466. Blending Masters: Inside Barrel Craft Spirits with Joe and Tripp

Oh 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.

All right, listeners, welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Road Podcast. I'm in the studio today with Todd and guests and Todd, who are our guests?

We've got Joe Beatrice and Tripp Stimson from Barrel Craft Spirits. Welcome to the show, guys.

Thank you for having us.

Thanks for having us, guys. Great to be here.

I think like we talked before the show, your products have been on here a number of times. We've had a couple of showdowns and you guys have always fared. really well in the showdowns. Your expressions are certainly top of the heap and it's great to have you two on the show in person to tell us sort of a little bit more about the about story of Barrowcraft Spirits. So we're really looking forward to it.

But Todd, what do we like to do? The first thing we like to do is get to that first pour. So Joe, your trip, want to tell us about this first pour we got in our glass?

So the first pour we're going to have tonight is our barrel foundation single barrel. So a little bit about foundation as we move towards single barrel. Foundation was our first release that was less than cast strength. This is a 100 proof product. And it was our first iteration where we decided to use some cut water as one of the components in the blend. So that was released last year, was very well received. We've had a couple of other iterations of foundation that we'll get to here shortly, but the one in the glass now being the single barrel, It seems that there's been this new single barrel desire resurgence in the industry and foundation was received so well that many of the markets, many of our accounts were asking about a possible single barrel pick under the foundation line. And so we put our heads together and thought, what would that look like? for barrel craft spirits. And so what we're looking at here is a couple of unique barrels that we earmarked as products that we would call single barrels. Those are actually dumped and blended together at just north of about 102 to 105, somewhere in there. That blend, that small micro blend is then actually put back in the barrel And we then put that barrel in the rick house in one of the handful of locations and different floors and certain corners and things that we could talk a little more about and allow to further mature in that location. We're then pulling samples as we go along through this secondary maturation and then determine when that individual barrel is ready to be bottled. So the one we're tasting today is, uh, one of the first iterations that will be available in the market.

And is those two single barrels, are they from different States or same state? So this is all going to be Indiana liquid. Okay.

So this one's labeled 105.8. A lot of stone fruits on this, like a peach and apricot. It's got a great nose, clean, crisp, a little bit of fruit. Pretty color too.

Yeah. Like light straw. Cheers. Cheers.

Oh, that's really good. Rude really comes out in that, in that pallet pour. Yeah. That's nice. It's a nice orchard bomb.

It's funny, the stone fruits always seem to find their way in there. We're, we're really big fans of the stone fruit.

Now, where would folks be able to find, find this trip? Like since this is two, two barrels that you blended and like one single barrel, will this be available for a store to pick? And this is like the sample you sent us kind of came out of that barrel or. Cause I know I've had friends that do, have done picks with you guys in the past and like Madera finish. some others, things like that. So you guys are kind of going more, I guess, all natural a little bit.

Well, we'll still do the club picks. We still offer that through the company and these will be available through that process as well. Just the initial ones were made available to several accounts who were inquiring about the opportunity.

We still maintain the lines of our different private releases and single barrels, which is everything from our bourbon single barrels. We have a few of those still that we sell. We have our private release series for bourbon, which is always a non-finished bourbon. but they're micro blends of various, various ages and various components. We do a lot of private releases of whiskey, which are single barrels and like a Madeira could be an armagnac, it could be an ice wine finish, it could be, you know, we have about I don't know, 40 or 50 different variations, different finishes that we play around with on those releases. But this is, this is back to sort of the more traditional single barrel with a little bit of a twist because we're combining a couple of barrels together.

This is really nice. It's got a nice, for 105, it's got a nice little spicy finish to the.

So Joe, let's, let's, let's spin up the way back machine and let's talk about 13 years ago. How did this all start?

I don't remember what I had for lunch yesterday. You want to talk about 13 years? What would you like to know?

Well, I'd like to know how the idea sparked, what got you into the business. You know, what was your initial plan for this grand scheme that you've made happen?

Well, it all started with the idea that I'm going to take over Diageo.

How's that going by the way? I was going to say so far 13 years, this has not happened. So, and it's probably a good thing.

