Inside Minden Mill Distillery with Master Distiller Joe O’Sullivan

Ed [00:00:00]
Hi and welcome to the Bourbon Obsessed podcast. On today's episode we are visiting Minden Mill Distillery in Minden, Nevada. Minden Mill is very cool because they essentially are two separate distilleries in one with one distillery to make American single malts and the other to make their rye and bourbon as well as other spirits. In addition to that they have climate controlled rickhouses, one which matches the climate of Bardstown, Kentucky and the other which matches Scotland and each is used to age the bourbon and rye and American single malts respectively. And if that's not enough they also grow their own grains.
We're meeting with Master Distiller Joe O’Sullivan and we're going to take a walk through the distillery and learn all about it. Come along and join us.
Joe [00:00:51]
Starting off a little bit earlier in my career and just not even making whiskey for the first.
Karen [00:00:57]
Well you're from Oregon originally.
Joe [00:00:57]
No I'm from Massachusetts but I've lived in seven states.
Ed [00:01:02]
Well you don't have a Massachusetts accent.
Joe [00:01:03]
No most of them, most of Mass doesn't. I'm from Cape Cod. Oh. Which had its own accent but it died out a long time ago.
Karen [00:01:12]
Interesting. Ed went to school in Boston.
Ed [00:01:14]
Yeah I spent a lot of time in Cape Cod when I was in college.
Joe [00:01:18]
Oh no kidding. Where, uh, where'd you go to school in Boston?
Ed [00:01:19]
MIT.
Joe [00:01:21]
I worked at Harvard for a bit. Um.
Ed [00:01:25]
That was that little brick school down the road for us.
Joe [00:01:27]
Well no I was Harvard Med. So i was way too far away over at Roxbury Crossing. So what you're seeing out here as we're driving out to the rickhouse is a good kind of lay of looking east. East. Into the Columbia or into the Great Basin which is where we're at. Everyone talks about high desert and high prairie and it's really an elevation claim more than anything else but it's pretty obvious that if you're looking straight ahead there is a bunch of really arid looking just scabby and brittle looking uh.
Karen [00:02:04]
Is this considered the Carson Valley then still?
Joe [00:02:07]
This is the Carson Valley. This is still part of the Carson Valley. But I'm trying to yeah I'm trying to like the Carson Valley is an interesting spot because you see all that ahead you're like that's there's no water there. Well the Carson River which is just a couple miles behind us right now is really the only reason why this works.
Karen [00:02:23]
Really that because it didn't look that big we drove over it on that.
Joe [00:02:26]
Carson River is just it's the tip of the iceberg for the aquifer that the snow melt provides and that it might look very small and it really is not the biggest river but it runs all the way to Frey Ranch and so what's really neat about that and it's like I think it's like 200 miles of river please don't quote me on if I'm going to be precise. What’s really neat about it is that it’s a… [overlapping speech unclear] I know but I'm I'm putting it straight out there I'm going to mispronounce words and I'm going to give bad numbers it's just going to be part of it.
They are rough assumptions based off of things I've read once but though it's really neat about that water system is that it doesn't lead to the ocean or a bigger river it ends in the Carson Sink and so one of the few times where that's saying, you know, all rivers lead to the ocean is not true. Yeah. It's just not the case. Well there's very few water systems that are like that it's an interesting interesting way to think that this is like [unclear] for that water alone.
Ed [00:03:34]
So does that wind up in a big aquifer or something?
Joe [00:03:37]
[unclear] Genoa right down the road was the first settlement in Nevada so all of this tends to have a little bit more of a sustainable ecosystem than trying to put something up in the desert you know.
Karen [00:03:53]
But that's what allowed the agriculture the farming the ranching to all happen because there was a natural water source here.
Joe [00:04:00]
Because there actually was a normal water source. That anytime that you have like a high altitude and a rain shadow effect like that you're going to see this these areas of water just at the edge of the desert. Wow. Going into it's not high prairie but it's like northern prairie which is on the outside of like Hood River Oregon you see the exact same thing. So looking straight ahead is the ranch.
Karen [00:04:30]
So is this part of the is it 1,200 acres?
Joe [00:04:34]
Yes it's part of the 1200 acres. It's part of the 1200. Okay get on out and take a quick look.
Ed [00:04:38]
It's amazing how flat it is in this valley though.
Joe [00:04:40]
You work something for a long time it gets flat.
Ed [00:04:45]
Oh so it wasn't this way to start with?
Joe [00:04:47]
Yeah nothing is. Land isn't naturally flat [unclear]—see those mounds over there it would have naturally looked a lot more like that for a couple hundred years of just tilling it and tilling it and tilling it you start to flatten it
Karen [00:05:00]
So what do you. So you guys grow everything?
Joe [00:05:03]
Barley, Earth Tones corn, wheat and rye. Wow. And we used to grow oats. Oats were really really difficult. So i'm taking them out of the the bourbon and upcoming releases. Oh really it's not gonna
Ed [00:05:20]
[unclear]
Joe [00:05:21]
They destroy your equipment super fast. [Brief overlapping exchange.] It turns to glue yeah.
Ed [00:05:27]
Oh really? Even just the 10 percent?
Joe [00:05:30]
It's enough. Wow. It sucks. So that was a that was a quality of life decision. [unclear] And mind you I love whiskey but I've been doing this a long time and the satisfaction of enjoying the people working here at this point is more important to me. Yeah. So yeah. So you can see this would be some of the rye fields that we would have grown on. Actually think this was a rye pivot this year. Sometimes I lose myself into where I was if it wasn't this year it was last year. Oh it was last year this was the rye pivot.
This was alfalfa this year.
Karen [00:06:02]
So what do you guys so what's your growing season then? I know I read it was really short because of.
Joe [00:06:09]
Yeah for for we're not growing any corn this year we only needed to grow rye this year so rye was already harvested. Okay. We have good amount of corn we have a good amount of everything else. So we're actually taking next year off which is going to be a huge relief on stress. One, you know, a year where we don't have to worry about growth. Rye has been my favorite to grow for sure. I really really. Yeah rye is interesting. I think it's more, I mean, I think corn is the most interesting grain because it's of its anthropological stuff but rye is the one that showcases terroir the best.
Karen [00:06:42]
So how do you feel that the that terroir affects the rye differently than another?
Joe [00:06:51]
You know that's an interesting that's that's kind of the interesting thing and it's it's what I've really learned in working here and that was the biggest draw to come here was to work with grain and to understand it just deeper and deeper. I, uh, it's rye is different than corn in the sense that like, you know, teosinte grass became corn over 7 000 years, 4 000 years, a long damn time and it's so teosinte grass like so that has a bunch of different phenotypes a bunch different ways of looks and all those different compounds that change the way it looks well that's going to change flavor.
