Cragabus

SPEAKER_05 0:09

Welcome to the Whiskey Chasers, where we talk about our passion for whiskey and its history, either amongst ourselves or while interviewing distilleries. All while enjoying a glass. I'm Steve. I'm Nick. And I'm Chris. Please enjoy responsibly while enjoying this week's episode of The Whiskey Chasers.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Have you guys ever had rat rays?

SPEAKER_03 0:32

I I I've heard of it. I may have had some at some point, but I don't really recall.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

They have a few different offerings, but their red rap re rap-ri I have some of it will have to crack that open at some point. It's like one of the best English blends out there, I think. It's not super like strong, strong smoke, but it's just good. It's just good.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

I got a lot of things I want to say. It looks like white wine. It does. It reminds me of a few different things.

SPEAKER_03 0:57

Exclusively crafted for Von Foss by Stuart Lang. Vom Foss. V-O-M. Newer F.

SPEAKER_05 1:04

I did uh I did try to figure out how to maybe start a franchise of this thing because it's around in the US now. So we'll talk a little bit about that. They're trying to do their thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:14

They left Kansas City, apparently. Or they moved out of the plaza. Which uh that was cool. That was a cool little shop.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

As I just groaned to pick up my lighter making some dead noises and groan.

SPEAKER_05 1:25

That's what it is. So before we get too far in here, we have a new feature on our podcast. Yes. What is that? So yeah. So for anybody listening right now, if you go into your app, your podcasting app, the very first line of the show notes says, send me a text, and you can text us any questions, comments, concerns, or criticisms you may have. If you're if they're positive, go ahead and rate and review. If they're negative, just text us.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

Actually, can we give you an address to mail that to you?

SPEAKER_05 2:00

Uh we cannot respond to this text. It's kind of like an inbox only sort of deal. But we'll respond.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

They'll fall on deaf ears.

SPEAKER_05 2:07

We'll respond on the show. And if you're uh if you're a subscriber, we'll for sure answer your questions or comments on the air. If you're not, then if we have time, we will.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

If you're not a subscriber, this is a good opportunity to become one.

SPEAKER_02 2:20

If you want a bitch moaner and complain, you have to be a subscriber.

SPEAKER_04 2:23

We have a pay-to-bitch model here. It's almost like a swear jar. In order to have a voice, you need to pay.

SPEAKER_05 2:28

Yeah, and so we'll start uh offering up some questions and stuff. Because we we have been told that we don't talk to you guys enough, uh, or like engage with our audience. We we talk to each other quite a bit. We do talk to each other quite a bit. So this is a way we can do it. And it was a free thing that we could do through Buzz Sprout. It was a cool, it was like a cool new feature that they have. So it's one place to send us a message, it's nice and easy. It just it's just a text. So there you go.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Well, when you're starting off, you don't know what your audience is. You don't even have one, so yeah, that's good. That's a sign that we have an audience.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

We do have an audience, we do have an audience, and we also have a guest on the podcast, a recurring guest. Yes, we have Ryan back on uh for our uh Scotch series. Ryan's a big scotch guy, and uh pipes, everyone that is enjoying and partaking in a pipe should be a fun series to try to pair pipe tobacco with, too.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yeah, and we're smoking a good one.

SPEAKER_04 3:28

What are what are you smoking?

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Fresh tin. Well, I should say an old tin that was freshly popped of gaslight by GLPs.

SPEAKER_04 3:37

Now, every time I hear gaslight, I think of gaslighting someone. Is that what this you should think about old England instead?

SPEAKER_05 3:44

Think about the old gaslights cobblestones, England, dreary weather, like iron gas lights.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

That makes way more sense. Uh operated by gas and their lights. Yeah, that is not like the name of us at all.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

Yeah, the usage of the of the term in that way actually comes from a movie. Have you seen Gaslight the movies?

SPEAKER_02 4:03

I haven't. No, I know the term, but I didn't know it came from a movie. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Yeah, there's like an old movie from you know the I don't know, 30s, 40s, something like that, uh, where a woman becomes concerned that her husband is a murderer, I believe. And so she's she's you know, afraid, becoming afraid of him in the situation, and he's like reassuring her that everything's fine and stuff like that. Meanwhile, suspicious things are happening and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

So, because of that movie called Gaslight, they see I heard I heard the term came from way back in the day when there were gaslights, what husbands would do to cause hysteria in women, where they would turn the light down, and then the wife would come in and say, Did you turn the light down? And the husband would say, No, you did that.

SPEAKER_05 4:57

So it's all just a silly prank? Yeah, well, it started with a prank. It was it's it's actually so bored.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

It's a form, it's a form of abuse, and that's why people use it now. That term gaslight, it's a form of abuse, they say, but it's basically to make your partner, significant other, whoever it is, feel like they're going crazy to a point where they become hysterical or you know, and you can put them in the nut house, basically. So it was a way of of abusing somebody, I guess. That's why they use that term gaslight. Now, so you're gaslighting me, you mean you're tricking me, you're you're telling me, hey, you're going crazy. You're going crazy. You know what I mean? But so I don't know if the term comes from the movie or if the movie came from the term and and utilized the term to make the movie, and then it became popular and became even more popular. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, maybe that term is very popular right now.

SPEAKER_04 5:44

I appreciate how it's a popular term. It's it's not something that you should be doing or saying. Like it's not like a good thing, but it's a very popular thing to do.

