Master Distiller Journey You are listening to Barrel to Bottle The Binny's Podcast. Back in your feed with something whiskey, I'm Greg, I do communications at Binny's. I'm Rob, I work on the Whiskey Hotline. I'm Lexi, social media and stuff. Who are you? Oh, me? Ross Cornelissen, I'm master distiller at the wonderful Barton 1792 distillery, located in Bartstown, Kentucky. I got something to tell you. Okay. It's gonna be good, it's gonna be good. He aggressively pointed at you, but it is good. He did. I have drank one of your spirits more than any other spirit, probably all spirits combined, more of your product than anything else over the last three years. That's impressive. It's Clark & Sheffield Small Batch bourbon. Okay. Yes. Excellent, excellent product. Yeah, it keeps me coming back. That's all I have to say. Producing the Barton 1792 distillery. That's it. All right. Well, to get started, first, Ross, I met you two years ago when we were doing our Clark & Sheffield Barrel proof project, handpicked project, but you were explaining to me your background and how unique it is to then end up at Barton. It's funny how everyone becomes distillers or master distillers. No one's path is extremely linear, at least very few are, so mine is no exception. But started out at Purdue University, and the whole goal there was to go make cereal, was to be a cereal engineer. Like what kind of cereal? Like Kellogg's cereal? Like breakfast cereals. What's your favorite cereal? Oh my God, you're the first person literally I've met who like, your five-year-old self would be like, yes, reach for your dreams. So anyways, I love Honey Bunch of the Boats. There's always a box in my house or Lucky Charms, you name it. But I was like, how cool would it be my five-year-old self to go be a food process engineer and go make cereal for a living? That was the whole reason. Purdue has a great program in that area. That was the whole plan. And then I took microbiology and that plan quickly changed to where I just learned everything about yeast and bacteria and fermentation and just kind of blew my mind. So then I quickly changed gears and I was looking for anything fermentation related, be it in a brewery, distillery, fuel, ethanol plant. I didn't care, I just wanted to do fermentation. How do you feel about kimchi? Love it. I love kimchi. It's great for gut flora. I know. I had some last night. Oh, there you go. You're active. I don't know if there's kimchi or if Giordano's has a kimchi pizza, but maybe that would help counteract the heaviness of the cheese and the sauce. It just sits in your gut. Yeah. But it is still delicious. But yeah, I ended up getting a job as a distillery supervisor right out of college at MGP Ingredients, so kind of the old school legendary Seagram's distillery outside of Cincinnati. And that was in 2014. Could not have been any luckier. So that was right when people started to realize, hey, there's a lot of good whiskey and bourbon coming out. Where is it all coming from? It just says distilled in Indiana on the back of a bottle. It's like, oh, it's from MGP. Great. All right. So I was there during that whole ramp up from 14 to 18, where you just couldn't keep up with the demand for MGP. So I was a supervisor, I was in charge of use propagation. The end of the job was before I left. It was everything about tying different variables in the process to its effect on quality. And quality is super important to me. You already talked about quality with Clark & Sheffield in 1792, so it continues to be important to me. That was a very enriching experience. Got to learn from the great Greg Metz, or Metzi, as I know him, who was the master steeler there for a long time amongst other people. So yeah, learned a lot of good things from good people there. So but then I switched jobs. So my wife is a geologist, so we moved out to Colorado to follow her career, which was amazing. I love Colorado. And I ended up doing mushroom fermentation for food ingredients for four years, for a startup company. I'm sorry, mushroom what? Fermentation. You fermented mushrooms? We fermented mushrooms. Did you make our Dene? No, we did not. We did a lot of vegetable protein. We did a lot of random products. But yeah, did that for four years. Chicken nuggets, fake chicken nuggets. So one of the products was, whether you know it or not, it's like a meat extender. So let's say, you still want to have good protein in there. Imitation crab. There is a good example. I don't know how much of that is vegetable protein. It's soy. The umami powder that you get at Trader Joe's. There you go. There's probably things of that. I'm vegetarian, so I feel like a lot of the stuff that I've eaten. Yes, probably. Then the industry was perfected when they figured out how to replicate hemoglobin. Yeah. Eww. Yes. By adding blood, they made fake meat delicious and strangely realistic. It's like nice and gooey. It does