The flavor rye there's not like gem rye. Everyone's getting ornate rye to put on their porch during Halloween. So what you get is you wind up selecting rye for more for anything else than just kind of how it grows not really what it tastes or looked like. You know it's not like sure there's not like masa rye versus fuel rye. Yeah oh right right right. And. So you get kind of this very similar plants regardless they just don't have the variation that corn has and as a result planting certain ryes here just kind of tastes different than they do in elsewhere and it's the clearest you'll experience it later today which you actually already have but it takes on much more of a citrusy flavor.
Ed [00:08:20]
So what type of rye is it?
Joe [00:08:21]
We use a combination of B.C. Hazlet and Serafino rye but cold weather rye likes cold dry conditions because it's susceptible to molds. Yeah. So you just kind of get a different flavor of it. In here where it's the high desert you get it's dry it's cold and as you can there's more humid in here than is outside you can feel it it's a little bit cooler too. Yes. So this is the approximation of Kentucky we go for and with that same level of humidity and the same temperature.
Karen [00:09:00]
So you are adding humidity in here okay.
Joe [00:09:03]
Yeah yeah yeah we have 11 and a half percent absolute humidity here on average. We were losing to angel share three to four percent per month.
Karen [00:09:15]
Okay I was gonna ask if you didn't have the humidity.
Joe [00:09:17]
It doesn't work yeah yeah trust me I was I was all gung-ho on really wanting it to work like everyone else and it don't work. You have an issue with just such a high high extraction and the low humidity means you're losing so much water that you're gonna just you're not going to get any of the water soluble compounds that that you would get if you were to be able to keep that proof inside the barrel down. Do, you know, what I mean?
Karen [00:09:51]
Do you have is there any how hot will you let it get?, I mean, is there a fluctuation in the heat or not really?
Joe [00:09:59]
No, I mean, it's always going to be hotter outside than it gets in here. It's not going to get to 120 in here because I don't, I mean, I think it got to 120 in Kentucky and we were trying to emulate it in here we would probably have a lot of issues with our all of our condensers. So yeah there's going to be like machine limitations and just what they can do and that's that's part of it, you know, is that this is when I when we tell people that this is emulated that this is like tied to the weather station the Bardstown airport and that is true but you also have the thermal load of all the barrels in here so just because it went from like a 70 degree day to a 50 degree day there does not mean that in here it's going to do that.
Yeah because things don't change so dramatically when you have all of this heat stored in liquid.
Ed [00:10:50]
But that's the same for a Kentucky rickhouse., I mean, people seem exactly on the oh it's hot in the morning it's cold in the evening it goes in and out it's like the first floor
Karen [00:10:58]
Doesn't change., I mean, your first floor it's not going to change
Joe [00:11:01]
It doesn't change at all. And then I've explained that to people and it's I think it kind of at times it's almost like upsets the fundamental thing they want to be a truth and they need to take a thermodynamics. Yeah yeah it's like you could, you know, and. So we used to have this down to we used to have this place down to like a minute to minute control and we were breaking so much equipment and I was like guys like we don't need to do we don't we can do that but it's not doing anything so it now it's a week out.
Karen [00:11:33]
Okay so how does so then how do you think the altitude here affects
Joe [00:11:40]
Altitude, I mean, I don't know we that is I think that's one of the biggest mysteries it doesn't have an effect absolutely and I think it has a lot to do.
Karen [00:11:48]
Does it affect angel share do you think?
Joe [00:11:49]
I think so yeah you do okay I don't know I don't know I don't know how but it does and it's just I just see spirits acting differently here okay in ways that I have like I'm not even sure how to measure it it's just its own thing there is an art to maturation in the high desert that that we go through with our team here.
Karen [00:12:10]
Do you think it takes longer or not necessary?
Joe [00:12:13]
A little bit I honestly think it goes a little faster faster and the reason being is it's just that much less pressure to escape out of solution so if you're gonna lose stuff to angel share it's gonna happen quicker I don't think that it makes the barrels like, you know, barrels still breathe, you know, there's still stuff going back and forth I don't think that changes but I think they've got actual pressure of the air on top of it.
Karen [00:12:39]
Is it different between single malts versus the bourbon and rye?
Joe [00:12:47]
For sure. Well, let’s head out to single malt. Okay.
Ed [00:12:51]
So how many levels is it is it just one?
Joe [00:12:54]
No, it goes up that way. [Brief question about the number of levels.] No, it’s six levels—two floors, six levels.
Karen [00:13:01]
It's kind of like a the Four Roses. Yeah
Joe [00:13:04]
Well, I mean, that's a huge inspiration to us it's always been Four Roses. Oh I don't know many distillers who who don't have just a massive soft spot for Four Roses we just always love those guys because they're just, I mean, the industry's small I'm sure you've learned that yes but they're also those guys in particular have always just been really nice folks. Oh yeah
Karen [00:13:28]
Yeah we we we enjoy Four Roses very much
Joe [00:13:33]
And I think that there's I I don't think it's ever really brought enough but there's kind of a small generation of of people who read a lot, you know, read books in the in the 90s and in 2000s who probably read a lot of Haruka Haruka and Murakami. The Japanese writer who wrote Windup Bird Chronicles it was a big deal for a while and he talked about Four Roses all the time. Oh really? I think I think it implanted a little bit to certain people that just like books. Yeah. So we're heading into into Scotland now okay and, you know, this is the same sort of thing you're gonna know it's a much more humid environment much more colder environments in the summer it is the it's the hardest for it to be effective but the idea is not to match it perfectly because how are you going to do that?
Right. But to give it your best damn shot.
Karen [00:14:30]
It still smells, uh, you still get a nice angel share smell though.
Joe [00:14:37]
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Ed [00:14:42]
So you use just the standard 53, right, for the bourbon and rye? Yeah. Yes because talking about the angel share and stuff because Leopold Brothers they use the dunnage right because it's to try to fight that and then some of the Texas ones use either the 60 gallon barrels or the thicker, uh, just outright thicker wall. Jeez look at that.
Joe [00:15:01]
To try to decrease it. I've done that we did that at Clear Creek with the Carthets for a while we went up to they were like I want to say they were like 70 gallon barrels but yeah but in the end we didn't like the surface area to extraction qualities so they weren't really our thing. All right. So you one of the things you see here is any of the ones with the white these are Chip Tate projects ah and so that's going to be the Ampersand the Gambit and all those finishing projects that he's working on.
Ed [00:15:33]
So these are all his finishing barrels.
Karen [00:15:36]
He reviewed it—he really liked it.
Joe [00:15:38]
You like the Ampersand?
