Hey, welcome back to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Pat Brophy from the Whiskey Hotline. Got a few people in the room and a special guest today. Special guest is not Greg. Why do you keep inlining these Brown Forman people then to our show? We sell a lot of their delicious products, Greg. How come you got to take shots? Every f***ing happens, I walk away loving it. This is Chicago, it's called clout. The last time we had a Jack Daniel's guest on was actually Lexi, was on talking about Triple Mash actually, which we're going to revisit Triple Mash today. Spoiler alert, that was a delightful surprise back then. Yeah, it was. Chris is here too. Welcome back, Chris. Oh, hey, thanks. Yeah, I'm Chris. I'm a full-time wine professional for Binny's Beverage Depot, but I occasionally sip some whiskey. Our guest today is the only person I've known to use more wood chemistry terms during a tasting than you, Chris. So I'm excited to have you both in the same room today. It's a guayacal showdown. Yeah. Let's go. We can say tannins. That's the tannin is the easy one. Yeah. Everybody should know that. Yeah. We'll go there. So our guest today, Byron Copeland, welcome to Barrel to Bottle. For listeners and fellow hosts, I met Byron. Few months back, we were doing some barrel picks of Jack Daniel's and he was guiding us through the day. Greg, you've been there. They have that big fancy sunroom in the back of what they call the Motlow House where you taste a bunch of barrels. It's delightful, but it's warm. Well, we were there in July or something. It was very hot. But yeah, we were doing barrel picks of Single Barrel, Single Barrel Barrel Proof. We did some Barrel Proof Rye and those are all should be coming shortly to stores actually. Nice. You going to let Jim know in advance this time? I'm going to try. But typical to our barrel picks, Brett and I just droned on and on about the distillery side of the business with our host. And thankfully, we had a barrel host who's actually done, I would say more in both a distillery and a cupards than anybody else I had interacted with. So Byron, welcome. Thank you for joining us. Hey, thank you all for having me. You want to give us a little background about how you started at Jack Daniel's, how you got to this position now where you're, you got such a broad, you're ambassador, you're in innovation, you're working with distillery people, you're working with marketing slags like this guy in the corner. It goes on and on, right? The vest. Well, I'll tell you, I did not go to school to be mechanical. Any of those things that's in the whiskey industry that people go to college to be. My background is in business management. I went to the great Morehouse College in Atlanta. Nice. Historical Black College. I could high-five you, but nobody would see it on the podcast. Yeah, so high-five. Yeah. I didn't do chemical engineering, I didn't do any of those things. I started out with Target Distribution Center, and I always say Tar-Jay for those that conveniently go there all the time. Tar-Jay. I started there and I worked for Target about six years. I got a buddy of mine that was working there at Target with me, and he said, hey, I want you to come work with me at this facility in Richmond, Virginia and run our shipping and receiving. I said, hey, that's cool because I want to get out of Target anyways. He tricked me, and when I got there, I knew where I was going, but it was Sabra Hummus dipping, Sabra dipping. So that's how I got it. I made the hummus for about three and a half years in Richmond, Virginia, but I wanted to get back south. We have never had a hummus person on our podcast. Just wait till he teases their latest innovation later. Yes. I tell that story all the time because it's so funny, man. I told it in front of 500 people. It's a shame you're not there because I really would like the Sabra Everything Bagel Spiced in the Costco size container. I was going to say- You can only ever find it in the small container. As a packaged hummus goes, it's pretty good. The grab and go. Yeah, I'll grab it. Yeah. Go ahead. You got a chickpea whiskey coming out soon? They were joking about that yesterday. I think it'd be too much salt in there. So, the smokiness, the sweet, I don't know if it'll go too well with it. But it does pair up pretty good. So, yeah, just to continue going forward a little bit. So, I wanted to get back south. I got an opportunity to do that. And I saw online, I saw Jack Daniel's Cooperage. At that time, I didn't know what a Cooper was or a Cooperage. But I saw Jack Daniel's and I was like, wow, this is a great opportunity. And I got hired in 2015 at the Cooperage. That started out my career in whiskey. I don't think we've ever had a Cooper either. I don't think so. Well, I'm a Cooper. That's pretty cool. I am a Cooper. Started in 2015. The cool thing about it is, to me, the Barrel is the number one ingredient in whiskey, in bourbon or Tennessee whiskey. It's the number one ingredient. So I led teams in each one of those departments. So if you take a look at a Barrel, just breaking it down. So the heads, I made those, the staves, the raising of a Barrel, the hoops that you see, the toasting, the charring, and even shipping the Barrels out. I led teams in every one of those. But when I left off, I led teams that were over the maturation process or the aging process or seasoning as we call it. Sure. Air cure these? Yeah. Yeah. Arguably the most important part of the whole process probably. So yeah, brown farming or Jack Daniel's, we control that entire process. So when you think about wood that's coming out of the forest, it's going to have a higher moisture content. So it can be like 40 percent moisture. So you need it to sit there and air dry. Another thing you needed to do is get some rain and wind and different things out there that's going to let some of those tannins leach out. Tannins, so tannins. There we go. Yeah, so the cool thing, and y'all can ask me some crazy questions, but the cool thing about seeing that wood out there on the yard and seeing it dry and seeing it get rain on, let's say if you came out there during a rainy day, guess what you'll