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#23 Turning Bread Into Gin : Hang 10 Distillery
960 Plays3 years ago
This week we have Marine and Deon from hang 10 distilling who are using unsold bread to make gin!
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Transcript
Sponsor Introductions
00:00:00
Speaker
How's it going chasers? I hope you're having a kick-ass week. Today's podcast is brought to you by Adventures in Homebrewing, a kick-ass brick and mortar but also online store that'll supply you with all of your needs for beer making, wine making, cider making, mead making even, probably if you want to. Haven't checked that. I'm guessing they do it.
00:00:20
Speaker
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00:00:45
Speaker
This podcast is also brought to you by Gladfield Malt. Kick-ass malt growing and malted right here in New Zealand. I love this stuff and I use it all the time. If you don't know who they are and you don't know what I'm talking about, you can go to gladfieldmalt.co.nz to check them
Product Announcements
00:01:00
Speaker
out. And lastly, the show is brought to you by chasethecraft.com. Couple of things to let you know about on this topic. Number one, the Chase the Craft coins and pins are back in store and available again online and now they're shipping out of America, not New Zealand.
00:01:14
Speaker
So if shipping to your location was a bit of a problem beforehand, it might be a little bit different and better for you now. And second,
00:01:22
Speaker
We now have rocks glasses as well, guys. Those of you looking on YouTube version of this podcast will be able to see me holding them up right now. For those of you on Spotify or anything like that, sorry, go to chasethecraft.com and check them out. We have two designs. One is a slightly smaller fits in the hand a little easier. And the second is the more old school, big, thick base, straight sides, and a little bit chunkier. If that sounds like something you're into, you can check them out at chasethecraft
Hang Ten Distillery and Sustainable Gin Production
00:01:48
Speaker
.com.
00:01:48
Speaker
Today's guests are from Sydney, Australia and they realized that a silly amount of really good bread was going completely to waste because it wasn't selling. They also realized that you can mash and ferment bread.
00:02:05
Speaker
So Hang Team Distillery was born. Their very first gin, a baker's dozen, which is an awesome name for a gin like this, is really not a traditional gin at all. And honestly, if you went into tasting it, expecting a traditional gin, you'd probably be quite disappointed.
00:02:21
Speaker
Instead it is a really really interesting beverage that at its core does a really awesome job of honoring that original bread that they used to create the gin and is kind of the foundation of the concept of the distillery itself.
Interview with Hang Ten Distillery Founders
00:02:38
Speaker
So let's get stuck in to this podcast with Irene and Dion from Hang Team Distillery.
00:02:49
Speaker
Dion and Marine. Thanks for doing this guys. It's awesome to be able to talk to you finally. It took a little while to get this set up and we had a bottle go missing somehow. But thanks for getting this over to me. I'm really excited to try it. So thanks for being on the podcast guys. I appreciate it. Thank you for having us. Absolute pleasure. So I am going to pull myself a drink.
00:03:17
Speaker
Should I make a cocktail first out of it? Or should I just have it straight up? No, you should definitely try it straight up. Straight up. To get all of the cocktail. Cool. I have a little like this. So I got to ask guys, what is the deal with making gin out of old bread? Well, we basically wanted to start a company that does something for the environment, something that's actually meaningful. Um,
00:03:45
Speaker
And we wanted to use surplus food to make a product. Um, originally the idea we actually had was, um, uh, there was a documentary called war on waste and in that that was throwing away, uh, tons and tons of bananas or fruits because the supermarkets didn't like the shape. Uh, then later on, I saw another, like a documentary on, um,
00:04:13
Speaker
like a gene or an alcohol they're making in Uganda from bananas. And I'm just like, Oh, well they're throwing away a lot of bananas and these guys are making alcohol with bananas. It's like, well, you know, there's a solution to that problem. So that's how we got started. Yeah, totally. So this might, this is kind of an ignorant question on my point of view, but, um, what is the benefit of actually using the bread as opposed to throwing it out? Yeah. So.
00:04:43
Speaker
When it turns into food waste, when they send it to the dump, it actually starts breaking down and gives off a lot of methane. It actually adds to carbon emissions. Methane is 21 times worse than carbon dioxide. The less food that we waste, the less carbon emissions get emitted from that rotten food.
Challenges of Reducing Food Waste with Gin
00:05:11
Speaker
I mean, sure, there's a little bit of carbon emissions using a steel. However, that's still far better than making it just off like general neutral. So we're reducing a local business's food waste here. And we're actually generating something commercial out of that. And bread is also like one of the most wasted products that you can have, especially with the local businesses here. Unfortunately, they have to make
00:05:38
Speaker
a bit more than they need and what they sell is not all of it. Unfortunately, they have a huge waste and in Australia, the food waste problem is pretty big. There's way more food than we all need in Australia. Trying to offload that from the business and try to do a little bit of what we can to reduce carbon emissions and still have something nice to drink.
00:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, totally. I mean, people are going to drink gin anyway, right? So why not drink this gin?
00:06:12
Speaker
But yeah, it is. I mean, it's tricky with something like bread, isn't it? Because it's a product that no one's going to buy stale bread. That's right. I mean, especially when it's artisan, it's not something that's been sitting in a bag and can sit on the shelf for a week. You make it that day, you sell it that day, maybe that afternoon, maybe the next day. That's it. It's done. And as a business,
00:06:38
Speaker
I can understand it because it makes more sense to make slightly more than you can sell for the days when you do sell, you know, when you do sell out as opposed to reducing the amount you make. So I get it. But yeah, it is kind of crazy when you see the amount of food that just ends up in the tip. It's bonkers. So it's cool. I mean, this is really interesting. I want to say that
00:07:09
Speaker
I can not so much smell, but taste the influence of bread, but I'm very interested to see what else you put in there and whether or not I'm just making that up because I see that on your website and on the bottle too, I think you have, what is it, Jamaican pepper? Is that right?
