Transparency, Innovation, and Success: The Journey of Barrell Craft Spirits

Hey folks, in this episode of The Embellish Pod, I had the pleasure of chatting with Lindsey from Barrell Craft Spirits. We covered a lot of ground, discussing the exciting developments happening at Barrell, including the opening of their blending facility and the launch of their new bottom price product, the Foundation series. Lindsey also shared insights into their New Year series and the upcoming release of a Mizunara cask finish bourbon.

We started off by talking about the new facility and Lindsey mentioned the speakeasy area that they have, which sounds like a hidden gem for barrel picks and special tastings. She also mentioned that they are building out a retail store within the facility, where they will offer exclusive batches and special sales.

Next, we delved into the recent recognition that Barrell has received, with their rye batch four and bourbon batch 35 making it onto Fred Minnick's top 100 list. Lindsey expressed her excitement about the recognition and highlighted the unique characteristics of these blends.

We then shifted our focus to the new addition to Barrell's lineup, the Foundation series. Lindsey explained that this is a five-year, 100 proof bourbon that is designed to be more accessible and versatile for both neat sipping and cocktail mixing. She emphasized that despite its age statement, the Foundation bourbon drinks much older and offers a rich and balanced flavor profile.

Moving on, we discussed the New Year series, which features a blend of bourbons from eight different states. Lindsey highlighted the complexity and fruit-forward nature of this blend, which is aged between five and 15 years. She also mentioned that Barrell plans to release two batches and two cask finish bourbons each year, with the upcoming release being a Mizunara cask finish.

We wrapped up the conversation by reflecting on the success of Barrell in the past year and the direction they are heading. Lindsey expressed her satisfaction with the growth and maturity of the brand, as well as their commitment to transparency and innovation.

Overall, it was a fantastic conversation with Lindsey, and I'm excited to see what the future holds for Barrell Craft Spirits. Make sure to check out their new releases and keep an eye out for their upcoming projects. Cheers!

 

🔗 Links:

https://www.barrellbourbon.com/ http://www.facebook.com/barrellbourbon http://instagram.com/barrellbourbon https://www.youtube.com/c/barrellbourbon https://www.linkedin.com/company/barrell-craft-spirits

 

🎧 Listen to the full episode to get an insider's look at the craft of whiskey making, the importance of barrel selection, and the future of the whiskey industry from the perspective of a brand owner. Don't forget to subscribe for more industry insights!

Enjoyed the episode? Leave us a comment below and let us know your thoughts on barrel finishing and the evolution of the whiskey industry. Cheers! 🥃✨ Remember to like, share, and subscribe for more whiskey conversations and deep dives into this timeless spirit.

 

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Hey folks, thanks for joining me for this episode from The Embellish Pod, an
opportunity for me to ramble about whiskey or something for a few minutes. If
you got here by chance, please take a moment to hit the subscribe button. Hopefully
I can be found on any podcasting platform that exists, and if you can't find
me on a platform, send me an email at embellishpod at gmail.com and
I'll get that taken care of. You can also find video versions of this podcast

(00:27):
on YouTube. You can find all of my links on Instagram at embellishpod or
TikTok with the same handle. I have the website, it is www.embellishpod.com. That
is also a place to pick up these links, episode details, and more. Today
we'll be having Lindsey from Beryl join us again. And they've
had a whole lot of things that have happened since the last time that
she and I were able to chat. They opened their blending facility, they

(00:50):
launched their new bottom
price product of the foundation series.
They have launched the New Year series and there's been some labels and
things that might have snuck out on the social media indicating
some things that are changing for them. And so stick around and listen
to the conversation that Lindsay and I have about all

(01:12):
of the things that are going on with Beryl and will continue to go on with Beryl. All
right, so this afternoon we have Lindsay joining us again from Beryl Craft Spirits. When
we finished last time, I said I still had a handful of questions, if not more,
that I wanted to continue on and one of
those being around the new year. But before we get
to that, and we talked about this a little bit off air, but The

(01:34):
last time we chatted, I had not seen your new facility yet. Now
I have. And it sounds like you haven't had the opportunity to see it in its
complete state yet. But maybe the first question I have is
who who do we need to bribe to get back into
the speakeasy area? Because that was one of the neatest portions
of that tour for me was you guys have this little speakeasy places

(01:57):
built maybe for for barrel picks or whatever. But kind
Yeah, of course. I don't know if they have actually the
plans on how they're going to manage that speakeasy area,
but it's located between a conference room and the blending lab,
so not the most convenient of locations. But I mean, what

(02:17):
speakeasy is, to be honest. But I definitely
think that we are going to be using that for like barrel picks, for groups, for
accounts. It's a great little tucked
away bar that is perfect to taste all the barrel products
in. I'm just not sure what their plan is yet with that. I

(02:37):
think we're still trying to finish building out the facility in all
These all have masks on though. Yeah, no, it's a
huge facility and it's It's a lot like, um,
any build project you get done enough to move into it. And then
you spend the next five years trying to button up the last 5% of the build. You
know, I've got, uh, we've, we moved into this house that I live in right now,

(02:59):
about 10 years ago, and there's still a piece of molding that needs to go up right over here. So
that's just sort of the way things often go. Inside
the new facility, there's also or there was a
retail store. Is that going to continue to
be open to the public where people can come in and purchase things? Or is that was

(03:20):
No, that actually is being built out. Really
exciting about the retail store in the facility. There's some old batches that
you won't be able to get. like in any market currently. Uh,
so if you are a big barrel fan and you want to try some old, some
of our older batches, you'll be able to find them in the retail store. If
you're in Kentucky, it's definitely worth stopping by. They run some sales

(03:41):
there that you won't be able to find in other places. So,
um, especially in control states. So if you're in a control state and you want
to stop by to Kentucky, you should stop by the barrel store. So you'll have all of the,
all of the items that are available in other markets too, that you might not be able
Well, and you already stole my next question because I was going to say, are you guys going to put
out any old batches in the retail shop like everybody else

(04:02):
does? And you are. So that's now it becomes a thing that
everybody puts on their checklist of things to do when they're in Louisville proper
doing whiskey tours. It's you know, we need to stop by the
retail shop and see what's sitting on the shelf there because you might be able to sneak into some some
stuff. Um, you know, the last time we talked the,
you know, we, we talked a little bit about, uh, barrel rye batch four and bourbon

(04:24):
batch 35. Those subsequently have been put on,
uh, Fred Minnick's top 100 and, you know, whiskey
people can kind of go one way or the other with, with Fred and some of his opinions.
But at the end of the day, it's a pretty significant achievement. What
does that do for you as an employee for, for the brand, you

(04:45):
It's amazing. I mean, we've consistently been on Fred Minnick's best
of lists since I started working at the company three years ago. I
mean, when Seagrass won number two whiskey of the year with his pick,
we sold out of all of our distributors. So there's definitely a
following there. I think the fact that we have our batches
on the list now, just as a testament to what Barrel has

(05:06):
been doing for 10 years. I mean, batch 35 is our 35th batch.
We started the company with batch one. I think the batches keep getting
better as we like learn how to blend better. And I think like
over the last decade, we've perfected blending. Batch
35 is really well balanced. It's a blend of like six to 13 year
old bourbons from Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. It's built on

(05:29):
a six to eight-year-old blend of like high rye bourbons with some eight-year-olds that
has like butterscotch and cherry notes blended into it. So you get
that on the mid palette and then some 13-year-old Tennessee stuff to round
it out. But it's a really well balanced, like high rye, still
kind of rich and savory style bourbon. And then that
rye batch four, I am a rye girl. I'm just a big fan of rye,

