218. Wigle Whiskey

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

Hello, everybody. I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is The Bourbon Road. And today, Mike, you and I are going to sit down for a few minutes and talk about a little road trip you just had.

Yeah, I just got back from, I don't know, West Virginia and Pittsburgh area. But I went up and I visited Wiggle Whiskey. in downtown Pittsburgh. Kind of a little stomping ground for my regular work right there on the Allegheny River. The confluence is right there of the Ohio with the Bangahela running into it. So it was a pretty neat visit for me and talk about some whiskey history, Jim. They got it up there.

Yeah. Yeah, I imagine so because I mean, that was a big steel town.

Well, it was a big steel town. A steel is really a big steel town. It's in the Rust Belt, right? That's why they call this the Rust Belt. That's kind of the start of it. But when I talk about whiskey history, I'm talking about before that, I'm talking about George Washington, the whiskey rebellion. You know, Phil Weigel, which today they say Wiggle, he started a little thing called the Whiskey Rebellion up there. George Washington, he was commissioned to go up there and stop it, which is pretty cool to think about that whiskey history up there and on the lineage that they have in American whiskey, really. But did it start in the Pittsburgh area? Maybe. And would there be bourbon without the Ohio River with people coming down? Because that's how they got down to Kentucky, right? It was down the Ohio River. They didn't cover one of the mountains the first time they came down that river. So to me, it was kind of special going up there and visiting them. I brought you a couple bottles back. You're sipping on a little bit.

I'm sipping on a little bit of their Pennsylvania straight bourbon whiskey. And you also brought me a bottle of their They're pork cask finished rye.

So I'm kind of looking forward to trying that one. Haven't tried it yet. You were saying that the bourbon tasted like pears a little bit or snows like pears and that's pretty great observation, but what a great trip. I, you know, I missed getting to go to the distillery with you because that excitement of going to a young distillery like this. Now they've been operating for quite a while now, a little over 10 years almost. Anna they got eighty five different expressions jam they got some stuff going on up there wow that's a lot that's a lot to keep track of my goodness yeah most of it is experimental stuff that they have going on minutes stuff that's only released after the celery or in that local region there but they had stuff like rhubarb whiskey i've never seen rhubarb whiskey before have you.

No, but that, I love rhubarb pie. So that would definitely like to try it.

Yeah. That's kind of what Vivian said too. When she was looking at it, she was like, I love rhubarb pie. Maybe I love rhubarb whiskey, but they had something for everybody up there. And I think that's what they're doing is trying to get people to step outside the box, introduce more people to whiskey. Maybe those people that are right on the fringe, like me and you always talk about. That was pretty neat. Great little distillery in downtown. I mean, it's a stone's throw from the river. So, and it's in an old brewery district, old distillery district in their bathrooms and on the walls. There's these old blueprints of the city, and I don't think they're called blueprints. I don't know what exactly what they would be called. City maps, right? City maps, but it was the drawing of it. And it's where the bonded warehouses were in the city. And today it's more of flower companies and noodle companies and stuff like that in that area in those old warehouses. Wiggle actually sits in the old brewery of the Phoenix Brewing Company. right there. And I didn't know there was a Phoenix Brewing Company. I do know about Iron City Beer from Pittsburgh. I'm sure you've heard of that in your life. I have heard of that. Yeah. But just a cool, cool experience. It was a six and a half hour drive up there. We got up there about two o'clock. They were nice enough to take us around. Michael, the director of operations was up there. He gave us a tour of their facility, sat down with us. We talked for a good hour about the distillery, what they got going on. I was kind of excited to see it. The only harsh thing I could say about them was their bottle. They use that stag junior bottle and their new bottle they have. They're having a hard time with glass like everybody else, you know. That is just a part of life that distilleries are living with right now. And I'd like to remind listeners, hey, be patient with your distilleries. It's not that they're changing bottles or labels. And we've talked about this on a previous episode. They're just going through pains like everybody else was shipping, right?

And they're doing what they can to get their, their, their liquid in a bottle and get it to you. But, uh, times are tough for everybody right now. I mean, even beer beer companies are having trouble getting bottles. So they're shipping cans mostly, right? It's just a tough time for glass.

Well, heck, I didn't even know about that about beer bottles. That's an interesting factor out there. I didn't think about it. There is a lot of canned beer on the shelves right now.

There is there absolutely is. Well, I kind of envy you might go into Pittsburgh. I kind of want to get back up there again someday. It's been. It's been a minute since I was in Pittsburgh. My family actually, uh, immigrated through Pittsburgh back in the 18 seventies. And, uh, my great great grandfather worked in a steel mill there. So a little bit of Shannon history in Pittsburgh. I'm sure he was drinking just a little bit of whiskey too, being an Irishman.

Well, did he eat at permanent brothers?

I don't have a lot of history on him. He, he died right around 1902. So, uh, don't really know a whole lot about him, but, uh, he was the, the one that crossed the cross the sea and came here first. So, wow.

Well, that's some great knowledge right there. Me and Vivian went to Pramani brothers. If you haven't been to Pittsburgh, go to wiggle whiskey, pick up yourself some other. bourbon or some of their whiskeys, then walk right down the street. I mean, it's like three blocks away is Pramani Brothers. That is the famous sandwich shop where they put coleslaw, french fries, and then some sandwich meat on two slices of bread. I had to go there and get one. I had never had any sandwich from there, so I wanted to try it. That was kind of the highlight of our weekend. Then we drove down to Morgantown, West Virginia. I was watching my Texas Longhorns play West Virginia Mountaineers. They lost. I got to give it to the fans there, Mountaineer fans. Jim were spectacular, very kind, very generous. Not what I expected. I got to say my hats off to them, the way they treated Longhorns fans there. There were plenty of Longhorns fans there and they did nothing but respect when we were walking out of the stadium. People were fist bumping us and say, hey, thanks for coming. Have a safe trip home. People offered us beer, they offered us whiskey there, and I actually walked around and gave out some whiskey and some cards, so we probably got some new listeners from that time there, you know me. Um, never met a stranger. That's right. Same goes for my trip to Mountaineer stadium there. Um, what a great time. We still had a great time, even though they lost, uh, I always look at the best in life. And what I took away from that was the people, West Virginia truly love their football. They love their team. I have a pro sports team there. So that's the team they embrace. Um, my hats off to you Mountaineer fans. Um, I wish you the best of luck in the rest of your season. Um, I definitely enjoyed my time there, even though my team lost. Um, that's a true fan for you though, right? You gotta stick with them through the ups and downs. That's right.

