374. Warehouse H - The Story of Blantons Bourbon

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 was 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. The Bourbon Road is excited to have pintsandbarrels.com as a sponsor of this episode as well as our official custom apparel provider. Be sure to check out pintsandbarrels.com and browse their ultimate online store for bourbon loggers. Hello listeners, and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon, and today we have a very special guest for you. Pretty excited about this. It's been a couple months in the works. We finally made it happen. Today on the show we have Dominic Guialmi, and he is the author of Warehouse H, The Story of Blanton's Bourbon. America's Most Influential Whiskey. This is a book that just recently released. We did get an advance copy. Brian and I, we managed to get through it and really enjoyed the read. Dominic, welcome to the Bourbon Road.

Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Jim.

Well, we are both going to drink a little Blanton's today. I think you're going to one up me though. I'm drinking a standard release. I have a dump date of 11, 18, 22. So it's been out for about a year.

Nice. I've got a straight from the barrel. It's 132.9 proof from 2021. So pretty potent.

Well, you were having some fun tonight. Small sips, small sips. Small sips. All right, well, cheers. Cheers to you. Boy, we do love to get straight to that bourbon and that is such a wonderful pour. I usually like to warm up a little bit.

Yeah, this is... a very hot pour, but it doesn't have a lot of burn. It's very flavorful. A lot of caramel and just a little chocolate. It's very sweet. That's how I like my bourbon.

Well, we're going to talk a lot about blends today, but before we get to blends, let's talk a little bit about you. You have recently become an author and this is your first book, right?

First book, yeah.

And tell me a little bit about kind of how you got into Bourbon, how you got into Blanton specifically, and honestly, what made you say, I need to write a book?

Well, it was a journey. And starting off, you know, it's interesting, I, like so many over the past decade, got into bourbon just as things, you know, began to explode and sort of took notice from afar and seeing how everybody was gravitating towards it and maybe tried a few here and there. I didn't, I probably couldn't name more than one or two brands prior to 2017, just because I had never really educated myself. My old boss came to me one day and said, yeah, let's have the bourbon party, come to it, try it out. I went and I was very perplexed. It was just interesting. It was this whole culture. I could see people who were really into it. And before the party was over, she said, you know, here, I want to give you a gift. Take your first, you know, for your first bottle. Take this. And it was a bottle of lens. And I just, you know, like everybody else, kind of fell in love with it. I didn't know anything about it. I didn't know anything. You know, even if you asked me to taste it, I probably wouldn't have gotten any tasting notes or anything like that out of it. I just thought it was pretty. And that is truly the story of so many. And I think maybe that's irks some people, you know, particularly seasoned bourbon people when they kind of think about blends, which we can talk about. But that was, you know, that's how I fell in love with it. And then I just wanted more. And that one team more took me down a quest and a path that led me through a significant level of acquisition of rare bottles, hunting them throughout the world and eventually realizing that I had learned so much on my journey that I had to write a book about it to share with others and frankly set the record straight in some cases because there's a lot of myths that had been told about the brand or at least a marketing story that isn't always 100% accurate.

Well, I'm going to step out on a limb here. I'm going to say you're probably a highly valued employee to receive a Blanton's bottle from your boss. And this is 2018, so this was right in the midst of things, right?

Yeah, yeah. Luckily, she was quite the Bourbon connoisseur, had multiple bottles. And yeah, I think I ranked pretty well. And write about her very fondly in the book, both in the introduction and in the acknowledgment section.

So very much like David Jennings, Rare Bird 101 is kind of the super fan of Wild Turkey. You're kind of positioned yourself as kind of the super fan of Blanton's bourbon.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's what As I learned about David and I read his book, there were so many similarities that I reached out to him early in my writing journey and he was so supportive. Just a gentleman when it came to sharing his time with me, his experience, the difficulties and the successes of becoming a published author. And so, we developed such a good rapport, and I was so thankful to him. I asked him to write the foreword for Warehouse Age, and he thankfully agreed, really put together a few nice pages of words that just show how strong he is as an author. And I couldn't be happier to have someone like David as part of this project.

I kind of get the sense that with the authors, at least in the area of whiskey writing, it seems like there's this generosity and this pay it forward kind of mentality where each author, as he puts out a book, gets this tremendous support from authors who have prior writings, and then they feel blessed to be able to pass that on to the next person. It's kind of neat to see this as you read through whiskey books, you see these wonderful, you know, lead ends to the books, these forwards that are coming from other authors. And you're like, wow, these guys are all connected, you know, they're all it is, it is a network.

