Ep. 217: Charbay Distillery with Marko Karakasevic

Episode Transcript
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David Levine (00:00):
Hey folks, welcome to a new episode of the whiskey

(00:04):
ring Podcast. Today we're goingover to California, and I think
this is a as far north inCalifornia as we've gone for a
distillery quite yet, about twohours north of the Bay Area. And
we're talking to one of theearliest distilleries, one of
the the 170/7 distillery in theUS, one of the OGS of the craft

(00:25):
whiskey movement and craftbrandy movement before that in
the US, talking to charbayspirits. And with us, we've got
13th Generation MasterDistiller, a title he has
earned. We'll talk about thattoo. Marco karakoshevik, how'd I
do on that?

Marko Karakasevic (00:43):
Hey, not bad. David karakoshevich, but you

know, got the short overs the long O almost.

We'll drink some more, and it'll just be so
much easier. Fair enough.

Fair enough. So Charvet has been they've been on
my list for a long time to talkabout, if for no other reason,
at first, because of your statusas this early generation
distiller here in the US, letalone your history going back to
1751, with the family. We'lltalk about that. And then I was
reached out to and got to talkand try the three whiskeys, the

(01:20):
doubled and twisted, the r5 andthe S releases. And I'm going to
leave it for the conversation totake us there, but always sees
that I really, really enjoyedhigh sevens, low eights for me.
And if you get into the eights,that means it's experiential. So
that is some good stuff we'retalking about. So Margo, let's
start off with, where we usuallystart off, which is the origin

(01:43):
story?

Well, sure, David, we we've been distilling
in my family now for 13generations. Fanon, my dad came
from Serbia, and in 1751, that'swhen my family was recognized as
a distilling family over inSerbia, in the voivode Valley,

(02:06):
towards Hungary and the thedefinition of master distiller
in my family has always been theability to meet and exceed your
instructor. So you know, fromgeneration to generation, the
master distiller was, waslearning everything that was

(02:30):
known before and taking that andhopefully progressing it. My dad
did that as well, and I learnedhow to distill from my dad, but
before, before that, my dad wasmaking mostly brandy and Grappa

(02:52):
and liqueurs plum brandy aswell, because there's There's
plentiful plums in Serbia,walnuts in the Carpathian
Mountains. And one day in thelate 60s, Tito came and
nationalized my parent, myfamily's distillery, and left my

(03:17):
dad with with like a Hectoracross the river, and he decided
that it was time to move on. Sohe went to Germany and studied
enology, became a certifiedenologist at the School of
enology in Geisenheim, and thenjumped on a ship and made it

(03:43):
over to Canada and did somejobs, and then someone brought
him into Michigan, and that'swhere my mom's family is from,
and so that's where they met.And then they had my sister, and
then my dad got a job, a winemaking position, you know, huge

(04:06):
winery in the Central Valley ofCalifornia. And then from there
they my mom and dad would alwaysdrive up to Napa Valley in the
early 70s, and they found alittle cabin up on top of Spring
Mountain, and bought thatacreage in 72 I was born in 73

(04:26):
and then we lived there. Andthen he was a winemaker for
other wineries, consultantwinemaker, winemaker. And in the
early 80s he got he was aconsultant winemaker for two
wineries up in mencino County.And so that was the move. And in

(04:51):
83 after all, the wines went dryfrom the 82 harvest and put in
the barrel. He said, That's.Said, I'm done. And he started,
my mom and dad started charbaywinery and distillery in 1983 up
here in Ukiah. And so I was 10,and it bought a still brand new

(05:16):
prulo Charente cognac still fromfrom the pruilo family in cognac
France and brand new, andbrought it over and started
making brandy. And that's when Istarted working with my dad. You
know, being 10, I can remembermy first jobs are not the glory

(05:41):
jobs, but that's all right, youknow? And it was inside the
still cleaning overhead,cleaning the inside of the pot,
and that's where I started. Andsince then, we have my wife and
I, Jenny and I have taken overcharbay. My parents are now
retired, and so, you know, it's,it's, we're a team of six people

(06:06):
after 42 years, and we run atight ship and and it's working,
you know, all these crazy timesthat we're having right now, I'm
really thankful for, you know,everything that we that we are
doing and creating and makingand keeping our team tight and

(06:26):
everything is everything's goodright now.

I mean, I'm pretty great. Yeah, it is. And it's not
every distillery. It's not mostdistillers that are saying, Hey,
we're like, it's crazy, butwe're good,

yeah, you know, we do a lot of different
things. Being a small distilleryin California, we don't have the
type 74 craft license, eventhough we kind of started craft
distilling like in UnitedStates, but that's okay, you
know we do. We've done thingsand we do things that that allow

(07:05):
us to, you know, survive andmake a living, and you know, it
doesn't. We're not able to dothe have the privileges of a
type 74 license, but that'sokay, so it allowed us to, hey,
we're going to import tequilaTapatio from the from Mexico,

(07:29):
which is a trophy, fantasticbrand of tequila that our friend
Carlos Camarena and his familyproduce their third generation.
So we bring that, we import thatfor the whole us, we bought a
our bottling line, we started,we started making. We started
needing a bottling line, like areal one in 2000 and for our our

(07:56):
flavored vodkas that we weremaking and that bottling line. I
could bottle everything that wemake at charbay in about four
days, so we have extra time onthe line. So what do you do?
Yeah, I contract bottle forcompanies who want to have a

(08:16):
brand and say they want to bringin a tanker of rum from
Guatemala and bottle it and havetheir own brand and not have a
distillery. Well, that's what wedo as well. So we're providing
service through contract,contract bottling, contract
distilling as well. Because, youknow, this still is fantastic

(08:37):
for us. It's not the biggest,it's slow, but, you know, it's
okay. We're not, after making15,000 barrels a year and stuff,
we're not looking to, I don'treally want to grow up that
much, you know, I like, I likewhere we're at, and we make 10
to 12 barrels at a time, and andthat's, and that's, that's nice.

(08:57):
It's working. So it's beengreat, you know, like I said,
everything's everything'sworking, and we're doing good,
doing pretty well right now.Love it.

So with your parents starting the distillery
in 83 like I said, that that'samong the the earliest of this
wave of craft distillery then,particularly ones that didn't
start with whiskey, but startedwith brandies and otvs, as you
said. So you guys in 83 GermanRobin,

yeah, Robin, up here in mencio County, was an
82 St George down Alameda downhangar one or St George spirits,
that was an they were in 82 aswell. And then we started in 83
and then there was also Steve upin Oregon, Clear Creek

(09:50):
distillery as well. And, youknow, so, those were the, those
were like the four

in the US. Yes. And as of this interview, I've
now had three of the four on sogermane ravine, I'm coming for
you.

Yeah, Gallo, but that

hasn't been an impediment to me in the past.
Sometimes it's just persistencerather than enough, and they'll
get on a call with you. I'mcurious from from the
perspective of Sonia, you saidyou were 10 when the distillery
started, over the the years, doyou get the feeling that, as I

(10:31):
said, these distilleries startedmore with brandy as opposed and
otivies as opposed to whiskey?Was that more a function of just
where the founders came fromCentral Europe, France, as
opposed to Scott's Irish comingover and starting these
distilleries.

