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#009 Daniel Whittington On Starting & Surviving As A Small Distillery
1k Plays5 years ago
Daniel Whittington co-hosts The Whiskey Tribe/Vault with Rex on YouTube. These channels were so successful they were able to crowdsource their distillery (the crowded barrel) through Patreon.
In this episode, we talk about opening a craft distillery. Sourcing whiskey, making white spirits and get a look behind the scenes at The Crowded Barrel.
Visit The Whiskey Tribe: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCphIm9gI_JbeI0ByZSRt5Mg
More From CTC: www.chasethecraft.com AIH Home Brew: www.homebrewing.com/ctc
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
This podcast is brought to you by Adventures in Home Brewing. Next time you need some equipment or some ingredients for your next beer, wine or even spirits, yes guys they do stuff for spirits, you can order from the comfort of your own home. Most orders are eligible for free shipping in the lower 48 over $50 and they do have international shipping as well.
00:00:20
Speaker
They even have flaked products. This is great for us distillers. Flaked barley if you want to do an Irish style. Flaked corn means you don't have to boil the stuff. You can just pop it into a mash. And flaked rice, rye and wheat. Visit homebrewers.org slash ctc. That's homebrewers.org slash ctc to visit their specials page.
00:00:41
Speaker
That link won't cost you anything extra, but it does help me out considerably and support the podcast. This podcast is also brought to you by the Patreons. I can't thank the Patreons enough. They are literally the people that keep the lights on here. So thank you so much, guys. If you're finding value in these podcasts or the still at videos, head on over to chase the craft dot com slash support to find out all the ways that you can help me keep on keeping on.
00:01:06
Speaker
Patreon allows you to sign up for a monthly pledge and in return get some little rewards. Rewards like the Q&A session with Daniel at the end of this podcast.
Meet Daniel - Musician and Marketer
00:01:16
Speaker
Among other things, Daniel is a musician and he's in marketing, but today we're here to talk to him about his distillery, the Crowded Barrel in Texas. He's also part of the dynamic duo, Daniel and Rex, that run the Whiskey Tribe and the Whiskey Vault, which has absolutely taken the whiskey world
Success of Crowded Barrel and Whiskey Tribe
00:01:31
Speaker
by storm.
00:01:31
Speaker
They started these YouTube channels before they even considered opening the crowded barrel. They grew so quickly that they were able to crowdsource the world's first crowdsource distillery. How crazy is that? So their distillery may be small, but that's not what is important. What is important is their ideas, the things they come up with and the way they treat the people in their tribe and the people in their Patreon, which, you know, pretty much under the story.
00:02:09
Speaker
Daniel, thank you so much for agreeing to do this, mate. It's an absolute pleasure to be able to talk to you again. It's been a while. How are you? Yeah, I'm doing well, man. Haven't seen you since we hung out on the back deck at Spencer's and Barbecue and then the tribe gathering.
00:02:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both of which were awesome nights. Thank you for both. That last, the tribe gathering, the tribe gathering, blah, blah, blah. I'm not even drinking. I don't have an excuse for this. Yeah. I haven't done enough for the both of us. Yeah. Yeah. Good on you, mate. Yeah. For those of you that can't see this, Daniel's already
00:02:42
Speaker
knee deep in a glass of, what are you drinking? You look like a green bottle of some description you had before. Ah, 10. I'm going simple and classic. Nice. And you've got a cigar fired up, mate. So we're going to get relaxed Daniel tonight, which is good. Yeah, you are.
00:02:59
Speaker
But that tribe gathering was absolutely amazing.
Tribe Gathering Events - A Positive Atmosphere?
00:03:03
Speaker
That was stunning work on your part. And even more stunning work, I think, on the part of the people that turned up, right? Yeah, I know. I think the magic of that is not that we held it. The magic of it is all the people who attended making it such an astounding event. Because it could go any direction, really. But when you get 500 people on a property,
00:03:28
Speaker
You have no drama, no problems, no conflict, no ridiculousness, nobody has to be curbed. It's just, it's amazing. Every time we finish those events, the distillery reps who are at the tables pouring stop by me or Emma on the way out and go,
00:03:47
Speaker
Please let us come back here next year. This is our favorite event that we ever do. It's not the biggest event that they do, but it's a joy to do it for them. People are so enthusiastic about whiskey and with no uptight snobbery.
00:04:06
Speaker
No, there's no, no one's there trying to stand out and one up each other. Unless you count shenanigans, I guess there's a fair bit of. And it's great just to be in a position to be able to turn up and feel like
00:04:26
Speaker
You just, you belong, you know? Everything else can get out of the way, politics, religion, all of that bollocks that that causes hang ups just melts when everyone knows they're there for the love of something. And I loved walking into that YouTube courtyard every time and thinking like, I feel like I walked in on this massive party. I never got to stay because, you know, our schedule on that event is pretty packed. And so Rex and I are always moving back and forth intentionally to multiple places.
00:04:56
Speaker
And so I only got to pass through the courtyard like twice the whole day. And each time for only like a flip through. And every time I was like, man, this is where the real party is. I don't want to, I don't want to go. This is all, everyone's like roaming around shooting content and sitting at each other's tables and like, ah, so cool.
00:05:15
Speaker
That was very, very cool, especially for someone like me who's stuck down here on the bottom of the, you know, the ass end of the planet. Yeah, I don't, I don't find people to collaborate with down here. I don't even, you know, it's hard to even find people to drink with that that are on the same level. Not in terms of awesomeness in terms of drinking. No, no, we know you mean awesomeness. You're not wrong. Yeah, so I mean, being able to just roll up there and have
00:05:41
Speaker
you know, literally 10 other channels that are in such a closely related space to be able to sit down and with and shoot content with. It's just an amazing opportunity. Yeah. And such a style, you know, totally. Yeah, yeah, that weekend. I don't participate in all the other stuff that happens on that weekend. Because you've got your hands for me. I'm way too many other things going on. But that weekend has turned into quite the bonanza.
00:06:08
Speaker
Oh, it has. Yeah. I don't see anything happening except for that growing. It's going to turn into a week before you know. Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. But that's the cool thing. As long as I don't have to manage it. No. I don't care. You know, it reminds me of like, in Austin, I discovered, so Austin only recently, and by recently, I mean, in the last like, 10 years or something, became a host for the Formula One
00:06:37
Speaker
as racing, right? And it wasn't until it should have been Austin that I discovered I thought I was like, Oh, there'll be some races there one weekend. That is not how it works. Oh, really? Oh, no, the formula one is a there are companies who make astounding amounts of money. And their only business is following formula one around the world. Wow. And and holding and hosting and running parties and events.
