Man Cave Happy Hour
Welcome to Man Cave Happy Hour – Whiskey, Spirits, and the stories that go along with them.
Join Jamie, Matt, and August as they take you on a spirited journey through the world of fine drinks and fascinating conversations. Broadcasting live from top lounges, distilleries, and happy hours, they explore the best new spirits, uncover hidden gems, and dive into the stories behind the bottles.
From master distillers and cocktail experts to bartenders, foodies, and entrepreneurs, every episode is a toast to craftsmanship, creativity, and the love of a great drink. Whether you're a whiskey connoisseur or just love a good cocktail, pull up a chair, pour a glass, and enjoy the ride.
Produced at the Podcast Your Voice Studios
Man Cave Happy Hour
Redwood Empire: Whiskey with Purpose
From spreadsheet wizard to master distiller, Jeff Duckhorn's journey from corporate accountant to craft spirits pioneer embodies the adventurous spirit of Redwood Empire Whiskey. With infectious passion, Jeff shares how his home brewing hobby and creative drive helped transform a wine company's side project into a flourishing whiskey brand celebrating Northern California's iconic trees.
Each bottle in the Redwood Empire lineup tells a story – from Pipe Dream Bourbon's complex blend of whiskeys from eight distilleries across four states to Emerald Giant Rye's bold 90% rye expression softened with a touch of wheat. Most fascinating is Lost Monarch, a "sneaky rye" that masterfully blends bourbon and rye whiskeys to create an approachable gateway for bourbon drinkers to explore spicier profiles.
What truly distinguishes Redwood Empire is their environmental commitment. Their Cocktails for a Cause program has planted over 1.7 million trees, with 100,000 more during Earth Month alone. This sustainability focus extends to their production, where they use specialty floor malts from a local maltster and emphasize quality ingredients that reflect their California roots.
The excitement builds as Jeff reveals their expansion to a new distillery on Mare Island – a former naval base with rich history now becoming home to increased production and a forthcoming tasting experience. With bottles priced accessibly around $35 and aged whiskeys up to 14 years in their blends, Redwood Empire makes exceptional craft spirits both affordable and purpose-driven.
Ready to explore whiskeys that taste good and do good? Grab a bottle of Redwood Empire, plant a tree with your sip, and discover why this growing brand has whiskey enthusiasts buzzing coast to coast.
https://linktr.ee/ManCaveHappyHour
www.ManCaveHappyHour.com
Jamie Flanagan @DJJamieDetroit
Matt Fox @fox_beazlefox
Merch www.WearingFunny.com
Jamie: 0:01
I said, hey, hey, welcome to the man.
August: 0:05
Cave Happy Hour.
Jamie: 0:09
I said hey hey, welcome to the man Cave Happy.
Jenn: 0:14
Hour, we're gonna drink a fine whiskey and smoke a really fine cigar.
Jamie: 0:24
It is time for Happy Hour. It is the man Cave Happy Hour Whiskey, cigar, spirits, the stories that go along with them. I'm Jamie Flanagan, I'm Matt Fox, I'm saying my own name.
August: 0:33
I'm August Kitschle.
Matt Fox: 0:35
Hey, it's gotta happen.
August: 0:35
We don't do it that way. Throw me for a curve here on a Hangover Monday.
Jamie: 0:39
Oh really it's a Hangover Monday and there's like a lot of booze on the table.
August: 0:43
There's a lot of booze on the table I know we had a wonderful, wonderful time yesterday. Our second wonderful time at the Whiskey Taco Foxtrot Whiskey Society event.
Jamie: 0:54
Yes, so much fun, we brought them back.
Jenn: 0:57
Yeah, the next day Shampoo, rinse and repeat.
August: 1:01
That's it, that's right.
Jamie: 1:03
The old shampoo effect Because it was a tasting, and so we're getting into the Redwood Empire spirits today. So that's where we're headed momentarily. But first August who do we drag along today?
August: 1:19
Well, we got our host from yesterday, a voice you've heard on the podcast before, charlie Sampson over here, a buddy of mine who owns a proprietor of the place excellent. Welcome back, charlie thank you guys for having me and then we knew after that uh abcs of canadian whiskey event that we were gonna get jennifer on this show at some point. Oh, you iffered me yeah, oh, am I supposed to if for you it's just an n just jen just't if-er I will not get formal, then no if-ers.
Jenn: 1:47
I'm a 2N Jen, with a cherry on the end. We're good.
August: 1:49
Boom, that's it. 2n Jen, here we got and her energy was infectious and we're like we got to find a way to get her out. It just worked out that she had a new spirit and we could make some phone calls and some text messages and get spirit. And uh, we could make some phone calls and some text actually some text messages and uh, and get hooked up with the redwood empire folks.
Jamie: 2:07
So but the way jen sold this yesterday it was like it was like you made this stuff.
Charlie : 2:14
I mean you are so good at what you do.
Jamie: 2:17
um, you know it's, it's. It's where I'd like we have to have her sit down and tell this story and about these, about these spirits and and and the company and everything, because you sold it. This is so amazing as well. I was so informed, thank you, but she's like you know what, I'm going to throw a trump card on that and we're going to bring one of the owners in.
August: 2:36
Yeah, master distiller, master distiller yeah.
Jamie: 2:40
So Jeff Duckhorn is the master distiller. Yay, hey, jeff, welcome to the Met GIF. How's it going? Excellent, excellent. So yeah, it's like, she's like I can go one better. I will bring the master distiller to you, so yeah, so we ran through these yesterday but, to be honest, we were eating a lot of Mexican food. There were a couple of margaritas down the gullet first yeah, way to do it.
Charlie : 3:09
And then six cocktails that you had to try and I was told there was only going to be six cocktails, it was, so there's no math it was just all math and booze. It was math and booze. I'm sorry, guys.
Jamie: 3:19
So we wanted to give them, uh, an honest, thoughtful, uh review and kind of dive into them again when we're not in the midst of the insanity of because you have a whiskey club at. Is that what is a whiskey club? Is that?
Charlie : 3:33
what you guys call it Society, society, yeah, we're classy, it sounds better when you say society, yeah.
Jamie: 3:39
Yeah, and they have regular gatherings and they do different things. They do like you know how to make cocktails or tastings and just all kinds of just fun things with the club and you really treat your society, the whiskey society, and you really treat the folks well. And yesterday was the focus was on Redwood.
Jenn: 4:03
Well, we wanted to kind of, we wanted to celebrate Earth Month. And I couldn't think of a better, sustainable and also giving back to the planet than Redwood Empire out of California. All the spirits are named after these beautiful trees all the way up from Sacramento to Oregon. And then the story of how the, what they give back to the, to the community and and the world and the planet, is amazing. I mean, for every cocktail sold, they plant a tree.
Jamie: 4:34
That's just astounding.
Jenn: 4:35
And do you mind, jeff, since we have you, can you please tell them how many, how many trees you guys have planted since you?
Jeff Duckhorn: 4:42
guys, you're doing pretty well on your own there, jeff.
Jamie: 4:46
All right, Jeff, let's go to the tote board Right.
Jeff Duckhorn: 4:50
You know I don't know what the exact number is today, it's on our website we were at 1.7 million, I believe, to start Earth Month and Earth Month is our big focus month and the goal was to plant 100,000 trees this month, with that Cocktails for a Cause program, and I think we're pretty close. I haven't seen, like I said, the numbers in the last couple of days, but that was a little. They kind of come in after the fact a little bit, yeah.
Jamie: 5:12
So super cool Cocktails for a Cause. I love it, jeff. We're going to get more into the company and the Cocktails for a Cause, but before we do that, jeff, tell us about your childhood.
August: 5:24
But before we do that, Jeff, tell us about your childhood. Well, he's got a good one.
Jenn: 5:28
I love the fact that they call you the accountant that went rogue.
August: 5:31
Oh yeah, I did read that.
Jenn: 5:33
That's kind of interesting yeah.
Jeff Duckhorn: 5:35
Okay, we'll go there. Yeah, so I am in the master distiller, for lack of a better term. It's kind of a silly term that we use in this industry, but whatever, it's fun I have been doing it for a decade now, so I feel like I do know a little bit about what I'm doing.
