322. Innerstave - Where Art Meets Science

Welcome to another great episode of the Bourbon Road with your host, Jim and Brian, where they talk bourbon and of course, drink bourbon. Grab yourself a pour, kick back and enjoy another trip down the Bourbon Road.

We are excited to have back once again for 2023 our sponsor Seldom Seen Farms with their bourbon barrel aged maple syrup. Kevin and his staff there do a wonderful job. We're excited to have them sign on again this year to support the bourbon road and we love their product. And with it being Christmas season, we hope our listeners will visit seldomseenmaple.com and check out all they have to offer. A lot of great gifts there. bourbon aged maple syrup bourbon barrel aged coffee rick house reserved barbecue sauce you can buy it by the bottle you can buy it by the case you can even get bourbon maple candle and they even have maple cotton candy definitely definitely check out seldom seen maple.com support our sponsors, support Kevin and his family there. They have a 5,000 maple tap operation in Ohio, and they're doing it right. You know, they don't just produce maple syrup. They're also urban enthusiasts, and we love them to death. Again, go check out seldomseenmaple.com. Kevin and his staff will take care of you. Welcome back for another edition of the Bourbon Road, a new podcast episode. I'm Jim Shannon, your host, and with me today is Brian Hyatt, our co-host. We're getting ready to have a really good time at the Bourbon Road bar today. What do you think, Brian?

Yes, I'm very excited about today. We're going to be talking about some really cool products here and super excited to learn a lot more about this.

We've got a guest with us today. We've got Lee Tatum with us. He's from Inner Stave. Lee, welcome to the Bourbon Road.

Thanks. It's great to be here. Excited to hang out with you guys at the bar for a while.

Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We actually have kind of more than just us. We've got a few extra folks down here with us hanging out and drink a little bourbon today. This is kind of a party around a podcast episode. We do like to share a little bourbon amongst friends, and we do have some friends down here today. So Lee, it's great to have you join in to our fun, and we're excited to hear about your product. I was blown away when I heard about it, but I think our listeners are going to be just so much more excited when they hear what you do. But before we get to it, We always like to get kind of straight to the whiskey first, if that's okay with you. And today we're going to have the Evan Williams Bottled and Bond, just the straight white label Evan Williams. It's a great pour. It's a value buy. What do you think Brian?

I think it's definitely a good value buy. No, no doubt about it.

our listeners are pretty educated. They know what a bottle and bond whiskey is, but we'll go over it for anybody who's not familiar. Bottle and bond basically means it's at least four years old. It's 100 proof. It was made in a single distilling season by a single master distiller and was aged in a bonded warehouse. So basically, it's just a sign of quality. If you see bottle and bond on a label of bourbon, or on a label of any whiskey for that matter, you can pretty much expect to get good quality whiskey. So, with that said, what do you guys say we check out this Evan Williams Bottled and Bond 100 Proof White Label Straight Bourbon Whiskey? Brian, we had some JTS Brown on a couple of weeks back and it's different. It's another bottle and bond whiskey. It's definitely different. This one's a little bit lighter and it's got a little bit more like a nutty character to it, I think, than the JTS Brown. Lee, has it been a while since you had this one?

It has been, you know, I've, uh, I grew up with old Forrester bottle and bond. So that's one I've kind of spent a lot of time with over the years, but, um, it's been a while since I've had this. It's got a, it's got a great nose. It does.

Well, it's a good bargain, uh, at or around $20 for a bottle. You can't beat it every now and then we do like to bring sort of a standard edition whiskey on the show, something that people can, You know, get without hunting too much something that's going to be good quality, something you don't mind making a cocktail or a highball out of. This is certainly one of them. You know, I always get a little bit of almond on this is kind of a nutty.

I would agree with that. Definitely compared to JTS Brown, a lot more of the nutty flavor, nutty nose off of that than, than what you get with JTS. Yeah.

I think JTS Brown was a little bit darker and deeper, right? A little bit more rich, but. We've got a surprise there for everybody in the second half. So there's a method to our madness here, Lee. There's a reason we're drinking this whiskey, and we'll get into it later. But for right now, why don't we take a sip and just get on with the show? What do you think? Sounds good to me. All right. Wow, that's just tasty whiskey. This is not anything that's going to blow you out of the water, right? Four year old or plus a little bit, I would say. You've got the standard caramel and vanilla notes, got a little bit of that nutty character from heaven hill and dag on it. You can find it on the shelf when you want it for 20 bucks. That's awesome.