00:07:07
Speaker
Like that's it, that's all they do. They just follow Formula One. So when Formula One landed in Austin, it's like, well, you've got Formula One and you got the racetrack and the cars, but then there's like a hundred side parties and events and gatherings and they have nothing to do with the Formula One people. It's just, there's this party that follows around Formula One. So as this tribe gathering has gotten more and more attended and more and more people involved, I'm thinking like, uh-oh,
00:07:36
Speaker
or spawning a new, like a week-long following event pre and post Bastards Ball. I'm not sure whether you are single-handedly sponsoring the Lakenta or whether you're burning them to the ground. It's one of the two and I can't figure out which. Yeah, I don't think they're certain either.
00:07:57
Speaker
Dude, I turned up there on the first night. I went downstairs and thought, oh, I'll go down and see if there's anyone here. And maybe there'll be two or three people sitting around a table having a drink. No, that's no. That's not how that works. Nope. I won't spoil the surprise for anyone that hasn't experienced it yet. But yeah, I mean, this is this is a good question, man. How are you feeling about this year? Oh, I have to imagine this is just an absolute turmoil of emotions and logistics for you.
Pandemic Challenges and Online Opportunities
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah, I'm less worried about logistics and more worried about becoming responsible for harming tribe members. Yeah, yeah, I feel you. Like, look, I don't give a shit about canceling schedules or deposits or, you know, I don't give a shit about any of that. We can reserve things and plan things. And we can cancel them and lose money. I don't care.
00:08:53
Speaker
What I care about is we get to that point and it turns out that the curve hasn't flattened and things are, everyone opened up and things went boom. And it happens right around the time that we invite 500 people to pack into a, you know, 20 acre campus. And then they all go back to the respective States and countries. And my God, like that there's, I mean, I don't know. So yeah.
00:09:18
Speaker
It's scheduled for September. And so all I can say right now is by September, we'll have a much better idea of whether or not this thing has a second spike. Because I think if we have a second spike, according to all the statistics, it looks like it's going to land in July or August, right? So right after everybody opens that cup again. So by July and August, it's still skyrocketing and exploding. And we haven't figured out a game plan
00:09:48
Speaker
there's a very real chance we'll be postponing it. But again, we just don't know. Just like everybody else, we just don't know. But I don't know that I could live with myself if it turns out something we created, it kills a tribe member.
00:10:04
Speaker
Oh, that's against everything that you're in for, right? Yeah, I don't know how you sleep after that. Yeah, I think there's a lot of small businesses obviously in this very similar predicaments with totally different reasons for it. Yeah, we talked real quickly backstage about how this has affected you. Do you want to run through that real quickly? Yeah, I can do a short version.
00:10:30
Speaker
It's more depressing than fun. But I also think what we didn't talk about is that some of the things that you are doing to counteract this, but one of the questions I did have going forward was a few opportunities that you see on how people can
00:10:49
Speaker
I don't want to say capitalize on the situation because that's a really dick move. No, I know. I know. I mean by that, though, I think what it's going to do is for. So I'll approach both those questions. I think what it should do if brands are paying attention is give them the opportunity to spend some emotional and financial energy in a direction they should have been developing the whole time.
00:11:13
Speaker
And if that looks like capitalizing, then that's just a side effect. Because what's actually happening is like, we've got no choice. Our reps can't go to the bars because the bars are closed. But we need to be spreading the word of the brand and making sure that when we open back up, people want to choose us. What do we do? Oh, look, the internet and YouTube and social media and streaming videos and the Facebook videos, all that we've been talking but ignoring for years. Yeah, let's do that.
00:11:42
Speaker
And so I think we're going to see, I mean, we already are seeing a flood of online content from everybody, brands, new channels, reps, you name it. And I think once that explosion subsides a little, we're going to see who stuck it, what lingered.
00:12:01
Speaker
who figured out a new thing they could do, who has a new style, who showed up new in the landscape and turns out they're actually doing something really cool. And then, you know, the vast majority of them will kind of dissipate and fall off and lose momentum and realize it's way harder to work than they thought it was going to be. Oh, it's totally easy putting out videos on the internet, isn't it? No good deal. People fall into that trap a lot. I think we'll see that. We were lucky.
00:12:30
Speaker
We're one of the only distilleries that I know of. Well, I mean, we were impacted period, right? We had to close our tasting room and that was, you know, a third to half of our income. Yeah. Well, and, um, you don't, you don't lose half of your income and not have it affect you, but we weren't in a position because of the Patreon and because we've spent
00:12:57
Speaker
Our entire business career and the entire history of crowded barrel focused completely on our people online. That there was like, there was no disruption of our interaction with our people at all. I mean, we missed hanging out with some of them on Fridays and Saturdays, you know, but that was the, that's a tiny percentage of, uh, interacting with our people. Right. So, uh, the Patreon.
00:13:24
Speaker
And, uh, and then allowing us to do bottle sales every week to try to keep replacing the tasting room income has kept us where we haven't had to fire anybody. We haven't had to cut anyone's hours. Everyone has gotten paid everything. They always got paid before. And the only difference is the bartenders lost tips money, but it is rough, but we pay our bartenders very well.
00:13:51
Speaker
We do not pay them like service industry. I'll just leave it at that. They get paid very well, especially for the industry. I mean, they deserve it. No, they get paid. Your entire experience is set up around being an experience, right? And if you're coming through the past and stuff? Yeah, they get paid what I think frontline bartending server staff should get paid, period.
00:14:18
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so it just has to be, happens to be astronomically higher than what's industry standard in the US. So, uh, but losing tip money is real. It probably cut what they were making, you know, down by a third, at least, um, if not in half, uh, because our people who tip are at the distillery are very generous. So we managed to replace that by monetizing the whiskey tribe channel, which we've never done before.
00:14:44
Speaker
Just generically, YouTube monetization, 100% of that money we've been funneling back to the bartenders. Then we did a live stream a week and a half ago. Because we're monetized, now people can... What do you call it when you give money on the live stream on YouTube?
00:15:04
Speaker
Like super chat or something? Yeah, yeah. So because we're monetized now, people can do that. And so we, yeah, we gave a hundred percent of that money from that live stream back in. So I think we've, I think we've effectively replaced even the tips that we're getting at this point. Um, but again, that's just because our entire business model was something that closing the tasting room had a disruption, but not a we're dead now effect.
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah, right. You know, I mean, there's two things to this too, right? There's, there's the initial just don't die straight out of the gate. But then there's also stop the bleeding and be able to get back to where you were. Yeah. Right now is a lot of the money that we're using to stay in business with the whiskey sales was money that we had intended on using as investing in new stuff.
00:15:56
Speaker
But you were still looking at the actual- Yeah, so the bottle sales and things like that, usually they go into buying more barrels. Right now they're going into keeping everybody paid. So it's going to hit us again a little while from now, but I still think we're going to be okay.
00:16:14
Speaker
I guess where I was going with that before is that you're in a position where you're not losing key people, right? Some, some people to stop the, to stop the initial death have had to let people go. Yeah. And then that's going to hurt them. So well, either it was an opportunity to get rid of dead weight. No, I know. I know. I happen to know a handful of companies who are like, we're using this opportunity to get rid of a whole bunch of people that we've needed to get rid of for a long time. And so yeah,
00:16:44
Speaker
We let go like 50 people. We're only bringing back like 30. But for the people that have lost key members and especially in something like a small business, you have to let people go into the distillery. Or when you're letting go characters that bring clientele in.
