I actually still work with with them through our new company.So I mean, it's yeah, I mean Pernod Ricard and us have a good relationship.Okay, cool.No worries.We'll talk about what I heard.
This is Bourbon Pursuit, the official podcast of bourbon, bringing to you the best in news, reviews and interviews with people making the bourbon whiskey industry happen.And I'm one of your hosts, Kenny Coleman.
And if you followed along with the progress of this show since the very beginning, then you could see the evolution of what we've talked about. In the beginning, it was about brands and master distillers.
And then we started Pursuit Spirits, and we were introduced into the world of brokers and that middle layer of people who own barrels without brands.And that information has made its way to you.
And now you know more about the market than probably most people out there. But that brokered market, it's heavily guarded.
It's a series of handshakes, phone calls, emails with Excel spreadsheets and prices, and some good old just kind of insider networking.However, Rob Arnold with Barrel Hub is trying to make access easier for everyone.And Rob isn't new to this game.
He spent his undergraduate in Texas as the person mostly responsible for the pecan yeast strain used by TX Whiskey to this day.
We talk about his background and how that led to the idea of creating a portal where industry folks can buy and sell barrels on the wholesale market.With that, enjoy this week's episode.And now here's Fred Minnick with Above the Char.
I'm Fred Minnick, and this is Above the Char. This week's idea comes from Justin Bohl, who writes me on fredminich.com.
Hi Fred, I was recently in Kentucky and had a chance to try a 1985 old granddad bonded, along with Booker's Rye at Neat in Louisville.Isn't that a great place? I was super excited to try these pours, and both were fantastic.
I've only been in bourbon for a few years now, and not a great taster by any means, but was blown away by how much I like the old Grandad.Even though it was at a lower proof that I usually drink, and I'd assume just a regular release in the 1980s.
So my question, in your opinion, do we build up Dusty's in our mind or maybe it's just so different it stands out more?If we were in the 1980s and got a pour of something made today, would it carry the same hype?
These are all great questions, Justin.You kind of live in the world that I do.You're in this constant state of thinking of like, Would this old vintage product be good, you know, 20 years ago?Was it as good 20 years ago as it is today?
Or am I just kind of like building into it?So one of the things that you can do to kind of test yourself is throw that old granddad in a blind next time you're in need.They'll do it for you.Or you can go to Whatchall Proper.
They'll do it for you there too.Any place that has a lot of old rare whiskeys, get one of those vintage products and throw it into a tasting with a modern one. see how it fares.
That's a real test for you, because then you take away all of your hype around it, the thought of the grains being different, and the fact that back then old Grandad was owned by National Distillers, and it was one of the last true vestiges of old school whiskey, and they were just really phenomenal barrels, and they did a great job blending back then, or excuse me, they would not approve of that term blending in that time,
Marrying barrels.That's another story.But I don't think that your average product today would do well with the bourbon drinkers in the 1970s and 80s.So to answer that question,
For one, we've got too many barrel finishes, too much cast strength stuff.Those products were not doing well.The standard for good bourbon in the 1980s, 70s, 60s, 50s, and 40s was bottled and bond.
The highest proof that you would see was usually 107.Now, you did get some up there at 112, but it wasn't really until Booker's and Noah's Mill came out in the 1980s that we started, you know, entering the 120 proof territory.
So, just the popularity of the products today being so castring forward, those would not have been popular back then. and the lower proof stuff today is typically not the best whiskey in the warehouse.
So, if the trend for the modern bourbon drinker is high proof, you know, whether it's Stagg, or William Leroux Weller, or Booker's, or any number of releases from anybody.I mean, Cash Strength is usually where they put the best stuff.
And also, a lot of those old bourbon drinkers liked Mouthfeel.I do think there are some brands that would do well back, you know, today, that back then.I think Henry McKenna would do well in that time frame.
I think the Michter's 10-year-olds would do well.I think the Russell's Reserve 10-year-old would do well.Four Roses would do great.
It's not fair for me to say that none of them would do well, but a lot of them would, but they would also just kind of be in the middle of the pack because the whiskey that was made back then, if you get a bottle that's been stored right, it blows out most of the whiskeys made today.
That's my opinion.I know everyone will differ, but I've had Dustys that made the back of my neck hair, you know, my back neck hair curl.I don't have back hair.I have like hardly any hair on my chest or back.Not that you want to know that.
But that's this week's Above the Char.If you want to be like Justin, hit me up on freddominic.com.That's freddominic.com.Click the contact button.And if I like the idea, I'll read it on the air.Till next week.Cheers.
It's that time of the year where everybody started to make their vacation plans on visiting Kentucky, the Mecca of bourbon.And if you are coming to Kentucky, you need to make sure you visit us at Pursuit Spirits in Louisville.
We're right in the heart of Clifton, near Butchertown and Nulu, and only just a few miles away from downtown Louisville. But when you do come, you need to book your experience to go do our whole shebang.
This is the one that's really the star of the show.You get a full on tasting, you get to do your own personal barrel selection experience, and you get to grab a whiskey thief and fill your bottle directly from the barrel.
or do something completely brand new that nobody else is doing here in bourbon country.Plus, you get a free sweet tasting glass at the end of it.
I guarantee you, you're going to end up being one of the many people that's also leaving us a five star review.So make sure you come and check us out.You can book your reservation by going to PursuitSpirits.com and clicking the Visit Us button.
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Hey everybody, welcome back.It's another episode of Bourbon Pursuit, the official podcast of bourbon.I'm Kenny Coleman.Ryan Cecil here.Fred Minnick.
And this is going to be something that I am interested to talk about because our guest has a long story, a long history when it comes to just the whiskey world.And what he's doing today is very innovative.And I remember
thinking to myself a very long time ago when Ryan and I were in Memphis, Tennessee, tasting through a bunch of barrels as we were beginning our Pursuit Spirits brand and doing Pursuit series releases and knowing that this whole idea of a brokered whiskey market
has all been handshake deals, you gotta know somebody, they'll send you a PDF or a spreadsheet, and I'm going like, y'all, we live in a time where I can buy Tesla stock in 10 seconds if I want to, why can't I figure out what's available to buy in an open market when it comes to whiskey?
And it just felt like there was all these closed doors that people just didn't want you to know about it, or you had to create an account, or it's like,
Well, I can't shop around because I got to talk to you and it felt like there was something that just needed to kind of revolutionize that part of the industry.
Yeah, 100% because it's a very old school relationship driven business, the secondary barrel broker market and.
