Southern Star Paragon Review From Grain To Glass

Welcome And First Bonded Look

SPEAKER_00 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. Hello 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_01 0:29

Well it's bottled and bomb. Oh, it does say that. I'm blind. I was looking, I'm like, it's 100 proof. I'm like, is this bottle and bomb? Two weeks of the bond. What proof is it, Nick? What proof? And how old? Wow. Look at that. It's four years. Did they barrel this? It's their man. Maybe I'll just blame it on my poor eyesight, but it's the fact you're going from white.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

I don't blame it on the uh alcohol. Dude, something's happening.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

We've got Southern Star on now. This bottle came, or the brand, I guess you can say, the distillery came highly, highly recommended by Bobby at Blind Barrels. This is one that he like spoke very highly of. And I think he said anything, what was it? Something if you see that it's like distilled in the south or like some distillery in like Carolinas, it's this company. Yeah, yeah. They're distilling their contract distilling for other brands.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Um he talked about aging down south too. And we talked about that before.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

And I've seen this bottle before, but it's normally like out of the price range I'm willing to spend for someone I've never heard of, kind of thing. What's that? So I've seen this bottle before. This specific bottle? This this yeah, that's a brand or whatever. But they're normally at a they're craft distillery prices for someone I've never heard of. I see it's a little bit of a gamble. I guess I've never seen this on the shelf. I've normally like stayed away from them.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Okay. I've not seen this on the shelf. Was this an Indiana picthan?

SPEAKER_02 2:13

Yep. So I've seen this quite a bit at Tipsy's when I first started going to Tipsy's. And last time I was there, I was like, hey, do you have anything from this company? And he's like, I've got maybe two bottles, like two of their of their offerings, and maybe two to three bottles of that, and then that's gone. And so I was like, All right, I'll take one. I don't know if they're just so small that they don't have anything coming into Indiana. Or if he wasn't getting a whole lot of bites on them. If he just well, he's he said he couldn't really keep it on the shelves, and then at one point they just his distributor was like, nope, you can't get it anymore.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

So I'm wondering if that's they're just not a huge upscale, like up scale production, right small exactly small, like actual craft, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:54

We got a weeded bourbon that's bottled in the bond. So it is a bourbon, still a straight bourbon, but uh uh heavily weeded. Okay, so high wheat.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

High wheat bourbon. Yep, bottom bond from the Carolinas. From I believe

Why Southern Star Gets Recommended

SPEAKER_03 3:10

North Carolina?

SPEAKER_02 3:12

Yep, from North Carolina. Distilled and aged. Distilled and aged in North Carolina. Oh my god. We're doing a go.

SPEAKER_03 3:18

We're doing a bottle that actually was made in-house.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

A husband and wife duo that started this in 2013.

SPEAKER_03 3:23

You gotta love that. 2013. 2013.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Okay. Uh so the did you I I found out some interesting things about uh Statesville, North Carolina, which is where this is uh this resides and is distilled and aged. Did you know that they had that North Carolina had a state prohibition in 1908, which was enacted 12 years before the federal prohibition. So they got into not having alcohol before the government.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

Yes, they shut it down. They shut it down. Well, and that's in the south.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

So here's why they shut it down. But it was known as the liquor capital of the world due to a vast network of routes. Routes. Routes? I was like, routes, like that doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

Well, route trees? Wait, like Route 66?

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Or no, like like routes, like like like uh railroads or like uh yeah, like routes. You can say routes, route 66. You don't say route 66, do you? This is not yep, route routes would work.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Yep, they have different routes, various routes, yeah, vast networks of not ro-o-o-t, but ro-o-ut-e, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:36

I would I would probably say routes, yeah, but I know what you're saying.

SPEAKER_03 4:40

There's times you say routes too, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:42

That is true, like Route 66.

SPEAKER_03 4:43

I'm saying Caramel and Caramel. Sometimes you say either or Caribbean and Caribbean. It's pirates of the Caribbean, but a lot of times people say you know this came from the Caribbean. Yeah, you can go either or so.

SPEAKER_02 4:53

Apparently, Statesville was known again as the liquor capital of the world. They had rail lines, grain trades. I mean, it was the connection, it was like the Columbus for liquor back in the day. Everyone was connected somehow to Carolina and getting liquor traded through that. And so the state of Carolina said, Nope, we're nixing this because this is not going super well for I mean, the economy would be really well, but it's not going well for the health of our people.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

You think that's also because they had their water, there's waterways there. Uh yeah. So they would have a lot of different ways to get, but the thing is, you think that they would do even better uh with the with the prohibition.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

That they would do even better.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

They do even better.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

What do you mean? The the like booming? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

So that reminds me of um, was it a movie or a show? I watched something about the mafia that was they were very pro-prohibition. They actually got the they did the prohibition on purpose. Because they can make more money, make so they could they could run the racket of booze and make the money. And they made way more money with prohibition than they did without. I can't remember what movie. I don't think that was picky blinders, but I no, it was not Colin Wind. I don't know anything about no basis.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

That's actually a good movie. Um great on prohibition.

SPEAKER_03 6:14

It was one of the gangs and marrying your first cousin. A lot of weird stuff in that movie. Uh at any rate. Uh yeah. I think I don't know. But that was but it's interesting that you talked about they were into prohibition, but they were a big so they were making money off of, but I wonder if that's before it was regulated. Again, when you're talking about prohibition, we should we should probably do an episode on prohibition because there's a lot of people don't know about it. This was 12 years before prohibition. But the big push for prohibition was because the government wasn't making money off of it, believe it or not. Like that was one of the big things.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Was it making money off of the liquor?

SPEAKER_03 6:49

No, and the whole idea of prohibition. So maybe that's why the whole idea was to, it was like a spoiled child. They were gonna take it away until we whined and whined and whined and would do anything to get it back. When they brought it back, heavily taxed. All of a sudden, the government was getting their cut, and it's fine. It's okay. Interesting, right? They said it was because of you know values and this, that, and destroying households. The government wasn't making anything right now. They now they were. When prohibition ended, they were like, okay, we'll give it back to you, but you're gonna have to pay a little bit more. And people were willing to do it because they were ready to have legal spirits. Yeah, they were still getting them just illegally. Now they're ready to have legal spirits, and maybe it was cheaper than the illegal stuff, regulated, and then the government was getting their cut, and everybody was happy. Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

So, what are we smoking with this? What are we talking about?

SPEAKER_03 7:37

Before we go too far into the bottle, it really

Statesville And Early Prohibition History

SPEAKER_03 7:40

kind of goes into what we're talking about, which is kind of not I didn't pick that on purpose, but we're smoking uh seersucker, and you're like, well, how does that work? But basically, this is talking about like this came out of the same series as like speakeasy and so like the old Louisiana style, underground kind of blends, uh old world tobacco blends from that area, from that from the Carolinas or Louisiana, that area, you know what I mean? Because Cornell and Deal, are they out of the Carolinas? Yeah, okay, they totally are, yeah. And you see the Florida Lee, yeah, yeah. Then all their Parit comes from from Louisiana, St. James Parish. So a seersucker again is a very south thing, uh suit, the seersucker suit.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

I remember you talking about this.

SPEAKER_03 8:21

Yeah, we've had this on the podcast before. You see, it looks, those are the colors. You ever worn seersucker?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

No, I have not, but I know what a seersucker suit is. I think the only people I don't know what a seersucker suit is.

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Oh, I can tell you, it's even says it on here. A lightweight puckered, all cotton fabric seersucker became a staple of the southern gentleman's wardrobe after Joseph Haspel fashioned the first suit in the material of 1909 as a way of stylish. No, New Orleans summer suit.

SPEAKER_01 8:52

It's just like the fabric kind of puckers.

