94. Woodinville Whiskey Company

You're not a big spicy food guy, right? Yeah, I eat the heck out of some spice stuff. I go through about bottle Cholula hot sauce once a month. Then why is it, do you think, that you gravitate towards the sweet whiskies and you tend to... Because I eat a watermelon like once a week. There's a chopped up watermelon in the refrigerator right now.

Welcome to another trip down the Bourbon Road with your hosts, Jim and Mike. So grab a glass of your favorite bourbon and kick back.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Log Heads Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Find out more about their fine rustic furniture at logheadshomestenter.com. Hello everybody, I'm Jim Shannon. And I'm Mike Hyatt. And this is the Bourbon Road. And Mike, where are we today?

Back out here at Jephthah Bend Farm in Shelleyville, Kentucky. In the heart of horse country. Yeah, well, bourbon country for us. Bourbon country, horse and bourbon country. Horses and bourbon, yep. And what else?

Deer hunting, right? Isn't that time of year now?

It is that time of year. You know, I'm getting excited about it too. You start getting those trail cam pictures and stuff and I'm like, wow, look at that thing.

Well, I'm pretty excited about who's with us today.

Yeah, I am, too. We had reviewed their whiskey a couple of weeks ago and released it. And I was lucky enough that somebody reached out to me about it and said, hey, thanks for the review. And so we're having Woodinville Whiskey's national brand ambassador on today, Ariel Yan. And she's actually a Kentucky girl. Ariel, welcome home to Kentucky.

Thank you. It is great to be here and I appreciate being on the show. And before we get too far talking about whiskey, I want to thank you both for your service.

Thanks. Oh, thank you very much. Very nice. Well, we are so happy to have you here and sharing your whiskey with us. And Mike, we don't like to spend a whole lot of time chatting up front. I like to get straight to the bottle, right?

I know what Ariel is awesome. She brings three bottles to my house for me. That's, that's amazing stuff.

We're going to talk about them to two of them today. Maybe you mentioned the third one, right? Yeah. And then, uh, yeah. So why don't you tell us what you have in the first bottle for us today?

Yes, of course. Well, we have our Woodinville straight bourbon whiskey, which I know you're not supposed to pick favorites, just like you're not supposed to have favorite child. But I have to say the bourbon is my favorite. And I think mostly because I am a Kentucky girl born and raised. I was gone before I could legally drink, though, but kept the heritage, you know. As soon as I turned 21, I dived straight into bourbon. So of course, I have a lot of favorites out there outside of Woodinville. And that's what I kept my teeth on and then fell into the bourbon world in Washington state. and now get to sell and talk about Woodinville in Kentucky, which is awesome. So our bourbon whiskey is our flagship product, the whole reason Woodinville was created. It is a five-year-old bourbon whiskey made with all Washington grain. So our two founders, Brett and Orland, were best friends and had a dream to make Washington whiskey with the best ingredients that they could, but honor the time-old tradition of bourbon. So this is 72% corn, 22% rye, and 6% malted barley, bottled at 90 proof, And our barrels are coming from Independent Stave Company in Lebanon, Missouri. So we took some best wine practices for those barrels. We do it 18 to 24 months seasoning of the wood, heavy toast and heavy char. So at five years old, you should get quite a bit of flavor. And of course that high rye content brings through quite a bit of those baking spice notes.

Okay. Well, Mike, let's check it out.

It's got a great nose on it. I was sitting here nosing at why she was explaining all that to us. Definitely a great smelling bourbon, floral and that caramels coming out big time in this.

Yeah. I mean, I'm getting a lot of oak influence on the nose. I think it's taken on a lot of barrel attributes and you say it's five year old. So we would expect a little bit of that, but not a large amount. So are these, these are full size barrels?

They are 53 gallon.

Okay.

Back in the day when we first started, because we were a hundred percent grain to glass distiller, we did have eight gallon barrels, but we've phased out that bourbon in 2015.

So, so this bourbon, let's talk about Woodinville and where Woodinville is in Washington state. Cause most people will probably think Washington state is just the coast and there's a lot of different climates in Washington state. So where's Woodinville at?

Yes, so Woodinville is right outside of Seattle, about 20 miles from downtown. So you get that gray, rainy weather for nine months out of the year that you would think of for Seattle or most of Washington. I remember the first time I went out to Quincy, Washington, where the Almond Family Farm is. That's where we get all of our grain and we age our whiskey. I went out about eight months after we had moved there and was shocked. It was crazy. After you go over the Cascade Mountains into Eastern Washington, it's all high desert. Looks like Mars, if I was going to guess what Mars looked like with all these crazy rock formations, hardly any trees around. Of course, there's a lot of grapes being grown and grain and apple trees. But it is wild to go from Western Washington, where you think of Washington state, very green, and then Eastern Washington, which is all that high desert.

