326. Exploring New Whiskeys - with Seth Benhaim of Broken Barrel

Welcome to another great episode of The Bourbon Road with your host, Jim O'Brien, 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. We hope our listeners will visit seldomseemaple.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. Selvamseenmaple.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 selvamseenmaple.com. Kevin and his staff will take care of you. Welcome back listeners to another episode of The Bourbon Road. I'm your host, Jim Shannon. In the studio with me today is Brian Hyatt, your co-host, and we've got a great show for you today. Brian, what do you think? Are we going to have a good time today?

This is going to be a great show. Uh, I'm really looking forward to tasting these, uh, amazing, uh, bourbons and just digging into this.

All right folks. So also with us in the studio today is Seth Benheim of Broken Barrel Whiskey out of LA, California. We're ready to have a great time with you, Seth. Welcome to the bourbon road.

Thank you for having me back. I appreciate the, uh, the consideration.

Well, you know, sometimes we get one or two whiskies for a show, you know, every now and then we might get three, but man, you sent four. We got four whiskies today.

Yes. Yes, sir. And I think we did four whiskies last time as well. So you're up to eight, uh, whiskies tasted and reviewed on the show, which by the end of this one, which will be. A lot. That'll be a good understanding for listeners what the heck we're doing over here.

All right, so well, before we get into all these questions, let's go ahead and taste that first whiskey. And what do we have in our glass, Seth, for this first pour?

I'm so glad you asked. We have our newest core whiskey release. So the first show, you tried four of our core whiskies. They were actually the only whiskies we had launched. You guys, if I'm not mistaken, I think I came to see you around August. of 2021 and I had brought the brand new, right off the bottling line, additions of our new Broken Barrel. We had redone the packaging, we had redone the labels, all the whiskeys went up in age and their blend, and I had brought you the California Oak I brought you the small batch bourbon, the heresy rye, and the cast-stripe bourbon. We've added a fifth item to that lineup, that core-core lineup. What Americana is essentially a blend of Indiana corn whiskey or light whiskey and bourbon from Green River. We do two barrels of bourbon and one barrel of light whiskey, and then we finish it with triple cask staves. So we use charred barrel staves, toasted barrel staves, and apple brandy stays. So 40%, 40%, and then 20% on the apple brandy. So three different kinds of very popular choices of either spirit or barrel types for America, which is why we're calling it Americana. It's two American whiskeys blended with three Americans styles of barrel options. So that toasted barrel is going to be very popular these days. a lot lighter in terms of flame contact to the wood versus a char where the wood actually starts to crackle. Around the 45-second to 60-second mark, you actually get to the char 3 and 4. We use char 4 so you have that nice alligator look on those staves. And these are new staves, not used staves. So we siphon off a few barrels before they're filled with bourbon. and actually break those up and use those days before they've been in contact with any whiskey at all. And then, of course, you know, what's more American than apple? Apple pie. So apple brandy was a great choice for mounting out this American whiskey. And yeah, it's a bottle that 100 proof.

Well, you know, light whiskey, the light corn whiskey you're getting from Indiana and the blending that you're doing with the light whiskey is something that's really starting to gain a lot more popularity right now. It's starting to really make its rounds and I'm interested to try it. Let's check it out guys.

And I'll tell you that the light whiskey is certainly older than the bourbon. And so we're blending a little bit of that older light whiskey with the younger bourbon. We like the bourbon to be not too old when using it at Broken Barrel because we want it to still be impressionable and take on flavor from the staves that we're adding for the oakbill process, which I'll certainly go, I'll go over that again, I guess, at some point here.

Well, it's kind of a, it's, it's a nice, lightly sweet nose. It's not overly sweet. I might, I might've thought before I put it to my nose, that it was going to be pretty sweet, especially with the toasting that's going on there too. But the nose is not overly sweet. It's kind of a nice, gentle, soft sweetness. I'm picking up a little bit of, uh, the wood character in there. It's got a really nice inviting nose to it. This is kind of nosing like a sessionable whiskey, something you can really sit down and enjoy.

Yeah, that is exactly what a few people online had come back with. They said this was a sessionable daily sipper, something you could drink often and dare they say refreshing, even at a underproof.

Yeah.

You could almost call it a summer whiskey in some ways. And I think which is kind of interesting because we're going to go into a couple of whiskies here. One of our whiskies you're going to sample today, I would call it a dessert whiskey because of its sweeter sort of fruit palette. And then the last one I think is certainly a winter whiskey. It will warm you up at a higher proof. Kind of a, I wouldn't say the four seasons of whiskey, but certainly a nice spattering of whiskeys that will serve different purposes and be paired with different seasons, I would say.

Yeah, I like the way this one sits on the palate. It kind of hits you on the sides of the tongue and in the cheeks, I feel it. You know, that 100 proof is nice here. You might expect this whiskey to be somewhere around 80 or 90 proof, but at 100, I think it's right. I think it's very right. And I'm getting the apple, more like an apple peel a little bit, but not too much.

It's not overly fruity, I would say. Brian, what do you think?

Yeah, I agree. Definitely picking up some of the apple, definitely on the palette. And I really like the finish. It's kind of a short finish, but I really like it. Definitely the apple on the nose, you get the oak, all that good stuff. But I have to agree 100%, this is something I could sip on daily, very easily.

And I don't know that this is particularly a summer whiskey. I think you could drink this year round. I think that that proof there and the little bit of, you get a little bit of bite on the tongue and it's nice. I think it's fresh and warm to be a summer whiskey.