SPEAKER_03 8:54

It's uh yeah, it's a tight, it's a tight suit. It's a it's a tight cotton suit.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Sorry, is this is this like the uh the down feather coats as I like to call them, the poofy coats for the winter? Right. Is that is that what you're talking about? Like no, no, okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:08

Uh so actually it was ingenious at the time, other than the coloring of it, but whatever. It was kind of it's kind of great. The only person that dresses people in seersucker, by the way, is women. Like that's a big woman thing. Like they love to put little boys in seersucker, but I digress. The thing about it, it was smart because this is a time where men wore suits, and whether it was 40 degrees or 140 degrees, men wore suits with the coat and the pants. That's what men wore, right? They didn't shlub it, right? And so this guy comes out with like let's wear a suit in the summertime in New Orleans summertime, which you know that's hot and sticky. We still have to wear a suit. He came out with an all-cotton suit. It's gonna breathe. It's gonna breathe. It's gonna breathe. And it's lighter, it's not so dark. So the sun. But the problem with all cotton is it kind of shrinks, right? So a sear, that's why a seersucker is a tighter suit. If you ever watch, look at people in seersuckers, it's almost looks like the jacket's gonna rip and the pants are awfully tight. Uh, and then they usually wear the straw hat with it, you know, like a straw hat. Yeah, it's a very fitted suit, puckered. Okay, it looks puckered, you know, like a fat guy in a little code.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

I imagine like puckered, like poofy, is what I imagine. No, puckered like you're busting out of it. Okay, that makes way more sense.

SPEAKER_03 10:22

Okay, puckered, yeah. It's puckered. It's like pink and light and whites. Yeah, so that's a seersucker, but it's uh I don't really know why they named this blend that, because it's a spicy cigar leaf blend with other choice tobaccos, which uh are are I looked it up, they're Cavendish and some Virginian Preek. So it really has nothing to do with seersucker suits, but it's a good blend, it's got age on it. We've smoked it on the podcast before. I figured it might go good with a weeded bourbon.

SPEAKER_02 10:54

And this is a good weeded one to go with.

SPEAKER_03 10:56

I'm just getting a char light on it.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

Um because I mean, we've had our fair share of not so good ones on the podcast uh over time. Yes, but one thing we are a big, big fan of is local craft grain to glass bottles and companies. And this is just that they are this bottle, a

Farm To Glass Grains And Scale

SPEAKER_02 11:20

lot of the stuff they do is farm to glass, is what they claim. So they get all their stuff locally, they work closely with different farmers, different farming uh farmers would be the best way uh to put it. So different farmers are on the area to get their grains local from them. This is a uh yellow corn, red winter wheat, and barley is their what they use for wheat, which I didn't know that that kind of wheat grew in Carolinas. I guess I didn't really I wouldn't have guessed that. I would never thought like uh a red winter wheat.

SPEAKER_03 11:59

Well, you know what's interesting for the Carolinas for such a marshy area that's so close to actual like ocean, they actually are very agricultural.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

Well, well, this is also North Carolina, so we're getting away from the beach.

SPEAKER_03 12:12

But you're closer to the ocean than a lot of other people.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

You are closer to the ocean. North Carolina is kind of all over the place because you're like right next to Appalachia.

SPEAKER_03 12:19

Yeah, and there's a lot, there's a lot of bayous still, and and there's like marshland up there and stuff. It's not as much as South Carolina, but it's still it's still there in the Carolinas.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Yeah, apparently, this campus, their facility is 28 acres. I mean, this thing is massive, yeah. Um, they've got custom copper uh column stills that they've designed for high capacity craft distilling, which is perfect because they they are from what I understand, they're making their own stills, but they're also they are a big contract distilling company for that area, they're like the bardstown of North Carolina, of like the eastern, yeah, eastern seaboard. Um, apparently they they distill and contract distill for a ton of other brands. Really? I wonder who they're normally all southern brands that they distill for.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

I haven't tried it yet. So so they're bigger than I would expect. So I thought that this we were talking about a very small craft.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Maybe this is almost like a Middle West where that's what it sounds like. I always thought Middle West was really small until we visited there, and then you're like, oh my gosh, and then you hear what all they do for.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

Yeah. Interesting. Well, let me see. I'm

Delicate Nose And Palate Ride

SPEAKER_03 13:35

gonna there's not much on the nose, not much going on on the nose. Anybody else getting anything? Um it's very nondescript.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Which I don't I don't know if I really expect that with bottled and bonds or no.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

Sometimes you you're pleasantly surprised, but sometimes it's the opposite.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

It is, and I don't know my brain is trying to figure out the times that I don't really get anything off the nose is because the blend is so well together that there's no fragrance or you know, jumping back and forth, or what is it just the grains they used? Is it just their I you know what I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

I think a lot of times for me it's because it's more nuanced. And I and actually I say that specifically because I just I think this is more nuanced. It's delicate, um, but there's a lot of um different flavors going on, and they're like I said, they're delicate, they're playing very like intricately. And I think if you you could gloss over it very quickly, but if you kind of take your time and kind of really enjoy the ride on your palate, it's quite a bit of a of a loop-to-loop kind of a thing. It's kind of like a what's that one ride at the uh like at a fair where it kind of goes ups and up and down? Uh not a carousel, because it kind of moves around too, but it goes up and down and around. Yeah, it's like a carousel, like a carousel, maybe carousel, maybe that is no, no, no, it's very slow, but it but it also has like the one where it when you dip down, it kind of spins a little bit. You know what I mean? Sometimes it spins a different way than it did last time. There's a ride like that. You sit, it's like it's not the teacups, but it's something where you get in it, it goes up, it goes down, it goes around, but also when you go down, it spins a little bit, not a whole lot, but a little bit. And it's always a different thing, it's like a free spinning thing. So it's every spin's different. That's kind of what this reminds me of. Uh, just because it's got some such a different kind of, you know, as as you're as you're I'm making these hand motions, you can't hear that. But as you're like going down, you're going in these different, different windy little twists and turns kind of a thing, but not sharp ones. Very delicate. I like it so far.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

So far?

SPEAKER_03 16:06

Yeah. Okay, that's that's good. I'm gonna have to sit with it for a minute, have a few more sips.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

So I don't know if I can pronounce this uh paragon. I'm doing great with an uh pronunciation. So paragon? So paragon is so this is the Southern Star Paragon. That is the name of the bottle.

SPEAKER_03 16:23

Paragon means three. I'm sorry, say that one more time. Paragon means three. Three? Yeah. Like three heads. In what world? In like old mythology and stuff. Like like I just read a book and uh they have paragon? Yeah. Three and three and one. It's like a trinity, kind of. That's that's a trinity. Yeah. But it's a different, it's a different word for it.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

So paragon, from my understanding, is a person or thing that is a perfect example of excellence or specific good virtue.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

I just read a book um about that. And there was a well, I won't go into it, but basically it was two beings, two different beings and another being inside another being. I guess kind of like the trinity, but not exactly. But it was called he was called paragon, and then they went into this whole thing about paragon.

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Well, was each person like a better virtue, like a better virgin?

SPEAKER_03 17:22

If you can imagine that. Okay, kind of like the egg, kind of like the Trinity. Like they're all different port parts, but they're also the same, and they're also in one hole. The pair a paragon. It's a par a paradoxal shift. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:37

That's not at all what I thought.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

No, yeah, it probably has nothing to do with what you're talking about. This bourbon, but anyway.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

So the they're they have a paragon series, so they do a bottle and bond, they do a cast drink, and then they do a double out. So, but then they've got uh two other bottlings that they do that's not paragon, that's named something different, that they then have a Southern Star standard, which is straight bourbon rye and a high rye, and then heritage and specialty releases, and that's their specific stuff, but then they're making their other that is just for them. Yeah, that's not what they do for other people. They do a lot of contract distilling, they are one of the largest craft distilleries built in the southeast.

unknown 18:21

Really?

SPEAKER_02 18:22

They're huge. I mean 28 acres. I mean, that's that's like wood for size, uh yeah, like accommodations. All started in 2013 by husband and wife duo.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

Well, they grew quick. Yeah. It's because they're contract distillery. That's smart. And they probably have have the uh the grains locked down.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

So what's interesting is so each I don't know what the Southern Star standard or what their like specialty releases are, but for their Paragon weeded bourbon lineup, it's all the same mash bill, just aged differently or uh at a different proof point or a finishing, but it's 70 corn, 16 wheat, 14 barley is the mash bill for that lineup. And of course, at 100 proof. At 100 proof, this this one's at 100 proof.

SPEAKER_03 19:14

Bottle and bond. Speaking of bottle and bond, you know what the top of that bottle reminds me of? And I know that it's a bottle and bond label, so the label that you break, but it reminds me speci we've seen a lot of those, but that one is a red version of Rittenhouse rye. Yep, isn't it? That's what it reminds me of. Just like it, yeah. The bottle itself, not so much, but the that label specifically does. Looks just like Rittenhouse, other than the color, but the the way it looks, yeah. I don't know. Interesting. Okay, and this is their this is one of their standard offerings, the bottle and bond. It's not like a specialty thing they do now and then.

