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Incredible flavours, even better stories. One Pour,
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10 Minutes. Aussie bourbon lovers sharing bourbon with Australia.
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Well, it's an absolute honour to have Kerryn and Jack from Honey Barrel.
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Thank you for having us. In the studio with us, actually. This is so cool.
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And we're cracking something that we picked up at Kentucky Bourbon Festival. I know,
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hasn't been opened before. Let me do the pop noise. You ready? Oh, is it
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gonna pop, Dave? Oh, that's quite good. That was great.
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This is Kentucky Boy. So this is Brown-Forman. It's celebrating Chris
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Morris. I think it's 50 years of Chris Morris being the
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master distiller, and now he's the master distiller emeritus at
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Brown-Forman. And what they did is they took whiskey,
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not going to let up there, from 3
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of their big expressions that Chris was so fundamental in doing. So King Kentucky,
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Birthday Bourbon from Old Forester, and Woodford Double Oaked. Yeah. Hey, cheers,
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lads. Cheers. Yeah, thanks so much. Thanks for coming on. It's really cool to be
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trying it. Yeah. So 3 individual bourbons that, well, I haven't, oh, I have
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tried the Birthday Bourbon before. Yeah. But I don't,
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yeah. And I tried King Kentucky Evergreen once. Yes, yeah. And then obviously
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Double Oaked is really easy to get in Australia, so we've got quite a lot
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of that. So the birch is, it's very honey on the nose. I get like
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a pancake, like a maple syrup and pancakes on the nose. I get like a
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very barbecuey, like a sweet barbecue sauce, like sweet rays,
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just front of the palate. Do you know my immediate reaction?
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This sounds a little bit too cynical, doesn't it? But it's just like, wow,
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they used a lot of the double-oaked. Yeah. I was
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saying before we started, Woodford Double Oak was one of the bourbons that
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got me into something above your Mark
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Corrin, your basic stuff. Woodford Double Oak was the one where I was like,
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oh, Okay, maybe there's something to this. And that was, so seeing it in
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this, it's pretty cool. It's really cool. And it's such a good profile. It's a
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bit, yeah. And it's kind of got that lovely silkiness to it. I love it.
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It's so drinkable. Yeah. Sometimes I feel like,
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yes. Yeah, yeah. Double Lake, sometimes it's a bit too chunky. It's almost like it's
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so desserty and it's so much like a big sticky date pudding or something.
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You feel like, oh, I can't have too much of that. But yeah, this is
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a lovely, A lovely balance. Apparently he didn't get to taste it before they bottled
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it. That's what I've heard. Yeah, that's the rumour. Well, Jim Gaffigan was doing a
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bit about that, wasn't he? Yeah. Who knows if it's true or not? I'm sure
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it's true. He knows his stuff. But there's some interesting
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kind of weird stories about this. One of them is that on the first day
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of KBF, they didn't know, punters,
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fans didn't know how much of it there was. So people queued for 2.5 hours
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for this thing. And then we rocked up the next day and Yeah. Just waltzed
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in and they're like, how many bottles do you want? We had to say one.
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They're like, oh, you're allowed 2 each. And we're like, we can only take one.
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Without a lower threat as well. People are like, what do
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you mean? It's a long way back to Melbourne. It's what happens when you travel
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and you've got to have a suitcase. You've got to fit it in a suitcase.
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And that's it. Because this is like a historic label as well, right? Like they're
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bringing it back for— Right. They've resurrected the brand. Yeah. Yep.
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Yep. Yep. And So the story goes, it's not a story,
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but what they're saying is that there's only that whatever that release is, that's it.
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They sold as much as they could at KBF and then they'll sell the rest
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at the distillery. And once it's done, it's done. They won't do any more with
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it. I mean, they would've sold pretty much all of it at KBF, right?
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I was, they would've sold a fair bit of it. Yeah. A large portion of
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it went. What was the retail price, if you don't mind me asking for this?
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$100 US for this? Okay. Yep. Yep. I think that's,
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I think that's how it sold. Yeah. There's some people saying they think it's too
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much. They think it should be closer to $60, which I don't know enough about.
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I would be happy with $100, to be honest. See, I think as I'm
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just sat with it, it's got a really long finish. It sticks around.
