392. 10th Mountain Whiskey and Spirits Company

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 as 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. 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 lovers. Hello listeners and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon, and today we've got quite a treat for you. We've got a new distillery in the house. We've got a great guest on the show, Brian Dewar from 10th Mountain Whiskey. Brian, welcome to the Bourbon Road.

I appreciate it. Thank you.

Well, it's good to have you here. And I also want to thank you for sending along three great bottles of whiskey for us to do this show. I have to say that I got an opportunity before this episode, as I always do, to taste through the whiskeys before we record. That way I can make a few notes and make some opinions of my own. But at the same time, as we're recording the show, I'm going to give live notes and I'm going to talk about what I'm getting at the moment. So I hope you're going to drink along with me.

Absolutely. I absolutely am.

So you sent along a bourbon and a rye. and an American single malt whiskey.

Yes, sir, we did.

And we're going to start off with the bourbon today. Can you tell me a little bit about what's in our glass?

Yeah, absolutely. The bourbon is a 75% corn, 21% rye and 4% malted barley. The corn comes actually out of the Ute tribe out of Cortez, Colorado. The rye comes from Fort Collins, Colorado primarily. It's been in a mixture of Fort Collins and also up in northern South Dakota. And then the barley comes out of Sheboygan.

That's a pretty good component of rye in there. You said 30%? 21%. Okay. Sorry. I was, I was so focused on the nose. I was, I missed that part. So yeah, still a pretty good component of Ryan there. Yes, sir. I really get a nice corn sweetness on it. The color's light. Um, I would say it's kind of a, a light Amber, almost a straw Amber color. Very clean. I am getting a little bit of young oak on it. This is labeled as a two-year-old straight bourbon.

Yes, sir. So we have a mixture of two and four-year-old in there combined with, so it's blended off the bat. It's not going to be a single barrel. We try to keep it equal throughout when we do that. So we taste each batch to make sure it tastes similar to what's going on.

Well, it has a really nice nose on it. I am getting a little bit of a kind of a, a nice new oak fragrance to it. You, you source these barrels nearby Colorado.

No. So it's the Virginia barrel company. Oh, okay. Get them from with a number four char.

All right. Well, it has a nice fresh nose to it. A little bit of citrus on it. I'm ready to taste it. Cheers. Yeah, absolutely. Cheers. Oh, wow. That's creamy. That's very creamy. Very nice. Does have that kind of that cream corn sweetness to it. Okay. Nice caramel note.

Oh, little nut, little metal. I don't know.

Maybe peanut, maybe almond. I might lean almond on it a little bit. All right.

I could, I could picture that in there.

It's got a really nice texture to it, very silky, very creamy. Thank you.

Our head distiller, Sean, is very proud of each one of our products that we make, and we want to be sure to get Sean and Jeremy their credit where credit's due, since they're the only two people that distill our stuff. And they absolutely know what they're doing. I can say that.

Well, what's the retail, the average retail price on a bottle of your bourbon?

Anywhere from 55 to 65 on average, depending on the state you're in.

Okay. Yeah. I see a real nice lineup between the nose and the palette. I feel like the finish on this is kind of a, kind of a medium finish. I kind of, I kind of expected when I got the nose that I might, that the finish might be a little bit on the shorter side. But actually it's a full medium finish as far as I'm concerned, which is really nice for something that has two-year-old and four-year-old bourbons in it.

Absolutely. Thank you.

I won't call it overly complex, but I will say that it's an interesting bourbon. It does have a nice kind of malt component to it.

Okay. Yeah, I like it. I like it a lot. Thank you. It's a good bourbon.

So what kind of awards have you won with this particular whiskey?

I know we won worlds in 2020, won golden worlds in 2022. We most recently at the Key West Invitational's this year, 2024, we actually won gold there at the Key West Invitational's with our bourbon and our rye. And then once we get to our single mall and I'll explain those awards with that. I think American Crafts Spear Association, we won bronze there this year. We won silver there last year. It's been continuous award after award after award. We're just extremely proud of what we have and what we've created so far.

Well, you should be. It's a delightful pour and I'm really enjoying it. I've got a number of whiskeys from Colorado. Colorado is a great whisky state. I mean, there's an awful lot of good producers out there, guys doing it right, focused on the craft. And I'll have to say that 10th Mountain is certainly one of them.