Ed [00:15:41]
Yeah I like the Gambit too. I like the Gambit too. He's done a really really good job., I mean, considering how many different barrels are in there it's surprising. It's you get a little worried when you start getting up to like six different things.
Joe [00:15:50]
Oh we we were but it's like I've also found and I know this to be probably exactly exactly like what you would expect but all spirits improve a month or so after they've bottled. I don't care like I think getting it the day of and drinking it right away you're getting it at its most angry and I have sat there with it with the Malus.
Karen [00:16:14]
I've not ever heard anybody say angry that's pretty good.
Joe [00:16:15]
I've sat there with the Malus and I've liked all the Ampersands but the Malus is the one that like took me the longest and I've sat there with the Malus and I was like wow three months in like this has really found itself and they're so delicate. There's so much stuff going on in there that I of course I want them to sell out within day one. That's great for everybody but for the best experience for the consumer now that they've like since they are kind of a very very well well done slow burn in terms of what's out there I think the consumer is going to get the best of it now.
Like I genuinely think all of them have improved. They were already good but they're just like they're soft they just got to a spot where you can tell the liquid is happy.
Karen [00:16:54]
Well he, I mean, Ed always thinks that.
Ed [00:16:56]
Yeah, I mean, I think almost everything improves especially when it's a higher proof more complex yeah improves after it opens so when I try to when I review things, I mean, I try to do it over at least a couple of days over a period, I mean, I've said like longer but that's not feasible.
Joe [00:17:13]
I mean it's just the physicality of how the filling machines work. They introduce a ton of oxygen you're going to have oxygen put in there with a bunch of alcohol and you're going to get greater ester development because that's how esters are formed and so it totally makes sense that this is how it would go you know.
Karen [00:17:30]
So how many barrels of the whiskey do you
Joe [00:17:34]
Got, like, shy of 6,000.
Karen [00:17:41]
Wow. So, between the two buildings? Okay, look at that. And where do your new barrels come from?
Joe [00:17:45]
Almost exclusively for Seguin Moreau., I mean, that's I got nothing wrong I've had great stuff from Kelvin I've had great stuff from Barrel Mill. I have a such a soft spot for 36 month air dried staves and the reason for that is again just kind of where I came from in the industry with McCarthy's and working with smaller cooperages like Oregon Barrel Works when I was younger the air dried staves just have a quality to them that the kiln dried staves will never have.
Karen [00:18:14]
And you said 36 months? Yeah. Well that's I don't know we've the the more distilleries that we've toured especially the craft and the places that use long just make better whiskey.
Joe [00:18:32]
Honestly it's it costs more I get it but like it's just a better raw ingredients. Yeah. Nancy Fraley visited me and Caitlin Bartlemay. Have you talked to Caitlin before? No. I gotta get we're gonna make that happen. She was my protege at Clear Creek. Oh. And still like one of my best friends. Caitlin and I were hanging out with Nancy one time and the big conversation was that distillers could make their lives so much easier by using better quality barrels and it's definitely the truth like getting quality barrels it makes it it's a huge huge huge thing
Karen [00:19:06]
And what's the cost difference then say between like a 12 month stave or a 36 month for Barrow?
Joe [00:19:13]
I mean if you're gonna go from like a kiln dried stave to this, I mean, you're talking a couple hundred bucks.
Karen [00:19:18]
Well these are expensive barrels. Which is gonna raise your bottle cost.
Joe [00:19:22]
But they genuinely that is if you had to if someone had to shake my shoulders and say what's the most important thing that you can do to get making whiskey right good quality oak. Good quality oak and also just the places that do the 36 months the char that they're doing is we're going to be very consistent it's not as automated. So you're just going to be getting like a deeper roast a deeper toast and a lot of the time you're getting you're getting better quality grain you can look at the grain on this yeah look at that see how straight it is now let's find like, you know, one of these old yeah like one of these old, uh, quick quickly made bourbon barrels you can see like a rising grain here that can't even be sanded down you can see chaff marks on the side and that's just all you got see you got have this tiger striping right here that's going to be like where it can come out and it makes the croze seal poorly so it's just one of those things you just get better quality wood with those sort of barrels too they're just they're selecting them a lot of time this stuff comes from, uh, two things one the Doug fir industry this has got it's so nerdy I'm so sorry no it's gonna come from the Doug fir industry where, uh, particularly Oregon oak will be found in those stands oak and fir grow well together and so they're going to be if an area is logging a bunch to make two by fours they may say hey we got an oak in the way contact a cooperage smaller cooperages in particular to come get it or it's somebody who has an old oak on their house that's like encroaching on their house and putting a threat and they say hey we're going to get this taken down do you want to come and get the wood and at least how I've seen it work in the past and they'll contact like rick at Oregon Barrel Works and and say hey do you want this this tree and he'll slab it out and let it then cut it up in the rough staves and let it dry
Ed [00:21:22]
Do you distill year round
Joe [00:21:23]
Uh we distill in campaigns and it depends on the product so for whiskey we always look at what we have in stock versus like what we want to release so there is always something to release quarterly or every third of the year or whatever we decide on for things like the upcoming gin that's going to be, um, probably they, you know, give me two months two three months heads up and I'll make it happen, uh, coffee liqueur same deal vodka same deal so
Ed [00:21:59]
It's not temperature out ambient temperature dependent is that
Joe [00:22:03]
I try to avoid the summer as much as better to distill in the winter where you don't have to pay so much and work so hard for chilling because
Ed [00:22:10]
Yeah I was going to ask is your water come from us but it comes out of spring or the aquifer
Joe [00:22:15]
It comes out of the aquifer. So i'll point it out when we get there you're going to see a big silo like my big that's big you're not going to see a big silo like the silos that are on the side of the building but you see a wide, circus-tent-shaped silo that's where the pump is now I I I've only seen this pump once because it is locked up by the town of Minden really I don't have a key to it no, uh, it still supplies municipality with water so [unclear] I got to we get first rights because it's on our property but, uh, the town of Minden they're the only ones with keys but
Ed [00:22:51]
Interesting what is the temperature when it comes out of the aquifer
Joe [00:22:54]
Uh low 60s if I recall wow but we're still putting it through a, uh, two different systems one is it's really convoluted to be truthful we're going to go through both chillers and ambient fin fin chillers as well so, um, fin fans cool the water which cools glycol which then goes to cool the water and then, um, that will handle any of the chilling that we need on the dephlegmator if we're making the dephlegmator and condenser if we're making any, um, like we're making the the vodka or just the condenser for doing anything else and so fighting that in the summer can be the hardest because a big believer in the creating a strong thermal barrier to get like the the most like shiny like purposeful spirits that just seem to know where they want to be the difference between pear brandy for example which is I use it because it's such a clear one to kind of mentally taste in your mind the difference between distilling pear brandy with a good amount of chilling capacity versus almost none is the difference between a, um, you know kind of like a flavorless just flabby late season pear and a nice well well picked well ripened perfect Bartlett which is like rich and you can taste the graininess and all that stuff just the details go away with a strong chilling capacity
