Legacy and Innovation with Rolling Fork

In this episode of EmbellishPod, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jordan, one of the founders of Rolling Fork Spirits. We delved into the fascinating world of spirits, discussing everything from the origins of Rolling Fork to the intricacies of blending and bottling various types of alcohol. If you haven't already, please take a moment to hit the subscribe button on your preferred podcast platform. You can also find video versions of this podcast on YouTube and all my links on Instagram and TikTok at @embellishpod. For more details, visit my website at www.embellishpod.com.

Jordan is a co-founder and blender at Rolling Fork Spirits, a company known for its diverse range of high-quality spirits. The company started with Rolling Fork Rum and has since expanded to include Wayward Cask, which features Calvados and Armagnacs from France, and Bourbon Deluxe, a Prohibition-era label they recently revived.

The Origins of Rolling Fork Spirits

Rolling Fork Spirits: Jordan explained that Rolling Fork Spirits is the parent company, with Rolling Fork Rum being their most well-known product.

Expansion: The company has expanded to include Wayward Cask and Bourbon Deluxe, each offering unique and high-quality spirits.

Historical Ties: Jordan's business partner, Turner, comes from the Wathen family, a name deeply rooted in the history of Kentucky bourbon.

Bourbon Deluxe Revival

Historical Significance: Bourbon Deluxe was a Prohibition-era label that Jordan and Turner revived after Jim Beam abandoned the trademark.

Marketing and Branding: They aimed to maintain the vintage feel of the original label, including quirky taglines like "Glorious Sunshine of a Thousand Ages" and "The Zenith of Possibility in Whiskey Quality."

The Journey into Rum and Other Spirits

Initial Focus on Rum: Jordan discussed why they chose to start with rum, a spirit often underappreciated in the U.S. market but highly valued in Europe.

Armagnac and Calvados: They later ventured into these spirits, which are beloved by industry insiders but not widely known among the general public.

Blending and Bottling

Blending Process: Jordan shared insights into their meticulous blending process, which involves selecting barrels based on specific criteria and balancing flavors to achieve the desired profile.

Challenges and Strategies: He also talked about the challenges of blending, such as dealing with "bad barrels" and how to incorporate them into a blend without compromising quality.

Market Dynamics and Pricing

Value Proposition: Rolling Fork Spirits aims to offer high-quality spirits at reasonable prices. For example, their 25-year-old Calvados is priced at $149, a rarity in the market.

Market Trends: Jordan touched on market trends, including the impact of COVID-19 on the spirits industry and the rising popularity of agave spirits.

Personal Anecdotes and Stories

Historical Anecdotes: Jordan shared a captivating story about an 1898 vintage Armagnac that was hidden in the walls of a house during the Nazi invasion, illustrating the rich history and craftsmanship behind these spirits.

Industry Insights: He also provided insights into the independent bottling scene, comparing it to the more familiar concept of non-distilling producers in the U.S.

This episode offers a deep dive into the world of spirits, from the historical roots of Rolling Fork Spirits to the complexities of blending and bottling. Whether you're a spirits enthusiast or just curious about the industry, this conversation with Jordan provides valuable insights and fascinating stories. Don't forget to subscribe, and check out the video versions on YouTube and all my links on Instagram and TikTok at @embellishpod. For more details, visit www.embellishpod.com.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey folks, thanks for joining me for this episode from the EmbellishPod. If you got here
by chance, please take a moment to hit the subscribe button. Hopefully it
can be found on any podcasting platform that exists and if you can't find me on one,
send me an email at embellishpod at gmail.com and I'll see if I can get that taken
care of. You can also find video versions of this podcast on YouTube. You
can find all of my links on Instagram at embellishpod or TikTok
with the same handle. I have a website, it is www.embellishpod.com. It's

(00:24):
a place to pick up these links, episode details and more. Today I'm going to have Jordan joining
me from Rolling Fork, from Wayward Cask,
from Fortuitous Union, whatever you want to call it. They
make a whole lot of different things and we have a really, really fun
conversation. All right. So this morning
or afternoon or evening or whenever you happen to be consuming this, I

(00:47):
have Jordan joining me from well,
multiple companies technically, right? At this point, or at least multiple brand lines.
Jordan, I'll let you introduce yourself. I came to know you guys
through the Rolling Fork Rum line, and then you've kind
of expanded since then. So give me the elevator speech on who you guys are.
Okay, yeah, I mean, that's fair. So I would say Rolling

(01:10):
Fork Spirits is kind of the parent company. Most
people know us through Rolling Fork Rum. But under
Rolling Fork Spirits, there's also now Wayward Cask, which
is Calvados and Armagnacs from France. And
then recently we relaunched Bourbon Deluxe,
which was that Prohibition-era label from American

(01:31):
Medicinal Spirits that we picked back
up when Jim Beam abandoned the trademark a few years ago.
And so we recently relaunched that brand under the Rolling Fork Spirits
portfolio as well. So I'm Jordan, I'm one of
the founders of Rolling Pork Spirits, and I'm also the blender.

(01:52):
So you mentioned this here and I was going to be one of the questions,
but Bourbon Deluxe being the kind
of the most, is it the most recent? It feels like it's the most recent.
Yeah. Okay. I knew the Armagnac and
the Bourbon were real close together at least, or at least it felt like it from the
marketplace. Were you guys keeping an eye out

(02:12):
for any brands that might come to the marketplace or was it just a
So my business partner, Turner, his family is the
Wathen family, which if you read through the history of Kentucky bourbon,
they, you know, they trace, I think the original distillery was the
Rolling Fork distillery, hence her name, I think it

(02:35):
was 1788. So I think it was actually a land grant from like Virginia. I
guess Kentucky was 1792, right? So it was in
Marion County, Kentucky, what is now Marion County, Kentucky,
and it was on the Rolling Fork River, which The Rolling Fork River
still exists. It's pretty, I think it's like dry
now, but it still is a depression in the landscape with a bridge. So,

(02:58):
but at the time they built the distillery there, it was, you know, a river. And
as most people know, kind of the classic way of distillation is
you put it next to a body of water that you can use for, you know, driving your
condensation medium. So cool down your alcohol vapor. So
that was the original distillery. So his
family, you know, bought and started a lot of brands kind

(03:20):
of starting in the 1800s and going post prohibition. His
family then sold to National Distillers, which
National Distillers then rolled into Jim Dean, most of the brands.
So if you look at his family and the brands they had started slash
acquired over the years, especially when they ran American
Medicinal Spirits, you know, they, at one time the

(03:43):
Lawson family controlled, I think it was like 60% of whiskey
in the United States. Um, now it's not saying it's saying
a lot, but it was also because of prohibition, right?
So there were only, I want to say four or five people allowed the bottle.
So they consolidated pretty much all of the whiskey space. And

(04:04):
so every whiskey label that survived prohibition
was think bottled under American Medicinal spirits. Maybe
there's a few outliers there, but you'll feel like Old
Grandad, Old Taylor, Bourbon Deluxe, clearly.
Let's see, what else do we have?
There's a few more, I think Crow, even Old Crow maybe was under

(04:28):
American Medicinal. They also had some of the old, you
know, Pennsylvania Rise, like Old Overholt and things like that. So,
oh, Sunnybrook, Hill and Hill, all
those guys. So it was just kind of a, you know, American Minnesota
Spirits was a big conglomerate. They had a lot of labels. And over time,
those labels sold, traded out, you know, got consolidated in.

