Danny Polise Explains How Penelope Finds Flavor By Blending Mash Bills & different Distillery Barrels

We sit down with Danny Polise from Penelope Bourbon to trace how a three-barrel experiment turns into a national brand built on obsessive blending and real boots-on-the-ground hustle. We dig into how sourcing, warehouse knowledge, and smart scaling shape flavor, then taste through new and upcoming bottles while talking festivals, charity blends, and what the next decade of bourbon could look like. 
• the early Penelope bet at MGP and why three mash bills mattered 
• learning blending through repetition rather than formal training 
• selling in the early days and building a label that stands out 
• the crossroads of distilling vs scaling and the MGP acquisition 
• how tanker-scale batching improves consistency for core products 
• light whiskey explained, why used barrels matter, hunting profiles by warehouse 
• estate collection breakdown, single barrels, private select, Omega French oak finish 
• naming sessions, gimmicks that still have a reason, and dream collaborations 
• the F Cancer charity project and the annual blend-off format 
• bourbon festivals, cigar blend talk, and what bottles to bring to KBF 
• first tastes and details on the upcoming Penelope Classic bourbon and rye 
www.scotchyburbonboys.com for all things Scotchy Bourbon Boys, contact me directly or just buy it off the website. Whether you listen to us, like, or watch us, make sure that you leave good feedback, become a member, subscribe, do all those fun things, and drink responsibly, don’t drink and drive 

They walked into MGP like they were about to buy a million barrels and walked out with three. That’s the true starting point of Penelope Bourbon, and it sets the tone for a conversation that’s equal parts origin story, blending masterclass, and behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to build a whiskey brand that actually tastes different.

We’re joined by Danny Polise talk about how Penelope uses blending to escape the “standard sourced bourbon” profile by combining mash bills, chasing specific notes, and putting in the unglamorous reps. Danny breaks down how his process evolved from week-long blend marathons with endless iterations to a faster, sharper approach powered by tasting memory, barrel surveys, warehouse differences, and a constantly growing flavor encyclopedia. If you care about bourbon tasting notes, batch consistency, and how professionals decide what makes it into a bottle, you’ll hear the logic in real time.

Then we get into the big business inflection point: scaling. Danny explains why the MGP acquisition helped Penelope grow without losing its identity, how tanker-scale batching can improve consistency for flagship pours, and why small-batch releases still matter when you want precision. We also dig into light whiskey, the Estate Collection, Omega’s French oak finish, the F Cancer charity blend-off, festival plans, cigar blend talk, and a first look at the upcoming Penelope Classic Series with a 92-proof bourbon and a surprisingly bright 92-proof rye.

If you enjoy bourbon podcast deep dives, Penelope Bourbon details, MGP sourcing transparency, and practical blending insight, hit subscribe, share this with a whiskey friend, and leave us a review. What bottle or style should we taste next?

voice over Whiskey Thief

If You Have Gohsts

Transcript

Sponsor Shoutout And Welcome

SPEAKER_08 0:58

It took enough time here to tell you about Whiskey Thief Distilling Company and their newly open tasting room. Whether you are up or a farm to glass distilling it on the Three Boys Farm in Frankfurt, Kentucky, or an out of the way, and we're going to be able to do that. We've got special guests here tonight. It's awesome. We've got Danny Pelesi, right? That's it. Pelesi. Close enough. All right. I've gone it over. That's just one of that my strength, but close enough, as you said. And we've got Super Nash, and we got CT. Great.

SPEAKER_03 3:27

Oh. We're just gonna call him Danny P.

SPEAKER_08 3:30

Yeah. Danny P. Danny Penelope. Cheers. Welcome, everybody. Cheers. This the the podcast tonight, uh excited, really super excited because Danny uh when I first met you a while back, that was the, you know, at the I think it was at the the tasting when they were setting up the the barrel release, the barrel pick release for, you know, we did the barrel pick for Ohio. I think that's the first time I met Wendy too. So so and then you came up with us and did a specific tasting at the barrel room up here in Canton, and CT kind of followed us up for that, and that was a spectacular night. I mean, lots of people went through, but I mean, that's ages ago, right?

SPEAKER_06 4:18

Feels like it.

The Penelope Origin Story

SPEAKER_08 4:21

You know, and it's just, you know, it's it's it's so cool to see this. And tonight, I uh, you know, CT and me were talking about the the journey of where what you know where you were at that point. And I think when we were there after the after the barrel pick we went through, and you got a uh FedEx package delivered right to you of some of the blends that you had done, and you were you tasted through that before you headed up to, and it was just kind of cool to see, you know, you we were just talking just right before this about how how much fun it is to do what you're doing, and we got to somehow convince our wives that this is work. And that's the same. But at the same time, you were just there was no time not to work for you there. You know, you came in, you did the whole presentation, we did the barrel pick, and all of a sudden you're looking at samples, drive in up to the taste. You know, it was like an hour away up to the tasting, stay the night, you know. So talk about a little bit about those days, you know, when you first were starting it out, and what what what initially made you start out? I mean, you know, why did you do this?

SPEAKER_06 5:36

Uh yeah, well, why did we do it? Why did I do it? I don't know. I mean, it's been it's been awesome. You know, it honestly just started like kind of like like everyone, you know, just sitting around drinking, drinking whiskey, right? Drinking bourbon. And then, you know, my buddy Mike Paladini, I grew up with him. We were next door neighbors, we went through grade school together, and you know, this was only like seven years ago, maybe. And we're just talking talking uh, you know, about whiskey. And he's like, I want to start a bourbon company. And I'm like, all right, that's cool. Let me know how it goes, man. You know, and like I I think like everyone, you know, when you think about okay, I'm gonna start a bourbon company, you're like, well, there's a lot of bourbons out there, you know, like what's what's your right to win? And you know, you I really have no right to win, right? And we're just two Italians from New Jersey, like we definitely don't have a right to win in bourbon. And you know, it was just like a passion. So it's like, hey, well, let's figure it out. So he he did some homework and he came back and he had ended up talking to MGP, the distillery in in Lawrenceburg, Indiana. You know, they do a they distill a ton of liquid for a lot of brands, right? And so old Seagram's distillery, so a lot of history there. And he actually got a meeting set up. And he kind of teed it up like, you know, he told he he had had a mattress company in back in the day, and then he teed up the meeting like he was gonna buy like, you know, a million barrels, right? Like he was a big, big hitter, gonna come in, and they're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, come out, like come check out the barrels. And they we fly out there and we they roll out the red carpet thinking we're gonna buy a million barrels. And after the meeting, we hang out, have a couple beers with them, and we're like, hey, we'll buy three barrels. And they're like, three barrels, right? Yeah, yeah, but we promise there's more to come after that. We just want to make sure that these are the right three barrels. But that day was, you know, it was 2018, and we that's when we did our first blend. You know, we blended three different mash bills from MGP, and we were like, this is great. You know, he liked it, I liked it. And I mean, that's all that mattered at the time. And and we just went forward with it. We're like, worst case scenario, we'll we have bourbon the rest of our lives that we can just drink. And then from there it just kind of took off, and it it you know becomes an obsession. It's just like it's like a never-ending obsession. Like you're like, I love it, I want to do it, I want to sell it, I want to make it, you know, I want to do everything whiskey, and I want to learn everything whiskey. And then that's kind of like what happened. Like, we made our first 80-proof whiskey uh bourbon, and it was two years old. I mean, it was like at the time we thought it was like the best thing ever. And uh, but we got we, you know, we drove around New Jersey and we sold it in the back of our car, and and people actually liked it. You know, I don't know if they like the story, the I think I think it tastes great. You know, I still drink that one the most, the one we made that first day. And uh from there, you know, we bought three barrels and then we bought six barrels, twelve barrels, twenty-four, whatever the multiples of three are. Nobody told you there was gonna be math involved in the world. I know. I was an engineer, I was an engineer. And it's just been a fun, uh, fun journey since then. You know, now we're in 50 states and eight or nine countries, I think, and you know, we've sold a lot of bottles and we've had fun doing it. And as you can, you know, anybody that goes to a store and sees Penelope, there's obviously a lot of different products we have out there, you know, but they all have a story and they all have kind of like a why behind them and you know a personal why to Mike and I while we made them and yeah, I hope everybody likes them.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

So you guys literally were sitting just having a good time, and conversation starts, and this is this is the wheels that turn that starts a brand.

SPEAKER_06 9:40

Yeah. We were playing golf. We were playing golf with a buddy John of ours, and and Mike had made the call, right? And we always talked about doing business together, and and we talked about the whiskey, and I was just like, you know, he kind of took the first steps on it, and so he turns to my friend John nine. He's like, hey, so I set up the meeting at the distillery, but I got a plus one, you know, who's in, and John's like, I gotta ask my wife, and I'm like, I'm in. And uh sorry, John.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

Yeah, now is John still your friend?

Learning To Blend By Reps

SPEAKER_06 10:13

John is still my very, very good friend. But he acknowledges that if he was the other guy, that the brand never would have existed.

SPEAKER_03 10:28

So when you guys started like go ahead, go ahead and ask.

SPEAKER_04 10:31

Yeah, I was gonna ask you, have any of you guys ever had like any formal training as far as the blending and and stuff or or or did you just like pick it up or just like learn as you go?

SPEAKER_06 10:47

Yeah, like I have formal training. I have uh I don't know, I I was cleaning out the other day and I found this, and this was like I remember I don't know who I saw it on like Instagram or whatever, but in the early days I bought this and I'm like, that's you know, kind of stuff. Still I actually still go back to it sometimes when you just need to get back to the basics, but no, we just jumped into it and I don't know, we just it was just do you like it? You know, we just trying to make something that we both like, and we're like kind of you know, I go around and I do all these like blending classes and things like that, and people are always like, Well, you know, how do you blend, how do you blend? And I'm like, honestly, everyone can do it. It's just about it's a matter of how much time do you have. And I probably oversimplify it, but you know, if I give you three ingredients, you just sit there long enough and put them together in different ways, you're gonna figure out what tastes the best for you, right? And uh you know, and and then so for me over time it became I mean, yeah, I used it used to take me like uh like a week to do a barrel strength when, you know, and I would make like 150 different iterations of these combinations of the barrels or or how many, you know, push away these barrels, bring these barrels in, and it's just like fast forward, I can do a bunch in like less than five minutes, you know. Like I can look at a barrel sample and know where which warehouse it's in and what floor, and um, you know, most of the time, like what batch code I already know what it tastes like, and then I kind of know how it goes together in my head. It's all just it's just time at that point.