Probably, yeah, yeah. No, we're here in
the in in wine country, sothere's an abundance of
fantastic grapes to be able toferment and distill and make
brandy. So it just made totalsense.
I you know, when I was growingup, I was brewing beer and

(11:19):
figuring out that the same tworow malted barley that I'm using
is what they're using in largedistilleries in the south
making, you know, making whiskeyand so. But I had hops in mine,
like I made a nice checkPilsner, true lager. And I'm

(11:42):
thinking, Well, you know, thishas about 8% alcohol in it. It's
two row malted barley. It'sbeer. Why can't I distill this,
make whiskey out of it? Youknow, my dad's like, this is
that's not American whiskey. Youknow, that's not what
everybody's doing. And I'm like,Yeah, I know, but that was in
the 80s. Then you jump to 99 andwe got the opportunity to take

(12:14):
about 24,000 gallons of a CzechPilsner from a micro brewery,
and my dad and I doubledistilled it 24 hours a day for
three and a half weeks straight,and made like 22 barrels of
whiskey out of it, and in, I letit we let it age, we put it in

(12:34):
brand new American oak, so itcould have some type of an
association that people couldrecognize, because this whiskey
was just completely differentthan everything else. And so we
put it in brand new Americanoak. And after two years, you
know, I was like, Yep, it'sready. Let's find some. And I
picked two barrels out, and webottled it full barrel strength,

(12:58):
and released the first of sixreleases of that lot throughout
the years, as the first CzechPilsner whiskey that has been
produced and bottled, you know,definitely in the United States.
I'm sure someone might havemaybe bought distilled some
beer, you know, over in Germanyor something. But no one really

(13:22):
had ever commercially done it,and it works really well. When
you distill something, youconcentrate the flavors, you
concentrate the alcohol by thedistillation process. So in my
mind, if you're if you'reconcentrating whatever you're

(13:46):
distilling, if you distillsomething that's delicious,
you're concentrating delicious.And I like that. You know,
there's not a whole lot ofwhiskeys out there that are
selling the beer right next tothe whiskey that it was made

(14:07):
from. You know, the beer wassimply a tool to utilize the
sugar from a source of grain toget it converted into alcohol,
and then run it through thestill and then make the whiskey
and put in the barrel. So Ireally liked that. And at the

(14:33):
same time there, we also startedmaking fresh picked fruit
flavored vodkas out of Meyerlemons, blood oranges, ruby red
grapefruit from Texas. And so Iwas traveling all over the
place, doing that. By then, Iwas 25 and launched those
flavored vodkas in 98 actually,one year before, and within like

(14:57):
three, four years, there was a.There was just, there were a lot
of flavored vodkas coming on allof a sudden. And so I was like,
Well, you know, I think it'stime to get back into this still
and start, you know, start doingwhat, what I can do that not too
many other people can do.Because, not, not to say that
everyone's using fresh pickedfruit all the time to make their

(15:19):
flavored vodkas and stuff. Butusing, using this still, it's a
charter still and and distillingbottle ready beers and stuff,
that's what I wanted to do. Sounfortunately, that brewery,
Sonoma mountain brewery, that wegot the chuck Pilsner from in 99

(15:39):
it since closed down. So I wasthinking to myself, well, what
are we going to do? Because Ireally like the concept of
distilling bottle ready beer. Idon't have a silo. I don't have
a mash ton, you know, I don'thave the infrastructure, you

(16:00):
know, to to brew beer, nor wouldI be able to get the pricing,
you know, dialed in. And so forme, it, it worked really well to
to contract with, with another,with a with a micro brewery. And
I, I like racer five IPA, andthat was, you know, it's a big

(16:21):
West Coast IPA and so, andthey're, they're like, 22
minutes away. So I called andset up an appointment, a little
tour, and went there for liketwo hours. Mad at everybody.
Everyone's super nice. They'repro at the brewery. They totally
know what they're doing. And itwas, it was, it was really cool.

(16:43):
And two weeks later, I got atanker, you know, 6500 gallons
of racer five, IPA hops and COtwo, and all straight, you know,
straight from the tank. Youknow, if it, if it didn't go
into the tanker, it would havewent to the Bolling line at
Barry public. And so that's whatwe started doing. We started

(17:04):
doing IPA and my dad taught mehow to run still 24 hours a day.
And you know, we just don't stopuntil the tanks are dry, because
you don't want to oxidize the,you know, the beer any more than
you than you have to and so youjust, you bang it out. And, you

(17:27):
know, working at night, all day,all night, working here and
tasting beer, you know, likethree o'clock in the morning I'd
have other beers and stuff inthe fridge. And then this one
time, I had some of the big bearblack stout from also from bear
public. And I tried that, and Ihad a hat eraser fives next to

(17:50):
it. So I just tried them side byside, and the contrast was huge.
And so you know that to me meantthat, yeah, these two beers are
going to distill out, andthey're going to have totally
different profiles in the formof whiskey. So I texted Roger
over at Bear public and said,hey, you know, I think I want to

(18:14):
distill a tanker a stout. Youknow, are you making that soon?
He's like, Oh, yeah, we're gonnamake that in about two weeks
like, Oh, that's perfect. And sosure enough, again, another two
weeks here comes. Take a truckof 6500 gallons, like, 203
barrels of stout. And I startedmaking that, and my dad was not

(18:36):
very thrilled about thatdecision. Because, you know,
it's like, nobody really likes,nobody really likes surprises,
you know, at the 6500 gallonlevel. And I told them, okay,
hey, you know it's going to begreat because it tastes great in
the bottle. The racer five tastegreat in the bottle. They both
are going to be completelydifferent whiskeys and

(18:57):
completely different style. Andsure enough after we distilled
it, barrel aged it, bottled thefirst release,
I took my dad up to a friend'sproperty up in Alaska, and we
were fishing, and end of the daysmoking cigars, drinking stout

(19:18):
whiskey, you know, out in themiddle of wilderness, Alaska.
And he said, you know, this isprobably the best thing you've
ever distilled. My Oh, my God,that was amazing, you know? And
so he loves the stout, too. Andit has, it's very complex. We're
on the second release of it thatwas aged for 48 months, four

(19:42):
years in used French oak, 59gallon barrels. I like bigger
barrels, like the small barrels.That doesn't work for me, yeah,
you can get a massive extractionof oak color and flavor out of
out of that. Barrel and but, youknow, how much is enough and how

(20:04):
much is too much, and just bejust because you can extract it
doesn't mean that it's like, oh,it's extracted. It's ready to
go. Let's put it in the barrel.It was put in the bottle. You've
got to let that flavorintegrate. And, you know, I
just, I like bigger barrels,because there's less less

(20:26):
extraction, and it showcaseswhat's in the what's in the
barrel more. And again, there'san abundance of wineries. We
have friends that are making alot of wine, and sometimes they
use their barrels once and sellthem. And so, you know, you
know, a used barrel in the wineindustry is something that is

(20:50):
considered neutral in the wineindustry, because 13% alcohol
wine has already extracted thecolor and flavor out of the
barrel that 13% ABV can pullout, and also all the water in
the wine, 77% of it, on average,74% whatever the ABV the wine
is, but it's about 75 76% ofthat is water, which means

(21:15):
you're pulling out all the watersoluble tannins out of the
barrel from the wine. So what'sleft? All the top notes, spice
and all the color from from thetoasting or charring from the
barrel that was never extractedbefore. So for me, it worked out
really well, and it's somethingthat I really love to use.