taste really good. Okay. So four years making fermenting mushrooms. Four years. Yep. And then what? Sazerac called and came out here. So honestly, perfect happenstance. A couple of weeks in, I think it was like February 2022, we found out my wife was expecting. And like two weeks after that, I got a call from a headhunter, like, hey, Sazerac's interested. I thought it was a prank call, seriously. Because I was out of the industry for four years. And I had only been in whiskey for four years before that. Yeah, honestly, like mind boggling, pretty humbling. And about three months of interviews later, you know, with the Danny Cons, who is not my boss, now previous master stiller of 1792, and then Harlan amongst other people, I somehow ended up here. That is pretty cool. Isn't that wild? I'm imagining three months of the spark fading with the mushrooms, and you're like, mushrooms, can't wait to get out of here. Let's make some booze. I've been at 1792 since 2022, and it's been nothing but a blast, and I've really, really enjoyed it and the team. I just love fermentation, so I really, I mean, I learned so much when I was out in Colorado, but like my wife's passion is geology, mine is whiskey and fermentation. So whenever that call came through, I was like, hey, we moved out here for yours, and she was in a remote position at the time. It's like we could go back, move to the Midwest where, like her family's from Cleveland, mine's from Lafayette, Indiana, be close to grandparents, like this is a win-win-win. So yeah, I'm just super glad and extremely grateful it worked out. Cool. Super cool. Yeah. As a fermentation enthusiast, are you a home kombucha brewer? No, I do love kombucha. That is a good question. Right? I had to know. There has to be a fermentation station or something in your house where you're messing around. I used to home brew quite a bit because I love Belgian beers. I should ferment more at home. I've tried sauerkraut. I haven't really tried kimchi or kombucha. I should get my own scoby. We have great friends in Bardstown who deliver us fresh sourdough on a regular basis. That's pretty clutch. I think I do enough fermentation at work right now. When you go home and talk about whisky, don't answer that. I mean, isn't that what we do? Yeah, we do it. Just right over the head. Speaking of, we have four bottles of whiskey on the table. 7:43 1792 Small Batch Yes, and you want to try them. Yeah, we do. We do. Should we start off? I'm really enthusiastic. What do you say, small batch? Small batch. 1792 small batch? Yeah. The flagship of the distillery? So I'll pour and we'll pass it around. Also, that cork pop always sounds just perfect. Who here knows why it's 1792? Anybody? No, I would love to know why, though. Okay. So 1792 is not the year the distillery was founded. It's the year Kentucky as a state was founded. We're in Bardstown, Kentucky. Bardstown and history of Bourbon, that was the first Catholic archdiocese west of Appalachia. So all your German and Irish Catholics came to Bardstown. It was like Louisville before Louisville, and that is why you have all of your distilleries in Bardstown, Kentucky or Nelson County. Everyone goes by counties in Kentucky. So if you say, I don't know, in Chicago, if you say, if someone asks you, hey, Lexi, where are you from? You say, like the town or? The neighborhood. The neighborhood, usually. In Kentucky, it's what county are you from? Hey, I'm from Nelson County. Hey, I'm from Bullitt County. Yeah, I have a map of Kentucky by county in my office because whenever I ask people, they're like, where are you from? They're like, yeah, Marion County. So us being named 1792 is really homage one to Bardstown, but also just the greater state of Kentucky and all the history there. But small batch, there's a lot of flavor notes we can get off of this. I kind of lean into three main ones. One, it's a high rye bourbon. So pretty much everything we do is rye bourbon at the distillery. Mine is one wheated expression. So you get plenty of that baking spice and a nice rye profile. Then two, I know yeast isn't like super interesting to everybody, but shocker. I am super interested in yeast. So you get a lot of esters. So those fruity notes off of the whiskey too. Mainly, yeah, cherry and banana. So isoamyl acetate. And then we generally pull barrels from the middle and the top of the warehouses. So you have plenty of barrel and barrel influence in there. So you have all the rye spice, baking spice. You have those nice banana cherry notes. And then you have your caramel, your brown sugar, vanilla. You have all those to go with it. And I cannot take credit for it, but someone once told me it tastes like banana fosters. And a whiskey, which I think is spot on. With a cherry on top. With a cherry on top. And a wooden toothpick in there. Of charred oak. The wood does show pretty well here. Like in a spine sense, in a container that's holding the fruit kind of way. It's just a super versatile bourbon at the end of the day. You can drink it neat. You can drink it with a rock. I really like it in old fashions and Manhattans. I like it in Manhattans just because there is so much already going on in it. I mean, Manhattans are already very whisky forward, but you can tell when a Manhattan is made was 1792 versus other bourbons just because of the kind of the depth of flavor that's going on there. Yeah, the characteristics shine through. This is one of the most bourbony bourbons I've had in a while. It's an all-rounder. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is why it's a perfect. A bourbony bourbon. I'm going to use that too. Banana Foster's and bourbony bourbon. Bourbony bourbon. I like that. It sounds kind of dismissive, but so often some silly barrel is the showcase or when it's weeded, it doesn't have the backbone of spice that's supporting this thing. And this is just, man, this is exactly bourbon. Well, it's like a weird thing because if you've been to the distillery, I mean, obviously, but if you've been to the distillery, it's very much not meant for visitors. It is like industrial and you have to crawl through little areas. And it's kind of like when you go to MGP where you started, it's very much, it was this big production facility for Seagrams. So similarly, Barton is just this powerhouse, these giant stills and like just old and you'll see like cobwebs and you'll like crawl through these little areas and there's something on the roof over here. But it just it's perfect for a sense of place because this is not pretentious. It's just bourbon ass bourbon. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. I like that. You should do advertisements for it. That was good. That was really good. So yeah, that's one of my favorite aspects is our goal at the end of the day as a distillery and warehouse team is produce good quality whisky safely and efficiently. And all quality safety efficiency are huge to me. I know that's like a very engineering answer, but I mean, that is my goal. So that every time you get a bottle of small batch or a bottle and bond or a Clark & Sheffield, it's good. I don't want to ever stray away from that. So and I'm very blessed to have to have a very good team on site. Brian, our distillery manager, he's been there. He's been there 20 years. So he has seen the rise of bourbon at Barton. Also, the distillery has a lot of Chicago ties to it. I don't know if anybody knew that. In what way? Tom Moore started the distillery in 1879, and he's not from Chicago, and he ran it through basically until Prohibition. I don't think we ran during Prohibition, but people have told me otherwise, but I've never seen anything concrete. Then after Prohibition, his son, Khan, yeah. Yeah. Anyways. Then his son ran it afterwards for like a decade until 1943, 1944, and then there was big fire because we were making fuel and alcohol for World War II. Yeah, there was a fire in 44, place pretty much burnt to the ground minus an old stone wall, which we might have seen, but it was the original boiler house. Then Oscar Getz, who was a Chicago businessman, and I think he was buying whiskey from the distillery and distributing up here, he bought the place and basically rebuilt it. So everything you see was rebuilt minus this old stone wall in like 1945, 1946. And he's the one who dubbed it Barton. Out of a hat is literally what I have been told, or it was like someone's dog. I don't know. Seriously, no one has ever given me a clear answer, but he's the one who called it Barton Brands of Kentucky. And then he ran it with some of his business partners, the Krause brothers, until the late 80s. Then, Condonego Wine Company bought it, and then Sazerac bought the site in 2009. Constellation is the one who actually started the 1792 brand back in 2003. So, and it was 1792 Ridgewood Reserve. Every year, every couple of years, we're trying to come out with new expressions. 14:18 1792 Bottled in Bond So, you're popping right now one of my favorites, which is 1792 Bottle and Bond. And then we have other ones for later on the show. We were just talking about that. So, when we've gone down and done picks, depending on how the whiskey is tasting, at full proof versus 100 proof, or when we've watered it down a little bit, I always like the Bottle and Bond. I like the 100 proof. I think we were just talking about this. It showcases the fruit really well. It kind of accentuates without taking over. Whereas sometimes with any higher proof offering, it's just they're big, bold, in your face, and you can lose some of that nuance. Absolutely. So Small Batch is at 93.7. It's meant to be a nice proof point, be it for cocktails or straight up as neat. Bottle and Bond, obviously at 100 proof, and it just really, really shines. I can see you just gawking over it over there. You're like, what if that last whiskey