Welcome back to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I am Greg, I do communications at Binny's. I'm Jenna, I also do communications at Binny's. I'm Alisha, I do wine. I'm Roger, I do beer. And a guest today, we're broadcasting from the illustrious Lincoln Park, Binny's Beverage Depot Education Center. Do we have a name for this room? The Versh Education Center. Yeah, I'm not done yet. Whiskey Church. Lexie Phillips, Assistant Distiller of Jack Daniel's. Yes. Cool. That's a gig. Shoot, yeah, dude. We're going to have to bleep that shoot. Shoot, yeah. So we have the regular, the single barrel of the gentleman, the new triple mash, and the new? Bonded. Bonded. Yeah. Cool. This will be running through our permanent lawns. I'm very excited to try these because I think I've only ever had the Black Label. Oh, good. Yeah. So. Pretty sure. Quite the lineup. Roger, you have a Jack Daniel's tattoo, right? I had some Jack Daniel's paraphernalia when I was younger. The tie between rock and roll and Jack has always been big. I was a big Van Halen fan, so they were big supporters. Michael Anthony was the famous Jack Daniel's base. Yeah. Yeah. Familiar with it for sure. But it's exciting to see some expansion here. I know that that's kind of the name of the game in the whiskey business these days. I think we have the beer people to blame for that. They want a new beer literally every week. A bunch of them got into Barrel Age Beer and then they realized, oh, whiskey barrels. Maybe I should try drinking whiskey. So now, you're welcome. You're going to have to deal with these people. Hey, that's all right. It's a fun part of it. It's innovation. So it's good to see some new Jack Daniels. Yeah, it's really exciting. I think you'll definitely be seeing a lot more on the innovative front coming from us. I like these. Is this like an old-fashioned? I'm staring at the new Triple Mash bottle. This looks like an antique throwback bottle for the bottling. It is. I absolutely love the packaging. So the Bottled and Bond Act came out in 1897. So this is a throwback to the bottle we were using at the time, the 1895 bottle with the embossing on there. And kind of geared in the direction for bartenders as well. We made a little bit of a longer neck to where you can just hold on to it really good. You thought bartender, I thought anyone just drinking straight out of the bottle. But okay. That is a thing with Jack, right? That's it. We will practice responsibility, but it's good for a handle, whatever you do with it. How did you end up at Jack Daniel's? Yeah. I was born and raised right outside of Lynchburg in Estill Springs, Tennessee, about 15 minutes from the distillery. I guess you could say family got me into the whiskey business. I've had over two dozen family members, past and present, that's worked there. Wow. That started with my great-grandfather right after prohibition and really just trickled through the family. Started in quality control, made my way up to the Still House. So I've been a distiller since 2014, turning grain into 140 proof. That is a legacy. That's pretty amazing. Absolutely. It's definitely turned into a passion. I was only the sixth woman ever to be a distiller at Jack Daniel's. And of course, the first woman ever in this role. So it's quite an honor, quite an honor to be here. That's amazing. Congratulations. Thank you very much. What is your take on kind of women in the industry right now in spirits? Are you anticipating a lot more kind of female distillers to be appointed? Do you feel that kind of wave coming or do you think it's still a ways off? I think so. I mean, you know, I'm seeing fermentation sciences being a lot bigger in schools now. Now you can even major in that in college. And, you know, women have been in this industry for thousands of years. There's cuneiform tablets talking about women making beer over four thousand years ago. So we've always been in here, but now getting able to being able to actually lead companies and have a voice in it. I think we're going to be seeing a lot more of that. Absolutely. What do you think your unique perspective is that you bring specifically as a woman in conversations through the distillation process? Do you feel that there's something women can kind of see or taste or understand a bit differently? I think so. I think each one individually will be different because I have a background in agriculture, so I know all about the grains and our process. Specifically, I can tell you about our five different water systems. We use the distillery miles of pipelines. I mean, even the amps on our hammer mills. So I think we'll all bring individual things to these roles. But I know there's studies out there saying that women have different taste buds that they can taste a little more acutely than men. So I think there's a lot of different things we can bring to the table and really just welcome more women to it. Yeah, that's awesome. Smashing that stereotype too of, I know this was a huge thing in beer that annoyed