(05:50):
like generally, always. The rye is really great.
It's an Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Canadian blend. So
five to 14 year old blend, obviously the older stuff
is going to be some of that Canadian, but there's a bunch of 10 year Indiana. So
that 95, five Nashville, that like kind of is the
base of that blend. And then some younger Kentucky and Tennessee and Indiana ryes

(06:11):
blended in and then finished with some 14-year-old Canadian. So
you get all that stuff, that good stuff from the American rye, like that spice,
that kind of like sweetness, a little bit of a richness to it. But then you
get that green apple and brightness from the Canadian rye. Just really
pretty, well-balanced, elegant rye whiskey. I
think the rye is going to do better than the bourbon. But like, maybe

(06:34):
that's just because I like rye better than bourbon. But the rye is fantastic. It's probably
one of my favorite releases this year that we've released. So
if you have, if you've been sleeping on the rye, you should definitely go out and
get rye batch four. We haven't released a rye since 2020. And
that's when I started with the company. And I was a big fan of rye batch three. We
were really focusing on developing seagrass. So we kind of

(06:56):
took a pause on that. So I was really excited when the rye batch four came out.
Yeah, and I'll agree with, you know, the the blend of of
of batch four. And you mentioned there's some, you
know, pretty standard ninety five five ride that's in there that, you know, everybody sort
of lays the foundation of understanding of what right is.
But the other items that the components that you put in that blend, I

(07:17):
think make it something greater than I
say greater than ninety five because ninety five five rise is still great, but. The
blend really shines here, I think, and I'll agree with you. I
did. I was one of those people that, you know, 10 years ago, if you'd asked me if I like rye,
I'm like, no, I don't like rye. But that was, you know, usually founded on
one time that you drink rye and it may not have been a great ride

(07:38):
to begin with. And so I found later on
that there's as much variation in rye as there is any other type of whiskey. And
stuff like these blends. Really
expand. The profile of rye, right?
Because there's a lot of, you know, expected it's going to be dill and
spicy, but there can also be. A

(08:00):
host of other candy flavors and Apple and all of these different things in
the batch for truly, truly does do that. So
after we talked, you guys released obviously
the 10 year celebration release bottle, which is phenomenal, but
I don't think there's any of that anymore to be purchased at this point.

(08:21):
But if. year over year, it
feels like you guys just keep hitting, uh, on blockbusters,
right? Because I think that, you know, four, four and 35 were
great. My number's right there. I think it's right. Yeah. Four and 35 are great.
Um, and then the 10 year is, is, is a phenomenal blend, but then
you hit this, this new thing, which is kind of new to the

(08:43):
brand is the foundation, right? Which is your five year, a
hundred proof. Um, it's the only one that's that
I know of this so far that is non barrel proof. Um, with,
uh, a lower age statement, but it's a, an
evergreen. And the first time I got to taste it,
I wouldn't have told you that that was a five-year whiskey. If I'd tasted it

(09:04):
blind, right. I would have felt closer to eight, nine, 10 years is
Mm-hmm. So what what
this feels almost out of left field for barrel, what
puts you in the position where you're like, hey, we want to not

(09:25):
put out. As this, you
know, like a crazy blend, we want something that's standard, that's evergreen, that's five years, it's
100 proof, like where does this diversion or divergence come
I think what I've learned at Barrel over the last three years is that
never say never, right? Like there's always like this room for innovation and
for something new to come out. Um, I think that once they bought

(09:47):
the Rick house, which allowed us to keep a lot more barrels close
to us in Kentucky and expanded our facility where
we have like four, 6,000 gallon blending tanks
and like a few 8,000 gallon blending tanks, it kind of increases our
ability to make something. that is going to remain consistent and
a larger amount of it in the blending. And we really

(10:08):
wanted to be sensitive to the consumer's price point because we've been consistently
crushing things that are 80 to 90 dollars
a bottle. But we really wanted to make something that you can cocktail with
and you can drink neat as well as cocktail with. Because I think that
though this is a five year age stated bourbon, there's five
to nine year old bourbons in this. It doesn't drink like a five-year-old

(10:30):
bourbon to me. It has this richness to it. It still
has that texture that you're expecting from barrel. But
I think that that's where we were this year. We had the new facility. It
was large enough to take on this big project. And
it is the only thing that we actually use water as an ingredient in.
So they had to build that out. We had to adjust and build

(10:52):
out. having water as an ingredient. And so we
are very skilled blenders. And this was an entirely new challenge
for us and the blending. Well, not me personally, but challenge for
the blending team. I was very excited as being
a part of the sales team to go out and sell this. I'm really excited
for my on premise accounts. It's going to be game changing in terms

(11:14):
of like old fashions. You really want to compete with those bigger names
that you see, like Jim Bean, Four
Roses, Um, something that's going to be blended to
be consistent, really easy drinking. It's
not easy because it's still a hundred proof, but when you're, when your palate is
attuned to a cash drink stuff, it feels really

(11:34):
nice, still rich. It's not every occasion, uh,
uh, calls for like a few cash strength cocktails. Do
Yeah. And it, and it definitely tastes older
than its statement without being caustic.
Right. Cause you can get kind of into the. higher age ranges and it
starts getting out of hand and you can't be at 100 proof. And you

(11:56):
said something in there that I hadn't thought of until this exact
until you actually said it out loud. It makes a ton of sense is that you're having
to deal with water as an ingredient now where you hadn't in the past because you were just
blending barrels together. And so you didn't have to understand. And maybe
you do after you've put your blend together. You want to see how your blend, you know, holds
up to a drop of water here or there. But this is a different creature where

(12:16):
you're adding water into a blend that
you've already created. And you got to deal with the exothermic reaction.
There's a whole host of things that kind of go into play there. And I could I could geek out
on that for a while. But I think the the piece that
is the most interesting to me, at least here recently, is there's been
a lot of conversation in the whiskey marketplace around pricing and
price point adjustments, because we're seeing, you know, most

(12:40):
whiskey prices are inflating a little bit. And, you know, it's it's
meeting just standard inflation that happens in the North American marketplace.
But you guys had, you
know, what you could see maybe is like four price tiers and now you've added a
fifth one, but your fifth one was added on the bottom end, whereas everybody else may be
going premium. And so you're sitting in a, you know,
a 50 ish dollar range and an 80 ish dollar range and a hundred ish

(13:03):
dollar range, 160 ish and then 300. And so you kind of run
this broad spectrum, um, Do
you make these decisions because you see there's a place for 54? Is it
exactly what you're saying? You know, I want to, you know, have something for the on
premise sales or tap into a new new
market. Or is this a trend you see happening in all of whiskey where

(13:25):
everybody's going to have to start identifying that lower tier for
You know, that's a really great question, I think. just
being in stores a lot lately and doing a lot of in-store tastings.
I mean, this is the season for that. I think people are a lot more price conscious
than they were three years ago. I'm selling a lot more.
I mean, everyone's excited about foundation, so that might

(13:48):
be skewing the sales for me, but a lot more of
that $55 price point. It's an easier buy. It's a
buy that you can make multiple times, like a month as well,
whereas like barrel might be a buy, like once a month. for like Seagrass
or Vantage or Dovetail. But this one is like a buy that you can make a
little bit more often. But I am seeing like that the price points

(14:09):
and also just the amount of bottles that people are buying has
fallen off over the last few years. Just generally the store
owners are telling us that stores are a little bit slower year
over year. So we're finding that. Yeah. Whether it's
people getting out from COVID.
Yeah. They're spending money on travel now more than they were three years ago. Uh,