SPEAKER_02 19:49

Okay, this is one of their standard offerings for the Paragon series. And I think Tipsy had the bottle of the bond and the cast strength, and he recommended the bonded over the cast strength, which is very interesting.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

I kind of want to try the cast strength now, too. What is it the same mash bill though, you think? Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Same mash bill for at least for the paragon series. It's uh the same mash bill, just aged differently or finished differently, the double oaking or double barrel, and then bonded.

SPEAKER_03 20:22

So this husband and wife duo just decided at some point. How old are they? Like they just decide at some point to open a distillery, or do they have family roots in it, or anything?

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Do you know how to rude to ask her how old she was? You can always ask the guy and judge it from there, right? No, I I don't know. I don't know what got them wanting to start it. They started 2013. So 2013 is when they got their start. 2021 is when they released this paragon. So eight years it took them to release a bond a bond, which is not the shortest that we've ever seen someone do a bonded, but also not the longest that we've seen it take someone to do bonded.

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Sometimes it's especially if you're focused on contract distilling, right? Your main customer is gonna be outside of your own business.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

You gotta take care of, yeah. Well, it's sweeter too. It's almost got a very light kind of honey. I don't want to say honey exactly, almost like a honey suckle.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

It's a very light sweetness, but it's very quintessential of like a weeded bourbon. Absolutely. This is kind of like your alley. Oh, 100%. Blake is the weeded guy. I am a big weeded guy.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

You're a big weeded guy, huh? This is pretty good. Not a huge after, like a long finish, like a long last complex, but I it's it it's I think it's a very intricate. Um, like you said, it's not depth, it doesn't have a depth of flavors, it's not complex, but what flavors are going on are they're intricate. They're very If you really take your time and tease them out, it kind of is like a little ping pong. Maybe not ping pong, but like a little you know what I mean? Like little sparks. I don't know. It takes you on a little bit of a ride. I like it. Flavor-wise.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

It does take you on a nice little ride. But uh it's not it's not as much as a thinker in the sense of like heavy, complex flavor profiles. It is very light.

SPEAKER_03 22:32

Yeah, you aren't you're not gonna fix the world problems over this.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

You might fix tonight's problems, but you're definitely not gonna fix the world's problems.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

It actually is it's it's even more of a summertime, springtime, summertime, early fall kind of a drink. Because it's lighter and sweeter without being super like heavy or complex. Yeah. It's it's not a thinker, but if you take your time with it, it's it's a it's it's kind of zingy a little bit, and certain just in little rivets. It's kind of like a uh, it's kind of like one of those salads that have um, they're more like vinegar-based, citrus-based salads, like a summertime salad where you're like, salad, but then you eat it and you're like, it's hitting my taste, it's tingling my taste buds in different ways than I usually have, right? And you get that from vinegar and sugar and citrus all mixed together. It's kind of a zingy kind of uh, and and you enjoy it because you don't have it often and it's refreshing, and it's hitting your taste buds differently than what you normally do. And for that you appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

Like zesty, soury kind of yeah, it hits your tongue.

SPEAKER_03 23:46

You feel like it gives your tongue a workout because you're just not used to having those types of flavors in your mouth. Most people don't eat salad that much, but even a uh zesty kind of summertime vinegary, like a raspberry vinegar, citrusy salad.

SPEAKER_04 23:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

Yeah, exactly. With some with some apples thrown or whatever, you know what I mean? It just hits your taste buds a little different. It's a little sour, it's a little sweet, it's a little tart. It's got all these different types of flavors going on that you don't normally experience on a day-to-day basis. That's what this kind of reminds me of. And all the while it's refreshing.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

It is very refreshing. I like it. I'm not complaining. Blake's our resident weeder. I

Who This Bourbon Is For

SPEAKER_02 24:25

am this compared to Buffalo Trace.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Well, well, first off, did you guys read this bottle? And I know we might be getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, but who is this marketed to? And I can tell you because it says on the bottom. I did not read a the at all of the bottle. Are you ready for it? Making tasty products for happy people. Oh and who doesn't love that? That's pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 24:50

I like that. I like happy people. I am feeling the wife uh coined that one, not the husband. Oh, one 1000%.

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Or maybe he coined it so that he could continue drinking.

SPEAKER_03 25:01

He's like, this is for happy people. Let me drink, let me be fine. It's kind of like that feel-good company. Was it with the smile face? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:08

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

That's cool. I like that.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Feel good company? Yeah, they make shirts and it's it says like feel good. I feel like it's in kind of touristy places or like beachy places, kind of beachy, but it, but it's quality, they're really nice shirts. Do they feel good? They do feel good, and I feel good when I went.

SPEAKER_03 25:26

Yeah, if they didn't feel good, that would be really disappointing. That would be very simple. It's like the gimmick with the passion, which I'm all for. I'm here for it. This that's what I get with this. Like, I love that. I love how simple and good and honest that is. Like, bourbon makes you feel good, our bourbon tastes good, and it makes you feel good. And it's for people that want to feel good. And most people that is that is you, yeah. So so raise your hand if you want to feel good. Okay, have a glass. Yes, very nice.

SPEAKER_01 25:55

Here's our bourbon. But back to your comment about Buffalo Trace. Buffalo Trace is one of those, and we actually kind of touched about on the last episode. If I was introducing somebody to bourbon, I would either pick Buffalo Trace or Woodford Reserve. Buffalo Trace, very sweet, not extremely complex. Woodford Reserve, they did a really good job. They tried to put it in the middle of the flavor wheel in terms of wood, sweetness, and like your fruit notes, it's like right in the middle. It's not or and spicy, it's not too overpowering in any direction. In my opinion, if you don't like Buffalo Trace, if you're like, man, like this is not sweet, you're probably not either ready to try whiskey meat or bourbon meat, or you just don't like bourbon at all.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

And I don't almost, yeah, you're trying to force it.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Yeah, I'd almost say the same thing for wood for reserve, too. Like it's very approachable.

SPEAKER_03 26:49

And they're both good in the price for for it for a beginner, if if you get them retail. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

1000%. Um, but again, they're not extremely complex. I would say wood for reserve. I mean, this might be a hot take, but it's a little bit more complex in terms of it has more of the in the flavor wheel, it's kind of all over the place instead of Buffalo Traces.

SPEAKER_03 27:10

It's sweet. 100%. Yeah, 100%. But they all hit that good price to flavor, to uh, you know, availability. Like it's it's like everything. It checks all the boxes for for anybody who's just getting into it or people that are just kind of into it.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

And and with this, this is sweet, but with the proof, it's got a little bit more going for it than you know, Buffalo Trace. I mean, Buffalo Trace is relatively, I mean, it's lower proof than 100 proof, right? Um, this has a slightly more complexity. Um, drinks a little bit hotter. Like, I I I enjoy it. I mean, again, would it be one of those where you're gonna sit down and you wanna, you know, really get into bourbon? It's definitely like you both have been saying this really isn't like a thinker, but it is it is tasty. Yeah, I will say that.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

Well, there's nothing wrong with that. I I think that it's um, you know, uh bacon wrap scallops aren't thinkers, but they're tasty. You know what I mean? Bingo, right? So, and and I could have a million, I you eat them till you're sick, right? That's kind of what this is. That's one of those. I think this is one of those bottles that you drink until it's gone. Well, I'm not by yourself, obviously. Drink responsibly.

SPEAKER_02 28:26

But take a dare too.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

That's fine. But you you get what I'm saying. And and that's a good thing, especially for a spring, summer, slash, early fall bottle. Uh, you don't want something too heavy. You don't want a thinker, you want an easy sipper that still sustains your palate. Uh, as a as a even uh from anywhere from a uh a novice all the way to like an advanced, you know, palate. I I think even somebody with an advanced palate would appreciate this, all the way down to like uh a beginner, like Laura would like this. I think Mary would like this. I I don't know about Julie. I'm not sure. Maybe maybe we'll see. And that's weeded burb, weeded bourbon in general, uh, is more popular with the ladies, you know what I mean? But this one especially is is even more springy. And

Price Guessing And Value Check

SPEAKER_03 29:15

I don't mean that in like seasonal, I mean like, you know, light, fluffy, kind of springy um flavor. It's just not heavy at all.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

What uh that whole idea of not being heavy and springy for a bottle in the bond. What other weeded bottled and bond bourbons can you think of just off the top of your head?