a lot of women was this assumption of, oh, well, this beer style is going to appeal to women. Or if we make a whiskey that women are going to enjoy, it has to have honey in it or cherry in it. I feel like it's better now as far as we don't have to act like there's specifically designed products that are for men versus women. I mean, that had to have been frustrating. Exactly. Because I mean, just in the last day or two, somebody brought up Gentleman Jack that it's more of a women's whiskey. Just because it is more sweet forward, there's not as many of the tannins on the back end. But I mean, I've met a heck of a lot of men that love it too. A lot of women still love our barrel proof single barrels that are just those bold flavors. So I mean, I think it really just depends on your taste preferences, not your gender. Genders are not hive minds. I mean, periodically, we'll get on the sales floor, I'm looking for something that a woman would like or that a man would like. Well, what I like isn't necessarily what you're going to like. Exactly. Just because we're both women doesn't mean we're going to like the same thing. From my experience on the sales floor, primarily, it's men buying Gentleman Jack, so it's interesting to hear that opinion on it. So yeah, I think it's ridiculous. Drink what you like. Doesn't matter. Yeah, it depends on your own personal tastes. Do you know Jackie, this icon? Yeah, yeah. I got into it whether in this room once. It's not about gender. It's about like super tasters and then like moron tasters like me. And my question, as possibly an expert in the space, do I like hot sauce and cabernet and soy sauce because I'm not a super taster, or did I kill my palate because I destroyed it with those things? I genuinely don't know. Yeah, I have to say I don't know either. Well, man, if you're a moron taster like me, the superpower is you don't get overblown by alcohol and you don't get overblown by tannin, so maybe you can taste past that when a different palate might be overwhelmed by those things. That's my only defense of myself. All right. And my nose is okay. If that helps you sleep at night, Greg, that works. Well, you know, alcohol helps. All right, speaking of that, I want to dive in here, if you don't mind, Lexie. What do you want to taste first? Yeah, let's actually start with the Gentleman Jack. I can't remember the last time I had Gentleman Jack. Yeah, it's been a while for me. Right? I think ages ago, I bought a decanter set. Jack's always been great for offering value-added packages that are pretty cool, like irresistibly. That's true. This is a big boy. This is a little bigger bottle. Should come with a cradle. What is the thought on the shape of this bottle? Quite flat. It is a little bit easier to pick up, I suppose. It is just a little bit. I'm not sure what they were thinking at the time. It's a hip flask. You're supposed to be able to tie that to your pant and no one will see it. Cargo pants flasks. I feel like it's still the iconic square-ish bottle, but also a little more refined like the Gentleman Jack. Got it. Something just a little bit different. It stands out on the shelf. It does. You can see a lot of the liquid in there. It does take up more shelf space too, but you know. On the Gentleman Jack, I picked this one first because it is one of the lighter of the ones that we have on the table. And this really came around in 88. So that's kind of the time when people were going more towards clear spirits. So what we do here is it is twice mellowed. So once right after it comes off the still, just like the rest of these products, but then after maturation, it goes through charcoal mellowing again. So it actually goes through a little bit less, but what that does is it pulls some of those oak tannins out. So you're definitely going to smell a lot more of the vanilla carmel flavor in there that that barrel really adds to it. So yeah, very sweet forward, vanillas, carmel's all the way. It seems really high toned, like lemon peel, like citric and limestone, you know, brighter notes. Yeah. Yeah, definitely a lot of citrus and kind of some stone fruits. But yeah, a very kind of a pair of teeth whiskey. Absolutely. So yeah, this is one that it hits right on the tip of the palate. Those sweeter notes. And then once it gets to the back of the palate, there's really not much of that oak. And it's a very, a very quick farewell, if you will. That's true. Not a very lasting finish. It's so soft. I was going to say it's very silky. Yeah. For 80 proof, I feel like it's a very smooth whiskey. When you say that this is charcoal mellowed, I'm sure you've had to explain this a million times. But guess what? You're going to have to do it again. Hey, that's okay. Are we talking about the Lincoln County process now? Yeah. I believe the mellowing that happens after it's done, is that different from the Lincoln County process? It is. The one after maturation, it's only about three feet of the same charcoal, but it's about three feet and we pump it