Jeff Duckhorn: 5:52
But it wasn't always that way. I started out working for our parent company. Purple was actually a wine company at the time and we're now Purple Brands and we're a family of brands. We have wine brands, spirit brands. But back in 2012, our owner sold the big wine brand and got some money and wanted to reinvest in the industry and really wanted to diversify out into spirits, and so that's kind of where our company started talking about this realm of spirits and craft spirits in particular. And if you can think back to 2012, when things were just kind of starting to get going and there was a lot of interest from the consumer standpoint and just a lot of fertile ground, and so in the company started talking about that. Personally, I'd been at the winery for a year and had been in other wineries doing accounting and specifically mostly cost accounting. So super sexy stuff, like very exciting. You know number crunching spreadsheets, you know all that good stuff.
Matt Fox: 6:53
So you got great Excel skills. Is what you're doing, right?
Jeff Duckhorn: 6:55
Oh yeah, mean mean pivot tables, for sure. Yeah, yeah, you look up to all that good stuff, yeah. But, as most of us people that sit at computers all day have, I do have some creative outlets and I love to make things and I love to go home and play in my garden and grow things and I love fermentations of all kinds. And so this talk of a distillery started happening and I was like this is a perfect time to pivot out of accounting because I was ready to kind of take on a new challenge. Perfect time to pivot out of accounting because I was ready to kind of take on a new challenge and I still love my numbers but was wanting to do something a little bit more in production and actually you know the process and the making.
Jeff Duckhorn: 7:32
And so I quickly raised my hand and said I want to be involved in that. And they quickly said what qualifications do you have? And I said, well, I like to drink whiskey and, truth be told, told, I've been making beer for many, many years, probably before I could legally drink beer. And I, I just I love, I love, you know, making stuff. And so I started bringing in my wares and my home brew and my bread and people at first were like no, I don't want to touch that stuff, I might get poisoned. And I said no, no, you know, and one of my buddies I was working there at the time and he kind of helped pave my way in there and so I got on the radar, so to speak, and I got our owner actually knowing who I was, which was always step one Remap yourself and yeah, then I just started insinuating myself in the conversation.
Jeff Duckhorn: 8:18
Took us a couple of years to get built out. Things went a little bit different than we'd planned, with our day one distiller, and there happened to be an opportunity when we got going in 2015. And I was the guy in the corner, just like you know, put me in coach and they did, you know, for better or for worse for them, but I think it's worked out pretty well. I mean, we've had a good ride of it and it's, like I said, our 10-year anniversary this year.
Jenn: 8:43
So, super fun and then welcome to Michigan.
August: 8:46
How? Long have you been here?
Jenn: 8:48
So I'm not quite sure when Redwood Empire started being distributed in Michigan. I'm familiar with it from living in Chicago as just really good, sustainable spirits that tell a story and then take you on a journey with it. So thanks for asking a question. I don't know the answer to.
August: 9:10
I'm going to say that because we got a lot of booze here, so I'm like we like to know, like wow, we haven't seen this one yet.
Jamie: 9:16
This is great, right, yeah.
Jeff Duckhorn: 9:18
So, Illinois was one of our first markets outside of California. We had some really good relationships with distributors. I think Michigan took a little bit longer to get up and running, but my guess is it's been there for a couple of years. But we have a new sales director for that territory and I think he's made some new inroads and has helped to get us relevant again.
Jamie: 9:39
You made a friend in Jen, that's for sure.
Jeff Duckhorn: 9:41
Yeah, exactly, and it just takes one.
August: 9:43
You get one gen, yeah, and then the world just opens up there's only one gen in the world so yeah, it really really is y'all stop, so yeah uh, what three do we have here on the table today, guys?
Jenn: 9:55
yeah, so I can't read the labels from over here so you have pipe dream which is their bourbon it's a four grain bourbon was this the first, uh that was the first in our tasting yesterday and I I kind of this is the way I it goes, and then we jump to the emerald giant right that is which is the rye, yes and then the.
Jenn: 10:15
The third is the lost monarch, which is a blended whiskey using the similar mash bills from pipe dream and emerald giant together. Uh and just, and all of them are named again after the iconic, iconic trees, um, the breadwood trees, the sequoias, uh, all inspired by John Muir. So the the father of our national club. So um, how am I doing there, Jeff?
Jeff Duckhorn: 10:43
Great. I mean like amazing. Yeah, so all three of these whiskeys do share a few things in common they are named after living old growth Redwood trees here in Northern California. I mean, it's kind of ironic if, if you live around here, if you come out and visit us, you know we're an hour. I'm in Sonoma County right now, which was where our, where our original distillery, uh, was, was founded and where our winery is, uh and uh, pretty much everything out here is redwood themed. Um, you know the. The. Actually, the high school I went to, uh, about an hour south of here, was redwood high. So, um, and you, and the bank down the street is Redwood. Our garbage company is Redwood, so Redwood. It definitely runs deep through us.
Jeff Duckhorn: 11:31
And so when we were coming up with our brand name in 2016, 2017, what better name than something that would really resonate with our ethos and where we are in the world? And, you know, we really want to kind of dial into this Northern California inflection point and that's really where we are and that's kind of what we take to heart and we're proud of the fact that we're not another Kentucky whiskey company, you know, I think it's important for people to understand that you can make really nice whiskey all over the country. There's a ton of distilleries now that are making really great spirit throughout the country, and so we really we don't want to hide that fact, we want to lean into it. So our brand name really does a great job of kind of, you know, geographically, putting you right in this specific point where we're at. And then, yeah, the trees are just a fun way to kind of tie it all together.
Jeff Duckhorn: 12:18
Our packaging does a great job of kind of telling that whole story. There's even on the images on the bottles are like fictitious likeness of john muir, uh, on all the labels, and so especially the emerald giant which I don't have because I drank all my emerald giant uh, I'm at my house so, um, I gotta bring a bottle home. Secret dash, yeah, exactly, uh, so, but all of them have really fun imagery. The latitude, longitude of the actual tree, uh, is on the side of the front label.
Matt Fox: 12:46
Oh, I'm seeing that these trees are still they're pretty amazing.
Jeff Duckhorn: 12:50
The back, uh bottom panel, kind of talks about the specific tree. So it's really fun imagery and storytelling and all these trees, they're, I mean they're, they're, they're over 300 feet tall, they're well over a thousand years old. They're pretty amazing, iconic trees, uh, yeah, and then quotes from john muir and all of our labels as well. So, uh, just really fun storytelling. We launched all three of these together at the same time when we launched redwood empire in in fall of 2019, and so that's really kind of where our, our brand came to be.
Jeff Duckhorn: 13:20
Uh, and we can all think back to 2019 a little different world back then, a little a little time to launch a new whiskey brand and, uh, then we had that little COVID thing hit us within six months. But despite that, we've actually done pretty well over the last five to six years now and a lot of that is is a test to uh, the whiskey societies and groups out there in the US that, uh, you know, were trying to come together during COVID when they didn't have much of an outlet and just trying to find human connections and like, hey, let's get on a Zoom call together and just shoot the shit about whiskey and find a new whiskey we haven't heard of and just talk about it, and so we had people reaching out to us. I got to do a bunch of these really fun calls we have a podcast about it, Jeff to us.
Jeff Duckhorn: 14:05
I gotta do a bunch of these really fun podcasts about it. Jeff, that's what we do. I mean, it was pretty wild, it's so uh, that really helped to kind of get us on the map, so to speak, and so, um, it's been really fun to watch this project kind of grow up over the last five years. We did sell over uh 50,000, uh 12 pack cases of whiskey last year, and so, uh, we are in about every state now, um more or less, and so we, and so we've grown quite a bit, which has just been very exciting.
August: 14:29
Something you said yesterday, Jen, that I completely take into account now is we were drinking this yesterday. There was food all over the place. There was all kinds of smells and all kinds of action, and it does taste like a different spirit today than it did yesterday.
Jenn: 14:42
Yeah, I mean taking the temperature of everybody around the room yesterday was completely different. Some people were like, oh, this doesn't really stand up, and I was like, well, yeah, this girl next to you is eating like a chorizo burrito, and that's all I can smell when I get over here.
Jeff Duckhorn: 14:54
I can just smell Whiskey is better way.