Everyone has different pricing different inventory this and that so if you're out looking for barrels It's obviously you can get connected with them But there's no like like used cars for instance like you you would have to go to lots and get different prices and this and that But now it's all transparent.
You know for consumers all an auto trader Yeah, and so it's very interesting that and something that's needed in this space that I'm really excited about and can't believe it hadn't been done up until now, but I get why it hasn't because a lot of
Contract distilleries or brands that want to put barrels on the market They don't necessarily want the public knowing that this is all happening behind the scenes and whatnot So, you know, what's interesting is it actually did used to happen prior to Prohibition well into the I'd say 1960s before like there was a fall there was a kind of like a blue book that would be dispensed Amongst the distillers made a MailChimp list back then.
Is that what it was? It would be more like a postal mail, but they would have like list out of like what certain barrels would cost.And there was an avenue to seek information for buying barrels on wholesale receipts, as they called it.
And it just, like a lot of things, when we begin to lose the bourbon businesses, a lot of them, a lot of the cottage industries, like so when vodka comes out in the 70s and, you know, is really kicking butt in the 80s, all the cottage industries that were really supporting the trade just kind of went away.
You know, it's just like, You know, like a lot of the research around certain things went away.And that just, that was one of the casualties of bourbon falling.
And when bourbon is back and everyone's trying to get into it, it's like all those people who manage that stuff are gone.And I remember having to call two or three people to find out about some barrels back then.
And I wasn't trying to buy them like you guys.I was just seeking information. I was like, wow, you really do have to be in the know.And it's like, you just can't be in the know.You got to know the guy who knows the guy.
You know, it's like, it's a deeper level of handshake agreement because I remember talking to Jimmy Russell and he didn't even know that some of his barrels were in the wholesale side.He's like, no, we don't do that.
I was like, Jimmy, I'm telling you, you got some wild turkey barrels that are up for, are being sold on wholesale receipts.I'm not going to argue with you.
Like I said, I'm really excited to dive into this just because I love that auto trader sort of analogy as we get into this, just because there is an ability to kind of look at the health of the market when you think of this as well.
And not only that, it's like, well, I'd have to go here to figure out if it's, you know, am I paying a good price?What's that score?
that is on auto, you can kind of see like if you're paying, whether it's in the red, green or the yellow or something like that.Maybe it's like you build one of those.Maybe our guy can talk about it here.Let me just go ahead and dive into it.
So today on the show, we have Rob Arnold.He's the president of Advanced Spirits and Barrel Hubs.So Rob, welcome to the show.Yeah.Thank y'all for having me.Yeah, man.Well, you're also a Louisville native.So welcome back home.
Yeah, I grew up pretty close to here.
You know, St.Matthew's, 10 minutes away.
So it's a homecoming.Since you are from Louisville, and we always start the show up like this, was bourbon a thing in your household?
Yeah, so going back to my grandfather, I've had bourbon, I guess, in the family.So my grandfather and my great uncles all worked for Brown Forman.
And my uncle worked for Brown Forman for a bit and then moved on to his own thing to a company called Rotec that he started where they actually would go in and build distilleries, kind of like what Vytautk Engineers is a group that people know.
music and groups like that.So yeah, it's been in the family for a long time.You know, Old Forrester was the go-to on the shelf.You know, Woodford came about eventually, but yeah, it's always been there.
Were they on the engineering side at Brown Forman or was it something else?
My uncle was the only engineer.My grandfather's generation, they were all marketing and sales.It was actually a cool, there's a University of Louisville oral history account that my cousin sent me where they interviewed my grandfather.
And I guess he was down at a conference in Florida and flying back on the Brown-Forman plane.They stopped in Nashville, picked up the Brown family.They had just bought Jack Daniels from the Motlow family.
And they had a fun party on the way back from Nashville.I want to be on that plane.
That sounds like a party.Talk about a historic moment.
So not like a well-known distilling family, but yeah, we've worked in the industry for a few generations now. And where'd you go to school?St.X, the school that... Where'd you go?Yeah, I went to St.
X. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there we go.And the rivalry begins.
There we go.I'm glad you are sitting across from each other, not next.I mean, I lived like a few minutes from Trinity, but I was, you know, I played golf and I thought St.X had a better golf team.
Now I ended up not being that good at golf when it was all said and done.So I was on the team, but didn't play.So I probably, so I switched to a different sport.
But yeah, I mean, I basically picked the school for a sport that I wasn't ever really that good at. That's fun.And then where'd you go to school after St.X?I went to Tennessee for undergrad and then ended up in Texas for grad school after that.
And is that where you kind of found a love for distilling and getting into spirits or where did that sort of bug kind of come from?
Yeah, I mean, I really grew out of science.So my undergraduate degree is in microbiology.And so when I graduated, I went to go do a PhD program in biochemistry.
at the Texas Medical School, which is based in Dallas, or one of their campuses is based in Dallas, but started making beer at home, and then, you know.As every chemist and scientist does.Right.Sorry.
Started making, you know, you can buy these little plug-in-the-wall countertop water distillers, right, but you can put beer in there and, you know, do what you, you know, make what you want to make out of it.
So I just started playing around with it.It's been a little gray area there.Texas just passed that you can, Or the Supreme Court just said that you can do your own distilling now.
Home distilling, yeah.15 years too late for me or whatever it is now, but... Statute of limitations.Yeah, that's right.I'm fine.But, I mean, yeah, it looked like a mad science lab and my, you know, my cousin was my roommate.
Under our apartment, you know, there's just flask and beer and stills and little... putting wood chips into a flask with white dog thinking that it would make good whiskey, which it doesn't. You know, we bought one of those really small barrels.
I was convinced that after a few weeks I would have something that tasted just like a 12 year old bourbon, but it doesn't, you know, so I learned all these things, but I'm glad you learned them all before actually going and building a huge distillery.
Like a lot of people go and they're like, Oh, we're going to start off with these 15 gallon barrels.And then all of a sudden you've got, I don't know how many thousands of dollars invested into that.You're like, well, I don't really know about this.
Yeah, it doesn't taste like I was expecting.But yeah, I just started messing around with beer and distilling at home.And then in the lab, too, my research mirrored a lot of the same processes that happen in whiskey making.
But I just got enamored with it, you know?And then
Once that interest really took off and started talking with my uncle and one of his best friends was a guy named Jim Childs, who was the president of Brown Foreman Distilleries, who came out of operations in the lab and really helped me with the production side of things and learning about it.
