EP. 10: Winemaker & Distiller, John Taylor, Makes Tasteful Wine, Spirits & Fun with Oxygen!

On Episode of 10, ‘We’re Not Blowing Hot Air,' we crack open bottles of amazing facts about wine and whiskey with John Taylor. John is the official Winemaker and Distiller of ‘Chankaska Creek Ranch Winery & Distillery’ located in Kasota, Minnesota. Revealing the magic and mystery of how wine and whiskey is made, John opens our eyes to the science and art of wine and spirit production – from the month they harvest to the moment you cheers. Plus, John delights us with the chemical role oxygen plays in making wine and whiskey taste so good. All this and more about how to make and drink booze like you mean it, on this episode of ‘We’re Not Blowing Hot Air.’

Subscribe to 'We're Not Blowing Hot Air' wherever you podcast, to elevate your IQ with wellness and business stuff we explore in every episode.

About John Taylor:

John Taylor is Chankaska Creek Ranch Winery & Distillery’s Vice President of Alcohol Operations and the official Winemaker and Distiller. His career took several twists and turns on the road to Minnesota. A native Californian, John grew up with wine as a part of everyday life. It was not until his 21st birthday trip to Napa and a 13 year old bottle of Napa Cabernet that he considered wine as a career. After falling in love with wine chemistry and changing his major, John embarked on a number of different experiences both during his undergraduate and early career. Interning with Edna Valley Vineyards, John worked with Cool Climate grapes for 2 years while finishing his Bachelor of Science from Cal Poly Concentrating in Enology. Immediately upon graduation, he spent 3 years with E & J Gallo Winery in a number of roles and facilities learning not only the art and science of wine, but logistics and production efficiency.  Desiring to head back into a hands on winemaking role, the next 3 years were co-managing a vineyard and crafting Estate products with Ecluse Wines in Paso Robles. The next 4 years would be spent working with winemakers the likes of Randall Graham, Alison Crowe, Jim McMahon, Nathan Carlson, Jeremy Leffert, Mike Sinor, Mike Drash and so many others. John joined Chankasaka in 2018 after making wine for Crow River Winery in 2017. An integral part of the team at Chankaska makes him the right Winemaker to take them forward into the future of wine and spirits from the state he now calls home.

LinkedIn: @John Taylor

Chankaska Creek Ranch Winery & Distillery:
www.chankaskawines.com
Twitter: @chankaskawines
Facebook: @Chankaskawines
Instagram: @Chankaskawines

O+ Featured Artist:
Ledfoot Larry, ‘White Lines’

Catch Oxygen Plus at @oxygenplus on TikTok and Instagram

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to we are not blowing hot air
powered by oxygen plus I'm Scottand I'm Lauren.
And we're here to help elevateyour IQ on wellness and business
stuff.
That's sometimes misunderstood.
Oh,

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Like recreational oxygen.
Yes.
Let's get smarter with thisweek's guest of we're not
blowing hot air.
We have new year's Eve justaround the corner.
I know.
What are you gonna new year?
Do oh, any idea?

Speaker 1 (00:32):
No, no, no.
I feel kind of lame cuz youknow, in my adult life, I really
don't do new year's Eve.
Like I used to.
Yeah, that is lame then I wasyounger.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah.
Never compromise music.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
it's always gotta be big.
It's

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Gotta be big.
Yeah.
Uh, I remember seeing fireworksfrom an airplane one and I, I
met a guy on that same airplane.
Yeah.
Didn't work out yet.
but that was memorable.
Uh, most new year's Eves though.
I don't know if I reallyremember them all.

(01:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
I, well, yeah.
There's might be a reason forthat.
There's definitely a reason.
I don't remember.
'em all some stand out, youknow, when I was younger, I, I
would go out with friends, we'dgo out to the bar and it was a
thing, you know, or somebodyjust had a bunch of people over
to their house and it was athing.
I mean you

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Could probably do one of those with your kids.
Yeah.
Both.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah.
And we probably could

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Maybe, maybe this year's the year Scott maybe.
Well, you know, when did liquorbecome kind of more serious for
you?
Is there, was there a moment ora certain, um, person or even
liquor itself that kind ofchanged how it became less of a
party tool?
yeah.
And more something that was, um,maybe more mature party or

(01:54):
everyday life.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Interesting.
Interesting question.
Uh, yeah, so, so sometime in mylate twenties I would call it, I
had a friend that started likehome brewing his own beer and I
would try it and I would, youknow, I, I got exposed to like
these different types of likecraft beers.
Mm-hmm

Speaker 2 (02:13):
did this guy, this guy have a beard.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
I was just stereotyping there.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Go ahead.
Yes.
He was a bearded beer brewer.
Right.
And uh, so I got exposed to likecraft beers and some different
stuff and I started to like it.
So I started to kind of branchout and, and try different
things.
And, and then later on I wasintroduced to whiskey by a, uh,

(02:38):
a member of my wife's extendedfamily.
Mm.
And, uh, that was good.
So your

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Family,

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Essentially, my family, you're not

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Quite owning that side yet.
no,

Speaker 1 (02:51):


Speaker 2 (02:53):
No.
Okay.
So whiskey.
Yeah.
And what kind of whiskey

Speaker 1 (02:57):
At the time?
It was scotch mm-hmm uh, but I've
become a bourbon guy now.
All right.
Bourbon's kind of my thing.
I still, you know, reach for thescotch every once in a while.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Well, me too, me too.
And I got, I got to scotchwhiskey.
Yeah.
Because my grandpa, well, we'reScottish on that side of the
family, the side of the family,I own.
And, and he, it was, is Scottishwhere that, that lineage is
Scottish and he, he would drinkdoers.
So he would have some Americanwhiskey as well.

(03:26):
Mm-hmm but, uh,predominantly I, I like the
scotch aspect of it, cuz it wasdually something.
My GRA that I identified with mygrandpa and I had to drink it
and I had to drink betterwhiskey to the taste mm-hmm it
didn't happen right away.
So I remember I was living inChicago at the time and I would,
you know, order it and, and likeGrims and wins and, and just,

(03:48):
but eventually, uh, my tastebuds turned around.
Yeah.
And I caught up,

Speaker 1 (03:52):
You mentioned like drinking better ones.
Mm-hmm I think thatfor me personally, that's been
true for Scott.
Yeah.
If you drink like a cheap, cheapbudget scotch, for me, it didn't
didn't work.
No.
If I was at like the$50 a bottleand up then I was like, okay, I
can drink this it soundsreally snooty.
But,

Speaker 2 (04:12):
But no, no, no.
I did a blind taste test.
I was in Scotland in the MorayShire area and which is where I
think Glen lived.
That is the, we were at thatdistillery.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
And, and I asked them for ablind taste test.
I did the, is it 11?
Is that what the first onenormally is 11, 15,

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Uh, 12, I think it's 12.
Okay.
I think it's 12.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
I did a 12, 15, 18 21, whatever I did like that
sounds right.
Three or four mm-hmm and I with blind
taste, test they're witness.
I picked the higher more age.
Did you ones?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Interesting that, uh, you and I kind of found the same
thing there with scotch, Ithink.
Yeah.
The, the better the scotch orthe, or the, the, the higher
quality, the higher the age, um,higher, the price point.
It is better.
I think bourbons.
Not exactly the same.
Oh, from what I've found, likeyou can find a really good

(05:07):
bottle of bourbon, a a prettydecent zipper for like 30 bucks
a bottle.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Interesting.
Yeah.
I bet it has something to dowith the wood in the barrels
where they age.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
It might.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yes.
And maybe they're reused woodsin the barrel

Speaker 1 (05:22):
Bourbon actually has to be brand new barrel.
It does

Speaker 2 (05:24):
Brand new barrel.
Well then this is blowing.
My mind

Speaker 1 (05:26):
Scotch is made in used barrels.
I think we'll have to fact checkthis, but I'm pretty sure that
that's

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Or, you know what?
We have an amazing guest coming

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Up.
True.
He could answer this for us.
He

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Could, he's an expert in wine and whiskey.
Mm-hmm he makes itgrow it he drinks it.
Yeah.
He lives it.
I think, uh, he lives it.
I think.
Why don't we just stop thisrandom chit chat being for
ourselves a glass and, and getJohn Taylor on.
Sounds like a good idea.
Me let's that's one yet.
Yeah.
All right.
Cheers.