Jenn: 14:56
But I mean, that's what's fun about the Whiskey Society too, is that I I introduce with Charlie allows me to come and just be a shenanigans of a person. But I get to introduce people that would never maybe purchase this or spend the money to buy a whole bottle of something that they hadn't heard about or that, and then, literally at the end of every tasting, they're coming up to me and they're asking me where can I buy this? Who's carrying this?
Jenn: 15:20
I want this for my home and it's very rare. It's very rare that somebody does not like or love or completely become enamored or absolutely obsessed with the spirit. So with Pipe Dream, this is. This is such a unique blend of mash bill. Could you mind walking us through that, Because that 20% rye is really cool there with that 74% yeah yeah.
Jeff Duckhorn: 15:45
So our numbers aren't on our bottles. You will find percentages kind of throughout our literature. They are constantly evolving and so when we started making whiskey in 2015, didn't really know what we were going to do. I mean it kind of gives a little slack. We're a wine company getting new into the world, so we knew that bourbon was going to be a big deal for us. Maybe some rye. We laid down some brandy, a little bit of single malt because I like a little bit of beer, but we definitely started playing with different mash bowls. We also had and I'm going to use past tense here, but we just bought a new distillery and I can go into that a little bit if we have time.
Jeff Duckhorn: 16:19
But up until last year we were operating out of a pretty small distillery that we only had the production capacity for about a thousand barrels a year and we pretty quickly realized that, well, that's, that's a decent amount. That's like 20,000, 12 packs. Uh, we want to be bigger than that and so we started going out and sourcing whiskey really from day one, even before we had the distillery up and running. We, uh, we, we ordered some trucks of MGP white dog shipped out from from Indiana and and had it delivered and we started filling barrels, you know, in the winery, while we were waiting to get our distillery up and running. And we continue to to purchase whiskey today and we're very open about that and myself and my master blender, lauren, we love the fact that we get to have two jobs. We get to be makers and, um, the last video there. Are we still good? Yep.
Jeff Duckhorn: 17:05
You're good and, yeah, we get to have two jobs. We get to be makers. We get to make things from scratch, uh and everything. Every redwood product out there has some of our grain to glass in it. But we also get to be blenders. We get to go out and curate these amazing whiskeys that are produced throughout the country from places like indiana and kentucky and tennessee, um, and now now more in California. And so this core series are all a blend of in-house distillate and other whiskeys in this case bourbon for the pipe dream from around the country. So an incredibly complex blend. This is pipe dreams. Now up to I believe we're eight different distilleries. Now it's four states, so it's California, indiana, kentucky, tennessee. Minimum four years, that's the age statement, but we have all the way up to 14 years. So when we start talking about these percentages, that's where the Excel hat comes back on, because it's incredibly complex. But the pipe dream doesn't have a lot of weeders in there.
Jeff Duckhorn: 18:02
Most of the bourbons are going to be secondary rye mash bill, and so Indiana's got you know it's, it's, I think it's 18% is is the rye on the secondary. We play around with that a lot. We have, you know, 15 to 20 typically, and then it just really varies by distillery and so, on average, we're probably right around 20% rise at secondary grain, but we do love wheat and we put wheat into everything we distill in-house. And then, starting in 2018, we started partnering with Bardstown Bourbon Company out of Bardstown, kentucky, and they make cash bills for us and they add wheat to everything they do for us as well. And so there is, while this is definitely secondary rye grain and you're getting some of that really nice rye spice off that, there is a touch of wheat in here in addition to malt barley, and I think that gives it just kind of some extra softness, and maybe a little bit more, with some floral notes as well.
Jenn: 18:52
The get that, I get the notes, but there's a warmth to this that sits on the back of your palate it's a yeah it's like I say, as it sits, it gets sweeter yeah, yesterday I was saying I was like it's like an apricot, like an apricot jam kind of tone to it.
Jamie: 19:06
Yeah funny about it. I was like trying to look at the legs right and I tipped it and I'm look back, I'm like, well, this thing has no legs at all. And then I looked, I'm like oh no oh, it's. There, it's just totally stuck on there and it's not even. It's not even dripping down. It's so stuck on the side of the glass. I'm like, oh my gosh, Because normally it's that drippy, drippy drip. It takes a moment or two before the drippy, drippy drips even start.
Matt Fox: 19:31
I'm like, oh wow that's got a serious hang time.
Jeff Duckhorn: 19:34
I'm incredibly fortunate that our owner let us go out and buy some aged whiskeys in addition to new make early on, and so, like I said, we have up to 14 here. It changes everything. It changes the whole character flavor.
August: 19:44
Oh, yeah, yeah, the whole thing I've never been afraid of blended whiskeys. People are snobs about their single batches or small batches or one-offs. I love a good, consistent blended whiskey. You are going to stand by that for?
Matt Fox: 19:58
as long as you live.
August: 19:58
Yeah, I tout it every time we drink blended whiskeys.
Jenn: 20:02
Yeah, I think this is also. This is their pipe dream. Also comes in cast strength, they also. It comes in a bottled and bond which so this is what we're drinking is the core. But they do have limited series. They do have their cast strength series, which are just keep the nerds happy and have a good like like screaming Titans and rocket top. Just really, really unique Again.
Matt Fox: 20:24
Also like Screaming Titans and Rocket Top just really, really unique. Again also what is the percentage on that?
Jamie: 20:28
45.
Jeff Duckhorn: 20:29
45? Okay, yes, 45. Coming in, coming in. Porter. Our cash ranks are around 115, 116 proof we have a Pipe Dream 101 now that, I think, is a really nice kind of in-betweener.
Jeff Duckhorn: 20:38
That's really fun. It's obviously 101 proof, but it's also five-year minimum. It's got more of our grain of glass in it and that one is just hitting retail now and it's really fun kind of. In between here and then, yeah, we do seasonal releases because we love to play at the distillery and we want to show that off. So we do a bottle and bond release every year. That, by definition, is 100% from us and that's different every year and the back label has the exact percentages of each batch. So the exact percentages of each batch. So really fun we have. I mean, we have this beautiful array of whiskeys now. But these three that you have in front of you are a great entry point for people to get into the redwood empire because they just show off kind of the breadth of what we do through these three beautiful expressions and the goal is for them to taste it really, and so, as we taste through them, I hope that I hope we get there and these aren't like $80, $90 bottles either.
August: 21:25
They're priced to drink.
Jamie: 21:27
Yeah, where are we at with these? Basically?
August: 21:30
About $35, $40.
Jenn: 21:32
That's what I looked up online.
August: 21:33
It was about $35 or $38 bottle for the.
Jeff Duckhorn: 21:36
Our national average is right at $35.
August: 21:38
Yeah, that's wonderful, because you can't get a buffalo trace for that anymore.
Jenn: 21:42
No, you can't get buffalo trace. We don't get a buffalo trace for that anymore.
Jamie: 21:48
No, you can't get buffalo trace. We don't need a buffalo, we got a tree. Yeah, that's true, that first one was spicy no bison tears.
Matt Fox: 21:53
Yeah, let's say there was a warmth on the first one.
Jamie: 21:56
I was getting the rye on that. Now this one is the rye, the rye, the rye.
Jeff Duckhorn: 22:01
Okay, so that's the one I don't have in front of me, but I have, truth be told, sampled it once or twice. You've had a couple, you've had a dram or two.
Jenn: 22:09
Don't say you dabble in it.
Jeff Duckhorn: 22:10
I think I can speak pretty intelligently to it. I love a big high rye. When we're talking about rye whiskey, I want to really ramp up the rye. I mean MGP rye. I love that. I love the wintergreen, the dill, the spice box elements of that. I like a little bit more oomph in my pores, and so I love that. When it came time for us to do our own mash bill for rye, we added 5% wheat to it. So we're 90% rye, 5 barley, 5 wheat. And then Bartstown does that for us as well, and so the Ammo Giant you have in your glass at this point you're probably pushing around 3% wheat. So just a touch of wheat and just a little bit over 90% rye. No corn was harmed in the making of this whiskey.
August: 22:55
I always go look up some of the Whiskey Nerds reviews and they always come up with some crazy analogies for what you're tasting Right.
Charlie : 23:01
What was?
August: 23:01
this one, my favorite one about this. As I said, it has a notes of freshly clipped scallions.
Jamie: 23:07
Oh, okay, cause I'm getting, I'm getting, I'm getting green. I get that green grassy greeny, and I can see how that could be a grassy or a greeny scallion yeah.