Yeah. So the North American. Whiskey and bourbon festival. We got gold in Denver International Spirits Festival. Gold. People's Choice Harvest Festival. That was another gold. That's just our bourbon and that's just a few of them. I mean, there's a couple more. Jim Murray's Whiskey Bible. We got rated a 92 in that in 2018. So.

That's very good.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

I'm thinking about that Key West Invitational. That sounds like fun. Did you go for that?

I was a little upset. No, I did not go. But it is on my schedule for next year.

Yeah, that would be one I wouldn't want to miss. That sounds like a lot of fun. Drinking whiskey on Key West.

Oh, no. What could go wrong?

Well, Brian, you are the Director of Distribution and Military Sales for 10th Mountain, but can you tell me a little bit about how you got into whiskey? I mean, what caused you to end up at 10th Mountain? And tell us first a little bit about 10th Mountain and kind of the philosophy there.

Yeah, so 10th Mountain Whiskey started in 2013, 2014. We officially launched in 2014. So this is our 10 year anniversary actually coming up here shortly. But we wanted to name it after something that was not yet considered to be or really pronounced in Colorado. Not a lot of people knew about the 10th Mountain Division. The 10th Mountain Division was created in World War II in the early 1940s to attack the Germans over the Swiss Alps. It was the first mountaineering division the US ever had. It was created in a place called Camp Hale, Colorado, which is about 13 miles south of Vail, Colorado. They got men and women from the ski industry, rock climbing industry, hikers, bikers. Olympians, every nature of outdoorsmen you can think of, including horseback riders, rodeos, just to create this whole division up to help out the war in World War II to create a mountaineering division to compete against the 15 mountaineering divisions that the Germans had, and then the seven or eight mountaineering divisions the Italians had. So we were trying to do one mountaineering division that the US has never had and create it in a place that's never had a base before up on top of a mountain at 10,500 feet. So they created Camp Hale and trained for a little over two years and then went to the Swiss Alps in 1945 to attack the Germans in a battle called Reber Ridge. which is one of the largest battles in World War II where they lost 992 soldiers compared to the Germans who lost over 5,000. So it was a dramatic difference and we wanted to pay homage to these individuals that continue to show pride and dedication in what they did back then and still do today. Bill Bowerman, one of the founders of Nike, Phil Knight's partner was a 10th Mountain veteran. So many others continue on to do that. The founders of Vale, the founders of Aspen, A Basin, Snowmass. Gosh, I can't remember the mountain in Utah now, but they founded that. It was over 62 different ski resorts around the country and around the world that these 10th Mountain Veterans founded. The Outdoor Adventure School, they founded that. 10th Mountain Veterans founded that. So we wanted to really show our dedication and pride like they showed at their dedication and pride. And we just wanted to put it in a different attribute. So we put it into our whiskey.

So it sounds like the company is military centric. You're a veteran. as well, and I'm assuming there are a number of veterans who are involved in the company. Can you tell us a little bit about your involvement in veterans, as far as employing veterans, veterans outreach, those kind of things?

Absolutely. The owner and I like to say we're a philanthropic company first and a whiskey company second. We want to help out as many people as we can. But at the same time, produce good whiskey to support these people. So on the back of each one of your bottles, you're actually going to look and it's right above the TTB label where it says we support and then it could be wounded warriors project, Vail veterans program. And it expands on each different bottle of who we help out and what's going on with them. And we change those up almost every year to say, hey, this is what we're doing. We're not just focused on one organization or another organization. We continue to help multiple organizations across the country. and it's veteran organizations. We just hired a 10th Mountain veteran recently, retired staff sergeant, Guy Anderson. He's our California rep right now selling and doing a phenomenal job out there. So he was a 10th Mountain Cav Scout and sniper. So he's absolutely amazing. Damien, I'm not going to give his last name because he doesn't like to talk about it, but he works. He was in the 10th about division and also the 10th special forces. He's down in Colorado Springs. He's a brand ambassador for us. We have another individual in New York that helps us out. A few generals, colonels, captains. A ton of people across the country that just volunteer their time with us and we help them. We have a Bronze Star recipient that works in one of our tasting rooms in Vale. It's amazing people like this we'd like to show our homage to and say thank you. But it really means the world to us that they came and we could provide them with a career that they've always wanted and something to move forward and grow in a company that's going to continue to grow for many, many years.