SPEAKER_05 5:55

Not to do, or talk about other people doing to accuse people of.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

It is that is mischievous though, like to like unlock the door, then oh, did you uh unlock the door? No, you you did that. No, I don't know. The door was, yeah. It's never been locked. You never locked it. What do you mean? Oh no, I locked it. No, you didn't. You know what I mean? Like stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. What are we drinking today?

SPEAKER_04 6:16

Oh, uh, we're smoking gaslight, right? And we're drinking uh cragabus. No, we're not. Gaslight. That was a good one. I literally sat there and was like, wait, I poured myself this. Is no one else drinking this too? What did I pour?

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Honestly, I'm a little concerned because Steve, you were really good at that. No, you were practice. You've had practice, that face, like you've had some practice doing that. That that was the definition of it.

SPEAKER_04 6:47

That was good. All right.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

So Cragabus. That was fantastic. Thank you. I mean, you got all three of us.

SPEAKER_03 6:53

We all just sat there like, oh.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

We were like, well, I thought for sure, are we not? Could have sworn the bottle sitting right in front of me, and I still questioned it.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

I was like, wait, what?

SPEAKER_04 7:05

A serious face can do a lot.

unknown 7:07

Damn.

SPEAKER_04 7:08

Yeah, so Cragabus. Which Ryan brought this next, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 7:13

So you have a story about this bottle.

SPEAKER_03 7:15

It's a big story. I do. Yeah. Okay, so this was my recommendation. So back in the day, like I don't know, I moved to Columbus in 2016. So 2014, 2015. I was living in Kansas City, and on the plaza they had a store called Vom Foss, B-O-M, F-A-S-S. And they had all kinds of stuff that is stored in casks. So that's the that's kind of their gimmick or whatever. So they got all kinds of like balsamic vinegars and and olive oils and all these different things, uh, many different flavors of those. Um, but they also have liquors, and so they had like absinthe and they had a variety of different things. Well, they had scotches as well. So one day I went in and I I said, I want to taste the pediest, smokiest thing you've got. And so they would give you like not like a shot, but like in a little shot glass, they give you a little taste. So you could have like a couple of sips and sample whatever you're whatever it was. So so the guy's like, all right, here it is. He brings it out. I take, I take it back, and it it I I just about fell on the floor. It was like it was like pipe juice, it was so potent, it was overpowering.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

Like melted your mind.

SPEAKER_03 8:51

Oh yeah, oh yeah. It was like uh I I've described it in different ways, but like it's like you go out and you're fishing for a bluegill and you get jaws instead. Like it was, it was just like so much so much more powerful than what I ever imagined a scotch could be. So yeah, after uh I picked myself up back up off the floor. This has kind of gone down in my in my memory as like a legendary scotch. Well, they handed out these little business card advertisements for the for the different things that they offered. And so I got this card, Cragabus, and I've cut I'm starting to question myself. I don't know. I but I I've always associated that card with the scotch that I tasted. And for a long time I never questioned it. I'm like, Cragabus, that's the thing that I that I had that like blew me away. And so when I when I joined the club, I found you guys were scotch lovers. I'm like, oh, have you heard of this? This legendary thing. And nobody had. And so I don't know, a year and a half went by, and and finally I I was like, hey, do you guys want to go in on a bottle of this? Because it's like $130. And I was, I mean, I'll never, I'll I'll probably never do that on my own, you know. So Nick and Chris said, yeah, let's do it. Because I hyped it up to them too. So I I went to the Vom Foss website. I don't know of any other place that sells it, it's not in stores in uh in liquor stores. Uh so I ordered it from their website and it came and here it is, and I have steadfastly resisted opening it and trying it until this moment. So we're all gonna try it together and we're gonna see if my memory was was right or not. Or as Nick kind of suggested before, has has maybe more experience with Scotch changed the way I experience this now. But I I I don't remember the first time I had Lafroy, but I'm I'm like 99% sure I had it before before this because I would not have even known to ask for peaty smoky scotch unless I already knew I liked PD Smoky Scotch. I I I had to have had LaFroy at some point. I just don't really have a good memory of it. Probably because I wouldn't have I may have bought like one bottle before leaving Kansas City, but at the time that was out of my price range.

SPEAKER_05 11:33

So you probably had had PD scotch before this.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

Oh yes, I definitely would have had.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Yeah, and you were looking for more and more and more you got this. You almost bid off more and you could chew, kind of a thing. Oh, it was. And now you want to re recreate that memory.

SPEAKER_03 11:48

Oh yeah, it was just that really potent pipe juice. Like, I can't believe this is for consumption. You know, this is like I uh yeah, it feels like communion right now.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

We haven't nobody has sipped this yet.

SPEAKER_03 12:01

It was like senior glass being drop-kicked across the room.

SPEAKER_05 12:04

Right, and according to the notes on this, like on their little tag, that this scotch is the epitome of Isla, a blend exclusively crafted for Von Foss by Stuart Lang. Young LaFroig gives the typical Pete Punch of the Island, whereas mature peats from cola lay, cola la? Cola? I like cola la. I don't know if that's it, but it sounds great. Let's go with that one. Cola? Yeah. Balmor and Ardbeg distillery provide smoothness and body. The cherry on top is a little dash of the extremely rare Port Ellen distillery, adding a great deal of complexity.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

So they're just mixing scotches together and then putting it in a putting it in a cask, and then okay.

