Four Branches Bourbon And The Stories Behind Every Pour- Interview!

Welcome And Meet Four Branches

Steve 0:09

Welcome to the Whiskey chasers, where we talk about our plan for whiskey and it's interesting, either amongst ourselves or while interviewing the doctors. I'm Nick and I'm Fred. Please enjoy responsibly while enjoying this week's episode of the Whiskey Jackson. Welcome to the Whiskey Jasters. So we are here with the four branches with Mike Trott and Harold Underdown, a couple of the founders there. How are you guys doing tonight?

Mike Trott 0:39

Guys, we're doing well. Thanks for having us on.

Steve 0:41

Yeah, I appreciate it. So you guys are uh military folks, the four branches. That's what this is all about. The uh the four branches of the military, uh well, the four branches represented by you guys. How did you guys get started?

Mike Trott 0:54

We always kind of joke and say it was Tinder, but uh militar military tinder. Uh no, you know, the 50,000-foot level, if you will, and

The Mission Born From Loss

Mike Trott 1:05

it is important because it's it's the genesis of our story. But Rick Franco, who's not on with us, he's he was the Marine in this group. And Rick and I have gone back quite a ways. We crossed at the agency. I was Air Force and CA. Rick was Marine Corps and CA. And we crossed about the same time I was leaving the CIA going private sector when Rick was uh going pretty deep into what they were doing. And Rick ended up recruiting his uh VMI classmate, Virginia Military Institute. He recruited his classmate, they went from a VMI to the Marine Corps together about 10 years as officers. And when Rick went into the agency, he recruited Greg into uh shortly after him. Uh, we go through about four or five months of training for what this particular group does, and I wore the same hat with that group. And uh, but I was an employee, Rick was a contractor, one of the lead contractors actually. And after about four or five months of training, Greg Wright Jr. uh was his buddy, and he went out on a mission. Um, it was usually about two to three months deployment into high threat areas. And Greg's first mission out, I think actually was the first night in country. Uh, they got involved in a situation that probably shouldn't occur. It's just the circumstances of that environment. And Greg did what a Marine would do. He stepped up and saved everybody's lives, but he lost his. And Rick had to go, you know, unfortunately, get him and bring him back and repatriate him back home. So, as you can imagine, if it's your good buddy, somebody you've been through school with, it has a burn, right? It stays with you for a long time. And Rick called me up one day, and he this is about five years ago, I guess, now, and he says, Hey, really feeling like we should do something in memory of guys like Greg and honor those. So it really kind of started out as an honor barrel. And you mentioned four branches, distillery. We're we're not a distillery. We we contract uh with Barstown Bourbon Company to make all of our stuff. We blend with them and make new stuff and work with their team. But uh when Rick called me and said he wanted to do this, uh it struck a chord with me as well. One of the very first casualties in Afghanistan after 9-11, uh, his name is Johnny Mike Spann. Probably looked that one up and probably should be a name we all kind of remember, just because he was the first one. He's known as the first casualty after 9-11 of November of that year. And I had the unfortunate honor to bring him home, to help bring him home. And so I got it, understood exactly what Rick was saying. So we were like, okay, how do we do this? And we got to just talking about it. And ironically, he's a Marine Corps, I was in Air Force, and we both had served alongside with Harold in some different environments. And as we kind of joke, we poured the same sand out of our shoes. Uh, Harold knows what that means. And uh we called up Harold and said, Hey, this is what we're thinking. And it was about a 15-second conversation. Harold's like, I man, how do we do this? And he gets it, you know, as a as a 30-plus year Navy SEAL, he's had to uh you know bring back those flag draped coffins as well. So that's what kind of brings it together. That's what started it. And then we were kind of joking one day. We got the Navy, we got the Army, we got the Air Force. We just we got the the Marines, the Air Force, and the Navy. We just need an army guy, kind of jokingly. And then we have a mutual friend uh who turned us on to RJ, and we had a call with him at that time. He was filming a movie, and well, he was filming Extraction 2 in Prague, and we all jumped on a call with him. And uh RJ's a former 20-year Green Beret, and now he works for the Air Force Special Operations. But the same thing, you know, it's his 30-second phone call. RJ's like, how do we do this? And none of us knew how, you know, we know about bourbon, we know how it's made, those kinds of things. But as far as building a country company in a very crowded space, um we needed to reach out and find the uh the experts in this space. So that's kind of the background of how we got started.

Why Bourbon Fits Remembrance

Nick 5:03

So why bourbon? What what drew you into that as the the thing to help honor those that you served with or remember them?

Mike Trott 5:15

I'll let I'll let Harold jump on that, but just you know, I think real quick, when you look at bourbon, bourbon is a reflective spirit. You really kind of take a step back. You you know, not you it's hard to do that with Jen, it's hard to do it with vodka to me. Bourbon, you just kind of sit and slow down a little bit. And it's such a great American product. It's I mean, it's been a it's been around as long as the American military has. But uh anyway, I'll let I'll let Harold jump in there and kind of talk about it. But uh yeah.