Well, fantastic. What a great lineage you're building and a great, uh, a great impact on the veteran community. That's so, that's so amazing. So to have so many, uh, 10th mountain veterans involved in your business is, is also amazing. Now the 10th mountain division is no longer in the area. near Vail, right?

I mean... No, it's in Fort Drum, New York. So, they're actually out there now doing phenomenal things, but they're in Pope Louisiana too, as well as in Colorado Springs. There's a small division out here, but their primary base is in New York, upstate New York, in Fort Drum.

That area where they trained back during World War II, that's pretty way up. That's near Leadville, right? That's pretty good terrain.

It's right next to Leadville. Yeah, those individuals back then didn't have much. I mean, if you see the clothes that they were wearing, it was thinner clothes. It wasn't a lot. And they're at these elevations. If you look at the men and women today that are in some of these divisions, they look like giants compared to these men and women that were back then. I mean, I'm 5'11 and I would be towering over half of them at 215 pounds. They maybe be 150 soaking wet back then.

Do you think that that training they received at that camp in Colorado was the key to their success in World War II?

I think it was part of the key to it and the other part was the dedication that they brought together and trained each other. So one person could be a climber, the other person could have been a skier, someone else could have been horseback riding. They all taught each other, they all helped each other out and I think by combining what they did and becoming the best force they could, they became the US Army's First Mountaineering Division, which is still one of the most active army divisions to this day deployed. Absolutely killer.

Now I'm looking at your bottles and your label and I see your logo and it's, it's a, it's an obviously a soldier with a gun over one shoulder and a pair of skis over the other.

Yes, sir.

Fantastic. So let's talk a little bit about your production facility there in Vale. What do you have as far as like distillery equipment? You've got a master distiller there. You guys are producing your own distillate and barreling it and storing it and aging it. Can you tell us a little bit about your facility?

Absolutely. So we actually have a 500 gallon hot column still. It's a Van Dome so it's a combination. We're extremely happy about that and it's doing a phenomenal job keeping up with the production for right now until we're going to get a doubler sometime in the near future. We have six open air fermentation tanks that are 750 gallons. We have a grinder. We have a cooker. That's another van dome to 350. gallon or pound corn malt in rye tanks and then a 750 gallon silo outside that we use for the corn. So we're constantly filling those up week by week. I'm getting refreshed and it's getting a little bit hectic, but we're looking to expand here shortly. We're building our first a rack house that's going to be a little over 3000 square feet soon. So we're going to move a bunch of the barrels in there and add more fermentation takes, hopefully in the future, a new bottling line and a doubler to get everything going and bigger.

So you guys have been producing distillate since 2014.

Since, yes, sir. Since, well, open the doors to 2014, but I think we started early 2013.

Okay. And so how difficult has it been to keep up with demand? I mean, a 500 gallon pot still is, I mean, it's significant, but it does present a challenge. I'm assuming you can put up about a barrel of shift, right? Something like that.

Uh, so we're putting up about 10 to 15 a week.

Yeah.

Okay. Right now. So five, um, five days a week, nothing more. We don't do the weekends currently since we only have two distillers, a little hard. Um, yeah. So we're, we're pushing out a significant amount and then probably putting, pulling about five barrels a week to pull to get the product out.

Well, that's good. That means you've got a net growth in your inventories, which is fantastic. I would think you guys would be a little more challenged than that. I would think that it would be very hard to, that you would be basically getting demands from your distributors for everything you could possibly produce.

I'm managing it very appropriately right now. So we've kept it in a minimal amount of states and then we are just expanding quite significantly here. So our distribution is gonna be East Coast and West Coast now, Alaska here shortly. We're just about to launch in Florida. We're relaunching in Texas and New Mexico again. Louisiana, hopefully by the end of the year. It's all across the board in almost every state that we could get into besides the controlled states, some of the controlled states because they're just a little bit harder, but we're working on it.

So we talked about all the others that are involved in the company and kind of their backgrounds a little bit. Let's talk a little bit about your background. Where did you come from and what got you into whiskey?