I just decided as a, I think I was 23 or 24, that I was going to go start a distillery.And this was back in 2009, 2010.So it was relatively early on in the whole craft whiskey movement.
I had this idea I was going to stay in school and start this on the side, which never would have worked, I don't think.But through that process was talking to a developer about maybe buying a small building we had found in Fort Worth.
And he said, you know, there's these guys down the street that are going to do the same thing and gave me their names.It was Troy Robertson and Leonard Firestone.Somehow I found Leonard's email, his Gmail account online.
So I emailed him and I basically said, you know, I'm 23 year old scientist.I don't know how to raise money, but I want to start a distillery next to you.
And, you know, if you give me some advice on how to raise money, I'll give you advice on how to make whiskey. And he called me like a week later, I think just to make sure I wasn't a real competition, which I wasn't.
But we just started talking and he kind of led to, well, do you need a distiller?And he said, yeah, we actually do.And it went from there.
And so I actually left grad school early, PhD dropout, got my master's degree out of it, but I left early to join What we called at the time, Firestone and Robertson Distillery.And the brand that we created was TX Whiskey.
And now the brand goes by just TX or TX Whiskey.
What was that conversation like with your uncle?Because he's with Brown Foreman, probably sees the market.Did he say like, oh, I think there's an opportunity in craft whiskey?Or was he like, I don't know?
It seems like people coming from the big six kind of scoff at little guys in competition.Like, that's cute, but you know.
The first thing my mom said was, well, you can't make bourbon in Texas.You don't have the right water down there.And so, you know, we got RO water.Yeah, yeah, exactly.But I mean, my uncle loved it.He was already retired.
It kind of was a, I think to an extent sort of a jolt kind of like revived an old passion of his.
And especially since his friends who were all in the industry with him all of a sudden heard that, you know, Hey, my, my nephew's going to get into the space and they were all retired at that point.And so.
The fact that I could have people early on like that, they didn't mentor me on site, the distillery, but they were very helpful through me just talking with them about, okay, well, with my uncle, it was some of the, how do you put these distilleries together?
What kind of equipment?I don't know how to
was a gasket you know I didn't know that stuff was you know and then with Jim Childs who came from more operations in the lab it was talking about well what's like what pH are you targeting when you set your beer and what proof do you want to come off the still that and I don't know how to use these reflux trays what's what's going on here so it was really helpful to have them there.
Good.And I think the other kind of big claim to fame that you have is, I don't know, you scraped some pecans and found a yeast strain or something like that.Kind of give folks the story.
So my background in the lab was isolating marine bacteria from ocean sediment.When I was interviewing for the job at Firestone and Robertson, because that phone call with Leonard, you know, it led to me working for them.
I was the first employee there.But, you know, there was still an interview that I had to do with him and Troy Robertson, the other founder.And so,
In that interview, they brought up the point, well, we want to isolate a Texas yeast because they had been to Kentucky for diligence and had gone to all the distilleries.
And most of the distilleries here, at least the heritage brands, will give you some snippet about the proprietary yeast strain they have. And so they wanted a proprietary Texas yeast.And so they asked, can you do that?
And I had no idea, but I wanted the job.So I said, of course I can do that.And I guess in the back of my mind, I was thinking, well, if I can isolate marine bacteria from ocean sediment, I can probably isolate a wild whiskey yeast from something.
And it really is a very similar process.I mean, you're isolating a microorganism. Obviously, yeast is different than bacteria, but a lot of the same techniques are used, so.
We're not smart enough to understand everything that has to go into it, but I know there's other scientists that listen to this show, so kind of give us a little bit of the 101 here with it.
So, there's a way to approach it that is more of the traditional way, the way that I think like beam isolated their yeast at the prohibition.I didn't approach it that way.I approached it the way I knew how to do it from the lab.
And so I actually went out and just took samples, nuts and fruits and seeds and soil samples and bark samples from this ranch not far from Fort Worth that we really I was down there to pick up this old moonshine still that we were gonna take up to the distillery for display and kind of friend of the the company but
I took all these nuts and fruits and seeds and all these things, put them in test tubes, took them back to the lab.So TCU gave me some lab space to do the work in and had this ethanol-tolerant liquid yeast food that I put together in the lab.
And so I submerged all these different nuts and fruits and seeds in this liquid yeast food that had ethanol in it so that it would select for ethanol-tolerant microorganisms.
And from that, you just start to see what grows, you isolate what's growing on auger plates.So like the, the jello, the hard jello plates where you can make a streak and then you have an isolated microorganism.
And from that, we, we had, I mean, hundreds of different types of microbes that came from these samples from this ranch.
We use some DNA sequencing techniques to narrow it down to just the species that we were looking for, which is Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the, is the whiskey yeast or ale yeast or bread yeast that you use to
I'm nodding my head like I know exactly what you're talking about.But sure, keep going.But we narrowed it down to about 10 that were the right species.
And then from there just did, you know, small scale fermentations and small scale distillations and chose a strain initially just based on could it perform well in a whiskey mash against commercial strains that existed, you know.
Could it ferment fast enough?Was the alcohol production good? And then it was about flavor.Does this yeast that will make unique flavors, is it free of faults?You know, we don't want super sulfury or buttery or things like that.
We want something that's relatively clean, hopefully produces some
fruity floral notes and we ended up picking one in a blind test against commercial strains that came from the pecan nut and that was found that I took from this ranch and pecans the state tree of Texas so it sounds like the biggest the biggest marketing bullshit story ever.
Hey, we got Texas yeast from a Texas pecan tree.But it wasn't like we went out looking for a pecan yeast.It just, the process of elimination, it happened to be that.
So we started using that yeast day one to make the bourbon that TX makes, so TX bourbon. And they still use it to this day.
Originally, we were growing it up every single day, basically, you know, we were doing the, you know, we'd start from an auger plate once a week, grow it up for, you know, to a few liters, have a, have a, you know, basically a jug yeast to crop from every day for the rest of the week and then redo the process.
And that's very time consuming and tedious.You know, you're at the distillery. Every day, or I would take the yeast home with me on the weekends like it was like my pet You know I take it home with its with its liquid yeast food.
You literally have to feed it Yeah, like a chia pet.I mean I remember like one st.Patrick's Day There's a big parade in Dallas, and you know we're doing what you do and on st.
Patrick's Day in the morning at a parade You know we're drinking and having fun.I'd like leave and go curate my yeast from the car and then go back to the party so
Uh, you know, cause you have to like transfer it to the next, you know, if it grows up in five milliliters one day, the next day you put it into 50 milliliters, the next day you put it into whatever a liter and eventually you have enough to sustain you for, for the week.