August: 23:18
I've never, never heard that in a whiskey review, though. That's why I thought it was worth mentioning. But, jeff, that's why I thought it was worth mentioning. Jeff, you said something you said, the word dill, yeah, dill.
Matt Fox: 23:26
You said dill and that's something I don't think I've ever heard anybody specify that they feel dill in a bourbon, in whiskey. This is a rye.
Jenn: 23:36
Yeah, this is a rye, so I get a lot of almost in the nose. I haven't sipped it yet, but in the nose I'm now for the first time smelling eucalyptus in a way that's just really, really exciting, but still having that nice carriage of brown sugar in the tone.
Jeff Duckhorn: 23:53
Orange marmalade is something that I definitely get on that a lot.
Jamie: 23:57
That's probably because your spirit animal is a koala. Oh, wait a minute, those are notoriously bad they have some really they're
Jenn: 24:08
like, like they get the most like stds of any animal sorry casting, no aspersions anyways, yes, moving on back to the whiskey, back to the eucalyptics uh you're bringing koala stds into this I know that was not on my bingo card.
Jamie: 24:23
No, that was not my tasting notes.
Jenn: 24:28
I'm going to be exiting here now.
August: 24:31
I'm getting all the rye the grassy, the greeny, I'm getting right on the very tip of my tongue.
Jamie: 24:40
Sugar, a sugar just like. Dipped your finger in a sugar bowl just like a. It was like the like a mirror, dipped your finger in a sugar bowl and just touch it, a certain mintiness too to it.
August: 24:50
I mean I might bust this out for the mint juleps next weekend oh yeah, for, uh, for kentucky derby.
Jeff Duckhorn: 24:56
Okay, that is coming up so I think the wheat gives you a little bit of that softness also. Uh, I'm a huge fan of malt. We use specialty malts and everything we do. We have a malt house an hour down the road from us that makes amazing floor malts.
Jeff Duckhorn: 25:09
And so we're constantly rotating through our malt portion. So while the malt's only 5% of this, we're using really good, high-quality malts, flavorful malts. We're not using like just base distiller's malt. We're using things that are going to really do some heavy lifting and it's pretty amazing that even that 5%, those malts do add some nice sweetness and some texture to the rye.
August: 25:33
A lot of ryes are very short and then they just disappear, and I like that this one has a little bit more carry. These are your babies, right? Yeah, well, you're babe, so this is something to be proud of. We're very lucky to have you on here. This is pretty game cool.
Jamie: 25:46
Because August he's a little bit of a Rye snob. He loves his Ryes yeah. I'm a Rye guy, he's a general.
Jeff Duckhorn: 25:51
He's going to get a bottle of. Rocket Top. Jen, you got to get him a bottle of Rocket Top.
Jenn: 26:08
He's like for me, because that's our bottle and bond that's a bottle of rocket top that would be great.
Jeff Duckhorn: 26:11
We'll make that happen all right, I think he knows people. Oh wait, he is people, the person, he is the people. Yeah, rocket tops our bottle and bond rye, and so we're, and we released batch four last fall and we're just right now blending batch five. Uh, that'll come out later this summer, so that one, I think, is just fun. It's a huge counterpoint to this. I think this ride's a little bit softer, more approachable that's the intent, being at this price point and being kind of our entry-level series, that Rockatop's definitely a meatier, heavier, like cigar, like rye.
August: 26:36
Which is just a different word. Yeah, cigar. Yeah.
Jamie: 26:41
My least favorite word yeah, matt. Yeah, cigar, cigar, yeah. My least favorite word that's yeah, matt's, the most cigarish of us. I come in second in August. I don't dabble.
August: 26:52
Yeah, if you force me.
Jenn: 26:53
Yeah, maybe, yeah, I was. I was actually thinking about talking to Charlie. As we kind of build out what each month of the next month's whiskey societies would be. I was kind of thinking that maybe we do like a invite only to do cigars whiskeys and maybe some allocated spirits cast strength, things that are a little bit, so not just 100,000% shenanigans really just actually getting there and tasting the juice.
August: 27:21
We do know the Styx Mobile Cigar Lounge people very well, very well you read my mind we could. That could be something really cool for the holidays yes, yeah, they park it right in front of the bar and people can walk in and out of their their turn. A camper into a cigar bar yeah, it's crazy, it's called it's like that's a great fourth of july one no, no
Matt Fox: 27:41
if anything I'm not working that weekend. Well, I mean not that weekend, but the july in general.
Charlie : 27:46
Okay, celebrating freedom I don't know.
August: 27:49
There's nothing that when it's 96 degrees outside it makes me want to drink some light and having cigars, but a hot stick in my mouth, yeah, hot stick in my mouth and and 120.
Jenn: 27:58
You know, uh abv on my, my whiskey there. I'm not a big fan on that.
August: 28:03
I would point that one to October.
Jenn: 28:06
That's what I'm saying when the weather changes, climate-wise.
August: 28:10
Kevin and them with the Mobile Cigar Lounge are just great people. They're so cool.
Matt Fox: 28:14
Then, jeff, you have time to plan to come up and visit.
Jeff Duckhorn: 28:17
Yeah, when are you, by the way, we're in. Detroit. Okay, I kind of figured yeah, yeah, I have not been out there yet for work, I've been, I've been pushing, so I would love to come out.
Jenn: 28:30
um well not in the winter, but fall fall would probably be lovely our falls are beautiful fall is amazing it's what made me move from chicago, so okay so the the gents have just poured last month the last month, this was my favorite.
Jamie: 28:47
Yesterday, did you? Did you hear me go?
Jeff Duckhorn: 28:50
oh, this is my favorite. So this is this is probably my personal favorite of the three, just because it's unique. And I do love emerald giant for that big, bold rye, you know and just but I like this one because it's sneaky, like I want to sneak more rye into people's lives and this is my attempt to do that, and so it's. This is not a bourbon, this is not a rye, this is an American whiskey, blended whiskey. You know these things go by different terms, but it's kind of a distiller's playground. It's a place where we get to play and mix you know already aged distillates together and make something new out of them. And so it does say on the label that we did add it to it to the label last year. It says bourbon rye blend. At the bottom of the label, I believe, unless you've got an older bottle there.
Jenn: 29:37
We might have an older bottle, can we?
Jamie: 29:39
talk about the government and labels. Oh my God, Do you have another hour for that? No, it's like we've talked, We've had a couple people on and we had no idea what an arduous task it was to make a label.
Jeff Duckhorn: 29:53
It's crazy and not consistent is the frustrating thing. You can get denied 10 times and then just cancel your submission and submit it again. Somebody else gets it and they're just like check the box, you're good.
Jamie: 30:05
Yeah, that would be fun. That would be a fun panel.
Jeff Duckhorn: 30:10
My friends might get really angry, so you keep the whiskey talking about how much we hate the government and their control and lack of consistency.
August: 30:19
My friends have breweries Every time they get a new beer.
Jeff Duckhorn: 30:22
It's like's like god damn how to come up with the worst, they're always pushing the bounds on labels, so you know they're trying to get away with stuff yes, they are.
August: 30:30
They're trying to hide things into the pictures yeah and I know they're doing it, so I'm not really mad at it so this is lost.
Jeff Duckhorn: 30:37
Monarch is like our sneaky rye. Okay, so it is. It is technically majority rye whiskey, so it's oh, rye whiskeys blended with bourbon whiskeys uh, and it. But it is 55 ish percent rye whiskeys blended with 45 ish bourbon whiskeys, so they're aged separately. There is a little bit of three-year-old rye in this. It's predominantly four year and older.
Jeff Duckhorn: 30:57
It isn't an exact one for one of lost. It doesn't taste young and that's uh, yeah. Yeah, it definitely has some older bourbon stocks in there, for sure, and now all the rice stocks are rice stuff is actually, I've got, you know, eight to ten year old right now, which is amazing. Oh, there you go, and so for me it's just, it's really fun conversation point. This doesn't do as well retail for us because most consumers it's hard to pick up the bottle and that's why the new label says Bourbon Rye Blend to try to help educate a little bit. But it usually gets stuck in the other category. Send me your leftovers, okay, all right, well noted, on-premise. This does really well at restaurants and bars because it's really fun to play with and mix with and it's got a lot going on and for me that's kind of what I like.