00:07:34
Speaker
That's right. What the Sam Hill is Jamaican pepper. Cause maybe that's what I'm tasting.
Gin Production Process from Bread
00:07:40
Speaker
Also known as allspice. I think we're onto something because it is, I was going to say that the reason I was doubting myself is it, it reminds me of really, really dark, um,
00:07:59
Speaker
rye bread is the flavor that i'm getting from it that reminds me of bread and all the pictures i've seen of what you're making it's it's not really dark stuff no it depends on what the the baker's got left over yeah i imagine i really want to talk to you about that and get onto that as well but um okay i'm thinking that what i'm tasting is is is allspice do you have cinnamon in there at all
00:08:22
Speaker
No cinnamon. We don't, but a lot of people told us they thought there was cinnamon. So I think it's like the blend of spices kind of give that cinnamon gingery taste, but it actually isn't in there. But that's pretty cool to see that it kind of tastes like that.
00:08:41
Speaker
Yeah, totally. When it turned up, it turned up at like nine o'clock in the morning. So of course the first thing I did was pop the top and have a little swig straight out of the bottle. But then I put it on the shelf and went until my wife got home and we tried it together and we both said cinnamon straight off the bat and then sort of thought, it's kind of like cinnamon, but not really.
00:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. It's very, very interesting. So I'm interested to hear what your process is from turning the bread into gin from a geekery point of view. But I'm also interested to hear what that process is to see whether or not there is the possibility that some of the characteristic of the breads coming through and whether you think that that's happening. So I don't know how much you can or can't tell us about that. So feel free to go into what you can.
00:09:31
Speaker
We're all about reducing food waste. So it doesn't actually make sense for us to hide our process from anyone else. So if someone else can do the same process, I think that's better for the environment anyway. So we're happy to share. Yeah, definitely the taste of bread. Bread was actually one of the ingredients that we used in the gin basket. So we did put a food supply. Oh, really?
Scaling Production and Overcoming Challenges
00:09:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. OK, interesting. So I'm not crazy thinking that I'm getting some.
00:10:02
Speaker
Because I have to say, guys, like, if I bought this bottle expecting a traditional gin, I would be grossly disappointed. Well, not disappointed, but surprised. So it's definitely not a traditional gin. No, it's not traditional at all. This is really far away, Phil. I mean, shit, you put, you put bread in the gin basket.
00:10:28
Speaker
How else are you using the bread? What's the deal here? We actually have too much bread. We can't process enough of it because we don't have our own warehouse where we live. We can't actually process enough of the bread yet. We're trying to scale up, but there's a lot of bread tape and loopholes to jump through.
00:10:50
Speaker
But yeah, we pick up the bread from the local bakeries down the road. We basically either break it up or slice it up at the brewery. We actually run it in the mash with grain. So we've got barley in there and the sourdough bread. We run it the same as you would as another mash for distilling. And then it's all fermented out. And then we run it through a stripping still.
00:11:19
Speaker
And then spirit still, and then the third time through, gin rum. Okay. So it's, it's a pretty standard or traditional sort of method in terms of fermenting your own alcohol and then making gin out of it. It's just that you're using bread is the, is the big difference. What source of starch?
00:11:45
Speaker
Yeah. And what percentage of the fermentables are you using for bread or are you using the bread for, or does that change dramatically depending on what you've got? Well, yeah, well, we started off with, it's a quarter of the grain bill and we're just slowly increasing it. It also depends on how much bread we've actually got available to us.
00:12:09
Speaker
at the time of brewing because we don't have a fridge to store it to wait until the brewery's ready to run it. So it's kind of a bit of a balancing act between when it's ready to go and when it's not. We've had a couple, we picked up a lot of bread and we had it ready to go. There's a delay in the brewing process, so all the bread went moldy. Yeah, I think refrigeration might.
00:12:34
Speaker
Yeah. To clarify, like we don't use moldy bread to make this gin. Um, usually we've had a few people ask, but no, usually we have like, uh, like one to two days window of like having still fresh bread to make it. Unfortunately, it can't be sold to the public. But yeah, if, if we get any more than that, then it's hard to process that bread in a fresh kind of fresh state. So yeah, we're just, we don't use moldy bread.
00:13:04
Speaker
The particular bacon we work with only sells fresh bread on the day and he throws away his entire stock each day. So there's actually a lot of bread on them. I kind of get the feeling that you almost need to be flexible out of necessity. Otherwise it would kind of ruin the point, right? Like the whole point is to use
00:13:26
Speaker
what isn't being used elsewhere. And if people knew exactly what wasn't being used elsewhere on a consistent basis,
Market and Economic Considerations
00:13:32
Speaker
that wouldn't be going to waste, right? Was that kind of a fair statement? At the moment, we don't have the capacity to process the amount of bread that we can get. We are trying to scale up, but yeah, we're just, it's a bit hard at the moment. Warehouse space. Yeah, right.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah, totally. So are you, you're not brewing on site, like your contract brewing with someone else? Is that kind of the vibe I'm getting? At the moment we are, yeah. Yeah, that's correct. Okay, cool. We don't have the space or the perception with ourselves yet. Yeah. Yeah. So like you said, you're kind of at the mercy of their brewing schedule.