And, you know, it's, it's interesting, because you're 100% right. And, And I made sure to give respect and sort of acknowledge those that have come before me and frankly are significantly more accomplished in their endeavors as a writer. But at the same time, it was a challenge because I knew if I was going to put something out there and it was going to be read by everybody, including all of those other authors, it had to be good and it had to be at least decent because I didn't want to be known as the guy that put out the pamphlet on Blanton's. I wanted it to be something substantial and I think that's been probably the the biggest positive in this whole experience is the reception, not just from those other authors, but from everyone, nearly everyone, really acknowledging the fact that the book turned out pretty well. I couldn't be more proud of that. I think that more than any dollars or anything like that, it's the biggest success.

Well, I don't review a lot of books. I do review a few, and I have to say that I really enjoyed reading this one. I'm kind of a history buff in a way, and I love the way the... Let me say the first half of the book kind of tells that history, you know, that story behind everything. I know the first chapter or two kind of talk a little bit more about kind of the comeback story, right? How the brands came back after... Well, we can get into that. I'll let you get into that a little bit later. But, you know, how it goes into the history of not just the brand, but, you know, the people behind it, the distillery behind it, the transactions that took place between the principles and everything that involved. Not only that, but of the bottles, the containers, you know, the labels, the different, I mean, it's just, it's very detailed and you give the right, I think you give the right amount of detail to each of the subjects. And it's not a quick read, but it's a very enjoyable read. And it was a pleasure. Definitely my pleasure.

I appreciate that feedback. And I think it strikes a chord with me because as I got into writing it, I wanted to be able to provide some background. I wanted somebody who was not familiar with bourbon to be able to pick it up and and read it and understand sort of where not only the Blanton's brand, what it has done for bourbon, but just bourbon in general. But I also didn't want to write a book about just bourbon. That's been done quite a bit. It's been covered extensively. And, you know, it was probably the hardest part of this was dialing back and striking a balance between that history and the detail that I wanted to go into, but I couldn't. And so, it's a high level of Buffalo Trace and the history of bourbon, but I recommend to others reading books like Fred Minick's, Paul Picoult. Those gentlemen have done some excellent deep dives into bourbon in general, but I appreciate that.

Well, it's kind of hard to talk about Blanton's The Bourbon in detail without first explaining to those who are less knowledgeable what a mash bill is. What's a mash bill? How is bourbon made? What makes a bourbon a bourbon? Those things are all important and they set the foundation for what's to come. you know, further on in the chapter. So, like I said, I think you gave the appropriate amount of detail where it was needed in order to get the reader where he needed to be for what was coming next in the reading. So, I really enjoyed it a lot. And it's not overburdened with basic details. It really gets into the guts of it. And man, I tell you, Me personally, I love that. I love the technical details. I love the history and everything. And I love that there was a lot of that in there and great pictures too. Your photographer is fantastic.

Thank you. Yes. Really, Nick Fancher is an amazing photographer. Again, one of the things that David Jennings shared with me as I consulted with him early on was just how important it is to have good photography in your book. He set the standard because I think if you look across the various bourbon books, his has one of the more visually stunning photography. I really tried to emulate that and use that as a source of reference as I developed this. I'm really proud of it. I'm actually proud of the fact that it's not just one photographer, although Nick did a significant number of the still shots, certainly all the studio portraits and things like that. There's photography from me in there. There's photography from friends in there. If you look at the image credits, you see all that. It is very visually appealing and it helps attract people to the book because they just pick it up and flip through it.

Let's take a minute and talk about this early chapter on the cutback story and can you kind of lay it out for our listeners why this was an important thing to talk about?

Yeah, absolutely. So as you think about bourbon and where it was after Prohibition, after World War II, as it got into the 50s and 60s, it rose to be the number one distilled spirit in America. And it was booming. And as you get to the latter half of the 60s, you start to see this downturn. The baby boomer generation started coming of age. And as it's been well documented, they shunned they shunned whiskey. Essentially, they didn't want what their parents and grandparents were drinking. They gravitated towards the white spirits, your gin, your vodka, also wine. And so, bourbon started to see this steep decline. And that decline really took hold in the 70s. And by the 80s, it had just hit the bottom. And it was really a 25, 30 year period that bourbon was not the cool kid. And so, at the same time, the comeback story and the reason why the subtitle of my book is about Blanton's being the most influential whiskey in America is because if you discount today's perception of the brand, which has some negativity from the bourbon elite, as I like to call them, because it is such a popular bottle with people new to bourbon, if you discount some of that and you look back at the roots, when it was launched in 1984, it was significant. It was a premium, super premium offering. that didn't do a whole lot initially, because again, bourbon wasn't doing a whole lot here. Japan warmed up to it. And over the course of the next decade or so, sales certainly grew in Japan. But it was a trendsetter. As I say in the book, it sowed the seeds of a bourbon comeback. And it paved the way for other single barrels and small batch products to sort of elevate bourbon. That didn't really happen for another decade or two as those roots took hold, but it was the genesis. It was the start of all of those things that by the late 2000s, 2010 or so, finally took root and then just blossomed. That's the super condensed version, but certainly I think I say in the book, love it or hate it, but respect it. Blanton's deserves that, and I think it's a pretty interesting story.