(04:48):
And one of the old labels was Bourbon Deluxe. It
was actually started by a bottler in Texas, I
want to say, and then acquired by the Wathen family and rolled into American
Medicinal Spirits during Prohibition. And
then after that, like I said, went to national distillers where it was kind
of, that was probably its peak as a brand was under national. And

(05:11):
then it passed to Jim Beam. Of course, Jim Beam has a huge whiskey portfolio,
you know, the crowning jewels of which are Jim Beam. So,
and, you know, even old granddad was, you
know, kind of one of their pinnacle brands. I would say that's where Bourbon Deluxe kind of
made it to that lower tier of whiskey and eventually, you know, strategically, I
think Dean was just like, we don't, we don't need this brand.

(05:34):
Right. And so Turner and I talked,
we always wanted one of the old family labels, but it's like,
well, you know, a lot of those still exist today. Credit
to the brands they started, like A lot of those are not
abandoned. Like Old Grandad is still a very popular whiskey. Old Taylor,
you know, is still a very popular whiskey. So you can't just

(05:55):
go around and like revive one of those brands. They still exist today. Bourbon
Deluxe recently, you know, within the last
say decade was, you know, kind of off the shelf and
the trademark was abandoned. So no one was using it. And
it was one of the, you know, top 10 on the list of American medicinal
spirits brands that we thought were just really cool. I mean, it has the vintage

(06:18):
night, you know, it has like the night's crest and everything. I, I would
have loved to have like, you know, been a fly on the wall in
the marketing of bourbon deluxe back in the day. Cause like the old prohibition era
bottles just had the funniest thing. Like, uh, one
of their taglines was glorious sunshine of a thousand ages, which
I'm not sure what. I was like, okay, like, I don't

(06:40):
know what that means, but they had that on the bottle. And then they also
had the Zenith of possibility and whiskey quality, which
was also pretty slick. So you'll notice
on our bottle, we, we managed to maintain both of those. The
TTB was like, yeah, those are fine. Some of the other old school wording
did not pass muster these days. You know, they're like pure quality

(07:02):
and things like that, which the TTB is like, wait, you can't say that. But,
In reviving it, we tried to maintain as much as we could, especially
from that prohibition era label. So if you look at our label and
you compare it to what was originally launched and
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it, it absolutely does. And it was, you know,

(07:24):
as one of those things that, um, I hadn't been paying close enough attention,
um, to what was happening in the marketplace. And when it hit, I was like this.
It's it was a label that stuck in my brain of like, I've
seen this before, but it's been a while since I've seen this. You know, I've
lived in Kentucky my entire life. And so I've ran the
gambit from the bottom shelf to the top shelf and then back down again because, you know, some

(07:45):
of the better whiskeys were down there. In
in the old label really felt like it belongs on a table like medieval times
right in order to the jousting and all of that it's it's
a funny label for sure yeah but i think that's what
made it fun i think is it didn't try to take
itself too seriously. You know you say the taglines where

(08:06):
they came up with i mean assume i don't know if you ever watched mad men but. It
So, yeah, this was yeah, this was even earlier.
You know, this is 20s, which is just is
an interesting time to be marketing whiskey. For sure. Yeah.
So we were super happy when that one went abandoned. Like that was kind of one of

(08:26):
our I mean, old granddad's never going to go abandoned, right? Right.
Is the staple. But like of, you know, all the brands out
there, I was like, oh, bourbon deluxe is an amazing brand. It's
got a great history. We even dug up some of the old whiskey
ads they had hired. This would have been during the National
Distiller's run. They hired Peter Arno, who was the famous illustrator

(08:48):
for the New Yorker. I think he, he has illustrated the
most covers of the New Yorker. He did all of their like ads.
So he drew cartoons of people like saying, if
you want the finest bourbon, you want bourbon deluxe and things like that. And like the forties and
fifties. So we have, you know, acquired quite a few
of those ads. They're in like Esquire and the New York times and stuff back

(09:09):
in the day, but it was definitely one of national
So and you know we've we've we've talked about this a little bit and i know we'll probably come
back to it but i think the the beginning of this story for
me is like you got that a lot of name which is you know amidst
the urban industry and your your first product

(09:31):
line was to get into. Rum, and then
there's, you know, there's, there's the rum rye situation with Fortuitous
Union. Then there's Armagnac. And the last thing you bring
in is bourbon, right? Like, is this like an intentional, like, I
want to make my name in spirits, but not cash
in on my legacy? Or like, what was the reason why you're like, let's

(09:53):
I wouldn't say that. Kind of the way we started
the brand and what we were bottling is like, We
always wanted to offer something different. We're
small, you know, we were like, we're small and scrappy. We're never going to
compete with the big guys on selling the same thing in a different package. Now,
mind you, when we had that premise, it was. you know, 2016 and

(10:16):
we were like, no one else, no one in the world needs more, you
know, the same whiskey in a different package. Clearly we were
wrong. There's plenty of the same whiskey in different packaging now. Um,
so I wouldn't say we were smart about it, but that was our premise. But,
uh, you know, we always wanted to offer something different
in the marketplace, something that we thought was underrepresented, but also high

(10:37):
quality. And so that's why rum was our first one is because like,
In the US market, it is not an appreciated like ultra
premium class spirit. Now that's very different if you go
to Europe and you like, you know, browse the spirits list, the rum
section of like a spirits list at a fine, you know, like restaurant or hotel
or something is insane. And that's because they've just had

(10:58):
a long history of like well-aged rums. But
in the U.S., you know, rum has always taken a backseat
to, you know, first scotch, then bourbon, Japanese
whiskey. Of course, they've always been like cognac drinkers as
well. And honestly, like if you rewound
to like 2017, 2018, people are like, rum's the next category. dark

(11:22):
horse out of nowhere was agave. Tequila and mezcal actually
like just crawled, you know, like whatever momentum rum had was
tequila and agave caught. And honestly, they've eaten, you
know, everyone's space since then. Like if you look at the growth rate of
those, which makes sense, it's, you know, if you think about the U.S.,
you think about the demographics of the U.S., you think about the geography

(11:44):
of the U.S., like Texas, Arizona, California, massive populations
and warmer climates, they love tequila mezcal. So
the rum premise was not to be different or stubborn. It
was just like we wanted to offer what we thought was underrepresented on
the market, but still high quality. That
was the same case with Armagnac and Calvados. I

(12:08):
mean, if you pull It's an industry thing. Like
a lot of industry insiders freaking love Armagnac and
Calvados. I talked to distillers, you know, large whiskey distillers, rum
distillers, like, Oh man, not what I drink when I go home. It's Armagnac and Calvados. Cause
it's just so, so cool. And so esoteric, it's

(12:28):
Um, I think there's a lot of reasons for that. Number one
is the production is just tiny, you know? Um,
I mean, pragmatically speaking, The
first time I went to like Gaskin, he was going around Armagnac, you
know, sellers. I expected to find something the
size of like a small mid U.S. distiller, right?