see on the ground? You would see water that's leaching out and it has that brownish color. It's brown, right. And there's going to be those tannins that's coming out. A lot of people don't understand. So when you see a creek that's brownish and you have a lot of fallen logs and stuff, the reason that creek is kind of brown and looks like whiskey is because the tannins are inside those those trees and leaves. So I mean, it's great to have an in-house cooperage, you know, and you control the whole process from start to finish. Pretty much the only ones with that, at least certainly of scale. Yeah, we are the only ones. Yeah, so let's not mince words here. Yeah, we're going to tell the truth. So yeah, we control that entire process. But the cool thing about that is I learn everything about making those barrels. That's right. And me and you, we were joking. We were joking about Tylosis. We were joking about all those things. All those things are important to making a white oak barrel. And for those that's listening, to be a bourbon or a Tennessee whiskey, you have to have a new charred oak barrel. That had to be white oak, but new charred oak. Common misconception. Yep, very common misconception. But it has to be a new charred oak barrel. That would be Quercus Alba. Good game, you guys. I love when people say that, but that is the takeover. Boy, Greg's never wanted a whiskey more in his life. Yeah, so just to fast forward. So 2015, I started working at the Cooperage. 2020, I was offered a position with the Nearest and Jack Advancement Initiative. I love telling that story because that kind of fast-tracked my career to where I am now. So that Nearest and Jack Advancement Initiative was to bring these two companies, so Uncle Nearest and Jack Daniels came together to honor the legacy of Uncle Nearest or Nathan Nearest Green and Jack Daniels. They were going to push diversity in the whiskey industry. So in 2020, we started Nearest and Jack Advancement Initiative, Three Pillar, one was the Leadership Acceleration Program, which they selected me to be the first one. First one. In that program, yeah. My friend Tracy, Tracy is the other that was selected. So Tracy Franklin, she had been with Glenn Fittick and other brands before, but I was coming from the Jack Daniel side, she was coming from the Uncle Nearest side. So we led that initiative, knocking on doors, knocking down doors, to make sure we leave that legacy behind and continue that legacy that Uncle Nearest and Jack Daniel started 200 years ago. So that initiative, again, was to continue the legacy of Uncle Nearest and Jack Daniel. So for me being selected as the first one, I knew at that time my career would change. I knew at that time I was going to have to carry a lot of, well, continue that legacy. I'll just say that. So being able to go out and talk about that. You're shouldering some stuff there. Oh yeah, it's hard to be the first, but it's cool to be the first. Oh yeah, that's awesome. It's a lot of expectations. What that program did, so in 2020, I actually moved my office from the Cooperage to the distillery and that gave me an opportunity to work with the distillers and learn about distillation. I knew about the barrels, but then that brought together that distillation piece and then the maturation and all those things that goes into making whiskey. So moved my office, learned from actually a lot of distillers in that steel house, got an opportunity to actually travel and work with Brown Forman, so Woodford Reserve, all Brown Forman's products, I got a chance to go to those distilleries. Another thing that I was able to do, we traveled even to some of the competitors because I was part of this program, this Nearest in Jack Advancement Initiative, they were open their doors to me, so Angels Envy and different competitors, they open Wow, you've got the key to the kingdom. That's pretty cool because I think it's pretty much invaluable to see how other people do things. You don't want that tunnel vision of being in one place all the time and not knowing. Well, we do things the right way because it's the way we've always done things. You get trapped in that. Do the old Forrester people have a chip on their shoulder? With? I don't know, just always being a little brother. Oh no, no, no, no. Don't tell him I said that though. I will tell you something. Well, you all know the history of old Forrester. Old Forrester was the first bottle bourbon, so I don't know. Do they need to have a chip or are they the ones that created something for the entire industry? They do have a very fancy experience. Oh yeah, that experience is amazing. I think what Greg is saying is, are they friend or old foe? Oh, that is, wow. Sorry, the door is over there. That's why Jim's in the room. He doesn't crowd. Yeah, we need to, yeah. Jim's our live laugh track. Even the crickets weren't laughing. So I've been in the industry since 2015. Again, I just told you all what I did as far as the Cooperage, then marrying that up with Distillation. My current title, my title is a long title, so I will tell y'all, it's the Manager of Maturation and Innovation, and I'll stop there because it goes a little deeper. But the other part is I'm the Manager of the Leadership Acceleration Program, which is that part of that Nears and Jack investment initiative. That's fantastic. So something else out there that we have coming up, and we did it this year, was the Spirits on the Rise. Spirits on the Rise, we had a day or two at Jack Daniel's and Uncle Nears last year, where we had about 50 BIPOC or minority owned Spirits companies come down, and they spent two days with us. So one day at Jack Daniel's and another day at Uncle Nears, and we gave them a lot of the information on far as marketing. We brought in investors, we brought in different people, and we're going to continue that. We're doing that next year in April again. So that's something else that I'm a part of, but that's too long of a title as well. You have a lot of hats. Yeah, and then I'll stop here. Something else, I am a brand ambassador, I'm a master taster. Yeah, I'll stop there. But that's some of the hats that I wear. I think that's pretty cool