We can talk a little bit about that in the second half, because there is that love-hate relationship with Blanton's, right? Everybody wants a bottle, but by the same token, you've got so many people saying, ah, Blanton's, because they can't get it, or they have trouble getting it, so it's better to be a hater than a tater, right? That's right. But bourbon really did have its heyday between 62 and 72, right? I mean, that was kind of really the core where bourbon was doing tremendous things and doing very well. And then you talk a little bit about the light whiskey experiment in 68 that sort of fell flat by 72. I'm not sure that light whiskey fell flat because it was light whiskey or just because it was whiskey, period. Right? I mean... Yeah.

Agreed. Agreed. It didn't matter what color it was or how potent it was. It was just simply had that word whiskey in it and I think that was not very popular.

So I guess it was, what was it, vodka and gin and tequila?

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. A little, and wine. Those became the, you know, the things. And, you know, it's interesting because my own story, you know, I'm 45 years old and so my, my parents were baby boomers and grandparents were part of the greatest generation. And my grandparents grandfathers drank whiskey. And my parents didn't. And, you know, it very much, as I learned about all this, I could see it in my own family and my own, you know, heritage and sort of how the market was for those generations.

Yeah, I think back and I was born in 63, so right at the beginning of the heyday for bourbon. Of course, at diapers, I didn't care one way or the other, but by 81, I wanted some wild turkey. That's when I came of age. So yeah, I wanted some wild turkey. So I didn't personally, I didn't sense there was a downturn in the whiskey market. As a consumer, as a young consumer in the 80s, I didn't see there was a problem. I'm sure that compared to Frank Sinatra's impact on the whiskey in the 50s, you know, compared to what they were selling in the 80s was nothing.

Yeah, it was definitely a decline. It was pretty remarkable, I think, the number of distilleries that had to close up shop in the 70s. And then along came plans.

Let's talk a little bit about the Blanton's name and Elmer T. Lee and Age International and that whole big deal that happened in the late 80s and early 90s where everything shook up for the brand.

Sure. So, I think, you know, as you look at the launch of plans, it happened in 84, of course. And it happened shortly after the distillery was purchased by two New York businessmen, Bertie Faulk and Robert Baranaskis. They were industry executives for many years through many different large companies. So, they had experience and they came in and they essentially wanted They didn't really want the distillery at first. They just wanted the ancient age brand. Previous owner wouldn't sell them just the brand, kind of said, hey, let's sell you the whole distillery. And so their initial As it got underway, they weren't just looking at bourbon production. They were doing a significant number of import and export ventures at the time. Bourbon was just one of their revenue sources, but certainly they recognized getting the distillery that they just bought up to full capacity and growing it was important. One of the things that Ferdy and Bob had was sort of a a flair for expensive things. They liked the finer things in life. Both men were very successful. They recognized that with the impact of Scotch on the American consumer, which had been growing over the previous decade, that there was maybe a market for a bourbon at that level. They liked the concept of a single malt Scotch and they effectively worked with Elmer T. Lee and the single barrel concept for bourbon was born. Different technically than single barrel scotch by definition. But what's interesting is Elmer T. Lee gets all the credit. And so in my book, I don't rip all that credit away from him. He certainly played a part. He certainly is a legendary figure who I wish I could have met when he was still alive. But clearly, Ferdy and Bob had the marketing chops and had the desire to introduce something new to the environment. And they went to Elmer and worked on it together with him. It wasn't like Elmer was sitting around and just thinking up new product ideas at age 70 something or whatever. However old he was at 60 something, he was ready to retire actually. So Ferney and Bob, the book is dedicated to them as well because they played a big part in this and they seldom get credit for that launch and what they did. They wanted to make money and they thought that introducing a top tier product would do that. So that's one of the kind of the areas I go into much more detail than in the book to try to honor them.

So why did the three of them, let's just say the three of them, decide to dedicate the bourbon to Albert Blanton?