SPEAKER_03 29:38

I mean, I would typically go to most things in Buffalo Trace, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Old fits is gonna be bottleneck.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

I was gonna say uh you can Larceny, yeah, but I not bonded. Well, it's it's one of those. Could you what's the proof point on Larceny? I really don't know. Uh their normal's 90. Uh, well then you're right.

SPEAKER_03 30:02

I don't even know if you can really talk about bottleneck bonds specifically because most bottling bonds aren't weeded for one thing. Right. But I guess for another thing, they're not their own type. Like I've had bottleneck bond completely throughout the spectrum. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

So I don't know if bottled and you could say 100-proof or around 100-proof, but what I I guess what I'm trying to get at is these guys stuck at four years bottleneck for weeded. The next one that I have in mind that I can think of as a weeded is gonna be old fits. The youngest they do is a seven-year bottle in the bond, but even that isn't gonna be this sweet. This is like honey suckle. Well, not the seven-year. The seven year is out all the time now. That one, I mean, you're probably looking at the same price tag as this one. Yeah, it's terrible. Yeah, more than it used to be. Yeah, you're probably looking at the same price tag as this. So craft versus big name, one seven-year, this is four year. But I guess what I'm trying to get at is for a bottle and bond uh product, this kind of fits more than just it fits more than just the culture or the the North Carolina feel. This fits anyone. Like anyone can grab this, have it for a weeded drink, and be like, wow.

unknown 31:14

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:14

This yeah, there's that proof aspect. There's it's kind of more proofy in the the palette, but it's also very sweet. Like it's like honey, yeah, very honey sweet though.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

It this fits Carolina and out of Carolina, but not all the time does out of Carolina fit Carolina. Yeah, so that's what is interesting. Between that and the fact that this is a unique expression of a bottled and bond. I can't think of a whole lot of weeded bottle and bonds I've had, like high wheat bourbons that are um, this is kind of it if it differentiates itself. And I am appreciating that aspect alone, you know what I mean? Um between that and the overall flavor, we let's talk about the price for a minute, because that's where I start to really start making formulating a decision based on everything I've had at this point. Uh, because I mean, not that it's the end all be all, but it does kind of sometimes put a sour note on something. It can, especially when it comes to craft. Uh, but I know I usually have something in my head. So maybe we should do what do you think should be guessed? Yeah, Nick. What's in your head? Let's go Blake first, and then Nick.

unknown 32:20

Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

But don't, don't, I already know the price.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

You already saw that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Because if if you're talking about like old fits, I just picked up my first old fits seven year, and I thought it was delicious. And the price point was really good. It was better than I thought it was gonna be. I think it was like 55 bucks.

SPEAKER_03 32:38

You got retail on that bad boy, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

Got retail, and plus I picked it up out of Costco. Oh, well, that's even more. Yeah, so so for something like this, you know, I always like to do the general, you know, 10 bucks a year to say this is four years, but I mean, it's one of those not big name distilleries, so I would expect this to be around probably about the same 55 or 60 bucks.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

Okay, okay. So I'm very similar with Blake. I usually do about 10 bucks a year, and then I take into account other things. So you got the craft tax, which is usually 10, and then uh the fact that this is bottle and bond adds another little uh so I would say 60 would be a hell of a price. I think this could go all the way up to 75. I think it probably is 75. If it's under 75, I would be stoked. MSRP is 55 to 60 bucks. Wow, that's great. That is fantastic. That's really good. Wow, that's great. Now, in Indiana, probably uh Tim Two are about that price.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

I mean, I could see him selling this for if he could get it all the time, or if he could get it, but it was just limited.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

I could see him doing 75 for what helps is the fact that this is a massive distillery because I guarantee if you had a smaller craft distillery putting this out, bottled and bond, I bet you'd be at 75. We've seen stuff even more than

Beach Bottle Versus Cabin Bottle

SPEAKER_03 34:05

that, even more than that, and it wasn't this good. So but I also that that's that this makes me tickled pink. This is good stuff.

SPEAKER_02 34:12

I look at this and I try this and I go, price point, I'm not upset with flavor-wise, I'm not upset with because it goes outside of Carolina. We're getting outside of North Carolina into any state, and I could drink this no matter the the temperature or the weather or what's going on. Now you're also talking they distill for other brands. I really want to try what else they distill for other brands.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

I want to go there because, like, I like Cornell and Deal is in uh North Carolina as well.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

Like your your your your mainline product is this well rounded and well done. If you care this much about what you're putting out, what's happening with what you're putting out for others? Right, you know, and and they're uh from what I understand, the husband and wife don't have a background in distillation, they have executive background in farming, like agricultural. So who's distilling?

SPEAKER_03 35:08

But that's huge when it comes to distillery. But who's distilling for them? They probably have a good master distillery that's using it's using some good grains and doing everything else. What's interesting is I'm talking about the last episode we did with Blake. Nick, you were really trying to find a beach bottle.

SPEAKER_02 35:24

And I always, and that's trying to find a beach bottle as much as well. We've allowing this to be a beach, that to be a beach bottle.

SPEAKER_03 35:31

Yeah, but we've talked, well, but we have been looking for a beach bottle, and and we've talked about that specifically. Um, what's interesting is I always in like Hilton Head, Hilton Head, Hilton Head's my beach. You know what I mean? Again, we're talking in South Carolina, not North Carolina, but it's adjacent. Um for me, this is a beach bottle. What you know what's funny though? You know what's really funny is And you're talking not far from the beach.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

I'm not a beach guy, I'm more of a cabin in the woods kind of guy. Yeah, like let me rough it in the lake house or some yes, let me rough it for a couple days. If it's water, let me be on a lake. But like cabin in the woods kind of feel. This fits a cabin in the woods kind of feel. If it's a hot summer in the cabin in the woods, it's also kind of muggy. Yeah, and like who, but do you like that?

SPEAKER_03 36:16

A hot summer? Cabin in the woods?

SPEAKER_02 36:19

Yes, I will take a cabin in the woods. It's a hard pass for me. I will take cabin in the woods.

SPEAKER_03 36:27

Yeah, I'll take this on a salty beach, and I can get dip in anytime I get too hot. And this is this would lend itself to being a little salty, you know what I mean? Yeah, this is this is saltwater, saltwater taffy sweet. You know what I mean? It's that semi-sweet kind of thing going. I mean, I get what I get what you're saying. I'm just not vibing it. I'm not vibing a hot summer in a in a in a cabin.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

What I'm what I'm trying to read. What I'm really trying to get at is this doesn't just fit the beach, but like I could take this bottle hiking.

SPEAKER_03 36:57

Oh, yeah. Yeah, this could be a camping bottle.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

This could be a camping bottle. This could be we're going on a trail.

SPEAKER_03 37:02

Just a beach bottle. But all I'm saying is we have a harder time finding a beach bottle than we do a camping bottle. And this fits a beach bottle, and it's made not far from the beach.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

With ingredients close by the beach, too.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

With local ingredients, yeah. Beach adjacent. Look, I I'm I'm I'm impressed. I I think that this would be one that we would take next time we go on a beach vacation.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

It's just a matter of trying to find it.

unknown 37:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Like I what I so what I'm trying to figure out in my head is they distill for other companies, they contract distill for other companies. Do we drive by it on the way down to Hilton Head? No. No, no, because we don't go through North Carolina.

SPEAKER_03 37:40

Um, we don't go through North Carolina to get to Hilton Head. See, in my mind that we would, because it's it's north of South Carolina. I think north of both.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

But maybe I think you have more of South Carolina that you drive through to get to Hilton Head to do North Carolina.

SPEAKER_03 37:56

You might hit like my mind doesn't do geography. Part of it. Part of it, but not enough to come all the way over, probably.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

I think you might hit like Apple, like just over the mountains. You'd be in Apple Asia, I think.

SPEAKER_03 38:07

I can't remember right now if it's North or South Carolina, but Cornell and Deal is only like a couple hours from Hilton Head.

unknown 38:14

Do you know?