Ed [00:24:34]
Have you had to do much to the distilleries since you I know it was [unclear] yeah
Joe [00:24:41]
Well these guys were experts I didn't do anything I know that's well I I've designed and I've designed the new products the team was the team is like solid what do I have to do no they've been incredible
Ed [00:24:53]
Yeah well the distillery itself was sort of built with that sort of money is no object yes
Joe [00:24:58]
Yeah, uh, which itself has like did I have to learn a lot oh yeah, um, automate Foley automated distilleries are it's like it's like learning how to drive a one of a time one of a kind never made before never made after a car and all the controls are different and you're here like okay how do I drive this vehicle it doesn't have a steering wheel doesn't do it doesn't do the things normal cars do how do I make this run and so automation comes with that little issue but and it comes with certain things that are problematic like man all that money they couldn't just put like a sanitary fitting onto the bottom of a tank that I could just go right into yeah, you know, [unclear] for a small volume I don't want to like push it between four tanks stuff like that it's like, you know, sometimes you get a little too big for your britches well
Karen [00:25:51]
Yes but they did did they have, uh, did the [unclear] have any experience in distilling no. So you have complete say so over everything that happens here for the most part I I have what you put in the bottle or what you guys
Joe [00:26:07]
I have strategic say so of of when I pick my battles I also know oh this is where the pump house is I also know that if I were to only follow my own ideas we wouldn't have things like Evil Bean which is our coffee liqueur which they asked me to design and I designed liqueurs before but for this one I really wanted to, uh, do something a little bit more broad appeal and it's become our fastest seller oh wow yeah we actually have some international production of it now so that's why I'm sometimes the in my mind we're gonna take it right here like as a master distiller and still never quite entirely sure what that means
Karen [00:26:53]
Well I think it is probably valid to have other opinions
Joe [00:26:58]
Well yeah, I mean, I'd listen that's like anyone who has that title now just kind of like lucked into the start of the thing yeah and we just kind of blindly did it for a long time and now people think that we're we're smart where we're not but most importantly we should know that we're still blindly just kind of fumbling around so it's not like my ideas are always good
Ed [00:27:18]
Foley is they're just private right they're family owned, uh, they're family owned so they can make their they
Karen [00:27:27]
Don't
Joe [00:27:34]
Have people wow it still comes down to bill and the leadership team like they're there I would say it's not like you have people uninvolved who are making decisions that get listened to too loudly, um, you know I'm sure there's a whole level of that that I don't see yeah but from what I've experienced it's very internal
Ed [00:27:54]
We are now back on the main campus and are heading into the distillery that's used to make the bourbon and rye Look at those tanks.
Joe [00:28:02]
So this is our Christian CARL this is the second one of this size that I've used I built one of these one time really in fact yeah I didn't build this one which I kind of feel like I was robbed it was really fun to build one, um, but this one's great because this whole Christian CARL setup I really like german stills, uh, one request do not touch copper yep as you can see it leaves one of our lovely distillers did this one time and I will continue to humiliate her and
Ed [00:28:35]
She can be identified yeah right
Joe [00:28:38]
That's how we know is her is that there is only one person who's hand fit that it's
Karen [00:28:45]
Funny
Joe [00:28:45]
Yeah so what I like about this Christian CARL stills is that they are versatile in the fact that you can use them for pretty much anything and the ability to make the neutral spirit off the 42 chamber system up there is pretty phenomenal you could eat it's just it's just a really cool cool still and you can see right inside each one of these well maybe you can't see without too much life
Karen [00:29:09]
So you make the whiskey on these also or the bourbon whiskey just on the pot?
Joe [00:29:14]
Whiskey on the pot so yeah so the bourbon in the rye very traditional yeah pot with an agitator down the bottom wow 1300 gallons okay. So this is where we do all of our cuts all of our, you know, it's heads hearts tails some people do the whole thing with [unclear] foreshots and everything I keep it simple, um, heads hearts tails I'll go through that no recycling of heads or tails system it's too big we won't get enough out of it to make it worth it, uh, this however is how we kind of economize everything this collection of pipework is a Headframe, uh, stripping still oh.
So we get all of our low wines off of that it's good and good ideas this is the overview of just how everything works
Ed [00:30:04]
Okay yeah I was going to ask because it said you used the column for the stripping still in the pot
Joe [00:30:08]
Yeah so stripping comes out of here so all the low wines are produced with zero cuts that will go through one five thousand gallon fermenter in a day so where if we were to do it on that 1300 gallon pot we would have to do four runs of low wines or of [unclear] this allows us to do it one day what we would do otherwise in a week you have to do that's what I'm trying to say
Ed [00:30:34]
Yeah to get enough to fill it to do those exactly
Joe [00:30:36]
Yeah. So you can see kind of how we interact with everything I'm not sure because I haven't signed on to it so it's not going to let me do anything yet but you can see everything from the cereal intake someone had to make this little truck isn't that cute, uh, everything from cereal intake which happens directly above our heads with the puck-and-chain system up there right here going into our cooker which is right behind us gotcha goes to five to five days to a week of fermentation typically, um, we're not too tight on that
Karen [00:31:09]
Are these lined with anything?
Joe [00:31:10]
Nope they're just they're just wood. So the idea of that is to get a little bit of that, um, natural flora and fauna the microcosm
Karen [00:31:19]
What is it made of? What kind of wood is it—oak, or…?
Joe [00:31:22]
Yeah just American oak they're beautiful they're incredible they last like 30 years or so too they're pretty amazing wow and then this is the stripping still which honestly I was a little uncertain on how I would feel about like operating on what I would do and I I'm I'm sold man if you like it if you want to be efficient this is the way to do it I've never seen this yeah
Karen [00:31:47]
I've never seen one like this
Joe [00:31:48]
It's a Headframe butte montana
Ed [00:31:50]
How does it work?
Joe [00:31:54]
The same system so let's go to this side okay I wish I had like a laser pointer or something, um, you have constant feed coming in from feed goes in at that you see there's like a an elbow that goes down so that's where they're going to be constantly being fed fermented wash from the beer well which is going to go through the economizer so stillage comes off that heats counter float the cold beer which chills the stillage which goes out this goes into the top and what you have is a system where out where at certain temperatures there's different plates and so at one plate anything that comes off of that is we know will be roughly at this proof where the 120 per
Karen [00:32:45]
So there's plates in there we just don't see
Ed [00:32:48]
So, much like a regular column still except no portals
Joe [00:32:52]
With no portals and fewer plates and you continuously feed it and you continuously drain okay so all in all it does is rip out alcohol making zero cuts and and, um, no ability to shape it it's just an economizer in order to allow us to run through as much wash as possible okay
Karen [00:33:12]
And this I'm sorry the stillage, uh, it said I read that you guys compost it And it goes out—does it go to farmers?
