368. ASW Distillery Toasted Series

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're very excited to have Blanton's bourbon shop.com is a new sponsor for the bourbon road podcast. In fact, this podcast is brought to you by Blanton's bourbon shop. Blanton's bourbon shop.com is the only official merchandiser for Blanton's original single barrel. Looking for a unique gift. Blanton's bourbon shop has got you covered. Blanton's bourbon shop.com is your home for all Blanton's gifts. Welcome back listeners to another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. I'm your host Jim Shannon and today we are on the road. We finally got a chance to get back down to Atlanta, Georgia and we're visiting again ASW Distillery and we got Chad Ralston with us in the house. Chad, actually we're in your house.

That's right. The house, our house. Yeah.

I like it. So welcome back again. It's nice to have you on. Thanks for having us. I was telling you earlier before we came on air that that we had saw something about your recent release online. And I was going to be down here for other business. I said, I need to check back in with these guys because we just had a tremendous event at Bourbon on the Banks where you so graciously donated some bottles for the roadies to enjoy on the Bourbon Roadie Bar. And it was a fantastic success. It was really great.

Yeah, it sounds amazing. Hope to make it next year.

Yeah, hopefully you can make it next year. I think we talked about maybe you might try one of these years to get up there. In fact, this year might be a good, this coming year might be a real good time for you. Absolutely. But today we're going to drink four of your whiskeys on the show, three of which we've never had before. And the fourth one is the one that was a smash hit at Berman on the Banks. We love to hear it. Yeah, absolutely. So what do I have in my first class here?

Yeah, so the first one that you're sampling today is our Fiddler Chin Music toasted bourbon. All right, so this is, we have a, I can't remember if we mentioned in the last episode we were on back in the early spring, but we have an ongoing relationship with the Atlanta Braves. Our vodka and gin distillery and tasting room is depths from the Brave Stadium. And so their leadership, their front office are big bourbon drinkers. And so they helped us put together this product. It is the 45% wheat mash bill, bourbon mash bill that goes into our Fedler Georgia Heartwood that a lot of people have come to know and love. It is finished in toasted barrels and then bottled at 100 proofs. So this particular batch was finished, 80% of it, so four barrels of it, were finished 18 months in a medium toast barrel, and then the final barrel, or 20%, was finished two months in a heavy toast barrel.

Okay. So we're hoping for a little bit more of those maybe chocolate notes, those campfire notes, burnt marshmallow notes.

You got it, you got it. So maybe some butterscotch as well. Yeah, so let me know what you think. As you sample that, a little bit of background on this particular one. So we had two prior Fiddler Chin Music releases, the first of which celebrated the Atlanta Braves 2021 World Series. That was also the 45% wheat mash bill. And then the second release was a Rye that we, the label color was the Braves sort of baby blue throwback jerseys. This label is a red color that is a nod to their Sunday Reds uniform color. But we released it during the NLDS this year, hoping, fingers crossed, that maybe they would advance past the Phillies. Yeah, sometimes you can't have everything. Well, it's not a total loss.

I mean, the whiskey can still perform on its own. It doesn't need the Braves to do well in the market. Although you kind of hope for comparison there between the two.

So what's the proof on this? This sits at 100 proof. And whereas those two prior releases I mentioned were cask strength and one-offs, this concept, the Fiddler Chin Music Toasted, will be an ongoing, this is kind of our I wouldn't say it's going to be available 100% year-round, but it will be available consistently through the year that we're going to be able to take to all of BRAVE's countries. So BRAVE's country is actually a defined term. It is Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi.

That's a big territory.

Yeah, exactly.

Explain Chin music to me. Why Chin music?

Yeah, great question. So going back to the Braves front office being big bourbon fans, the first time we sat down with them to devise what this project might look like, the Braves CEO, Derek Schiller, we said, you know, what should we call it? And he said, well, you know, chin music is a baseball term for a high and tight pitch. And it just kind of seemed to fit with the Fiddler

Yeah. Wow, that's pretty cool.

Yeah. I'd never heard that term before. Is it something you were familiar with? Yes. I was a big baseball nerd growing up, so I had heard it on occasion. But yeah, it's not nearly as well known as double play or knocking out of the park or whatever.

So as I'm sipping on this, I'm trying to remember the Georgia Heartwood, your Fiddler Georgia Heartwood, which I sipped on a number of times at Urban on the Banks. And then I think I had again, I think it was just a very small amount left in the bottle. And I said, well, we might as well get rid of this. So I had that just a few days ago before coming down here. And this has a little bit more like I don't know, a little bit more character to it. I think it has a heavier character to it. The Fiddler is a wonderful whiskey, and we'll get to tasting that a little bit later. And it's one that, like I said, was a great success at the event. But this has a little bit more of a sweetness up front on it. maybe more of a butterscotch-y but toasted butterscotch feel to it. So what are some of the notes you've heard from people? What are some of the impressions you've got from your staff here tasting it and from other people who have tried this whiskey?