That's right. You gotta, you gotta keep saying, hook them horns, right?

Yeah. Anytime you can, you gotta say, hook them horns. And sometimes you gotta eat a little crow. Um, I did say that. in a video on TikTok and on Instagram that my longhorns are gonna whoop that ass. And I had to eat a little crow, but I, you know, I drove back to Kentucky with my head held high. I still got to see my team. I got to spend some couple of good quality days with my wife on the road. We always enjoy our road trips together. And I got to drink some good whiskey from a craft distillery up there in Pittsburgh. Listeners, if you get a chance, like I said, get out there, get on a road, visit those craft distilleries in your town. And if you're in the airport or you got a couple of hours, put it in your phone, see how far it is. It is worth the visit.

Well, absolutely, Mike. Well, I'm kind of anxious to hear how your interview went. Uh, at wiggle and uh, I think our listeners are probably waiting for that too. So I don't think we should delay any longer. Let's, let's get to the episode. What do you say?

Let's do it.

All right.

Hey, listeners, this is Big Chief from the Bourbon Road Podcast. And once again, I'm on the road. I got on the road with my wife. Came up to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania today. Nice, beautiful drive through the mountains of West Virginia. Crossed over the Mongahala River a couple of times. Crossed back over the Alligaty, right at the confluence of the Ohio River. What they call three rivers right there, downtown Pittsburgh. Beautiful place. And lo and behold, I found myself a distillery here in Pittsburgh. It is Wiggle Whiskey. And I'm super excited. This is one of the distilleries I wanted to visit. I'm sitting down with Michael Fogle. their director of production here. He is the man, the myth of legend. I think this is what they call him here. He's the man that does everything around here. He's got his hands in everything. Is that true, Mike?

That's reasonably true, correct.

Well, it's a whole bunch of hats, right?

We're a small family-owned company, so everybody in the company wears a whole lot of hats. Team concept. Team concept, but yep, I'm the director of production, and I've been working here for about six years.

Six years. So you went from front of the house, from the pretty face, to working, getting them hands dirty.

Yeah. My path, I started out working in the tasting room, doing guided flights, pouring cocktails, selling retail bottles. And at the same time, I was working on my master's degree. I was getting a master's in food studies in Pittsburgh. And part of that experience was doing an internship for product development. And so I started working in product development for cider as well as for spirits and created a whole bunch of new liqueurs, spirits, whiskeys. I was doing product development for about three, four years and have switched into a more general leadership role in production in the past year and a half to two years.

Really? That's a pretty awesome background and kind of bringing yourself up through whiskey making, right? You're a St. Louis guy.

Grew up in St. Louis, yep. And I've lived in Texas, North Carolina, Spain, and I've been in Pittsburgh for about seven years now.

About seven years. Well, it was a lovely drive up here. I actually got on the phone with one of our sponsors, seldom seen farms, trying to figure out who's he's working with and what's going on. It's that time of the year, right? The holidays, people need to buy this guy's maple syrup. It's aged in bourbon barrels. You want to check this guy out, check his website out, buy some of his product, send it out to your family. It's seldom seen maple.com. He really does age his maple syrup out of those 2000 trees in some bourbon barrels. You can see it at a couple of distilleries out there. One of our friends is fixing to have it on the shelf at Leapers Fork Distillery in Tennessee. Make sure you check them out. Let's get into the history of Wiggle Whiskey and let's drink some of this first whiskey you set out for us. What do you got for us?

Okay, so the first whiskey is our Pennsylvania Straight Bourbon. This is our most widely distributed product to most people who might recognize the name Wiggle. This is potentially the bottle that comes to mind first. It's a really bright yellow label. And this is, again, our most widely sold distributed whiskey. This is a blended bourbon, so we're using 53 gallon barrels and 25 gallon barrels, minimum of two years old. For most of our batches these days, we will tend to be using 53 gallon barrels that have been aged for at least four years and a number of 25 gallon barrels that would have been somewhere between two and three years. So, you know, this is definitely an interesting brand and with respect to consistency and blending this flavor every single time using different sized barrels, different lots of corn. But this is really our most popular, widely distributed product.

What's the match bill on this?

My percentages might be off, but I could tell you about 1,080 pounds of corn, 414 pounds of malt, and I believe 390, 370 of wheat.

So when you say malt, you're talking about malted barley.

Organic malted barley, correct. All right.

And I did know on here, it says USDA organic. Is all your guys' whiskey organic?

Not all of it's organic. The organic... process is really restrictive. Almost all of our whiskey, I'd say 94% of our whiskey is distilled from organic grain. But if we go into a finishing barrel, we'll lose the organic status. If we add certain botanicals or sugar to it to make a liqueur, we'll lose the organic status. So all of the grain that we're bringing in aside from on occasion, smoked malted barley, which we use to make our smoked bourbon. All of that is always gonna be organic, but it might not have the organic label on the finished product because in the case of say, cinnamon whiskey, that's going to be an organic mash bill. That's about 65% organic wheat, 35% organic malted barley. going to add on organic cinnamon or potentially conventional cinnamon. And once we add the sugar, it's a conventional product. If we take this bourbon and put it into a Madeira barrel, like the bottle you'll go home with. Once it hits the Madeira barrel, conventional product. So we do support organic farms and all of our grain that's bought from the local farms, that's always organic. It may not reach the bottle with an organic designation though.

Really? That's super fascinating to me, the organic part of it. Well, let's taste this.