SPEAKER_05 12:48

Now we have all smelled this now. It's opened up. Okay. Can you smell it again? Because when I first poured it, I didn't smell anything. And now it's cheatiness now. I thought this was straight grape juice. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:00

I thought apple juice. Yeah, it's it smelled like uh like Mott's apple juice.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

It looks like a the the the white grape juice or a or a white wine. But as it's sad here, it's opened up and I can.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

I can smell it.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yeah, you can smell the. You can really smell it now, but not when we first poured it, which is weird.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

I could I really couldn't smell anything when I first poured it. Now it's really like I can really smell it. The color is so light. I mean, that's another thing that made me a little bit worried when it finally came. I was like, shoot, that is way too light to be the Petey Smoky Terror of the Deep.

SPEAKER_02 13:36

Almost the color of vinegar.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

Like yeah, yeah, it's like lighter. I mean, Pete Monster is light, but this is lighter than Pete Monster. Can it actually be?

SPEAKER_02 13:46

I think it might be because I'm getting way more off the nose now than I was.

SPEAKER_05 13:49

It's mostly young LaFroig. So that's it's like 80% young LaFroig. So that's the time.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

I can't wait anymore. I'm gonna try it.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

Okay, let's here we go. Cheers.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

It's mostly in the back end. It's peeny. Oh, and then there's a third phase. There it is. There it is. Yeah, yeah, it sneaks up at the end. It really creeps up on you. Yeah, it's really good.

SPEAKER_03 14:11

Praise God. I thought I was like afraid I was gonna I hype this up and then it would be like lame.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

It's got a very long finish, almost irony at the end.

SPEAKER_05 14:21

Yeah, it's like uh it's like you're lighting a fire, and the very end is the smoke coming out of the chimney.

SPEAKER_03 14:25

Like it's just coming back up from the creep creosote and feel vindicated, but but I don't feel like I've got jaws on the end of my line.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

It's kind of sulf sulfuridic, like match heads, a little bit, like like like a match head, like sulfur match heads in a good way, like when you light up a pipe, but you take a whiff of the match, but you know, as you're lighting it, yeah, yeah. Oh, it's good, it's got a lot of different layers. It has a ton of layers, ton of things going on.

SPEAKER_03 14:53

Yes, I'm so happy.

SPEAKER_04 14:55

Now, this is privately like blended just for them kind of thing.

SPEAKER_05 15:02

There are multiple locations. They specialize in things in casks. That's their that's kind of their motto. If it's in a cask, we got it. You guys got hot dogs? Yeah, maybe open the cask. I don't know if you guys have any of them down here or not. There used to be a place up in Delaware called Olivina's, and it was an olive oil restaurant. Like that. You walked in, there was barrels of olive oil of different flavors along the side, and then they served like lunches and stuff in there. They kind of became like a small, they sold like charcuterie boards. It comes out of a cask, like a deli. Yeah, like a like a deli corda. Um, but you could go in there and you would bottle your own olive oil, and you can mix these different kinds if you wanted to, and everything. And it was this like really fancy, super expensive, nonsensical place. So if you're in olive oil, but yeah, yeah, if you're in olive oil, and like if you are somebody that like dips your bread in olive oil for like the like that kind of thing, it's it's a cool place. There's people that are in olive oil. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Oh, the third taste is even better than the first.

SPEAKER_05 16:06

It gets better as it goes. So but so there's a few of those places around. I think there are other ones around here, not that one, but other brands. So that's mainly what they're doing. If you're looking to franchise, they're trying to do more. So, but yeah, but they're they have these olive oils and spirits. So they have this, they have some vodka, they have some gin, they have some different things.

SPEAKER_04 16:28

The reason the reason I ask is well, we're we'll get a picture out there of the bottle, but it very much looks like someone at home found an empty bottle. Yes, they created the blend themselves and bottled it, and then wrote on the front with like a white, like a white marker pen.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

That's it. And I accidentally rubbed some of the water. Yeah, there's no label, it's just uh white marker pen.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

It looks like a some sort of high-end, you know, I wouldn't say olive oil bottle, brandy bottle almost.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Yeah, because they uh it has kind of shape. It's probably it's in the cask until they put it in the bottle. They just have like blank bottles.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

So does it come in random bottles? That would be hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Like random shapes, depending you there are three sizes, and depending on what the size is, your bottle shape is different. You get a blanton's, and there's a little jockey riding a horse on the top of one.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

They just crudely like knock the horse off the top and write some with some white marker on it. Cragabus. Not blantons, special edition cragabus. Yeah. Cragabus, flantin's editions. You ever been in the mood for blames and thought, hell no, I want a scotch. We got the bottle for you.

SPEAKER_03 17:44

It's a pretty bottle though. I'm gonna use that as a decanter when it's gone.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

It's it's like uh it's simple, it's not like too ornate, but it's got a nice shape to it.

SPEAKER_04 17:53

Man, they've gotta be making a ton of money off of this because there is nothing to the bottle. There it's just a plain Jane. We found it downstairs kind of bottle. It was empty, we washed it out, and then we wrote on it, and that's your bottle.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

I'm really enjoying it. I I it's if anybody's thinking, like, oh, is this like too like like you were describing it? I don't think it is. But that doesn't mean it's not weighty. It's weighty in Scotch, but it's it's really, really good. Uh, it's not the strongest thing I've tried. I think that's the strongest thing I've tried. Well, we're gonna have one later. Yeah. But it it's very much up there, and it's very Lafroy with some fine nuances. How young are we talking?

SPEAKER_04 18:32

It doesn't say it just says young Lafroig. The reason I ask is I mean, most scotches that we've had that are young, like under geez, even 10 years, like 10 and 12 for me is a is a bit young. Like that's it's not gonna be full flavored. Right.

SPEAKER_05 18:48

It's gonna be more to be called Scotch, it has to be three years old.

SPEAKER_04 18:53

Right.