What do you think about that nose, Jim?

Yeah, so that's a very rich nose. It does have a lot of barrel influence on it. I would say that's my predominant note there is I'm getting a lot of oak and caramel and I'm getting that rice spice as well. But the rice spice is coming across more I don't know, a little bit more, not so much like a minty rice bite. Although I pick up a little bit of mint in the nose, but not too much. Get a little whore hound in there.

Yeah. Sassafras, a root beer. Ariel looked at me like, what's whore hound?

I heard you talking about the candies on one of the podcasts recently. And one of our ambassadors in Florida, Shayna Kaufman, has used them to make bitters. And I was very curious what it tastes like on its own. So I'll have to seek that out.

Tractor supply.

Perfect.

Yeah. There's plenty of them around and they all carry whorehounds and they have some of the old anise candies and some of the old mint candies. Lemon drops. Lemon drops. Yeah. The real ones.

Yeah. Let's taste this thing. Let's taste it.

Wow, that's good. That is exactly like the nose.

I'd say it matches it perfectly. Sweetness on that front, that 70, would you say 74% corn? 72%.

72% corn, it definitely comes out, the corn does.

Rye just kind of rides on the back of your tongue a little bit. Just like, like peppermint maybe.

Yeah. There's definitely mint on the, on the palate. I just got a little bit of it on the nose, but definitely on the palate. It's giving me that nice cool peppermint burst on my, on my tongue. Pretty nice.

Like maybe one of those, uh, lifesaver breath mints. Um, that's winter fresh. Yeah. I, you know, I just, you get that it is a refreshing bourbon. I think it's not overpowering anything. And this is 90 proof.

90 proof.

So is that the standard for everything? No cast strength stuff you guys are putting out.

For our three core products, our bourbon rye and our port finished bourbon, which you all have had, it is 90 proof. And we do have cast strength available as a single barrel program around the country. But for any cast strength whiskeys, it is at our tasting room.

Hopefully our listeners will ask us to do a pick from there.

That'd be awesome.

Yeah. I mean, that's not too far to go, right? Mike, just 2,500 miles. Yeah. We'd probably go out there and do a little fly fishing and.

Just don't go right now. It's a little smoky.

A little smoky.

That might be an understatement, but.

So is that the direction of the wind? Sort of.

I think the whole West Coast right now is, it's very windy, so it's moving. I don't know which direction it's coming from since there's so many fires out there, but moving the wind in every which direction and it's pretty stagnant in some areas. It looks very apocalyptic.

It makes beautiful sunsets though in Kentucky.

Yeah.

It's amazing what those smoke particles do in the atmosphere. It's not a good thing that's happening there. Let's not make light of it. But we do get some beautiful sunsets from that smoke as it moves eastward.

Yes, it's pretty crazy. I, I believe I've seen one or two over the last few years and I've traveled back this way and it's crazy cause it's kind of hazy, but then the colors just burst across the sky.

So tell us a little bit about Woodinville distillery. You know, when was it founded? You said they started out with that gallon barrels, but who founded Woodinville distillery?

Yeah, so in 2010, Brett Carlisle and Orlan Sorensen, our two founders, started the distillery. We say that's our official founding date, because that's when we had our first distillation. But the pen to paper was put down before that. So the laws changed in 2008, where you could legally distill in Washington for the first time since prohibition. So it's pretty crazy those laws stuck around for almost 80 years before any legal distillation was happening in the state. I'm sure there was someone. But they're still at home doing some good stuff. But for legal, anything legal, it was 2008 for that to happen. So in 2010, we were one of the first five distilleries in the state, which is pretty crazy. Now there's over 100. So in 10 years, it's boomed. And we are now the largest distillery in the state. We have been filling about seven and a half barrels a day. The first few years were a little smaller than that. We kind of grew into that and we've been under expansion the last few months. So soon we'll be at 25 barrels a day unless we go to 24 hour distillation and we could do up to 50. So still the largest in Washington, but that stops in the bucket 10 in Kentucky or Tennessee distillery.

So tell us a little about your stills. So you're producing on a combination pot still, hybrid still, or do you have a column alone as well?

It is a combination pot and column. We get it from the Kota Company in Stuttgart, Germany. And we originally had the same style still, but it was a thousand liters. And then six years ago, we moved into our current location, which is about a mile down the road from where we were. And if you were standing in our parking lot, you'd see shot to St. Michelle Columbia Winery and then our beautiful still from the parking lot. And it is 5,000 liters now and we do two batches every day. So each batch from filling the still to emptying out takes about six hours.