I said before we went on air, but I'll repeat it
here that I got to taste thanksto charbay, to to Jenny and you
for your generosity. I got totry the r5 which is from the
racer IPA, the s release fromthe stout, and the doubled and
twisted, which has six differentroasted in there and two

(22:00):
different, two different casttypes in there, the new oak and
the doubled

and twisted. I think you got lot three, and
it has six different lots ofwhiskeys, barrel aging, all
different times, all blendedtogether and combined to make a
20 barrel blend. Yeah, it's

stuff from 2010 2011 2015 in there. 15. In
there,

13 and 17 as well. So, yeah, two different
IPA, IPAs. Check, Pilsner, yeah.So there's, there's single malt
from, I believe it was 2012there was stout from 2011 there

(22:46):
was 2013 2017 IPA and 2015 checkPilsner in there. So it is
extremely complex, and I wish Ihad a million gallons of that.

I was surprised by all of them I have tried, not a
lot. I mean, there aren't a lotof hop flavored or hopped
whiskeys in general, in the US.And I'm going to generalize
this, because I really don'tknow how many there are, but
sometimes it feels like they'remore gimmicky than really going

(23:25):
for flavor. Yeah, and I, Iwasn't quite sure what to
expect, because I, I make it apoint not to really look at too
many details before I trysomething, because I wanted to,
like, I don't look at tastingnotes. I don't want to, yeah,
incept me. But at the same time,I'm, like, the only hopped
whiskeys I've had or haven'tbeen great. One was downright

(23:49):
terrible. But, you know, there'sa bit kind of the things you put
David, you never know. But I didknow, like, I knew that I love
racer five, IPA. I'm a big WestCoast IPA guy. Love the you
know, really piney, hoppy notesin there. I was not a big stout
person, and that was the onethat caught me the most off

(24:12):
guard, because I tried the r5first, loved it, and then I
tried the s, and I was like, amI gonna like this? Not liking
stouts usually. And then Itried, I was like, This is
better than the r5 and the r5was already really, really good.
So all you know this is openedmy eyes to this, because you're

(24:39):
just like some of the otherbrands that started out in the
early 80s and didn't, you know,started Whiskey a little bit
later. You're the OGS, but notnecessarily as well known as I
feel like you should be in withthe with the quality of spirits
that you guys are putting out.Mike, thank you. I. So with,

(25:03):
before we get to the whiskeysthemselves, I want to, I wanted
to ask you about the stills asthey're, you know, double
distilled, Sharon say, potstills, Island beaks. And the
question that came to mind justnow was with your family, having
distilled for so long in Serbiaand near the Hungarian border. I

(25:26):
was these are French Sharon say,Allen MC stills. Did you have to
was the still that was beingused in your family, or the
still type being used in yourfamily at all similar to that?
Or was it a real shift indistillation style or technique.
When you move to these stills,

this one was definitely bigger. This one's a
2500 liter still, and so itrequires, you know, it requires
some serious tanks and stuff. Imean this. I mean my, my family
came from a village, you know,and they had a they had a
distillery, real restaurant,little hotel, kind of triplex,

(26:06):
and it was very successful forthat area of of the world. And
they had alembics, because thatcopper pot still is the way to
go with an alembic and, youknow, column stills were not
really around, you know, oravailable. They were probably

(26:28):
super expensive as well. And itwas just, wasn't just, you know,
that's not what they used. Sothey used, they used copper
alambic pot stills, and theydoubled the still because you
have to, there's not enoughrectification in an alambic bulb
that sits on top of the pot torectify high enough to come out

(26:51):
and make 140 proof on a singlepass. Plus the quality is not.
The quality is different in asingle pass than a double
distillation with a char andtake cognac still. So the type
of still, alambic, yeah, was thesame. The size way bigger once

(27:13):
we moved here, once my dadstarted charbay Here and but the
concept is the same. You have todo seven fractions, and it's a
double distillation.

And with your with your own history too. This is a
question that came from way backin 2018 when you were on heads
and tails podcast. It was onethat I really like, so I'm going
to bring it up again, which wasbeing the 13th generation of
something. There is, I see fromthe outside, there's this

(27:48):
pressure of, do I really want todo this? Versus the, do I have
to do this? Because otherwise itstops. And being 13th
generation, you don't want it toend there, you know. But I think
it was reading on Charlie'swebsite that you initially went
to UC Davis for for physicaltherapy, right?

Yeah, I played football in high school
and tweaked my shoulder onegame, and and then went to
physical therapy for it, and it,it healed. He got fixed. It got
fixed. And I thought that wasthe coolest thing. And so I was

(28:34):
like, huh, I want to be aphysical therapist, you know,
because it was, you know, in thein the early 80s and through
high school it was, it wasstrictly my mom, dad, my sister
and I, you know, just, justgoing for it and making products

(28:57):
and selling products. And, youknow, I can remember when it
was, you know, super slow inJanuary. And, hey, we'd lock the
door, and my parents would gotravel, and I would watch the
shop. And so, yeah, so I wantedto, because I was, I was

(29:20):
learning from my dad, who's 12thGeneration Master Distiller,
heavily, heavily trained inorganic chemistry and stuff. And
when you when you learn fromfrom a master, it's not like
learning from a teacher, youknow, he's not really, wasn't
really teaching me about this.He was going molecular with

(29:44):
everything, for sure, but, youknow, it was just expected to be
done, you know, exactly the wayhe envisioned it and how he
wanted things done. And we couldall do a math equation, you
know, a math problem. Them andcome up with the with the
solution in many different ways,but we all do things a little

(30:07):
bit different. And so it was, itwas a challenge, for sure, but I
loved it. You know, you eitherlike it or you don't. And I
liked it a lot, and I stuck withit. And, yeah, here we are
today.

Was there kind of a contingency plan if you
decided that you wanted to stickwith physical therapy as the
career was your sister ready tostep in and take over, really?

So I went, I went to school UC Davis, and,
you know, about halfway through,three quarter of the way through
the year, my dad was like, hey,you know, what are you going to
do? Are you going to you goingto go off and do this, or you
going to come back and work inthe distillery with us? Said,
Well, you know, I want to runthe still. I want to do this. I

(31:00):
gotta get paid, you know, I'mnot going to be, not going to be
40, you know, living under yourroof. You know, neither of us is
going to want that to happen.And so he's like, ah, we'll
figure that out. I'm like, oh,okay, we'll figure that out. So
I finished that year, and thencame back and went to work, you

(31:20):
know, and then, you know, three,four years later, I started
getting paid. And, you know, itwas, it was working out. We were
making products. We're making,we're making some money and
making a living, and and away wego. So, yeah, so my idea of
being an international physicaltherapist, traveling somewhere

(31:42):
in the planet for like, sixmonths and then moving on and
going somewhere else for sixmonths, eight months, two
months, whatever, never, never,really, never materialized. But
that's okay, you know, I wentback, came back to the
distillery and this went towork, learning and doing it.