SPEAKER_05 18:53

So probably somewhere between three and ten.

SPEAKER_04 18:57

It's more like um probably three and seven. Someone described it this way to me, their their experience of Scotch. It it reminds them of band-aids. Yeah, I could say that iodine, and that's what a young Scotch reminds me of, is more of that in the uh forward coming off, and you're like, that's weird. This is not that though. This doesn't have that aspect really being pulled out of it, that flavor for me at least. Yeah, which is weird because if we're dealing with 80% young LaFroygan there, how young are we going?

SPEAKER_05 19:30

It is like it's still very fruity, yeah. Like it's so it like the stone the lighter fruit, yeah, yeah. Like like apricot, like an apricot, like a stone fruit, yeah, like a stone fruit.

SPEAKER_04 19:41

No one knows what a stone fruit is.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

I think this is very oh, I didn't know what a bramble berry was. It's pairing super exactly like it's very good with this gaslight.

SPEAKER_04 19:49

Yeah. So there was another episode that we did, uh, I think it was the Canadian whiskey series. That I asked you guys a question about smoking pipes and drinking at the same time, and which one you focus on. Since this one is so light, this scotch is so light. Like, is there one you focus on over the other?

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Like it's I think I'm focusing on the marriage between the two. Okay. On this one. And then sometimes I'll have just the scotch and I'll take the uh rest on the pipe, and then I'll smoke the pipe a little bit more, and then go back to the scotch the way it's playing with each other, kind of hide and seek a little bit, and then also like directly with each other. So I'm doing different things where I'm smoking and drinking and drinking and smoking.

SPEAKER_04 20:33

Now, what you guys are smoking, is it more dark in flavor? Would you describe it?

SPEAKER_02 20:37

It's a pretty dark English, yeah. It's a pretty gaslight's pretty. I don't know what the uh it's heavy latichea, right? Yeah, I don't know what the mixtures are, but it's it's heavy latichea. It's also got age on it. And it's it's just perfect for a cold night. Like a cold, wet, like English type of and like almost like an English spring. So it's not like winter. I don't want to don't want to say winter, it's almost like a spring with that cold, wet cobblestone, a gas light, you know, lantern kind of feel. It's a London night.

SPEAKER_05 21:10

Yeah, it that's what it is. And like I feel like I should be reading Sherlock Holmes right now. Like it's it's just that really old school, old English kind of feel.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

Yeah, old shoe leather and creosote and uh and on all that good smoky fire, fireside smoke kind of yeah, it's great, and it's pairing really well with this, which I wasn't sure if it would, because you know you were saying that this was so smoky, but I think the fact that it's not like over the top, it's playing well with each other.

SPEAKER_05 21:42

The the back end of this, the middle middle back of this is super peaty, yeah, and then the smoke comes at the very end. Like I said, you're almost exhaling smoke at the end.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

You don't taste it going down, but you taste it just the it's it's that smell when the fire goes out. Yeah. At the end, which is like, you know, that super if you ever woken up in the morning uh when you're camping and the fire went out over the night and you smell that, that's that that's what that is. And that's what I try to describe with certain pipe tobaccos too, with that when they're English like that. It's that really, really, really, really like wet smoke.

SPEAKER_05 22:18

So we've talked about peat a few times on here. And this time, because I have basically no information about this bottle. This very much feels like a homemade kind of like there's no storyline. This is moonshine for supposed to be really peaty. So I wanted to do some research on Pete. And we've never really done a deep dive on Pete, and I know that because we're incredibly wrong.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

Are we on what it is?

SPEAKER_03 22:46

Whoops. We didn't say we were authorities, we said we were connoisseurs. Right.

SPEAKER_05 22:52

You mean when we were like that the dirt or whatever that we we've always talked about peat as if it's like a moss, and you would go out and get the moss and you're burning moss. Yeah, and that's I thought it was like a big chunk of dirt that you're closer to.

SPEAKER_03 23:07

Like a log of inches of dirt and six inches of moss.

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Because I've seen them like cold, like there's like a little like right angle tool that they stick down in the ground and then they throw it in exactly.

SPEAKER_05 23:18

Yeah, so the top layer that's all the grass is just replanted, like you set it off to the side. This is all done in bogs, so it's all just in water, and there are five bogs designated for whiskey in Scotland.

SPEAKER_04 23:34

So sorry, quick question Is peat uh more like a plant that they're like an agricultural thing?

SPEAKER_05 23:41

It's compressed vegetation, okay. So it's not grown. I don't know if there's something they like planted in the bogs and then there's no there's no planting.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

There's like a mixture of soil and grass and and all sorts of other stuff. It happens naturally, right?

SPEAKER_05 23:56

So the top layer of just grass, you like pluck it off and set it to the side. Then you have three more layers that you're just digging down into the dirt. Three more layers, three layers of like how deep is this ish feet each.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Yeah, I remember seeing like the when I saw them do it, it was like a tool, like a pole stole digger almost, but it's a right angle, and it sticks into the ground and then you pull it to the room.

SPEAKER_05 24:20

It's almost like a log. Yeah, it's like a two-foot log.

SPEAKER_02 24:23

Yeah, yeah, because the soil is so compressed, it comes out solid. And it can't like in those squares that it comes out the way that they do it. And they just go to the next row, next row. It's like a a layer.

SPEAKER_05 24:32

So there's three layers down, so like six feet basically down. The top layer is what's used for whiskey because that's the most moist, it's the stuff that's gonna make the most smoke. Yeah, and so that's so that top so wet, it's so wet you can't dry it out. And so, because of that, they'll let it sit for you, still dry it for like a year, but then after that, you can use it. So it's very much like wood. If you cut down a tree, you really can't use the wood for like a year-ish.