(12:51):
A few thousand barrels, you know, like pretty good production. One
of the largest producers in Armagnac that I know, I was talking with
them and they're like, if we put everything we made this year into
a barrel, we would make 70 barrels. Right. And that's
one of the largest. it goes down from there. So

(13:12):
the reason Armagnac will never be a huge category in the US is there's not enough supply.
You know, that's just the way it is. And I'm kind of fine with that. It's an
amazing It is the most amazing
and historical and like esoteric spirit. It's one of
the best you can have on the market in terms of quality. It's crazy.
And I think I agree with you wholeheartedly. Right. I spent

(13:35):
a little bit of time digging on Armagnac a little while back because I
kind of felt like as as a as a whiskey drinker who gets tired of drinking whiskey.
Right. Like you drink bourbon and you drink, you know, even American single malt. You
know, it's not that it's all one note, but you're drinking some of the same flavor profiles
and the same i'm here in the united states and scotch is already its
own thing if you're a bourbon drinker looking for the next thing you

(13:56):
can jump into without like. having to learn all
over again. Like I felt like with Agave Spirits, I was having to learn all over again.
Arm Jack was kind of that stopgap. It was a place where
you can find some significantly higher aged
If you come in the aging quality to price is amazing. You is

(14:17):
insane. You know, like I think we sell a
24 or 20, we saw a 25 year cal dose for $149, which, and you know,
at cask strength, it's, I don't know
i mean what is it like ten year old bourbon is now hundred forty nine dollars

(14:39):
it'll be it'll be a hundred bucks at the bottom and unless you catch somebody who's
been doing it for a long long time. And you know you
might have been able to sneak into that with light whiskey a
handful years ago but that's really not gonna happen anymore you're still gonna
be close to that. you know, $10 per year, maybe $7.50 a
year. But it's, you know, beyond the

(15:00):
pricing of it, it's still a phenomenal spirit that has flavor
profiles that are similar enough that you're not having to learn
a new flavor wheel, but you're having to add on to the one that you already sort
And it's, you know, and the history of it is incredible. I
actually told my French counterparts when I went over there,

(15:23):
You know, because like people romanticize bourbon and then they come to Kentucky and
like, it's industrial, you know, like we're ripping millions of
gallons of whiskey, you know, 54 inch columns or whatever.
You go over there and it's farmers growing grapes and making, you know,
20 barrels a year. It is very, very
Yeah. And I mean, it's a difference in history specifically, right? Like where you

(15:46):
go over there and you go into a farmhouse that existed before
this country existed. Right. And so we're looking at its scale
here of they've been around longer. They've kind of been through some
And it's got a great story on that. If you want to hear it, let's just go ahead. Yeah, absolutely.
So going into a cellar, you know, I meet the producer. It's his

(16:08):
family has run the cellar for three or four generations, right?
Maybe five. And so, you know, you sit in their kitchen and
you talk with them. And, you know, my French is not great, admittedly,
but, you know, I do OK. And they keep asking
if I, you know, do you want the house Armagnac? And
so, you know, I'm thinking like house wine, you know, when you go to a French restaurant, it's

(16:29):
just like it's red. You know, it comes out in a decanter and it's like, oh, this is
just like their standard Armagnac they drink at the house. It's
like, you know, I'll take some house Armagnac. Let's see
what you're doing. And then they bust out a bottle and it
is the 1898 vintage, which means
the grapes were harvested in 1898. And I was like, whoa, like, you

(16:51):
know, I was not asking to drink your 1898 vintage Armagnac. And
they're like, no, no, you're a guest in the house. They're like, you
only get one pour. That's it. You know, for your entire life, you will get
one pour of this in our house. And I was like, oh, that's very, that's very sweet of
you, you know? And so I was like, I gotta know the story. Like,
how in the world do you still have 1898 vintage Armagnac? And

(17:13):
so the producers, like my grandfather, he
was the cellar master at the time the Nazis invaded. And
so, like, when they knew the Nazis were invading, all the Armagnac producers,
they could, they bottled everything they possibly could, and
they hid it. Because they're like, the German army
drank everything. Like, they told me, like, if you look at

(17:36):
our inventory and seller list, there's this giant gap where there was the,
you know, the German occupation, where they just drank everything out
of the barrel. It doesn't exist anymore. So everyone that could bottled
as much as they could and hid it. And he's like, and so we
call this our house Armagnac because my grandfather hid it
in the walls of this house. Wow. And he's like,

(17:56):
so as we've renovated, you know, and like done updates and
everything, he's like, every now and then we find a few bottles of
this. So it's the house Armagnac. I was like, okay, that's a very different, I
thought house wine, house Armagnac. I was like, that's a very different translation of,
the most literal version of it that could exist right yeah it was

(18:18):
it was in the walls of the house and it's it's amazing
to be able to have that kind of an experience right
because. What what around
here lasts that long, right? Like that's it's a whole other creature.
I would recommend, you know, all of my spirits industry people, I
tell them, like, look, when I'm going to Armagnac, I'll let you know it's a it's

(18:39):
an incredible place to go. They're incredible people.
You meet the producers. You understand the families and the histories. It's
Honestly, you could probably sell a seat next to you
and fund your trip by taking
I was like, I don't know why I'm running a spirits company. I should just run a tourism company. Let's

(19:05):
Or maybe you're going to go and you're going to pick up some rum in a Dominican
situation or whatever. You've got all kinds of places you can be going
here and taking folks to
some beautiful places and trying some beautiful spirits. There's a
bunch of people that will pay a lot of money for that. It's a business expense.
My worst business idea was trying to sell rum. United States. I

(19:32):
Right. Well, I mean, it's a good rum, though. I'll say that at
least it's a really good rum. But you are right, because I
remember that time frame pretty heavily of, you know, people were trying to debate, you
know, everybody's tired of not being able to get the
bourbon they wanted, and so they're like, OK, what spirit is going to be next? And
I think a lot of people were in on on Rome at that point in time. But

(19:54):
it also it feels like and I may be off base here, but it feels like
it built up the appropriate business model. If you want to explore some
of these other spirits that you don't think are getting an appropriate amount of attention, would
you be able to do Armagnac or Calvados at the same level
if you hadn't gone through the experience of importing rums and doing
Honestly, we learned a lot from, you know, there's a lot of

(20:17):
trial and error. The other thing is we
built up all of our sales network. Right. And so
every product we've launched after that, every product line we've opened up
has been incrementally easier than that first one. Right.
So could we have sold Armagnac and
Calvados without having sold rum before? I don't think that would

(20:40):
have been a good idea, right? We already knew our customer base. What
I mean by that is people that were buying high-end rums
are the same, you know, they're the, they're the
same people in that same demographic also buy, that
are interested in high-end spirits in general. They
probably have a great Japanese whiskey selection. They have a great scotch selection. They

(21:03):
have a great rum selection. So Armagnac and Calvados were
a natural. like line extension, because
that is a, it is a very niche product, right? There's
not a lot of production. It's not very
well known among the people that do know what they're very passionate about
it. And fortunately for us, there's been diagram overlap between people

