The Scotchy Bourbon Boys
The Scotchy Bourbon Boys love Whiskey and every thing about the industry! Martin "Super Nash", Jeff "Tiny", Rachel "Roxy" Karl "Whisky" and Chris "CT" all make up The Scotchy Bourbon Boys! Join us in talking everything and anything Whiskey, with the innovators, and distillers around the globe. Go behind the scenes of making great whiskey and learn how some of the best in the whiskey industry make their product! Remember good whiskey means great friends and good times! Go out and Live Your Life Dangerously!
The Scotchy Bourbon Boys
The Essence of Bourbon Craftsmanship Through Mark Carter's Journey as Owner of Old Carter Whiskey Co
Embark on a captivating journey with Mark Carter, owner of old Carter Whiskey Co., as we unravel the tapestry of his life that weaves together the roles of an innkeeper, wine buyer, and now, a bourbon industry luminary. Mark's tale is one of reinvention and passion, taking us through the revival of Kentucky Owl to the meticulous craftsmanship behind his own Old Carter whiskey. As he shares the alchemy of aging and his uncompromising standard for spirits, you'll be transported to a world where patience is distilled into every sip, and the anticipation for his seven-year-aged distillate builds.
In our heart-to-heart with Mark, we draw intoxicating parallels between the bourbon and wine realms, revealing the artistry behind barrel aging and the pivotal role of a taster's palate in sculpting flavors. The conversation uncorks the shared practices between distilleries and wineries, examining the influence of vintage variation and the rickhouse's embrace on each batch's character. You'll get a taste of innovation through our discussion of techniques that have forged distinctive profiles, like the secret double-oaked, double-barreled process, and the synergy found in collaborations that further refine the whiskey experience.
Finally, step into the select circle of the Old Carter Social Club and discover the allure of bourbon club memberships, where camaraderie and exclusive spirits like Old Carter whiskey blend seamlessly. Learn what sets Old Carter apart—a harmony of caramel, toffee, and butterscotch that dances on the palate without a hint of bitterness. Whiskey aficionados, take note: as we pour over the economics of bourbon production and the blending artistry that commands a premium, you're invited to join us in raising a glass to the shared passion and the pursuit of the exceptional in every bottle.
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What's up? Scotchy Bourbon Boys fans, this is Alan Bishop of. If you have Ghosts, you have Everything. You may know me better as Indiana's Alchemist of the Black Forest, but if you're at all interested in the Fortean high strangeness, the paranormal and the unexplained, then you should tune into my new podcast. If you have Ghosts, you have Everything available now, wherever you get your podcasts, including Spotify, google Podcasts and Amazon. Yeah, did I do that? You did.
Speaker 2:Well, all right, touching it.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 4:Are you going to?
Speaker 3:play it again.
Speaker 5:No it died in the middle, right there, all right. Where's the scotch? Hey Wow.
Speaker 2:Oh boy.
Speaker 5:It lost the Wi-Fi. Yes, this is the. It wasn't protectable. Woo, here we are. I got to just get off that so that it doesn't kick in. All right, so welcome to another podcast of the. Scotchy.
Speaker 1:Bourbon Boys.
Speaker 5:What I'll do is on the audio. I'll just drop that in. I can do that when I get back. And here we are with Tiny and we've got Super Natch, we've got Whiskey, we've got CT Barrelhead and we have a very special guest, mark Carter. From a lot of different things. Introduce yourself of all the different I mean, I can't even follow it, you know. But when it comes to spirits, you've got it covered right?
Speaker 7:Well, we've been very fortunate. You know, I've started out many years ago with just building and then build a big house and turn it into an inn, and so I became an innkeeper. You know, had my own restaurant, still have the restaurant and have a couple of cookbooks that we did for the restaurant, and I was a wine buyer for the restaurant and ended up buying everybody's wine. Pretty soon I got tired of buying other people's wine, so we started making wine in 98. And in 98 was a good year for us too. It was. Also we got the Grand Award from Wine Spectator, which there's only 100 of those in the world and it's one of these lists. That's maybe 4,000 selections. And after buying all those wines, when we started the winery, it was called Carter Cellars and that did well. And then we bought a winery in Napa in 2006 with a partner Nils Venge is my partner in the winery and we make Envy wines there, which is one of our brands, and then we do Carter Cellars there.
Speaker 7:And once we bought the winery, we weren't making too much money we were losing money actually and we decided we started making wine for other people and since I was an innkeeper, I asked all my innkeeping friends if anybody wanted to make some wine. And only one guy in America said yes. It just so happened that he was from Kentucky and I knew his dad. His dad told me a story. Chuck Dedman told me that they used to make bourbon. And I said, well, instead of making wine, why don't we make bourbon and bring your brand back? And he said we can do that. And I said, yeah, Dixon, we can do anything we set our minds to. And so we brought back, uh, Kentucky owl, and that was. We started that in 2012 and, uh, that went really well and that sold in 2017. And, uh, we weren't quite done. Uh, we decided that Carter Whiskey Company, in 2017, bought barrels and started distilling, so we have our own distillate. That's now seven years old.
Speaker 1:And so that kind of brings you up to date. You've done a lot.
Speaker 5:Wow, that was yeah, I mean, there's a lot in there.
Speaker 3:You should have a.
Speaker 5:TED Talks.
Speaker 4:Or we can just turn this into.
Speaker 7:TED Talks. Whatever you like, the answer is always yes. That's how you get what you have today.
Speaker 3:Can I send my wife to that school?
Speaker 5:So when you started buying barrels, initially you were buying barrels for Kentucky Owl, correct? That is correct. And then when this transferred, like you said you weren't done so you must have had a certain amount of stock for that, or did Kentucky Owl keep it and you had to start over?
Speaker 7:Yeah, it was interesting. We actually had Kentucky Bourbon distilled for us with Kentucky Owl. We had four different distillers that you probably know of all the brands and that all went. We did like 25 barrels with each one of them and that did go with Kentucky Owl and so we had to start over. We started buying, you know, basically from the people you know either you know MGP you know, or we were lucky enough to get some really beautiful Kentucky Straight and we're going to have one of those today. Today, this one's a 15-year-old. We bought it when it was 12 years, almost 12 years old, back in 17. So some of the stuff is 17 years old now.
Speaker 6:Those are Kentucky straight single girls, that sounds so awfully good.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, so as far as the distillate that you, you've distilled, yes, that's. When do you? When does that? When will that start to appear? It just when it's ready, when you feel it's ready? Or do you feel it's ready, or do you have a goal?
Speaker 7:You know, most everything we have and always have is at least seven years old. We've never had anything younger than seven years old. We start working with it about six to seven. We've already started working with our distillate that we had contracted One of the things we were known for with Kentucky Owl all the Kentucky Owl. The first batches batch one to six, were all double-oaked, double-barreled, and we didn't really tell anybody with different char levels, because that was kind of our thing at that point. We wanted to keep things a little secret, so people didn't just go out and do the same thing we did. But we were one of the first in 2012,. In 2012, even though um over at whitford reserve did it too, they kept theirs in barrel for about, I think, no more than six months, maybe less. We kept ours in barrel for three years, so nobody saw that our stuff until three years later when we turned it out you know which, which was about 2014.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so there's a certain amount of what you do and what Dixon was doing and then you can tell throughout all the industries. What happens is that there's a certain amount of what you do has to do with the quality of one, the people and the palates that are tasting and then putting out the batches, because a lot of times people, like you said, there's a lot of people with the same whiskey because it's out there, but that doesn't mean the flavors are going to be the same. And I would say, as far as how this has been, how you guys have been doing this and what's come out is so to me, just this is, me personally, exceptionally above the bar of other stuff that's coming out, even though the other stuff that comes out is good. But in my opinion this is my great. So there's, there's so much you know put into it and I think it really comes down to your background.
Speaker 5:You, your palate is also in wines and when you give, when you taste a lot into wines and you compare it because I really believe the like you have to admit the whiskey industry kind of when they started coming up with all the small batches and everything was mirroring the success of the California wineries and you look at you know even Bardstown, bourbon Company and all the places. You look at how they build their distilleries and their experience. It's very similar to what the wineries were doing, correct.
Speaker 7:Actually I think the whiskey business has done an even almost better job these days than the wine industry with the experiences. The things I'm seeing, you know, up and down the street here at Whiskey Row is unbelievable. They're really educating people. We never really had to do that in Napa. You just came in and tasted and you liked what we did. We show you around the winery, maybe a little bit, and hopefully you bought wine from us and at the beginning it was free, it was a free tasting originally. Show you around the winery, maybe a little bit and, uh, hopefully you bought, bought wine from us and at the beginning it was free, it was a free tasting originally. Now that so many people come to nappy have to start charging for the tasting and kind of curate that tasting too.
Speaker 7:But we knew when we started uh that we were going to be small, we were going to be craft and everything we were going to do uh would be different, just like the wine. Every year our wine is different because of the vintage and uh, we can't duplicate it, to speak, and we can get close. In some years it's going to be way better than other years and we didn't want it to be the same, because there's wonderful legacy brands that can do that. You know we wanted to give legacy brands that can do that. We wanted to give them something that was unique and different. It's always been barrel strength too. We've never, ever put a drop of water in any of the two brands that we've had.
