a
pedigree, and, as you said, acult following behind it. Yeah.
So you've said, you know,ultimately, you want to keep
appealing to that base, becauseobviously you don't want
alienate, alienate customersthat you've had for 16 years, or
(31:39):
the brand has had for 16 years,but you want to innovate as
well. How, before we dive intothe barrel aged Jen, how far do
you think you can go with theinnovation without losing the
core people who have supportedthe brand for so long?
Unknown (32:00):
Well, you know, that's why we're continuing to to have
the number nine and the barrelage. Those, those, those are the
foundation of Waterloo Gen. Andso those will never go away. We
will continue to lead withWaterloo number nine and
Waterloo barrel aged as kind ofthe backbone of our portfolio.
The prickly parent Rose is hasrapidly. Picked up steam. And so
(32:26):
we know that there was an, youknow, we're finding out now
after after releasing theproduct, we know there was a
need and a desire from peoplewho were traditional Waterloo
fans to go find out what aren't,you know, there wasn't any real
innovation for several years.And so now there's a new
innovation, innovation skew forthese folks that have been
consuming our product for solong, and they just find it very
(32:46):
exciting. I think we'll continueto to not lose the Waterloo gin
tradition, but we'll continue totry to innovate, you know, and
capture new gin jenkers, asopposed to keeping all of our
longtime fans
David Levine (33:03):
love it. So one of the the one of the innovations,
or it's not innovation, I shouldsay, is one of the long standing
products. Here we've got thebarrel aged gin. So this is just
a reminder for people, barrelaged gin doesn't quite have a
formal designation from TTB oranything like that. There's, you
(33:26):
can say that it was age in abarrel. You can say it was for
however long. You can give allthe details, but it still falls
just under the gin category.There isn't a barrel age or a
straight designation like thereis for for whiskeys. You know,
if you age it two years, whichthis is aged or two years the
new American oak barrels. Can'tcall it straight, but that's a,
(33:52):
you know, most, for most people,that's going to be a small
little bit of legalese thatinterests me. But, you know,
it's an interest. What can wesay? But still, within this
there aren't a lot of barrelaged gins, and even fewer that
do it successfully. Soobviously, with this being a pre
existing product line, I'd lovefor you to talk about, you know,
(34:17):
how did this product come about,to the best of your knowledge,
of course, especially, why thenew American oak as opposed to a
used barrel?
Unknown (34:25):
Yeah, we were extremely fortunate, you know, we acquired
this brand, and we had barrelsup to 13 years old when we got
this brand. And so we've beenlucky enough to taste through
all of these barrels, or many ofthese barrels at, you know,
from, you know, the bottles thatare on the market at 94 proof,
(34:47):
all the way up to, we've, we'vetried these things that, you
know, barrel, barrel proof and,and they still drink, yeah,
phenomenally. Just neat.There's, there's real, there's
really, there's no proof on the.That I don't enjoy. And, and,
you know, I feel like they allcould be consumed at different
(35:07):
occasions or for differentgroups, but the new oak, it
seems to give it a bolderstructure and, and it continues
to have some of that rich spiceand some of those vanilla notes,
some of those caramelizedaromatics that whiskey drinkers
tend to enjoy. And so, you know,we feel like this one here
(35:29):
brings whiskey drinkers into thegin category very nicely. You
can consume all of the classic,you know, whiskey cocktails with
our Waterloo barrel aged gin.And they added a different, you
know, lane to these cocktailsthat that you don't always get
from Bourbon. And so they just,they're fun, you know, it this,
(35:51):
this inspires bartenders to becreative. And we're seeing a
real nice as we've begun tomarket this one a little bit, a
little bit more than ittraditionally was. We're seeing
a really nice response, and allover the country, not just in
Texas or, you know, in in inbourbon regions. A funny story
there, though, is, we did launchthe brand in Kentucky, and the
(36:13):
Kentucky folks who are, who arevery big, you know, obviously
bourbon drinkers, and I'm sureyou're, you're following, is
very much into bourbon. This oneis resonating really nicely in
Kentucky. It's a surprise. Ididn't know. I thought it could
go either way and and we'reseeing a very nice response to
in Kentucky, which is great.
David Levine (36:34):
Nice, nice. Yeah, I mean, on the nose for this,
the you can tell the barrelinfluence a little bit more that
vanilla, which I mean now we Iwould think would come from the
barrel, but could come from thespirit itself. I was surprised
that it really boosts thecoriander and the ginger, the
(37:00):
grapefruit and lemon zest, thoseare added to but they're not so
much boosted as the caramelized.Instead of it being a fresh one,
it's either dried or it'scondensed. It's a candied
almost. But the coriander andthe ginger really boost, and I
love that. Yeah, it's not atypical baking spice that you
get just because you have a newbarrel. It's where it's kind of
(37:22):
sharp and more, I usually thinkmore cinnamony, yeah, and clove
than anything. Yep. Instead,it's, it's fruity. It's, it's so
hard to explain Corian corianderin particular to someone who
hasn't had coriander before. Butthere is this green fruitiness
about it, that once you know theflavor, you never forget it.
(37:45):
Ginger, I think, is a littlemore common, so that's less of
an issue. But it's also not aspicy ginger. It's sweet. So the
crystallized ginger that you getat a sweet shop, you can shovel
it to a bag. I really enjoy thisand the, I think the biggest
surprise for me is that with anew American oak barrel, this is
(38:06):
not like, I'm not getting anywood on this. I'm not getting a
lot of, you know, barrelovertones that made me think the
barrel is taking over the gym,right?
Unknown (38:20):
It's a really nice balance. I think it, I think it
just really adds a nicecomplexity to the spirit that
you don't, you don't normallyget from from Bourbon. And, you
know, a lot of people seem veryreceptive to it most, most
places you go, people never,really, honestly, people haven't
heard of barrel aged Gen. In alot of places they haven't. And,
(38:44):
you know, when we introduce itto them, they really fall in
love with this one. And thisone, you know, it really, it
really gets the creative juicesflowing in the in the bar world
or the mixology world, peopleare excited to think up fun
cocktails for this one. And thisis another one, you know, I know
I mentioned the prickly pear.And we have, we have phenomenal
cocktails all over the countrywith with all of our SKUs, but,
(39:07):
but this one I've seen probablythe most creativity so far, as
far as just thinking outside thebox and coming up with wonderful
cocktails that that you can, youcan really enjoy and and pair
nicely with a meal and thingslike that.
David Levine (39:25):
And sorry if I if I missed an answer to this, but
I want to just revisit to makesure. Do you know why they chose
the new oak versus the used oak,because it's treaty oaks, so
they could they have easy accessto their own barrels that they
could have used.
Unknown (39:39):
Yeah, absolutely. So they're they, they did a lot of
of exploration on using treatyoak barrels, using various
barrels from from from all overand just landed in a place where
the best quality spirit was withthe new make at at right around
(39:59):
two. Years. So it wasn't, itwasn't a, it was more of a just,
how do we produce the bestquality spirit, and which
barrels do that? And where theylanded was the new make char
three white oak. There is stillbarrels on hand that are with X
treaty oak barrels. And theliquids, great too. But the
(40:22):
barrel aged is, is it's, it'sgot a sweet spot, and we love
it, and so there's not going tobe any tweaks there. And and we
think that they made the rightchoice on that one.
David Levine (40:32):
You did say you've tasted barrels that have been
around for at least 13 years atthe top end, yeah, what happens
to the gin and the pairing withthe barrel at 13 years.