So about 14 years ago or 13, half years ago, my wife and I were literally just randomly went to a distillery in New York and upstate New York and, and just, you know, having a nice day. And I was thinking, I was thinking, And this moment where I had experience in my previous life, I owned a digital company and we had a lot of experience in spirits and spirits marketing and the whole digital realm. But that's a story for another day. And so I had this moment where it just hit me and said, why don't we open a distillery? Why don't we build a distillery and create a brand? And so we talked about it and went home. And I started sort of thinking about it, working on it. It took me exactly one week to realize that I did not want to build a distillery. I know that was not what I wanted to do for all the reasons that Trip can talk about that he used to advise people not to do it in his in his world. And so but I did want to build the brand and I knew and I knew I knew how to build brands. And I also I also knew that There were some really interesting opportunities in the whiskey world in terms of creating real something that's really differentiated. So it was almost to the day, a year from when the inspiration hit to when we did our first bottling. And so the concept was and remember, this is this is 14 years ago. And and this this did not really exist. So the first thing I wanted to do was produce the best, the most incredible liquid that we possibly could, the most delicious product that we could create. And so that was the focus of everything we did was what's in the bottle. And so what was differentiating us was we wanted to be cast right now at the time. If you really think back, there were only a handful of releases that were cast right. And so we really embraced that. And I also really thought a lot about the market and how that there was a seismic change coming to the bourbon market. And that is that people who are coming into the category wanted new and different and better and something different, something different all the time. So I thought, I thought, and you know, the gamble was on the fact that people would want to try different things on a regular basis, rather than drinking the same thing over and over again, and which should be true. And, and so our concept was to was to produce limited releases of different products, which is involved a little bit. So now we have some core products available all the time. That that that were at a quality level that we thought was exceptional. And so that you might like a really one release more than another. We just wanted to deliver the highest and best experience we could. So that was that was the beginning of it. So we were we were blatantly out there as NDPs. We were we we we made it clear that we were not in the story because there was also this is history where you have to really put the context. There was a lot going on out there with with sort of murkiness to what the whole NDP was about. We were really upfront that we were sourcing everything. We can't always talk about who it's from, obviously for different reasons, but that was one part of the cornerstones of how we created it. And secondly, we were we were blenders, you know, and and I was inspired a bit by the merchant whiskey bit industry in Scotland, where, you know, the best scotches are produced by people who buy different single malts and blend them together. There's a whole there's a whole world and whole business there. And so and so those things all kind of all came together. And I I boiled it up the first release, bottled it, snowy January day, put it in my car, started driving around, opened the first hundred accounts. And then I met Tripp.

Very fortunate, right? Yeah. Yep. So Tripp, tell us what kind of what's your role?

Well, so kind of picking up where Joe left off, I've spent almost 22 years in the spirits industry with a background in biochemistry. I worked as a research and development scientist for one of the large players in the business and learned a lot about spirits production and wine and tequila and lots of different types of distillation and fermentation. And so as the craft movement was sort of really getting its legs under itself in the 2010-12 time frame. I wanted to be someone who could provide a realistic view of what people were getting themselves into, because at that point in time, there was very little knowledge around the mature barrels as a commodity. And the general knowledge set was, if you want to be in the spirits business, then you're going to have to build a distillery and get some grain and make your distillate and come up with your maturation process and so on and so forth. One of the things I was trying to help people understand is that you didn't necessarily have to build a distillery to be in the business. And that building and operating a distillery successfully in a way that allows you to make money is no easy feat. And if you've got the money to build the distillery, then You know, take a look at maybe building a brand instead and put put those resources behind building a brand where you could create your own product. You could design your own label. You could pick the bottle that you want. You could tell whatever story you wanted to. And then you could put that bottle on the shelf, communicate with your consumers. And in the perfect world where everybody wants to have multiple bottles of your product, then at some point there's going to come a time when you're going to have to Build some infrastructure to help support the growth of your brand, whether that's a distillery or some sort of blending house or warehouses or whatever that ends up being. But you don't have to do that piece first. And so I taught myself out of a lot of business and I helped some people successfully set up theirs. And in that that sort of chaotic process in the around 2014 or so, One of the distilleries where I was working ended up doing some contract work for Joe some contract bottling for Joe and one of the first conversations that Joe and I had was the story that he just told you where he knew he wanted to be in the spirits business and. He had had a spirits vertical in the advertising side, and it took him all of about a week to realize that he didn't want the distillery. He was the first person to ever say it to me that way, because that's exactly what I would have said to somebody else, is that you don't need to build this. And so it was it was that conversation that really put us on the same path of, you know, what are what are the next things in the spirits industry? Where is this going? And how can we really, really steer parts of this thing? How can our creativity help move this industry in different directions and really help consumers have or offer consumers a better experience through product innovation?

And I think this was at a time, like you're talking about 2012 to 2014. This was a time when, uh, being a craft NDP, you had, you had some hurdles to get over with the consumers because the consumers didn't exactly think, uh, that was being a distiller, right? They, they, they felt like. I don't know.

If you're in a bottle, you made it. There were a few hurdles back then. Just a few.

We both have so many stories there. There was a time when MGP was a dirty word. It was like, this isn't that from Indiana, which morphed into, do you have any of And it's really funny to follow that whole process. But it's also, when you really think back in time, there were only a handful of major distilleries who were producing the majority of the brands. So it's just, it's just, it's part of this business that was, it was part of the history and the fabric of this business that, that the, the, the marketing side, it did a good job of convincing everybody that these are all separate little, there's little, there's people laboring, laboring away in little cabins somewhere or running away in the woods. It's still a product.

Making national brands. National distribution.

Yeah. You know, we did, Tripp and I actually did the calculation one time of how many, how many times, how many times do you have to run a still? What was that, Tripp? What was that? Was it a hundred gallon still?

It was like a hundred gallon still to do, I forget, 10,000 or something.