Yeah, absolutely. In addition to the butterscotch, I've heard peach cobbler or peach pie thrown out there. Definitely for me, there's some caramel notes. The oak, as you mentioned, is not as pronounced as in Fiddler Heartwood. And that's kind of by design. Fiddler Heartwood is essentially triple-oaked in the sense that spends first roughly four years in one new charred white oak barrel, spends another two-ish years in new charred white oak barrel and also gets staves of that heartwood that our master distiller Justin harvests anywhere from 15 to 30 of those that are charred and slotted into the barrel for the final few months of aging. So this, I agree with you, definitely doesn't push the charred oak to the forefront quite as much as fiddler heartwood.

Yeah. It's got more upfront, I think, than the fiddler Georgia heartwood does. I just remember that being more of a bold whiskey, more oaky, more bold, whereas this one's got a little bit more sweetness up front. It does have that character of that heavy toast on that 20% of the barrels you said are heavy toast. That's right. You get a little bit of that. I'm looking for that burnt marshmallow. I'm just not getting that campfire burnt marshmallow, but I want to get it. I think you'll get it in the next one.

You think so? I do.

OK. Well, I'm looking forward to that one. I'm still going to sip on this one for a few minutes. But what I'd like to do is maybe refresh the memory of some of our listeners, maybe some of those who are new and haven't heard the episode when we were here before. What is the ASW story? Yeah.

Yeah, so we got our start. Our founders, Jim Chastain and Charlie Thompson, were roommates back in their days in college. And a few years after they graduated, they both had a shared interest in rye whiskey. So this was back in 2009. And this was really before rye had really started to hit its stride in terms of its resurgence, in terms of popularity. They set out to try to make something that they could sell immediately with the long-term prospect of having a really solid rye whiskey and maybe start forming a distillery around that. So, their initial formulation was a clear whiskey called American Spirit Whiskey. It was a high rye mash bill that spent just a scotch of a period of time in a barrel, enough to be called a spirit whiskey, which is actually a legally defined type of whiskey under the TTB's beverage alcohol manual. But they partnered with a facility in Charleston called Terracentia at the time to manufacture that. And for the next four years, they just kind of grew it organically, predominantly here in our home state of Georgia. And it developed a little bit of a following, but it also became clear in those four years that a clear whiskey was really never going to become a big sought after brand. It's just such a niche product. So they realized they needed to either go big or hang up their cleats. And around that time, Jim, his younger sister said, well, I've got a distiller for you. His name is Justin. I'm friends with them from high school. And they kind of rolled their eyes thinking, you know, any person you're connected to through a third or second degree connection probably is just a hobbyist who doesn't really know what they're doing. But they got a hold of some of the juice that Justin had made and it was dynamite. That's when they realized there's really something here. So I joined the team. This was early 2015. And then the four of us went out and raised just shy of two million dollars to build out the facility that we're here taping this episode with. And that allowed us to get Justin's ideal traditional Scottish copper pot still set up. So we partnered with Vindome Copper and Brassworks out of Louisville to make these beautiful stills. We got a 500 gallon wash still, 300 gallon spirit still with a really cool inverted condenser. And you know, most conundrums you see, you don't actually witness the whiskey evaporate coming into the shell and then cooling down and dripping off the bottom in a stream of clear liquid. That's what ours you can see, particularly if you come on a tour. You know, we built out the space and we got distilling, started distilling in early 2016, spring of 2016. And it's really been off to the races ever since. We haven't had a ton of inventory until recently. So for years we were just distributed in Georgia. And then from there we slowly grew organically. launched in East Tennessee back in 2018. We launched in Florida in late 2019, and then we've since picked up Texas, Southern California, and we are just about to launch in Colorado, which is pretty exciting because it's coming very, very close on the heels of these Fiddler toasted products releases that we're talking about today. So we're excited to have us our first state in which we can launch all of these together as a brand family.

Wow, that's fantastic. Yeah. So what's this room we're in right now? This is an amazing room, and I think you told me the story behind this before, but this is like a Almost like a gentleman's club in here, in a way.