through. Because if it is gravity fed through the 10 feet again, we would probably end up with clear whisky and almost start over. Right. The Lincoln County process on the front side, we start with sugar maple wood. We got two guys on-site that burn that down, and there truly is an art to it. Because I mean, if you burn it too long, you're going to end up with just ashes and we can't do anything with that. If you don't burn it long enough, you're going to end up with unburned wood and that's actually going to add character. We don't want that either. So if you burn it just right and you grind it down to pieces, about the size of your pinky nail, it actually acts as a filter. So that's pulling out some of the corn and grainy notes. Once it comes out the bottom of our charcoal mellowing vat where there's 10 solid feet of packed sugar maple charcoal, it's still crystal clear. That process along with being made in Tennessee, that makes us the Tennessee Whiskey. Okay. Your whiskey is ubiquitous in the entire world. A lot of gas stations carry Jack Daniel's Black Label. Every grocery store I've ever been in has Jack Daniel's Black Label. It's really easy to imagine this massive industrial process. And last summer when I actually got to go visit your distillery, I was completely shocked. I don't use words like gobsmacked or whatever. First of all, I've never been to Burning Man. Gobsmacked. You look at these old timey bottles and you're like, I need a 19th century term. You hear about this maple charcoal filtration process and I'm a cynic. It's really easy to imagine the quantity, the volume of liquid that they have to make. He's underselling that too. He's a big cynic. Oh, yeah. Just a huge ****. So first of all, seeing the fire when they're actually creating the charcoal is amazing because it's like the size of a large trailer. It's the size of a small house. It's a bonfire and it's outdoors and it's really on the premises with, I mean, like, warehouses aren't far away. Right. And, you know, the distillery proper is down the hill. It's like right there. And you're surrounded by, you know, bucolic, beautiful, grassy, green, rolling hills of Tennessee. And, yeah, man, it's easy to get really romantic. It's hot as ****. It is. And then the actual dripping, too. I know this is your pitch and not mine, but the fact that it takes, what, you just said 10 days, right? So we have 10 feet, but it can take up to two days for it to fully fall through. So it's these big, old, food-dra style, wooden vessels holding ash, not ash, but charcoal. It really takes forever for this liquid to filter through these big containers. And it's like not in a big factory. It's like in this cute little building, and they had to build a bunch of them so you could fill out all these big vessels in there. And I think what you've hit on is that sometimes as a company gets larger, they just make this wrongful assumption that people cut corners or it's all about efficiencies. And this is actually a time-honored process that's quite the opposite, right? I mean, it's very inefficient. Absolutely. I mean, we could add millions of dollars to our bottom line by cutting that out. You know, charcoal mellowing by law. If we kind of almost did it the backwards way that we do it, you could use a 10,000 gallon tank and throw a brick out of charcoal in there. And it's still charcoal mellowed. Right. But we do it the opposite way, where pretty much all the charcoal is in there and it just slowly drips through. This is pretty common that pretty much everyone either doing it in the slow process that you are or by throwing a few bricks in large tanks. That's it. Yeah. There's not a lot of Tennessee Whiskey producers, but I know some of the newer ones have kind of begrudgingly realized how expensive and time consuming this process is. So it seems like basically no one's doing it like you do it because it's a lot of time and money. Well, that's it. And this is something that started, that Jack started back in his day. Of course, charcoal filtration has been around for a long time. I'm not saying that he started it. But when he started doing it, we've done it ever since then. Even after Prohibition, when his nephew, when Montlo brought the distillery back to life, he insisted on that even though it was very time consuming, very costly. So this is something that we've been doing the same way for 156 years. I prefer like, you know, bass line. Should we now try regular? Yes. The iconic. Absolutely. Old number seven. I think I've had this at concerts more than anywhere else. Well, because Jack goes with music so well. Yeah. Yep. It's the Rock Whiskey. It is, I mean, this is the juice that Frank Sinatra deemed the nectar of the gods back in the 50s. So that is a very exciting thing. Just for music going forward from there, because I mean, that's when he deemed it as that, you know, we hit a huge surge in popularity. We were almost a no-name brand at the time. And from that time until the early 80s, we were on true allocation where we