Nothing wrong with it either way. And we should say
with 13 generations, you know,the the beams and the Russells
and all those families inKentucky that have had that many
have had eight or ninegenerations, now you're beating
them by about, you know, coupledecades at least,

yeah, but, I mean, it's not, it's no real
comparison. I mean, those guyshave made millions of gallons,
you know, and massive, massivetechnology and Monster
distillery. So it's, a wholenother world.

It is. But I like, I like the parallels of the in
certain industries and certaincompanies within this industry,
there's the the father to son,the father to nephew, uncle,
whatever it may be, depending onthe generation. And just for
people listening, I'm notintentionally leaving out father
or mother to daughter, oranything like that. That's just

(33:04):
factually more recent that thathas been happening. Glad it's
happening. But I'm not purposelyleaving out, just to leave it
out. So you were saying, whenyou were learning all of this,
and, you know, scrubbing theinside of the stills as early as
10, did you, because I've neverhad an opportunity to ask the

(33:27):
other families this, this kindof question, which is, did you
get the feeling in those momentsof teaching and passing on the
knowledge that he had obtainedover those years as a master
distiller? Was it? How was hebalancing kind of the dad versus
the distiller teaching the nextgeneration.

Oh, 100% dad. Just, just get in there and do
it. And just do this. Do that,clean this. Do that just full
board. Just go ahead and goahead and do it all. And just,
you know, you've got a lot tolearn, so better start right

(34:04):
now, and let's go,

I think, yeah, if I've heard right on other
episodes, because otherwise,it's because it sound really
creepy that you're one of yoursons is going to be in his teens
now, right?

He is already, yeah, miles, our first,
our first son. He's 14, yeah.

So again, that came from a previous podcast
that was not creeping at all.But have you got him working
cleaning in stills?

Yet? I have him working and learning about
the still and when he was alittle kid, you know little guy,
he, he learned quick about whatheads, hearts and tails were. He
learned the he learned the knobson the on the throttle of the
still loves the bottling line.Our youngest son, Ivan, he's he

(34:52):
just turned nine. He loves theforklift and miles can work, you
know, on the bottling line. Mindall day, and so he's learning
that. And, you know, there'sjust, there's a lot to learn.
And, yeah, they're, they're init. It's, you know, there's a
lot to do. And they have schoolall the time too, so, you know,

(35:16):
but they're in it, and I don'tknow, you know, hey, they're
going to stay with it, I hopeso. I mean, we have equipment
now, we've got stills, we've gotbarrels of inventory, we've got
customers, we have distributors,we have products and, you know,
and so it would be, it would beawesome. So we'll see. You know,

like you said, you said, you never know, but when
you have the opportunity for, Iwould imagine at some point
they're going to have that sameinternal monolog of, all right,
one of us is going to be the14th generation, yeah, yeah. And
then they, as we've said,they've got to then not just be
a distiller, but earn the masterdistiller title. Yeah?

Yeah. The definition is the ability to
meet your instructor or exceedExcel and make something better
than your instructor. And thenmy dad said, on top of that, you
got to release a product thatthe family had never released
before. You know, to sell aswell. So, yeah, you can make it,
but you got to sell it too, soso that by that time, you know,

(36:23):
oh, like I was into, I was intomaking whiskey most my My family
never made whiskey before. Andso I got a bought a batch of
beer from a local micro breweryhere up in mencio County, and
double distilled it and treatedit as an O to V. So most ODS are

(36:48):
made from wine or fruit wines,like raspberries, comes to mind.
We've done black mission, figtwo, that's that's a beast. And
so I treated this, this thisdouble IPA as a no to V and aged
it in stainless, doubledistilled it and aged it in

(37:09):
stainless for five years to letit integrate. Then I bottled it,
and that was the year 2010 andwe entered it into the ultimate
spirits challenge in New Yorkfrom Paul packalt,

another previous podcast guest,

and it took the highest rating of any clear
or brown whiskey you know of theyear. And so like, Hey, I think
we just crushed this. And I toldmy dad, hey, we did. You know,
we just got the highest ratingof all clear whiskeys,
moonshines and and barrel agedwhiskeys at the ultimate spirits

(37:52):
challenge in New York. Like,why? I know it's good. Like,
Hey, man, I'm just telling you,someone else likes it too. You
know, it was malty and realspicy from the hops. It was
super good. And he's like,slapped me on the back of his
shoulder, like, congratulations,you're a goddamn master
distiller. Let's drink some andsmoke cigars. Hell yeah. So, you

(38:16):
know, took me 27 years tofinally get the pat on the back.
You know, there you go, your13th generation master
distiller. So it's, you know, I,I want to show my voice every
single thing about this wholeabout the whole business that

(38:38):
I've learned, and I'm proud ofit. You know, it's been, it's
been, it's, you know, it's ahell of a ride. And, you know,
from starting out withabsolutely zero to where we are
today, you know, we have noloans, no investors, and we own
everything. And it's a it's agood feeling proud of it

absolutely and again. Going back to, you know
how we opened this podcast, thatit's a tough time right now, and
to see someone, hear someonebeing like, we're in a good
position right now, no no loans,no investors, we answer to
ourselves, that seems to be thebest place to be right now.

Oh, man, well, that's where we're at
right now. You know that was, itwas some, it was some scary
times when covid shut everythingdown and sheltered in place, and
no restaurants open and no whichmeans, because we're heavy,
we're 100% reliable on threetier system. And we couldn't do

(39:43):
cocktails to go. We can't doretail direct or anything. We're
strictly, you know, we sell todistributors, and distributors
sell wholesale to stores andbars and so, you know, with
everybody shut down. There were,there were no. Purchase orders
coming in, no product going out,bills coming in hot and expected

(40:06):
to be paid on time with with theincome not coming in. So, you
know, fortunately, we we, weread the we read the news, and
found out that we could makehand sanitizer. And there was a
shortage of hype of high proofalcohol globally.

(40:30):
And I told Jenny, we can makehand sanitizer. We've got, you
know, we've got, like, 6000gallons of high proof. She's
like, we're not making fuckinghand sanitizer. Mike, yes, we
are. And so we, she and Ideveloped a brand in nine days,

(40:56):
got labels designed, printed,and then we had the hard we had
a hard time of getting packagingfor hand sanitizer, plastic,
because we never used plastic.And there was a shortage of
plastic everywhere globally,because that one, that one super
freighter, Jack knifed in thestraight and just plugged up all

(41:19):
global shipping, and everybodywas back ordered or out of
stock, of all things. But wefound we made it happen. We're
buying plastic, this plasticthat other distilleries heard
about, the hand sanitizer,didn't have high proof. We did,
and so we, you know, we made wemade that. And I was filling

(41:41):
totes and shipping, you know,shipping 20 totes to other
distilleries so they couldbottle and make hand sanitizer,
you know, for their communityand to make income during these
dark months. And so, you know,it, it, it was, it saved the
day. That was nuts.

But I mean, this podcast started in April of 21
you know, after the first waveof conversions to hand
sanitizer, I don't remember atthat point if a lot of
distilleries were still makingthe sanitizer, or if the kind of
original makers are caught up,yeah,

as as fast as it blew up, it went straight
down. Because then the big boysfinally got, you know, got a
grip, and, you know, continuedbusiness as usual. And that was,
that was a trip too, because itwas like, now you should ramp it
up, ramp it up, ramp it up. Rampit up, ramp it up. Okay, we got
everything in stock, and thennow it's trying to push it out,

(42:46):
and then also sales the scope.But it's done. You know, crisis
over, we made fantastic handsanitizer. Yeah, we should have
had, we should have no one madeit. No one that I knew had a
competition on hand sanitizers,but I think we would have
crushed it because it was soclean. You just put it on. It
didn't stink like bad alcohol.We're using charbay, you know.