Speaker 3:That's one thing that I enjoy is, each time that I'm able to procure a bottle, is being able to taste the different batches and how unique the different flavors are between the batches, and I know, like I say, that you try to replicate it in some ways, but you can't. Each one is so different and such a great profile.
Speaker 5:Well, that's a great explanation. But in reality, mark, you have to admit, thank you Some. You know, consistency was always such a huge thing for the industry, right as far as whiskey goes, that was like the big thing. Everybody wanted to try and put consistency. But you know, if you drink a dusty of Jim Beam or a dusty Jack Daniels and you drink those, it's not even, they're not close. I mean, it evolves and I will say that you know people, although the distilling aspect takes a lot of the grain, can take a lot of those grains out. You know the flavor. But there's, just like in grapes, there's better years for corn, better years for wheat and you know I don't care, it's going to affect the whiskey from year to year to some extent.
Speaker 7:And the weather alone too, just for whiskey in the rickhouses.
Speaker 7:You know, when you actually pull the barrel out and taste the barrel, if it's winter or if it's summer, you know it makes all the difference. Also, and one of the cool things that happened this last year was the collaboration that we did with Bardstown Bourbon Company. It was the first time we really got to taste the barrels from different levels of the rickhouse and it was unbelievable, even in 14 months, that we actually put the distillate into our wine barrels and put it on three different levels and we had to move it out of the top floor because all we were getting was basically alcohol flavors and you know, know, so we moved them back down. Uh, when we started, it was unbelievable that we started with almost a 96 proof and it ended up ended up being about 108 proof. So you know it rose in alcohol on that top floor but we were losing all the wonderful flavors and so so we moved it down and that's kind of like the terroir of wine country. Is that rickhouse in my estimation these days?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know, Mark, you have a very unique perspective and I realize we have a bourbon podcast but with your background in winemaking, I have hung out with some winery owners in the past and they've always said that the more stress the grape has, the better the wine yes. So I'm kind of wondering does that carry over into the whiskey market? I mean, the bigger the fluctuations in the summer, you know, if you have more 90-degree days and more 20-degree lows, I mean, is that better for the whiskey? I mean, you're one of the few people that can that might even pull that information together and kind of relate it to that winemaking business.
Speaker 7:You know, you're correct, the stressed years, the years that are drought driven, usually are better flavor for us, that it gets ripe enough and it doesn't set as much grapes out there in the vineyard. The less yield on the vine usually, the better the quality of the wine and the grape, wow. And so you really want a nice, even ripening, year. There's a lot of stuff going into making wine, but it's pretty simple in some ways. Uh, if it's, if it doesn't rain, doesn't frost, if it doesn't get too hot during the season, um, you know, if you have a nice ripening evening, ripening year which, uh, our 23s is going, they say is one of the best years we've had in 40 years. I was out there and actually got to see it and taste the grapes as we go down the rows. It almost tastes like wine when we were tasting the grapes and we knew that it was so flavorful.
Speaker 4:So what parallels do you draw from that experience? Into the into the whiskey world.
Speaker 7:Well, most of it was. You know, the barrel was such a big thing for us, you know. And wine, if you take a Chardonnay grape, you, for us, you know. And wine, if you take a chardonnay grape, you know you don't have much flavor. There it's all about the barrel. What kind of barrel? New barrel, used barrel? You know most everything we do. And wine is all french oak.
Speaker 5:Um, some, there are some people do american oak and they don't char the barrels for wine, because you're not looking for that caramelized sugar You're trying to enhance the you get toasted levels, you might get anything from a regular toast.
Speaker 3:You don't need a char to extract any of the bad.
Speaker 7:Yeah, it's almost too much with a charred barrel for grapes and wine. That's why we double-oaked everything. We knew it would give more flavor at the very beginning when we did that with Kentucky Owl.
Speaker 3:Let me ask you real quick, because you handed us all a glass of whiskey here. What are we drinking here today? Well, this is a club.
Speaker 7:This is a bourbon, a very small batch. This is 525 bottles that were produced for the club up here and this is a. We do have a couple of different mash bills we sometimes use to blend. This could be we love. This is all MGP. This is all MGP. This is the 5-barrel blend, is what this is. Or 3-barrel, this is about a 3-barrel blend. 525 is the 3-barrel blend. We get the 700. It's a 5-barrel blend with a 7 or 8-year-old. So this could be a 99, you know, or a 99.1 for the MGP that we use a lot of. But we also use some stuff that's like 23.
Speaker 5:99.1 is 99. This isn't a rye, this is a bourbon. Corn, so it's 99 corn, 1% barley. Yes, exactly this does not taste like any MG, any MTP. I taste good.
Speaker 4:The nose is insane the nose. There's very little ethanol that comes through. Yeah, it's just that's.
Speaker 7:We don't like the alcohol, you know. Oh, we do oh yeah. I like high proof, but I'm not a chaser high proof because I've tasted some really wonderful things that are only like 98 proof but they are barrel proof and they were never cut and that's a great flavor too. Just probably lower in a rickhouse to get that lower.
Speaker 6:The thing I noticed immediately smell was fantastic because I got a lot of toffee and the vanilla is out of it, but the mouthfeel immediately is like butter.
Speaker 2:Like going in immediately. It's like a melted butter.
Speaker 5:No, it's like caramel corn, because you put the butter into the caramel. I mean it's insane.
Speaker 6:It completely coats the palate.
Speaker 5:I'm getting like butter.
Speaker 3:I haven't taken butter toffee popcorn all day.
Speaker 7:My grandmother was from Somerset, kentucky and Eastern Kentucky, so basically probably moonshiners out there. They grew a lot of corn and you know the. I love corn. It's in my DNA and so high corn mash bills are where I you. I love corns in my DNA and so high corn bash pills are what I love. I love everything. I'm just like wine. I love all varietals and grapes, but we do make mostly Cabernet.
Speaker 6:Well, there's a big difference of a corn that's young and a corn that's got some age, because when it gets age then you start getting the butteriness to it when it's young then it's like eh, the corn's a little overpowering. This blends out really really well.
Speaker 5:Yes it goes right down the line of everything that I taste like it's, this is, this is what I, this is what I'm in it for. There's, there's some. I've tasted this very, you know, throughout other brands you taste. This kind of consistency of this kind of of a whiskey. Is what you're putting out all the time. I mean, but who, but how many people you're? That's a bourbon and it's 99.1, you said, and I, I mean there's. That in itself is special of what you're doing, because you, you know, if you go by mellow corn for by having it has a corn flavor to it, there's no doubt it would, you would call it it's, it's, it's, you would call it corn, like a corn. This still is right in the bourbon category, right here of fantasticness.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 4:What number is this?
Speaker 7:This is OC. I think it was three, yeah, and so, and this is 117 proof actually. That's right, and I love the mouthfeel. We always shoot for mouthfeel both in the wine and the whiskey. The same thing. Carry it through that deep, rich flavors and kind of darker notes usually. But with some fruit notes in there too. Can I ask you about why you went?
Speaker 6:with that style bottle label.
Speaker 7:Well, we like stuff that looks kind of like it's been around for a while. Old Carter, Kentucky Owls was actually almost the exact label that was put out until about 1914, 1879, when they was founded, and I like the tall bottle being in the restaurant business. For me, the taller the bottle, the more shelf space I got. On the back bar I can see it maybe went from across the way and still see old Carter up there. So you were thinking we did a lot of thinking.
Speaker 4:You were thinking that it's hard to see the short guy.
Speaker 5:Yeah, the logo is very unique in itself, but the old Carter label. Now, was this a brand or did you start it this way?
Speaker 7:It was just going to be Carter Whiskey Company and I have to give credit to some of our friends over in Lexington. The Justins are really good friends of ours, both Justin Sloan and Justin Thompson and when we were coming up with the name it was going to be like I say Carter Whiskey Company and JT said no, you can't just be Carter Whiskey Company, you've got to be old Carter.
Speaker 3:Whiskey Company.
Speaker 7:I said you know you're right, that sounds way better. Sounds like I've been around for a while.
Speaker 5:But the label has the classic that it was around. You know, I love the hand-designed C that you have there.
Speaker 4:I mean it just works. As far as For those that haven't seen it, should we grab a bottle and push it towards the camera a little bit, since we're so far away?
Speaker 5:That would be. I can't get up.
Speaker 6:But you can grab one Good suggestion there.
Speaker 4:I didn't want to have to Make the fact that I burned cows. I see if y'all have any questions for Mark.
Speaker 3:Feel free to ask him and I'll try to get him in here and we'll ask him.
Speaker 4:I'm not Vanna, I can tell you that. No, you are not.
Speaker 6:Definitely.
Speaker 5:I think she's retired now. I mean it did the last show so you can talk. I think she's still got a leg up.
Speaker 4:I don't know, I hope we don't have to show any more bottles. You're great You're saying I got a shot.
Speaker 5:Yeah, a shot of whiskey in your hand, that's about it. Yes, there you go. So for the club, so we're drinking the club bourbon right now.