Like putting a fish in a bigger fish tank, right?
It's just has to continue to grow.So that particular it's a, would it yield on a Briggs rating or something just as comparable to like a corn yeast or, you know, a typical whiskey?
Yeah, that was one of the prerequisites was, okay, this thing has to be able to perform well and make alcohol to a level that is comparable to a commercial strain and also do it in a manner that's quick enough.
We couldn't have it take two weeks to get to that point.But growing it up from scratch every single day and doing what I was doing for a few years is tough, especially we didn't have really the right equipment to do it.
We didn't have a true yeast propagation system.
So that's actually, Pat Heist and Shane Baker at Firm Solutions, we got to know them early on, you know, probably 2013, because they actually took this proprietary yeast strain, converted it into a dry form, and then would send it to us.
Oh, so you get your St.Patrick's Day back.Right, yeah, exactly.
Patrick's Days and weekends, there you go.
But yeah, I mean, that was a big part of early on as a distiller.Probably spent more time than I needed to in the lab doing yeast work.Probably should have spent more time learning how to clean a tank with caustic.
But eventually all that stuff, you know, worked itself out.But that was a big part of what I was doing early on.Who had the bright idea to call it TX Whiskey? That was Troy and Leonard.
I mean, I thought when they first showed it to me, I'm thinking, that's too gimmicky.That's never going to work.And this is why I'm not a good marketer, because it worked.Texas loves Texas.
I mean, all you needed was a belt buckle and it would have been perfect. Yeah, I mean, it's true though.Texans love their state.Part of the genius of that label, I think, is that it's so prominent that you can't really miss it.
But yeah, I thought it was a bad idea.I thought, well, that's so gimmicky.There's just no way that that's gonna fly.
There was another brand idea that we had for and we're gonna call it baron or something like that Baron yeah like baron bourbon or something like that and I think it was guys we were actually considering which that should be our first product should we do baron instead of TX like like a lord or right like like a bourbon baron I guess and we decided to do TX and I'm glad we did cuz that's that's all they have now and it worked well so At what point did Pernault come in?
They came in in 2019, so the company officially started in 2010.That's when Leonard and Troy founded it and started raising money and doing all the stuff up front.I came in in 2011.
We started making whiskey in 2012, or blending, you know, TX blended whiskey was a blend of sourced whiskeys, which now it does contain bourbon produced by TX, but early on it was just a sourced product that we blended.
and distilling bourbon for the TX bourbon line.And then in 2019, Pernod Ricard came.And this was after we built a second distillery too.So we started off on a very recognizable craft distillery, right?It was an old warehouse near downtown.
We had two of the pot column hybrid stills from Vendome, you know, a thousand gallon mash ton, you know, that kind of standard setup.And then after a few years of running that system, Troy and Leonard really wanted to build
something bigger and I thought that might mean a bigger pot still but it meant they went and bought a golf course outside of downtown Fort Worth.
Yeah and so 100 acres of land and we installed a 36 inch beer still from Vendome on that's the system that was installed so that's
going from maybe making three barrels a day to making 40 to 120 barrels a day based on how many shifts we would run, and a much bigger operation in general for blending, bottling, all those things.
And that's where our buddy Matt Pittman, Meat Church, he does all his barbecue stuff.
Oh yeah.Y'all know Matt?Yeah.
Going back to when you were sourcing and blending, I remember you all were one of the first, this is a new term that we've recently learned, one of the first victims of bourbon snipers or people who would kind of troll you on social media.
I remember you all got a pretty hard time around that because a lot of the Texas brands were getting legions of fans that were putting out their own product.Do you remember that?Did that, like, did that stuff bother you at all?
Yeah, I mean, you know, I came from this science background.I came from what I would, early on, I was definitely the mindset of a whiskey purist, I guess.
I understood that what we were creating wouldn't fit the mold of a true craft whiskey in the eyes of what, you know, people were trying to, if you're going to try to define that, and I understood that.And
And we were at the same time making a bourbon from scratch with a wild Texas yeast.And so it's kind of like we had these two lives.
It was a blended product that would appeal to a certain part of the whiskey drinking community, but not the enthusiasts or the purists.I just don't think it had that profile and flavor or sort of the approach.
But then we had this other one that was exactly what the idea was that it would be, it would fit that mold for
What a true craft whiskey could look like and so it's hard to almost live these dual lives And and yeah, I mean early on like the message boards and stuff I you know I stopped looking at them pretty quickly because I was like I this is not this is not helpful for me and I also understand like where they were coming from and it's still I
I think there's still this, in the industry, as the consumers still don't largely understand, I don't think, at least this is my impression, you know, when you are a whiskey maker, if you're distilling it versus are you sourcing and blending, and how are you sourcing and blending as well, and what goes into that, and I think that sometimes it's hard for people to grasp the fact that
this whiskey that someone made, they didn't distill it.They blended it based on barrel picking and blending skills.
And so, I mean, I'm still very proud of the blended whiskey at TX because it did have a really unique profile and flavor and it took us a long time to develop it.
It appealed to a group of drinkers that weren't traditional whiskey drinkers, which was almost a happy accident.That was a huge reason behind the growth of TX, was it appealed to a lot of female drinkers.
It appealed to people that really wanted a sweeter whiskey, but couldn't find it on the shelf.But yeah, it was tough to kind of live those two lives.
I remember the cash drink, man, when it first came out.That was a winner. Yeah, that's when things started changing for you, I feel like.
Yeah, that was, I actually remember one of your, I remember listening to your review of it and that was a, that was actually for me a big moment because it was like, okay, finally we created a whiskey from scratch that has gained some recognition.
And it kind of felt like at that point that, not that I, decided it was time to leave TX at that point.
But once I felt like after over, you know, basically a decade of trying to get to the point of making a whiskey from scratch that was received well, I think because early on, you know, there were struggles.
And like I said, I spent too much time in the yeast lab and not enough time knowing how to clean equipment.And unclean equipment leads to tainted whiskey.And so there were struggles early on for me with making that bourbon.
you know, after 10 years and kind of finally to the point where there was something really good on the shelf that we made from scratch, it sort of felt like, okay, well, what's, what's the next thing that I'm going to go do?
And then, so kind of talk about your exit from, from TX and what came about from that.
Yeah, Pernod Ricard came in and acquired TX in the late summer, early fall of 2019.And I had no plans on leaving and I stayed with the company for two years after that.You know, they brought in a really great team to come take over management.