And I think the organic part for us, you know, it's a really organic designation can be a really tricky thing to talk about. It's expensive. A lot of farmers will tell you that it costs too much to have that designation. And certainly, you know, we know farms that have certified naturally grown or other designations. For fresh fruit, we'll use conventional. Our whole thing is we want to be working with partners who are stewards of their land and are approaching farming and agriculture from a sustainable, we want to keep this thing running perspective.

So on the nose on this, I get a bunch of honey for some reason. And maybe it is that malted barley that there's so much in here. A little bit of marshmallow, maybe toasted marshmallow.

I always get a lot of like toffee and honey. I get a little bit of a fruitiness like that. little cherry hint. Um, which is funny because, you know, cherry and, and banana are two flavors that come up a lot in beer and alcohol. Um, and unfortunately I, I personally don't care for either of them.

Um, I actually also get on this right here. Um, a little bit of maybe burnt citrus, like you would take in, uh, not burn orange peel, but, you know, sear it.

You get a little bit of that. Yeah. I think, I think like a roasted orange peel. Yeah. Roasted orange peel. Kind of flambé kind of thing.

Well, cheers. Let me taste this thing.

And so this is of the corns that we use. This is a just organic yellow dent corn. We do work with another variety of corn, but for our base whiskeys, it's an organic yellow dead corn.

Well, it's got everything there for me. Now you guys are doing sweet mash here, so it doesn't have, I would call it that Pennsylvania hug, like I would expect, but still really beautiful. All the nose is there in the taste too, in the palette. It's everything that I explained there in the nose is right there. A little bit light on the palette. leaving that kind of medium finish. But that little bit of burn is there, a little bit of spice, a little bit of pop rocks. As me and Jim always say, it's their very beautiful bourbon. I like it. It's different.

I'm pleased to hear that. It's representative of where we are in the state and what's growing here. We certainly play a big role in developing the flavors and developing the product, but All of this stuff is terroir driven and it's gonna be a reflection of what's around us, the seasons, the soil, all that stuff.

Let's talk about the history, because some of our listeners, they really do like the history. Tell me the history of Wiggle Whiskey.

So Wiggle Whiskey, we're about 10 years old. We opened up in, I believe, 2012. And this is a family-owned, family-operated business. So the first two, three years, every employee was a family member. And it was inspired when the family took a trip up to the Finger Lakes, and they saw you know, the craft alcohol revolution, that movement, and then how important that was and how neat that was. They were also really familiar with this idea that Pittsburgh has a huge critical legacy in the American whiskey story. And that since prohibition, that legacy had not necessarily been active or been showcased. So as a family that was looking for a family business had encountered all of the positive qualities of a trip to the Finger Lakes and saw an opportunity that was missing from the landscape. And so They started in 2012, got equipment, started finding farmers. And for the first couple of years, they were distilling white wheat whiskey and white rye. And they will tell you the first couple of years thought, we're never going to do bourbon. The history of this region is rye. The Whiskey Rebellion was all about rye. Monongahalo rye is the story. And over the course of the last 10 years, we've expanded from white rye and white wheat to a really big catalog of aged whiskies. And we've started making liqueurs and brandies practically any category of spirits you can imagine. We've tried at least one one-off expression of 10 years, starting out the way that I think a lot of our peers do with the unaged spirits and then slowly introducing more products and Again, at this point, looking around at the shelves, we might have 65 different products. Wow. So a lot of different things, a lot of different areas, but it's all done by a relatively small team. And it's all stuff that we think is really reflective of our region and it's stuff we hope that our customers are as excited about as we are.

Let's talk about the name Wiggle. Now, a lot of customers and whiskey fans out there would call it Wiggle because it's only got one G, but it's Wiggle. But you told me that there's a backstory to that, right?

Yeah, so really when we're talking about the historical legacy of whiskey in Pennsylvania and Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, the big event that always, always comes up is going to be the Whiskey Rebellion. And so the Whiskey Rebellion took place around Pittsburgh. And one of the rascals, shall we call them, who did not want to pay taxes on his whiskey was a man named Philip Weigel. He was an immigrant of German and Scottish heritage. I believe he would have been German. In any case, he would have pronounced it Weigel. And he was one of the conspirators who was sentenced to hang in Philadelphia by George Washington for starting the whiskey rebellion. He ended up having his sentence commuted and moved up to Canada to continue making whiskey. But. In the local legend and local history, Philip Weigel was one of the major drivers for the whiskey rebellion. And we took on his name, we feel like for at least fun, joy and marketing. Wiggle whiskey rather than Weigel whiskey is a little bit, rolls off the tongue a little bit easier. We're named after a real guy who was really angry about taxes and threw a little bit of a fit about it.

But I'm sure a lot of people don't know that George Washington was sent up here to kind of squash the whiskey rebellion and they sent a guy that was making whiskey himself. But he was paying his taxes, I guess.

The whole history is really fascinating. And particularly in the past three years, there have been some more relevant, some parts about it that feel more relevant now. But this is the first example of the government really putting federal power forward and trying to rein in the frontier. And so it was exceptionally important for George Washington to handle this situation and in the earliest days of the country, not lose the country. But yeah, the result of it is in a couple of years, the largest distillery is Mount Vernon. He did quite well. And a lot of the the whiskey that was being made in this region, it left. And that's a story that isn't really just the whiskey rebellion. It goes into a lot more agricultural history and in a longer timeframe. But you can certainly say that by prohibition, spirits are not the same contributor to the local economy that they had been for the previous 200, 300 years.

We'll get into that and what building you're in and what's right across the street in this area. But you got another whiskey in front of me here, another bourbon. So what do you got for me?

So this is a single barrel straight bourbon, and this would technically count as a bottle and bond bourbon if we chose to market it that way. This is a five-year-old expression, bottled at 100 proof from a single barrel. I believe it's five years, eight months. And really, I just wanted to highlight the difference between you know, our standard blended bourbon that we widely distribute. And we are, you know, in this situation where every once in a while we have exceptional single barrels that just on their own scream out to be packaged without adulterating any further. So for both rye and bourbon, we like to do single barrel expressions. It's not something that we can have year round or stock all the time. We're not that big. And frankly, we want to save this for the really special occasions, something where the bourbon practically demands it.