Well, and that's where Ferdy Falk's marketing skills came into play. He was a very savvy marketer. And in working with Elmer, he learned of the story, of course, that we all know now where Colonel Blanton preferred his barrels to be picked from generally the center, middle, upper floors of warehouse H and bottled for his own consumption parties, you know, things like that. And so, Elmer, of course, told him the story and Ferdy absolutely resonated with him. easy to sell that story, make it something, you know, attach the Colonel's name to it. So it all kind of came together as a, you know, just a great marketing story. Now, what's interesting though, is while Elmer was certainly telling the truth, I assume, about all that. The concept of single barrels being better than a standard or a blended or mingled bourbon, it wasn't like that was only something that Colonel Blanton knew. I mean, everybody in the industry knew that. The warehouse foreman knew which barrels they like to sip off of. Certainly, the distillers, the owners, everybody. Nobody just took it to market, but everybody knew that there was honey barrels or sugar barrels throughout every warehouse and where to find them. It's no different today.

Yeah, they were the ones with the belt buckle marks on the barrel, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, that's true. So Elmer T. Lee, being in his 70s at the time, had actually worked with Albert Blanton before his retirement from the business.

Yeah, he did work with them for a few years directly before Blanton retired in the early 50s. And so he would have definitely worked around him. He said in interviews and kind of alluded to the fact that I don't think they worked extremely closely just from what I was able to gather. But I think more importantly, until Blanton died in the later 50s. He was still living at his house there on the distillery property. So he was still around. He was retired, but you know, he wasn't far away. So it did very much sound like they spent time over the years, whether it was officially working together and just sort of in proximity. And that was great to see that legacy pass on because, of course, Elmer then, even in his retirement, was such a brand ambassador for Buffalo Trace and worked with folks like Harlan Wheatley, who's there today. And just pretty amazing to see that legacy sort of continue and that knowledge get passed down.

Absolutely. All right. Well, you and I are going to sit here and sip on our remaining amounts of Blanton's in our class. And we're going to take a short break. And when we come back, we'll pick up in the early nineties when the acquisition of Age International took place. How's that? Sounds great. Cheers. Cheers. Looking for a unique gift? Blanton's bourbon shop has got you covered. All of their hand-crafted 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. If you're a bourbon drinker, and I bet you are if you're listening to this podcast, you need to head over to pintsandbarrels.com and check out the ultimate online store for bourbon lovers. Pints and Barrels Company was started by bourbon lovers for bourbon lovers. From spices to t-shirts, you'll find the perfect bourbon gift. Pints and Barrels proudly supports the bourbon road and invites you to visit pintsandbarrels.com. You need a custom apparel or swag for your bar, distillery, maybe even your bourbon society. They can do that too. As a matter of fact, they print our apparel. We're so happy with the quality and fast turnaround. Pytesandbarrels.com, the ultimate bourbon lovers gift shop and branding specialist. All right, listeners. So we are back. We had a great first half talking a little bit about the history of, of Blanton's. We got to set us up to about 1990, I think. And, uh, we both had a great pour. I had a, a 2022 Blanton's and a, and in this half, I've got a 2018 Blanton's, uh, dump date of two, two of 2018. What are you drinking, Dominic?

And I've got a Blanton Special Reserve and it is a 8822. So what's interesting is I'm dialing it back. While I was at a very high proof straight from the barrel during the first half, I'm now at a very low proof and I'm kind of going backwards here. Normally I start low and end high, but I mix it up a little.

Well, for those who aren't familiar with that particular expression, why don't you tell them a little bit about it?

Yeah, so the Green Label or Special Reserve Blanton's is an international-only bottle. It was released in 2000, and it first made its appearance in the Australian market. And it was a lower proof that was done specifically for that market. due to the way that they tax alcohol based on the percentage of alcohol in the bottle. So that's where it first made its debut. Now it can be found in numerous countries, Europe, Asia, et cetera. But it's introductory proof for sure. It's not my favorite, but it definitely goes down pretty easy and doesn't quite kick you in the pants like the strip in the barrel. All right.

Well, cheers.

Cheers.

Well, I know the difference that I'm getting here is this one is a little more kind of, uh, it's got a little bit more of a fruitier nose. Like, like the 2022 that I had was all baking spice, all a little bit of nuttiness, but, uh, just a wonderful caramel waft. And this one's got a little bit of a fruity note to it, a little bit of, um, almost a little bit of cherry kind of to it. And, uh, it has nothing to do with the year. I'm sure it has more to do with. probably the barrel it came out of, right? I mean, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, absolutely. Being a single barrel. Sure.

That's a nice difference though. It's nice to see the difference between two barrels. So let's hear about yours.

Yeah, mine, of course, being 80 proof is, you know, significantly different. The thing I get is a lot of nutmeg and spice. It is so much easier to sip on than the 132 proof. But overall, it just has a – it's balanced, you know, certainly doesn't have any burn or kick to it. It's definitely something I could sip on for quite a while and probably make a pretty good dent in the bottle.