That definitely makes things a lot better when you know, it's something that you can talk about, you can go grab and they always make great stocking stuffers or good gifts to give folks. You know, these, these are really good bottles to get.

Absolutely. All right, folks. So we got you, we got you hooked. We got you drinking your bourbon, you're sitting back, you're relaxing, you're enjoying the show. Lee, why don't you tell us a little bit about. who Interstave is and who you are and how you two got together. How did Interstave and Lee Tatum get hooked up?

Yeah, absolutely. My road to Interstave is a pretty strange one, actually. And I would say 14 months ago, if you asked if I was going to be in this kind of innovation around bourbon and rye and other spirits, I would have said, that seems pretty crazy to me. I've spent 30 years in the wine spirits business. I went to a little college, center college down in Danville, Kentucky, and then went to the University of Kentucky Patterson School for diplomacy. And I thought I was going to go off to the foreign service and travel the world living in embassies. And instead I've been in the wine and spirits industry for 30 years. So you never know how things are going to work out. I told my 24 year old daughter, make a plan, but be ready that that plan might not be the actual plan when you get through life. But I was a wine and spirits distributor first. spend a little time at an ad agency and then spend 23 years at Brown Foreman. Brown Foreman owns their own mills and owns their own cooperages and so much of the story about all of their bourbons is about oak barrels. It's totally about the barrel. You get 100% of the color, 90% of the flavor comes from the barrel. And so that's just what I was raised on. That's what I always knew. And while I went back and forth between wine and spirits, I spent a lot of time in new product development. So I worked a lot on innovation. My last role at Brown Foreman, we created Slain Irish Whiskey, built a $35 million distillery over in Ireland. We came up with a brand I hope you love, King of Kentucky, which is, unlike Evan Williams, is a little bit more tough to find. at a much higher price point. Well, I will say I have a bottle of Slane, but I don't have the King of Kentucky. King of Kentucky is a little bit tougher to get your hands on. And Cooper's Craft, which was Brownform's first new bourbon that we came out with in 2015. That was the first one since Woodford Reserve in 1996. So they went a long time before coming out with a new bourbon brand. I managed all those projects. And after I left Brown Forman at the beginning of 2019, I happened to jump on board with Kentucky Owl. And Kentucky Owl, my good friend, Dixon Dedman, was there. He founded the brand, sold it to Stoli Group. And so we ended up in that organization, which is run by a Russian oligarch and spent some time there and really enjoyed working with Dixon and working with the Kentucky Owl team and got to love that great bourbon. And I left there sort of midway 2020 through COVID And I happened to run in randomly to a buddy of mine who I hadn't seen in 15 years. A guy had worked with back in the wine group days at Brown Foreman long time ago. And he said, uh, Hey, I'm running this company in Napa called interstave. And I said, well, what's that? I have no idea what interstave is. And he said, well, we make barrel alternative oak. And I paused for a little bit and I said, well, I don't really know what that is. That's a new term to me. Yeah. What is that? So he said, well, you know, next week, get on a plane, come out to Napa. Let me show you what we're up to. Um, we've been in the wine business for 40 years and, and he said they were ready to really, you know, move into the spirits business, but they needed somebody not in Napa. You know, they need somebody closer to the, the heart of what's going on in distilling. And so being from Louisville, it turned into kind of a perfect partnership for me to join forces with him. It's Steve Dorfman, shout out to him. He's a dear friend as well as my boss. But we've really enjoyed this year that I've come on board and started working with distillers and crafting new finishing opportunities as well as just maturation in general for bourbon rye, tequila, rum, you name it. We stay away from the white goods other than tequila, obviously, because vodka doesn't need any oak aging and some gins do it, but not many.

Yeah. I've had a few barrel-aged gins that I really liked. Yeah. I don't see the point in vodka at all. No. I mean, not that I don't drink vodka from time to time, but I don't see the point in putting it to wood. But certainly secondary finishes have become something that is just, it's kind of exploded over the past few years. At first, it was kind of a no-no with bourbon, right? It's like, don't do that. That's, you're messing with perfection already, right? I think we're well past that.