00:17:05
Speaker
That's going to be rough going forward for people, man. It's great to hear that you have avoided that whole situation. Yeah, well, it's the Patreon that avoided that whole situation for us. They saved our ass.
00:17:23
Speaker
Well, I mean, they started it too, right? It's their damn distillery. There's a good spot to switch over into starting a distillery. I'll record an intro so people have the base knowledge of how you've done it. Rather than talking specifically about what you've done, because I think that's really unique, and it's an awesome model, don't get me wrong, but recreating that model is going to be
00:17:51
Speaker
You know, that's a, that's a tricky road for people to walk down. Yeah. Let's talk a little more generically from a, I guess a business point of view and from a marketing point of view, right? The, the, the cornerstone steps, the cornerstone things that you need to get in place. If you're from, from the idea of starting to think about, should I open a distillery through to opening up? I mean, your mind, what the key points are between A and B? Uh, number one,
00:18:18
Speaker
start to get to know the people who are already in the industry in your area. Before you even do anything else, start going to their distillery tasting rooms when they open, go to their bars, buy things, ask them questions, see if you can talk with them, volunteer to help bottling days and offer support. I would start with that because
00:18:47
Speaker
These are the people who are going to help you survive once you get rolling.
Industry Networking and Legal Advice
00:18:52
Speaker
Because as you go along, there are countless, hundreds to thousands of questions you're gonna have that you can't find in a book and you don't read anywhere and there's no graduate degree program to teach you. And the only, and you go on the internet and all you're finding is home forums where most of the information is bullshit, as you know. And if instead you can go down the street
00:19:17
Speaker
and be like, hey, I can't keep my fermentation temperature under control. And I don't know where it's going wrong, because this thing I bought, they told me it was supposed to do X. And they're like, oh, yeah, but what that company won't tell you is that in this climate, you're going to have to do Y and Z first, and then it will work. And then you could have that in a five-minute conversation if they know you, right? And they trust you.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah, and you would be shocked. My experience is almost everybody in the entire industry that we've encountered, it works aggressively to help each other. Yeah. I mean, there are countless stories of people like Tiafel's Mandalusia stepping in on other craft stories in Texas, helping them solve huge problems. And then just going and charging nothing and then going back to the story of making whiskey.
00:20:08
Speaker
I mean, the whole whiskey industry owes Ty Phelps in Texas. I mean, I'm pretty certain he's had a hand in helping almost every active whiskey distillery in the state. At some level, he's just a giver and extremely knowledgeable. And came from a really cool background, especially on the brewing and fermentation side of things. Exactly.
00:20:31
Speaker
And he's a scientist, man. He's a, he's super hardcore about shit. But I would say, so get to know people, get to become a regular face, invest in other people's livelihoods, you know, spend some time. And while you're doing that, get a lawyer. First, very first thing, get the best liquor lawyer that you can find in your area. And you can even talk to the stories about that, like, Hey, cause there's no conflict of interest.
00:20:58
Speaker
with another company having a lawyer of the same years unless, you know, you guys go to court against each other. Refer back to speak one. Yeah, refer back to not being a dick. Yeah. Um, anyway, so get a lawyer because a good lawyer is going to solve so many things that you never thought you needed to account for. And it can't be a generic lawyer. It needs to be a liquor industry lawyer, right? That we got one, her name is Kimberly Frost.
00:21:28
Speaker
Um, she's based in Austin. Her firm is probably, her firm handles, I would assume from the people I know working with her, probably the majority of the distilleries in Texas. Her firm, the guy who founded the firm was instrumental in writing a lot of the liquor laws back in the day. Right. They know people and they know what they're doing. We hired her and we, uh,
00:21:55
Speaker
We are like, OK, we need to apply for the license federally and state. And she's like, OK, here's what you're going to do. I need you to fill out these pieces of information. We'll build the forms. We're going to submit them. And then as soon as it submits on that day, wait one hour. I'll email you. When I email you, call these four phone numbers and say this script that I'm going to email to you.
00:22:18
Speaker
I'm like, yes, ma'am. We made the call. We had our federal license approval in two weeks. I don't know the American system, but that's unheard of, I'm sure. No, no, that's insane. Yeah. And then we had the state one only a little bit after that. And that got the way because our neighborhood people decided they wanted to fight it. But not all of them, one guy who happened to be the head of the HOA,
00:22:45
Speaker
And he managed to convince four other people in a neighborhood of like 600 that it wasn't a good idea. And that was enough to hold us up for six weeks. But she was instrumental in all of that. So everywhere we've turned them, we've almost gone, hey, we want to do this. She's like, hey, hey, hey. No, don't do that. You want to say this and it'll be fine. Do this and call these people. It'll all be fine. You'll get this, this, and this. You don't need to worry about this. They'll tell you you do. You don't need to. Here's why. And man, I don't know what we would have done without her.
00:23:13
Speaker
So it's just as one of those things where you don't know what you don't know until you figure out you're in the quagmire, right? And having someone that can just hold you by the hand and walk you through that stuff. And that's true, even if you've worked at the story before, because there are questions that get asked that you've never had to think of when you're starting it versus just working at one.
00:23:31
Speaker
Well, that's the thing, right? Even if you've personally started it, you think, think back to something you create. Someone was asking me for advice on how to set up a YouTube channel. And I was like, I've done it once.
Launching a Distillery - Building a Customer Base
00:23:43
Speaker
And that was like four years ago. You know, if you talk about the day to day running of it, that's a different thing. I can help you out there. Yeah. So if these people are dealing with that day in, day out,
00:23:53
Speaker
You know, yeah, that's crazy. What about from a almost a proof of concept point of view, you're going to get to the point of no return with these things eventually where you kind of have to shit or get off the pot. You know, you got to commit.
00:24:08
Speaker
What sort of things would you suggest people look for to see if there is actually a viable business here? You know, would you be focused more on the target market and the people that you can reach? Would you be focused more on the numbers, on, you know,
00:24:26
Speaker
cost versus potential sales and all that sort of stuff. I am absolutely the wrong person to answer that question because we built our business totally backwards. You did. Yeah, we built a customer base with no product. Yeah. And we grew it and grew it and grew it and grew it. And then we were like, do you guys want some whiskey? And they're like, yeah. And we're like, okay.
00:24:54
Speaker
Here we go. That's, I mean, so that's what I would do. It's a real thing, right? You don't have to build a community like that through YouTube. There's other ways to build a client base before you have a product. I would say if I was starting one just generically, like if I was like, okay, I've had enough of Austin, I'm going to move to, I don't know, screw it. I'm going to move to East. I'm going to head out to Beaumont and go out into the boonies.