except dessert? That was literally what was in my head. I mean, this is even more of that Bananas Foster. Butterscotch and cloves. Oh, yeah. Earlier today, we were talking about Butterbeer from Harry Potter and that Butterscotch and Caramel Cream like delicious. What's going on in the nose for sure. And then that added proof, it just carries through. You had a little bit more of that spice that comes through as well. Add pears to the fruit mix. Pear skin. Yeah, mulled fruits, stone fruits. Yep. Cool. Wow. I didn't get the butterscotch as much on the small batch, but it is very prevalent at the hundred proof. Yeah, it is. So even though this is small batch, we're constantly bottling and picking barrels for that. The bottle and the bond and some of the other expressions, we're bottling that one to two times a year, and we're very particular on barrels that go in a small batch. We're really, really particular about barrels that go into the different expressions. So Brittany, who's our, I call her the Wizard of Oz, because she's awesome and knows everything about all the barrels on site. She and I will sit down and we'll go through our barrel inventory and pick barrels for the different expressions. We are very particular about the ones that go in a bon on bon. And we think about which ones, based on warehouse locations, will accentuate that fruit the best. So sometimes they're from the top of the warehouse, but we also pair those with maybe some down lower in the warehouse, where you're not going to get as much of that wood influence, and you're going to get more of that fruit influence. Like we know it, at least think we know what people are looking for with our different expressions, and that fruit note is the one we're always trying to accentuate with the BIB. I would like to add, in addition to the fruit notes, this also brings like a structure and grip to the palette that the other doesn't illustrate as well, and it really makes it seem like a class act. Well, and the finish just keeps going. Yes, it does. And it's higher alcohol, but it doesn't blow to ice. But it doesn't blow out your palette. It's just this lingering spice that's just welcoming. I'm a fan. It's tough to be a PIV. I love it so much. Very good. Very good. All right, next one. 17:28 1792 Cognac Finish Next one. We'll do, what do you say, new expression of the lineup? All right, have you tried this, Ross? I have. It's very nice. We should discuss what the whole lineup is, but one of the items that we've discussed as soon as it left, because we loved it so much, and if it can ever come back, is port finish. I do love a good port finish. And the port finish is one that people still ask for. The cognac has done so well, which is what we're getting to. We're getting to the cognac finish, which is, what proof is it at? 95 proof. 95 proof. But how much more different cask finishing projects or other iterations are you looking at? Too many. I think that's the fun part of, I mean, there's a lot of fun parts of the job. It's also, this sounds like complaining about experimenting with whiskey and drinking, but it can be kind of stressful because you think you know what will work, and then six months to eight months later in a secondary barrel, you're like, wow, that did not work. That is not what I expected. Cognac cask was not one of those cases. We smelled all the Cognac casks before we put bourbon in them. I was like, yep, we'll take these. Nope, we won't take these. We ended up using pretty much all XO Cognac barrels. They're like 15 to 20-year-old Cognac before. We had also smelled four to five-year-old, so VS, VSOP barrels, and the nose on those was much sharper, and not quite acidic, but it was almost too sharp versus you could tell the older Cognac barrels were much more rounded, much more smooth. I was like, yeah, that is what we want 1792 to rest in. We filled those barrels and then put them in the top of our rick houses, so where it's hotter, there's a lot more airflow to give more interaction between the bourbon in the barrel and the Cognac barrel itself. We go up there, roll them around every once in a while. I think it turned out nicely. We really experimented with proof and found that 95 proof was just a good point where it accentuates all the profile of the Cognac. I always get quite a bit, almost like cocoa is like a note I get off, which I didn't expect at first, but I do here. Then you get all of that fruitiness from the 1792, along with the fruitiness that you get from a Cognac, so along with all the additional barrel influence. It paired really well. We have tons of experiments, but Cognac Casco is like, yes, this is a winner. We're doing it, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. English Toffee. It's so plush and raw. I don't know what that tastes like to be honest with you. English Toffee. It's so good. I don't have a sweet tooth, but oh my goodness. With the