(05:59):
On episode 10 of we blowing hotair, we crack open bottles of
amazing facts about wine andwhiskey with John Taylor.
John is the official winemakerand distiller of Chan Caska
Creek ranch, winery anddistillery located in Kasota,
Minnesota revealing the magicand mystery of how wine and
whiskey is made.
John opens our eyes to thescience and art of wine and

(06:20):
spirit production from the monththey harvest to the moment you
cheers.
Plus John delights us with thechemical role oxygen plays in
making wine and whiskey taste.
So good, all this and more abouthow to make and drink booze.
Like you mean it on this episodeof we blowing hot air,

Speaker 1 (06:40):
John Taylor, welcome to the podcast.
Welcome

Speaker 3 (06:43):
John.
Well, thanks for having me lovebeing here.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Yeah.
So John, you are vice presidentof alcohol operations and the
official winemaker and distillerfor Chan Casca Creek ranch
winery and distillery locatedhere in Minnesota.
That sounds like a prettyawesome job.
I gotta be honest

Speaker 3 (07:03):
Yeah.
You know, it, it it's somethingthat I've been working my whole
career towards and, um, secondyear here in, in, in the big
chair as they like to say, but,um, next year will be my 20th
year making wine, hard tobelieve.
Wow.
You're

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Too young.
Were you starting in the, the

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Cradle, right, right at 21.
Yeah.
It that's basically the cradleas far as wine making goes.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Wow.
Cool.
Cool.
So you've been, you've beendoing it a long time.
Well, let's uh, so let's, let'stalk a little bit about that.
As far as wine making, what is awine maker and what is a

Speaker 3 (07:41):
Distiller?
So a wine maker is, um, anindividual who takes grapes and
makes a alcoholic beverage.
And so how do you do that?
Well, you gotta go through afermentation process.
You need to extract sugar andliquid out of the grape and then

(08:02):
turn that into, um, basicallywater and alcohol.
And there's some othersubstrates in there as well,
acid tannins and that, and thatsort of thing.
But the primary job of winemaker is mainly a taster, which
means for about six weeks everyyear, I am in a vineyard every

(08:27):
single day, evaluating whenthose grapes are ready to be
harvested.
And we do that by tasting, we dothat by pulling samples and
running chemical metrics onthem.
And when the ultimate pick pointis reached, it's my job to work
with the grower, then to getthose grapes into the winery.

(08:48):
And then we start the winemaking process from there.
Okay.
Um, a distiller is someone whotakes an alcohol base and then
evaporates the alcohol off, um,alcohol evaporates at 78.2
degrees Celsius.
And so we go through a processin our pot still where we heat

(09:09):
that alcohol medium up and weboil the haul out.
We evaporate it out of theliquid that it's trapped in.
And then we have to red distillit through a second pass.
Okay.

Speaker 2 (09:24):
So it sounds like two very different processes.
They are, right.
One's more, one's more like afarmer like you in the field
with the grapes, farming andharvesting.
And the other is more like ascience you're in a lab with
some, some serious glasses onyour face.
Like yeah.
You know, doing charts andanalysis, but they both have art
and science to it.
Do they not

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Like they are both a science and an art mm-hmm
.
And as I like to say, winemaking is a three-legged stools,
one part art, one part science,and one part practicality, which
more often than not is can Iafford to do what I actually
really want to do?
Um, at the end of the day, thisis still a business.
And even though we have two,three distinct product streams,

(10:04):
each one needs to stand on theirown and get a margin out of it
at the end of the day.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, I wanna go more into how it's a business and
particularly what you're incharge of as VP of alcohol
operations, which again is Scottand I are both in operations,
but we don't have alcohol in ourjob titles.
So no, no, we're just gonnadrink here today anyways, with
you.
Uh, if you have, if you have aglass raise, but what, how did

(10:31):
you first become a wine maker?
I mean, can you share that storyand it might as well share the
distillery story, how you becamea distiller as well?

Speaker 3 (10:39):
Sure.
Yeah.
So for my 21st birthday, I grewup in California and I went to
Napa valley for my 21stbirthday.
Who'd you go with?
I went with my I threegenerations.
So I went with my parents andthen my mother's parents and my
that's cool.
Yeah.
My GRA my grandmother was a hugefood and wine.

(11:00):
You know, she was a foodiebefore foodies became popular.
Cool.
Um, gourmet cook, I mean thewhole nine, uh, grew up on a
farm in California, that sort ofthing.
Uh, and let's see her, uh, greatgrandfather made wine, his
basement in San Francisco andwe're talking late 18 hundreds.

(11:22):
So wine making's in the blood.
Yeah.
And then my grandfather lovedtrains.
And so we actually did the winetrain in Napa valley as part of
this trip.
And so we spent three days inNapa and it wasn't until, um,
the night before we were aboutto leave, we were just having a,

(11:44):
kind of a charcuterie dinnerafter having been on the wine
train the day during the day forlunch.
So kind of a lighter dinner.
And my father had brought alonga bottle of Barger reserve
Cabernet.
That was from a prior trip, um,that he had been on about six,
seven years earlier.

(12:04):
And we popped that and Icouldn't believe how different
it was.
The, the, the matrix that wewere drinking was so completely
different than all of theyounger wines that we'd been
drinking during the trip.
And so I was innately curious in, in college at the time, and
hadn't really settled on acareer on what I wanted to do.

(12:25):
And so I went back to collegeand took a course in organic
chemistry and, and fell in lovewith wine chemistry, essentially
at that point and said, this iswhat I'm gonna do with my life.
I'm going to make wine for therest of my life.
Uh, as far as my working careergoes.
Awesome.
Yeah.
So started internships andworked my way up the ranks.