SPEAKER_03 38:15

Are they close to Charleston? Yeah. Uh well, kinda. So they'd be in South Carolina. Yeah. They'd be far they'd be more north. It might be closer to Savannah. No, that's Georgia. That's Georgia. I don't know. They're somewhere in one of the Carolinas. But uh if if it's close to this place, we ought to just double up.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

I want to, I would love to go. Because I'm I again, I I don't I don't understand after trying this. I don't understand how they're not in more states than in more than a lot of people.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

I think it's because they're completely content with selling what they're selling and contract distilling, and that's a good solid business, probably for them. They they just don't care, and those are the places that are the best. It's like Liberty Pull. They just do a good job. They just do a good job. Yeah, they do, they don't brag about it, they're not marketing like crazy. It and those are the places when you find them, you're kind of like, I found something special, and that's what makes it worth all the while. And I can tell you right now, going back to the other bottle, I guarantee, especially if we talk to these people, there's passion. There's passion, passion, passion for for this, for what they're making. And that, dude, for me, that just fires me up. I like it. You can taste it. This has got some, there's this is artisan, you know, stuff. And we only have the one bottle from them, but I bet their cast strength's fantastic as well. I'd like to find out what they're making. I'm sure they would tell you if you went to the distillery what they're making for other people. Uh unless they have like a NDA. They might, but some some things they'll might put their brands out there.

SPEAKER_01 39:45

Some bourbon company, they tell you straight up to make green river.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

They usually have like a display of the ones that don't care. Like, hey, we make for these people, you know, because they're proud of it and the other people are proud of it. You know, I don't know. Uh, even Liberty Pull does that, right? Don't they have a is it Liberty Pole or was it Journeyman that does that? They have

Online Ordering And Shipping Headaches

SPEAKER_03 40:05

like a list or like uh or bottles up from the ones that they do for.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

Oh, that was Middle West.

SPEAKER_03 40:09

Oh, Middle West.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Yeah, Middle West had it in their tasting room.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

Uh because they're kind of proud of it, you know. Stuff you can buy online from them. Southern Star Bourbon, $39.99. Well, we can.

unknown 40:25

What?

SPEAKER_02 40:25

This is $49. Their Southern Star Double Rye $35.

unknown 40:32

Whoa. What?

SPEAKER_02 40:34

What are we talking about? Why is it so damn cheap? That's all you that's what you can buy online, and that's it.

SPEAKER_03 40:39

But that's just online. A double rye? Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, that makes me want to loosen my belt.

unknown 40:46

You know.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

How about that? Okay. They do the bottle of the bond, so the paragon bottle of the bond, southern star bourbon, southern star double rye, they do a bourbon cream, southern star cast strength, southern star bottle in the bond straight rye whiskey, southern star bourbon finished in honey barrels.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Oh yes.

SPEAKER_02 41:11

Man, Steve is really gonna be upset about this. Southern Star American Single Mall Whiskey. They do a Paragon single barrel weeded bourbon, and then they also have a private select for Southern Star bourbon. A single barrel private select. So it's not like they do a ton of stuff, right? They don't do a ton of stuff, but what they do, they do well.

SPEAKER_03 41:34

Well, but they do more than a lot of other distilleries, especially considering their contract distilling. So they've got quite the setup. Damn, dude. I think we stumbled upon a good brand. I'm really pumped about this brand. I want to try more of their stuff. I mean, even the honey finish, that sounds interesting. Damn, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

100%. Because I really want to try, not to get on a different brand, but I know go on a tangent, go on a tangent. Short barrel. Oh apparently does a really good honey barrel finish.

SPEAKER_02 42:02

Short barrel would be interesting to do on the podcast because they don't distill them. They don't distill, but they they're kind of like well, they remind me, from what I understand and what I've read, they remind me like a cross between broken barrel out in California and Cox Creek that does um good times. Like they're more finishing, they're more unique. Like, what can we do to this to make it either the blend or some kind of hand in it that's not just, hey, we got Buffalo Trace barrels and we threw it into a bottle, and this is our stuff.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Like I think they started out as like a group of friends and they just bought a whole bunch of barrels and they started doing stuff with them. Like they got the honey barrel, then they do a uh they call it a sap squatch. So maple syrup.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

And that one goes that one goes insane.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Yeah, I've I've seen a lot of people go crazy for that. But I mean, at least if you're doing if you're going that route, you're doing something interesting with it. And I'm like, we don't have short barrel in Ohio, like, but that would be really cool to try. It'd be fun to try honey barrel this versus like honey barrel of short barrel. That'd be neat.

SPEAKER_03 43:16

You don't see much of that, you know. I mean of the honey barrel or the blending, honey barrel. Oh, you see, there's quite a bit of honey out there.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Steve, Steve, Steve would like honey barrel. He would at least appreciate it. He would. Oh, you'd at least appreciate it. We need to try to find the honey barrel to go with the sun bear. Yeah, the new sun bear.

SPEAKER_03 43:33

Yes. When when you say honey barrel, I think honey badger. Honey badger don't care. Honey badger doesn't give a fuck. Yeah. Remember those videos? Yeah, I don't know. This is uh I think we stumbled upon something here. 49 bucks, the only problem is might be hard to get, depending on who you are or where you are. Right. I mean, but this you can buy online. Is one of the offerings you can get online. So, how does that work? People go online, they buy this to get shipped to their house. I always wondered about that. Can we do that in Ohio? Yeah, we can have it shipped to it to us in Ohio.

unknown 44:11

Really?

SPEAKER_03 44:11

Have you done this?

SPEAKER_02 44:12

Have we tested it out? Yeah. So how it works is it's really mother effing dumb.

SPEAKER_01 44:20

So I knew there was gonna be something. I'm like, Ohio's gotta get involved somehow.

SPEAKER_02 44:23

It's how do I put it in? You have to send it to a liquor store, then you pick up Ohio. How do I say this nicely in the best way without being French? It's all retarded. Okay. There it is. But it's it's not just Ohio. This is this is very French. This is this is the entire this is all of America. So they have to distilleries sell to a distributor that gets it out to DC. DC is where all bottles that are shipped have to go through. You mean Washington, right? Yep. They have to go through Washington State. So if you think of Correct. Yeah, correct.

SPEAKER_03 45:00

For anybody who doesn't know. If you think Chris. It was a long time that I thought Washington. DC was in Washington. Blue geography, Chris, for you. I still have a hard time in my brain thinking about that.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

But if you think about Ohio, we have all these massive warehouses that are storing bottles, right? That is DC. DC is the the hub of storing all these bottles for different brands.

SPEAKER_03 45:23

It's not a big area either. Waiting to be shipped.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

It has to be shipped out, mailed out from DC to them. That's a prolific hub. That's a P hub. There are certain places that you can't do it. So Hawaii, you can't ship to uh Puerto Rico, of course, you can't ship to Puerto Rico. PO boxes you can't ship to, army bases you can't ship to. Because they have their own. The army bases are regulated. They're very regulated, yeah. And there's other certain states that, like, if it's not licensed yet, they can't ship in.

SPEAKER_03 45:55

I figured Ohio would be one of those because they're kind of locked down. More locked down than others.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

It's locked down on what the state will allow to bring in to sell, not necessarily what you can bring into the state to consume. So as a consumer, I can bring in bottles from out of state and the state doesn't come in. You're not buying them in Ohio. I'm not buying it.

SPEAKER_03 46:14

So that means you're not having to pay Ohio taxes. You do.

unknown 46:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

So they factor that in the state still gets something from the online sales. It doesn't have to be air piece, dude. It doesn't have to be bottom. It comes down to regulation. It doesn't have to be bottles that Ohio has selled. I thought that's what gifts. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:33

I thought there was no taxation without representation. We threw a Boston Tea Party over this.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

But what's crazy is so I talked to Liberty Poll about it because they do ship some of theirs, but only a select few. Not because they can't put out more, but they have to pay essentially they have to pay the distributor, including shipping, to get out to DC, to then have a cut taken from that to then DC ship it out, and another cut is taken out just to get to the consumer. So now I'm paying out commission on two different uh entities and paying for shipping just to get it to DC to then get to the consumer. Where if it's in-house I pay no one else and I make all the profit. I have to pay tax, but that's it. Same with Ohio. You're just dealing with one person. So if like Liberty Poll, for example, if they can get into Ohio, they're just dealing with Ohio to negotiate prices for the bottles for Ohio to buy from them. That's one versus two entities to now have to pay out just for the consumer to get the bottle.

SPEAKER_03 47:44

Hey, that that makes me wonder. So states that have no sales tax, which is only like two, right? Like Texas is one of them. But right, I think so. Uh if you're in a state with no sales tax and you buy a bottle of liquor, do you get taxed on it at all?

