When do I pour you guys alcohol? We'll tell you. Okay, good. Yeah. Perfect. Welcome back to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm your host, Pat, along with Kristen. Sup, Greg, you're not here. Pat didn't say your name, so you're obviously not here. Fair enough. Well, back to it though. So this week, we welcome in Turner Wathen from Rolling Fork, makers of one of our favorite new products this year, Fortuitous Union, which is a blend of rum and rye. And we're going to get to the bottom of how this seeming mishap actually turned into a delicious bottle of libations here. Very excited and super lucky that we didn't blend it with vodka or any other clear spirit. So is it true that Fortuitous Union is a euphemism for F up? It is. Okay. It is a euphemism for it. Much better to sell, I think, what you've called it instead of the other way around. We are going to put FU on the hats, but we're going to keep it as Fortuitous Union on the label. Okay. All right. Well, Turner, you've got a long family history here in the beverage alcohol business. Where does all that start from? Kind of like most of the heritage of American whiskey and bourbon, it all interconnects with a cool story that has depth. I was fortunate enough to be from a family that had a lot of depth in the spirits in American whiskey business. Just no one told me. My parents decided to keep that absolutely out of the picture while I was a teenager. And it was when my great cousin charles Medley released Wathen's Whiskey around 96, that I started to put my hand up and say, hey dad, you always told these kick-ass stories. What is this? Throughout college, up until 2010, all I did was appreciate the history and heritage of our family and try to understand it. And it is kind of convoluted to connect all the dots. But again, nobody told me. No one included me on this. So now we'll go back to 1788. Actually before that, to this American badass named Henry Hudson Wathen III, who heirs from Henry Hudson Wathen II, who originated in Maryland. Well, this hero, whether he wielded two hatchets or a musket, served in the Revolutionary War. And because of his service, he was granted land in Virginia in what became Kentucky, which was a part of Bourbon County, otherwise known as Lebanon, in a small creek called the Rolling Fork River. Planted roots. So he goes on to have two sons. One was a wholesaler by the name of John. The other was Richard. And Richard enacted with his dad, Henry Hudson, and took over the Rolling Fork Distillery, which our company, Rolling Fork Spirits, is named after. Richard served the Rolling Fork Distillery into the American Civil War. And we provided alcohol to both sides, both the Union and confederates. You're like the Swiss of distillers, basically. yes. Yeah. Very neutral. Didn't want to, you know, if you got to throw it on a wound or consume it, we'll help you out. Whoever's paying, really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're just trying to stay afloat here. Just running a small business. Neutral. That's the right word. Neutral Grain Spirits. Something along those lines. So it was Richard that created this pivot in Kentucky distilling by having five sons. He also had two daughters. All these gentlemen and ladies were all college educated. And they all erred from two generations of distilling. So they had this leg up right in the mid 1850s. This opportunity to spread their wealth across Kentucky and either erect distilleries themselves, or begin to work in and also eventually acquire. So we started the Cumberland Distillery. We managed the Rolling Fork Distillery. And late 1880s is when JB wanted to move to Louisville. And this was a big move. So JB moved and started the JB Wathen Company. Martin Athanasius, otherwise known as Nace, who's my great-grandfather, started a relationship with the RB Hayden Distillery. And so the way that story goes is RB, or was the grandson of, I think it's pronounced Basil. I do believe it's Basil Hayden. He started Old Granddad, the brand. But he also started the RB Hayden Distillery, which made said brand. And he did it in 1882. But then the poor guy died in 1885. So he only had this three-year window of seeing his fruits of his labor. Then it changed hands and we got a hold of it. My great-great-grandfather got a hold of the RB Hayden Distillery in 1899. And that's when we saw value in the old Grandad brand. And we renamed the RB Hayden Distillery Old Grandad Distillery. And we actually bought front space on 110 west Main Street, otherwise known as Whiskey Row. That's when we really saw this conglomeration of efforts that would not have happened if we didn't have a generation of five brothers in the business come to incorporate a number of brands and bring them to Louisville while maintaining some of their distilling presence and using Louisville as a footprint to get all their juice as quickly as down to New Orleans and make money. I mean, that's what we're in the business for. Am I rambling? No, it's great. He's smiling at me. What