that you're spending time and resources to kind of mentor smaller businesses. That seems really important. It's hard. This is a very tough industry to enter into. And when you have somebody that, you know, uncle Neers, who, you know, they started in 2017, you have Brown Farming. We're going on, what, close to 200 years. So you, well, it's not even, well, 150, we just hit not too long ago, so. Quit exaggerating. Yeah, let's go back to the 150. I keep saying 200, but, you know, I'm thinking about 1866 and all these things. But yeah, so about 150 years. So to help someone, I've always been one to reach back and lift others up. That's innate. That's something that I believe in. And what better way to do that would be in the position that I'm in. Somebody lifted me up, so. Using your powers for good. That's right. Right on. Can we go back to a key word that you said, which is a dirty word in some aspects, some corners of this industry, which is innovation, which could be amazing, or it could be like banana, walnut. Yeah, look, we have a toasted marshmallow. Are you talking about smooch? Yeah. Butterscotch mint. What do we got coming up next? Okay. So, innovation. We talk about that a lot, and I've been getting that question since I've been here in Chicago. What's next? What's next? So, one of our innovations or innovative ideas that we usually do, it comes to do the Distillery Series. So, if you ever had a White Rabbit store down in Lynchburg or in Tennessee, we have those Distillery Series. Those Distillery Series is where we can kind of push the envelope a little bit more than what we do with our larger market. So, I'll give you an example. One of the ones that we just released was a Tennessee Whiskey Finish in Añejo Barrels, and that's a Distillery Series. So, you wouldn't get it here in Chicago, but it is something that you'll see down there. That's an experience. We tried a few when we were down there. We tried a Cabernet Cask one, I think. There was a Red Wine one and one other one. A Cheriola also. Nice. That's pretty cool. So, this Añejo, just for my own curiosity, this was an ex-Burman Barrel, then aged Añejo and then came back? Well, I will tell you, most of the, unless it's a new, most of the tequilas are in already aged. Yeah, I was wondering if it's just made a full circle back around. Yeah. Boomerang. Interesting. But to go back to innovation, if you think about our brand, we don't want to lose what we've already had. Jack Daniel's is an established brand, but innovation aspect of it, we want to make sure we are pushing the envelope. That's why we have the Bund series. That's why we have our special releases that we come out with once or twice a year. That's why we have these masterful handpicked single-barrel cask-strength expressions, which are some of the best whiskeys I've ever had. That is correct. Innovation, we don't want to just come out with something that's off the cusp, willy-nilly, because that's not what we do. But we do want to test some things out with that Distillery series. I even have some things that's going on right now that's aging right now that you all will probably be able to taste soon. But I won't let the cat out the bag. I won't let the cat out the bag. Keep that cat in my bag. There are some things, as far as innovation, if we're doing it on a smaller scale, we're going to push the envelope a little bit. But we know these are the bonded and stuff is going to touch the world. Let's pass this bonded around and revisit that, because have you ever had this one Chris? No, I haven't. Oh man. Yeah, let's pass it around and we'll talk about it. I think you guys are going to like it. Holy smokes, this smells awesome. Yeah, this bonded was voted the number one whiskey in the world in 2022 by Whiskey Advocate. So you guys are getting a chance to taste to me one of my favorite expressions. And it's pretty new. This is not our first time revisiting this. So every year, one of our episodes at the end of the year, we taste through whatever Whiskey Advocate top 20 I've gotten the store at the time. And we give it essentially a thumbs up or thumb down like, does it belong in the list? Does it not belong in the list? When we created this, this bonded. Most people would know what bonded is and why is it a bonded? So the Bottle and Bun Act of 1897 was created to make sure those brands that were actually selling whiskey by the barrel unadulterated to make sure we kept people safe. So that's the Bottle and Bun Act. But for Jack Daniel's, we wanted to create something that's robust. I don't know if everybody knows this, but so bonded has about 25% of the barrels. 25% of those are darker barrels that we went out and selected and said, hey, we want to use those barrels to create this bonded. We wanted to be more smokier, more oakier. So richer oakier profile. And you smell that right away in the nose. It's classic Jack Daniel's on the nose and that it still has that kind of like banana, tropical fruit kind of character. I was going to say banana right up front. It's everywhere. Way toned down versus the 80 proof Jack. And 80 proof Jack is a classic for a reason. It's globally like the number two whiskey or whatever for a reason. I think as it dropped in proof over the years to 80, it's gotten very soft and very fruit forward and that's great. But I appreciate that this I feel is a more well-balanced whiskey, just even from the start on the nose. Yeah. And for the people out there, I mean, I more tend to sip whiskeys. I love bourbon or Tennessee whiskey on the rocks. But if you're looking for a cocktail, this bond, it goes well with that. That's kind of why we created it as well. It's 100 proof. It stands up in a cocktail, it stands up in an old fashion. So this bond, it goes well if you're just sipping or if you're looking for mixability. Yeah, totally agree. There's no way this is getting lost in a cocktail. Yeah, you won't lose this. The tropical fruit, the banana, absolutely up front. But then it's above more graceful butterscotch, caramel, graham cracker. There's some subtleties underneath. Can we use isoamyl acetate? Yes. Oh, yes, we can. It's that banana. Can we go there? Can we go there on the