Unknown (40:46):
It's much more it's much more rich. It's, it's
extremely dark, as you canimagine. You know, the Texas
climate ages these these spiritsvery fast, and so they come off
beautifully, the flavors theyshine through. But really, it's,
it's interesting, not, I can'tsay that any, any two barrels
(41:09):
taste the same, you know, withthe older stuff they, they seem
to to change quite a bit, justbased on, you know, quantity of
spirit in there and in thebarrel. You know, you know, the
entry proofs weren't, you know,early on in the, in the in the
early years at trade yoke, theywere still very much in
exploration mode. And as you canimagine, you know, 16 years ago,
(41:32):
barrel aged gin was, was farless than it is even now. And
so, you know, they were, theywere in the entry proof, you
know, was all over the map onthe early barrels and so, so
there's a there's a significantdifference from barrel to
barrel, but I can tell you thatthey all are just delicious. And
you know what I'm going to do? Igot, I keep looking over here on
my other shelf. Here, I got some167, proof, nine year, and I'll
(41:56):
shoot you out a bottle. I'llsend it to you and to hear what
you think about
David Levine (42:00):
it, that sounds amazing, yeah. Oh, man. So I'm
just doing in my head path rightnow. So use that the Texas
climate we've seen. We've had acouple of Texas distilleries on
here for whiskey. We know thatTexas climate can be hot. Even a
hill country might not be thehottest part of Texas, but yeah,
it'll still get up there. Ohyeah, someone gets something
(42:21):
gets to 167 proof was that goingin at like, 125 or so, and then
it just Yes, from there, yes,yeah.
Unknown (42:32):
Very little at that age, though, there's very little
liquid left in the barrel. Youknow, it's something that I, I
didn't know. Prior to to ustaking over this brand. I didn't
realize how rapid the Texasaging process and and how much
Angel share was actually takingplace in Texas at that humidity
(42:54):
and just climate, just these,these barrels are breathing at
such a rapid pace that that theangel shares is pretty
significant. So I think about,and I don't know, all I can tell
you is that our 13 year barrels,there's, there's, you know, less
than 25% of the barrel left at13 years.
David Levine (43:15):
Does anyone come up to you with interest for a
single barrel of gin?Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, yep. I
can imagine that's kind of awell, on one hand, they're
probably more expensive than atypical gin barrel, but they're
probably less expensive than asimilarly aged whiskey barrel,
just because it's, I don't know,maybe, maybe that could be
(43:36):
totally wrong, but I'm
Unknown (43:37):
assuming here, wait, say that one more time. I'm not
sure I caught it. Sure, I gotit.
David Levine (43:42):
Sure, sure. So I'm thinking of like a 910, 11 year
whiskey. Yeah, you do a singlebarrel of that, you've lost, you
know, a significant amountbecause of Texas climate at that
age. So there's not gonna be alot left in the barrel, but you
still got to pay. I think you'restill paying. What the entry was
(44:03):
so is the is that single barrelof gin would that be more
expensive than a single barrelof whiskey at the same age or
less expensive?
Unknown (44:12):
I don't know. I would say more expensive, only because
there's really nothing like thaton the market. And I don't, and
I don't know that, I guess I'mresponding to, I guess where we
would go if we did do that,where we would go out at retail
or a single barrel program. Iwould think it would be more
expensive, and that's juststrictly because of scarcity. We
(44:35):
don't have a lot of the olderstuff. But you know, you'll see
when you try this one, I'm goingto send you the quality of the
spirit. I mean, it's, it's, it'sbeautiful and and, you know,
that's why I haven't sent toomany of them out. I got about
seven of them over here. I'mlike, seven bottles over my
shelf, and I'm trying to keepthem all
David Levine (44:56):
I would want to do. So I appreciate that for
sure. Sure. So looking at acouple more questions for you
and I want to the next one isgoing to be about since, since
taking over Waterloo gin,clearly you and your partners,
(45:18):
new owners, have put a lot ofeffort, time, money, etc, into
into marketing, social media.You talked about doing a 10 to
11 month rebrand to get this outbefore we launching it. One of
the campaigns that's going onright now is hashtag. How do you
Waterloo? Yeah, and it's notlimited to one or any of the
(45:41):
Waterloo types. Can be all threeof them. And it's asking you,
How do you enjoy your gin? I'vemade my preference clear that I
usually am either a neat sipperor it's going into a Negroni or
similar type cocktail. So whatis the you've also talked about,
the response across the country,as you've launched this in
Kentucky, and Texas, Florida hasbeen very good. So how has the
(46:04):
the marketing response been onplaces like online social media
and places
Unknown (46:09):
like that? Yeah, it's been great. If you guys follow
our any of our social mediachannels we have, we do our best
to share all the fun stuffcoming out from from people that
are using Waterloo Jen acrossthe country and and there's been
so much creativity that's goneon in people's home bars and and
in the bars and restaurants. Butyou know, the how do you
(46:30):
Waterloo campaign really just isan opportunity for us to ask
people how they like to drinkour products. You know, we we
know how, you know, we drinkthese at our office. We drink
these, you know, prettyregularly. When we go out to
dinners and have functions andthings, we're drinking our
products, and we like to drinkthem, you know. You know, the
way that we know and the waythat we love, but we also love
(46:53):
how creative people have been.It's, there's there's things.
Everybody's mind goes adifferent place when you see one
of our SKUs, you know. And soit's just been such a fun
program to watch the stuff comein and and see how people are
consuming it, and then try themourselves and, and, you know,
share them with our groups and,and it's just been a really fun,
(47:15):
fun process. I typically start,you know, if I'm going out to
dinner, I'll do a water bluenumber nine Negroni. I typically
always start with that, but, butthere's something for every
setting. You know. I was at awedding to two, three weeks ago,
and I was, I was drinking,drinking prickly pear and sodas.
(47:36):
And had a, had a prickly pearsouth side, which was phenomenal
as well. So that one was, it waskind of a warmer day, and just
felt like prickly pear was theright choice that day. But,
yeah, it's the how do you waterthe campaign's been a lot of
fun, and we've seen some reallycreative stuff. I'd encourage
you to go on our social channelsand check some of this stuff
(47:57):
out, though, you'll get somesome great inspiration for some
fun things when you're out nexttime or at home,
David Levine (48:03):
definitely will. Thanks. And so with all that, to
start closing this out, I wantto ask going back to your own,
your own experience, like Isaid, You're you are coming in
with Gen experience, with otherbrand experience, to a brand
that's been around for 16 years.Yeah, it's got the core
followers. We talked about thebalance between innovation and
(48:25):
holding on to who brought you tothe dance? Yeah, so I know you
only relaunched three monthsago, not even three months, two
months ago, plus a week or so.
Unknown (48:36):
So the prickly pear. So we've had the we've had the new
package out since about May, on,on the two, on the two
foundational kind of skews thatthat we acquired is the number
nine, the barrel aged, and thenthe prickly yes has been out for
two months.