Speaker 6:So during the year, Mark, do you have a set number of bourbons and ryes that you put out for the club members only, or is it just kind of like we?
Speaker 7:try to do. Six a year is what we said we would do for them.
Speaker 6:Is it three and three? Is it just a?
Speaker 7:whatever it's whatever, yes, whatever we're working on, and sometimes we actually even do. The club was going to do some of the national releases, because club members would sometimes say, well, we'd like to get some of the ones that are released, and I have to go chase it down. So we actually hold some back for the club and then they get an offering of the national releases. We usually do three different types of releases. We do and this is kind of the lineup we do a bourbon, we do the rye, um, we do a, and this is kind of lineup we do a bourbon, uh, we do the rye and we do american whiskey, and that those are the national releases. And what we've been doing, which was kind of fun, is when we do, uh, actually a different uh distribution, uh, in a state, we will end up sometimes making just a blend for them in very small batch of maybe 750 bottles.
Speaker 3:And that brings me to a little story of uh, how?
Speaker 5:hold on hold on.
Speaker 3:I got a question okay so is.
Speaker 5:Have you ever had a group podcast? Be a part of your club.
Speaker 7:Well we have the pot. You know some of these people are actually have podcasts and do a lot of different things and you know they have their own brand some of them, and restaurants and things like that, because they want to get the product and that was a good way to get product to their, especially in Kentucky. If you have a restaurant, you could actually since these are not offered to the general public, a lot of the OC stuff which is for the old Carter Social Club it goes directly on their back bar sometimes.
Speaker 6:I think Jeff's saying we need a scotchy bourbon.
Speaker 7:Oh yeah.
Speaker 5:We want to join as a group.
Speaker 7:If you join as a group, you're only going to get still one bottle. No, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 5:No, I get that.
Speaker 7:I get that.
Speaker 1:But you know how many bottles?
Speaker 5:a year Six.
Speaker 1:Six, six.
Speaker 5:So there's only there's six of us, so my wife included. So yeah, so I mean we could, that would be a possibility.
Speaker 4:So that brings up a great point before Nash's story. Yeah, so, I know I was actually on the email distribution for the original introduction of the Carter Social Club. Are you guys still taking members if somebody wants to sign up?
Speaker 7:We have a wait. Yeah, we'll have everybody sign up. We have a wait list right now, so we've got a couple hundred people waiting to get on. If people drop out, then we'll take new people in.
Speaker 4:So you're capped at 350?
Speaker 7:Yeah right now.
Speaker 4:Is that a distribution thing? It's actually production.
Speaker 7:It's really for production. It's still hard to you know, we still have to make it, we have to have enough. Not everybody always takes their allocation each time. You don't have to. If it's offered to you, you might want it. Most people do. But some people say, well, I can't really, I don't want to rebuy one right now, It'll go to another company.
Speaker 5:Listen, I want to be on top of that one.
Speaker 6:He's going with the new on-deck policy.
Speaker 5:Yeah, because he initially, when he brought it up, I wasn't quite yet. I mean, it's been a couple years right.
Speaker 7:Yeah, actually, brian Booth came on and he really helped out, because we thought it was going to be a nonprofit thing or something like that, but we have to be for a profit. There's too much filing and everything else. So he came in and he is actually in charge of, you know, and has been for a long time, the social club and scheduling and all that, and he did a phenomenal job. So I see what you're saying I'm going to pass this over and let you guys.
Speaker 4:So I'm just saying while we're passing- the bottle too. This place is amazing looking. You feel like you're stepping back into an old parlor of a mini mansion on Mansion Row here in Lowellville. So if you ever have the opportunity to get brought up here by a member, you should take it. The ceilings, the lockers, the accoutrements it's got a dusty note on it. Yeah, ceilings, the lockers, the accoutrements it's got a dusty note on it. It is, it's amazing.
Speaker 7:One of the things too with the club you get to bring actually it's like five other people with you if you're a club member. So it's really kind of social and it's unbelievable all the people that sometimes two groups will come at the same time. You can join them and they actually kind of know each other a lot of the time. You know and so which is kind of you enjoy it, but they've never met, they've only met on social media. So it's kind of fun to throw them together, because in the community you're talking about the whiskeys and all the things you like and you know what you've just had somewhere that everybody should try, not just our product but all the products out there. Oh yeah.
Speaker 5:No, no, no, no other products. If you're here, you should be trying this.
Speaker 3:This is crazy, I do have a question from Chris Furry. What is Mark's favorite style of whiskey? If not OC? What's he sipping on? I?
Speaker 7:always love this question. I've heard other people that are producers that have answered it and I've heard different ways that they've answered it. I've thought about it a lot. I'm one of the guys that wants to try everything and what I'm usually trying is something that has just come out that I've heard it's good and I haven't had. I said I don't know about that. I want to try that. I want to know about it because the more things I taste and experience it will, I think, further my, you know, education for my flavor profiles. You know you don't happens a lot of people as they get into just drinking their own and not seeing everybody else's stuff and you kind of get just that house palette we call it yeah and you're not bringing new ideas to the table you're not you know, because something innovative I'm a big believer that we might be.
Speaker 4:We might be riding the wheel, but that doesn't mean there's not something better. You know what I mean.
Speaker 5:No, I agree, I have to taste. You know, doing the podcast, I have to taste an awful lot of whiskey. And then also I'm not a big drinker of whiskey because it's usually special occasions. Because if I was always tasting and drinking, you know you got to not let it bite you Exactly, was always tasting and drinking there. You know you gotta not let it bite you, but exactly. But I'm just just, even in these two you taste a lot and there there's a lot of ways of going. But if you're talking about what that?
Speaker 5:What old carter is kentucky whiskey and even though some of it's to me, it's being produced at mgp or you know where it's being produced. It's this area type thing. But the the age on it. What you consistently do is the palette of pulling it from the barrel. Is the caramels, the, the toffees, the butterscotches, all those flavors that are in there, mixed with the wood, with those wood tannins. You never get it over. It doesn't ever taste like just even this 15-year that we're tasting right here. You get the proof, you get the age, but you don't get any.
Speaker 5:There's never a bitterness of the barrel where a lot of times when you're dealing with a lot of batches. Now there's a lot of people who love that oak bitterness. You know. You know they love, you know that those tannins. But from this standpoint it's not too like. Even when it comes through it's it's almost all that. One over there had the toffee caramel flavor and it was almost all that. But it's not too sweet because you can sometimes get it and it's way too sweet. The balance of what you're doing throughout these is so amazing to me. Now you can get into the story of the first time Wow.
Speaker 2:They came around the back way to get to the story.
Speaker 6:This is a good time to get a drink.
Speaker 3:First time that T Tony was introduced to Old Carter Whiskey December 4th 2021.
Speaker 6:I feel like I need to play a really sad song I had just come off of COVID too.
Speaker 2:I had long COVID for over a month.
Speaker 5:And we went up with Alan Bishop and he was doing his Alan Bishop experience with Bo Cumberland and we actually went out and did some distilling in the woods with him.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 5:But he brings this bottle up.
Speaker 3:I stopped at one of my favorite stores in Corbin Kentucky.
Speaker 7:Oh gosh, that's Brian's hometown. Yeah, oh very nice, yeah.
Speaker 3:so I stopped in Corbin, kentucky, and walked in. They had like six bottles of old Carter. So immediately I picked up a couple and it happened to be the 1KY badge, oh yeah, and so I brought them up, come into the hotel room and when they got there it was like, well, let's have a celebration pour. So that was the first one I popped open. We all had a little pour. Oh my gosh, he just went crazy because I could not get him away from that.
Speaker 5:No, he had all these other bottles and he goes what do?
Speaker 4:you want to drink.
Speaker 2:What do you want?
Speaker 4:to drink next? What do you want to drink next? That sounded like old Carter. It was like old Carter. You know what he said. That's the first good thing that president did.
Speaker 1:So, anytime he comes to my house.
Speaker 3:What do you want to drink, jeff? Because I've got shelves of over 700 bottles and I've got several different batches of Old Carter.
Speaker 7:What do you want to drink Old Carter? I want to thank you for the support. You guys have been really good. I tune in from time to time and see if you guys are actually tasting Old Carter and stuff and talking about it and I know that's a great support for us actually our brand.
Speaker 3:I'm always on the search for it, and you know what's really special about being here today.
Speaker 6:just looking at all the bottles is and people out there will attest to this because you don't walk into a store or anywhere and really see old carter. Maybe you're lucky and they've got a bottle, but you don't go in and see 10 bottles, 30 bottles.
Speaker 1:This is like hundreds.
Speaker 2:This is amazing because I am looking through and I'm like Holy cow.
Speaker 6:That's really cool.
Speaker 5:Never seen that, because I don't ever see it. No, the coolest, the coolest to me Is the little ones. Those are 125s or 375s.
Speaker 7:Those are 200s, 200s we have the 200s and 375s.
Speaker 3:I want to bet 200s, so 200s how do you get two?
Speaker 4:How do you?
Speaker 7:get 200s.
Speaker 5:One place that I can go to. That's the only way. I will be stopping there on the way home.
Speaker 3:Usually they have around 10 to 12 bottles of Old Carter and I always stop it. I have around 10 to 12 bottles of old Carter and I always stop it.
