Honey Bourbon Done Right - Detroit City Distillery (Part 1)

A lot of “honey whiskey” tastes like sugar and shortcuts. We wanted the real story behind honey-finished bourbon that still tastes like whiskey, so we brought in Dante from Detroit City Distillery to break down how Detroit’s Bees In The D partnership turned raw urban honey into something genuinely complex. We get into the surprising first step: barrel-aging the honey itself in used whiskey barrels, then using those honey-seasoned barrels to finish bourbon without adding flavoring or coloring. 

Along the way, we trade family history and Detroit roots, including a Prohibition-era boat-running story that somehow makes today’s craft spirits scene feel like part of a longer timeline. Dante also explains why Detroit City Distillery thinks about finishing windows, toasted barrels, and why proof in the 115 to 116 range can bring heat, balance, and a clean finish without blowing your palate up. 

Then we taste. We compare the 100-proof blended release against single-barrel picks, talk glassware, and share a simple tasting reset that helps you stop judging a whiskey on the first sip. We also go off on whiskey hype, allocations, and a $200 Pappy pour that taught a hard truth about older barrels turning into pure oak. 

If you love Michigan-made spirits, bourbon finishing, honey bourbon, or just want better tasting instincts, hit play. Subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find us.

https://www.detroitcitydistillery.com/

Transcript

Welcome To Man Cave Happy Hour

Jamie Flanagan 0:25

It is time for Happy Hour. It is the Man Cave Happy Hour whiskey, cigars, spirits, and stories that go along with it. I'm Jamie Flanagan. It's an OG man cave.

Matt Fox 0:34

Oh, yeah. Matt Fox August is not here this evening. We missed him terribly. But it's an OG man cave because it was Jamie and I that did this, started this in 2018. Yeah, we've been uh out of his garage.

Jamie Flanagan 0:48

We didn't, man.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Definitely not in the garage anymore.

Jamie Flanagan 0:51

No, no. Yeah, we've uh we've upped the game a little bit. And we are Matt. Yes, sir. Well, how are you doing, honey? I'm okay. I made a weird see. No. No for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:06

We're just coming through the appearance. Early. Early.

Matt Fox 1:11

Early, early. Sweetie, to answer your question. I'm doing great. This is before the drink started. I'm just gonna hate.

Jamie Flanagan 1:19

We had our welcome cocktail. I went a little fluffy today. I got a Zims vodka and Cranberry going. Oh, there you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:24

Zim's guys from Grossport. Oh, yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 1:27

Yeah. Pull that and pull that right up to your puss there. Oh, right. There you are. Right, right in there. Right down the band. That's what we need. But anyway, yeah. So yeah, just Bruce and uh TO and uh good fellas, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

I used to be the for five years, I was the uh Lockmore photographer at the course out there, so I got to know Bruce and all then.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

When they launched it, it was like time. So yeah, yeah. Those guys are very proud, they're still proud of that brand. Yeah, they should be.

Jamie Flanagan 1:52

That's uh yeah, they did a podcast for a little bit and uh we helped them with that. And but anyway, so that was my welcome cocktail, and we got stuff going on today, the honey jokes, Jamie.

Meet Dante From Detroit City Distillery

Matt Fox 2:03

Who who is who is the amazing person sitting across the road?

Jamie Flanagan 2:06

Yeah, Dante's with us from Detroit City Distillery.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Dante's funny when I do my videos. Thanks for the intro, guys, and thanks for having me, yeah, and having our brand on. This is great. You said the word amazing. I meant it. Do you guys when you do your videos? Yeah, like is there is there a word you say all the time and you cannot get yourself to stop saying the word? Mine is amazing all the time. Like I'll get done editing a video and I'm like, Rain man, can you not say amazing thousand times in the video? Um the ums too. Um the ums or two. Amazing.

Jamie Flanagan 2:43

So all right, we'll we'll uh we'll tase you every time you you go amazing. So we're gonna talk about the it's in the it's built into the chair, right? But talking about honey, sweetie, darling, we got uh some Detroit City distillery uh honey whiskey story storyline hearing from and we're gonna get to that, but before we get to that, I mean here we go. We're talking, we're talking to you. Dante, uh tell me about your childhood.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Child, I pay somebody $75 a visit for this. I'm getting a three year um childhood. Yeah, I am a uh dual city kid. My father's from Boston, my mother's from Detroit. Nice, I'm Irish Italian, 75 Sicilian, 25 Irish. Yeah, my father met my mother. She was an airline stewardess in the late 60s on Eastern Airlines. Wow my god.

Jamie Flanagan 3:28

What was the pickup line? What was it? I have no clue. I don't want to know. He's in his he's in his 80s.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

My mother, God rest her soul, she's moved on. I learned that stuff in the afterlife, I guess. Yeah, fair play, fair play. But do you have enough legroom? Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah. There it is.

SPEAKER_04 3:41

There it is.

SPEAKER_03 3:45

So, yeah, she flew the Boston to Detroit Boston route. They met, they dated, and my dad. You ever see the movie uh Bronxdale? Yeah, yeah, that's kind of like my father's life was in Boston. So my grandfather was a commercial fisherman. Great story about my great-grandfather, and this is how it goes into my bloodline in the whiskey game.

Prohibition Boat Runs And Family Roots

SPEAKER_03 4:05

Please, my great-grandfather Ignacio De Sarro, who was a from Sicily, but when he was Boston, he had a fishing boat called the Eva One. Uh and my great-grandfather got to know Joe Kennedy very well.

Jamie Flanagan 4:18

Oh my! Wow.

SPEAKER_03 4:20

And Joe Kennedy got to know a lot of fishermen very well.

Jamie Flanagan 4:23

Papa Kennedy. Yes. That's some serious business. Serious business.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

So when Prohibition kicked in from Boston, right? When Prohibition kicked in, Joe. I know some guys with some boats. Well, no, not even now. I know where Canada is. Joe bought my great-grandfather an identical boat with the same numbers and the same name, so we could run whiskey from Canada. Yeah. And then when the feds would stop the boat, they didn't know there'd be fish on it. They got confused. Had the same serial numbers. So there was Eva One and Eva two. And there and there's no statute of limitations. No. No. Nope. No, no, none of that. That's all. Boston is very that is good. You know, Boston has its barrios. It's you know, Charlestown across from the North End is the Irish section. Okay. You come over the bridge, it's the North End. Uh, this was in, you know, it's pretty much like young professionals now. Yeah. But that's my parents' history. I was born here, but my my parents divorced when I was eight. Um, my father said to my mother, every summer he's going to Boston. Oh, nice. All right. So you split time? Yeah, so all the duels. I'm a Detroit sports fan, though. Let's get that right. All right, fair play. Fair play.

Jamie Flanagan 5:34

None of that Bruins horses.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

I stuck with the Lions thick and thin. I had a buddy who played for the team. I didn't get on the Patriots bandwagon. So good for you. But no, family business, landscaping. Uh, we sold that after we sold my dad sold the company. I went into landscaping some more in 08-09. I was in the foreclosure business in Detroit, believe it or not.