could not make enough. I think there was one year we had like 300% growth. So it was, this is the iconic whiskey with the iconic bottle that I guarantee everybody, everybody knows. I mean, it's a household name. Imagine if you took an entire warehouse and poured that whole warehouse into a bottle, that would be Black Label. It is a mingling of all floors of a warehouse. Yeah, it definitely has more of a pronounced old character. I wanted to, so just for listeners, so they're clear, this is the same whiskey through the process, except for that extra maturation or mellowing for the Gentleman Jack. What kind of barrels do you use as far as the char for these whiskeys? These are American White Oak barrels, and they have been toasted and charred. We've actually got two cuprages in-house, the Jack Daniel's Cuprage in Alabama, and the Brown Forman Cuprage in Louisville. We don't really use numbers since they're in-house, but it falls between about a three and four char. Proprietary. That's a big deal that you have your own cuprages too, right? Because there's not many cuprages left in the country. Well, that's it. And I think we're one of the only major distilling companies that have their own cuprages. We actually have three stave mills within our company, so we actually have log buyers. So that is just another forms of our quality control just to where we can kind of maintain the quality to where if something goes wrong, you know, I can call Daryl or Shane down at the cuprage and be like, hey, what's going on? Instead of having to go through Middleman and see what are they doing at an external source. Oh, you got to have a log guy. Oh, you got to. I mean, that's another like people ask, you know, what are the costs in whiskey making? And I think another fascinating road, a lot of people don't go down and nerd out about, and maybe they should, is making a barrel is a very complicated process. The curing of wood. I mean, you need to season wood, right, before you can even make it into a barrel. So yeah, a lot of our wood is seasoned between one and two years, just natural seasoning, and then we'll bring it and finish kiln drying it. And then once you bring it into the cooperage, they've actually got to pretty much put steam to it to be able to bend it. It is the coolest process in a cooperage to watch them build these barrels, because they can take 30 to 35 of these staves and they can raise it in 30 seconds or less. And it is just an awesome process. And then going through the toasting and then the charring, it's really cool how much goes into it. Can people come and visit and see that process or is it kind of behind the scenes? I know on the Jack Daniel's Cooperage down in Alabama, they'd stop for a while because of COVID. But I think if y'all want to come down, I guarantee we can line that up. Old Faux has like a kind of museum style exhibit where they make a single barrel at a time. It's like a mini cooperage, like a tiny little cooperage. That's pretty neat. It is neat. If you want to get your eyebrows singed off, get too close. Real quick, that kind of seasoning and then your specific toast level, is that consistent across all whiskies or do you change that up at all? I will say across, let's see, the first three whiskeys, well, really, I guess all of these whiskies. But on some of our innovation projects, like a few years ago, we did a single barrel special release heritage barrel. So it was a high toast, low char. And so we are able to play around with the different levels just to kind of push different flavors in there. And that one was an absolute amazing whisky because you still had the bold single barrel character, but it was a little more sweet forward. It was an all star whisky. Absolutely. Yeah. Do you think that that's where some more of the innovation is going to come as far as like if you're trying to design a new product, do you think that I guess a lot of people in like beer, for example, would think of changing the malt bill? But it seems like with whisky, the malt bills stay somewhat similar, but then you do other factors like how long, the toast levels, the char levels, where it's in the rick house, how long it's aged for. Right. I mean, to me, there's only, I say there's only so many ways to change a whisky, but there's so many little nuances that you can change, from the grain bill to the barrel, to where it sits, just like the single barrel is only coming off the top floor of our warehouses versus the Gentleman Jack's coming from lower floors, Jack Daniel's Black Label's coming from the whole warehouse, and it pushes different flavors. So yeah, there's a lot of different things you can do just by changing little There's definitely people playing around with other grains though. Is that a road you're going to go to? Is that something that you find interesting as far as like specific types of corn or? That's something that I find really interesting, coming from an ag background. You know, actually in the last couple years, we have grown some corn