Speaker 5:That's where I pick up a couple, because he knows I'm going to be yeah.
Speaker 7:That's what I wanted. Well, you know, those little 200s and 375s are actually the older. You know the Kentucky straight that we purchased 100 barrels back, you know, in 17. One of the things we figured that we could make it go a lot farther for our club members and we used to do pop-ups quite a bit and we'd have a lot of people standing in line to get our product. But what would end up happening is it would go out in the parking lot and people would end up just selling it.
Speaker 7:And so that's when we came up with well, let's just give it to the club, Let them have the chance to buy it. They should be the ones to get it.
Speaker 4:That is the perfect size bottle. I mean it makes a kid's soccer game so much more fun.
Speaker 7:So I just want to say this is the single barrel, this is barrel 10, and it's 116.6, and there was 135, 139 bottles of that, and it is so good, only 139?.
Speaker 4:Yeah, wow, wow.
Speaker 6:Well, you figure 15 years, I mean it's been in there.
Speaker 5:Honestly, this is the best 15-year anything I've ever drank. I mean this is like yeah-year anything I've ever drank. I mean this is like yeah, I mean, it's interesting.
Speaker 3:This is like liquid creme brulee. I like creme brulee.
Speaker 5:I do too. Is it a gym?
Speaker 4:You know it's funny because the nose has got that little bit of that vintage spirit smell, that kind of. I heard you say kind of the smell of a dusty.
Speaker 7:I'm not really that big. You know 15 is a good. You know age for a whiskey. You know you can get it too old and you can get wood.
Speaker 5:Well, I'm sure that some of the 15 years can be. You know you have to be tasting through.
Speaker 7:We have to make it there.
Speaker 7:You know, when we do blend, even you know, and you come a little, this is the only single barrel that we're tasting. But uh, when we do a blend, we taste every, every barrel, and we will pull 60 barrels and taste through 60 barrels, pull out the ones we think are the best, and uh, then start blending and we will do as many as you know 30, 40 blends before we fall upon one that we go, yeah, that's it. When it raises the hair on the back of your arm or your neck, or you go, wow, that's it. Usually mother-in-laws do that.
Speaker 5:Well, I mean, so it's like, just like the story of Crown Royal, how they came. They did 900 blends for the king and came up with that one In 1939, when you think about that, that time period and everything, but it's the same thing. You guys are carrying out that tradition. You do the, you get the. You're just looking for that high quality to get the best blend.
Speaker 7:And you said it correctly too. It's that balance between all of the things that you're looking for. You know you want some sweetness at the end. We're always going to have it. We're not really big on any bitter note, you know.
Speaker 5:We'll also go. This is a single barrel, okay, and it's balanced too. There is a perfect balance of oak in this one. If it would have gone further it could have added some, but there's no bitterness. So when you guys are selecting your 15 year single barrel, the same process is going through.
Speaker 7:You know you guys are going through the same process to put out that quality and when we taste through there with a single barrel, we won't bail, since we didn't do anything selected. We want it to taste like what that we blended it almost you know it's this is evolving, though.
Speaker 6:What's what's great about drinking this is every drink. It's evolved I love started out with that, that barrel influence, a lot of that barrel influence. You taste a lot of the barrel. Now it's getting the dark cherry notes are coming out and I'm getting the dark cherry and almost a little chocolate in it yeah, but you're also picking up some of the char of the barrel.
Speaker 5:I actually picked the char up on the finish, but there's no, it's it. It tastes this, this, this mouthfeel, and this the actual how it coats your whole mouth with flavor.
Speaker 3:That second and third step.
Speaker 6:I was getting like that vanilla pudding or the caramelized sugar, the big good flavors.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but now I'm getting the cherry and those fruits are coming through. We know cherry. Now don't we? The thing that I can't this?
Speaker 5:those cherries and those fruits are coming through. We know cherry now, don't we? The thing that I can't.
Speaker 2:We know cherry because we tried it. This fills the entire.
Speaker 4:I can actually feel it in my upper teeth.
Speaker 2:It's unusual that any whiskey would do that.
Speaker 3:I think you said that earlier. That that's something that y'all strive for is a good mouthfeel. Oh gosh, if it doesn't.
Speaker 7:I don't like wimpy anything wine or whiskey it's got to have that thickness to it. You know, if something coats your mouth and hangs around, that's.
Speaker 2:I think a sign Thin is not a good word.
Speaker 6:It really isn't.
Speaker 7:You know it's young or thin.
Speaker 2:It's supermodels.
Speaker 5:Sorry, it's not so much hey just from a standpoint. Imagine making an old-fashioned with that. Holy crap, and I would I know?
Speaker 6:I'm up for the challenge.
Speaker 2:Or cereal.
Speaker 7:I would put some you know and we're.
Speaker 4:Why would you want to mess up something that I would drink a?
Speaker 5:little bit of this like this, and then I would love, because the flavors in there would just exceed all expectations of a drink. Drinks are art too.
Speaker 6:It can absolutely be elevated by the better the stuff going in.
Speaker 7:It really is. You know, I started doing Manhattans a long long time ago and it was with just Maker's Mark, regular Baker's Mark. It was fine. And then I saw this thing on a back bar. It was Booker's at 126. And I go, geez, I get like a drink and a half with that one. And I tasted it. I go, you know, it sure got a lot more flavor, yes, you know, and it really holds up to a cocktail. And so that's why we went with foolproof to begin with. And also, you know, we said drink it how you like it.
Speaker 7:You bought the bottle. If you want to put it on a rock, put it on a rock. You want to put water in it, put water in it. You know, if it's too strong for you, but we're going to give you our full flavor, the most flavor we can possibly give you in a bottle, and then you take it from there. American whiskey can make one of the great, you know, because it's usually 130s to 140. Somewhere in there American whiskeys make a great cocktail because it'll hold up against almost anything.
Speaker 6:Yeah, because, especially in like an old-fashioned, your bitters and your simple syrups or your sweeteners can overpower the bourbon. If it's a wheat bourbon, we'll just take over there's a skill to it, just like everything.
Speaker 7:Balance, even for cocktails.
Speaker 5:I mean just that's one thing, that I did an art study a long time now it's nine years ago but I basically photographed the water tower for every day of the year for a whole year, and I photographed it at sunrise, midday and sunset and it made me question what color is. And it's the same thing with whiskey. It's the same. It's artistry. When you're tasting things, there's so many variables, even though the rules are so strict. Right, yeah, and it's just the same thing. And you know, not everybody thinks that their palates all taste different, but I mean, honestly, it's. I would say this your bourbons and your ryes have something for everybody in them. You've got the proof, you've got the high proof and the big bold. You know mouthfeel.
Speaker 6:Mark, when the 15-year came out, was that only available to the club?
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 7:It just was released. In fact, the 10 and the 22 were released at the same time, so we're all signing up for the waiting list, right guys?
Speaker 5:Yes, on deck. So you know, mark. You said two, or at least the same time, so we're set. We're all signing up for the waiting list, right guys?
Speaker 4:on deck. So you know, mark, you said something there that inspired me to uh, you know, you look around at the shelf and you go, man, you look at that one, I can get like a drink and a half. And when I turned 48 and my bladder started getting me up in the middle of the night, that's exactly why I switched to burda, because, uh, you know, you get to where you need to go for a lot less liquid. So instead of three trips, you can make one. So, and anybody over 50 knows what I'm talking- about Well, sorry, you're going to be there.
Speaker 6:Sorry, you're going to be there. I'll be there one day, chris.
Speaker 4:Not one day Another 14 months 15 months, whatever it is. I mean, does your black, do you work your black out too? Yeah, yeah, I just wonder.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I don't get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. That's what you're asking.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so well you must be working out you. Of fruits instead of normal ryes, I get baking spices. That's what you do on Fridays in Kentucky and rye spices, you know but this I'm getting a lot of fruit.
Speaker 5:He's taking this right off the rails, right, let's get back off of Chris's liver.
Speaker 7:Yes, so this is a rye? Yes, it is. This is one of our ryes. This is batch 14 rye. Yes, it is. This is one of our ryes. This is batch 14 rye and it's got a little power to it. That rye spice is strong. It's 123 proof wise.
Speaker 4:It goes pretty smooth. You know what I like about that?
Speaker 2:The color on that is exceptional, isn't it? It's got a lemon coffee.
Speaker 6:Lemony like a lemongrass flavor almost in the beginning.
Speaker 5:Yes, but the dark it's like a oh my god. It's almost like I get a Starbucks dark roasted coffee, black coffee flavor on the finish.
Speaker 6:Maybe a strong tea.
Speaker 5:As far as ryes go, there's a lot of ryes I don't like but now I have to admit my palate has evolved. But like, if you get into, like the seagrasses, those really rye flavor, I mean some of them just have off tastes to me. There's nothing. Michter's rye I really love and this is right. One of the greatest ryes around. Yeah, really love. And this is right. Greatest fries around. Yeah, I mean this is right here with. I mean this has got the flavors. It actually brings out the rye spice a little bit more of that lemongrass that you're talking about, right yeah, I get the but then, all of a sudden, the, the sweetness of, there's just what would you say?
