WEBVTT - FAMILY SPIRITS: JULIAN VAN WINKLE, WRIGHT THOMPSON 0:00:04.040 --> 0:00:07.400 It's Kentucky Derby day nine and the bizarre chapter in 0:00:07.440 --> 0:00:11.680 American history known as Prohibition has just ended. A whiskey salesman, 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:15.440 Julian van Winkle, merges two smaller companies and forms the 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:19.439 Stitzelweller Distillery not far from the Louisville. The man's preferred 0:00:19.560 --> 0:00:22.599 recipe for bourbon is a little different. He likes wheat 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.400 as the secondary grain to corn, not ryan. The man 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:29.480 knows what he wants. He demands quality. He says, we 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:31.800 will make fine bourbon at a profit if we can, 0:00:32.080 --> 0:00:35.720 at a loss if we must, but always fine bourbon. 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:39.160 The company flourishes. He passes it along to his son, 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:45.040 Julian Jr. But then tough times sales drop. Bourbon becomes 0:00:45.159 --> 0:00:48.600 uncooled to drink in the sixties and seventies, and Julian Jr. 0:00:49.080 --> 0:00:52.960 Has to sell. Eventually, his son, Julian van Winkle, the 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:56.200 third pathy's grandson, takes over the company and with some 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.240 help and some good fortune the mainly just one of 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:05.040 your hard labor, stubbornness and faith, he rebuilds the ben 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:09.279 Winkl brand and reclaims the family legacy. It's an honor 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:11.319 and a lot of fun They have Julian as my 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:14.160 guest in this podcast. His story of how Pappy ben 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:16.760 Winkle became one of the most coveted bottles of spirits 0:01:16.800 --> 0:01:22.160 in the world. It's really incredible. It was. It was stressful. 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:24.959 You can ask us my wife Cissy, and our and 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:29.080 our children even um, you know, I don't know, um 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:32.720 what they thought of what I was doing back then, 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:35.240 but I was just hanging on with my fingernails. And 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:37.800 it's the only thing I really knew how to do. UM, 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:41.440 so I wouldn't And I knew it was good a 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.720 good product. I mean, I knew damn well as a 0:01:43.760 --> 0:01:47.440 good product. So um, I just was gonna go down 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:49.440 with the ship, so to speak. It didn't work out, 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.920 but keep trying and trying and trying, and and I 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.000 you know, I am stubborn. I'm gonna ride this baby 0:01:56.040 --> 0:01:58.960 all the way down down to the grave or up 0:01:58.960 --> 0:02:03.240 to the heavens. But it luckily worked out. With a 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:05.680 lot of doubt from a lot of people. I've talked 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.400 about the book, but it's, um, it was, you know, 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:10.720 it's it's do or die. But I believe in it, 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:14.280 which is the main thing these days. Patty van Winkl 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:17.079 bourbon is produced at the Buffalo Trace Distillery. We'll get 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.239 into all that with Julian. Why pappies is so delicious 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:24.440 and why it's so damned hard to find even in Kentucky, 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:27.040 whereas legend has it, there are two barrels of bourbon 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:31.919 for every person. My first guest on the podcast says 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:35.560 he is at least harshly to blame for pappies being 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.919 so hard to find. He's right. Thompson, my good buddy 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:43.080 and ESPN senior writer who's been writing passionately poetically about 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:46.800 pappies more than a decade and now regrets it deeply. 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:50.799 He says he blew that way. Wright got very close 0:02:50.840 --> 0:02:54.680 to Julian writing his excellent book Happy Land, a story 0:02:54.720 --> 0:02:59.880 of family, fine bourbon, and things that last. So right, 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:04.160 h What is the first time that you make acquaintance 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:08.480 with whiskey as a young lad in Clarksdale, Mississippi and 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:11.160 the River Delta there where Tennessee Williams grew up. First 0:03:11.200 --> 0:03:18.919 time whiskey hits the taste buds? God? Uh? First of all, sorry, 0:03:18.960 --> 0:03:30.480 mom uh, I I think it was don't say age four, No, 0:03:30.880 --> 0:03:33.920 I think we were fifteen sixteen, and it was probably 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:36.760 Jim Beam were listening to a lot of Hank Williams Jr. 