430. All Nations - Garrard County Distilling

Hello friends and welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road podcast. I'm your host, Jim Shannon. And I'm your host, Todd Ritter.

We've got a great show for you today. So grab your favorite pour and join us.

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We are on the road today. Yeah, it's the first time I've been on the road except coming to your house and things and doing some tasting.

So really cool. It's nice to get out and visit. And today we are in Garrett County. We're in Kentucky. Both of us had to drive about an hour to get here. Yeah, about an hour and five minutes from me. So who are we with today, Todd?

We are with Sandy Bennett and Dave DeVoe from Gary Cowling Distilling. Yeah, welcome to the show, guys. Thank you for having us.

So we have been looking forward to this episode for some time. We had been in contact with Barry and Barry's like, you got to get down here. You got to see this place. It's just something else to, something to behold. And I think we started talking late in 24, but you guys had just opened up on Saturdays at the end of the year, correct?

That's correct. Got on the Bourbon Trail and up on Monday through Saturday.

So perfect time for Todd and I to scoot down here on a Saturday and check out your facility. drink some of your whiskey and learn a little bit about Guard County Distilling and what you guys have going on. So again, Todd's already thanked you. I want to thank you again. Welcome to the Bourbon Road and let's have a fun show.

Absolutely.

All right. Well, before we get into all the nitty gritty and the details of this episode, you do have something in our first class and we kind of like to get to that first class pretty darn quick. So who wants to take the honors and tell us about what's in our first class today?

Yeah, so what we've got here in the first class is our flagship Kentucky straight. It is a blend of 90 barrels, all aged from five to seven years. We did not chill filter this, so it's at 96 proof. What we were going after here is something that we can replicate year after year. If you want to drink it neat, it's got all the flavors and the nuances that allows that. But also, if you wanted to pour it into a cocktail, it's got enough backbone to stand up into an old-fashioned.

And it's just over that proof where you feel safe about being non-chill filtered, right? Correct.

Yeah. Yep.

All right. Well, let's check it out. Yeah. Cheers. Cheers.

Cheers.

I'm going to let you lead off today a little bit. I'm getting some rich caramel, a little bit of leather note, vanilla, classic notes. There's a bit of nuttiness to me on this one.

Yeah, it definitely has a nuttiness. I think it's got kind of a nice deep char note to it, kind of an oaky char note to it. Guys, what was the age on the liquid in this bottle? To blend a five to seven years. Five to seven years. Yeah, you can pick up a little bit of the extra aging on it. Yeah.

And we got to talk to these guys a little bit beforehand. And it was a really neat way, I think, that you guys, you know, you had about, what, 120 barrels you originally pulled out for this. Right. They were resampled, correct. Yeah. And went through a rigorous, I guess, tasting panel of six.

Yeah. And, you know, it's It is truly rigorous. I mean, we have to come in every day and sample and taste and smell. And there's worse jobs in the world to do.

Yeah, I can hear it in your voice. You're like really disappointed you have to do this job.

Today's a tasting day. Exactly.

Yeah, I love the nose on this. I really do. And you guys said that this was an award winner, right?

Yep. This year's IWSC. This was one of the select few that did win a gold. Awesome. Scored 95 points in a double blind.

Yeah, the interesting thing about the IWSC, if you don't know, is that to achieve the gold, it has to go, it has to be awarded the gold twice. So it goes in front of the first set of judges, they score it. And then any, any whiskeys that scored that then have to go in front of another set of judges, and then they have to agree on that scoring. So it technically has to be scored twice blind, which was Really good. Very rigorous. Yes.

Yeah. Sounds a bit like one of those dog shows, you know, you see. It goes through, you know, one judge, and then it goes in toward the grand judge for the best of show. Yes.

I think what stands out on this is the nuttiness, the vanilla.

Yeah.

It's a very rich vanilla. I like that kind of a charred, I'm not going to call it, it's not smoky campfire, but it's definitely like a charred note, like a burnt sugar, a little bit, maybe.

Now we'll go into a little more detail. You guys are distilling here. now since January of 2024. But these are source barrels that you guys have blended. That is correct. Yes.

And as we were saying earlier, these are all Kentucky. They're stored here on our site, matured here, and blended here. But mash bills that were very similar to what we're looking at in our core brands, which is a 70-21-9 is kind of our standard. But we've done everything from single malts to high whiskies, light whiskies, 99-1s. We've laid down quite a bit of 95-5 for high as well.

But this represents a profile that you're after. Correct. This represents the profile that you guys want to make in-house. That's correct.

This is what we want to be able to replicate year over year so that if you have that go-to bottle that you know that you're getting quality for price, this is what we want it to be. It's a clean palette.

It's very, again, nutty on the palette as well. I like the sweetness though. I don't even know if it's a brown sugar sweetness. Maybe it is. I can see that. Yeah. It's good. It's really good. I can see why this has won awards. I can see why it could pass multiple tables and still pick up the gold. It's a good solid bourbon. This kind of checks all the boxes. That's exactly what we're trying to go for. Flagship that is replicable.

Yeah. It's got enough proof to like... you know, hold up straight up in a Glencairn too, you know. Sometimes those 80 or 90 proofers are kind of like, come off as really light, but 96 proof. This has got a little spice at the end, which is nice.

The All Nations straight bourbon, this is 95, 96? 96. 96 proof. Nice, beautiful bottle. Kind of reminds me a little bit of the shape of, there's a couple of bottles out on the shelf that this shape reminds me of. What's this?

Boone County kind of similar?

Boone County similar. A little bit like maybe a Michter's tin kind of bottle. Yeah. What else? A little bit like the hard truth bottle.

Yeah, a little bit.

Just so our listeners can talk. We don't do pictures, we don't do video, so it gives our listeners kind of an idea of what your bottle looks like. Real clean, crisp label on the front, white label on this one, All Nations. Can you tell us a little bit about how you guys arrived at this Mash Bill? Why this Mash Bill? Why is 70-21-9 kind of your destination?

I think for us, there's enough corn there that you get the corn sweetness, but you also get a percentage of rye enough that you can get that rye spice that you kind of expect in a Kentucky strake, right? And then the nine was what was left. But that nine is so important. It really is. Yeah, from enzyme activity, absolutely.

Yeah. It's important for the enzymes, but it also brings a different flavor.

A little bit of added depth of flavor to it.

It does.

And it becomes a little more interesting with the malted barley.

Yeah, I remember when I tasted it the first time, I think I looked at you, Dave, and I said, how much barley is in this? Yes. Because it kind of stands out just a little bit. So very, very nice.

Now, All Nations, where'd that idea come from?