David Levine (48:52):
Yeah, gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, so, so even so
we're talking less than a year,six months or so, yeah, yeah. Of
having it relaunched, it's onsome level, might be too early
to ask, like, you know, what doyou want the legacy of this new
one to be? But you're contendingwith a legacy of the previous 16
years. So what do you see as thelegacy going forward that you
(49:16):
want for Waterloo? Jen,
Unknown (49:21):
you know, my, my big
focus, and I talk about it everyday, is the gin category in
general, is just such an amazingcategory gin. There are so many
beautiful gins on the marketthat that majority of people
haven't tried. So for us atWaterloo, we just want to invite
people into the category. Wethink we have three really great
(49:42):
spirits right now for people tocome in and try and and and dip
their feet in the gin category.We think you'll be pleasantly
surprised. And we just want tokeep producing, you know, great,
handcrafted, beautiful, qualityspirits to elevate. People's
experience.
David Levine (50:03):
Love it Well, Justin, thank you again for
coming on to talk about Waterloogin. And we don't do gin
podcasts very much, and I, andit's even rarer that I really
spend time on a gin it's nothingagainst the gin category. It's
just more of a whiskey guy orrum or, you know, Age of
spirits, sure, but when I comeacross a gin that has a really
(50:23):
good story and that not onlythat, but focuses on that sense
of place, elevates it and leansinto it, I'm always interested.
And as rare as it is for me tonot only highlight but to
promote a gin, I'm fully behindthese gins. I really loved all
three of them. The prickly pearmight be my favorite of the
(50:43):
three, but I would happily haveany of them on my shelf. And
it's rare for me to make arecommendation like that, so
I'll make it proudly. So youknow, nice job so far on what
you guys have been doing,continuation and exploration of
the new flavors, and I lookforward to seeing it on shelves
here in New York
Unknown (51:03):
as well. Awesome. David. Thank you so much for
your time, and like I said, I'llget you this bottle of 167 proof
on the road. You'll have toreach out once you try it. I
can't wait to hear what youthink about
David Levine (51:13):
it sounds great. Hang on me for just a minute
after we finish recording. Thisbeen another episode of The
whiskering podcast, not sure atthe moment this is going to be
coming out as a bonus episode,or if we're going to insert if
we're going to insert it, buteither way, make sure you like,
follow, rate and subscribe soyou never miss an episode when
it comes out, either onWednesday mornings or when you'd
like to throw in a bonus one forthe holiday season. Thank you
everyone for listening. I'll seeyou next time you.
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of the whiskey
ring podcast, where this week weare actually going to be the gin
ring podcast. That's right, thisis only our maybe second or
third episode that we're goingto be focusing more on gin
exclusively. And I like doingthis from time to time, because,
as some of you may know, wholistened for a long time, gin, I
feel like, is anunderappreciated spirit. It's
(00:24):
not the clear vodka that's gotkind of could go anywhere. It's
not usually the bourbon or thewhiskey that's got the age on
it. We'll get to that hesitationin a moment during the
interview, as to why this brandcan hesitate on that, but it can
show more than any other spirita very quick and easy sense of
place with flavor, botanicalsand style. So with all that ado,
(00:49):
I'm thrilled to welcome onJustin Meigs from Waterloo gin,
based little west of Austin,Texas, in Hill Country. And
Justin, welcome on. Thanks somuch for having me, David. So to
to kick us off, we've got threeproducts that we're going to be
tasting through throughout theinterview. We've got the
Waterloo number nine gin. It'sthe original core range. We have
(01:11):
the Waterloo barrel aged gin agetwo years in New American oak
barrels. And we have one of thenewer releases, which is the
Waterloo prickly pear and Roset.So with all of that, we're going
to talk about how you get to thedifferent botanicals, the barrel
aging. But first I want to startwhere we always start, which is
the origin story of Waterloogin. So I'll throw it over you.
Justin Meigs (01:33):
Yeah, sure. So Waterloo, as you mentioned, is
from Dripping Springs, Texas.The the name of the brand
Waterloo comes from Waterloobeing the original name of
Austin, Texas. So that's kind ofa fun little piece of history
that a lot of people don'trealize. But that's so that. So
the name does have some meaning,which is fun. And then in
(01:55):
addition, from from that, thegin is a Texas Hill Country gin,
so all the botanicals are TexasHill Country inspired. You know,
the from the limestone filteredwater to the lavender to the
grapefruit, all these thingsare, are found in the Texas Hill
Country, and they make for aphenomenal gin. And so that's
how, that's how we've gottenhere today.
David Levine (02:18):
And this brand, we were talking a little bit before
hitting the record button. Thisbrand was around before you guys
joined. So it was really arelaunch, if you will, in
September 2025, just a couple ofmonths ago, that was under new
ownership, new thought processto regenerate the brand. So how
did that process come about?
Unknown (02:38):
Yeah, we got really lucky with this brand. We you
know, this brand is owned byJohn Paul degoria. I work for
his family office. And we wereexploring various spirits
projects, and we came acrossWaterloo through exploration,
on, on another project, and justfell in love with the liquid we
we knew it was something trulyspecial. And, and, and could be
(03:03):
something much bigger than itwas. And so we found a way to to
peel it off from the originalowners at treaty oak and and
take things over. We did a firstthing we did is a package
refresh. We took it to a companycalled Sandstrom partners out of
Portland, Oregon and, and wespent, you know, every bit of
1011, months on, you know,redesigning the package and
(03:27):
really elevating it to a levelwhere we thought that the
package, you know, emulated whatit was inside the bottle and the
quality of the Spirit. And welanded in a really awesome
place. We're very, very excitedwith, with how the brand has
come out and and we're hearingit from from people in the
market as well. People are overthe moon about the package. So
it's been a lot of fun.
David Levine (03:47):
It is. It's very, you know, on some level, it's a
simple bottle design, very ginesque, if you will. Which I
like. It's gonna fit on shelf?Well, it's not super tall, which
has been driving me nuts latelywith bottles that are super
tall. And the label is verysimple, like you're gonna see it
from across a bar and be able toread the fact it's Waterloo gin.
The etchings in the in thepaper, the design of the paper,
(04:10):
it's the different botanicalsthat are in there showcase the
color of the Spirit, which youwant to want as well, especially
for those two that are not clearabsolutely with the Hill Country
on your website, in previousinterviews, Waterloo plays up,
if you will. I mean, then, inthe positive way, plays up the
(04:31):
sense of place that hill countryis in the spirit and can be
through the botanicals andthrough what you know, where
you're aging it, for the barrelaged gin. So we know for gin,
you've got to have juniper.That's kind of the one
requirement. You got to haveJuniper in there, true. But
beyond that, you've got, andthis is just for the number
(04:54):
nine. Got lavender, grapefruit,pecan. You say pecan or pecan.
Unknown (04:59):
I. I say pecan,
David Levine (05:02):
lemon zest, coriander, anise, ginger and
licorice root. So on one level,except for the pecans and
lavender, a American style, forsure. But of those botanicals,
how do you take those botanicalsand create an American style gin
(05:26):
that has the Hill Countrycharacter in it?
Unknown (05:29):
Yeah, so the junipers is, is very much toned down. And
so I guess the big thing for usis this, this spirit does not
overpower with juniper, Juniperas many traditional London dry
style gins. Do you know we comein with heavy on the lavender,
heavy on the citrus, becausethey just pair so nicely with
(05:51):
with the with the otherbotanicals in the gin and the
base the base botanicals, thepecan is an interesting one,
because pecan doesn't impart alot of flavor on the gin, the
pecan is actually introduced tothe gin for mouth feel. And so
you'll notice when you take asip of the gin, it's got a very
nice, velvety finish. And itjust, it just makes for some
(06:15):
exceptional cocktails. I was
David Levine (06:21):
wondering about that. That is nice. Don't do
what I don't usually do. I don'tusually taste on air. But in
this case, because we're talkingabout botanicals, it really
wants to do that. It's so mouthwatering, yeah, which in a good
way, but I see what you meanabout the pecan. Like, I don't
really taste the pecan in anutty sense, right? But this
(06:44):
definitely has a, what I callkind of an oily or a fatty
element to it, sure. And at 94proof, it's also not going to
just dissipate it. It hasstaying power in the mouth,
yeah, which, so this at 94proof, too. I can imagine we
usually think gin is cocktailsfirst. But this is also one that
(07:08):
can be sipped a 94 proof prettyeasily, absolutely.