(12:47):
Um, this chain Kaska is myseventh winery that I've worked
for in my, nearly your career.
And, um, and you start doing themath.
You know, that's not many, notmany vintages in, in each
position, and that's notuncommon in this industry.
Um, in the first seven to 10years of your career, you really

(13:07):
are in information gatheringmode.
You're looking to developskills, both technical, as well
as, um, human capital skills.
And at the end of the day, youwant to craft how you are going
to craft lines.
And so the way you do that is byexposing yourself to as many

(13:28):
individuals as you possibly can.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Right?
You got, you gotta like people,I guess, to be a one wine maker,

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Alcohol business is a people business.
And a lot of, um, winery owners,um, may not necessarily be
people, people mm-hmm, that sounds a
little weird people, people.
Yeah.
Um, but they

Speaker 2 (13:53):
They're wine people.
They're not people,

Speaker 3 (13:55):
People.
Yeah.
And they, they often make theirmoney in a different career,
whether it's, you know,investment banking or they may
be a, you know, sports celebrityat some point or, um, a doctor
or a lawyer.
And you would think that thosepeople would understand people,
but most people seethat see, uh, if you're a doctor

(14:20):
or a lawyer, you're gonna seesomebody in a moment of
vulnerability.
Whereas in the wine industry,you're seeing somebody who's
getting enjoyment out ofsomething that you're making.
And so it's, it's a differentrelationship.
It's a different interaction.
And for some people it's hardfor the them to wrap their head
around how do I entice people tobuy my product versus someone

(14:43):
else's product.
And that doesn't necessarilyalways equate.
And so it's the job ofprofessionals to help ownership
understand what those challengesare.
And that's one of, one of the,uh, unwritten job descriptions
that I have.

Speaker 2 (15:03):
Yeah.
Well, yeah.
I mean, you already, you alreadysaid that it was a business that
required a lot, that the thirdleg to the stool.
What was that again?
Practicality,

Speaker 3 (15:13):
Practicality.
Well, that's the third that's,that's the third rule.
The, the business element.
Okay.
The first two are art andscience mm-hmm.
And so at, at the beginning ofall of this, everyone has a
romance about wine making andthen towards the middle, they
understand that you have to makesound wine and that's where the

(15:35):
science part comes into it.
How do I make what I want tomake?
And there's, we, we know moreabout the science of wine making
and distillation than we've everknown in the species of our, in
the history of our species.
And so we can take all of thoselearn earnings that we've gained
through the study of theseproducts and apply them to how

(15:56):
we're making our product.
And we do that, but you have toknow what tool to use when you
can't just open the toolbox,start picking tools and start
applying'em because you may notend up with a palatable product
at the end of the day.
And that's where the experiencefactor comes to.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You learn that process as yougo.
And what, what types of toolsare best and when yeah.
That's, that makes sense.
Well, how did you get, I mean,you talked about how you kind of
fell in love with, or, ordetermined that you were gonna
be a wine maker.
How about distiller?
How did you how'd you getinterested in that and, and
decided to do that as well?

(16:34):
Did

Speaker 2 (16:34):
You get sick of wine?
Yeah.


Speaker 3 (16:36):
You all lined sick of wine, no sick of wine.
Um, you get to a point in, inyour career and you start to
look at some of the choicesyou've made.
And one of the, one of thethings that my wife and I were
looking at was we're nativeCalifornians.
You know, I'm a fifthgeneration, California, which is
saying something in, inCalifornia.

(16:57):
There's not, it's a pretty new,um, European settlement.
So to say, uh, relative to theeast coast or the Midwest even,
and we were kind of tired of therat race that became California
trying to survive as far aseconomics and family economics.

(17:19):
And so we started looking atother places to go.
And, um, we looked at Washingtonand Oregon and, uh, Texas and
Nebraska, and finally ended upin, in Minnesota.
And I got to do two things herethat I'd never done in my
career, which was make sparklingwines.
I'd never been able to do that.

(17:39):
And we do that here.
And then also, uh, thedistillation aspect of I'd done
distilling in college, but I'dnever done it commercially.
And so before I was the officialwinemaker and distiller here, I
was the assistant winemaker.
And my predecessor essentiallyturned the keys over to me after

(18:00):
two years and said, okay, I'mgonna go retire over here.
You have fun.
And so, um, for two, as I gotthe, the ability to, um, mentor
be a mentee under hi under hismentorship, and, uh, really
learned a lot about thedistillation aspect of things.

(18:20):
I knew the business aspect, I'dknown the, you know, how, how to
make wine, how to, how to haveclean fermentations and that
sort of thing.
And, um, at this point it wasmore about applying them
appropriately again, knowingwhen to use what tool and what

Speaker 2 (18:39):
Situation are we gonna just pour a little
whiskey.
Should we do that?
Did you already, I alreadypoured, you already poured,
poured that

Speaker 3 (18:45):
Say I've already had a few sips of mine.
So what do

Speaker 2 (18:49):
You re eight ball?
I have a Buffalo trace, Kentuckystraight bourbon whiskey.
I have a bullet bourbon frontierwhiskey, and I have a Russell's
reserve.
Um, single barrel, non chilledfiltered, straight bourbon
whiskey.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Well, you can't go wrong with Buffalo trace, but
the, you really can't theRussell single barrel family
reserve is probably gonna knockyour socks

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Off.
Yeah, well, I'm doing that onethen.
Yeah, it is a little higherproof just for the, the
listeners.
It's a little higher proof.
This is the bottle Scott broughtin and it's almost empty.
So that's how good it is.
That's how.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
And I would, I would hazard to guess that's not the
first bottle this year that hasgone that way.
Oh, wow.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
Correct.
Okay.
Okay.
I'm gonna pour a little bit, isa bad taste to put it in my
coffee or could I just shy?
Well, I wouldn't put that one inyour coffee.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Uh, yeah, I would try that one straight.
You sure you haven't hadanything?
You're mm-hmmsounds like you're pulling a
China shop a little bit there.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Ah, thank you.
Love being told that, youknow, it went down smooth for
me.
So I'm a big kid.
I think I poured the Buffalotrace.
I liked it.
My eyes are watering, but I'm, Ididn't Grims that's good.
Yeah.
You handle it like a pro.
Well, John, who is drinking atyour winery right now, what are

(20:10):
your customers like?

Speaker 3 (20:12):
Our customers are, uh , predominantly, I would say
late twenties to, um, earlyseventies and anywhere in
between.
Um,

Speaker 2 (20:26):
So you don't serve to under 18.


Speaker 3 (20:29):
No, not under 21.
Legal is definitely a majorfactor and we also have a, we
have a craft cocktail room aswell.
So a way for us to showcase ourspirits, um, was to add on to
our tasting room and create acraft cocktail lounge.

(20:50):
And so we have a cocktail or twoon every spirit that we make
here in the distillery as well.
And

Speaker 2 (20:58):
You can rent like party room.
Like, can you do an eventbachelor party, that kind of
deal.
Yeah,

Speaker 3 (21:03):
Absolutely.
We have, um, our barrel room,which know you were able to be
in, uh, guilty as, as a party um, the barrel room is
definitely rentable.
We have a 350 person eventcenter.
That's rentable that has a fullbar in it.
Um, we have a tent during the,uh, warmer months here in

(21:26):
Minnesota.
So that's rentable, that's about250 people.
And then we have three othervenues throughout the grounds
that have, um, power to them andour great wedding, uh, ceremony
sites, but we've had a number ofpeople rent them for like family
reunions and that sort of thingas well.
So, um, lots of rentable spacehere at the winery we've even

(21:49):
rented the cocktail lounge outitself, uh, to different groups.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
So it's about being connected and available and
involved and engaged with whatis here and that, and that
includes you, right?

Speaker 3 (22:01):
That's a big part of it is yeah.
People being, people beingconnected, you know, the, the
product is the lubrication ofgood conversation typically.
And we want people to be, um,relaxed and enjoying themselves.
And, uh, we're tickled that theyvalue us enough to be a part of

(22:23):
that conversation and, and ofthat event.