00:14:12
Speaker
Yep, to fit. Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, that's kind of the way we can go at the moment, but it's also like a good way for us to get started where we get, we can get to the point where we can have our own place and warehouse. So, um, it is a bit, like you said earlier, we have to be like super flexible with it, but it's kind of also a good thing because, you know, it's just makes it a bit more fun. Yeah. Oh, I get it, man. And the, the, the, the.
00:14:41
Speaker
equipment commitment up front if you just wanted to do it all yourself is just intense. I get it and I think
00:14:54
Speaker
It's pretty cool that you guys are actively fermenting something. Do you know what I mean? You're not just buying in NGS and then sticking bread in the gin basket or something. It's actually a meaningful thing. It's not just a token gesture for marketing purposes. That's cool. And you're doing the distilling yourself. So do you want to talk us through the equipment that you're running and how you're doing it on that side of things?
00:15:22
Speaker
Yeah, some of the equipment we can't talk about, but we're basically, it's the same as gypsy distilling. We're using someone else's equipment to produce the gym. You do a stripping run. So we're getting about a thousand liters of wort from the brewery that's fermented at the distillery. And then everything's run through the distillery. Stripping through a column still.
00:15:51
Speaker
And then again, it's just changed the plates for the next, for the spirit run. Um, and then you change the configuration again to do a gym basket for the final run. And that's the main group.
00:16:09
Speaker
This is, yeah, this is really interesting. It's kind of, I'm sitting here and having a sip and trying to concentrate on the conversation, but also trying to pull this apart. And there's a lot, there's a lot going on here. It's always interesting to me when I get a spirit that's, how do you put it? There's no,
00:16:28
Speaker
There's no starting point for me. It's not like I can go, oh, this is just like X, Y, and Z. But do you know what I mean? It's really hard to place it. Well, this is going to be a limited one. We are going to run. We are making a classic, which will be, I guess, suit most people's flavor profile better. This is a very unique one to do because of the bread in the first place.
00:16:55
Speaker
I think it's cool, man. If you're gonna, I mean, why not, right? Why not go out there and do something different that, because it is interesting to me that you say that you put bread in the bread basket, but in the grain basket, but it honestly does remind me of bread. Like it's got this, this weird, earthy, and I say weird when I'm thinking gin, which is botanicals and then super clean. It's, um, but the, the flavor profile comes over almost like
00:17:28
Speaker
There's a lot of earthiness sitting down much lower in the flavor stack than you'd normally get flavor in a gin. There's flavor sitting in that place where you would expect just neutral.
Experimentation and Innovation in Spirit Production
00:17:42
Speaker
It's kind of bizarre. It's probably a little bit leaning towards a Geneva.
00:17:47
Speaker
which is whiskey. Right. So yeah, right. I'll tell you that the flavor profile that you're just touching on, there's a bit of a savory profile that would be like a similar to a whiskey. That's the grain you can taste. Yeah. And I think the bread and the grain have kind of joined together and that flavor profile that you can taste. Yeah. Um, and then the apple is the main part. So that's spice. So what? Sorry. Apple. Oh, really?
00:18:17
Speaker
Yes, that's one of the, that's the main flavor that's hiding in the middle. But you nailed it. Like it does give a really earthy flavor. Hmm. I'm really, I must, I have had, well, I mean, as you can see, I've been at it a little bit and I had a couple of gin and tonics the other night, but that was with a crappy
00:18:43
Speaker
generic tonic. You guys suggested drinking it with this, the fever tree Mediterranean. I don't have ice out here, but I am going to give one of these a nudge. It's so crazy to me how many people drink gin and tonic like me and they get really, really nice gin and then put
00:19:06
Speaker
Like really, really horrible tonic. Well, I also don't mind some plain tonics, as long as they don't have too much flavors in it, like too much lemon or stuff. The plain one's actually quite good because it leaves the flavor to the gin. Whereas some tonics, on the other hand, they're trying to pack in all the flavor in the tonic. So I guess it depends. You just mix and match and find the right one that matches the gin or...
00:19:32
Speaker
I think, I think that's it. Yeah, which is why I was very happy to get a specific recommendation from you guys. I think to me that the, hold on. I think to me, a lot of the tonics I end up drinking, they don't have a really decent bite at the end of it, that bitterness, you know, they're just kind of weak and they end up tasting real, yeah.
00:19:59
Speaker
just empty with gin. So I have lemon, I have orange, and I have lime. Do you guys have a suggestion on citrus with tonic or just nothing? Just tonic is really good, but I'd say out of those, I would go with orange, but maybe taste it without the orange first. That is so much better than the crap that I was drinking it with the other night.
00:20:27
Speaker
It's so much better. It makes a huge... Oh well, okay. This is... Yeah, it really does. Yeah. So once again, it's this... I don't want to just keep talking about the Djinn for ages because I've got lots of other interesting things to ask you. But it's just bizarre. Like, if someone said this to me, and said it's a Djinn and tonic, I don't know if I would believe them. That's true. No, it's an oddball. It's obscure. An obscure Djinn and thing.