SPEAKER_08 12:30

And I'm telling you, yeah, uh, so my daughter is super smart, and it's been her whole thing, her whole life. She can do things very easily. So she thinks the rest of the world, it's kind of easy for them. But what you just described and how you do things, you're you're doing it in a way that's real, that's that's fairly easy to you, and you worked really hard. I'm not saying that, but at the same time, there are people who can try and do blind blend and they just don't either have the taste, the smell, or whatever, or the like of the right combination. Like your palette, obviously, is is a palette that people like. So you're making with, you know, there's people who have palettes where, you know, they like scotch, for instance. No, I'm just kidding. No, but what what I'm trying to say is, yes, I get what you're saying, and it's amazing that you were able to start off the way you did, but you started off small, like you said. You were just you bought three barrels, you worked at it, and then it just kept getting bigger. So your training, your formal training is the actual batch and more barrels to choose from, right?

SPEAKER_03 13:48

Yeah. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_06 13:50

Oh, look at the doggy.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

Luca hanging out. He he doesn't leave very very far from my feet.

Selling Bourbon From The Car

SPEAKER_06 13:57

But it's still fun for people to, you know, like like try it out and do it themselves at home, you know. You could take different brands, you could take different variations of of specific brands and kind of just sit there and play with it a little bit and you know, and just kind of have fun with it. Yeah. See what comes up.

SPEAKER_03 14:20

So when you when you guys started out, you said you had that first batch. So what did what did you call it? Like the first like the first green dish, and what was it? That was it was that actually the how you got the white label there on the kitchen counter.

SPEAKER_06 14:36

Is that 80 proof? Yeah, and it was it was MGP, it was Indiana liquid, you know, like a lot of mash bills come out of that. People are really familiar with. But when we put these three different mash pills together, it created like this different profile that people I guess weren't accustomed to with MGP. So I remember the first couple of days when we went to go sell, they walk in. Hey, I live in New Jersey, I got this bottle of bourbon I made. Like, you will you sell it in your store? And they're like, Well, what is it? Where does it come from? And I'm like, Oh, it comes from this distillery MGP. They're like, MGP, I got enough bottles on the shelf that are MGP. And I'm like, all right, well, maybe you can just try. And they're like, okay. And they try it, and they'd be like, uh, tastes different. You know, that like that that combination of three mash bills that create these this four-green blend kind of gave it this little roller coaster of like flavor that I think was at the time not the MGP, you know, quote unquote norm. And it kind of gave us a little bit of foot in the door, I think. I think so. You know, that and then you know, it wasn't called Jack Jim Brad John, it was called Penelope. So, you know, it was like a a little twist, a little different. Looked like a wine bottle.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Well, yeah, it definitely stood out. You guys the the logo being just simple with the P, I always thought was just an eye catcher. You know, you didn't have to look very hard in a store to see it. You know, it just stood out.

SPEAKER_06 16:47

Or that was a whole thing too. We made that on Microsoft Word.

SPEAKER_08 16:51

Yeah, with the type font.

SPEAKER_06 16:52

We said, yeah, we said 28 font font to the back part shell. Right. But it works. It works. Yeah, we just kind of kept it simple and we just honestly just kept it true to like whatever we liked at the time.

Distilling Dreams And Scaling Problems

SPEAKER_03 17:11

So did you guys ever have the thought like of distilling yourself? Or did you always have that like, hey, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna buy juice from MGP until we die, or did you ever go through that phase of thinking the other way?

The MGP Acquisition And What Changed

SPEAKER_06 17:26

Well definitely definitely came up and I think it was more of a personal like quest, I think, at the time to to distill. Like I had we had we had uh at first we had to go home. We were contract bottling out of you know Kentucky and we were sourcing the barrels from Indiana and then we were just selling them, right? The finished product. Then we finally got a warehouse in New Jersey where we we used to like distribute our own stuff, and then we got it permitted by the TTB to do some blending and bottling. And I had some plans to the TTB, like showing a still like a like a still room and all like the distillery components. So I like at one point I was like, maybe I'll do it just for the hell of it. Just I want to do it personal, personally, you know? And then so that was like the first time it came up, and then the second time it came up was we hit a point in our in our I guess our business, right? From a business perspective perspective where we couldn't operate out of our little shitty New Jersey warehouse anymore, for lack of a better term. And we were really at the crossroads of like how do how do we what what's the next step for Penelope? Like, how do we scale? How do we continue to grow? You know, how do we go into more markets? And it was it was either go left or go right. It was either you know, find land somewhere, right? And create that what you what you know of like distilleries, right? Like I don't know, 100 acres, and we have a still house and brick houses and blah blah blah, all that stuff. So we were like looking at that like really hard, actually. We were actually in talks with the with a county in Kentucky about you know, like buying a hundred acres for a dollar and then bringing the utilities to it so we could like grow. And but that involved like to be honest, it involved taking taking capital, taking money from other people to to grow it. Because at the time, you know, it was just it was just owned by Mike and I until you know. Yeah, and the path B was well, we make we make all this liquid in Indiana at MGP, and then they reached out and were like, hey, we would like to acquire you. And we're like, well, that sounds cool. And they're like, Yeah, we want you to stay on and still make the product and do all that stuff, and you know, we're like, okay, that's cool. So it's like pretty much the same thing. So one with a better, you know, ending, I think. Well, but no, it's been like, you know, and they were like family, and they still are, you know, and it's been an amazing, amazing venture with them, to be honest with you. And we could never even got to this point without them.

SPEAKER_08 20:19

But but you're you're like the ultimate American story of why America's great, okay? What you're saying where you're at. Now, you're so in if for everybody out there, M MGP Rats and Squid purchased Penelope two years ago, correct? I think. Yeah, two years.

SPEAKER_06 20:39

No, coming up on three years.

SPEAKER_08 20:41

Three years, okay. So three years ago, and you guys went pretty much overnight. It was almost overnight, where all of a sudden whatever you didn't have and what you were lacking all of a sudden was there, including including money, that's for sure. That that helped because before, I'm sure there was a lot of investment and whatever, and it wasn't like, but now what's awesome about it is here's a question. You said you're not, are you working with them to distill special things for Penelope? Like, have you talked to them or are you still barrel selecting and doing it the way you were before?

SPEAKER_06 21:26

Oh, so yeah. So I guess I yeah, sort of I have distilled a little. So I I worked with the team over there, the engineers, to develop four-grain distillate.

Building SKUs With 28 Mash Bills

SPEAKER_08 21:38

I mean, so you're so you actually you're distilling. I mean, honestly, that's that's that's what it is. I mean, it goes in the distill, you make up them, then you start to taste through it as it ages, and that's what we get to get the exciting aspect of it. And that, I mean, honestly, who wouldn't if you you know how you've set up a if anybody could do this, you know, mold or you know, path, it's like it's like the perfect path.

SPEAKER_06 22:08

It's been yeah, it's been awesome. And you know, people always ask, why do you have so many SKUs, right? Why do you have so many products in them? It's like, well, they're not all meant to be on the shelf at the same time, but I have so many because we, you know, especially after the acquisition, like I have 28 different in-out mash bills to work from. Yeah, you know, like out there, like they make two or three mash bills, you know, and that's what they use for their brands. Like we have 28 different mash bills. It's like it's endless. It's so fun. Like, we were just down in Florida last week working on a cigar blend for our chapter two cigar blend, and we were with some people in the cigar industry, and it's just like I grabbed a bunch of stuff, like different mash bills, and we, you know, had them all on the table, and I'm like, this is this is exactly why it works. It's like we're creating like a whole new profile by taking all these mash pills as options and putting them together, you know. So that's that has been amazing. And then not to mention, like, we still source also outside of the the MGP world. Like, that's what's cool. You know, it's not like we got acquired and we have to use their distillate. It's like they're still sourcing options outside of that. And that's what Penelope has always been. It's like we're just blenders, we love to put together like whatever we think tastes good. Hopefully other people think it tastes good too.

SPEAKER_03 23:33

So that's that's the key. But you go based on taste, not on, oh my God, this will sell. Oh, this is gimmicky. You go based on, do I want to drink it? Are other people gonna want to drink it? Because at the end of the day, that's what's important.

SPEAKER_06 23:50

Or yeah, I mean, I'm not gonna lie, like, you know, we're up at 2 a.m. on the phone trying to come up with a new name for a product. It gets some sometimes it gets a little gimmicky. As it should. You came up with a van. But there's a reason behind the different names.

SPEAKER_08 24:06

Yeah, I mean, it should be gimmicky. I mean, that's the what most bourbon drinkers, I just like I've always said it myself. I want the full package. I want the good distillate, I want the packaging, you know, I want the mark, you know, the whole thing, and I want the story. And that's kind of what you deliver. You deliver everything. Yeah, you know, and that's what it you should.

SPEAKER_06 24:30

And I think uh it's like wherever, like when we get the barrels, like the Rio, like their barrels are from um from Brazil.

SPEAKER_03 24:38

So did you ever think this is something Matt wants to know? I know I can't see the chick that, but I'm sure he's in there. Matt would like to know: did you ever think of calling the Rio bottle cinnamon toast crunch?

SPEAKER_06 24:51

Yes, yeah, definitely. That came up. Rio was almost uh a honey only thing. And then we're we were like talking about calling it like the beekeeper or honeycomb something or something. And then we added in the the Umbriana cast, and it was like, oh, well, that's like you know, the Brazil Rio, like Carnival. You know, so some of the some of the conversations I wish we like could have recorded like some of the conversations on how these things came up because it was it's kind of funny. It's usually drinking is involved when we're doing it.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

Now you didn't touch on it earlier, but speaking of names, the brand name comes from Mike's first daughter, correct? Right, yeah. Which is pretty, pretty cool. That's a great story to tell, especially when you were going around selling it out of the trunk of your car. It's probably you get a little, you pull on people's heartstrings a little bit, and you're like, hey, you know that that was his big that was his his big scale line.

SPEAKER_06 25:52

You know, it's like I gotta feed Penelope, you know, like can you just buy a bottle? It's like girl scalp cookies. Well, you had no kids, you know, back then, neither of us. And Penelope, you know, him and his wife got pregnant first, and you know, it was Penelope. They knew they were gonna name her Penelope, so even before she was even born, you know, the brand was born. She was a bourbon brand.

SPEAKER_08 26:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do they tell her that they named it they they named her her after the bourbon brand? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 26:25

And then like we have the Cooper series, and Cooper's my son. So, like, we'll we'll go we go on a lot of family vacations together, the two families, and like you'll just I'll hear like Penelope and Cooper, like Penelope's like, well, my name's bigger, and then Cooper's like, well, the Cooper series sells more bottles than it's like oh yeah, yeah. You guys gotta come everyone, and then the other kids don't have a name on any bottle, so I feel bad for them. Oh, zero kids, zero kids, and then five kids just a couple years later.