It really is, yes. And that's not far off from the inspiration behind it. So our original distillery where we're at, all three of our locations have tasting rooms associated with them, but they all have a little bit of a different feel. The one at the Battery next to the Braze Stadium that I mentioned, that's very kind of baseball themed, ash, lighter woods. Where we're sitting right now is, you know, we've got darker woods, we've got a navy blue, paint color on the wall, we've got cool little memorabilia, like a American flag made out of wooden staves and stuffed links that one of our friends gave to us and we didn't really know what to do with it because it just scares people if they come upon it unexpectedly. So perch them on an ASW barrel. Yeah, exactly. Looking out, you know, philosophizing about the world. But this space itself, so when we raised money, We had a friends no family capital raise from about seventy five folks a lot of people when they raise money. They try to get as few folks as possible cuz cuz they just it'll be headaches down the road but we wanted a core of brand ambassadors out there asking for our products at bars liquor stores. And so we designed this specific space. It is our investors lounge to have lockers for them so they can come in and have their own collection and bring friends in and enjoy it in this room. And it's actually modeled after during prohibition. I think, if I recall correctly, locker clubs were one of the carve-outs of places you could consume spirits legally. And as you notice back here on the back wall, there's a mural of the day that Prohibition ended in the state of Georgia. which Georgia, in its infinite wisdom, decided to adopt prohibition, I think it was 13 years ahead of federal prohibition, so 1907, and then got rid of it two years after federal prohibition ended, so 1935. So it went to southern states, right? Yeah, exactly.

I think Tennessee has a similar story. So the idea behind the Locker Club is that you own the whiskey, therefore you're allowed to continue to drink it, right?

Yep, something to that effect. Of course, who knows the derivation of that whiskey once you run out of your original bottle, but that was exciting.

If you bring your whiskey into the locker club, you put it in your locker and then you come hang out with your buddies.

That's right. Clearly it was just a carve out for legislators who wanted to continue to be able to drink but didn't want anyone else to be able to.

I would hope that back then I would have been an innovator like that and figured a way to keep drinking. Exactly. That is so cool. All right, so we have managed to get through this, and I wanted to say to you, I have an empty glass, but it gives me opportunity to really get a nice nose on an empty glass. Absolutely. And that caramel that you talked about is just very ever-present there. This is not a fruity whiskey. This is not something that gives a lot of notes, no floral notes to it, but it's more of a kind of a sweet, almost buttery, butterscotch-y, caramel kind of whiskey that has an extra added sweetness to it from that toasting barrel. And I love it. I think it's great. And it's the same distillate that goes into your heartwood, but it doesn't have that extra barrel aging.

That's right. Those extra stays. And isn't that wild how different they are?

Well, I mean, we've heard many, many times, right? the barrel aging and the effect of the wood is paramount to anything else that goes into the process. So 60, 70% of the flavor.

Particularly with bourbon and American style rye.

Yeah. And you start introducing multiple barrels to that equation, ones that have never seen whiskey before. Yeah. And you just get a huge impact from them. You really do. All right. So what's next on our list here?

Yeah. So this next one is Fiddler toasted bourbon. And this is pretty close of kin with what you just had. That other one was specifically designated as a Braves collaboration and bottled at 100 proof. And I also mentioned that one, the one you just tried, also had some heavy toast barrels as part of the finishing process. This one, Fiddler Toasted Bourbon, is an addition, a year-round addition to our portfolio. I should have mentioned previously, all three of these Fiddler toasted products we're talking about are going to be batched in the sense that each batch has different levels of toast, different finishing time periods in the toasted barrels, different char levels to the original barrel that they went in, and that's really what's going to drive the differences between the batches on these. So this one that you're sampling now, that same 45% wheat mash bill that we have grown to love so much, this one is cask strength. So it'll drink a little hotter. I think this one actually went up in strength in the barrel. So we bottle that around 60 and a half. 60.3, it looks like. Yeah, 121 proof, basically.

And this is five year, nine months. So this is roughly a six year old whiskey. And as you said, entered into that heavy toast barrel with a number one char for three months.

And so for those who have had some of our other Fiddler products, Fiddler Unisun Bourbon or Fiddler Heartwood Bourbon, we have, with this Fiddler Toasted series, introduced this concept of kind of a sidebar or an inset of information that will always be there and will vary by batch. So, we'll actually probably introduce that same window or sidebar concept onto our Fiddler Heartwood product probably sometime next year. I think you can't have enough information on the label.

People really, they want that. They want as much transparency as possible. Exactly. There's a few of us whiskey geeks out there that want to know everything, right? But I think even your casual bourbon consumer wants to know a little bit more than just the proof. Yeah. So that's great.

Yeah, especially when you're doing different finishes in toasted barrels or have different staves in there or finishing in a pork cask or something. Yeah, that is definitely very helpful information.