Harold Underdown 5:44

Yeah, I mean, I I believe uh bourbon kind of we ran into it, right? We ran into the bourbon, you know, by being a younger, you know, before I was in the military, I remember back in high school I had a bad encounter with brown, you know, whiskey. Um, and I and I couldn't smell it for years. So as I got older, I you know, I met Rick, of course, down in the Bahamas, down at uh Baker's Bay, and we were drinking scotch and and you know it kind of we kind of migrated over to bourbon. And as we was having our cigars on our Friday evenings at sitting on the pier looking at the water and the sunset, we were really, you know, migrating over to bourbon. And just like Mike said, it really is bourbon is a reflective spirit. You know, you can of course you can get a little bit crazy with it if you want and try to drink it into the bottle. And we'll talk about this later on, but our ethos is we don't want to drink to forget, we want to sip to remember. So that helps that helps out with, you know, slowing everything down, sipping it instead of trying to chug it, and really enjoy the process that it took to get that bourbon into the bottle and into the glass and be able to really understand the the tasting notes of it, the age of it, the color of it. Uh, all of that is uh was, you know, we've been doing it for what, Mike, three and a half years now. And we're working with some great people that are subject matter experts that we have in our dugout, and they've really taught us a lot about the process of making bourbon, plus, you know, what what makes it taste so unique, you know, the the age in the barrel itself and how those flavors come about as it as it sets and and inside that charred oak barrel. But I think that's the answer for my my view. I think we kind of ran into it as we uh age, you know, we kind of dabble around with whether it's beer, wine, vodka, spirits. But you know, for me it was early on, you know, I couldn't smell it because I'd get sick. As I aged out through that, as I matured, I really understood the setting down, having a cigar, whether it's scotch or bourbon, and really just enjoying a moment and sharing stories.

Steve 8:11

So yeah, we often say we can never have a gin podcast, like there's just not enough to talk about. So you're right, the the whiskey, scotches, bourbons, all that, they are a story bourbon, a story drink. And so it is something to sit and talk about and the memories it produces, hopefully good ones.

Chris 8:33

Anytime you get a chance to slow down, too, right? Like life's fast enough as it is, um, especially in certain jobs like the military, things like that. You're so used to go, go, go that anytime you get a chance to sit down and kind of slow down, you appreciate it.

Mike Trott 8:48

You you do. And I think it's also the senses, right? You you know, Harold can uh agree with this. When you're in a when you're in a different environment, whether it's overseas or a high threat area. Uh I lived in in uh the UAE for a couple years, and all of your senses are firing. Your your sight, your smell, your nose, your touch, you're always, you know, you're you're you're just alive. There's a lot going on in your head. And bourbon to me has that because, you know, like Carol said, you look at that brown color and you'll just kind of just kind of watch that as it turns in your glass. And then if I'm sipping, I will always take a nose. I will always get my nose into it. You're not getting that much out of gin per se or you know, vodka necessarily. And when you start really studying how to make bourbon and all the different nuances to it, uh, I mean, we're we love doing this. We love making the bourbon. We spent a lot of time at the uh in the chem room at Bargetown, uh, did a lot of samples. I got a ton of samples of myself here, uh, and just exploring with it. And then working with guys like Steve Nally, you know, bourbon Hall of Fame, and Greg Snyder now is our master stealer. I mean, he's been doing this for 47 years. Geez, that's a that's a long time to sit down with a guy and go, hey, what makes a what makes a good bourbon great? Uh, or you know, what makes a bad bourbon? Because we don't stay away from that. Um, but I just think when you look at bourbon, you asked that question earlier. It's all your senses are going. Just your eyes are going, your nose is going, your taste is going. And when all of that happens, it automatically flips a memory switch. You know, I can remember the last sip I had, my son and I, we were in uh Washington, D.C. I was heading to to uh UAE to uh Abu Dhabi for a couple years, the same night my son was home on leave from Iraq, and he was going back the next day, flying back. And I can remember sitting in a restaurant in DC, and when I take a sip or a smell of this, I remember that moment uh that was pretty critical for me to you know to send your son back in in the harm's way and you know, hope he comes home. So those are uh there's a lot that goes on in Bourbon that people don't realize.

Steve 10:54

Absolutely. It is a uh it's a thinking spirit. And like you said, there are stories with every glass, and that story is different for every person. It's usually tied to an event like that, trying to figure out you know how to how to share that with someone, and then sharing that glass with a friend, they get a chance to really

Building A Four Grain Blend

Steve 11:15

experience that same moment with you, which is always good.

Nick 11:19

There's something that you uh you said, Mike, that being in the kill room and creating going through several samples and trying to create this and being able to be surrounded by by Hall of Famers, those that have been in the distillery game for a long time. We've been blessed with the opportunity to to interview a lot of distilleries in person. And there's something that uh there's something special that happens when you uh get a group of people uh that appreciate not just the whiskey, but what it takes to create that. And I can only imagine what what those moments, those days, those hours were like there at Bardstone really diving in with them and them seeing your passion, what you guys want to create, why you want to create it, but also them watching you guys awe over what they can do and what they've done. I can only imagine how much fun those moments were with those people and how much they just kept giving samples out to you guys. Like, hey, I know you like this, you'll appreciate this. Try this, try that. I can only imagine how much fun that was.