SPEAKER_04 27:03

Uh so it was it was a it was a crazy time. You know, you know they're gonna get older and they're gonna want to get in that fight. Oh yeah. A hundred percent.

SPEAKER_08 27:13

Oh just wait till they're old enough to just start drinking the stash, you know, of themselves.

SPEAKER_06 27:22

Yeah. Cooper's got a better nose than I do. I'll put like Rio. I I don't know if this is like appropriate, but I'll like put Rio under his nose and let him smell it because he always wants to know what things smell like. Yeah. He'll be like, oh, I got I smell honey and cinnamon. I'm like, holy.

unknown 27:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_08 27:44

Oh, well, children, I mean, that yeah, I mean, they're they're no, they're they haven't wrecked their senses yet. I mean, honestly, you know, most people, most young people, it's hard for them to drink bourbon and pick stuff out because their taste buds are still new and they haven't burned them off yet. You know, once you once you once you wear them down a little bit, you get that's why a lot of times older people are drinking bourbon, you know, and as the like because of the fact that they can taste things because over time their their taste buds have mellowed. But I mean, most of the time you put you give somebody the whiskey for the first time and all they taste is the heat. Right?

SPEAKER_06 28:23

Yeah, like I took like like August. I didn't have whisk, I didn't have any whiskey. Like it was a low point. We weren't we I didn't have to make like anything, like you know, and I was like, this is a good time to like just kind of reset the the old palate, you know. You know, I still drank other stuff, but like just stepped away from whiskey for a little and see what happened. And I came back and it was like I felt like a newborn baby with my taste buds. It was nuts. I've missed you brown sugar, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

Exactly, yeah. It was wild. I do have one question during the acquisition of like everything that happened with uh MGP. So I assume you can talk about it, but when that happened, did you have the choice to stay on or not? Or was it just always like, hey, you and Mike gotta stay on, or we're not interested, and if so, you know, talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_06 29:22

That's a I don't know, that's a good question. I feel like it just like it was almost symbiotic. If that's uh is that the right word? Like it like never was like you know, it was just like we assumed we're on, and they were like, you know, you guys are on, you know, so it wasn't like it never really came up like well we're just gonna we, you know, like the because we weren't done at all. You know, we're we're st you know, we're still not. It's just yeah. So I think I think the fact that they just assume that we they wanted us on still that we assume that we wanted to be on, that we were gonna be on, you know.

SPEAKER_03 30:08

I I think it speaks a lot for them that they did because you know, a lot of places would come in, buy it, think that, oh yeah, we're the big mighty Oz, we'll just keep rolling out stuff and keep selling it. But I think they they definitely saw that you guys are the face of the brand, you're what made the brand work. You know, the juice is great, obviously it is, but you guys being able to put together a a pleasing bottle that people like, that they want to get, that they whether it's the the architect series and they're waiting for the next one or the barrel-proof and they're waiting for the next one and and so forth and so on. But yeah, I think it's they did a good job of letting you guys be involved like you are, because it's still your brand. I mean, honestly, like I don't think most people would even know that MGP owns it now. It still feels like it's just you and Mike.

SPEAKER_08 31:04

Except for bottle volume. Bottle volume is nice.

SPEAKER_03 31:10

It is nice that we can get more of it now. Yes.

SPEAKER_06 31:12

I mean, we I don't know. I don't know if we would have been able to like get over the next hurdle without them and the team, you know, and the accessibility, the production, like because you're right before acquisition, it was getting it was getting nuts. We were we barely had any employees, but we were we were moving a lot of quite a good bit of volume. And I remember like I spent 99.9% of my day like doing like back office just business stuff, right? Like running payroll and you know making sure we had health insurance and all that stuff. And I remember getting like a little burnt out being like, I just want to go back to the where we could like talk about product, you know, spend as much time as I I need on to do blending and all that stuff. So like after the acquisition, you have all these these people that are like part of this team, and they're all they were all so excited to be, you know, working on Penelope because there was some excitement about it, and and they that just that's what that's what really helped kind of take it to that model.

SPEAKER_03 32:25

They took all that load off your back so you could go back.

SPEAKER_06 32:28

I have a bad idea. I was I couldn't deal with running another payroll.

SPEAKER_08 32:33

I mean, I mean, you know, it's it's it's uh what would you say, a compliment because there's so many people who use MGP to start their brands and get to where they need to go and other and NDPs that are also using MGP and everybody does things uniquely, but it's like they approached you. And I and honestly, if you go when if you went from this, the your flavor of what you do for MGP, that flavor that you keep consistently putting it out and then coming up with surprises all over the based off of your it's not the standard, it's not just MGP. I mean, there's a lot of places that put it out, and I can tell what it is. I've had like the like the store owner, I know what MGP tastes like, I know what its flavor profile is, and it's it's throughout most of those brands. There's just a few brands that were able to get away from it, and you definitely did it. And so if you left, I don't know how if this if you guys would have left and they bought it, I don't know if it would have stood up because they didn't have you. I mean, now they might be paying attention, so but you're still super young. It's not like you're going anywhere for a while, but you know, but overall, I it's a it's it's I mean, I knew that when I was talking to you when we were doing the barrel pick.

SPEAKER_06 34:00

People are still surprised that I taste everything that's made still, you know, like so, but I I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 34:08

I want to like how how different is your batch size now, Danny, from what it was pre-take over, you know, purchase of MGP? Like, how is it is it increased that much?

SPEAKER_06 34:22

Yeah, so on some some products, but you know, like we have a lot of stuff that's still like very small sort of batch things, and but you know, like our our 80-proof, our four-grain, you know, we're making it in tankers now, and it's like it's fucking tankers. Did you say tankers? I think, yeah, like an 18-wheel bear tanker? Yeah, I was like making it in garbage cans in New Jersey in 2019. Never, no, no, they were food grained, but like steel containers, not garbage cans, but no, I get the size you're talking about. Yeah, no, yeah, I mean, we but yeah, we still make stuff at that scale, you know. Some of the state some of the smaller releases are still are still like that. But I love the tanker stuff, especially with the four-grain, because it I think the product comes out better that way, you know. Like, I always say, yeah, like until you get over a hundred barrel dumps, like even one barrel could throw off a whole batch. When you start getting over a hundred barrels, like, you know, if you have like one kind of resume barrel, like you should kick it out, obviously, but like you could you could it it it kind of comes together a little a little better in products like like the four-grain and some of like the the the other ones where you're like trying to hit this very consistent profile, you know, then some stuff we we mandate that it is produced in small batches because that's how you need to reduce it so that you could like like honey on like the the profile, right? You could use specific barrels, kick out certain barrels, and and sort of curate it that way.

SPEAKER_08 36:00

So do you uh on the on the four-grain, do you what is the age more more now than two-year?

SPEAKER_02 36:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:10

Yes, yes, yeah, and that was a big deal for us. That was like one of the first things we really wanted to do was get the age up on the four-grain. So it's a minimum of four years, and it just depends on like the batch we're making at the time, like what which which batches of specific mash pills we want to use. But yeah, I mean that at a proof at four year really kind of really beefed it up a little. I know four doesn't sound that that old, but that for that kind of product, where I think the secret with that product is the the sort of being in that age range because you are more green forward than you are oak forward, if that makes sense. And when mixing all those greens together, I like the fact that it's more green forward because you get like that roller coaster of kind of of taste, and it's not just like the oak's not the thing that's like driving you know the the profile, like you get with some of that 910, you know, stuff. Then then it's a balance between oak and and whatever you have left of that green profile.

Light Whiskey Ages And Warehouse Hunting

SPEAKER_04 37:18

So go ahead and ask the oldest uh page statement product that you have out right now.

SPEAKER_06 37:25

I think we got it. We have a whiskey, the light whiskey that we have is 20 years old. Okay, and we we have some barrels of that that are like 22 years old. We haven't released anything like that. The that's the 18-year-old light whiskey, right? Yep, yeah. Yeah, we put that out. That was our first. I've been like just I've had single barrels of like 140 proof plus light whiskey, but I've never been able to get a batch going that tasted right that was 140 plus. And the 18-year-old light whiskey that we did, oh yeah, it is one like just broke the 140 mark, which was like, you know, I know it doesn't whether it's 138 or 140, it's pretty much the same thing, but like it's just like a personal like goal. It was a personal goal of mine to like hit that 140 because I think it's cool.

SPEAKER_03 38:14

Yeah, and you're right, the 17 year last year's was 138.8.

SPEAKER_06 38:18

Yeah. So I was like so pissed when that batch came in, and it was one because the the blending samples that I was working off of, I got to the 140, and then when we dumped all the barrels, the it up to 138, and I was like, no, oh that's crazy because the 15 year 15 year that I have 128.

SPEAKER_03 38:43

128. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing what a difference in a few years that that is done.

SPEAKER_06 38:50

And the light whiskey's fun, it's it's such a fun product to do, and even like the the just singular barrels of it like going hunting for them in the warehouse. Because there's a really there's like a big gamut of of kind of profile difference between wherever they're aging in different warehouses and stuff. That's what's cool about MGP too, is that like we have a bunch of different types of warehouses, so you do get these like different aging profiles. So yeah, it could be a 95.5, but it could be in like the tin warehouse, or it could be in like the the cement warehouse, and it's like and it's very different. You you know, and we uh actually like look for that in different products, like our tokai. Like, I head straight to the tin warehouses where I'm gonna get like more of a pretty 95.5 as opposed to like that grassy sort of you know, green sort of rye. And that the green rye is like to use for our toasted rye. It just works better with the oak.

SPEAKER_08 39:53

So so the light whiskey, I mean, just to be it, it's just basically this a lot of the same bourbon mash bills and everything, but that was put in, then it's put into a used barrel, right? Is if I'm not mistaken. And yeah, but it's also distilled a little differently.

SPEAKER_06 40:10

Okay. Um like where they come off when where it comes off the still and where you take the the cuts.