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:40.000 In high school. So I'm assuming that's probably what it was. 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:41.920 I mean, I hope, my god. I don't try to 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:44.080 think where we got it. There was this liquor store 0:03:44.080 --> 0:03:48.640 in Clarksdale that famously didn't I d and like, I mean, 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:50.280 if you could see over the counter, they were gonna 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.760 sell it to you. And uh. And then the convenience 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.800 stores I did really hard. And so we had this 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:02.000 bizarre experience of whiskey being very easy to get and 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:07.040 beer being almost impossible to get, which is not really 0:04:07.080 --> 0:04:10.880 what you want with high school kids and automobiles. I 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:13.440 think a lot of people have a gym Beams slash 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:15.920 Jack Daniel Sir. A lot of guys do from that age. 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:20.160 What about the first time that fine whiskey or fine 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.200 bourbon kind of hits the taste buds. You know, I'm 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.800 a I'm a devout Maker's Mark fan. And uh, I 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.719 mean I started drinking Maker's Mark in college. Uh, and 0:04:32.000 --> 0:04:34.560 you know it it's still is sort of because and 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:36.440 we'll get into this maybe, but I mean it's a 0:04:36.480 --> 0:04:39.719 weeded bourbon and I like that immediately long before I 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.440 even knew what Pappy van Winkle was. So, I mean, 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:44.719 you know, I've been a I've been a Maker's Mark 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:47.960 de vote, if that's a word, for a very long time. 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:51.320 I mean, you know, I get these emails and messages 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:52.800 and people are like, you know, I want to get 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:54.719 my friends something. He's getting married or he got a 0:04:54.800 --> 0:04:57.359 job promotion. What kind of bourbon should I buy? And 0:04:57.400 --> 0:05:00.919 I almost always say, get him a real nice crystal 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.360 decanner with his initials on it and then filled up 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.520 with maker's mark. Like that's that's almost all. I'm like, 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.440 that's what you should do. It's a good idea. Maker's Mark. 0:05:10.480 --> 0:05:12.359 As an interesting story, we'll get into the marketing of 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:14.359 bourbon because it was not a long time brand. It 0:05:14.400 --> 0:05:17.400 was basically created late fifties early sixties. And I imagine 0:05:17.440 --> 0:05:21.160 these conversations in offices like Don Draper's and Mad mem Or. 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.440 They figured out, let's make it the most expensive bourbon 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:26.839 and brag about it, and we'll dip the bottle in 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:29.600 red wax like a fine cognac. And here you are 0:05:29.640 --> 0:05:32.799 in college. Must have feeling pretty damn sophisticated drinking Maker's 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:36.239 Mark bourbon. Right, Oh, I thought, I was quite something, 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:39.840 especially with the diet coke I was putting in it. 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:44.600 It took fine weeded bourbon and put diet coke with 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:48.200 chemical sweeteners on top. I know. I mean it's like 0:05:48.240 --> 0:05:50.600 it wasn't just enough to Coca cola I had that 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:53.360 whatever is in that stuff strict none, I don't even know. 0:05:53.560 --> 0:06:00.000 But like, sorry, coke, describe what a fine bourbon taste 0:06:00.080 --> 0:06:03.239 to somebody that that isn't a devote do use your word, 0:06:03.360 --> 0:06:06.440 or or comes from another planet and doesn't really know 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:09.680 what what good sipping bourbon? When you when you you're 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:11.880 you're a writer used to describe in things, how would 0:06:11.880 --> 0:06:14.200 you describe that that taste of what it makes you 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:18.520 feel like? I mean, well, there are two ways to 0:06:18.520 --> 0:06:20.719 do that. I mean there's the one way that is 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:23.520 very much about the taste buds, and I'm less interested 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.200 in that and more interested in this description, which is 0:06:27.160 --> 0:06:31.039 it tastes very much. It tastes so familiar that it's 0:06:31.080 --> 0:06:36.119 sort of taste like home with a capital H. And uh, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.360 you know, I like like, I like the gestalt of it, 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:42.840 like I like the way the ice sounds. I mean, 0:06:42.880 --> 0:06:45.719 I'll tell nice bartenders, I don't want that one big 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.920 cube because that that that that messes it up for me. 