Yeah. I think there's a lot of whiskeys that, especially, you know, we all as whiskey folks might drink more often some of the higher proof castrate stuff that sort of. You might give it a second thought before pouring it when it's 80, 90, 100 degrees outside. Even with the cube, it might be a bit abrasive for the season. So I think this one certainly is a whiskey that can be drank in the summer, like you said, for sure. I would add that the Americana is still just getting out there. So it's not as widely available. We have it for sale on our website at BrokenBerryWhiskey.com, but it just came out in November. We did send a bunch of samples out to folks like yourselves and other online reviewers. So we're getting a nice kind of coverage on it. It is still making its way to stores and states and is getting out there. So I think another few months it'll take for really start seeing it make its way next to our other offerings and stores that we're already in.

So you will see this throughout your full distribution. So everywhere you find the Hersey Rye, you'll find the Americana as well.

It's a core item for us, yeah. I mean, essentially should be as available as our other SKUs in due time.

And what's the price on the Americana? Line price with the other three.

The cash strength is a little higher. This should be about $35, $36. Okay.

Well, fair enough. I think that's a good value, no doubt. And your packaging, of course, we've got sample bottles on the Americana, but we do have a full bottle of your little oak here. Yeah. And yes, just beautiful. I mean, you've had this for a while now. You had just, like you said, just introduced your new packaging when you came here the last time. How's supply been and how's it held up in the market?

We had a lull. What you got to try last year was what was supposed to be a launch and turned into more of a soft launch where we had a container of glass come, get bottled, and then we didn't see any more glass for seven months, which was very challenging. Oh my goodness. a little freaked out for a while there and we have since ordered quite a bit of glass. So we've got a lot of glass. We stepped up, made our purchases in 2022 and got ourselves situated. And yeah, things are going very well. The short answer is we're up 75%. from last year. Awesome. Pretty good.

Awesome. Seth, what was kind of the thought process behind the bottle? I love it. It looks great. But you know, there's always a rhyme and a reason to it.

It's kind of a zombie of all my favorite whiskey bottles put together. No, I really wanted something that was timeless but somewhat industrial. So we did give it these different touch points and feel points throughout the bottle. So you have this really great ridge on the bottom that's really cool to put your hands around. And then you have a belt with the imprinted words. You have a couple ridges that tell you where the label is going to go. It helps the machines feed that in nicely on an assembly line. So it does have the Means for high volume at the very bottom of the bottle. We have our monogram BB with a broken barrel and says the truth is in the barrel, which we love. That's one of our catchphrases. We have a lot of catchphrases. We have think outside the barrel and you know, risk takers and barrel breakers. We have a lot of different fun little catchphrases that we use.

So yeah, so I mean, I'm a big fan of this already. I can tell you right now. this Americana whiskey would be something my wife would really love. I think she would like this one a lot. We were talking the other day about, uh, whiskies that we can both drink because she, she's not really, let's just say she's not really into the barrel proof kind of stuff and the higher, the higher rye things. And she likes the softer, sweeter whiskies, the ones that are sessionable. That's kind of her thing. And I think this Americana will be right up her alley and something that we can drink together. So. And that's pretty cool. When you're a whiskey lover yourself and your spouse drinks it sometimes, and then you find that whiskey that you both like to drink together, that's kind of cool.

Yeah, for us, for my wife and I, that's the heresy rye. She loves that rye. There's something about it that really speaks to her. So she's a rye fanatic for our rye.

And that is a very good rye. I mean, I always have a bottle, I'll just tell you. You hooked me up the last time you were here and I think you mailed me another one and then I proceeded to get more. So it's one of my favorite rides.

Yeah. The Hersey ride just dominated this year in terms of like reviews and rankings and you guys got to try it pretty much like first. I mean, I pretty much like left Owensboro. I think I got to Louisville and then came out to see you guys.

You guys are in Simpsonville or Shelbyville or whatever.

So I drove out to see you guys and the bottles had just been bottled the day before. So you guys are some of the first people on earth to try the Heresy ride. It's upgraded packaging and age statement and whatnot. And obviously you guys had strong opinions towards it. I think if we go back and listen to that first show, but then we kind of knew there was something special about it after drinking it a little while late into the end of this time last year. We came out strong, San Francisco World Spirits, double gold on the rye. And this is a good segue to the next whiskey. But then we did, and right around that time, we had taken some rye barrels from Kentucky that didn't make it into the production run. And we actually sent them to ourselves in LA. And right around this time last year, We had re-barreled them into quarter casts. So they actually sent us the excess whiskey, not in barrels, but in totes. And they'd already been finished with the 40% French oak, 40% ex bourbon, 20% sherry cast. So they already had been finished. we ended up doing is rather than re-barreling them in full barrels, we put them into quarter casts. Now, any Scotch whiskey experts and consumers or drinkers will say, oh, you put them into 125 liter? No, we put them into 15 gallon, which is not 125 liter. A quarter cask is a term used by Europeans to denote a quarter of a sharing pot, which is a 500 liter, which is a 125 liter or so. We were going to call it quarter cast, but it's not actually a true quarter cast. It is just a 15 gallon barrel, which there's so little, I could pick them up. So it's a, we call it little oak. And basically we re-barreled our rye, our heresy rye, 105 proof, add 105 proof into these quarter size new char, new barrels and let them sit for about 13 months. And so that is the little oak that you're about to taste. And we released it only at the distillery here in LA, the facility here.

So they got to come see you.

Here or on our website are the only places to try it and buy it.

So how many states are you shipping to?

They don't allow us, obviously 17 controlled states we can't ship to and a few others like Texas. So, you know, we follow the rules on that and ship to the states that are allowed. I think it's 30 states, give or take. I'm not exactly sure. It's all we got to ask the people that do the fulfillment. But yeah.

Well, the people out there who are listening to this know the laws of their state and whether or not they can ship whiskey in. If they want to get a bottle of this, they're going to have to log on to your website and check it out. All right. Let's check it out.