little nuts covering it, you need to- With the chocolate between the toffee and the nuts? That also, yes. I see what you mean, like toffee, caramel, a little bit of cocoa, but much sweeter, if we had them all lined up, much sweeter than your Small Batch or your VIB. It's this pillowy plushness, this mellow pillowy plushness. I need to work on my vocabulary. I need to work on my plosives. Yeah. This smells absolutely fantastic. I haven't even tasted it again yet. Everyone else is like, yeah, I'm ready for my next glass. I could drink this all day. It's got this nice raisin-y quality that I really enjoy. Oh yeah. Raisin-y. Oh yes. Which makes sense, it being a Cognac barrel and all that grape influence. So, that's like in the background. Like it isn't like in the forefront. That's too easy to drink. We haven't been covering prices. How much of an upcharge is there on this special finish? Oh, Cognac. The 1792 game plan is not, you know, these ultra expensive. That's, I believe it's $40, $40 MSRP. That's why we love you. Gotcha. That's it. That's the only reason. Thank you. No, no, no. No, because it's good whiskey. And also, it doesn't have to be precious. It's accessible. Honestly, that's one of my favorite things. So it's like if I'm going out and hanging out with friends, it's like, oh, like, do I want to open that $200 bottle? Well, we will drink really good whiskey for $40 to $50 and life will be good. Yeah, nothing's, even when we do our full proof hand picks, $49.99. That's outstanding. Yeah. What a value. 12 year, I think is $59.99. I think so. Yeah. How long does this sit in cognac casks? Like three months, four months? It was closer to eight months, but between six and eight months. They were big 500 liter barrels, so I really should know the technical term, but basically it's two and a half times the size of a regular bourbon barrel, which is 53 gallons. Yeah. What's a cognac barrel? What do you mean? Sending it to the room. What's a cognac barrel? I think it was technically a hogshead size, so 500 liters of cognac. 500 liters. Yeah. Do you want to know that in gallons? No. No, I wanted to hear the word hogshead. Oh, hogshead. Remember. A hoggy. Yeah, hoggy. That's a way for some to say hoggy. It wasn't a cognac hoggy. It sounds like bread. The opposite of classy. Yeah, I think we'll stick with cognac casks. That sounds better. I'm glad you enjoy it. Yeah, I was really happy with how it turned out. Yeah, that's really nice. Yep. 22:44 1792 Sweet Wheat What else is in the 1792 lineup? So there's other items. Sweet Wheat, 12 Year. Sweet Wheat, 12 Year, full proof at 125 proof. We do a stock single barrel at 98.6 proof. And who knows? Who knows what will come out in the next couple of years? I'm sorry. Sweet Wheat. Sweet Wheat. What? What does that mean? Have you tried this? What is Sweet Wheat? Would you like to try this? Yes. Yeah, obviously. Well, there's a box. There's a bottle of Sweet Wheat. There's a bottle of Sweet Wheat. Yay. Oh, how about that? Yeah. So everything we do is all high rye bourbon except for this one. So this is, I would call it a high wheat bourbon. It has quite a bit of wheat in it and it's at 91.2 proof. So what are the specific recipes? Well, I can't disclose mashpills. I can just say, hey, it's a high rye or high wheat bourbon. Okay. Does that mean no rye in this? Wheat instead of rye? There is no rye in this. Okay. So yep. How long has the same yeast strain been used at Barton 1792? A long time. I'm honestly trying to track that down because again, yeast is important to me. My office currently is at the very top of the distillery, in the tower as I like to call it. But my office used to be the yeast propagation lab. So there's a sink in there. There's a picture of the guy who was like the yeast propagator at the distillery. So, you have a little slant of it, and you scrape a little bit off, put it in 50 milliliters, let it propagate for a day. 50 mills of malt extract, essentially. Then you put it in 500 milliliters, then five liters, and then you throw it into a small tank called a donna. I think donna means mother in Latin, I think. Makes sense. Would make sense if true. Yep. We'll pretend it is. And then it grows in the donna for, we don't do this anymore. We do boxies, so our yeast strain has been able to be dried and we can just boxies now. But it would go in the donna for a day and then it would go into a yeast tub, which is like an open top 2,000 gallon tank, and then that would grow for another day and then it would drop into a fermenter. This sounds so weirdly intimate. It is. Well, I mean, it is a living being. Yeah. Yeah. Growing it from a tiny little baby in a 50 mil up until a tub and then taking over a whole fermentation tank. And then it just ferments a whole tank. Yep. And in every milliliter, the spec that you want generally is 200 million yeast cells per milliliter. Oh, my. Yeah. So when you drop that tub into