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:55.840 I like the way ice sounds. I like, I like 0:06:56.000 --> 0:07:01.080 a really heavy bottomed crystal double old shouldn't glass and 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.760 the way it feels in your hand and sort of 0:07:03.839 --> 0:07:06.640 I mean, you know, moving it around. Uh you know, 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:09.720 I can still see my dad and his friends. You know, 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.560 you know you hold court with a glass like that, 0:07:13.840 --> 0:07:18.080 you know, and uh so all of that is part 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:20.280 of it to me. I mean, you know it is. 0:07:21.200 --> 0:07:25.440 Uh it's not just you know, here's the science of 0:07:25.480 --> 0:07:28.040 taste buds and as it moves from the taste buds 0:07:28.040 --> 0:07:29.240 at the front of your tongue to the back of 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:31.480 your tongue. I mean, there's an entire process and it's 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.040 really I mean interesting actually, and when you talk to 0:07:34.080 --> 0:07:37.440 people know a lot about this. But you know, I'm 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:41.360 after something very different. I don't think of myself as 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:46.800 a very sentimental person. I don't live in nostalgia. I 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:50.640 never shared a bottle of bourbon with any dead ancestors. 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.920 I don't have memories of childhood drinking bourbon. So am 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.840 I completely out of step and ill equipped to appreciate 0:07:56.880 --> 0:08:00.360 bourbon and all those different layers Because for me, right 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:02.360 it's very much about the president. It is about when 0:08:02.360 --> 0:08:04.280 it hits the taste buds and how it tastes, but 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.640 how it makes me feel and the appreciation of the 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.040 product and the handcrafted this. I'm not going back generations. 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:13.960 I'm just right there in the moment. So some people say, well, 0:08:13.960 --> 0:08:16.360 bourbon is about myth and history and family connection, and 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:18.800 so you're missing the point if you're not understanding on 0:08:18.920 --> 0:08:24.040 that level. No, I have very little patients with any 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:28.080 sort of dog bone. Uh, there is no you know, 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:31.560 I'm there's a sprint speech Bruce Springsteen gave somewhere and 0:08:31.600 --> 0:08:33.400 he was talking about music, and he was like, there's 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:35.720 no right or wrong way of doing it. There's just 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:40.599 doing it. And I mean, I think that's true for everything, 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:44.560 you know, whether it's food or bourbon, or a great 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:47.840 restaurant or a book or whatever, a movie. But I 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:50.480 don't I don't think there is a right or wrong 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:54.440 way to do anything like this. And if you enjoy it, 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:56.760 like lots of people get different things out of it. 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:58.240 I mean, I've got to know a lot of people 0:08:58.240 --> 0:09:02.920 in the bourbon community who are very, very into you know, 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.520 who have a much more sophisticated palate than I do, 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.440 and who can really taste the difference, and who like 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.160 to seek out bourbons with very subtle differences in mash 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:14.800 bills or in how you know what the barrels are 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.000 made of, or how you know the barrels are rotate, 0:09:17.160 --> 0:09:19.760 like all sort of entry proof into the barrel, And 0:09:19.800 --> 0:09:27.000 so there are fifty different ways to enjoy anything, and uh, 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:31.560 you know, it's sort of like, uh, you know there is. 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:33.640 It's like there's no right or wrong way to love sports, 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:35.360 whether you love to go and think about your dad, 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:37.960 or whether you love statistics, or whether you love to 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.600 try to you know, the predictive nature of artificial intelligence 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.080 and what that allows you to know about what these 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.200 seemingly sentient human beings are going to do in the future, 0:09:47.440 --> 0:09:49.000 you know what I mean, Like they're just they're's wasn't 0:09:49.000 --> 0:09:50.880 really caught up in right or wrong. I just depth 0:09:50.920 --> 0:09:53.079 of understanding. I mean, I can't mean as much when 0:09:53.120 --> 0:09:55.760 you don't have that family history and grain and you 0:09:55.840 --> 0:09:58.040 just love how the ship tastes when you drink it, 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.640 and then you make your own you make your own 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.160 memories as you become an adult. I don't go back generations. 