This one guy, Paul DeVito out of New York, who had helped build Jamison here in the US, Australian guy. Great guy, really fun, very energetic, tons of motivation.We were pumped.We were ready to go.And then a few months later, COVID.
Gosh, it's such a familiar story for so many people.
And it was right around the time of launching the Bottled and Bond, which that was a huge achievement for us as well.I think it was one of the first, if not the first, Texas bourbons that was Bottled and Bond.
And we had all these plans of how we were going to really grow this.And I was working on my PhD in plant breeding and genetics.But this is simultaneous with being the master still at TX.
But we were working on developing corn varieties for whiskey and was about to graduate.Had a book I was working on.So all these kind of fun things were happening.And then COVID.And so a combination of sort of,
the aftermath of that or what, you know, kind of going through that where I was so familiar at that point with not running a distillery, but being out and talking to consumers and helping to promote the product and build the brand.
And then all that just came to a screeching halt.And I think that coupled with feeling like I was the last of the original crew, which I was by a couple of years. Well, the founder is already out at that point.They were, yeah.
And so it just felt like the company had moved into a different place and it was time for me to move on.I mean, no bad blood.I mean, we still work closely with TX Whiskey and Pernod Ricard through to this day, through what we have going on now.
And so, I mean, I talked to the team there probably once every week on average.So still close with them, but it's just time to move on.
And then at some point you said you're writing a book, but you have authored that book.Go ahead and give a plug for it because anybody that's going to read it, you got to really be into the science of it.
Yeah, yeah, you do.Probably too much science in there.But actually, we originally wrote a book called, or co-authored a book called Shots of Knowledge, the Science of Whiskey, which is a coffee table book.So lots of pictures and some words.
Yeah.He still won't read it.
You could pop it open and it's like a 3D.And it can read to them.
But that was co-authored with a professor at TCU.His name is Eric Simonic, and I just love the process of writing that book with him.
And so the second one I wrote on my own, it's called The Terroir of Whiskey, or Terroir of Whiskey, if you're going to do it the French way.
But it's really more of a popular science book in a lot of ways than a whiskey book, because looking back on it, there's just a ton of science in there.But yeah, that came out.
Does that cover like aging or does it cover like grains or soils or all the above?
Yeah, it's really the books about the way that grain impacts flavor in whiskey and the way that different varieties of corn, different varieties of rye can impact flavor the same way that different grape varieties like Merlot or Syrah impact flavor.
And then also where the grains are actually grown impacts flavor.But then it really moved more from, okay, well, here's the science of
that exist around how grain variety and growing environment impacts flavor, but they really move more into like the journey I had visiting farms all across the U.S., went to Ireland, Scotland, meeting with the farmers and the distilleries and even the maltsters to try to
For me, at the end of the book, it went beyond the science.The science was there, but that wasn't the most important part of the journey for me.
It was sort of the reconnection of the farm to the distillery that's been lost in a lot of ways in modern whiskey making because of the commodity grain system.And so I really love to see that connection between the farmer and the distiller.
I thought it was a great book.I think I blurbed it, actually.I gave one of those recommendations.You did?
I've seen when it comes to trying to educate people on how science, like how things are made, they just kind of gloss over and don't care and just want to know how much it costs and is it good.Yeah.Is that frustrating for you?
Because it can be for me.
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when it comes to trying to educate people on how science, like how things are made.They just kind of gloss over and don't care and just want to know how much it costs and is it good?Yeah.Is that frustrating for you?Because it can be for me.
Early on, yeah.I've kind of shifted in the way I look at whiskey and the industry in general and what the consumer cares about.I think all that science behind it is really important for making
high quality whiskey, consistent whiskey, to an extent innovation, but the consumer, like you said, they don't care about a lot of it and they probably don't need to know about a lot of it.
It's too much, there's already enough for them to try to take in with everything in this world and to try to layer on all this science about yeast and grain variety and DNA and volatile phenols and whatever other words you want to throw, it's just, it gets- They can't even understand blending source bourbon with- That's right, yeah.
I'd say 20% of the people who listen to this show are into it This audience is as close as you'll ever get to people who will care.Yeah, so well, that's good We love this audience before that.
Oh, yeah, even if they're not in that 20% they'll at least Loosely care, but 20% will really be into it
Well, like, I mean, you've had like when Andrew Webrink came on here with ISC and I love hearing them talk about the, all the studies they're doing and things like that, you know, and even, and that stuff doesn't always have to go to the consumer eventually, but it funnels through to the whiskey makers and they can create these new products and the flavors are delicious and new and sort of the marketing behind it's good.
Then you've got a good recipe.
Yeah. We're helping make whiskey one podcast better at time over here.That guy.Yeah, that's right.That's our new tagline.So I guess we want to fast forward a little bit and kind of talk about what you're doing today.
I know we've talked on the phone several times.You have done some things and helping do barrel buy programs and all this other kind of stuff.
But it seems like you've found sort of a new niche and trying to figure out this sort of auto trader model of barrels.You want to try to explain it of where the idea came from and what you're building?
There's the consumer dumbing down your idea.
So when I left TX in 2019, I was just kind of took some time to figure out what I wanted to do next and was consulting some, but a guy named Ryan Howard, who was with the family office in Houston at the time, but before that had been with the private equity group that was invested in TX, he reached out to me just on LinkedIn and said, Hey, I'm
It's been a while, but I'm working with a neighboring family office and this guy named Drew Carden.And we have this idea for getting into the whiskey space and helping brands secure inventory.
I forget the words he said, but I thought what he meant was a rapid aging company, some sort of rapid maturation company. So if I was, I was like, well, I got nothing else solid right now.Yeah, let's, let's, let's, you know, let's catch up.
And, and so it was, uh, these two family offices, Ryan Howard, Drew Carden, and this, and the third guy, Corey Hall, who came in a little later as Ryan and Drew were doing the diligence for this idea.
And they basically said, no, it's not rapid aging.
We want to, it's a financing company, really want to go out and work with brands by helping them secure the inventory they need for their long-term case sales, which I have no finance background at all.
And so I was wondering why the heck they wanted a distiller to come help them run this.But the point was they had
finance background they knew how to do this but they didn't have with someone from the industry to help sort of bring them into the space because it is it's guarded you know you don't just walk in the barge down or or anywhere and say hey I want to oh by the way you have a customer I'm going to start buying the barrels on their behalf and finance for them you know they don't
So, you know, basically didn't know anything about what they're really doing in hindsight, but it seemed interesting.And so in 22, we launched it and that was Advanced Spirits.I mean, Advanced Spirits is, I mean, it's very unsexy.