Mike Trott 12:36

It was a lot of fun. Harold's got a pretty funny story about that, actually. Uh, I'll let Harold tell that story because it still makes me laugh. But I'll I'll I'll say one thing. When when we were there, we were working with uh Dan Callaway and Justin Willett and some guys there working on our blend, and we had some ideas and we wanted to get their expertise. But they said, Hey, Steve Nally is going to walk in and just say hi. He's the master, and he's been around a while, but he doesn't really stay in and work per se with guys like this or creating the new juice, if you will. And we're like, cool. So he came in behind us, and we were doing what four guys would do from four different branches of the military, right? Or kind of kicking each other the nuts and you know, just kind of chipping away at uh what manhood we have or whatever branch of service we're in. And uh um, you know, you you got somebody like Harold comes in as a as a 30-plus year Navy SEAL, and he's gonna be uh, you know, thumping on my head all the time as the Air Force guy. But uh, but Steve came in behind us and he goes, you know, they we we turned around, we introduced ourselves, and he goes, What's y'all's story? What you know, to your point, you know, what's the old saying is that bourbon without a story is just brown water. And I think Steve brought that a conversation, right? And he comes in almost like a grandfather of your father, and he's like, What's your story? So we tell him our story, and he kind of rolled his sleeves up a little bit and he goes, Let's make some bourbon. And we were like, Holy cow, really? We're gonna sit here with a master? Yeah, it's like having Picasso coming in showing you how to paint. Um, but then we had a little funny event. I'll let Harold tell that one.

Harold Underdown 14:09

Yeah, yeah, we're all at, you know, we were working with Dan, and Dan was putting in all these little tiny droplets, right? It looked like a chemistry lab, and it it is. And he was doing this and he had a little thimble, a little tiny thing, and he was mixing everything up. And Steve, Steve goes, Well, hey, you know, since you guys are four branches, why don't we go with four grains? You know, and we all kind of looked at each other and went, duh, that sounds that sounds like a great idea. So we ended up instead of going with a normal 70, 20, 10 blend, three grain, we brought in the wheat and he brought in five percent initially, and we tasted that. And we're all looking at each other, oh well, that looks, that looks pretty good. Or it tastes, it tastes tastes really good. And then Steve goes, Well, let's bump it up, let's bump it up to 10%. So when he did the 10%, of course, Dan had to go back over to his all these little thimbles and everything he was using to mix that in. And so they mixed it in, and really it ended up being about, I don't know, Mike, what do you think? About a half ounce, maybe. So he he had mixed this up to the to basically it was a 65 corn, 15 rye, 10 mocked barley, and 10 aged wheat because the barrels we brought in with Foundry Plant is an aged wheated mashville barrel. So for you know, the bird blend was uh about 80 barrels. So they handed it to me, and not knowing um it was supposed to be for all four of us, I kind of went blew navy on them and said, Hey, I was smelling it, and then I just dumped it all in my mouth, and everybody was staring at me, and I'm like, Well, what are they waiting on? They're waiting on me to come up with some you know magical saying that you know this is great or whatever. And I'm like, man, that was really good. And they go, Well, thanks, because we were all supposed to taste that. So I just I basically shot all the ammo right there, right?

Chris 16:06

So we were did you have to remix it up then after that?

Mike Trott 16:08

So everybody can it took him 30 minutes. Well, where I was leaving out is uh that special barrel we had of some wheat was in another rick out, so he had to go leave and go get more and come back. That's a blue fountain right there. Yeah, what's fun is fun about it, and I don't feel bad now. What's fun about it? It's all on camera, and it's just like I'm telling you, it's it's great. It's a great, it's only one of our videos. But Harold takes it back and he takes the whole thing, and you see Steve, you see me, Rick, RJ, everybody's looking at Harold, like, what the hell did you just do? And uh Harold's like, Yeah, that's pretty good. We're like, Well, you know, can we make some more?

Harold Underdown 16:49

We won't know, yeah.

Tasting Notes Proof And Symbolism

Steve 16:50

When it comes to the bourbon and mixing that all together, did you guys have similar uh flavor profiles? Did everyone kind of agree right away on the mash pill?