00:25:23
Speaker
over by Louisiana. And I'm going to make whiskey over there. Then what I would probably try to do is not do what all of the kings of Texas whiskey were already doing. It's like, look, Balconus is kicking ass at malt. Andalusia, kicking ass at malt. Garrison's kicking butt at bourbon. Balconus is making kick ass bourbon. Still Austin's dude. I don't know. I would try to find something, but it's like, I'm going to pick a little niche corner.
00:25:52
Speaker
I'm going to do something slightly different than everybody else is doing it and then just focus, double down on quality and then figure out how I'm going to make money while the whiskey ages and while I start letting people know. And so basically if I was starting from scratch, I would try to find a way, not a unique selling proposition, but probably a unique production method, right? So unique ingredients or something that makes the product itself stand out.
00:26:22
Speaker
Yeah. And, and again, that some level you're still just going to be making whiskey if you're doing, I'm assuming you're making whiskey, but, um, yeah. And then in the meantime, I would just say, keep your overhead as low as you possibly can for as long as you possibly can. I mean, just stay invisible for as long as you can. Cause I mean, honestly, that's what I do. If I, if I had had to build this from scratch, I would have tried really hard.
00:26:49
Speaker
to be able to exist for three to four years without anyone really knowing what was happening. And basically just sell through a little tasting. Well, yeah, maybe. And even then I would keep it on the down low and just be like,
00:27:03
Speaker
Everyone's about to show up at some event with some amazing crap and all the industry people on the area would know who I was because I've been working really hard to support them in the meantime. And so I would just build anticipation of like, there's this dude out in Poma. He's doing some cool shit, man. Where do you get it? I don't know.
00:27:20
Speaker
Don't even know what it's called. Don't know where it is. Yeah. Or you do something totally opposite. You know, you find big money and you do like what Rabbit Hole did in Kentucky. Build a huge brand off of sourced whiskey while building your distillery and then eventually catch up to the existing product with the stuff you made.
00:27:42
Speaker
Yeah, this is another thing that I feel like I have to talk to you about is the lag period between starting a distillery and having product to sell is killer for whiskey. And it's facing kind of good in Texas, man, like that makes things a whole lot easier.
00:27:57
Speaker
So the the draw or the allure to get into either white spirits or into sourced spirits in that lag time is huge, right? Unless you've got deep pockets and you can afford to sit for four years, you have to do one of those two things. Yeah, you just don't have a choice. Yeah, or you find some other, you know, like
00:28:18
Speaker
You create a swanky ass restaurant with your tasting room and you run as a restaurant for two, whatever. You have to do something. But in Texas, you can't do that because that's a different license into violation of the three tier system. You can't own a retail liquor license and the distillery manufacturing license.
00:28:38
Speaker
Now you need your brother kid. Your brother could own the restaurant and you could own the distillery. That might work. But anyway. A totally not crowded barrel restaurant opening up. 600 meters down the road. I just got to find a brother. My sister doesn't want to do it. So I'm going to find a long-lost brother. I would say you just pick one. And all you're doing is just picking your storyline.
00:29:07
Speaker
Right. Yeah. This is exactly what I wanted to talk to you about. Yeah. Pick your storyline. So do you want the storyline to be, we make these really amazing clear spirits, uh, and that are highly crafted and specialized or we're doing, you know, three variations of, you know, uh, uh, what is the, the Swedish clear spirit? I can't remember anyway.
00:29:37
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but it's like herbal it's closer to gin than anything else but instead of a hyjuna birds high is something else My mind's going blank. Anyway, I'm not sure So we have all these really cool crafted clear spirits and just wait, you know like Game of Thrones Whiskey is coming whiskey is coming, you
Promoting Spirits and Brand Integrity
00:29:57
Speaker
know and And you just keep telling that story right? We're working really hard on crappy all these things, but the whiskey's coming
00:30:04
Speaker
And that's a cool story. It is. And let's be honest, I know there's people exactly like you out there that are trying to break down the wankiness of the whisky industry heavy-handedly. But let's face it, it's still kind of wanky. It's just the way it is. So if you come out of the gates and you open a distillery and then you go all in on vodka and gin and then
00:30:29
Speaker
You don't really think about that story. And then in two years time, oh, by the way, we've got whiskey. You run the risk of whiskey. People just never taking you seriously. Yeah. All the other guys that do vodka and gin and now they've made a whiskey. So it must be shit. Exactly. So do you see any other like traps or pitfalls that people could fall into if they decide to go with
00:30:50
Speaker
white spirits or, you know, even like rum or something else they can produce quicker. Just the one which is just make sure that every everyone on your business is telling the story of what you intend to do. Yeah. Right. So that no one gets to assume that your body the vodka joint.
00:31:08
Speaker
Right. And I think it's important to the you said that you're making the you're making the the white spirits with the same mentality and reason that you're going to make your your whiskey. It's not Oh, we've got whiskey coming. So we're making some shit to make some money on the on the way. It's making the very best. You know, there's the age old, you know, get you prove yourself in small responsibilities for free or allowed big responsibilities.
00:31:33
Speaker
Right. And so like, look, if you can't be trusted to make quality stuff while you're waiting on the whiskey, why should we trust the whiskey? Yeah. If you're, if you're viewing the first two years of your business as filler content, then I don't know. I have a hard time believing that somebody who's comfortable phoning it in for two years on the thing they're selling to people is going to change that attitude all of a sudden when the whiskey arrives.
00:31:59
Speaker
So yeah, either you're the kind of person who phones shit in and you're fine with it or you're not. And so I would, I really hate it when, and it usually doesn't happen with the owner and the distiller. They usually get it, but it's usually frontline staff or a bartender somewhere where you walk in, they haven't got the whiskey yet. And they'll say some version of like, yeah, we're working on the whiskey. I mean, we got this shit right now too, you know, and I can make some good cocktails with it, but the whiskey's coming.
00:32:29
Speaker
Right? No, screw you, man. You got to, you got to promote the shit out of all the intent going into the clear spirits. And before you can talk about the whiskey that's coming. So that's one path, right? So let's flip to the sourcing side of things. The other side is Yeah, there's an obvious pitfall, which is if you're gonna source, just tell everybody. Tell them why.
00:32:59
Speaker
tell them where you're saying thing, you're working on your own stuff and make it a different brand. If the brand's really successful, then you're never going to have a hard time continuing to source it and sell it. So there's no downside. And what you're doing in the meantime is carving holes into the industry
00:33:21
Speaker
with your sourced whiskey, you know, breaking down the barriers to retail and things so that you now have all the relationships and connections. And when your, your step is finally ready, you just slide it behind and go, here's our thing. And now we make a big deal, but we already got all the doors open to it. Yeah. But you just got to be honest about it, you know, don't start and pretend like it's yours and then later have to be like, well, it wasn't ours, but now it is. Yeah.