Jamie Flanagan 5:54

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:55

Yeah. Got me all over the country. I was the one of the original founding members of Detroit Dog Rescue. Yeah. We've had Christina on about it. Christina's amazing. Yes, she is. Christina Ronaldi. She's got a little history with the she tell your history of her family. I don't know if she did or not. I don't think she didn't. Gary Milman was her grandfather. Yeah, yeah, no, we did. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_04 6:18

We did dive into that problem stuff a little bit. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

Yeah, we got for some reason I got a lot of mafia ties. But yeah, so after I met a wonderful man that supported our nonprofit, him and his wife. Yeah. And when I had I had to leave DCD, uh I got all these D. Yeah. DCD, D D R, yeah, yeah. Stutter all over the place when I say them. He was a big donor, and it was Jack and Annette Aronson from Garden Fresh Salsa. Oh Garden Fresh. Oh, yeah. Jack hired me on. I worked for them. And I'm like, do you remember the skit the Unliving Color? Inliving Color, the Haymons? I got to do that. Good that didn't fly over your heads. Yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 7:05

Because I have six jobs. So it's like I know I make that joke all the time. Kids are like, oh, I gotta go to work. I'm like, lazy kid. What job?

SPEAKER_03 7:13

What are you doing?

Jamie Flanagan 7:14

Um and that that that it culturally doesn't play as well as it used to.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

But uh I tilt my hat to the wings. They brought us tons of joy, and that show gave us uh Jim Carrey.

From Rescue Dogs And Salsa To Whiskey

Jamie Flanagan 7:26

So so how'd you move from dogs to salsa to to whiskey wrapping?

SPEAKER_03 7:32

So um nine years ago, my wife is in banking, my wife down, and first wife, my son, and then I have my wife.

Jamie Flanagan 7:40

Practice one, you gotta get that out of the way, right?

SPEAKER_03 7:42

Um she's a banker and she came home on like I think it was a Thursday, and she she still had her work clothes on and she was just freshen up. She's like I go, Where are you going? She usually throws the sweats on. She goes, uh, I got a work event. I'm like, Oh, have fun. And she's like, Do you want to go? I'm like, no. And she she walked back to the room and she tuck her head around the hallway. She goes, It's a whiskey factory. I'm like, give me 15 minutes, I'll be ready. And I went down. So this is when DCD they had their tasting room in Easter Market. Yeah, that's where everything started, right? The 50 gallon still, the original story. This is when they just about eight months to, yeah, about eight months after they moved into the old show's ice cream factory. Right, right. They opened the event space on the second floor.

Jamie Flanagan 8:26

Yeah, okay. I've DJ'd a couple weddings in there. It's it's a great amazing, absolutely amazing. Yeah, I've been to Christina's parties.

SPEAKER_03 8:33

Every time I'm amazing, we're gonna go a damn bell. Maybe that'll help me with therapy. Um so I went there, I met JP. I was enthralled, and like two weeks later, JP calls my wife and says, Hey, what's your husband do? She goes, Well, he works for Garden Fresh, so that's what he does. He goes, Man, he's he's he could talk. Like, do you think he'd want to like maybe do some side tastings for us? I'm like, she goes, I'll ask him. And I'm like, What? Taste whiskey for for what for what for and get paid and get paid mileage? I'm there. So I did that, and for the longest time I did my thing, and I was just a 1099. The nickname I got in the club was the hitman. I was a hired gun that grew up, right? I wasn't on payroll. I I got things done. Yeah, and three years ago, I left a position with a uh a chain of pets uh food stores that I was doing social media for and content for, and not even I'd call Jamie, who was my manager, who she's been with the company nine years. I said, Hey, uh you know, I'm not gonna do anything. She goes, Hold that thought. I called JP and it's perfect time. She goes, We're hiring. Hey, good for you, man. I went from 1099 to you know W2. Was it W3, W2, W2, W2, W2, W2? W2.

Jamie Flanagan 9:49

W4, that's radio. All right.

SPEAKER_03 9:50

Yeah, right. And here I am selling, and what's really great about it is I went from salsa, I went to from craft salsa to craft whiskey. Those are two great things. All Michigan made, too, which was great.

Jamie Flanagan 10:02

I'm all about the Michigan products, right? So people listen wherever, and and and we'll talk about where you're available around the country. We're gonna get in to the whiskeys. Thanks for opening up and and sharing with us. Hey, maybe what a therapy is speaking of sharing, people welcome. People should like and subscribe and do all the podcast things in all the podcast places. If you would that'd be brilliant, and the best possible thing you do is tell a friend, right? That's that helps uh exponentially is just sharing sharing it and telling a friend about it. I cannot sing the praises of Detroit City distillery, the tasting room, and the fun at the whiskey factory because there's more events happening there, right? We we did an episode three, four episodes ago on the Yeji barrel. Yes, that you guys did, and you told me you had some exciting news uh about the Yezhi barrel. Uh, can we talk about that? I can say I give a bit of a it's there's more Yezhi on the way, yeah. Larger quantities because it sold out in a New York second, right?

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Barrel, 144 bottles, it moved quicker than quick. We had about 1700 to 200 people lined up outside.

Jamie Flanagan 11:05

Man, there's some disappointed people around 150, Mark.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

There were, and that barrel turned out absolutely amazing. So it's we laid down a little bit more in the finish end this year, so we're excited for next Punch K. Yeah, Punsky celebration, which turned into a crazy idea by our head distiller uh Steve Ojahusky.

Jamie Flanagan 11:24

Yeah, and the vodka smells spot on. When you open up a bottle of the vodka, the nose is perfect.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

And what's amazing about that is just like an palette with whiskey, yeah, noses with the some people pick up the powder, the dough, the raspberry, of course. But some people like I smell the cooking oil. Like people can smell the entire tray, you know, whatever, what everything that went into the punchy, and that's because all we do is we rip them open, we put them in the still, right? With the potato now, it's potato vodka from Poland, right?

Matt Fox 12:00

Okay, right, because that's the original.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

The original was corn and it took off, and Steve was like, Nope. If I'm gonna if this is gonna keep going, it's gotta be Polish vodka. It's very vodka. I think I have one of the first iterations. I think right. Well, the Russians will argue with that.

Matt Fox 12:15

No, I think there's a big argument. That's like an armrest will take it. They would argue, no, no, it started in Poland. Yep, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 12:23

All right, so you think you have an original bottle?

Jamie Flanagan 12:25

Is it square? No, the vodka was uh square in the original.

SPEAKER_03 12:29

The original vodka's were square. No, then I don't know.

Jamie Flanagan 12:31

I got some old ones. All right, I got the original batch to the collection. If people have so, like I said, people were uh sharing and subscribing. I was it was going somewhere with the sharing thing, but you shared with us oh, share and our sponsors. That's what I wanted to hit.

Matt Fox 12:45

Yeah, um, that they oh do it.