We're way past it. And before we jump into the finishing to tell you what interstate is in a nutshell, we do not make barrels. I get calls. four days a week from people looking for barrels and we don't make barrels. We source our wood from Missouri and central France. It gets shipped to Napa ages for two to three years and you've got this beautiful microclimate where it's Very warm in the day and very cool in the evenings. So we'll season it there for three years, two to three years. We have our own mill. We can make any size piece of wood basically from large staves that go into big wine vats to smaller staves that'll fit into barrels to cubes. blocks, chips all the way down to micronized oak, which is almost smaller than sand. It is smaller than sand. You can, it's just, it's micronized. You kind of get it based on the, on, on the name. So it's like a wood powder. It's a wood powder. Yeah, definitely. Um, and so, It's been around the wine business a long time, 40 years. Wine makers, for example, for you guys, if you're making a $10 Cabernet or Merlot, whatever it is, and you want it to taste and compare it to a French Cabernet or French Merlot, you can't afford to buy a $1,600 French barrel, but you can afford to use these staves and chips and other products as a way to get that same maturation at a more economic way. And so for spirits, tequila and rum, there really aren't any rules about oak aging. Most people do use, use barrels to age rum and tequila, but you don't have to. And so what we can provide to that side of the spirits business is new oak and That allows them to be more economic with their maturation program and it allows them to get there faster because it's new oak, it's not used oak, and it's more consistent because you don't know what you're getting when you get a used barrel from barrel to barrel. They're all different. One might be drier. One might be wetter, one might leak. I mean, you just don't necessarily know. And used barrels are really hard to come by right now, as are new barrels, as you know, all the distillers. Which is why you're getting all the calls, right? Yeah, it's certainly a big part of it. Yeah, people are really having a hard time finding both new and used barrels. So on that side of it, it's just about regular maturation. And then on the Bourbon and rye side, it's really about finishing. Like you said, you brought up finishing. It's a way to finish a bourbon or a rye that allows you to not go through the cost of dumping. re-barreling, re-racking the cost of that second barrel, whether it's new or used, and some guys use new, some have used, and then putting it back up in the rick house for six months because we're using new oak and we have the ability to use what we call enhanced seasoning oak, which we partnered up with a company called River Drive up in Maine, This guy has found a proprietary way to put natural flavors into our oak cubes and chips and staves so that he can, if you want a honey or a sherry or maple or brown sugar or port, tequila, rum, you name the flavor. He's got a way by using alcohol or spirits as a vector to put the natural flavoring into the wood. The spirit comes out at the end of the product process. And so you just got flavor and new oak, either French or American, that you can then put either directly into a barrel to get that same double oak aging without another barrel. Or you can even put it into a tote or a tank prior to going to the bottling line, which again is a very simple way to add that maturation, which a lot of the people we're partnering with are doing. Some guys did it on Monday, as a matter of fact, and you're able to get that consistent taste profile year after year instead of worrying about, well, where did these barrels come from? Are they too dry? How long is it going to take for me to really get this? You can, it becomes almost more innovative and scientific to a certain degree. It's still the art of what the distiller wants it to taste like at the end of the day. But sure.

Lee, that's a pretty amazing journey from where you started to where you are now. And the wealth of knowledge that you bring to all of this through that process is pretty impressive and amazing. So what has that been like transitioning from where you were to now being an interstave and just the different types of business that you're dealing with now?

Well, I think whenever you go from a big multinational corporation to a smaller, more nimble business. It takes a little bit of getting used to. really exciting. I don't spend all day making PowerPoints and making executive committee presentations. I pick up the phone, we talk about something, and we can usually get it done pretty quickly. So these guys are very adept at making changes quickly as needed. An example would be, I am getting a lot of calls about Woods other than American and French Oak. So can you get Is there a can you get brazilian can you get you slobby and so we've immediately just started making phone calls trying to find out how to get. good sources of that, that you can get on a regular basis, not just sort of one-off. So, you know, we're able to be pretty responsive and innovative for big companies. And I loved my 23 years at Brown Forum and I'm not taking anything away from that, but it's kind of a breath of fresh air to be able to pivot pretty quickly and make decisions, you know, in an hour instead of a year.

So I do have one other question. What's one of the more unique requests that you've received so far through this process?

Jim just mentioned honey, so I've got to go back and figure out if we can get a good source for honey, which is a great idea and one I hadn't thought of. And the other one, somebody, I think just last week, they tested our tequila and really, really liked it and said, why don't you start doing some mezcal? And I hadn't really thought of mezcal. I love mezcal, but It's such a kind of a small category. I didn't really think of it as a finishing for bourbon or for tequila or for anything. So we've got to go get our R&D guys to kind of test that one out a little bit and see what kind of. I mean, you can do just about anything if somebody has to come up with the idea. Oh, I got a, I got a request from Seoul Korea from a soju maker that wanted to see if we had coffee infused Oak because then Seoul Korea has more coffee houses than any city in the world.

Wow. Oh, wow.

So we're working on that one too. There you go.