August: 31:44
And so I think this is just a fun one, it's being an excellent old-fashioned spirit. I mean it'd be great Then it's a regular rye. I usually do like Templeton or something like that. When you see it, I'll take this over Bullet all day oh for sure I'll take anything over Bullet.
Jenn: 32:00
You must not sell it.
August: 32:01
That's why you hate it.
Jenn: 32:02
No, no no, I just have opinions, that's all. I'm with you, sister, this thing when we did our cocktail competition yesterday, I was really surprised. Nobody chose this for the base spirit they only chose Pipe Dream and Emerald Giant, because I do think what he said is that it's hard for people to wrap their minds around when they see the word just american whiskey or blend or whatever they think that somehow they're being short-changed you're absolutely right, that's the flavor profiles or authenticity or artistry, but in fact this is the complete, all of those things.
Jenn: 32:43
This is, this is, this is being authentic to the spirit, but then also having innovation and really like on unlocking and untap and tapping into just creation in general.
August: 32:56
So I put this up there and I can't wait to hear your opinion on this one because I want to drop another brand. I I really enjoy Michter's American whiskey and I would put this on the on the right next to it.
Jenn: 33:07
Okay how do you feel about that?
Jeff Duckhorn: 33:10
I'd be more than happy, I mean that when we were thinking about what we're gonna make like mictors for me has always been up there, and they continue to be up there, because they've just stuck to their guns. They They've been consistent, they haven't gone off course too far and they just make beautiful spirits. So, uh, I'll take that any day.
Jenn: 33:30
Well, I think I. Jeff. Thank you so much for joining us too. I'm just so happy that you were able to hop on this call with us on the East coast for being last minute, um and and just thank you for what you are bringing.
Jenn: 33:43
As somebody who has run restaurants for quite a while and now on the other side of it, selling to restaurants and seeing how the industry has changed, having having newness is what keeps me excited about the business, but then also being able to share it to the community. So thank you guys too here at man cave happy hour too, for having this podcast, or did I say it?
Jamie: 34:07
You did, you got totally right.
Jenn: 34:09
Happy cave man hour.
August: 34:12
Well, that's a different show.
Jenn: 34:15
Those guys will be here later, but but no to to have this, that, that, and thank you for having this little liquor leprechaun on to talk about stuff.
Matt Fox: 34:30
Oh my goodness, can we use that going forward? Are we allowed to take that?
Jenn: 34:35
I mean, I am wearing green and I'm a redhead.
August: 34:38
We'll get Mrs Vino and the liquor leprechaun on here one day. But again, thank you, jeff. So much for Then we'll get Mrs Vino and the Liquor.
Jenn: 34:42
Leprechaun on here one day. It'll be a hell of an episode. But again, thank you, jeff so much. You guys have an amazing team there, with Lauren Patz as your master blender with all of her history and culinary skills, just really tapping into what palette can do. So I appreciate the artistry of Redwood Empire and I can't wait to see what you guys are doing in the future.
Jamie: 35:03
So, jeff, is there? Is there a a like a distillery? Do you have like a tasting room?
Jeff Duckhorn: 35:16
Is there like tours? Is what happens at Redwood Empire? Yeah, great question. So we've been looking for a new home to expand for the last, really the last five years, just because that the thousand barrels a year that we producing have been producing since 2015 just isn't enough for where we want to go, and so we were planning to build out from new and been looking and looking and hadn't found the right place. And then, uh, a distillery landed in our lap that was for sale, that had the actually the exact still a 24 inch, uh bendon column, 40 feet tall, and I've been, I've been actually had spec'd out, and so we pulled the trigger on that at the very end of last year, bought the distillery. It's about about an hour from where I'm at now, so it's a little bit actually closer to San Francisco, but a little farther East. It's on an Island called Mare Island, which is a a retired naval base Was it really fascinating.
August: 36:05
Was it on an island that was a naval base?
Jeff Duckhorn: 36:07
Oh my God, oh my God 100 years of building vessels, vessels that were built and were in every major conflict for the last 200 years Fascinating history, but, for us, most importantly, a beautiful distillery. It was just commissioned in 2019, so very new, and they have an amazing tasting room, restaurant, full bar hospitality setup.
Jeff Duckhorn: 36:31
And so we moved into there at the very beginning of the year and we've been working through our licensing and then all for myself and Lauren and our team all the logistical challenges. We have already laid down 700 barrels there since the beginning of the year and the licensing will probably completely get flipped in the next month and we'll be able to actually reopen it as the Redwood Empire room and the Redwood Empire tasting experience Sell bottles. Like I said, food, restaurant, full bar, very excited about all that. So that's there's a population to them. If you go to our Redwood Empire Whiskey you know Insta or whatever and follow us on there, we have updates coming on that and it should be, like I said, within the next month we'll get that finalized.
Jamie: 37:14
So I love, I love the sound of a distillery on an island, right With a Redwood theme. I'm just I'm in. I need a plane ticket.
Jenn: 37:24
Real quick. I have to ask and feel free to nod or shake your head or give a thumbs up, Jeff. Did you guys take over Savage and Cook's?
Jamie: 37:34
We did yes.
Jenn: 37:35
Yes, okay. So, guys, what's exciting about that?
August: 37:39
is that there is a there weren't many that are on an island that used to be a naval base, well, but there's like beautiful water in that area.
Jenn: 37:46
Water makes good grain good grain makes good whiskey. So that's when you said it. I was like, oh wait, what yeah?
Jeff Duckhorn: 37:55
and, and the guy that built it, uh, he did a little brand called the prisoner and so, uh, he, he, he spares no expense, and so he did, did, built out an amazing place. It's beautiful. I love it. Um, so we're very excited to be there and excited for all the opportunities it provides us. For lauren and myself, really, the number one for us is just increased production. So we're gonna, we're gonna tiptoe into it, so we're gonna do about 3 000 barrels of production this year, uh, which is again three times what we've ever done. We can very quickly, you know, grow up to probably 5,000, maybe 10,000 barrels someday. I would love for us to drive more and more of our portfolio toward, you know, 100% in-home distilled, you know, in-house.
Matt Fox: 38:37
And I'm enjoying the fact that you're growing at a pace that you're comfortable with. So if you go fast, then you're kind of going to. You might get away from, you know, the bottle, what's in the bottle, the fact that you're taking these smaller steps Now, I just think that's brilliant. So thank you for that.
Jeff Duckhorn: 38:51
Yeah, Thank you for for continuing to support us and giving us this opportunity to be here.
August: 38:57
All right so fantastic. I'm loving it I love it so fantastic.
Jamie: 39:00
I'm loving it.
August: 39:01
I love it.
Jamie: 39:01
I went for a second pour on the Monarch.
August: 39:03
Yeah, I knew from yesterday that was. I saw the. I'm like yes, the Monarch is here. That's the one, it's really good.
Jeff Duckhorn: 39:09
And don't discount the paper plane for the summer cocktails. You don't have to stop drinking whiskey, you just have to.
Jenn: 39:18
you can just change how you consume it, and we and we did. We tasted a lot of people yesterday I mean August, you hated it because you kept saying it was sweet. But I looked at it and I was like these are porch pounders.
August: 39:26
I just had to say something obnoxious in front of people on the microphone and make them laugh.
Jenn: 39:29
Okay, all right.
August: 39:31
If you had a ladle and a baby shower, this would be delicious. You know stuff like that. You know, it was my girlfriend's cocktail, so I couldn't let it win. What was it? What was the cocktail? It was basically an old take on the summer of the lemonade and bourbon cocktails A Lynchburg lemonade With a lot of raspberries and blueberries in there and stuff it tasted, delicious You're right Porch Pounder, my nickname in college.
Jenn: 40:00
Yes, porch Pounder.
August: 40:01
You had to get that in there, didn't you? I always got to get that in every episode, Goodness Well.
Jenn: 40:06
I mean. But the thing is is that these drinks are so versatile, whether it's iconic, old-fashioned, whether you're putting it with a little coffee liqueur and making a revolver, which is the cocktail that won yesterday. Jeff was an emerald giant with a coffee guinness float.
August: 40:25
Yeah, the guinness froth was interesting.
Matt Fox: 40:27
The guinness float. That's what kind of took it over the top for me.