00:33:47
Speaker
Ah, that drives me nuts. You know, like, well, aren't these guys sourced? Well, no, they, they used to be, but now they're actually making their own stuff. It's like, if I hear that one more time, it's like, you know, what I want to hear is like, are those guys sourcing things? Yeah, but that's Eleanor. This is a totally different line, right? This stuff they made. Eleanor is always sourced, right? Or like a tree yoke did it. Hey, this is red handed burden.
00:34:13
Speaker
Why? Because we stole it from Canada and Tennessee and Kentucky, right? You can hear right into this, man. The idea of the secret 11 herbs and spices
00:34:28
Speaker
sort of advertising in the market is just, I don't know, I feel like it's dead, man. People don't want that shit anymore. They want a peek behind the door. They want honesty. And I think above anything, they want someone that gives a shit that's actually making it, right? They want someone that cares. And be proud of the source stuff the same way that you would with the new make. Say, look, we didn't just pick some random place who would send us whiskey and bottle it to stay alive.
00:34:54
Speaker
Like we could have sourced from a lot of places. And when we got these barrels, we did X, Y, and Z to them before we were ready to release them. You know, I mean, once again, you have to show that you care in everything before you get to the stuff that you're making.
00:35:12
Speaker
And just because it's a source product doesn't mean it has to be a commodity product, which is what you're getting at. Right. But you can source it, but you can be very selective about what you source and then you bring it in and whack it in a barrel in Texas. Right. Now, suddenly that's not anything else that, you know, it's, it's now a unique product. Look, we poured, uh, Eleanor for the MGP reps when they came to visit, uh, earlier this year.
00:35:36
Speaker
Yeah, they stopped by they were visiting accounts and they came by to visit us And we were like hey taste this and the both reps tried it. We didn't tell them what it was So hey chase this they both tried. They're like, holy crap. This is amazing This is like deep and molasses and this is is this what Texas is making and it's like actually that's what you're making We just slap a little tickets on top of it. Yeah, that's yours. Yeah, but it sat in Texas for six months and that was all it took and
00:36:03
Speaker
to completely alter the profile, they did not recognize it at all. Not at all. They kept passing it back and forth going, can you believe this? I don't even know what this is. And now we taste it and we're like, yeah, we can see the transition from classic MGP to Texas MGP, but it's definitely a different product when Texas gets its hands on it. I mean, still made at MGP. And all it proves is MGP makes kick-ass whiskey.
00:36:32
Speaker
And it can stand up to all kinds of climates.
00:36:35
Speaker
Yeah, totally. I think there's also a way too, as long as you know what your story is, like you said from the beginning, you have to know what your story is. You're going to be able to find ways to source and be true to that story. If your story is that you're all about the local, we're on our local family farm and like Thai, you've got that thing going on. Then you're going to be able to find a way to influence NGP whiskey with your local farm. Whereas if you're all about
00:37:06
Speaker
you know, specialty specific ingredients that you can get, you're going to be able to find a way to do that too. And maybe, you know, obviously you're not going to influence what MGP put into the grass because that ain't happening. No, but, but they are starting to realize that they're not the only player in the game. So when we first, here's a funny story, a little inside baseball, when we first started working on the distillery, like back when we were shooting videos on a concrete plot,
00:37:34
Speaker
I reached out to MGP and said, Hey, we're looking at sourcing first. And we got this guy, Barry, who's still our rep. And Barry was like, Yeah, absolutely. You know, our minimum order is 50 barrels. Sweet Jesus. And how much is a barrel needs like well between 1200 and $2,000. Like, okay, well,
00:38:02
Speaker
Huh. We don't have any financial backers. Rex and I did not get a loan. We didn't get a credit card. We used Patreon and our own personal bank accounts to build this thing. And just scraping by and the generosity of
00:38:25
Speaker
of our landlord, which happened to be Roy Williams, Rex's dad, who owns the property and offered to fund building the building. And then we could work it back from him on, you know, as a landlord, paying stuff. And so we're like, Oh crap, what do we, we can't do that. So we found that there was another company called Ultra Pure Spirits, Ultra Pure.
00:38:49
Speaker
And I think they're also called signature spirits, but we need them as ultra-pervigilant. And all they do is act as a middleman for people who are willing to source and people looking for sourced stuff at smaller quantities. So their minimum barrel order was four. And so we went to them and we ordered 12 barrels of MGP bourbon.
00:39:14
Speaker
Yeah. So they're getting the buying power through their company. And then now our price went up instead of being, you know, 1500 barrel, it was 1800 a barrel, but we only had to buy 12, not 50. So that was all we could afford. So we, um, we did a few rounds with ultra pure. And then I get a call from Barry one day saying, Hey, um, you know, you guys still looking for whiskey or, you know,
00:39:42
Speaker
And I was like, yeah, Barry, we'd love to get stuff from you guys, but we can't afford 50 barrels. He's like, Oh no, no, we've, we've changed all that. This is only like eight months later, right? Oh, we've changed all that. Our new minimum order is one barrel. Wow. Oh, you know, what happened was MGP realized like for a long time, they were the only ones in the sourcing game and no one else, people were sourcing.
00:40:10
Speaker
I'm not the only player, but like the only one willing to talk about offering source whiskey to the world. Yeah. A lot of other people were sourcing, you know, undisclosed Tennessee distillery, undisclosed Kentucky distillery, right? It was, it was happening, but you had to be an insider. You had to know people and you had to buy on larger quantities. And, and then all these people started opening it up. And then, then even more importantly, a handful of pretty big crafted stories.
00:40:37
Speaker
finally started having product old enough and in a large enough quantity, they started offering to source to other craft distilleries.
Independent Bottling and Craft Community Support
00:40:46
Speaker
And all of a sudden, MGP realized, oh, we're not the only ones competing for this market anymore. We got to up our game and make ourselves competitive.
00:40:58
Speaker
So yeah, they dropped their minimum to one and we're like, all right, fine. So we've been working directly with MGP ever since with Barry. And, um, ultra peers now still regularly calls us and we're like, Hey guys, sorry. MGP sort of edged you out of that game for MGP because there's no need for me to buy it from you and I can buy it from them and get it cheaper.
00:41:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're also doing something pretty interesting with the Alliance stuff, right? That was the one thing I wanted to do more than anything else. That was my baby that I wanted desperately, which was I love independent modelers. And there's only a handful of people even doing any version of it in the US. There's a ton of people doing it in Scotland. There's people doing it in Ireland. But in the US, there was a really tiny
00:41:50
Speaker
compared to the rest of the U.S. whiskey industry was tiny. And I thought that that was a shame because we're tasting all these amazing crafty distilleries every day on the vault and most people can't get them. And so I was thinking the beauty of an independent bottle is that if you fall in love with a brand like Signatory or Dunkin Taylor or single malt or Scotch malt whiskey society or Cadenhead or Alexander Murray or you know, you name it.