right next to the distillery. One of our employees actually grew it. It was about 30 acres and made that into a corn whiskey. So we've done a couple different versions of that, playing with different grains. You know, that's something that I'm super interested in, as you will see on the Triple Mash, I'll tell you about. So on our Jack Daniel's Black Label, you're definitely going to pick up still the vanillas and caramels, but now there's going to be a lot more of the oak on the back of the palate. I feel like it's a very balanced, it'll hit you from the front of the palate and carry on over to the back. It's a little bit heavier than the Gentleman Jack. So I think we're stepping up nicely. And also on this, you can smell a little bit of that fruity character. And that is something that actually is passed along from our yeast that we've had since Prohibition. The esters that it develops during fermentation, that fruity character carries all the way through distillation, charcoal mellowing, and through the barrel. So I love the black label just because it kind of encompasses all of our processes that we use. It seems like yeast is always gets the short end of the stick. Like with brewing, people nerd out about hops. Real beer nerds nerd out about malt. But then like almost no one talks about yeast. I feel like with the bourbon and whisky community, it's kind of the same thing. They overlook it. They always, I'm sure that you've been asked a million times what the mash bill is and stuff. But to your point, I mean, so much of taste is smell. And esters from yeast are such a huge component of, you know, what how you perceive a whisky to be. They really are. And I mean, this being our almost a proprietary, not secretive, but ours alone are yeast. You could flip through a book that's two inches thick and pick out a yeast that, you know, strain 109B. And anybody can buy that. But that's something that we don't want to outsource because I mean, that is truly what is creating your spirit. We have an entire section of our distillery that is just for our yeast production. Our resident microbiologist grows it up from the mother culture every week and brings it over and puts it into production. So, we start with our rye malt, some cave spring water. We're actually souring down our yeast mash. So, we're pretty much making yeast food. We sour that down with a lactobacillus culture just to adjust the pH. Then once we pasteurize and kill that lactobacillus culture off, that is then when we will inoculate it with live yeast and grow that up. So, it takes about 60 hours before we even start mashing our sour mash to grow up our yeast. There's so much to the yeast that is one of my favorite parts of our process, the distillery, and that it can carry through all of our processes. That's a pretty cool thing. And so, how long have you been using that particular yeast strain that you've created? Since Prohibition. Oh, since Prohibition. And I mean, surely now, it's just living all throughout more warehouses. There's no going back now. That's it, because even right now, we all have yeast on our skin. You know, there's live wild yeast everywhere. I hate it when they talk about this. It makes your skin crawl a little bit. But I mean, it's just one of those things, you know. But this is, you know, back in the day, you know, after Prohibition, what they were doing was pretty much putting it in a copper jug and then putting that in the creek to preserve it. So pretty much after a batch started actively rolling, they'd collect some and then use it for the next batch. We've gotten a little more sophisticated. We actually have freezers that go down to like negative 250 degrees to hold on to that yeast culture just to where it does not mutate into anything else and preserve it in that way. OK, this is going to sound insane, but I'm working on this theory. Interstellar human travel is never going to work because we can't bring microbiology with us and we're so reliant on microbiological ecosystem that like human beings in a canister going billions of miles, it's like cutting off your finger and throwing it. It might be alive for a little while, but it's not sustainable. Wow. Far out now. When do you think about this stuff? When you're alone in your basement. I knew it. Right before you fall asleep. That's when my mind is most active. It's everywhere. It impacts everything and nobody ever thinks about it because they don't have to. But it's like we don't have life without tiny little life. Then it gives us things like alcohol that makes civilization work. Exactly. So, will you want to try the single barrel or what? This is a single barrel, yes. Great segue, Craig. Yeah. So, this single barrel smells great. Yes. The baking spice, the intensity is dialed up. It is, it is. Man, those bold characters really just grow beautifully on that top floor. My husband, he works at Jack also, he actually started in warehousing, and he can attest to that up on that top floor, it can get well up to 120 degrees up there