Oh yeah, that is very viscous and smooth. Totally different from what we just had. Yeah, isn't it? Yeah, this one has a lot more body to it, a lot more These are all non-chill filtered, I'm assuming. Correct, yeah.

Yeah, we don't chill filter anything.

We don't even have the equipment to do that. Yeah, so this is... When you drink this, you feel like you're getting that silky soft smoothness that you expect from a well-crafted high-proof whiskey. Sometimes you get them from low-proof whiskies too. It's a matter of the process, but I really like this one a lot.

Yeah, that weeded mashbill is especially kind of silky in its mouth feel. And this one, these are a compilation of tasting notes from our different team, but I would love to hear what you're getting on the nose. We, at various points, have gotten cherry, graham cracker, and then here's a fun one for you, lapsang sushong tea. I wouldn't know. That wasn't mine. So Wit, our distiller, Wit Hageman, is the brains behind the Toasted series and he, in a prior life, he was actually on the last episode we were on with you. He, in a prior life, was an award-winning barista. He went and competed and would win awards at these barista competitions. So he has an extremely sensitive and attuned nose and palate. And that's where he came up with the lab saying Sushong. Yeah, so I remember that interview now and I remember how he is very... His palate and his nose are very attuned to whiskey.

He definitely is able to pull out some things that I would never grasp, I think. Yeah, but the cherries definitely, when you mentioned that, my nose was at it when you said it. I definitely got it. I'm also getting like a little bit of, you know those chalky wafer candies? Yeah, yeah. I'm getting a little bit of that like, I think they have like a cornstarch on the outside of them. I'm getting a little bit of that as well.

That's a great one.

It's a great note. I think it drinks well. It's super, super soft up front though. You really don't get the impression of the whiskey until it hits the mid-palate. It almost goes right past the front of your tongue. I get just a little bit on the tip, you know? But the sweetness is nice. It's subdued, but I like it a lot. I'm not getting that... I'm not getting that burnt marshmallow. I'm sorry. Maybe I'm looking for it too much. Maybe I'm expecting to be really hit by it.

Yeah, I have and maybe because we released two or three batches. So the batch that I tried, we released them all at once, but they obviously had different toast levels and finishing times in the barrel. But the one that I tried so far definitely had that toasted marshmallows.

I'm getting like almost like a Nutella. Oh, yeah. Like a Nutella chocolate. What's the nut in Nutella? Hazelnut. Hazelnut. I'm getting like a hazelnut chocolate note on it a little bit. Cool. That's really cool.

Which is really nice.

Yeah. But not the burnt marshmallow. I was hoping for it. It's wonderful whiskey. I'll take Nutella. Yeah, Nutella is a good one, I think.

What about this? Are you getting any pecan pie?

You know, I think it's suggestive, but yeah, a little bit. I think so. It's been a minute since I had pecan pie, but I've always loved it. And I love that, you know, in Kentucky, we typically have what we call a chest pie, which is similar, but not the same, right?

So, pecan pie and George's Thanksgiving staple, and that's about the only time I'll have it all year, because it's so dang rich. Is chess pie the same thing just Thanksgiving, or is it more of a year?

No, it's just something you find on the menus at restaurants. It's kind of a Kentucky area thing, and it has a little bit of chocolate in it as well. And I'm probably going to have a thousand listeners correcting me on this, but here's another thing. It's been a minute since I had some, but I always relate it to kind of a pecan pie with a little bit of chocolate in it. Oh, yeah. Cool. That sounds good. They're probably going to say, what are you talking about?

It's made of peaches and lemon.

I get so many messages when I call out some of this stuff that from like faint memories of my past because

I think I got the good and plenty colors wrong once.

I was talking about the different colors and I got them wrong. So somebody had to let me know that I got them wrong. But that's fun.

It means you have listeners who are engaged.

That's right. They are.

They're keeping me checked.

Make it so I don't go too far out on a limb. This could very easily become a favorite of mine. I like it a lot. This is really good. When did this one release? This would have been prior to the last release.

What was the date? It was no more than a month ago. In our infinite wisdom, we decided to release four products all within the span of about three or four weeks.

How is that for getting the word out?

We did not elect to do that, by the way. We were planning on releasing it to the Fiddler toasted bourbon, which you're trying, and the Fiddler toasted rye. We weren't sure when the Fiddler chin music toasted would be able to actually get released because the MLB has to sign off on it. And they just decided to sign off in such a way that it was going to coincide with the release of this one. And we just so happen to also have a project with the NIL collective in Athens for the university that landed at the same time as well. Wow. Yeah. It's got a lot going on here. Got a lot going on.

Very busy.

Yeah.

Yeah. At three locations. Yeah. And do you have one in particular that's more busy than the others? Well, I wouldn't say more busy.