You could kind of say I was born into whiskey. My last name's Dewar. My family used to own Dewar Scotch a long, long time ago. So one of the first. things of whiskey I ever had was our family's doers. And I think my mom and my dad said they used to put it on my bib so I would stop crying. So from when I was teething, I'm guessing that's what they did, but I don't know. They could have just put a little shot of it in me and it just makes more sense now while I'm working for a whiskey company.

You got a taste for it early on, right?

Absolutely. didn't know much about it. And I've had doers my entire life when I was growing up, just very small amounts appropriately, right, with my parents' consent and doing it in the right way. I mean, I'm a little bit older. I'm not in this younger generation. So I think I can say that legally without getting them in trouble. And they're in their 70s and 80s now, so I can't really.

I don't think anybody's coming after them. I think we're OK. Perfect. But you're also a vet.

Yes, sir. I joined the Marine Corps and did that for a little over, I did that for four years, got out. And then afterwards, I joined the federal government, became a federal agent for the Department of Homeland Security and did that for quite a long time. got out about three and a half years ago and met Ryan while I was running a nonprofit called Base Camp 40 Warriors into the Wild where we take veterans hunting and fishing around the world. I still do that today, so I guide veterans hunting and fishing, but. met him after reaching out and say, Hey, would you want to donate some products so I can get these veterans after their hunt, a good sip of whiskey that's Colorado based where I'm at. And he loved the idea we met several times afterwards, he came to several of our events and When I said I'm leaving the agency, he offered me this position, so I couldn't be more ecstatic to leave one place and come to another where I get to travel around the US, get people a little bit tipsy and then walk away without getting shot at anymore.

That's pretty cool. So do you fly fish?

I do fly fish, yeah. Not well, but I do it.

I kind of imagine you might, yeah. I love coming to Colorado a couple of times. Well, I probably come once, maybe twice a year, but I love coming out there and doing a little bit of fly fishing. My son lives in Colorado Springs, so we'll get out and do a little bit, but maybe one of these days I can come out and we can go fishing.

Oh, let me know. We're right off the Eagle River, so you can come and drink some whiskey and then fish right there.

Fantastic.

And we're two seconds away from the Colorado.

Yay. All right.

Well, we're going to take a short break.

We're going to continue sipping on the 10th Mountain bourbon. And when we come back from the break, we've got another whiskey and a lot more about the 10th Mountain whiskey.

Be right back.

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I appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Yeah, absolutely. So now we have your rye whiskey in a glass. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about it?

Yeah, the rye is going to be 69% rye, 27% corn and 4% malted barley. I think I got that math right this time. Do over 500 podcasts a year. You get a little confused on which numbers you're throwing out there from which rye batch. But this is our primary rye batch. This is what we do with it. It's one of my favorites. You're going to get a little bit of that spicy tone on some of it, but it's going to be a little bit more relaxed because of that higher corn base in it. And then that malted barley just almost equals it out on it.

Yeah. So I'm nosing it and I just get this impression that there's a lot more malted barley in this than, would you say 5%? 4%.

That's it. It's only 4%.

It plays a big part in this rye.

It does. It's surprising. The type of malted barley that we're getting out is changing up the experience and giving it a little bit of a lighter tone and texture than you're going to taste in some other ryes out there.

If I were, and you always hear people say, if I was blinding this, so I'm going to do it. I'm going to say, if I was blinding this and I had no idea what you had poured me, Yeah. I mean, it's clearly a rye, but I would think it's a malted rye. I really would.

It's a unique one, but it's not really a malted rye at all.

Yeah, not even a little bit. That's amazing. But on the nose, I am getting that nice malt note. Honey. Just a hint of apple. But it does have a kind of a little bit of a wisp of mint in the back. Just this little wisp of mint.

A nice tinge of it.

Yeah, exactly. Cheers. I'm going to taste it. Absolutely. Wow. Are you certain about that barley content? I know you are. I'm just making a comment here. I'm like, wow, this is really malty. The mint comes, comes forward a little bit on the palette. It definitely has kind of a honey apple, caramel apple, more of a honey apple kind of note to it. Okay.

A little bit of a little bit of cinnamon.

And are you sure this is only two year? Cause I see it says two year on the bottle, but it sure tastes a little bit older.