It's very, very interesting. So, you know, in a nutshell, let's, let's just sort of summarize for our listeners here. interstave. manufacturers wood products that are used for adding flavor to spirits and wine and whatever. And beer. And beer. And those wood products come in a number of formats that fit into containers to give a more economical way of applying a finish to a whiskey in a more, I guess a more predictive and accurate way, right? I mean, it seems to me like you, You have this thing you call new barrel effect, right? Is that what it's called? New barrel equivalent. New barrel equivalent. So I mean, when I receive samples from you, they had instructions with them and they said, if you want 50% new barrel equivalent, or if you want 100% new barrel equivalent, this is what you do. Step one, step two, and so forth. That kind of handholding is important to a distillery that hasn't done this before, or winery, or somebody else. And it's a predictive result, right?

Yeah, absolutely guys. I'm gonna have to go back and tape this podcast after it airs because Jim, you just explained it better than I did in like five minutes.

Well, I just wanted to summarize it for the listeners are like, well, now what do they do?

There is handholding and there is, um, you know, look, the spirits business, in all forms is pretty traditional, pretty slow moving, especially in bourbon is a pretty slow moving traditional. We've been making it this way for 200 years. Why would we ever make it a different way or do something different to it? And so while everyone that I've talked to has been interested, eager to test, They've also been a little slower to go like, oh yeah, I'm all in. Now some of the craft guys who are going, I'm having a hard time getting barrels and, and, and are similar to interstave in size and want to get to market soon and start building a brand and building a business. They're generally a lot more willing to say, yeah, let's jump on board and at least get maybe not our main expression, but let's do a couple of different expressions and get them out there.

Well, the idea of introducing a non-barrel wood product into a barrel. This is something that has been around for a while, certainly. You said it's been around for years in the wine industry. But just in the bourbon world, let's talk about that for a little bit. Makers 46, that whole line of products that comes out of Makers Mark is all about the the inside staves that are used in the barrel to add that variety that they have that wonderful variety. And that's some of it's French oak, some of it's American oak, some of it's different toast levels and so forth. They do it. Right.

And then we've got, um,

Broken Barrel, our friend Seth out at Broken Barrel in California there, he busts up barrels and adds them to the, you know, to the settling tank so that he can add flavor because he knows that the outside of that wood stave has never seen bourbon before and it's got a job to do and it can still do it. There's a lot of that going on already in a way. And this is just a, you're just a more exact and a more calculating way of getting it done. I think those people, the ones that are listening right now, hopefully are going to hear what we're saying and say, well, you know what? This makes a lot of sense to me.

Makers Mark was a leader in this for sure. Broken Barrel, Bardstown Bourbon Company had one that came out with one last year. And they were even, um, you know, they were transparent enough to say we're putting five staves in this barrel and seven in this one. I mean, they got very specific on it, which we love. I mean, um, we think it's great that people are transparent about what they're doing because I think consumers want to know and consumers also appreciate that you're. maybe being a little more thoughtful about how you're getting to the final taste profile that you're trying to get to.

Absolutely. I almost forgot about our friend out at 291 distillery in Colorado. He's putting Aspen in, right? Aspen into the, that's right. Pretty interesting.

So maybe you'll have some Aspen products. We're working with a guy down in Texas and we're still in the testing phase, so we'll have to see how it ends up. But he was able to get Texas post oak and he shipped that out to our facilities in Napa. And he's pretty excited about the idea of doing Texas oak finishing for Texas whiskey, because everything's better in Texas. Right.

Well then soon, soon the pecan will follow, I think. So, you know, it's big in Texas too. That's right. That's right. Wow. It's so interesting. I mean, this is just, uh, it's almost like. I want to say it's upsetting. It's upsetting, meaning it will upset the industry a little bit. It will change the way things are done, I think. That more people will say, because this is a money saver, right? I mean, there's a certain cost to getting a used barrel, and there's a big demand for them, so they're at a premium. And when you can get something like this that's not a barrel, a little more availability, possibly, at a better price.

Yeah, Jim, I'd say rather than upsetting, we try to say disruptive. Disruptive. They're synonyms, right? That's right.

Am I getting my English right? Is synonym the right word? They're synonyms, that's correct.

That's right. No, it is more cost effective. It is more readily available. And we haven't talked about this yet and we don't have to dig into it too much, but it's also more sustainable because if you think about one oak tree, say you cut down an 80 year old oak tree, you're going to get one or two barrels worth of staves out of that tree. The rest of the wood is going to go on for a different use. But that same tree, because we can use so much more of the wood on the formats we're creating, we can use 15 new barrel equivalencies out of that same tree that would have gotten you one or two barrels. So there's a sustainability aspect to it as well. And that's again, something that consumers are thinking about these days.