Yes, the short answer is yes, the battery is the most busy, just because the foot traffic at the battery is nuts. I mean, with the Braves there, and they've just, the Braves development team, which is the real estate side of things, has just done such a fantastic job of putting together a really cool collection of restaurants and retail shops, et cetera. But setting that aside, this location where we're filming or taping this episode is where people go to get the real in-depth tour and have the full suite of everything we have to offer from a whiskey side of things. So I guess it's where anyone who is just a huge whiskey connoisseur, this is probably the place you want to come. Our third location is on the Atlanta Beltline. It is in the West End neighborhood, very close to the Mercedes-Benz Stadium. It has a really cool barrel room. I mean, we age a lot of whiskey there, but people generally go there mainly for a few cocktails. It's part of a big development that has a couple breweries, has a few restaurants, so.

Yeah, so, and I guess that whole Beltline thing, I've only been on it one time, but for those people from outside of Atlanta, this is a pathway that runs through the city that has a lot of commerce on it. You can basically Carry drinks. Yep, you can bicycle on it great combination by the way Exactly in the scooters people wiping out on scooters, but you'll have Margarita windows and restaurants and patio places you can stop and just just a wonderful experience Yeah, it's

Think a lot of cities have started to embrace their old maybe defunct rail lines as an opportunity to do something pretty unique from a just like you said It's it's maybe like a commerce corridor.

Yeah, you'd almost describe it as that's a neat concept now I'd always been familiar with like the rails to trails thing because I used to ride bicycles on rails to trails. Yeah, but this is more of a rails to walking trail. I mean, you can ride bikes on it, but this is more about a stroll along and have a beer and stroll along and do some shopping.

And they have art installations along it, like public art. So yeah, it's a neat thing. I mean, I know that Charleston has been developing one called the Low Line for a few years. There's obviously the High Line in New York, if you've been there. I'm sure there's plenty of others that don't come to mind for me.

It's great stuff. Yeah. Wonderful stuff. Yeah. As is this whiskey. Well, thank you. This is tremendous. Well, I'll tell you what. We're going to take a short break. I'm going to keep sipping on this. We'll come back. We have two more whiskies, another toasted, and we're going to hit that Georgia heart with it. Yeah. Perfect. Looking for a unique gift? Blanton's bourbon shop has got you covered. All of their handcrafted wood products are made in their in-house wood shop with authentic bourbon barrels. Specializing in barrel-age potent treats, they use Blanton's barrels to age their own maple syrup, honey, and coffee. Find the most unique gift ideas for your golf lover, cigar connoisseur, avid coffee drinker, and Blanton's fan. Want to win an authentic Blanton's barrel head? Make sure you sign up for the giveaway on the home page of their website. Blanton'sBourbonShop.com is your home for all Blanton's gifts. All right, so we are back. We had a nice little break there. We got to chit chat a little bit about all kinds of stuff. We were all over the map, weren't we? We sure were. Colorado and everywhere in between. Yeah. So the Fiddler Toasted, which we finished up during the break, was just absolutely amazing. I have to say that I can't wait to release in Kentucky because I think that's one of them that I'm going to make sure to get my hands on. I hope that one makes it to Kentucky. I don't know.

It sure will.

Yes, that will be.

Kentucky's actually, I mentioned we're about to launch in Colorado. The next two states after that are Kentucky and Massachusetts.

And how do you choose like Kentucky and Massachusetts? Are you trying to like spatter them a little bit around? Are you trying to get regions?

It's even less strategic than that. It's who we get introduced to that we just have a good relationship with.

Okay.

So we had a influencer who did a pick with us who's really good friends with a pretty influential Kentucky, I'm sorry, Massachusetts liquor store chain called Liquor Junction. And they introduced us to a distributor who we related off with, so hence Massachusetts.

And that's really how it works in this world. I mean, when you get somebody to try your whiskey, and I know we hear you guys saying it all the time, tell your local liquor stores, right? Because they turn around and tell their distributors. That's exactly right. And then the distributors place orders. That's right. And if you don't have distribution in that state, they're going to want to represent you, right? Yep, exactly. So folks, make sure you do it. If you've got a whiskey that you've liked, if you've traveled, if you've come through Atlanta and you've tasted Fiddler and you liked it, and you're from Nevada or wherever.

We would be thrilled. We will try our best to get to you. Go back and tell your uncle liquor stores.

Exactly. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, so this next one is another extension within the Fiddler toasted series. Fiddler toasted bourbon was the last one. This is Fiddler toasted rye. This is, let me read off because each batch varies a little bit. This one is six years old. And this, the mash bill is the MGP 95.5. And this finish was six months in a heavy toasted barrel and prior to that was char one. Okay. And so this left the, this is cask strength and left the cask at 50.7. So 111 proof.