Jamie Flanagan 12:48

You can wearing funny.com is a spot for fun rock and roll Detroit t-shirts. Fun and funny shirts, you can find them at wearing funny.com. You get your man cave t-shirts there, and of course, uh your uh my Irish radio t-shirts. I bring it on Irish radio all night long, man. Come on. Yeah, so uh August usually does something very disparaging about uh the Irishness of me. He's not here.

SPEAKER_03 13:12

No, it's an empty, but there's a chair next. August is a crate.

Heritage, Ink, And Identity

Jamie Flanagan 13:16

We were talking about you mentioned that uh part of your growing up, you had a little bit of Irish heritage, and you're showing us some ink because I got my family coat of arms. Yeah, uh, but you you got you got a whole you got a whole lot more real estate to work with over there than I do. Yeah, I do. Uh it's like this one's out, guns out, brother.

SPEAKER_03 13:29

Yeah, birthday, lawn work over the weekend. So, like I said, Sicilian Irish. I'm always told myself as a kid, if I ever had tattoos, they'd be meaningful. Yeah, they would never change. Murphy was my mother's maiden name, uh-huh, and Desarro was my father's name.

Jamie Flanagan 13:44

That's gorgeous, man.

SPEAKER_03 13:45

And she was a Murphy Pasquenzo, right? So she was 50-50. So I'm I am 75 Sicilian, 25 Irish. Yeah, all day long.

Jamie Flanagan 13:54

So you gotta you you gotta check the that one. That's the one I was looking for. Right here.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

So when I went to Ireland for my 50th, I said I gotta get a tattoo. Everybody gets a harp, everybody gets a clover. Yeah, nah. And I saw the Celtic Ohm. It's yeah, Celtic Ohm is the original written language of Ireland, yeah. And that is actually my mother's main name, Murphy.

Jamie Flanagan 14:16

Yeah, that was beautiful in Celtic. You sure it's not uh you know, cat box or something? Fat chicken, though.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

I made sure I went on Google and I was like, listen, dude, I'm right here. This is right. Like, tattoo artists. I was in Gallery, and he's like, ah, that's we, we we yeah, you're right. We did the three different things, you're good. I'm like, oh, thank god.

Jamie Flanagan 14:32

Oh all right. So but yeah, I just I love that little story, and I I wanted to get back to that. We did that off camera. I want to get back to that, but so all right, let's get to to what we were talking about Detroit City distillery and the whiskeys, and now it's uh bees in the city, right?

Bees In The D Partnership Origin

Jamie Flanagan 14:48

Bees in the D. Bees in the D. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 14:51

Yep, D Brian and Brian. We're great guys, some gorgeous bottles in there. About seven years ago, yeah, we were approached by Brian and Brian, and they started a nonprofit like B, you know, educational conservatory in Detroit. It was right after, it was right after uh all the homes were starting to be torn down, and there was a lot of open area on the east side of Detroit. So these two started because of urban gardening and because their love for you know being beekeepers, they decided to start just doing you know beehive, uh beehives all over the city in these spaces where homes used to be, neighborhoods used to be. And they got legs under them, they got support, and they were doing educational stuff with schools, and uh one of the Brian's is a teacher. And uh suddenly Dan Gilbert said, Hey, I'll put some beehives on top of you know my buildings. And then GM was like, Oh, we'll put some beehives on ours, and we got beehives on top of our whiskey factory. Nice, nice, so but they since then they have completely expanded southeastern Michigan, but going back to what they approached us, they had a lot of honey, obviously.

Barrel-Aged Honey And Finishing Choices

SPEAKER_03 16:05

And they said, Hey, you know, we we got this idea, we want to barrel age some of our honey. Could you guys do that for us? Okay, and you know, JP and Steve, okay, they're like, Oh, yeah, yeah, okay, we got empty barrels. Why not? You know, Steve was the guy that came up with Punchkibaka, so sure, sure, sure, sure.

Jamie Flanagan 16:22

So, were they looking to age them in fresh barrels or used whiskey barrels? Used whiskey barrels. Okay, all right, interesting. They're brave, they're looking for something fun and funky. All right, let's see what happens.

SPEAKER_03 16:32

Yeah, no full character. God forbid, I couldn't even imagine a full char barrel getting honey in it because cleaning that you you would definitely have frosted dark flakes, and you wouldn't be able to get all that out of there. So uh used barrels, okay, and uh they put them in there and and JP and Steve and they they kind of guided it through first months, you know, second month. All right, it's getting there because once you know you can't go past a certain thing, even with finishing honey, yeah, you know, you gotta watch it towards the end. Really gotta start tasting it and making sure it doesn't go past the point of no return. Right. They got it, I think it was around six months, and it tasted amazing. So, you know, we bottled it for them. Here it is.

Jamie Flanagan 17:14

P's in the D honey. Oh my goodness. All right. I I've seen that in stores as well.

SPEAKER_03 17:19

It's in stores. Actually, the marketplace mire in Royal Oak has this. Okay. And I got it next to our honey as well. Nice. By the looker at it. All right. So it you taste it was so funny. My wife, not a whiskey lover, not a bourbon lover. And she was like, You got honey? I'm like, Yeah, I got the bees and the D's honey. And she had some on a spoon when she was sick. She goes, Man, it does taste like bourbon. I'm like, the whiskey barrel. She goes, Oh god, I was I said, Well, it'll help you're sick, it'll help. But so yeah, we emptied the barrel, and then uh they were still this was a little bit before I got there, but it was well, I was there, but I was still pendant. I was still just out there doing tastings. Yeah, and they were still in good shape, they didn't really fall apart. What if we throw another bit of bourbon into that? We I mean you gotta understand we're purists, like yeah, we'll never do a flavored product, right? Right, right. Because you know the rules. Yeah, once you throw coloring, flavoring, right? Yeah, you gotta call it whiskey. And I try to explain that to people, but threw it in there, finish.

Jamie Flanagan 18:25

It's a finish, it's not a it's not an additive, it's not a finish. But if there's a lot of sticky business going on in there, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

There's still residual on the on on the chart, yeah. So you put it in there and you let it breathe again. Let the you let it start aging in that finished barrel, uh basically probably around the same time, about six months. Okay. And voila.

Jamie Flanagan 18:45

So is it a two-year or a four-year heading in at that time?

SPEAKER_03 18:48

When we first started, they were twos.

Jamie Flanagan 18:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:50

You know, you you could go with, you know, you go your your two-year, but we take the barrels from the supply now. So uh they're gonna be, I think they were five last year. Oh, okay. So probably be around five or a little five and a half. Okay. We've laid down some I don't know if I can say it, but we've laid down some experimental honey barrels. Okay, all right. They will be coming next year. Okay.

Jamie Flanagan 19:15

So that that's fun too, because it's not like things happen overnight. You gotta it it's a minimum of six months uh to a year or two sometimes, I think.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

We did some toasteds, like we felt that JP and Steve felt like the six month is the good sweet spot for finishing.

SPEAKER_04 19:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

Well, you know, we lost a couple toasted barrels last year in the mix, and they went like 18 months, and we realized at that point, you know what, we can push the toasted barrels. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03 19:44

So we actually ordered more toasted this year, so we're gonna lay down and and have the janitor put them somewhere, maybe in a closet somewhere, and we'll forget about them.