podcast? Isoamyl acetate. Absolutely. If you're talking about apple, hexanoate, so we're going to go with that, ethyl hexanoate, ethyl hexanoate. You will find these flavors in Beaujolais Nouveau. Oh, yeah, carbonic maceration. More chemical words, guys. That was funny. I like saying this stuff, because it's so funny to me when you talk about esters and stuff. Because half the room looks to you like this, and the other half just kind of awkward, looks the other way. I had a conversation, a straight-faced conversation with him, where I was like, this is pretty acidic. And he's like, it's aldehyde. Me. Are we making up words here? No, these are real words. Pretty much every day somebody is telling Greg he's wrong about something. Wrong. Nope. Oh man, this is a great whiskey. It is really nice. Yeah. I'm just thinking about making a Manhattan with it. Oh, it's so fruity. It's all the isoamyl acetate of your dreams. But with the more herbal and bitter vermouth with more of the spicy bitters. So I would take it that most of your listeners know why something is bottled and burned, right? Yeah, we can refresh. I mean, four years old, 100 proof at one distillery in one distilling season. So make sure we tell them what a distilling season is. It's a six-month time from January to June or July to December. That is the time frame that you have to when you call distilling season. So I think we hit it on the head. So 100 proof, four years old, one distillery, one distilling season, and an abundant warehouse. A bonded warehouse is the antiquated part because now every warehouse is a bonded warehouse now. The distilling season thing is important that you can't, it essentially ensures that everything is at least four years old because otherwise you could have some three and a half year old stuff if it was late, late of the same year. It could in theory be a different corn harvest too. You know, that's not as important, I suppose. Nope, but yeah, that's six month time. If it's three and a half or four, then you can't call it. Yeah. You know you, well, you guys know that. But so if it's three and a half, I have to call it three and a half. You have to put it on there. So the earliest age has to be on the bottle. Well, I'll just say that I haven't had a sip of this in a good minute or two. And the sweet caramely vanillins are just laying on my tongue. They're not fading. It's so well structured from that higher proof too. I mean, I'm kind of skewed because I drink so much and taste so much high proof whiskey. But when I have some from a brand that's normally a little lower proof and you have some higher proof, it really knocks your socks off. Yeah. Good stuff. All right. Sweet. And this is the classic Jack Daniel's is 70% corn, 80%. So 80% corn, 12% malted barley, 8% rye. Yeah. Good chunk of barley. No exogenous enzymes there. No. No. So you, hey listen, our listeners at home, they're nodding in recognition. Listen, we're not going to go too nerdy. We're talking amylase. Amylase, baby. Yeah. Alpha and the beta. Alpha and beta amylase. So yeah, that's why we use that 12 percent multi-barley. It gives you some flavor, but the enzymes in the multi-barley. You got to convert those things. You need the diastatic power. Yeah. Exactly. I see his face over there. He's like, what are you talking about? This is real stuff, man. That's why we use it. I mean, yeah, there's value here. I'm just waiting for somebody to pass the next bottle. He's like, we're not going to dive into that. But I like the diastatic power. We're gonna revisit Triple Mash next. At the time, I think, when we tasted through these with Lexi, when they were first coming out, I think you guys liked the Triple Mash better. Could be. A lot of people tend to like it. It's very unique. So I like to talk a little bit about that Triple Mash, what makes it so unique. So we know that it's bonded, right? That Triple Mash is bonded. We had three different distillates that were aged in their own separate barrels. And after they were aged four to five years, then we brought those together. But think about this, for it to be a bonded, that means all three distillates had to be created in the same six month timeframe. So this bottle, this Triple Mash is 60%, 60% of that Triple Mash bottle is 60% rye, it's 20% of our malt, and it's 20% of our Tennessee whisky. So 60, 20, 20, that is what that Triple Mash comprises of. And a lot of people get confused because they're like, hey, did it age and did it mature in the same barrel? No, it matured in separate barrels in the warehouse. Then we dumped them and then we brought those together. Post maturation blending. Post maturation. Look how it clings to the glass here. Single grain distillation? No, because each of the whiskeys is a mashbill. Right. So that would imply multiple grains. So 60-20-20 is the blend of the mashers. Yes. Of the mashers. And then there's mashbills inside of those. Yes, you just said that right. So the mashbills, so think about this. The rye, the rye mashbill is 70% rye, 12% malted barley, 18% corn. The Tennessee whisky is 80% corn, 12% malted barley, 8% rye. And then we have the single malt in there as well. That's 100% malt. So all of these were distilled as separate periods of time and then brought together. In the Excel program in my brain, I just picked the wrong chart type and it was a mafia diagram, you know, hierarchies. Listen, we talked about that yesterday. So when you put all those grain bills together, you know, the mash, different mashers, and then think about all those combinations that's inside that one bottle. It is pretty cool. To do the math, how much rye is actually in this, in the end product? What? 60% at 70% match the- 60% of it is 70% rye, but there's also 8% rye and 20% of it. You can do it. Get back to us next week. We all do this again. It'll probably take six months, but let's copy back and we'll be ready. It's kind of similar to Canadian whiskey in that sense that these things were all aged separately and only brought together at the end. Canadian whiskey, they're only making 100% single grain whiskies, but it is the same kind of the thought processes, maturing them differently and then