Now, Blanton's standard releases are typically at 93 proof.

93 proof, yeah.

Obviously, we've got straight from the barrel, which is going to be higher, and then some reserve bottles that are going to be lower. But they've had some sort of... I noticed in your book something I'd never heard before. They've actually had a 92 proof version that came out at one time.

there's a section I had that kind of talks about oddities and one-off bottles. And, you know, there was a 92 proof that was done for at least a few years. I think we know of about three or four dump dates over two years that appeared to have all gone to Japan. I don't know that they didn't get released in the US, but all the bottles found have been found in Japan. And it's yet to print it. It's not only written on the label, it's 92, but it's printed where it actually has the printed text of the proof on every label. So it wasn't just a labeling error. It was clearly done intentionally. And nobody knows why. Because at the time, you think about it, this is when bourbon was not all that popular. And so distilleries were trying to get rid of it. They were trying to, you know, they had a glut of bourbon aging in their warehouses. So the concept of diluting it further to stretch it and produce more bottles doesn't seem like it was the answer. So, you know, who knows? And then Buffalo Trace sadly doesn't have records that indicate it. And so it's probably just a mystery that mystery we'll have to live with.

Wow. All right, so let's pick up 1990s, early 90s. There's a little bit of a shakeup going on with Age International brand. What happened?

Yeah. So, the two gentlemen I mentioned before, Ferdy Falk and Robert Baranaskis, effectively were recognizing that Ferdy was getting up there in the years and they were kind of looking to cash in. And so, they wanted to also pay back their original investors that partnered with them, a lot of silent partners in the original deal. So, at first, they sold 22.5% to Takara, which is a Japanese company. And they had already had a relationship with Takara. That was established in the late 80s when they switched their Japanese distribution from Suntory to Takara. And there's a whole backstory there that really was that Suntory was the main company in Japan that was distributing American alcohol all the way back to the 60s, really. So, there was a long history with Suntory that sort of soured in the late 80s and they flipped over to Takara. Takara really fell in love with the brand and eventually invested this 22.5% in the early 90s. That then allowed Ferdy and Bob to pay back their investors. And it also gave Takara a little more influence. They got a seat on the board of directors of Age International, and they were able to, you know, kind of start to craft some decisions or shape some decisions. And so, soon after that, you see the release of the gold. edition, which came about 1992. You see some special edition bottles that were released in Japan at that time. You also see the red, Takara Red bottle, which is the 93 proof, but aged longer than the standard Blanton's release. You see that make its debut in 1990 in Japan. So, that influence spread quickly. And so, by 1992, if I'm correct, Ferdy and Bob were kind of looking for the exit and they had a buyer and yeah, they were done. And the whole acquisition story and sort of what happens from there is interesting as well. And I can go into that a bit if you like.

Well, I think we'll leave that for the reader, but let's just say it was quite the chess game, right?

It was. It was quite the chess game. And I appreciate that. Yeah, there's some backstory there that's worth reading. And there's ramifications of that decision that happened today. I think, as you mentioned earlier, Age International is the company that owns Blanton's. And they, you know, Buffalo Trace gets all the credit. So, you know, that's an interesting thing that, you know, today, unless you are a bourbon person and kind of understand some of the details behind it, you immediately associate Buffalo Trace with the brand. Effectively, they're contract distilling, you know, on behalf of a different company. So, it's kind of interesting.

So the players at the time were, you know, Sazerac and Takara and Age International. I think there was there was another player in the game there at the time. Yeah. You blind? But there was also Heaven Hill was involved in some way. So there was a lot of players that were interested in trademarks and the distillery or whatever. But at the end of the day, Sazerac ended up with the distillery and Age International ended up with the brands under Japanese ownership. Correct. More or less.

Right. And it's interesting because you mentioned brands. So it was just more than Blanton's that Age acquired. Along with it came the other products that the distillery was producing at the time. Certainly Elmer T. Lee brand, Ancient Age, Rockhill Farms, Hancock's Presence Reserve. I might be missing one of them. But those brands, which all still exist today, are known as mash bill number two products. And mash bill number two is effectively the age internationally owned mash bill or recipe that, again, still is produced today at Buffalo Trace.

Yeah. And this is a mash bill that's in the 12 to 15% rye range, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it's considered a higher Rye match bill at Buffalo Trace. That on its own isn't necessarily a high Rye percentage, but compared to the match bills, match bill one, for example, at Buffalo Trace, it's assumed to be a higher Rye.

So for all those who think that Blanton's and Rock Hill Farms and Elmer T. Lee and Hancock Reserve or Buffalo Trace products, we can set them straight right now. They're age international products and in the US, Buffalo Trace has or Sazerac has management over distribution.