(21:24):
that are passionate about high-end rum and people that are passionate about high-end Armagnac,
especially is it's pretty good overlap. You know, those
circles are not separated, um, very far. So I
think to your point, We
could not have done it having not gone through
the trial and error and honestly trial by fire of selling

(21:46):
rum in the US, which is very difficult. What's
been comical for us is that selling whiskey is
so much easier. Easiest thing of like, you
know, I was talking with a good friend
who's a distiller and he was like, oh yeah, no dude, you You
spent seven years selling the hardest thing and making it into a business. He's

(22:11):
Yeah. And part of me says, but you also built
the reputation for bringing forward fine spirits and you weren't
just another NDP who
bought up a label and put us put a story against it. I mean, you
have a legitimized story. You've got the you know, you got the genealogy to
prove it. But there's several of those in the marketplace. How do I

(22:32):
know that yours is good? Well, you know, I've had the opportunity to try The
the rums that you brought forward and you know, if I'm the person who's seeking, you
know, new spirits, I've tried the armonic, I've tried the
calvados and I'm working my way toward like, OK, they haven't
missed, right? They haven't missed on the quality of what they're sending out.

(22:53):
And our, you know, our other premise has always been offer great value
at a great price. I mean, I know like some
people would like to get 149 bucks for a Calvados is not great price.
And I'm like, well, it's a 25 year old Calvados, you know, like it
might, I try to scale my quality to the price. And so
with bourbon deluxe, when we relaunched it, you know, we were selling

(23:14):
eight year old whiskey that a lot of people were selling for $115. Our bottle is $64.99. Yep. We
got some hate mail. People are like, why are you doing this to us? And I was like, that's my
standard margin. You know, like I
do it like that's, that's how I price my rum. That's how I price my arm.
Like it's my standard markup. And
like my business is built like that. And I'm, you know, I'm

(23:37):
sorry if your business requires you to charge more,
but I don't think that's fair. Right. I'm trying to sell a really nice
whiskey that people open a drink for $64.99. Um,
the last thing I want is for someone to buy an eight year old whiskey and
shove it in their basement, like a collectible. It's eight year old Kentucky straight
bourbon. It should be like opened and enjoyed, you know, and hopefully not treated.

(24:01):
I mean, it's great if someone thinks it's a collectible, you know, more
power to you, but like, that's not the point to me
of, you know, Kentucky straight bourbon. Um, it
There are some people, and I'm one of these people, I'll just go ahead and admit that, where
every bottle I buy gets open, right? And I taste it, and especially for

(24:24):
something like what you guys have, because it flies
off the shelves really quick, and so being able to get another bottle
of it is usually pretty difficult. It's the kind of thing that I'll
drink a few ounces of, and then I'll hide it in the back of a shelf, right?
I'm setting a surprise for future me, so whenever I go and I move something, I'm

(24:46):
Yeah, I don't, I don't want to make so beautiful of a bottle
that my eight year old whiskey becomes like, you know, a show
like a work of art on the shelf. So
I want to price it so that people feel comfortable like 65 bucks for
this, like it's good whiskey, you know, you share it with good friends and like, Yeah.
I mean, it won't always be available, right? And people have asked

(25:09):
me, like, what are you going to do if, you know, whiskey prices go up? I'm like, I'm just
not going to make any more. It's that simple, right? Like I would rather
wait around and find the right whiskey at the right price to offer it to
consumers so they enjoy it rather than like
try to convince people to spend 150 bucks on eight-year-old whiskey. That's
just not, to me, that's not a great I

(25:29):
don't know, I'm a little protective of Kentucky, you
know, bourbon in general. And like, if you look back at the boom
and what started it, it was like, good value. Like
that's what started the Kentucky bourbon boom was like, People
were tired of scotch. They were price exhausted, right?
And Japanese whiskey, there's not enough volume. You're never going to have like low

(25:50):
end Japanese whiskey of super high quality, right? Any
like solid Japanese whiskey is just going to be a few dollars more than
a solid bourbon simply because they have limited resources. It
just costs more to produce. So like Kentucky
bourbon, you know, we're in, agricultural country. A
lot of the inputs are not that expensive. A lot of the, you

(26:12):
know, the oak has grown here, American oak, the barrels are made here. It
can be a very cost effective spirit. And I think that's what people
like about it is that like you can get a really
high quality aged spirit for a really, really good price. So
Yeah. And, and it, and it feels like at least the market's going in the direction where it
is actually going to support the business that you're trying to build. Um,

(26:35):
what it doesn't support is, is folks that jumped out there when, um,
some, uh, contract distillers were charging four
or $5,000 a barrel. Um, the market's not going to make it,
Well, you know, I'm very like connected on a lot
of, random layers on like, I deal
with a lot of IBs in Europe, right? Cause I, I bought a lot of

(26:58):
rum, a lot of independent bottlers in Europe bought a lot of rum. So
for whatever reason, I'm their sounding board for whiskey. And
so the funniest story I heard was during kind of the COVID crunch, right?
They were like, all the IBs were like, why, why is Kentucky straight
bourbon so expensive right now? And I'll, and
so one of the IBs that I work with told,

(27:19):
I don't know if it's accurate or not, But he
was like, look, we have to blame the Australians. And
I was like, why are we blaming the Australia? I have no idea. And he's like, well, they're
consuming so many RTDs right now, that they're
scooping up all of the two year Kentucky bourbon supply,
because you can label it straight on the front, you know, they're aging it

(27:41):
on the back of the can or whatever. And they're just cranking RTDs. And it's the
middle of COVID. And they they're killing like, they
are the Australians are single handedly drinking this out of like two
year old Kentucky bourbon. I was like, Well, that's impressive. Number one, right?
So we got a lot of that. I don't know if it's accurate or
not. But it was definitely like, That probably

(28:01):
wasn't the sole reason, but COVID was a weird bump where, you
know, people were drinking more RTDs, people were drinking,
you know, bottled cocktails. And so it did create this
just like scarcity in the two to five year
segment of whiskey, which then drove the price up for everyone.
We sat that out. We wanted to start a whiskey label, but I was like,

(28:22):
I don't think I can make a solid whiskey at a solid price
right now, so we just didn't. I'd rather just not participate in
Right. And then because then you're in the in the game of if you jumped out
there and you priced yourself at ninety dollars a bottle and then you start dropping prices.
Is that because the cost of the inputs went down or is that because you're trying

(28:44):
to to to keep your share of the market and
you're dropping prices because you're you know, you made a mistake before because
there's there's some brands that are going to have that discussion. I had Aaron
on from Smoke Wagon a couple of years ago, and he actually predicted
about 12 months too early. He was like, you know, the the price point
of between thirty five and fifty five dollars is going to be a knife fight in

(29:06):
the next year. Right. Which it's going to be there, I think. And I think
we're hitting that right right now. But that's going
to be a whole lot of people having to drop their prices down to get there or make
themselves a purveyor of fine spirits. I don't know which kind of direction
But we've tried, you know, but

(29:27):
There are definitely your price points and what is offered in
that price point. If you're an independent bottler, you
honestly cannot compete under $35. There's too
many hands touching the whiskey. It's
just one of the big guys is going to make a