creating the blend at the end. That's correct. I will tell you this. To me, this is so unique. You're going to get a lot of- you're going to get a spice in there, but then you're also going to get something to me that tastes like toasted bread. So, you're going to get toad. Literally, the first thought that crosses my mind. Like toasted bread with a little honey drizzled on it. Or toasted cashews with a honey drizzled on it, because it's got a nutty quality too. Certainly, there's plenty of spice on the finish. Part of the toasty character comes from the barrel too, which is something that they don't really talk about, that every barrel they're making in their cuprages is actually somewhat toasted. Whereas nowadays, a toasted barrel is like the secondary finish that gets hyped up a lot with marketing. It's our toasted release, limited releases, stuff like that. All Jack Daniel's sees time in toasted wood though, right? I'm glad you said that. We don't do our fair share of marketing that enough. I know you have a lot of people now that talk about a toast level or a char level. Every barrel that comes out of Jack Daniel's is toasted. Every single one that in our cuprages, the one that's in Alabama and the other one that's in Louisville, every barrel is toasted. And then it's charred. How big is the cuprage in Alabama versus bluegrass in Louisville? I mean, the one in Alabama, we put out about close to 300 and so thousand barrels last year. Yeah, so they're kind of comparable now. But when we first started out in 2014, when it was first open, I mean, you think about we had to ramp our way up. So we were just producing probably 400 or 500 barrels a day. And then when I left, we were right at about 1200. So do the math on that. Yeah, wow. Yeah, so they're comparable now. That technology that we have in Alabama, that is kind of the same technology that we have up there in Louisville as well, so. I love that the fruit remains on this one, but it's pushed down, it's less tropical, and it's more like pear skin and melon and stuff. And there's darker fruit in there too. Malt brings some of that plum and raisin and stuff to this that you don't see in a lot of American whiskeys. Yeah, for it to be such a high rye, I do get that, so I get darken like that plum, like if a plum was ripen, kind of overly ripe, so I get that in there. So yeah, it is fruit forward a little bit, but it's not, you're not getting that banana, as you say. As you all say, you're not getting that right off. A real backbone of sweet brown spices, like real sweet bacon spices, oh, it's awesome. And that I would assume is attributable to the toasting process, right? Yeah, the toasting and then, well, you know, I always like to bring in the esters, but we don't want to. Oh, sure. We love talking about esters. I mean, why give the fermentation short shrift? Yeah, no, no. So the importance to me, I talk about all of it. So I talk about mashing, I talk about maturation, well, fermentation, maturation, all of it, all of it goes in one. So distillate, so you're creating flavors throughout that. As you all know, if you come to our distillery, we create our work, well, we grow up our yeast, weekly from a 50 milliliter flask, and we grow that up to about 3,000 gallons, and that's what we feed our mash tubs with. I will tell you this, I think fermentation, there's a lot of things being created in fermentation that's going to carry over to distillation, that's going to carry over to maturation. So if you talk about esters, esters are being created in fermentation, you have an acid and alcohol, acids and alcohol meet, and then you're going to get esters that's going to be created. The cool thing about esters is they continue to intensify themselves in the maturation process. So that's what's going on in that barrel there with the oxidation. One of the things that the whiskey hotline talks about pretty frequently is the difference between additive and subtractive aging. And you did say that the most important ingredient is the wood. So one of the things Brett likes to say is like, some of the chemicals like tannins and vanilla and stuff is leaching out of the wood into the whiskey, but also it's behaving as a filter to pull other things out. So I mean, coming from the barrel side of things, the Cooperage side of things, how do you see that play out in the products that you play out? Toast versus char in a lot of ways, right? Well, we know that the toast layer, which is the red layer, is giving you a lot of those flavors and it's going to give you a lot of that color. We know that the charring, we know it's going to remove, right? Because the charcoal in itself is something that removes, right? Essentially charcoal filtering as the whisky goes in and out of the wood. We don't know scientifically exactly what it's doing, but we know that charcoal is a filter per se. I think it's actually giving you a smoother type, a smoother bite as that whisky goes in and out of the barrel. We know in the summer, whisky expands and it goes into the grain of the wood and we know in the winter, it contracts and it comes back out. Not to mention the Lincoln County process. Do all the triple mashes go through the maple chars too? Yes. Wow. That is something that we left out, the Lincoln County process. All of these products do go through the Lincoln County process, every one of them. So 10 feet of hard sugar maple charcoal. Now, the rye, our rye does not go through the entire 10 feet, because we know that it will strip some of the things out of the rye that we want. But it goes through some of it though. It does. Are there certain maple char barrels that are like designated to certain mash bills or? Maple char? No, no. How do you clean a barrel to run the next thing through it? No, no, no. So what I'm referring to as the Lincoln County process is when we, when that whiskey comes off the steel, it goes through 10 feet of hard sugar maple charcoal. So I'm an idiot. I'm thinking about the vessel containing it. It's like kind of like a barrique. No, it's a big stainless tank. Oh, it's stainless. Yeah, it's like these tall cylinders that are metal packed with charcoal. I had to sit out part of that