00:20:57
Speaker
Yeah, totally. So I have to ask, have you considered doing a, um, I won't say a neutral cause I can't imagine that would be fun at all, but basically just a bread flavored vodka. Um, no, I haven't considered it. Oh, sorry. We considered it slightly, but there's a lot of effort and a lot of, um, uh, time going into it and you don't,
00:21:27
Speaker
I don't think the sales, you can't really make that much money out of it because of the competition that you're up against. So I don't think it's because you guys are actually carry on. Sorry. Oh, I just, we're not sure it's worth the time and effort to do that, to actually make it a viable product at this point, but we're not sure yet. Yeah, right. So basically because you guys are actually fermenting product by yourself, the economy of scale is.
00:21:56
Speaker
all out of whack and turning it into a gin adds value to the product. Is that what you're saying? So like it's easier for you to compete with as a craft gin than it is to be just like a weirdly flavored vodka. Yeah. Is that kind of what you're getting at? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can feel you on that for sure.
00:22:18
Speaker
Um, yeah, vodka is a whole other thing, but we're still like thinking about it and considering it, but I think, uh, rather than going vodka would probably go a different gin or, um, you're making whiskey as well at the moment. Um, but we're kind of, um, experimenting a few different things. Yeah. Well, we wanted to make whiskey.
00:22:42
Speaker
That's cool. And so you are putting bread in the fermentables for the whisky as well? Oh yeah. That's very, very cool. And does, I don't know, I don't know at all what the, excuse me, got gin and tonic burps going on over here. I don't know at all what the Australian regulations are on what you are and are not allowed to call whisky. Is there anything there that is an issue for you? Bread is basically a grain. Yeah.
00:23:13
Speaker
There's no issues. Cool. Yeah. No problem. The only thing is you have to wait two and a half years till you can call it whiskey. That's the only biggest requirement. Yeah, right. Yeah. It's a good point actually. Cause it's, it's literally grain, water and yeast. Yep. It's just grain. Salt. Maybe. Yeah. It's salt. Yeah. Right. I mean, plenty of, plenty of whiskey places put salts in their water, right? To treat the.
00:23:43
Speaker
That's true. The order. So it changes. It's just the same thing. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry guys. If you're listening to this, we've got a slightly weird, uh, just, just enough delay to not quite sure know when each other stopped talking. So we apologize for that, but it is the way it is. Um, so how far through that whiskey process are you like, do you have stuff in a barrel yet? Yes. Yeah, we've got one barrel and I got another.
00:24:11
Speaker
another IBC ready to get stripped as we speak. That is very cool. Also, I have to imagine a fairly large leap of faith, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's quite a lot of money. Yeah. I think a lot of people are going to be interested in this. So feel free to go into this in detail. Like this is actually something I think people will be interested in.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yeah. Like how much of a leap of faith is that for you in terms of just going out? Cause I mean, you're on one end of the scale, you're doing gin, right? Which is you make it, you bottle it, you're good to roll pretty much. So what's your experience with the whiskey so far? Well, so far, well, you've got regulations with, um, storage of alcohol and production of alcohol. So we have to have a distillery.
00:25:07
Speaker
that will make it for us or store it there.
Regulatory and Logistical Challenges
00:25:12
Speaker
So we have to actually rent space from an distillery to store alcohol until it's ready. Cause we can't actually purchase that barrel that we've got. We can't pick that up and take it home. It's not something you can do because you've got tax issues and whatnot. So you don't actually pay the tax on that alcohol until that leaves the store in bottles or
00:25:34
Speaker
smaller vessels. You can't actually take the whole barrel. It's a bit of a process, but we're very unique in the fact that just set up to have your own distillery, it costs you half a million, a million or more in just equipment and everything set up. By doing gypsy distilling, by using other people's equipment,
00:25:58
Speaker
It costs a little bit more to do the production side, but we don't have the massive overhead cap. Yeah, right. And you don't have that overhead cap continuing if you're not producing, right? As opposed to if you've just bought a facility and you keep paying overheads on everything.
00:26:21
Speaker
We're not paying rent on a warehouse at the moment. So that gives us the opportunity to work on the quality of the product instead of just trying to push the product to pay rent. Yeah, totally. And I guess the same thing's true when the decisions need to be made in terms of how long the stuff sits in a barrel too, right? It's not like, right, it's two years and one day old.
Branding and Design Inspirations
00:26:43
Speaker
It's in a bottle, two day. You can kind of make decisions around quality.
00:26:50
Speaker
That's very cool. So we're talking, I think before we started, right? And Maureen, you designed the labels for this.
00:26:58
Speaker
Yes, that's right. I design pretty much everything, the labels, artwork on the back, the website, the whole brand identity basically. So yeah, my background is I'm a professional designer and I run my own design business and I've been working in the design industry for the past six, seven years now. And yeah, I worked with a lot of different brands and very different from like tourism to
00:27:27
Speaker
hospitality and cafes and worked a little bit with alcohol brands but never actually had the chance to build
00:27:36
Speaker
something from the ground like that. And especially your gin bottle. And that was actually not an easy process because there's so many gins out there and you kind of your own clients, you can kind of do whatever you want as well. So it was, it took a while to, to get that final bottle. But I think, yeah, when we nailed it, we were very happy with how it looked like. So yeah.
00:28:04
Speaker
It has, yeah, it has a very low key but classy feel to it. And I saw, oh my word, these notifications, my word. Microsoft Surface, what are you doing to me? Yeah, I saw on your website too that you directly say that a lot of it's
00:28:23
Speaker
inspired by the surf and cafe culture. And that's exactly the kind of chill vibe that I get. It's very, yeah, it's not old school, but it's nostalgic for old school, if that makes sense. Like the old Malibu days, that kind of, you know, the big double triple stringer, the donkey dog board kind of things.