Speaker 2 (22:27):
And I don't know if you, you can share this, but you
also have some quite notablecorporate accounts.
Are you able to share anythingabout that or is that sure?
Yeah,

Speaker 3 (22:35):
We're, I mean, it's common knowledge.
We're, we're the official wineand spirit sponsor of Minnesota
wild.
We are the official wine of, uh,golden go for athletics at the
university of Minnesota.
Um, we're the official wine andspirit of, um, Mankato state
university, um, hockey.

(22:56):
Uh, we have a program with the,uh, MSU Mankato men's basketball
team where we did a privatelabel for them.
And a portion of the proceedsfrom those wines go to support
the basketball program.
Uh, we in the past have been thesponsor at the, uh, Minnesota
timber wolves and did a privatelabel, uh, series of three wines

(23:19):
for them.
Um, so we've been very active inthe corporate space and, um,
we've been approached by othersin, and if the, the deal is
right and it works for bothparties, then it's something
that we're worth considering.
And, and we go that direction.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Cool.
Very commendable.
Yeah, well done.
I mean, truly talking about thebusiness side of it, me

Speaker 1 (23:44):
Being kind of a bourbon guy.
What about the differentvarieties of the spirits?
You know, the whiskeys that you,you like, the distilling that
you guys are doing, how do, howdo you get those different
varieties?
What, what do you guys do in, inyour process?

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Yeah.
Spirits making is, is moreregulated believe or not than
wine and, and wine has a SERE ofrules behind it, on what you can
do and what you can put on alabel, et cetera, et cetera.
But when it comes to spirits,it's highly regulated in what
things are called and whatthey're sourced out of.

(24:18):
So a little bit about, you know,we're gonna go back, rewind it a
little bit.
So in order to get fer vegetablesugars to make distilled
spirits, you have to take agrain extract, the starch and
convert that starch then into afermentable sugar.

(24:38):
And so the question is what isthat base grain that you're
going to be making in Scotlandwhen scotch that's gonna be
barley two row barley, sameproduct that ends up making most
beer today.
And I'm not talking the bigguys, the big behemoths that
make light beer, they've got awhole bunch of other adjuncts,

(25:00):
but when you talked about craftbrewery, they're gonna be using
pretty to a hundred percentbarley in their mash that they
then cook to extract thosesugars in order to ferment and
make beer out of.
That's essentially the samething that we're doing with
distilled spirits is we aremashing grains, uh, whether they

(25:23):
be corn rye, wheat, or, and thenfermenting that to dryness so
that there's no more sugar left.
And then we take that liquor anddistill it in our still.
So we separate the alcohol fromthe solids and the other, um,

(25:47):
non-alcoholic components.
We then have to red distill thatand take our heads, tails and
hearts.
And then those, those hearts areactually what end up going into
a barrel as far as whiskey goes,in order to make spirits, if
we're making gin, those heartsare going to be infused with

(26:11):
botanicals, um, differentaromatic compounds that will be
extracted during thedistillation.
And that will become gin.
Um, if you're making vodka, it'sgoing to be clean hearts from
the middle of the run.
And so when it, it comes tobrown spirits, um, it's highly

(26:31):
regulated typically on how longand in what you have to age that
product in order to legally belabeled bourbon, you have to be
51% corn in your mash.
You have to spend a minimum oftwo years in a brand new
American Oak charred barrel, andthat's actually codified in the

(26:55):
law.
So the regulations that theUnited States have on what is
legally declared bourbon, youknow what the rules are, you
have to play by those rules oryou, you will lose your bond,
you'll lose your license toproduce.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
And then for the record, Scott earlier, we were
talking about what Vern is andyou were right.
I

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Was right two years though.
Did you know that two years I

Speaker 2 (27:19):
Was

Speaker 1 (27:20):
American would, right .
I knew there was a minimum.
I didn't know what it was.
I, I probably would've guessedfour.
Uh, but, uh, I, I was fairlycertain that it had to be a new
barrel that to be calledbourbon.
It had to be done

Speaker 2 (27:32):
In a new barrel.
Well done.
I'm gonna cheers you to that,Scott.

Speaker 1 (27:35):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Cheers.
Yeah.
And then Ry would be kind ofthe, the opposite, same, same
rules, but, uh, so of the, theage requirement in the Oak, but
the only difference being 51%rye grains at that point.

Speaker 1 (27:51):
Okay.
Okay.
So bourbon 51% corn rye is 51%rye.
Yep.
And then, and then the rest canbe whatever.
It

Speaker 3 (27:59):
Can be a number of differents.
And then in order to be called,so single malt, it needs to be
barley from all one source,

Speaker 1 (28:12):
Barley from one source, one source.
Okay.
So you could, you can't, youcould have multiple sources

Speaker 3 (28:20):
For something.
Yeah.
So like if you're making bourbonor you're making rye, you don't
have to be solely sourced from asingle place.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
You mean region, it's like a region, region or

Speaker 3 (28:30):
Farm.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
And year as well.
What about year?
Can I take a, like a 2021 with22

Speaker 3 (28:36):
Doesn't matter.
Okay.
Doesn't matter.
Okay.
The, the, the age requirementsis, um, starts the minute that
you fill that new barrel orbarrel period, like with Brandy,
um, you have to do two years ofage, but it doesn't have to be
in a new barrel and it can bewhatever barrel you want.
It doesn't have to be AmericanOak.

(28:57):
So Brandy's got a lot moreflexibility in terms of what you
can age it in and how long youhave to age it.
Well, you have to age for twoyears, but what you age it in is
, and what you blend into it isfar more loose as, as far as the
government goes.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Okay.
So is it, would you, would yousay that it's easier, quote,
unquote, to do Brandy orsomething like that, as opposed
to a bourbon that just has a lotmore like requirement around it?

Speaker 3 (29:28):
The, I think the spirits in general are just
harder because you've got somuch time involved that you
don't know what you have untilyou get to that point in time
that you start sampling andtrying to put a product
together.
And so the art and thepracticality of big distillation

(29:49):
, uh, distilleries, theconsistency that they have year
in and year out with theirproduct lines is just mind
blowing to me because there's somany variables at work.
I mean, each individual barrelin itself is a different element

(30:09):
than the barrel next to it.
Barrels may have been made andfired in the exact same, right
next to another, in thecooperage and filled with the
exact same product in thedistillery.
And they could be completelydifferent spirits.
Hmm.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, that's incredible.
And, and I think I heardsomewhere too, that sometimes
those different barrels ofdifferent ages are mixed with
each other to become the finalproduct.
Am I right about that?
You are

Speaker 3 (30:38):
Absolutely right about that.
And so if you, if there is a agelisted on the label, that is the
youngest age that make up thatparticular bottling.

Speaker 1 (30:52):
Got it.
So if you have a 12 year oldscotch or something, there could
be a 20 year old something

Speaker 3 (30:59):
Age.
Wow.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
A barrel that's been sitting there for 30 to maybe 50
years, and that's being used tomix with younger barrels to
ultimately get what ends up inthe bottle.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
Yeah.
That's, that's the secret toconsistency when it comes to
distillation is by having thatolder product, you can then
mellow the younger product byadding that older product back
to it.
Mm

Speaker 1 (31:28):
That's incredible.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
As I say, the art and the science and the
practicality, they all have tocome together at the end of the
day.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
John, that's amazing.
Would you share with us what theangels share

Speaker 3 (31:42):
Is?
Absolutely.
The angel share, um, is anevaporation of alcohol, uh, and
that happens to anything aged ina, in a wood environment.
So I was gonna say Oak, butthere are other, uh, woods
besides Oak that barrels aremade out of as well.