tour because I was suffering severe hernia pain that day. I don't know if you knew that. I did not. So when Greg was there with us, actually, we were there on a day they were burning the giant pile of charcoal. And everybody acted, everyone from Jack Tan was like, oh my God, you're so lucky to see this this day. And they were acting like we were at SeaWorld the day that Shamu gave birth or something. And we're like, what a privilege it is to see this. No, seriously, we say that all the time, but it is a privilege, right? So we only burn two or three times a week. And maybe once or twice a day out of those two or three times. Pretty cool. So yeah, so- Then a not insubstantial chunk of the building fell off. Yeah. So when you go there and you see that, everybody, so a lot of your listeners have not seen it before. A lot of people have not seen it before. So you just so happened to be there when they were burning those ricks there. So yeah, it is something pretty special to see. Just like when Shamu birthed Shamu too. Electric Boogaloo. But it is something unique to see. But yeah, that is- Now we do have Maple, we used to, number 27. So that was aged in Maple. Is that ever coming back? No. I mean, I wish it would. But okay, so I will tell you- All that aside, same question. You've got the stainless steel filled with Maple char. Do you run different mash bills back to back through there? How do you- No. That's a great question. Do you run water crew? How do you clean it out? Or do you never clean it out? This one is just forever rye. As a master taser in quality, so every time we have a new 10 feet of char, so it's 72 of them, 72 vats. Let's say, well, they'd last about a year. But if we have one, let's say we taste it, so somebody in quality will taste it and we see that it's off a little bit, then we will change it. So it may not make it to a year. So we might change that out. But to your point, no, we do not run just different mash bills, mash bills, mash bills, mash bills afterwards. Swap it out. Yeah, so we do also to get all of that. So once we change it out, we'll let that soak with water. And then we'll distill that water again. So, hey, I just told you something that not too many people know. You distill the maple char. What am I f***ing up here? Water. Water. No, I know you distill the water that went through the char. Yeah, because what you're doing, you're just removing all the rest of that whiskey out of there. Oh, yeah. Like any distillation, you're going to. Just clean it up again. Get rid of it. Yeah. There you go. Distill the water. Neat. Yeah. These things are cool. It takes quite a while for it to drip through the 10 feet, right? Yes. It takes about three days, right? Because when you seen that burn, so if you saw that burn and we get that down to like a nugget size, so think about that one pebble. I mean, it's so many thousands of feet of square miles in one. The reason it's such an effective filter is because it's so porous and there's all that surface area, right? Yeah. It's collecting large molecules in these little tiny caverns. You guys are making this way too accessible. We need more long words. We're trying to give them the layman's term, so yeah, it is a little difficult to go with that. The power of charcoal filtering is incredible. So you do this after it comes off the still, but if you did this to a barrel of whiskey, you could literally strip all the color right out of it. Yeah, so if we had a bottle of Gentleman Jack sitting in front of us, so Gentleman Jack, after we dump it in, before its bottle, it goes through about two or three more feet of charcoal, hard sugar maple charcoal. And so if you think about that, so if you hold a Gentleman Jack up, oh, number seven, it's gonna give you a lighter color, so we know that that charcoal strips some of the roughness out of it. Right, and it's only two to three feet as opposed to ten, right? Because if it was ten, it would probably look like water. And Gentleman Jack is the only one that's double filtered like that, right? Yeah, Gentleman Jack is double filtered. Did you know that? Ain't this fascinating? Greg's staring at me blankly. Greg is chomping at the beaver so hard. I've just got one last thing to say about this triple mash, which is just to piggyback on Greg's comment about how nutty it is, the roasted cashew. Like, I've just been sitting here with this, and the retro nasal is all like nuts. It's like toasted almond, hazelnut, cashew. So really pretty good. Bonded rye. Bonded rye. This is the newest expression. Newest expression, that's out. Neat. Yeah, this is the new expression. So you guys should know what the match bill is now. We just talked about it, so. That's 70% rye. 70, 12, 18. Yeah, that's correct. 12% malted barley, that's correct. 18% corn. I will tell you, the reason I, this is literally my favorite expression now. Well, all of the rye series, but this one is amazing to me because you're gonna get even, I mean 70%, a lot of ryes out there on the market, you only had to be 51% to be a rye, but this is 70% and you're gonna get some unique flavors here. So yeah, you're gonna get that spice, but you're also gonna get some fruit forward flavors. Yeah, for sure. Some of the vanilla, some of the caramel. So to me, it's almost like a cherry bomb, but I mean, I love this rye. It's really a green. There's tons of morosca cherry in here. It's just like broad fruitiness. The spice and that lean spice that you get out of a lot of higher ryes like this, certainly, I mean, you're talking like Pennsylvania, almost levels of rye in this mash is really tamed though. I was gonna say. Such a well-balanced rye. The broadness of the palate is impressive. It's not linear like that at all, and it's just so fruity across your tongue. But then that spice definitely comes in on the finish. It snaps at the finish. Yeah. And like lemon meringue bread up before that with the graham cracker crust. Yeah. Somebody yesterday when we were tasting these with the staff pointed out the citrus character in there and that's something you certainly get in some ryes out there, but it's nice here. It's prevalent. Yeah. We actually compared it to a spritz of