Jenn: 40:30
Yeah, it's pretty sweet and black walnut bitters, aztec chocolate bitters, and the cocktail name, though, was really cool. We did a whole hippie theme in a line with Hug a Tree, earth Month, and the cocktail name was All the Leaves are Brown and the Rye is Great yeah.
August: 40:49
The Rye is Great, great. Yeah, it was all around. They nailed it on presentation and name and the whole thing and taste.
Jenn: 40:57
So it was a good cocktail. It was a good one. Some of the other names not so great. A lot of butt names not so great A lot of butt names. A lot of bungholes.
Jamie: 41:07
Mike's dirty ass Okay.
Charlie : 41:10
Society. We just invited people to come around and got a bunch of weirdos To explain.
Jenn: 41:16
I'm so sorry, jeff. I started talking about barrels and I started talking about the innovation of double oaking and how some master distillers, master blenders, are using you know chain methods of, and then I said the word bunghole uh barrel, and it inspired every cocktail name from then on yeah, four out of the eight it was bad. Um yeah, everybody went beavis and Butthead on it.
August: 41:44
They did, they went full Beavis.
Jeff Duckhorn: 41:45
It's just too easy it was.
Jenn: 41:50
I think at one point I just had my head in my hands and saying I used to do Shakespeare.
Matt Fox: 41:55
I used to do Shakespeare. You said those exact words. What are you talking about?
August: 42:01
That's from another movie. It's a line. I just shook it, I got five calls as Henry VIII or whatever. And now I'm in this show.
Matt Fox: 42:11
I am shooketh.
Jenn: 42:13
Thank you guys.
Jamie: 42:15
My goodness. Yes, thank you, we're going to keep going here a little bit.
August: 42:17
Jeff, I want to thank you so much for coming on and spending your time from home to have a cocktail with us and talk, uh, and talk about this great juice you guys are making awesome.
Jeff Duckhorn: 42:25
Thank you, great evening and I look forward to seeing you out there, maybe this fall. That'd be great, we'd love to see you.
Jenn: 42:33
Send that rocket top.
Jeff Duckhorn: 42:38
I'll take care of it. We gotcha.
Jamie: 42:41
I can't stop. Where's, where's that? It was like got you. I can't stop.
Jenn: 42:44
Where's that?
Jamie: 42:45
That was like August yesterday. I can't stop.
August: 42:47
I know I'm going to keep going and going. How do I turn? This thing off you can take the hot mic. We can take the hot cans off now because it gets so warm.
Jenn: 42:58
We can hear each other oh okay, it's.
Jamie: 43:02
when you have a remote guest, you have to have the headphones. Yeah, you got to have the headphones. Oh, okay, so now.
Matt Fox: 43:06
So that was so much fun to talk to Jeff when you had the master distiller, you know, to talk about what's in the bottle and what they do. It's just, it's amazing. So just pick their brain Well cool.
Jenn: 43:23
I said it yesterday, I'm enamored with this tasting and yesterday, with the inclusion of Redwood Empire and then a couple of the other ones that we did. We did the 2XO.
Matt Fox: 43:33
French.
August: 43:34
Oak.
Matt Fox: 43:34
The French Oak was like the Dixon Deadman.
Jenn: 43:36
Yep the super, super neat. That's why everybody started talking about the bunghole, but using Elevage. And then we also had Sagmore Rye, the double oak that we ended everything with. It was just a really good tasting yeah thanks, Charlie.
Jamie: 43:52
I appreciate you having a society that lets us and the food was divine. Yeah, the food was always great.
Charlie : 43:57
I'm sorry, they gave you more than six cocktails. I'm joking.
Jenn: 44:03
Are you saying the hors d'oeuvres?
Charlie : 44:06
The hors d'oeuvres were great. Apparently, they weren't hors d'oeuvres.
Jamie: 44:09
It was the Bloody Mary bar mix, but I thought it was an hors d'oeuvres table, so I was chowing down.
August: 44:15
Gummy worms and dog treats.
Charlie : 44:17
That's 90% of what the kids and adults do.
Jamie: 44:21
And I'm like is this hors d'oeuvres? The waitresses, she's like, well, it's kind of the bloody mary bar, but uh, whatever you want, your crew is great and your crew uh, oh yeah, your staff is great.
August: 44:32
Tell you anytime, jen, that you want to. When you're doing a tasting, you're doing something and you want to then double down like this come see us on a monday and we'll do the do. The rest we can set up ahead of time. We don't have to drag them in at the last minute.
Jenn: 44:44
We've had great luck.
August: 44:46
Once we tell people we want to talk about their spirit, they come on. We get owners on, we get all kinds of people on the show. They don't mind doing it at all. We were happy to do this with you. It was a great partnership. Yesterday we had a riot.
Jenn: 45:04
Oh, oh good, I'm glad, I'm glad it was.
Jenn: 45:05
Uh, it was certainly we, we, just we slid down a rabbit hole and we try to bounce our way out for at some point, but um everybody was all smiles sitting up on that stage looking down and just watching everybody laugh and everyone just get into it, and that's what charlie has created with whiskey society that he just lets me be a part of, as this he's giving something back to the community. You want what did you say? You want one day out of the month to just go crazy. Come to whiskey society is it it's monthly?
Charlie : 45:28
it's a monthly, all right yeah it's the same same sunday every month we try to do like the last or the third last month, depending on holidays and everything. Yeah, obviously like your memorial day. So we've kind of figured out which ones work. So we try to do that. We also talk to our members and they go we got a big thing going on, we're not going to come out, but once a month we try to do something, we try to have fun.
Matt Fox: 45:52
And you keep it fresh. It's something new, it's not the same thing.
Charlie : 45:56
Very, very. We try to keep consistent, but we always try to keep it new. So we try to keep consistent, but we always try to keep it new. So this was the up and smoke which was the one you guys attended last time. We've had dispensaries come out to every one of them. We started with greenhouse. We've had multiple different ones come out, which has been great, and then, like the first one we did, we actually smoked Elijah Craig five different ways.
Jamie: 46:21
We actually did tobacco smoking on it. How do you keep Elijah lit? Anyway, I'm sorry.
August: 46:26
We did a cocktail smoking episode here and we all left smelling like a campfire. We had different kits and tried to find which one we thought did the best job. They were all gifts. We didn't pick them out. They were like let's open these up and see how they work. His was crazy. They wanted to burn it on a piece of wood and then put a glass over it.
Jenn: 46:44
That's how a lot of restaurants do it. It's like trying to catch a fart.
Jamie: 46:49
It was like catching a fart. It was like this isn't going to work.
Jenn: 46:52
Though that's the method that a lot of restaurants used to do is burning a plank of wood and then putting the old Otis supply and Ferndale used to do that Now smoking tops are very, very popular.
Jamie: 47:05
It was great. That's what I had. It was great and I want one. That's the one I want.
Jenn: 47:09
Yeah, and those are relatively. They're being kind of mass produced in a way.
August: 47:14
Before that there was domes that you had to put under. I've seen the boxes and then the boxes which are are expensive. That's a presentation at the restaurant though.
Charlie : 47:24
My first experience was going to Traverse City and it was this little spot and they had the sink. Catch the little wire mesh you put over your garbage disposal or when you don't have a garbage disposal. They had that. They threw wood chips in it, they hit it with a blowtorch and they put a pint glass over the top and it just went in and out.
Matt Fox: 47:42
And with a blowtorch, and they put a pint glass over the top and it just went in and out and I was like that's ingenious.
Charlie : 47:46
And I was like I wonder what kind of metals are in that but whatever it's fine. It was a great cocktail and it was phenomenal Lead mesh I only have a stick now and it's fine.
August: 47:57
I saw a bartender where the guy had the smoking gun, where he made the bubbles.
Jenn: 48:04
Oh, the bubble blast.
August: 48:07
Yeah, la Lanterna, right, yeah, yeah. And that Dominican bartender was just a trip and he has the gun, that $500 bubble gun.
Jenn: 48:14
Bubble gun yeah, it's very popular for cocktails.
Jenn: 48:18
It's a show, but this is the thing, is that right, it's a show, but this is the thing. Is that right? It's like one of the problems that we are having with on-premise, which is being in restaurants and bars, as opposed to off-premise, which is like party stores and everything. So selling to them is selling them something that they haven't heard of, that we want to bring people out. They will say, oh, people only want to drink what they know. And I say, no, that's not the case, because it takes a lot for me to put netflix on pause. I better have an experience. I got a lot of shows lined up, I have a hard working day, the couch is comfy and you better. If I'm going out and I'm spending my benjamins or whatever I, I need to get a good bang for my buck.