Okay. So liters to gallons for those who are trying to do the math in their head. It's about a four to one.

Yes. I think it's 1300 gallons if I, yes, if I can do my math correctly. Yeah. Since it comes from Germany, it's plastered on the side, the 5,000 liters. That's what I always picture when I'm thinking of the stuff.

So are you guys doing a sweet mash or sour mash?

A sweet mash every time.

And was there a reason for that?

Well, we didn't have, I guess, somebody's old yeast strain from generations down the line. We wanted to make sure that we could control that, especially with all the natural flora and fauna that's in Woodenville, since there are 100 wineries producing wine and then also quite a few breweries and distilleries. So to make sure that every day the yeast was staying the same and not changing too drastically. And then we also wanted to make sure we could have a clean run every time. And I guess for consistency, that's why they chose that.

I guess if you wanted to in that type of area, you don't even need to buy your own yeast. There's plenty in the air, right?

There is plenty in the air. So we had Dr. Bill Lumpsten from Glenmore and Jane Ardbeck Distillery come out. And when we were thinking about an expansion a few years ago, and he has his doctorate in yeast studies and said, if we were to ever make Woodinville whiskey anywhere else, it would never taste the same because we have all that natural yeast in the air. So we don't do a fully closed fermentation, but we do inoculate it every time with our yeast. And then you have that natural yeast in the air.

OK, so the tops of your fermenters are open.

Yes.

But they've got that carbon dioxide layer up there that kind of protects them a little bit.

Yes.

OK. That's pretty awesome. This bourbon is fantastic. And last week, me and Jim did a podcast where we kind of talked about the basics of bourbon and the differences between sour mash and sweet mash. And this is definitely on that level with sweet mash, right? Being a sweet mash, it doesn't give you that Kentucky hug as much.

So it doesn't really get you right here in the top of the chest. Yeah.

It'll give you that nice bite on the tongue, but not that I call acid reflux where you wake up in the middle of the night and I go, Oh, good Lord.

Well, this has got a nice finish to it. I would say it's a medium finish. Mike, would you agree? Yeah, I'd agree with that. Yeah. And it's, it's got a nice spice on there on the back end. I like it. It sort of, it keeps it kind of keeps the fires lit back there a little bit.

I'm wondering what this would taste like at a hundred or 110 or 120.

Well, I'll have to get y'all some of our cast drink that usually comes out about 120 proof cause we are filling our barrels at 110 proof.

Okay, so you've got a fairly low barrel entry proof.

We do, yes.

And have you been doing it that way since the beginning?

We have. Even when we were in the eight gallon barrels, we did that lower proof and then we transferred that over when we started filling all of our 53 gallon barrels.

So is all of your earlier stocks, are they all gone now?

Yes, we released our first full-size barrel last January and from that we've just been bottling everything almost as soon as it gets to that five-year-old mark.

Okay, so do you have older stocks of anything?

Not right now, unless there's a hidden barrel or two that we haven't found in the brick house.

Somebody's stashed one away.

I'm sure they have.

So is the plan to go up in age as the distillery gets older?

Yes, it is. So now that we're under expansion, we're going to definitely start to upage stuff as we have whiskeys coming online, more and more whisky that we can bottle at five years. We want it to be a natural growth. And we were only in Washington up until two years ago. So it's been fairly new that we've even launched to other states. So we're trying to slowly grow the brand. And that's why we're releasing everything at five years right now, so that as we get bigger, we can release more expressions.

You don't want to out kick your coverage, right?

Exactly.

I think that's pretty awesome that you kind of stay with the plans of other craft distilleries out there that are doing that same thing, that they're not out kicking that coverage. You're making sure you have enough whiskey for your sales throughout the States. I just love your guys' marketing because even on your website, it says we don't have a hundred year old story. It's you are who you are. You got your own bottle style. It's a beautiful bottle to me. I like that little short stubby square bottles.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of what some other bottles it might look like in shape wise. I mean, I think it's different than any of them, but it's sort of shaped like a, like a Luxro bottle or maybe a little bit like a wilderness trail bottle.

That's what I was going to say wilderness trail. And you know, if you, if you're going to do anything, you're going to, not try to recreate another bourbon brand and stuff, but that's a pretty good brand. They're on the rise just like you guys are.

Yes, they're doing some great stuff.

I was surprised when you guys reached out to us. That was about the same time that you guys had launched here in Kentucky. Now, what was that like launching in your home state?

It was pretty crazy. I would have to say it was not as exciting as it could have been because at that point it was still pretty much quarantine. And so we did our launch with our distributor over Zoom, which is hard to make connections with people and all that. I know I was excited and told family, you know, go out and buy some because I know y'all love it when I bring it to you. But we haven't really done any big events or anything like that, which I think, you know, getting liquid to lips is always one of the best ways. People probably haven't heard from about Woodinville unless, you know, they're watching or reading articles about bourbon news across the country. So we hope to do more as things continually open up.