(14:31):
significantly. So, but, you know, and I think, you
know, whiskey's meant to be shared. And, um, if we're talking about sharing things
and I have the opportunity to share a $55 bottle, that's at a hundred proof,
I'm not going to get, you know, nearly as, as cautious around it. Somebody
going to put this in a, um, a glass of Coke,
you know, and make a whiskey and Coke out of it, which, you know, it can do perfectly fine

(14:52):
with, but if you've got a $300 bottle, you sort of hate to see that happen. Right.
Whereas this one maybe adds a different aspect
for people. But I feel that it's a great place to also introduce
people to to more nuanced and complex
whiskey that doesn't exist at that price point. Right. And

(15:12):
so for the person who's only used to drinking a 30 or
40 dollar bottle, you show them this and it's drink significantly out
It drinks out of its price class. It also appeals to people that normally don't
drink cash-strained whiskey, where they'll taste it in a lineup. I
can't tell you how many times I've been like, please don't shoot this. Take
a tiny sip first, take a second sip, add a drop of water. Here's

(15:35):
a water dropper for you. But people are like,
this is way too hot for me because they're not used to drinking that little drink.
Baileys or Fireball or like, you know, there's a, there
are people that like that sort of thing. And I think that this
is going to bring like kind of widen our range of consumers
too. And maybe bring people into the brand and like your tongue is a muscle. So

(15:56):
once you start drinking things at a hundred proof, you might want a little bit more and then
you start noticing how much more flavor you're getting from something that's a little
bit higher proof. So it's a good way to open the door to the brand.
Yeah, and it definitely opened the door to the brand. And so you've
launched this and it's had a month and a half in

(16:17):
the marketplace. Is it hitting the expectation that you had
for it? Is it exceeding that? Is it kind of underneath it? Where were you
So we didn't launch it in every single market, but I'm launching
it right now in my territory. I cover the Northeast. So in New York and
New Jersey, and it's gone over very successfully so far. I've
been taking it to on-premise accounts and off-premise accounts

(16:40):
too. So it's been very successful. I've
done a tasting recently. in Jersey City, where it
was on a Saturday afternoon from two to five, and we sold maybe like
six bottles of it. And people are just bringing it to parties. They're
just like, Oh, perfect. I'm gonna bring this to like my friend's Christmas
party, Friendsgiving or wherever they're going. And or like, I'm

(17:01):
going to give this as a gift to somebody because it's at that price point where it's like,
they're not your best friend, but they're an acquaintance or they're
your brother-in-law or something like that. And
They're worth more than a bottle of fireball, but not quite at a, um,
Yeah. And it's new and it's new and it's exciting and it's got
that it's got, it's a hundred proof. It's not like it's

(17:24):
80 proof. It's still, it's still kind of carries weight there, but yeah,
it's been going over really well and I'm excited to see how, how
much. better it goes once it's like launched in every single market
And just as a, as a, as a talk, not as a talking point, but as a definition, um,
you know, I, I know what off-premise and on-premise is, but for somebody
who's hopping on and has never heard those terms before off-premise versus on-premise,

(17:49):
So on-premise is where you consume beverages on that premise. So
like restaurants and bars and off-premise is retail accounts.
So you're buying a bottle, you're not opening it there. You're taking it home with you. where
Yeah. So so everything is
effectively batched at this point. Are

(18:10):
we going to look for like a vintage approach here
where each year is going to be slightly different on the foundation or you're
going to do your the brand's going to do the dead level best to make sure it tastes the same
Yes, that is the answer. The latter. So
we are blending this for consistency. It's not going to be patched like
Vantage Seagrass or Dovetail. The reason why we took so

(18:33):
long to release Foundation was because we needed to Rick
House and the big blending facility to be able to produce something like
this consistently. We've bought barrels specifically for
this blend for years, so we've stocked up for a
long time for enough to be able to produce foundation at
a consistent level. And you'll always expect it to kind of remain

(19:00):
And I think that'll be really, really nice. Cause that's one of the things that, that
I've always sort of, you know, felt create
FOMO, right. Is, um, there's a really good barrel batch that comes out.
It sits on the shelf and, you know, I had to pick something else the week before and I come back
and it's gone and there's, there's not any more of it. And it's
like, oh, you know, that may have been the best one yet. I don't know yet. I haven't tried

(19:20):
it or whatever, but having a consistent model that I know that I can pick up
that is going to be phenomenal is it's super nice. You
know, I appreciate that from a consumer standpoint. And
that's so that wasn't the last release you've had so far
this year. Now we're into the new year. Right. And so it's the
the new year release, which is a handful of

(19:42):
different states. Right. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Is
it eight different states on this blend? Yep.
It's eight different states, which is pretty significant. But
even beyond that, each state has or several of the states have multiple
different years that are available

(20:06):
right from it. And so how do you how do
you go about how does this get created with this many
So I know that like Beryl always pushes the envelope just generally, but
our bourbon batches, though they are blended to be like different
every single release, they're usually your traditional places
that you're finding bourbon, right? They're like Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee.

(20:30):
Those are usually the blends. I know batch 30 had Wyoming bourbon in
it too. But New Year bourbon is our excuse
and our way to celebrate the entire year and kind
of pushing the envelope a little bit by including some states
and some distilleries and producers that you normally won't see
and then blending it into tasting something like delicious.

(20:53):
I love the New Year bourbon because we get to focus on just not those big
heavy hitters in terms of states and producers, but we get to
feature some like smaller states that you don't realize bourbon might be
coming from, like New York and Maryland and Ohio and Texas
and Wyoming. So I just really love these blends. I
think they are, I bring them every year to Christmas

(21:14):
Eve and like everyone tastes it. And my mom even likes it,
who even puts like ice in her wine. So I'm just like, these are
just very like easy drinking, joyful. They have like
a lot more fruit. They're very generous on the palate. I
think that they're fantastic ways to celebrate the
year. But this is a blend of five to 15 year old

(21:34):
bourbon. So there's stuff from everywhere. I
can rattle off all the different ages from all the different states, but
now moving forward, you'll be able to find all that information on the back label. We
also include a derived mashable on the back label of these blends too. And
this one has, if anyone is a weeded bourbon fan out there, this is
1% wheat in it. So it's 72% corn, 22% rye,

(21:57):
5% malted barley, and then 1% wheat. So it does have that like nice richness
to it. It's kind of round out. It's got that malt flavor profile.
And one of the things I think that's that's unique about this
is you have these derived mash bills. And so if I look at
this from a traditional bourbon drinkers viewpoint,

(22:18):
right, I say, well, one percent wheat
is not very much. But the reality is, is that one
percent wheat was a part of a barrel that may have had significantly more wheat
and then it aged. And what it comes out as is a weeded whiskey. And
so you're really talking about a weeded whiskey or weeded bourbon, weeded whatever. It

(22:38):
has a different impact than if it was just one percent of the actual match
built to begin with. Right. If you just you know, if I went and got out all the ingredients and
made this whiskey, it's not going to taste like this
blend does. And
I think it's it's it's apparent, at least for this
particular bottle. I didn't, I

(23:01):
couldn't get past the nose of it to drink it and not in
a bad way. Like every time I went back to smelling it, I got something
new and different. It evolved a whole lot. I mean, I did eventually drink it,
but it was like, you know, it was one of those that I didn't want to drink it because once
you drink it, then you smell it and it's different because, you know, you've had, you've got
the alcohol that's inside. There's
a lot of complexity, and it can only come from, you know,

(23:24):
being from five to 15 years old and, you know, eight
different states and this, you know, effective four grain
mash bill. I don't
I don't know what else to say other than this is one of the best New
Year's I've had yet, and I've had the since
2020 I've had every year's New Year's, and maybe

(23:46):
it's because I don't have some of those to compare directly against anymore, but it's pretty phenomenal.
Yeah, I like this year a lot. I get a lot of that cinnamon and like
that apple cider and that all of those like fall flavors
that you usually get like holiday flavors. I
really think they capture it in the new year. It's not like sweet
by any means, but you do get like some of that like snickerdoodle and

(24:08):
cinnamon. So I just really do
appreciate the blends every year. And we only make about
1800 cases of it. So it's a very limited run. Really,
So that's why. And it smells and tastes like an allocated bourbon as well. That's
that's where I'm sitting. And I've I've been a

(24:31):
little bit of a barrel fan for a while, and
it just sort of seems to increase year over year as you
put out new things, whether it's Armida or Seagrass or the
Foundation or the Amber Honor or the Tale of Two Casks, which I'm
nursing the very small amount that's left in my bottle of that because It's
probably the most interesting whiskey I've had in years at this point.