the fermenter, inside that tub for every milliliter, you should have 200 million yeast cells. Whoa. That's a lot of yeast. We can do the math, but that's a lot of yeast. So just for those listening at home or on the treadmill or wherever they are, you look delighted. You look absolutely delighted. That's a lot of yeast. A lot of yeast. A good hard work in yeast. So with your passion for yeast, have you played around with any projects of yeast that you've propagated that's separate? I've delved some to the world of yeast, less so with the 1792 brand. I think because the yeast profile is so prevalent, I'm not looking at the 1792 brand, but I'm always playing around with stuff. You know, you talk about all finishes, it would be impossible for me not to play around with yeast and talk to people like, all right, if I want to create a high rye bourbon, but that is like accentuates the rye even more instead of bringing out a more estuary profile, like what is heavy in fusel oils and what yeast strains produce a lot of fusel oils, like where it's super leathery and just like overly, it's like overly rye and overly spicy. So I've done some stuff there. We make early times now, so Sazerac acquired early times from Brown Forum back in 2020. We now distill and age and bottle early times at 1792. So we have that yeast strain. That's a very interesting yeast strain to play with. So I've dealt with that in a few different mash bills. I'm always experimenting. Yeah. You can do anything for science. You mentioned esters there, and speaking of esters, we still haven't talked about this sweet wheat. And esters is what it is. Yes. You took the bananas and you'd blow out that whole spectrum of fruit to really make it, and then, I don't know, the spice is there, but it's way in the back, by comparison. Which makes sense. You know, weeded bourbon, you're not trying to have a lot of spice. Like this is a lower, I say lower, it's a lower proof bourbon at 91.2 with wheat, which is meant to be sweeter and more mellow. And then you throw the esters on that. It's meant to be just very sippable. And it is mission accomplished, you know. Good, I'm glad. And weed just kind of gets out of the way of the corn sometimes, also. It does, it does. It just adds a really nice mellow sweetness to it. I would not put sweet weed in a cocktail. I don't think it would stand up very well. Which is why, you know, the rye bourbons or your rye whiskies of the world, you know, are more often used in cocktails. Yeah, it's softer. It's more laid back. Much, yeah, much. So that's like a good Monday pour, you know. I think it'd be really delightful just on a big cube with like a little orange expression, not a full orange in there, just a little bit of those oils. I think it'd be really nice. Yeah, I like that. I will, for science, I'll go try that at home now. Yeah, for science. Good idea, Lexi. Because it is, I mean, it's nice how it differentiates itself so much from everything else that's produced because it's so delicate in comparison. Yeah, well, your small batch and your bottom and bottom, when you drink that, you know what you're drinking, as well as foolproof. I love our small batch. I know it's our flagship and we make the most of it, but we are always looking for consistency in that, for where we pull barrels from. It's not age-stated, but it's Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey, which has to be at least four years. It's much older than four years. I really like making those blends every month or even every couple of weeks, especially right now. So it's good to see it grow in popularity. We have seen a collection of standout examples of different styles. You're offering a variety here, and they're all exceptional values for what they are. I appreciate that. I don't know, I wasn't in the room, but I suspect that's why the Whiskey Hotline team reached out in looking for our very own. This has been a favorite for a long time. There's consistency, value. We already talked about price that presents that value for that consistency profile. So when we were looking for a project years ago, we started that collaboration. Two years ago, we went back down, and we were looking for an addition to that project, and that was the Clark & Sheffield Barrel Proof. It's been a little bit in the making. We revised some labeling, some bottles, and recently at our stores, it finally hit. So, we've got Clark & Sheffield Barrel Proof, which is 125 proof, non-chill filtered, retails for $39.99. That's unbelievable. I got it on sale for $34.99. You got it at a great price. And look at that label design, huh? Crushed it design team. Yeah, our design team crushed it. I love the bottle too. I mean, just well done. So, before we try this, Clark & Sheffield as a brand, celebrating the Binny's roots, the original Binny's store back in 1948 at the corner of Clark & Sheffield in the shadow of Wrigley Field. Can you