So just to sort of boil it down a little bit again for the listeners, when you have a barrel, the whiskey only gets to see the inside of the barrel. True. And with your product, it sees all sides. of the wood. So it's exposed to much more surface area. Is there kind of a number you use? Is there like six times, eight times, a hundred times more?

So we do talk about a new barrel equivalency. So it's what the distiller wants. So if they want a lot of the ones folks we're working with right now, they really like a 50% new barrel equivalency for finishing. So We'll do that. We can do a hundred percent. We can do 200%. So at some point you're adding so much oak that you're going to get a stringency and sure. And, and over oaking a product, which you can certainly do. So we try to find that sweet spot with the micronized oak. You can use a very little because it's the smaller you get in format, the more surface area you get. So you can use very little, a quarter of a pound in a, in a, barrel and you get almost a new equivalence of a new barrel. And in a very short period of time.

This is exciting stuff. This really does get me thinking, gets me thinking. Well, we're up on our break. I guess we've got two types of listeners out there. We've got the listeners out there that have their home bar and they just love bourbon and they're thinking, what does this mean to me? And then we've got our listeners who are involved in the industry who are maybe running a distillery or part of a distillery or work with a distillery and they're thinking, yeah, I can see this application. And you've got an answer for both those people, I think. We're going to talk a little bit more about that in the second half. So folks, stay with us. We definitely encourage you to check out seldomseenmaple.com. That's seldomseenfarms. Kevin and his staff there are doing a fantastic job and like we said at the beginning of the show, you know, they've got a 5,000 maple tap operation. They're a first-generation farmer with a passion to produce the very best maple products available. They've won so many awards and they have a very special unique aging method for their syrup and for their barrel-aged coffee. They provide quality at a very affordable price. You know, they're not a maple factory or a co-packer. Kevin and his staff there are farmers with a passion for maple. Like I said before, Kevin is a bourbon enthusiast. He's not just a paid sponsor. He's a friend of the show. He's a roadie. and he loves helping roadies get down the bourbon road. Make sure you check out seldomseenmaple.com. You know, they're constantly producing great bourbon aged maple syrups using barrels from the very best distilleries. They also return those barrels to the distilleries afterwards. Distilleries like New Riff, Leapers Fork, Treaty Oak Distilling, The Bar Distillery, Pine Bluffs Distilling, Mystic Farm and Distillery, Jay Riger, So many more to come. Kevin and his staff there just spreading the love, spreading the maple syrup, making it happen. And you know, at the end of the day, those barrels that age that maple syrup get refilled with some wonderful bourbon and make some great maple finished bourbon whiskey. How awesome is that? Definitely check out seldom seen maple.com. Get yourself. All right, listeners, we are back. Just a recap of the last half. You know, we have Lee Tatum in the house from Interstave. We drank through a little bit of the Evan Williams bottle and bond in the first half. You know what? We've got Evan Williams bottle and bond again in the second half, but this is a special one. We actually added some of your product to it, Lee, and we decided to take your French oak medium toast with a maple influence and add one full 100% new barrel equivalent to it. And it's been aging for 10 days in a 750 mil bottle. So I bought two bottles actually. I bought two bottles of the Evan Williams bottled in bond. I took one of them and I added six cubes that you gave me as a sample. Aged it for 11 days now, and that's what's in our glass now. I have to say, Brian, what did you think when we opened that bottle? What did it do to the room?

So as soon as the bottle was opened, it clearly maple flavor smell just filled the room. It was, it was clear that that's what jumped out. But then when it was poured into the glass, we got a little bit of a change there. It wasn't as overpowering.

Yeah. It's kind of interesting. Lee, maybe you can comment on that. Cause I was a little worried at first that it would be too much, right?

Right. Yeah. So, um, as we talked about earlier, when you, when you added six, you're getting a hundred percent new barrel equivalency. So that's over that 10 days, it's like having an entire maple barrel inside of that 750. I have found that with the maple, especially you get a lot of maple upfront in the early days. And then as you leave it in a little bit longer, maybe two weeks, the oak will start to catch up with the maple and it'll start to provide a more even or balanced flavor so that you'll be able to, you know, I can't wait to try this now, but I bet it'll be pretty exciting to try it in another 10 days.