Yeah, absolutely. And they get all the glory, they get all the hate as well. I think there's quite a bit of... Due to allocation rules and things. But they effectively control very little. H International is the owner and they're very silent behind the scenes. They certainly protect their international interests and their Japanese market as well. But people that... I get a little frustrated when I read comments on a Blanton's Facebook post, official Blanton's or Buffalo Trace Facebook posts, where immediately it's flooded with people that just want to complain, make more of it or do this. If you're complaining on Buffalo Trace's social media, you're talking to the wrong people. They're just making it and they're following what Age International is asking them to do and certainly within the limits of their capacities as well, but they can't help you.

I can understand that. Now, we wrote a pretty compelling article on the kitchen table restaurant at the Chainsby Bean Distilling. And I continue to get messages, comments on there all the time asking for reservations. And there's nothing I can do for them.

I guess I'll pick that off my list of questions I have for you now. Thanks, Joe.

But now that's kind of the lead-in to international. I mean, but H International still controls their own international destiny, right? And so Blanton's is distributed worldwide and it's very popular, not only in the East, but in Europe as well. And can you tell us a little bit about that?

Yeah. In the 90s, again, the market in the US was just ever so slightly starting to grow. Internationally, Japan being one of the highlights, it was growing at a much faster pace. Europe really started taking off. By the late 90s, early 2000s, you see products like Blanton Silver, which has now discontinued and gold being released within the European market. So you're getting that penetration into other areas that are growing. think around that same time in the US, you had, you know, sort of an awakening. You had people that were starting to see bourbon a little differently. My generation was coming of age, late 90s, early 2000s. And, you know, kind of going back to what I mentioned in the first half, we didn't see our parents drinking whiskey. And so for us, it was new. It was cool. It didn't have an image that was associated with anything really. And yeah, so I think as you get into the latter half of the early 2000s there, you see quite a change. As I write about in the book, I link it a little bit to the craft brew movement and how that exploded. And I won't give away all the details, but there certainly was a parallel there related or unrelated

So how does Blanton's popularity kind of rank worldwide? I mean, we have Australia, we have Asia, you know, Japan and so forth. We have Europe, both Eastern Europe and Western Europe. You know, how do you see Blanton's playing out in those areas as far as popularity?

That's a great question. I think I'd love to see the official sales stats on that. If you have any of those, I'd love to see them. But, you know, from my observations and talking to people. The popularity in the US certainly exceeds all other markets. And that's evident by, you know, even without knowing the distribution numbers, how much, you know, demand it is here. I can tell you from six trips to Japan, it is getting harder to find in Japan, but that... I even hesitate to use the word harder or more difficult because it's still not difficult. It can be found very easily. I haven't quite seen the same mountains of Blanton stacked up in some of the stores on the most recent trip I made this past spring, but still plentiful. Same thing, I was in France last, in Europe and France last year and found it fairly easy to obtain. I think Eastern Europe is interesting. I think Eastern Europe is where it may not quite have the same level of popularity and that popularity may have declined. One of the Blanton's sort of collecting or preference bottles that people like to collect, I should say, is the M&P bottle, which is also known as the Polish release. M&P is a store in Poland, and they had a bottle that was specifically dedicated for their market from 2014 till 2018. had trouble selling it. It was often bundled with other bottles. It was very much not something that flew off the shelves and only probably the demand from collectors in the US helped move it to the levels that it did. So much so that really after 2018, Age International effectively stopped releasing this M&P only store exclusive Polish bottle. Now they've moved on and they're focused on something called the special release, which is an annual release done, primarily released in the European markets every year since 2019.

But the parents releases, the releases that happen, let's talk about those a little bit.

The House of Whiskey. That all goes back to the early 2000s. The owner of La Maison de Whiskey was in college in the US, I believe. He fell in love with Blanton's here and took it back to his parents. I think they started importing it. It was actually the late 90s, I think, when he was a student here. They started importing it in their liquor store, which we now call OMDW for short. And it really did well, I think, as the market was growing there in France and Europe. And so, by 2006, 2007, they had partnered enough and imported enough and seen enough growth that working with Age International, they were able to create a specific bottle for them, a specifically labeled bottle for them that was done at the time and now has become a tradition, annual tradition. I should back up and mention one thing. In 2002, it was LNDW that effectively convinced Age International to produce straight from the barrel. They wanted the barrel proof. They went to them and said, hey, you guys should do this and Age agreed. They had pretty good influence there. shortly thereafter, they were able to get their own label. And it's a beautiful bottle every year. I catalog, of course, all of them in my book and on my website. But those are some of the most highly collectible bottles for the LMDWs.