It's as far as like the way we describe it, it's a barrel financing company.
You know, we- We're giving you an advance on your spirits and you just pay us later, right?
Yeah.Yeah.I mean, there you go.I like that.I need a third tagline. I did, I did make up the one lock up your, your whiskey, not your money.So, yeah.So you made a little bit of marketing in here, but we're like other funds out there.
And in a lot of ways, we don't lend money to the brand.We purchased the barrels on their behalf and then they can buy them back based on a fixed forward price schedule.
So they'll know what their cost is going to be for the liquid whenever they buy it back.Can you sell it in the interim?
Like since you technically would own them?
No, but if they decide, hey, we've got, you know, a thousand barrels in your financing program, but we only need 800 of those.
Well then, you know, whether it's us or the brand or both of us together, we can go sell those 200 into the bulk market so that they're not stuck with these barrels they don't need.And they get a cut of that or do you get it outright?They get it.
Once our forward price is met at that, for whatever the time is that we sold the barrel, whatever's left over, assuming that we sell it for more, we'll split that with the brand. So it's a different approach to financing your inventory.
It's off balance sheet.We do own it during the term, but they have exclusivity on it.There's not payments along the way for the brand.It's not like we're having interest.We do pass through storage and insurance costs, but that's it.So it's
It's a different approach and, you know, that's been successful.We've had some great customers early on and it's grown since then.
But because of the reality of either one, the brand coming to us and saying, well, we don't need X number of barrels, we've realized we were, you know, we got really aggressive, case sales weren't what we expected, so we have more in your program than we need.
Or just a potential default, you know, not every brand's gonna make it when it's all said and done. then we realized, well, we have to be somewhat engaged in this bulk whiskey market to know how to navigate it.
You know, what if we need to go sell a thousand barrels on a random Tuesday?How do we do that?And so that's what got, I guess that's what led in a lot of ways to Barrel Hub, which is the online marketplace for bulk whiskey buying and selling.
And it was really an idea for us to just be able to list our own inventory that we're trying to sell.But then we realized as we were developing it, well, anybody could list barrels on here for sale.
And anybody could buy barrels as long as they're industry members.We don't, it's not open to consumers.This is a pure B2B platform for people that buy and sell whiskey and have the permits needed to do that.Yeah.
I remember when I registered for the site and be like, you'll get an email in a couple of days to see if you're okay to log in after this.
Yeah, you have to prove your non-seller permit or something or whatever the particular... No, they just got to do their research in the backend.
They'll Google you, look on LinkedIn.Is there a way like a non-trade member can get in there just for their own fascination to see how things are trading?
I mean, it's definitely possible.It just depends on what their angle is.If they're trying to do some research because they want to get into the space as a potential investor, as a potential brand, whatever it is, sure, we can let them on.
I think I look at this a little bit like I look at NASDAQ, right?I like looking at stocks.I'm not going to buy every stock that's on there, but I'm fascinated when one company's up, one company's down.
There's no desire for me to trade within that company.It's information I like to absorb.
The other thing that's really kind of cool about this, and I'm sure it's maybe things that you've thought about it before, of just the amount of data that you can be able to pull from this, because if you're able to capture in real time what, say, a barrel of 95.5 MGP is selling for today versus what it's selling for in three months versus selling in...
A year ago, you can kind of see the ebbs and flows of how this goes, of where the market's shifting and what's doing really well, what's not doing really well, what has a surplus of something, what has very low inventory of something.
I mean, there's just all kinds of things that you could think of that could be built out of this.
Yeah.And it, that information has been so hard to procure.
I got to call up our good friend, Jeremy Deaver, or I got to call up Brindiamo or something like that.And then, you know, everybody's got their own sort of like, yeah.And that's what, here's the whole thing.
Maybe you can tell me this as well as like, if somebody, let's say Fred here owns a thousand barrels and he's like, well, I need to put these on the open market.
Does he go to multiple brokers and says like, Hey, just go ahead and put these on your price sheet.First one to come back to me wins.
That's a pretty typical way that I think it does play out.Some of the people that own barrels on the bulk market that aren't brands, they know they're going to sell them back to somebody at some point.They can call up multiple brokers.
They probably have their own network at that time to where they can try to sell it just on their own. now they're just barrel hubs and option.
I mean, yeah, I think you, I think you try these different outlets and cause right now, especially, and this is the market shifts, but like, as of right now, it's tough to go out and sell barrels.
You know, you really have to find a good partner on the buying end and someone that really wants what you're selling at a good price.And it's, this is not a commodity.
We treat it like a commodity in some ways more than I wish we did when it comes to how people
you know, you're buying whiskey, it's like, well, I need 100 barrels of Kentucky bourbon, weeded, maybe, you know, that's like, that's as far as they'll get, like, what chart level, I don't care, you know, it's like, well, we can't, if we talk about how all these things matter for flavor, but then we're trading them, like they're just commodities.
It's, I don't, you know, it seems a little, yeah, I've even noticed that because like, now people, for instance, like friends in the source market, they'll now look for,
Something that yeah, we like this match bill, but only if it's in Kelvin barrels, you know or vice versa and I see three or four It's like can is that data that you are now trying to put into the the barrel hub?
Yeah barrel hub you list the cooperage if you have it, but I love them I've interacted with some people recently on the buying side that have those types of stipulations.I love that That's a step in the right direction.
That's a lot of what we're trying to do with barrel hub is is is not just introduce transparency to pricing on the bulk market, but also to increase the visibility of what's actually makes up that barrel of whiskey.
Because it's not just a mash bill and a distillery.It's also the Cooper.It's just the char level.It's, you know, was it toasted?And where was it on the Rickhouse?Right.Where was it in the Rickhouse is huge.
And that's all these things that we talk about to the consumer on the retail side should matter when we're
buying and selling barrels on the bulk market because otherwise you're just at luck at what shows up on the truck, you know, and that's what some source brands.
I think to get lucky thing is the thing you get lucky that you're like well ordered, you know, 300 MGP barrels.
And oh, by the way, they just happened to be made during the barrel shortage when they were using Kelvin, and they taste way better than the ones that are made in ISC barrels.Not to say, I'm just throwing hypotheticals out there.
And so you're like at the mercy of what just, they pull and show up on the truck.
Yeah, there's that old saying, trust would verify.The old way of barrel brokerage was like, you talk to a guy that Sound like he might be in cornbread mafia, you know, for half of his life.