SPEAKER_08 40:16

Okay. So an 18, you've got the 18, you got a 20, and a 22 year you're talking, and when I'm tasting it, so what what has I mean, it's the availability, but it I've never heard of anything like that from Rots and Squib before, and then it's in there. Were they just selling it for private, or was it actually being branded out when it was younger? I mean, I mean, the fact that it's there is kind of like amazing. And this is, I mean, if if anybody anybody who knows about a light whiskey, or you know, when you put if it's gonna age 18 years, it should be in a used barrel, right? Uh, don't you agree? Because that's what slow you don't get the solid oak and all that char just for 18 years. And you end up with so much oak where that a lot of the oak was already taken out of that barrel and whatever, and you can let that sit in there and really absorb those flavors. And this is, I mean, this 18 year is it's delicious. I mean, it it tastes, it's got the hazmat feel to it, you know, but it's uh but it doesn't have the burn. And then just the beauty of the taste is fantastic.

SPEAKER_06 41:35

Yeah, yeah, I know they weren't using the light whiskey. A lot of it was sold off, or there's like one main customer that has like a bunch, a bunch of it that they use for some product, but like this this older stuff, because our first release of light whiskey was the 13-year-old, you know, this was maybe three or four years ago, and we fell in love with it and we were like, Wow, this is great, you know. But that was it, that was like the only inventory. Then we got acquired and we were like, Oh my god, we're here. Like, you know, it's like where's always our own?

SPEAKER_08 42:09

It's like, did you just dude like walked in and said, Where's the light whiskey?

SPEAKER_06 42:14

Yeah, no, I swear to god, that's exactly what we did. We like ran in, we're like, show me the light whiskey.

SPEAKER_03 42:19

And then we've got no light whiskey. We're like, wait, what? So you got so what you're saying is you got new keys that you didn't know that there was keys to other buildings. Now you can access all of them.

SPEAKER_06 42:31

No, no, they literally had no light whiskey when we first were acquired. Oh so we had to go buy it back. Oh, wow.

Tracking Barrels And Favorite Batch Notes

SPEAKER_04 42:39

Wow. Let me ask you this this brief question. So since you've got acquired and all that, do you actually have like a spreadsheet that you go buy? Or have you been in these warehouses enough to know now where where what barrels are where in the different warehouses? But at one point were you having to use like a spreadsheet to look at this to figure out where to go pick these barrels and stuff?

SPEAKER_06 43:06

Still use this every morning. I get like an automated email at 5 a.m. that has a barrel, the current barrel is whatever. But yeah. I use like the spreadsheets, and a lot of times like I'll do like I'm usually out at the distillery maybe once a month and do surveys, like constantly surveying. Plus, over the last you know, seven years, I've probably have tasted you know thousands of different barrels and a lot of the batches. So a lot of times I can just look at the batch number and remember what it tastes like and which, you know, depending on what location. So it's yeah, it's kind of like continually building the uh encyclopedia.

SPEAKER_08 43:46

But there it is, Danny. I mean, there it is. That's not something one, you remember what the batch, you remember the number in all the different batches, and then you know what it tastes like. This is this is that's your skill, man. That's your talent. I mean, honestly, and it's like my daughter, she's working at a winery and a distillery now, and it's just like it's the same thing. There's so many people that won't remember, that can't remember what it tastes like. Even if you do it a million times, you're aware of it, but you got to go back to remember because there's so many different things. But the fact that you in your brain already know what it's gonna, you know, overall, that's that's that's amazing. That's cool.

SPEAKER_06 44:27

Yeah, I mean, it's there's a lot of there's a lot of barrels there, definitely. But yeah, I still know people ask me, what was your favorite? I'm like, I know what my favorite batch was that ever. Like there were these batch of 21% rye bourbons, and there were the batch code 16828, and they were in these Kelvin Kubrick barrels. It was a bourbon, and they were so phenomenal. Like, oh man, it was so good. I still I have a little sample in my cabinet still. I'm like, just because once it's gone, it's gone. And like we we took taken a lot of those barrels, and then I think Nashville Barrel Company had a also sourced a bunch of barrel of that specific lot from them. I remember seeing it out there and I tasted it and I go, I know exactly where this barrel came from.

SPEAKER_03 45:19

What what's the note that's on it that is it?

SPEAKER_06 45:23

I am a sucker for like this like deep rich kind of Ludens cherry note that comes out in these. In the 21 rye mash pill. And it it just had such an authentic, genuine sort of, you know, candiness to it. Like in that specific cherry note. I don't know if it was like nostalgia from like those cough, the cough, you know, the cough things, but it wasn't like cough medicine. A lot of times people are like, oh, it's like it's cough syrup-y, and then like in a bad way. Not not at all like that. That's where the genuine part comes in. It was just good.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

Some of those 21 ryes for me, I always gravitate towards the ones that have the buttery, kind of buttery palette for me. Like the texture's there, but it actually feels like it's somewhat of like a butter in your mouth. Like it's crazy how those will be.

SPEAKER_05 46:15

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 46:17

I love uh we just happened last week. We were doing blends. I actually love working with people on blends a lot more than actually just doing a blend solo. No, you know, like just purely feeding off of what people are saying. Like, hey, taste this, and they're like, Well, it's like I'm I need like a mid, and you know, something's happening on the back end. And I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, let me let me grab this and do this and put it back in front of them, and they're like, Yeah, like okay, but I'm getting this like you know, cornbread thing, and I'm like, and they're like, maybe it's missing this, and then I can go like I can just take the words and go find the solution. And that's that's that's like a game. It's a real solid right there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 47:04

Well, I can I that's gotta be awesome to have a team of people working with you, opposed to after all this time, you know, working by yourself so much, and then and then once you were getting there, then sharing it with everybody. But I mean, that's gotta be a lot, a lot of fun, just you know, the the people contact.

SPEAKER_06 47:25

Yeah, that's for sure.

Tasting Table Starts With Samples

SPEAKER_08 47:28

Yeah. So, so CT, let's um you she you sent us a lot of samples, Danny. I know. It's like, let's let's talk about the samples a little bit. CT, you lead us away.

Estate Collection And Omega French Oak

SPEAKER_03 47:41

Well, I mean, we talked about uh we touched on poregine, which I think, you know, obviously that's a good starting point is to talk about a uh a tanker truck blend that's like crazy good. For me, I love that bottle because it's just got a nice honey. There's fruit floral notes in it, but it's like you said, it's light, it's a drinker. Probably add an ice cube to it, it would be totally fine just to sit and sip on on a summer day. But after that, what uh let's see. So so what so let's let's talk about this because you did send an estate, you sent a couple of estate bottles. What created the estate name, the collection? What what what was that? That was a little more.

SPEAKER_06 48:32

Yeah. So estate was like the first sort of, it was like the thing we always wanted to do but couldn't, you know, well before we were acquired. But you know, up until about 2022, a lot of our or all of our products were, you know, sub-10-year, you know, just like really kind of bespoke blends that were like I was saying, like more green forward and things like that. We didn't we never really got to play with with anything 10 plus. You know, I had never blended anything 10 plus at that point. And so the literally like the day after, you know, we were part of the team, like I was I was knocking on the distillery door, like, hey, what's going on in there? Let's let's check this out, you know, and went in there and just started serving sort of some of these aged stocks and and started to like think about what to do with them, right? And and I remember Mike was like, you know, it's sort of like he kind of like said it in joking, but it was like, yeah, it's like you know, our their state collection, right? You know, because everybody's got like some sort of I don't know, they everybody's got a word for like their older stuff, like right. Yeah. It's like so for lack of a better word, it's like it's our estate collection, like almost like we have like this this old estate, but we're a very new brand, you know. And I think actually, I think Mike just wanted to like come up with a crest, to be honest with you, because he was really excited about that. Yeah, so there's a crest on the bottle that we probably spend way too much time trying to figure out what it should look like.

SPEAKER_03 50:15

Is that before ChatGPT could have done it for you? It it was because it was we we had this conversation today that Jeff and I were talking about how chat GPT makes everything so much easier than having to actually draw stuff yourself and go through all that process.

SPEAKER_06 50:34

Yeah, that's a hand, that's a hand-drawn estate crest right there. There you go. So then we like thought about it and we broke the estate collection down by sort of what Penelope was doing before, which was we were doing one, we were doing blends, right? So we have our private select, which is just age blends. We were doing single barrels at the time. So we have our single barrel, our single barrel label, which is just like when we're creating the blends and we're going through all the different batches and barrels in the warehouses. Like, I'll just I'll pull what I think is unique to the side, and we'll use that for our single barrel label. And then we have like Omega, which we do finishes, so Omega is like a high-end finish. It's a really high-end French oak barrel that comes from France. It I thought it was just like a gimmick from the the company Redou that did the cooperate, but they they literally make sure that every single sleeve in that barrel has like a very similar chemical compound or you know, makeup so that you it so the barrel is imparting like a very consistent flavor across the whiskey. And I think it it it kind of showed so we used it's very good Kentucky straight breving for that product and uh that French oak.

SPEAKER_03 52:00

So yeah, this this is different from the other just the 10-year single barrels and stuff in flavor altogether. I mean that you can tell that French oak is Omega? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:11

It's also Kentucky straight.

SPEAKER_08 52:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:14

I was gonna I was gonna smell a little different.

SPEAKER_08 52:16

I was gonna say it has like the uh Kentucky, it doesn't, I I the I tasted that uh right off the bat, and it's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 52:26

It's got a little leather to it, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 52:27

But that's that's the that's that French oak pulling off very that it's very silky, exactly. It's not there's nothing um harsh about it, and and it's a decent, I mean the proof is 109. Well, yeah, I mean it does it drinks real easy. I mean, it's just like and you get to you get to taste all the flavors that are there, but it does have a nice leather finish. I mean, it it says bourbon.

SPEAKER_06 52:57

I was so happy about that one, and then I always thought we were gonna like cut it down a little. I thought it would open up, and then I remember I got the the tank sample and just kind of tried it at different proofs, and the second the second water hit it, it the whole thing just fell apart. It just decomposed, like it wasn't you lost that silkiness, you lost a lot of that bodiness, earthiness, just got allated.

SPEAKER_03 53:23

Yeah, that cherry note that you talked about, that thing finishes with a nice cherry note to it, too.

SPEAKER_06 53:28

So it's so that that's 12% malted barley in that mash bill, so that you know that's where you get that sort of Kentucky-ness to it, you know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_08 53:39

Yeah. It's it's it's good. It's really good. And and getting back to the just the general Penelope, that's one thing that's very unique about it is that out of every, you know, you use MGP when you started, and and it doesn't taste anything like MGP. It almost tastes there, there's like almost like like a pear, fruit, wine, it like a white. I mean, it's just that's I that's so spectacular to be able to do that with somebody's stuff where normally it's just running across a lot of people's flavor profile, and you've basically produced something that is just you.