And I'm looking behind you on your wall and you just have just this wonderful, well, and not only that, if somebody goes to your website, warehouseage.com, they can see some pretty amazing photos of your collection, your bar, and that's where you're sitting now, I'm assuming, because it looks very similar to the pictures that I saw. Um, just a tremendous collection of Blanton's bottles and, and Blanton's paraphernalia in general. And, uh, I'm assuming there's a LMD W 60th back there somewhere.

There is absolutely. It's sitting up there on the shelf behind me.

Fantastic. Well, I tell you what, Blanton says, uh, has gotten to this, uh, this level of, uh, fame infamy, if you want to call it that, that, uh, you know, you've got this dichotomy out there of people who are, and I mentioned earlier, haters or taters, right? And what do you, what do you consider yourself? You're obviously a tater, right?

I'm a super tater. I'm the tater of all taters. I think that every name in the book, which by the way, I wear those as a badge of honor, that you cannot insult Blanton's and offend me. I've heard it all and I don't disagree with 99% of it.

A lot of that comes out of the fact that people just can't easily get their hands on the bottle. So rather than complain about not being able to get it, it's better to say, it's no good or it's just average bourbon or whatever you hear. I mean, what are some of the things that you hear?

Well, you know, people call it blandins, implying, of course, that it's bland. You know, the market, I have a book, or excuse me, a chapter in my book, specifically called Polarization. And it is dedicated to sort of everything we're discussing here. And to me, I break it down. For those at home listening who are thinking, you know, this guy's the biggest tater on earth, I am. But I also take a very fair view at it and I break it down. And as I just said, I don't disagree with some of the hate. I would say this, to overpay for a bottle of Blanton's if you've never had it and you're new to bourbon and you just want it, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. To consistently overpay for Blanton's, I agree is excessive. at an MSRP around 60, 65 bucks, that's probably where it's priced. And most people, most bourbon elite people will agree that's about the range it should be. So get it if you really want it, but don't be paying $200 a bottle and consistently doing that. That does get excessive. But it's a good bourbon. And again, just because in the lineup of Bourbons today, it may not be at the top, doesn't mean we can't respect where it came from and what it did, as we discussed earlier. So, I think it's appreciated. But yes, the hype, you know, I think the thing I hate the most is every single Facebook group discussing Bourbon. Somebody posts their picture of, look what I got. And then immediately 30, 40, 50 people want to share why that's a tater bottle, what bourbons are better. It's just exhausting. But it just continues to go.

It kind of wears me out just a little bit. I mean, we've got one of the things we're interested in as a podcast are reviews of our channel and how things are going. And we have a huge number of five, five, I think we're at a 4.99 or something, right? As far as reviews go.

Well, they don't go to two digits, but we're 4.9.

And the reason we're not 5.0 is because one or two people, one in particular, one guy wrote one star review. He said, Blanton's this, Blanton's that, I'm tired of hearing it.

There you go. It will forever bring love, scorn. It's a very polarizing bourbon. I think that today it gets a little bit of a bad reputation because it is so coveted But it's still a decent bourbon. Bottle to bottle, I've had some that are exceptional. I've had others that are not so good. And then, you know, I think you'll find out with any single barrel, but it's intensified with plants, for sure.

So let's talk a little bit about supply and demand. You kind of, one of the chapters in your book is kind of dedicated to supply and demand. Now, where are we at today? What's it looking like? What's the future of Blanton's availability look like for the rest of us?

I'll answer that and then work backwards. It's likely to not get any better than what you've seen it recently. They are making a lot more of it than they used to. They've recently, within the past few years, added a third shift, they'd be in Buffalo Chase, added a third shift to their Blanton's bottling hall. They're bottling right now about 10,000 bottles a day, and that's at max capacity. One of the things, and I'll save this for the readers, but I go into the math and explain how at that level of bottling and barrel dumping, it's not possible for all Blanton's to have lived its entire life in warehouse H, which is kind of interesting. I was going to say. Yeah. The math doesn't add up, and I'll leave it at that and let people dive into that later. But even with that, they're effectively right now, probably most limited by two things, either the bottling hall process itself, meaning that they would have to expand their bottling line and have additional bottling lines, or age international's own potential limitations that they've placed on the output. I don't know of any reality of that. I just, you know, speculation as to what would prevent them. The one item which folks may think is obvious would be the aging and the time it takes to distill it to be ready to dump. But again, Buffalo Trace has done significant expansions recently, and they're not limited to just warehouse age. I'll leave it at that. But that is a factor. it's not the only factor though. But I tell people all the time, don't treat... And I put this in the book. Unless it's one of the very coveted bottles, the collector's bottles, of which, again, I detail all of those in the book. Unless it's one of those, don't treat the standards Blanton's lineup, including the international varieties. don't treat them as unicorns. Certainly, with respect to everybody's price points and what they can afford, I understand that. But Bland's is not a unicorn. A currently produced, we'll say last 10, 15-year bottle, it's just, it's not. And so, drink it. If you got one of those, don't put it on the shelf and wait for your kid's 21st birthday. There are other bourbons out there that I would highly recommend you do that with, but not Bland's. If you love the brand like me, you're going to do it anyway, but it's not really a thing in a core in that sense.