(24:54):
You guys are achieving this by
blending a lot of a lot of different things. And one
of the things that I came across, you know, vine pair
marks your master blender as the master blender of the year.
Right. And that's it's got to be pretty phenomenal, pretty impactful.

(25:15):
Can you talk a little bit about your blender? Fantastic. We have
a blending team. So there's three people on the blending team. You have Tripp Stimson,
who is our chief whiskey scientist. Nick Christensen, who is our
blender and she's manages all the blending operations. And then
Joe Beatrice, who's our founder. So there's three completely different palettes
that go into this, but Nick is so detail oriented. She

(25:36):
is fantastic. She's so patient. She walks you through all the processes. She
kind of explains to me how like nuanced blending is
because you can have this, you can blend to like in
a small scale blending lab, think things are going to work. And then when you
blend it large, like it's angry for a while, it
needs some time to kind of integrate and adjust. So she'll like, so start

(25:57):
tasting. So when we say sometimes foundation it's finished in
those barrels, not foundation, um, Vantage for instance, it's finished in the barrels from
anywhere from two to 12 ones is because you don't really know
until something is not angry anymore when they're starting to
integrate with each other. And, there's a component blends that
go into larger blends. And I didn't know, like everything was

(26:18):
so layered together. So it just, there's a lot of
that goes behind it. A lot of detail, a lot of, um,
tasting and Nick is a really, Nick has
a lot of integrity, which I really respect. Uh, she always
tastes everything blind. She really strives to keep her palate,
her palate really honest. And I think that you can tell. with

(26:39):
the blends that we've been coming out with over the last few years since Nick joined the
team. But she is just phenomenal. And
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you don't you don't get to this point without a without a
fantastic team. And I know while we were at the the event
on site back in September at
this point, that was that long ago. Now, Joe had sort of joked

(27:03):
like, hey, he's on the blending team, but he's really there is like They've
already decided they kick it over to him and he's like, yeah, this is good. Like that's
that's that's the mark that he's sort of giving. Now, I imagine he's probably soft
playing his role a little bit. But
whatever comes out, you know, obviously he's been
around this for a while, right? He's been around because he's part

(27:25):
of the founding team of this. There's
there's different, you know, ages of of.
I don't know what the term I'm looking for is here. Levels
of experience, I guess maybe there's different levels of experience here between Trip, between Joe and
between Nick. And when
you make a decision by committee, sometimes you can come to a greater decision than you

(27:46):
can as an individual. I guess is what I'm really getting at is that the teamwork really
And you have like different palates, right? So everyone has a different opinion. At
least you have three people. So when you you have like the vote,
that kind of, it's either two versus one, it's all
three, it's one versus three, you know what I mean? You have that deciding factor in

(28:09):
there. So you need three to kind of balance it out. And
sometimes things that Tripp likes, Joe and Nick disagree
on, or sometimes things that Joe like, Tripp and Nick disagree on. So there's a tiebreaker in
So, um, I've got a, I've got a handful more questions,
but I did want to ask, is there, is there anything we should be looking at in

(28:31):
the new year? Not in the new year whiskey, but in the new year that, um,
that barrel might be doing, uh, that we can keep our eyes on.
Yeah, totally. I know we're working on something that we don't even know about yet,
but we're going to structure our release
schedule so that there's 2 batches that come out and then
2 cask finish bourbons that come out. So, like, we had the cask

(28:53):
finish bourbon finish in Ambarana and the cask finish bourbon finish
in a Tale of 2 Islands barrels. You should expect sometime
in the spring. a new I know it was released on
coming whiskey on instagram so if anyone follows that you'll see that label
out there but it's going to be a mizunara finish cask finish
bourbon and those are we only do about 2 000 cases

(29:15):
of each of those cask finish bourbon so once it's gone
it's kind of gone we might release it in a few years but it's going to be There's
going to be years in between our releases and it's not, there's
not any promises that that finish will come out again, but you
should expect that in the, in the spring. And that's the only
one that I, I know about. And then batch 36, obviously, but

(29:37):
I just don't know when the other ones will be
coming out, but expect them or what they will be, but expect
them to there to be a fall release, maybe a summer release. You'll
And it seems, you know, coming whiskey has a really good knack for
like spoiling the surprise for some folks, you know, and he's

(29:58):
got a really growing population of people. And I'll admit,
I did see that. I absolutely saw that come across. And I was like, I
need to mark this in because Mizunara is a
really, really unique finish and you don't see it almost
at all in bourbon. And it has a lot to do with the
wood and how you can get access to that type of wood. Are

(30:19):
you able to talk about how you guys got access to Mizunara or, or
I'm not sure if I'm able to talk about it. I just don't, they haven't told us
how they have. I know that we bought the barrels so,
and that they're very expensive. So, and they're really
hard to find. Um, but, and we use, and we
do finish some of our bourbon in Mizunara already for the Vantage. So

(30:41):
that's an ongoing release. Some bourbon is finished in the Mizunara. And
now we're going to be coming out with, I'm really excited about this release because I'm
curious to see what that is like just in
your Mizunara barrels and not toasted American and
French oak. So I think the cast finish series is going
to teach me a lot about just wood and teach any every

(31:02):
consumer about wood and how the wood finishes affect the
And that's that's straight up in the
the whiskey geeks. And we talked about this offline, but you guys are developing a
really nurturing relationship between whiskey geeks and
content creators and yourselves. And doing stuff like this just makes
it even worse. Like we're all super attached to this because, you know,

(31:24):
we we want to know all of the different wood, how it's going to impact whiskey.
We want to know about Ambarano. We want to know about Hungarian oak and We
want to know about, you know, Mizunara,
any new wood that comes up like, I wonder what whiskey tastes like out of that
thing. So we're always going to be there for it. I know Mizunara
is a difficult wood to deal with because it can be super leaky and

(31:46):
it's super expensive to get. Um, they
don't regularly harvest musinara because it's really, really
old trees before they get to that point. And so, um, that's
when, when I saw it pop into the vantage, I was like, okay, that makes sense as a component
of a blend, because maybe you can't get enough to do a full release of it.
But then, uh, you know, a year later we see it pop up on

(32:06):
incoming whiskey's page. Um, It's
an eager, I think we're going to have an eager crowd of folks that are going
to buy that. And it probably won't last very long on the shelf. So, um, anybody
who happens to listen to this or watch this probably needs to go and sign up for, um,
notifications on barrels website. So you can find out anything new that comes in.
It goes out. The

(32:29):
newsletters are regular and they are informative i will say
that i've been following them since before we ever did an interview and
it's a great way to pick up these things so. New
year has hit most markets at this point i
think all markets at this point. Vantage, not vantage, sorry,
foundation is rolling out still across the United

(32:50):
States. What does what does distribution look
like? I guess, you know, can I buy this from the website is on premise versus
on premise? We already covered a little bit. But what are my options
So I'm
not entirely sure what other states is going to be rolled out
in. But I know it's going to where we've been working on

(33:12):
rolling it out. It should be rolled out everywhere by January 1st, though.
So it should be at least by the end
of February, you should be able to find it on all of our open markets
and all of our states. I know control states, it takes a little bit of time to
approve it and stuff. So just give us a little bit of time next year. I think
by February, we should be having it in all of the open markets. So.