It was 10,000 barrels.

Yeah.

And, and it was, it would, it means you would have to distill. It was something like, like...

It's like a thousand times a day, I think, or something like that. I mean, it was ridiculous. Because people don't understand the conversion from grain to alcohol and it's not a one-to-one conversion. Not even close. No, not even close.

What is the real number there? It's like 500 gallons still makes one barrel, right? That's right. Just rough numbers.

And really it's, in many cases, you're going to find people where it's double that. Yeah. Because depending on depending on how you manage your yeast and how you mill your grain. And there's a hundred places you can create problems for yourself. And depending on how you do all of those things will dictate the amount of alcohol you get out at the end.

So, so I guess the interesting thing to me is in addition to everything that we were doing, you know, as far as finding, um, finding incredible barrels to, you know, spending time in working with them, you know, over hundreds of iterations to come up with a blend. We were also doing a lot of missionary work. For example, if you said the word blended whiskey or blended, it was a dirty word, because what the implication was, and it was even true in working with the TTB as we're sort of working through you know, the labels and the label for our products. It was, it's a throwback to a whiskey that's 90% GNS and 10% whiskey. And so we have to get, so we had to, we had to get, we worked through that. And then we had things like, my favorite story is still, we were at a bourbon festival somewhere. And we talked, I know Tripp was talking about what we did. And do you want to tell the story? Because I just love this story.

Yeah. So people would come up to the, the table and they'd want to hear about the product. And so we, we, you know, run through the gamut of everything that was sitting on the table and we'd talk about each product. And so then they, they try the first product. They're like, wow, this is really amazing. Where's your distillery? Well, we don't have a distillery. We're a non-distilling producer and we source products and blend. She goes, what? You didn't distill this? Like that's illegal. you're going to go to jail. And I was like, ma'am, I assure you, it's not illegal. And so I did a little background information on the commodities market and the different licenses. And I'm sure it was a complete buzzkill to this poor lady who had said this to me. But anyway, she left with a full perspective on what it took to be an NDP at the end of that night. She now owns a distillery, right? That's right. That's right. And has her own brands legally.

There was a lot of, it was interesting times. We were spreading the word of what we were doing and talking about creating choice within our own brand. It was because sort of the contemporary wisdom at the time was you produce a product and you make it over and over again. We actually produce on annual basis of unique products, pick a number. This year was 30 something trip, right?

It was 26 that we planned on. And then there were some that got tacked on at the end.

Yeah. I've seen them lined up before. It's a, it's a sight to see. You guys have quite a number of expressions.

You guys have really pushed the envelope on what blending can be for sure. You're definitely pioneers.

Thank you.

So do we want to hop into the second pour and I thought you'd never ask.

We know the story.

That's right.

All right. So what's in our second glass?

So this is double barrel foundation. And so again, coming off of our first release that we did at less than cast strength, which was the original foundation release, which is a hundred proof, five year old product. Now five year old on the label, but five to nine year old bourbon in the bottle. Uh, There has been a lot of talk about double barrel products or toasted products. And so what we wanted to do is take a look at the different whiskies that we used in foundation and see how those whiskies would interact with a new charred American oat barrel. And so we went through a very laborious process where we looked at these different whiskeys and their individual interactions and then earmarked the ones that we liked the best from that foundation, we'll say blend recipe, and then created what became the double barrel iteration of the original foundation release. And so this is same age range of five to nine years old. Uh, and the ended up being the same mash bill at 73 corn, 23 Ryan, 4% malted barley.

Well, tell us a little bit about that second barrel. Cause this is quite a bit darker than what we just had. So is that a heavily charred in toasted barrel?

it new, uh, new toasted American oak. So it's all toasted. Yeah. Long, slow toast.

Got it. So we can expect some sweetness there.

Yeah. This, this is this one, this one always it's the, at the same time, there's the milk chocolate apple and you know, and there's a peppery notes to it, but are amazing. But one of the, I just want to actually, um, mention one of the things, uh, when Tripp said that the Mashable, So we have been, so since we were over time, we've been, we blend a lot of different whiskeys, different ages, different mash bills, different states together. And people would ask us a lot of times, you know, what's the mash bill? And we used to say for the longest time, I don't know, because we did, because it was a combination of lots of different products. So then we've, then we've, then we figured, well, we actually could figure it out. by doing the arithmetic. That's what we do. On our bottles, we state a derived mash bill, which is simply the percentage volume of the different barrels mash bill. Then we calculate it out so that you get an overall average of what the mash will be. That's what we call a derived mash bill. It helps. It gives you a little bit of point time. It gives you an insight into what is actually going on here. And in this case, the right component was 23%.

Sorry, I was just going to say that it's a data point. If you're looking at a product that you're not entirely familiar with and you're trying to gather as much information as you can, the match bill is typically one of the things that people go to next to the proof to try to formulate what this flavor could potentially be like in the bottle. And so we had people for years asking us if there's a way that we can actually put the Mashbill on the bottle, which is why we went through the exercise for this derived Mashbill.