Yeah, I think, well, I'm definitely going to do that. We'll have that bottle and we'll revisit it and maybe we'll do an extra post on it once we hit, you know, couple of more weeks, maybe closer to a month, and we'll just report on it and say, hey, this is where we are today with this. And it's amazing, the transformation, or it's, you know, whatever it is, we'll report on it. But I'm excited to try this. We haven't tasted it yet. We have nosed it, but we haven't really tasted it yet. So we all have a pretty good pour of this Evan Williams in our glass right now. We're wrinkling Karens, and this is the first time this stuff's seen air since the cubes were added. It's definitely got a maple nose to it, but it's for me, it's the right amount. It's not overly done. Like when we first opened the bottle, I got a little nervous about it. I think this is, seems to be the right amount. You feel like the whiskey has received that barrel influence. It's received that maple influence, but it's not too much.

I would agree with that. And I know one question that I have is understanding this has been in the bottle for 11 days now. And then you mentioned keeping it in for another 10 days or so to continue to let that change and bring some of the oak out. Is there a recommended time to stop that process and pull the cubes out?

You know, Brian, it's an art and a science, right? So we will always help people with recommendations as we look at what they're trying to achieve. But, um, It does change over time. Now, of course, at some point all the oak extracts out and you won't need it anymore. But that it's a pretty decent period of time. And I think everybody I've worked with gets there to where they want to be. in kind of a six month or less period. So we've been able to be very successful with getting to the right profiles, but even some in six weeks. So it's sort of a six week to six month kind of timeframe, depending on just how much more color you want, how much more flavor you want to add. And I tell you in this one, I get the maple when I taste it, but, I think because it was the French oak that you tested, I get a little, compared to what we just tried, maybe a little more cognac-y feel a little bit. It kind of took off some of the roughness of the original. It's interesting.

Yeah, I think it is. And you know, there's, there's a, there's definitely an added sweetness here. Now, some of that obviously is coming from the maple influence, but some of it's also coming from the wood sugars of the toasted wood. Right. Right. And those, those come out pretty quick into the liquid. Yes. So that and the maple kind of express themselves right away. And then it's, it's the, the deeper, um, elements of the oak that comes, takes time.

It takes a little more time and then, and then kind of. pulls back the maple a little bit so that it's just a little more balanced.

I think, man, this doesn't taste like a $20 bottle of whiskey. I have to be honest with you. It tastes like something that is, um, You know, that's been treated very professionally, been treated very well. It's been introduced to a barrel, a secondary barrel aging that is just phenomenal. And to get that in 11 days just blows my mind. And I guess it just mellows out over time, right? If you let it go too long, you get the bitterness, but. Right.

If you let it go too long, you might get a little more stringency. So it's one to keep an eye on, but I feel like, you know, another 10 days and you might be surprised at how much different it is again. Yeah.

So, so our listeners are thinking, okay, so I know where to get the Evan Williams bottle and bond, but where do I get these, these oak cubes? How can I make this myself?

Yeah. So it's, you know, it's super interesting. Um, when I joined, which again, a short year ago, obviously we've just been focused on, in my side of the business on distilleries, uh, some breweries, but mostly distilleries obviously. And there are two things for those guys. One comment I wanted to make that we didn't get to earlier was that about half of the urban MRI on the market is sourced. So if you're a brand owner or you're a master distiller or you're starting a new distillery, how do you Do something to that bourbon to make it different than everybody else's that's on the market. Cause most of them are from the same place and from with the same mash bill. So you've got to do something. And I think this provides a way to differentiate yourself from the competition so that you can help justify why. you're at this price point or that price point or whatever. Now that's for distilleries for consumers. We are just now, uh, and I'm talking about like literally, I think this week or last week introducing cask cubes is what we're calling them that will be available for consumers. So I think people at home can really have fun. Becoming their own master blender because now they can take a couple cubes of American or French and take. their favorite bourbon or maybe not their favorite bourbon and see what they can turn it into and share with their friends and say, look, I made this. This is what it tasted like when it started. And this is what I did to it. And this is what it tastes like now. And we will have enough. It's enough for two seven fifties for, I believe it's a hundred percent new barrel oak and it's $12 per package and you get to take that home and become your own master distiller master blender, I guess is a better way to put it. Um, and eventually over time we'll have all the flavors that we've been talking about right now, but for now it's just the American and the French and a couple of different toast levels, but eventually we'll be able to do the Sherry and port and maple that we're tasting today and brown sugar and all the rest. And we're super excited about it because we've never, um, thought about being really in the, direct to consumer business, but I think it was on TikTok that we saw other people's get their hands on our samples, however they got them and started posting videos of them doing it and realizing that, Hey, this is, this is something people want and people might really have fun trying out.