Yeah. When you do make it to our website, I definitely recommend signing up for our newsletter. We maybe get one out every three weeks if we're, if we stay on it and kind of forget at times, but that's where we make announcements of new products, limited editions, which if anyone was paying attention to us this year, there were a lot of limited editions. Uh, I had to pick five bottles for my top five lists that I just put on our Instagram out of like 15. There was a lot of stuff this year.

I mean, you guys are real busy with innovation and new modelings. I mean, if you go to your website, it's just like this long list of all these things you've done. It's just amazing.

One after another.

It must get kind of crazy sometimes.

Yeah, we're going to try to... you know, keep the madness down a little bit, uh, this coming year and really focused a little more on our course views and growing those and also getting, not to say we don't, you don't, we're going to stop innovating. We're not going to stop innovating, but there'll be a few more targeted, bigger releases rather than these, you know, rapid fire single barrels that have different fanciful names and things like that. So.

All right. I'm checking out the ride.

And while you're drinking that, I'll just tell you the San Francisco Double Gold that we won on the rye, then led into a 93 point from Tasting Piano, another 93 point from Ultimate Spirits, another 93 point, a 91 point from Whiskey Advocate recently, which was great. And then also, you know, we made it on a top. The top ten rise of twenty twenty two lists from up rocks which is pretty cool too so we know this is this is the heresy right the heresy so it's basically the younger brother of what you're drinking what you're drinking i would call kind of like the double oak version or the second barrel version of our heresy.

I haven't had the heresy in, and probably a month, but, um, this, this has got a nice rich candy sweetness to it. Um, definitely a little more chocolate. It's got a little bit of a chocolate note to it. Kind of a cocoa.

Yeah.

I'm getting a little bit on the backend.

Yeah. I felt like the nose was very easy. That was the first thing that jumped out to me was just taking the nose on it. There wasn't that burn, that big ethanol burn, you know, that you get kind of used to with some whiskies that you drink. This was very smooth, but I agree with Jim. It definitely a little cocoa to it, but it's, it's smooth, very smooth.

It's a, I get a lot of oak for me. This is, this is a woody woody whiskey for sure.

But it's a, it's a combination of like. a little bit of new oak and some older aged, more aged oak. I think you get both spectrums of the oak on this, but the 15 gallon Char 4 barrel that you put it in, what's the effect of a 15 gallon barrel on whiskey? I mean, is it like instantaneous, like rapid impact?

But it is certainly faster in terms of picking up some of those char, oak, woody notes that really rubbed off within the first month. But we kept it in there for 13 months in Los Angeles through a hot summer. no insulation inside of a brick building. When it warmed up, it stayed warm. We decided to do the first one at 100 proof because we wanted it to be approachable and palatable. But we have also since released as a single barrel rye not only at the distillery but at a few local relationships we have for people that wanted barrels but didn't have the pockets to buy a full 53 gallon barrel. We did single barrel rise for them in this most recent fourth quarter. And we had one that came out at 110.8, had gone up from 105 to 110.8. We had another one that went up to 106, another one that went up to 107. So we had one that stayed the same at 105. We did several of the quarter size barrels, those 15 gallons.

Yeah, the oak on this is very present, but it's not drying. It's not like, uh, overly tannic or anything like that. It's, it, it's still fairly well balanced, I think. So those aren't toasted and charred.

They're just charred for a 15 gallon.

And the French oak, what does the French oak bring to bring to the table?

French oak is like our secret weapon, man. So French oak is, you see that on pretty much every one of our core whiskeys with the exception of Americana. Our California oak, our small batch, our Heresy and our Castrague all incorporate at least 20 to 40% French oak in the oak bill, which is our term for the ratio of different oak staves to one another in the finishing process. And the French oak is just a monster. It balances sweetness. It balances the oiliness of the whiskey. It really gives it a really good clean mouthfeel. It helps combat some of the youthfulness of some of the burdens that we've used and brings in kind of that rich, mature flavor of caramel, of wood. It does everything but kick into like sort of the the those really, really sweet components, the super sweet components, like, you know, it doesn't bring you any kind of fruitiness or that tiramisu or those kind of like burnt caramelized sugars doesn't really quite give you much of that. But normally that's going to come from the sherry cask or the Cabernet and the California oak or like those other barrels are happy to and normally they're within ratio or even sometimes higher, which you'll see. Well, you're going to get a little bit of French oak on this next one and then you're going to get no French oak on the one after that. So certainly if you were to go through our whole lineup and you were to taste the ones that do and don't have French oak, You'll see a through line between what French oak is doing in terms of really rounding out those whiskeys and giving them sort of that balance and maturity that we're finishing into a younger bourbon or rye.

Now does it introduce any sort of nutty notes to it as well?

Absolutely, absolutely. There's a variety of things that will happen and different kind of nutty flavors can come out from the combination of the other oaks in tandem with the French oak. So whether it goes more towards a walnut or something softer like a buttery, like a cashew or a little more I was kind of like marzipan and almond sort of like that, not funky, but really almost tart nuttiness that you get from those versus like smoothness or the dryness of a different nut.

So, Seth, let's talk a little bit about going back in time a little bit and, and, and kind of the broken barrel concept. I mean, obviously people who go to your website get to see standing there with a big giant, what is that? Breaking barrels so that you can, you can introduce the wood into the finishing process. But where did this idea come from in the first place and how has it panned out for you in the long run? I mean, what, what have you learned about wood finishing? I mean, obviously you're an expert in the field now, but.