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:05.720 My first experience with whiskey was siphoning off my dad's 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.000 j and b into a mason jar and meeting the 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:10.080 other kids on the golf course and we all, what 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:11.840 do you got? You got some vodka? I got some 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.880 Scotch gin and let's try that. And that's that's how 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:17.040 you sample liquor. And then you get sick and go 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:20.120 to the high school football game. But but that's not 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:24.679 very romantic. I later, I later gained the appreciation for Scotch. 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:26.840 I say, I'm not sentimentalists. I think most of us 0:10:26.840 --> 0:10:30.760 had here for being honest though, whether it's drinking course 0:10:31.440 --> 0:10:34.200 or or something else. I mean, I I went to Oban, 0:10:34.280 --> 0:10:37.120 Scotland and drank open single malt whiskey and the West 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.320 coast of Scotland when I was with a buddy right 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.360 out of college. And I still it's not my favorite brand, 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:44.680 but I still keep it around, and I still maybe 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.480 that is a subconscious romantic going back to that, because 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.640 you discover this product that you've never heard of in 0:10:49.679 --> 0:10:52.480 a town you've never heard of, and it just it 0:10:52.600 --> 0:10:54.520 tasted great when we'd rank it there, and it still 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.679 does well. That is incredibly sentimental, by the way, And 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:04.959 because mean the that version of you who uh wanted 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.480 to discover a mountain and climate as opposed to the 0:11:07.480 --> 0:11:10.240 guy who is standing on top of a mountain, still 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:13.040 lives in that bottle in some way. I mean, that's 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:15.560 why you keep it around, probably or maybe you just 0:11:15.640 --> 0:11:17.440 like it. I do like it, but maybe why do 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:19.000 I like it? Do I like it because of that? 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.560 And I like lots of single mall scotches and and 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:23.480 and different flavors of it, But I do. I do 0:11:23.559 --> 0:11:25.640 keep an open bottle right there, and I go back 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:27.760 to it with affection and probably a more sentimental than 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:31.800 I admit. But well, I mean, you know, if if 0:11:31.840 --> 0:11:34.040 all of those college football games haven't made you a 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.880 little nostalgic, I feel like that's a conversation for your therapist. 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:41.200 But uh, but but if we talk, we talk about bourbon, 0:11:41.240 --> 0:11:43.439 because it's a uniquely American product, and we'll get into 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:46.360 all this. It's made you know, from corn is the 0:11:46.440 --> 0:11:48.360 as the main grain, and then what you put as 0:11:48.360 --> 0:11:51.400 a secondary grain is is either rye if your most 0:11:51.440 --> 0:11:53.679 bourbons or or wheat if your pappy is and other 0:11:53.720 --> 0:11:56.280 kinds of bourbons that are uh that have an initiati 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.679 or considered fine but then it's the barrels that it's 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.559 age in charred oak, which gives it that flavor that 0:12:02.640 --> 0:12:05.920 sets it apart. And it is uniquely American and finally 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:08.959 has its place worldwide as that, But the way it's 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:12.440 been marketed and sold is also uniquely American. You write 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:14.800 in the book a lot about the mythology that just 0:12:14.920 --> 0:12:17.880 the flat outlies, bullshit and tall tales that have gone 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:20.920 together with it with the selling of this product, because 0:12:21.200 --> 0:12:24.480 people aren't buying a bottle of liquid, they're buying a mythology, 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.560 they're buying a story. Well, and if you go to 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:30.880 a liquor store, they'll be, you know, a hundred that's 