(43:09):
And it was just so you put it onand be like, it's all nice and
clean, not not greasy oranything. It was pro, hey, I

want to go back to to this idea in California, you
can't sell DTC. It's all threetier. Is that frustrating?
Certainly frustrating. But isthat like writ large? Everybody,
regardless of size?

No, it's a you need to get a type 74 which
the type 74 craft license forCalifornia just came around, I
think, like, I don't know, fiveyears ago or something like
that. I don't remember, but wenever qualified because we were
doing contract bottling, and wewere importing tequila, and

(43:58):
we're doing this, and we'redoing that, and those all were
like strikes against thequalifications for a Micro
Distillery, craft spirits, craftdistillery. And it was really
frustrating, because I'm therun. I'm running the still 24
hours a day, you know? We're ateam of six people. Now used to
be four, then turned in five.Now it's six, you know, and when

(44:22):
we're bottling, I'm in themiddle of the Bali line, you
know, it's not like, we havelike, 17 people or 2000 people,
you know, doing this. And it'slike, I think we're still pretty
crafty, and we don't qualify.And it's just not fair. David,
it's just

not, yeah, it doesn't win. Yeah, it doesn't.
Doesn't make sense to me at all.I understand how on paper, yeah,
the imports and all that. Likeon paper, fine, but if you're
looking at what actually ishappening there, yeah, doesn't,
it doesn't make sense.

But I mean, I mean, we're even making, we're
making less. Products, you know,here than what we're doing by
contract, bottling and shippingit out. That's not even our
product. We're importingtequila. It's fantastic. It's
Tapatio, and we're selling that.But, you know, we're still make,
I mean, we're still making avery little amount here at
charbay, or vodkas and ourwhiskeys and rum sometimes, and

(45:18):
brandy, but we just neverqualified. So I'm working on it
now. Got a grip on what we haveto do to maybe break up some of
the licenses and and just makeit so that charbay is, is this
little entity, and then anotherentity controls the import in
the contract bottling, you know,and just there's, there's a way

(45:41):
to do it, and now it's time todo it, because, God damn, you
know, it's like, they justpassed laws so that other
distilleries from out of statecan get a permit and sell retail
direct to customers in state ofCalifornia. And I'm like, and I
can't, you know,

yeah, and hey, my state. I'm in New York. My state
was front and center in thatfight.

Very, very New York was very progressive in
their laws. For, you know, beingable to distill apples and stuff
that grows in New York and putit in your trunk and drive park
it right next to someone sellingpumpkins at the at the farmers
market and you selling bottlesright out of the trunk of your

(46:23):
car legally. That's sweet. Goodfor New York. That's cool. No,
we got a bit jealous ever since,ever since it happened. I'm
like, God damn it. That's,that's not, that's not fair. Oh,
well, yeah, that's okay.

You say with volume wise, it sounds to me
like the contract work, andcertainly the top tier is a huge
brand, but the contractor andmaterial in particular is a big
part of the business. What kindof volume are you putting out
that's just sharp a productsuper small,

you know, the the double and twisted, for
example, was a 20 barrel blend.You know, it's not like we're
banging that out every year. Youknow, the stout was a 10 barrel
release, and we're on the secondrelease. You know, from 2010
2011 when we started stouts, r5we've done six releases, and

(47:27):
we're on our final. Final Idon't know which sample you got,
I think it was r5 final release.

Think which was

or release five, lot five, or something
like that.

But, of course, I didn't note that down,

yeah, probably final release, because
we've been out of Lot five for along time. And so that was, you
know, that's the sixth release.So that was six year barrel aged
racer five IPA whiskey, youknow? And that's a 10 barrel
release. Because I like to doing10 barrel releases, because that
was an exact lot from 10, from afrom a tanker of 6500 gallons,

(48:12):
we would make 10 to 12 barrelsof whiskey. So, you know, once
it, once it had enough barrelaging time to it, to release it.
Then there you go. And then wedidn't, we don't release another
release until necessity, andthen we bottle more. So, you
know, the libraries, the barrelsare, you know, aging, and some

(48:36):
are getting pulled. Some aregetting older, and now we're, we
have a really nice collection ofsome crazy whiskeys that we just
bottled, some hop rod rye frombear public. And that's some
tasty stuff too. We're startingto sell that barrel club. So to

(48:57):
get back to your question, Imean, it's very small. I mean,
maybe 2000 cases and stuff ayear with, with the vodka, maybe
4000 cases, 5000 cases, yeah,maybe, like, 5000 cases a year,
something like that, right?

So, yeah, that's, to me, that's definition of
Micro Distillery, right there.

That's sure feels like David,

I have to ask though, you said you've been out
of the r5 for a while, with hisfinal lot to be taken as like,
that's the last one that's goingto be made.

That's the well, racer five they got, they
they sold, and they stoppedproduction in their Cloverdale
facility, and then it went toanother brewery in in this in
the Bay Area. And so that kindof, that was this kind of, well

(49:53):
it's done. So I still have racerfive IPA whiskeys in the barrel.
All that I'm using for otherprojects, like doubled and
twisted, that's a big componentof it. But as far as releasing
it as a straight, straightrelease of just racer five r5

(50:15):
whiskey in the bottle, that'sthe last one. Damn.

It's a shame. It's that's really so good, that
interesting, I understand. Butyou know,

so What's plan B? You know, if, if your
brewery that you're getting, youknow, contracted tankers out of
goes away? Well, fortunately,there's another fantastic
brewery over here as well. It'sin mencino County, and it's
called North Coast brewery overin Fort Bragg, it's about an

(50:49):
hour away, and they make myfavorite stout as well. They
make old Rasputin stout, andit's very tasty. And they have,
they have technology there thatthey can pulverize grain and run
it through a grist press, I callit a lease filter, and really

(51:13):
extract everything and not jamup a louder ton. So it'll it
enables them to be able to takecorn and enables them to take
rye and make 100% rye, and, youknow, different combos and make

(51:35):
some really cool mash bills forme. So looking forward to
starting up working with themnext time we do some runs of
whiskey. So stay tuned on those.It's it's going to be fun. You

(51:57):
know, I think I'm going to focuson check Pilsner because for you
know, the past 25 years, 24years, people have been loving
it, and we've made it in thepast. We have some and we have
some 2000 fifteens, and we havesome 2000 seventeens, check
pilsners, and then we've beenmaking single malt here and

(52:22):
there, but never released asingle barrel of the single malt
just isolated by itself becausewe put it into the D and T
blend. We're going to releasesome of those single malts from
we have some from 2012 and sothey're ready and and then Jenny
wanted to make some bourbon.Because, you know, selling hot,

(52:45):
flavored whiskey, it's a lot ofeducation, you know, it's just
like, what is it? You know, whatdo you do with it? And, you
know, what do you do with it? Sothere's so many different layers
of the sales, you know, thattake place because you have to
work. You get to work with yourdistributor. You got to sell it
to them, educate all thedifferent layers of the