So this might be one of the first products I've seen where you guys have some Maryland source whiskey. So that's kind of fun and new.

We've used it. We've used it a few times in previous releases. Uh, I think it's been used a couple of times in batches.

Okay. You know, usually I see, you see the Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana. Obviously one of my favorite guys is the seagrass. That's a whole different country.

It's a, we think of it as a, as a North American Alliance whiskey.

There you go. I love it.

One of my all time faves. So somebody mentioned apple and I definitely, I definitely am getting those, uh, those apple rings, the, the deep red apple rings. Uh, I guess they're kind of the cinnamon ones. Yeah. The cinnamon ones.

Yeah. And the red, they look like beet juice.

Yeah. It looks like they look like beets, right? They look like beets with a beet donut kind of beet donut.

Sounds horrifying.

Yeah, no, actually they're really good. I just haven't had them in a great long time. I, I'm not sure when I did have them last, but that's what it does remind me of probably on a pork chop in a diner. Yeah, there you go. It uses a garnish right on like pork or.

So kind of give us like a quick overview of how like the blending process works. Do you guys have like a small team or is it you two guys or I mean, and you know, do you kind of have like a, like a flavor idea of what you want to go for and you work till you get to that flavor or is it just kind of, let's, let's take this and this and this and see what kind of happens, I guess.

Let me start. I'll start. Then you pick it up. Sure. So the blending team consists of Tripp, myself and Nick Christensen. And our process is is one of We start with whiteboard concepts of what we're looking for. So everything that we do is with intent. We begin with intent. It doesn't always end up there. It could end up someplace else. But in general, we start with an idea concept of what we're looking for. We have thousands, literally thousands of samples barrels. So we have a rick house in Shively, which is about 10 miles from where we are. And we keep we keep the majority of our barrels there. And, and so that we have fast access to them when we need it. So we're able to watch barrels if we're doing experiments of which we have lots of experiments, whether it's on a finished or toasted barrel, we pull samples from it. So when we're getting close to being able to do what we call the lab blend, we will go pull samples and begin the blending process. And then we will iterate that tasting everything blind until we get to a point where we like it. You pick it up from there. That's a pretty good handoff tonight.

So as we're As we're having these whiteboard meetings, we talk about sort of directionally what we're thinking about. Is it a straight bourbon whiskey? Is it a rye whiskey? Is it some kind of finish? Are we talking about certain types of barrels that we want to use? So there's a conversation around a certain direction that we'd kind of like to go. And so we formulate a base blend of whiskeys that we'd like to use in this project. And so to determine where that base blend needs to begin, we require all of those samples that give us a snapshot of what that whisky tastes like today. So we have, you know, we have a progression of many barrels over time so that we can monitor that progression. And we know how these different whiskeys age in these different barrels and create different compounds at different points. So we know when we like to use some of these things. And so we've kind of developed this shorthand communication where we can we can speak to barrels by distillery mash bill and age without having to really say, is to go and taste something and say, Oh, I like this. Let's use this. We might say, you know, let's get a 10 year, 21% from filling the blank distillery. And that'll give us the certain flavor characteristics that we're looking forward to fill this gap. And so we're having these conversations as we're coming up with how we want to begin actually working toward the base blend. And so the biggest steps sort of are framing the approach on how we want to take these initial steps to get to a point where we can create a base blend that is directionally accurate towards the goal that we've kind of set up for ourselves. But what we've not done is we've not set up an end goal flavor profile. We've not said, I want it to taste like this, and we're going to target this, and we're going to go that direction. we'll have that starting place and begin with a base blend. And then the whiskeys really do dictate the direction that we go. And a lot of people A lot of people hear us talk about this, it sounds a little woo-woo like the whiskeys talking to you or the whiskeys telling you what to do. But when you really focus in on how whiskeys work together in a blend or in your glass, sometimes there are more dominant whiskeys than others and those more dominant whiskeys will overshadow flavor characteristics from other whiskeys. Sometimes there are, uh, extremely dominant whiskeys that when you put them in the glass, everything else just goes away. And then there are some whiskies that take a little more massaging to get them to express into these blends. And so we'll actually go through the process of figuring out how all of the whiskies that we're talking about using work together initially, and then we go through a process of filling in gaps. And those gaps are, as you taste your sample, there's going to be an experience. So you're going to know that you're going to taste it. You're going to get the front part of the tongue, the mid palate, the back, and then you're going to get a finish. So that experience, that complexity that's built into that experience is what we're focusing on. And so as we move through that experience, there's going to be gaps. Maybe the front of the pallets missing something, maybe the mid pallets a little weak, maybe there's no finish. And so we can take that information and then we can go to our spice cabinet where we keep all of our whiskey samples and we can figure out what fills in that gap. And we can go through this process over and over and over, filling in gaps until we get to a point where the next edition of the whiskey is going to overshadow everything, or you start pushing people off the stage. So, you know, you're, you're losing some of these flavors and some of these complexities, they begin to disappear. And that's how, you know, you, you're really at the, the saturation point of the complexity that you can fit in the blend with these specific whiskeys.