(32:05):
And so over time, the wood willactually absorb some of that
liquid and it will decrease theamount of volume in the barrel.
And in terms of distilleries,it, that alcohol will actually
then evaporate because we'regoing into a barrel higher than
100 proof.

(32:26):
And that would be about 50%alcohol, um, to the lay person.
The alcohol is highly volatileabove 100 proof.
And so it will evaporate intothin air unless you have it
covered and contained andsealed.

(32:46):
And so over time, the barrelactually emits that alcohol.
Um, it, it goes through thebarrel from inside the barrel
goes through the wood and itevaporates into the air.
So you walk into these barrelstorage warehouses in bourbon
country and you walk in and youcan smell the bourbon in the air

(33:10):
because that's the angel share.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
It's lovely.
It's very, I think, beautifuland poetic.
It's also a real, I mean, itends up being on the spreadsheet
somewhere right.
In your operations.
Cause there's actually a lossthat you 15 years is maybe, I
don't know.
What's, what's an average

Speaker 3 (33:28):
Loss, average loss is somewhere between two to 4% a
year.
Wow.
Okay.
Of volume.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
So that's notable.
I mean, in the sense of like,you have to account for that,
like in some amateurizationschedule something,

Speaker 3 (33:40):
Well, Scott, what the cost of, of a good bottle of
bourbon, right?

Speaker 2 (33:44):
Yeah.
I mean, he said 50 earlier, isthat right, John?
You know,

Speaker 3 (33:48):
He get into 50 or$60.
60 bucks.
Yeah.
For, for a bottle of goodbourbon.
That's some of that angel sharethat's put into that.
It's not just marketing there.
There's actual, real, the amountof liquid that you start with
and the amount of distilledproduct is about 15% of what the
original start volume is.

(34:10):
Okay.
So if you've got a hundredthousand gallons of, or let's do
simple math, 150,000 gallonsworth of distilled spirit, that
means you had a million gallonsto start wow.
That process.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
So this takes space.
You need like an operation setup.
Um, anything else you wannashare about kind of like the,
the business side of, of howwhiskey and wine gets from
harvest to the glass, how itgets produced?

Speaker 3 (34:42):
You know, the big, the big part about the alcohol
business is that the, if theconsumer does not know who you
are, they're not going to gosearching for you.
So a big part of the alcoholindustry is actually brand
awareness, um, marketing,advertising, um, a attracting

(35:02):
people to your product.
Um, and whether that's, youknow, through events or third
parties or using the establishedtrade in media to expose people
to your product and, and howgood that product that's really
why wine ratings exist, spiritexist is to expose a larger

(35:25):
segment of your target market,um, to your products.
Um, a, a fair amount of what awinery or distillery does is
marketing, um, wild Turkey rightnow, the Russell family, uh, has
Matthew McConaughey as theirspokesperson.

(35:45):
And so a massive part of that isagain, put max, uh, mixing and
matching and marrying yourdesired target market with your
product.
And so you look foropportunities to leverage, um,
not just popular culture, butjust environment and sense of

(36:07):
place that Tewa again.
Um, how do you maximize all ofthat and get to the point where,
uh, you've got the right personin the right place in front of
the right product?

Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah.
You've, you've gotta, I mean,there are a lot of distillers
out there.
There's a lot of brewers, a lotof wine makers.
So yeah, you gotta set yourselfaside.
Not only do you have to honeyour craft and make a, a
seriously good product, youknow, the best product that you
can make, but then have aserious like market strategy.
And try to try to get infront of people as much as you

(36:42):
can.
Uh, it's gotta be challenging.
It has very

Speaker 3 (36:46):
Challenging.
It's very, is very challenging.
And one of the things that Ilike to say is wine making
spirits making is 50%, uh,sanitation cleaning, uh, 25, 5%
actually making product and 25%other and that other, uh, can be
anything from, uh, necessarypaperwork for the government to

(37:08):
make sure that they're happywith what you're doing to, uh,
marketing to sales calls, to,uh, lab work here in, in the
lab.
And, um, email correspondence,keeping up with distribution,
keeping up with sales, keepingup with all of those different
elements that are, is notnecessarily making the product

(37:32):
or necessarily improving it.
But at the end of the day,again, it's a business and you
need to put your product in foraround the right consumers so
that they can enjoy it.
I, I tell my assistant winemakerand my analogist all the time,
you guys have the best jobs inthe company because you get the
least amount of other work andthe most amount of product

(37:53):
making work.
And I, I get the lion share ofthe, uh, marketing and face of
the brand and, and opportunitieslike that.
And dealing with the businessend of things, as far as
production goes, um, I don't getto make product a whole lot on
the floor physically day in andday out now I'm I taste

(38:16):
everything.
Uh, the, just the other day wewent through 42 barrels of
Marquette to make sure that theyall made the cut and ended up in
a bottled product.
And so literally every singlebarrel had to be tasted.
And there were four that wereabove and beyond what I thought

(38:38):
the rest of the lot were.
And we set those side to dosomething with later, a

Speaker 2 (38:44):
Reserve or something like that, a

Speaker 3 (38:46):
Reserve or a blending opportunity for something else.
Um, something that I deemedmaybe had, um, or potential than
just being bottled up and, andsold as Minnesota Marquette.
All

Speaker 2 (38:59):
Right.
Well, we might be having anoxygen plus holiday party.
So keep that in mind.
yay.
We might go down to the barrelroom.
Yes, there, we, we go by theway, I do hope people who are
local in Minnesota, or even froma surrounding states or
California, come check it, checkit out.
Cuz it's phenomenal.
Your phenomenal.
I'd like to get more into thenerdy side of you, John.
Sure.
And we, and you, I think, Imean, you had mentioned how

(39:23):
oxygen plays a role in some ofthe production of whiskey and
wine.
Can we go there?

Speaker 3 (39:29):
Absolutely.
We can go there.
You know, we, we've kind ofalready been teasing this a
little bit.
Oxygen management is sonecessary during the
fermentation process.
Um, a lot of people are familiarwith fermentation because it eat
sour CRO, that's a fermentedfood, eat yogurt, that's a
fermented food eat, uh, cheese,that's fermented to some degree.

(39:52):
Um, and of course wine andspirits and beer are all
fermented products as well.
And so the yeast, um, needoxygen as part of a healthy
fermentation.
So how do you do that?
Well, you have to introduce itin various forms.
You can bubble it directly intothe fermentation.

(40:15):
You can add it via, um, aVentura process or you can
screen it through a, um, ascreen into a tub and then pump
it back into the tank.
And so those are all variousforms of, in which you can
introduce oxygen intofermentation with our spirits,

(40:39):
since we're fermenting on thegrains themselves, uh, we have
an agitator running and so itcreates a Whirlpool and you will
get aeration into thefermentation of the mash that
way.
Um, and then afterwards, um,once you done with the wine
making process, once you're donewith the distillation process

(41:02):
and you have put your productinto a barrel, you're now adding
oxygen to in small amounts, um,into the barrel.
Every time you open the top ofthe barrel, uh, for wine to
either or top the barrel up orto grab a sample from it, you're
actually introducing oxygen intothe media.