(53:08):
distributor, and then, then andthen, restaurant owners,
spirits, purchasers, barmanagers, bartenders, servers,
you know, like nine layers. Ifyou really count it up, you have
to educate, you know, on yourproduct so, but when you have a
bourbon, people know whatbourbon is, you know, it's like,

(53:32):
it's like selling wine. It'slike selling Chardonnay. You
know, everyone knows whatChardonnay is like. Let me taste
it like, Oh, that's a goodChardonnay. I like the package.
How much is it done? Okay, youknow. And so we contracted to to
make a 52% corn 48% two rowmalted barley beer, you know,

(53:55):
bourbon, Bourbon mash Bill beer.And then I distilled it. And I
like making 140 proof. It justto me, it's just that's, that's
a that's a great spot. My stilllikes making 141 45 146 138 to
146 is like a sweet zone for me.And this stuff was this, Bourbon

(54:21):
that we made was just so goodright there that, like, I am not
diluting this and putting it inat less than 125 proof, as you
know, required, and I didn't. Sowe lived at an age for a while,
and then Jane's like, what's upwith the bourbon. Well, Jenny,

(54:46):
you know, I looked at the regsagain one more time, and I'm
really sorry, but we can't callthat whiskey bourbon. And she,
you know, she was upset. I. Forabout days with me on that one.
And so we get to call it whiskeydistilled from Bourbon mash, or

(55:09):
we just get to call it whiskey.So I promised her that I will
make a tanker, get a tanker ofof 5248 made for us, and then
I'll distill it, and I'll put itin a brand new barrel, a 125,
proof, and we'll be able to havesome bourbon finally, so we're

(55:34):
gonna look I'm looking forwardto doing that, because it was
fun. It was different, andtasted really It tastes really
good. And so I'm gonna do morePilsner, bourbon, some single
malt. And you know, you got tochoose your battles too, you
know. And so making the thingsthat we have a track record with

(56:00):
makes sense to me. And, youknow, and that's plenty of
products to make. And then herecomes, you know, it's December,
almost. There it is, and it'scitrus season here in
California. And so here's thenext this will be the 28th
vintage of fresh picked fruitflavored vodkas. So we only

(56:22):
picked the fruit in January,February, March, at the peak of
the peak of the season for bloodoranges and Meyer lemons. And we
used to do Texas Rio Star Rubyreds. They're so good. So, you
know, here that comes in, andthen, you know, and then, by
then, there's spring. And so wegot, we got plenty to do, for

(56:43):
sure. It's exciting

with the and I understand Jenny's perspective
of wanting to have a bourbon.We've had a lot of guests on on
who maybe they focus on singlemalt, or even they focus on rye
and elevating other spirits,let's say other whiskeys, and a
lot of them will say, but wemake a bourbon because that's
what sells the most. It keepsthe lights on. So I I get it.

(57:11):
Nothing wrong with no nothingwrong with it. But I guess
you're you're also in a uniqueand good position in that,
because you have the otheraspects of the business, other
spirits. You don't have to havethe bourbon to keep the lights
on.

No, I just want to showcase my, I want to
showcase my style of bourbon.You know, it will be different.
It has no choice but to bedifferent than everything out
there. You know, it's just like,you know what we're using, how
we're making the beer. You know,what? You know what? Still we're
using the barrels that we'reusing, you know, everything that

(57:46):
we're using, you know, it'sgonna, it's, it's tasty stuff,
too. And I look forward to it.

I just thought of this dude. I'm just throwing
this in there for some context.So recently, we've talked to a
bunch of English distilleries.And this, it's, it's kind of a
non sequitur, but I wanted tosay before I left my head, which
was that you're, you said, likeyou don't have a fermenters or
anything like that. You're thebeer is coming in from your

(58:14):
partners, ready to distill,ready to bottle, ready to
distill. And I'm justremembering the English
distilleries are going throughthis right now with their
geographical indication, wheresome like the scotch whiskey
Association are saying, well, ifyou don't brew on site and make
your own beer, you can't becalled a whiskey like you can't

(58:38):
get you can't have it brought infrom anywhere else, or anything
like that, and here, and I thinkthat's a specious argument to
begin with, anyway, like it'scomplete bullshit. But here,
it's not a problem. You havegreat a great set of beers that
are now changing some of them,but a great set of beers you

(58:59):
like it, you distill it, andnobody bats an eye about the
fact that, okay, so they didn'tmake it. So what? Yeah, who
cares? So I just want to throwthe context froze. Do, yeah,
exactly. If they're makingbetter beer than you think you
can make, then let them make thebeer, and you'll make a better
spirit than they can make,

you know? And I can't, you know, being the
size, you know, I can't, I can'tmake a gallon of beer at the
same price point as a fully setup brewery does that has silos
and, you know, a full on teamand and everything. So, you
know, it as far as costs go,yeah, yeah, it's more expensive

(59:42):
to do it this way, but sametime, you know, I don't have to
brew the beer.

Yeah, absolutely. So I want to throw you for a
loop a little bit here. I'mgoing to go back to super early.
The interview. This was whiskeycast episode 179 so we're
talking December of 2008 market.Whiskey cast just celebrated his
20th anniversary earlier, acouple months ago, and this was

(01:00:16):
the end of year three of doingthe podcast. So it's been a long
time since then? Yeah. So theone, the first thing I'll say is
that the ideas and principles,if you will, that you espouse
back then, are exactly whatyou're saying now. So the the
through line has not changed.And I love that. It's the same

(01:00:39):
idea. If whiskeys is still frombeer, use a beer use a beer you
like the hops are adding this asyou were saying, the floral
spice, especially when they'rereally concentrated after
distilling. Now other, somethingelse I wanted to ask, Oh, sorry,
and that you were making at thatpoint, this 2008 you were making
a rye beer, whiskey made from arye beer that you could buy off

(01:00:59):
the shelf. Dude, 2008

Marko Karakasevic (01:01:09):
that was well, 2008 was right when we
were doing trials with differentbear Republic beers and making,
making real small batches. Andthe Hot Rod rye, I believe, is

(01:01:30):
that's the one. And then let'ssee what else. What other beers
did we distill in that try, inthat trial era? Right there? Hop
rod rye, I'm trying to plank onthat name of it. Nor Cal bitter,

(01:01:51):
super good, super tasty beer.Yeah, we, we distilled some of
that too. Yeah, yeah,

David Levine (01:02:00):
it's well. And I think it comes full circle,
because you're, you're trying toride beer again, 17 as well,
right? So it comes back around.And the, I think the other
thing, and you'll have to tellme if you're still doing this or
not, you You and I share that wedon't like over oak whiskey. You

(01:02:22):
don't want to be having woodchips in your mouth or like
licking a stave. So you do agein sometimes a new American oak,
sometimes in used barrels. UseFrench oak with 59 gallon as you
were saying, the one of thefirst releases that you did was
six years in oak and then threeyears in stainless and you've

(01:02:43):
also, you know, had whiskey ageand glass at different times.
And I say, I say age, I'm usingthat term loosely, because I
don't know how the regulationswork on that, but once it's out
of the barrel. But the pointbeing that it's going from a
barrel and then into an inertcontainer for some amount of
time before it's going tobottle, right? Yeah and yeah in

(01:03:06):
a couple of years, not just likea month or two for mellowing or
melding a couple of years, isthat something that you're still
doing?