Jamie Flanagan 19:51

Oh, so you forgot they were like, well, it's just moving inventory around. It's like oh shit. Yeah, there's three toasted here. That's right. So the cat the cat was laying on it. You didn't want to move make the cat move.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

Yeah, the we'll call those the Magoo barrels. The McGoose were the good. Yeah, yeah. They were good barrels. And but yeah, six months is like you start really, you know. We have uh some finishes coming out here soon, butcher finishes that we could talk about at the end here. But yeah, after we talk about honey.

Jamie Flanagan 20:23

So B's and the D. Yep. You guys partnered up, and then that was was that the the first test barrel that you kind of did? Yeah, and then uh you're like, we're on to something.

SPEAKER_03 20:31

The first one was just a release from the tasting room in the factory, yeah. And it was a big hoopla about that. We did our uh we did our honey bourbon old fashioned, which now is in bottle in store that you can get. Like RTDs. It's uh it's it's not the honey bourbon. We actually we just did butcher's cut with their honey. Okay, okay, homemade orange zest bitters and homemade demarero simple syrup. Right. And they're definitely, I think they're one of the highest ABV RTDs out there. I think it's like 76 proof.

Jamie Flanagan 21:03

I haven't seen those guys out there yet. Yeah, so at the Meyer marketplace. All right, the the Snotty Meyer. Yeah, yeah. I go there all the time. I know, right? I'm like, I mean, I'm going to the Snotty Meyer. I want to get something cool.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

The RTD is a normal consumer will get five two-ounce pores, us three, maybe two cocktails, but it's worth it.

Honey Bourbon Lineup And Proof Philosophy

Jamie Flanagan 21:25

Yeah, I love it. So what so we have two different honey honey, is it one's a barrel and one's a barrel pick and one's hundred proof on the shelf. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:38

This is available year round. And this was only available year round up until three years ago when they were able to produce more honey. Oh, remember in the beginning, we're it was a it the first two years. First year was just out of the factory in the t in the tasting room. Second year, we got it in the distro, it was limited. Yeah, and it was uh the the next two years it was only a yearly drop into storage.

Matt Fox 21:58

It was just one B trying to. Make all the honey, you know.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

It's like so busy, right? Exactly, exactly. Put them guys where I try to tell people it retails for $59.99 in store at state minimum. It's ten dollars more than our standard bourbons. I always tell people, we got to pay the bees. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a little bit more work to it. You gotta pay. Yeah, the standard at 100. And then three years ago, we just said, hey, it's time to debut single barrels and starting. Oh man. Okay. Up until this point, these are only yearly releases as well. And these come in at a at a perfect 116.

Matt Fox 22:34

Nice. It's not too hot, but it's just it's just warm enough.

SPEAKER_03 22:38

Listen, for a while there, and I think I'm we're seeing the tail end of it. At least I see it now in stores and consumer trending habits. Yeah. Um, last year, I mean, the the the uh hazmat proofs were everybody wanted hazmat. Stag blow my head off. Oh, yeah, one 130 and above, right? 135 and above. And it's like the I I personally I equate it to like the one ship challenge, right? Yeah, how many hazmats can you really buy? Yeah, and are you gonna go through those, or is that the bottle you go, hey Bruce, you gotta do this, man.

Matt Fox 23:12

And say nothing else, right?

SPEAKER_03 23:14

You got but you gotta have your friends over for the sip of the hazmat, right? So but no one's is easy is the proof we release all our single barrels at. Okay. We've we personally feel JP, Steve, and the rest of us feel once in Kentucky's doing it now. They're coming around 116, 115. Yeah, yeah. And uh it gives you the right heat, it gives you the right balance of flavor, whether it's just a straight bourbon or a straight rye, and uh and it and with a finish, it gives you the right, not over pungent finish. It still got for me, still gotta taste like a whiskey. I just want hints. I don't want like even flavor and heat, right? I like heat. I like heat. We did it in December where we released a seven-year triple barrel blend so of rye whiskey. It was seven years old. Okay, each barrel was seven. Uh-huh. Each came in at one, one came in at 131, one came in at 128, and one came in at 126. When we took a third from each and blended it, came out to 127.9. Uh huh. So we released it at 128.

Jamie Flanagan 24:20

Wow. Yeah. So the difference between these two, one is cut to 100, one's at 116.

SPEAKER_03 24:25

Yep. Okay. And this is a blended. So we'll take five, we'll take five barrels, blend them together, okay, and do distro bottles. Okay. At 100 proofs. Okay. Makes sense. So we bring it down to 100 proof. This was we take it out of the barrel, we bring it down to 116. Okay.

unknown 24:40

Yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 24:41

All right. So where where did where would you start? Should we try some of we are going to start with the 100 proof?

SPEAKER_03 24:46

All right. Because I have a surprise. There is a third bottle that is going to be up here, but not yet.

Jamie Flanagan 24:50

Okay. Oh, it's at my feet. I think you did you didn't knock it over, did you? And you brought because hang on, before you do that. So so we brought in, we did this pre-show too, because a lot of times we talk about, oh, hey, how about a box of that? Yeah. And you came in with a crate of that. And I was like, I was, I was just doing your crate

Vintage Bottle Crate And Factory History

Jamie Flanagan 25:09

rocks. And you're like, this is a story because you got that in the Eastern Market. Yep. And uh it's a vintage milk crate. Yeah, there it is. That's uh that's good radio sounds there.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

Very good crate here. This is my road dog. When I started sales, I went to DeVrise. You've been there in Eastern Market, right? Yeah, yeah. It's a shop that has the cheeses, the chips, everything under the sun. You go to the second floor, they have all the antiques. Okay. I'm walking through there, and my wife spotted it. She goes, Oh, do you think that'll fit your bottles? I go, Yes, I do. Yeah. I had to have it. It's 101 years old. Isn't that great? That's beautiful. Detroit City antique milk crate.

Jamie Flanagan 25:47

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

And I had to reinforce it.

Jamie Flanagan 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

Wouldn't have held my bottles because the wood's so old. I love it. I've had store owners offer me money for this, restaurant owners. I'm like, no, no, it's I love the vintage stuff.

Jamie Flanagan 25:59

My house is uh 1831.

SPEAKER_03 26:01

Dang. Yeah. Your house was older than our factory.

Jamie Flanagan 26:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Wow.

Jamie Flanagan 26:05

It's incredible. Before Michigan was a state. It's crazy to talk. All right. So you walked in with the crate, and then you also had a very cool attache as well. A little, a, a little that was like somebody's steamer truck back in the day. Right.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

Actually, this I I can't I can't take all the credit for it. It is an Amazon find. It was definitely an Amazon find. And I found it. It looks like it's 101 years old. It's got a little vintage gold, gold lemonnae on there, but it's my whiskey business suitcase. I'm a firm believer. When I go into restaurants, on-premise accounts, when I go into my top store accounts, if I have something new and I really want them to taste it, I will not bring a plastic cup near it. Plastic will actually absorb aroma and it takes away the life. There it is. Takes away the life of a whiskey. So this is the whiskey, the whiskey business suitcase. I gotta make sure the picture comes up with it. And I taste very impressive.