orange spritz when you twist it. I mean, right there on the back of my palate, I get that right on my palate. So I get that spice, but it feels like a citrusy spice or tastes like a spice there. And the fancy golden raisins, Chris, what are those? Sultanas. Sultanas. You guys are awesome. Over the weekend, I texted him a picture of a tree and a mushroom. The question was the same for both, is this edible? The answer to one was, maybe, with caveats. Yeah, don't eat a mushroom if it's like, yeah, you could be edible. No, don't drink it. But don't drink any alcohol with it. Too late. It's a combination. Yeah, this is the one thing I knew, is that you're never actually alcohol-free in your body, so there's no chance for you to enjoy that. Man. Inky caps, baby. Yeah. Back to the ride. Yeah. This is like such a middle ground ride. It's like you're talking about the Pennsylvania style, there's the hyper spicy style, there's the modern southern style that's really sweet. This is right in the middle and it's a balance of those things. It's really cool. Yeah. I agree. I don't know if anybody else has experienced this, but it might be from the grain, but kind of a limestone-y minerality to it too, like a mineral edge, which I find very pleasing. Yep. 37 bucks at your local Binny's. Pretty good deal for a ride. Most rides cost twice that and aren't actually bottled in Bond. All right. I take it back. The Bond did is going to be for old fashions and the ride is going to be for Manhattans. Yeah. As it should be. I mean, there's that classic kind of winter rain mintiness on the finish. Just a whisper of it. Yeah. It's just there. It's got it all and it's all in really good balance. Yeah. Typical to Jack Daniel's whiskey, of course. Indeed. I feel like we should say something mean, like we're really kissing up to this right now. Yeah. You've been chumming it a bit. Turn this mic off. Turn this mic off. Couldn't you have packed more into your eight years with Jack Daniel's? Come on. Why are you slacking? I packed a lot. Yeah. It's been a fun, well, close to nine years, but I continue to learn and I'm going to learn more. Being here, being around Binny's, man, this is my first time and you guys have been awesome. Welcome. Well, outside of us doing our barrel pick, the barrel pick was pretty cool. On the barrel side of things, listeners occasionally, we got some of the Jack Daniel's Sinatra Select in our stores. I think there's more coming soon, probably when this airs, so keep an eye out at your local Binny's if you're looking for it. Those are aged in grooved barrels that you broke down for us in the staff training yesterday. Are those barrels being used in any other Jack products currently? Potentially, it could be used in a bundle because they have that darker robustness, but those are strictly for our Sinatra Select or our Sinatra, the other expression of Sinatra. Those barrels, guys, so if you're listening, those barrels are pretty important to Sinatra. What we do when they come out of toasting and charring, we actually put one head on there, and then they go through this machine called a router, and that router cuts about 38 cylindrical grooves in that barrel, and what it does, it's going to leave You leave the sawdust in the barrel? We leave the sawdust in there. Oh, man, that's a multiplier. And you do this post-charring? Yeah, post-charring. Okay, so you're exposing raw wood. It's taking the char layer off. Interesting. And exposing the toast layer. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, it's taking, no, so what it's doing, it's taking the char and the toast. And the toast. And it's gonna expose like a raw, yeah, you'll see like raw oak almost. Which will give you a completely different flavor profile. Oh, yeah. And all those tidbits, all those tidbits that you grooved, all that sawdust is still in there, and it's, you know, over four or five years, think about that, so you're getting that newer type of oak. That's like a super-aging, like, you fight less oak-driven whiskey. It sounds groovy. But it's not, yeah. But it's not on a balance, though. Frank was a cool cat, but Nancy was the groovy one. For sure. God. Is that 90-proof? But we tasted it yesterday. It's pretty smooth, but you're going to get that smokiness, but you're going to get that caramel. You should get a bit of oakiness as well. More like leather, but it's not overpowering. It's a smooth drink. It's a great whiskey. Same seasoning on that wood as everything else? Yes. Same seasoning, yep. I remember when they first released that, it was a very good year. I think I was 21. Stop before you have regrets. I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention. That is what I just mentioned. There are other kinds of specialty barrel that I do want to bring up. You get the random Jack Daniel's Limited Release. These tend to be really hard to come by, and we don't get a whole lot of them, are the Heritage Barrels, which are an even heavier toast, right? Yeah, Heritage Barrels. I'll give you, let's say, the Heritage Barrels. Let's say if we toast our typical barrels about 12 to 15 minutes, the Heritage Barrels are toasted three times is more. It's a high toast, low char. So if you've seen any of our special releases that we put out about once a year in the fall, those barrels are Heritage Barrels, but it's high toast, low char. And it's going to give you a different distinct taste because you're caramelizing for a longer time. So if you ever at the Cuprich and you went down to our toasting room, that toasting room is going to smell like marshmallows. It's going to smell like you're roasting marshmallows. All those beautiful lactone flavors. It's amazing. It's amazing. Whiskey lactones. Yeah. He's chomping at a bit again, but we have whiskey lactones over here. It's real. We were talking about that yesterday. So cis and trans isomers. Yeah, cis and trans isomers. Yeah. Cis and trans isomers. We're going to throw that out there. Yeah. Cool. What? Wikipedia yourselves, people. If we had a video here, the camera would be off, but exactly. Yeah. Just angry Greg face the entire time? I got to try a couple of whiskeys. No, it's true. It's all right. If