SPEAKER_06 54:23

So yeah, I like having this goes back to that, you know, we're we're Penelope, you know, we're kind of like a little bit of anything, right? So the the bourbon that's part of Omega is you know its source, it's not it wasn't distilled by MGP.

SPEAKER_08 54:40

So when you do that, is it so it's not hard for you as Penelope to go in and purchase barrels elsewhere, even though you're owned by MGP because your brand is Penelope and you want to just be a blender. And so most people are gonna sell you barrels no matter what, right?

SPEAKER_03 54:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 55:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 55:03

And the and the people at MGP are like, don't we have enough barrels? I guess you have to answer that question a lot. But like, you know, it is what it is. It's like there are different flavors out there that differently. Yeah, wait, different people doing it. I would just I would use a ton of the the in-house stuff. It's just sometimes, you know.

SPEAKER_08 55:25

Well, then you go, you know, you own me. You own own it, so it's still it's still making you money for me doing good stuff with other people's stuff.

SPEAKER_05 55:34

We still had a business before when we did stores, so yeah, yeah.

Dream Collaborations And Naming Ideas

SPEAKER_08 55:39

And that's awesome that they that they're letting you do that, but they're part of it. I mean, that's that's what that's how you could say it. It's like, don't forget, guys, you're part of it. It's like when bottles sell, no matter what, it's still you're still doing it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:54

Okay, so on that front of Kentucky, have you done a blend with John Rempe yet? Have you guys done a blend together?

SPEAKER_06 56:01

No, we haven't. I know. We keep every time we see each other, we talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 56:05

Because John loves, I mean, that's what that whole blood oath loves to do, those days.

SPEAKER_06 56:10

I know, I know.

SPEAKER_08 56:11

I that would be a that would be an amazing you know thing, collaboration. If you guys did, if you did that. That would be I'm sure it would be spectacular. And and there's like yeah, yeah, I uh definitely that and that's why you you guys are you guys can do that because you you're open to that kind of stuff. So that would be really cool.

SPEAKER_06 56:33

Yeah, absolutely. And we yeah, we talked about it. We just have to I just have to do it.

SPEAKER_08 56:38

I guarantee you, if you both come out with that, I guarantee you'll sell every single bottle instantly.

SPEAKER_03 56:46

People will be it's probably just about like getting John on the podcast. I think I've talked to him for four years about coming on, and every time I see him, he's like, Yeah, when are we doing that? And I'm like, Well, I've emailed you 85 times, so you gotta tell me.

SPEAKER_07 57:02

Let's go, John.

SPEAKER_06 57:04

Real good guy. Let's do it. Should I call them right now and be like, yeah, John, get him on guys? I want to talk to you. Get him on here.

SPEAKER_04 57:15

Let's say we can keep hey they they got an idea, they want to run by you one more time.

SPEAKER_03 57:21

Yeah, that would be a guy to do a cigar blend with a new a new batch cigar blend. That would be kind of cool.

SPEAKER_08 57:27

Well, it'd be kind of cool. Like you could guy, you guys could do it like authors, where he starts off with the blend and then he sends it to you with all the stuff, and then you add into it, and then you send it back and forth to each other until you get something. It's kind of like two authors writing a book chapter at a time.

SPEAKER_06 57:45

I kind of I like that idea a lot.

SPEAKER_08 57:47

That would be cool, back and forth. And then it would be really cool. And and obviously the the the name of the the brand would be Collaboration.

SPEAKER_06 57:56

Oh, I thought it'd be called uh Tiny's blend. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_08 58:01

Well, I I will say if you want to if you if you want to send it to me while you're doing it, I'll just let you know about it.

SPEAKER_06 58:09

Yeah, it should be a problem. This is for tiny.

SPEAKER_08 58:14

Oh, that would be crazy.

SPEAKER_04 58:17

This picture is in little tiny letters, you know.

SPEAKER_08 58:21

And in little tiny bottles.

Favorite Pours Outside Penelope

SPEAKER_06 58:24

Wow, I mean, yeah, like stuff like that is fun. Like I was just talking, Mike and I were talking last night on the phone late, and we were we were just saying, like, it's there's so much there's just endless amounts of fun things to continue to do uh with the with whiskey. And you know, I I'm sure you guys, I don't know if you talk about it on the show or whatever, but like there's like a lot of talk of like headwind with the whiskey, you know, sort of category in general. But like, I don't know. We keep I think people are still still really into it, you know? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_08 59:05

People are you just but you can't you a quality product working your butt off. I mean, you've you've explained how hard you work, even though it we've we've questioned ourselves what we do is at work, yeah, but it's still work. I I don't care what you say. That you gotta come up, you gotta do it. It's like you gotta do it every, you know, it's just kind of like sometimes you'd much rather not be doing it because there's other things going on, but whatever. That's that's the definition of work. But but the the time and effort that you put in, just like coming to Ohio and and doing the tasting with us. I mean, you you know, you've you just met me, kind of, we talked a little bit, and then I was at the barrel pick with you, and then you went up and did a tasting. That's that's boots on the ground, and people get to meet you and people get to know you. And then when they're in the store, the the brand means a little bit more, you know. When you're sitting there picking, well, I I met Danny and at that taste, and it was pretty cool. I'll buy a bottle and you're putting quality in there, so you've gotten people, you know, that's what what it's about. And the brand for people like that that are putting time and effort and know what they're doing. This isn't it. I always coming from the art world, you could be the greatest artist ever, you know what I mean, and being produced, but if you're not getting it out to the people and you're not doing the right things, how to distribute, you're not gonna it, you're not gonna be noticed. And it's the same thing with you got to come up with quality. I believe it's a palette, your palette is artistic, you know, what of what you're tasting, what how you get people to taste different things. And then you still have to have the marketing and you have to have the distribution. Everything has to work, and for that, if you're doing that, people aren't having a problem. It's the people who weren't doing that, and then there's also the people who were just putting anything out, and that you could have done anything during the first part of the boom and you would sell, you know what I mean? Because it was another whiskey.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:09

Yeah, I mean, it goes both ways too, just being out there, like hanging out with people and drinking and not even drinking our stuff, just drinking other stuff and talking and hanging out.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:20

Like you learn a lot, so that you're not when you're thinking, like, I want to make a new product, you're not just like trying to guess what people want out there, you know, like or I I've seen some of the coolest brands with the coolest people, and then one of the people leave the brand, and it does affect how you want to drink it because you know that person's gone that was very important, and then the they're not doing things the same way that made it like you know, accessible for you to do, and and and what you really wanted, you know, because you enjoyed your the the time, and it does hurt the brand. I mean, there's no doubt about it. People, the story is important, and you guys have just such a great story. It's just there's not the story's in the making too, you know. It's not it's not a lie, it's real. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:14

So Danny, if you're not drinking Penelope, what's your what's your uh uh favorite tour right now that you go to? Like right now? Yeah, like right now, because it changes. Like I feel like yeah, it does. We go we go through a month at a time, it seems like it just resets. You go through different things, you're in a phase, you like this, you like that. But right now, if you had to get something, you were at a bar, they didn't have Penelope, what would you drink?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:44

You know what I I don't know if I should even say it. You know what I mean? It's true. Like, you know what I found in my in my my room, my bourbon room, and I I've been just plowing through the rest of the bottle, is like I found this like early days smoke wagon bottle. Oh yeah. And of of just the straight bourbon, yeah, and it's fucking phenomenal.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:11

It's amazing what Las Vegas does to the to ship it out there and stuff is good.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:18

I think that's interesting. He takes it to heart how he puts it together too. So it's not like he's just putting it out there and just saying, ah, it's MGP and here it is. I mean, he's doing a good job with it.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:28

Well, he loses half of everything he buys.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:31

Yeah, he yeah, he takes it out to Vegas and he does some phenomenal things with it. Yeah in that in that Nevada heat. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:40

Well, that's that's pretty cool. I don't know. And then because that's how like that's what usually happens is like get to the I don't know, I don't know if it happens with you guys, but if I get to the end of the bottle, then I like okay, now I go to another bottle and I I have a pour or two, and it is I'm either gonna stay on it till the end of the bottle or I'm gonna just put the bottle back and uh come back to it, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:03

Like yeah, and and it's I like to just sort of kind of I kind of tend to hit the bottle a little bit and then then put it back and it sits there for a little while.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:12

I make the I make the commitment when it's the commitment is deserved.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:16

Okay, I'll give you I was in Wisconsin this past weekend, and this was here. You know, I knew you were gonna be on, but this bottle was there. But look at look at the Phil. Yeah, that's the I was I I mean I I was like, I got I saw it, and I'm like, I gotta pick that up because we don't get that. I didn't see this in Ohio. So I I opened it up, and the first thing that I noticed was the nose was off just even the even the neck pour, it was fantastic. I mean, it just filled the whole room.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:48

And I and that's the cat cat strength version. That ribbon.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:56

Yeah, okay, yeah. Barrel strength, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:00

Right? Oh, yeah, yeah. That was great. That was a good bun. Yeah, I love that one.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:04

That is like that was phenomenal. I mean, it's just like, and that's how that's how I do it. It's like if I find a bottle, I will stay dedicated for it pretty quick, but I don't, you know, uh, but I was on vacation, so that was a little bit different because when you're tasting through a lot of stuff, sometimes you can't like commit to a lot of other stuff, but that will that went quick.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:27

Do you know Jay from Shared Poor? From the He's like a shared poor, they're like an online retailer.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:35

No.

The F Cancer Charity Blend-Off

SPEAKER_06 1:05:36

So that was that was his blend. It was really good. Well, the whole F cancer thing is like we every year we come together and it all started because this guy Brian from our team he actually lost his wife to cancer, and he asked us to do like a batch for him, you know, to raise some money, like a small local batch from his hometown. And you know, we did it and it was great. You know, he sold sold it, he came back and said, Hey, can we do it again next year? And it and we just kind of did it again next year, but we did a bigger batch, and then every year it kind of just got a little bigger. But the people that we got together to do the blends, they're like family now, and we make it like a little contest. So, like, I'll I'll go through and I'll grab all these different these different blends or barrels, and then we'll all meet up in Lawrenceburg and we'll put all the samples out, and then it's like a blend off, and everybody works on their own blends, and then we put them on the board, we taste them, and then we all vote which one's the best, and then somebody wins that year. And that was that was Jay's year of winning.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:44

It was I I was really cool. I was excited to see it. I'm just like, ow, no, that's one, that's one I haven't seen, and so I picked it up, but it's almost all gone. It was good, that good.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:56

Yeah. So you said that, Danny, that that one is uh barrel proof. Are there ones that I guess that are not then?