Jamie Flanagan 27:03

There it is. Very impressive. Oh, and you got the yeah, the whiskey factory.

SPEAKER_03 27:06

If people don't know, if you're just joining us for the first time or you haven't hung out with me. This is our whiskey factory in Detroit. Yeah. Before it was the old Strolls ice cream factory, it was Barrel Warehouse 25 for Goebbels. And at the younger generation, the kids younger than me, I know I know I know my place. Um I tell them this was the natty light from 1888 to like 1950.

Matt Fox 27:35

That you were stealing out of your grandpa's refrigerator all the time.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

Yeah, the evolution of their cans, everything from the pole tab silvers to the yeah. But this was Barrow Warehouse 25. Okay. So it's the last this structure, and then the other side of the parking lot, yeah, is the last two structures. This complex was two and a half acres or two and a half city blocks. And this, and then the old brewmaster's home.

Jamie Flanagan 28:04

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_03 28:05

And our landlord, we don't own this building. Thank God you don't want to own the historical building in the city of Detroit. Let our landlord deal with that. Um, but he just renovated the brewmaster's home for office space. Oh, nice. But yeah, 1888, 1967, Goldballs tapped out. They steadily went down after prohibition. And their neighbors were strows right across the street. Yeah, we can use that. Maybe we'll buy your place. You know, they tried to keep the label going, that didn't last long. Eventually, they sold the label off to a brew house in Milwaukee. I don't think it ever all good brands go to die.

Jamie Flanagan 28:37

Yeah, pretty much. Right. That's Milwaukee's best.

SPEAKER_03 28:41

They converted their warehouse 25 into their ice cream facility. Yeah, okay. My father says he's a he has boxes of photos. When he moved here with my mother, he got a job as a cater. You know the old catering trucks that show up at the construction sites? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 28:56

Yeah, yeah. Roach coaches.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

Yep. My exactly. My dad used to pick his ice cream up here. He said he used to bring me down here when I was a kid. Oh, oh my god. He says, I took pictures of you on those steps.

Jamie Flanagan 29:07

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 29:07

I go, Dad, where are those photos? I don't know.

Jamie Flanagan 29:09

I need that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:10

And then he goes in and out of remembering all the other stuff he did on that catering truck, like rand numbers and all that stuff. My dad had a catering truck in the late 60s in the 1974. Oh, yeah. Was able to buy a sixty thousand dollar home in Stirling Heights.

Jamie Flanagan 29:24

Yeah, there's something. My dad was the guy. There's something. There's something. But yes, I like Glenn Karen. So you got brilliant, yeah, some gorgeous Glenn Karen's in there. So are we are we trying the the honey or we're just doing the bourbon? All right, fair plan. You guys got some you got a little DCD glass over there. I do. I got one from one of the previous visits. We can do the honeys in those. Yeah, we can do the little nose. Because that's gonna look at stickish, stickish, sticky. Whatever you want.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

What's really cool is we really don't have to change glasses, guys. I mean, we're running honey in all of them. All right, right. So you uh the last one I may want to do a new one. So, all right, ready? Always you know, you know, yep. Oh no, this is the corks that were really oh no, got it. Right? We got we got some corks that were a little fatter, uh-huh. No pun intended, but we couldn't get them out of the bottles. We had a little old lady call us. I cannot get those corks out of the bottle. Oh, it's weak. Can you post

Tasting The 100-Proof Honey Bourbon

SPEAKER_03 30:20

edit? Can you make that louder? Yeah, yeah, we don't so yeah, so this is the standard hundred proof distro blended bottle. Distro. Distro, yeah, there's distro and then there's distro and then there's it's funny, you've been to the factory. You've seen the labels we have with the factory, they say reserve on them. That was before both Jamie and I started there. Why they picked the word reserve? We would have never picked the word reserve, but it is what it is. And the feds make you track your independent sales outside of your state sales, and so does the state. That's why we have different labels that out of the tasting room in the factory. Okay, yeah. And now those are in-house sales, and then distro sales is what goes into stores and restaurants.

Matt Fox 31:07

Oh, wow. That's got an amazing sweet. It's a sweet, sweet, sweet now.

Jamie Flanagan 31:12

I will put a hut, I'm not saying honey on the nose, but I'm saying sweet. I tell people all the time not sugar.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

If you're just getting into the whiskey game, one of the best phrases you can start off with in a group of people, because people take this seriously. Yeah, like I always say, I always lead off and I say the phrase for me. For me, ah, fair play for me. For me, because if you tell people what it tastes like, you'll piss off somebody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't taste that. Yeah, and people are susceptible too. Oh, oh, oh, all day. 100% whiskey, whiskey, the whiskey game in general is all subjective, yeah, right? If you tell people, oh, this tastes like oh, I taste it.

Jamie Flanagan 31:51

Yeah, some pencil shavings and shoe leather. I don't know what that tastes like. Horse leather, yeah, saddle leather.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

Yeah, you've licked a saddle, sir. I'm just wondering.

Jamie Flanagan 32:01

I've Irish. I've had some on I've had some unfortunate equestrian experiences.

SPEAKER_03 32:07

I had a bad experience. So it is sweet for me. It's sweet on the nose. Uh and it's almost deceiving because I'll I'll put when I used to do well, I still do tastings, but when I did the majority of my tastings, I would put this up against whiskey drinkers that right off the bat that I say to them, Hey, do you want? I don't do flavored. I said, Well, sir, man, it's not flavored, it's finished, and I'll explain it. But they'll smell it and they'll go, I'm not gonna like this. It's it's really sweet, and it is right. It's really sweet on the nose. It is definitely not a whiskey. You would say this all day long on the nose, I would say it's flavored.

Jamie Flanagan 32:43

It's got a nice golden color. Yes, sure. It's a a lot of whiskeys in a little more caramely color. This is a very golden and the and the honey comes through.

Matt Fox 32:52

But the oils in there are just they're just they're just yeah, they're just hanging on to it to the glass.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

Listen, guys, this is the hunt the honey bourbons are a second best seller in the works. Butcher, honey, rye. All right. I'm dieting. And do you guys know your your brain only uses one nostril every 20 to 30 minutes? Is that why you switch nostrils? Yes. Watch. I'm getting everything in my right nostril right now. Go ahead and do it. Really? Is that watch flavor-wise?

Jamie Flanagan 33:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

Which nostril. The right one. Your right one. What about you? You'll be the left. You'll be the oddball.

Jamie Flanagan 33:32

Yeah. No, no, I'm still on my right. I gotta go.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Open your mouth a little bit and breathe in your nose. I know it's like chewing gum and walking. You'll get it. Oh, my left now. But it moves it all the way. When you when you open your mouth a little bit, you cause that air circulation and you get through the entire your whole palate.

Matt Fox 33:52

I just like to stick my entire schnazz into the glass. You know, stir it with your nose. You know.

Jamie Flanagan 33:57

There's a viscosity on it. Oh, yeah. It dances a little bit as it as it comes in, it goes past. For me. For you.