Well, I know, I know the gears are turning, right? People are thinking, Oh yeah, I can do that. And, You know every year we do a blending contest from our listeners where they send in blends that they've done on their own and we have a master taster come in and join the host of the show and we do a We, we judge it, you know, we judge it and we have a winner and it's, it's a lot of fun. You know, our good friend, Jason Calori over at the the Mashing Drum, he's on, he's got a YouTube channel. He does blend again every year on his show and it's a big deal. Now, both these have already been done for 2022. So 2023 is a new year and I'm thinking that our listeners are going, yeah, this is what I want to do. That's, this is how I'm going to win. You know, the bourbon road blending challenge. I mean, this is how I'm going to win blend again on the mashing drum. I think it's. Yeah. The gears are turning. People are thinking about this. So you're exactly right. You know, a few of your samples got out. A few people realize the impact it would have on their, you know, there's just having fun with bourbon, right?

Yeah, absolutely. It's, it's, uh, I think, I think it's pretty exciting and it's, um, once people try it. they're gonna tell a lot of other people and it'll get its own life. But like I said, it's brand new. If you wanna find out more about it, you can go to the interstave TikTok or Instagram or the website and there'll be more information. It'll send you in the right direction.

So you guys are TikToking now, huh?

We are. I'm not, but we are. I guess I better start.

You better get going.

You don't wanna get behind the curve, right? Absolutely. Well, this is great stuff. I'm excited about it. I mean, you know, one of the things that I mentioned earlier was this, uh, this desire to have an American oak honey finish, you know, honey finishes are just, they're booming right now. I mean, people love it. Can I get a sample? I'm going to, I'm going to get you some honey. It's on my list.

All right.

Well, I'm still sipping on this and I'm telling you right now, this is an elevated expression of Evan Williams, bottle and bond whiskey. Anything Brian that you can think of on this, this kind of, um, an odd effect that it gets.

For me, it really is just a totally different experience with, with this bottle. I mean, it really takes it to another level when you compare the two. I really don't think, you know, it's, it's, uh, there's a way to connect the two together. It, it had a pretty, uh, pretty big change to the overall flavor profile. Um, you know, and I am excited to taste it again in another 10 days to see what that. Impact has had on the bottle compared to, you know, right now we definitely do have much more maple. Definitely a little bit more sweet. Yeah. Um, that pops out. I know one comment that was made. I'm ready to eat some, some pancakes. Yeah. Um, so, you know, it's a very interesting, uh, uh, transition from where we were on the first part of the show to now, uh, and it, and it's very good. I mean, that's, that's one thing, you know, I don't want to take away from it. I feel like it's elevated.

Here's going to be my real world, honest comment. All right. The very first impression of this is, wow, what an amazing immediate effect this has on the product we added it to. But here's my negative comment on it. It's all up front on the palette right now. So the back end's yet to come. And I think we're going to see that maybe develop over the next few weeks as the oak comes to play. And we start to see the back end of your palette get impressed by this oak addition. Right now it's just all up front. But you know, up front's where you get surprised, right? You get surprised up front on your palate. Right. Right. And on your nose and on the nose, it's the most, the biggest impact. And I'm pretty excited about this. So what would you say is your, what's the biggest demand on your product? Is it wine finish? Is it a straight oak? I Is it, you know, French oak finish? Is it American oak toasted? What's the biggest demand on your product?

Right now, honestly, it's the American oak medium toast and medium plus toast. Because, you know, honestly, that's the one that most mimics what happens if you're double barreling with a regular American oak barrel. So. That's the most in demand right now. The second most in demand is sherry. There's a lot of interesting demand for sherry because again, a little bit of a lack of getting sherry barrels, prices have gone up. But it's more the consistency thing, right? I know I can do it year after year and get the exact same flavor profile. there's going to be a variation if you're using used barrels.

Now, do you have a bourbon barrel cube? We do have straight bourbon, yeah. Straight bourbon. So I guess you're talking to Scottish distilleries a little bit here and there.

So we don't talk to Irish or Scottish because their rules are such that you cannot add anything into a barrel.

Ah, so, yeah.

Educate Jim here, yeah. Yeah, even after you've emptied the barrel. So for now, until, you know, necessity breeds invention, or whatever the phrase is, the mother of invention. when they get to the point that they can't get barrels, somebody's going to have a necessity that needs to be fixed. And so I'm not writing Scotland and Ireland off. I love both those places, but for now it's not our, my focus is not trying to get laws changed in foreign countries. I've got enough other stuff to do.