Mike Trott 17:00

You know what I'll say. I think Harold, it hit pretty quick. I mean, like Harold said, he had a little bit the first time we tried it, um, and we had mixed some four grains before prior. And we we've kind of been we've been mixing and testing for about probably eight months. We didn't jump into this without, you know, I'm not taking anything away from other, you know, brands, but sometimes you'll just you'll taste something, a barrel, go, that sounds good, put that in my bottle and put it on the shelf. We wanted a little bit more hands-on. And when we're gonna raise a glass in memory of some guys we lost and and gals, it's it's gotta be some it's gonna be some good stuff. And uh, I've tasted some stuff out there and it it uh it doesn't it doesn't reach the level of what we're trying to to do here. Um so you know when Steve did say, hey, this bumped that up to closer to 10%, you could you could definitely taste that difference between that 5% wheat and that 10%. It just it provides a level of uh of uh softness and complexity even with a five percent difference that you didn't get. Uh so we knew we were on to something with that. And you know, we won two two gold medals, a silver and a double gold with that founders uh founders blend right there. So we knew that the you know, not only are the experts responding well to it, but we've done thousands of tastings now. And uh if we had five dollars for every time that somebody said that it's really smooth bourbon, we'd be retired by now.

Chris 18:26

Yeah, that uh I feel like we love four grains, but I mean we always do, but I do think that it kind of maybe it feels like a very complete whiskey, you know.

Harold Underdown 18:36

Yeah, very, very approachable.

Chris 18:38

Yeah.

Mike Trott 18:39

And lots of lots of females, you know, they'll walk up when you're doing a tasting and all, and they go, Well, I'm not really and I go, Well, hey, I'm not gonna push it on you, and and they will let me let me have some. So when they do, you know, I tell them to hey, smell it, open your mouth so you can circulate your palate and this sip it. And they're like, Wow, so I could I could actually drink, I could, I think I could drink a whole glass of this.

Chris 19:04

So very approachable, um, very friendly for 96 proof, especially. It's very friendly.

Mike Trott 19:10

Yeah. That's it's surprising, right? Because you don't get that heavy burn going down, that esophagus burn with this, which is what both women and men. I mean, you know, I I cherish my esophagus. I don't like to have it burning every time I drink it either. But that 21 rye, while it's not a high rye, it's not a low rye either. So you you definitely get the rye twice. You get it when you first sip it on the back. We call it Kentucky Kiss. And then it kind of lingers for a minute and then it pops again. It kind of comes back again. We had some guys doing a uh review on it a couple years ago, and it was kind of funny, right? Here all the guys from uh Watch Hill proper, and they're like, you know what? I wish it had a longer finish. And they keep doing a review, keep doing a review, and about five minutes later, they're like, you know what? That thing's still there, it has a long finish, long, longer finish than you think.

Chris 19:56

Just more subtle.

Mike Trott 19:57

It is subtle, yeah.

Steve 19:59

Yeah. And we, you know, we keep saying it's very friendly. Uh sometimes friendly can can be not a good thing, especially for bourbon people. But this has the right amount of complexity to it, that it's still, you know, it's still not a no-thinker. You know, there's there's some stuff going on with it that makes it still a really enjoyable drink.

Chris 20:20

Yeah, it's well rounded. And that's usually what you get with four grains, but um, I feel like that a little bit more wheat is what kind of makes it. I mean, it's it's well rounded, but it just makes it that friendly, kind of soft, kind of approachable whiskey.

Mike Trott 20:35

Well, you have to too, also, Steve. You have to, for us as a new brand, right? You if we've been around for 10, 15 years and we had several different SKUs or different types, you know, you can always go to a high rite because you'll have that group that says, Hey, I like that high right, or a group that wants that 120 proof or whatever it may be. But as a new brand, there's a business decision that has to come in. And we have to have, like Harold said, it's got to be, you know, approachable, not offensive to the masses, if you will, as your first product. And you want people to drink that, like the example he said, and said, Wow, I'm not a whiskey or bourbon drinker, but that is really good. And then you can make it in a cocktail, what have you, whatever your choice is. We don't tell somebody how to drink their bourbon, but I do like it neat because I like the way it was originally designed and you get you get to take in all the properties of it. Um, but at the same time, you know, we have a quiet professional that has some maretto in it that's really fantastic, or typical, um uh typical old-fashioned. Either way, that rye really comes out in a cocktail uh more than some others. But um, but anyway, yeah, we had to find something that was going to be more approachable to the masses. And um, you know, you could you could go one direction or the other, even a lower proof. Uh, but 96 is we kind of joked about it. We were working our way down from I think 101, 102, and we get the 97, 96, 95, because you you know, you take it'll taste different at a different proof level, and trying to get it at that proper proof at 96, it kind. snapped and I think all full of our heads that uh in the military you get a four-day pass, 96 hours. 96 hours, yes. And we're like, you know what? I think it's 96. There's a lot of symbolism and symbology in this bottle uh that you may not even recognize, but and that's okay too. We keep it kind of quiet and cool. Uh even what the four means if you've ever been if you've ever seen a video or heard what each mark of the four means uh there's

Brotherhood On The Road

Mike Trott 22:25

there's a lot of representation and symbolism in it.

Chris 22:28

It's going good with tobacco I can tell you that it's good drinking whiskey. So you guys are kind of all over then you're spread it just spread apart. You're not all in one location, right? Nope.