SPEAKER_03 34:11

I'm telling you, you'll save yourself a lot of time.

Jamie Flanagan 34:14

It's like opening a fortune cookie in the tub. You know, you gotta see that. Damn.

Matt Fox 34:21

I'm glad I drank some water before I tasted this to clear out my palate. Yeah, for sure. That first hit that that initial is I don't feel any. This is a hundred-proof, right? It's a hundred proof. I don't feel war, I didn't feel the warmth until about a few seconds later as it's coating, right? Right. And it's starting to hit the back of me. Yeah. For me, I'm just I just want to sit back and relax and have another. Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:51

No, it's it it tells you it it tells me to keep coming back to it. Yeah. Right. It's like, and it it just gets better and better and better with every sip.

Jamie Flanagan 35:01

It's bourbon with hints of honey.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

Exactly. I'm not, I'm not, it's not honey finish. I mean, we've had I've had Wild Turkey Stinger, I've had Honey Jack, I've had Teller Mordu, I've had Journeyman's. They are flavored and they're just honey.

Jamie Flanagan 35:16

And it's these there's hints.

Matt Fox 35:18

There's just it's it's it's it's still bourbon. And it feels like whiskey bourbon on your palate, but that sweetness is sticking around. Right, but it's not overbearing. It's not right, yeah. That's that hint that that James.

SPEAKER_03 35:39

We've seen them, the 500 gallon stills. Right. So um my tip my hat to Kentucky all day long. They are our competition, and they make the their batches are not small batch anymore. They're making thousands upon thousands of you've seen the size of their ferment fermentation tanks, yeah. Yeah, you know, that the size of that fermentation, that's one batch.

Matt Fox 36:01

So they're huge. That was I I don't want to use that word. That was phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03 36:08

Ah, that was a phenomenal craft bourbon. The craft spirit, that is a hundred percent Michigan product.

Jamie Flanagan 36:17

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_03 36:18

I think all of that grain comes from Michigan. That honey comes from Michigan, the corks come from Richmond. Unfortunately, no one makes glass in America anymore. That's the problem. So, but the everything it's use is a hundred percent Michigan. It's made with Stroh's historic water that we run through in Osmosis Michigan. We gotta get it like because you know everybody says, oh, Kentucky's got lime water. I said, and we got a machine that accidentally that actually gets the exact chemical makeup of limestone water.

Matt Fox 36:49

Oh, right. And I know we got a few more things to look at here, but I really want to go back to that. What's that? Well, the hunterproof. I want to go back to that after we're done. Oh, for sure.

Jamie Flanagan 37:01

I'm I'm now that it I'm I've it's tasted it, I smell more honey now that I've tasted it. Right.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

And you go back to the I always do you guys go back up here and with whiskey and bourbon. I always do it. Yeah, yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 37:13

It's like screaming honey in there. Oh, yeah. And it's just traps it.

SPEAKER_03 37:18

Yep.

Jamie Flanagan 37:18

Yeah. And a lot of people don't know.

SPEAKER_03 37:20

And then you realize a perfect whiskey glass. You know, these were made for Scotch, the Glencarrots. They're originally designed for Scotch.

Jamie Flanagan 37:25

Sounds like Scottish, something, some pretentious Scottish bullshit. Yeah. Yeah, Scottish coming from the Irishman.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

Scotch would not be as good as it is without American bourbon. And I tell that all the time because they take our barrels and they don't they use, they put their scotch in our barrel. It wouldn't be, it wouldn't be what it was without American bourbon. Right. So but yeah, that is the hundred-proof distro number two seller for us. It does well, makes amazing cocktails, makes amazing hot toddy when you're sick. A little green tea, okay, two ounces of this, a cinnamon stick in there, maybe a little more dash of honey, and it's a good thing when you're sick. This this does really well when you're that's like a hot toddy in a glass, right? That's it. That's basically it. Yeah, that's the one.

Jamie Flanagan 38:09

That was pretty

Single Barrel Honey Bourbon Deep Dive

Jamie Flanagan 38:10

gorgeous.

SPEAKER_03 38:10

That was so now that you've had the New York strip, okay. Yeah, yeah, we're gonna move on to the fillet. Oh that's how I explain any whiskey or bourbon from a a distro blended bottle to a single barrel New York strip. New York strips are good.

Matt Fox 38:27

Yeah, filet is even better. All right, okay. Using the same glass, yeah. All right, less laundry, Jamie. Yeah, or not.

SPEAKER_03 38:37

Let's let's change the glasses. Let's change them.

Matt Fox 38:40

I keep hitting it.

Jamie Flanagan 38:42

All right, here we go.

Matt Fox 38:43

Another fresh crack. All right, here we go. Yeah, sometimes we'll go through a number of glasses, right? And we call it laundry.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

It's better. Do better. Please do better. Hey, that is it.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

Yeah, I love the fresh crack.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:56

So, like I said, the single barrels, we're in our third year of single barrels.

unknown 39:00

Okay.

Matt Fox 39:06

A little bit.

Jamie Flanagan 39:07

Yeah, we were gonna talk about some crazy business in the business. We'll get to we'll get to that. This is enjoyable.

Matt Fox 39:12

Yeah, and there and there are peaks and valleys in the industry. And right now we're going into a valley, right? And it's going to, you know, it's gonna bottom out, but then I would say, you know, we're gonna start going back up.

SPEAKER_03 39:26

All right, so this guy's a little darker, yes. Yeah, all single barrels are, right? Because they're from that one barrel. Yep, yeah. I tell people, I tell people that's that that's got a different nose on it.

Jamie Flanagan 39:36

Very, very different.

SPEAKER_03 39:38

And what's unique about this for me, the honey dictates the nose because when when B's and the D's started, they were just pretty much pulling their honey out of Detroit. Now they're all up. So you're going to get different florals from different honeys in different areas. Sure. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. We thought for a minute, hey, wouldn't it be cool if we figure out where the honey's from and do a little side sticker of where the work that's a lot of work just to make it too complex, but I'm gonna like you said, it's a little dark.

Jamie Flanagan 40:08

I was getting a little apple blossom. Is that what you're getting? I was getting for me a little apple blossom. How about you, Foxy? No, yeah, no, I'm getting orchid. I don't know why.

SPEAKER_03 40:18

Orchid, all right. I always tell me there's no you can make up whatever kind of shit you want to make up over there.

Matt Fox 40:23

Thank you, dark. I bet I bet actually went to uh I was in Washington. I was in Washington, DC. We went to the botanical gardens okay in at the uh right there by the Capitol building before the construction for the UFC fight started. And we I was smelling you have thought to say that 10 years ago. No, not even a year ago.

Jamie Flanagan 40:44

Oh my god.

Matt Fox 40:46

But yeah, I I I am getting floral on you just got back from Washington. I was uh it was a few weeks back. It was a few weeks back. But yeah, I'm definitely getting floral on the nose.

SPEAKER_03 40:55

And you guys, when you do the nostril change and when you open your mouth, it's you get the heat. It's probably 16 points higher, you know.