Well, All Nations actually comes from Cary Nation, but actually by way of the saloons. Cary Nation, a historical woman born in Kentucky. We actually have her childhood home here on site. that we moved here, stone by stone. But she became famous in later life, basically was the leader of the women Christian temperance movement, which eventually led to prohibition. But she was famous for carrying around a Bible and an axe and going into saloons in mainly the Midwest, so Missouri, Kansas, that area, and bashing up barrels because she was against alcohol. And the saloon owners decided that they wanted to put signs up. So they did. And it says all nations welcome except Kerry. And that's a really, that's a cool slogan. And you know, every, every bourbon has to have a good story along with it. And the historical tie to Garrett County and every all nations welcome except Kerry is is pretty cool. I mean, that's a nod to her, even though she was necessarily against alcohol. But what we are doing is bringing her name back to the forefront, which I really enjoy, because she did this in the late 1800s. The fact that any person And especially a woman at that time was able to start a movement that eventually led to a change nationwide is really impressive. But she also started the first home for battered women. And I mean, she was an incredible person. She was also very intimidating. I think she stood six foot two.

Wow.

Which was huge for any person.

So a six foot two woman with an axe and a Bible. You're in trouble. You're in trouble.

Some mad grandmother kind of thing. Exactly. Which is why I always like to tell all the other good things that she did. in hopes that she doesn't take vengeance on the distillery.

You guys have a really neat statue out there at the entrance to the visitors. She's welcome to the door, but not in the door out there.

Exactly.

I didn't see the axe on that statue though.

Yep, she's holding the axe.

I didn't realize she was 6'2".

The other thing about her, she was only in Garrett County for six years, and then her child moved out the Midwest that Dave was speaking to. But what got her against alcohol is her first husband was a physician, and she had a child by him. Two years later, he was dead from alcoholism. So her name was Cary Amelia. Well, the next gentleman she married was a nation. So it was Cary Amelia Nation. So in her own words that, you know, God came to her of a night and said, you need to rid the world of alcohol. She would have not gotten arrested had she not started taking in personal property. When she'd go in and do what she called her hatchetations at the time in the territory, alcohol wasn't legal to begin with. So there wasn't a whole lot of resistance for destroying alcohol that was already illegal, but as soon as she started getting into the actual bars and the actual destroying of personal property. So she was arrested a little over 30 times. And so back then she kind of got a cult following of this temperance movement. She really made her money from speeches. So one of her last speeches was on the courthouse steps here in Garrett County when she'd came back to visit.

Now, when you go back to the time, I mean, it was a different world back then. It really was. And in order to understand somebody, they say you have to walk a mile in their shoes, but you have to at least understand the times they lived in. And I think if I remember correctly, at that time, The average adult male was drinking somewhere around 18 gallons of whiskey a year.

Yes.

Which we're nowhere near that today. Right. Right. So, we're much more controlled in our alcohol consumption today. But back then, it was a little bit out of control and an adult male was 15 or older. So, that gives you an idea of kind of the drinking age as well. Right. So, she was battling something that was seriously wrong at the moment.

Right. And the, honestly, the governmental controls on what was considered risky or bourbon were also there.

A little looser, yeah.

So, yeah, a lot looser. Yeah. Which eventually led to the three-tier system and everything else. But, yeah. It was an interesting, can imagine being her neighbor.

Yeah, yeah. And another thing is like, you know, you think about like, if the consumption and the populations back then were less. Yes. But still. think about the production capacity that was required of our distilleries in order to keep up with that demand. Right.

And when they couldn't keep up, man, what was going in that?

Yeah, what was going in that at that time. So yeah, I think you have to understand it was a different time. And a lot of people are kind of very negative towards Kerry Nation because of prohibition. Prohibition kind of today has a negative connotation to it. But at the time, I think a lot of people sided with her.

Oh, absolutely.

Enough to turn the tides in Congress.

America's greatest experiment is what they call it, right?

Yes.

So we're in Garrett County. The closest city here is Lancaster, for those out there. Well done. I'm a local, so I'm from Kentucky, so I know how to do it. So what brought this here to Lancaster? Oh, actually, Lancaster. I actually said it too slow that time.

So yeah, I think once the, again, there's The folks that started this were really good friends with Wilderness Trail. Pat and Shane, everything they'd done over there. They were procuring quite a few barrels from them. Literally, this land was available. We wanted a good water source, Kentucky limestone water, which we have. This just so happened to be 200-acre parcel that the city had taken for land development. It basically suited the needs perfectly for both us and the local community.

So let's try to give everybody a little bit of a Kentucky geography lesson. So we are in Garrett County, Lancaster, but we are about 45 minutes due south, more or less due south, of Lexington?

Yeah. Highway 27. We're about 18 miles from Interstate 75, exit 84.

OK. Maybe 12, 15 from Damble? Yeah.

Yeah, about 15. Yeah.

About 15 minutes to get to Wilderness Trail from here.

Correct. another 20 minutes of that to be to Lawrenceburg and yeah.

And then you're, yeah. So you guys are on the Bourbon trail? That's correct. You're kind of on a one leg of it, I would say, which is kind of the wilderness trail.

Yeah, they call it the Lexington part of the trail. Yeah. So they broke it out now until we fall under the Lexington section of the bourbon trail.

Fantastic. And you guys are on the Kraft Trail right now, or are you on the main bourbon trail? We're on the main bourbon trail. You're on the main bourbon trail. And rightfully so. You guys are a massive facility here. And we'll get to that here in a few minutes, but pretty impressive.

Todd and I got to do a full tour. Very clean place. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm really enjoying this. I think it's a, like I said earlier, I think it checks all the boxes. It has a wonderful profile that represents your Mash Bill. Obviously before Todd and I had a chance to taste this, the judges sort of sided with you as well. And it's a gold for sure. And I'm sure you're continuing to enter your products in competitions around the country.

I just sent off to the ADI, the San Francisco, so did win some awards in the San Francisco as well. Nice. So, yeah.

And this retails for about- Forty-five. Forty-five bucks. Yeah.

That's where you want to be. That's right where you want to be, I think. You want to be in that $40 to $60 range. It's a beautiful bottle. It's quality bourbon. Thank you. And great blending. Yeah. Really good.

We're at limited distribution now. Distributed in Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, and South Carolina, but plans to expand.

That's a good start. Yep. It's a good start. To the south. So your batch size for this particular you said was? 90 barrels. 90 barrels. You expect that to grow. Oh, absolutely. Yes. So 90 barrels generates, my brain's not doing the math real quickly. How many bottles is that?

Roughly 15,750 if we yielded 175 per barrel.

OK, so 15,000, 16,000 bottles, that's substantial. That's a nice amount, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, this thing can get in the pipeline fill, getting everything filled and then be able to support it and then have enough runway as it starts buying down to keep the supply replenished.

Yep. Okay. I think I'm ready to jump in. Pour number two? Yeah, let's do it.