00:28:52
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. It's cool, man. That's a lot of, my dad's really into this kind of thing. He makes, he shapes and glasses surfboard semi-professionally, like he'll make them in Salem, but mostly for himself. And this is very much his aesthetic. So it's got like an extra special place for me. But it's funny, almost what I heard you say there is that, how do you put it?
00:29:19
Speaker
When it's your field, you can't bullshit yourself, right? You see, like I see other people do stuff that, you know, if you actually know about it, you can't just sort of naively luck your way into it and make it work. So I could imagine that this was a much, it was probably a much bigger and more involved process for you because you really knew what was at stake and how much you actually have to do to create a brand than someone else who's just like, eh, I'm going to distill some gin. I need a logo.
00:29:49
Speaker
Yes, you totally nailed it. It's so ironic when you think about it, but it's not an easy process, but it's very rewarding when you get to that point. I guess if you're paying for each revision too, you're just like, no, no, that's good. But if we're doing their design ourselves, we can change it a bit more freedom. You have to be happy with it.
00:30:15
Speaker
It's cool. I mean, and you've got like, because it's so, because it is so clean, you've got so much room to expand out into all the other products. You know, I could easily see this becoming, because that's the thing, right? Like in a lot of ways you kind of need to brand gin and whiskey.
00:30:38
Speaker
differently, but then you need a brand, you know, like a consistent theme running through the brand as well. So I can see you being able to do that easily with this. It's almost like you've done this before, Maureen. Have you ever designed stuff for yourself before? Oh, like as in for my own company or?
00:31:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. For my own business, I do a lot of illustrations and mostly illustrations. Yeah. And artworks and I did my own websites and everything. So it's a bit more on the art side. Like I'd love to be able to do, you know, some t-shirts and stuff. But once again, it's like a time and cost thing. But, um, yeah, I did a little bit like the distillery is like the perfect playground to create all of this and
00:31:35
Speaker
Yeah, we did some t-shirts for merchandise and I'm sure we'll do more products in the future. And yeah, it's awesome because like I can really play creatively within the brand to do many things. Talking of making your own surfboard, she designed the pattern or the inlay that we did on a board that we made together. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. Oh cool. It was double in making our own boards, long boards and
00:32:03
Speaker
just for fun. So we're not selling. Yeah, right. And it's awesome. So what do you do? Like, what's your job? profession? My background was acoustics. So like audio engineering and acoustic consulting. But I grew sick of working in an office nine to five for
00:32:28
Speaker
The last 12 years, I looked pretty simple. I was looking for a way out. This is kind of my way out. We're building a tiny house part-time. We're building a business as well part-time.
Impact of COVID-19 and Business Development
00:32:44
Speaker
There's quite a lot going on at the moment. That is brutal.
00:32:53
Speaker
I feel like this is the cheesiest question ever right now, but I feel like I have to ask it because you guys do have so much going on. How did all of this go down with COVID? That was the timing. It actually worked out really good.
00:33:08
Speaker
because it got rid of, well, we do like social events, but all the social events went quiet. So we actually had time to focus on the building. We didn't have to go to work either for a couple of weeks while we got locked down. More than a couple of weeks.
00:33:25
Speaker
Yeah, I like during COVID, I lost a bit of work, unfortunately, like it was a bit of having a lot of it happened to a lot of people. So it kind of forced us to slow down. And in a way that slowing down helps us grow the distillery and get to where we are now and also focus on building the tiny house. So actually, COVID was kind of a silver lining for us. Although, you know, it gave us time to focus on on some some areas that we
00:33:54
Speaker
wouldn't have had as much time to do. Yeah. I feel you, man. It's, you feel almost guilty saying that, right? Cause you know, like you hear stories of people doing it really rough. And I mean, I know people personally that got hit real hard because of COVID, but yeah, you're right. There is a, there is a factor of just, it forces you to realize there's things that you can't do anything about. Right. If you're stuck at home, you can't go out and look for work or work or whatever. So, you know,
00:34:24
Speaker
It's kind of a case of do what you can. Oh, sorry. I think if we went on a warehouse and we had a lot of outgo going, then we'd probably be more stressed in that situation. But thankfully we didn't have all that. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, right. So one of the other things that you suggested that I tried beforehand was dry ginger ale in orange.
00:34:50
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. This is my favorite so far. I'm digging this. If I don't try and swallow it the wrong way. Yeah, that to me, that extra hit of ginger kind of marries it all together. Probably also, it's just almost like a cognitive dissonance thing too where
00:35:18
Speaker
I don't think I've ever put gin in ginger ale, so I'm not expecting it to be gin in any way, you know? It can just be its own thing. Yeah, I like this. This is really good. It's Friday night here. Well, for you guys too, right? I don't know what day it is for everyone listening. Yeah, but I think I know what I'm going to be doing with my wife when the kids are in bed now. Ginger ale and gin, man.
00:35:42
Speaker
It's a good combo. We've actually developed a few cocktails with the gin in the last few weeks.
00:35:52
Speaker
talk more about those in the next few weeks on our social media and website. But yeah, it's tricky because our drink is so unique that you can't really, you have to try different flavors and cocktails and see what works, what doesn't. And because like you said earlier, it's so earthy, you kind of have to be careful on the citrus side, but orange works really well. But like, just slime or lemon doesn't work as well.