Joe [00:33:18]
It goes out to the yeah there's a out in the ranch is a massive compost facility that's the largest municipal compost facility in northern Nevada that we contribute to cool sometimes when it gets like really nasty out we can't drive the truck out there we have to find other options because it gets muddy but okay, um, yeah that's where where it all goes that's where all the grain goes too really yeah
Karen [00:33:43]
Very cool
Ed [00:33:44]
There's an awful lot of pipes in this thing
Joe [00:33:47]
Oh it's impossible to follow it takes a long time to kind of get good at
Karen [00:33:53]
Yeah I'm sure
Ed [00:33:53]
This I don't think I've ever seen anything quite this complex
Joe [00:33:56]
Needlessly but beautiFoley so it's beautiFoley needlessly complex
Karen [00:34:01]
But the team was, uh, when you came to work here the team was still in place that was, uh, had been running it yeah yeah
Joe [00:34:09]
I was [unclear] at that time I was the only new guy, um, but I had known the team for years I had known members of the team like [unclear], Chelsea, Carrie, and Johnny the man who started it I've been friends with him for 10 years with the industry being as small as it is like you kind of know everybody yeah and your friends, you know, we really try to support each other I I that I stay in this because I love the people who and that's my favorite part it's it's not about whiskey it's not about seeing making something and seeing on a shelf anymore like that's fun like I still get a kick out of it yeah it's really I stay here because I I think it it just has such a wonderFoley smart and kind group of people who We like the people who Work who work in it and make whiskey like the and it's across the whole thing too but like as as a guy that I'm production, you know, like it's a fancy title for like basically foreman and it's just a production job and I and there is a certain amount of us that I think like still view it as that is just like the best production job in the world and there's a lot of fun and we feel very lucky to have it.
So we try to be good to each other yeah this is a microcosm of everything this is cool yeah yeah yeah this is my favorite still honestly
Karen [00:35:23]
This is just a baby version of the other one yeah
Joe [00:35:25]
The best still in the whole thing this is, uh, right now you can smell we're using it to do some I'm sorry some gin experiments yeah
Karen [00:35:33]
You can smell the heat in there a little bit
Joe [00:35:34]
Oh yeah so yeah this is the small little R&D still and then over here
Karen [00:35:40]
I love these big so all these doors and everything were all part of the original or
Joe [00:35:47]
No all of this is new this is okay yeah this is all safety stuff those doors drop damn fast and these are blending rooms wow we got, uh, john jake down there from john is the lead blender looks like they just are receiving barrels otherwise I would do an introduction oh it's okay, um, maybe I'll catch them on the back end yeah plus I don't want to see me I gotta run away but you're asking me to help them with the barrels to do work you're gonna ask me to do stuff, um, and then disgorging blending bottling stuff coming off the stills gonna be shared between these rooms with largely this being blending and disgorging working with this team, you know, I oversee elements of farm I oversee elements of distillation elements of blending but what you called out earlier is true this is such a formalized team that when I showed up I was like hey it would have been insulting for me to say no you're gonna try it I'm gonna blend it my way I’m not gonna be that guy but two it's it's no one there was no kind of like heads to knock together to get people to shape up or anything like yeah it's been a professional team since the beginning.
So i largely every monday I go to I go to lead blender lead head distiller and I'm just like what do you need and then I just ask them
Karen [00:37:10]
Nothing—stay out of the way?
Joe [00:37:11]
Stay out of the way I stay out of the way yeah if they need me I just want them to tell me what they need and then as as long as things continue to taste good as long as we continue to see good results I will have all the faith in the world that they're making the right decisions
Karen [00:37:25]
So how many barrels at a time like when you're they're getting ready to to, uh, to disgorge yeah does it just depend on what it is
Joe [00:37:33]
Depends on volumes anywhere I'd say anywhere from 20 to 50, um, we're we're limited on bottling tank capacity so that's going to set it okay where our largest tank is at 1900 gallons, um, so getting we can do the math between bottle proof barrel proof and figure what that would be and how many barrels right but we can always do double loads as well for everything but the coffee liqueur which we try to just do single loads because it's so there's like is it sticky it's evolving sugar everything with sugar sticky so and here is is bottling and we are a bottling team like I like bottling it's one of the few times that we all seriously work together I know everyone hates it I like it because we're getting it and every it's all hands on deck like I jump on I'm I throw glass I try to do whatever the shittiest job is which is usually putting on some sort of like infuriating sticker that straight oh
Karen [00:38:30]
Yeah yeah right here
Joe [00:38:33]
I hate this guy I hate that guy so much also you guys hate this one and so yeah that's just kind of how this is everything on here is by hand but we have jigs, um, so yeah I usually try to take one of those jobs if I can you guys want to go look through the guts of the single malt so
Karen [00:38:50]
Sure yeah everything's so pretty in here it's almost like you're not using, I mean, it's, I mean, that's how clean it is
Joe [00:38:59]
You can, I mean, that's a compliment I like to see as a compliment I do like that there's elements of like old whiskey stuff we do in fact do stuff in here absolutely we're, you know, we haven't run the zamboni in a while but we do have a floor zamboni I'm not joking we have a cleaning zamboni, um, that's clearly we wash down the floors we also have really a really great one degree of slant I was gonna ask so everything drains well no biofilm no stink wow
Ed [00:39:26]
Very nice this is a very large distillery considering you have another distillery
Joe [00:39:32]
The, uh, you know with American single malts it's it's I would like to say that that one is going to get used more but in time in time that half we'll see a little bit more action I'm I I still, I mean, I don't I I'm never giving up on the dream but yeah this is the old mill, and Virginia and Truckee Railroad came right down there right right this way to that loading platform and that loading platform is where this is the largest of all the grain mills that kind of fed the comstock oh
Karen [00:40:07]
Cool look at this whoever gets to disappear into a big tank so
Joe [00:40:13]
This is the this is the coolest part of it it doesn't look like much but this is the thermal oil calandria you can hear a little bit of just like pumps whirring it might smell a little bit of a like an oily smell how we heat the still the stills above us and that's the bottom of a Forsyth still and jeez this is the bottom of the Forsyth still so how we heat these instead of steam this is heating oh that was the oil I read in the oil so and again I'm always like very clear this is the same literally the same stuff you use to season your butcher block it is plant-derived, food-grade yeah, um, but you can heat that without building pressure oh really yeah and and.