kills me about Kentucky is that it's never like, we opened a distillery and then we stayed in business for 100 years, and then we're still open, you know, it's like a knot. Everybody's related to everybody. Everybody's worked for everybody. I mean, it's so funny. I mean, you had, you know, Parker Beam at Heaven Hill. You have the nose at Jim Beam. You have this, which I give a lot of credit to distilling before the accountants got involved in the 1980s. Back when it was a real craft, back to where they traded secrets, back where they helped each other, back to where there was this community before it was market expansion. I like putting the blame on the accountants with that. I think it's warranted, fair and it makes a lot of sense. My great uncle was a VP and I think at one time, a president of National Distillers. National Distillers acquired Hill & Hill, Old Hermitage, Old Crow, Old Grandad and a slew of other brands from our family when we sold American Medicinal Spirits to National Distillers in 1929. It was my great cousin Otho Wathen who maintained these brands in National Distillers portfolio and kept them all alive. And then National Distillers sold everything. I think it was in 1987 to Jim Beam, which was at one time, I think, a singular product. So it was 1987 where Jim Beam just all of a sudden had a whole portfolio now. Yeah, nothing is, no industry is insulated from consolidation. Certainly not any liquor business we've seen. I mean, you see it in Scotch, you see it in Cognac, you've seen it in Bourbon, plenty. I mean, all those brands you named are still made and bottled by Jim Beam. Or how many brands does Heaven Hill have? You know, like 60 or something? Yeah. So I am lucky enough to hail from a family that has had the opportunity to touch a prominent number of brands. And I get the opportunity to tell some stories. But this all goes back to the fact that nobody told me this story. I had to figure it all out by myself. You did a good job. Thanks. I tried. Well, I mean, it's a, you know, that's a rambling family history that can't be told succinctly at all. I mean, you tell the whole story or you leave crucial pieces out. I mean, there's really no in-between with the history of brand acquisition and distilling like that. I got like 50 relatives that tell me, we started Old Grandad. And I'm like, that's not true. We didn't. And it would be a real jerk move to pretend that we did. Like, that hails from another family. We were privileged enough to acquire and value it. So what brings this circuitous family bourbon business into the rum-tainted with rye whiskey business? In 2010, I made a pivot where I dreamed that I wanted to put someone with the last name Wathen back in the game instead of just reading about it. Maybe I did it the illegal way, I don't know. I don't remember bits and pieces. Maybe I own two stills. I don't remember. Maybe I've spent six years working with Distolate and had owned Crank Mill in my basement. Maybe I spent my weekends doing that. I also had a partner. I do have a partner named Jordan Morris. I met Jordan in 2012. It was one of those things where our wives introduced us. They were like, you guys are going to have a playdate. I was like, well, I'm not sharing my toys with that SOB. He's like, well, I am not going to. I will stand 10 feet away. And then four hours later, we have yet to join the party. We're standing in a back room talking ideas. And that moment in 2012 set off on this journey. And Jordan said, let's do rum. Rum is something that we both are very appreciative of. It's something that has its unique place in the spirits lore and spirits history. It also has a place in American revolutionary history. And also this is right around 2014 when you're looking at a flooded bourbon market. So even though it's not inherent to my last name, it was a spirit that we both appreciated. So you just agreed just to do rum? Yeah. Just rum. yes, sir. So, I mean, we're in the sourcing game. We don't have money to own a commercial distillery. So we got the permits to acquire rum. Our standards were we wanted unadulterated, no sugar, no caramel, and we wanted to release Country of Origin. And we got this kick-ass rum from Trinidad and Tobago. It was a 12-year-old unadulterated rum at 103 proof. And it tasted awesome. And we wanted to do something unique to it. We wanted to do a triple finish. We wanted to finish it for 8 months in a variety of bourbon and rye barrels, then move it to port barrels, and then move it to sherry barrels. Just, let's just do something weird. Our rum had sat in bourbon barrels for 8 months. So we were getting ready to move the rum from its finish in bourbon to port barrels. So what that entails is getting your contract facility to get all your barrels on a dump tank, pull the bungs, drain it, and then hydraulically pump that spirit back into your new barrel. So we're there. I'm there in person. It's an exciting day. We've got the barrels on the dump tank. It's scaled at zero and things are flowing out. And