That's it. So the great thing about our distillery is the elevation. So elevation plays a huge role in fermentation and aging process. So water evaporates 10 times faster than alcohol at elevation at 5,280 feet. And our distillery and where we age stuff is right around 7,800, 7,900 feet in elevation. So that water evaporation plays a big game and we're in a high desert climate environment where our distillery is at too. So we get those big swing ships in temperatures in the summer and the winters. Winter sometimes you'll get 40, 50 degrees, then it'll drop down to negative 10. And then in the summer months, it'll go up to 115 degrees and go down to 70 at night. So, you're going to get those drastic temperature changes where we're going to have that expansion and contraction of that wood. But at the same time, it's pushing out all the water and keeping all the alcohol in there, which is a phenomenal thing for us compared to like a Kentucky whiskey or Kentucky rye.

So with those big daily temperature swings, I mean, that's something that Texas has to deal with as well, or those big temperature swings during the day. Absolutely. But you've got on top of that, you've got a really dry environment. So how does that humidity play in that?

It doesn't really play a big role, to be honest. We're not seeing a huge issue with humidity because we don't have any. Right. I believe it's actually helping out the barrels. It's helping it age a little bit quicker inside of it. quicker, right? To an extent of how chemistry works, not how it should or some people think it should age based on the age statement on a bottle. So it speeds up that process just a little bit faster than that humidity would because it'll soak in that wood up and slow it down on the outside and it can slow it down on the inside. Just a little bit in Texas compared to here.

Yeah, this is, uh, this is very unusual. This, this, this definitely would, would, I would lose a blind guessing game on this for sure. No doubt about it.

It's very unusual. I'm happy you're enjoying it at least.

Yeah, it's, it's really good. Now the, the finish on it is a little bit shorter than that of the bourbon, I will say. Um, but I don't know the, I guess the, the proof's a little bit lower. It's an 86 proof.

That is correct, yes.

Yeah, it improves a little bit lower. It doesn't give you that big hug on the end. So what was first? Your bourbon, your rye, your American single malt, your clear liquors. What did you guys start out with?

We actually started out with a moonshine, a potato vodka, and a cordial, which is a peach, vanilla, and sage infused cordial that we make. And then we started making the bourbon and the rye at the same time, but we wanted to let those age for a little bit. So I think we were doing an aging process of six to nine months at that point and then starting to sell them out. But those were in smaller barrels. I believe we did the five gallons first. And then once we got bigger, we started expanding it out. We have a couple sitting there a few years older right now, some seven and eight years, but I'm not allowed to know where those are at because I'm not allowed to pull samples for myself anymore.

So your moonshine, is it a rye mashbill or a bourbon mashbill moonshine? It's actually just 100% corn. 100% corn, corn liquor.

100% corn, corn liquor, that's it. Add 100 proof.

You know, as I, I poured it, I drank, I drank all the ride that I put into the first class and I poured myself a little bit more because it is for me a little bit unusual in a good way. And, uh, and I just, I just wanted to, I just want to continue sipping on it and analyzing it. This has got me thinking. This has really got me thinking. This is a ride that is not like anything else I've had. does have kind of a new oak tinge to it, which is, uh, I mean, it's a little bit younger, only two years, but rice tend to age a little bit faster. And I guess in Colorado, they age even faster. I'm just blown away by the fact that this is only two years.

By the end of the year, hopefully we'll be in three years. Oh, fantastic.

Yeah, I would point people in the direction of this ride because if you're a ride drinker and you like getting rides that are surprisingly different from others, they're outside of kind of the typical what you expect, something that might make you think a little bit. Sort of scratch your head and just sit on the porch and just sip on it and think about it. This is a, this is a thinking man's rye. It's younger. It's, it's got that new oak to it. It's got a little bit of that freshness and it is sweet. The malt component on it is stands out in some wonderful way and almost had me thinking I was drinking a malted rye. So there you go.

I'm happy you're enjoying it and I'm happy we confused you a little bit from someone who drinks enough alcohol.

So if you're a rye drinker and you like sitting on a porch analyzing a rye and just exploring it and trying to figure out what makes it different, what makes it special, Why did you buy this bottle? Why should you go buy another bottle? This is one of those that you can spend a little time with. It is younger. It does have kind of the New Oak impact on it. But by the same token, it's got that kind of a malted rye effect. And I really like it a lot. I think that a little bit of honey apple and mint that comes out on it is nice. And it's a great little younger ride that is going to turn into magic someday, I think.