Yeah, I love doing that. That's a double
aging. You know, when you usewhen you either go stainless
first and then barrel second,like, for example, our oh five
rum, we distilled sugar canefrom Maui, and we put it in
stainless for five years becausemy dad wanted to have a clear

(01:03:38):
rum. But my Hey, man, you know,there's no one's buying $85
bottles of clear, clear rum,even though we got 100 points on
it, and it was, you know, Paulpicolp, and loves it, you know,
that's great, you know. But youknow, let's, let's barrel age
it. Make some barrel age rum.And, you know, really, you know,

(01:04:03):
turn it into, you know, addanother layer of flavor by
barrel aging it. And so we agedthat for three years, after five
years, and one day it justtasted like magic. And it was so
brilliantly clear because of thedouble aging, I didn't filter it
or anything. And to this day,that lot is still. It's like the

(01:04:23):
clearest, cleanest distillate inthe bottle ever. It's really
cool. The check Pilsner from 99like the original check Pilsner,
we some most of it we we barrelaged for for six years. And then

(01:04:44):
we put we took some and dilutedit to 110 proof and put it into
stainless for six years. So itwas six in the barrel, six and
stainless, and we bottled. That.So that was released two, and
then release three was six yearsin the in the barrel, eight

(01:05:11):
years in the eight years instainless at full barrel
strength. And that was releasedthree, and that was the biggest
release of all those that wedid, and then release four was,
I think four was laws like LAwhiskey society came over, and

(01:05:39):
they're like, whoa. No onereally knows what hot flavor
whiskey is. So, you know, thisis tasting really good, but
we're just, I think we're gonnado like a half a barrel, man,
come on Adam. You know you can,you can do a whole barrel, man,
we're just gonna do half myokay. So we bottled up half a
barrel for him and turned intolaws whiskey one first release,

(01:06:00):
I think of theirs, and then Ilet the rest of that barrel age,
and then we released, wereleased that as four, and then
there was five and six. And sixwas a full, full 16 year barrel
aged version. And in the verybeginning, Joe Montana was

(01:06:25):
buying our whiskey one, youknow, and I was out at that
time, I was the distributor, soI started Marco K spirits
distributing. My mom and dadowned the license to distill,
and I started my own business.So I was buying my own sharp a
from my mom and dad, and sellingup and down state. And I would
always, I'd miss, miss Joe.Like, TWICE, Like, I'd go to the
store doing delivery, like, Hey,Joe just bought a bottle of your

(01:06:47):
whiskey. Mike, Ah, damn it, man,tell him. I said, Hi, you know,
tell him, come up with thisstory or do something to help
me. And then, like, the weeklater, I go to another store I'm
doing delivers. Hey, Joe justbought another bottle your
whiskey. And I'm like, oh mygod, can you tell him? I said,
Hi, what's up? And never, neverconnected, unfortunately, but I
had barrel number 16 of all ofthose barrels that was aging

(01:07:12):
away, that didn't go throughdouble aging. And I was like,
I'm gonna save this for Joe,because I know one of these days
he's gonna want to buy a barrel.But it never worked out, but
that was, that was barrel, orthat was lot release number six,
and it was only like 12 cases orsomething, by that time, it was
full barrel, strength, uncut,unfiltered, and it just, you

(01:07:35):
know, it vaporized out in likenine minutes. But, but yeah, I
like, I like doing differentreleases, like that. It's from
one lot. It's just the each lotis completely a different
expression. I love doing barrelaging, and then aging and
stainless to allow the Spirit tointegrate all of that oak that

(01:07:57):
it collected, you know, throughits barrel aging regime and let
you know, let all the flavorsline up in their own unique
pattern, you know. And thattakes time, and if you don't do
that, then you got to wait forit to do that in the bottle.
Because, you know, a lot ofpeople are like, oh, you know,

(01:08:19):
nothing, nothing changes in thebottle. You know, once you put
it in the bottle, and I know fora fact that things change in the
bottle. You know, we're all inthis we're all in this ride
together, and we're all goingthrough time. And, you know,
everything is changing, how muchthings are progressing and

(01:08:40):
integrating and changing, that'sa different story. But things
are changing so much to thepoint that we were at a tasting
one year, and I was pouring theclear rum, and this guy said, I
don't want tequila. I wanted totry a rum like, What are you

(01:09:04):
talking about? Man, and this toysmells tastes like tequila.
Mike, well, I know for a factthat I didn't bottle tequila in
my in my rum bottles, and so Ipoured one, and I tried it, son
of a bitch. This what it tastedjust like really, really cool,
really good Blanco tequila. Youknow, it lost its it lost its

(01:09:28):
tropical sugar cane vibe to it,and it went herbaceous. And
then, oh, my, man, that was,yeah, my man, you were totally
right. This does taste liketequila, but it's not. It's rum.
It's just one part of its lifethat's, you know, it's bottle

(01:09:51):
aging away, and then I went backto it. Then, you know, I went
back to that rum about fourmonths later, five months.
Later, and it snapped back tothat luscious Maui sugar cane
again. So that proved to me,personally that things evolve,

(01:10:13):
things flavor profiles changing,you know, through the through
the bottle, aging period oftime. You know, it might not
happen as much later in the lifeof the bottle of spirits, but in
the first one to 10 years, ifyou have a super complex whiskey
or rum or spirit, or whateveryou have, if it's got a lot of

(01:10:36):
complexity from both distillateand barrel regime, and you put
it all together in a bottle, youknow, it's not used to that
pressure. It's got to get usedto that pressure. And then it's
going to it's going to evolve,and little by little later in
the in the bottle aging, it'sgoing to taper off. You're not

(01:10:57):
going to see as much change. Andthen way later, you know, it's
gonna start falling apart.Because it's this, you know,
it's just, it's not gonna, it'snot gonna be a five, 710, year
old for the rest of his life.You know, it's, it's gonna, it's
gonna be evolving

when you're aging something in, in, let's say, not
a barrel, so in stainless andstainless, in stainless. So are
you, are you putting or allowingmuch headspace in there? You're
filling it pretty completely.

I filled it up full for a small headspace.
And, you know, ultimately youcould pump argon into the top of
it as well, and just really, youknow, seal it up, but that's it.
You just lock it down and put inthe corner and put something in
front of it, and just forgetabout it, and just do go on with
something else.