Unknown (07:13):
And I think, you know, the number nine is one that,
more often than not, we see itmixed into cocktails, or, you
know, all the classic, you know,gin cocktails, and although
toned down on the Juniper, itstill comes through very much as
a gin and holds up very well inthe classic cocktails. I think
when you get to the other skewsthe prickly pear and Rose and
(07:34):
the barrel aged. Those ones overice or Sydney or over ice, or as
a straight up martini, are justphenomenal spirits. So but, but
yet, you this is, this isabsolutely meant to be a sipper
as well as a mixable cocktail.
David Levine (07:49):
Gin. Awesome. So to while we're tasting through
these and talking about thecountry, Hill Country, excuse
me, a question that kept comingup in my mind was because we
don't talk about Jen as much onthis podcast. It can be very
whiskey focused. We talk aboutstate of the industry and trends
and such. Where is the ginindustry right now? In America?
Unknown (08:14):
It's, it's a pretty fascinating moment, I think, in
gin, just globally, you know,gin is is one of the most
innovative and fastest evolvingcategories. So, you know,
there's that piece, but then inthe US, it still has so much
room to grow, you know,especially amongst younger
(08:35):
drinkers. So what we found andis that younger drinkers are
looking for approachable,vibrant, modern expressions of
gin, and we feel like Waterloofits that gap very nicely.
David Levine (08:51):
And the has the markets, well, I guess a little
different, because you don'tgenerally have to age gens
again. We're talking excludingthe barrel aged version that you
have. But has, have you seensales slow grow pretty standard,
as the Spirit market hasplateaued in the last year or
(09:14):
so?
Unknown (09:14):
Yeah, we're so we're, we're seeing really nice growth
with Waterloo and, you know? Andso Waterloo was, was founded in
2009 so it's been in Texas and afew other markets for a long
time now, and it's got a reallynice cult following. What's so
fun for us is we've been able toexpand up. You know, it's, it's
(09:36):
got 16 years of business in thestate of Texas, and so it's,
it's in a lot of places, but westill are seeing significant
growth even in Texas. I mean,it's, uh, it's shocking that,
that there's, there's the cultfollowing that it does have, but
then there's still so manyaccounts or so many customers
that haven't heard or seenWaterloo. And so we're seeing
great growth in in Texas and inFlorida and the markets that the
(09:58):
brand was already in. And, youknow, since. We've taken over.
We've expanded to 14 markets,and so we're seeing, you know,
tremendous growth nationallywith the brand, and the
reception to it so far has beentremendous question, though, I
just, I think I, I wanted toadd, you know, there was this
moment 15 or 20 years ago withtequila, where tequila was,
(10:21):
wasn't a huge category in theUS, and it has absolutely
exploded, as I'm sure you know,and and I think that's that's
kind of happening with gin rightnow. You know, consumers are
much more curious, and I think,you know, bartenders are getting
much more creative and wantingto work with other spirits. And
so to me, it feels like premiumcraft gin is really gaining a
(10:46):
lot of traction right now.
David Levine (10:49):
And from a price perspective, it's I feel like
I'm somewhat unfamiliar with ginpricing, to be honest, because I
just don't I have a couple ofbrands of gin that I go to, but
I don't make cocktails at home,so it's usually one bottle
that's just kind of hanging outfor me. Hanging out for me,
unless I'm really on a kick,usually in a groaning kick, if
I'm being honest. So priced atbetween 3499 and 3999 for these
(11:13):
products, does this fit intokind of a slightly more
premiumized Gin category asopposed to a more general
category?
Unknown (11:21):
Yeah, well, I think you're, you're right there in
the sweet spot for gins. 30 to40 seems to be the sweet spot.
And we, all three of our SKUsland somewhere in that range. I
think, you know, it's it,
it's, it's not a one size fitsall.
You know, situation there theyou see some very expensive gins
(11:43):
having very good velocity andselling very nicely and
warranting very high pricepoints. But you know, we also
wanted to provide a superpremium gin for an approachable
price. We have approachable ginat an approachable price,
gotcha.
David Levine (11:58):
And with the ramp up using you're already in 14
other states. Texas itself is ahuge market, but in the press
release that accompanied therelaunch in September, a stated
goal was by the end of 2026 wewant to be in all 50 states. So,
yeah, already. You know, that'scertainly ambitious. I've seen
(12:20):
it done? Sorry, but I've seen itdone. Yeah, I am curious to ask
that is also that does alsorequire, I would think, a ramp
up in production. Yes. Well, soare you distilling yourselves?
Are you working with a partner?
Unknown (12:39):
Yeah, so we are distilling water. The Gin
company is distilling at treatyoak distillery, which is where
the brand was founded. So wewere lucky enough to work out an
agreement with the distillery tostill be in there, making the
gin, continuing the productionas it always has been produced.
And so nothing has changed withthe liquid, even you know some
(12:59):
of the guys that work on thebrand you know, are from the
original crew there at treatyoaks. So it's a well oiled
machine over there, and wedidn't want to make any changes
if we didn't
David Levine (13:13):
have to, fair enough so that that means that
they will need to accommodateyour increased capacity needs as
well. Yes, was that written tothat agreement? Like we've got a
vision. We want to bring thisfurther out. So we're going to
need more capacity on yourstills than you were using
yourselves.
Unknown (13:31):
Yeah, we're, we are, we're pretty close with the
group there. And so we, we haveregular production meetings and
and, you know, forecastingmeetings and things like that,
and so they're well aware of ourfirst three years of plans, and
they're very aggressive. Andthere doesn't seem to be any
issues with with the aggressiveplan. So we're we're doing
everything we can to go afterthose and expand rapidly, as you
(13:56):
mentioned previously. We ourgoal is to be in all 50 by the
end of next year. We were at 14.Now we have control states,
which I'm sure you're aware of,that they have, you know, it's
very similar to, like a grocerystore reset and where they only
bring on brands at certain timesthroughout the year. And so we
(14:18):
were at the at the liberty ofsome of those things from, from
going fast, as fast as we'd liketo, but we do have a lot of
great control states coming onin January. And, you know, we
have six or seven more statescoming on in q1 so we'll be,
we'll be pretty well on our wayto getting there at the end of
q1
David Levine (14:37):
nice, nice. So that. So we covered the number
nine. That's the original gin,the core gin that things branch
out from, as we're tasting.Should I do prickly pear and
Rose next, or rose? Sorry, nextand or the barrel age next?
Unknown (14:53):
Yeah. Why don't you go prickly pear and Rose?
David Levine (14:55):
Prickly Pear and Rose? All right? Yeah. Do.
Right? So while I'm pouringthat, see if we can get a nice
pop here. Don't do that enoughon the podcast. Oh, that was a
nice one. So prick the pear andRose, beautiful pink color and
pink gen two has been on a realtrend recently, something I
(15:20):
didn't really realize until Ilooked into it, like, oh yeah.