(33:34):
You know, and I've got I got a notification the
other day from a friend of mine that was traveling in a state that I'm not going to
say out loud because I don't want anybody to start looking. But there
may be a bottle of an infinite barrel sitting
on a shelf somewhere in a retail space that he's going back to pick up for me.
And so I'm super excited about that because it's not something that's that's

(33:54):
readily still available. And it's a project that we talked about last time.
I guess, is there anything else specific that you want to jump into? Because I
can go back to the new year. I want to talk about the new year and the number of states
and how these things kind of play out. But I want
Well, if you're talking about like releases that we're not no longer going to be blending

(34:18):
Infinite Barrel, but also Armida, sadly, which is one of my favorite
things. Actually, when I interviewed for the job, I
went over Armida as one of the items that in my interview
that I was excited about. But we
are not having any plans to blend Armida again
in the foreseeable future. So if you find it on a shelf, grab it,

(34:40):
pick it up. It is one of my favorites. It's a blend of Indiana and Tennessee bourbon
finished in Sicilian Amaro, Jamaican rum and pear brandy. But
just so everyone knows, probably not going to release that next year
at this point. Well, so I'm going to have to cut that out because I don't want
anybody to know that I'm going to go by myself. So that way I have a longer supply

(35:03):
Exactly. Yes. It becomes the the
Beanie Baby collection. But hopefully the well, this whiskey will fare
far better than Beanie Babies did over time. because they didn't end up
super well. So if I look at the list of states that
are on this bottle, and this is maybe a weird question, are
they in any specific order? Right. So how

(35:24):
do these get arranged? Is it just design or is there like some
I have no idea. That's a great question. I don't know if they're doing it.
I don't know if they're doing it in like what component blends, like
So that was the, that was the question was, is it like, you know, Kentucky makes

(35:47):
the largest part of the component and then the next one down or the next
one over, I don't know if it's a left, if it's like a left or right, or
if it's a top to bottom and then roll over to the next one. But either way it
was. Do these make the majority or
is it just like from a design component? This is the best way that we could
Probably, let me look at the label. It might just be from a design component and

(36:09):
it looks kind of even. Yeah, maybe
a design component. I'm honestly not. I know that we
fought to get transparency on the labels and we all decide, we all agree
that like we should definitely have be transparent, but we also are transparent to
a certain level. We don't want people replicating the
proprietary blends. So I don't think that they would list them

(36:29):
in terms of like how much is there because that's giving a little bit too much
information away. Um, Yeah. So I don't, I don't
think that there is probably a rhyme or reason, but I will find that question out for
our next one. If there's a rhyme or reason to like the order of
how their label, how they're listed on the back label. Yeah.
On the back label though. That's like incredible to me that we have all

(36:50):
those HTMNs. It makes my job easier. I used to have to like sit there
with note cards and memorize like all the stuff that was in the, the blend. So
Yeah, and the risk is this, and
I don't say that risk is the right term there, but as soon as you put
certain states on the label, people start having

(37:11):
some preconceived notions. And this is the thing that I think that you guys have done. There's
a couple of other people out there that do blending that have done this really well. your
blends incorporate the whiskeys without bringing along. The
justification for some people's preconceived notions about certain whiskey, you
know, there's there's a distinct group of people that feel that Tennessee whiskey tastes

(37:31):
a certain way, but that way does not show
up in your blend in in in their mindset. And so I
think that's the risk and the reward at this point is being able to showcase these
these whiskeys and say, no, it's really not what you think it is. Does
Yeah, totally. I think everyone comes into every, I mean, stereotypes exist
for a reason. Things could, people have preconceived notions of

(37:54):
things, but I think what Beryl does is kind of, I mean,
people are like, Oh, I hate this type of flavor. And a chef can
make a dish with that ingredient in it. And it doesn't emphasize that
particular type of flavor. I mean, if you're talking about Tennessee, I
grew up on Flintstone vitamins. I can definitely taste when things
are like a little bit mineral. I was scarred by those growing up. And

(38:15):
so I don't like that flavor profile, but I don't think that you can taste it
in the majority of our, of our batches. And people will
insist that just because it says Tennessee, it's from Dickle, but I
don't, we work with 50 different, more than 50 different
distilleries from around the country. Like it's not, that's not the only one
we worked with from Tennessee. So I think making assumptions doesn't

(38:36):
do anyone any favors. And I don't think that it's necessarily about
the components that we're putting into these blends. We're putting in
so many different components, sometimes as much as a barrel, sometimes
as much as a 750 bottle in a
4,000 to 6,000 gallon blend to kind of change the flavor profile. So
if you're going to tell me that a 750 bottle of dickle in

(38:58):
a 6,000 gallon blend you're going to taste, Like I'll give you an award, you
know, there, these blends are not about what's going into them.
They're about what they taste like afterwards, but it's interesting and
nerdy to know what is going into them because it's fun.
Like that's a fun part of the blend. We're blending for flavor profile.
We're not blending to be like, this is what this does to this blend. Like we're

(39:19):
blending to get a flavor profile. And I think
that's what Joe's role is, right? Joe will task
someone with the task of like blending for a certain flavor profile or
saying that he wants something like that. And he we'll make sure it comes
out that way. Because for instance, with seagrass, he
gave Nick the

(39:41):
task of, he wanted a rye, he wanted it to have three finishes,
and he wanted it to taste like how seagrass tastes, like fruity, floral,
bright, refreshing, something that you would drink in the summertime. And it
took like two years or like almost two years to
blend that and figure out the blend. And it became my favorite
whiskey that we've ever put out besides probably right

(40:03):
right edge for because I just like blends of right, right?
Yeah, I mean, right blends and. You
made a really good point in there when you said, you know, if if if people
feel like they can taste, you know, one bottle in a six thousand gallon blend,
they should get an award. Honestly, they should probably get a job at that point. I

(40:23):
think they're probably even beating like computer analysis at
that point, being able to say, oh, no, I know exactly where this came from. Some
of this when i look at the states on these lists i
now have to start like googling where could it
be from like maryland like what. what

(40:44):
distilleries are in Maryland that you could possibly be getting whiskey from.
And it may be shedding some light on other distilleries,
whether it's intentional or not, that are making quality
whiskey that people should be paying attention to. Because,
you know, Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee, you know, we can all
kind of stack hands on knowing who those might be. But

(41:05):
you get into Maryland, you get into Wyoming, to
New York to a certain degree, although I think New York's getting a whole lot more recognition
in the whiskey game in the last six months here than maybe prior to
that. And then Texas has its own reputation in and of itself. But
now I'm trying to figure out, like, where in Maryland is whiskey coming from? I enjoy

(41:26):
Yeah, and it's fun. And sometimes we're getting stuff
from distilleries that maybe don't release a bourbon and
they sell their bourbon barrels. It's, it's
fair. You can, or we buy them from brokers, like instead of distilleries.
So you never know exactly, but I think that what I really like
about barrel though, since the beginning, when I first started working

(41:47):
for them is that they're transparent about where things are coming from. They say
where it's distilled. Yes, we're from Kentucky. We're
based in Louisville and we're bottle and blend everything there. So
the art does happen there, but the distillation happens other places. And
it's nice to know that there's like at least a little bit of provenance to
where the barrels are coming from listed on the back label. So.