We're listening to podcast, right?

I've been hearing about Woodinville Whiskey now for probably a couple of years maybe, and through the podcast, through watching other media, through reading, and it's always good reviews. It's always great talk about you guys. There's a lot of respect for you out there. I don't hear a lot of naysayers, so I think that you've garnered a great deal of respect across the nation even prior to leaving Washington State.

Yes, well, thank you. And I think a big piece of that is people who came to Washington. There's some great whiskey bars out there, too, and asking for new things. And especially the tourism in general of bourbon and booze around the country, I think, has helped Garner a lot. We've had a lot of people come into the tasting room, too, who have been out for wineries in Washington. it's surprising to me, will come in the tasting room and say, I've never been to a distillery or I've never had whiskey. I don't know where they have been, but they'll come in and try whiskey for the first time or see a distillery and how things are made, which is really cool that we can, I guess, claim people from the wine world and take them over to the whiskey world.

So does Washington, the state of Washington, do they have a Washington Whiskey Trail or either talk about

I believe there is talk about this. I should probably know better. Locally in Woodinville in the town of Bothell, we had a craft distilleries trail going on because there were quite a few distilleries. Some of them were rum. There was another two bourbon distilleries, I believe, a vodka and aquavit distillery and schnapps, beer schnapps, if you can believe that. And so we had a little map that people could go visit these 10 distilleries, you know, within a couple mile radius of each other.

Now, they're not the first Washington distiller we've had on the show, Mike.

Oh, I think they're either the second or third. I would tell you this, that whenever I first started with a podcast last year, actually, it's been one year for me, Jim. Congratulations. Happy birthday. One year. Yes, happy birthday. Me and Jim sat down and we talked about what distilleries we really wanted to have on and kind of what our format was going to be because he already had a successful podcast, but we wanted to make it better. So in one of the first brands he brought up to me, he's like, man, Mike, we really got to get Woodinville on the podcast. In my mind, you know, I'm starting a podcast. I'm like, wow, we're going to get out to Washington state. It's a long ways. We are the bourbon road. Yeah, we are. We are. But sometimes that bourbon road leads to us. It does. Yeah. Yes. Like today. Yeah.

Serendipity.

Lucky us. Well, Jim, what do you, what's your final take on

Yeah, so this is for me a well-crafted bourbon. It's well-rounded. I think the nose and the palate match pretty well. I love that hint of mint that you get on the nose, just a little bit. And then the impression of it on the palate is 10 times that. I like that. It's kind of refreshing. I would say I might lean out there and say it's a summer sipper. With that refreshing taste, I kind of like that.

I'm going to call this a Faith Hill whiskey. Faith Hill? Yeah. Get back to my country roots here with this. But Faith Hill, just because it is kind of refreshing to hear something a little bit different. It's got that little kick on the tongue and stuff. I really like it. It's got a note in there or something else I'm tasting. as it's opened up a little bit as it's been in my glass. I'm trying to think what that exactly is. Maybe a little bit, maybe because it is from Washington. And when I was a kid, I always assumed that all apples came from Washington state. So maybe I'm getting a little bit of like apple licorice on this. Just a hint of it.

Yeah, for me, I would say predominantly, um, like sassafras mint, mint sassafras kind of, uh, but I love the 90 proof. I think it was a good choice. I definitely think that was a good choice. I haven't had the cast strength, but I will say this. It's, it's a great sipper at this proof. For me, I would definitely have this on my bar. I would definitely share it with a friend and I wouldn't be opposed to giving a bottle away to somebody who couldn't get it or wasn't able to get it. What's this retail for?

$39.99 is our suggested retail price.

So I think that's a really fair retail price for anybody going out there, especially buying a gift. I actually saw this buddy that's retiring after 34 years in the U.S. Coast Guard. And he asked me, what kind of gift would I get somebody if they liked bourbon for his guest speaker? And I said, well, I would probably, cause I know the person he's buying for. I said, I'd probably get him a bottle of your guys's Woodinville port. Cause he likes finished whiskeys. So. You know, for me to say that, and I could, I mean, you see what I have on the shelf, I could say many different whiskeys, but I really fell in love with your guys' port whiskey. It was really good. And this is just as good. I think that price point is excellent.

Well, thank you very much. We appreciate that. And the honor of being suggested to, especially for such an incredible occasion.

Absolutely. Well, Mike, I think we're about up to the break here. So we both have a little bit more on our glasses. Why don't we keep sipping on it and we'll take a short break when we come back. You have something else for us.