00:36:17
Speaker
It's kind of interesting to experiment with a few different flavors, but that one is definitely a winner, I think.
Distribution and Sales Strategies
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah, this is really nice. We almost went the classical route on the flavor profile, except I had a close friend that I was working at the distillery with and he said, well, why don't you work with the flavor profile of the actual distillery? It had like a savory flavor, a bit of a whiskey flavor. So why don't we try and match the flavors to that?
00:36:47
Speaker
And that's how we came up with this particular recipe. That's why. Totally, man. Yeah. And it turns into a talking point, too, right? The flavor of the gin matches the backstory of the gin. It's not, oh, this just tastes like whatever, seagulls. And they happen to throw some bread in it along the way. Do you know what I mean? The story doesn't match in that scenario. Whereas this does. It's really cool. I dig it.
00:37:13
Speaker
Also, we have certain ingredients in there to make it a baker's dozen. Oh, yeah, I saw that. Yeah. That's smart. You mentioned your social before as well. Where do people find
00:37:29
Speaker
Where do you want to see people to find what you're doing? So on Instagram, we're just at 10, 10 distillery and 10 is a one zero. We're on Facebook page as well. But yeah, mostly Instagram. In other words, website on the website, people can sign up to our newsletter. We still have to set that up a bit more. But yeah, mostly Instagram. Otherwise, it's kind of the way to go these days.
00:37:56
Speaker
Yeah, cool. And it's just hangten.com, isn't it? Hangtendistillery.com.au or Instagram hangtendistillery and 10 or hangten. Cool, man. Yeah. And where can, like, where is it actually available? Like, can people actually go out and get this? They can order online at the moment. There is a couple of bars in the city that have it.
00:38:25
Speaker
in Sydney's Northern Beaches and yeah, the city. And we're going to be going around the Northern Beaches soon to talk to buyers, but we're just developing the business and yeah, the logistics side. Yeah. But otherwise, yeah, mostly online. People can just order on our website and yeah, we ship it mostly to Australia and probably now to New Zealand.
00:38:49
Speaker
Yeah. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of different hats that a distillery owner has to wear, right? You've just been talking about design and then obviously the distilling, but now sales, marketing, logistics, it's just a never ending.
00:39:11
Speaker
I, yeah, I, I considered it. I considered it when COVID hit and I lost the job. The first thing my wife said to me was right. So we're opening a distillery. Okay. And honestly, man, I sat down and thought about all the stuff that you would have to do. And it was just, yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't make it work in my head, man. So I, I very much, um,
00:39:40
Speaker
Yeah. I appreciate the amount of work that you guys are putting into this. What have you found the hardest so far out of all of it? What's been the hardest thing? Well, I think that the hardest thing, which is still a problem for us is actually finding a location to actually build a distillery and then getting the permission to do it. So to do it here, you need to get permission from the local council before you even apply for the liquor license.
Balancing Growth and Daily Operations
00:40:08
Speaker
through the government. So there's a lot going on. And you also depends on the area. You also need to do a survey of anyone within like 500 meters or something like that. If they've got any issues with that, you need to like the community consultation.
00:40:23
Speaker
So there's a lot of stuff. I think that's probably the hardest part for me. Yeah. The administration part is hard. I think also like for me, it's because I still have my job that I do every day. It's sometimes hard to find the time. I wish I could spend every day on the distillery, but at the moment I can't and we can't pay ourselves yet either. So it's like we're investing a lot of our time and hopefully in the future we get some kind of return. So.
00:40:53
Speaker
Yeah, time management and as you said, like wearing so many different hats is really hard. Like we're lucky because our skills are very complimentary. Yeah. So you do a lot of the technical sales part and I do a lot of like the marketing design part. So that's really lucky in that sense. Cause I think if you were just one person, it would be like extremely hard. Yeah. Yeah. That is very, very cool. It's cool. I mean, it's.
00:41:21
Speaker
Oh, it's, it's hard, right? It's, it's very cool to be able to do something together, but it's also, yeah, it's also very stressful. So the goal for you guys is to, is it almost like market validation at the moment? And then the end goal is to bring it as much as you can of the process in-house to be able to mash for men, distill,
00:41:52
Speaker
macerate, blend, everything in the house. Yeah, so we're just setting it up now. We were trying to see if it would work and we've got a product that we can work with and got a couple other ones in the pipeline. Yeah, we just wanted to set that up, see if it's good. And then before you obviously invest too much money into the project, you want to work it out.
00:42:18
Speaker
We don't want to be giant, we don't want to sell to everyone a million bottles or whatever. We just want to make a decent product from something we believe in and looking after the environment. Yeah, cool. And is the goal for you guys to be able to walk away from the day jobs in whatever, five years or whatever your timeline is? Or is this always a plan to have this as a side hustle?
00:42:48
Speaker
Now, this is the main parcel, but we also don't want it to completely take over our minds. I mean, it will to an extent, but we were trying to get a... I wanted to get out of the office. Nine to five really wasn't doing it for me, so this is something that's a bit more dynamic, that's more enjoyable, something I believe in. Yeah, for me, I think I still enjoy doing my design work, but definitely if we see the...
00:43:16
Speaker
they're still really, really growing to a point where I can spend full time, full time work on
Global Exploration and Innovations with Bread in Spirits
00:43:22
Speaker
it. I'd love to do that. And then, you know, have free time to just illustrate whatever I want and, you know, have to chase jobs. But, um, yeah, we'll see. Hopefully, yes. Maybe two or three years crossing fingers.