So yeah, port number two, this is what we call our small batch. And for us, a small batch is a batch of 30 barrels. Again, staying in that same five to seven year, we didn't necessarily let age drive completely the decision. So, you know, as we went through and we were selecting and tasting these and we found our Single barrels, the ones that was just too good to blend away with anything no matter, it could stand on its own. Those that were right there at that mark, maybe missing something. Okay, if we come down the smaller batch of barrels, can we get that more rounded flavor? I feel like between the Kentucky straight and now the small batch, even though it's the same barrels, just the characteristics of those and how we blended those together, we come out with a small batch, which we think is exceptional. Between Dave and I, this is actually our favorite, so this is one place. It scored well. It scored 92 points for a silver, but this is the one when we heard we got a gold. We'd have probably lost the farm if you'd ask us, so we'd bet this one.

So 30 barrels, this is about the third the size of the back, the straight, and the proof is up.

Yep, we stepped up to 107. Why 107? Well, quite honestly, we go into the barrel at 110. Historically, we have picked up about 1% on proof. We'll see that when we get to our single barrel, but just in case we don't. This is a pre-printed label. It gives us just a little bit of room. Again, still not cold filtered. This one, what that blend gave us, we micron-filtrated, just to pull out any solids. We didn't strip anything out of this.

This is the same timeframe, right? The barrels in the five to seven year range.

And from four different sources as well. But stored here on site and blended on site. The nose, I love this nose. It's more like pipe tobacco. I can see why you guys love this one. I mean, don't get me wrong, that 96 proofer is really nice.

But you know, even stepping up 11 and proof, you don't really, you know, the palette doesn't really, you don't really feel it. And the finish on this is what I really enjoy. I think we talked about it earlier.

Yeah, it's good. The, the proof is kind of hiding a little bit. It, you know, after having the, the straight, you drink this, it's like, I like this better personally for me, but I think it's the proof that's doing it, but it's almost like not real, like on the surface, evident that the proof is the reason. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of the single barrels that are out there come in at barrel proof. So, you know, I really got into those 120s, 125s, even 130s, but like, I find myself like these blends, I've had like other blends and like, It seems like that 105 to 110 range on some of the blends just works so well for some reason.

Right, because it's a nice balance. Yeah. It's a high enough proof that you get that bit of a Kentucky hug to it, but it's not so high that it dominates everything else.

As Sandy said, this is my favorite. Actually, all three of these have both sweet and sour mash whiskeys in them, correct?

Correct.

But you guys are a sweet mash company.

Sweet mash facility, correct.

And we're talking about hug, and it's just that, you know, when it comes to hug, the sweet mash kind of doesn't hug as much.

Doesn't hug as much.

Doesn't hug as much for some reason. It's kind of rude that way, but it's okay. It's not as loving. It's wonderful. It's delicious, but it doesn't quite hug as much.

Well, I like to think it doesn't need to hug as much.

There you go.

The hug isn't the requirement with the sweet mash. It's sweet enough as it is.

You've got the right answer. Yeah, I remember, I remember kind of Pat telling us the same thing was, you know, the one of the, one of the great things about sweet mash is, is it doesn't, it doesn't anacondia in the chest, you know, it doesn't take that bear hug on you. Like the way that sour mash is do. And I'm not sure the reason of that there's science behind it. I'm sure, and I'm sure these guys could tell all about why the reason is, but you know, for, for me, um, sweet mash is a good thing. It's a good thing.

That's good because I agree.

So before we get into deep and before the second half, what do you guys each do here at Gary County?

I am, I guess, officially the distillery manager, so to speak. Lead distiller, if you want to call it that. My job is to make sure that everything that you're drinking, that one, when we make it, we're making it correctly, that the stills are running correctly, that we're doing it safely. That's sort of my goal, is to make sure from the time the grain is purchased and come through until the time it goes into the rick house that we know what we're doing.

Does your job end at the rick house?

My job never ends. But that's the nice thing about here is that None of our jobs ever end. We're all fully invested in everywhere it goes. If you come out here anytime, you will see Sandy working a broom or filling a barrel or ricking. You will see any person here doing all of those things. Yes, you mentioned it before about, are we a craft on the craft tour or like the big tour? Well, we're on the big tour, but this is still a craft feel. We all do all of it. And that makes for a really strong, robust team when everybody understands what the job is and why we're doing it. from the time the grain hits until the time we pull them out of the brick houses and go to bottle. We've all done it all.

So do you have anyone in your organization that's kind of responsible for maturation, that kind of deals with maturation only?

Yeah, so Nick takes a lot of that, so Nick's over the lab. Nick's tracking as we've laid down new fill and that sort of thing, pulling lots, if you will, a sample from each lot, usually being a day's worth, and as that matures closer to that four, five-year time frame where sampling more frequent, more barrels, and we're starting to build a profile, right, of the nuances of those different barrels of what we're seeing. And then you can start seeing it actually laid out on paper, you know, this particular lot over indexes and ripe red fruit. This is more of a caramel. This is more, you know, on the nose sort of thing. So when we're going in to blend, right, We've got our taste profile built for here. How do we replicate that? And then it's, okay, we want whatever Mother Nature and the whiskey gods gave us as single barrels, and we want to accentuate those as much as possible.

I kind of like that. I mean, I like the idea that your lab is kind of keeping an eye on the Rick house. And then when things sort of get to a point where he needs to raise the flag and say, tasting panel, it's time, right? That's pretty cool. I think that's a great plan. It sounds to me like a great plan anyway. What do you think, Todd? Yeah, it does.

Sandy, so what's your title and what's kind of like your- So I'm the general manager. I mean, besides pushing the broom. Yeah.

So I'm the general manager. I'm actually responsible for the site. My job is to give Dave all the tools he needs, so make sure sure the supply chain is providing him grain and that sort of thing, that the other support groups, i.e. the barrel and ricking, and they're taking away the distillate so that, you know, that Dave can just focus on that and what's going on here with the distiller. So, you know, just making sure that, you know, Bills are being paid, you know, that, uh, everything that Dave needs has been brought to him and everything that, uh, he needs to get taken away of. So, uh, just kind of lead the team.

He worries about all the things that I don't want had to have to worry about because of him.

Yeah. So you just get to run, run, run. You don't have any, you don't have any blocks in the way he, his job is to get all those, those blocks out of the way.

He's, he's the offensive line. I'm the running back.

There you go. That's a great way to look at it. I love this. This is so good. Yeah, this is a really, really, really good bourbon. Yeah. MSRP on this is 55. 55. That's a steal. So we're jumping 10 bucks basically over the cost of your straight and- 10 bucks, 11 proof. 11 proof. That's a good trade. Yeah, that's good. I'll trade 10 bucks for 10 proof any day. And this is the black label gold letter.

Yeah. It's a really, a really dark, dark blue, but yeah. Oh, is it dark blue? Yeah. It's an extremely dark blue, but yeah, it's almost black. That's what they call Navy blue, right?

It's like super Navy.

Yeah. Almost a real Royal Navy. I'll be honest. I don't see the blue in it, but somebody might.

You can call it whichever color you want on your back.

That's right.

I'm grabbing one of those on the way out. I've already made up my mind.