(41:25):
At that point with spirits,typically we use, uh, hard
wooden buns.
We hammer them in place and thenwe let them sit for years.
And so you've got that angelshare and slow amounts of oxygen
going back into that spirit,helping mellow those tannins and
that alcohol and marry thatproduct together.

(41:47):
So you've got oxygen at variousdifferent points.
Now, once you get wines,finished, oxygen becomes your
enemy.
You don't want a lot of oxygencontact with the wine.
And so you have to use inert gasblankets, you have to maximize
your oage or minimize your oage,I should say, which is the

(42:08):
amount of, uh, head space inyour tanks.
So right.
Sizing your product for theright, uh, volume that you're
going to be producing.
And so these are all, um,production factors that come
into play.
And again, oxygen management isone of those tools I was talking
about.

(42:29):
So the, the oxygen can be ahindrance, but it can also be a
huge help.
And so knowing when to useoxygen and how much to use is an
, is a critical part of what awinemaker or a distiller does,
because it is such an integralpart of the, of the process of

(42:50):
making alcohol experience or

Speaker 2 (42:52):
Wines is, is the oxygen you're using ambient air.
I mean, is that what you'resaying?
You're just managing theexisting air, which is it
filtered in the, um, distilleryor the, the wine?
What do you call it where youmake the wine?
Is that,

Speaker 3 (43:06):
Uh, in the winery, in the color, the seller is the
seller is, is a uniform term, um, both in, in the winery and
into the distillery, uh,business.
So what's

Speaker 2 (43:20):
The air like there.

Speaker 3 (43:22):
Um, we use ambient air, so, okay.
Our ambient air, because we'rein Minnesota, our winery is
indoors.
It's completely climatecontrolled.
We do have filters.
We have air filters throughoutthe building to keep our, the
amount of dust, particularly,um, dust, particularly, that was
a good, good little pun there.

(43:42):
John didn't even mean todo that.
Um, but, but to keep dust inother particles, uh, to a
minimum.
And so we don't necessarily use,uh, medical or food, great
oxygen, unless there's anapplication that calls for it.
Um, one of the techniques, oneof the tools is a process called

(44:03):
micro oxygenation.
And what you can do is insteadof utilizing, uh, individual
barrels, you can add, uh,toasted wood, just like you
would get in a, uh, barrel, butyou can add it directly to a
tank.
And then you can put a spargingstone in and use a computer
program and a device to meter insmall amounts of food, grade

(44:28):
oxygen to mimic the amount ofoxygenation that you would get
through barrel aging.
So you can soften the wines, wow, integrate those tannins and
develop more complexity andfurther flavor.
So it speeds up the process.
It speeds it up.
It's also a way to do muchlarger volumes.
Uh, single barrel is 59 or 60gallons.

(44:52):
They make bigger barrels, butthe bigger, the barrel, the less
impactful that barrel will be.
So the ideal thing, if you wanta lot of barrel impact is to
actually use these barrelalternatives, these wood
products that are treated justlike a barrel would be, but you
then use it in conjunction withmicro oxygenation.

(45:15):
And so you can do much largervolumes of wine.
Um, instead of buying a bunch ofbarrels, mm-hmm
barrels themselves are prettycost prohibitive.
Um, whereas the barrel adjunctsbarrel alternatives, they are
significant, cheaper on a pergallon basis.

Speaker 1 (45:34):
Okay.
So there, so there are like kindof, kind of some technology
hacks, so to speak thatyou can use to innovation.

Speaker 3 (45:46):
I think they would prefer you

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Use that's probably innovation.
That's probably better.
Yeah.
Technology.
That's, that's interestingbecause I think like for me
again, I, you know, when it,when I visualize a wine cellar,
it it's just a bunch of barrelsstacked up, you know, sitting
there and, and probably is formost cases.
And I wouldn't, I wouldn'timmediately think that there's a
lot of technology involved, butI mean, you're kind of clueing

(46:10):
us into the fact that they,there is, there could be,

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Yeah, there's a significant amount of technology
now in, in both wine and, uh,distillation, uh, our still has
more knobs and dials andelectronic sensors on it than
what most people would associatewith a, with a distillation.
Uh, you walk into a brewerynowadays and it's all automated.

(46:36):
It's all air actuated valves.
It's all driven by a, a point ofcontrol.
That's a computer program.
Um, the, the brewers themselvesare not adding necessarily
grained directly to a tank.
It's all hard piped.
And the, the barley will come inin massive trucks and will get
pumped into big silos and thebreweries or the distilleries

(47:00):
will use those silos to thenfill their mash tons.
The, they often have, uh, theirown grist mills.
And so they'll do their owngrind on the grains, um, to get
to the rightist texture in orderit to go through their me
process.
Um, so the amount of technologynow in alcohol production is

(47:21):
significant.
Um, we still have a fair amountof, um, small operations that
are doing it, um, very oldschool.
Um, and sometimes the old waysare the best ways.
Uh, the, the more interventionyou have, the more intervention

(47:43):
you will continue to have to do.
And so the less intervention youhave to do, the less you will
have to do as a whole typically.
Um, and so finding the righttool for the right time, it's,
it's a big experience part, butthere's also a philosophical
part to that as well.

Speaker 2 (48:01):
All right.
Yeah.
You gotta love it.
You gotta give, you have to havepatience, right?
Love it enough to re take timewith whatever technology or old
school art craft.
It is.

Speaker 3 (48:16):
Patience is a extremely undervalued virtue in
our society today.
Mm-hmm and patienceis absolutely necessary in order
to make quality alcoholicproducts.
Uh, we're talking with spiritsupwards of five to 15 years,

(48:37):
maybe 30 years worth of agingfor a particular product.
That's an innate amount ofpatience, right there built into
the process with wine.
It's kind of the same thing.
It's just on, in a much, a muchshorter timeframe, but you still
have to be patient.
You cannot be in a hurry whenyou're waiting for a crop to
come in and it's sitting thereon the vine and you got the

(49:00):
grower looking at his bees,starting to shrivel, and he is
seeing dollar signs missingbecause we are waiting for
flavor or chemistry to comearound.
Um, it's, it's a real part ofthe people business of having to
explain what you're trying to doand why you're trying to do it.

Speaker 2 (49:22):
It, it like makes me think we should never be
irritated when a bartenderdoesn't deliver a drink quick
enough.
right.
Like considering

Speaker 3 (49:31):
Cocktails are a real thing.
I gotta tell you,

Speaker 2 (49:34):
But, but yeah, but like, so John, how can we
appreciate when we're drinking a, a glass of wine or a, a glass
or a shot of whiskey, more likewhat's the way to drink given
all that it took to get into ourglass?

Speaker 3 (49:47):
Well, typically the price point's gonna matter a lot
to most people, um, when you'redrinking a less expensive
product, there's typically less,um, time spent with that
product, because it's all aboutin the moment being at that

(50:11):
point, whatever that product isbeing served with, whether it's
an event or a gathering, it'smore about the event or the
gathering than it is about theproduct.
Mm-hmm, most peoplewhen they spend for a more
spendy bottle are going to spendmore time with the product
because they've spent more oftheir money on that product.

(50:32):
And so they're going to take thetime to appropriately enjoy that
product.
So,

Speaker 2 (50:38):
So how do we, how do we drink whiskey?
We, we have a, we have a glasshere.
How do we, how do we actually dothis?
I mean, and then, or wine.
I mean, people who smell just soit's not rancid, right.
You're supposed to smell it tomake sure it's not Rand.
Is that

Speaker 3 (50:51):
Right?
Well, looking for flaws isdefinitely a part of the old
factory part of the evaluation.
Um, so typically when I evaluateany product, I immediately smell
it without air rating, theproduct.
I literally just smell theproduct once it's been pour into
the glass, um, I'm looking for,is there anything off about it?