And he's telling you exactly what you want to hear about the barrels.You know, this is an incredible verification process for people.And I like, man, I've always been about transparency.It's just the struggle is real.
And this is one of the greatest problems with this is you also can't disclose where some of the barrels are coming from.Heaven Hill's got a lot of barrels on the market. Barton has turkey, Barton.
They all have barrels on the market, even though they'd say they don't.They have barrels on the frigging market in Barrel Hub and other wholesalers.
How do you break through this veil of secrecy that has had a stranglehold on American whiskey really since Prohibition?How do you do that?
When it comes to the heritage brands that have those barrels out there, I don't know how you get to the point where you can actually disclose to a retailer where it was distilled.
That's up to those companies and I doubt that that's going to shift anytime soon.
The new wave of contract distillers that are making really good whiskey, whether it's Barstow & Bourbon Company, Whiskey House is brand new, Eastern Light's being built, you know, Castle & Key and some of these
Green River these ones that some of them are hybrids obviously most of them are hybrids or they have their own brands and also do contracts but to me it's they're not just saying it's okay in most cases to say where it was made but they they kind of welcome that promotion yeah it's more that independent bottler approach that you have and more in Scotland and Ireland where
you know, the distillery is highlighted as an important part of the product.So I think that's important.
And I think the other details that go into what made that barrel of whiskey that maybe don't all end up at the consumer level, but at least the blender has a grasp on as much details as possible is important.
I would love it if, you know, Beam and Heaven Hill and some of these groups would allow their name to be, you know.
Can you at least disclose DSPs?Is there any kind of details in the barrels that you can disclose to the person buying?
Well, I mean, the DSP, if it was a ball and bond, but all these agreements that bulk, they have different, like bulk sale agreement, bulk purchase agreement, whatever it is, when a seller moves barrels to the buyer, there's always a non-disclosure component of that.
And so the distillery usually, and when it comes from some of these heritage brands, you're not They're not going to want to know.
But two, if you're in the industry and you understand match bills and know like legacy match bills, you can kind of decipher, you know, where it gets confusing is if, you know, somewhere like Bardstown makes a replicate of a Turkey or Forrester match bill.
And, you know, it says, Distilled in Kentucky, this match bill, like right now you can say, well, it's less than five or six years old.It's probably from Bardstown or Castle Key or whatever.But
as barrels get older and mature the lines are gonna get blurrier about if the mash bill is not necessarily going to mean that it's coming from this particular producer.
You're right though that historically it's been opaque whether it's pricing or what was actually what went into making this whiskey I mean there are barrels available on the market that you don't even know what the mash bill is because it's maybe a 10 year old bourbon barrel and it's just been long it's been lost so
that exists i hope that over time that doesn't exist i hope that you know i would say record keeping that let's let's go ahead and put the auto trader model back into us right so it's like if i'm looking for a forerunner and all of a sudden you can't tell me the brand of tires on there well i think that barrel should probably be a little bit cheaper if you can give me all the details of all right now i know the mash bill i know exactly where it was in the warehouse this is a center cut
It's one of those things that's like, oh, that's low mileage.All right, that barrel should probably be a little more expensive, right?
I think there's so many ways that you can add these variables into it that would make it very advantageous to a lot of people that are out there in the market, even such as ourselves.We just find stuff and it's like, man, that sounds really good.
that would probably be one that would be up in our wheelhouse instead of going, all right, give me a sample that's represented a lot and we'll get these in and see what happens.
And instead, you kind of, you don't have to take everything for a test drive at that point.You have a little bit more data at your fingertips to be able to figure out, well, this is what I know.I can really dial this in.
This is really what my whiskey tastes like because I'm pulling from here.And as somebody who does, if you're in that game and you do,
source or procure liquid from somewhere else and you blend it to your ability, you blend it to whatever, now you have this information.
You have this information that even helps tell a story about the bottle, about the whiskey, whatever it is they're trying to sell, instead of just going, yeah, we got some cool 95.5 rise from MGP.
Yeah, instead of all being that and that's what question that too.
It's like say you got you know, someone who has a 95 5 here from Indiana 95 from here from India, but they all want this one once like $200 more per barrel this one they put them on the same hub.
Are they priced out differently or you're like no this one's priced low.So you got to match it or how's that?How's the pricing I guess work, you know in that regard.
Yeah, I mean, Barrelhub is the seller and the buyer.I mean, one user can be both buyer and seller, obviously, but they have their own account.They manage their own inventory that's on the site, whether they're selling it or whether they bought it.
They choose the list price.They choose minimum order quantities. There is a bidding process that's all done over the site and it's all anonymous too.So when you list a barrel, your identity is not disclosed.
So no one knows that you're the seller at that point.And let's say a buyer has decided to enter into a bidding process, which is done through the site and it's an anonymous bidding process.But The pricing and are you like eBay at this point?
You just take a little bit off the transaction.So yeah, it's it's basically our fee is $50 per barrel or 3% of the price whatever the greater of those two is but if you have two very Mgp 95 5
Two entries, two lots, whatever it is, and one's more expensive than the other, then the cheaper one's probably gonna sell.
See, unless, go back to AutoTrader, if I'm buying this 4Runner, if it's located in Tennessee, or if it's located in California, I'm probably more interested in the one in Tennessee, because I don't have to go and get it shipped from California.
Well, and the warehouser is disclosed on the site.So you do know, well, this is actually item GP or, Hey, this was actually moved to a different warehouse.And that, that can matter.
What really, I hope eventually this leads to as more and more details are included on the entry on that barrel lot.So, you know, like you said, where was it in the warehouse?What lot was it?
Because just because two lots are close to each other, maybe they were made a week apart or something like that, doesn't mean they taste the exact same.There's still batch to batch fluctuation at every single distillery.
I don't care how long you've been doing it.Yeah.Not to mention where it is in the warehouse.So, I mean, samples can be ordered over the site to facilitate that, to facilitate, well, is this one different than that one?
And if so, which one do I like better?
I really want it to eventually move to where it provides, whether you call them non-distilling producers, independent bottlers, or just the blenders who are creating products, that much more information to whittle down, okay, I want to order samples from these, and then from there decide which ones to actually buy that's going to fit the profile of flavor they're looking for.
And also to help these entrepreneurs that are coming into the space that I hope never stops, that are creating brands, arm them with more information to help them blend whatever their goal is.
When you get barrels, Kenny kind of brought this up before, but I don't think he specifically asked if like you will share, like if those barrels will also be available to another broker.