SPEAKER_02 48:00

Uh they so they may have alcohol tax versus sales tax. I wonder. Like a send tax. I'm curious. Alcohol and tobacco, or is it just a markup?

SPEAKER_03 48:10

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 48:11

They may have like an alcohol tax to it.

SPEAKER_03 48:13

I don't know. I it's been years since I've been in Texas. I don't know. Before then I didn't care. But I'm just curious now. If you're from Texas, let us know. You're probably gonna tell us that you get effed like everybody else. But you're like, no, no, it's retail, baby. We all get effed.

SPEAKER_02 48:30

Yeah, we get retail baby property. Yeah, property taxes, they get effed on. Yeah, but that's property taxes are not cheap in Texas.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

We get effed on property taxes too.

SPEAKER_03 48:40

I don't understand. Well, let's not get political. I'm right there with you. I'm literally about to go down that road. Let's not even try to talk about that because back to the bourbon.

unknown 48:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:53

How's uh a seersucker

Tobacco Pairing And Cellaring Time

SPEAKER_02 48:55

going with this guy? It's great.

SPEAKER_03 48:57

I think a little bit of uh cigar leaf actually um it's it's behooving like it's actually better than uh of darker tobacco. I actually think a darker tobacco would would not do well with this. And you think cigar leaf, you're thinking darker, fuller. It's not. It's it's actually for this, it's more lighter, it's more like a Connecticut, so more of a lighter, drier smoke. Uh, and I think that that's what's lending itself to this blend a little bit. It's not overpowering, it's not competing with. Um, this blend specifically is not super powerful, it's just very it's well blended, it's well incorporated. Um, and it's easygoing, but still being like the nuances are there, but they're not um super sharp edges. They're they're just it's like a nice piano melody, just playing well together. It's not anything you're gonna like cry over, but it's you enjoy listening to it. That's what this is, and it's going along really well with this. It's it's not only gonna take away from or adding to. I think it's just going along with it kind of like the current, and it's like this is like the leaf that's just taking its ride down the current. It's perfect. They're just working together simultaneously to make something cool looking. So yeah, it's good. It's really good. Yeah, and it's and it's smoking super well, it's burning super well. I mean, again, this stuff's got let's see, 2017, early 2017. So nine years on it. It's got some age on it. Um, so that doesn't hurt. You know, and these, and this is uh one of their seller series, so it's made to be aged. I don't know if it says it on here, but some of these things, oh, seven, seven to ten years estimated peak. So you said how many, how many years? It's right there, it's right there at its peak. So yeah, it's good stuff. It's it's smoking well and it's going really well with this. It's a combination that's not missing. It's perfect.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

So I feel like I've seen a few of these seller series that you've talked about. It's not all of them come in the the like ribbon cut or whatever, like the loose some come in the the cakes or like the bricks.

SPEAKER_03 51:12

Yeah, it just depends on what it is. Yeah. They don't have a there, you know, Cornell and Deal, a lot of companies do this, but they have different lines of tobacco. Um but they came out with the seller series a while ago. I w I actually picked this up, so it was probably right around that time, because this had just come out, and I picked up a few tens, and this is one of those. Um, so I want to say it was probably around 2017 or so that they came out with the seller series. And what was an interesting, it was an interesting concept because they marketed it as you could smoke it right away and you'll enjoy it. But if you buy this and you put it away, and that's why they put the estimated peak on there, they were like, really, really, you really need to not touch it. So they really really like asking people to make an investment, which is an interesting concept, right? To buy something and wait on it, to buy something and not be greedy, you know what I mean? To not be like a pig, you know what I mean, and like dive right into. You imagine buying groceries with the idea that you're gonna wait a decade before you open it. Who does that, right? Or even a bottle of bourbon. What would you buy a bottle of bourbon knowing I'm not gonna open this for a decade? Not even gonna touch it. It'd be wild, right? So they were asking asking people to buy tins of tobacco and not touch it for 10 years. That's wild. And some of these are even more 15-year estimate. But they know what they're talking about. And I I was one of the one, one of the people that were like, yeah, you know, sign me up for that. You know, now what I did do was buy more than a few tins, so I could open one. So I kind of cheated, you know what I mean? But uh it's been an interesting thing to like kind of some of these I've opened pure periodically through the years, and somebody I didn't touch at all. And so it was the first time ever trying it was at its peak. So that's pretty cool. But yeah, they have a few. Um, what's interesting though is as you finish it, unless you were buying it as you went, you know, at some point I'm gonna have to start over, like with the seersucker. I have one more 10 that's sellering. Yeah, if I want to keep this, you know, in my rotation, I'll have to buy at some point. I probably should buy now, but I mean, and start start the process again. And you know, and in 10 years, I'd be gonna take you 10 years. I'll be talking about it again. 10 years to open it, just 10 years to open it. You know what I mean? Like it needs to sit for 10 years and not be touched because it just ages and matures in that. And it's one of the few products out there because like bourbon doesn't imagine if bourbon aged in the bottle, it doesn't, it'd be crazy, right? But this stuff ages in the tent. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

If they gave you bourbon in like a wooden bottle, then it could. Then it then it could, then it could, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:49

Or, and I thought about this, we've not done this, but you can buy small barrels.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

Yeah, you can. Yeah, what do you do?

SPEAKER_03 53:55

You get your favorite bourbon and you throw that thing in a barrel, it'd be like a double barrel almost, double oaked, it could be, but also if you just it would be double oaked, but then also it'd be double oaked 20 years old or whatever if you wanted it to.

SPEAKER_02 54:07

I don't know that it would continue aging once you pull it out of the original barrel.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Oh, it would. Yeah, yeah, because that's the whole purpose of double oak. Yeah, you take it out of the original barrel.

SPEAKER_03 54:18

It could get to a point where it's too damn much. Oh yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 54:22

Uh and and maybe not much left, depending on how much you know it's depends where you take a puppy's putting these 23 for another 20.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

If you take any bourbon and throw it into wood and let it sit, it's gonna age just like it would, like it was doing before you bought bottled it. I mean, it's that's what it is. It's it's whiskey ver plus wood equals bourbon. Right. That's it. Or I mean I shouldn't they say whiskey, but neutral grain spirit or whatever, uh, white dog and wood equal bourbon. So it's just a matter of how concentrated you want that to be. That's it. That's it. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Just crazy to think about it. There was a time that they were making whiskey, just not putting it in the wood.

SPEAKER_02 55:06

You mean moonshine? Yeah. White

Craft Hunting Versus Big Names

SPEAKER_02 55:10

dog, whatever. Spirits. Yeah. Back to the bottle. I I it sounds like it's a very good pairing with your your tobacco.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

It's a good bottle. It's a great price. I'm not upset with the bottle at all. Everything but potentially the availability for some people, including ourselves, maybe. We can buy it online again. We could buy it online, I guess. It's a pain. That's a pain. I want to be able to get it. Uh, we we could probably get we got it from Tipsy before, we can probably get it again. If he's gotten he left, sure.

SPEAKER_02 55:41

We maybe you can uh figure out how to get more because it's something with Indiana, they're not distributing Indiana.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

I don't know. I I feel like you guys have more I don't want to per se say sentimental attachment, but you guys appreciate uh lesser known either brands or craft distilleries more than I do. And even if a bottle is coming from, you know, the big distilleries, you know, be that Wild Turkey, uh Jim Beam, Heaven Hill, or Buffalo Trace, like I feel like my focus, whether it's right or wrong, is on like my you know, cost versus quality. And if I'm comparing this to, you know, like the old fit seven year that I can get for the same price, even though I would pretty much unfortunately I'd have to probably drive to either Indiana or Kentucky to find it because I haven't been able to find it in Ohio. I think that is better than this. However, for what this is, this is this is pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