Like special occasion when the big chief comes and visits. That's right. Yeah. So is this the same mash bill as your regular bourbon? Correct.

Same mash bill, this is for all intents and purposes, closely, closely related to the blended bit that we did earlier, but this is a single 53 gallon barrel. And we typically barrel at around 125, as low as 120 proof. And so we're just taking it down to a hundred and bottling it right there.

Now are you using the river water out here?

Not quite the, uh, the Monongahela water. No, we use, um, reverse osmosis water. So we've got our nice filter set up over in the back and it filters all the weirdness out.

I'm just messing with you. Trust me. I wouldn't want to drink that water either. Beautiful nose on this. Uh, this is a hundred proof. Like you said, um, a little bit more. No alcohol on this though, really, to me. Little less honey on this, little more spice.

I think to me, I do not get the same fruit note right on the front, not quite as sharp on the front, but I still do get that roasted citrus component and that nice warmth as it's going down. Yeah.

A little more oak with this too, though. Sure. It means five years, would you say eight months? Yep. Compared to that, what'd you say that was, two years, a little more than two years?

So with that one, I would expect that the first bourbon we tried had probably two barrels that would have been four years old and maybe four to five, 25s that might be two to three years old.

OK, so you got to put that youngest date on the bottle.

Yep, exactly.

for all our listeners out there. Well, heck, cheers. Let me taste this thing. Man, what a pop rocks on that right there. As a kid, you get those pop rocks and eat them and it just it just bouncing off the tongue layer after layer. Those toasted marshmallows are on here. That roasted citrus, it's all here and stuff. A little bit more lemony with this one, though, than would it be orange. And I don't know, maybe that oak's playing with that a little bit.

I think the little higher proof, you get a little bit more of the sharpness perceived on the palate as well. And as you just sort of let it open up on your tongue, It can go a little bit further, I think, in developing just on its own.

Now, I get a little bit less hug with this one than I do the first one. Maybe because it has aged out, it's taken those rough edges out a little bit, picked up some more of those wood sugars. This one's actually a little less sweet, though, to me, on my palate. So still a beautiful expression. So driving in here and stuff, we see food companies, we see macaroni company, we see flour company, everything's Pittsburgh, by the way. But we pull in here and right across the street from you guys, this giant old building, beautiful, it's humongous, I don't know, four or five stories tall, Phoenix Brewing Company. And I'm guessing we're in an old brewing district here.

This is really a food production, food manufacturing district. So the city of Pittsburgh, if you were to pull up Google Maps or pull up a topographical map, it is a city that is very segmented by neighborhood. and by geography, whether it be rivers or hills. So you're really segmented. And if you think back to 17th, 18th, 19th centuries, when the rivers are really the highways, you need to have these spaces accessible by the rivers. And so, you know, Phoenix Brewing was right here. We are about a block and a half by the rivers. If we were to walk this way, you know, 200 paces, we're gonna hit a river. And so all around us, you had importers, manufacturers, really famously or not famously, but very obviously, if you were to come into the neighborhood right now, there's a big development in the fruit terminal building, which, you know, for hundreds of years, all fresh produce and fruits and vegetables would have passed through there to get into the city. And so this is definitely a food-centric part of the city just naturally. The barriers make it more so. And in the past 10 years, 15 years, there were opportunities with warehouses and space for brewers and distillers to move in. And so we were the first distillery to open up Uh, in Pittsburgh since prohibition, but, um, we've got a couple of neighbors, uh, a couple of blocks down at this point, we've got, uh, King fly spirits, uh, two blocks down and then, uh, Maggie's rum, which is a fantastic, fantastic, uh, rum distillery. They're a couple of blocks down as well. There's the history of the neighborhood. It is still very food-centric. Folks from Pittsburgh coming in on Saturday, Sunday morning to pick up all the family groceries for a tailgate, a Sunday dinner, anything like that. You know, this neighborhood is really known for the food scene and it's neat. It's been hundreds of years and it has certainly changed context and maybe the types of food or manufacturing that's happening, but there's been a consistent presence.

You said this building used to be part of the Phoenix Brewing Company too, right? Part of the distillery itself.

Right, so Phoenix Brewing right here owned a massive area and underneath our building, if you were to go into our basement until four months ago, six months ago, there was a creepy tunnel that went from our building underneath the road here to Phoenix Brewing's building across the street. And that tunnel would have just been used to move product and raw materials back and forth and not have to get in front of trolleys and horse carts and all that stuff. We have since filled in the tunnel and now use the basement for storage, but I would definitely say that Phoenix Brewing Ghosts might be hanging around.

You were trying to make me record down there and you said it's a creepy basement.

Well, I was really excited for the opportunity of, hey, nice to meet you. Let's go down to the basement. I thought that would have been a really fun thing.

You're going to take a giant man like me into the basement. I'm not saying you're not a very big man.

I'd feel safer with you being down there with me. I mean, I don't know.

This single barrel straight bourbon right here. Uh, I really like it and stuff. Uh, I can't wait to get to the kind of the second half of these other two bottles cause you got two bottles laid out in front of me that, uh, I'm very, you piqued my interest. Um, But I wanted to take a chance to talk about our sponsor, seldom seen farms. You can go to their website, seldom seen maple dot com. You can pick up some of their bourbon barrel aged maple syrup. It's been aged in bourbon barrels for six to nine months. That's sucking up that used bourbon right there. Instead of sending those barrels over to Scotland, we've sent them up to Ohio. He's tapping those maple trees, all 2,000 of them. He starts that kind of in January, February, and March, starts dripping that sap out. And then he cooks it down, cooks all the water out and stuff. And what he comes out with is this beautiful maple syrup. Then he ages it in that bourbon barrel. Now you can use that maple syrup for all kinds of different things from not only putting on your pancakes, your waffles, your biscuit. If you're that kind of a guy like me, have a little bit of sausage, a little bit of maple syrup, make a fat guy happy. But you can also make a beautiful old fashioned with it. You can make a great bourbon glaze with it. All kinds of uses for this maple syrup. So go out there and visit them. seldom seen maple dot com pick up a bottle today gifted to somebody for christmas it'd make the perfect gift for that bourbon drinker out there so mike you got another whiskey set in front of me what's this third one you got for us