you had a chance though to get your hands on some of that special release, I think our special release this year, I think it's going to win awards. That was the Rye, right? Rye Heritage Barrel. Yeah. That was announced recently. I don't know if we got it yet. But I tasted it and it is going to win some awards. Oh boy. Calling it right here on the pod. We'll see you on our whiskey after the top 20 of it. Call me back. Call me back if it doesn't win awards. Yeah, I probably won't have the answers. But you know, the other limited release from this year was an actual single malt that was then finished in the Ola Rosso Sherry cast. Right. And there's single malt in the Triple Mash. Single malt is currently available at like travel retail. So it's only a matter of time before we have a regular available Jack Daniels single malt, I'm guessing. Wild. Yeah. So think about this. I mean, the Triple Mash is bonded, so it's four or five years old. That means they've been making a lot of single malt for quite a while now. Yeah. I think we start distilling that single malt 2013 per se, but you got to think it was just aging from that time, so maturing. Most times you're at the distillery, they're just running the classic Jack Mash bill. Is it one week a year with malt and maybe a couple for rye now? I mean, it used to be they'd probably run rye like one day a year, but now I'm sure that's grown. Well, with these different expressions, so with the rye itself, bonded rye, single barrel rye, single barrel, barrel proof rye. I mean, you have to think about it. So it's going to have to get on that schedule. Now, I'm not in scheduling, but we do have it on the schedule fairly often. So way more than one time a year because it goes into the triple mash as well. So you got to think ahead, right? So you plan for four years out always. So you plan for four years and then we'll revisit in another six months and plan for four more years. So there's things that you have to do. So you have to have that on that schedule because you're looking far out. And if we're saying there's going to be a expression that's going to always be available, then think about that. So you have to run that more often than not. Yeah. But, number seven is the catalyst. Of course. It's the cat. It's keeping the lights on. There you go. Any upcoming secrets you care to disclose? I gave y'all a little tidbit. I have some stuff that's aging myself right now that I'm potentially gonna see daylight. Broader release? Not broader. Probably gonna be broader. Okay. Yeah, but it will likely hit our Tennessee or Distillery series, so. Okay, that's exciting. There's some of the innovation. And then potentially working with different woods, so that's something that, you know, my title is manager of maturation and innovation, so there's something else that I'm looking into. Ombarana, Jack Daniel's. Not making any promises. No promises, but yeah, those are things that I'm kind of working on right now as well. Have you guys gotten any ombarana barrels yet? No. You up on those? He's. I mean, you know what? You know what? It's a love it or hate it profile for sure. No, but you know, there is different woods out there that a lot of people are using, so y'all know, hey, Mizunora, Brazilian, and all these different woods out there. But a lot of times, they're hard for aging too, so you got to think about that. We talked about that word, Tylosis, yesterday. So, yeah. But so, yeah, it's kind of hard when you. Mizunora doesn't have enough of it. That's why it leaks like crazy. Yeah, there you go. So there's different woods out there that we could typically use. But yeah, there's some things that I'm working on. I can't, you know, say what type of woods or anything, because there's so many different things that you can do. And at Jack Daniel's, I mean, do you want to just put woodchips in or do you want to finish or do you want to have the whole barrel? So there's things that I look into that's, you know, going to be unique. So. All right, cool. Much. Well, we will revisit when we get our hands on these things. Yeah, y'all just call me back over to Binny's and I'll be here for you. All right. Yeah. That's more likely to call you, Vinny, is us. That's for sure. I got a question about Tylosis. Yeah. You know, we talked about that yesterday. So Tylosis, but you can cut this out. But yeah, Tylosis is where the sapwood is turning into heartwood. So it is a waxy substance that fills those pores. And so it keeps the barrel from leaking. It keeps the barrel from leaking. That is correct. It allows for oxidation, but no leaking and stuff. So that's why Quercus Alba is the beautiful intersection of everything we need in a spirit aging barrel. That's right. And we need cameras. All right. Greg's had enough of our listeners, we assume you have as well. No one out there is nearly as disgruntled as Greg. It's fine. It's fine. Hey, Byron, thanks a lot for joining us today, man. Really appreciate it. Thank you all for having me, man. Pretty very fun, very fun podcast. I do appreciate you. A lot of insight into America's probably biggest whiskey brand. Definitely the biggest whiskey brand. Inside of the industry, we don't get to see. No, and it's just too much stuff gets lost on the discussion of how big a distillery is determines whether or not it's a craft distillery, or what kind of thing they're making. And I dare you to go up to anybody at Jack Daniel's and say, this isn't a craft. Right. You'll probably get punched in the face or maybe just thrown out. But that's how it goes. Ban from Lynchburg for life. Well, they own the whole town. I mean, if you insult that, you don't get to go back. Run out on a rail. All right. Listeners, hope you learn something new today. If you're interested in learning more things like this, you should check out binnys.com/events, where you see the people like Byron are doing consumer facing seminars in some of our stores that have classrooms. All right. So hope you enjoyed listening to this. We'll be back in your feed with something different next week. Maybe a wine episode. Yeah, we'll see. All right. Until then, I'm Pat. I'm Greg. And I'm Chris. And I'm Byron. Keep Tasty.