Yes, I do.

We would like to thank Tommy and Gwen Mitchell from Loghead's Home Center for supporting this episode of the Bourbon Road. Loghead's Home Center, nestled in the hills of Kentucky, is an industry leader in building handcrafted rustic furniture. Family owned and operated, they take pride in offering only the very best for their customers. The Logheads, and that's what they like to call themselves, are skilled wood crafters who are passionate about creating rustic furniture for people who appreciate the beauty of natural wood. Owners Tommy and Gwen don't just sell the rustic lifestyle, they live it. And you can be sure that Loghead's furniture will always be handcrafted in Kentucky by artisans who embrace the simple way of life. Loghead's rustic furniture is made from northern white cedar, a sustainable wood that's naturally rotten termite resistant. Its beauty and quality will add warmth to your earthy lifestyle for generations to come. Be sure to check out everything they have to offer at LogHeadsHomeCenter.com and while you're at it, give Tommy and Gwen a shout on Facebook or Instagram at LogHeadsHomeCenter. All right, well we are back and we are ready for the second half. And Ariel, what do you have for us?

Yes, I have the second flagship whiskey that we have. It's our 100% rye whiskey. So very unique that it's a 100% rye mash bill. It is made the same exact way as our bourbon though. So they both come off the still at 140 proof, barreled at 110 proof, and bottled at 90 proof. But even on the nose, you can tell the difference right away. There's a lot of baking spices that I get that come through, not so much the black pepper that I'm used to in a rye whiskey. And I think a lot of that is the grain that we're using. That's a baker's grade of rye. Arnie Omlin, our farmer, went to the local bakery and asked him what rye flour he used. And now the Omlins are actually the largest rye producers in the state of Washington, which is pretty cool.

Okay, so rye in general can be kind of a tricky grain to distill with.

Yes.

And I guess in the fermentation tanks, it tends not to play well, right?

It does not play very well at all. I've heard some horror stories and seen some videos of the rye mash. overflowing from our two-story fermenter tanks as a rye whiskey mash waterfall. It doesn't smell very great and, of course, very messy. So we do have to do some extra love, I guess, TLC on it. We use anti-foam, aka vegetable oil, to break up the tension on the surface so that it ferments and bubbles beside each other and not on top of each other. And then, of course, a lot of people ask if we use enzymes or any malted rye, and we do use non-GMO enzymes for that 100%.

Okay, well because you kind of need to, right?

Yes, of course.

So there's no malted rye in this. This is 100% just non-malted rye.

Non-malted rye.

Got to have something to kick those enzymes, right?

Yes, and it is very messy in the still as well. Have to do a little extra cleaning. Take some elbow grease and of course, doesn't provide as much whiskey in one run on the still. That's more in that two and a half to three barrels a day that we, or per run we get.

Well, Mike, I'm really looking forward to this. This is kind of my jam, as you know, and I'm ready.

I'm not ready. You know, it's like I'm being forced to drink rye all the time now. James should be ashamed of himself. I never get to drink wheat whiskey anymore or wheat bourbon anymore. It hurts my soul.

Yeah, I think he's, I think he's holding on tight to that, to that whiskey because every time we do another podcast and there's another ride on there, Mike inches a little bit more into the rise zone. And I think I'll be honest with you a year from now, Mike. I've heard you say I love this rye about five times this year already. I love whiskey.

I'm a whiskey lover. I love women, but Vivian is my wife, so I'm a lover.

Well, let's be fair about this. Whiskey is not all that different from food, meaning that your palate is your palate. You like what you like. Some people like spicy food. Some people don't. You're not a big spicy food guy, right? Yeah. Heck out of some spice stuff.

I go through about bottle Cholula hot sauce once a month. Then why is it, do you think, that you gravitate towards the sweet whiskeys and you tend to... Because I eat a watermelon like once a week. There's a chopped up watermelon in the refrigerator right now. All right, well, I'm ready to give this its due. Well, hold on, let me say what the nose is here, Jeff. All right, you got it. I had a little bit of black licorice on this and some heavy floral, almost like a really good rose scent to it. Jim's like, what the heck?

Yeah, no, no, I'm getting, I'm definitely getting a lot more mint this time. I'm getting a little bit of a cedar spice, a little bit. a little bit of spicy cedar, but it's, it does have that, uh, juniper berry, that baking spice with it though. So it's kind of, yeah, it's kind of a, a, a juniper berry. I don't know if it's, I'd go that far, but definitely a little bit of cedar.

We'll go out there and get some juniper cedar, juniper cedar, I guess is what I'm thinking. Those little black berries that are on there. You take those roam around your hand.