00:43:36
Speaker
Yeah, totally. I mean, I guess the cool thing is too, when you had gypsy distilling, I like that. I've never heard that before. I'm going to steal that. I guess the cool thing is too, like you do actually have a product, right? So you can kind of test your fulfillment channels and everything as well. You can start building a list of clients without having the bigger overheads. And then when you do start having products like the whiskey come through,
00:43:59
Speaker
you've already got the 10 bars and restaurants or whatever locally and maybe a couple of bottle shops or whatever. I don't know what your business model is there, but it means you can start exploring those options and making some inroads before the product's actually there. So that's
00:44:16
Speaker
That's pretty cool, man. I, uh, I respect that. And to be honest, if, yeah, that, that was the, the, uh, conclusion we came to as well. If we were going to do it, it'd be the only way to do it that, or be millionaires and just be able to buy everything and pay people to run it. Right. I'm not a millionaire. I don't know about you guys. I get the feeling maybe you're not.
00:44:41
Speaker
Not yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally. I have to ask, is there anyone else doing anything like this that you know of? So as far as I know, we're the only ones in Australia making a commercial product. I know there was like one guy message me he was doing it in his backyard, like some sort of thing. There is a guy over in Austria who makes a vodka out of bread. Yeah.
00:45:10
Speaker
spoken to him a little bit, but I don't know his his process. So there's a few people around that do it. Also, some of the inspiration that we got actually came from a beer that they make in the UK called toast. And that's made from leftover bread as well. So if they can make a beer, why not make? Yeah, totally. Yeah, I mean, I had a look around just to see and
00:45:39
Speaker
I couldn't find anything, not a commercial product anyway. I'd heard of people, like you said, just doing it kind of for shits and giggles, I guess. And I must admit the idea had occurred to me a bunch of times when you're constantly looking for video subjects to make anything that is starch or sugar kind of, you know, you walk through the supermarket and go, ooh. The idea kind of,
00:46:08
Speaker
jumped to my mind, but I hadn't put, you know, put it into action at all. Do you find any, the one thing that kind of I wondered about was like stuck spudges or just everything turning to goop. Do you find that happens? No, because we're using a small percentage. But I think if you start pushing over 50% or more, I think you'll see more issues like that. But, um,
00:46:36
Speaker
The enzymes from the grain really basically dissolve the bread. The only thing that's left is like Boston and the gluten afterwards. It's actually pretty good.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah. Well, that's crazy. I actually do wonder too, if the fact that you guys are actually using bread, do you know what I mean? The product you're using is actually bread. It's not whatever that wonder bread stuff is. Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. So I think we get it from the guys certified organic. So. And we only use sourdough. We only use sourdough from it. So.
00:47:17
Speaker
The sourdough tends to last longer because it's got a different pH before it goes moldy as well. So that was another reason why we used sourdough. Yeah. And I think the quality of the bread really makes a difference if you use high quality sourdough compared to really standard white bread. We might try the white bread down the path, but at the moment we wanted to use the high quality bread. Yeah. I mean,
00:47:45
Speaker
That's an interesting thing too. Have you experimented with different kinds of bread or was it just literally a crime of opportunity? You had this cool baker in town and... Yeah, it was the opportunity. In the first batch we did run, there was a few darker loads and I think there's some of the flavor of that came through quite well. So I'm going to explore that in future recipes for the darker world. Oh yeah, that could be real fun. Yeah.
00:48:13
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, that, that real, like, um, the real thick crust. Cause I actually, I hadn't thought of that too, because you're, it is basically grain, but it's also been baked and the crust is having a whole lot of Maillard reactions and it's darkening and browning. So you're basically adding specialty malt to your whiskey too, aren't you? Yeah, it's been toasted. Some, one of the breads we had, uh, was, they had a batch that was burnt. Yes.
00:48:42
Speaker
We didn't actually get to use that one. We didn't line everything up in time, but it's smelt amazing. I reckon that's got some potential. If they get another burnt batch, we're definitely going to run it. Yeah, man. That's like coffee malt or special beer or something. How did the brewers
00:49:07
Speaker
react to this. I've still got these gin and tonic beeps going on here. Sorry. But, uh, like when you first approached them, I was like, yo, I've got to know a proposition for you. What do they, what do they have to say? Basically, yeah. The first impression is like, oh, he goes, another one of these people doing something funny. And then they go, Oh, what bread? That was so interesting. And like, you know, he's over my shoulder looking at everything going, Oh, wow. And you just really wanted to see what it would do.
00:49:36
Speaker
So our brewer in Brookvale, not far away, absolutely loves the idea and is supporting us all the way, really helping us, you know, work out different parameters and whatnot. They love it. That has to be a huge thing, right? Because for me, the gypsy distilling.
00:49:57
Speaker
I love it. But like for me, the biggest, the scariest part of all of that is that you're farming out the give a shit factor to someone who might just be getting paid hourly or whatever, you know, like you're handing all of that over to someone else and saying, please actually care about my product that you're making for me because you know, like, you're not necessarily directly involved all the time.
00:50:24
Speaker
And I have to imagine that, because if you just went to them and said, right, I want you to slap some distillers malt into your mash tun, mash it for me, throw it out and put it into a tote wolf. I mean, to, you know, that's one thing, but you roll up and say, Hey, I've got this idea. It's kind of crazy, but you know, that bakery down the street. Do you think, do you think the fact that you actually had a unique idea?