tell that I'm the marketing guy? Crushing it, crushing it. We have a handful of wines. We work with top tier wineries in California and elsewhere, and they don't let us put the name of their wineries on the package. And we, even going back to the Clark & Sheffield Small Batch Bourbon, we just had a package change, which includes Barton 1792 right on the front of the bottle. Super cool. Every 1.75-liter bottle that I take home now, proudly says Barton 1792 Distillery on it. Well done. Yeah. And that is a testament to not only how great Binnys is in curating such a wonderful selection of products, but also the fact that you're willing to put your name on this thing too, and we are all proud of it. So often, there's pushback on transparency, and the fact that we can have that on the label, talk about it, have you here talking about it, and we're not afraid to say the wrong thing. It's just great whiskey that we said, hey, can we do something with us? Let's partner up. Yeah. No, I appreciate it. So it's been a joy to partner with you guys. That was a very fun day back in 2023. It was awesome, because it was the first time that you had met a lot of us. I can't remember the exact dimensions, but the column still, what is the circumference or diameter of that thing? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we have multiple stills. Most of them are used for GNS production back in the day, but the one still we still use is our beer still. That's six feet in diameter. That's insane. Yeah, huge. That's, I'm 5'10. I'll admit that. That thing, it's bigger than me. Yeah. Yep. There's tree huggers in the world, and then I'm a still hugger. I love that still. It's great. You gotta be careful. It's running. You gotta be a little careful. But anyway, so we were walking through, we do all this, and it's just, it's unique in the fact that it's bare bones. Like there's, with how, like the Bourbon Trail and everything has become this Disneyland experience. It is not that at all. And it makes it feel more unique when you get the opportunity to go through it because you genuinely have to watch out or you might hurt yourself. Yeah. We get to a spot where we're tasting through all these wonderful whiskies, and we're saying, wait, part of this is 1792, that it's going to become. And then part of it is going to be our Clark & Sheffield handpick bourbon. So we've got the barrel proof that is a batch that's going to be consistent and regular. Cool. But then we also soon have Clark & Sheffield barrel proof handpick that's going to be coming through as well. What's the difference? This is a small batch of casks that were selected by Ross and his team. The handpick is a curation of that where it was a select number of casks that Ross and his team put together for us to handpick as top quality. But instead of it being individual casks for Clark & Sheffield, like single barrels, single barrels, it is going to come in as a very, very, very small batch, a very limited vatting of the best of the barrels. Correct. Oh, I want that. That's all all curated and picked out among the best. Yo, you got the sample in the box. I know, right? Soon, but not yet. We don't have the sample. I know. And it was like, but anyway. We'll have to settle for this one. It's exciting to think about, though. This is great. And it's cool because there's various things that we do, and all of us, where there's everything going on, but we kind of lose track over time. Like, where's this? What's going on with this? But when it finally comes to fruition, like this, and then we get to see the joy in people's faces because of the value it presents, this in itself, Clark & Sheffield Barrel Proof, has gone gangbusters. Just the price that it's at and the value that it presents. It's so good. There's no age statement on here, but we can safely say that it is of a good age. Yep, absolutely. Had a lot of fun picking out these barrels, with Brittany, our team. Yeah, and that's what we loved about it, is that you were sitting in, we were all collaborating on this together. It was such a fun experience. What to you, because this is, realistically, this is the first kind of thing that we've done with something like this. What was your experience with that? So one, that was just an awesome day. The one thing I want to call out that I remember vividly is, we walked up through the whole distillery. As you walk up the staircases, you get so many different aromas. You can tell where you're at in the process, so you can smell the mash. Or as soon as you walk in the distillery, you're right by the still, you can smell the alcohol and the holding product tanks there before we pumped up the hill to our sister room in Barrel House. Then you go upstairs, you can smell fermentation. If you go all the way to the top, you smell some of the heads components coming off there being vented out. It's just this whole sensorial experience as you