So the, the, the title of this chapter is dumping barrels is not blending.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think that explanation, uh, very, uh, very telling. It kind of tells a story. It almost sounds like the whiskey speaking to you and you three speak your own language that nobody else will understand. So between all of that, you're able to put together something really special. So.

Thank you. That's really good. That's very, uh, that's a nice way to say it. That's true.

You know, you got your own words for these barrels, right? I mean, when you guys speak to each other about a particular barrel type, only the three of you know what that means. So, yeah, that's true. All right, Jim, I think we probably ought to take a break. All right. Well, we're going to continue sipping on this barrel foundation, double barrel and into the half. When we come back in the second half, we've got two more expressions and a lot more about barrel craft spirits. So folks stick around. We will be right back.

All right, listeners, welcome back to the second half of the show. We've had a great time going through a couple of expressions with Joe Beatrice and Trip Stinson from Barrel Craft Spirits. We had their single barrel, which should be hitting shelves soon. I imagine there's going to be some lucky stores out there that are going to be grabbing some of these barrels because it was really impressive. And we also had their double barrel. So I think we're ready to dive into pour number three. Who wants to tell us about that one, Joe, your trip?

Okay, I can start. So this is our batch 37, which is our 37th batch, except it's not really because there were a couple of bees in there. So this may be our 40th. And so the So this is we do between one into these releases per year. And this this is really our flagship. This is this is what we started with. We started doing with the company. And and and to me, this is always the I think Well, I love every product we put out. So it's some fickle. When people ask me what my favorite one is, whatever one we're working on today is my best. But I think of this as really a high bar of the products we produce. And for this particular product, This is limited to Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee, and it's eight through 15-year-old bourbon. It's got a really nice range of ages. And for us, where everything in the world is a flavor component, the different ages, different states, different match bills, all have a very specific contribution to the overall blend of what we're doing. It comes in at 111.38 proof. And the drive mash bill on this is 780 corn, 18 rye, and 4% multi-barley. So take a sip. Anyone add to that trip before we take a sip?

No, I think that sounds good. One thing I would draw attention to with this batch and with some of the other products that we release is that you'll notice that we'll use different ages as high as, you know, typically around 15 years old, but we actually have bourbon that's much older than that. And bourbon that age has some really great qualities in it, but you can have too much of a good thing. And so what we like to do is take advantage of those qualities that we really like and give them a place to shine in a blend like 37 where we can couple that with some younger age stuff and really round out the full flavor profile. So, I mean, that's why sometimes we get asked a lot at these different shows and on podcasts why we'll use bourbons from, you know, five to 15 all in the same place. While each of those years has flavor profiles that stand alone on their own that we like, you can only get so much complexity out of one yeast drain, one barrel, one whiskey, one age, and by leveraging all of the inventory that we have, we can really put out some fun stuff.

And I feel like, oh, I'm sorry, didn't mean to interrupt you.

Go ahead. Tripp's point earlier. That's how we fill in gaps. We think of we think of. what's in the glass is a full experience from the nose to the finish, from the mid palate to how it reacts on your tongue, how it reacts to the back of your throat. So everything that we do tries to give you the complete full experience so that you're getting something sensory at every point in time.

I think as you and you guys are the experts here, but I feel, you know, we've, we've had a few whiskies on the show and we've been drinking whiskey on the show now for quite a few years, but I feel like each age range and they're all different. All the whiskies are different, but if you take and simply isolate age ranges, let's say four to six or seven and maybe eight to 12 and 12 plus. Each one of those has beautiful notes and flavors that are a part of that age group and that depart that age group when you go into the next range. So you're going to lose something when you go to eight to 12 that you had in the four to eight year range. You're never going to get that back, but if you can blend that in, you can get that wonderful note that you had there. And there are great things offered by younger whiskeys. And just as there are for older whiskeys, you just don't want too much of it. So I think being able to balance that is a tremendous thing. And, and if you can, if you could take, I think Tripp, you said five to 15 years, if you can make a commanding blend out of a five to 15 year old blend, that's, that's, that's a great thing. Cause there's something contributed from each range there.

You got it, Jim.

It's all about the symphony. Yep.

getting it all in there. Yeah. And I think right now, like, you know, you talked about the fear of blending when you first got this started, you know, it was kind of a dirty word, but like, I think right now is like, there's a lot of good blended whiskey out there. And I mean, you guys are definitely at the forefront of that.