So we can cook at 185 degrees celsius above the Maillard reaction which produces additional [unclear] and other flavor compounds without the risk of direct fire and if we were to try to do that with high pressure steam or steam we'd be pushing that high pressure steam which
Karen [00:41:12]
So the temperature would be higher super high
Joe [00:41:14]
But right when you see these vessels like these are big vessels you don't high pressure steam in a vessel that's 15 feet across is like a bomb it's a bomb. So you can't do it
Karen [00:41:26]
So, uh, the mineral oil then is a closed system yeah. So you don't have to it actually heats the whole building but you don't have to keep
Joe [00:41:38]
No we do, you know, what, I mean, once in a while we gotta drain it down just because we need service to be done on it okay we haven't gotten to a place where we have to like change it out for any other reason except for some gasket breaks and we got it okay
Karen [00:41:50]
You know it seems like it would be self-contained
Joe [00:41:54]
It is but, you know, things like these mechanical seals you can see [unclear] work's been done and well, you know, guess what we bought this and none of those seals the actual and not mechanical seals those just be regular seals all the seals were not temperature rated for what we were doing because this is how things are done and forgive me but sometimes engineers do make mistakes I'm not entirely sure
Ed [00:42:17]
I don't know I've been on the opposite side I'm not an engineer but, I mean, but I went through engineering school
Joe [00:42:22]
But yeah with working at MIT you've probably met many of these individuals they might be your friends
Ed [00:42:29]
My lots of friends oddly I have lots of friends that had engineering degrees and for some reason the majority of them are lawyers who never makes mistakes right
Joe [00:42:36]
Wow look at that so here is the single malt distilling facility so this would be all grain off so that's why we have our own mash tun fermenters as well as stills for this wow
Karen [00:42:51]
Man that is crazy
Joe [00:42:55]
It's pretty neat huh
Ed [00:42:58]
Yeah. So you're saying you don't you don't make the American single malts all that often
Joe [00:43:02]
Yeah we're not running as much as I'd like, you know, you we have a lot socked away we're waiting for some demand to pick up
Karen [00:43:09]
So this is where the grain would drop in
Joe [00:43:12]
Yeah we have, um, there's a connector outside this is feed in this is it this is return okay so inside of this is that same puck-and-chain system so it carries it all the way up dumps it in the hopper and then it gets milled in wow
Karen [00:43:30]
That is crazy
Joe [00:43:32]
And then this is a mash tun
Karen [00:43:36]
So
Joe [00:43:39]
Obviously we still run it but it's just, you know, you would like to run it right I'd like to be running a lot more yeah it's just no. So this is one of my more faithful pieces of equipment I love this guy it just always performs well
Ed [00:43:50]
How long does it take to get that oil up to temperature
Joe [00:43:53]
I don't know we always use it for heating so it's always kind of warm
Ed [00:43:56]
So it's it's warm now yeah
Joe [00:43:59]
So it's keeping the building warm now okay it was cold last night it was a pretty chilly building because we haven't been open we open the tasting room from thursday till oh thursday sunday so otherwise this building would be cold as hell really yeah. So this is going to be our stripping still this is our spirit still, uh, we cook at 185 there's some really interesting things where you can cook at different temperatures and like 180 tastes different than 185 tastes different than 190 you can kind of see why what if I might have some samples of
Karen [00:44:30]
So your optimal is 185 or is that what you shoot there's a wee like
Joe [00:44:34]
Yeah there's no optimal
Karen [00:44:36]
It's well I'm yes absolutely yeah
Joe [00:44:38]
Yeah and then the traditional spirit safe just because, um, it's a homage to what the UK folks have to deal with with their tax man
Karen [00:44:46]
Oh really is that how they look over there
Joe [00:44:49]
They're taxed at the point of production so oh actually this there'd be a lock on this and the distillers rather than running through sensory cuts would just be reading hydrometers which is fine and good, um, nothing wrong with it I find it just you make better products if you can make it a little bit more fine tuned if you can use both your mouth and that, um, that would have been considered stealing because it's taxes paid on something produced that you're consuming, um, we're taxing the point of bottling yes so this doesn't belong here and the distiller can take whatever the share is it's just pretty as I told the folks is Foley the distiller always gets their share we will always get our share
Karen [00:45:26]
Well I would think if you wanted to make really good whiskey it would be a you want to try something a good way to do it absolutely so how hot does it get hot in here though in the summer like this
Joe [00:45:37]
In this room yeah people
Karen [00:45:40]
Don't work
Joe [00:45:40]
Yeah we have another station down below we found that up fast yeah another station down below where it was really obvious that like okay people have to run it via that
Karen [00:45:51]
Yeah it would seem to me it could be problematic so
Joe [00:45:54]
This is the visitor center This is the second floor of the tasting room okay so this everything you see here that's black iron that's all going to be seismic retrofitted elements and so between keeping the building preserved with seismic retrofit aspects between using local water using all the heat exchange technology we have to try to like use every bit of cold or every bit of hot so
Karen [00:46:20]
That's part of the LEED certification at all or
Joe [00:46:23]
That’s exactly it. Yeah okay that's that's how you get it yeah you you can do something extravagant even garish if you look at that chandelier which I'm not going to say is garish but people have accused me
Karen [00:46:36]
Yeah that might be a little garish for
Joe [00:46:38]
That you can still get you can still get the certification because
Karen [00:46:43]
Who said this it can't be pretty
Ed [00:46:45]
How do you do your gin did you have a basket or you'd do the infusion
Joe [00:46:49]
I do infusion it's I've learned the hard way that, um, your best to best to design simplified production techniques in case something takes off and I designed that coffee liqueur we were supposed to do 500 nine-liter cases a year we did we did 10 000 in year one and I had to retool the entire production technique to somehow get it to taste the same
Karen [00:47:18]
Same
Joe [00:47:20]
Which I think I got 90 percent of that but also to make it affordable and be scalable and doable so gin baskets I love, um, if we're going to do a limited edition sure I like do that a couple times a year but I think for anything that's going to be a flagship from here on out I'm just trying to design very simple scalable mathematical yeah reliable distillation techniques that get you still good products work smarter not harder
Karen [00:47:50]
Are we talking
Joe [00:47:53]
It's not about me It's about people who show up every day yeah I get to be like look at me master distiller I'm not doing half the work right yeah. So i I have a very different, um, I think it's also that like I come from a blue collar family, uh, a lobstering family [unclear], um, I got into this as a like because I used to be a carpenter who also has a biology degree but it was my carpentry skills that got into it wow and I just still have like a very kind of like appreciate the the workmanship approach to things because quite honestly I just don't know of a of a way to do this sort of job long term if you're not going to be a little bit generous to the folks that you work with, you know, oh yeah
Karen [00:48:38]
You know what I how many years have you been here now
Joe [00:48:40]
Uh I'm on my fourth year now so it's three and I don't know like five months something like that
Ed [00:48:49]
So is any some of the whiskey that you've actually
Joe [00:48:54]
Oh yeah, I mean, it's now out, uh, it'll be out in the next release or two, um, but the coffee liqueur the vodka and the gin are all my design so, you know, it's just the time it's one of the greatest things I that like I I love when this happens so one of the things that meant the most to me in my production of any spirits would always be the 15 year old apple brandy that I made at Clear Creek oh wow and it was put into I made in 2007 and it was put into a bunch of to a bunch of, uh, barrels and then it was promptly forgotten about really and I went and I moved to New York and I did a whole bunch of consultation there and then I got hired by the dodges to run Clear Creek and Hood River Distillers as a master distiller and then I, um, and then during that Caitlin the protege she found this stuff and she was like this stuff is 12 years old now and we waited another three years to release it but I'd already done this.