SPEAKER_06 1:07:03

Yeah, there's there's like a 94-proof one out there. Uh there's another cash strength one out there. And they're like different blends.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:17

This one's 114.6.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:22

Yeah, that one, that one's fantastic.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:24

I'm glad I got a sample of that one.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:28

It's out my truck. I'm gonna go get it here in the middle of the month.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:34

Where are you guys from each other? Are you guys all like within sort of driving distance or not? I'm in South Carolina. Oh, all right. Okay.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:43

And then we know exactly. So this morning, because of the podcast and and he got the samples, we met a little less than halfway for me, but I was like an hour and ten, and he was an hour and a half away. So we met right in right in the middle.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:59

I would have sent three packages, guys. That's okay.

SPEAKER_07 1:08:02

That's okay. Next time.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:06

Next time we'll we'll get that straightened out. But yeah, we made it work and and we had some other bottles to share. We just unfortunately didn't get an ash any, but we'll we we always catch up, don't worry.

Festivals Bourbon And Cigar Culture

SPEAKER_04 1:08:16

Yeah, you see, uh, I still got a good many uh Penelopes on my own there. Yeah, but I've always loved Penelope ever since you guys have been putting it out.

SPEAKER_06 1:08:26

Oh, thanks.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:29

So so this year, are you going to Kentucky Bourbon Festival and doing the whole thing? Like in all the festivals?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:35

Or yeah, booked my booked my hotels last night.

SPEAKER_08 1:08:39

Okay. So what when do you get in? Is there gonna be anything specific Penelope this year? Like, are you guys gonna have any kind of special, you know, dinner or whatever?

SPEAKER_06 1:08:50

Well, that's a good oh, that's a good question. I don't know. But I I I I do need to figure out what to put out during KBF, like uh product-wise. Like usually we do like a single barrel or so. I don't I don't know. I've been trying to like kind of rack in my brain. Last year we did like we did a 17-year-old rye.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:15

I mean, I'll tell you what to put out the cigar blend. Here we go. Cigar blend. And then just have all those cigars. Yeah. What?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:23

Yeah, last year he brought Cigar Blend because it was on the patio with Lee Marsh from Stolen Thrones. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Lee Lee had he was one of the guys that was involved, and then was her is her name Corin? That was the other lady that had the cigars. I think her last name's Covern.

unknown 1:09:41

Sin?

SPEAKER_06 1:09:42

Yeah, Sin.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:43

Sin. Right. So yeah, they they were involved in that blend, weren't they? Yeah, they did the they did the vlog with us last year. Yeah.

unknown 1:09:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:51

And I keep in contact with Lee still because I love his cigars. So there's only one place in Ohio that sells it. And so I have to beat up on my guy to reorder. And so I always send Lee a picture. I'm like, hey, he finally got him.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:05

Nice. They were the ones pouring the samples and giving them for those little cigar kits, right? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:12

And the Penelope lighter, which I use every day. So when I sent you that picture earlier, Danny, of the bottle that we were drinking watching the Masters, it was a toasted. And I had my I had a cigar in my hand, and the guy brought it over, and he's like, Yeah, here he pours me a pork. And on the table, I didn't realize that I had my lighter. And he's like, Where the heck did you get a Penelope lighter?

SPEAKER_08 1:10:37

The festival last year.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:39

I know I didn't even get it. Oh man. But that that last year, that patio was insane the way they built that.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:48

I think they're still doing it next year, the same sort of big patio.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:52

Well, it was fun. We were that was cool. We went to New Orleans and you guys were there. I mean, you weren't there, but the but Yellowst Yellowstone Penelope and Lux Lux Luxco. But overall, it it's just kind of like it, it it even even at a festival, if you guys aren't there, it's just kind of like okay, I will I'm not gonna I I got a sample, but it's just not the same, you know. It's not, it's not.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:22

Oh thanks. Well, if you're looking to bring something to that festival, everybody, even though I'm on the maybe not on the majority side of this, but Rio is obviously I I I still hear all around Ohio, that's all I hear. Rio, Rio, Rio, Rio, Rio.

SPEAKER_06 1:11:45

And I'm like, okay, all right, yeah. Do like an aged Rio or something? Like a ten year just after saying what did you just say?

SPEAKER_08 1:11:54

It's that would be awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:56

So I do think that that that that bottle is so well liked that if you do anything with it out of the ordinary, it'll be crazy. That'd be fine. I bet it would taste pretty good.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:09

So in your do you put Amberana in your cigar blend?

SPEAKER_06 1:12:14

No. Okay. No. We haven't done a finish on any of the cigar blends. They've all been like straight, straight whiskey blends.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:25

Okay. Yeah. And and that cigar blend last year at the festival was really good.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:30

I'm still personally on like my cigar journey, you know. Like, I feel like I feel like uh I feel like I did when I was first started drinking whiskey, you know, like just kind of like figuring out what I like, what I don't like. Yeah. Oh yeah, I know. That's it's a lot to take in. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:50

Whatever, Nash. Nash isn't on his cigar journey. He's already he's uh he he's like on uh he's running the railroad there on the on it because you know he gives me a liga privada and I feel I I smoke that thing, and I just feel like I don't even know where I am I'm at. I'm like, are you supposed to get drunker on a cigar?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:13

Well the nicotine definitely kicks in. I think I think I stepped you up a little bit too soon and uh holy crap.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:23

It's like I don't know, you ever did like a like a lip or whatever? Yeah, like a like cheering tobacco.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:31

Like first time I ever first time I ever did dip, like I was whatever, I was uh maybe 18 or something in high school, and I the whole room started spinning around and like my the first time I did chewing tobacco, I did it with bubblegum, and we all knew we weren't supposed to get the you know, whatever, but we did. So I not only did it spin, but it's just like everything I ate came up.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:02

But yeah, I I liked the idea last year of doing the cigars. That was a great way to tie in. And but yeah, you might might be onto something with doing the higher age stated Rio. That might that might be really something unique that people will just go crazy for. I like that, yeah. We're not doing Valencia this year.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:20

I don't know if you ever had our Valencia. I've had it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:25

I don't have it.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:26

I I I think everything, I think most everything that you've that you've done, I've had I've had pores of, you know, because your promotion person, Wendy, when she was there, we did she did so many different things, and then she'd let you just taste through everything.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:43

Yeah. Okay, the way she would explain the whiskey and the tasting notes was like I I would just sit there and like be like, oh my god, like I I know.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:57

It was just it's it's amazing. I still still have told, you know, she's in Ohio now, so we've seen her a couple times, and I I tell her the same thing. It's just like nobody can explain or articulate what whiskey tastes like, like she does. She tells she she she takes you and then she kind she like takes you, and and you're like on a magic carpet ride going through what you're tasting, and it's like perfection, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:15:26

100%. It's not I used to love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:29

Even even that woman's handwriting matches that she has the most perfect handwriting. So I one of the guys who works for me, his birth, his 50th birthday was the other day, and I went over and she signed some stuff for him and and did a thing for him. And I brought it back, and he's like, Oh my god, you're not kidding. Her handwriting is amazing.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:51

Like it's anybody who doesn't know there it was a woman named Wendy that was our national brand ambassador, and she she was phenomenal, and she's you know, do working on her own brands now, and it's just I miss her every day.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:06

Well, I mean, she's she's a great human being.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:11

Yeah, it's great to see her at one of the shows.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:14

But I mean, she jumpstarted the brand. There's no help jumpstart the brand, but at the same time, you guys got it going, and you have such good whiskey that now, you know, as she goes and does her own journey, it's just kind of like you guys just keep going, and it's just awesome to see.

First Taste Of The Classic Series

SPEAKER_03 1:16:32

You know, and so well, what were these? Because these came right in a totally different different box. Yeah, your handwriting's not as good as Wendy's. But I did give Jeff a sample of these. Oh, no. What was what was this compared to the other ones?

SPEAKER_06 1:16:51

Let me I have some of it here.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:53

Let me let me I told Jeff, I'm like, well, there must be something special to it, or you wouldn't have sent it.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:59

So we are coming out with uh two new products, you know, more products, great. Yeah, but you should. These are two that like Mike and I have always wanted to put out, but we just never had the right sort of material or like or the right volumes of material, the right just it never came together in the right way. But we wanted just sort of like straight bourbon and a straight rye that you know wasn't cash drink. I know a ton of our stuff has always been up, you know, higher-proof stuff, but like yeah, some days you just want to like drink something lower. 80s, you know, I always go back to the 80 when I was just kind of chilling, and but I started making this stuff just like sort of like house blends that I would sit around drinking, but like for myself. And we were like, we need to get this out. So one's a straight bourbon, it's a 92-proof, it's it's uh it's actually a blend of seven, eight, nine-year bourbon. And it's Kentucky, right? And it's Kentucky, yeah. So like we then we like you know, we were trying to figure out what to put it out under, like what kind of label, and we just said that man, these are like this is just classic stuff, you know. So we just named the bottle classic series. That's like what's more what's more classic than a Kentucky straight bourbon and an Indiana 95.5. It's actually 95.5 blended with a 5149, so it's like a blend of straight rye. So one's a straight bourbon, one's one's a straight rye.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:44

So it's called the Penelope Classic. Yeah, and it's not out yet. No, it's not out yet. Well, when you were saying when you said that, I was like, you should call it classic, and he already did. It's like that makes total sense. Oh, that is so cool.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:07

You're actually the first to drink it, besides besides like Paladini Mike. Wow. Well, that's an honor. Thank you. It's still well, it's like I you know, it's like it's in the final tweets of like what it needs to be, but you know, it's it's pretty much 99% there.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:27

Well, from the nose, you're there.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:30

Which that's the bourbon, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:19:31

Yeah, yeah, on the Kentucky Strait bourbon. It went in there and it was it was delicious, spectacular.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:40

And then so like we're not gonna age state or anything, but it you know, it's a minimum seven and most of it's eight, and then a little bit of nine. Wow. Ballpark price? 30s.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:56

Like what it's gonna be priced with four grain, basically, then it's gonna be like higher than four grain.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:03

Then we have that weeded. But I don't know if you've ever had our weeded. Or we've got weeded. It's an our weeded is a four-grain blend in the 90 proof range, 90 95.

SPEAKER_08 1:20:15

This doesn't drink like 90 anything.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:18

This drink Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:21

It's got a little hug. Yeah, it does. Yeah, it's like a warming belly hug, too. It's not like a burn hug, it's just like that internal warmth. Right, yeah, it's not like it's not like too sharp. It's there's no better every drink, too. It it like changes a little bit.