Speaker 5:what, what's the calm?
Speaker 4:a little bit of caramel and then a dark dark coffee like there's, there's a little bit of almost um like that sugar when you're making your own caramel, but it hasn't quite started to brown. That there's that, so I, I'm. I also am a cook, so that's why I'm picking out some flavors here that are just like what the hell is that doing in?
Speaker 5:a bottle In a bottle of rye, because that's crazy.
Speaker 7:People say we make rye for bourbon drinkers. It's been said quite a bit so we kind of picked that up. We didn't make that up. But people say because usually it tastes more like bourbon. But that's what people say, you know, because it usually tastes more like bourbon, I like rye, you know.
Speaker 7:I think it's more, you know, actually complex, a lot of times got more flavors, but there's so many your rye is yeah, there's a lot of young ryes and rye got a bad name, kind of like Merlot got a bad name for wine. It was wimpy or it was young or whatever. You know, rye needs time, you know, and you get to about seven-year-old rye into 12-year-old rye or something like that. You're going to start getting some magic happening and this is a 95.5.
Speaker 7:What's really interesting on the back, you know, there's always, you know, transparency, because we have to put on where it was distilled at. This says it was distilled in actually Tennessee. This is supposed to be in Tennessee, but it's 95.5. Tennessee didn't make a 95.5.
Speaker 2:So this is.
Speaker 7:MGP came down from MGP to, we believe this is we don't know for sure, but this is what we kind of think happened. It was actually Nickel bought this from MGP and stored it and then they decided that was not their profile, so they ended up selling it and so we ended up tasting it, liking it and buying it. So the difference here is where it was stored at.
Speaker 4:So again what batch number.
Speaker 5:This is 14. There was 15, right.
Speaker 7:You had 15. That's what you bought, right? I?
Speaker 6:think I had 12.
Speaker 7:Yeah, there's 12. In fact, we are going to taste 11 rye I think I had 12.
Speaker 3:And that's where you get to the point the weather and the temperatures all affecting the barrels.
Speaker 7:You know that now All of us are getting to know that it's terrible it is.
Speaker 5:It's just terrible, it really is. It's where the corn's grown and where the wheat's grown.
Speaker 7:If it's like Texas or Montana. We're about to see it.
Speaker 5:I mean, I really think Pennsylvania is going to explode with rye, because that's the place where rye? Grows the best it was always rye.
Speaker 1:It really was, you can just see that starting to come out.
Speaker 5:You see those distillers that are coming out of Pennsylvania bringing back the rye.
Speaker 4:So much of the rye is imported through British Columbia now that it would be nice to see that make a resurgence here in the States because of the popularity of bourbon.
Speaker 5:Did you say something about Canada?
Speaker 4:Is that what you're?
Speaker 5:talking about.
Speaker 2:I'm not hoping for that, no, I'm just saying but that's where a lot of the rye comes from.
Speaker 6:It's like their only thing they can grow it's going to be in Springfield, Ohio, right around where I live, there's this area where there's like it's just creating this awesome flavor. But if you want to try it, just get with me. I'll bring the barrels up and we'll store them and see how they do.
Speaker 7:Yeah, I'll sample them every month.
Speaker 6:Oh.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't wait that long. Yeah, we see what happens with stored barrels around you, so if you ever need, I'd break them down, though If you ever need any help tasting barrels, you know because it's becoming too overwhelming.
Speaker 5:We volunteer to help.
Speaker 4:Yeah, ct's name will change to one barrel, yeah.
Speaker 5:Yeah, CT just wants to taste one barrel. Yeah, I'll tell you so the thing I am not.
Speaker 4:I am a self-professed, not lover of rye. A lot of people are.
Speaker 1:But this is pretty damn good.
Speaker 4:But what I find unusual about this usually rye. The reason I don't like it is it's just pure spice.
Speaker 7:It's too much spice sometimes I get that too.
Speaker 4:I'm literally picking up, like that, sage and rosemary, almost like dry sage yeah. I mean, I don't know how many people have ever put dry sage on their top.
Speaker 5:No, I can see that rosemary in there because my wife's been making rosemary stuff and there's definitely that finish.
Speaker 4:Where people are going to be more familiar with rosemary is if they've ever watched Gordon Ramsay or anybody on TV make a steak. They're throwing some rosemary in with the butter and they're butter basting, and so that flavor that it parts. Really this is an eight-ounce filet in a cup. Love it, I mean, it's a.
Speaker 7:I think it would go really well with that.
Speaker 2:It's actually about one ounce. So I got to tell you, Carl, if you don't know your ounces.
Speaker 4:If you got this yeah, muscle car, thank you for that. I'm sorry about whatever God gave you. We were ready for that.
Speaker 3:The buttery mouthfeel adds to it, and just compliments it.
Speaker 1:You know, Mark, I think you hit it on the head, I would love to sit down and go.
Speaker 2:Just a fantastic steak and a glass of this.
Speaker 4:So if you have this in a 375, we're taking it to.
Speaker 7:Pat's later we did not make this one in a 375.
Speaker 4:I don't know how Pat would feel, but I mean, I think we could get it back.
Speaker 7:Yeah, this is a small batch, so this is 1,612 bottles. So this went out nationally to actually eight different distributors and so they all ended up with about 200 bottles. You know you divide 65.
Speaker 3:So far Not much. That brings up a good question how many states are you distributed in right now?
Speaker 5:And can you please get Ohio in?
Speaker 7:there. There'll be a day. There'll be a day. We love Ohio. We love Ohio. I used to go to Ohio all the time.
Speaker 6:On purpose. Oh yeah, I just said good luck.
Speaker 5:my love, my blubber, what just happened? Oh yeah, I just said good mark, my love, my blubber, what just happened.
Speaker 3:Oh, daniel, how many states are you distributed in right now?
Speaker 7:I think it's 10 or 11 states. Right now. New York has like is Sternick and it's like New York, new Jersey and Connecticut, so that's three. Then you go down to actually DC.
Speaker 4:So DC has like two to three states that they take care of you know I have the best time finding your product in Maryland.
Speaker 7:Maryland is really good about holding the price really good. They actually do it where it should be, opposed to Kentucky.
Speaker 5:Yeah do it where it should be Opposed to.
Speaker 7:Kentucky. Yeah, the price point should be about $195 to $200 something, and they're one of the few that really holds it at that. Everybody else you can charge anything you want once you buy it.
Speaker 5:Although Ohio will hold it for you, they do.
Speaker 2:That's one thing.
Speaker 5:That's great, controlled states do and that was at one point a bad thing, but since this boom it's been a good thing for us because when you do get a bottle, you're just paying MSRP, you're not paying. Yeah, you know, you see it here in Kentucky and average is what? $3.30? Yeah, right, I Average is what? Three, three 30.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've been to a liquor store in Maryland just because I had a few minutes to kill on the way you called me and I'm like they got a little Carter on the shelf and I think it was two, 79.
Speaker 1:Fabulous.
Speaker 4:That would have been batch. I think that was the bourbon batch 12.
Speaker 7:I just somebody, any, I'm saying this anybody is out there and sees, uh, an old card product for about you know 200, let me know, I'll give you my credit card. You buy it for me and get it to me so I can port for people. All my friends and I just had that happen in new york. They found some for 212. I said buy me three bottles, what? Yeah, and it was a batch 12 rye, oh wow.
Speaker 7:And so I got three bottles coming back to me so I can go around and pour it all over the United States wherever I go. Oh, wow.
Speaker 2:So, you need to come to.
Speaker 7:Ohio. I'm probably going to be bringing those to Ohio, do you?
Speaker 5:know how crazy. Just think about those rules that everybody deals with when they're buying your own brand.
Speaker 3:Back my honey hole that I stopped at on my way home is it's $2.89 and it's like $3.13 with tax.
Speaker 6:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'm hoping to pick up like a tax, so I'm not going to ask you for tax.
Speaker 7:So that is you know, batch 11, rye, and that is the same you know 95.5. But that is you know from MGP in Indiana.
Speaker 4:Look at the color 115 proof yeah Nice. Look at that Nice dark color yeah Nice.
Speaker 7:Nice dark color. I don't know if Tennessee was a little warmer or what you know to get to 123, you know Well it is it's about.
Speaker 5:This is more like a classic rock.
Speaker 4:They don't have the colds that we have here, Like they don't see that.
Speaker 7:So that's why the proof went out Four for four.
Speaker 1:on complete pallet. I mean that's.
Speaker 5:He's like 100 for 100. I mean, every when you talk about complete calories, always yeah.
Speaker 6:The lemongrass, that lemongrass note is gone. Yeah, this one doesn't have. It, so more caramels, yes, caramels.
Speaker 7:So there's 11 and sorry there's 11 and 12. Feel like it tastes more like that. Yeah, 11-12 or something.
Speaker 5:That's why we're here.
Speaker 6:I think the 14-15 are the same they were the Tennessee so they've got that different.
Speaker 2:Does it beat Ma's?
Speaker 6:Are you sure?
Speaker 3:this is a rod.
Speaker 6:The caramel is crazy.