00:50:47
Speaker
kind of open doors a little bit more for you than would have been the case else was. Yeah, for sure. Definitely. He was really interested in the process and what it would be. We also, we all got hands on in the whole process. So we were actually milling the grain and putting the bread in. Awesome. You showed us around and everything. So it's been a really good experience.
Reception and Collaboration Opportunities
00:51:10
Speaker
Yeah, we try to be as involved as we can, because unfortunately we don't have the equipment to do it ourselves yet.
00:51:17
Speaker
Yeah, whenever we can put our hands on it, it's good. Yeah, that's been a lot of fun. Yeah, that's exciting. Does that excitement follow through to the sales side of things as well? Like how is, like when you talk to a local bar or restaurant or bottle store or whatever it happens to be, what's the reaction to it? And I have to imagine that
00:51:43
Speaker
Sydney is kind of a cool place to do this, right? I have to imagine that there's the right kind of demographic to be into this sort of thing. Am I way off base there? There's a lot of opportunities, a lot of places you can talk to and sell to. The reception's been really good. Everyone's really interested in it. And then they taste the flavor and they're like, oh, this is not like a normal gin.
00:52:05
Speaker
It's like, this is amazing. And plus we've got a story to back it up, which is really cool. I think the story side is really important because it's cool that there's so many gins in Australia and there's so many distillers and distilleries and it's like amazing that it's such a big industry here. But it's also that you still have a lot of competition and you could just be another gin. And we didn't want to be just another gin. So I think
00:52:35
Speaker
Yeah, having that quite special story really helps us, um, yeah, sell the product and then people can taste it. And yeah, if they like it, usually they do. Um, it makes a difference. Yeah, totally. Have you, have you, I have to imagine.
00:52:56
Speaker
it would be interesting to get this into the hands of a really kick-ass mixologist, like someone who really knows what's up with throwing crazy-ass flavors together. Have you been down there? I mean, this has to be on your radar, right? Have you had that opportunity yet? We've spoken to a few and we've come up with a few things, but we haven't
00:53:18
Speaker
hit someone that's just wanted to grab it and make something crazy with it. Yeah. But yeah, we have a couple of people that are looking into it at the moment, but yeah, if there's like any crazy mixologist person out there that wants to do that, we'd love to hear from them. Or if you know anyone. Yeah, I don't. I mean,
00:53:42
Speaker
Same thing, if there are people out here that know someone, I would be very interested to talk to a mixologist. Because it's such a... It's so tangentially related to everything distilling, right? And yet I'm so far out of that world. I just... I don't know anything about it. I don't know... Yeah, I don't know what I don't know, right? So I kind of feel like...
00:54:09
Speaker
being able to talk to someone and pick their brain on it and get some ideas from it would be really, really interesting. Because at the end of the day, that, I mean, how do you put it? It's the ticket to market for so many products, right? Like, unless you're literally a single mall and a pretty decent single mall, chances are you're gonna sell a body of product through cocktails somewhere. And it feels, I don't know, it feels like,
00:54:39
Speaker
Yeah, it feels like an afterthought to a lot of brands and distilleries, which is weird to me. I don't know. But yeah, obviously you guys are working on that. Yeah. Yeah.
Advice for Aspiring Home Distillers
00:54:52
Speaker
All right, guys. Well, this has been an absolute blast. Before we go, if there's some crazy people that happen to have some basic equipment in their shed slash kitchen slash garage,
00:55:07
Speaker
And they were wanting to try to perform some magic like you have here. Do you have any, you know, just general advice for how to mess with bread? Trial and error, seriously? Yeah. Just have a go. I would probably start with a quarter of the bread to grain mix and work your way up. Depends how far you go. Yeah. Right.
00:55:37
Speaker
And just literally treat it like an all grain whiskey. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's really about very amazing. Just have fun with it. But yeah, it's just, it's a form of starch and enzyme. You need enzymes to break it down and it's all fermentable and good. So just watch your pH.
00:55:57
Speaker
And are you like, do you have to physically break it up or anything? Or are you just like, well, I imagine you definitely have to, cause you're working with like full baker's loads, right? We have got big loads, so we just break it up. Yeah. You need to break it up a little bit. Yeah. And it's just, it's almost like, um, we just need to kind of break the, like let the, let the liquid into the middle kind of thing. And then the, it just does, it does the job itself.
00:56:22
Speaker
Yeah, basically, because it doesn't really cross. The cross is kind of a 6F floating on the end. So if you break it all up, just let liquid bed in and the enzymes work. Do the magic. That's very, very cool. Very cool. For those of you at home listening, if you end up trying something like this, I expect to see photos tagged.
00:56:43
Speaker
or descriptions or something tried. I'm going to have to try it at some point in time. If I do, I'll hit you guys up as a phone a friend in a video too. If you guys are cool with that, we can make plans later on. All right, guys. So one last time before we go anywhere, give us your social media handles and your website address.
00:57:05
Speaker
Yeah. So, um, on Instagram, hangtandistory. So 10 with one zero and on website hangtandistory.com.au. Awesome. Oh, thank you so much for doing this guys. I really appreciate it. And, uh, I gotta say guys, uh, if you get hold of this bottle, definitely try some with a drone, dude, Norell and orange. That's pretty banging. All right, team. Thanks heaps. Thank you so much.