So i'm a big fan of of the fact that like has it been the same master distiller and I'm [unclear] this whole time like we we do have lives and we do handoffs and since some of my colleagues at times be a little squidgy about that and I think it's a they're they're shorting themselves the greatest joy of this job which is that it is we are members of a very old guild that hasn't changed that much in thousands of years and it has never been about the individual nor should it ever yeah yeah yeah sure so like the I get marketing team always wants to make the distiller like the rock star and it's like yeah that's not how it should be yeah it should be the team it's the rock star and so it's the spirit that makes the product not the individual yeah unless your name is [unclear]
Ed [00:50:55]
So they want to face yeah they want to have somebody go you can't bring the whole team with
Joe [00:51:00]
So, this is the rye. And while you don’t drink, you should—
Karen [00:51:04]
Yeah, yeah. I’ll smell.
Joe [00:51:06]
I was gonna say you'll get a little bit of that candied orange quality though yeah across
Karen [00:51:09]
You can tell there’s… [overlapping speech unclear]
Joe [00:51:21]
[unclear]
Ed [00:51:24]
So that smells it a little bit of course of course
Joe [00:51:26]
But you would even with any amount of wheat you would definitely be getting that black pepper it bends to the spice note and in this it's all candied orange. So you get a lot of that that orange note this is my favorite one to do some of the the retronasal breathing like I'm trying to get that on your tongue with your open mouth like you were a cat trying to trying to figure out what was going on
Karen [00:51:53]
What's the proof on uh
Joe [00:51:55]
94. So we went with 94 because we were seeing flock at 92 [unclear] and I probably have a bottle in QC to prove it, um, because we saw flock in the single malts and and when we did our initial bottling we were gonna bottle at 92 because that's what convention tells you is safe, uh, we saw some flock on that first trial bottling and we're like all right we gotta do some label approval let's let's make sure that this is above that and I've seen it since wow I'm okay with it I think it's an indicator of a better quality product with more flavor I just don't want to answer questions don't answer that question for the rest of my life.
So i try to not draw attention to it yeah I see it yeah in general I see it so rarely um
Ed [00:52:38]
Well that's another thing we've been told that people have seen it up over 100 like andrea said yeah like 107 andrea, um, from Michter’s yeah because they filter everything yeah and oh you said she's seen it at like 107 hundred
Joe [00:52:54]
I've seen it, uh, it's just so damn rare it's to see it that high. So i'm just gonna run with it
Ed [00:53:00]
Well, the public doesn’t—do they get, like…?
Joe [00:53:00]
[unclear] they that's that they're afraid of is the public's reaction yes, um, but I've seen it so rarely that I'm just like it's not really a problem it might just be a particularly like flavorful edge now we don't have any sort of chill filtration capabilities here and I would like to keep it that way all right well this is a, I mean, I don't know I love this one I think this is the best [unclear] terroir that we got
Karen [00:53:26]
Well I like that, uh, it's so funny because, you know, all the other states that are distilling and doing things so few of them will put their state on there [Brief overlapping agreement.] Because Kentucky always says Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey why wouldn't you say indiana Straight Bourbon Whiskey or Nevada Straight Rye Whiskey
Joe [00:53:46]
I mean to me it's a it's a protectorate, um, yes you're the first to establish that then you can show what the terms are yeah and and you are the first one there and I I'll tell you I know a lot of distillers complain about the TTB I find them to be 100 on our side in terms of like keeping and not by our side I'm talking about the American drinking public like u.s alcohol does not have the issues that mexican and even some canadians where it's at where you have the canadian whiskey the 9.09 rule where a bunch of the alcohol in there can be something that's not oh yeah yeah mexico you have all the additives they're putting caffeine and stuff into your alcohol just to get you to like party longer and drink more and like you can't read in any of Mark Brown's news without [unclear]
Ed [00:54:37]
Well, you know, whiskey was made from molasses until yeah fairly recently until fairly recently yeah Amrut was the first of the single malts
Joe [00:54:46]
And so yeah the the, you know, it's like the u.s spirits are really TTB does a good job of being good for the consumer and that's good by me yeah because because I want to know I want transparency. So i I really like them, um, I would see them absolutely being like okay we know what Nevada Straight is it doesn't mean it's got everything's got taste a certain way but it’s saying that you're not sourcing yes
Karen [00:55:10]
And this is where
Ed [00:55:12]
To get it official doesn't it either have to because there's not too many because Kentucky's straight is actually like an official designation right and then tennessee whiskey and then indiana's now I think indiana
Joe [00:55:25]
Yep and New York rye, Empire Rye yeah and but it's like you estate it's the small distilleries that establish these terms through working with the feds okay. So we were the ones who established we we set the precedent but this is
Ed [00:55:39]
But this is pretty good. Rye’s very good. I mean, I really like the flavor of the rye.
Joe [00:55:41]
Yeah, um, you get that a little bit of an orange quality right
Ed [00:55:45]
So, you see what I’m talking about? Orange yeah and the spices and the usual herbal is toned down a little bit Next we’ll move on to the Minden Mill Nevada Straight Bourbon.
Karen [00:55:55]
That smells good. Cherry cola. Yes, very sweet.