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:34.000 an exaggeration. They'll be forty or fifty different kinds of 0:12:34.000 --> 0:12:38.200 bourbon there, and of them come from the same six 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.360 or seven distilleries. I mean, the only difference between a 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.200 lot of them is the story they're telling and their 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:49.000 hope that either you will have a nostalgic connection to 0:12:49.080 --> 0:12:53.320 this or the story will make you pick that. Because 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:56.240 every new customer, if they don't have some sort of 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:59.360 connection with the brand, is the potential starter of a 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:02.000 tradition that might extend generations. Does that make you sad 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.000 that that only a few distilleries are making all the 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:06.400 juice that's out there now. And then, um, I mean 0:13:06.520 --> 0:13:08.600 a lot of products have gone that direction. Not you 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:11.600 can do to turn back the clock. No, and and 0:13:11.640 --> 0:13:13.679 as if you know, you get a couple of drinks 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.400 and anybody in this industry, and they will tell you 0:13:16.440 --> 0:13:20.720 that the accountants are running it at the detriment of 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.520 the consumer. And there are a lot of sort of 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:28.240 you know, the uh, the entry proof of the barrel 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:30.320 entry proof. You know, there are a lot of different 0:13:30.320 --> 0:13:32.960 things that because of the tax the way this stuff 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:37.960 is taxed, that it would be better for the product 0:13:38.000 --> 0:13:40.880 to do it one way, but it is better for 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:45.280 the huge global conglomerates beancounters to do it another way. 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:50.400 And almost always the accountants win. I mean Maker's Markets 0:13:50.400 --> 0:13:54.760 one of those places that actually you know doesn't do that. 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:59.760 And uh, you know it makes the whiskey smoother and 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:04.400 saw after and uh, all of that stuff is very 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:06.440 it's sort of sad. I mean, like if you get 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.719 you get old bottles, I mean not even that old 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:16.280 seventies eighties of not even expensive bourbons. You just get 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.400 them and you can sort of taste the difference. Uh, 0:14:19.560 --> 0:14:21.800 you don't even have to be that sophisticated. You know, 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:23.880 my brother in law gave me six pints of like 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:27.760 nineties seventies old charter, which is not I mean, you know, 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.280 it's not crazy expensive fancy, and I love to bring 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:33.680 those out and pour them for people know what is 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:36.960 this And I'm like, this was a three dollar pint 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:40.320 of whiskey, and it's that it would be the best thing. 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.640 It's people, you know, people go crazy for it just 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:46.040 because of the old method. You you do write in 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.280 the book about all the things that go into the 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:51.000 flavor that maybe you have to have a somewhat suphisticate 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:54.840 power to understand. But the machinery of this still was 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.280 it old fashioned machinery, which you know, Pappy is when 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:00.680 it sits so well or distillery made up until what 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:05.000 the early nineties, and people say that tasted dramatically different 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:10.000 in their experience from newer machinery that distilled the bourbon. 0:15:10.080 --> 0:15:12.120 And well, you know, it's the way the grains are 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:17.520 ground is different. Uh, the the yeast is different. I mean, uh, 0:15:17.560 --> 0:15:21.160 they went from a live yeast to a powdered yeast 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:24.480 in most places. Julian thinks that the original stutz a 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:29.720 weller live yeast is still in existence in some freezer 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:34.160 and somebody like he's like, it's out there somewhere. Uh, 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.479 And there's the next book. Man. They the al Capones 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:40.720 vault quest for like they find the frozen yeast and 0:15:40.760 --> 0:15:43.000 then unleash it in the world and sell it for 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:48.000 ten thousand dollars a bottle. That's what we should do. Uh. 