It and like, oh yeah. This isokay. This is a significant
segment of the up and coming ginmarket. So as you were, I don't
know if the right word ispurchasing the brand,
transferring the brandownership, taking over the brand
and relaunching it was thisimmediately part of the plan
(15:47):
that you wanted to implement?
Unknown (15:50):
Um, great question. I, I wouldn't say it was a part of
the immediate plan. Um, we, weknew we wanted to be innovative
with this company. We knew wewanted to bring new gins to the
market. And we when we thoughtthat, you know, we need to, we
need, you know, we need to havea wide range of offerings for
(16:14):
the average consumer who has notbeen introduced to gin. And so
we felt like the prickly pear,you know, and the trends with
pink gin globally and and, youknow, we wanted to do a pink gin
the Waterloo way, you know, wewanted to stay authentic. We
wanted to stay rooted in place.You know, Texas Hill Country
(16:38):
botanicals, not overly sweet.You know, the prickly pear and
Rose is exactly that.
David Levine (16:47):
I do enjoy prickly pear. Rose can kind of go either
way for me. I'll be honest.It's, it's, you know, if you use
it right, it's a great flavor.If you use it too much, it's
soapy, you know, or or perfumey,but no and the nose is quite
nice and has a very sweetflavor, as opposed to floral.
Unknown (17:05):
Yeah, to me, the rose, it gives it an elegance. Or, you
know, aromatics that you'relooking for that balance out the
gin, but they don't overpowerthe core gin character. And so,
you know that one for me is it'snewer. So it's, it's, it's the
one that's been getting a lot ofmy attention when I'll have a
(17:26):
cocktail at home or, or have oneof our accounts that has all
three. I like to, I like to gowith the prickly pear lately
and, and truly, because peoplehave been so creative with it.
You know, I'm, I'm, I'm socurious as to how people will
work with this product. I loveto drink it, you know, just with
soda. I think the prickly pearand soda is phenomenal. But some
(17:47):
of the cocktails that we've seenout in the trade, you know, in
bars and restaurants, they'rethey're so fun and and everybody
should get an opportunity to trya lot of these prickly pear and
Rose cocktails.
David Levine (18:02):
It's really enjoyable. I'm it has, it's cut
the the, I don't say harshness,because that's not really what I
mean. But the sharpness,perhaps, from you get from the
original gin, that just that,it's kind of a gin namesake. You
know, you get a lot of tentaclesstraight up front. This is what
you're getting with the pricklypear and the rose and hibiscus
(18:25):
as well. Added to the originalNine botanicals, you're getting
the color, which has thatpsychological effect of calming
it down a little bit. But thereis a sweetness, a fruitiness, I
agree with you. The rose issomewhat understated, which I
think is handled really wellhere again, if you've got two
flowers in there, so twopowerful flowers, yes, in the
(18:45):
hibiscus and the rose added tolavender already, and the
prickly pear is really theelement that shines. Will you
consider the the prickly pear tobe of those three, the most
authentically hill country.
Unknown (19:05):
They I don't think so. I mean, they're all pretty hill
country. You know, you're I willsay that prickly pear is very
much a popular flavor and allculinary and and drinks right
now, we didn't know that whenwe, when we first started
developing the prickly pear, wedid not know that we, we kind of
(19:28):
feel fortunate on this one, thatwe brought this one to market,
and it just so happened thatprickly pear is kind of
exploding in a lot of markets,not not just where it originates
or where it's, you know,naturally grown, but,
but, yeah, we the prickly pear.
It's, it's a phenomenal it addsa phenomenal flavor to the gin
(19:51):
and and they just it. It's, it'sso well balanced. And it's a fun
one. We're excited about theprickly pear. I mean,
David Levine (19:57):
as you can imagine, we don't grow a lot of
prickly pear. There's pricklypear cactus cacti there we go up
in New York at any time of year.But yeah, it was a flavor I
wasn't really aware of, becauseit's not, it's not local, it's
not, not a heritage prickly pearplants around here, until local
taco place started makingprickly pear margaritas and
(20:18):
frozen ones at that. And Godhelp me, they are addictive as
hell, because there's somethingabout that prickly pear that has
the sweetness, the tartness,everything you want in kind of a
fruit component of a cocktail.And then you add in, is it the
hibiscus, the rose petal? Andyeah, I can see this going
(20:39):
really, really, well, I'mcurious to see how it would hang
up in a in a classic Negroniwith a really powerful Campari
in there, because you've gotsuch nice citrus notes on the
number nine that come out brightand citrusy, whereas here the
(21:00):
citrus and the tartness istamped down a bit, not like the
flavor is lost, but it's morerounded. And so I'm curious how,
when you're having a cocktailwith it, how it cuts through
the, let's call it orangeness ofthe Campari and of the vermouth
(21:20):
as well, where you have thesweet too. So is it more
complimentary, or does it justcut through those two flavors?
Unknown (21:29):
It's complimentary, for sure. I think you know, you say
Negroni. And of course, any, anygin drinker will instantly
think, I wonder how this tastesin the Negroni. So, so we, so,
we did a
launch event in Austin
about five months ago or so,four months ago, and we had a
(21:51):
white Negroni on as one of thedrink offerings that night. And
they used, you know, the LevineBlanc in lieu of Campari. And it
and it came out. Just excellent.
David Levine (22:05):
Let's give that a shot. I said, I don't make a lot
of cocktails at home, becauseit's not I make so few that it's
not prudent for me to have, youknow, an orange rind ready or a
lemon ready at all times. But orNegroni is great, because you
don't need any of that. You justneed the three ingredients, ice
a shaker or a mixer, and you'regood. So I just want to note
(22:25):
too, as I'm nosing this withmore air, there's a nice vanilla
tone that comes out as well.It's not overly pastry forward,
but just enough that it addsanother element, and I quite
enjoy that. I I
Unknown (22:43):
don't know if I've gotten, let me grab a I'm gonna
grab a bottle here. I don't knowif I've, if I've gotten the the
vanilla note there, but I wantto, I'm interested to to give
that a nose.
(23:07):
Yeah, little, a little undertoneof novel of vanilla there, huh?
David Levine (23:11):
Yeah, it's way in the back. Came on the second or
third sip. It's, it's definitelynot a front forward, like I
wouldn't think this. There's avanilla pod somewhere, sure,
yeah, in the steam basket, butthe vapor basket, that's
interesting.
Unknown (23:25):
I hadn't quite pulled that one out yet on my own, so
that's great. It's fun.Everyone's you know, senses are
so different, and it's great totry to look at it from another
perception.
David Levine (23:35):
So for sure, so going more into the sense of
place in this hill country, soprickly pear, Rose, hibiscus,
all you said, all of the hillcountry. You couldn't
necessarily make an argumentthat one is more hill country
than the other. I was thinkingtoo. And feel free to say like
this was, you know, eitherbefore the transfer, or if
(23:57):
you're thinking of other ones, Iwould imagine in a place as lush
as the hill country, there areseveral botanicals that might
work really well in a gin tomake different branches off of
the number nine. This particularone, it works really well with
the prickly pear, Rose,hibiscus. Are there botanicals
(24:20):
that could work. But you'relike, I just don't, I don't
think that that fits our profileor works well with the as a
branch off from the number nine.
Unknown (24:33):
So I don't think that we've had an opportunity. I
mean, of course, we're going toremain innovative. We are, we're
going to explore other stuff.We've done a lot of test runs.