I really appreciate that.

Especially since you are producing more barrels in your shipping, that means some of this stuff's getting a chance to age.

Yeah. We're gonna hopefully hire on another distiller at some time in the near future after the rack house comes up and then we'll have the ability to keep getting more barrels out there and expand it a little bit more. So we're excited about that.

So I was looking at your website and you've got quite an extensive website and you touch on a lot of topics, but one of them I really liked talked about the different things about, you know, if people come to visit you, can you tell us a little bit more about the experience there for somebody who comes to Vale, which is, I mean, by itself is a fun thing to do, right?

Oh, absolutely.

What about when they come to your facility?

Yeah. So we can do a whole tasting class and event and go through every single one of our spirits, explain it, explain the process of what's going on. But we also got something that's kind of cool. It's a fantasy whiskey camp that we do where you can come out there and you can distill with Sean and Jeremy and get to figure it out and do some pull right from the barrels, pop out your own bung and put it back in appropriately. and get an experience that some companies have out there and some don't. But we want to make it a full day of unique hands-on. You learn the whole distillate process from brain to glass. A lot of people like to call it and we like to call it and show what's going on with it. And then we'll do a catered lunch with you. We'll do photos and events for that day to show what's going on with this class. And then you'll get experiences throughout. It's we'll have a professional photographer come down and do the whole thing. You got to bottle your own and take it home with you too, from what we make. Not that distillate that you're making that day, but we'll pull it from a barrel. And were you thinking able to bottle that and take it home, sign it and have Sean sign it if you want. hopefully walk away with an amazing experience that other companies aren't doing like that.

So somebody who attends this camp gets to experience the grinding of the grains and the introducing of the mash and the boiling and the distilling and all the different things that go into creating kind of a whiskey. Absolutely. And they get to walk away with a little bit of whiskey too. That's pretty amazing.

Yeah. You may walk away with a few other things too. I just don't want to give it everything away that we're going to give away to the viewers yet, but they have to sign up and figure out what those little surprises are.

And that's on your website. They can find out more about that. Yes. All right. So I poured a little bit of your American single malt here. I did the absolutely enjoy in case anybody didn't get that already from my comments. I did absolutely enjoy that rye. That is a, I'm just kind of a rye fanatic. I just have always been kind of a, you know, a rye has always been my thing. I know we're the bourbon road, but rye is just. something near and dear to my heart. I really did enjoy that for its uniqueness and for its, it's got a limited complexity, but it's things that are kind of that you wouldn't expect. And it's just, I love things like that. They're just surprising. So thank you so much for sending that Rye. And I highly suggest that my other Rye friends out there give it a shot.

Oh, we appreciate that. Thank you.

Yeah, but in my glass now, I have your American single malt whiskey. And while I'm nosing this and sipping on it a little bit, and we'll talk about it afterwards, I'd like to know, our listeners would like to know where they can find your products out and about. How can they get their hands on 10th Mountain products?

Absolutely. So depending on the state you're in, we shipped to 40 states currently. There's a few that we do not. Yeah. You can go to our website and actually look those up. Some of them are going to be the controlled state. Some were a little bit harder to get to Alaska, Hawaii, for instance, Oregon can't get to Oregon. We're not shipping to Oregon as of yet. Kentucky, unfortunately, but there's ways around that we can get to some products to some individuals.

I know there's three bottles here. There are three bottles of Kentucky.

I don't know how they got there, but they got there.

Media samples. That's how they got here.

Media samples. So, we do ship out to a few different states, so 40 different states we ship to currently. We're working on trying to expand that a little bit more with our third party distributor. They're doing a phenomenal job now and it sounds like they're going to get some licensing to change that up and to expand to a few more states and maybe international soon. We'll leave that to them though to get that licensing. I'm going to stay out of that. I'll do the distribution licensing for the company. And currently we're in 26 states now.

And you guys, you guys do ship, um, does Colorado allow shipping of your products? Or do you have a, do you have a shipping partner who provides online sales of your products?

Correct. Yeah. We have a third party that does it for us. So rack house distribution company. Uh, they're the ones who do it for us.