(29:51):
Yeah. There's a lot of things working their advantage, including that they,
you know, they made the barrel themselves, um, where
you can compete as an IB is in that maybe
next year up really the sweet spots, like over 50 bucks, right? That's
where you can blend. You can select the right smaller
lots and make something that is worth that

(30:13):
premium. Um, But yeah,
competing on the $35 price range, that's
a tough one, especially for an IB. By the time you pay set, you
pay materials, you know, it's like, well, I like doing this,
Right. Right. Is it a vanity project or is it a business?
And it's a, for most people, it's going to be a business. I mean, maybe somebody

(30:35):
is rich enough to make it a vanity project and it's just something to kill
They'll get tired of it, though. You know, it's a lot of work. So
And then they'll move on to maybe another spirit or whatever. Maybe until you
you. Yeah, hopefully not. Right. And I feel like the Armagnac
people, they're very friendly, but they

(30:55):
don't advertise a lot. Like people that are into it will absolutely tell
you everything about it, but they're not going to come and be like, hey, let me tell you about this
new spirit, because they also know that once the hordes descend upon
I think it was, there was one written recently where it
was like, Armagnac is the new investment spirit. And

(31:16):
I was like, Oh no. Right. Like that, that just doesn't
help anyone. Um, so I don't think it
really picked up again. Armagnac is just, it's so small. Like,
I think it's hard to turn that into an investment spirit, like
the volume, the volume doesn't, it doesn't
support it. And if, and if you were going to try to support it from that perspective,

(31:38):
you'd have to start a planning like 40 years ago, right. To
be able to, to have that situation. So you've, you've
used the term a lot, you know, independent bottlers and, um, it's
not a term that we use in the United States very heavily with our, with
our production. Why do you think we're stuck on this NDP versus independent
bottlers is just like, We think that's the american way we're gonna

(32:03):
Yeah i think to a
lot of the early i'd be so i'm not accusing everyone but you
know a lot of the early i'd be in the us mask the
fact that they were in the bottom. Right. They
roll out a still or, you know, they'd say, oh, or a facility or
a family recipe of Iowa rye whiskey or whatever you want

(32:23):
to say. Right. And then you like, well, you trace back. It's like, oh, no, that's MGP
rye. Whereas a
lot of the IBs in Europe come out of Scotch. Right.
And it is a time honored thing to be, you know, you've got Signatory, Alexander
Murray, Barry
Rudd and Brothers, like there's a lot of, there

(32:46):
are these spirits houses that don't necessarily only bottle
scotch. They bought, so like, I think three I
mentioned, maybe not Alexander Murray, but Barry Rudd and Brothers, definitely. Rum,
cognac, Armagnac, predominantly scotch, right? Because
they're in Scotland. But like, it's a time-honored business
tradition. You acquire cool spirits, you keep them in your warehouse. And

(33:10):
your goal really, and this has always been our goal, was release
something interesting and different. I may sell
you a rum distilled by Foursquare Distiller in
Barbados, but my goal isn't to sell you something where you're like, I can't tell
the difference. If that's the outcome, then what was the
point for me? you know, the goal is

(33:31):
to sell you something different. So for example, like the Scotch IBs,
you'll see, you know, people selling McCallum distilled Scotch
that's never touched a sherry cask. It's like, I don't know what
that, you know, like that's very different than what I can get from the McCallum line or
they'll sell, you know, like I had one from Signatory that
was like, um, Cameron,

(33:53):
it's one of the big houses that never does sherry casking. We put ours in
a sherry cask and I was like, I want to try that one. Um, and
that's like a time-honored thing and it's not frowned upon, but they're very upfront
about it, right? Like if you think about signatory, they're straight up,
Hey, this was distilled here. This was the casks. This is where we did it.
And that's the tact we took because like, I, you know,

(34:14):
I like indie bottled scotch. It offers that difference.
You know, you're paying a premium for it, right? Right. A Macallan
from signatory costs more than a Macallan. I know i'm
paying for the difference right i want it
is not gonna be mccallen it's gonna be some other thing in
this it's like spin on mccallen and that's what i tell people is

(34:35):
like i want you to be able to tell where this came from but i also want you to like this
is very different from what i've had from that. I think in the U.S.
where it got off on the wrong foot was people were, they're
making brands and pretending they were distilling,
right? Or it was their, you know, they had controlled the entire production process.
And so then, you know, you have the writers come out and be like, oh, well, you know, most of the stuff's from

(34:58):
MGP and here and there. And so I
think they just like, they coined the term non-distilling producer
because these people are holding themselves out as distilling producers
until they were caught. If you look on our labels, we put
on the back, we're independent bottlers. You know, we're
And I guess, and it makes sense to differentiate those that

(35:21):
go through a process of like custom distillation, where they
may not be the distiller, but they're showing up to, you
know, Barstown bourbon company or whiskey house and saying, here's my mash
bill. Here's the process. I'm paying you to distill it for me
and then warehouse it for me. And then I'm going to come pick it up. which is still not
the same thing as being a distilling producer, but it's also not

(35:45):
Yeah, we have this mixed term that we sometimes, we
say we're independent blenders and bottlers. Okay. Right.
And so you're like, if you're not running the stills, if
you have your defined mashable and everything, you're clearly maybe doing more than just someone
buying barrels and bottling, right? But you're
not distilling it, right? You have your specifications, it's made for you.

(36:06):
I don't know if there's a term in the middle there, but I, we
blend, you know, like our rums and stuff, we blend into small batches. So I say
we're actually independent blenders and bottlers, which merchant
blending was also a thing in Europe, you know, and honestly for
rum as well. Famously, you know,
the UK government was probably the largest rum blender at one point

(36:27):
when they gave every sailor, you know, a tot of rum. But
that was also just prevalent in rum and
in European bottling. So, you know, when we came
into it, it was like a concept we were familiar with and
fine with, but it was not widely used
or practiced in the US at that time. I think now, Even

(36:49):
in whiskey, people are embracing it, right? You have what I would call independent
blenders, you know, people and they're admitting it on the label. They're saying,
hey, it's 20% this 15, you know, they're like breaking
it down. I think that's like, I
think that's the strategy to take with consumers. So you're explaining to them, I'm doing something
different, right? This is not my grandfather's recipe

(37:10):
that I've been making for a hundred years. Like I, this is seven year old Tennessee, you
know, um, this is 12 year old Kentucky. I
like that because as a consumer, I get
it. I'm not, I'm not paying for Tennessee whiskey. I'm not paying
for, I'm paying for your take. on making a

(37:30):
Yeah. And, you know, I think of, uh, Lost Lantern and what they do with both blending
and independent bottling, and they call themselves an independent bottling at
And they're able to go out and find brands that I'm never going
to, you know, people in Arkansas that I'm never going to find that distillery on
my own, but they found it, they tasted through it. And I, build

(37:50):
a level of trust with their pallets. And I'm like, if they say this is going to be good, I'm
interested in giving it a shot at this point. And so, you know, there's a
lot of market there, but you've, you've, you, you mentioned blending there.
And I guess, you know, between, you know, bourbon and between rum
and, and, and maybe even, um, Calvados or Armagnac, um,
what is your blending process? Like, how do you develop a blend? Like what do