walk through it. I'm smiling super big as I say this because- Year to year. Yeah, because as I walk up every morning through the till, it's like you can almost tell how well the distillery is running based on the aromas that you have along with a lot of other things. We have plenty of data. But the first step of data every day is the walk up to the office. Like, okay, hey, smells really good in fermentation. Love the banana note. Hey, I don't get any AA or any other compounds coming off our product tanks that smell weird. So that is you smell the whole distillery step by step as you walk. But these barrels for Clark & Sheffield, so when we did our handpicked stuff, one, that was a blast. We chose quite a few barrels, if I remember correctly, from the top of our rick houses. And we didn't know ahead of time. Like, we weren't picking based on anything about where it was in the warehouse, anything at all other than this is blind or just tasting what we like. Yep. With this, I did go similar, but I definitely threw in some like mid-tier barrels. So knowing it was 125 proof, this is, I get a ton of baking spice on this and I love that. Yep. I absolutely love it. So you can tell a lot of it is from high up based on that. It's really accentuating the rye and the barrel influence, but I wanted to make sure the fruit didn't get left behind. There's still a ton of fruit here. Yeah. And some of those mid-tier warehouse barrels. This reminds me of like a totally amplified version of Small Batch, just amped up. Yep. Yeah. I get like, it's more of like vanilla cupcake or like vanilla frosting is a note I get here. I don't get as much like the butterscotch that we were talking about. I get way more vanilla. If you lied to me and told me that there were there was port influence or sherry influence, I might believe you because of the multiple dimensions of fruit. Yeah. Heavy cherries, higher toned, lighter berries is really complex. So well, well done, folks. No, we appreciate it. And then, yeah, that finish. That's when that cherry starts to come through. All right, Rob, I'm not going to lie to you. I think I've gone through two bottles of this and I had every drip in a Manhattan. Every single drip had vermouth and bitters in it. Yeah. Because it's really good there that way too. It's superb. So good. Well, this or like honestly what I would love this in, and I haven't had it yet because I just haven't made it a Boulevardier. Okay, I probably had a Boulevardier too because of the red bitters we've been tasting lately too. Yeah. Good call. Really good call. All right. Well, okay. Then we're going to go from there because that's pretty spectacular. It's a great finish. Man, that was the cherry on top there. Well done. Well done, folks. So I'm glad you're doing it at 125 proof too. The non-chill filtered expression, just like our full proof, you lose none of that flavor whatsoever and it just shines. It's still just lingering. You would think that high proof would really kind of dry out your mouth and it doesn't. It just stays there, waves and waves and waves, so very good, very good. This is a great lineup. Thank you for sharing these things. I bet five-year-old you still pretty impressed. Yeah, absolutely. What's your favorite cereal? Ooh, it is Honey Bunches of Oats. Yeah. Or when I was a kid. Do you like O's? Because O's kind of hits that sweet spot for me. No? If there was. It scrapes the top of your mouth and just rips you up. Nope, nope. Not my style. The other one that I grew up eating was Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. I didn't like regular Cheerios, but I loved Apple Cinnamon Cheerios. Or the Frosted Cheerios. Those two. Oh, right, right, right. That was great. Yeah. Big fan. So I love, man, I love the rice spice. That sweetness. Yeah, it really shines through on that. Well done. Rob, good work on these. You know what? I did such a great job just doing stuff. No, Ross crushed it. You know, we love it. Thank you. Like I said, I'll take some credit, but we do have a really awesome team at the distillery. I mean, there's about 600 people that work at Barton 1792, about 100 between distillery and Barrel warehouse, and then the rest over in bottling processing in the DC. It is such a great spot. There's a really nice communal aspect to it. So I appreciate the folks I get to work alongside every day. So this would not be bottled without them. I wasn't on the bottling line. I can tell you that. So I appreciate all they do. So and I'm glad we all get to sit here and enjoy it. Absolutely. Super cool. Thank you for sharing. Absolutely. All right. Hey, thank you for listening to this episode of Barrel to Bottle The Binny's Podcast. I'm stoked that we get to continue recording them and sharing these things that we are passionate about with you. It's great. Backing your feed next week with something good. I'm Greg. I'm Rob. I'm Lexi. And I'm Ross. Keep tasting.