Wow. Well, that, that's a good age on rye. No doubt. Yeah. It does have that wonderful, that wonderful floral pine forest note to it. I just, I always love that. But I'm crossing my fingers and I'm hoping for a little bit of candy on it. I'm sure I'm going to, I'm not going to be disappointed. Cheers. Cheers. Wow. That's really, that's got a very nice upfront sweet note to it. That's already got like a good rice sweetness coming along, almost like a syrupy sweetness that's coming along to that rye and then you've added that toasted sweetness to it. Which char level was this? This was a char one. Char one. Yep. So you're really not trying to get too much of that campfire note into it. You're really trying to get more of just the heavy toasted. That's right. Wood sugars. You got it. Yeah. So how's finishing going for you guys? I mean, is that kind of, you see a lot of future in the finishing of whiskeys? I think so.

A, it allows for an additional avenue for differentiation. And B, it's just fun, right? I mean, we didn't get into this industry to not have fun. So being able to You know, we get approached with all kinds of crazy casks out there and just seeing what the end result is. I mean, I think last time you were here, you tried our Fiddler Ambarana, which those are definitely can be hit or miss for some folks. We really liked ours. But at the end of the day, I don't know that it's a little bit more logistically challenging just because it ages so fast in that barrel. You have to be ready to put it in and take it out almost immediately.

Yeah, and an Ambarana barrel has many reuses in it. You can redo it many times. I think maybe some of the distilleries who don't have as much experience with Ambarana have overdone it a bit and released their products. And I think there are some people out there that have had it and said, yeah, it's a little bit too much for me. And so as a result of that, you have this wide, broad spectrum of Ambarana finished whiskeys out there, some of which are delightful and well done and some of which are not so delightful and overdone. And everybody who produces whiskey in this market has an effect on the consumer's general opinion, right? Very true. So if there are distilleries out there that are doing things that are not I mean, well received. They can put a blemish on a category altogether.

That's absolutely right.

So, but your amborana is amazing and you gifted my wife a bottle of that as well and she's enjoyed it tremendously. So, I think your amborana is tastefully done and just the right amount. And it really takes careful attention to that finishing process. It does. It really does. It tasted every day I think, right? I mean, maybe not every day but every few days.

Yeah, you have to with Amarana, that's for sure.

Yeah.

Well, this will get away from me.

This is really good rye whiskey. I like this a lot. Well, thank you. How are your rye consumers? Are the numbers increasing?

Yes. And I'm trying to think of this particular release, we were thinking it was going to be three or four to one in terms of bourbon versus rye. It was close to two to one. Oh really? Yeah.

Wow.

So that's a small data point, but I think that's at least one to go on.

What about ladies to gentlemen, how do you see the male to female relationship when dealing with rye whiskey?

Rye, I don't know that I have enough to go on. In general, though, our tasting room traffic is basically 50-50. And even here at our original whiskey distillery, where you expect the people who really want to learn more about the whiskey and taste all the whiskies are. So yeah, it's pretty evenly split.

And what about in use in cocktails? Do you find that the Ryes are used more in cocktails or the Bourbons? I'm just trying to get it. The reason I'm asking these questions, I travel a lot and there are regional trends, right? There are things that happen regionally and a lot of times a small successful distillery like ASW will have an impact on the local market and trend people in a certain direction. Whereas if I go to Colorado Springs, Colorado, it's a different story out there.

I would say as between bourbon or rye, the one we see making its way into cocktails the most is the cheapest. It is. Okay. You hear about the magical dollar an ounce figure to get into a cocktail. We really only, in Georgia, we're able to provide the market support to get our resurgence rye into a cocktail and then we also have our Fiddler Unison, which is a 90 proof. bourbon, those are the only two products that we have that really get to a price point that your average bar could really play around with it in a cocktail.

Well, now that you mentioned price, we should probably let our listeners know where we're at on the three that we've had so far. So, on these three toasted whiskies, what's the price point?

Fiddler Chin Music Toasted, the 100 proof one we started with, sits at 59 on the shelf. Okay. Then these next two that you've tried are 69 on the shelf. So $10 more added proof.

Added proof, cast strength. Cast strength. Yep, absolutely. Well, that seems like a fair price to me. Yeah. It does. And what about your Unison and your Resurgence Ride? Those are your sort of flagship whiskeys that are behind the bar.

Right. Right. So Fiddler Unison, it depends on if a retail account is going to buy it in a larger quantity. It'll sit anywhere from like 35 to 40 on the shelf.