Joe [00:55:58]
It's so fun [unclear] a lot of blue in it a lot of green those additional carotenoids, anthocyanins they contribute a lot of flavor but it's also a really starchy corn so
Karen [00:56:10]
So there's a lot of sugar or a lot of starch
Joe [00:56:13]
I would say there's less sugar than a yellow dent for sure, um, but not tremendously so it but it's none of its ready at the time of harvest you have to convert it in the actual mash and cook because like if you take a yellow dent corn off the stock you can eat it it might be a little tough and it might be a little starchy but it's edible if you were to do that with this, uh, gemstone these gemstone corns and they're gonna it's gonna be like yeah it's gonna be just eating chalk—drywall so
Ed [00:56:49]
It's like yellow dent has glucose in it to begin with it's pretty sweet
Joe [00:56:54]
I don't know if it's glucose I don't know like what sugar it is but but yeah you bite it it's soft and sweet already even as it ripens on the tree it's it there's it goes it's yeah as long as you dry it out it stays but yeah you can eat that it's sweet yeah it's it's really nice, I mean, comparatively this is like let me let me say that I ain't doing that like fourth of july just being like oh I'm good yeah like I'm cooking it
Karen [00:57:22]
So how did you guys come up with the corn that you're using
Joe [00:57:27]
Uh a combination of uniqueness of flavor which we really like the cherry cola note on this but also more importantly limitation on what we can what you can grow here so things like blue corn that typically takes 110 to 120 days not going to work here, uh, I tried growing some jumping jumping jimmy red not that long ago real poor so
Karen [00:57:48]
What do you plant when do when would you plant corn normally here
Joe [00:57:52]
We'd be planting corn it's 90 days so here probably very end of May very beginning of june hope it takes off right when they say the corn is [unclear] ours doesn't work here doesn't work here it's like shorter short is it really it's really short stressed out it's hard, uh, [unclear] so
Ed [00:58:19]
Everything grows during those three months there's not like a winter crop and this rise the winter crop
Joe [00:58:22]
Rye is the winter crop. So we would plant that if we were growing this year we'd be planting in november or even the end of october, uh, depend probably this year october because it's supposed to be an El Niño. So i'd want to probably be a little careful but you don't want to get it to establish like you don't want to get to stage four or five which is like a Feekes growing stage before it goes dormant like you kind of want it at like a two or three. So you have to be mindful of how much it's going to grow and the idea is that you winter crop it and then it grows really strong healthy it's just a lot sweeter and nicer the big the big one is it's, uh, I don't know what scale they use there's two well there's two of them I can't remember the name the second I use the Feekes scale and it's I use that to determine whether I need to put down a growth suppressant because the big deal with grains especially here where you get a tremendous wind around four o'clock but just wouldn't you say four o'clock every day yeah it kind of depends on where you are in Carson Valley so if you're more towards out lake topaz if you want to go beyond that lake you've got to be out because 11 o'clock that's when the winds Really come so it kind of moves through this valley but it's I've lived and grew up on Cape Cod lived in hood on the Columbia Gorge, uh, growing up on cape people in the Columbia Gorge would be like so windy and I'd be like shut up it is not shut up and because, you know, I'm like I grew up on an island that's only a mile wide and then it came here and I was like holy shit this is windy so it just randomly will be just insanely windy for no reason at all, um, so you do have to worry about lodging and knocking over of the grain and those are kind of issues that we have to be able to
Karen [01:00:10]
So you you have to suppress growth like during yeah particular times of year
Joe [01:00:16]
Uh you do it before a certain stage of development okay that basically makes it so that doesn't really grow about three feet tall okay and then everything is uniform so it doesn't lay down like a carpet that's called lodging lodges it makes harvest just so that's I honestly that my favorite part of this whole thing is is more about the, uh, the growing of the grain more than anything else wow yeah I love I love the grain
Ed [01:00:42]
I can tell the oats are in there I think aren't they the little
Joe [01:00:45]
Yeah [unclear], um, when it's all said and done you won't really notice too much of a difference because it's such a small percentage but it does do the very similar thing and it'll be, you know, I I think we're [unclear] I think we can change some other things in the barrel ratio because there's a small amount of French oak in here that if we reduce that a little bit then even when it's over to, um, wheat no longer oats you it'll take on a very very similar effect it'll just sweeten it and soften it a bit more and we're heading that way anyway because, um, by reducing the French oak because it's part of the rise well and we're trying to kind of push these apart a little bit more flavor profile wise, um, single malt, um, so single malt's, you know, four four different, uh, barrels we have the Oloroso we got the new American oak we got the used bourbon and we got the [unclear] okay
Ed [01:01:50]
And that's always been the same that's
Karen [01:01:52]
So all all four barrels are used to create
Ed [01:01:55]
I guess you have to use wine being part of
Joe [01:01:59]
Well, yes. Moves before that but now they say I think they certainly like that idea but trust me they've definitely been like you should absolutely We've got a few Barrels I mean That's what Gambit is Gambit it's a huge amount of Foley wine barrels a tremendous amount going to that
Ed [01:02:16]
So what's your relationship with Chip then
Joe [01:02:20]
Chip lives in Texas we are the DSP and the the the extension of his blending hands, um, he comes up here and, uh, and we'll do some sampling from time to time, um, but it's we have we just execute his [unclear] [Ed, overlapping: But he doesn’t have anything to do with Minden?] Yes. The only way it's the other way around is that like we have to do with his products but he isn't okay but it's only because we have the DSP
Ed [01:02:46]
Because it's what's his title
Joe [01:02:49]
Master distiller of innovation
Ed [01:02:50]
Yeah right all of Foley
Joe [01:02:52]
Of all of Foley products. So i handle the estate stuff he does all the rest okay with the exception of Evil Bean which that was just kind of good happy accidents that we never called that estate on the bottle because it took off otherwise I don't think we would have been able to pull it off I just didn't yeah just better off if it's like that had the potential to make some money I don't want anything anything [unclear]
Ed [01:03:19]
Is that your number one seller—the coffee liqueur?
Karen [01:03:23]
It’s funny how that is. Is it all over Nevada or California, or international?
Joe [01:03:27]
Oh, hell yeah. Right, that’s right. Loch Lomond Group is making it in the UK now. That all happened in one year.
Ed [01:03:32]
I really like the single malt.
Joe [01:03:33]
I love the single malt.
Karen [01:03:35]
Oh is this the, uh, the coffee so what what, uh, like what do you guys put it in the cocktail
Bartender [speaker uncertain] [01:03:41]
It's espresso martini
Joe [01:03:42]
Oh yeah it's the number one I like it in espresso tonic or on ice cream oh yeah yeah yeah it's just cold brew coffee cane sugar and a neutral spirit that's it that's it [overlapping speech unclear]
Ed [01:03:57]
It’s got a good flavor. Too sweet for me.
Joe [01:03:57]
Too sweet for me too. Honestly I wanted it to be 18 sugar and got quickly overridden but I've been overridden on every liqueur I've ever made and. So i accept that as being I don’t know what the public wants. The public wants sweet stuff.
Ed [01:04:09]
We know they’re not wrong. They do like… [overlapping speech unclear] Well, that wraps up our visit to Minden Mill Distillery. Thanks so much for your hospitality, and thank you all for joining us. We’ll see you next time. Cheers.