All right. Well, that's great. Todd, what do you think? Good time to sort of take a break here and continue sipping on what we got in our glasses.

Yeah, it is. We've got a single barrel coming up in the second half and yeah, keep chatting with these guys and it's a good day.

All right. Yeah. So we're having fun here, folks. Stick around. We'll be right back. Todd and I are going to empty our glasses and we've got another expression and more great details from our friends here at Garrett County. So stick around. Few things pair better together than a fine whiskey and a premium cigar. And Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars are where flavor and craftsmanship meet. Their exclusive collection is meticulously hand-rolled from aged tobacco sourced from the Dominican Republic. Revel in the artistry that only decades of experience can bring. The owner, with over 10 years of cigar mastery, curates blends that capture the essence of family tradition and innovation. Embrace the journey and indulge in a harmonious symphony of Smokey's Lifestyle Cigars, an experience truly beyond compare. Find out more at SmokeysLifestyleCigar.com. When you're traveling the Bourbon Trail, location and comfort is everything. That's why I recommend making the Hill House Bed and Breakfast your home away from home. Located in the heart of Bourbon Country, the Hill House Bed and Breakfast is less than five minutes from the Maker's Mark Distillery in Loretto, Kentucky, giving you easy access to the Bardstown Distilleries and all points of the Bourbon Trail. The owners, Cheryl and Jim, offer four comfortable and cozy rooms along with a gourmet hot-plated breakfast every single morning. And, when you return from a long day of fun, it's time to enjoy a bit of the Bourbon Trail nightlife. Relax on the large outdoor patio, complete with a blazing chiminea and solo stove. Or, curl up on the sofa and chairs, put a record on the turntable, and relax with snacks and fruit in front of the gas fireplace. An evening at the Hill House is a perfect time to raise a bourbon glass full of cheer in the company of family and friends. We know you'll enjoy your stay at the Hill House bed and breakfast as much as we did. Find out more at thehillhousekentucky.com. All right, listeners, we are back. It's been a, actually a pretty tack on good break. Dave got to go do a tour and the rest of us sat here and talked about the future of bourbon. That's, that's, yeah, that was fun.

That's some whiskey. Don't forget that part.

Yeah.

We drank, we drank stuff.

It was really good. So, uh, this is the second half folks. We're glad you stuck around. Uh, we're getting ready to try. Actually, we thought we were going to have one expression to try in this half. We're actually going to have three different pours. Yeah. We twisted their arms, twisted their arms.

So let's have some of your own distill it. It's going to be a lot of fun.

But let's start with what's in our glass right now. This is the one bottle that we had already planned on trying, the one expression. What do we have?

Yep. So this is a single barrel, 111 proof on this one. What that barrel gave us, we filtered out any sediment, and that's what went into the bottle.

Now, do you know how many barrels you put out as single barrels off the top of your head or anything? I think we did 30 different single barrels. We did 30 different. OK.

So another 30 barrels went here. And these are, in your opinion, you've tried a number of, you've probably tried them all. Your tasting panels tried every single one of them.

Yes, I've tried every one of them.

So how much variation do we see in these barrels?

Actually, a fair amount.

Do you?

A fair amount.

You know, and I tell folks no different than if you find a single barrel that you liked at Liquor Barn, and then you go over to Total Wine, it's not going to be the same single barrel.

We should probably let everybody know which barrel this is, just in case they can happen across it. What barrel number are we on, Todd?

This is barrel 1329, and this is bottle number 175, and like they said, 111 proof. 1329 is the barrel number.

And it is Kentucky Distilled. Kentucky distilled, Kentucky aged, Kentucky bottled. That's right. This is Kentucky bourbon. Correct. Through and through. And the nation of America.

Yeah.

All right, so this label on this bottle is more of a sort of a- Maroon. Maroon, brick, brick maroon color. Yeah. Gold letters still. Everything's gold letters with you guys. Correct. You guys got shiny gold letters. Gold standard.

That's right. It's kind of hard to see in the, and it's perfectly hard to see the neck labels embossed. If you look at it really close, it says all nations welcome, and you flip it around to the back, except Carrie. Except Carrie. Carrie is not welcome.

Did that part get unembossed or anything? Just because, you know.

Yeah. The previous expressions that we had released in earlier releases, it was right on the front label. Okay.

So after we drink this, I'm going to ask you how in the world you got to carry nation's statue. So let's go back to the whiskey now. The fruitiness kind of pops on this for me a little bit. Yeah. A little bit more sweetness, fruitiness.

It's like raspberry type thing. Yeah. I'm going to taste it. Cheers. Cheers.

Cheers. Great texture.

That's darn good.

That is really good. Oh, there's that dripping. I'm getting that dripping on the sides.

That's always a good sign. Makes you want more.

This has got a really nice finish on it.

So with those 30 barrels, they were all cash proof. So there could be variations out there that are 115. We didn't see anything that high. About 112 was as high as we saw.

Everything stayed at 110 or slightly above. That's really interesting.

It's still got a nice oak balance to it. For me, a little bit more of that sort of cream sweetness on this than I got on the small batch.

Small batch, right.

Yeah.

And the single boils run about?

MSRP on that $73. $73.

So $45, $55, $73. Yeah. OK. And you'll find them.

We've done some store picks.

liquor barns. I think, you know, with our store picks, they may be slightly under that.

Yeah. So do you guys find you have a pretty easy sell to get into the wells and bars, or are you not able to get into the wells and bars at 45?

I think we've been pretty successful. Yeah. Yeah. You know, go right here across the street, you know, and find it, liquor barns, that sort of thing. I jumped on total wine, you know, and then we did Once we launched with Kentucky Eagle, which is here in Kentucky, the local group, you know, we went to some of the bigger independently owned, you know, did tastings and that sort of thing. And, you know, if anybody's out there that's local to us that would like first to come do a tasting in a store, we'd be more than glad to.

Now you guys have kind of rebranded yourself a little bit, right?

So before this you were kind of doing So still, it was stuff that was aged here. But again, it was not our desolate. So that went out in the heyday when everything was going out. Didn't have the force behind it to really push it through. So we wanted to kind of reset. Now that we have the folks that can kind of get out there and support it, thought it would be actually a good launch.

I've cut one of your barrel proofs seven years, and it's fantastic, too.

Yeah, there's not much of that left out there. So if it's out there, that's the end of it. So everything coming behind that is newer stuff that we've blended.

Buy it now or it's gone. Buy it now or it's gone. That's right. Yep. And still, I recall, I don't remember what the price on that was, but it's still very reasonable. It seems like maybe in the 70 range? Yeah, I think 79.

I think that's what it was, yeah.

I really like this one, and this is obviously a single barrel, and whatever somebody else picks up might be drastically different from this, if you said, Dave. They kind of vary quite a bit. But this has a nice balance between the sweetness and the okiness. It's got kind of that sweet cream flavor, a little bit of fruitiness to it. Yeah. Hats off to the six people on that panel.