Okay. So somebody who's going to the local big box liquor store is going to find a bottle of it for $40.

Yeah, I take that back. Georgia is fairly unique of a market because our distributor is so close to us that we don't have to pay anything in freight. Every other market, you're probably going to see feather unison on the shelf for anywhere from 37 to 44. And then the resurgence rye sits at anywhere from about 40 to 49, call it. Okay. All right.

Well, again, still very respectable pricing. And so you probably have quite a few bottles coming off the shelves, I would think, particularly in your local market, as people get to sample these in your three locations and they talk to their friends about it. Yeah, exactly. I'm really looking forward to seeing this on the shelves in Kentucky. When did you say that's going to happen?

Fingers crossed. We are hoping to have at least a A small launch in, call it first of December, we have a couple of liquor stores who are getting, who are very interested in barrels and then Liquor Barn has expressed concerted interest in the two Fiddler toasted products. Oh really? Yeah.

Well, that's fantastic. They are a champion when it comes to single barrels. Are they? So if you're in the Louisville, Lexington area and you're shopping at Liquor Barn, you know what I'm talking about because they'll have 30 or 40 single barrel picks in there at any given point in time. That's a lot. A lot. Yeah, it's really good. That's cool. Have you gotten up there recently?

I have not recently. Oh my goodness. The last time anyone from our team went up was for the national championship when it was played in Indianapolis. So flew into Louisville, did some of the bourbon distilleries and then went over.

Well, you have my number. It's burnt into your phone. You need to give me a call if you come up. I'll make sure you have a place to stay and a bar to sit up, belly up to. Appreciate it. That would be a lot of fun. Absolutely. I would love to. All right. I am ready to move on to the fan favorite from this year's Bourbon on the banks.

We love to hear it. Fiddler, Georgia Heartwood. So we're actually probably going to drop Georgia from the brand name just because we're not sure if it resonates or if it kind of detracts people from it. Just because some people, they like their state and maybe Georgia deters them, I don't know. But it'll be the same process. It'll be Fiddler Heartwood.

Yeah, Fiddler Heartwood. Well, that makes sense. I'll probably accidentally say Georgia Hurtwood anyway. I've said it so many times.

Yep, that works for us. And the story behind it for those who may not be familiar is, so it's triple-oaked, spends about the first four years in a first new charred oak barrel, about the next two years in a second new charred oak barrel, and then the final few months of aging, it receives anywhere from 15 to 30 staves of oak that we harvest in North Georgia, and by we, I mean our master distiller, Justin. So he gets out there every January when The sap has moved down the trunk of the tree so that you're not getting too much sapwood and splits out the heartwood from the sapwood and seasons it for, gosh, depending on which lot of heartwood, it can be seasoned anywhere from two to four years and then hand-charged it.

So I'm going to say that this is probably the only distillery that has a master distiller slash lumberjack.

That's right. That's right.

That's amazing. So he loves the idea of the wood influence. He does. Yeah. Absolutely. So what's special about North Georgia Heartwood?

Yeah. North Georgia is a milder climate than Atlanta. Obviously, it's a little north of here, but also in the mountains, you're getting a little cooler climate. Maybe your listeners will know more about this than I do. I'm pretty sure a cooler climate leads to a slightly tighter grain profile with the wood because it just grows more slowly. you're getting wood that is yielding its virtues more slowly, I would say. Got it.

Is that why maple syrup is so prominent in the northern states because of the tighter

Yeah, I mean, I don't know as much about sugar maples, but I do know that I think they generally require colder climates just to thrive. And then that's why they tap the maple trees every, what is it, January or somewhere in the colder months is because the sap is flowing out of the trunk, right? And so when you tap it, it's just flowing right into the vessels that receive the serum.

Learn something new every single day. This is amazing whiskey. This is my jam right here. I love this. That brings back a memory from a few days ago, from a week ago at Bourbon on the Banks, and then on numerous occasions when we've had this in the past. Your Fiddler Heartwood is just phenomenal. Thank you. It is such a well-crafted whiskey. Can you, one more time, tell our listeners kind of what the process is for producing this?

Absolutely. Yeah, so we take the 45% wheat mash wheel bourbon that was in two of the other products we sampled today. it spends those first four years in its first new barrel and then usually in January we'll transfer a whole lot of them over to second new barrels and then for the final, the reason I say final few months of aging and I don't get more specific on that is we put those anywhere from 15 to 30 staves down into the barrel and then we'll start sampling them out after a month. Some accounts pick them right then. And then some barrels, they might take two or three months for a little more maturation with those staves. And then accounts or groups or whoever are like, man, this is what I want. So I've never seen it go past about nine months with the staves. So anyway, we call it from one to nine months for those staves.