August: 49:06
We've sat with party store owners and they brought us their barrel picks and they brought us their stuff and they sell out of their barrel picks and it can be something that no one's heard of, like Old Soul, a Mississippi whiskey that we had never heard of. That was one of the greatest things we ever had. Once we tasted it, oh my God, they couldn't keep it. It was like gone Right, sold it all. And we were talking with Bacta, was that?
August: 49:30
when we're at their event and the party owners. Like 10 years ago, a rye whiskey was nothing. Now I need more shelf space yeah, yeah they won't we.
Jenn: 49:38
We couldn't sell a rye whiskey 10 years ago 2016, it was really, is really, when we started seeing the emergence of rye, with, with mixologists and bartenders knowing that it, it does, it, it brings something to the party. When I'm creating cocktails, uh, and and it, whereas those, those weeded styles and soft corns, those are great just for like whatever, but the rye really does bring something too big to the party, uh and and all the heavy hitting mixologists will tell you is like, oh, I need bottled and bond, I want the higher proof oh, yeah, yeah.
August: 50:08
And that's all the leather, the leather apron.
Jamie: 50:09
Crowd the way, yeah they're like hotter, hotter, hotter, fire, fire, fire and it's like ah, you know, I mean because I we got a bunch of, we got a bunch of bourbons in daddy's shelf here at the studio and uh 112, 116 and 120 and it's like I mean, there's days I do, it's a school night, I don't need 120 but if you were taking that, it's never stopped him before.
Jenn: 50:33
I don't want him kid, but if you're taking that I said I don't need. If you're mixing it with citrus or an egg white and making a beautiful sour, that heavier, heavier ABV, the alcohol volume is going to really show up. So you're going to be like, oh, I'm getting a good value in this glass because you can taste still the whiskey. You're not just tasting. Like yesterday we tasted a lot of syrup.
Jamie: 51:00
A lot of shower drinks.
Matt Fox: 51:01
A lot of bitters. A lot of bitters.
Jamie: 51:03
The bitters were good.
August: 51:04
The bitters were fine, I enjoy bitters.
Charlie : 51:06
I was quite impressed with how they balanced the use of bitters, which was shocking to me because everybody wants to go nuts with yeah, they want to go bang bang bang. I was like no, if you taste, do more than three, you're gonna taste only that and I'm like yes, thank you.
August: 51:20
You've taught them well. They're the members of your society for a reason, yeah, when we're there. There wasn't one.
Jamie: 51:25
There wasn't one of the cocktails that I needed a spit jug for. There was not a single one of the cocktails I needed a spit jug.
August: 51:32
There was, there was one annoying one, even though it was the best presentation. Putting that caramel around the glass was a bad idea.
Jenn: 51:40
I'm not going to say it, that was just a sticky mess.
August: 51:44
That was just a sticky mess.
Jamie: 51:45
Which is my nickname in college. There you go.
August: 51:53
I mean remember that cocktail name was called the Woody, the Woody bunghole and they said it was a rim job, so this was just like I said, we've got a rim job mentioned in a while.
Charlie : 52:04
You know when? When they're asking for a wet, warm rag yeah.
August: 52:08
When we're asking for a warm rag. Honey, stay there, honey.
Charlie : 52:10
I'll go get a warm rag a warm rag Honey.
August: 52:11
Stay there, honey, I'll go get a warm rag.
Jenn: 52:14
The funniest thing is that he was late to the tasting because he had been to church. So that was like just the whole thing was just a.
Matt Fox: 52:24
He just had to fill his plate back up again for next Sunday Confession now, I think, what do we have on tap for the next society?
Jenn: 52:32
The next one is actually in honor of may and um coming up here data herons college, along with april and june drink it, drink it, drink it. Uh, cinco de drinko cinco de drinko no, we're gonna explore the agave spirits, so it was, it was tequila, and we are doing tequila and mezcal. That's her jam.
August: 52:55
She loves her mezcals Catherine off camera.
Jenn: 53:01
We haven't quite figured out what the interactive part of it is going to be. We were thinking maybe a Price is Right kind of Just get a mariachi band.
Matt Fox: 53:11
What were the wrestlers? The ring luchadors, we have measured the restaurant.
Charlie : 53:16
A ring will fit in there. I've now been offered luchador. I've been offered drag wrestling and also midget wrestling. I just feel like when you get three, you gotta figure out how this is gonna go.
August: 53:30
So we'll figure that out. I have friends at the Now. Darren McCarty bought a wrestling school in Centerline Grindr. It's called Grindr Wrestling Academy, but that was the House of Truth. A good ham-chamac guy, my buddy Truth Martini, that was his wrestling school. I can get you wrestlers.
Jenn: 53:43
I mean we could do. We could give everybody luchador hats, make them do thumb wrestling.
August: 53:51
Oh, that might be better. It's going to be warm but it'll be better.
Jamie: 53:54
Rock'em Sock'em Robots. Paint the Rock'em Sock'ems with luchadors on them.
Jenn: 53:59
Can.
Jamie: 53:59
I please get your insurance card Welcome to.
Jenn: 54:01
Whiskey.
Charlie : 54:02
Society I'm going to make a copy of this.
Jenn: 54:04
I'll give it right back to you.
Charlie : 54:05
Here's the waiver. I just enjoy this.
August: 54:07
Speaking of that, things you have to sign. Does one sign up for the whiskey society?
Charlie : 54:11
all right. So whiskey society, you can pop on into the restaurant any anytime. Um, it is 180 for one year. You get way over that value. Um, basically, we're doing anywhere from five to six tastings of a bourbon, whiskey, tequila, whatever you really want. Um, every tasting a cocktail or an event, kind of thing.
August: 54:35
Swag, swag there's always some sort of other benefit.
Charlie : 54:40
Um, if you just want to come to the whiskey society, try it out. Dip your toe in the water. Maybe we're too weird for you. Could be a thing.
August: 54:47
Um I mean, I do know some of those members rather well. They are kind of weird 25.
Charlie : 54:51
You can just come in, stop in, hang out if you decide. You're like know what these are my people, because we're all weird. Um, we take that 25, we put it towards your membership.
August: 55:01
So oh, that's great. So people can get a, they get a one-off and all right, I like it, you just, you just sample you know a little free sample that's what's wrong with that you know we, we try to drive that.
Charlie : 55:10
You know it's it community it's doing the whole. We've had so many groups that have been friends. Now they come in, they sit together, they hang out. We have a DJ, we've got realtors. I've experienced it.
August: 55:26
I've gone in just to sit out at the bar and someone starts telling me sitting next to us. You know, they have a whiskey society here. We come here and we drink. I'm like, oh, I've heard of that. Kat and I were just sitting there having a margarita once and the guy just started talking to us about the whiskey society. I'm like, oh, as a matter of fact.
Jamie: 55:40
And then he opened up his raincoat and had a.
Matt Fox: 55:42
Rolex on it and a D to a bridge. The mentioning or the raincoat. The raincoat and also the mentioning.
Charlie : 55:51
Okay, a little bit of both. Yeah, no, we opened up Whiskey Taco during the pandemic. We started we went community focused because it was that's what we have to do to survive. Yeah, we threw chalk out in the front of the store. We were like go home, chalk your driveway. We were montage grill at that time because we didn't have money to buy a sign to put it up, because we thought we were going to have a bar. And then we had a pandemic and we've had people go out. They put you know, montage grill. We did a whole thing where basically we we judged all the stuff. Everybody got basically a free to-go meal during that time. But it was community focused. We worked with avalon housing. Avon housing in Ann Arbor was like we need food, we have money. I was like what do you guys want? Tell me what the budget is, we'll make it happen. We were driving two to 300 burritos out to Ann Arbor every week just to feed Avalon housing. It was all about community and that's what really started us.
August: 56:50
And you've been incredibly generous. Anytime I do my my goofy fundraisers, and anytime I asked Charlie for gift cards, he's like what do you need? How many? You need, how many, how many, how many, how many, how many, how many, how many to sign it? What do you want me to do? We give you whatever you need and Off-site catering stuff. I thought you did. We just said doo-doo. Well, it's not really a bell.