Yeah, through trial and error. Five years of putting wood into whiskey and 10 years of putting ingredients into spirits has gotten us and me to where we are today. But the beginning of it was how do we make a whiskey that stands out? How do we bring something new to the world of whiskey? First it was, okay, let's break barrels up and put the staves in so we can increase the surface area of wood in contact with whiskey liquid. And then that idea became, okay, well, let's do that with different barrels at the same time. And then we keep evolving this idea of what do we call that process? the oak bill which goes with the mash bill and then oh let's put that on the bottle and make that on every label and then that's everything we are let's make a video about our process and what's the coolest way to make a video well let's go to Home Depot and get a sledgehammer okay so you just kind of evolved you know one thing after another and one idea led to the next and it kind of snowballed into this pretty you know interesting concept and then I think there was a meeting with a gentleman in 2019 that said, hey, this isn't infused whiskey. This isn't infused spirits. Broken Barrel is the name and Broken Barrel is the brand. And you running around with the sledgehammer is not the same target audience as the all-natural, single-bottle infused vodka that's better for you than the sweetened artificial corporate crap. This thing, you know, once going like whole foods and the other ones go on like cigars, guns, you know, beer, barbecue. That's like two different. two very different audiences, I think, not to say that there isn't, you know, a whole food shopper who's packing heat and getting meats to go grill and drink bourbon. And that's not to say, you know, the reverse that somebody who is, you know, smoking cigars and, you know, slamming beers is also, you know, a fitness trainer who wants a 64 calorie per ounce, you know, lemon infused vodka and everything in between.

You know, what are you, are you more Jekyll or Hyde here? I mean, I guess Hyde is the, is breaking the barrels, right? And Jekyll's making the Infuse spirits.

Yeah, I think the Infuse brand has, um, kind of been on autopilot for the last year where we've put a lot of the company and, you know, our, uh, person power of the team, um, into building the whiskey company, which has led to the, the growth we've had in the last year. So, you know, not to say we have a favorite child, both brands are incredible. Both brands are important and do something within their respective categories that matters. But no, no question, we've put a lot of the company's energy and money behind the whiskey for sure. Yeah.

How often do you get to Kentucky?

Three times a year. Yeah. At least sometimes four.

So Seth, I've been checking out the TikTok page quite often. And I got to tell you, I love the videos on there. They're super cool. You guys are doing an amazing job. So I would just encourage all the listeners to go and check out you guys on TikTok. They'll see some pretty cool videos and, and even, you know, a little bit more just kind of what you do. And I think it's pretty cool to watch that process.

Yeah. I've got to post some more on TikTok. If TikTok, TikTok was one of our kids and Instagram was the other kid. TikTok's not even going to community college and our Instagram is like the Harvard graduate of the twins because it's so much harder to come up with. Video content is a lot harder and a lot more labor intensive than a picture you can shoot in portrait mode on your iPhone and be done with it and get content up quickly. It's still good content with some thought behind it, but it's just video is so much harder.

Brian was telling me something the other day. He said, the younger crowd, and we're talking about the younger crowd who are of legal drinking age, but the younger crowd is no longer using Google to search for things. They're now using TikTok to search for things. And if they want to know about Broken Barrel, they're going to TikTok and typing in Broken Barrel. Or if they want to find out about the Bourbon Road, they're going to TikTok and searching. And if you're not there, woe is you. You're not there. Yeah.

Well, does the Bourbon Road have a TikTok?

We do. We don't do any dancing, but we try to post on a regular basis.

Yeah. How many followers does the Bourbon Road have? I should look, but.

I don't know, Brian, where are we? We don't have a huge following yet, but that is going to be a pretty big focus on what we're going to be looking at over the next year and really growing that. Growing that audience, we've been able to find through some other tests and different things that TikTok can generate a lot of views. If you're putting the right content out there and you're right, it is a little bit more time intensive.

I found it. It takes a little bit.

Hey, you know what? You guys have more followers than we do. That's great, man.

Well, this is the year for TikTok for us. We brought on Tyler. He's our producer and he's also our media director. So he's going to be doing a lot of this stuff and helping us out. So it's good to have help.

Does Tyler need another gig? Because maybe we need a Tyler too. We got to figure out. We'll talk offline. There you go. Maybe we can all have a slice of Tyler. We need one then. We need a Tyler badly. All right.

Well guys, I'm going to keep sipping on this little oak straight, right? Whiskey a hundred proof. I think it's fantastic. It's very enjoyable. I think it is a different animal than the heresy, but it's, it's its own, it's its own expression for sure. Uh, and when we come back, we're going to take a little break and when we come back, we're going to drink a couple more expressions and dive in a little bit more. What's going on at broken barrel. Folks, 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, 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. 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 seldom seen maple.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 Bard 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. All right. Listeners, welcome back from the break. Uh, we had two great whiskeys in the first half and the second half here, we're getting to two more with Seth Benheim from broken barrel. We got Brian in the house with us. We're, uh, we're moving right into this next whiskey, this next whiskey. Why don't you tell us what it is, Seth?

We are gonna be sipping on the Broken Barrel Reserve Oak Series Peach Brandy Cask and French Oak Finished bourbon at 115 proof, which is our Cask Strength Edition proof for all of our straight bourbons from Owensboro. And it is a very, very fun whiskey. We've done a lot of these around the country. They've been at Costco, they've been at independent liquor stores, they've been in a variety of different states as well. So it's just been a really fun product to be working on for the last year and a half. I think we made these last year in the fourth quarter for the first time. We actually have, you know, the reserve oak series was kind of our experimentation line that sits one kind of rung above the core line that we talked about earlier. So you have, we did a rum and rye cask finish bourbon, we did a stout and ex bourbon cask finish bourbon, and we did a port and French oak cask finish. Those are the three others, and they were all only available by the barrel. So liquor stores would buy them one full barrel at a time, very similar to a private barrel program, which we did not have until this year, fourth quarter, which is effectively not replacing the Reserve Oak series, but we're kind of taking the Reserve Oak series next year, 2023. This kind of answers one of your questions of what's coming next year. We're going to take the Reserve Oak series down to just two items instead of four. And then we're going to replace two of them with a single cask bourbon and single cask rye. And they'll all be made by us and our team here in Southern California, where we'll bring, we'll kind of import in the Kentucky bourbon, Kentucky rye, and we'll mess with them here on a smaller scale while we crank up production on a much larger scale to meet demand for our core items out of Kentucky and their bottling line.