(42:09):
You know, in provenance, there's a whole host of these French
wine terms that are coming into play into whiskey. And I really like it because
there's not an English equivalent for the idea of provenance. And
the same thing with cuvee or I talked
to a guy in Ireland yesterday about some of this. But.

(42:30):
It's nice to the transparency is appreciated from the
consumer's viewpoint as well, I think. And I think that's you see some
some rewarding from that. And I had the opportunity last week.
I hosted a blind tasting for a group of people with
a really, really mixed level of experience with whiskey.
And what we really did was just on the legality of whiskey. And

(42:51):
we spent a good portion of time talking about the difference between produced
by Bottle by and distilled by because
you have a lot of brands that will say produce by or bottle by. but
they never really indicate where it's distilled. And a lot of times it's because they're sourcing their
whiskey from somewhere else. And whether it be because they've got a

(43:11):
NDA or some other reason they can't say who they bought it
from, they're still not being transparent that they specifically didn't do
it. And a lot of times you can put three or four distinctly
different bottles on the countertop and say, let's taste these. And they're
all the exact same distillery that made it. But
there's no indication. And so do

(43:32):
you think there's any appetite or interest for pushing for more transparency from
a legal standpoint within the state of Kentucky or
the federal government at this point? Or did you say we're going to do what we're going to do and maybe
That's a loaded question, to be honest, I think that I think that people should
be I think there should be transparency on the labels, I think that

(43:55):
I think the pendulum swings both ways,
right? I mean, when Dubtail came out, they wanted us to categorize
it as something to be on the same shelf as like Fireball would be
with the TTP, because it was finished in different casks. Now,
there's so many brands that are coming out that are finishing finishing

(44:15):
things and different things that you're just like, there's
a cask for that. So I definitely think that
there needs to be guardrails and regulations. And
I think that there should be a push for transparency. But I don't
want that push to be so limiting that it hinders innovation. Because
you see this in like, bringing it back to wine, but you see this with

(44:36):
like wine where it's like, could be like in Italy, for instance, like
DOCG, DOC, you have to follow certain rules. In
France, AOC, you have to follow certain rules, but it limits
innovation and creativity in a certain way, because like,
you know, that at least that's wine is going to be classic, varietally correct
and have quality. But there should be maybe

(44:58):
we should like adopt that into whiskey or like if you want to be
considered a certain type of whiskey, like you have to follow certain rules. And
if you want to exist outside those rules, You can and it could be
still considered a whiskey, but like not on the same level. Like
maybe that could work because like there there
Yeah. I've seen like strawberry toast finished whiskey,

(45:21):
and that's not that there's that's not a real thing. And I understand
that they're finding a barrel that had some strawberry brandy
that nobody's ever going to drink. Um, and they agent that and
they've got a toasted barrel. So now they've got strawberry toast is the name of it, but it
can be really, really misleading. Whereas, um, you guys are
giving a brand and then, you know, brand name, right? So

(45:41):
dovetail is a really, really good example. It's the brand name is dovetail. And then you
say, this is what we're finished in, right? These are the types of casks
that exist. instead of trying to blueberry
brandy or some other thing that's not real. Uh,
It's like the craft beer world. Like it just like got a little bit out of hand. Okay.

(46:02):
Like I really loved the craft beer role for a while. And then like all
the lactose and like, like, I don't know, just
It's the point when which innovation is
unchecked and it creates, what is the phrase
from Jurassic Park? They never stopped asking. They asked

(46:23):
if they could, not if they should, basically, right? Like you
can do it, but it doesn't mean you should do it. And I know I slaughtered that
and somebody who actually likes Jurassic Park is going to go look that up and be like, no, this
is what he said. But the intent is that they can explore that
but then i have to caution myself because even in the scotch realm
they finish in sherry on a regular basis but. There's

(46:44):
not a large enough sharing market to generate the number of butts
that they need to actually agent so there's a lot of people that make it sharing pointed out
because. I just need the butts to age scotch in and so. At
least it's a, like, it's actually a spirit that some people do consume and
just, you know, they outstrip the demand or the need. So

(47:05):
I appreciate the approach to transparency in any
way that you can get there. And there's a couple of people, a couple
of brands in the industry that are doing that. I
would hope and expect to see the rest of the brands follow suit,
whether they're legally required to or not, because consumers are especially if
consumers start tightening their purse strings and being more discerning in

(47:26):
their purchases, they're likely also going to want to understand even better if
I'm going to part with my hard earned money, I need
Yep. I actually now knowing what I know over the
last few years, I look at bottles like I often on the
shelf and I'm like, does it say where it's distilled in? And a
lot of the times I would say at least 60 to 70% of time does not. Like

(47:49):
at least for the independent, not the bigger brands, obviously, but the
It doesn't say it's produced even even with the
even with the bigger brands. I mean, if you think of some of these these
these brands that have multisite distilling, right, that are a
large brand, if they get down to the city or county. it

(48:09):
may be different from bottle to bottle because they've got, you
know, they've got a still in one County and it's still in another County and
they're both generating for the exact same thing. But if you
get that geographic, then you start getting confusion in your own brand. And so
it is, it's not just the small folks that are obscuring it
and maybe through, you know, realistic intent or

(48:30):
through some, you know, malfeasance intent that they're, they're
trying to obscure what they're doing, but you, you guys aren't. So we're not gonna
talk about them anymore. We'll talk about what you guys are doing. Um, So
can you look back at this year and say, this is
a really successful year for Barrel? Does it meet your expectation?
I know you're in the sales industry, and so you probably have

(48:53):
KPIs or OKRs or sales metrics that you have to hit
every single year, and those don't always tell the entire story
of what success is. looking
at what you, your brand has achieved. Do you
like, is this like a plus, is this a B, you know, maybe that's loaded
because you're getting towards the end of the year where it's time for year end reviews and you don't want somebody watching

(49:18):
Oh, well, I mean, I think everyone has their own perspective, but I think like
we're going in the right direction, right? Because I think this was
a great year because we just opened that new facility. We, have
a Rick house that changes the game. We came out with a bourbon that
is $55 on the shelf that is going to be blended for consistency. That
is, um, I think it's incredible for the price point. I think it

(49:40):
over delivers. So just those things alone, I
think we're doing great. I think also us kind
of. Course correcting in a way that's like, we're going
to come out with two batches a year, no more than that. And they're going to be limited. We're
going to make them 2000 cases max. We're
going to come out with two cask finished bourbons a year. We're going to start kind

(50:00):
of consolidating our core portfolio and
our release schedule. So people would know what to expect and when to
expect it instead of just like throwing everything out into the market, just
because the market wants it. And I think that's going to, I
think next year is going to be an even better year too. So
I think we're starting to like kind of fill in to the, to

(50:21):
what we are now, 10 years later, I think we've learned our lessons. And I think this
year, I think this was a successful year. I just,
we're just growing at a pace that is honestly
beautiful to see over the course of the last three years that I worked here.
Yeah. And it, and it feels like the, There's

(50:41):
a core identity that Beryl has been chasing for a long time and that's
been understood of who you are, but it also looks like there's
been a great amount of experimentation to sort of fill out the edges
of what that identity is. And to me, 2023 reads
as the year where you've sort of fully realized this is the brand
identity we are now. We're going to shore up the things that we

(51:03):
do really, really well. and you've solidified a
couple of locations, like you said, with your blending facility and your rickhouse, you've
adjusted prices, you've entered into new pricing markets, you've
done a host of things that show a high degree of maturity from a brand that
is only 10 years old. I think