We don't, we don't ask for exclusivity.So.So like in the space of when the distillers are trying to sell, they always talk about like how the sales side of things is very cutthroat.All the distillers love each other.
The production guys love each other, but the marketing teams, they like, they'll fight. What's it like between broker to broker?Is that cutthroat too?Do you guys get little skirmishes here and there?
I'm sure there's some of that.In general, we're friends with Brandiamo.We're friends with individual brokers.We
Like Sam Rock and you know Terry Tome I mean I would TX our first barrels for the blended whiskey that we you know where we sourced the whiskey it came from Richard Wolfe who passed away but you know daughter Monica is very much in this industry and has built something really.
Really special I think with the spirits group and and working with the cutter group doing the barrel roll project, so I mean We know these people we I guess in a way we compete with them But we also I really would prefer us to not be seen as like an online brokerage and more as we're providing this platform that to broker if brokers want to use it they can they don't marketplace
Honestly, that's what I look at it as.It's a way that anybody can go, not anybody, B2B, but if you're a broker or an individual that has barrels, and if you're an individual or company that wants to buy barrels, that's where you go.
I think that's where the magic in this really lies is that you create a platform that allows you to be able to self-service because instead of me having to get 10 emails from different brokers or somebody going, Hey, we got these in today, right?
If there was something that I could either go freely look myself or there's push notifications or something like that, where it's like, Oh, this something, this fits my profile, what I'm looking for.
Now go ahead and send me an email knowing that I'm looking for this particular type of whiskey.There's a lot of cool things that you can do with it.
Now it's just the education and getting everybody on board of being able to say, if you're, if you own a brand or if you have barrels, here's the place where to come together and meet.
I mean, a long-term goal is I'd love to have a huge warehouse staffed where we actually bring samples in up front from all of the entries that are listed on Barrel Hub so that when the samples purchase, it's more like the Amazon speed, like the next day it shows up at your doorstep.
And before you even order samples, I'd love for us to curate sensory data in-house and
It provides some sort of way that you can, if your target goal for flavor and whatever marketing, whatever your goal is, we can sort of help you whittle down, well, almost like in silico blending.
I don't know what this will look like exactly, but you're really trying to earn those $50 a barrel here, aren't you?
But you're able to sort of say, well, if I want this profile and, you know, I want a, whatever, weeded bourbon or whatever it is, like, here are some entries that you should look at, like, based on what our model's showing, this, you might want to order samples from these, and then you can do your actual benchtop blending and then make your decision.
That's where I think, like I said, I really wanted to facilitate entrepreneurs coming into the space.I mean, the cat's out of the bag now that anyone can start a whiskey brand with a little bit of cash and some energy and motivation.
And I think that's great.I still see a lot of similarities to before whiskey, I was in the science world with biotech.
I see a lot of similarities with how drug development, it used to be driven by big pharma companies and then biotech came in, these small startups, really innovative and creating great drugs and big pharma became almost a holding company acquiring these really successful biotechs.
I see some similarities here with To me, some of the best brands are being created not by the big heritage companies, not by the big conglomerates, but by entrepreneurs coming into the space with fresh ideas.
But a lot of times they don't have whiskey background, whiskey making backgrounds.You know, they're great marketers, very innovative, very driven, whatever it is, but to provide them with tools to really create the product they want to create.
Well, Rob, this has been fantastic.We dove into a lot, your history, science background, the barrel broker market.Is there anything that we don't... This is like 10 podcasts in one regard.
Yeah, I had a whole nother line of questions here for him, so... Hit him with another one. Have you branched into tequila, rums, Armagnac, things like that?
Not yet, but I want to.I mean, I think, I can't decide if the natural progression is first to do domestic spirits outside of whiskey, or to move into Irish and Scotch whiskey, and then into rum and tequila, or just do it all at once, I don't know.
There's an incredible need for rum, and the thing about rum is, though, it's dangerous.Like, by dangerous, I mean, like, people lie. You have international brokers who are actually have tried to sell things like rye whiskey as rum.
Uh, you have people saying that they don't add sugar to it.And then you do a test on us, like 40 grams of sugar per bottle.And there's a, rum is like, bring your bullshit britches because there's a lot of BS.Whiskey is a saint in comparison to rum.
Well, maybe maybe we go to rum next and I'll just do my best not to get caught up in too much trouble Yeah, whoever these should be sitting there back in the lab trying to do all this work every one barely comes through It's really needed because if you look at like a lot of a lot of new independent brands coming on there's a ton and if you just focused on if you did like a barrel hub that was solely on Producers who don't add sugar like you could do you could do an incredible service to the industry interesting
We'll give you a little kickback to Fred when we take him now.Yeah, yeah.Unneeded.It sounds like he hates free time like us.Yeah, I know.He's just finding new ways to keep him busy.Yeah.
Do you have other questions you want to throw at him?No, no, no.All right.
I mean, I do, but- That was a whole list.
Yeah, that was one.Well, I know we're over an hour with this one, so- It is, but this was- I don't want to get in trouble with Lawrence.
No, no, no.But this was one of those things that it was awesome to be able to have you come on, because like I said, we touched on a lot of different things that we typically wouldn't do.
Usually it's very poignant about a particular subject, but you are just well versed in so many things.So thank you for coming here and spending your time with us and educating us as well as our fans and everything like that as well.
So if people give one more shout about the book, where can they find that?And then where can they learn more about Barrel Hub and what you do as well?
Yeah.No, thank you all for having me on the show.The book is called The Terroir of Whiskey and it's available at Amazon or straight from Columbia Press or maybe a bookstore here and there.I don't know.
If you're a brand out there and looking for procurement strategies around financing, just looking for inventory in general, we'd love to talk to you.
Advanced Spirits is the financing arm and Barrel Hub is the online marketplace to find the whiskey that you need.
Yeah. And everybody go and buy and sell your stuff there.Make this easy because then we have one place to go and look instead of 10 emails and all those other kind of things too.So Rob, again, thank you for coming on the show today.
So make sure you go check out their site.Check out bourbonpursuit.com.It's where we have every single episode we've ever published. He mentioned Andrew Webrink.You want to learn about everything with stave science, go ahead.
You can type it in the search bar.You can find everything on that particular site as well.Make sure you follow us on Birdman Pursuit on all the socials.
If you like the show, share with a friend, support us on Patreon as well, and then also follow our good buddy Friend Medic over here too.But with that, cheers everybody.We'll see you next time.Toodles.Go Pokes.