And what kind of investment, I mean, how does that change things at your location in California? Does it add a lot more?

We're going to hire. We're going to hire some people. It's a lot of manual labor. We don't have a lot of equipment and we're not making any major investments. We've been able to bottle a barrel a day here. It's really, really small. Again, I think that speaks to the limited nature of the product you're trying and So you know so forth and so are the single barrel so you're not gonna see a single barrel from broken barrel in every single store next year there's always so much we can do we have not made any significant investments. You know we're looking for a significant expense if anyone wants to make one help us. ramp that up but now we are definitely you know we're putting our money behind the core and we are you know increasing our output by tacking on a little more that we think we can handle here in California to supplement the supply from Kentucky.

Yeah. So business is very good for you guys and demand for your product far exceeds the available product that you have. What you're able to make... Yeah.

We're always out. We're always out of something. we don't have the single skew advantage of some brands that just make one thing and one thing only. We like... It's just not our style. We're about variety. We're about experimentation and education. And it's really hard to educate someone on all the different nuances of this much oak versus that much oak when you only have one product. So by nature of who we are, what we do, we have a lot of products.

Yeah.

I think it's very similar to... If you took Frey Ranch, for example, they're farmers and they grow grains. It'd be really hard to teach you about all the different grains and what they do with and within whiskey if they only had one product. So by nature of that, there's a few different releases that they have. And I think that's true of a lot of companies that get into the nature of experimentation and trying new things.

Yeah, I think the word same isn't in your vocabulary. You don't do same.

We don't do safe.

No, we're going to, we're going to check out the broken barrel reserve oak series, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey finished with peach brandy staves at 115 proof. That's your cast strength.

Yep. Let's check it out. This was the one I was saying earlier is a little more to me on the dessert side, but.

Well, it's another nose for me that's not overly sweet. I might've thought it would be, but it does have a little bit of a fruity nose to it.

Now I'm pouring something very similar because it's also a peach brandy cast finish that a customer picked in a private barrel, but this is a seven year and it's 117 proof. Okay. But it's got some other stuff, but it's very similar. We made it with the same sort of spirit as what you're drinking. So I'm pretty close.

All right. So for me, the nose on this is, like I said, not too sweet. It's not taking you by surprise. It's nice. It's a little fruity. But boy, when you take that first sip, wow, that is a flavor bomb. That is so nice. Yeah.

Do you get the peach ring candy and like the, the kind of, um, almost like hints of maple a little bit, not strong, but it's got that like tart sort of, uh, actually I got a little bit of the maple on the, on the nose too.

And I didn't, I didn't mention it, but I didn't notice it. And, and, but on the palette, my goodness, sweet, rich, deep, syrupy. I do get the maple. I get the peach. Um, it's like a. I don't know. It's almost like a peach jam. Almost. It's really good. Yeah.

Mouth spice on there.

Yeah, I was definitely going to say the, the page ring that was a hundred percent for me definitely got that right off the bat, a little more heat than what we've had so far.

Yeah, definitely. We kicked it up about first two were both a hundred proof. So going to 115 should be a noticeable difference in altitude of proof.

But it's still very pleasant. Uh, you know, it's not too much, maybe, maybe just a little more pepper, uh, than the first Americana. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's delightful.

Very good. That's a wonderful whiskey. I mean, that's really good. I like it a lot. This is right up my alley.

Good. Well, you'll be delighted to know that this will be running now through the first quarter before it gets discontinued. So we do have a few more barrels of this available and we are actively, and I think we just got some of this product up into Northern Nevada, like Reno area, Tahoe. with some retailers that it's going into. Yeah, it's going to be a fun product to just close out the first quarter with and get it on the shelves. And then we'll move into some other really fun stuff with Reserve Oak. I think Reserve Oak is going to be a home for some pretty crazy, cool ideas that we've always had. And it's going to be our skews to really experiment not so much with what we would consider crowd pleasers, but more of like the whiskey we want to make, not the whiskey we think everyone's going to enjoy like Americana, which again, obviously we wanted to make it because we did. But Americana is clearly when you taste it, you're like, yeah, this is a pretty acceptable whiskey that I think anyone, like you said, I think my spouse who doesn't really go too hard into whiskey will enjoy this. And that's I think that's the point, right? And California oak, same thing.

So as you're going through this reserve oak series, I mean, you're trying all these different things and it's, it's like a mad scientist having fun and, and generating all this stuff. But every now and then you're going to step onto something or step into something that's just otherworldly good, right? So what do you do? Do you just enjoy it while it's there and say goodbye to it and move on?

A good example of that was a product we made this year where people just went crazy for it, which was our honey smoke rye. And we took a rye whiskey and we put mezcal and honey barrel staves into it. It darkened up. To a point where it was almost like black the whiskey was so so dark and it went to a private customer in south carolina and it sold out no internet sales sold out in nine days the whole thing. I'm just right off the floor and i think that even like a bottle with it on it or something like that. So pretty crazy response. And then people online have my favorite whiskey of the year, top five this, top five that for a lot of the folks on the Instagram community. And people have been emailing us ever since saying, hey, where can I get this? So I can spill the beans now that when we do make the adjustments to the reserve oak series next year, we want to reflect some of the feedback that we got from the market, which is to do a toasted barrel and honey barrel finished bourbon. So we're going to try to incorporate a lot of the positive feedback we've had on toasted barrel finishes as well as honey barrel finishes, combine them together and put out a new reserve oak that reflects some of the responses we had from that honey smoke and see if we can get them in on the honey toast.