We have, we have experimentedwith various other botanicals
and trying to think about what'snext. But we haven't. We haven't
(24:55):
really had time since we'vetaken over to really dive fully
into that next. Is, you knowwhat is possible, or what's our
next skew, or any of thosethings just yet, all I'll say is
we are doing r, d, we, we havebeen having a lot of fun
selecting botanicals and andsome of the stuff is quite
interesting.
David Levine (25:14):
So that makes me think too. I think I saw in the
either tech specs, or looking atat the brand previously that
you're like you said, you'reusing tridioke as a distilling
partner, and the botanicals arevapor distilled, yes, so they're
all vapor distilled, right? Noneof them macerated. None of them.
(25:37):
So would you macerate? Or wouldyou add Pentacles that need
maceration?
Unknown (25:42):
Yeah, we, we've, that's another kind of component that
that we have started exploringand and will continue to
explore. You know, we're not,we're not anti any method,
really, you know, we, we want tomake the best quality gin. So
far, we've, you know, the waythat the distillery was
producing the gin for the last16 years is it's, it's, it just
(26:07):
makes a beautiful, beautifulspirit. And so we haven't really
done too much exploring as faras maceration. I have worked
with other gins in the pastwhere we did a maceration
process, and they work greattoo. So never say never. I guess
that's the answer there.
David Levine (26:21):
That's fair looking at the list of
botanicals you've got on thereright now. I know, obviously not
all of them would work in inmaceration, anything with with
leaves, petals, those are goingto be in a and usually the
citrus too are going to be inthe gin basket. It's usually
just the hard one, like thecoriander perhaps, or the roots
Judah prepares themselves. ButI'm always curious to do the the
(26:43):
A and B testing to see, hey,what is this? What does this do
for the profile on that? Yeah,absolutely.
Unknown (26:52):
With we do so we do very, you know, we use a 500
gallon Vendome hybrid still, andwe do because we feel like it
yields the best quality spirit.We do a 250 gallon distillation
run, and then we blend batchesto make it a full 500 gallon
(27:13):
run. And so it's a, it's not a,it's not a fast process. You
know, each of our runs takesseven or eight hours, and so
we're talking about two days tomake one 500 gallon batch, which
is, you know, it's, there's alot of time that's going into
this, this product. And wedon't, we don't plan to, you
know, change any anything withthe process. We're going to
(27:35):
continue to produce it the wayit's always been produced, and
small batches and and whatevermakes the best quality gin.
David Levine (27:41):
So if you're doing you have 500 gallons. You doing
250 gallon batches. You got alot of headspace in there. It's
gonna allow a lot of vapor tokeep up their automatic reflux.
It's gonna happen lot of coppercontact as well. I get the you
know, you're gonna need alonger, seven, eight hour
distillation points on therethat reminded me of the question
(28:04):
I was going to ask, which was,with a whiskey distillery being
the origin of of the gin, whatis the base of the gin? Corn?
Corn? Okay, and so you'regetting a really, still, a
really clean product out ofthis, you know, I wouldn't, I
had to ask. I really wasn'tpicking up, is this a corn? Is
(28:26):
this a wheat? Is potato? I mean,you never know. Yeah, you
probably not in Texas, but youknow, you never know. And I
think, okay, so you got the cordin there, how many? And you're
just doing the doubledistillation. That's it,
alright. So I think that comesthrough to like, like I said,
(28:47):
I'm not picking up that this isa corn based spirit,
necessarily, but it's, it'sstill quite clean. So it's
getting a mid line betweenhaving to distill a lot to clean
it up or not distill and keepthe oils and and things in
there. So when you and the teamare making our distilling, what
(29:09):
kind of you know, what are youbringing it up to or bring it
down to before you take it offthe still,
Unknown (29:18):
it comes off the still right around 150 proof.
And it varies. It's anywherefrom one, you know, 135 to to
160 or so, but it tends to comeoff right around that 150 range.
And then we'll batch the twobatches there at high proof, and
(29:40):
proof down to 94 from there.
David Levine (29:43):
Gotcha do a so that? Again, I'm not an expert
in gin by any means, but sothat's still, it sounds like
it's gonna be a lower cut rangethan the usual gin. So you've
got, you're not distilling itall the way to like a 194 grain
neutral. Spirit. You're doing itto 150 maybe 162 so you're gonna
(30:05):
end up keeping more of thoseflavors in there, and the the
oils in particular, might losesome of the more volatile ones
at the higher proof but the oilsare still going to come through
and keep the mouth feel
Unknown (30:15):
very much.
David Levine (30:18):
Are you when you're proofing down, is that
slow proof, quick proof,somewhere in the middle,
Unknown (30:27):
somewhere in the middle, it's, you know, it's all
we make sure to to use reverseosmosis water. And it's just,
it's a it's a process that theteam there has been doing for 16
years and and it's it seems tobe pretty effective and yield
this great spirit. So we don'tplan to make any any tweaks.
David Levine (30:51):
So as I'm opening the third one, the last one,
Waterloo barrel aged gym, it'sbeen aged two years in New
American white oak. So age justlike a bourbon or a rye, would
be correct. I'm curious, fromyour perspective as let me get
another good Quark pop, yep, so,from someone who has worked with
(31:16):
other gin brands before, iscoming into this a Texas Hill
Country gin, and one that hasput a certain way, it has a
pedigree, and, as you said, acult following behind it. Yeah.
So you've said, you know,ultimately, you want to keep
appealing to that base, becauseobviously you don't want
alienate, alienate customersthat you've had for 16 years, or
(31:39):
the brand has had for 16 years,but you want to innovate as
well. How, before we dive intothe barrel aged Jen, how far do
you think you can go with theinnovation without losing the
core people who have supportedthe brand for so long?
Unknown (32:00):
Well, you know, that's why we're continuing to to have
the number nine and the barrelage. Those, those, those are the
foundation of Waterloo Gen. Andso those will never go away. We
will continue to lead withWaterloo number nine and
Waterloo barrel aged as kind ofthe backbone of our portfolio.
The prickly parent Rose is hasrapidly. Picked up steam. And so
(32:26):
we know that there was an, youknow, we're finding out now
after after releasing theproduct, we know there was a
need and a desire from peoplewho were traditional Waterloo
fans to go find out what aren't,you know, there wasn't any real
innovation for several years.And so now there's a new
innovation, innovation skew forthese folks that have been
consuming our product for solong, and they just find it very
(32:46):
exciting. I think we'll continueto to not lose the Waterloo gin
tradition, but we'll continue totry to innovate, you know, and
capture new gin jenkers, asopposed to keeping all of our
longtime fans
David Levine (33:03):
love it. So one of the the one of the innovations,
or it's not innovation, I shouldsay, is one of the long standing
products. Here we've got thebarrel aged gin. So this is just
a reminder for people, barrelaged gin doesn't quite have a
formal designation from TTB oranything like that. There's, you
(33:26):
can say that it was age in abarrel. You can say it was for
however long. You can give allthe details, but it still falls
just under the gin category.There isn't a barrel age or a
straight designation like thereis for for whiskeys. You know,
if you age it two years, whichthis is aged or two years the
new American oak barrels. Can'tcall it straight, but that's a,
(33:52):
you know, most, for most people,that's going to be a small
little bit of legalese thatinterests me. But, you know,
it's an interest. What can wesay? But still, within this
there aren't a lot of barrelaged gins, and even fewer that
do it successfully. Soobviously, with this being a pre
existing product line, I'd lovefor you to talk about, you know,
(34:17):
how did this product come about,to the best of your knowledge,
of course, especially, why thenew American oak as opposed to a
used barrel?