(51:12):
So there's a series of differentflaws that can, that can be
there in either spirits or wine.
Um, and then I will air rate theliquid, and that will release
more aromas.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
How, um, how

Speaker 3 (51:26):
Do you do that?
So with a wine glass, typicallythere, there's gonna be a stem
and you're going, just going toswirl the, the glass, the, the
liquid in inside and give itabout two or three times around.
And then while it's stillmoving, I'll actually smell it,
put my, put your nose right intothe glass.
You really want to get it inthere because, um, what that

(51:49):
will do is your face willactually trap those aromas and
force them to be concentrated inwhile your nose is in the

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Glass.
Like a plug, you're plugging itup

Speaker 3 (52:01):
In there.
I know.
Yeah.
And it's almost like a lid.
Your face is almost like a lidon

Speaker 1 (52:04):
The glass.
I know you were talking aboutwine, but I just did it here
with, uh, with the bourbon.
Gotta

Speaker 3 (52:10):
Be careful with the

Speaker 1 (52:11):
Spirits.
Yeah.
So I, I did it, I smelled itbefore doing that, and then I
swirled it and I smelled it andit was totally different.
It

Speaker 3 (52:19):
It's completely different aeration matters.
And so, again, that's thatinteraction of oxygen and
releasement of those volatilecompounds,

Speaker 2 (52:27):
John, one time, one time I had a really bad glass of
red wine and I sprayed some ofour oxygen plus in it, our
skinny, I just sprayed theoxygen straight in and it made
it a little better.
Do you think that's true

Speaker 3 (52:38):
Or was it just absolutely.
Okay.
So, you know, one of the thingsabout oxygen management, again,
oxygen management does not juststop once it goes into the
bottle and we do oxygenmanagement, putting wines our
spirits into the bottle as well.
We can vacuum fill them and, andcork them when we're coing.
So we eliminate a fair amountof, of, uh, oxygen and air in

(52:59):
the bottle, put it under a smallvacuum.
Uh, we can add screw caps andhit it with AER gas right before
we put that screw cap on.
Um, and then one of the thingsin enjoyment, particularly with
older wines, this is reallypopular.
It's called decanting where youliterally put the liquid into a

(53:20):
vessel.
That's not the bottle.
And typically you're gonna be,um, leaving sediment behind in
an old wine.
So that's one of the reasons tode can't.
But the other reason is toactually get oxygen into that
wine, again, releasing thosearomas, and also changing that
wine.
One of the best things anyonecan do to understand the

(53:42):
relationship of oxygen in alcoholic
products is to take a 10, 15 ora 20 year bottle of red wine.
That's meant to be aged, decantit and taste that wine and take
notes every 10 minutes.
Oh, and you will see the wineeven evolve over.

(54:06):
It could be an hour, it could behalf an hour.
It could be three hours wherethat wine completely changes
during that timeframe.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
Can we do that with you one time?
Like just get a really goodbottle of wine.
Scott will pop buy, and then,um, and then we just drink for
that, that one bottle for threehours, John

Speaker 3 (54:27):
.
That would be a lot of fun.
Okay.
Yes.
That would be a lot of fun Iwould be.
But yeah, those, those are allvarious things.
And, and again, oxygenmanagement is, is integral in
alcoholic products because it'sso involved in the primary
fermentation in the aging, theproduct in the elimination of

(54:48):
oxygen during the finishingstages.
And then once again, in theenjoyment of the wine, how
oxygen plays, there's so manydifferent elements at work and
it takes time to understand howthey all play together.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yeah.
Interesting.
How do you, how doyou, uh, like develop your
palette in order to be able totaste like you taste the grapes
and you you're tasting wine outof each barrel.
You're talking about to, to makesure that it's, that it's good.
How, how do you know what tolook for?
How do you develop your paletteto be able to taste certain

(55:24):
things when it's good when it'snot,

Speaker 3 (55:27):
Are you familiar with Malcolm Gladwell, right?
Yeah.
Yes.
He's an author that wrote, uh,the book outliers and blink

Speaker 1 (55:35):
And blink blink, right?
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:37):
The other more famous one

Speaker 1 (55:39):
yeah.
I've heard of

Speaker 3 (55:41):
Outliers too.
Theories of them.
Anyways, the, the idea behindoutliers was that it takes
10,000 in hours to become, uh,proficient in a given skill.
They brought up a number ofdifferent examples, the Beatles,
um, his mother, uh, who was theother one, uh, NHL players.

(56:02):
They have a tendency to all beborn in January, February, or
March, because they tend to be alittle bit bigger and a little
bit stronger than the other kidsborn later in the year.
Well, they realize that thestart date of being in a
calendar year, those kids havenine months of advancement on

(56:25):
kids born at the later half ofthe year.
And so the distribution chart ofwhen their birthdays were, was
skewed towards January to theMarch mm-hmm, same
thing happens in doing alcohol,making alcohol for a living it's
about 12 years of three monthharvest to become proficient at

(56:48):
10,000 hours.
You're gonna put about 2000hours in, during a three month
harvest over about 12 years.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
So nobody who, who like, if Scott and I are like a
business dinner or something,and somebody's like, oh, Bri,
this year, this vintage, andthen they smell it.
And they're like, oh, that'sthis like, they're full of crap
because it would've taken them10,000 hours to really know what
a note

Speaker 3 (57:14):
Is.
So where I was going with thatis, you have to expose
yourself to as many differentthings.
So we were talking about cigarsand how go walking into a
humidor is unlike any otheraromatic experience.
Well, you have to experiencethat in order to have that

(57:36):
experience, to be able to applythat if you smell that smell
again.
Um, you know, Gary yeah.
Reference point.
Yeah.
Reference point smell is yourstrongest memory period.
Yeah.
The memories that are tied tosmell are so powerful compared
to any other memories that yougenerate.

(57:57):
Um, Gary Vannak is famous.
He was the wine library guy, andnow he runs a big, uh, social
media marketing firm, him.
And, uh, he was famous for, fordoing YouTube videos.
He did a thousand YouTube videoson wine reviews, and he did a
whole video on how to tastewine.

(58:19):
And he literally had a wet rockand was licking it in this
YouTube video goes, now I knowwhat wet slate tastes like,
because I literally just tastedit on my tongue.
And you know, what does wetearth wet earth taste taste

(58:42):
like?
Mm, what does MOS taste like ifyou are not smelling them, if
you're not tasting them, you arenot exposed to what they
actually are.
And until you create thosereference points and you can
recall them in an instant in theglass, that's the part that
takes time to develop.

(59:03):
So the more you, the, the moreof the story is the more you a
taste, the more experiences youhave when it comes to sensory
evaluation, the better you'llget at

Speaker 2 (59:12):
It.
And the more you're plugged intoyour world and your life.
And mm-hmm, like,what's all around you.
Yeah.
Like just try eating some dirt,right?
Like, that's not a joke, right.