Mike Trott 22:37

No, we're not RJ's down in Florida most of the time. And then uh Harold's in Virginia Beach. I'm in Arizona and Rick's in Nashville. But we get together probably once a month somewhere and we'll we'll all be together. We'll be together actually this uh next coming week in Kentucky doing some stuff. And then uh Harold and I are together in Washington DC doing some stuff. So I was in Florida last week so we get around.

Chris 23:02

That's kind of another cool aspect to this this whole company you know and and it kind of shows you that I mean going back to the whole military thing it's just brothers in arms you know sticking together you know long term.

Mike Trott 23:14

I'll let you jump in there Harold but it I think to see to see to run into buddies we haven't seen in 20 years. I'm thinking your buddy we were kind of forget where we're gonna taste him now you hadn't seen him in like 15 20 years.

Harold Underdown 23:25

I think it was a Kentucky oh he was he caught you on guard he was my neighbor you know I grew up with him he played football at my you know at my high school big guy he ended up living in Indiana and so we were out in Kentucky we're going all over Kentucky doing these tastings at uh what was that Mike what liquor barns liquor barns maybe yeah yeah different different so we went into this liquor barn and and Nick who um he's our our sales guy our national sales guy he said hey Harold uh there's a guy here waiting on you and and I had no idea of course you know who that was and it was Jeff it was Jeff Bowman you know my neighbor in in Mount Holly North Carolina when I grew up and of course he came up and we hugged for about five minutes you know because I haven't seen him in so long but um he says and I go I said you know what are you doing here and he says well hey I saw you guys on social media you're going to be here tasting and all the founders are here and you know my brother called me and said that you were a founder and I'm here I'm here to buy some bourbon so it was great you know it's uh and you know everywhere we go though it's kind of the same same right we had Mike Sean Ryan met us in Nashville um and and wherever we go we always have some veteran friends I think that that come in and and see us and um that's the one good thing about the military life you know we've spent so much time in the military I mean I know people from mostly all the way across the country and uh they always come in and support us so it's it's it's been it's been great you know we've had a good time we have a lot of fun with this it's a lot of hard work of course but at the end of the day we always seem to end up in a restaurant and we try to choose those restaurants strategically you know for them to carry four branches bourbon and so we go in and we get to see our own little creation up here on the bar back bar it's really you know makes you proud to see that and we ask people hey could you I I want a four branch of bourbon so it's kind of neat when you get to order your own juice and uh and then get to share the story because we're always telling the story. So a lot of fun.

Nick 25:42

The story is a lot of fun for me. I think for all of us, all three of us the story behind the whiskey or

Quality Barrels And Real Pricing

Nick 25:50

why or why you drink or what memory the bottle brings up means a lot to us. I love the fact that you guys as a company there's others are similar out there that they they have a background that somehow is involved with the military or armed forces. But how do I say this respectfully it's almost like they throw juice into a bottle and tell the story that this matters but to your point you guys spent a long time to figure out what goes in this bottle. It matters both both pieces to the puzzle you you put both of the those pieces of the puzzle together and you create a bottle that anyone I feel like anyone can open and pour and share and they all of a sudden go I get it. I get the reason why you guys do this. One to be proud of yeah it it's something to be proud of I may have never served but I understand the respect that's involved in this bottle and I understand the brotherhood that's brought about in this bottle and I love that because we we've talked about sourcing bourbon and is it not is it good or is it bad, but is it worth it or not worth it? Because there's normally a price tag that's tied to it. And there's certain companies out there that were like it's not worth the price tag. And then there's others like you guys that would go I get it. I get why you guys are doing it. I understand I appreciate and I respect that the price is worth every drop. And I feel like that's a hard thing to to come about with it's a hard puzzle to put together for some.

Mike Trott 27:34

It is Nick I mean we first started you got to realize I mean while we have some really great advisors around us the if you look at barrel prices three or four years ago they were ridiculous. And we can make a choice between all kinds of barrels but the the prices were stupid but when we locked into a barrel you know we we would get samples right and we get sample samples we're like wow that is phenomenal and then we find out how much it is and we're like wow that's that's expensive you know we can definitely do it cheaper right there's other stuff out there but it just goes back to what you said you know we have to we got to remember why we did this and it's you know if you're gonna you're gonna raise a glass in honor of somebody who's no longer with us and we don't want to always you know it's not always about that right it's about that you know my my first child uh you know Harold's got three kids Rick's got a couple RJ's got a couple but it's a promotion it's coming back from a trip you know alive. It's whatever that is whatever that special moment your first house it's your son's first home run it's those memories you want to remember. So when you're having that little sip to remember that it's got it's just got to be good. I mean if it's not good it's gonna be a bad memory or you're gonna put it in a cocktail and then you kind of lose all focus with it. But uh no it's um I I think that's part of the process we've all forward enjoyed and that's really diving into something that that tastes really well. And then if we make a little change here or we add a little bit of that or take a little bit of this out or I think it was our first founders blend we did. We it was a night we blended we were like you know what it just needs a little more age to it. And I think even though it was a six to eight year blend we we put about a nine and a half or 10 year barrel in it just to bring it back up to what we thought it should be. And uh you know when you care about the quality you care about your message your product will show for it. And we've always said somebody may buy your product once because they really love the story. But if it's not good they're not going to buy you again.