SPEAKER_08 1:20:40

Oh, you're you're winning with this one.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:44

This is$30 some dollars? Holy crap. So are weed our weeded, like we don't have we don't have enough inventory of barrels to support that. Oh, the weeded? In full disclosure, yeah. So like lemon go get it. So so like we're produ we produce it and like the rye?

SPEAKER_08 1:21:08

Yeah, the the rye um like. What is the wait, wait, is this is not rye. This is l this this well, the nose smells like lemon cello.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:17

Yeah, it has a lemon nose.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:19

Wow. Maybe I have my Italian liqueurs mixed with my rye.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:24

Yeah, you sent lemon cello instead.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:28

I mean, this is I gotta check which sample.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:31

It does have a little lemony nose, though.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:33

That's that's honestly, CT. I'm gonna tell you, Danny, that's the best rye I ever tasted in my life. And that's gonna be and I'm not a I'm not a rye guy. And that is the that is by far, he's not a rye guy. That is that's that's a that's amazing.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:56

The goal is just kind of like put together something that kind of brought out the best parts of the MGP 955. I mean, I'm plugging in a little bit of this like 5149 match pill that we have. Yeah, but it just kind of like it just gave it enough of that tweak and rounded out that sort of grassiness and 95.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:22

I mean, bullet rye, which is 95.5. This isn't bullet rye. This is nothing like that. This is fan freaking tastic. Wow.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:31

It's gonna be price similar to our four-grain eighty fruit.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:35

I would buy this rye.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:39

Settle down, settle down, no first.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:41

No, that is no, serious. Seriously, I'm like I said, there's some ryes that are horrible to me, but the that is that is actually what's the age?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:54

So did you say Annie on the rise, what the age was of these and proof?

SPEAKER_06 1:23:00

The the proof is 92 on the rye as well. So I like line proof, the rye, and the bourbon together. Just kind of like what's more classic than a 92 proof, like that was closer.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:16

Right, right.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:17

And then that make a good mixer. It's it's 789.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:22

Oh wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:24

78 and 9.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:25

That yeah, that's why it's hitting those.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:28

It's yeah, but that's like a lemon vanilla.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:32

Yeah. Wow. The lemon note is really different. I like that. I do too.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:37

I don't know if it's the because the 59 the 5149 is is the 49% malted barley. So I don't know if I think it's like when when you start plugging that in, it like does something to that that 95.5, like and pulls maybe, maybe that's what's generating that lemon note.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:59

I mean, that that I think that's a that's a winner. I mean, I think people who like rye, there's enough of the rye, but yeah, it's definitely in there forward. But that's that just so you know, as far as like what I expect from a rye, it's I I don't always expect a lot. Um, there's some places that do decent ryes for me, but usually it's because they're more they're they're not it, they're not a 95.5, although I've had some good 95.5s by people on single barrels. But but this is like exciting to me because I actually seriously I would consider if I, you know, I when you have 15 almost 1,500 bottles to choose from, when I come downstairs and I'm like, what do I want tonight? I go, Well, it's probably not gonna be a rye, it's gonna be a good bourbon, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:53

So naturally, he's backing up on that statement that he was gonna go out and buy it. You hear you hear the excuses he's putting in place right now. What I would no, no, no, I would buy this.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:06

I'm like not.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:07

No, I would actually buy this and drink it. Send or Danny, send me as much as you can of this.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:15

You know, I might not need to buy this, but I'll have a sample.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:18

Yeah, I might be able to be your spokesperson on this because you know this does sound delicious.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:28

I do not drink rye by myself at all. Like it's not a bottle I'll go pour on a Tuesday night or whatever, and but I find myself drinking rye when I'm out with people. Like, if I'm get if I'm gonna get around it with other people, like I kind of want to do it together.

SPEAKER_08 1:25:44

Okay, it's a nice change of pace, too. Although, although I would drink this one by myself. I would. I mean, it's that it's not, it's it's it's it's really good.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:58

And it's whiskey. 100% like you know, that that's like I'd like to have a pour of that, like on a on a good summer evening. Drop just a small cube in there sitting out on the back deck, you know, chilling.

SPEAKER_08 1:26:12

I mean, even if you drop that was fun to me. Well, you did a good job.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:18

What's the time frame of these then, Danny? What's what's your uh expected time to get them out?

SPEAKER_06 1:26:24

I think like in two and three months.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:27

Okay. So the middle of the summer.

SPEAKER_06 1:26:29

I think the label just got approved with a TTB the other day, and and then I think the bottles come in and that's it. That's all are you going with a green label for the rye, or are you going more just a yeah, it's kind of green, but it's different, it's like a little, it's okay. And then the the straight bourbon has like this this like kind of blue, lighter blue thing going on. But like at the same time, it's you know we wanted like a good good good rye, good bourbon, good price. So it goes from there.

Bourbon Market Shift And Better Values

SPEAKER_08 1:27:10

Okay, look, we gotta we gotta wrap up a little bit in this in a bit, but have you know now that has it been beneficial to you as far as price and buying barrels, you know, from other places and all whatnot? Because of the fact that there's the the supply has been is really up and it's not you know, there's older whiskey on the market and there's all this. Has it been beneficial as far as purchasing barrels for you, as far as getting that? You know, has that part of the industry's just catching up been beneficial?

SPEAKER_06 1:27:50

Oh, for sure. You know, even like these two products, like I don't think that we would have been able to do them, you know, three years ago, four years ago. But you know, I keep saying, like, the next decade for like whiskey lovers or bourbon lovers, is it's like it's our it's our time, you know. Like this is gonna be fucking great.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:16

Yeah. Can I swear on this show? Yeah, oh yeah. It's a wit. We we're talking whiskey, so it yeah, we gotta not swear in the first eight minutes.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:25

You know, and I have like direct eyes on what's what's going on, you know, and it's gonna be it's gonna be great. I can't wait.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:33

Well, you know, you talk to connoisseurs or whatever people, and they're just like, okay, it's whatever. I'm like, this is not this is really good because not because they're the stuff you've been not getting will go, Mike, you're gonna get more stuff on the shelf as a connoisseur because they made enough, and then people who are doing it can buy it and sell it cheaper because of the fact that it's not, you know, like you said, three years ago to find a tenure on the on the market was like you were paying a lot of money for that.

SPEAKER_06 1:29:07

Yeah. And I think you're gonna have this like sort of craft die-off a little bit, you know. And then I think it maybe in in like two to three years, you're gonna have like a craft resurgence, yeah. But like an elevated craft, like what does it mean? Well, the crap and then you're not gonna have The charge on your box for you know, for stuff that's okay. Right? Right. Right I mean and I think and I think the success of established brands or brands that are current is gonna be based on just keeping up with the times. Like you can't y if you sit there and you're like, well, I'm not gonna change I've been selling this at this price and and this quality for X amount of years, and if you don't change, like you're you're screwed.

Upgraded Barrel Strength And Future Collabs

SPEAKER_08 1:30:03

Well, yeah, you have to compete as the market. Just like you know, you just it's just so obvious on how much whiskey is being made, even still. It's just like look what happened in Kentucky. I mean, you've got five or six distilleries, and then even here in Ohio, we have a huge distillery that's that's killing it, and and that's something that's never happened before, you know. And so, but once again, it comes down to exactly what you gotta have quality and you also have to know what you're doing. I mean, it's just it's just two things. It the you can't if if you don't know what you're doing, it's hard. Nobody's gonna buy your bourbon if you just put it on the shelf now. I mean, it just can't go on the shelf. And again, and we see that in Ohio all the time, and you did the things right right off the bat. You were up here introducing yourself to the market here in Ohio, and we just saw it explode. I mean, you guys did a great job, and we see it, it's out there, and people are buying it.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:06

I forgot. Did I send the barrel strength?

SPEAKER_08 1:31:09

Yes, right here. I do have it, yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:12

Yeah, so like, and that we we don't know that we don't really talk about it, but so the barrel strength, that's like the second product we were put out. We put out our white label, the four-grain heavy group, and then our second product was this red label barrel string, and we just sort of reinvented it. I think it was like two months ago we were started releasing it, but now it's a seven-year, like every day.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:37

Oh, it's so caramely.

SPEAKER_06 1:31:42

But that used to be like a four, you know, maybe five. What batch is yours, Jeff? One you gave.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:51

All right, I will tell him which batch it is.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:55

That's good.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:56

Yeah, otherwise 26 1901.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:01

What are you mine says batch 11?

SPEAKER_07 1:32:05

Oh my god. I didn't send batch. Oh, okay. Wait, let me go.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:11

It's not even open.

SPEAKER_08 1:32:14

All right, hold on.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:15

Here's the characters edition.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:17

Batch 11 was pretty good. That's it.

SPEAKER_08 1:32:20

Hold on, I got a batch over here originally. All right, let's see.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:24

The one you sent me, Jeff's got.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:26

What do you have, Nash? Batch nine.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:29

Oh man, he's even got an older one.

SPEAKER_08 1:32:31

Okay, wait, here we go. 115.6. I got batch 11.2, CT, right here.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:37

Oh, you two?

SPEAKER_08 1:32:38

Yeah, I got batch 11. I I yeah, what that that's 115.2? Or one one third.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:47

Yeah, what 115.2?

SPEAKER_08 1:32:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:32:52

Yeah, we we you know, it's been around for a while, and then we just kind of did that that little upgrade and kept the price the same.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:03

Yeah, well, that's always the one thing I think no matter what you look at through your brand, is the price has always been very good, and I think that's why people have really gone to you know, the it's great, don't get me wrong, but it's affordable. And people can buy a bottle of toasted or they can buy a barrel strength, and they they can buy two bottles and spend less than a lot of brands will charge for one. So yeah, we're it just I don't know. It's just like speaking of toasted, I'm gonna drink this toasted one right here.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:42

Definitely that's enough, that's an upgrade, Danny.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:46

And since Randy's gonna be on the podcast next week, we're gonna drink the toasted from Kentucky Bourbon Festival. Oh, nice. From I don't know when this was. 2022.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:58

So we got a 10 10-year Rio. What else? Do we do like I don't know, everybody does like the 18-year-old, whatever.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:08

Wow, the difference that's amazing. That that that's a that's a big difference. You you killed it with this, with this, with this batch right here compared to 11. 11's more like the the actual your your your flavor profile is really close to the actual you know, your straight bourbon.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:36

Yeah, I can see that.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:37

And then this one has got there's there's way more caramel, there's a sweetness, but but that's the difference between what a four and a seven?