(38:12):
you start with a target profile or do you start with the components and
Usually when I start, my first pass I
tell people is literally a yes or no. Because
what I'll do is I'll... I'll pull a lot
based on specs, right? And I'll have an idea in my head of like, especially

(38:34):
in rum, you know, our heart of gold cocktail rum. It's a
blend of Barbados and Jamaica rums. It's from Sierra
West Indies Rum Distillery, Four Square Rum Distillery, Worthy
Park, Hampton and Clarendon. So I've got five components,
right? I will pull lots of each
because we age these in our warehouse. Um, Based

(38:57):
on specs, right? Like, ah, I'm going to need something in this range. I'm going to need something in
this range, right? And I'll also like, you know, one of our big components is
what type of barrel it's in. especially
for me, there's a very big difference in aging rum in a low char
barrel versus aging rum in a high char barrel. And there's
actually a pretty big difference between aging rum and like what

(39:19):
I would call the classic Kentucky rye Mashville bourbon
barrel versus aging rum in a Kentucky weeded
bourbon Mashville. Like everything that
was previously in that barrel influences the next spirit. And
so what we'll try to do is pull, you know, five
or six barrels based on specs just to

(39:40):
start. And then what I do on my first round is try to eliminate half,
right? Like, let's just get out of this 30, let's get down to 15. Um,
and then the next pass is identifying what is the actual back, like
which ones are close enough in the flavor profile that they're kind of the backbone, right?
And then if you're in, um, I think it was Jim McEwen at Brook

(40:02):
Lottie that said this, he said, you know, like anyone
can blend a good batch out of good barrels. Anyone can pick a good single
barrel. The true master can take shitty barrels and make a
good batch. And so I, any, any
blender that's listening will understand like really the true gem
of this is this is where you hide a few bad barrels, right? You,

(40:24):
And what I say behind is you try to, usually a bad barrel is like too
far in one direction. It's too oak, it's too astringent, it's
too dry. And so you try to find your
counterpoint in another barrel. You try to find something
to balance that and get it back to the mean, or maybe it's two barrels to one, right?
But you're trying to balance to the mean of what your target profile is.

(40:46):
And then you just also, you can hide a few bad barrels. You can't,
you know, if you take 20 bad barrels and make a batch, you're going to have
a bad batch. Statistically speaking, I would love to tell you
that it magically works out, right, and it becomes better. It doesn't.
The sum of your parts is the whole to some degree, but if
you're tactical and what you select and kind of

(41:09):
what, if you look at the flavor profile and what it's strong in, you can
usually balance out something that's overpowered in one direction by
picking two or three other barrels that are kind of opposite of
it. Right to get back to that mean and what you're really
trying to do is just make them almost neutral so that the rest of your blend
takes over. So, you know,

(41:29):
for example, in one of our heart of gold batches, I had some
barrels that tasted like jalapenos. for
whatever reason, kind of mineral and just like overly
spicy to the point where it tasted like you were drinking like something washed
in jalapeno juice. I don't know why. I think it
was probably like a really high rye whiskey, maybe

(41:51):
even a rye whiskey that was in there before that just took on
a weird turn. And that barrel made, you
know, my rum taste slightly like jalapeno wash.
Um, that's not great for blending a cocktail rum,
right? Like it's not going to go well in tropical drinks. Um,
so could I use all, I had a few of those barrels. I

(42:15):
was like, I can't use all of these in that batch or that's going to taste like jalapenos. So,
you know, what I did was I went for very, very
hard vanilla sweet. Right. Vanilla and
sweet to balance out like the very trying, slightly
acidic peppery notes from the, what I call the jalapeno barrels. Um,
and then blended it with, you know, others that were just directly in my

(42:37):
profile that I was looking for. Um, you
can get strategic about that, you know, like it all
depends on what you're working with too. Right. There's only so much you can
do in a blend. Like I said, if
Right and I think that's the bad barrels is a term that the folks
that don't and I'm not a person who works in the industry obviously but people

(43:00):
who don't work in the industry when they think of bad they're thinking of something that's gone rancid
or is like bad milk and what you're when
when when blenders and distillers refer to bad sometimes it's
this is gone bad we have to pour it out sometimes it's this is this is
bad because it doesn't. get anywhere near
the profile that you're trying to target. And so then you're really trying to,

(43:21):
you know, you're trying to mix, you know, white and black together to get gray. Cause
gray's the color that you wanted to begin with. Right. It's really, it's
Cause a lot of the like quote unquote bad barrels are just too oaked. Right.
And like, yeah, if I made an entire batch of two oaked
whiskey or rum or anything, it would, it would taste too oaked, but

(43:42):
in a batch, An over oak barrel is actually great. You're
like, I know how I can get a hint of oak in this batch. I've
got one barrel that's just all oak. I can run that, you know, I
can get it to where everyone's like, Oh yeah, there's a nice warming note of oak on
I can tell you exactly which barrel did that. That was this one
Yeah, it's not a single barrel, right? Like in there, it's

(44:05):
got a ratio where you have to blend it out. But like, I actually love finding
those like very polar one direction barrels. And
like, these are really good when you need to move the needle,
See, and I've talked to quite a few folks that do blending
through the course of recording this podcast, and I've had the

(44:26):
benefit of being able to be on a couple of single barrel picks. And I never put this
together until this exact moment talking to you today. Usually
when I go on a single barrel pick, I'm the guy at the end of the table that you probably don't need
to pay attention to because I want the weird one. Right. The the one
that just is off profile. But then I've never
kind of put together downstream when that barrel goes to someone

(44:46):
else to use, whether it be to rum or scotch or whatever. That
weird barrel that I want to pick is now going to make another weird barrel
It's very possible that weird barrel continues on
as an outlier and tequila or rum or whatever else
Yeah, whoever buys that now gets this. And, you know, if you're dealing

(45:07):
with a major distiller, you know, you're buying a lot of barrels, right?
And so they're not going to be like, oh, that was the weird barrel. This is, you know,
a lot of 100 barrels that you just bought. It's one
of them in there. And good luck blender in the future. You're going to get to find
Yeah, you know, especially with if you think about rum and
how like, honestly, probably like agave and

(45:28):
scotch as well. A lot of the producers, they're working at such scale.
They're not going through and looking at barrels individually. They're being like, I need 1000 barrels.
And you know, the majority of the Caribbean actually uses and this
gets into the greatest Jack Daniels bourbon or not divide because like
the majority of the Caribbean is like, we use bourbon barrels for aging. They're like, what kind of

(45:48):
like Jack Daniels? And so then you're like, well, you
know, like here's my
argument. It's like Jack Daniels has gone through the trouble of
following the process to be labeled Tennessee whiskey. Like
give it, you know, like they want to be labeled Tennessee whiskey. I
think it's the right, like that's Tennessee whiskey. So then that barrel

(46:10):
to me is a Tennessee whiskey barrel. It
doesn't sound as good as bourbon barrel, which is why no
one uses it, but you know, like. When people
No. And, you know, as a
proponent of the fact that Jack Daniels is bourbon that just doesn't want to call itself bourbon,