So you guys won their craft distillery of the year, didn't you?

In 2021. Yes, sir. Fantastic.

Yeah. It sounds to me like you guys are pretty available to our listeners. Uh, for the most part, people can get their hands on your products and, uh, there's just going to be a few exceptions to that. So. I would say definitely keep your eye out for the products. And if you can get your hands on, well, I mean, I, I really liked the bourbons. The texture head was wonderful on that. The rye was kind of out of the box. Good for me. Let's talk a little bit about your single malt here.

Absolutely. Our American single ball is probably one of my favorites. You're going to get those earthy textures and notes out of it in the front end. I picked up almost a horse barn, a hay barn with it when I was nosing it. Absolutely. Um, almost like dried leather.

Yeah. I mean, hay notes can be, hay notes can be good and bad, and these are the good kind. These are not the wet hay notes. These are kind of the light hay notes, a little bit of a grainy note to it, but a nice, uh, light malt on it. I will say that for me, One of the things about American single malts is that they're different from Scotch's, right? They're different because they're our version of malted whiskey, right? They're America's version of malted whiskey. And one of the ways we differ in a lot of cases, not in all cases, but in many cases here in the U.S. is by using new oak, right? We use new oak for our single malt. And I'm assuming you're doing the same here.

Yes, we are. We are doing new oak. We're keeping it as traditional as possible. We're not using the once used barrels like Scotland does or Ireland does depending on where it's at or even Canada. I guess Japan's doing it as well now. So yeah, we're not doing any of those. We're not using the one use or two use barrels. We try to keep it new. I'm not saying we're not doing that in some other stuff but those may be surprises down the road.

But that brings that American touch to malt whiskey, which is to bring that new oak, which honestly in a younger whiskey, and this is a two year old whiskey, the new oak can compete a little bit with the malt notes of the whiskey itself. So you've got that dichotomy of the oak versus the malt. Is it light? Yeah. I mean, it's, uh, I think the oak wins out just a little bit here, but there's a nice cinnamon note coming in that you normally wouldn't get that I really like. I'm really getting a thing for single malt slightly. And so many companies are doing it nowadays and doing it well. How long ago did you guys introduce your single malt?

Two years. Two years. So we've been laying it down for a few years now. Uh, everything's going to be a two year and above even our single malts. Um, so they're all our single malts are actually almost at three year now with everything that we're doing.

So are you saying that we know it's a two year whiskey, but were you making it two years prior to that? So now you've been doing single malts in the, into the barrels for four years, five years, five years. Okay.

Yeah. So that's why I said it's almost everything we have is going to be almost a three year and above.

Well, I'll say this is young, but it is complex. I wasn't willing to call the Raya complex whiskey. It's delightful and wonderful and I loved it, but this is a bit complex, but it's young, but it's complex, which is a good thing.

Yeah, actually in the Key West Invitational, that right there won the best whiskey in class. So we won best overall. You guys are doing it right. You're killing it. Thank you. When you do a double blind and you actually win, that's really surprising, especially with a young whiskey as it is.

Yeah, there's some nice things about American single malts that, and I've had a number of them there. I mean, Colorado is known for a few pretty good single malts. The Western States, there are some really good single malts out there. The middle of the US, we've got some great companies producing single malts there in Iowa. And I mean, it's just... It seems like when you head west of the Mississippi, you get the best of the best as far as single malts go. I'm not saying there aren't companies in the East producing single malts that are good. There certainly are. But it seems like you Western folk are doing a really good job.

We're trying to just keep up with the Eastern folk when they're bourbon. If we can beat them in the single malt game, we're happy.

There you go. Well, I feel like single malts are poised for a leap in popularity. I think it's something that's coming down the pike real soon. And the variety, what you can do with a malt whiskey is just tremendous. Bourbon is so... narrow. What you can do with a bourbon is so narrow. You know, you don't have a lot of leeway there, right? But with malt whiskey, you've got a lot that you can do with it. American single malts are just, I think there's a lot, there's a great future in it and I'm excited about it personally because I love drinking them.

I appreciate it and I think everybody out there has their own stuff and we're really excited to see how we can expand and keep going on with it. Just enjoy the product as is and then hopefully teach them other distilleries that are coming up. who knows what happens from there.