Matt Fox 41:04

Only only. Yeah. In banking world, that means what?

SPEAKER_03 41:09

Yeah. Wow. It's fun. The nose on these are are are exceptional.

SPEAKER_04 41:22

Oh, that heat's so nice on this.

Jamie Flanagan 41:24

Yeah, a little a little less dancing, a little more. Is there is there spice in there? Man, now remember this isn't that just the heat.

SPEAKER_03 41:33

Is that a cardamom? Is butcher's coming? So it's 68% corn, 27% rye, 5%.

Matt Fox 41:41

I I almost have to excuse myself for a moment after my first sip. It's it's it's uh thank you for that.

Jamie Flanagan 41:49

Even more, even more of viscosity. It's chew, almost chewy. Uh it's uh coats, it's it does it's in there.

Matt Fox 41:56

It's in it's uh I was having a moment. Oh wow, yeah, yeah.

Jamie Flanagan 42:02

There's okay. So now I'm now smelling the honeycomb. I maybe I'm just making myself smell things. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 42:09

You're susceptible to it's it's really burning, it's burning my nose, which I'm cool with. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And single barrels all do a different thing. I tell people no, yeah, no two single barrels are alike. Yeah, that's why when we release these single barrels, and I say if you really like it, don't just hinder yourself to buying one as a salesman, right? Man, go to other stores, do some comparison because there are people that absolutely love these honey single barrels. And I like having a bunch from different stores.

Jamie Flanagan 42:38

Oh, yeah. I think did we do that with the Buffalo Trace? We had like a regular shelf one and then like picks from like two or three different stores, and we did tastings of them, and they the just the profiles just really jump around, especially depending on there are in the Rick House, right?

SPEAKER_03 42:54

What type of humidity they saw, what type of direct sunlight they saw. You get those barrels that get that afternoon sun through that one window for for eight years, you know. So, but do you notice on the second sip? Yeah, I mean, it just it changes each time. Yeah, it changes in its delivery for me, but this the taste is the same across the board, right?

Jamie Flanagan 43:17

It's it's it's sweet and it's not I'm not gonna say it's not candy because sometimes you get candy, but there's the the sweet amplified on the second sip. And you notice the sweet, if you roll it around, which I've been working on, yeah. And this is the legs on this are even more so, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:34

If you take uh flavored honey whiskies and roll them around, they literally look like water oil thick. Because when they put the honey in after, they blend it. You're never gonna break that honey down, right? Right.

Matt Fox 43:49

So with the with the sweetness on this one at 116 proof, this what is the ratio when when a young lady who says, I don't like bourbon. I don't like whiskey. If they try this, have you been able to convert for sure?

SPEAKER_03 44:05

Women, this is the I call it the gateway bourbon. But when I do tastings, I actually show people who have never there's no right or wrong way to taste something. Of course not. Right. But there is a right way to cleanse the palate beforehand. For me, I just basically I don't do with these because I know what they taste like. But say someone's trying honey for the first time and say what you're gonna do you're gonna you're gonna take your first sip and you're gonna you're gonna bowl your tongue and you're gonna let it sit there until the burn goes away. Then you're going to move it around chew it whatever they say and then swallow. Now you've pretty much rinsed your palate do not make a judgment on the first sip right because you just cleansed your palate and then go back to it revisit it.

Whiskey Trends, Sourcing, And Taste Everything

Matt Fox 44:55

I get ethanol on that first sip.

SPEAKER_03 44:56

Well hold on a second listen we we we sourced for a short period of time with Butcher's cut because when Butcher's cut was in the barrel when we were in the TR yeah it was only in the barrel like eight months people were drinking it in the bar at eight months they didn't care it was being made there it was cool you were cool it was young yeah it was young of course it we knew it was young but people John came in in a suit one day and JP was there and he goes we want to sell your your your whiskeys and bourbons in our store and he's like well we we make them here we drink them here we're not in distro and he had a card from Meyer and he goes from Meyer JP goes looks like we got to figure this out so um we sourced from MGP we went down to MGP and we found something very similar to our mash bill but a butcher was around nine months old we found a two year MGP and we blended them and it was two faced okay ah yeah yeah yeah and we had our 10 year we put a question out there on the in the in the in interweb yeah and uh we said if we could bring one back what would it be and it was unanimous it was bring back two faced so now two face on shelf is a four to five year old butcher uh huh blended with a Kentucky weeded I can tell you what that weeded is but I can't put it in print and advertise it's Wilderness Trail. Oh Wilderness Trail? Wow right on listen we took in barrels from from Fardstown from Weller okay right we took in a bunch of weeded and we could not deny how Wilderness Trail lined up to like who we were grassroots called following they were they were kicking out if you can get a bottle of weeded Wilderness Trail like everybody wanted to talk about Weller and everybody wants to talk about Baker's market and there's so much more out there. Sure so much more out there and it's good and it's good yeah I'm getting t-shirts made they'll be my whiskey mcdago t-shirts because that is my handle you're watching on Instagram whiskey mcdagle and you know my Irish Italian history so you know why the name is there all right all right whiskey mcdagle I can make that available on wearing funny in a minute in Area I where was I at I was talking about oh I tell people the weeded Wilderness Trail my phrase is taste everything.

Jamie Flanagan 47:24

Uh yeah yeah taste everything yeah you have to hell yeah because well that's why we do this Matt and I are not that that was a premise on the man cave right we know nothing about nothing about nothing we just want to learn and and we bring in people who know stuff right to teach us right so I'm not you know and after eight years and we're picking up on stuff a little bit well you know we're slow on the uptake but or we fake it well just keep having people come in and bring us drinks but

The Pappy Pour That Tasted Like Oak

Jamie Flanagan 47:50

you know that's that I mean that's the premise is like we don't know and so we learn a little something and hopefully people that are joining us learn a little something along the way well it's your wallet discover something it's your wallet it's your taste buds I got two funny stories one involved me okay and one involved a friend so when I turned 49 my wife goes I want to take you to Kentucky she doesn't like whiskey and bourbon so this trip was all about me at 49 at 49 okay I'm gonna do a boarding house for each year and yep go ahead and uh and I was in Louisville and I went to one of the bars I can't remember what it was but they had that huge wall of all these whiskeys and they had they had out Pappy was one of the years 20 is it 21 21 it was 20 I think it was 21 all right it was a $200 for a pour.

SPEAKER_03 48:42

Oh it was a two ounce for a porn two ounce pore $200 $100 bucks an ounce yeah so she goes are you kidding me well it's your birthday if you want it's your birthday so I did my whole nose I did this I did in the hand a little bit the bartender looked at me and was like oh you a distiller I'm like no but I no but I've been the maker play when I'm PV and I'm smelling it and I had Freddie taught me I had it and I did not like it. Thank you for being on this page played it off with my wife it was amazing you had the you had the experience tough is true so I did not like it and I for $200 uh for the investment of $200 man how many bottles could you bought right no four I realized I do not like anything in its original barrel possibly over 10 years old because what it starts to do okay the magic point what JP has taught me and what my palate has taught me the magic point of the maximum flavor a barrel will give is between eight and ten years old. That's fair after 10 depending on the evaporation the devil's cut the angel share the heat the moisture the char is pretty much done giving flavor yeah it starts to just give oak after 10 it becomes oaky when I had that that nip of papy's I felt like I was in the middle of the woods during a three day rain sticking my head in an oak tree and licking the bark. Oh did not like it. I that's an experience I really extremely old original barrels. Now mind you double oaks where they take it out and put it in a brand new chart is a whole different story.