(46:32):
They meet the requirements. They follow a separate
process. They want to be labeled Tennessee whiskey. So, like, why?
Well, it's like the difference between bourbon, straight bourbon, Kentucky
straight bourbon and bottled and bond. Right. They're all. It's
just a trickle down of the requirements and they
happen to meet the same things but they're not submitting themselves to anywhere in the

(46:55):
market as a bourbon. Where the
rubber meets the road is where you have a brand who makes a Tennessee whiskey
and then decides to come out with a bourbon. They don't really change anything.
They just put bourbon on the bottle and TTB says, yeah,
Yeah, honestly, that's fair. I don't like we've

(47:15):
defined our standards of identity, right? We've written them in a certain way.
you know, if you want to play the games on standards of identity, like
that's fine with me. If people wanted to change, then, you
know, call your, call your legislature and yell at them about the standards of identity,
Yeah. And in probably 10 years, we'll get an answer sort of

(47:36):
like the American single mom, right? Cause yeah, that,
So we've talked about a super interesting category. It's if
I'm, I'm, I'm excited about it. There's only a couple of things that me as
a non whiskey producer would have
liked to have seen be slightly different. Um, but I also

(47:57):
understand why it is the way it is and there's a lot of business built on
it. And so I'm just the nerd over here on the side, wanting a little more nerdiness.
Yeah, I mean not to go off track, but I found it fascinating right
from the outset From like I deal with a lot of the standards of identity
clearly, especially in rum the rum space American single
malt is the most defined of the American whiskey categories, right?

(48:20):
You have you can you can't age it elsewhere you I think you even have
to bottle in the u.s Yeah and
they have a limitation on size of the container Whereas,
you know, I mean, there've been a lot of independent bottlers in
Europe that have bottled Kentucky straight bourbon. Because
Kentucky straight bourbon doesn't require it to be bottled in the U.S. or aged. It

(48:42):
has to be made. And aged for a year. If you look at Kentucky state law,
they want fermented or mash fermented and aged
for a year and distilled, you know, in Kentucky. But
federal law, doesn't require that. Right.
So if you're an independent bottler in Scotland, like you
could, you could just be like, good luck state of Kentucky, you know, like

(49:04):
I'll see you in court and, you know, random XYZ jurisdiction,
but American single malt federal definition is
actually pretty strict, you know? So
I was fascinated by that. And I wondered, like, is anyone going
to go around and update bourbon and, you know, American rye as

(49:24):
I think I think it would be difficult to move. I think you're going to have
too many large scale producers that are going to buck up
if you try to amend the existing rule, because if
they get left out, you know, if the if the Buffalo
traces of the world get left out of the definition slightly because somebody proposed,
it's not going to happen. Right. Yeah. To get everybody to move in the

(49:45):
same direction on an already existing definition. True.
Whoever does that is a peacemaker unlike
Well, I think the advantage of American single malt was it was a lot of small
producers providing input up front. So,
and I don't think at previous generations we had that. We did not have
that population of small producers that were passionate about

(50:10):
Yeah. And I think, you know, it comes out of wanting flexibility that they didn't have
with the existing American whiskey and some changes that they wanted to
I was really happy they went for used barrels, right? Because that's
kind of been the bane of American rye. and
bourbon to some degree. I mean, bourbon's bourbon, I get it, new barrel, but like,
why does American rye whiskey need a new barrel? Why couldn't you do

(50:33):
something cool and different? Because we have this curse where we
cut down all these trees and make all these new barrels and we can only use them once. Right.
So I was like, okay, thankfully with American single malt, we
can now at least use them more than once before we, you know, ship
them to Scotland or Mexico for tequila or, you know,
the Caribbean for rum. Like now we get more uses out of our materials.

(50:57):
Yeah. And, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm
super, like I said, I'm very, very happy with the definition. I think it's, it's going
to be a great, uh, growth market. I guess. Are you
I actually really liked the category. Um,
and I'm very excited to see what people do in it. I, to me personally,
I think the most interesting, and this is just me on my soap boxes, like

(51:20):
someone who loves single ball, and this is fascinated with the production process. I
think the interesting. Question is now that
they've allowed the seven. I think it's 700 liters and it's also you can
use use Cooperage like There's gonna be someone that does something
completely unexpected. I Don't know what you
know, they're gonna use 600 liter I don't know

(51:40):
sherry casks or something and it's gonna be really interesting and I'm looking forward
to that. Yeah I'm hoping it's just
I'm hoping it's just some small producer, you know, just cranking away at
American single malt, like doing their own thing. And in 10 years, I'm like, this
is the best thing I've ever had. Like, that's what I want to see, you
know, as, as an indie bottler and as a consumer, I, I

(52:03):
really want the person to kind of crush the category. I want them to be like, you
know, someone that just cares and his passion is making something really cool. Um,
and thankfully with our small, you know, we, we have a lot of independent producers now
of I'm optimistic that that will be a really cool category moving
And, and hopefully they do it quietly enough that you don't have, um,

(52:24):
a large conglomerate show up with enough money that you can't say
no. Right. Cause everybody has a price, you know, there, there
It's interesting, right? Because, This is not a
knock on large producers, but large producers in the US, they
have fallen in love with the column still. It's more
efficient. And if you think about the profile that people

(52:46):
love from single mall, it's pot
still. And so
I feel like even if a large producer comes into the space, if they're going
to conquer that space and do really well at it, they're going to have to scale down
their expectations, right? They're going to have to, they're
going to be forced to go more like small

(53:07):
scale production if they hope, you
know, that their American single malt competes in the category with Scotch and
Irish whiskey. Um, and that's, I
hope that a pot still wins the space, you know, because that does
just limit, there's only so big you can make a pot still, you
know, there's only so much you can do. And so I'm

(53:27):
hopeful that like, we see some of those like single malt producers
that are that like, Scottish distillery scale,
right? Like, yeah, they're big, but then you look at their numbers compared to an American whiskey
Yeah, the idea of commodity whiskey is a very, very different story once
I think I looked up Artberg makes 10,000 barrels a year. Everyone's

(53:49):
heard of Artberg. You know, 10,000 is like, what,
half a day of production at a lot of our large Kentucky bourbon distilleries. Right.
So I'm hopeful. That's my hope. You know, I would love in 20 years to
Well, you know, and the thing is, uh, there's so many twists and turns
between here and there that, uh, it may go completely away from you being right.

(54:10):
And then at the last minute, whip back into the right place, you know, cause
that's, that's the way these marketplaces go. Um, and I know we're, we're,
we're pushing up on time a little bit. Um, let's
talk about any upcoming releases that you guys have
going on, um, here in the next, you know, handful of months. Cause
you know, that's ultimately the lifeblood, you know, you do all the work so you can put the

(54:33):
Let's talk about it. So the question we can ask the most is when's the
The first one was small. You know, like I said, we've kind of focused
on rather than rather than hitting
a certain volume or something, we want to hit the right price. Right.