I know you're a Blanton super fan and you drink Blanton's probably a lot of the time, but there must be some other bourbons that sort of make it on your list.

You know, I don't have a deep list. I generally tell people that I will drink anything you put in front of me, and it doesn't have to even be bourbon. I'm very flexible, alcohol flexible. But I would say You know, I don't even have a sophisticated taste. Just a good old Woodford Reserve is one of my go-tos. I don't know. I know it's, you know, it's easy to find. But, you know, the Double Oak, some things like that I enjoy. I'm like a weeded bourbon every now and then. You know, even maker's products as they branched out and kind of had additional expressions, I've enjoyed some of those. But, you know, Angel's Envy is another one I'll pick up. I'm not really... Not, not too, uh, let me put this way. I don't shop by my price. I shop at what, what I like and what tastes good. Uh, and, and, um, you know, I'm not, uh, not too stubborn there. And I don't, I, I look forward to Fred Minnick's reviews every year where he comes out with his less because, uh, that, that always gives me some kind of some, some ideas and things like that.

Absolutely. Well, let me ask you this question. Staying in the mash bill here. Ain't ancient age 80 or ancient age 90. 90. Oh, you like 90 better? Yes, I do. I'm an 80 guy.

You're an 80? Okay. Yeah. What makes you like 80 better? I don't know.

I just side by side, I choose the 80. I'm not sure why it is. I just, I tend to like it just a little bit better. I don't know. I don't know what the difference is or where they pull the barrels from or whatever it is. Yeah, they're different. They are definitely proof, obviously, but otherwise, yes.

Yeah, yeah, they do. And it's interesting, you know, Buffalo Trace has, of course, tasting panels that they use that, you know, are tuned to meet every products, you know, sort of flavor profile and trying to make sure it matches. But it's amazing to me how different all the products are just based on that aging, based on that warehouse location. And it's just, it's fantastic. But yeah, the 90 for me was always just a little bit better, but I tend to gravitate towards a higher purchase anyway.

Well, Dominic, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show today. It's been an even better time sitting here and sipping whiskey with you, sipping on a little bit of Blanton's. I wish we could have been in the same room. It would have been just a little bit better. We could have drank the same whiskeys, but you know, these are single barrels. They're all going to be a little bit different. So what the hay, right?

Absolutely. They're fantastic. It's a great, great being with you. And thanks for having me. And, you know, for, for those interested in the book, you can check out my website, plantainsbook.com or my, my main collecting website, warehouseage.com.

All right. And you're on Instagram as well?

I am. Yep. At warehouse H info is my name there.

Well, fantastic. Well, I highly encourage all of our listeners to check out warehouseh.com, blantonsbook.com and warehousehinfo on Instagram. Definitely pick up your book. It's a great read. I mean, it's a super high quality book. You really did a fantastic job. I think David steered you in the right direction there. You really put out a quality book, something that I'm proud to have on my shelf. And I thank you for including us in the early release and allowing us to have you on the show and sort of dig your Blanton's brain just a little bit. It's always interesting to get into the history of things and to hear about how what we have today came about. I mean, for me, that's always fun. I enjoy it so much.

Thank you, Jim. I appreciate all your feedback and comments. Thank you so much.

All right. Well, you can find the bourbon road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, find us on tech talk, even threads. Now we're doing them all. You can find us on all those places. Every single week we put out an episode on Wednesday. We'll always have somebody cool on the show like Dominic. We'll, uh, we'll dig into a subject. We'll drink a little bit of bourbon. It's always fun. Always a great time. We hope you join us every single week to make sure you don't miss us. Scroll to the top of that app. Hit that subscribe button, that way you get that notification every week that Jim and crew have put out another episode. You can always go to our website, TheBurbonRoad.com. We've got a Contact Us page on there. If you've got an idea for a show or a guest or you've got a distiller in your hometown that's just doing it right, definitely let us know about it. We would be happy to hear. We'll reach out to them. We'll get a bottle of their whiskey. We'll, uh, taste it, review it, have them on the show. It's always fun, but until the next time we'll see you down the bourbon road.

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