All right. Yeah. Well, um, but it's, but it's definitely got a nice sweetness on it too. A little bit of spice, but it's more that, uh, that aromatic floral spice. Like you were talking about, like,

Yes, very floral. I get a lot of floral in the nose today, especially. And red fruit, I think.

Red fruit. I used to say all of the Rye's because it's like the form, not one of the first Rye's I tried, but on the show was Sagamore. And then I ever Rye drank, I was like, it smells like Sagamore. But no, now I pick up different notes and stuff out of the right. So let's Jim. You're already over there trying it on me. Beat me to the punch. Yeah.

I beat you to the punch. I've been, I've been working really hard to try and get to that point where I know get my sit before you.

Well, let's do it.

Yeah. Definitely. Definitely. Annis.

I've got it.

Cedar, cedar, anise, baking spice all day long. This is a, this is a, a rye muffin. Definitely like a rye muffin with a spicy butter on it.

Let me tell you what I'm getting. What's that? I'm getting a nice biscuit with some honey butter.

Yeah, there you go. A little bit of cinnamon honey butter.

Yeah, that, that sounds really good. There you go. Super sweet on the tongue. What I would expect out of a rye might be the sweetest rye I've ever had before. I'm very honey forward that little bit of that spice on the back end, but not as much as you would think. Right.

Exactly. I told you in the first half that bourbon was my favorite. I know you're not supposed to have it. And I do like the sweeter whiskeys as well. But our rye is one of the fewer I'm constantly surprised by. But I do have to say I might mix it in old fashioned more than the bourbon.

Yeah. I would call this more of a dessert whiskey. Like after dinner or something really sweet.

Man, I'm getting black walnut on the finish.

Is honey still sticking around? There's like a bee in there producing honey or something.

But yeah, the anise is, that anise is ever so present.

It is.

I didn't eat none of those anise candies that day I gave them to you. I've gone through a half a bag of those already. Half a bag. I gave him a half a bag of anise candy for his birthday and I should have opened it up and just taped it back up or something. I gave it to him like re-gifted him or something. So, you know, what is a brand ambassador?

Yes, so I think that with different companies, brand ambassadors mean different things. For Woodinville, we break it down into a couple different facets I get, of course, of facets, I guess, excuse me. So we work with our distributor quite a bit and educating them and working with them and Daily sales, of course, things are a little different right now with COVID. We can't go hit the streets with them. And then a lot of it is working with the consumers and trade. Of course, we want some bartenders and retail stores really pushing our product and I would say advocating for the brand when we can't be there. Knowing enough about it, they could answer some questions or maybe recommending us if people are looking for something new. And one of my favorite parts is traveling across the country to talk about the whiskey to different people, but really bonding with people over whiskey in an event fashion. So I would say either whiskey festivals that we've done or hosting dinners where you can talk with a chef and create this beautiful pairing dinner. Because most people think, well, you know, you need to pair dinners with wine. But whiskey pair is great in a lot of different ways in either neat pours or cocktails paired with food. And so that's one of my favorite portions about being a brand ambassador.

Drinking whiskey.

Drinking whiskey, of course.

So what would you pair with this rye whiskey?

This rye whiskey. Well, today I'm tasting a lot of floral and baking spice notes. So it's, to me, really begging for I don't know. First thing that comes to mind is like an apple turnover.

Oh, okay.

Yeah. Maybe have some of that, what is it? Flake sugar on top. Not quite an icing, but you'll get that little bit of crunch when you bite into it.

The cinnamon apple turnover? Yeah, cinnamon apple turnover. Speaking my language right there.

And I would say I don't normally go for dessert. Most times I say bacon or pork or something like that.

I don't want to need about a gallon of milk with that though. Just drinking it. You obviously didn't just get hired as the national brand, you know, ambassador, right? They didn't say, Oh, you're from Kentucky. You're going to go rep our whiskey around the United States. How did you get into this position?

So my husband and I were leaving the DC area, took a five week road trip across the country and ended up in Seattle. Started applying for jobs and I saw this posting for a tasting room server at Woodinville Whiskey and I was like, huh, that'd be kind of cool. I love whiskey. I love talking about whiskey. I've been in restaurants and hotels now the last five years, so maybe switching it up would be a good thing. And I, you know, bragged that I was from Kentucky and how much I loved whiskey during the interview and thankfully got the job and spent my whole first year with Woodenville and the tasting room really living and breathing everything Woodenville, seeing how they distill because the tasting rooms right off the production area and then also answering as many questions as possible that people could come up with. So I really think that helped honed in the brand. But I was also going to as many bars and restaurants in Seattle as I could since I came from the food and beverage world. And we wanted to explore as much as possible and was always telling Brett and Orland, our founders, of the new places that I've been to or the new whiskey that I tried. And they were like, you know what? We want you to be our first salesperson. And I didn't think it was real at first. And I was like, this has got to be a joke. And then they were like, no, we really want you to get out there. You're already talking about Woodinville. So we think you'd be the perfect fit. And so that's how I started. And so at first it was just a regional sales role within Seattle, then went to the state of Washington. And then as we went to more states, first more than California and Oregon, and then last year a few more, and this year quite a few, I got to launch all those markets with our team. So it's been pretty awesome.