(51:24):
the scariest thing for me as a consumer is the risk
of being purchased by somebody much, much larger, right? Because this is also
a growing trend that happens is that A brand sits
around for about 10 years and they build themselves into a really successful engine and
then the Diageo's and Caparis of the world come show
up with, you know. a bucket of

(51:44):
money and say, hey, we would like to buy you. And I mean, it's business. Business
is business. But, you know, then there are concerns from
the consumer standpoint that come along. But I
would agree. Wildly successful year. I do
want to go back to one question. So you've got the the
retail facility at the blending facility. If I show up over there, Is

(52:06):
there an opportunity to do tours at this point or is that that was just a
like open house? We did a tour and now we're going to shut it back down. We're going to do retail sales.
I honestly don't know like what the plan is right now. No,
because they're still building on some parts of the facility so that they, they
just don't have the team to be able to like host
people there currently. And like, just. It's

(52:28):
been, we launched it, we opened it in September. It's
the end of the year. I don't know if, when that is going to be,
if you show up for a tour, but I just know you can show up to buy bottles for sure.
I don't know about the tours though. Gotcha. I don't know
when that's going to change either. Hopefully sometime next year, but

(52:48):
Yeah, exactly. The newsletter. Go on barrelurban.com, sign
up for our newsletter. It's actually a very, very
It's very, it's not like I'm not one that's much for newsletters,
but it is because sometimes it's, you know, a
whole lot of fluff and not a lot of information, but it feels very intentionally

(53:08):
put together, which most everything you guys do, it's very intentionally
put together with useful information, appropriate kind of marketing stuff. And
then, um, understanding what's happening with and
around the brand and, Um, there's been a couple of times where, you know, something
will come out and I'll read it in the newsletter and then I'll reach out to Aaron.
I'm like, Hey, what about this? And he's like, Oh yeah. Hey, here's this thing. Right. And

(53:33):
I appreciate time to real time because sometimes it
is if you get ahead of it still hasn't hit like our distributor.
Sometimes the item is like still inbounding and
then all the accounts are like, I want this now. And they're like, two
more weeks. And we're like, can you not release the newsletter
So just just tell the retailer that they need to press upon their

(53:55):
their local representatives to eliminate the three tier system and then
It would be quicker. I don't know. Easier, maybe not, because it
Yeah. So I really, really appreciate the time that
you've given me this afternoon. If there's anything else that you want to

(54:18):
talk about, you tell me right now and we'll go that direction. But if not, yeah,
Awesome. I know that we mentioned that Fred Minnick picked batch 35 and
dry batch four, but I just want to highlight some new press that came out last week. So
batch 35 was number 11 in Whiskey Advocates

(54:38):
top 20 exciting whiskeys of 2023. So don't
sleep on batch 35. And then also New Year bourbon was
written up by Wall Street Journal. this weekend and we sold about
300 bottles just over the weekend on the website. So New Year bourbon is
So, you know, you're exactly right. And this is what I get. I had

(55:00):
work travel all last week, so I have not been able to keep up with any
of my information. So I'm trying to run off of stuff. And I
didn't even like I the the batch
35 news that made sense to me. Like I'd heard that one and just forgot it.

(55:22):
Right. Well, I mean, it usually gets shared amongst the whiskey nerds.
You know, somebody will get access to it and they'll screenshot a page and
send it around. And I hadn't come across that yet, but that is that that
is some phenomenal recognition. And, you know, I'd
say they got it right. Sometimes those the larger publications that aren't
spirits based can can make some real wild guesses

(55:43):
as to what's good. They're right on this one. So who
at the distillery or in the birds are who in the brand has
the obsession with. Outer
Yeah. Okay. Because whenever we were in there, I was walking through and
I was looking at some of the names that are on the bottles in the blending facility. Right.

(56:06):
And so they're all like constellations or stars or
planets or whatever. And there's like Pollux and there, and I was like, okay,
so I'm, I'm, I'm putting this in my brain. I'm coming back and asking this question. Like
somebody is a space nerd and I appreciate it
Well, Stellum for Stellum, all of our single barrels are
organized like based on mash bill and flavor profile. But

(56:28):
they're organized into lots of barrels that correlate with
like clusters of stars. So like clusters of barrels, clusters
of stars or constellations. So that's why there's like Pollux, Leo,
Cygnus. There was like serpents for Rai. So they're all Joe
loved space and nerded out with the constellations and likes
astrology and astronomy. So. I kind of bring

(56:55):
Yeah. And I knew it was around the stone, but I was not trying to ask. I
didn't want to ask specifically about stone because stones, a whole other. Whole
other series of conversation, but I noticed that they were all on
the Stellan Stellan bottles, but I was like, this
is I enjoy this, and I was talking to David
from my wedding ring. He knows the same thing because he's the same degree of nerdy as

(57:15):
well. He's like. What's this about? I don't
Yeah, I love that too about Joe with the stars and the constellations.
I mean, it makes sense. It absolutely makes
You're just like, right, these are, these are going over here and those are labeled Pollux

(57:36):
and these are going over here and those are labeled Leo and
they're entirely different flavor profiles. So when we're pulling for blends, we'll like
pull from these and pull from these. Um, they're
all different. So sell them single barrels, all
available. You can get your own named Perseus Pollux, Leo,
whatever you'd like. Um, those are

(57:57):
MGP though. So some single barrels, MGP, um,
You know, when we did the very first one, I, I
developed every question I could around barrel or Stellum or anything that
was involved. Um, So and feel
free to not answer this, but it seems like in the last few months, I've heard less

(58:19):
out of Stellum than maybe the this
time last year. And sometimes
that happens with a brand whenever they're, you know, considering a relaunch or
a new initiative or something. You know, was this in
deference to the foundation release or just

(58:40):
So I think with Selum, I think we're still like finding our footing with
Selum, but we're moving Selum into more of a custom blend and
single barrel brand. So instead of blending Selum
bourbon and Selum rye, we're going to be blending custom
blends for like, we did one for Whole Foods this year, anyone

(59:01):
that wants to order like more than a hundred cases of
12. So if you are a group or restaurant group
or you have national accounts and you want to blend something like that on
that scale, we definitely would do a private blend for you.
And then we also have single barrels always available. So that's where you're
seeing like the Pollux and the Perseus. So we're kind of pivoting, sell them into custom

(59:23):
blend and single barrel. It's like our custom brand. So you can
buy five-year-old, five to actually like
six and change year old MGP at this point. Um,
that's 75, $21.04 and then $95.05 for the
Rye Nashville. But those might change. We
might get different barrels in there, but if you want a single barrel and you

(59:45):
want it to retail for $55 on the shelf, I'd go with
Stellum. And they're all cash strength, so they're not 100 proof like
foundation, but they're truly single barrels and we're
not going to be blending until it's like a bigger custom blend. So
we're pivoting away from that. And then we were able to use a lot of those barrels
to develop foundation. And we thought that foundation was a little bit more important

(01:00:09):
And so just still came about, you know, you guys
have the barrel brand and still just sort of kind
of pops up. Is this a result of having a quantity of
barrels that might not fit into whatever your current blending effort is and you wanted
a way to kind of get rid of them? Or is it like an intentional going to

(01:00:30):
The, I think the latter, to be honest, um, we,
I think we thought we wanted to do something different with
Stellum than actually happened.
Uh, but we realized that we
would be prefer to use those barrels into like barrel blends, like
even bourbon and Selim Rye, those core blends, they were

(01:00:51):
just as good as a barrel batch, maybe like having mostly
younger whiskeys in them. I know the Selim bourbon had four to
16 year old bourbons in it. We definitely want to use some of the older stock
to blend into barrel instead of just aiming to kind of
OK, yeah. And so it's Having