SPEAKER_04 25:01

You can, it just doesn't work very well. It just doesn't work right, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 25:05

The the third layer is almost like coal at the end of it. By the time you set it out and dry it for a year, that's what people use to heat their houses over there because it's so dark and so compacted, it's almost like a coal on that third layer down, and it's flammable because it's like it's flammable in a way like manure is flammable.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 25:28

Yeah, because it's still vegetation, it's a lot of it's all plant stuff that's packed up into the dirt. So that's all down there. Like I said, there's only five bogs in the whole country of Scotland that are used for whiskey production, and one of them, the most famous one being Anila.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

And so my question has always been well, my question's always been, how have they not run out? Because it's not something you can plant. That's the thing.

SPEAKER_05 25:53

So naturally, because this is only a natural product, is it the rain fills it in and remakes it? One millimeter is added to a to a bug per year. That's it. An extra layer of how they not run out because they've been using peat forever. And here's the thing though, with whiskey production, we use less than that. So, yeah, because of the size of these places, and I and I guess the amount that's used, there is more peat being created than's being used. So now that they don't use it to heat homes, it's probably caught up. Okay, it's not really being used to heat homes anymore.

SPEAKER_04 26:28

So, how how much how much peat does a uh distillery go through in one process?

SPEAKER_05 26:35

It grows, like I said, it's kind of it's a real smoky kind of thing. It's probably similar to like wood pellets we use in smokers where they they burn slowly and it's concentrated. Yeah, it's very dense, and so that it's really concentrated.

SPEAKER_02 26:52

Probably able to stretch it really far with a little bit because they can use it in small doses or concentrated amounts to really extract the most essence out of it and spread it out throughout the that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 27:02

How did they come up with this? Was it like by mistake? Did they like they used to heat heat the homes with this? So they're like, oh, we can't do anything with the top layer, let's just throw it in with the to try to dry out the mold and see what happens.

SPEAKER_05 27:16

They probably used it and it was real smoky.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Yeah, and then it was a way of drying out because they used it already in homes, and they just used that to dry it out, and then it imparted flavor and they go, Oh, we like this. Yeah, and it was probably I mean, it's free, it's cheap, you know what I mean? It's so it's probably something that they were cutting cost at first, but then they're like, Oh, no, no, now we have money, we should try it the other way. Oh, this sucks.

SPEAKER_05 27:35

And actually, go back to the peak. Yeah, if you go to, I think it's Lafroy, you can actually go to their blog and like dig some and like do it as part of like the tour. They'll they have like a blog tour. That sounds like a blast. That's exactly yeah. For us, this is a super fun day, and they're getting I always feel that way about like pick your own anything, apples or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

Like growing up, like with my grandparents on farms and stuff, it's sort of like that's that's a chore. Yeah, you're doing that for fun. What do you what are you talking about?

SPEAKER_05 28:09

This isn't a fun experience. This is work, yeah. My my first job off of a family farm was on a strawberry farm near my house, and my dad would drop me off there on the way to work, and he got he worked at a factory, so he went in at like 6 a.m.

SPEAKER_03 28:24

So, like, I'll be back in 10 hours.

SPEAKER_05 28:27

So, like at five, he'd drop me off, he dropped me off at like five, and he had a truck, so we'd take my bike, and then I'd ride my bike home when I was done. It was like a five-mile bike ride, which isn't that bad, and so on a bicycle, especially when you're young like that. And I got paid 50 cents a court, and all the strawberries you could be paying, and that was the thing. The start of the summer, I made bank. I put my head down, I had my little cassette player headphones in, and just and I just worked. But by the end of the summer, you get to know the other kids you're with, and now we're having strawberry fights with the bad strawberries and eating a bunch of them. So by the end of the summer, I wasn't making any money, just goofing off. Yeah, because I was like 14 or something, you know, I wasn't that old. And then the next summer I I hoed the fields and then I got paid an hourly rate, and then they watched you 50 cents an hour? It was it was five bucks, five bucks an hour. Yeah, I don't know why I remember that, but I do they hoed you out, huh? Hoed me out, yeah. And so, and that that strawberry farm is still there, but we would do that, but then there was other fields designated for the pick your own for people that wanted to come and and pick them and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 29:38

You always did pick your own strawberry while we're on this little tangent. Yeah, what what was little Steve listening to in that tape deck?

SPEAKER_05 29:46

It was it was country for the most part. Our little town taco rock, Alan Jackson. What are we talking about? Yeah, yeah, a lot of Jackson. I was listening to Current Country at the time, which is like 2004, three. Current for the town or current to John Michael Montgomery. Yeah, John Michael Montgomery. A lot of uh I was a big fan of the case. Oh, I knew he was coming. Yeah, so but in our little town, there was a there was a country radio station, and they had a a five at five thing where you would call in and say what song you wanted, and they would play the top five requests. But here's the thing nobody called in, and I know this because I requested songs that there is not another soul that would have ever requested, and it was like number three. So, like I I know that they were making it up, but it was a way for me to get the song to play and then for me to record it off the radio, yeah. And I remember doing a cassette, and then I'd have my little mixtape cassette.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

Just crazy. Can you remember that when you go into Walmart or something and you could buy VHS, cassette, like all that stuff? I mean, that is a way long time ago now.