So how many people are on that team right now?

So we have my boss, who's the commercial development director. He's really the one crunching numbers behind the scenes, making sure each distributor and each different market has enough whiskey. And then I have six regional ambassadors that I manage to make sure that they have what they need from Woodinville, and then we can all you know, preach the gospel, I guess, of Woodinville whiskey. And so they're in bigger markets where I can't be all the time. And I handle, I would say, more of the smaller markets in the Midwest right now.

So how many states are you guys in right now?

I believe it's 23 after we launched Alaska a week or two ago.

That's that's reaching out there.

Yes. Next year, I don't think we'll go to too many. But since we couldn't sell into a lot of bars and restaurants, we decided to go to a few more states this year.

Did you launch Alaska?

We did it virtually. I was very excited to go. It's one of, I think, 11 states I have left to go to. And so I was very excited, but that just means I'll have to go later.

Yeah. So do you have a regional representative up there in Alaska since it's so disconnected from the...

We don't have anyone that's living in Alaska. Our Washington ambassador Desiree will eventually be the person of contact for that. We try to give a few different markets to each ambassador so that they can really own it and make it their own.

Well, let's talk a little bit about the distillery itself. What can somebody expect if they're in Washington State, maybe on vacation, maybe visiting family, maybe just touring the nation on their motorhome and they want to go out and check out the distillery. What can they expect on a visit to the distillery?

Well, if they've been to a lot of Kentucky distilleries, it's going to look a little different. We don't have a bunch of acreage and rolling hills and all that. But the valley, that is Woodinville. So you'll come off the highway and cut through this nice little neighborhood and come down this large hill into the town of Woodinville. And it's a little green oasis 20 miles from downtown Seattle. You would never know that two minutes down the road, you're in suburbia because it's green and luscious. It used to be all agricultural land. And you're in a valley between two, I would say, good-sized hills. They're not mountains yet at that point. And the distillery is right next to a tavern, one of the oldest buildings in the town of Woodinville. It's been a few things over the time. A gas station turned into just a beer and peanuts tavern, I guess. They had canned beer and hot dogs on the rollers and all that. And now it's this American tavern that serves great hearty food, which is good if you've been drinking wine or whiskey all day. And then our distillery we built six years ago from scratch, but it looks like it's been in the town for a long time, which is nice, very rustic, dark, like most architecture, I would say in Seattle with our black tin roof and all that. And then you'll walk straight into our tasting room, which we can host tastings without doing an educational experience beforehand, which is nice. And then to the right of the tasting room is our whole production area, which is going to look very different the next time most people come since we've been under expansion now the last six months.

Is Washington a state that allows shipping of spirits?

They can ship within the state of Washington, which is nice, but would be more awesome if we could ship past state lines.

So if somebody is visiting the distillery from out of state, they've got to basically take it home in their luggage.

Yes.

OK, got it. Well, you know, in Kentucky, we just had a law passed here.

Yes, in July, right?

Yeah, in July. Now, it's not really that much in effect yet because it takes a while for you know, distilleries and shipping companies to ramp up to new laws. But yeah, we're kind of excited about it here that we're going to be able to ship out of the state of Kentucky.

Yes, it'll be great for the direct to consumers for distilleries, getting people that may not sell that particular brand or whiskey in the market.

You're probably going to get a call from Woodinville and say, hey, you're in Louisville. We want you to ship our product around the country.

I'll have my own little Woodinville pop-up shop.

You already have that, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Cause if you go in the liquor store here in Kentucky, they'll have it on the shelf, but you also have your nice, beautiful little stands you guys have. And it is what's the saying Washington, Washington and Kentucky.

I think it says Kentucky, meet Washington.

Meet Washington, yeah. I thought that was a great slogan. I like that marketing piece. We were talking about your bottle off break and you'd said that somebody had said it was too old school. To me, it speaks whiskey. Sometimes it's not important what the bottle looks like so much as what's inside the bottle. And even though this is a rye jam and you're going to say, I want to hear your final word on this Mike. Sixth rye that I would say if listener, if you're out there and you're looking for a rye, I do think this is a great rye. Really sweet. If you, I think it's a great, like I said, dessert whiskey or after dinner whiskey. If you're looking for that sweetness, I think it'd make a great cocktail. Same price range.