So I thought for the next two, I wanted to take us into sort of the most developed of our whiskies. And so this third whiskey is going to be, it's our pork rye. So this is a straight rye whiskey that is finished in pork barrels. This was one of our first barrel finished products where we move an aged whiskey out of its charred new American oak barrels and finish it in barrels that I've previously held another spirit, a wine or even maple syrup. And I love this product because to me it is a really great encapsulation of two iconic spirits or alcohols. So port, if you're not familiar with port wine, port wine is a fortified wine made in the city of Porto in Portugal. And port wine and the history of Portugal, during the age of discovery, the city of Porto is on the edge of a frontier. all of the trade ships that are going to the New World, that are going to Southeast Asia, they're stopping and loading up in Porto. They're going to pick up some of this port wine. And in a similar way, Porto is a very industrial city as well. Iron, things like this. In a similar way, I think you can see Pittsburgh reflected as this sort of frontier city in the 17th, 18th centuries. And the frontier alcohol was Monongahelo rye. I think there's a really neat sort of synthesis between those stories of industrial towns that are on the edge of a frontier and have these iconic alcohols that they send with the folks who leave from that base. I think the story's really neat, but this is also just a huge passion project of mine. I love port wine, and I think the qualities of different types of port really, really, really complement rye whiskey. So for example, rye can have that really distinct bite to it. A lot of people who don't love rye, they'll tell you it's the spice, it's the bite. It's this barniness I don't care for. Because port wine is fortified, it's a little bit sweeter. You're gonna get these lovely grape notes and venue-ous qualities in addition to a completely different mouthfeel. the sugars in that wine that are left over in that barrel, they add weight. And so this whiskey, the rye would have been in this batch about three years old and then gone into port barrels for, in this case, two and a half, three years. And I just love it. I think the story is really neat. And I think the way that it came together with complimentary flavors that come together as a cohesive experience. I just, I love this stuff.

Was dark ruby red in the bottle, right? Different bottle though.

Different bottle. We are, we're moving away from this bottle type. It's a big hefty sort of rectangular type bottle that is lovely. Kind of a pain in the butt to work with.

So are you going to move away from the regular bottle too?

Right now, we're in the process of moving everything into the regular bottle. And then we will look to potentially get a custom mold for our highest tier down the line. But supply chain issues, it is so much difficult. It's really hard right now to get any packaging supplies, but to maintain inventory of multiple types of bottles, is really difficult. And I feel for anybody who is distilling and packaging into 10 different bottle types, because we've been there, but the past year and a half, we've really been trying to... You had a stockpile. We had a stockpile, but we just want to be in a place where we're not going to get pinched by the sort of waves that are going across the supply chain right now?

Yeah, a lot of people out there right now, a lot of distilleries are having problems because there is a glass shortage. There's a lot of bottle setting in containers right now, probably off the coast of California more than likely. All that glass is needed for bourbon, for whiskey. It's a, it's a, Sometimes we live in, they're having to resort to different bottles and like you said, it's got to be a headache. I know it's a headache because they got to figure out if their label fits on it. Do you go to a printed on label? It's a lot of work.

It's a lot of work. And this season for us is when most distilleries expect to make a major amount of their sales within a given year. So if you're struggling to find the materials to make that package that you can sell, really, really big repercussions for that. And the industry, especially at the craft level, tends to be really collaborative. So we've sent out some of our extra glass to other distilleries to make sure that they can put stuff out. But it's one of those things that maybe doesn't filter through to customers. But if you talk to any producers, they're feeling the strain. And we're not really different.

Yeah, we kind of went off on a supply tangent there. Let's get back to this port ride. I haven't seen a whole bunch of port rides out there. You know, that everybody would think the one that comes to mind would be Angel's Envy, the big boy on the block right there. The Hendersons kind of I wouldn't say cornered a market on them, but they started the revolution or these I'm excited to taste this one the nose on this. It's very very powerful nose I do get the port wine in there. I get a lot of that honey coming back from that first bourbon that sugar smackums kind of cereal smell. You know, when you open up that cereal box as a little kid, you're like, this is going to taste real good with my Saturday morning cartoons.

For sure. There's I think there's an element, you know, there's that almost elemental like Welch's grape jelly. You get just this little note of that hanging in there. What's interesting about how we approach this is I would say that our expectations for how we would make this, my expectations specifically, practically the opposite. And so we got a bunch of two different profiles of port barrels. We got Ruby port and Tawny port. Now Ruby port is most typically gonna be the brighter, fresher port. sweeter flavors. And this is a huge generalization, but Tawny is going to get into more whiskey type of stuff. You're going to see notes of tobacco and leather and those qualities. And we expected that we would be emptying the ruby barrels first. And then the tawny barrels will need more time, but we'll do those next. And it ended up being that a blend is the way that we've got to do it. And so we do two tawny barrels to every ruby barrel. It's a two to one ratio. We typically harvest three barrels at a time for this. And it's, again, you're trying to to hone in on a specific experience that's consistent, where you get these higher sort of grape jelly characters, but then you want it to taste like an aged whiskey. And, you know, those other qualities should come through. It shouldn't taste like a, a sugar bomb or, you know, this overly sweet type of product.

Well, heck, let me taste this thing. Man, that is good right there. I like it. It is mouth coating. Like you said, it's oily, creamy, is a word to use, I guess. That port has come through beautiful, but it's still leaving that taste of whiskey. This right here is what I call that introduction whiskey to opening the door, opening somebody up to drinking whiskey right here. If they didn't like bourbon, they didn't like scotch, this right here would be a right up their alley.