SPEAKER_05 30:57

My grandma passed away at the end of last year, and so we we had her auction a few a few weeks ago, and when we did the auction, there was these boxes out there of her VHS tapes and all that, and there was a box of just homemade VHS tapes, stuff that you record off the TV. That box went for like 30 or 40 bucks. People really want them because they want the commercials.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 31:22

Yeah, because they want to see what was on the TV at the time, and so and a lot of and a lot of people recorded like the the most important things. So there's a guy on TikTok I watch sometimes that does this. He just plays VHS tapes that he's gotten from garage sales and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 31:40

Dude, I love that. There's something about that nostalgia. Yeah, it's like the previews were the best. You know, when that guy would go in there in a world, you know what I mean? Like they don't make previews like that anymore. That was great. What happened to that guy? You know what I mean? This summer, they're gonna find out. Yeah, he died, that's why HS died. And that's it, yeah. That's the end of those previews. That was the end of the thing.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Oh, it was a good time, man. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

It was something about it. And you see, like the the little pops and you know, little things. And I had a VHS, I had a solid DHS collection and VHS player, even when like this was the time with everybody was transitioning to DVDs, and so everybody was getting rid of their VHS stuff. I held on to my set, and I actually like got a really nice VHS player and all this stuff, and I was like, I'm gonna hold on to this. This is gonna be great. I loved it, and I got rid of it like an idiot. Like, I sh I wish I had kept it because I would, I would. There's something about like I still use that old 64, same thing. Something about it, and but now it's gone.

SPEAKER_03 32:41

Uh I still have a I still have a VCR in my base. Do you? Oh yeah, yeah. I have a V Spark DVD combo.

SPEAKER_05 32:48

Oh, yeah, that was a big thing, the combo. And like I had one before and it went out, and so I had to buy another one. And like the only place you can buy them is like good goodwill.

SPEAKER_02 32:58

Oh yeah, the old tube with the tube TVs, and then they would actually have it built in. I remember having those VHS and DVD in the tube TV. We used to live in the life.

SPEAKER_05 33:09

The VHS player doesn't work anymore. The TV still does, but the VHS doesn't. But I went and bought one like two or three years ago, and they've gotten really expensive because they're retro. Yeah, they're retro and nobody has them anymore.

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Like the same thing within 64, you know, when Xbox and stuff came out. I remember I was selling like Zelda and Mario, like 64, for like I was like trading them in for like four bucks. Those things are like a hundred and something dollars now, which luckily I still have them. Like I've I bought them back before, you know. But can you imagine like four bucks, and now they're like 200, 200 and something dollars a piece.

SPEAKER_05 33:45

Something I learned about this when I was looking at the peat stuff. Yeah, there's only like I said, there's only the five bugs, and they're spread out around the country of Scotland there. And there is a flavor difference between the bugs. So pretty much all Scotch uses peat for their stuff, but it's not but it's at varying levels, but they haven't really experimented with mixing the peats, like that's something that hasn't really been done yet. Is that like an unwritten rule? I guess so. I mean, it's just the when I was looking this up, like I watched a few different videos trying to read and like two or three different people mentioned that they they've done some they've done some studies and there is some differences, but nobody's really done much with it. And I think it's probably because the differences are pretty minimal. But if you did some combining of those, like that could be kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_03 34:41

Do the distilleries kind of have a proprietary so there is some of that, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 34:47

Like like Lafroy has they don't own the bog. The bog is it's it's nationalized or whatever, but they kind of have if you're in Isla, you have right first rights to it, if it's designated for the whiskey.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

I'm sure they have like a tasting, like a taste profile for each bog, too, so they know what it is.

SPEAKER_05 35:08

But also, LaFroy owns Craigalaki down in spice spacefide, or like used to a long time ago. So, because of that, like you have a spacide distillery and you have a isla distillery, yeah. Like, you could probably do some do some combining there.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

So I um I'm sure I've asked this before, but when we had like the indie the scotch from India, are they importing peat? Is that how they're doing that? Or I think they must be. They would have to be, right?

SPEAKER_04 35:35

So you can already get peated barley. So they're importing that, yeah. Okay, so like it's malted barley is just malted barley, it's just wet barley, right? Yeah. That they allow to like germinate, and then they dry it out with the peat. You can buy that as a grain for your product.

SPEAKER_03 35:55

Are there companies doing just that, or do you have to buy it from like LaFroy or Lagville or some somebody who's already doing it for themselves?

SPEAKER_04 36:05

There's probably companies there's at least one that I know of, I don't remember the name, but that's what they do. I mean, they they specialize in shipping out and like producing this without going to the extent of distilling, they just produce the grain and then they ship the grain out to you to use.

SPEAKER_05 36:22

There is also at least a few people making pellets so that you can smoke your own whistle.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Well, because I was gonna say there's probably a way to do it artificially now, too, which I hope nobody's doing. But I I gotta think that there's a way to do that, like fake peat. You know what I mean? Essence of peat. Just sacrilegious.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

Yeah, it does sound sacrilegious, terrible.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

It's like fake meat. People are eating it.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

I saw a commercial for that.

SPEAKER_02 36:48

People are making people are eating it. They're calling it meat. Yeah, it's grown in like meat from plants.

SPEAKER_03 36:53

Well, that is not meat.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

They're actually making like uh they're they're actually making genetically made like meat in factories, like in in like little yeah, labs and stuff. Like they're growing meat.

SPEAKER_04 37:04

Like it's a 3D printing.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

And they're selling it, yeah. And people are eating it. Yeah, it's crazy. It'll stay on the product, like not of animal.