Thanks. Well, you know, we, with each expression, we had to come to a unanimous agreement. So with the single barrels, everybody had to say it was single barrel worthy. With the small batch, the final blend was a unanimous yes. It's a go. With the flagship, a unanimous yes. It's good enough that we want to stand behind this. And if anybody was an outlier, we kept working.

Yeah. It's hard to believe that you can get six people to agree on a single barrel. That's tough to do in barrel picks. It's tough to do anything.

You know, oddly enough, it was actually harder for the small batch than it was for the single barrels. Was it really? Yeah, because there wasn't a whole lot of convincing going on with the single barrels. With the six of us, when we write them down, Almost from jump, almost everyone agreed that this was a single barrel, yes. And this is the one thing that I love about the blending process and just sitting around drinking and talking about it. is that to get everybody's reaction because we all have different flavors that we enjoy and all of us pick up different things. It's really exciting to sit around and be a part of that.

You know, I will say to my taste profile, some of the single barrels were better than others. Just based on my particular likes, but even I could appreciate some that, you know, I think I told you earlier, you know, really star anise, licorice. I'm not a huge licorice fan, but I could appreciate that barrel having that expression that somebody would. I wouldn't want to try to keep them from that.

And you feel like you had a pretty good diversity on your tasting panel. Oh, absolutely. Yes.

And that's what we wanted to shoot for is that this isn't what I believe is good. It's what we all believe that we all want to be able to be willing to stand behind.

Yeah. Yeah. Even though this is not my profile, I can see somebody else would really appreciate this. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. I understand completely. Well, I appreciate this one. I do. Yeah. I do.

It's really good.

I like this one. I like this one a lot.

This was a good choice.

If I was on the tasting panel, this got... We can't try all 30-year barrels, but this one is... This one was a good choice. Excellent.

Well, you only have 29 more to buy.

There you go. So let's talk a little bit about the facility here. We haven't really dove deep into the capability, capacity. Where are we sitting at right now? Tell us a little bit about the facility, the capability of this facility, kind of the vision of what you've tried to build here. Because this is by no means a small capacity place.

This is a big capacity place. You're sitting in the largest independent distillery in Kentucky. Yeah. So yeah, we're sitting on 210 acres, so enough space that we can grow up to 24 Rick Houses on the property here. Currently, we have two that are completely full. We've got two across the road. One is about half full. The other one's ready to go into them. We've got two more pads created for that. The next two. here to make bourbon. Starting all the way out to our silos, we've got 24,000 bushel, twin 24,000 bushel corn silos, and then the other grains of three small grains stepping down to in size on those. The distillery is set up in such a way that we have two 36-inch columns standing 45-foot tall. They're the centerpiece of the distillery. If you open the distillery up as a book, they would be on the spine of that book. Everything to the east, we have four 10,000-gallon cookers. Those cooker pairs fill one 21,000-gallon fermenter. We have nine of those on each side. So, 18 in total. Gives us, you know, if we keep our cooks to eight hour cooks, then we are getting three fermenters a day. With nine fermenters, we have three days of fermentation. So, 72 hours feeding 25,000 gallon beer well. It's then end of the still, end of the doubler, and then two cistern room trains. So, in theory, and we've done it, we can be running a high rye on one side and a weeded on the other. Keep those completely separate. From the cistern room, we could move over into our barreling area where we have a two-head barrel filler. We can side fill or top fill barrels. A majority of everything that we do is side fill, but we will for others do top fill. We can produce up to 330 barrels a day or about 150,000 barrels a year.

So, that's a big number. I mean, that's huge. How many barrels fit on the semi truck?

So, depending on ... If you're pushing the 80,000 pound limit, it's somewhere right around between 88 and 90.

Okay. So, you guys are looking at somewhere around four semi trucks a day to four to five semi trucks a day of barrels coming in and barrels going out if you're at full capacity.

Yeah, so with empty barrels, they come in at 288, so you get a little bit of the stack to react. But once you put the liquid in, yeah, that's where you start hitting the road limits.

Oh, so it's a size. It's not a volume limit. It's a size limit on the barrel. I mean, it's a weight limit. That's correct. That's correct. On a 53-foot trailer, you can overload it. I never realized that. Yeah, you can overload the weight of the truck, but not the capacity of it in barrels. That's why they have those things on bridges.

If you're too heavy, don't come across here. That's one of our bridges in Frankfurt. It's been closed for a while because it's a small one downtown and apparently a truck went over that probably shouldn't have and it's been closed for some time now, which makes it really fun.

So 330 barrels a day at full capacity with trucks, semi-trucks pouring in and out of this place like they're lining up on the street out there just to get in for their unloader load.

That's a big deal.

You guys are pretty big. Now, we've done some interviews in the past with some big distilleries. And one of the ones we did was Midwest up in Columbus. And they're kind of a similar situation, big capacity, doing a lot of contract distilling and southern distilling out of North Carolina. You guys are right there. You're big. I mean, you're not playing around with this. This is a serious game for you guys. Absolutely. Yeah.

So, what kind of got you guys into the game, so to speak? I know we talked a little earlier. Dave, you came from somewhere else that some folks might have heard of.

Yeah. Originally, I'm a Wisconsin boy. I'm a farm boy who got off the farm and actually got into fuel ethanol. And that's where I met Dr. Heist, Pat Heist from Wilderness Trail. And I met him in 2002 and was in the fuel side for a long time and wanted to, as I say, get to the cool side of the tracks. And so I reached out to Pat and I said, hey, I would like to get out of the fuel side. And he said, hey, have you ever heard of MGP? I said, no, and he's, so I looked him up and sure enough, they had a job open and I applied and spent the next two years working at MGP. And it was a wonderful experience. You wanna see one, if you've never been there, it's, you know, it's an old, facility that's really well run, though. Yeah, it's been there a lot.

Who did you work under at MGP?

Well, a little bit everybody. But the guy, Eric was my direct supervisor. But I spent a lot of time speaking with Josh, who's the head of engineering.

I've got to hang out with or talk to Greg Metz, quite a bit, from Odell.

Yeah, Mr. Metz was gone before I got there. OK. Yeah, he's already joined Old Oak.

OK.

But heard a lot about him. Yes, but That was a very good experience working there and seeing how things are done and then which Pat reached out to me again and said, hey- He's like your agent then. Not really. See, but Pat, but that's the kind of guy- He's trying to draw you closer to him or something.

That's the kind of guy Pat is.

That's cool. That's kind of the guy he is though. Just a tremendous, he and Shane both, tremendous individuals. And he reached out and said, hey, there's a facility that's going to be built a couple hours south of you. Would you be interested in speaking with them? Six months later we moved the family down to Nicholasville and I started here and basically we had two buildings and well two and a half buildings and no distillery and I've been here ever since.