00:42:21
Speaker
single cast nation. If you fall in love with single cast nation and you're a fan of single cast nation, you're going to try whatever the hell a single cast nation thought was a good idea. Right? Yeah. And that adventure might lead you to a distillery you never heard of and now you are in love with and now you go find them and their other products. That's a really cool thing, right? On the other hand,
00:42:44
Speaker
If you're already in love with a distillery and you find out that Single Cast Nation did an exclusive release of a distillery you already love, and it's something that they would never sell, and so you're not ever going to get the taste if you only do their products, then as a fan of the original distillery, you get a chance to try something really unique. So there's no losing on independent bottling. It's just an amazing story. And I really wanted to do that, and I really wanted to focus on American craft.
00:43:12
Speaker
And so we did, our first one was Wyoming. And, uh, our second one, I think was, was our second one, Balconas. Oh man, my mind's going blank. All of a sudden, iron root. Our second one was iron root. Then we did Balconas and then back to iron root. And, you know, and now we're doing, uh, we're adding in ranger Creek, tree to yoke. And, um, there's another one.
00:43:38
Speaker
The advantage you had going into that was that you had, like you said, you created a really made audience and customer base without having a distillery. Is that something that you think is opening up more to someone who is a new, like opening a new distillery? You think that smaller craft is to leave their into that? If they want to do it, absolutely. Like, look, when we reached out to Wyoming, we didn't even have a building yet.
00:44:03
Speaker
And they had never heard of us. They had no idea who we were. I mean, we had a community and an online presence. I told them like, look, we're, you know, we're legit. I promise, but they had no idea. Yeah. Oh, Jesus. Yeah. No, they had no idea that we were. And they still said, sure.
00:44:24
Speaker
Why not? Sounds like a cool idea. Right? I mean, that's, that's amazing. And I keep finding that over and over with American craft, that if you reach them and you're not an asshole and you're like, Hey, we want to do this cool thing. Most of them are like, yeah, sure. Why not? Let's try it. We'll sell you a barrel and do what you want, you know? And, and then, you know, we had to talk to them about, well, can we put your name on it? And they're like, well, you know, let's talk about what you're doing and how, and then they got a little more involved. But once we explained what we were doing, they were like,
00:44:53
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Feel free enough, right? You're, you're basically co branding with them. It's, it's the right to, to defend. No, that is reasonable. Absolutely. And we had a backup plan and they weren't willing to do it because we needed to sell the whiskey. But, uh, but then this is kind of a funny story. Uh, what actually happened was, uh, Nancy Fraley, the nose,
00:45:20
Speaker
Nancy Fairley is really famous in the American craft industry for being behind the scenes at more distilleries than you could possibly believe, helping guide their production, aging and blending and product releases. It's her palate that you taste over and over and over in a ton of distilleries.
00:45:41
Speaker
across the U.S. And she does, by the way, a class with ADI, American Stores Institute. She does a class every year on blending that they hold at Iron Route. It's a two-day class that they teach blending. And son of a bitch, go to that thing if you can at all make it before they start. It's amazing. But I met her at the blending class at Iron Route, and I realized she was the one working with Wyoming, creating the whiskey that we were looking at.
00:46:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And so I told her what we were doing and she was like, Oh, that's so cool. When you call Sam back, Sam, me, when you call Sam back, tell them you need a barrel from rack B. Yeah. Level, level four and somewhere in the range of 187 to two 43. And I was like, okay. Yes, man. Yeah. Cause we didn't get to go out and taste the barrels. They were just going to send us one. Right.
00:46:39
Speaker
So I emailed Sam, I was like, hey, I need a barrel from and I named all the stuff and he emailed me back. He's like, holy shit. Have you been cameras in here? Like what's going on? And I was like, no, I was just talking to Nancy and she told me what I needed to request. And he was like, oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. We can do that. And this whole thing goes back to the idea of what you've said right at the beginning, right? Get into the industry, get to know people. Don't be a dick.
00:47:07
Speaker
Don't be a dick. Yeah. And I mean, let's face it, if you're opening a craft distillery, you are going to be able to find something that fits your story and your marketing sort of bend. You're probably going to find that a lot easier if you're sourcing from another craft distillery rather than MGP, you know? Yeah.
Realistic Expectations in Distilling
00:47:27
Speaker
And I think we're in the era, the craft distillery numbers keep growing and people keep saying, well, there's a glut and there's about to be a crash in the craft distilling world. And I'm like, dude, do you realize how big America is? And proportionally, how few whiskey distilleries there are. And what I feel like I'm having to tell everybody is the same speech that I gave for a decade touring as an independent musician. And I would talk at colleges,
00:47:55
Speaker
to the music departments and talk about surviving as an independent musician and how do you make a career in independent music. And over and over and over, you hear people say, I thought the music industry was dead because it's all digital now and it's like, no, no, no, no. Here's what's dead. The era of rockstar is over. So if you want to be a pop star, yeah, you can give that a shot. There's always going to be pop stars because pop stars are products.
00:48:25
Speaker
Right. And they may also be amazing artists in their own right, but they're more of a product at the same time. Right. But there's still going to be an infinitesimal number of those people. So it's bad odds. Yeah. It's like having a business model of winning the lottery. Like that's, that's a bad idea. The, if you want to be rich playing music, there are much better ways to make money with a lot less work, by the way, if you want to get famous.
00:48:55
Speaker
there are much easier, faster, and simpler ways to get famous. But if you want to make music and make a decent teacher salary, like a normal working human being, you've never lived in a better time than right now. So I would say the same thing to craft distilleries. If you want to be rich, wrong business.
00:49:22
Speaker
I think at this point in time these people are figuring this out too. It's not an easy money making machine, right? If you want to be famous or have like the next Jameson or the next Nob Creek or like, let's be honest, odds are against you. It's probably never going to happen. Yeah. Right. Now, on the other hand, if you want to make the same kind of living, you could make it a normal day job, work your ass off.
00:49:50
Speaker
and be king of a local, relatively local market and community, absolutely possible. No question. No different than any other small business in the town you live in, right? If you want to be as rich as the guy who owns the corner store that you go to, or the guy who owns the one location restaurant that you go to, you know, and you know those guys, they're not coming and dropping their kids off at school in Porsches.
00:50:16
Speaker
Right. They're not dropping their kids off. The kids having a walk because they're busy opening a restaurant for the breakfast crowd, right? It's like, so if you're willing to do that, then absolutely starting a distillery, do it. Just find, don't open up in Waco across the street from Balconas. That's a bad business move. But do go in and talk to Balconas because
00:50:42
Speaker
They will help you. Yeah, from the outside in, the whisky industry looks super secretive because that for the longest time is how the marketing's been, right? Like, look at the scotch and how the sculpture's put together. It's never about opening the doors up and letting people in and seeing behind the curtains. Right. But when you get into the industry side of it,
00:51:00
Speaker
it's quite different. And yeah, the last guy I talked to the last podcast number eight with Scott, we talked about figuring out how to land yourself an apprentice apprenticeship, basically, this is what you said, right? Like, go in, make yourself available, make yourself valuable. Yeah, you know, we hired, we hired john gunsel, who turned out to be just an astounding employee, primarily because he's an astounding human being. And it was just because he just kept showing up.