Speaker 5:I would say that you've entered into. You could just like fool everybody that this is a high rye bourbon, Can you?
Speaker 7:imagine it's a 95% rye Right right, 95-5.
Speaker 6:That is a good rye, but this is 15 proof.
Speaker 7:And it's not hot.
Speaker 1:And it drinks like it drinks. It's not spicy.
Speaker 3:It's not hot, it's not spicy, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, it's not spicy, it's not hot, it's not spicy.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, this is caramel, sweet this is just a little hint of black pepper. You know, that's exactly the same as the watershed.
Speaker 5:You know what?
Speaker 4:I was a little worried about sitting on the outside waiting, yeah, but that watershed is the same exact 95%, I'd catch.
Speaker 5:So now, what do you do? You, it's the same, exact 95%. So now, what do you do? You buy all these barrels right Now. Do you taste through them at MGP?
Speaker 7:No, we don't get the. Macaulay treatment no we don't Nobody really has that. You bring them back. There's the only guy. You get the barrels and you buy quite a few of them at a time. Now you get something at $100 at a time and you know you're not going to use them all, so they're going to develop, keep developing. So once they're in your possession, you're going to keep tasting them.
Speaker 5:Are there ones that you ever kick out like completely? Oh yeah, hell yeah.
Speaker 7:No, well, we just put them back in, we repair them, we do all kinds of things. So you know, then we'll come back and see them again, you know we keep them, Okay.
Speaker 5:so there's so much stuff you can do. You sound like a girlfriend from high school.
Speaker 4:You know she may not look as good as she used.
Speaker 5:Subject but that brings up a good question.
Speaker 6:Really I was going to say that brings up a good question. I was about to say where are we?
Speaker 5:going. We're going down that rabbit hole?
Speaker 3:No, I mean about the egg. Once you get the barrels in the engine, do you age your barrels at several different places?
Speaker 7:We actually are at two different places these days. We're out in Frankfurt and Midway.
Speaker 4:I know Wilderness Trail seems to have a lot of space in there.
Speaker 6:They're housing more, I think of other people's stuff than their own stuff right now. Jeff and I were in Midway Thursday. It was muddy and rainy, Holy crap.
Speaker 4:So, Mark, let's talk about bourbonomics yes and yes, that's my word. I trademarked that word.
Speaker 6:It's on a shirt. Is this George Bush?
Speaker 4:This is George Bush. We will not talk politics because you will not like it so bourbonomics. I mean. So I've had the pleasure of going out west, obviously, where your vineyards are, and trying some of the distilleries there, and for them it's all about cash flow. I mean they struggle because bourbon is not a money-making startup, it has a very long lead time. High barrier to entry if you're going to try and produce a nice quality product. So a lot of times they're putting out a two-year or four-year, because they can't afford to keep it in a barrel any longer Now.
Speaker 4:the good news is they're making it from distillate, so their entry costs are lower.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 4:But you know, I think one of the things when people see a bottle of Old Carter, they look at the price tag and they're like I'm not dropping $200 on a bottle of bourbon, and you know what, I don't know that you're trying to appeal to that buyer hundred dollars on a bottle of burp, and you know what, I don't know, that you're trying to appeal to that buyer. Um, I think I do.
Speaker 4:you want to talk a little bit about what it takes to to source a 10 or a 9 or a 12 year old barrel versus what it takes to put it, distill it into a new oak barrel and watch it for 15 years.
Speaker 7:You know there's a lot of ways to do things. You know, and we we started with actually brand new barrels, re-barreling, which were at least three hundred dollars. And you know, and I love, I'm a builder, I was a carpenter, uh, and so wood was so important and with the wine it was so important. And when you start adding three hundred dollars to double oak, a double barrel, you know you're starting. You know there's other ways to do it. You can put a teabag in there.
Speaker 4:And you're talking about a barrel.
Speaker 7:That has a real barrel, brand new barrel, but this is back in the old Kentucky days.
Speaker 7:Right, I can tell you we're still doing the same thing now with a lot of this product is, we are a little bit more refined on how much new double barreling we do, because you can get too much wood so you have to. Really, that's what the blending is all about, and that costs money. And when you start getting older product instead of a two-year-old product or four-year-old product and you're getting to at least seven years to ten year, you know, uh, you know so. So and the american whiskey, we have stuff that's actually in this next one. No, no, actually this american whiskey.
Speaker 7:We have this has got 18 year old whiskey in it so you know that and there's nothing left and there's nothing left in this barrel.
Speaker 6:So yeah, the barrel's like. What you're saying is, this thing will at all fit the egg. Wait, wait, wait, don't put that back.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 5:I mean you let us taste that in New Orleans. And that was that is.
Speaker 7:I'm just so all those things but people don't know that. You know, they just say, oh, it's $200. It's too much money, but they don't know Nobody. It's too much money, but they don't know. Nobody's actually ever educated them what really goes into making that, and especially at a small amount. You know, a hand blended, small batches there's. Really. If we didn't charge that we would not even be around today right, right and so and nobody knows, we have not raised our prices since we started.
Speaker 5:But nobody knows, you can pull Kentucky out for us. You don't know what it's like to have a barrel and you get it at a certain amount and then you're letting it go and you're like, oh, that's good, and all of a sudden the yield is almost nothing, because it can do that right.
Speaker 7:After 10 years. You're lucky if you have half the barrel.
Speaker 4:So I know what distilling is. Sometimes you get the barrel and it's empty, absolutely.
Speaker 6:It just is empty.
Speaker 4:I'm not a venerable member of the bourbon community and the finite details, but I've learned a lot about it over the last several years. So let's rewind to when you're in your old Kentucky days and you're starting out For you to double barrel. Back then a barrel of distillate was a fraction of the cost of what it is today.
Speaker 4:Because demand is so much higher, so many brands competing for the same juice. Barrel cost is that so for you to have double barrel back then adding that $300 barrel to the mix. How much of that was added to your product cost, the actual cost?
Speaker 7:of it.
Speaker 4:Was it 20% or 25%? It probably was back then.
Speaker 7:I'm trying to do the math on it. It really again, we knew it was going to cost us more money. We were waiting more time. It was already older stuff and we said, you know, to do this handmade product that we're doing, just like our wines I was already charging it like probably a two hundred dollars for a bottle of wine. So I said, well, you know it takes that much effort to do this. I think if we're going to stay in business, we need margin and we need to make a product that we don't cut corners at all. Whatever we do, we're going to make the finest product and that's all we care about. Everybody can use the same juice, but not do all the same stuff that we do, and so we think it's worth the $200.
Speaker 4:But the economics have also severely changed since you started Oak Harbor. I mean you could buy a barrel for a 10 or 12 year whiskey in 2018 versus today.
Speaker 7:You know it's been a kind of a roller coaster on barrel costs, as they're coming down again, but you know they were steadily going up and they do when there's nothing in the barrel. Then they actually come down a little bit because people don't want to buy an empty barrel. We just did a pick, paid $3,000 for nothing in there.
Speaker 5:But they were saying 144 bottles in the yield of the barrel, which was a spectacular version of this brand, but it was 72 bottles, that's half the barrel right there. Like you said, it was almost 10 years, like you said, that's something that you don't know. You just don't know.
Speaker 1:Then also, like you said, it depends.
Speaker 5:My favorite time yeah, that's his first time tasting us.
Speaker 1:We've tasted this, we've tasted this, we tasted this at your presentation.
Speaker 4:I haven't finished the rye yet. Yeah, he wants a little more. We should hurry up and drink the rest of the rye.
Speaker 2:There's none left.
Speaker 4:Well, since I had the last bottle, I helped myself to second.
Speaker 6:Looks like quite okay.
Speaker 4:So this is the unique thing I'm not going to lie With this many chins. I've had seconds a lot.
Speaker 5:So the American whiskey is what makes it American whiskey. So there's a lot of people that I've been talking to that especially do when they, when they purchase, they've been doing a lot of cool things because there's a way of doing it where it's where the, the original distillate gets put into a used barrel. That's correct. And then you take it and a lot of them are taking it and then on the back end putting it into a new oak barrel to bring in their flavors and it's just like it's it's. There's so much you can do on the artistry, but what I found is if you tell me if I'm incorrect but if you put new distillate into a used bourbon barrel, yeah, which instantly makes it not bourbon, that that's right.
Speaker 2:It's.
Speaker 5:American whiskey, but everything's the same, except now you have a little bit of what was in there before affecting it, but it's bourbon. And then also you have, like in my opinion, part of the flavor that you get off, that char and that caramel that's been absorbed by the old bourbon. But if you leave it in there long enough and we know this from scotch right it's like you can leave it go 15 years or it matures in a slower way, where you're not going, where you don't have to taste it every single month because it's just. It's just gaining so much flavor that you have a little bit more time to figure out what it's doing. Is that correct? Is it more of a?
Speaker 7:Well, you know, we started this project, you know, right off the bat we found, you know what was 27-year-old. We bought like 20 barrels of 27-year-old American whiskey, what was known as really light whiskey, right, and we didn't like as really light whiskey, right, and we didn't like the name light whiskey. So we asked around and we said can we just call it American Whiskey? And they said, damn, you didn't like the name whiskey.