Unknown (34:25):
Yeah, we were extremely fortunate, you know, we acquired
this brand, and we had barrelsup to 13 years old when we got
this brand. And so we've beenlucky enough to taste through
all of these barrels, or many ofthese barrels at, you know,
from, you know, the bottles thatare on the market at 94 proof,
(34:47):
all the way up to, we've, we'vetried these things that, you
know, barrel, barrel proof and,and they still drink, yeah,
phenomenally. Just neat.There's, there's real, there's
really, there's no proof on the.That I don't enjoy. And, and,
you know, I feel like they allcould be consumed at different
(35:07):
occasions or for differentgroups, but the new oak, it
seems to give it a bolderstructure and, and it continues
to have some of that rich spiceand some of those vanilla notes,
some of those caramelizedaromatics that whiskey drinkers
tend to enjoy. And so, you know,we feel like this one here
(35:29):
brings whiskey drinkers into thegin category very nicely. You
can consume all of the classic,you know, whiskey cocktails with
our Waterloo barrel aged gin.And they added a different, you
know, lane to these cocktailsthat that you don't always get
from Bourbon. And so they just,they're fun, you know, it this,
(35:51):
this inspires bartenders to becreative. And we're seeing a
real nice as we've begun tomarket this one a little bit, a
little bit more than ittraditionally was. We're seeing
a really nice response, and allover the country, not just in
Texas or, you know, in in inbourbon regions. A funny story
there, though, is, we did launchthe brand in Kentucky, and the
(36:13):
Kentucky folks who are, who arevery big, you know, obviously
bourbon drinkers, and I'm sureyou're, you're following, is
very much into bourbon. This oneis resonating really nicely in
Kentucky. It's a surprise. Ididn't know. I thought it could
go either way and and we'reseeing a very nice response to
in Kentucky, which is great.
David Levine (36:34):
Nice, nice. Yeah, I mean, on the nose for this,
the you can tell the barrelinfluence a little bit more that
vanilla, which I mean now we Iwould think would come from the
barrel, but could come from thespirit itself. I was surprised
that it really boosts thecoriander and the ginger, the
(37:00):
grapefruit and lemon zest, thoseare added to but they're not so
much boosted as the caramelized.Instead of it being a fresh one,
it's either dried or it'scondensed. It's a candied
almost. But the coriander andthe ginger really boost, and I
love that. Yeah, it's not atypical baking spice that you
get just because you have a newbarrel. It's where it's kind of
(37:22):
sharp and more, I usually thinkmore cinnamony, yeah, and clove
than anything. Yep. Instead,it's, it's fruity. It's, it's so
hard to explain Corian corianderin particular to someone who
hasn't had coriander before. Butthere is this green fruitiness
about it, that once you know theflavor, you never forget it.
(37:45):
Ginger, I think, is a littlemore common, so that's less of
an issue. But it's also not aspicy ginger. It's sweet. So the
crystallized ginger that you getat a sweet shop, you can shovel
it to a bag. I really enjoy thisand the, I think the biggest
surprise for me is that with anew American oak barrel, this is
(38:06):
not like, I'm not getting anywood on this. I'm not getting a
lot of, you know, barrelovertones that made me think the
barrel is taking over the gym,right?
Unknown (38:20):
It's a really nice balance. I think it, I think it
just really adds a nicecomplexity to the spirit that
you don't, you don't normallyget from from Bourbon. And, you
know, a lot of people seem veryreceptive to it most, most
places you go, people never,really, honestly, people haven't
heard of barrel aged Gen. In alot of places they haven't. And,
(38:44):
you know, when we introduce itto them, they really fall in
love with this one. And thisone, you know, it really, it
really gets the creative juicesflowing in the in the bar world
or the mixology world, peopleare excited to think up fun
cocktails for this one. And thisis another one, you know, I know
I mentioned the prickly pear.And we have, we have phenomenal
cocktails all over the countrywith with all of our SKUs, but,
(39:07):
but this one I've seen probablythe most creativity so far, as
far as just thinking outside thebox and coming up with wonderful
cocktails that that you can, youcan really enjoy and and pair
nicely with a meal and thingslike that.
David Levine (39:25):
And sorry if I if I missed an answer to this, but
I want to just revisit to makesure. Do you know why they chose
the new oak versus the used oak,because it's treaty oaks, so
they could they have easy accessto their own barrels that they
could have used.
Unknown (39:39):
Yeah, absolutely. So they're they, they did a lot of
of exploration on using treatyoak barrels, using various
barrels from from from all overand just landed in a place where
the best quality spirit was withthe new make at at right around
(39:59):
two. Years. So it wasn't, itwasn't a, it was more of a just,
how do we produce the bestquality spirit, and which
barrels do that? And where theylanded was the new make char
three white oak. There is stillbarrels on hand that are with X
treaty oak barrels. And theliquids, great too. But the
(40:22):
barrel aged is, is it's, it'sgot a sweet spot, and we love
it, and so there's not going tobe any tweaks there. And and we
think that they made the rightchoice on that one.
David Levine (40:32):
You did say you've tasted barrels that have been
around for at least 13 years atthe top end, yeah, what happens
to the gin and the pairing withthe barrel at 13 years.
Unknown (40:46):
It's much more it's much more rich. It's, it's
extremely dark, as you canimagine. You know, the Texas
climate ages these these spiritsvery fast, and so they come off
beautifully, the flavors theyshine through. But really, it's,
it's interesting, not, I can'tsay that any, any two barrels
(41:09):
taste the same, you know, withthe older stuff they, they seem
to to change quite a bit, justbased on, you know, quantity of
spirit in there and in thebarrel. You know, you know, the
entry proofs weren't, you know,early on in the, in the in the
early years at trade yoke, theywere still very much in
exploration mode. And as you canimagine, you know, 16 years ago,
(41:32):
barrel aged gin was, was farless than it is even now. And
so, you know, they were, theywere in the entry proof, you
know, was all over the map onthe early barrels and so, so
there's a there's a significantdifference from barrel to
barrel, but I can tell you thatthey all are just delicious. And
you know what I'm going to do? Igot, I keep looking over here on
my other shelf. Here, I got some167, proof, nine year, and I'll
(41:56):
shoot you out a bottle. I'llsend it to you and to hear what
you think about
David Levine (42:00):
it, that sounds amazing, yeah. Oh, man. So I'm
just doing in my head path rightnow. So use that the Texas
climate we've seen. We've had acouple of Texas distilleries on
here for whiskey. We know thatTexas climate can be hot. Even a
hill country might not be thehottest part of Texas, but yeah,
it'll still get up there. Ohyeah, someone gets something
(42:21):
gets to 167 proof was that goingin at like, 125 or so, and then
it just Yes, from there, yes,yeah.
Unknown (42:32):
Very little at that age, though, there's very little
liquid left in the barrel. Youknow, it's something that I, I
didn't know. Prior to to ustaking over this brand. I didn't
realize how rapid the Texasaging process and and how much
Angel share was actually takingplace in Texas at that humidity
(42:54):
and just climate, just these,these barrels are breathing at
such a rapid pace that that theangel shares is pretty
significant. So I think about,and I don't know, all I can tell
you is that our 13 year barrels,there's, there's, you know, less
than 25% of the barrel left at13 years.