SPEAKER_04 37:14

I appreciate that scotch is such a national, like for Scotland, it's so big and they're so proud of it. That something that is a bog that is owned by the country, it's not like owned by privately owned by a distillery, but it's nationally known as like this is a this is like a park, like a national park kind of thing. They go to the extent of saying, ah, scotch distilleries get first dibs on this, though.

SPEAKER_05 37:42

Well, their layer priorities, somebody's got their priorities right. Yeah, it's almost like a quarry, like if you think about it that way, because it's just digging down and to get the stuff, and then that bottom layer is used for heating homes or whatever else, and then the top layer is used for whiskey.

SPEAKER_02 37:58

You're probably just taking the top layer at this point, if that's the case, you know what I mean, and then letting it re-recreate itself.

SPEAKER_03 38:04

There's gotta be peat in other parts of the world, though, right?

SPEAKER_05 38:07

I'm sure there is. I mean, because it's just it's compressed vegetation, that's what peat is.

SPEAKER_03 38:13

So it's gotta be some.

SPEAKER_05 38:15

I'm sure other places have as long as it's a really like a wet, boggy kind of area, then it would grow there.

SPEAKER_03 38:22

So, like, somebody ought to be doing this like in Florida or down like the Everglades and stuff, like maybe down there.

SPEAKER_02 38:30

Louisiana would be a little swampy. Well, yeah, little gata's kind of what you're looking for. You might get a little gata.

SPEAKER_01 38:36

Well, that improved.

SPEAKER_05 38:36

But it's hot down there. Yeah, that kind of so I don't know if it'll work the same way.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

It's not cold, yeah. It'd be too mushy the ground and stuff.

SPEAKER_05 38:44

And so you almost like I like I wonder if like up in Maine. Louisiana's got their own stuff, like Parique.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

All the Pariq in the world is made from Louise from St. James in Louisiana. That's it. That's the only place. If that if that place ever goes up, that's it. That's the end of Parique, which is amazing when you think about it.

SPEAKER_03 39:02

Kind of scary to throw on. Yeah, it's like it's amazing. Hopefully it never happens.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

Hopefully it never happens. It's like well, it's like Syrian Latachia, yeah. Which is gone now. It's gone, it's extinct. There's no such thing anymore. I still have some. It's it was the most amazing thing. Now it's all uh Cyprian Latichea. But Syrian Latichea was like the bomb, and I don't know if they just didn't like appreciate it or what they um something happened.

SPEAKER_05 39:26

The tree or the I think you had to smoke the latachia uh in order to like dry it out. The tree that was used for doing that became extinct. Yeah, or something, and so that tree is no longer there. So because of that, the flavor imparted into it didn't translate.

SPEAKER_02 39:46

So I mean Cyprian Latichia is good, but it's not it's not Syrian.

SPEAKER_04 39:50

You would think we have all these like heirloom seeds and like museums. Don't you think that you would think like maybe they didn't think about Latikia?

SPEAKER_03 39:58

Is this a tree? Grow one of those trees in a lab. Yeah, come on.

SPEAKER_02 40:02

They have forget meat.

unknown 40:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

We don't have a meat shortage, do we?

SPEAKER_02 40:08

I'm trying to remember where it's at, if it's Greenland or where there's some place, there's a place in the world. You've heard of this, it's called the Doomsday Vault. Oh, yeah. And they do have all the seeds for all the stuff. So if there's you know, and it's super protected and it's got a natural, they it was the number one place in the world to do this because it's got a natural climate that this stuff will last for like a million years or something if it's never even if the power goes out, it'll last. So they do have some of that stuff, but I don't think that Syrian Latike was one of those things because it Latichea itself is a process, so it's the material that they were using to make set Syrian Latike is gone. That's what's gone now. So, but just a shame. Extinct, just like unicorns.

SPEAKER_04 40:53

What a shame with the unicorns, right?

SPEAKER_02 40:55

Man, what a shame.

SPEAKER_04 40:57

Just the whale ones now.

SPEAKER_02 40:59

Can you imagine a whale with a giant horn?

SPEAKER_05 41:01

With the norwels, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

That's a thing. That is a thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 41:04

Norwell, I don't believe it either. I'm I'm very convinced that this is a fake animal.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

They're saying that there's a they're saying there's a whale unicorn thing, yeah. I've never heard of this.

SPEAKER_05 41:13

Yeah, it has it's actually like a tusk, but it goes out through their mouth. But it's like five feet long, like it's like a horn.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

It's but it's like the loch nest monster, like it might be a thing, it might not be a thing.

SPEAKER_03 41:25

No, it's a real thing.

SPEAKER_02 41:26

They're real, I just refuse to believe it. I think I mean there's some effed up stuff in the world. Look at platypuses. I mean, what the what the heck is that?

SPEAKER_03 41:36

I I I I've heard at least in one place, that when when people tried to prove the existence of unicorns, they were using a narwhal tusk to show people and say, like, look, here it is.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

You know, I mean if they put it on a whale, why why wouldn't they put it on a horse? I'm okay with it. I like that narwhal. That's gonna be like my new uh like next time I need a username for something, it's gonna be narwhal. I like it.

SPEAKER_03 42:00

Haven't you ever seen elf?

SPEAKER_02 42:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:02

Yeah, at the beginning, there's a narwhal who's like, See you, buddy.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Hope you find your dead. I don't think I've ever noticed that. Thanks, Mr.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

Narwhal.

SPEAKER_02 42:10

Oh, okay. Well, I don't think I've ever noticed that. That's interesting. Narwhal, I like it. I'm gonna get a tattoo of narwhal.