00:51:30
Speaker
couldn't get rid of him. Yeah. He's a tribe member and has been for a while. He started showing up on Fridays. He started showing up all the time. He started volunteering to help us with bottling. And they started asking him that, Hey, is there anything else you guys need? And then eventually I was like, look, John, I'm gonna have to pay you because this is getting embarrassing. Like I can't just keep like, I want to be able to ask you to do things instead of like, hope you're free.
00:51:56
Speaker
And I can't do that if I'm just your volunteer and you're working way too much as a to be a volunteer. This is just we're not a charity. Like, do you want to work for us? And it's like, yeah, all right. I mean, I think the other thing that takes us whiskey has worked out really quick, too, is the idea of, you know, the
00:52:17
Speaker
the tide lifts all boats and anything you can do as your little, you know, as a little part of that, that bigger fish to promote Texas whiskey is only good for everyone. And I see that opening up.
00:52:32
Speaker
more and more as the I guess the craft versus the behemoth sort of thing grows. But have faith in that, guys. Like, if there's not that sort of community in where you are, like, why can't you be the one to start talking about it and start growing it yourself? We had this talk. We had this talk with we've been doing a series of videos where we answer owners from small questions from small business owners across the US every week.
00:52:58
Speaker
And then we've been putting that video out on YouTube on the Wizard Academy channel and, um, or on American small business too. Anyway, one of the guys was like, Hey, I work in a downtown, I have a small downtown store and I really think that this should be a community of downtown business owners. How do I get people to be a part of and build a community in downtown? And our answer was like,
00:53:22
Speaker
You should do it. Why are you asking? Like, there's not some magic trick. It sounds like you really want this thing to happen. How come you haven't already done it? Yeah. If there's not a community there right now, then what the hell are you doing? Started.
00:53:41
Speaker
Like, what are you waiting on? Yeah. So I guess I guess my point with that is that you don't have to stress about going in. It's not like you're committing espionage. You're not sneaking into this distillery to steal their secrets. And, you know, this is how it works. There's no. No, no, no. As you know, and all the distillers know, I could take I could go to Balkans. I could write down their Mashville, their source of their grain.
00:54:11
Speaker
their yeast strain, the style, the pot still, and not, and I can come back to my place and attempt to recreate it identically, cuts and all. I'm still not going to make a Balconas whiskey. No, you really don't. There's way too many variables. It doesn't work that way. Right. I mean, you can, same thing in music, you know, you can study guitarists for your whole life. You can be the biggest fan of the edge that's ever lived and have all of his gear.
00:54:41
Speaker
and playing a rock band in your town and you're still not going to sound like you too. It just doesn't work like that. Yeah. Yeah. And the beer guys figured this out years and years and years ago, right? Like there's very few, I mean, most craft are still craft breweries now. If you go in and ask them what their mash bill is and what their hot regimen is, they'll give it to you. They don't give a damn.
00:55:03
Speaker
Like go home, have at it. Yeah, yeah. And yeah. Oh, you can clone our recipe at home. Awesome, man. Bring me some in. Let me have a try. Oh, good job. I will see how that compares to what we're doing here. That's literally the attitude. You know, so it's not about being sneaky guys. It's about referring back to rule number one of don't be a dick and like honestly trying to help them out, honestly, being a brand ambassador for them with your group of friends, bringing people in to see the distillery. Yeah. And don't just ask, ask, ask, ask, you know, it's
00:55:33
Speaker
It's like, like, look, this is a thing that I always said, once again, in music, but I still say it in the story. When I get emails, I'm sure you get these. I mean, I get shit, man. 50 plus emails a week. Asking me questions or asking me for advice. Yeah. And I just can't answer them. Oh, it sucks, right? I just have. There's no way. Yeah.
Engaging with the Local Community
00:56:01
Speaker
And
00:56:01
Speaker
Sometimes the question is interesting enough that I'm like, Oh, that's an interesting question. And then I get involved in it because I think it's interesting. Most of the time it's something that I'm all I want to reply is like, have you heard of Google? Yeah. Right. Or have you heard of punctuation? Cause I'm looking at 3000 words with no page breaks. Yeah. See you later. Yeah. So I don't know now I have a whole different response when I get an email from somebody who's trying to solve a problem for me. Yeah.
00:56:32
Speaker
I read those, right? When someone says, hey, I've noticed this thing. And, you know, I was wondering if you wanted me to, I would totally be willing to handle that thing you guys mentioned you needed. Here's my information. And I'm like, interesting. Right. And so, in music, anytime I wanted to break into a local scene,
00:56:52
Speaker
I would just spend three to six months going to hear musicians, going to bars, meeting people, buying CDs, and trying to figure out what is it that the artists in this community needed that no one was doing. And then I would try to solve that problem for everybody. And that's how I got myself into the community.
00:57:11
Speaker
The awesome thing about a craft distillery or a new distillery is that it's a small business, right? And I've been thinking about this a whole lot, which means that they need everything, everything. They need a photographer. They need marketing. If someone had come to me in the last six months and said like, Hey, I love you guys and I love your whiskey. I don't know anything about production or whiskey or distilling, but I know QuickBooks and I've been an accountant for 20 years.
00:57:40
Speaker
Do you guys need help in the office? I'm coming to your house right now and I'm bringing a laptop. Yes, I need you. Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't have to be money. It can be that someone ends up paying someone, but it can also just be that, you know, I've got knowledge, you've got knowledge. Let's have a drink and chill. I mean, why not?
00:58:02
Speaker
Why not? All right, Daniel. This has been an absolute blast, man. I've got a couple of questions for you from the Patreon. So after you say goodbye, everyone else will do that, and that'll go up in the full version on Patreon. But thank you so much, man. I thoroughly appreciate it. I know how busy you are. It's always a pleasure to talk to you, man. And thanks for the time.
00:58:22
Speaker
Thank you. Yeah. I tried to stay out of your here at the event because I knew you didn't have fun. I know. I'm hanging out with you, but you know, you know what's going on. Oh, I know. Trust me, dude. I'll be back in Texas. I'll catch you again sometime. Sure. Awesome. All right. Thanks, mate. We're out. Cheers. Thanks, dude. That was perfect. Yeah, absolutely. All right. We've got some questions from the Patreons. Number one, how does it feel not being the only board man at the office now?
00:58:52
Speaker
You know the depressing thing? You know the depressing thing is I was with Rex yesterday and his hair's already growing back. I know, right? It's already like a quarter inch tall. That's kind of lost the effect. What the hell?
00:59:08
Speaker
Ah, Jesus. You just can't lose with that hair. It's so glorious. It just won't give up. And it doesn't matter how ridiculous it is what you do to him. He just steers into it. Like it'd be nice to see him be a little bit bashful just for a little while. You know, the whole point of this is for us to be it. Yeah. Rex has no shame bone.