Well, I think when we started doing that, and this is a very important point, I'm glad you brought this up. Up until the last 12 years, blending being a bad word was ingrained in us. We didn't know that there was another option. There were bottles on the shelves and they were what they were. The information was what it was and we liked what we liked and so that's what we bought. But what we wanted to do is push the envelope from the consumer experience. And it upset the apple cart a little bit because we had all of these different hurdles that we had to overcome. We had a lot of education that we had to provide. But at the end of the day, what we were offering is something that was a little bit different for the consumer, something that was honest in a different flavor profile, and it gave consumers an option that they hadn't had before. And that provided something that had not been available. And what has been so great is that consumers have really come along with us through this journey and been very supportive because they've allowed themselves to be a little bit vulnerable and try something that might not fit in the box. Right. So we have this, this big preconceived notion of what bourbon is supposed to taste like. But now here's all this other stuff out here that's technically bourbon, but it's not the stuff that we've heard about in the past. Should I try that? and people have and people have liked it and people have asked for more. And that's because people are allowing themselves to be a little bit vulnerable, try things that maybe they're not used to and really allow the whiskey to be the deciding factor for them if they like it or not.

Yeah. And I think one of the really cool things is, you know, say a distillery, if they take their five to 12, 15 year range. You know, it's not going to, it's going to bury obviously, you know, different oak notes and things like that. But you guys have this playground where you're getting, you know, ages from different distilleries. And that's like a, that's a whole new, like a potpourri of flavors that you can make, you know?

Well, and it's more than just age at that point too, because we're also talking about yeast strains. We're talking about distillation styles. We're talking about regions. We're talking about cuprich, rick houses. I mean, there's a whole lot of variables that we're talking about with each of these and then within each of those variables that we could go even deeper. So it really is a massive spice cabinet for us to find all of the different things that we want to make the best stuff that we can.

I'm loving this 37 though. Ooh, it's delicious.

So, so what's the, it must be fun hunting barrels. It must be like the, the really cool thing to do.

Yeah. I mean, barrels are fun. Um, I tell you one of the, I don't know if I want to say this, um, Finding barrels is a lot of fun and understanding where they came from and how they were produced and everything else. Those are great. But thinking out even further is really what really where I like to sort of live is in the future of what we can do with certain types of liquid, whether we have it or not, something that we may have had before that we're looking for. Again, how do we think that's going to interact with a certain type of wood? How do we think that's going to interact in maybe in a certain climate? I mean, we've had barrels that we've left in certain states for certain reasons. I mean, there are all types of different variables that we like to play with on almost an R&D level, but then does have a role in our finished products. And so I kind of live in that future R&D mode where things that you're seeing hit the market today, we've been working on since 2015, 2017. And it was having the foresight to begin crafting different types of coverage or finding certain types of whiskeys with a plan to be able to release certain types of products as the market begins to saturate. And so we've already carved out lots of areas where we have things that are accessible to us that we've created in the past that no one else is going to be able to get their hands on because it would have required that forethought to have put everything in motion to be able to take advantage of those barrels today. And I won't get too specific about it now. Uh, but as the products come out, you will likely understand which ones we're talking about.

You know, it's something I never thought about. So you guys mentioned earlier in the show that you've got your, uh, Shively warehouse where you store a lot of your barrels. But I think I heard you just say that you may choose to leave barrels that you've acquired where you acquired them so that they could continue in that environment. and then pull them in when you need them for use. They must add a level of complexity as far as logistics goes if they're very far away, but it does continue to add complexity to those barrels.

That's right. And it's complexity that if we would have tasted a sample from that specific distillery, that sample that we would have received would have been matured in that location. So if we liked it the way it is, we'd like it the way it was when we taste it, then we would leave it there in hopes that we would get something that was, you know, as close to the sample that we tried as we could. Now, another take on that is, well, I wonder what that type of whiskey tastes like mature down here or over there or up there, you know, or whatever it is. And we can actually move the barrels around and maybe that particular type of whiskey that was created with a certain yeast strain and a grain that most people don't use matures very well in Michigan or over in North Carolina. And so we don't know until we ask the question and answer it. So we do a lot of that.

So let me ask you this, is it, is it a really elaborate Excel spreadsheet or is it a piece of software? Is it a pencil and paper notebook? How do you keep track of all that?

You know, it is, I'll tell you when we started doing this, there were a couple of software companies out there. You know, there are some, some of the ones that. the big corporations use and they're super expensive and they're extremely robust and it didn't work for us. But then there were some that were a little more geared toward the craft industry. But the majority of those were grain to glass software. So you bring the grain in, you make the alcohol, you put it in a barrel, you put it in a bottle, you ship it. And so there's all these little modules for each of those steps. And we have tried every software on the planet, even considered writing some of our own and we've gone back to Excel. We use a combination of Excel sheets and we have a massive number of files and they all talk to each other. So you can imagine what kind of mess that can be if you don't stay on top of it.

That's pretty cool. To the point, again, we don't want to go too far down, When we were, there's one facility where we contracted for a specific location in the rick house. Because we're also, we look at variables and nuance, including microclimate. The reason I was smiling before is One of Tripp's favorite whiskeys came from, it was still down here, and it made its way to Michigan. And it was aged in Michigan for, I don't remember if it was five or eight years, something like that, maybe more. And it was really fascinating because it was the exact same whiskey we have. We have different barrels of it. And when you mature it here or in the South, somewhere else in the South, it's different. But because the climate was so different in Michigan, that it just had a completely different softer profile. And so we take advantage of those little tiny things.