Charlie : 57:16
We doo-doo the food truck as much as we can Sorry? We love the private parties. You know, call us, book us up, we'll come, we'll hang out at your private party. We actually kind of do. Basically we run it as a separate kitchen. We'll come and serve your party. If you want to work right off the truck, we have that option as well. We've got a good contract with Ford, so we're out there about once a month or twice a month doing product development center over in Dearborn.
Matt Fox: 57:39
Oh, wow Great. Was it flat rate or is it based on the number of people? That?
Charlie : 57:43
one. They just come out and they buy With house parties. We like to do kind of flat rates with people which you know like. We kind of look at that in $2,000, you know you come out, we'll serve you know about a hundred some people and kind of get you going that way and everything is being made fresh.
Jenn: 57:57
That's what I love about whiskey taco is that he's getting tortillas, chopping the corn tortillas to make his tortilla chips.
Jeff Duckhorn: 58:07
He's not just buying bags.
Jenn: 58:08
They're so crispy and crunchy and as someone who grew up in Texas and transplant and lived in Puerto Rico little Puerto Rico, in Chicago, and then moves here to Michigan, I know a thing or two about Mexican food. So there's salsa, he's there, it's all being you know hand, it's, it's all fresh veg.
August: 58:26
When is that chicken parm taco coming back? So that was my jam.
Charlie : 58:30
Chicken parm taco is always available.
August: 58:37
We have all these off menu.
Charlie : 58:38
It's a secret menu, secret menu you heard it here we only sold 200 in a year, and I'm assuming it was to you so.
August: 58:48
I apologize that I took it off it is available.
Charlie : 58:52
We can make it anytime. It's such a fun taco. It's one of my favorites.
August: 58:56
It was just delicious. I was like this is just great, it's brilliant.
Charlie : 59:00
We were honestly pushing wine and that's how that taco developed, because I was like, well, what goes with wine? Well, chicken parmesan.
Matt Fox: 59:06
Of course.
Charlie : 59:08
The most fancy thing to go with wine, that's right. We did the chicken parm taco go with wine? That's right.
August: 59:15
We did the chicken parm taco.
Charlie : 59:15
The chicken parm taco does not have parmesan, it's Munster. I apologize.
August: 59:19
You have all the ingredients.
Charlie : 59:20
We'll make it work, Cheesy, cheesy cheesy.
Jenn: 59:22
Cheese is cheese Real quick. You asked about what else is coming up. Charlie and I have been talking a lot about this. We have tequila coming up. Then in June we're doing fat summer, where we're gonna fat wash some cocktails and some whiskey.
Charlie : 59:39
We had a little you tried to do that right, I tried to do that it came out a little chunky, so so my my one blend that I want to do much like much like me, came out a little chunky, and I love this because you guys said mictors, because I actually did this with a bottle of mictors.
Charlie : 59:58
I did black chai into my mictors 24 hours, made basically rye whiskey with tea, took that out. I made an old-fashioned. So I did a triple-rich simple syrup, did my bitters a little bit of dilution and then basically poured two cups of milk into it, let it dilute and get all curled and gross, filtered it through a coffee filter, then filtered it one more time through another coffee filter and you had a golden old-fashioned and I was like this looks pretty good, tried it, phenomenal. Had a second one, I was like, oh, this is really good. I had a third and I was like, wow, you're hammered you should.
Charlie : 1:00:38
We're gonna do one of those. We're gonna do a um tzatziki, uh, martini. So I'm gonna make basically a yogurt tzatziki, I'm gonna filter some gin through it and then we're gonna make a martini out of that which would ideally work out great. We're going to do that this month, just to make sure that it works out great.
Jenn: 1:00:56
Best intentions Right right.
Charlie : 1:00:57
Best intentions, but I want to make sure they're good, because it's a very fun thing if you can do it right. If you mess it up, it's gross. It is definitely.
Matt Fox: 1:01:06
That's a fine line that we walk.
Charlie : 1:01:07
It's a very fine line and filtering is very important, you know. So I and filtering is very important.
August: 1:01:13
You know, I found that out. What is that? Milk alcohol they make where you could like ferment milk and it comes out clear.
Jenn: 1:01:20
So clarified milk punch. That's it Milk punch.
Charlie : 1:01:24
Honestly, we should probably do something like that too, Like a rum punch, a clarified milk rum punch.
Jenn: 1:01:28
Speaking of rum, though, too, I think that rum is another whiskey society, because there's so many beautiful rums that really have a bad rap and finished in whiskey, finished in rye, finished in cognac. There's just so many different rums out there that drink like bourbon. They do drink like bourbons.
August: 1:01:46
I have one of my good friends, Catherine, and I spend a lot of time at Toko Roro down in Eastern Market, which has 128 rums honey, I think it is and they've been introducing me. So this is the difference between a Panamanian rum and a yes, you can go island hopping. Yeah, and all these different, I'm like jeez, I can't even keep up. So there is a lot of unexplored rum action out there in the Michigan spirits palette, I feel.
Jenn: 1:02:10
I'm trying to do my job, literally when I feel, oh, I'm trying to do my job, literally I'm. When I moved here, I saw a lot of gaps in people's back bars and I noticed that there was still just a lot of basic rum out there, but people were trying to be a craft bar spot and I was like what you?
August: 1:02:27
need more than bacardi. Yeah, I mean cracking's great, but you need more. You need more thanardi.
Jenn: 1:02:33
You need more than Malibu.
August: 1:02:34
There are other things out there.
Jenn: 1:02:36
And Captain Morgan's Sailor Jerry's, which are you know, they are great. They're great if you're sitting on the beach. The.
August: 1:02:42
Kraken I love. My Dark and Stormies I love.
Jenn: 1:02:46
Kraken. And then there's just others that give a lot of love, like Florida Conyers really great, but Conyers really great, but Diplomatical Bamboo Plantation or Plantaray.
August: 1:02:55
There's a bottle of Pirate and Pilar, papa's Pilar. It's a bottle that at my PLAV post six, and I'm the only one that drinks it but, it's back there and they always replace it because it's me, that's my sipper when I go to the old Veterans Hall.
Jenn: 1:03:13
That's Ernest Hemingway's estate family. It's the guys.
Matt Fox: 1:03:18
We could do a whole show on that.
Jenn: 1:03:20
We could do a.
Jamie: 1:03:22
We haven't done a rum. We did a rum. It's been a couple of years. We did it at the whiskey.
August: 1:03:30
We did it at Socorro and we did one on the patio at Whiskey in the Jar. That has been years.
Jamie: 1:03:35
Yeah we need a little more.
August: 1:03:37
We're opening the rum.
Jamie: 1:03:38
We need a little bit of rum.
Jenn: 1:03:39
You could actually do rum and cigars too, because that's one of the best pairings.
August: 1:03:45
My opening cocktail here was the Appleton's with a little bit of bitters.
Jenn: 1:03:48
There you go.
Jamie: 1:03:49
That's what I stepped on when I got here. Oh, did you put some bitters in it?
August: 1:03:51
Yeah, oh, fair play I do every week. Yeah, that's been my go-to lately.
Jenn: 1:03:54
Well, thank you guys for having me.
August: 1:03:57
Oh, you're happy to have me, thank you for being here on short notice after a party yesterday.
Charlie : 1:04:00
Yeah.
August: 1:04:02
I'm still recovering from it.
Matt Fox: 1:04:05
No, this has been a pleasure. It's been absolutely amazing this evening.
Jamie: 1:04:08
Yeah, you hosts when you are at your place at the Whiskey Taco Foxtrot and we hope we were fair hosts today.
Jenn: 1:04:18
Yes, thank you.
Jamie: 1:04:20
Thanks for coming in. Like subscribe, leave a comment. Do all the podcast things in all the podcast places. That is August Gitchlag.
August: 1:04:27
That's Matt Fox over there. He's sexy.
Matt Fox: 1:04:29
Thanks, buddy. And this is Jamie Flanagan. He's sexier than I am.
August: 1:04:33
He's got that voice, you know yeah, he does thank you, jen.
Charlie : 1:04:36
Thank you, charlie thank you guys, thank you so much cheers, cheers, everybody cheers good dings.