00:59:27
Speaker
Yeah. For other startup businesses, what's an example of a good tactic to weather this pandemic? I think we kind of touched on that. Yeah, I think we hit as much as I could possibly give on that. And it's just keep doing all the shit that you should have been doing the whole time. Find a way to talk to your people.
00:59:45
Speaker
Yeah. And dude, like see it as a silver lining, man. Like I know it sucks. It's going to suck, but there's whatever it happens to be. Maybe, maybe you can't produce what you were producing. Maybe you can't sell the people you were selling, but whatever that means is that there's less strain on your business somewhere, right? The one thing I would say economically, but yeah, I would add, I would add this, and this is real. No matter how big your company or how long you've had your company, everybody,
01:00:14
Speaker
undervalues the their assets. And what I mean is, when you're stuck with my primary income, our primary business model is x, and that's no longer viable. If the wrong thing to do is try to struggle to figure out how to shoehorn x into the current environment in a half assed way. Yeah, the right thing to do is say, okay,
01:00:42
Speaker
Forget the product we think we make. What equipment do we have? What resources do we have? What infrastructure do we have? What people do we have? And given that, what could we do with all of this that would work? What is something we could do with all these existing assets? Whether or not it meets our original plan, doesn't matter. But start looking at all the components and humans and space that you have
01:01:11
Speaker
and viewing it as assets and come to a conclusion instead of forcing everything to fit the product conclusion. And inevitably what you'll find is you have way more value than you realized if the stuff you have and the people you have are capable far more than you were asking them to do originally. And that's a really good way to pivot into
01:01:33
Speaker
I mean, nowadays they call it pivoting, I guess, but you start with one business model, realize the business model is not working, totally changed the business model mid flow based on what assets you currently have. And let's face it, the entire landscape's changed. It's what might've been a slow change or what might've been, you just had the wool over your eyes and you couldn't see what was going on. People are being forced to look at it, right? So yeah.
01:02:03
Speaker
A few years ago, Daniel and Tom took three attempts to swing a bourbon drinker to a Scotch drinker. I remember that video, which was hilarious. What would you change? Would you change the choices of Scotch you selected now? I don't even remember what they were. I haven't seen that video since we shot it.
01:02:32
Speaker
I think that might've been the first video I ever actually watched of you. That was really early on, wasn't it? Oh, it was so early on. That was like the first year of the whiskey school. Yeah. That was probably four plus years ago. It would be, man. Yeah. Cause I started watching you before I, way before I started the channel. Yeah. I think I started watching you when you had like 3000 subscribers or something. Oh yeah. That was definitely four plus years ago. Yeah. Um, well, what would you pick right now, man?
01:03:02
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I don't know what I would pick, but yes, absolutely. It would be different from what I picked at the time because now I've tasted so many damn whiskeys that I have a whole other list in my head of things that I think are like gateways to other categories. Now. And probably still be space side focused. Right.
01:03:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but I Don't know it depends There's been some really amazing unpeated muna, you know the buna haban mostly unpeated Or you know the borglari unpeated even though they're multi and musty and then I have discovered something that caught me totally by surprise Over and over and over. I have these people who hate scotch but love octomor and
01:03:57
Speaker
I was just going to say, sometimes you just need to throw a hammer at the situation. I have no idea how that's possible, but Chrissy Martin is one of them. Will Dabba-Burden does not like Scotch at all, is devoted to bourbon, but she likes octomor. And that makes no sense to me, but sure, why not?
01:04:16
Speaker
Well, I think sometimes if you, if you're, if you're in love with bourbon and then someone gets you to try scotch, you're constantly trying to turn it into bourbon in your head, right? You're constantly like this is whiskey and it should taste like, you know, what it is that I enjoy. But if you throw something completely out of left field at them, like there's no way that you can get it completed. Jesse, I'm stealing that comparison and I'm not even, I'm not even going to give you any credit. That's fine. I'll know. I'll know, Daniel. Yeah.
01:04:45
Speaker
That's a brilliant thought. And I have never it's never occurred to me before that if you part of the frustration of not liking something is when you expect it to be something other than what it is or that or was not even so much that you expect it to be. It's just that your head is so defined of this. Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, like, yeah, and it's close enough. It's close enough that sort of is like that. But not in any of the ways that you like.
01:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Whereas octomores so completely different, your brain doesn't even go, this is not bourbon. It goes, what the hell is that? Yeah. So you can kind of reset. Yeah. I love that idea. I love steak. I'm all about porterhouse. Try the T-bone. Eh, it's not, it's not porterhouse, but then how about custard pudding? Do you like custard pudding? Yeah. Yeah. All right.
01:05:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah, there had to be a question about stills. What brand still are you going with? And I talked to Deb about this, so I think you don't even answer to that, do you? We do not have an answer. We are still looking at stills and we're still going to vote on it. Any, the biggest, this is the last one, mate, so we can get out of here soon. The biggest unforeseen surprise in building or planning the distillery and how did you get around it? Huh.
01:06:11
Speaker
I don't know the answer to that question. There were not a lot of surprises. That's because you got a lawyer. That's how my brain works. I'm definitely a highly organized planner. And I try, I mean, my brain goes all different directions. So there were a lot of things that didn't work out like I thought, but nothing that was a complete surprise.
01:06:38
Speaker
Yeah, right. The one thing I would say is always get more space than you think you would ever possibly need because you'll fill it faster than you could possibly imagine. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a space that in your mind, you're like, there's no way we could use in like three weeks is like bumping into things and trying to shift equipment. Yeah. Yeah. Space, lots of space. I mean, to be fair, the very fact that you've got a distillery has to be a surprise to you.
01:07:07
Speaker
Yeah, no, no, it definitely is. All right, man. Thanks a bunch, dude. I appreciate it. Yeah, man.
01:07:15
Speaker
So that was pretty freakin' cool. It's always a pleasure to hang out and talk with Daniel, but it's great to be able to chill and talk shop with him as well. If by some miracle you've never seen the Whiskey Tribe or the Whiskey Vault on YouTube, do yourself a favor, jump on over there right now, check it out. Even if you're not 100% into their content for the content's sake, trust me, there's a whole lot you can learn from them from a marketing and messaging point of view if you're thinking of opening your own distillery.
01:07:43
Speaker
Patreons, don't forget to jump on over to the Patreon page and grab the whole video. I'm putting the video of all of this up live for you, which includes the Q&A session at the end. Daniel was pretty generous with that, and we talked through a few things that you guys asked. So make the most of it and don't miss out. This podcast was also brought to you by Adventures in Homebrewing. Visit homebrewing.org slash CTC for all your beer, wine, and spirits, ingredients,
01:08:09
Speaker
and get free shipping in the lower 48. All right, guys, I'm out of here. Keep on chasing the craft. See ya.