Steve 29:32

With all that you guys started with Steve Nally there at Bargetown and now you're working with Greg Snyder is he at Bargetown or is he I know he used to be with Chickencock but I didn't know if he uh if he moved over to barge down and then that's why you guys are working with him or how'd you guys make that connection?

Mike Trott 29:49

That was actually a bargeown connection Mark Irwin the CEO of Bargetown um he he made a call to me because uh Greg was more independent he left Chickencock was kind of being independent and we couldn't own Steve Nally right steve is Steve was graciously gracious enough to give us his time and his name to our first one but being respectful of that we couldn't just say Steve Nally is our master stiller or master stiller because it's not true. But at the same time as we've talked about all along we want to lean in on quality you know whatever that skill is you need if you don't possess it on a team you got to go find it and Greg was available and he was introduced to us we spent some time with him at the chem room in Barstown if you remember that Harold while five of us around the table and just spend time with if you ever met Greg you you'd think he was a freaking marine battalion all by himself he's a big boy. I mean he's a poster child for the US Marine Corps he does he got a flat top gray headed flat top I mean he's six foot four and about 220 pounds of muscle but uh he just he just fit in right uh 47 years in the business and he man he knows I mean he was making I think he started out making he was a cooperage he was making barrels in his early years so he knows he knows from top to bottom start to finish everything about bourbon the kinds of woods where this wood comes from all the different levels of char that we we know about now but just talking about those kinds of things and toasted and you know we have a we have our Liberty Reserve coming out which is a celebration of our country's 250th anniversary and it's a double oak and so it's been double oaking now for about about four and a half five months and Greg tasted about every week and a half two weeks just to make sure that it doesn't get too too much double oaked. So he's he's calling it so it's just great having that guy on the team to to lean on and if we got

Limited Releases And Future Bottles

Mike Trott 31:45

questions he's always available to to help us out.

Nick 31:47

So how do you guys come up with new renditions? Do you guys keep all the same four grain or is each different bottling something else?

Harold Underdown 31:56

Well uh our first LTO right limited time offering was uh black ops so what that was that was nine year old juice that we finished in four Caribbean rum barrels and the black ops was tied to a um one of our brand ambassadors or brand champions Rick Parado who was a retired CIA he was in the CIA and ran some of the the the terrorist type organizations down south but Rick it's got a he's got a beautiful story his book is called Black Ops so we kind of paired that book Black Ops with this LTO of Black Ops and with that one we have a silver label on it with a black four changed it up same bottle same same um uh labeling but just different color right and then uh our second LTO was the Continental it's a blue and gold label the Continental was paying honor and respect to our Army Navy and Marine Corps birthday this year 250th birthday so it and it's nine year old Jews too unbelievable it's beautiful and then just like Mike said we're coming out with the Liberty Reserve which is the double oak for our uh country's America's 250th and then we'll we'll continue this but it's just like uh it's like anything else right we it has to have a purpose it has to have a meaning to it if we're gonna go out of our way to actually roll out an LTO and I think we're we we've got ideas for the next one but it just takes time on that because you know we're a business we got to focus on our primary skew we're looking at doing a lower price point skew possibly next year and and that's just to get people on board right people can't afford the 7989 bottle of founders blend we're gonna introduce something a little better $39 range or whatever and call it the enlistment or whatever to get people on board the brand and then they can graduate and and go to the founders blend. But but it's always you know we're always trying to keep our finger on the pulse as far as sales goes and making sure like Mike said earlier that we put quality juice in the bottles because we want to be the brand that's kind of you know we're not a snuffy brand we don't want to be like a Peter Millar of bourbon but at one point we're not gonna put bad tasting juice in our bottles.

Mike Trott 34:29

So Peter Peter will love that harold

Nick 34:32

yeah I do love the fact that if you watch any kind of military movie anything involving armed forces it's always cheap liquor and cheap beer that they're shooting at the bar or drinking at the bar or drinking on base and I I keep thinking back as you guys talk about quality and the back of my brain I keep thinking I love the fact that you guys are changing that perception from just because someone serves doesn't mean that they go for the cheap stuff. There's something behind why they do what they do. And I I love the fact that you guys are challenging that perception I think it does change I would say most of the public's view on how you guys handle alcohol how you guys look at alcohol how you guys handle whiskey I I love that I really respect that a lot.