(54:55):
So this first release was small. Secondly, we have Very
nice whiskey as well. Going to stay $64.99 retail.
It's going to be eight years old. And I, all right, so I cannot claim
credit for this at all. This is complete happenstance. I
was, I even said, what are the odds? I hit the exact same proof

(55:15):
of the batch without even knowing it. So the first
batch was 119 proof of cask strength. And
I blend the second batch is so it went from three barrels to six barrels.
So the second batch is double the size. Right. And I
hit 119 again. I was like, I cannot, what are the odds of that
happening? Um, so it'd be eight years old, 119 proof,

(55:37):
6499 retail. That one should be, you know, hitting the market
Okay. Um, when
you say hitting the market, what does the market look like? Is this online? Is
So our goal with this batch was to give a little more distribution without
like six barrels is not enough to distribute to every market.

(55:57):
So for the folks in markets we don't distribute to, or
we don't have a lot of presence in, Sealbox will have it first. It
will make it into distribution in a few states. That was kind of
our goal for this one is some of our better states for rum. Ironically,
we're like, okay, you know, like let's, let's splash a little whiskey there. So

(56:18):
Kansas, Missouri, we'll have a little bit. Kentucky, Indiana, we'll
have a little bit. I can't say it's going to go widespread against six
barrels. And then we will probably also put a
few cases on our website after it's all, you know, like, If
we sell out and we got five cases left, we'll probably wait
a month and drop it just for the heck of it. So that

(56:39):
one say, I would say you will start seeing it seal
And now do you guys have like a, like a, um, an email
process or newsletter or anything for the website? If somebody signs up
and you're going to make a random Tuesday drop, there's an email that
We theoretically do. I can actually not claim whether it

(57:00):
works or not. But Sealbox
also has their email list. So I would sign up there for that drop. We
will definitely send it. And honestly, watch our Instagram. So
our Rolling Fork Rum Instagram and our Bourbon Deluxe Instagram, we will definitely announce
like the day before, hey, this is going to go live on this day on our
website. That will be later than everywhere else. So if

(57:22):
you miss out on your local market or you miss out on it on Steelbox, we
will, we are going to try to hold some back and announce ahead of time to people that
follow us like, Hey, this day it will go live. We're
The other thing is in distribution, we're going to try to get
it to, you know, our good bar partners, because again,

(57:43):
there's not a lot of it out there. We want people to be able to try it. Right.
Um, so in Louisville, we're hoping to land at a few of the nice whiskey bars,
you know, with, so you can go in and have a cork at least. Um,
so I would say April is when you'll see it start rolling
out and we might do our website release a little later than that. Um, That's
release one. We do have a lot of single barrels of rum hitting

(58:06):
the market. If you're, uh, if you're in, let me see
your Texas is a big market, Kansas, Missouri. And
then, um, I don't know how many, how much crossover you have, but also
Bruzel has a very nice rum pick coming in. Um,
we, we just shipped it. So we should have a really cool pick in the coming months
in one of his package deals. Gotcha. Let's

(58:26):
see here. So. And our Heart of Gold rum, our
cocktail rum, 101 proof, should be reasonably priced.
We just blended our third batch of that, which does up the
producers in it. So we added West Indies Rum Distillery, which is
in Barbados. We added a Pure Pot still from them, and we added Hampton Pure Pot
still as well from Jamaica. It's

(58:48):
the same profile, a few more producers. We're trying to
keep it consistent, right? It's hard to do when you're on a small scale to
consistently source, you know, similar rums that always had
a flavor profile. So Armagnac
Calvados wise, we will have a few very
long aged Armagnac and Calvados probably, I want to

(59:09):
say June. We don't do a lot of this per year.
It's just, you know, it's, it's a niche product. We love it. We
like to release it. Um, it predominantly online, you
know, it's not a huge retail or distribution thing. It's just the
volume is not there. You know, the clientele is a little tough.
So we have a 1982 Armagnac, a 1990 Calvados,

(59:31):
um, as well as possibly some younger things. So, Those
Okay, your website and Sealbox? Yeah. Now, for your website,
do you know what states you ship to? Do you ship to
We do not ship to a few. RollingCorpRom.com slash
shop. And it lists everywhere we cannot ship.

(59:54):
I think there's seven we cannot ship to. And
when I say we, we have a third-party fulfillment retailer that
Sort of like a big thirst
Yeah, I've dealt with them on a few different things before. Yeah. And

(01:00:16):
specifically, the reason I ask is because there were a handful of retailers that
did ship to Kentucky and then they don't ship to Kentucky anymore
because things changed a little bit. And for
those of us on the west end of the state, sometimes, you know, yeah,
We can't get it at a I'm a western Kentucky guy, so
I get it like it. I grew up

(01:00:42):
Oh, okay. So you legitimately are Western Kentucky, not like the Bowling
Oh, no, no, no. That doesn't count. Bowling Green is central Kentucky. So, right.
Because there's like, I had this conversation with the guy from Casey Jones, cause
he, he went to Western Kentucky university. I'm like, there's like three
more hours of state West of there, right? Like, you know, cause I'm,

(01:01:03):
Yeah. Yeah. That's what people don't realize until you try to drive across
it. You're like, Tennessee and Kentucky are really long
And there's not a straight road to get from one end to the other. No. It's
just not an opportunity. You're going to go up and down a lot of hills and around some
curves. Okay. Sorry, I cut in on you. You've got the Armagnac and

(01:01:24):
the Calvados, the Rum, the Bourbon Deluxe. Was
Uh, I mean, we'll have some more interesting things. I would say definitely sign
up for seal box. They have an exclusive coming out. I won't try
to describe it, but it'll be probably coming a few weeks after the
eight year. It's a pretty interesting bourbon deluxe release. Um,
and they will be the exclusive for that. There just wasn't enough of it to make sense

(01:01:46):
to distribute everywhere. So, um, I
mean, you guys can, you know, there's been a lot of premium whiskey bottled lately,
so we had the chance to do a premium whiskey and we did, it'll probably
Well, I mean, and there's, there's still space in the market
for premium whiskey. There's always going to be space in the market for premium whiskey, as long

(01:02:07):
That's the thing. We, the, we, uh,
we had the opportunity to match like a current release
to the, the original bourbon deluxe release.
And so we're like, Oh, that would be really fun to do once. So we did it once. I
That'll be the thing that everybody will start being like, hey, when you're going to do

(01:02:29):
And it's yeah, yeah, it's not going to happen. You know, first of all, like
that kind of whiskey is not growing on trees. So that's the first hurdle there.
But that was fun to do once. It's an exceptional product.
So, yeah, that will be solely on seal box. Again, there's just
not enough of it to warrant distribution or
retail or anything, you know, so. We

(01:02:53):
haven't even bottled it yet, but I would say it'll be under 400 bottles easily.
Yeah. Yeah. So that, that'll be a thing to pay attention. So the
answer to everything is, is seal box, seal box, seal box.
for sure. All right. Well, so Jordan, I really appreciate the time that
you've given me tonight. Um, we'll, we'll absolutely

(01:03:15):
keep in touch cause I want to follow up. And if you guys do press releases on the
releases as they come out, let me know. Thanks for tuning into this episode from the
embellished podcast. If you enjoy this, please leave me a review on
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(01:03:37):
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