I love that part of your business. I think it's amazing. It's something that just gets me totally excited because I love, I love innovation. I love things that are kind of out of the box and different. Every now and then I'll get to taste a whiskey and some of them are for you. Some of them are from other guys and they just, they're just such a, a departure from the norm that it gets my attention. And not everybody feels that way, but those of us who love that innovation and that different flavor, something that just, you can't get anywhere else. And, um, I've never tasted anything like this one before. It's not crazy or off the wall or doesn't jut out in one direction too much. It's wonderful, but it's so different and it's not something I've had before. So I really enjoy that and I appreciate it. And thank you for sending this over to us.

So yeah, absolutely. I love the fact that it is something totally unique. Um, but just the, the flavors are, I mean, they're, they're special. I I'm a huge peach brandy fan. So this is right up my alley for that, probably for that reason. I am a little bit more of a higher proof guy. So 115 starting to get kind of into the area that I really enjoy quite a bit. You know, as we move up the ladder here and we get to the 128, you're kind of getting into the space where I really, really start to enjoy things. But yeah, this, this being a peach brandy and just the uniqueness of it makes it special.

Thank you. Yeah, no, I think it's a, it is a fun whiskey and we've had a lot of fun with it. I think the rotation aspect of the Reserve Oak series will A, bring a lot of people to purchase what they see when they see it because of the nature of it not being a constant and B, it also gives people something to look forward to because they may have already had these Reserve Oak series and whether they go back to them or not, I think the nature of Whiskey industry today right now is variety. People want to try new things all the time. And if they're more like the three of us and less like the everyday consumer that's going to find three or four brands and really stick to them, I think the problem with a lot of crack whiskey is The very nature of craft is that it is smaller production and smaller companies for that matter. And so they are not widely distributed and they're not everywhere. So it's a harder task to become someone's brand, the brand they keep going back to because we move around in life and we go from one city to another city or we're traveling or we're in a different city and we want something to drink. The brands we like are constantly available and everywhere then we end up either migrating to the big corporate stuff so we'll end up drinking Jim Beam or Jack Daniels or whatever because it's everywhere. If we're a my brand, once I find something, I'm the kind of person that wants the same thing every time and I go to McDonald's in every city because it's always the same. Whatever. If you're that person that has that mentality, that's going to be the challenge for craft like us where we're more right now appealing to, you want something new that you never had? Here's a new whiskey every month that you haven't had. Not just from us, but from anyone because we're trying to do things that have never been done and do that every month or every other, every six, eight weeks we're coming out with something new. it kind of keeps people on their toes and keeps people coming back to hopefully they eventually settle into like one or two of our core items like castrank or heresy or whatever and they just go back to those products that's my hope that's my little like rant but

Well, and I know you have something pretty cool on your website too, with the whiskey club. And I'm sure that a lot of our listeners would like to learn a little bit more about that. Something that I've done a little bit of research on, but I think it's a really cool opportunity for people to be involved in. you know, be able to taste some different things from broken barrel and stay up to date with things.

Yeah. One of the benefits of California is that we can ship to people online. And so our ability to do that gives us the opening for these whiskey clubs and people could sign up and they'll be guaranteed production, whether it's distillery exclusives or even private clients where we save a couple barrels or a couple bottles. We try to keep some back. It's not a huge club right now. We only have a handful of members, but those members are guaranteed things like the Honey Smoke or the Rare Americana or our Fenwalker or our Little Oak. Members got those bottles. Everyone that signed up got those bottles and they got a cool collector coin and they got... I forget if it was a shirt or one of those. They get these items that are truly reserved and exclusive for those members to be guaranteed versus any other like broad market stuff. So it's a great way. If you're a collector and you're kind of like, I'd rather save money and make sure I get these then wait and see if I'm going to get them and wait and see if I'm going to pay full price or secondary or anything like that. It's kind of the opposite of secondary. It's guaranteed and it's cheaper versus maybe and more expensive.

Are you finding that these folks who join your club for these special offerings are also becoming customers for your core group of whiskeys?

They probably don't mind me saying this, but the people that signed up for the club have come back, almost all of them, and bought more. Which is just like the craziest thing to me. The club was a great way to guarantee their spot on the list of getting some of these cool limited edition releases. But then above and beyond that, you know, some items didn't go out to the club members or some items that are only available on our site or were kind of coming out at a time in between the quarter because if the club is semi annual or quarterly, right. And so you have I think it's January, April, July and then October are the four shipping months. And so depending on when you sign up, you'll get in on that next shipment kind of thing. we had releases coming out in between those quarterly slotting for shipments, they ended up buying the stuff in between. We had members that came back and spent a lot of money and got a lot of bottles. At first, we were like, you already signed up for the club. Why are you getting more? I was like, should I email them and see if this was a mistake? Then no. Second, third, fourth orders. So we've got some real fans out there. And I didn't really know what that was like. I mean, we didn't do a lot of our own selling to the public until they changed the laws in California this past quarter to allow us to kind of get back into some of these laws that were created as a result of COVID. And so with those opening back up, because they went away in March and then they came back. With that, we were like, Wow, we have permission to do some cool shit again. So we ended up putting stuff back online and opening the club again. And people came back and we didn't really have firsthand knowledge of what because we never had the tasting room kind of thing open until recently, too. So seeing people that are that big of a fan of the brand is kind of it's new to us. So we're It took us by surprise, I think. That's awesome. That's so awesome.

All right. So I think we're ready to move on to the next, the fourth and final bottle in our series today. And Seth, what do we have in our glass?