I think the fortified wine barrels and the barrel finishing can often be a really great place to bring people into the whiskey fold. So we do barrel finishes with wine barrels, barrel finishes with beer barrels. And that's another one where you have a lot of people who love craft beer, but maybe a little bit apprehensive about the spirit side. And if I can give somebody a whiskey, tell them this was aged in Great Lakes Christmas ale barrels. And all of a sudden they're saying, that's my beer. I get two cases of that every year. I try to make them last. Let me try that. So I do think the barrel finished category and structure is It's just a great way to expand to new offerings, new flavor types. But also for consumers, it's a great way to be introduced to both sides of things, the whiskey side or whatever the other finished barrel might be.

Yeah, that gateway whiskey for people. Whiskey nerds like me need to know that all straight whiskey isn't always the best. And the more people that drink whiskey is better for the industry, right? It makes growth possible. It makes more people buy stuff off the shelf. Once they start drinking that, they'll be like, oh, maybe I could try this straight bourbon whiskey. Maybe I could try this cast strength and get that goodness out of it. But sometimes that can be way too much for somebody. And something like this will open those doors up.

Yeah, I think finding opportunities where you can make something that resonates with the whiskey fans But also can be a draw to somebody who has never thought of themselves of being a whiskey fan or a whiskey person. We want to invite more folks to the party always. I think it's important to just build opportunities for that and never look to make anything that is specifically for one little group. We really want to bring in more people to the party and make stuff that our customers are excited to drink, be them people who know everything about whiskey or Again, people who have never in their life thought, I'm a whiskey person.

Well, the whiskey enthusiasts out there really, when we're talking about guys that just straight up like whiskey, they have whiskey collections, they're really into whiskey. Not that guy or gal that's drinking and is like putting on a face, but the people that really love whiskey, like me and Jim, We're only 1% a whiskey company. The story doesn't want to sell it a 1%. They want to sell it at 99%. It's a smart idea, right? In business.

And I think it's, you know, like all things, it's about balance. You don't want to put yourself in a position where you are just making whatever gets the highest ranks on a survey or just copying what the number one bourbon of 2021 in such and such magazine. But you do need to, I think, have your ears open and have a perspective that you're willing to change direction or meet people halfway. for any business, you've gotta be flexible. And we never, never, never want to make concessions on quality or process. But we also know that we're not the smartest folks in the building and we need customers to meet us somewhere. We can't keep making, you know, strange oda pickle or saffron amaro if we aren't selling bourbon and cinnamon whiskey and coffee liqueur. It really needs to be a holistic view of a portfolio and also of your customer base. I think it's natural and it can be a little bit difficult when you have, you know, some customers seem to be very, very, very passionate and very loud and others seem maybe more not apathetic, but less engaged. I think it's just this idea that you really do need to work and put in work to make sure you're hearing everything and meeting customer demands and meeting your own internal goals.

Sure. So I'm sitting here. We're actually inside your distillery. It's working. You got your whole crew back to your teams back there. They're grinding grain. There's some in there running in the steel right now. I saw it. I was like, oh man, I could smell it when I walked in the door. What are the steels back there?

So we have two Alambic copper pot stills, one of which has a column and a gin basket set up. That still's full capacity is about 1,500 liters. And our other still, which is just a big, big copper pot still, has a capacity around maybe 2,000 liters, something like that. So all of our work is just on these two German copper stills. And again, we make everything through there from the aged whiskeys, which most typically we do like a stripping run with unfiltered mash and then a final distillation. And we'll read distill the heads and tails. We do column distillations to make super high-proof brandies or wheat whiskies that might be used for liqueurs. And then, yeah, the gin basket gets worked pretty much every week now.

So how many barrels are you guys putting out a year right now?

So generally we do about 25,000 proof gallons per year. And we're doing six mashes per week. Each mash is about 105 to 110 proof gallons. So at direct barrels, I don't have that number off the top of my head. The other interesting thing about it is just what percentage of what we make goes into storage versus what is just used right away. And at this point, most months, about 80, 85% of what we make is going into a storage account, into barrels. And then the rest will be new make for processing right away.

and you didn't run out of room too. So you got a couple of warehouses with whiskey that's aging right now.

Yeah, we, again, the story of our distillery could really easily be illustrated just by square footage that we take up now. So whereas when Wiggle first opened up, All of the aging was done here on site. We now have two very, very, very large warehouses. We just purchased a second one. And I suspect, based on previous experience, that it will not seem like a long time at all when we're looking for another facility. Barrels, especially when you're looking to grow the age statement, they just take up space.

Yeah, I mean, you got to have somewhere to put them all right. And it's not like they always call it the liquid assets. Right. You got to have a large area to put barrels, stack them up and or Rickham, which is cool to me.

You know, one of the neat parts about our experience as it relates to the warehouses is the transition from one warehouse to the other huge impacts on on the aging. We had one facility that was relatively temperature controlled, meaning it would kick on a heater and maintain at 48 or 50 degrees all year round. And the facility that ages most of our barrels now has absolutely no heat control.

So it's probably gonna take a little bit longer for those barrels to age out because in winter time here in Pittsburgh, as we know, it gets cold here, right?

It gets cold. It also, I mean, you have the opposite where the summer does get that hot, where we haven't seen a consistency with we need longer. We've seen a lot of a lot of variables with proof, where the proofs used to in our old place tend to go up a little bit. We'd put something in a barrel at 123, two, four years later, it's 123.5, 124. And with the other facility that is not climate controlled, our experience is most typically we are losing proof points. So we'll go from 120 and come out at 117. And, you know, there are days where I remember when we first opened that facility, it was one of these days where it got really warm for a day after it had been very cold for four weeks. And we went into the barrel house and it looked like somebody had sprayed a fire hose on all of the barrels to the point that they're all just, they look wet. And the vertical barrels had a full head of water on the top. And that's just to say that the conditions were such that the water was pushed out of the barrel, the alcohol stayed in. Sure. And so, you know, being a small distillery and working with different barrel sizes, different barreling facilities, different farms, different lots. Our blender tailor is really, really doing an incredible job of blending to consistency when the name of the game is variability. It's always dealing with different variables. And again, it's a neat challenge and we've got a hell of a guy doing it. But you think forward and we anticipate we're always gonna have to some extent these variables at play.