So this is a big single barrel product for you guys. It is. It is our biggest single barrel product. I mean, we've got a lot of listeners out there who have relationships with their local liquor stores and states that you have distribution in. What are those states? One more time.

Yeah. Georgia, East Tennessee. So that's Chattanooga and the Knoxville in the Tri-Cities area. Florida, Texas, Southern California, and about to be Colorado.

And about to be Kentucky.

Yeah, hoping by the end of the year, Kentucky. Well, fantastic.

Yeah, I would say that this would make a phenomenal barrel pick in your local market if you could encourage your local liquor store to reach out and and contact their distributor about getting Fiddler.

We would be forever grateful.

That would be amazing. Yeah, this is really super good. And how much do the single barrels differ from each other? A lot. I would imagine they would because of the process.

The process, I mean, every single barrel is going to add just a different inflection to the final product, right? So, you know, we use a couple different barrel vendors and their wood is just a little bit different. And then when you're getting, you're doubling that by doing two barrels and then the heartwood staves are their own beast. And when you're doing 15 versus 20 versus 25 versus 30, one month versus three months versus five months, you're just getting a veritable explosion of different qualities and characteristics.

So what can our listeners expect if they are driving through Atlanta, they decide to stop in? So when they're looking at your website, this is the location that has the distillery. The whiskey distillery, correct. So this would be your armored drive. Is it named differently? I mean, is this just called your Buckhead location?

Yeah, Buckhead. Sometimes I get kind of specific. I say our 199 Armored Drive versus our Battery versus our West End location because it's not exactly Buckhead but that's the closest neighborhood to it.

But if you're coming through Atlanta and you have an opportunity to stop in here, what can they expect in the distillery for an experience?

Yeah, probably similar to what you'd find on the Bourbon Trail in Kentucky. I mean, you're getting the opportunity to sample any of the whiskeys you make. We also make a vodka and a gin, as well as a barrel-aged gin, so you can sample those as well. We have a full cocktail menu, so to a certain degree, we're kind of like a cocktail bar. We also have our tours of the space, which include close-ups of our whisky stills made by Vendome. And then we also have a, on Sundays only, we have an extended in-depth barrel tour where you go back to the Rick house here in the back and go a lot more in-depth on our aging process.

So can you tell when you walk past an Ambarana barrel?

Oh my goodness. You can tell when you walk in a warehouse that has a single Ambarana barrel in it.

They are so pungent. They are. They are very much so. Well, how can people find you on social media, the internet, all those things?

Yeah, aswedistillery.com and aswedistillery on Instagram and Facebook. We also have a private barrel group for Facebook as well for those who want to get tips on where single barrels are dropping. We also do kind of advance releases of our ticketed events at our distillery with occasional giveaways and stuff within that channel. So yeah, a lot of good ways to find us. Well, fantastic. Well, Chad, thank you so much for making time for us today.

We really appreciate it. We know yesterday was a big release day for you. You're probably worn out at the end of the day. And here comes Jim wanting to come in and talk to you again. We love having folks in to talk whiskey. All right. Well, thanks again. I really appreciate it. Absolutely. All right, folks. Well, you can find The Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook. Find us on our private Facebook group, The Bourbon Roadies. You can also find us on threads, TikTok. I mean, we try to do it all. I would say we don't do it all really well, but we do it the best we can. But we have a lot of fun doing it. We always drink whiskey. We always have fun. Every single Wednesday, you're going to get an episode from us. We're going to have somebody on like Chad talking about their wonderful products. Sometimes it's just Brian and I chit-chatting and drinking a whiskey that's been provided to us. Sometimes we'll have a music artist on or an author. Got one of those coming up real soon. We've even had comedians on. Man, I'll tell you what, it's hard to drink whiskey and interview a comedian. It's just every now and then you inhale a little bit of whiskey. It's hard on you. But anyway, we always have a great time. If you've got an idea for a show or there's a distillery in your hometown that's doing it right, we would love to hear from you. Make sure you hop on our website, TheBurbonRoad.com. Go to our Contact Us page. Send us a quick note. We'll be sure to follow up on that and reach out to that distillery. See if we can't get their whiskey or maybe even their master distiller on the show. We hope you listen to us every week. Just scroll on up to the top of that app. Hit that subscribe button. You'll get a bell notification each week when we come out with a new episode. We'd love to have you join the Bourbon Roadies. Just go onto Facebook and search out The Bourbon Roadies. Answer three quick questions. Become part of our 3,200 strong member team. We'd love to drink whiskey with you, share stories with you. Have a good time. But until next week, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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