SPEAKER_06 1:34:52

And no, it's got kind of changed up like the mash bills a little bit, like more corn? Tweak the blend. Yeah, tweak the blend. Okay, the corn, we dropped the wheat, and use actually like a Kentucky rye bourbon. So there's a little bit of a Kentucky rye bourbon in there, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:12

So maybe that maybe that's your other bottle to release is something in that since it's been reinvented, do something with it that is unique for the festival.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:22

Yeah, do uh do a blend and make it make it a hazmat barrel strength.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:37

Did he tell you how long it took him to get the whole hazmat? You remember our conversation earlier? He's like, those barrels are buried.

SPEAKER_06 1:35:47

Well, especially with the bourbons, like in in in uh Lawrenceburg, like all the proofs go down. Unless you're there's like a a basement that it goes up because it's like a lot of there's a lot of equipment and heat, but so all right, so we gotta figure out a hazmat barrel strike.

SPEAKER_08 1:36:12

So I have a question. Do you do you okay, it's MGP, but but do you have access to this your sister company's stuff? I mean, if you wanted to, would they would they would be willing to do something like that? You know, when you're talking about limestone branch, yellowstone, and oh yeah Lux Row. So you have access.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:33

It's all yeah, it's all all available to you. Yeah, like the the Ryb, the Kentucky rye bourbon in that barrel strength is was distilled Lux Row.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:42

So so that would be a cool thing is just a collab bottle.

SPEAKER_08 1:36:47

Like that is that's a like some weight.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:51

I don't know if you can get away with the I who said it before about the Rempe, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:36:57

100%. Maybe do that for Kentucky Bourbon Festival because you guys are there. Oh wait, yeah, wait, do go three-way. You all, you all call it the tiny batch. I thought he said it. Wait, go with go with go with Yellowstone, go with uh go Steven Beam, you and Rumpy with a yeah, do a try thing for the festival that you put out from all three of you. Everybody gets everybody's selling that.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:34

Yeah, but by everybody. If you and if you and John did the blend, you can call it Penelope's Oath. Oh, oh, okay. Penelope's oath.

SPEAKER_07 1:37:48

Penelope's oath.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:49

Yeah. Like I do the blend, and then Rempi chooses the finish, and he does the finish on it.

SPEAKER_08 1:37:56

Oh, that would be phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:58

That would be that would be phenomenal. Penelope's oath. Now you're gonna make me want to get into some of my blow patches and go back to home. Those are good.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:07

Yeah. I remember when we first got into like whiskey, we we went down to we were in Bardstown for our first bottling run. Mike and I went to Talbot's Tavern or whatever. Talbot's Tavern. We're sitting there and we we were so proud. We have our first bottle of Penelope bourbon, and then we asked the bartender, we're like, hey, you pick, you know, pick a four for us, whatever. And she picked Blood Oath. I think it was pack pack four. Okay. And we're sitting there, we taste it, we both look at each other like fuck, we're out of our league. What are we doing in this book? I mean, 90. I told John that story when we first met and he he left.

SPEAKER_08 1:38:54

I mean, the great thing about Blood Oath is there are batches that that you that you might not like, okay? But he he just keeps putting out such unique bourbon, and it's just like you can respect it if you don't like that batch, but then the next batch is just like holy crap. Because he's going after everybody's palette, right?

SPEAKER_06 1:39:20

And he's putting together, he's putting together great blends because I see like the pick sheets on what he's pulling for barrels, and it's like he's using he's using great stuff.

SPEAKER_08 1:39:30

Well, but he's almost like Johnny Walker, right? Johnny Walker Blue. They the Johnny Walker Blue, you goes from how many different distilleries? They're pick picking the best of the best from all the distilleries, and it's the same thing. He doesn't tell you where he's you're you have knowledge, that's awesome. But you know, when it comes to those blends, nobody knows, but he just doesn't, it doesn't matter, he's pulling it from everywhere.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:56

Yeah, yeah, and he switches it up. I like it every year.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:00

It's it's really I like the idea of bringing the brands together to do a collab type thing for KDF, though, because not a lot of people know that you guys are all kind of under wait, unless you go to a festival, because they are presented like the the the three musketeers now.

SPEAKER_08 1:40:21

It's just like it's just straight across. I mean, New Orleans was awesome. I mean, even though you weren't there, Penelope was there, it just it's represented. There's no doubt about it. Yeah, that's and I would suggest going, I would suggest next year going to New Orleans. That was that was a that was a blast. And the food there is unlike any other food at any uh any festival.

SPEAKER_06 1:40:47

And every year they put on a good kind of show there. I think every year it gets better.

SPEAKER_08 1:40:52

I think next year, because of they did this at this, it was like the hotel, the parking garage, we were on the on the roof, and then that we they rented out the third floor of the mall and had a theater. They rented out the theater. So if you so next year they want to run all the bourbon people's promotional stuff in the theater. So there was like, you know, people were talking and doing the sessions in the theater and on the side. I mean, it was like they were getting their bearings with this new venue, but next year I think they'll kill it.

SPEAKER_06 1:41:33

Yeah, I'll I'll go next year. Yeah, I think that's good.

SPEAKER_08 1:41:36

Well, if you're going, I'm going. He had me a food. Yeah. Oh God, the food was phenomenal. The they the they this guy smoked, he called it a lamb carcass. And and then they told him, Don't call it a carcass. But but the but they were making sandwiches and pulled pulled lamb, and oh my god, it was phenomenal, and shrimp and smoked oysters and raw oysters. I mean, it was just like it's just it was nuts. So, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:11

Now I'm hungry.

SPEAKER_08 1:42:12

Okay. So we're now yeah, we we should uh yeah, finish this up. Thank you, thank you, Danny.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:19

Appreciate all your time, man. Yeah, and all the info. Can't hang. So book your hotels now for the festival because it's oh we we're already we we're tickets go on sale next week.

SPEAKER_08 1:42:31

Yeah, too. We're having Randy on on Tuesday. It'll be after the tickets go on sale, but then we'll just try and sell out the rest of the festival.

SPEAKER_07 1:42:41

Tell him I said hi. I will uh I will tell them about tell them about the Penelope thing. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I will. I will.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:50

And he says, I'm literally gonna text John when we get off.

SPEAKER_08 1:42:54

That's that's perfect. That's perfect. All right. So if you want to go out, thank you for your time. We'll just finish up and you don't have to you don't have to stick around.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:04

So thank you, Danny. Thanks, Danny. Really appreciate it. See ya.

SPEAKER_08 1:43:10

All right. Good night. All right, that was that was good.

SPEAKER_04 1:43:24

Yeah, yeah, awesome show. Yeah. All right, so I will a lot of people watch it tonight, and a lot of a lot of emojis clicking off there, the likes, the loves, the cares. Still going hundreds of them.

SPEAKER_08 1:43:38

Hundreds?

SPEAKER_04 1:43:39

Yeah, there's a bunch of people watching.

SPEAKER_08 1:43:40

Let me see. Let me just update it because I never updated it because I was talking to them and I never got. Now that I do this recording, all right, I gotta turn the volume down. Okay, here we go. Let's see. Okay, come on. Alright, there we go. I'll click on that.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:07

If I didn't have to have a ladder to get my blood out, I'd get it down right now on the drink level.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:12

Wow, there was a lot of people commenting. Matt was commenting. Alright, so I'll throw it out to everybody. I'll throw out the thing and then I'll end this on the audio a couple minutes. My wife is still up. She's pouring a bath. I can hear that. Let's see. I gotta get to this. Yes. Yeah, alright. Still people are doing the laughing. All right. Copy.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:43

I see the thumbs up emoji on yours. I don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:46

Yeah, that's there's people on Zoom that watch too, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:54

Oh, on the zoom in? Yep.

Closing Plugs And Final Toast

SPEAKER_08 1:44:57

Wait, that was the wrong. I I just hit the wrong. Okay, let's get the right thing. Man, that barrel proof compared to 11 is insanely different. Beautiful. Yeah. Let's see. Did it go up? It's there. All right. So now I'm gonna end it for everybody. All right, everybody. W.scotchyburmanboys.com. Hey CT, I'm throwing this out to you. You are doing a phenomenal job. I actually, you know, Nash has always done a great support thing, but but but the booking of everybody we've been booking, and it's gonna be ride for the next couple months because there's a lot of stuff coming on between me and you doing the booking. We are we picked up the game.

SPEAKER_04 1:45:48

We need to be the eye key. I'm gonna get Rob Snyder on with Tears of the Left. So do you have you been working on that?

SPEAKER_08 1:45:56

Yeah, you get him on your right, you you you become royalty, even though you're already royalty, but still I've already Rob Snyder the the comedian? Yeah, he has Tears of the Left.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:12

I I will dress as Deuce Bigelow tomorrow if he's coming on. I will totally I'm gonna get my own fish tank and everything.

SPEAKER_04 1:46:22

I'm definitely gonna come back to the and see if we can't. I'm working on getting the bottles now. On my way back riding back from Atlanta, my son was driving, and so I'm looking at getting the bottles. Um sent an email already. But yeah, I definitely want to get him on. That's awesome. That's that's perfect. We just had a couple like three or four weeks ago, and he just they just started all these ads for that, and and he's in all the ads.

SPEAKER_08 1:46:51

Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. He it would be great to have Rob on to promote his whiskey because that is a great. I I would I don't care what it tastes like, I would drink that, I'll drink that whole bottle right on the podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:47:06

It it look it looks good, but looks can be deceiving.

SPEAKER_08 1:47:10

Yeah, but but it doesn't matter. It's it's it's definitely what the the the temperature of the podcast. All right, everybody, yeah. We've got a bunch of people coming on, but I'm gonna finish up the audio. www.scotchyburbonboys.com for all things Scotchy Bourbon Boys, Glenn Karen's t-shirts, contact me directly or just buy it off the website. Either way, it works. Remember, we're on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X along with, and I'm kicked off, I'm kicked off TikTok, along with Apple iHeart and Spotify and all other podcast networks. Whether you listen to us, like, or watch us, make sure that you leave good feedback. So for some reason, again, YouTube did something weird. It just like spazzed out. So I don't know what it was. I just shut off my phone. So hopefully it came back on once I showed up.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:11

You didn't mention it.

SPEAKER_08 1:48:12

But, anyways, all right, and then remember, make sure you leave uh you know, you leave good feedback on on Apple, and then also make sure that you become a member, subscribe, do all those fun things, and then remember good friends equals good times, good bourbon, and drink responsibly, don't drink and drive.

SPEAKER_04 1:48:38

Get out there and live your life uncut and unfiltered.

SPEAKER_08 1:48:42

And our theme song will take us out. There it is, will take us out. Come on.