It is, it might be a dollar or two more and depending on the area that you're purchasing in.

Still a great price. Um, go out there and pick it up, try it, try something different. If you're looking for something different, if you want to stick with the standard stuff, stick with that standard stuff. But I like something outside of the box and this fits that. I think it's a beautiful expression. If I'm looking for that, to fill that sweet tooth, that's probably what I'm going to go to. Cause I can get that in Kentucky. So yeah.

And I bet this plays really well in cocktails.

It plays really well. It's really awesome. I would say I have it more often than not in an old fashioned just because it's easy to make at home. But of course your classic Manhattan's and Sazerac's, even a whiskey smash, the rye plays really well in.

What about a mule? A little bit too much spice for a mule, you think?

I think it would play really well, especially if you put just that little dash of lime in it, kind of cut that spice.

What would you call that, Jim? It couldn't be called a Kentucky mule. What would you call it? Washington meal. Washington meal. Call it the honey meal. Yeah, we're getting silly now. Well, so, um, where can we find Woodinville whiskey on social media?

Yeah, so we are at Woodinville Whiskey Co. for Instagram. And on our Facebook, I believe it's just facebook.com slash Woodinville Whiskey Co. And then if y'all want to find me, it's A-R-A-E-J-A-H-N. One more time, spell that out. A-R-A-E-J-A-H-N.

Got it. Array John.

Yes.

Array John. Array John.

I could probably come up with something new, but I feel like at this point I've had it for, I guess, two years since I got married. It was Array Flash, my maiden name before.

So hopefully we'll have your significant other, your husband, on at some point, too, with his job in the future. Hint, hint, beer. A lot of beer. Maybe we'll have them on and get him on the show.

Oh, we definitely like to invite you guys when we release this podcast on the day of the release, we'd love for you to pop into the bourbon roadies and say hey to all our roadies and say hey to our fans and the people that like to listen to the show on a regular basis. And they're bound to have questions for you.

Yes. Well, I love to answer questions.

So that, you can find The Bourbon Road. You can find us on Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook at The Bourbon Road. You can find us at our website, thebourbonroad.com.

And on thebourbonroad.com, you'll find obviously the podcast. You can listen to it there. You can actually, there's a few links there where you can click on it and go listen to it on your favorite podcast player. We also have blogs that we write for each and every episode that we do. where we talk a little bit about our experience and about the podcast. For those people who like to read a little bit in addition to listening, we also have some swag on there. So if you need a new glass for your bar,

Definitely want to check out the Bourbon Road. Glen Caron, what do you say, Mike? I think that you got to have one of those. If you're going to be in our Bourbon Roadies on Facebook, our private Facebook group, you got to have one of our Glen Carons, right? Go on there, buy one of those. You can show it with your whiskey and some photos and stuff. Join the Bourbon Roadies. We do great giveaways in there. The other roadies in there, they love to share their whiskey, don't they, Jim? They do share their whiskey.

It's almost becoming Kind of the mantra of the bourbon roadies, right? I'd say so. Share your whiskey.

You only got to answer three questions to get into the roadies. Are you old enough to drink? Do you like whiskey? Doesn't everybody? And do you agree to play nice? Because we don't tolerate no rudeness. No rudeness in the roadies. Yeah. So it don't matter where you're at your whiskey journey, if you're just starting, or if you've been on that bourbon road for a long time, join us. Me and Jim are always in there talking to everybody. Some great giveaways always happen.

But no selling.

No selling whiskey in there.

Don't come in there if you're selling your whiskey.

Unless you're a, you know, a distillery. Perfect. Thanks for coming out to the farm tonight and being on the podcast with Jim and I. I really appreciate it. I'm sure Jim does too. It's not every day that we get a national brand ambassador sitting down with us. So I thought about through the show, we've actually had a national brand ambassador before with Wilson. Oh, okay. Right. So hopefully Wilson and he's one of our listeners and he's a roadie. So yeah. So you can find me at one big chief on Instagram.

I'm jshannon63 and we'll see you on down the bourbon road. We do appreciate all of our listeners, and we'd like to thank you for taking time out of your day to hang out with us here on the Bourbon Road. We hope you enjoyed today's show, and if so, we would appreciate it if you'd subscribe and rate us a five star with a review on iTunes. Make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, at The Bourbon Road. That way you'll be kept in the loop in all the Bourbon Road happenings. You can also visit our website at thebourbonroad.com to read our blog, listen to the show, or reach out to us directly. We always welcome comments or suggestions. And if you have an idea for a particular guest or topic, be sure to let us know. And again, thanks for hanging out with us.