Right. This is pretty good. I think it comes down to, and and there's not and there's no right or wrong here. It's just different. Anyone who's into this or listening to this and agrees with this, uh, they're collectors, right? We're collectors, and not just collectors where you don't touch it, collectors where you you use it as well. You we drink this stuff, right? And I just think it comes down to what you collect, and I and I think it also depends on where you're at in your whiskey journey. Uh, because me and Nick were there at one point where you're at, Blake, and we're and we're still kind of there a little bit. I don't think you'd ever get out of it completely, but and Nick, you can tell me if I'm speaking out of turn. I but I think you're gonna agree with me. Um, whereas you're into like the collecting of that kind of stuff, and you get excited about it, and there's nothing wrong with that. The big names, because they're out there and it's cool, and it's and it's buzz and it's people, and this is it's and it's the big, the big marketing. It's it's it's it's ACDC, right? It's meatloaf, it's the big bands, right? Me and Nick are kind of into more of the not known artists, the folk artists, the underground musicians, the hey, they only came out with this really weird LP album and and it's hard to get and nobody's ever heard of it. And let me and listen to this. You think you know music? Listen to this, right? You've never heard this band before. That's craft. And when we try something that we and we try a lot of craft, so and there's a lot out there, thank God. You know, it's like listening to a lot of music, a lot of it's shit. You know what I mean? Oh, you think you're a good band, you're not that good, right? Like, okay, good luck in the local coffee shops. I don't know what to tell you. But there are people like Jeff Buckley out there that are just like, nobody really knows unless they know, right? You know what I mean? Like, uh, I I think uh Bob Dylan was like that before he became huge. Now Bob Dylan's oh mainstream, everybody's, you know. But the guys that were into Bob Dylan before Bob Dylan was a thing, those guys knew, right? And they're the people that also still go went on. They they like Bob, but they go on to other other artists. They didn't just stop. Um, because they're always looking for that unheard sound and that true artist and that not mainstream type thing. And those people collect that way, not to mean that the other guys don't aren't just as into music either. You know what I mean? There's nothing wrong with the big bands. Those things are good too, and and they're very worth listening to and collecting as well. But I think me and Nick would get more excited about the people that you haven't heard of. And when you try something that's amazing and it's kind of flies under the radar, we're kind of like, we're more excited about that than oh, Heaven Hill released, you know, and and it was a mass announced Heaven Hill released this amazing, you know, bottle that everybody's gonna want. Because on the number, it sounds amazing. Like the dis the mash bill sounds amazing, the age, the price, the everything. It's gonna sell out, right? Everybody's excited. That's cool. That's cool for me and Nick. Not as cool as like, hey, have you tried this barrel or this uh the this bottle from this this cut this company? No, I've never heard of it. Let's try it. Oh my god, that blew my socks off. Dude, how hard is this to get hard? Oh my God. You get what I'm saying? Like, it's that it's that underground band. It's nirvana before it blew up, you know, and people were like going to the local shows. This, you know, these guys have it, you know, and eventually they got mainstream and it's kind of like okay, they sell out or what they sold out or whatever. Uh, or maybe they didn't sell out, you know what I mean? It's like I I go back to Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan's amazing, don't get me wrong. But everybody's a Bob Dylan fan. Everybody, you know, and if you're not, you're an idiot, right? But if you liked Bob Dylan before he was a big thing, it's different, right? Because you never had anybody to tell you to like Bob Dylan. You found him on your own, right? It's the same thing with it. So I think that there's, you know, me and Nick get more excited about the craft than maybe you do. Nothing wrong with that, but I get excited about the big stuff too. You know what I mean? Just not as excited.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:35

I I think this is kind of one of those interesting bottles because this isn't necessarily craft.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:40

No, not exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:41

This is almost like a Middle West or something like that, but it's not mainstream, correct. It's just it's not mainstream. That blows me away. Yeah, and maybe that's where my whole thing is like this is a really big distillery, like on face value, should theoretically be able to compete

Customer Service And Final Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

with some of those bigger brands.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:01

Why is it not bigger? Yeah, I think I think it's just because they're focusing on the contract distilling and they're making a really it's it would be like finding like you know, a really well-made car that no like a brand that nobody ever talks about, but they but they make for a lot of other big like they make for Toyota and Honda or something, but they also have their own brand. Yeah, uh, I think of Palmetto Armory. So Palmetto Armory, they don't, I don't think they make for other brands, but they make a Glock knockoff. Okay. Really? And it's just as good if not better than Glock. And everybody will tell you, everybody will tell you this. I mean, it's it's just as good if not better than Glock, and it's cheaper. And it's become like a thing at first when it was kind of like it's a knockoff, but then it's become like a thing where it's like it's not, it's it's better than Glock and it's it's cheaper. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

That's a hot take right there.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:48

So there's people that like own Glock that will buy palm metal armory just because it's palm metal armory at this point. You know what I mean? It's still not super known. You've never heard of it. I've never heard of it. If you're in if you're in the weeds, you know what I mean? If you're like one of the, if you're a gun guy, you know, you know what a dagger is. That's what that's what the Glock 19 version of the, it's a dagger, a palm metal armory dagger. You know what I mean? That's pretty cool, you know. Uh, did they kind of rip a Glock? Sure. But did they do it better than Glock did? And are they still innovating? Yes. I'm sure Glock's innovating, but not like Palmetto is, because they're hungry, right? You know what I mean? So it's and and they fully, and they really um their customer services, like I mean, if they if there's any issues, they fix it. You know what I mean? So so you're getting a lot more craft-esque, um, you know, air quotes craft-esque quality than you would from a big dis a big company like Glock, you know what I mean? So you're getting that personal touch with the mass production because it's a big production, but you've never heard of it.

unknown 1:02:46

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:46

So, but it, but if you're but if you if you're a gun guy, you have, you know what I mean? So that's that's kind of a cool thing, you know. So if somebody ever pulled out a gun and you're like, what is that? And they're like, it's it's a dagger, you know what I mean? Then now you know, and you're kind of like, oh, that's sweet tits, you know what I mean? Let me let me look at that, you know what I mean? You're like, how much do you pay for this? Really? Oh shit, you know, that was cheaper than a glock, you know, and it's this is cooler. And then you shoot it and you're like, it shoots just as well. This is better than the glock, you know, this is better than my glock, you know what I mean, or whatever. So you're like, how much are the accessories? Oh the magazines are cheaper? Wow. Why the hell isn't this bigger? You know what I mean? Yeah, like so, like you you get in all the same kind of conversations. So it's uh yeah, I think that that's what makes me and Nick super excited about this button ball.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:30

What kind of customer service does a gun company provide? Like, hey, I've in my mind I'm picturing this. Hey, so I accidentally just shot someone. What do I do?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:38

No, how do I get rid of your gun? It's not it's not that, it's not that.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:41

Think about it. Honestly, if you were to give it away my gun misfired, what do I do?

SPEAKER_03 1:03:45

Like, what kind of customer service do we have? If you were to give feedback on a distillery, would it be, hey, I got blackout drunk? What can we do with your product, right? Or would it be, I was tasting this? I thought maybe it could use more marshmallow. You know what I mean? Or uh, hey, I I'd like it. I'd think the bottle shape is stupid.

unknown 1:04:01

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:02

Picture customer service like your internet, like, hey, my internet just went out. Can we restart it? Like, how do you do that for a gun company?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:07

But I mean, that's what makes good customer service. It's not the end of the world scenarios. It's, hey, uh, you know, for my hands, I feel like you should you guys should look into maybe adding more of a dovetail here. You know what I mean? Or hey, you know, the grip is cool, but have you guys ever thought about doing more of a modular type grip? Or are, you know, I think the stippling's great, but for me, I perform more more traction or less traction. Uh, you know, hey, it's a little bit, the spring's a little tight, like I have a hard time racking, or my wife has a hard time racking it. Well, you know, whatever. These little feedbacks, okay, okay, okay, that's how you make a product better. So the next time they make the 2.0 or the 2.8 or whatever the 3.0 or the 5.0 or whatever, they're like, okay, well, maybe we extend the dovetail so it fits in people's hands a little bit better. It's a little more controllable. Okay, the stippling wasn't a little slick. Maybe we grip make it a little bit grippier. So their hands are sweaty, it stays in their hand better. You know, maybe we make the spring just a little less tight so people can rack it easier. You that's the kind of customers you tell Glock, hey, I think your dovetail is messed up.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:05

They're gonna be like, well, you are so big.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:10

Also, we're German and fuck you in German. You know what I mean? Like, so that's you get what I'm saying? Like that the difference between the customer service is like fuck you versus that's valuable input. Thank you so much. We're gonna forward it to our research and development team.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:24

You know, it was kind of one of those like irony things in my head of like, what kind of customer service can you provide for a gun? Kind of like Buffalo Trace Sazerek has the we love to hear from my customers, and my brain always goes to, I'm sure that means at certain points, not when they're drunk. Yeah, we don't want to hear from you when you're rambling and drunk.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:41