Absolutely.

So you guys, uh, you get out and about a bit. You're actually traveling today. You're, you're in Georgia supporting your brand. And, uh, can you tell us a little bit about some, uh, some events you have going on places you're going to be things that, uh, when you guys are out and about, people might be able to find you out in the wild.

Absolutely. We're talking in the works with, um, The Highland Games in New York right now, we're talking to them a little bit and that should be coming up here shortly in June or July. I can't give exact dates because I don't know them off the top of my head. We have a shooting competition in Wyoming, ELR KRG Extreme, which is an extreme long range shooting competition event that we sponsor each year. And that's in Pine Bluff, Wyoming, about 30 minutes east of Cheyenne and that's actually in a couple of weeks. That one's coming up. We'll have some tasting events that are going around the country. Amanda, one of our brand ambassadors in the Detroit area, will be putting on some tasting events out there. And we'll be putting it on our website and social media. And then we have a newsletter that just recently came out, which will actually you can sign up for. It'll actually go straight to your mailbox and give you all the events we're going to be attending, what's going on, who's going to be where, if I'm going to be somewhere, if the owner Ryan's going to be somewhere. But it's going to be a fun time. We'll be in Florida here shortly, Texas soon.

Yeah, one of the things I noticed on your website is when you visit the website is it comes up and invites you to join the newsletter. So can you tell everybody where your website is and how they can find out more about 10th Mountain Whiskey and Spirit?

Absolutely. You can go to our website. It's at 10thWhiskey.com. So it's 1-0-T-H-Whiskey-with-an-E.com and go right there. It'll bring you straight to our website. Our bout page is pretty self-explanatory. Just press that and it'll bring you right to everything you need to know about us, our company, our philanthropy work, the blog that we have, our media kit, and all the pictures you would ever want with 10th Mountain. Some recipes as well. If you go right to the right of that, it's under spirits. Our entire team is under this as well. If we have any job openings, if you're looking at becoming a brand ambassador or want to know about those programs, that application is on there and you can email me personally. When I have a second and I sit down in my hotel room, I'll email you back depending on where I'm at in the country or around the world. but I'm happy to answer any questions that they have. You can also find us at 10th Whiskey on all of our social medias as well. It's 10th MTN Whiskey. That's on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, X, whatever the kids are calling them these days, because I have someone else running that for me, because I can't do any of that at all.

I wish I had someone else running mine. That would be great. I mean, it's so much work. I mean, it's worthwhile, but it is so much work.

And our team does a phenomenal job. So I'm happy they're running it and I'm not.

Yeah. Well, Brian, it's been a pleasure to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for sharing your whiskeys with us. I think our listeners are delighted to learn about your products and they will certainly keep their eye out for them on the shelves. We have listeners in all 50 states and 40 countries. So wherever you are, they are. and I'm sure they'll be looking for a bottle real soon. I'm going to guess based on my comments, they'll be eyeballing that rye whiskey on the shelf here real soon.

I hope so. I'll give you a special code at the end of this so you can send it out to your listeners and they can get a little bit of a discount just on us for you.

Well, fantastic. We'll post that code in our social media and we'll make sure that they can reach out and redeem based on that code. Great deal. Well, thanks again, Ryan. I appreciate you being a guest on the show today. Enjoy your time in Georgia. I do love Georgia too. There's some great whiskeys down there, by the way. Uh, don't always drink your own, drink the other people's too, because there's some good stuff in Georgia, but, uh, enjoy your time down there and thanks again for coming on the Bourbon road.

Well, thank you, Jim. It was a pleasure and an honor.

All right. Well, you can find the bourbon road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, tech talk threads X. Yeah. We're everywhere too. We probably don't do it as good as Brian's team, but we certainly try. We try to get out there and, uh, and reach out to all our listeners and all our followers on all the social medias. But we do an episode every single week on Wednesdays. We'll have a guest on the show, we'll have a distillery on or a musician or, heck, last year we had a barbecue champ on. How fun was that? Listen to us every week. Actually, go to the top of the app you're on, hit that subscribe button, that way every single week when we put out a new episode, you'll get a notification letting you know that those fools at the Bourbon Road have dropped another episode talking about whiskey and we're going to have a great time. You won't want to miss one. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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