Sure. Well, speaking of variables, speaking of something different, our last whiskey you got for me is something definitely different. What do you got for me?

So this is one of our most famous products and it is called American Rye Kilted Cask. If you are a Wiggle fan, you might know it from its previous name, Kilted Rye. This is a super duper terroir driven whiskey. And so we wanted to look to have products or have a product that really spoke to Scotch drinkers. And we had done some different varieties of neat malts. And those were released with varying levels of success. But then we thought about how could we make a whiskey that resonates with Scotch people, but doesn't compete with Scotch. We're never going to be able to compete with Scotch. You can get at some stores at 18-year-old, a 20-year-old, a 15-year-old single mall for a really attractive price that, quite frankly, we can't compete with. And so we were looking for our own expression that was definitively our own, that was unique, but would be recognizable to Scotch folks. So this is a malted rye whiskey. It's 95% malted rye, 5% malted barley, organic for both. This is a collaboration with Valley Malt, which is a malt house in Amherst, Massachusetts. Super duper neat family company. Really, really, really, really small scale. One of the only organic malt houses in the country. And they use our local, locally grown organic rye. They malt it. We do a mash bill with it. We start this whiskey aging in new and used Cooperage. And then we transfer into Laphroaig casks for at least a year of finishing.

Now for our listeners, what's a Laphroaig cask?

So Laphroaig is one of the iconic brands distilleries in Scotland. It is a scotch distillery and Laphroaig is known for having a peaty scotch and In Scotch production, you're mostly talking about malted barley as the base grain and the use of peat moss and peat smoking to dry the grain. It's a traditional part of that process going back 400 years. It is a resource that is widely available there. It has a very, very distinct character to it when you're using peach smoke. And so if you have friends who are LaFrog drinkers, if you've ever experienced LaFrog, campfire or just general smoke is a really prominent feature there. And so when we get these empty casks from Laphroaig, they've got this really smoky quality to them. And we're gonna lay down our malted rye whiskey on top of that and soak it up over the course of a year. So this ends up being a totally unique expression from Pennsylvania grain, malted in Massachusetts, but it's not something that a Scotch drinker necessarily would ever be able to get in Scotland. It is a uniquely sort of in the middle expression. It's also the source of a fair bit of extra legal work because the Scotch Whiskey Association was terribly upset at us for using a sort of check pattern and then the name Kilted Rye. So this bottle that we're pouring from is actually the brand new bottle, brand new name. We have been in lawyerly negotiations with the Scotch Whiskey Association for about a year and a half now.

But it says American rye, kilted cask to me, you know, as long as you say American.

I mean, I can absolutely understand the Scotch Whiskey Association being protective of their brand. There are moments when you're arguing about patterns where it feels like kind of a surreal kind of thing.

Sure. Well, heck, let's know this thing real fast. Definitely has that smokiness to it. Campfire, I don't know, maybe more of a wood fire in your house. Kind of that like a wood stove smoke. kind of a cleaner wood, I guess, than you would have at a campfire. Cause you can throw anything on a campfire, but in wood stove and a fireplace in your house, you want to make sure you're burning some kind of hardwood, right? Very beautiful. That orange citrus is in this though.

Orange citrus might just be our calling card.

Today, that's what I'm getting out of it.

And it's certainly one where the nose is going to hint at it. The pallet is going to hit you over the head with it.

Well, let's taste this. Cheers.

Cheers.

not as peaty, it's more nutty, like toasted almonds a little bit, smoked toasted almonds. That citrus is there, but more of that smoked toasted almonds, that smokiness of those, I like it. That's definitely different. I think it would, if you were differing between bourbon and scotch, this might meet you right in the middle and you could get there.

And, you know, going back to the discussion we were on maybe 10 minutes ago, I have sold this to folks and described it in the past as a reasonable gateway drug to the peaty scotches. If you've had, you know, an old Laphroaig or one of the really, really classic peaty scotches and thought that's way intense. this is gonna maybe meet you halfway.

This has got that honey sweetness to it though, you know, maybe a little bit of orange marmalade to it. I would say not so much of that smokiness is overpowering to people that peediness.

I'll tell you what, when I'm breathing out with this, I, and this is gonna be terrible. This is not the most floral language or attractive language, but when I'm breathing out on this, I get a little bit of a quality of like a, a tire fire.

I didn't say that. I don't get that at all. Um, I just get that toasted like, you know, toasted marshmallow is that one note, I guess everybody would say, but this is more of that. toasted honey nut, nut Cheerios, maybe something like that. Um, I think it's great. Um, I think you guys did outstanding job of that introducing something that's definitely different. Um, kind of, you said that gateway whiskey for people that are halfway in between somebody that likes that sweetness of bourbon, but somebody that also likes that penis smokiness of a Scotch.

Yeah. And I think, you know, the, the movement in America, there's a big movement for single malt and making that into a meaningful category. And to me, I, I certainly love making malt whiskies. I like drink them. I think I also really appreciate that. we have a lot of different categories and a lot of different, we have a lot of freedom to make different expressions. And so, you know, to a consumer who, you know, loves Scotch whiskey and they've known they've always loved Scotch whiskey, American craft right now, we can't compete with age statement. We can't compete with price.

You really don't have to when it becomes scotch or even bourbon, right? Because to me, each whiskey has its own place in the world. Whereas scotch will take 18 years. Bourbon in Kentucky takes eight to 12 years. Bourbon whiskey or whiskey in Texas, it takes about 32 months. Can you do what Texas is doing? No. Can you do what Scotland's doing? No. But you're doing what Pennsylvania, what Pittsburgh can do.