Speaker 2:Well light whiskey this is really light.
Speaker 6:That's Carl's podcast.
Speaker 5:But you're right. I don't understand why you don't call it my name. It's all whiskey, bourbon rye, whatever.
Speaker 4:It's all whiskey and so we said well, let's change the name. By the way, your podcast name is going to be DOC, so we said let's change the name because nobody wants light whiskey.
Speaker 5:You're right, you're 100%. It has a connotation.
Speaker 4:You know, what You'd have a lot of chicks drinking. I 100% it has a connotation.
Speaker 7:You know what? You'd have a lot of chicks drinking. I don't think they would be drinking this.
Speaker 4:One, three four yeah.
Speaker 6:One, three, four I know one chick that would Question on this bottle is how is the distribution of this?
Speaker 7:Well, this is again. Almost all of this is to our uh distributors okay, yeah, this is distributed, yes, and uh, we, we. Usually turn out to a batch at a time, about 1600 bottles each, maybe a little more. This one here. Let's see what we ended up doing on this. This is huge. This is 2700 bottles, 11, yeah, and a lot of 18 year old in here. Uh, we, we also. First thing we did was double oak it, you know, and give it flavor and so again, we were one of the first to double oak.
Speaker 7:All this, yes, like whiskey, and and name it, you know, you know american whiskey, because it sounds so much better. It is what it is there's no category for it. There's none. All of it's American whiskey, if you really want to know.
Speaker 4:It's whiskey and it was made in America.
Speaker 7:Yes, god bless America. Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 3:Mark, I don't believe in ladies.
Speaker 4:I'm okay with that one.
Speaker 3:So thick and chewy. Oh, my gosh and I think it's definitely.
Speaker 7:no, it was probably distilled at least 160 proof or above. It entered the barrel over 125. Went into a used barrel we know these things, you know. But it tastes good.
Speaker 2:So let's use it, so let's make some out of it.
Speaker 5:But know honestly, that's really what it comes down to all the categories that you want to put on shit, everything you want to do, but in reality did you say shit, fuck yeah so there we go.
Speaker 3:Now we're getting boogered off? No, we're not anyways there's two things whiskey needs to do.
Speaker 5:It needs to to give you, take you where you need to go, and it needs to taste good.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 5:And all the other stuff is pomp and circumstance, but in reality, that's what? But this I'm just going to tell you, everybody out there, this just doesn't taste good when it comes. It tastes whiskey in a way that you never thought it could taste, and that's what I love about it, when you taste something that's so beautiful, it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3:So what that's?
Speaker 6:so what I like about the re-barreling is is it brings in that sweetness yes and that is where I'm getting that Sugar Babies candy from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those little Sugar Babies. Yeah, caramel chocolate, but then that little bit of sweetness comes in and chocolate, a little bit of chocolate, but it's not over sweet, no.
Speaker 6:Sometimes a double sweet, so this is an.
Speaker 7:MGP product. And MGP. Again, this is a 99.1,. You know, for the light whiskey, same as our bourbons, but one. You know for the light whiskey, same as our bourbons, but you know that went into a new barrel. And went into what you have to do. You know, under 160 distilled and under 125 to put it in the barrel and a new barrel.
Speaker 4:I missed it. What's the age statement on this?
Speaker 7:There is no age statement. We dropped the age statement a few years back.
Speaker 7:It's American whiskey we have 18, you, you know, a lot of. It was all the way up to 13 years, we would put it in there, and that even the 13 had a ton of 18 year old um, you know, whiskey in it, uh. But now we find that, you know, for me anyway and when we blend, you know, we're freshening it up and we may have eight year old in the 18th. No, it's a balance again, and so it's. It's what we like.
Speaker 6:And again, I think this is what people kind of get hung up on in this.
Speaker 2:Well, we have. We have two things that people get stuck on. They get stuck on proof and they get stuck on it. But you have to, but if it?
Speaker 6:tastes good it doesn't, but so that's the American whiskey category.
Speaker 3:for you Good point.
Speaker 1:You have to love it right.
Speaker 5:You're not bound by some of the stuff to put this 15-year or put yeah, but you're basically blending and you're like you've got all these barrels and you know their taste, because I've gotten to blend one time and there's a barrel that's really neutral but it works in blending because if it's too spicy you add a little bit of that Right right. And you can just do that with no rules. One of the things.
Speaker 7:that's really interesting when you do blend, you can take and you have maybe 15 barrels to do one of these batches. That's going to be about 2,700 bottles You'll take the best barrels you have. Even on a small one, you say, okay, these are the very best, they're all delicious. You put them all together and you got shit. It doesn't work. It's just, it can be you taste them, you say it may need a little more of this or a little less of that.
Speaker 6:So, on barrel picks, it's the same way. I feel like when we do a barrel pick and there's six bottles and you take the two best ones and blend them. It doesn't work, but you take eh, maybe not the best one, and a good one, and it's like wait a second.
Speaker 2:this just came along.
Speaker 3:You know what I'm saying you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6:Proof-wise you had a 98 proof one that blew you away.
Speaker 7:Absolutely. It's about flavor and, as cooking, when you make a great stock and you add water, no matter what the level of the stock would be, it's still great. As long as you don't put water in it.
Speaker 5:You come from the similar time period as me, because Jack Daniels used to be. It was a thing, but you would drink it with Coke or you'd have it on the rocks because it was hot and it was spicy and people would do shots of Jack.
Speaker 2:But that was 80 proof.
Speaker 5:And now somehow you have something that's 110 proof.
Speaker 1:It's sipping whiskey, and it's sipping whiskey.
Speaker 5:It really is, but they're going but they'll say the 80 proof tastes like water. I can't handle that.
Speaker 7:I'm like wait a second, no you haven't tasted the right 80 proof.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 5:Exactly, exactly, or you burned all your taste buds off with 140 proofs and you have no way to taste the 80 proofs With no flavor.
Speaker 4:I just made the executive decision. We're coming back next Saturday for a podcast.
Speaker 7:Again you like a good podcast, but we say, you know, at the end of the day, you know, my favorite tasting note is one word Delicious.
Speaker 4:Yes, yes, you know what I find interesting about this is it's got it versus the other four products that we've tasted here today. The other four expressions of old Carter this, so I called it viscous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, martin here or super Nash, so he's from South.
Speaker 4:Carolina.
Speaker 6:He just said it was thick.
Speaker 2:You know what, Jeff?
Speaker 6:I did hear Nash refer to it as a gym Gym. I said both of them are correct.
Speaker 5:Jeff, I knew you were going to say that, are you?
Speaker 4:still listening to Facebook.
Speaker 5:What? No, I'm not listening.
Speaker 4:Because the microphone just went off.
Speaker 5:That's a great great, though, no this one's on oh is it?
Speaker 6:That's a great upgrade, though no, this one's on, oh is it, that's the one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, mark, great Thank you.
Speaker 4:Thank you for being here. You guys, Mark, it's all terrible. We should take it all with us, yeah we've got to get rid of it. I know you said you had a site I have a couple of websites.
Speaker 7:If you want to buy wine from us, it's just CarterSellerscom and it's OldCarterWhiskey Cocom for signing up.
Speaker 4:So can you talk about bringing the brands together where you can sell your wine? Well, you know, I don't think it'll ever it'll probably never be mixed.
Speaker 7:They're independent, all of them. There's different ownerships, Different partners. Yes, absolutely you know they're independent.
Speaker 4:All of them. You know there's different ownerships, different partners. Yes, absolutely. You got people that like grapes and you got people that like corn.
Speaker 7:Yeah, and actually what's really interesting. Exactly I like those and people do?
Speaker 6:I like agave?
Speaker 2:I'm not going to lie.
Speaker 6:I like chocolate, I like coffee.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's just, there's a lot there. Do you know? There's only a couple of flavors I don't like.
Speaker 3:One's from aldehyde on my rye, but that's not anything like that. So have you went to a lot of dead bodies? No, I haven't.
Speaker 5:Well, there's another flavor that I came up with on that podcast, but I'm not going to mention it.
Speaker 4:But anyways, I mean, I can tell you as a lineup, mark. I know you just went to the cabinet as we were setting up and you're like oh, okay, you need a lineup, you need the lineup, and that's what we do.
Speaker 7:It's bourbon, it's rye and it's American whiskey. That's what we do. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, it's rye and it's american whiskey, that's what we do yeah, but I mean what? And we don't do a lot of crazy finishes. What an interesting spread.
Speaker 4:Why would you have everything from the traditional bourbon-y, you know, caramel, vanilla, all the way through the spiciness of the rye, but you have a rye that really almost crosses over into almost a bourbon. Tremendous mouthfeel on almost everything I mean, just like a full mouth of flavor. And then you finish with this American whiskey that has just that viscosity that I've never had anything that feels like I'm drinking something that could almost yeah, it's a constant.
Speaker 7:I forgot to say what the proof on this one was. It's low at 134.
Speaker 5:I don't believe you. I know a little bit more. So now let's go back to the fun part.
Speaker 4:Any thought to produce in a hazmat bottle?