Well, American single malts are certainly your customer, right? For sure.

Yeah. And that's, you know, we'll see where that category grows. It's certainly getting a lot of media attention.

Well, we know from past history that the Irish, when they were being taxed for their malts by the King of England, they came up with single pot still whiskies, which included unmalted barley, right, to try and get around the King's tax. So they're not altogether unwilling to change. It just depends on, you know, what it's costing them. So when barrels get too expensive, they're going to give you a call.

I think they'll figure it out eventually.

That's pretty amazing.

Well, Lee, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show today. We want to make sure that we give you a chance to let our listeners know where they can find you on social media, on the internet. Where's your store at? Because, you know, eventually they're going to come and find your product for personal use on your website. Where can they find you guys?

Yeah. So for, uh, for consumers who want to give this a try, they can go to our tick-tock Instagram, just look up at, uh, interstave. You can go to our website directly and find everything there. If you're a distiller and you're looking for me, I'm at Lee at interstave.com, or you can go to the website and there's a ugly picture of me somewhere on there with my contact info.

And I'll put this in there. Anybody out there that wants to, to meet Lee or be connected with Lee at any point, uh, is welcome to reach out to Brian or I at team at the bourbonroad.com. We'll be sure to put you in contact with Lee. If you're a distillery and you're thinking, wow, this is something that's, uh, it's something we want to try, something we want to give a shot. And, uh, we'll be happy to hook you up. It's all about networking in this business, right? Right, Brian?

That's right. And I would definitely encourage everybody to check out interstave on Tik TOK and Instagram, uh, Facebook as well. Uh, those are all great places to connect, uh, and, and learn a little bit more, uh, in addition to what you've heard today.

Cause I thank you guys for having me on. It's been, it's been really fun talking about this and, and it's been great, you know, getting to see your all's reactions to what we're up to. My whole team's out in California. I'm. the lone guy in Kentucky and I loved the chance to chat with people about it.

Yeah, I'm completely blown away. I mean, I thought this secondary barrel aging thing was like a long drawn out process. I didn't realize that the effects were Can be so immediate that you can get such an immediate impact on your product. I'm blown away by it. And Lee, you just, you guys are, you're disrupting the business. That's for sure. You're definitely going to have a lot of people calling you up and I'm excited about it. I'm excited to do a little bit more of my own testing with it as well. Thank you again for coming on the show. We appreciate it. We hope that you'll come on again in the future. Give us an update and tell us what else do you have going on?

Absolutely. But I'd love to.

All right. Well, you could find the Bourbon Road on all social medias. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. You can find us on YouTube. You can also find us on our private Facebook group called the Bourbon Roadies. We've got 3000 members on there. Just, just going strong. They love to share. bourbon information. They love to share pictures and outings and family events. It's just a good group of people. We're very careful to keep it nice and let's say no trolls in the group, right? We don't allow that to happen. We got a couple of moderators that keep it clean and keep you guys, anybody that's coming in to slam somebody for drinking from the bottom shelf. I just tell you right now, that's not going to happen. That's why we're 3,000 members and we're not 30,000 members because we don't let those guys stick around too long. It's a safe place. Come join us. We'd love to have you there. You just got to answer three questions. Do you like bourbon? Are you 21? And do you agree to play nice? Because we don't tolerate any rudeness in that group. We'd love to have you in there. We do a show every single week where we have a bourbon industry expert on. Sometimes we'll have a country music star, sometimes we'll have a chef on, sometimes an author. We got an author coming up here real soon. Pretty excited about that, Brian. We try to mix it up as much as possible. We're always drinking whiskey. We're always talking about the whiskey, always tasting the whiskey and giving you notes. Check out our social medias. Follow us on everything we do. In fact, you're listening to us right now. Go into that app you're listening to us on and subscribe. Every time we release an episode, you'll get that bell notification. It'll let you know what's happening and you won't miss one. We'd love to hear from our listeners. You can reach out to Brian and I any single day of the week. You can reach him at brian at the bourbonroad.com. I'm Jim at the bourbonroad.com. We together, including Tyler, are team at the bourbonroad.com. You can reach out to us anytime. We will get back with you. We'd love to hear your suggestions for a show or a bottle we should have on. We always respect our listeners and the ideas that they have. Make sure you reach out to us and let us know what you think about the show. Give us a review on Apple podcasts. It always helps gets us through those doors until then. We will see you down.

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