SPEAKER_03 42:18

Well, I'm I'm very uh pleased. This was not like sipping pipe juice, but it's even better.

SPEAKER_05 42:26

It was still very good.

SPEAKER_04 42:27

It's very good. It very much reminds me of uh compass box, like something that they would put together. It's very light, like we're saying, light fruity. The smell reminds me of like compass box. It's uh you know what it is, it's worth the price.

SPEAKER_05 42:41

Yeah, 130. You said that's what the price of this is, roughly. Yeah, I think this is worth 100.

SPEAKER_02 42:46

I've had 130 scotches before that weren't this good.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

And you you can get a smaller bottle for like 90 and a bigger one for more. But uh that's the big do they go.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

I was gonna say it's bigger's always got a handle, yeah. It's a plastic handle.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

So yeah, I had I had that plant.

SPEAKER_02 43:08

It's one of the old Kentucky Tavern bottles.

SPEAKER_03 43:10

It's a plastic uh bottle, but with a cork. So your options are uh oh wait, maybe this was the biggest. Or maybe no. Okay, so 200 milliliter, 375, and 70. Those are the those are the three. Yeah, so maybe this was the biggest one. But yeah, okay, so now the question is what was the thing that I tasted that just blew me away.

SPEAKER_04 43:33

Are you sure this wasn't that?

SPEAKER_03 43:34

I I'm not sure, but I I suspect that this wasn't it because this isn't so much more potent than LaFroig. So what what was it? If it wasn't Cragabus, it's the white whale. Yeah, what am I gonna do now?

SPEAKER_05 43:50

When I was looking up their stuff, this is the only like scotch they have, like of their proprietary kind of thing. So what really? Of of of this. Yeah, they have other things, but maybe it was.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

Maybe my tastes have just uh maybe it's just changed.

SPEAKER_02 44:07

I bet your tastes have changed because this actually is fairly weighty for somebody who if you took anybody that's kind of dabbled in Scotch and gave them this, they'd be like, whoa.

SPEAKER_04 44:15

Even Lafroig, even if they've dabbled in Lafroig, this is it's Lafroy on steroids, is what this is.

SPEAKER_05 44:22

But it's just I think it's just because it's it's so spread out that it sneaks up at the end on you. So if you were uh even if you weren't new to scotch, if you only had a couple of different kinds, like you would try it, like oh, okay, and then a second later, you're like, oh shoot.

SPEAKER_00 44:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 44:42

Yeah. And so it might have been the effect of the drinking thing more so than the actual people that are into hot sauce, too.

SPEAKER_02 44:51

It's the same kind of thing. Like when you get to that certain level, you forget how hot certain things are. You know what I mean? Like you try something, you're like, oh, it's got some spice to it, you know, and then somebody else tries it and they're like licking the carpet, you know, try to get the to get the because I do that all the time. Like I'll try something, I'm like, oh, it's not very hot. Like it's almost disappointing. And then somebody else will try it and you're like, like looking for milk to chug, you know. So you get to that point. I think that might be what it is.

SPEAKER_04 45:18

This is what you were saying, Steve and Chris. This is this is a slow burn in like a spice world. Like jalapenos, like this is a slow burn, it's gonna sneak up on you and you're not expecting it. It's not it's not like a hot, hot sauce on your tip of your tongue and you're freaking out. This is like moments later, and now I'm starting to feel the effects of like I'm starting to taste.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

It's super fine, it's not gimmicky, it's just good.

SPEAKER_04 45:47

Which by the look of the bottle, you'd be like, I don't know, this looks a little weird. Like, did I did I just buy something that some hobo put together? And that is exactly what I would say, hobo. That's the word to use. Here's your stuff. I got your product. Like, that's that's very much what it looks like. Because you're like, this isn't this doesn't look like a log of lent bottle. This doesn't look like any kind of novelty bottle that most scotches come in.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

So you look at it and you're like, did I novelty more gimmicky than what it looks like?

SPEAKER_04 46:19

Did I did I just get screwed over by getting this? And then you try it and you're like, nope, nope. I fully appreciate this. I don't care what bottle it comes in at this point, like I appreciate what I'm drinking.

SPEAKER_02 46:30

Yeah, this is Jack and his beanstalk. That's what it looks like. Yeah, did I get sold a bad sale of goods? No, it's good. It's advertised. I think it's great, I think it's fantastic. Thank you for bringing in, Ryan. I I enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03 46:44

Like I'm glad you like it. Yeah, I gotta redeem myself after the Kesslers thing.

SPEAKER_02 46:51

Lest we forget.

SPEAKER_05 46:54

All right, and to you folks at home, if you've ever tried this, go ahead and send us a text.

SPEAKER_04 46:59

You should have sent us a text. If you've ever heard of it, send us a text.

SPEAKER_02 47:02

Because I I'd never heard of it.

SPEAKER_04 47:04

Well, and it makes sense why we've never heard of it. If they don't if they don't distribute this place, if they don't distribute to anyone, then how do we get around here?

SPEAKER_03 47:12

And like they're not local. The the shop in Kansas City closed.

unknown 47:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:16

So I don't know where you'd have to go to get it, but they do have a website, that's where I got it. So well, I don't really think they advertise, right? So really word of mouth, I guess. So here it is. Here's the word of mouth. Here's the word. Go out and buy it. Well, gents. All right, next week. Next week. Cheers.

SPEAKER_05 47:39

Thank you for listening to the podcast. If you want more great content and other perks, be sure to support the show by clicking the link in the show notes. We can be reached on our website, whiskeychaserspa.com, with any ideas for the show. Thanks again.