(01:01:12):
a secondary line can be a distraction for
some people. And I think about some brands that
are in Tennessee or almost in Ohio that
are in the state that have ran the dual brand approach and
one can ultimately become a distraction for the other. What
it looks like, you know, and based off of how you're describing the refocus of

(01:01:36):
the intent is it looks like that
you're protecting yourself from having that sort of a distraction from a
brand level is that no barrel is. The brand and
Stellum is this thing that is a business function does something
else but it's you know what the custom blending that's I think I like
that that's that's a thing I haven't seen too many people other doing

(01:01:58):
that and then single barrels as well and that's the thing that I still see
a pretty good quantity of floating around as a single barrels but.
um there was the you know the equinox and the fibonacci and the
hunter's moon and all of these things that sort of came out of what
it felt like nowhere right and and i'll tell you my my
initial concern was that stellum was going to be the new thing and that barrel was going

(01:02:18):
to go away and um that didn't happen right so we're all happy
all the nerds rejoiced um but
it's sort of an interesting experiment i think yeah
who those custom blends though, to be honest, the Lone
Cypress and the Fibonacci as a rye fan, those
are my favorite. Some of my favorite things we've ever blended. I

(01:02:42):
love the Lone Cypress. Like if you can find a bottle of that, like
whatever's out there is out there at this point, we're not blending it again. But
if you could find a bottle, I would pick one up. They are fantastic blends.
I just think that When you have a $90 bottle
of Selim versus a $90 bottle of barrel, it's like competing against the
same price point. Um, we tried something and we

(01:03:04):
blended really great whiskey and sometimes. You
pivot and I'm not there behind the doors, making
the decisions and kind of understanding why the decisions are
being made. Um, I'm out here selling the whiskey. So I get to taste
people on it and taste, uh, consumers on the whiskey and anyone that
I tasted on Lone Cypress bought Lone Cypress in. It's

(01:03:26):
very, very good. And those Hunter's Moon too, Hunter's Moon and
Equinox, those bourbons are fantastic. They're just blends of
straight bourbon that are done in a smaller
scale than a barrel bourbon batch. So I would say it's like a quarter of
the size of a barrel bourbon batch. So limited releases on those. Um,
and if you like something like a bourbon to, uh, drink

(01:03:47):
with whiskey, uh, drink with cigars, I would say Stellan Black bourbon.
I used to recommend that as a cigar, pairing because it's
got that like really nice, like kind of savory, darker chocolate.
It came in at around 109. It was like built on the cell and bourbon blend,
but layered in with older bourbons. So if you still see those in market,
please pick those bottles up. They're a steal for

(01:04:12):
So what kind of cigar should I be pairing with this? Like, so it sounds like you, you
know, a little bit about cigars. Am I looking for like a dark cigar or
I don't really know much about cigars, but I worked, uh, I did a few cigar
events this year where I actually smoked a cigar. So
I'm not really, I smoked, uh, I learned about

(01:04:34):
like Connecticut leaf. Etiquette rap
I learned about. I think one of them was new Dorado.
Something about a new Dorado. I have no idea. This is not my forte.
Maybe one day I'll learn about cigars. I feel like that's the next thing, right?
Yeah, that seems to be the transition is it's whiskey and

(01:04:55):
cigar. Repairing.
Whiskey and pizza and you know. They're
not wrong because I've yet to be at a whiskey event where pizza didn't eventually show up.
Yeah, I

(01:05:17):
just did a seminar in Jersey where we tasted through
at least six with six whiskeys, and then I had some stuff in the bag for
anyone want to taste other stuff. And then all of a sudden, six
So if you're putting together a tasting with a pairing, what
do you usually do? Like for a restaurant or

(01:05:38):
just in general, it just Lindsay's hosting people
at her house. She's doing a whiskey tasting. What's your pairing to
It, it probably varies by whiskey, but I think like some, especially
with the cash strength whiskey, something a little, I want
to include something a little bit heartier. So like, I think pork belly pairs

(01:06:00):
really well with like some, uh, richer style whiskeys,
I think even just like with seagrass,
too, which is got those fruit and floral notes like
you can pair that with like a lighter course, like a salad with some
of something fatty in it, though, or like cheese or
burrata like seagrass and kind of cut through the fat of that short

(01:06:22):
ribs we've done with steaks. We've done lamb.
So even like a fish dish that has like a nice,
like richer style broth like tomato and like
something that's like heavier in style. I feel like you
could pair with some of the whiskeys. I wouldn't do like something really
light because I think the whiskey would just like completely overpower

(01:06:44):
it. But sometimes like as long as you have a piece of protein, but it's
really the accompaniments that kind of pair with the whiskey and the
Yeah, we absolutely should have started with this because I'm like making notes over here of of
what I need to be eating with my whiskey now because, um. It's
more rare for me to just drink whiskey than it is to drink whiskey Well,

(01:07:04):
you know a meal or appetizers or a cocktail party or whatever and
you get your standard you go to any of these things you get your standard there's gonna
be a charcuterie plate and there's gonna be pretzels or crackers or corn chips
or whatever, but Trying to find something that's a
little bit different Is is nice and so I've
got a long list of things to try to pair with whiskey so that way I can

(01:07:28):
My coworker, John Bundy, did a tasting at one
of his accounts. He bought a bunch of different chocolate bars and broke off pieces
and paired it with different whiskeys and did it as an in-store tasting. So
it works really well with different types of chocolate. Cause
you get like some with some of our bourbons you get and whiskies, you
get some of our, like that bittersweet cooking chocolate, but then other ones

(01:07:48):
you get like milk chocolate, different, different. Chocolate,
different styles of chocolate. So that could be,
A lot of times on dark whiskey, say a dark chocolate, and that may be just me
wanting the bitter flavor. Cause I like super dark chocolate.
Um, but yeah, I really like the 10 year anniversary blend.
I get a lot of that, like really rich, dark chocolate from

(01:08:12):
Mm hmm. All right, now I'm hungry.
All right. I do need to cut there. I've got to hop
to another meeting here in about 15 minutes, and I've got to switch back into my day job
brain. So if
you've got anything else you want to share, if you've got some links or whatever, go ahead

(01:08:36):
Perfect. If you want to follow us, like
John said, You can sign up for our newsletter barrel bourbon dot com.
Don't forget the second Ellen barrel up and sign up online. And
then you can also follow us on Instagram at barrel bourbon. And
I think we're on a tick tock and we're on Twitter or X now.
And we're on Facebook, too. And we post all of our events on

(01:08:57):
our Facebook and our Instagram. So at the beginning of every week, there's
a ton of events all over the country right now going on because we're all
out there in stores, at restaurants, doing tastings. And
there's a large team of us. So please stop by,
say hi at the events. We'd love to know that
Yeah, absolutely. So thank you for your time. Um, look forward

(01:09:19):
to talking to you again. Uh, I imagine we'll probably have another conversation,
uh, here in the next few months as this, uh, Mizunari hits the
marketplace and, um, any other fun and unique things
that barrel happens to do. Uh, I've said it a bunch of times and I
can absolutely be accused of, uh, being a shill for bourbon for
barrel bourbon and barrel craft spirit specifically, because I

(01:09:39):
really, really do enjoy everything that you guys do. I appreciate
Of course. Thank you so much for everything that you do with for our brand. And I
Thanks for tuning in to this offering from the Embellish podcast. If
you enjoyed this, please leave me a review on whatever platform that you have

(01:10:00):
to be consuming this on. Leave a comment. If possible, hit me up
on social media on Tik TOK or Instagram using embellish pod. Give
me a follow. So you can keep up with what's going on here. I can be found at
www.embellishpod.com with all of my links, accounts, contact