This is a first for you guys, which is your first rare Americana. I don't think you've had one before. It's also the first one that's ever made it to the state of Kentucky. And the product you're tasting now is available at Liquor Barn at a few locations, not all. I would call in advance if you're going to run out and try to find one. And I know they're selling relatively quickly because we got two store shelves on the 8th of December. Today is the 21st and they're already out half their inventory. So it's moving pretty quickly. I would make moves to go out there and get more or to get on the radar there with this product because it is certainly moving at a pretty good pace. About a case a day gone from their inventory. And there are only 25 cases made. So

Now, are there particular locations or have they just spread it around their stores in the area?

It's only 25 cases and I imagine some stores got a case or two and I know they have 30 odd locations. So by default, even if one case went to every store, that would only cover two thirds of the stores. Call ahead. That's my advice. Anytime you're looking for a very specific thing before leaving the house, call ahead. I don't know if it's on their website, but it might be. But yeah, this is the Rare Americana, 6-year. It's 99% corn, 1% multi-barley. And it is 50% orange curacao barrel, 50% Barbadian rum cask. 128 proof. And it is one single barrel. This is distilled in Indiana. The other whiskeys you tried tonight are all from Kentucky, with the exception of the Indiana distillate that's blended with the Americana. And you can kind of see a theme there between Americana and rare Americana. The difference with the rare Americana is they're always going to be at least six years and older. They'll be age-stated. They'll be a darker label versus the light label and a black bottle versus the clear bottle, which is an indication that this was processed and done by us here in LA. So I don't know if you guys... This is obviously... It's not a video podcast, right? You guys only do audio, so... We put out some video.

We won't put out this whole entire video, but we'll put out clips from it.

Okay. It's a good thing I didn't pick my names then. I asked that question at the beginning. I'm like, is this a video? And then I like, you know, try to look smart.

Yeah, I don't care how hard I try. It's tough for me to look smart. So it's better that I just do a podcast, I think.

I was going to say it's so bright where you are, Jim, but then I realized after like five minutes in, it was a fake background because it's all blurry. I was like, man, isn't it two hours ahead over there? It's already getting dark here.

That is a fake background, Seth, but it is an actual photo out the back of my son room of my house. So it's like half real.

Oh, man. I mentioned earlier, I did a short list of my favorite whiskeys we did this year. The top five Broken Barrel that I think were my favorites released in 2022. And there were a lot. There were a lot of products. We put out the Plankwalker, the Reckoner, the Fenwalker, five different rare Americanas. This is the fourth of five that will be released this year. Three different barrel picks from Los Angeles distillery, Little Oak, Americana, Honey Smoke. There were so many. Cornucopia we did. Double Barrel Bourbon we did. Maple Mizunara we did. So there was a lot of fun, crazy stuff we did this year. And I chose this as my favorite release from 2022. I thought it was perfect.

What do you guys, I'm going to just take, give you my first quick take on it. Then I'm going to let Brian dive in a little bit for me. The nose is a little deceiving. It's a, it's a wonderful nose, but it doesn't give away the palette, right? The palette is definitely something that is, uh, full of mouthwatering flavor. It's so rich and so sweet and so. Um, it's bold and 128 proof. You think it knock your socks off. It's just a nice sipping whiskey. I don't get, I don't get a ton of the curacao though. I get a little bit.

There are these little like crystallized sugar elements that we saw on the barrel staves that really translated into these like pops of sweetness. It, you know, it nosing it, I wouldn't even like. I wouldn't jump out of my chair and say, that's a whiskey, that's a whiskey. I would maybe go, is this a rum? Like on the nose. I would almost go, cause you know it's whiskey and we're talking about whiskey, we're on a whiskey podcast. But if I sat you down and said, all right, time for a blind spirits flight. Let's see how well you know your spirits. You throw this in the mix and you might throw a few people off and they'll go, Oh, you know what? It's just got all that kind of like molasses nose and it's kind of sweet profile, sweeter than a normal whiskey. Is there some kind of a sugar cane element to this? Cause there are, it's reflected in the nose and the palate that sugar cane and it's, um, It's really interesting how you can pull and bend and reshape the whiskey with these staves when you finish it. And the nice part about using a light whiskey or an aged corn whiskey like this, it never saw a new chard oak. It's not super high profile like a bourbon is with those kind of caramel, vanilla, Charred oak kind of woody elements to it. And so no butterscotch, all that. So when you use a light whiskey, it went straight out of the still into a used barrel, a used bourbon barrel, or a used whiskey barrel. And so because of that fact, it was lighter in color, lighter in flavor. Hence, one of the reasons this is referred to as light whiskey, among other reasons. It's just ready to take on whatever you put into it. That's why I love these Americanas, especially the rare Americanas, is they're so malleable in what they end up being after you've done the oakbill process. So I can almost turn it into a rum. I'm not sure if I were to take a lot of heavily peated staves, I could turn it into a deceiving Isla Scotch style whiskey or whatever. You can really warp it and make it, especially on the nose, differently on the palette, you can really pull it in a lot of directions, which is the fun part about using this kind of whiskey as a base.

Yeah, I would agree. If you put this in a blind, you would definitely have a curve ball for people. I'm actually a big rum fan, and so this one hits really nicely for me. Plus, it's up there improved, so it's pretty hot, which I really enjoy. But the sugar cane and the sweetness is very good. And yeah, it'd be hard to not pick this one for the whiskey of the year. It's very good.

I'm proud of this one. circles back to a whiskey we put out, which was the Plank Walker, which did very well. It got 90 points at Whiskey Advocate. It got 94 points and a four and a half out of five on Whiskey Wash. And it was just very, very well received. 93 points, I think, on Ultimate Spirits. Sorry, that was the record of those different whiskeys. You know, I don't want to be the guy that just keeps using rum staves all the time, but this will be, I had to try one more time just to kind of see what would happen. And I tried to change it up by doing the Curacao instead of the French Oak, but the Plank Walker, you know, was really one of our best received favorite whiskeys. One of my favorite whiskeys, but it came out last year. It would have easily won my favorite this year if it hadn't come out last year.