in the Tennessee summers. And it is hot. It allows those wood pores to open and allow that whiskey to seep in and then be pushed back out in the wintertime. And that's what's giving you just those, the vanillas, caramels, the spice, the absolute just richness and weight of this whiskey. Also, though, the proof is higher, right? It is, so that is 94 proof. Be even better if it was barrel proof. Hey, we've got some of that too. Our barrel proof, single barrel jack picks are amazing. So, I mean, you guys make pretty good stuff, but then we pick the best of it, so. Right. They're really good. I was talking to my husband this morning, I told him I was coming to Binny's because he works in single barrel processing, so where they get the whiskey from the barrel and get it into the bottle, he's like, I've seen Binny's on the neck tag a lot, Pretty sure we filled up our badge on the wall of picks. We need another one. About that time. We've been super nice. I'm going to say something critical to Jack Daniel here because I think you're moving in the right direction now. One of the reasons that I wasn't as into it before was that I was a big bourbon drinker and I tended to like bourbons that were bonded or around 100 proof because I like to drink bourbon on the rocks most of the time. I got tired of people telling me, you're not supposed to put ice in good whiskey. I usually come back with, well, not in a lower proof whiskey. It might taste watered down to you, but if it's around 100, I think it's fine to put a little ice in it. Obviously, proof equals flavor and I think people have been a little afraid of it for a while. There was those dark ages of the 80s where everyone was struggling. A lot of proof started to dwindle down, so Jack had a little of its strength taken away, but the whiskey we're going to get to later bonded, I think. We're bumping that proof back up, so that's exciting to see. Absolutely. First of all, I got to say bless their heart and shame on them for trying to tell you how to drink whiskey. Because it all depends on how you like it. But you're right because now we're able to offer so a wide variety of proof ranges. We've got from 80 proof all the way up to our barrel proof, which can be up to around 135. Even our Coy Hill Single Barrel Special release last year, those went up to 148. So we definitely have many proof ranges for people to pick different flavors from. It's nice when you have the higher ones because you can always dial that down, but you can't like dial the 80 up. That's always kind of the problem, you know? Bologna says that a lot. You can always add water. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. I'm a big fan of the barrel proof. I've done a lot of those selections where somebody comes to buy a barrel and being able to taste the three different barrels side by side. I mean, just to see their own individuality is absolutely amazing. That's great. Love being able to do that with people. This one really stood out texturally to me compared to the previous ones. And you mentioned, well, obviously it's a higher proof, but then you mentioned it being sourced from kind of the top of the warehouse and that contributing to it as well. And just that flavor amplification. Any difference in terms of how the mash bill affects the texture and weight or? So on all three of these, the Gentleman Jack, old number seven and single barrel are all the same grain bill. The 80 percent corn, 12 percent malted barley and eight percent rye. And of course, different barrels are going to showcase each one of those a little differently. But this one is a beautifully bold one that to me is like sweet forward to a little bit more balanced. There's some that just that oak pops out and fits perfectly like with a cigar. The cigar lovers out there. But it's really just each individual barrel showcasing each one. I think this has really been a hidden gem for years in the portfolio. I mean, it's really an exceptional whiskey and it too often gets overlooked. I think sadly, you know, people didn't know what to make of it maybe. And but I'm glad to see like especially the handpicks that we get to do. I think hopefully this is going to start being one of those whiskies that a lot more of the people as they get into it show a little more attention to. I hope so, too, because, you know, even at the table, we had some that had only had Black Label before. And there's a lot of people out there who have never got to try the lighter side or the heavier side of Black Label. So even though Single Barrel has been around since 97, there's still a lot of people that's never tried it before because they have this predetermined idea of what Jack Daniel's is. But we have a lot more to offer now. All right. Now, now, innovation. So what have you done for me lately? So these two specifically, being bottled and bond, of course, we know the rules for that is made from a single distiller, a single season, aged in a federally bonded warehouse for at least four years and bottled at 100 