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But I could see some bourbon drinkers not liking it because the finish is
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not very bourbon-like. It actually goes more towards
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that single malt, that sherried finish for me
Load full transcript
at least. It transitions.
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Yeah, it is very nice. For me, it's definitely something I'd
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like to drink, but it's just that classic Old Forester
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profile. It's just a lot of what I like about it. Big dessert
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notes in there. Like I said, I get a maple syrup and pancakes on the
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nose. It's almost like you want to pour it on your pancakes. It smells great.
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And then on the palate, again, it's that big maple
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syrup, big caramel. It's very classic bourbon in a lot of ways, but it's like,
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all the bourbon notes you want in like a— I'm getting like orange peel,
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like, I get that, like a cooked orange peel. Yeah,
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yeah, yeah, I get that. Yeah, I like sometimes toasted orange peel, is that a
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thing? Or flambé, you know, when they like set fire to them, put it on
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the side of your cocktail, like a fancy one. Yeah, yeah, because sometimes
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it's nice just to— I think it sits in that like bracket of like you
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can pour it, it's really good, you don't feel like you're drinking something like low
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end. No. But it's not like super challenging in the sense it's gonna like give
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you heartburn or it's gonna be like a really big whisky. Like, it is just
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a really good sipping whisky. I think you'd be disappointed if you compare it to
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King of Kentucky. Other than that, it is fantastic. So it's not
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King of Kentucky. Yeah. I think that's very almost clever marketing that they've put some
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King of Kentucky in there, because it makes everyone kind of
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go, pardon what? It's as close as some of us will ever get. Yeah.
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And I've never tried King of Kentucky, so I'm like, yeah, this It is a
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good profile. Perfect proof. Yeah. And I think my memory of King Kentucky
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is that it's just ridiculously
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well balanced, like every bourbon that you could possibly want. Massive finish,
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beautifully rounded, complex, and lovely, and right exactly
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where you want it. Kind of drinks like what
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I think of as a perfect bourbon. And this one, it doesn't have enough of
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that. To me, this is almost too much of the going into that desserty,
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double oaky, I don't know if it's too complex or whatever that
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thing is, but it's got too much. Yeah. And I think I'm probably coming at
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it from an angle of, in Australia, we don't have all of the
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Old Forester range all of the time. So it's like, I cling onto all
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of the Old Forester that I can get. I'm like, that's great. I love it.
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Because I do, I enjoy it. And I think this to me is like,
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I can see how people in the US are like, there's maybe something better to
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buy for your $100. I get that. Sure. Maybe the 1910 for that price.
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But if you say to me, you could buy a bottle of that in Australia
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for I don't know what it translates to, but 150,
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160, 170, somewhere in there. Oh yeah, sure. I enjoy
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that. Thank you for sharing it with us. Thanks for coming in.
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Having a chance to join us. What do you think about these things where
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the distilleries will release something? There's a limited time
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offering where they're kind of putting something out there,
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kind of bringing back an old label or something like that. I mean, this hasn't
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been done a lot before, I suppose, where they're really resurrecting an old brand.
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But to me, there's a marketing play behind it. It's a PR
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story. It's great that it's a testament to Chris and his work
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and stuff, but is it too much of a marketing, a shot at marketing,
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or are they genuinely trying to make a great whisky? See, I sit
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on the side of someone like Chris has done so much for the industry.
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I'm like, if you can do something special and there's the option to bring back
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a label, do it. Sure. And I think Old Forester have been a brand that
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they've got their limited releases, like Birthday Bourbon's a pretty hard release to get,
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and they'll throw in the odd thing like the ranch bottle that they had and
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things like that, but they've been pretty sparing, I think, with lots of
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new labels. So I think if you can do something cool for someone like Chris,
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I'm all for it. And I think stuff like KBF, I'm a
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big fan of as well, because I'm like, although I wish I was there every
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year and it's hard to watch from from the other side of the planet.