Well it sounds like your your background is rich in experience, rich in training and And you're probably perfect for the position because you just have this tremendous resume of working with great facilities that are able to turn grain into alcohol.

Grain into alcohol. And both with the efficiency and the quality aspect. And it helps to have friends like that. that if you ever, I can, I can't count on one, I can, maybe on two hands how many times I've reached out to him over the years and said, hey, Pat, here's, I'm seeing something. What is this? Why am I seeing it like this? And yeah, it's, and that's what I love about this industry as well. We're all competitors, but there's a sense of collegiality That is unlike a lot of other businesses. I mean, when you go, when you visit another distillery and take a tour, if they see that you work at a distillery, it changes. I mean, it's a very cool life.

Unlike Disney, you don't have to pay extra for the behind the scenes tour. You do not pay extra.

It's a very, I told you guys before, man, I mean, other than maybe being a professional bass fisherman or professional golfer, I can't imagine a better life.

Yeah. So Sandy, how'd you get here?

Well, if you listen to Dave, I was a quitter up until about a year. The reason I say that is I started out in beer. Beer in the whiskey industry is very similar, except beer uses a little bit of hops. But he said, I quit because I never took it through distillation to its final product. So no, I started out with Anheuser-Busch in my hometown of Cartersville, Georgia, back a long time ago. It was the last brewery that Anheuser-Busch built, but that would have been late. Uh, 98 when they broke ground, I joined or broke ground in 93. I joined them when I graduated a few years later, actually started with them in the lab and back in 2000. It's been about 18 years with Carter's school, my hometown and, uh, The career progressed. The craft boom happened and hit California pretty good. Anheuser was acquiring a bunch of craft breweries back when craft beer was so big. Lesion, Tin Barrel, did a big expansion in Fairfield, California, so went out there and helped with that. While out in California in wine country, kind of got lured away into the wine business a little bit, so went over to Woodbridge Winery and helped those guys out for a couple years. Good wine. Yeah. Did a lot of expansion projects, that sort of thing. There was some deals done where we had to build a Shemite cellar and add some capabilities. Did that, got that all well and good. Me and the wife are in California. The closest relative was 2,700 miles away. After about four years, it was time to get back home. Then during that time, there was an opportunity in Columbia, South Carolina, where Mark Anthony was building the largest brewery that's been built in the U.S. since the one in Cartersville was built. got those guys up making White Claw very efficiently and good, and got a phone call one day from a guy that I worked for at AB that said, hey, I'm involved with a distillery up in Kentucky. I want you to come look. Met Dave and a couple of the guys, and I joined the team about four months later in June of 23.

Well, I'd say this distillery's in pretty good hands. You guys have quite a resume.

We can tell some pretty rough war stories at times.

Yeah, there's been a few traded.

I mean, when you approach this facility from the road, you've got a service road that comes in here. And it's pretty impressive when you drive up. I mean, this is no small place. And it looks like it's one of those places where they say, spare no expense. Spare no expense. Do it the right way. Do it the right way. And I imagine there's been a lot of thought that's gone into the preparation of this facility. Can you talk a little bit about that?

There has been thought and rework and thought and rework and then you start and then you break ground and then you learn as you go and then you rework things on the fly. I mean there's things that we did that we didn't anticipate But if you've never been a part of a Greenfield site, that's kind of how it goes. The best battle plans last until the first bullet flies is what they say. It's very similar on a Greenfield site.

It seems like some of the decisions that were made in the manufacturing or production of this facility, the building of the facility, was based on lessons learned in the past.

Absolutely, lessons learned. Redundancy of equipment, of key equipment especially, to minimize downtime. the inclusion of especially, let's say, some pieces of equipment in the lab that not necessarily distilleries, the really big ones we'll have, but not necessarily distilleries of our size we'll necessarily have, but that are crucial to the operation. Yeah. Yeah. We did that, especially in the lab, we spared no expense.

A lot of, as Dave said, a lot of redundancy, but also a lot of flexibility. At the end of the day, we're limited to four grains, but what can we do with those four grains to give us ultimate flexibility? Redundancy in anything from milling to pumps, the things that are going to take you down. You find your constraints or your V-neck in your process, and then you start working to

So if the youngest story comes to you and says, we want quinoa in our brew, you're kind of limited there, but you can do...

If I'm doing super sacks, we can do it.

You can do corn, you can do rye, you can do wheat, you can do barley.

Could we do quinoa?

We could.

We could.

Should you? I don't know. Ah, that's the better question.

I'm sure there's a very fine quinoa bourbon out there somewhere.

I think the one really interesting thing I found here is it's almost like a right Twix and a left Twix thing. Yeah. You guys have that. I mean, it's like you said, like a book, like there's that side of the book and there's this side of the book and then there's the middle, the spine.

So, it's almost like somebody took a page and they drew a distillery and said, this is our distillery. And then they copied it to the other side and like a mirror image and said, this is the other half of our distillery. So, you guys have this wonderful

which is also why we laid the grain system and grain storage out the same way, is because if you want that flexibility, you need the flexibility. I mean, you need to have some additional components to do that, and it's well worth it.

So if you're a young distillery starting up, if you're an investor that is contemplating getting into the whiskey business and you don't want to distill on your own, you want to have a partner that's distilling for you, Garret County is probably a pretty good choice as somebody you want to sit down in the boardroom with and have a talk with. Yeah, I would love to talk to anybody.

I would like to lay down anything you make. you know, need any storage solutions, we could probably help out there as well.

Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot of startups that are needing both those things. Yep. Absolutely.

So speaking of NewMake, I think we have some fun stuff to try. Yeah.

Yeah, so this first one, this is our liquid. And both of these are of a 70-21-9 mash bill. They both went in the barrel at 110. The difference is this is very young. So this particular first sample that we're going to taste is only 192 days old, and you can kind of see that. I know the listeners can't, but in the color, we're still kind of light there. But you know, this is in its infamously to becoming this one day, we hope.

So this is, you said 171 days old? 192 days old. 192 days old. So we're sitting somewhere around a half a year, six months or so.

I mean, it's still got a nice little like honey-ish color to me.

Just really nice. You know, a lot of seasoned bourbon drinkers will say, six month old whiskey. I don't know, man. That's kind of young. But you have to be able to look through the age and see what the future is. You have to be able to drink something and say, because that's what you have to do as manufacturers. You have to be able to drink something that's underaged and say, what's the future of this product? So when you're when you're tasting a six month old whiskey, what are you looking for?

Usually, usually you're going to get a lot of sweetness from the start. But you know, I'll tell you this, both of these surprise me and it surprised most of us. One with the color and two with the depth that it already has. I assumed, wrongly so, that I was going to be a little more leaning towards what the white dog tastes like. And this is much further down the line than I had anticipated.

So we, just to be honest, we've had their white dog. Yeah. We tasted it before the show.

Fantastic. 130 proof, I think, is what we got it at.

Really good. But that gives us sort of a baseline to taste this 190-day-old whiskey by. So cheers. Cheers.