Jamie Flanagan 50:46

Sure now would Woodford double oak I'm nutty on that guy you tried double double yet that no double double bubble double bubble because it's like you know I'm cheap and it gets more expensive because the barrel costs more when I was on that same trip I went to Woodford and I saw this funny barrel bottle sitting there with short and stubby.

SPEAKER_03 51:04

Yeah yeah that's my that was my nickname in college I go short and stubby so sure you heard it first ladies and gentlemen stubby a bottle at Woodford reserve and the and I looked and the lady saw the lady at the etching table or etching desk looked at me and she goes yeah that's not out there that often you may want to buy that it was the double double that was two years ago and she said buy they were they were $75. Oh shit about can I get a case you bought two good for you see there's that button in the two now is good for you 150 199 yeah so I I I you know but going back to the papy story I spent $200 to realize that I'm never gonna blow three grand oh or less because I'm not three grand anymore it's not really but fifteen hundred dollars I will not buy a papy's barrel.

Jamie Flanagan 52:04

Well there's a and people you can't find papy I go I can find papy like in five minutes now yeah I could two years ago you couldn't well yeah no there were a couple there yeah but for what price right and there's a party store with a green facade over here uh there's another one right up the green field here and and you you can get them but you're gonna be paying like you know the price at ten times the price I paid for my first car you know it is in the industry that the allocations as of right now allocations are dead yeah I mean they're not dead they're they're minimal minimal yeah they're the you know you're you're you can walk into a local store I was in the store today there was Eagle Rare there was Blantons there was yeah there was what's a lot of different bottles let's start with the Blantons yeah right but where were the ponies funny people still go kooky about the blandins I like Blantons it's it's I I like it I like it I like it yeah I will drink it I like the John Wicky reference I like I like having a bottle around for I will say it's John Wick it's drinkable do you need do you need do you need anything are there better things I got absolutely as long as it's like what's my saying taste everything so was it I I haven't had the the eagle rear 12 I have not either so the friends who have and they say it's pretty damn so it's it's the 10 most it's 10 it wasn't labeled now they're labeled with 10s and there's 12s out there right I haven't I haven't seen it but I mean you know the the magic point is eight to ten but depending on where it is in the Rick House if it's saushed it could get 12 years of good flavor right into the 12 yeah but anything over anything over 15 is just an oak bomb right yep so we appreciate and I appreciate that insight we were talking about you may not like oak right I like the double oaked but how it's made I like it. Yeah yeah but if I just there it's going into a fresh battery do you know what I'm saying it's coming out of this original barrel going into a new char four char three so it's got more flavor char 11 it's one beta yeah only only four only only four chars char 11 only four chars it's that spinal tap it's one better metallica's bourbon we got spinal tap bourbon it's 11 char right that's it i think i just i think i'm calling rob reiner is he still alive we're doing something too soon dude too soon all right sorry no no it wasn't it wasn't so well we can get away with it then if he's dead there's like nobody's gonna sue us right I don't know it's 2026 in there somewhere we'll get uh Lenny right we'll get uh what's you guys were because we went back for seconds on on the single on the single yes we went back for seconds we did but both but both for sure really seriously both I'm out there right now I'm actually selling single barrels into stores okay like I said I had an amazing trip up north to the UP and just for the record the residents of the UP and consumers of the UP in the whiskey game yeah they don't see a lot of good bottles bottles to get they get absorbed down here yeah and then they really don't get up there like for instance the Evan Williams 250th seven did you guys get a hold of one of those not yet no it's like all over they're gone there's a reason why they're gone they were all over Kroger but no there's the big one then there's the the the the the

Taking Honey Single Barrels To The UP

Jamie Flanagan 55:30

seven year it was a different one it had the blue wax oh I got two of them I haven't even opened one okay but I had a friend's sample so usually because really damn good but the UP what I'm getting to UP got none.

SPEAKER_03 55:42

Oh all right so I've got a handful of guys if you find one if you find one really so bad really and that's a shame of it and we knew we knew we were we were untapped up there. You know our friends at Iron Fish and our friends up in northern distilleries they're not that's their territory coppercraft does good stuff out of the when I went up there they're like Detroit who bourbon what yeah yeah yeah right and but I did a four-day 1300 mile outline of the UP nice I hit every store on a bike no my my big daddy diesel I got a I got a 2016 5500 have pretty well traveled yeah exactly but they fell in love with it and what they're very Michiganders in general are very loyal to Michigan products yes but up north it's a whole different ballgame yeah 100 Michigan farmed made in the old show's estimate factory I had to get used to them calling me a troll with no problem I thought I thought when you went to the UP if you called somebody you per it was like someone like from that what'd you call me no but no no you can call me a youper I'm a youper you're a troll yeah I'm like oh okay so this really works we live under the bridge yeah we're under the bridge we're the trolls I'm Harry so this troll absolutely had the best time oh my god hitting stores and restaurants and tasting our stuff so much so that I sold in and we're getting ready to get it up there in the next uh probably next month waiting on some some some of the decorative stuff for the bottle the first ever honey single barrel that's sold into the UP nice and I did I think we did seven stores and three restaurants oh that's great yeah so they're excited I'm excited and it's gonna be really cool I think it'll be a real cool good for you yeah yeah you you put the you put the work into it the due diligence is there yeah so I love it I love I love interacting with people I love interacting with consumers I'd like to know their their likes their dislikes the store owners even down here in southeastern Michigan you know it's a competitive game no yeah so with that said I mean this was great I appreciate you guys asking me to come on this was fun and I'm glad people be able to see the honey the honey perspective of what we do with the history and and how the honey bourbon came along Dante you are welcome back anytime.

Final Cheers And What’s Next

Jamie Flanagan 57:54

Yeah as as things develop yeah you know we can do again we've done it live at the factory we've done it live in the tasting room anytime anytime we will come and we will we like to party if you got nowhere to go on a Monday night because that's typically when we do record is on Mondays perfect if you have got nothing to do you just come in and hang out with us.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

That'd be great.

Jamie Flanagan 58:14

I appreciate it I'll see I'll talk to JP maybe we'll get him in here yeah how it all started Palacious yeah we'll leave stores some stories for the future yes please podcast your voice save it for the show right if Shucky that's it all right so like subscribe leave a comment do all the podcast things in all the podcast places this is Jamie Flanagan oh that's Matt Fox you know and I'm the whiskey McDagel I'm I'm serious I can put that on a t shirt I really can yeah and all right so thank you everybody appreciate you being here with us all right everybody thanks Dante cheers taste everything uh taste everything I love that that's that's going on a shirt