Speaker 7:We do have one out there. I was able to take one around actually over into Europe, actually to Scotland. And it was 141.3, I think it was, or something like that, and it's 17 years old and it's the American whiskey, and so that was. I put it around a few places, what?
Speaker 3:batch was that it's a single barrel. Single barrel in the 17 year.
Speaker 7:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I saw one that came out.
Speaker 7:There was only two that should be out there. I had one and you know we had one at the shop here.
Speaker 4:So, so, so, something like that I mean. So you produce a hazmat. I was wondering, if you know, would you do a hazmat bottle for the club and see how it does?
Speaker 3:It exists, but it I'm just saying, I mean there are six of us on the podcast, so $1,500.
Speaker 4:Six ways is I mean. I spend more than that on a steak sometimes.
Speaker 6:He's buying my way, Mark, so Mark.
Speaker 3:I'm getting ready to wrap this up, so yeah, I want to ask one more question.
Speaker 5:So you've got your stuff that you distilled and you're distilling every year. Yes, correct. So give us a preview of, as it's distilling, what your thoughts are. Are you producing? Is it aging and producing like you know, all the changes to distill yourself? Are those all in there and you know, are you? You know what I mean. Is that going to just make the whole brand better because you distilled?
Speaker 7:Well, I think you know, we'll always use source products.
Speaker 7:Right, right, because I love what people do source product, right, right, because I, we love what people do you know. And this product, all these products, basically, you've seen or something somebody else produced and then we took care from there. Uh, it's going to be fun to have stuff that we did the mash bills for and said this is what we want, this is what we need. It's similar, um yeah, but it'll never be the same, even if it was the exact same. Mash bills comes from a different place where we can use that or distill that?
Speaker 5:Are you going to blend those in?
Speaker 2:They'll be stanched you never, know you never,
Speaker 6:know, but we are straight. Until you drink it, you don't know it is straight.
Speaker 7:Every product we have is straight which means something, and a lot of people don't even know what straight means, that I was straight, which means something and a lot of people don't even know what straight means.
Speaker 4:That means it comes from the same state. You know it's a new millennium, so that's okay.
Speaker 5:Well, we're not worried about it. It means it's been aged for two years or more, but it's always more.
Speaker 7:So we like the word actually straight because it keeps at least. You know it's not a lot of blended stuff. Things can get too muddy when you have too many different ingredients and so I love keeping it if it's in from. You know a lot of people can do it really well. Barstown Bourbon Company does it really well with you know doing collaborations and you know they've got three different they got. Indiana.
Speaker 7:They got you know, ok, I did it really well to begin with, you know, but you know they've got. You know, okay, I did it really well to begin with, you know, but you know they've got. You know Tennessee, they got Kentucky and they got Indiana on it?
Speaker 5:Yeah, absolutely, but that changes it. It's not straight whiskey, it's not straight anymore.
Speaker 7:It's not straight bourbon, it's not straight rye. So there's a question. We didn't ask. And a lot of people can do bonded whiskeys.
Speaker 5:Are you shooting for a bonded? I can't do that You're not going to the warehouse?
Speaker 7:Yeah Well, it's not the warehouse, it's doing it all at one spot, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, maybe the stuff we just filled out there.
Speaker 7:Yeah, we could maybe do it all in one season. That could be, but that is a rare product.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you watched it.
Speaker 7:We did the Bernie Lover thing and I love it, I love it.
Speaker 5:He just tells you how rare it is. You don't realize it.
Speaker 1:He told me how rare it was, I go. You're right, there's a bunch of bondage out there. That is always out there.
Speaker 5:But there's not a lot of different brands.
Speaker 6:It's a few brands. It's rare, especially at the craft level, If you're like the bigger guys can do it.
Speaker 3:And the regular consumer does not realize that, not yet.
Speaker 7:That is your job and our job to actually educate nicely and just tell the story.
Speaker 1:Why these things are what they are like this is straight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is full proof.
Speaker 7:This is double oat, you know, or double barrel, not deemed double oak. I had a conversation. Is it double barrel or double oat, you know, because it's there's a difference in cost thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for reiterating that because, yeah, you may not necessarily be re-barreling into a brand new barrel yeah, people don't understand that you can
Speaker 5:re-barrel into a used barrel. You can re-barrel into a brand new charred oak or you can drop the staves in and it's all, or or now they got the little wood chains or whatever.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's just like they drop those in For those bourbon faithful that have stayed all the way through the podcast to this point. Yeah, I have one more question and I promise I will stop. Yeah, andy, go ahead. Burrowhead, burrowhead, burrowhead. Sweet baby Jesus. So in his little swaddling cod stuck in your manger, so quiet and beautiful. 6 pound, 8 ounce so as we went through the Nashville's, you were a big fan of 99.1, which is an extreme right. Yes, 99.1.
Speaker 2:Corn.
Speaker 4:Rye 99.1. Corn Yeah.1. Corn Rye 99.1. Corn yeah.
Speaker 7:I mean those are extreme 95.5 for rye, yeah 95.5, yeah, but 99.1 for corn.
Speaker 5:It's the extremist. I got to tell you we go on a lot of.
Speaker 2:We talk to a lot of master dealers and owners and they're like 70, 30, 10 MGP.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you're laying down your own juice for seven years now. Will you tell us what you laid down?
Speaker 7:Some similar, but maybe I can't remember. Do you have a blend in?
Speaker 4:the warehouse Do you have some 99-1s and some.
Speaker 7:Yes, I can say yes.
Speaker 3:So you have one barrel of 99-1.
Speaker 7:No, no, no, we got a little do-or-nat. We try to do, like you know, at least 50 or 100 barrels at a time.
Speaker 5:But I've actually, now that I've met you and got to talk to you, you are a fan of the 99.1. You definitely you can tell when you talk about it what that is. And then most people they're just going to be like they check out of 99.1 because what I just had one guy.
Speaker 7:He was all over, you know it's. I don't really understand. You know it was batch five or 15 you know what kind of yeah, what, what's, what's the difference or what the flavor. You know when you distill, anyway, half the stuff goes away. It's still almost the barrel and the blending at the end of the day. Oh yeah, really, you want great sweet distillate to start with. If you don't have that, you got nothing.
Speaker 5:But if you want more of the of the grains in there, you would do pot still, which is a much more limited type thing, because pot still you can do those cuts and everything can be controlled on a much smaller level absolutely. But when you're doing the column still Kentucky thing, and that's where that barrel. The barrel not only is a filter to filter out any of the impurities but it's also the flavor driver and it's just Ton of flavor profile.
Speaker 7:And then the rickhouse is a huge, huge thing and the time.
Speaker 2:And the time, all the stuff you can't see Time and temperature.
Speaker 4:Well, do what? Yeah, I mean so up by us. We have a company that is known for a city that had a river that burned, and they swear that they can take and put a barrel in a hyperbolic chamber and do differences in temperature and pressure. I don't think there's no substitute to time.
Speaker 2:There isn't.
Speaker 4:I will say this when somebody sees Old Carter on a shelf and, for those of you that are watching, Old Carter demands a premium price. It does you have a premium price?
Speaker 2:Yes, it's a premium when somebody's in there and they have a premium price.
Speaker 4:Yes, they're seeing, you know a Barts kind of still are at you know 25 or 35 dollars. And then they see old Carter, you know for the beginner by that Barts down product but you know, for somebody that really is, is advancing themselves and I'm not even going to say an advanced taster. I think this is a fantastic product for an intermediate person. Yes, If you were going to buy a premium bottle as an introduction to premium bottles? I don't know that there's any of these batches here today?
Speaker 4:Not for me. I don't know that there's any of these batches here today that you would go. Oh my God, that was a horrible experience. I'm never going to buy another $200 bottle of bourbon, so I think a lot of that is you, it's your wine palate and your wine experience, and that's unique in this industry.
Speaker 5:And you're putting your passion, you take everything and the people you surround yourself with it has shown through in this podcast.
Speaker 4:I can tell you I've been, I'm. I want to thank you so much thank you guys, I appreciate y'all, alright we're gonna wrap it up and to wrap it up wwwscotchyburbyboyscom.
Speaker 5:One other thing, oh boy.
Speaker 3:Everybody at Facebook. Go out If you get a chance hunt these bottles down, find them. Because they're just a few in a few states. Get out there, look for them, they're fantastic.
Speaker 4:Thank you and appreciate it and appreciate it and you cannot go wrong, just as this guy was going these batches we had here today. So here we are.
Speaker 5:All right, check us out Facebook, youtube, instagram and X, and then also all the podcast formats iHeartRadio, spotify and what's Apple podcast. Remember that what we say is good bourbon good whiskey equals good friends, good times. Drink responsibly, don't drink and drive and live your life dangerously. And drink with Mark Carter.
Speaker 4:Yeah, little Steve-O's going to take us out. If I could do it, I'd do a Ric Flair right now.
Speaker 1:Don't, carl? Alright, that was awesome.
Speaker 6:I could drink with Mark. Thank you guys.
Speaker 7:Alright.
Speaker 5:I'm putting these things away. We'll clean it up. I'm going to be sad, thank you.
Speaker 2:Hey, wait For the day we don't find the next whiskey bar. I tell you we must die. I tell you we must die I tell you we must die.