Ah, it's like buttered popcorn.

Yeah. Buttered popcorn, a little bit of like a... It is buttered, yeah, for sure. Like a sweet cream icing. Like when you buy it at the store, the Betty Crocker icing, that's the buttercream icing.

Yeah, you get that nice wood sweetness out of it.

And you keep in mind at 192, it went in the house in June, June 3rd is when it went into the house. When we actually pulled it was when 192.

So this is buttercream. It's about 110 proof, is that right?

Yeah, it went in the barrel at 110, so it'd be pretty close to that. And that was in the fifth floor of the Rick house. So it seemed pretty hot conditions because it went in in June and had pretty much the whole summer.

Well, it definitely transformed from the white dog. It still has that diacetyl kind of note to it, but that's okay. I love that. For me, that's a big plus. Maybe not for everybody, but for me, that's a big plus. But it's starting to pick up that sweet cream kind of...

Oaks not really prevailing on this at all. Yeah. I mean, it's given it the color, but it's not giving it.

You get a little in the background, but that's about it.

So when you drink a young whiskey like this, you're trying to picture its future. You're trying to say, what will this be? And I think, I feel like this will be something really delicious.

I've really learned to appreciate Distill it after doing a, I guess, a Bardstown tour a couple of years ago, like even before they even dropped their labels and tried their distill it. And I was like floored how good that was.

And what I really like about this- And your guys distill it is right there with it. Is what I hope we never lose. And me and Dave talk about it a lot, is this mouthfeel. You know, just that velvety depth that can hold up all the depths of flavor.

Are you guys Yellowdent? Yes.

Yeah, this is six months old. I would say my opinion, my personal opinion is this would be fine at two years. This would be really nice at two years in a bottle on the shelf.

Yeah, I am very anxious to be able to bottle this.

Yeah, you want it to be a straight. You guys are all about straight whiskeys, right? So you want it to be a straight before it goes out. I get that, and most people do. But I think this would be, I mean, I'm assuming that if it continues down the path it's on at two years, it'd be fine to put it on the shelf.

Yes. But that's where you have to, and I don't like this term, but convince the customer, so to speak. Because if they see anything less than four,

Yeah. It's got to have an age statement.

And I don't care about that.

Yeah.

But what I also want them to do is try it.

Yeah.

Try it, too. Actually, I want them to try it right now.

Well, I think it's fine. You know, there's another distillery up by us that puts out their whiskey at six months. Yes. And it gives kind of, it's Jephthah Creed. Okay. They have that, I forget what they call their six month old. Young.

Young, it's young.

But it gives people sort of an indication of what they can expect in the future. Where it's going. And it's fine in cocktails.

It's not like a sipping whiskey.

But by the same token, it gives you an idea of what's to come down the road. This is good. This is really good. I think this would be fine at two years.

I want to fast forward time and get to like, Six or seven years for myself, but that's just me.

But yeah, I mean, as you look at that, young as it is, you're already starting to build some depth of flavor. Now those flavors are still very immature, but there's enough there, a base to build off of.

So I've always said this, that young whiskeys, like this one, I have a few notes that are nice. You like them, but they're going to disappear in four. Yes. They're not going to be there.

I know.

And you hate to see those go away.

I know.

I know. So you almost wonder if you shouldn't tank a little bit of this so that you can mix it in later.

The brown white dog kind of thing. Yeah. Coin to term, I guess. Yeah.

I mean, I think when we nose this one, we're going to try another one here in just a second. That's the same exact mash bill. Everything's the same. This one was made in April the 26th. So it's around when we pulled it from the barrel at 230 days. So we're fast forwarding in time just a little bit. And one of those that you're going to miss is you're going to have a totally different nose on these two. Yeah.

Awesome.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. I like that.

Yeah, I like it. I like it. I've learned to really appreciate, like, White Dog and like the- Yeah, I can drink from day zero all the way up to four years. And I can appreciate along the way what it is. And you can see if it's going the wrong direction. Yes. You know, along the way. I mean, if you're experienced in the business and you've had enough whiskeys, you can tell if something has taken a turn. This has taken no turns.

Heading down the right path for sure. Thank you. We appreciate that.

So people who are standing by for the in-house release of your first in-house distillate, they can be assured that it's well on its way, no doubt.

And hopefully folks that come visit us can actually buy some of that white dog and maybe have some.

I love distilleries that put white dog in the gift shop. I love it because it really lets people try. your core product before it goes through aging. I think it's important.

And at that point, you know, you really can get that corn profile and they can see what the corn does to the bourbon, how that corn over four years, you know, that sweetness changes.

We talked a little bit about Barton, you know, during our pre-show discussions. And I was like, you know, they have a white dog that is one of my favorites. It is all about hot butter popcorn. Your guys has a great component of that diacetyl hot butter. I just love it. I just really like it a lot.

Funny enough, I was at the movies last night.

Yeah, were you?

Yeah, I took the kids out. The dog man. Oh, my son was there. Well, different theater, but yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

They're big fans.

Yeah, he went to that last night.

All right. So we're, we're getting ready to try a glass that is a little bit further age. This is your distillate. This is something that this is the 70, 21 and nine that's been in the barrel just a little bit longer.

Yep. So 230 days and you can actually, none of the listeners can't visually see it in color. We went kind of from a honey to more of a maple syrup type color. Uh, but yeah, this is exactly, everything's the same except the aging.

And this is another barrel that's been in sort of an extreme condition.

Yes. It really got all of summer in the Rick house in April.

Yeah. Okay. Good deal. All right. Let's check it out. It's a nice nose. Sorry. I cheated. Oh, yeah. But it's different. It is different. Yeah.

It's started to take on a little bit of that oak, I think, right now.

Oh, yeah. Definitely. A lot more. Still that sweet cream sweetness. definitely a little bit more of that oak bite on it.

Yeah, you're starting to get that pull from the barrel, starting to get a little bit more pulled out of it.

So how much do you love tasting barrels as they age and seeing the progression and making your notes?

Yes and no.

Yeah.

Because again, much like what you said, I just want to fast forward time.

You just want to release it.

No, I don't want to release it now. I want it to be a year and a half from now, right now. Because I would like to see it at two years because I'm with you. I would like to release one in two years.

Yeah. I think that this, this would be fine. I mean, as I knows this, I'm thinking this would be fine at two years. This is how many days?

I've had some youthful stuff that doesn't even come close to this. I'm going to be honest.

This is well beyond its age.

Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you. And there's another distillery that gets away with that, and that's hard truth. How in the world they do it? I have no idea. But you guys are doing the same thing.

It's a sweet mash thing, I think.

It may be a sweet mash thing.

They're doing sweet mash, and their rye at two plus years is Knock your socks off.