Mike Trott 35:32

Yeah we appreciate that Nick it's that is a big part of the ethos uh of our brand um and and and you're right it's uh you know we work a lot we're starting to see our bourbon get adopted be brought into more of uh the American legions and the VFW and to your point we if you have that first conversation with it they're always gonna say wow we can't afford that because you know if they're bringing in a bottle of a 40 $5 bottle from the distributor that means their prices have got to be higher and if you've ever been to the VFW American Legion you know a shot of bourbon is going to be somewhere between six dollars seven dollars maybe four or five we've got a couple bars here in Arizona they're such veteran focus I think she sells it for like five or six dollars you know poor and she may make a little bit on that bottle but she's doing it because she feels her veterans deserve to have better bourbon. And so to your point, you know I think that's that's the message we're trying to get across but we're seeing more American legions of BFWs bringing in four branches not only because of the story but because it's it's good bourbon and they deserve it. So you know we work with as Harold said we'll try to keep finding a maybe a lower price point. You know the problem not the problem what we're focused on now is making sure that quality is still there and it may be a I hate to say never right but you don't we're not big fans of anything less than four years. And you can you can find some good less than four years sometimes we got some stuff aging now that's about two and a half years and I swear to God that stuff tastes like a five to six year old I can't wait for that one to come out. It's phenomenal but uh you know you start looking at four, five, six year uh you know you get a little more expensive but we're just trying to make sure that we're able to provide the next level like Harold said the next group down they can be introduced to really good bourbon without having

Sip To Remember And Mental Health

Mike Trott 37:25

to you know break their bank and we want to be conscious of that.

Chris 37:28

Without sacrificing your integrity either.

Steve 37:31

Yeah right right yeah another uh another stereotype out there on the military is that um it's a lot of drinking for to forget a lot of a lot of heavy usage to to kind of get through some of the things that you guys had to had to do in your profession and uh so with your with your tagline there sip to remember want to talk a little bit about that and and and the importance of that to you guys and the and the brand

Mike Trott 37:56

that's really important to Harold do you want to take a run with that one it's it means a lot to us appreciate that

Harold Underdown 38:01

well I think um you know like Mike said we've all brought back people from downrange that that uh was KIA or uh didn't make it so we definitely want to and we understand the suicides are 22 a day or 17 to 25 the the the number goes up and down um veterans committing suicide and that's why we really try to push the messaging of we don't want you to drink to forget we want to sip to remember but that's a hard one right because you know one of my best friends you know um he he he died that way right and lots of times in the SEAL teams you know it was kind of well you know does that guy deserve to be on the wall because he committed suicide well absolutely absolutely he deserves to be on the wall because you know you hear it all the time in the military we build our careers on the shoulders of our families right so lots of guys if they got multiple turns in in combat they have all of that pressure on them and and you know it it's it you know it's very difficult to deal with that right so um we we try to you know we can't change the drinking people are gonna drink um and from a business standpoint you know we we would rather take the high ground and go look we want you to sip to remember let's don't you know um drink to forget and especially if you have a friend have a swim buddy or a shooting buddy and let's talk this through let's go sit down and have a sip and talk it through and if you and we always say hey if you don't drink don't start right so that's a part of our our ethos of the company we really want to lean in on that to um say hey you know we we I don't know Mike the total number 16 to 20 possible nonprofits that we give back to and we always give four percent of our our annual uh revenue to to all of these different and we break it up and try to make sure that we have a little bit for everybody instead of donating all of our money into one one uh organization um but but yeah I mean that's I think that's a part of what we're gonna do naturally we're gonna always give back to those organizations that are helping with resources for our our veterans.

Mike Trott 40:30

So Nick you talked about those you know the serve honorably drink honorably goes along with that and you mentioned you know you didn't serve in the military but our our our opinion is everybody serves everybody serves in some capacity you don't have to be a veteran or a first responder to serve you know school teachers and mechanics and you know a father a mother we all serve in one way or another so I think to serve honorably that's what we mean about that whatever it is you serve serve honorably and that's a double entente right it's the people behind the bar as well as you you know in your in your your man's cave at night you know if you got somebody that shouldn't be drinking that much then you know think about that but you know drink honorably is the uh is the how uh don't dishonor the memory of those guys that didn't come home uh we're okay right and even though you brought home some scars and some some things you're dealing with like Harold talked about we just ask you to take that thought one more step further and don't dishonor their memory by by blowing your candle out too early especially using alcohol to do that. So we do talk about the elephant in the room uh because we realize you're not taking alcohol out of this world. We try to demonstrate how you can do it and why you should do it. And the sip to remember like we said it's not just to remember those kind of tough times but it's all those great memories too. We all leave this earth somehow right one way or another whether you're one year old or 101 it's just that's the way life is so we just want to kind of flip that switch and flip the narrative within our community this is how and why you we want you to drink our bourbon anyway. I can't tell you how to drink other people's uh spirits but that's uh that goes with us.

Nick 42:10

We've had our fair share here of different bottles and we also have a a club that this kind of got started out of and we took a we took one year to do sourced bottles. That's all we had was anything sourced. And the question after each bottle was is it worth a price tag? Is it worth it and I bring that up because hearing you guys talk even more about the ethos and what you guys want to present with each bottle. For me personally the price tag is worth that uh it's it's worth that's not a cheap lesson to pay for but I think it's the price tag is worth that lesson to learn and to remember as you have a glass that's that's a good point.