Speaker 3 (59:22):
He actually, he actually did that on the Ellen
show.
Right.
And the Conan O Brian's show, hedid wine tasting for dummies and
brought all these sensorythings.
And literally Ellen's likeeating dirt on, on her
television show.
So it's

Speaker 2 (59:38):
Not about as aspiring or trying to, he some sort of
wine status, some, some venofile, uh, level.
It's more about like, gettingreal with like how what's around
you.
How do you experience the world?
I like that, John, that that's,that makes it like an even
playing field for, for

Speaker 3 (59:56):
Scott and I, at the end of the day, that's all we
are.
We're a, some of our experiencesand your pal and Scott's pal are
completely different from mypalette.
And your pallets are probablynot the same either.
And so just because I say ittastes like something, you could
be looking at me going, I don'ttaste that at all, but it tastes

(01:00:17):
like this to me.
And I may not taste that, butagain, everyone's pal and
everyone's experiences are sodifferent.

Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
And John, do you remember what your, um, was it a
Merlo when you were 21 that youdrank with your, it was a
Cabernet Saigon.
Oh, it was, it was the mostpopular wine, popular

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
Wine in the world, in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Um, do you remember what that tasted like?

Speaker 3 (01:00:38):
Um, I remember flashes, uh, more, more, so I
actually, I don't remember theexact flavor profile, but I
remember the texture and a lotof wine makers actually do less
by aromatics and flavors andmore on texture on what the wine
tastes like in their palette.

(01:00:59):
So what the start of the wine,what the Midal of the wine and
what the finish of the winelooks like.
And that's why I was so blownaway by that particular bottle
of wine was the texture was sodifferent than everything else
on, on the young wines we hadbeen drinking and I wanted to
know why was that texture sodifferent?

Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
Wow.
That's very cool that I, Iwouldn't think I, I wouldn't
think of texture when I'mtasting something, I guess for
me, I guess it's always beenabout the flavors or that's
what, maybe people talk aboutmore, but I wouldn't have
thought the texture that's,that's really cool.
And, and I mean, how do you get,how do you get to you where you
can tell the difference betweenthat?

(01:01:42):
I mean, we just talked about theflavors.
How can, how can you tell thedifference between textures or
knowing what's a good or badtexture?

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
Textures are actually relatively easy because it's,
it's sweetness, it's sourness,it's saltiness, it's savoriness,
it's bitterness, it's these fivemajor components and they all
fit together.
That's the overall texture ofthe wine.

(01:02:10):
Hmm.
And so there are, again, thereare tools that you can use as a,
a wine maker or distiller toinfluence how those textures are
perceived.
So the, the big one we we'vebeen talking about quite a lot,
and that's oxygen, oxygen is amajor contributor to, uh,

(01:02:31):
polymerization without oxygen.
You don't get, uh, Taninmolecules joining together,
precipitating out and smoothingthat wine out, preventing that
astringency or bitterness that alot of people associate with red
wines, well, time and oxygenwill smooth that wine out.

(01:02:53):
Um, acidity a again is acomponent that you can, uh,
using a couple of differenttechniques.
Um, oxygen in time in the barrelcan help accentuate that, uh,
saltiness don't get a whole lotof savor, uh, of salty with, uh,
with wines or spirits.

(01:03:15):
Um, it's not to say that theycan't be there particularly with
higher acid, uh, varieties,something that's done in
stainless steel and is verytart, could have a saltiness
component to it.
Uh, sea spray as an aromatic isoften associated with higher
acid, uh, wine varieties, butthen savoriness, um, the amount

(01:03:38):
of time and stirring of Lees inwhite wines and barrels that are
fermented in a barrel, um, thatcan add to savoriness
components.
It can help round wines out.
Um, the same thing can be, canbe done with, uh, with spirits.
The amount of time, uh, spiritsits in a barrel can add

(01:03:58):
savoriness can, again, smooththose tannins out that
interaction between the chardwood and the high, high proof
alcohol, that time will helpmellow those characters out.
And so these are all aspectsthat are textually individually,
um, influence, but it's thepicture of how they all fit to

(01:04:21):
other that's what we're after.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Yeah.
Right.
The art and the science John.
Yeah.
You've, you've brought it.
Um, how can people find out moreabout you about Chan

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
Haka?
There she goes.
She got it.
Just gotta keep drinking throughthe even.
Yeah.
That's all I'm out.
You can, uh, you can find us onthe web we're at Chan Casca
wines, plural that's S plural,uh, dot com.
Uh, my bio's actually on thereso they can find more about,

(01:04:56):
about me there.
They can buy, um, all of ourwines are available for purchase
through the website.
Um, anybody in the twin citiesor in Minnesota, we are pretty
widely distributed for bothwines and spirits.
Um, outstate, um, we're a littlebit harder to find.
Uh, we do have distribution ofour spirits in Iowa, Michigan,

(01:05:20):
uh, Kentucky, uh, Wisconsin.
Um, we have our cream LA curesin about, uh, 12 states right
now.
Uh, all pretty much centered,kind of on the upper Midwest and
, uh, the Midwest, uh, towardsAppalachia.
Um, but we're, we're, we'repretty easy to get to.

(01:05:41):
Um, so anybody in, in Minnesotacan, can pretty find us pretty
quick.

Speaker 2 (01:05:46):
Awesome.
John, thank you.
Let's raise a glass.
Thank you, sir.

Speaker 1 (01:05:52):
Yeah, this was a lot of fun.
It's been a, a lot of funtalking with you and drinking
with you and learning

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
How, how oxygen rocks the alcohol world.

Speaker 3 (01:06:01):
Thank you very much for the opportunity.
It's been a, been a blasttalking with you guys.
You're

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
The man.

Speaker 4 (01:06:06):
Cheers, cheers.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Go rate and review.
We're in apple, hot air.
So more people are aware ofwellness and business stuff that
deserves more oxygen and subs toour podcast.
So you never miss an excitingepisode.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
Thanks for listening.
But before we go check out thisepisode's featured artist, Neo
classic country group led footLarry with their song white
lines.

Speaker 5 (01:06:49):
Amen.
Could you ever take wheel justfall?
It's getting heavy.
Like my eyes.
I need my catch sunrise Lord.
If I do, I should agree thebrand new day.

(01:07:09):
It means my just a littlefurther, long way.
So crossing white lines and needto get back to my baby to make
things so don't them white lines.
They need to get back to my babyto make things.

(01:07:31):
Sometimes I soul Jesus in theties that have inspired to make
me roll.
My destination is the only thingthat keeps me tried and true.

(01:07:52):
So let's find out fortune and Ican tell a babe, I'm coming home
to you.
So don't cross in white.
You need to get back to my babyto make things right.
So don't them.
Why lines?
Yeah.
Need to get back to my baby tomake things right.

(01:08:14):
Keep being steady.
He beat had his tos at five line.
It's been lying me now.
I'm ready to embrace things inlaugh that I was for to don't in
, I

Speaker 4 (01:09:03):
Steady

Speaker 5 (01:09:04):
Keep it headed towards, at five.
Spin me now.
I'm ready to embrace the, that Iwas born.
Don't cross them white lines.
Yeah.
Need to get back to my baby tomake things right.

(01:09:28):
Sit on.
Cross them white lines.
Yeah.
I need to get back to my baby tomake things all rise.
Sit on Crow lines.
Yeah.
I need to get back to my baby tomake things all right.
Sit on white lines.
Yeah.
I need to get back to my baby tomake things all right.

(01:09:50):
Sit on white lines.
Yeah.
I need to get back to my baby tomake things all right.
Um,