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But it's, I'm like, whatever keeps the market exciting
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and whatever keeps it interesting and keeps people engaged with it. Like, I'm all for
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it. Especially when they can follow it up with good bourbon. It'd be different if
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it was like all about the old label and all the, and then it was
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terrible. You'd be like, well, that's it. But
they've delivered on
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really good stuff. Yeah. It's like, tell a story, tell a story, right? Like,
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yeah. Like tell Chris's story, tell the Kentucky Boy story,
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blending the 3 products that have each got their own, I guess, little backstory
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in themselves. I'm all for it. I think if you create a product at the
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end of it that's well priced, relatively, and it tastes pretty good,
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I'm all for it. How about you guys? Where do you sit on that?
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And yeah, I have this interesting thing about it. It's probably similar to you,
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which is that I actually don't mind too much about the idea of a bit
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of showmanship or theatrics around this thing,
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because then that thing of one of the most sought-after bottles at KBF everyone could
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get. And that's pretty crazy. Brown-Forman releasing a
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bottle that everyone can get. That's kind of a lovely gesture for everyone.
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And there's these things, Peerless, for example, released a bottle and they chose not
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to release it when the VIP gates were open. They waited until 1
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o'clock when everyone could have access. So anyone could be there and be in the
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queue and take to get access to this bottle. So there's a bit of this
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where it's like, it's kind of, there's a certain for the people-ness to it
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as well. Yeah. Yep. I like that. I think if you're going to sell like,
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you know, you see some limited releases where they're like crazy money for what they
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are, like, and they're probably exceptional in their own way. I'm like, but for $100,
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it's that choice where you can be like, well, I could buy it, you know,
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or you can skip it if you want. But it opens the gate for a
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lot of people, and I'm all for that as well. Um, and I think Brown-Forman
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have always been pretty good with their pricing. Um, so yeah,
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I wanted to ask a quick question about what, what do you guys look for
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when you're looking into what Australia might like? And what you might be able to
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bring to Australia, are you looking for a particular profile? Is there a flavour?
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Is there a proof? Is there a story? Is it something that you're trying
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to find? I think it's a bit of everything. The story really matters, I think,
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for me. Proof,
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you can't, it's a weird thing, proof, because there are people that
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chase hazmat and will go crazy for hazmat whisky. So if
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anything's over 70%, they'll go crazy. But I think
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for your average consumer, I think proof in the,
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just the one of, I think 100 to 110, I think it's a perfect proof.
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But I think the story really matters and selling that story really
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matters as well. That's for me. And I find that at shows
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and everything, people do like a good story about a bourbon, not just,
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this is an MGP and it's just been bottled by these guys and they just
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put a label on it. That's it. Yeah. I think for me, it's like,
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The question I ask myself every time we try a new whisky is,
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would I buy this myself? And would I recommend it? And would I feel comfortable
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with that? Because if someone comes to me and says, would you recommend spending X
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amount of money on this product? And I say, yes, but I don't believe it.
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That doesn't sit right with me. I'm like, I want it to be something I
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enjoy and something that I believe in. And it's like all of the products for
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us are just brands that we've tried and then look at and go, yeah,
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I'd recommend it. 100%. And that's And I think then you tie that into,
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you know, your next question after that is, is there a story to tell?
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And again, going back to like the Blackwood thing or like Holiday,
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it doesn't really matter how big the story is. Like, that can be a story
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of 3 or 4 years. It can be a story of 200 years. Yeah,
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it's still a story. And it's, and it's as long as there's something that's worth
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telling, then that's, that's the other part. Because it's really hard to do events without
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a brand story. It takes— there's a lot of like awkward silences and it's really
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hard. So when you've got a lot of, a lot of information, it's easier.
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You're right. We've never imported something we don't like to drink ourselves.
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So every brand that we have, I have a bottle on the shelf and
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it's open and I drink from it. And that's to me the— Well, that means
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bringing the stuff that you like. And that's it. I just, you don't want to
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recommend a whisky to someone and they go, oh, I really didn't like that.
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If it's a difference of profile thing, sure, that will happen from that to that.
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But if they go objectively, this is a bad whisky, then that
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feels weird. And it's a passion project for us. We do it because we
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enjoy it. So you want to work with the brands that you also drink yourselves
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as whiskey drinkers. And that's kind of always the kind
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of cool starting position for all of the brands we work with. So yeah,
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so good. Well, I just love the stories behind them. That's great. Yeah,
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absolutely. Thanks for sharing this. Thank you for sharing.
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Thank you for borrowing it. What a bit of fun. Cheers.
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