Mike Trott 42:58

I I'm just looking at the bottle sitting on my shelf right now and there we have an honor reserve for the folds of honor and we had the black ops that Harold mentioned our double oak the reason we did double oak is you go back 250 years ago it was really about the wood that made America I mean your cabins your your railroad it was truly about the wood. So the reason why we leave USS Constitution SS Constitution yeah it's all about the wood. That's just kind of where America got started. So we kind of tuck that story and that concept as we thought about what do we want this next LTO to be and we leaned into the double oak and so that's why we wanted to put it back in a barrel a new barrel again.

Steve 43:39

Well I really want to thank you guys for for taking the time out of your day to talk to us and uh kind of help spread the word for of you guys out to out to our audience and

Tame The Kraken And Never Quit

Steve 43:50

hopefully wherever they are they're gonna be able to get a bottle of it from you. Uh do you guys have anything you want to stay out to everybody? Uh your

Mike Trott 44:00

socials any events or anything like that coming up no i i think the one thing i i would say if you watch our our socials and and on our website we have it it's a it's a video called tame the kraken it's a it's a film we've invested into both time and money uh i'll be in new york the week after next for a private screening of the film that'll be shown at the uh world trade center but it's about a father and his son he's a former british special forces gentleman and he had lost a friend some friends years ago and he rode the Atlantic Ocean as a way of therapeutic dealing with his uh PTS and then when his son was like I think 11 at the time he said Dad I'd love to do that with you sometime so they did that they rode the Pacific Ocean 48 days guys think about this 48 days on a little boat and you have to row unassisted they didn't see another soul in sight once they left San Francisco until they pulled into Hawaii uh 2500 nautical miles but they did it to raise awareness for veterans mental health and we sponsored the boat and then we helped sponsor and pay for the film and that film is an hour long but when you watch this film and this movie and you see the symbolism between mental health and what it was like for those two guys to be out on the water at the end of the day I think that the takeaway is you never quit. You just don't stop. You never quit no matter what it is in life. And we have some bad days in life we've all had them but you just you wait for the next sunrise. So we're pretty proud of this story and we hope it does get picked up for distribution and it's something that's out there within our military community military bases and our thoughts are yeah we spent quite a bit of money making this film but if it saves one life if somebody watches that film and says damn 48 days out on the water I thought my life was rough I think I can make it whatever it is I'm going through and they don't pull that trigger we we'll call it a success. We may know about it we may not uh but that's just kind of who we are and that's what we're going to put into it. So we would like people to take a you know take a minute to watch the film. It's called Tame the Kraken if you go to fourbranches.com uh on our site you can navigate and find it uh but there'll be more news to come out about that uh in the media here pretty soon but yeah we're we're excited about that we're excited that the bourbon was part of that what was really cool is that boat had four bottles that was on board that boat and those bottles traveled from San Francisco to Gila, Hawaii across the ocean and Harrison and and Tim signed those bottles. So we'll find the right auction uh for those bottles to be auctioned off for his nonprofit which is called Road to Recovery something he has in Atlanta, Georgia he takes out vets and really anybody helped him to understand how they can put that negative energy in rowing and it's an amazing uh Harold and I and Rick and RJ went to Atlanta Georgia and sit with Tim and another vet who was dealing with some tough times. And we sit around a fire pit and we had little four branches bourbon and an hour later we're laughing cutting up and just kind of feeling relaxed but yet you know doing it honorably and that's also that scene is in the movie as well. So that's kind of what it's about it's about a connection it's brotherhood sisterhood it's being there for one another and as Harold mentioned we have to do something to stop this 17 1822 a day it's just we got to do something about that.

Steve 47:22

Well thank you again and uh thank you for your service and thank you for the for the alcohol and bring it all to us. And uh we will put all the socials and and all the links and everything in the show notes for you guys. And um yeah so uh thank thank you again and

Terminal List Easter Egg Closing

Steve 47:40

uh hopefully one day we'll have a chance to have a glass altogether.

Mike Trott 47:44

Uh we appreciate that I'll throw one more carrot out there we call it we call it an Easter egg and I can say this because Jack Carr put it out there with Rick already so there's a if you're familiar with the terminal list the series by Jack Carr um they had dark woof out this year but this later this year uh you'll see a little surprise on terminal list three uh s

Speaker 1 48:07

season two season two yeah and you may see this guy named Chris Pratt having a little sip before branches bourbon that's cool nice that's cool yeah awesome well thank you guys yes thank you thank you very much for what you guys do you guys and hey when we do come into Ohio that's that'll be when we come up and we get to smoke a cigar with you guys perfect yeah I'm gonna man cave and uh kind of shake hands and sit down and and talk. Absolutely yeah that'll be awesome guys will be welcome we appreciate that ohio's a good state for us we we you know we sell online and we ship to 42 states and ohio is always like in the top five so we appreciate you guys we like our bourbon we do there's nothing wrong with that we love you guys that's right awesome all right you guys have a good night take care of you

Steve 48:57

thank you for listening to the podcast if you want more great content and other words we try to support the show by clicking the link to the show down to we can be reached on our website dot down with ideas for the show thanks to get the