when all five barrels dump, it weighs about a thousand pounds overweight. And everybody who worked at the facility left. So it's me and another friend, Larry Rice, and we're about looking at each other like an oh hell moment. And Larry isn't as freaked out as I am. Like I'm panicking. So then the most important person at the facility comes to get us. And they're like, we have a problem. And it's like, it's obvious we have a problem. Everybody left and you're here. I haven't seen you all day. I've been here three hours. Like I know we got a problem. And so they start to apologize and it's like cut to the chase. Like it's dumped with something. There's something happened. Well, our books were wrong. We accidentally blended your rum. Okay, that's fine. What did we blend it with? There were 90 gallons of MGP, five-year-old, 95% rye whiskey. And I wasn't quite at the is this an idea phase? But I think Larry was. So while I'm still panicking and trying to look like a responsible adult, you know, Larry's thinking his mind's moving. And on the way out, we say, hey, we want some samples. And we go out to the parking lot and we pop those samples open and we try it. And it doesn't suck. And it doesn't suck by a long shot. Say that in the back of your bottle, the back label. It doesn't suck. Picture of you with a thumbs up. I mean, this facility uses liqueurs. They manage vodkas. Anything could have screwed this up. We hit the lottery. If you're going to f something up, this is the way to do it. So we started the process of how to bottle it and how to get it going. This seems like a great time to taste the first one. yes. So this is a blend of a 12-year Trinidad rum that has no sugars, no caramels, unadulterated and a five-year rye whiskey that's 95% rye. So this is it. This is batch one. yes, sir. And what is this bottle that? What proof is this? Because the rye came in at 115 proof, it actually raised the proof. So now it's sitting at 103. It was at 107. Then we did not close or air seal the tanker that it was blended in. So then we lost four points on proof. F up again. Yeah. Oh, we fail upstairs every second. That's awesome. What do you label it as? Like American Spirit or something? No. So according to the TTB, it's in that esoteric, whatever this is. Distilled Spirit Specialty. Which is a hard category to be in. It's a stupid category to be in. What do you think? I think the wow factor is on the middle pallet and the finish. I think it completely... Yeah, I like that it still has that luscious, ripe tropical fruit, banana, dark brown sugar kind of nose and upfront on the pallet, but then it turns very oaky and grippy and spicy. And it really, it balances out those sweet sugars and it finishes with this oak character that I think normally gets overpowered by a lot of sugar and rum. Especially rums like, you know, you have eluded to a couple of times, adulterated rums. And so many rums nowadays are colored with caramel and back sweetened with lots of sugar. Yeah, this is very light on its feet. Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's nimble and balanced. It's nimbly, bimbly and balanced. One of the things that I don't like about like a single source Caribbean rum is that like beat up kind of rotten banana taste. And the woody crispness of the rye just completely lifts this out of that. And you can't and it doesn't drink its proof at all. I mean, you can tell it's got it's it has a backbone to it, but I wouldn't guess over a hundred if I was tasting it, not knowing. What is interesting for consumers is if you do drop it in some ice or you do add some water to it, it does open up. It has a lot of layers, but no, we did not want to reduce proof. I think most of the rums that we hopefully have the opportunity to bring to market, we will keep at or above a hundred proof. Also, just as a way to hopefully differentiate ourselves. I love it. Thank you. So that's batch one. Where are you going from here? So because it's a mistake, we were able to produce about 1600 bottles. The question is, what do you do from there? It's taken us about seven months to find the right partner of Rye Whiskey to be able to work on blends. And so right now we're working on the FU2. We're looking at, we'd like to make iterations. We won't ever try to replicate it. It is a standalone by itself for what it is and what happened to it. So depending on how it goes, we are definitely in the process of trying to make more. Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, this is, people try this, they will buy it. I mean, this stuff is, it's great and it's cool. And I assume it's actually pretty versatile, too. I mean, I would imagine, you know, making some classic kind of whisky-centric cocktails with a spirit like this would give it some interesting depth. That's what its use is, yeah. You make a Manhattan with this and you like wouldn't even have to, you could dial back to Vermouth because it's got that fleshy fruit already. It plays really well with a Manhattan or an old-fashioned. I've had mixologists make rum forward drinks, a traditional Mai Tai or something that involves fresh squeezed lime or citrus, but it does tend to play more on the whiskey centric cocktails. Yeah. sometimes mixologists will use little sub in rum to make their drinks more approachable. Had one on Saturday night, old-fashioned made with rum, and it's just kind of over the top. Something like this would give it the approachability, but still have the crispness and spice that it takes to balance out the sweetness, yeah. What's next for Rolling Fork? So, going back to that original concept of a triple-finished spirit, because we could not get the Trinidad anymore, we made a connection with a distillery in El Salvador. And at this time, we were looking at rums from Puerto Rico, from Jamaica, and from a variety of countries, and we found this vanilla bomb, this crème brûlée of rum, that we thought to ourselves, we can work with that. And so, we started to source this 11-year-old rum that was 115 proof, and we are taking that rum through our triple-finished process, where it has sat in rye barrels for eight months. And what we're going to sample now is its current state, which is that it was transported to sherry barrels, where it has stayed for two months. And this rum sits at currently 108 proof. So, when you buy this rum from El Salvador, it's already been aged 11 years? yes, sir. Down there. Yep. And that's higher elevation aging down there, isn't it? Which is fairly unique with rum. I mean, it's really only that little squiggle of Central America that has those high elevation rum aging facilities, right? I think. There is something in this rum that set it apart from all other origin rums that we will work with, but there was something unique. And I do think there's a part of the elevation and the aging climate that they provided that allowed this rum to have such a sweet and fruity nose to it. Nice. Let's taste it. Yeah. So this is in Sherry. Is it still going to see port? We don't know yet. All right. We play it every two weeks and see where it sits. You know, because we're right in the middle of June, it might only need one more month or so in Sherry. Yeah, I really like the dried fruit it's already picked up. I mean, this is... You can tell where it's been already. Yeah. And it's only been in Sherry for two months, you said? yes, sir. Wow. It's so bright. Yeah. You know? I get the creme brulee, but it's also got like a nice gooseberry fruity element to it that I think is very interesting. It's bright, like maybe a little bit salinic and then like that almond quality, like a lightly roasted almond. Yeah, it's very good. Is your intent going forward to always leave things at their natural strength, that you kind of get them in age amount? Or are you going to end up cutting some of these rums down to 80, 90 proof, more conventional strengths? Our intent for the near future is to not cut anything down and leave everything at its original strength. Excellent. Cool? Jinx. Very cool. awesome. I like this. Yeah. When can we expect to see this? We play everything by ear, so we can't make any decisions on bottling. That being said, we are looking for a fall release date for the Rolling Fork line of rum. The opportunity for being in Chicago is that you all have a really cool cocktail as well as tiki scene. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you guys have an awesome cocktail scene. We're trying to work towards that. We have innovators and entrepreneurs building that in Kentucky, and our bed and butter is still bourbon, but we are going to look to grow into markets that already have a well-established tiki scene, and we just hope that we don't screw it up and Right, right. I mean, always a good plan. Just don't screw it up. Don't screw it up. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. unless you do, then you just bottle it. Then you bottle it. Yeah. So the answer is, when it's ready, before the holiday season, hopefully, and everybody's lucky because until now and then, they have a really great bottle in Fortuitous Union to tide them over. Yeah. We hope people appreciate it. Only got 1,600 bottles out there. People ask me if they should keep it as a collector's item or just drink it. I'm always of the mindset of just drink it. Yeah. You don't buy bottles of liquor to not drink it. No. Just open it and drink it. Will Fortuitous Union 2 be spelled TOO when it gets released? I don't know if we're going to do the number sign or TOO, but we will make it say FU2, definitely. Electric Boogaloo. Well, thank you again for appearing on this episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Pat, along with Kristen and Greg Turner again. Thank you so much. Thank you all so much for having me. I do want to give a shout out to my two partners, Jordan Morris and Larry Rice, who could not be here today. Those two have just as every amount of reason to be here as I do. I'm the lucky one. Anyway, keep tasting. Bye. If you're going to f something up, this is the way to do it.