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:53.600 The you know the water, you know, they don't use 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:57.760 the limestone aquifers because of pollution anymore. I mean the 0:15:58.000 --> 0:16:00.880 Kentucky reason why Kentucky became the bourbon capital is because 0:16:00.920 --> 0:16:04.080 farmers basically got tired of paying taxes, left Pennsylvania, New 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:06.440 York came down there. Instead of growing awry group corn 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:10.320 couldn't sell it. Surplus corn ends up getting distilled. But 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:15.240 people talk about this special limestone filtered water in Kentucky 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:17.800 being like an essential ingredient. Is that myth? Or is 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:22.160 that real? You know? I thought it was myth. Uh, 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:24.920 But Julian swears it's real. And he's not one of 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:27.720 those guys who really he loves to poke holes in 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.080 his own mythology. I mean, it's a little bit of 0:16:30.080 --> 0:16:32.320 a party trick, but it's also real. I mean, he 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:34.400 will you know what I mean. He liked like, you know, 0:16:34.520 --> 0:16:35.960 he loves to be like, well, I've never made a 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.000 drop a whiskey of my life, you know. And people 0:16:38.040 --> 0:16:41.000 call him a master distiller or something in an introduction. 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:45.560 He's like, Nope, never done that. Uh. And so you know, 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:49.200 certainly that's part of it. I mean. The larger thing 0:16:49.360 --> 0:16:50.880 that you just touched him, though, is that this is 0:16:50.920 --> 0:16:54.360 an agricultural product. And if you go back to rest 0:16:54.640 --> 0:16:57.720 like the idea, the word that should make you most 0:16:57.760 --> 0:16:59.960 suspicious is when people start using the word of recipe, 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:05.760 because this is not This was something like the earliest 0:17:05.800 --> 0:17:09.000 whiskey making manuals is like use what grains are available, 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:14.040 you know, I mean, and and it was entirely it 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.960 was a way for farmers who lived too far from 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:20.080 the supply chain to get their crops to market without 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:23.160 them rotting. It was a way to keep them from rotting. 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.960 It's the same thing. It's the reason why country hams 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:29.840 developed so much on the frontier of sort of western 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:33.600 Virginia and Kentucky when that was as far as America went. 0:17:33.880 --> 0:17:38.040 And so these places that have traditions of smoked meat 0:17:38.080 --> 0:17:40.920 and smoke houses. That's the exact same thing as whiskey. 0:17:41.040 --> 0:17:43.879 That's just a way for farmers who have pigs to 0:17:44.000 --> 0:17:46.160 not have the meat rot before they can sell it. 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.439 And so, you know, one of the reasons there's a 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:53.400 whiskey tax is because I mean, there are a couple 0:17:53.440 --> 0:17:56.639 of reasons, but I mean one is that that people 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.920 were using in his currency and so the government won 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:03.240 had their cut of it. And uh. And then I 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:06.560 just love this debate. You know, when Alexander Hamilton's was 0:18:06.560 --> 0:18:09.200 trying to figure out how to pay for the Revolutionary War, 0:18:09.560 --> 0:18:11.919 he looked around the city where he lived, which was 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.200 full of saloons, and said, what we need is a syntax. 0:18:15.680 --> 0:18:17.760 Let's put a tax on these taverns and on this 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.320 booze as a way to raise the money to pay 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:24.040 for the revolutionary war, which is a worldview perfectly grounded 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:28.399 in facts and in his experience in the world. The 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:30.280 problem was as if you were a farmer on the 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:35.600 far western edge of Pennsylvania, that was a huge tax 0:18:35.720 --> 0:18:38.520 on you. And so it's just I love having the 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:42.560 history of whiskey. You find, you know, the roots of it. 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.879 Seems like every political debate we're still having. Yeah, the 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:47.960 history of whiskey is inner time of the history of America. 