So I would imagine you have to be, very gentle with something like a curacao stave, right? And you have to be very careful because it can overpower things. And for this, it's just a light touch.

Yeah. You know, it is 50% curacao, but it's not, I'd say it's 50% of the recipe, but it's not 50% of the flavor is kind of the way I would phrase it.

Yeah. I mean, I've had some Curacao finishes before that have been overpowering. They spent a lot of time, uh, in those barrels and just took up an awful lot of that flavor and it can be, it can be over. It can be a bit overpowering and this is not.

Yeah. I didn't want to waste any time. So I actually went out and ordered two bottles, uh, while we're here on the podcast to make sure I could grab one for Jim and myself so we could enjoy this a little bit more. Oh gee, Brian, thank you.

Awesome.

Seth, tell us a little bit about your facility in California and if people are going to come visit, what can they expect? What's a visit like out there?

Certainly. The facility here in California is in downtown Los Angeles and we are a relatively small tasting room and we can fit about 25 to 30 people in terms of seating. We've got a nice space. It's very pretty to look at. We've got our library here of all of my spirits, which we on occasion will make available to everyone that visits. depending on what's going on and whatnot. People just came in today, but they couldn't really access any of this because I was busy with you guys on a podcast that didn't want to be interrupted. So that would be an example of when the library is kind of closed. But that aside, we have our core whiskeys available here to purchase and to taste, as well as What you can expect is limited edition whiskeys. At least there will always be something on the shelf, no matter what. Even if I have to bottle my own limited editions just for the gift shop. there will always be something here that you can only get here or it's very hard to find elsewhere. And that's our promise to people that make the time and take the effort and energy to come see us. I've been to a lot of distilleries, over 150 at this point, and nothing makes me crazier than going to a distillery and then not having something unique for the visitors. So I've made it my mission to make sure we always have something unique and something fun for the visitors to have available to them. It has to be that way. It's just so important.

And Seth, where can our listeners find you on the internet, on social media? How do they reach out to you when they need to?

Brokenbarrelwhiskey.com is our website. You can always just Google Broken Barrel Whiskey. We will come up. Stores that sell us will come up. Podcasts that are interviewed us like yourselves will come up. There are pages and pages and pages. articles, reviews, stores, podcasts about us on Google. So always just Google Broken Barrel Whiskey. You'll find us. On Instagram, we are at Broken Barrel Whiskey. No spaces or dots or anything. Just spelled straight out whiskey with an E. And then we are on TikTok, Broken Barrel Whiskey. Actually, I think our TikTok handle may not be Broken Barrel Whiskey, let me tell you. Sorry, I'm not like, I really am not a TikTok expert or a fishnado here, so I'm not even 100% sure what our TikTok handle is. Our TikTok handle is at Broken Barrel. That's it, no whiskey, even better. We are at Broken Barrel on TikTok. And then Facebook, we have a Facebook page. It's not that large, but everything we do on Instagram goes there. So if you're more Facebook than Instagram, for any reason, you won't miss anything if you follow us on Facebook. Awesome.

Awesome. So any special events that you'll be at this year, Seth, that folks can try to find you at?

Yeah, definitely. We will be at Kentucky Bourbon Festival 2023. We will be earlier in the year at the Kentucky Barbecue and Bourbon Challenge that goes on in the summer. we will be out visiting the market in February. So if there's any kind of events or anything going on in February... I know there's the Bourbon Classic. I don't know if we're going to make it to that. But I know that is an event going on in February in Kentucky. And then just around the country, all kinds of other events. We do Whiskey Riot in Texas. We'll be doing Whiskey X next year. We'll be doing Whiskey Fest, at least in maybe Las Vegas, only if not somewhere else. We had big plans to be at those events and be pouring not only the core stuff, but also some specialty. We always, you know, if you come up and pretend like, you know, me, you know, probably forgotten if I met someone before. So if you pretend like, you know, me and you go, Oh man, remember I met you at that thing. I'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Cause I don't want to be rude. And then I'll pour you something special from behind the table.

It's always fun running into you out and about. You're always hollering out and saying, Hey Jim, I got something for you. Come in here.

Well, that's the real honor is if I remember you and I call you out before you call me out or pretend to call me out and say, hey, you meet so many people at these events. And you just kind of after how many years and I'm a young guy, I still have like, you know, I still forget everything. And I'm also probably half drunk at these things anyway, because I'm probably sipping whiskey with so many individual people that by the time we're halfway through the event, I'm a little you know, my head spinning. So people will walk up, hey, remember me? Yeah, you And even if I don't remember, even if I don't remember, I'll just like, you know, grab a bottle and pour you some fancy stuff. Make sure I'm smoothing it over with high-proof vermin. I can fix any, any wounds.

Well, Seth, it's always a pleasure to have you on the show. It's a pleasure to meet you in town, to have you over at our house, to meet you. Look, hopefully in February we'll get to go down to the little thoroughbred society together. I mean, anytime you're in Kentucky, look us up and we'll do the same if we're out on the West coast. It's always a blast. You're such a great guy. You're such an innovator in this field. And it's just, it's awesome to talk about this stuff. It's kind of like if I were a whiskey guy, if I were a guy that owned a distillery, I think that would be the kind of work I would want to do, what you're doing right now. I kind of envy you in that way.

Thank you, Jim. Thanks, Brian, you guys for having me on the show and talking about great guys. You guys are two of the greatest guys, so let's definitely plan to meet up again in Kentucky very soon.

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