We had the conversation a while ago, too, that I truly believe where we're going in the barrel at 110, the things that we're extracting from that barrel is different than somebody that's going in at a much higher proof. Sure. I think that has a lot. The fun things about tasting as they go is you're proud of them and you want to see what they can achieve. It's just like your kids, right? They do something great and go, ah, I just want to see what kind of young man or young lady this turns into.

I want to see a rise from you guys because rise typically come to age a little bit quicker and your bourbons are coming to age pretty quick. So I would imagine the rise would be, are you putting in an order?

The cool thing that we get to do as well is it's no secret, we contract to steal. That's what we do. A lot of our customers have different mash bills that they want and we get to play with, but not always is what they order come out for 2,000 barrels. We make so many fermenters. We may have 2025 or 2030. So Dave and I get to play with those extra 25 or 30 because we'll just keep them for ourselves. And so, you know, we've got some things that we can easily coming down the road, you know, play with limited releases and that sort of thing.

And you guys have, you're working, you have like a wheat, a toasted wheat? Oh yeah.

So we've got a, we've actually got We've got, they matured in July, some four year old, uh, weeded barrels, uh, that, that, uh, wilderness trail had made for us, uh, in it. And so once we pulled 11 of those Dave, you know, with angel shares and that sort of thing filled nine toasted barrels. So we gave them about three months of toast and we've since, uh, needing to get them off of, uh, Oak pretty quick. Uh, so there could be something coming really quick.

Hey, awesome. It's pretty exciting stuff. Yeah, that's. I mean, you guys are getting into that time where things start to get fun and exciting.

Make no mistake. This is all fun.

It's all fun. It's all fun.

Make no mistake about it.

It's fun for us, too. We appreciate you having us cast down.

And what's great is it's something everybody can just gather around. People have different opinions, but nobody gets mad at anybody else's opinion, which is kind of good in today's times.

Yeah. Agreed. Yeah, I think whiskey and bourbon is just one of those things that brings people together. It does. And sometimes it makes you just shut up and appreciate it rather than telling about your opinion kind of thing. So there's that. But yeah, I'm very excited about this.

Well, this has been an absolute blast. I've had such a great time today. We've tasted some phenomenal whiskeys from you guys. You guys are, I think you're laser focused on the future. You've got some great, you've got an amazing facility here.

Thank you.

I think you could probably do whatever you want with this facility. You can make whatever you like. I mean, if the world changed tomorrow and everybody drank vodka, God forbid. Yeah. you would be perfectly positioned to make vodka. But you can make anything you like.

Yeah, I'm looking at your face, Dave, and you're like, no, no.

It's like, please. And the one thing that we've only touched on a little bit that I want to make sure we add, and it's everybody here. I mean, there isn't a person that works here that isn't fully embedded into bourbon. I've never been anywhere where everybody is so, like you said, laser focused on the final product like there is here. I mean, the people here, I mean, this isn't the job for them. This is the life. It's so cool to be a part of.

Yeah, people that we have working for us are just passionate.

That's great. That's so awesome. So you guys are on the Bourbon Trail. You're not 15 minutes or so from Wilderness Trail. You're just south of Lexington. I mean, it's a perfect opportunity for our listeners to add you to their list of places to visit when they're on the Bourbon Trail.

Yeah, nice tour. I mean, they gave us a quick tour and great little tasting area. Yeah. And the Carey Nation house, how awesome is that? It's one of the old cabins that Carey Nation actually lived in.

And the fact that you keep her outside the tasting room, she's not allowed in.

She's only allowed to be at the front door.

Well, she's sort of the gatekeeper.

The gatekeeper. I was actually surprised they didn't have like some sort of like styrofoam axes, you know, like some sort of marketing idea. I know you love those marketing ideas, Dave.

But no, we do have a- There might be something in the works. Don't be giving everything away.

Sorry, sorry. A little bit larger than life-size bronze, but not much larger. She was a very- Formidable.

So, you did ask that question earlier. How did you get a statue of Carrie Nation?

Dave can probably tell a little bit more about it than I can, but yeah, one of the, you know, one of the main investors in the distillery, you know, knew a guy that knew a guy. Yeah. You know, and so sure enough, there's a. It's about seven foot. Yeah, she's about seven foot tall. Bronze statue. Holding her hatchet and welcomes you as you come into the tasting room. Welcomes you or warns you.

It's got that kind of like, you know, you're about the Catholic nuns. Are you sure you want to come in here? If she wasn't having an axe, she might be holding a ruler.

But it's a great photo op. And again, you take, from that point on, you're taking Carey Nation with you wherever you go. That's right.

Well, guys, it's been a fantastic time. We've had a really good time with you here today. We thank you for sharing your whiskey with us, sharing your story with us.

Cheers to Barry for biting us down, and he's like, throws these guys in the loop. Moral Barry. He got ill. He got ill.

He's not feeling very well. He's got the flu A, I think he said. It's hitting a few people nowadays.

If you have a few listeners, please jump on our website, Yard County Distilling Cook. Book a tour, come see us. Like you said, really, really convenient to Lake City. If you're up for the races in the fall or the springtime, come check us out along with Wilderness and eat in our little small town and help us help them. We're here Monday through Saturday, 9.30 to 4.30.

You've got a great tour. You've got a great facility. You've got a great bar with cocktails and pours from your expressions. A reminder, listeners, one more time, where they can find you and what states?

Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, and soon to be South Carolina. And you're still working on others. Oh, absolutely. Yes, absolutely.

Are there any online access to your products?

And you can reach that through our website. Okay. So that goes through, you know, you guys will ship directly. Yes. Okay. Of course this goes through DC.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, fantastic. Thank you again for inviting us into your house, showing us around your facility and letting us see the great things that you're doing here. I think that, you know, as far as facilities go, this is probably one of the better, um, engineer facilities I've ever seen. Yeah, it's really cool, really unique.

Thank you. Like I said, the whole right Twix, left Twix thing, it's kind of cool. That means a lot. I appreciate that. We'll definitely be back. We hope you invite us back again. Absolutely.

And as you release new expressions, we hope you'll keep us in mind, our listeners in mind, and let us know when new things are coming out. And we'll make sure to introduce them to our team.

But in the meantime.

You can find the Bourbon Road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, threads, all those things every single week. Todd and I put out an episode on Wednesday. You'll hear us talk to distillers, like the fellows here at Gard County, Gared County, I should say. I got to keep correcting myself.

I'm telling you, it's from Shelbyville or something. I'm closer, so I know.

We hope you'll take time out on your tour to the Bourbon Trail to visit the folks here in Garrett County and have a taste in their visiting room there and buy a few bottles while you're here.

We'd love to show you around.

We hope you enjoyed this show. We hope that you'll scroll to the top of that app you're on. Hit that subscribe button. That way, every single week when Todd and I put out a new episode, you'll get a notification that you need to tune in. That way, when you're driving to the next sales call or cutting your grass or shoveling snow, whatever it is you do with your headset on, you'll keep us in mind. But until the next time, we'll see you down for the Bourbon Road.

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