I I I look as some you're talking to somebody who's actually for whatever reason, I couldn't even tell you why. I'm the kind of guy that people reach out to and ask for like feedback, you know what I mean, about things like there. So there's a lot of people. Yeah, maybe I'm a consumer. Yeah, maybe that's it. So so I'm the guy that and I can and I can tell you when like I've given People, my recommendations, and when I've I've felt like they're gonna take that and actually use it in the future, whether it's right or wrong, versus it's a blow-off type of deal. And it's like, okay, you just did that to make me feel good or whatever, you know, whatever it was. But like, and there have been times where I've given a specific recommendation and I've seen that implemented. And I'm like, well, fuck yeah. You know what I mean? Like, that's pretty cool. Like, hey, I was onto something and they listened. Like those both of those things are powerful. So um, I I think good customer service is probably one of the three major tenets that any company should have. Um, and I won't go into the other two, but I I I think that uh it's huge. It's it's unit's one of the unparalleled things that set you apart from other companies.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:45

Well, less soapbox about Glock. This would be a question for Nick, because I think Chris already knows it. Do you know what Glock made before they made pistols? Or what they were in business for.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:00

No, but I I'm trying to think of what it could be because it doesn't sound like you have to guess it would be guns. Three guesses. They're German, don't forget. They're German. I don't know if that's gonna help them out or Austrian, actually. I'm also trying to picture their like design of their logo, doesn't scream gun to me. It screams more mechanics, like nuts and bolts, machinery. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. You want to get that little uh glock, not machinery. Okay, are they stationary?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:30

No, but think more of design and feeling clothes? Yeah, that's a little bit better. Furniture.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:41

It actually makes a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:42

Well, their furniture was so bad that at least they had targets to try out with their guns.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:47

It actually makes a lot of sense because real furniture, especially German-made furniture, it the way it fits together is it it it supports it. That's why it lasts so long, it supports itself. And the other ones that would use things like you know, um have you ever seen the bow tie? I can't remember what it's called right now, but like the doveta dovetail is one of them. But then also the bow, the specific the bow. Have you ever seen the bow tie? Okay. Um, yeah, Nick, you've seen that where that you hammer that in and it anchors together. Cause because it goes on, it goes up, right? So then you so there's certain things that they it fits together in a way where it either lends itself extra support or its functionality is through the roof. You don't get that with kind, and I don't even know if they make that anymore in Germany or not, but like they used to make some of the best freaking furniture ever. I had a whole bed, I had a bed, a desk, a dresser, and a nightstand. All from IKEA from Germany. Really? From like the early like 1900s in Germany was heavy. It's cool. Real wood, heavy as shit. At one point, I refinished it because it had been like painted over a bunch of times. Okay, because it came from my grandpa to my dad to me.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:00

And so I stripped all this paint off, like years of paint, right? So I got down to like the bare wood and I got to see how everything was made and put together. And I just couldn't believe the not just the intricacy of it, but how it was like this stuff will last forever because the way it's made. Like, unless you were to put water on it and let it warp, it's not, it's never gonna break. Yeah. And that's why for all those years it it withstand it withstood all that weight and pounding and what like the desk. We played on, we jumped on the bed, you know what I mean? Like just years of abuse, you know what I mean? And it just kept on ticking forever. And we got rid of it, you know, and I never should have. But I was we were moving one time, we ended up selling it. But like that was a mistake. But that's handmade furniture, like they don't make it like that anymore. I mean, I don't bet, I bet even in Germany they don't make it like that anymore. But yeah, I could see Glock being a furniture company for sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:53

The more you know, but I think to your point about customer service, I think customer service, not to get off on a complete tangent, but I feel like customer service. I think customer service is more so for the secondary customer. Well, not secondary customer, but returning purchase, yeah. Returner, because your your base, like if we went out and tried this and this was so so, I don't think you would complain about it. But if you had this and then you got another bottle of this and you're like, this was not that good, you would reach out to and be like, Hey, like, I had one of your products, like, is it supposed to taste like this? Is it supposed to have these flavor characteristics? And then I'd be like, Oh no, like let me hook you up with something else.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:36

Dude, I did a whole lecture on that specific topic in business school about brand loyalty specifically. And it that it initiated after the first purchase. You did not you did not get brand loyalty until after somebody actually bought a product from you. And it was a follow-up, whether you know they felt validated from buying it, it met their needs in a specific type of way. Um, or and and more likely that they had an issue with it and how it was handled, addressed, and their subsequent purchases and everything else. That that you could have the idea that you could have a bad shopping experience and become a loyal customer as a result isn't an amazing concept in the business industry. And but that is literally where where you you gain lifelong brand brand uh loyal uh consumers. And and it's not with a good with a good purchase, it's with a bad, with a bad experience. Yeah. And the problem is nowadays, uh, you know, a lot of these companies are there's a lot of companies out there that are kind of like the last bottle we did, where they're just kind of trying to sell a product and they don't really care and they're not planning on staying around a long time. So they don't care about the lifelong customer. And they just have different names. And you see it on Amazon, right? If you look at the uh reviews, you can tell like a legit, and there's not many out there, like a legit company for something you're searching for versus like the same product from 15 different sellers or 20 different sellers with different brand names on it. Um it's that one or two companies that are willing to innovate or or make the situation right or whatever it is. Um, and you you read the reviews, you'll see that. Like they had a bad experience, but then the customer service came in, and not just the Amazon customer service, but the actual company came in and made it right. And all of a sudden you can tell these people are just over the moon about a product that really doesn't give a who gives a shit, right? But they made it so right that this from now on, if they ever need that type of product, they're going to that specific. And one of the companies I talked about was Stanley. Um, that was in my lecture. You remember this, Nick. And it's because Stanley's now it's a little bit changed since they moved to China, but back in the when I did this, it was still an American company. And I bought a lot of stuff from them. And for this specific lecture I talked about, I actually bought Stanley stuff and returned it. Like I like damaged it on purpose and returned it to see what they're like, because they have a lifetime warranty product uh thing. And I was so like blown away by how well they handled everything and and treated me and everything else, um, that I just couldn't go and I and I became a lifelong uh brand loyal consumer. And I that's why I have so much Stanley stuff. You know, now it's changed a little bit since it's China, but they still honor that. So if you ever want something that literally, if you even if you break it, it will get replaced by Stanley. I mean, it's not as good quality as it used to be, but they will still replace it for you. So it doesn't matter. Um, so that's one of the companies out there. But I just I I'm fascinated with that. And it goes and it goes back to customer service. I mean, and like, and a lot of people will hear that and think, oh, they're gonna lose money. It's like, actually, they're gonna gain money because before I was I like Stanley, I've bought so much Stanley stuff, you know, over the year, and I was still by Stanley stuff. They've made so much money off of me as a lifelong consumer than they ever would if they had told me to pound sand the first time I I returned something. Right. There's stuff I don't even need that I buy because it's Stanley. And if if I do need something and I can get it in Stanley versus another company, I will. They've made money off me. They've they've they've made way more money off me than if they had said, no, we can't afford to send you another coffee cup because you've damaged that one, right? Smart. So a lot of people don't see that, but yeah, that's the law the long-term uh return on investment is huge. So anyway, going back to customer service, I just think that that this I think that this is gonna be a brand to look out for. Yeah, I I like it. I I think they would have great customer service. Yeah, I think they would too, especially a why husband and wife duo. And their uh their slogan was a happiness, yeah. Pretty cool. I don't know. I I want to go there. I think it's cool. I like it. I'm I'm excited about it. It tastes good, look good, sounds good. It's all good.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:10

It's all good.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:11

I can't I can't think of a whole lot bad about it. The price is good. I mean, can we say anything bad about this bottle?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:16

I'm sure that we can find something we've sat here long enough. I can't get it in Ohio.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:21

Availability could be a bit of a bitch. Yeah, yeah. Especially if you're in a liquor-controlled state, but we don't know what the avail uh the availability looks like in other states. I don't know. Right. Ohio sucks regardless. So I don't know. It's it's been good.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:37

It's been good, it's been a good fun. We'll see. Yeah, see everyone next time then. And Steve might be back on. We'll see.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:44

Maybe, maybe Blake will be able to find out. Maybe I'll be back again.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:51

Come back and find out.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:58

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, whiskey tasterspomma.com, with any ideas for the show. Thanks again.