All right. Well, I think we have another one to move on to, by the way, this was, uh, this batch 37 was delicious. Agreed. Really good. Yeah.

It's, it's a keeper.

Yeah, it's a keeper.

I agree. All right. So tell us a little bit about POR4. Yeah.

All right. So POR4 is one of our Cask Finish series releases. This one specifically is the Armagnac Finish. The Cask Finish series is something that we started doing, I guess it was last year. I think it was last year or it's been two years. Time flies when you're having fun, I guess. We do so much with finishing with products like Seagrass and Vantage, where we've got a bunch of different whiskeys and multiple casks, and we're creating all of this flavor. We wanted to carve out some individual casks that we liked. for, you know, either we like the spirit or maybe we like the type of wood, the way that that particular wood would have been treated by the cooperage and focus on how the whiskey is going to interact with an individual cask. And so we came up with this cask finish series. And in the series, we have two releases annually. And this is the most recent release for this year. And it is the Armagnac finish. It's whiskey from seven to 15 years old. And the derived mash bill on this guy is 78% corn, 18% rye, and 4% malted barley.

I'm getting some of those figs you like, Jim. Yep.

And this is one of those products that we've been, we had in the pipeline for probably about, it's just about three years because some of the, some of the barrels we use are aged about two years. There's a full range of ages.

I'm going to say that's got a really interesting palette. I don't think I've ever had a profile like this before.

I've had Armin Yak finished Bourbons, but this is, this is exactly what I'm talking about. When I talk about. when we put different whiskies in these finishing casks and we wait over certain amounts of time, whether it's six months or two years or sometimes even longer, things are gonna change. The whiskey is going to change. It's going to either pull components from the barrel or it's going to chemically change in other ways. And if you don't like it right now, it doesn't mean that the experiment's bad or something went wrong. It's just not there yet. And there is, There are a lot of folks in the industry who look at barrel finishing as a very daunting and overwhelming process and a very rigid process where we're going to take this liquid and we're going to put it in the barrel, we're going to wait six months and we're going to put it in the bottle. And no matter what happens, at six months in one day, that thing is on the dock and it's going to the shelf. And there's there's really a it can be a softer approach to allowing the whiskey and the finishing cast to do what it does and being comfortable in that chaos to allow it to do those things and not know what's going to come out the other end. because maybe it takes a little bit longer maybe it comes out the other end and you don't like it but doesn't mean it was a fail product there's gonna be redeemable qualities and that was you can do something with you just have to be creative enough to figure out how to do that.

Yeah, I think finishing can go. Go ahead, Todd. I was going to say, first of all, anybody that doesn't like this on first taste, I'll give them my email and my personal address and they can ship that bottle to me because this is delicious. It's just rich and complex. I mean, I know you guys don't have a cigar blend that I know of, but this would work well.

For me, this would work with a Connecticut, I think, really well. I don't know that it's bold enough for like a Maduro wrapper, but I think it's, this would make a good cigar whiskey nonetheless, for sure.

So Joe, I got a question for you. You know, what do you feel like, what's the biggest change from barrel in say like 2013 to barrel in 2025? What do you, what do you feel like has changed the most?

Well, from a couple of different perspectives. One, from the consumer perspective, we have a far better educated whiskey consumer. I mean, far more people know much more about whiskey. It's funny. Sometimes people ask me what I think about a product and I'm like, you probably know more about that product than I do. We have our hands full of those, but so we have a very sophisticated consumer who understands the difference between a cognac and an arm jack finish. for example. I think that that's been one. The concentric market is getting bigger and wider. There are more people, more demographics coming in all the time. There's more women drinking whiskey now than ever. It's a huge trend. I think on the business side, it is Bizarre is probably the only word to use. If you told me when we started it that we were going to have a spike that was just unimaginable and then it's going to fall off the cliff for a while. But if you looked at the trends, it all makes sense because it's just a correction. Well, I wouldn't have believed it. I wouldn't have believed that you would have had the growth. But then again, who would have thought that we would spend a couple of years staring at each other on Zoom and drinking whiskey? So I think that those two things are really, really different. I think another interesting phenomenon out there is investor barrels that are coming on the market. Everybody during COVID wanted to cash in on the bourbon and whiskey gravy train. And I think you got a lot of people who are going to end up being disappointed. The market is not there to absorb. the zero to three, four or five-year-old barrels that there was two years ago. I think that's a little bit of an eye-opening part of this business. I think the export market is really in limbo at this point. Nobody really knows what's going to happen in the next couple of years on this. From a consumer perspective, it's richer. From a whiskey offering perspective, for us personally, we can produce so much of such variety that's differentiated that we're very happy about that. We're in this competitive world of more brands out there. We're trying to stay out in front of it as much as we can, which, by the way, is probably a good segue to why we did Foundation. Foundation, in our line, is the only non-CastRank product the three foundation products and they'll probably be more. It's also designed to be price point. It's designed to be 45. What it actually appears to be could be a little bit different depending on what state you're in and everybody's margins. So it was to create for us a product that was Entry level is not the right word, but it is in the mid price point, which is a lot of competition. It is hard to prove. If cash strength is a tad daunting, then it's more approachable. What you experience is exactly what we wanted to have happen, which is It's clear that this is one of our products because it's nuanced and layered. So that's something that we did to address the market. We've been testing it out and we know that this provides, it brings people into our whiskey franchise. And also for me, Foundation, it makes an incredible cocktail midweek. It's a haunted proof and it tastes really great, so that one really works. We've done that. We've changed a little bit in terms of adjusting our offerings to accommodate the changes in the market. We represented it the 45, the 79, the 99, the 150, roughly, and the 199 price points. We cover the full gamut of that. What else? Got any other observations from? Did I cover them all? Did I sum up the entire state of the