So you're really mimicking the the environment of
a bottle where it's sealed.Yeah, there's that little bit of
air at the top, just forpracticality, yeah? And there's
no more I'm thinking, like, whathappens to it chemically? So
it's really little to nooxidation at that point, it's

low oxidation, but all the flavors,
all the essential oils of allthe different compounds that
have been collected throughtime, and all the color and
barrel aging flavors,everything, everything has its
own, its own peak flavorprofile. And they all have to
come together and then line up,and then they and then they turn

(01:12:27):
into like this chain of flavorthat just gets longer and longer
and longer and longer dependingon the how you how you distill
that distillate I like toproduce. Like to distill
products with a ton of body thathas a lot of flavor, super long
finish, but clean at the sametime. It can't be heady, it

(01:12:48):
can't be It can't be too much inthe tails. It can't be
unbalanced. Otherwise, it justjust drives me nuts. And it's
got, it's got to be clean. Butyou got to know, you know, is
this going to work? You know,you got to, you got to make it
so that you know that it's goingto have, it's going to have that
balance, even after a bottle ofbarrel aging down the road, all

(01:13:13):
the cuts. It just comes down tothe cuts. And depending on what
you're going to do with thisproduct, you know, you have to,
you just have to, just takestime running the still to
acquire a kind of a style ofdistillation

with, let's see, there's again, I've been
fascinated. I continue to befascinated with you guys because
of what you've done, and in thesmallest batches, you're still
getting such a new and unusualprofile the I'm gonna have to

(01:13:53):
stock up on The r5 I could find.And so the r5 i This could have
been a different batch whenyou're back on heads and tails.
This is again, 2018 so it's awhile ago, but the the r5 went

(01:14:14):
in at 140 proof and used Frenchoak that it had Chardonnay in
it, right? Did that has thatkind of continued as the one of
the profiles for our five, or isthat also variable by batch

that was, you know,

pretty much

stayed right around there, because that's the
zone. That's what I reallythat's that that's just the
sweet spot for me, 138 to like147 proof. And you know, my,
like my dad always said, youknow, your mood running, the
still will affect the outcometoo. You know, if you've been

(01:14:57):
been running, the. 10 daysstraight, 24 hours a day, and
you sleep in, like, maybe fourhours a day, maybe. And you know
it and and you know things aregoing on, your life is going on,
and this and that, are you goingto be, you know, patient enough
to wait for it. Wait for this,wait for that. Is it good right

(01:15:18):
now? What do you want to do? Imean, it's just that there's so
many, there's so many othervariables that come into play to
making those cuts. But for me,yeah, I like, I like that 141 43
144 zone, right there. So I'llcontinue doing it that way.

And by nature of how you're both, how you're
distilling, how you're aging theentry proof, as Jenny found out,
and as you said, was upset withyou for a while about so it does
fall into a different categoryin the whiskey regulations. Has
you're still, I mean, like yousaid, you still able to call it

(01:16:02):
whiskey or distilled from abourbon mash for that one
particular product, or hoppedwhiskey, which wasn't a category
until you guys created it. Haveyou ever faced a challenge in,
let's say, getting someone totry it, because it's a, you

(01:16:24):
know, it's either distilledspirit specialty or a different
type of whiskey.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Everyone has some
hesitation if they don't knowwhat they're doing, or if they
don't know what they're trying,and especially if you know, if
they if they know what theylike, and they want to see a
different version of what theylike. And then it's, it's
something that's totallydifferent. There is hesitation
every single time, you know, andthen they talk to people,

(01:16:49):
they're like, oh, I don't like,I don't like hoppy beer. Like,
well, you know, this is whiskeydistilled from hoppy beer. And
you know, the flavors of the topnotes of the hops are there and
the malts there, then we barrelage it and everything. It's not
like drinking a It's not likedrinking a beer. And then they
try it. Oh, I do like thisbetter than an IPA, because I

(01:17:12):
don't like IPAs. Like, hey,there you go. It's It's fine,
you know, it's like nobody else,as I was saying earlier, nobody
else is bottling the beer thatthey're that they're distilling,
you know, you don't really drinkthat beer that goes into the
still in Scotland. You know,it's not really, it's not really

(01:17:33):
designed to to be consumed, youknow, like that. It's, it's
meant to be, you know, smokedout, dried out by smoking it.
And that flavor imparts, youknow, unique flavors in scotch.
And they get that beer, and theyget it done, and they put in the
still, and then they put inbarrel. There you go. And so

(01:17:56):
there's yeah, there's hesitationfor sure every time, but that's
okay, you know? It's, it is whatit is. And so that's why we're
going to continue doing it. Andalso doing single malt, and
doing, once in a while, makingbatches of bourbon too. It's
like, here's my version ofbourbon, you know, here's my

(01:18:18):
version of a rye. You know, Ilook forward to doing that too.

Yeah, yeah. With, I got asked with the with the
single malt, first off, does it?Is it going to fit the new
regulations of American singlemalt?

Oh, totally cool, yeah. And two row malted
barley, and it's in a barrelthat's less than, what, 700
liters, or something like that,yep, yeah, yeah.

They're pretty wide regulations, but figured I
would ask just to make sure it'spretty awesome. I think there's
only been, like, one or twocompanies that have been very
vocal about the regulations, notincluding them, or not working
with what they've got, but forthe most part, it's pretty wide,
so

I don't know how that would be. I'd have to
sit down and really think abouthow you don't qualify making a
single malt, an American singlemalt, you can use used barrels.

I think one of them came down to, and I'm
purposely not naming names, butone of them came down to wanting
to make a single malt that wasnot, it was not 100% malted, or
is not 100% same distillery,like they wanted to mix malts,
or malted and unmalted. And Ithink their argument was that,

(01:19:39):
you know, this is Americanstyle.

They wanted green grain and malted grain.
Well, then yeah, doesn'tqualify, right? So call it
something else, you know, dealwith it, right?

And so the the other question then, is, since
it hasn't come out yet as astandalone product. How would
you preview the profile ofcharbay single malt?

Well, it's a two row barley from British
Columbia and mostly used Frenchoak Chardonnay fill. And so
there's gonna be a lot of body,there's a lot of malt. It's all

(01:20:33):
malt. I mean, there's no hops,there's no there's nothing else.
There's nothing else competing,you know, with the with the
flavor profile, like, like thehops do. So it's a, it's just
really, really, really arefined, full bodied, full solid
flavor profile of single malt.

I love it, yeah, please for us on when you want
that to come out, or is it kindof waiting for when it's ready?

You know, I think next year is, is going to
be an exciting year for charbaybatches of whiskey to be bottled
and released, because that, thatsingle malt that I'm talking
about is from 2012 and it'sready. And then we have, we

(01:21:27):
actually have some night teensthat are already six years
barrel aged, and those aretasting really good too. So
we'll, we'll probably end updoing, you know, make a four
barrel release of this and someof the hot, broad rye. We just,

(01:21:49):
we just released two barrels ofthat to a to a club, and we'll
probably put a couple more ofthose in barrel for charbay. So
it's gonna, it's gonna be a fun,fun year of whiskey releases
here.

Love it down for at least a bottle of the single
malt when it comes out, I willbe glad to because love American
single what what they're doing,and clearly I love what you guys
are doing, so I trust you thatyou will be making a good single
malt to share with us. So withthat you know, Marco, thank you

(01:22:25):
so much for coming on. Thank youalso to Jenny for facilitating
this and and sharing productwith me to taste welcome and
hang on with me for just aminute after we finish the
recording, there's been anotherepisode of The whiskering
podcast. There'll be episodes.Excuse me, not episodes. What am
I saying? Notes in the shownotes for where you can follow

(01:22:46):
charbay, where you can find themif you're in California or
around the country, distributionpoints, and where you can buy
and definitely want to followthem. So you can make sure you
know when that single wall comesout, when the new releases come
out and just when, when you wanta new product from a really good
Micro Distillery, great MicroDistillery up in Northern

(01:23:09):
California. Thanks everyone forlistening. I'll see y'all next
week. Bye.

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Ep. 217: Charbay Distillery with Marko Karakasevic

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