I think that's always, I mean, it's just generally the healthy perspective is, you know, you focus on what you could do well. always look for ways to improve, learn new things. But if you're too focused on what's happening around you or looking to directly compete with something that is iconic and 400 years old, You know, maybe that's not the best way to go about it.

Sure. Well, Michael, I got to say thank you for letting us come into Wiggle Whiskey today, giving us a tour of your distillery, showing us all your staff here, let me talk to them, taking photos and kind of geeking out in here like a good whiskey geek.

It's an absolute pleasure and privilege. This is fun to show off.

So let's give you a chance. Where can our listeners find you guys on social media?

We're definitely most active on Instagram and Facebook and Wiggle Whiskey. If you type that in, you will find us right away. I think for social, that's, I believe our top is just Facebook and Instagram. I don't think we're TikToking yet.

You're not TikToking yet. Where can our listeners buy your products? Which states are you guys in?

So this is a little bit tricky. We are in a number of states. We're mostly focused mid-Atlantic, Northeast. So right now we are in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, Tennessee, and Illinois. And certainly have plans to grow, continue getting into more states. But we're also in that sweet spot where we are managing our aged whiskey stocks. And so we cannot grow unsustainably. We are growing in line with our aged whiskey. So it can definitely be... We are not the most widely distributed craft distillery. If you go to WiggleWhiskey.com, we definitely do a lot of online business as well. I would highly recommend to folks who might know Wiggle Whiskey, might see us in store on a shelf in a magazine. If you have the opportunity to visit us in Pittsburgh, you will see all 85 of our product line. in distribution, it's a really small portion of our product line that really gets widely distributed. It'll be a straight bourbon, straight rye, gin, and a couple of other whiskies and expressions. But to anybody who has the opportunity to visit Pittsburgh, if you have time and come to the distillery, you will be able to taste, learn about, and really see a pretty huge portfolio of classic expressions as well as really off the wall and innovative type things.

You guys also have a restaurant or kitchen here too. So somebody can come in, eat, drink, be happy.

A hundred percent. I'll tell you what, the best thing that folks are doing these days is Pittsburgh is a Steelers town. So on Steelers Sunday, we'll be getting folks come to the distillery, get a nice big breakfast, have a few cocktails, and really make that day into the best day. But food and restaurant is open. I think every day now we have expanded hours because we're in our holidays. And we also have a cider house on the other side of the rivers that has a pizza oven, pizza restaurant. So threadbare cider, if you are a cider drinker or curious about, you know, ciders and wines made in Pennsylvania, we have a whole lot of me cider and stuff like that as well.

Well, listeners out there, if you're flying into Pittsburgh for business, for just coming up here to watch a game, watching the Pirates play, watching the Penguins play, watching the Steelers play, I can't believe I just said that because I'm a Cowboys fan. But if you're coming up here to watch some games, coming up here for business, Make sure you come into Wiggle Whiskey. Support this craft distillery. Come see Michael. You'll see him wearing a green Carhartt hat around. Come pay him a visit. Support small distilleries. They need your love. Michael, once again, we really do appreciate it.

And I just add, support local farmers. We are part of the agricultural system. really, really, really care about the folks around us, what they're growing, what they're doing. And we love these products. We like, we love presenting them to folks, having folks try them and enjoy them, but we are also really invested in our community. And so, you know, supporting Wiggle Whiskey is supporting family-owned farms and a whole lot of other vendors.

And we say amen to that to the American farmer out there. We tip a hat to you. We say cheers. Well, you can find us on social media. We are on tick tock. We're on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter. We're all over the place. You know, the best place to find us is we have a private Facebook group called the bourbon roadies. Twenty five hundred people strong. You got to do three things to join. Are you 21? Do you like bourbon? Hell, yes. Everybody likes bourbon. And do you agree to play nice because we don't tolerate any rudeness in there? That's just saying we like to celebrate life in there. If you want to drink from the bottom of the shelf, you want to drink a craft whiskey like Whig whiskey, which I was drinking today. Or if you want to drink from the very top of that shelf, let's say a bottle of Pappy, if you could even find it, we want you to do that. But we want you to celebrate births, retirements, birthdays, even somebody's death. The celebration of life. We want you to do that. We'll raise a glass to to that family member, that loved one and say cheers. We also have our website. You can buy our swag in there. We have a t-shirt we want everybody to wear. It's the Bourbon Bullshitter t-shirt. You know what it is. We also have our Bourbon Road swag in there. Our regular t-shirt, our hats, our whiskey glass, decanters, you name it, we got it in there. So come in there, shop in there. We'd appreciate your support. That's what gets us down the Bourbon Road. I also write articles in there once a week. Go in there and check that article in there. You can also leave us comments in there if you want to. We'd really appreciate if you leave us a comment. If you want us to go to a distillery, if you want us to talk about something in whiskey, we're always open to suggestions. We would really appreciate that as well. So we do two shows a week. We do our long episode like today with Michael and Wiggle Whiskey. We also do a bourbon review. You'll probably see a Wiggle Whiskey on one of those shows shortly. Check those out. So the way to remember and find out we got a show coming up is we want you to scroll on up top that app, hit that check sign, that plus sign, subscribe button, whatever you got to hit to make sure your phone's going to say, hey, these two jokers got an episode coming out. Then we want you to scroll on down, hit that five star review because you know what's going to happen if you don't. I'm going to come over to your house. I'm going to bring a whole bunch of this Wiggle Whiskey. I'm going to bring my big friend, the big bad booty daddy of bourbon is going to come over with me. We're going to drink all this Wiggle Whiskey. By the end of the night, I'm going to get a five-star review out of you, I guarantee. So let's get that. That five-star review seriously opens doors to Wiggle Whiskey for us. It opens it up to other distilleries, gets us great guests on, great conversation, great content for you to listen to back and forth to work. We love that. You can always reach out to us at our emails. Jim at the Bourbon Road, Mike at the Bourbon Road, but probably the best way, the best way to reach out to us is on our private Instagram accounts. The Bourbon Road. Jim is Jay Shannon 63. I'm one big chief. And we'll see you on down the Bourbon Road.

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