Yeah. That was pretty good. You should write a book.

Yeah. That was quick answer. That's right.

Yeah. I think that, I think that the spirit industry does undergo ebbs and flows like, like all businesses do. And You know, there was, as you mentioned, Joe, a big spike here a while back where bourbon just went through the roof. Right. And things were not so for a while. The takeaway from that for me is, is that we introduced Brown spirits to a huge number of people. And if they're distracted by something else now, that's okay. They'll come back later, but they got introduced to it. Right. They got to see it. They got to experience it. They got to enjoy it. And, uh, that, that just means overall good times for the market downstream, even though we might be in a little bit of an ebb and flow right now. So I think, I think we're good. I think we're all good. We're watching urban on the bank, sell out no time flat. Right. So, I mean, it's.

You know, that's such a good point you just made. It's so funny because it happened to me today. Somebody said to me, I gave her a bottle of bourbon for something. And she said, you know, I've just discovered bourbon. And she goes, I had no idea what I was missing until I tried it because of the complexity and the flavor. So this is the person who was introduced to it, who had never tried it before. And She actually described it to her husband's detriment. Now she drinks his whiskey. That's exactly what you're talking about. There really are a lot more people. We're recovering from Kentucky bourbon bustle. Which was, again, to me, it remains one of the best festivals because there's just, it's such a, people there are professionals. People who participate behave and they know how to do it. They know they don't have to drink everything in the first hour. Right. And it's a great event. But it is amazing to me what a concentration of people who are really educated in whiskey, who really know what's going on in the business and what they like. That's a pretty cool thing.

All right. So we'd like to give you guys an opportunity to, uh, let our listeners know where they can find you on social media, on the web. Uh, you know, where's your next event? Where can they see you out in town and about, um, what states are you in? All those kinds of things.

Okay. We are distributed in every state. I. I think we actually have a little bit distribution in Hawaii too. But we're in every state. As you can find us there, we do have locators on our website. Our website is barrelcraftspirits.com, but barrel bourbon will get you there as well. And that's true on all of our social media. If you go to any platform, either search for barrelcraft spirits, barrel bourbon, you'll get to us.

So we're easily found there.

Our events are generally posted on our website and in Facebook, but not everything gets covered. But we have most a lot of them around there. So you can find out where we are there. We're available for you to see where we can ship on our website. You can buy right through our website. But we're in all the major retailers. Um, and, um, yeah, we're always around, just ask us a question anytime we're available.

All right. Well, I can tell you this, your last year's ice wine finish got my attention. I mean, that was amazing. And it's one of my more treasured bottles and, uh, it's been, it's been a guest on more than one show, I think Todd, hasn't it? Yeah, definitely. It made our end of the year show. I saw that.

I didn't see that. Yeah. And you know, it remains one of our favorites and it is going to be back in rotation at some point.

Yay. All right.

I only wish we had produced more. The limiting factor, and the limiting factor a lot of times is what we have in the barrels. And that's what happened there.

We certainly appreciate you both coming on our show today. It's been a blast. We've had so much fun tasting through four of your whiskies and, and talking about your, uh, your journey to bring barrel craft spirits to the public. A lot of fun trip, Joe, amazing ride you've had, and, uh, we hope we can get you on the show again someday. Thank you guys for having us. We appreciate it. All right. Well, you can find the bourbon road on all social media outlets. You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook threads, all those places every single week. Todd and I will get together. We'll grab some whiskey. We'll have a good time. Sometimes we got guests on like Joan trip. Sometimes it's just Todd and I drinking through a number of expressions. Who knows who's going to come on the show. Sometimes a musician or a poet or a. comedian, I mean, it's always fun. You don't want to miss one. The best way not to scroll to the top of that app you're on, hit that subscribe button. That way the next time we release a show, you get that notification. And then when you put your headphones on, we can be a part of your day. So definitely, definitely subscribe to us so that we can, we can get that notification out to you. Check out the bourbon roadies, Facebook group on Facebook. It is a great group of people, about 3,500 strong, loving bourbon, loving life, just sharing good stories and lots of fun. Check out our website, the bourbon road.com, uh, grab a piece of merch from us, help us get down the road. But until the next time, we'll see you down the Bourbon Road.

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