David Levine (43:15):
Does anyone come up to you with interest for a
single barrel of gin?Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, yep. I
can imagine that's kind of awell, on one hand, they're
probably more expensive than atypical gin barrel, but they're
probably less expensive than asimilarly aged whiskey barrel,
just because it's, I don't know,maybe, maybe that could be
(43:36):
totally wrong, but I'm
Unknown (43:37):
assuming here, wait, say that one more time. I'm not
sure I caught it. Sure, I gotit.
David Levine (43:42):
Sure, sure. So I'm thinking of like a 910, 11 year
whiskey. Yeah, you do a singlebarrel of that, you've lost, you
know, a significant amountbecause of Texas climate at that
age. So there's not gonna be alot left in the barrel, but you
still got to pay. I think you'restill paying. What the entry was
(44:03):
so is the is that single barrelof gin would that be more
expensive than a single barrelof whiskey at the same age or
less expensive?
Unknown (44:12):
I don't know. I would say more expensive, only because
there's really nothing like thaton the market. And I don't, and
I don't know that, I guess I'mresponding to, I guess where we
would go if we did do that,where we would go out at retail
or a single barrel program. Iwould think it would be more
expensive, and that's juststrictly because of scarcity. We
(44:35):
don't have a lot of the olderstuff. But you know, you'll see
when you try this one, I'm goingto send you the quality of the
spirit. I mean, it's, it's, it'sbeautiful and and, you know,
that's why I haven't sent toomany of them out. I got about
seven of them over here. I'mlike, seven bottles over my
shelf, and I'm trying to keepthem all
David Levine (44:56):
I would want to do. So I appreciate that for
sure. Sure. So looking at acouple more questions for you
and I want to the next one isgoing to be about since, since
taking over Waterloo gin,clearly you and your partners,
(45:18):
new owners, have put a lot ofeffort, time, money, etc, into
into marketing, social media.You talked about doing a 10 to
11 month rebrand to get this outbefore we launching it. One of
the campaigns that's going onright now is hashtag. How do you
Waterloo? Yeah, and it's notlimited to one or any of the
(45:41):
Waterloo types. Can be all threeof them. And it's asking you,
How do you enjoy your gin? I'vemade my preference clear that I
usually am either a neat sipperor it's going into a Negroni or
similar type cocktail. So whatis the you've also talked about,
the response across the country,as you've launched this in
Kentucky, and Texas, Florida hasbeen very good. So how has the
(46:04):
the marketing response been onplaces like online social media
and places
Unknown (46:09):
like that? Yeah, it's been great. If you guys follow
our any of our social mediachannels we have, we do our best
to share all the fun stuffcoming out from from people that
are using Waterloo Jen acrossthe country and and there's been
so much creativity that's goneon in people's home bars and and
in the bars and restaurants. Butyou know, the how do you
(46:30):
Waterloo campaign really just isan opportunity for us to ask
people how they like to drinkour products. You know, we we
know how, you know, we drinkthese at our office. We drink
these, you know, prettyregularly. When we go out to
dinners and have functions andthings, we're drinking our
products, and we like to drinkthem, you know. You know, the
way that we know and the waythat we love, but we also love
(46:53):
how creative people have been.It's, there's there's things.
Everybody's mind goes adifferent place when you see one
of our SKUs, you know. And soit's just been such a fun
program to watch the stuff comein and and see how people are
consuming it, and then try themourselves and, and, you know,
share them with our groups and,and it's just been a really fun,
(47:15):
fun process. I typically start,you know, if I'm going out to
dinner, I'll do a water bluenumber nine Negroni. I typically
always start with that, but, butthere's something for every
setting. You know. I was at awedding to two, three weeks ago,
and I was, I was drinking,drinking prickly pear and sodas.
(47:36):
And had a, had a prickly pearsouth side, which was phenomenal
as well. So that one was, it waskind of a warmer day, and just
felt like prickly pear was theright choice that day. But,
yeah, it's the how do you waterthe campaign's been a lot of
fun, and we've seen some reallycreative stuff. I'd encourage
you to go on our social channelsand check some of this stuff
(47:57):
out, though, you'll get somesome great inspiration for some
fun things when you're out nexttime or at home,
David Levine (48:03):
definitely will. Thanks. And so with all that, to
start closing this out, I wantto ask going back to your own,
your own experience, like Isaid, You're you are coming in
with Gen experience, with otherbrand experience, to a brand
that's been around for 16 years.Yeah, it's got the core
followers. We talked about thebalance between innovation and
(48:25):
holding on to who brought you tothe dance? Yeah, so I know you
only relaunched three monthsago, not even three months, two
months ago, plus a week or so.
Unknown (48:36):
So the prickly pear. So we've had the we've had the new
package out since about May, on,on the two, on the two
foundational kind of skews thatthat we acquired is the number
nine, the barrel aged, and thenthe prickly yes has been out for
two months.
David Levine (48:52):
Yeah, gotcha. Gotcha. Okay, so, so even so
we're talking less than a year,six months or so, yeah, yeah. Of
having it relaunched, it's onsome level, might be too early
to ask, like, you know, what doyou want the legacy of this new
one to be? But you're contendingwith a legacy of the previous 16
years. So what do you see as thelegacy going forward that you
(49:16):
want for Waterloo? Jen,
Unknown (49:21):
you know, my, my big
focus, and I talk about it everyday, is the gin category in
general, is just such an amazingcategory gin. There are so many
beautiful gins on the marketthat that majority of people
haven't tried. So for us atWaterloo, we just want to invite
people into the category. Wethink we have three really great
(49:42):
spirits right now for people tocome in and try and and and dip
their feet in the gin category.We think you'll be pleasantly
surprised. And we just want tokeep producing, you know, great,
handcrafted, beautiful, qualityspirits to elevate. People's
experience.
David Levine (50:03):
Love it Well, Justin, thank you again for
coming on to talk about Waterloogin. And we don't do gin
podcasts very much, and I, andit's even rarer that I really
spend time on a gin it's nothingagainst the gin category. It's
just more of a whiskey guy orrum or, you know, Age of
spirits, sure, but when I comeacross a gin that has a really
(50:23):
good story and that not onlythat, but focuses on that sense
of place, elevates it and leansinto it, I'm always interested.
And as rare as it is for me tonot only highlight but to
promote a gin, I'm fully behindthese gins. I really loved all
three of them. The prickly pearmight be my favorite of the
(50:43):
three, but I would happily haveany of them on my shelf. And
it's rare for me to make arecommendation like that, so
I'll make it proudly. So youknow, nice job so far on what
you guys have been doing,continuation and exploration of
the new flavors, and I lookforward to seeing it on shelves
here in New York
Unknown (51:03):
as well. Awesome. David. Thank you so much for
your time, and like I said, I'llget you this bottle of 167 proof
on the road. You'll have toreach out once you try it. I
can't wait to hear what youthink about
David Levine (51:13):
it sounds great. Hang on me for just a minute
after we finish recording. Thisbeen another episode of The
whiskering podcast, not sure atthe moment this is going to be
coming out as a bonus episode,or if we're going to insert if
we're going to insert it, buteither way, make sure you like,
follow, rate and subscribe soyou never miss an episode when
it comes out, either onWednesday mornings or when you'd
like to throw in a bonus one forthe holiday season. Thank you
everyone for listening. I'll seeyou next time you.
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