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.520 People may or may not know that George Washington was 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:53.200 a distiller, and he's always right into the argument. And 0:18:53.280 --> 0:18:56.320 many many signers of the Declaration Independence, many early a 0:18:56.359 --> 0:18:58.520 couple of few presidents, by the way, have been have 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:01.439 been distillers as well. I love the fact, though, right, 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.080 that no one's really sure who who invented bourbon, who 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:05.840 who distilled it for the first time, all kind of 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:09.720 tall tales about Elijah Craig because having something, having a 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:13.239 Baptist minister be the inventor of this devil's brew, it's 0:19:13.320 --> 0:19:15.639 kind of a nice story. It's been debunked. Is just 0:19:15.680 --> 0:19:17.880 about every other story has been debunked. But I love 0:19:17.920 --> 0:19:19.720 the fact that no one's quite sure. In the late teen, 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:21.960 late seventeen, hundreds out there in Kentucky, it was the 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:24.800 first guy to do it. Everybody knows the stories in 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:28.240 the back of those bottles are bullshit. Everybody everybody knows. 0:19:29.280 --> 0:19:32.400 You just choose to believe it. It's interesting, I mean, 0:19:32.520 --> 0:19:35.360 the commerce of this, you know, the I don't want 0:19:35.359 --> 0:19:37.200 to get bogged down too much in that, but you're 0:19:37.240 --> 0:19:40.200 you're right, you it's these global blant brands. I mean, 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:44.160 you look at all industries, but the beverage industry, which 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:46.240 has been romanticized, so you can strip that away. I 0:19:46.240 --> 0:19:48.960 mean you look at, um, the fact that it's a 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:51.520 few conglomerations make most of the bourbon You you look 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.639 at the at the fact that people have reacted against 0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.440 that though they're craving something. The number one selling spirit 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:05.800 in America just became Tito's. Uh, handmade vodka in Texas, 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:07.679 made with corn by the way, like like bourbon is 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:10.919 and not the traditional Boka ingredients. But but if you 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.960 look at that, how can something be handmade and yet 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:17.159 also be the biggest seller. But it but it's that 0:20:17.240 --> 0:20:20.040 uniquely American thing. It's it's it's it's made in Texas, 0:20:20.080 --> 0:20:23.359 it's not associated with Russia. And here it is the 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:26.080 number one it's pretty good vodka to number one selling 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:30.119 spirit in America. Now, Uh, I didn't know that, But 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:35.600 that's not surprising. I mean, uh, it's interesting. Uh. So 0:20:35.640 --> 0:20:38.520 we have a bloody Mary bar in our Thanksgiving uh 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:41.639 family Thanksgiving and have forever, and so it's interesting to 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:45.720 watch the vodka. And so at some point it changed 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:48.119 from spearnofs to titoes and I don't know which of 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:52.800 my uncles started doing that, but now you see it everywhere. 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:55.600 And of course it's not handmade. I mean, of course 0:20:55.640 --> 0:20:58.359 it is. They're selling the story. But it's not just bourbon. 0:20:58.400 --> 0:21:01.639 It's all it's all spirits. Of course, who cares, you know, 0:21:02.040 --> 0:21:05.919 one it is really good, you know, uh at a 0:21:05.960 --> 0:21:09.960 Teto's and Tonic the other day, Uh and uh. But 0:21:10.000 --> 0:21:12.399 it is a great marketing to the biggest They're tapping 0:21:12.400 --> 0:21:15.440 into things that we crave. Now. We we tried to 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:17.679 get a present for a friend's mom and they were 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:21.159 going to Sicily and she drinks Teto's and we're thinking, 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:23.480 how in the hell we're gonna find this in a 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.400 small town in Sicily. You know what, It was really 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:28.639 freaking easy. Who walked into the store and it was 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:31.840 sitting on the shelf and so here's this handmade product 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.800 from Auston in a little town in Sicily. It's it's everywhere, obviously, 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:38.800 as as most of the global brands are. And by 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:42.720 the way, no one who buys a bottle, including me, 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:46.520 feels ripped off. Nope, you know what I mean, it's it. 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:49.760 It's all a little bit of a winking thing, and 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:52.920