proof. So pretty much all the whiskey we put out can match those four rules if we had just put them out at 100 proof. Except for the single season, the government calls that either, I think it's spring or fall, January to June, July to December. Right there at the end of June, right there at the end of December, we may cross over that day or two, but other than that, we're single season. And then from a single distiller, everything Jack posts out is from a single distiller. I think it is amazing how many labels are out there on the shelves that are only made by a handful of distilleries. And that's not very clear on a lot of labels. So I think being able to know what is actually in the bottle of whiskey or vine with full transparency is an absolutely beautiful law that they started doing in 1897, really the first Consumer Protection Act. Before food. That's what I was about to say. I mean, we had it right back then. So the bonded whiskey specifically, you may have seen the bottled and bond that we have in our travel retail. That was pretty much our old number seven with the rules of the bottled and bond. But this one, we actually selected barrels that are holding darker whiskeys. You're going to have a little bit more of those barrel extractions in there. This will be a lot more of an oak forward since we picked those darker barrels. Meaning is it older or from higher ricks or? This is coming from upper floors. And since we have 92 warehouses and an amazing warehousing department. That's a lot of warehouses. Do you get around with golf carts? We don't. We have company trucks. They have to be far apart too, so they don't catch each other on fire. That's it. You know, strangely, that regulation came around after we started building. So we have three tracts of land. I call it the Hills, the Hollers and the Great Plains of Lynchburg. So the Hills, that was the older one. That's where a tract one is. Track two, those are actually pretty close together. Then on track three, the newer warehouses, they all have the motes around them. So we kind of got grandfathered in on that. Another thing that I think is important that a lot of people don't realize, we're always trying to work through these misconceptions about whiskey, misunderstandings, the whole bourbon has to be made in Kentucky, or bourbon has to be this two years old. It's always been kind of annoying when people would say, well, I don't drink Jack because I drink bourbon. I would think that your laugh is perfect. So I mean, bourbon is one of the most litigated spirits in the world. And you essentially fulfill all the requirements of bourbon. But then because you do the Lincoln County process and because it's made in Tennessee, you choose to sell it as Tennessee whiskey, correct? Correct. So think of it as like the broad category of whiskey, and then bourbon sits under it, and then Tennessee whiskey sits under bourbon. So we've met all the regulations to be a bourbon. We are allowed to call ourselves a Tennessee whiskey because of the two processes you just named. So we are pretty much a bourbon plus. We could put bourbon on our labels right now. We have to flip your visual there. Listeners at home, her hands just described it. Inverted pyramid. But she referred to it as bourbon plus, thus if you flip the pyramid, then you get to be the one on the top. You are so right. At the bottom. If you've never used bourbon plus before, I think that's perfect. Bourbon plus is the new attention marketing over at Jack Daniel's. Put that on the label. This is really fun too to do these all side by side. If you have a group of friends that like to get together and try whiskeys, I think too often people bring a lot of different products from different distilleries, but it could be a really fun time to just have each of your friends buy one of the different Jack Daniel's expressions, try them all together, and then you can feel where each of them dovetails in in the portfolio. It is really interesting the way this, it has aspects of the single Barrel like you said, but it also, it has like, I Yes, Roger, exactly what I was thinking. Yeah. I think I'm justified in always associating the old number seven with a little bit of a cotton candy sweetness, a little bit of a bubblegum, and when you see these more intense versions of the same thing, it's not just like sinewy, sugary, it really Absolutely. From the vanilla caramels of the ones we've had before, this one to me almost has more of the dark brown sugars, cooked fruit, seared oak, and just a longer finish for a very reasonable price. Cooked fruit. I mean, it's like this is like a delicious cobbler. It's got like strawberry, peach, pear, like you were saying, like peach and pear. There's a lot going on in this. And like you just said, it's very reasonably priced too, which is nice. Is it actually? I don't have any idea. I think it's like 40 bucks. Oh, that's still right. And this is something, this is our first super premium line that we have released since Single Barrel, so in over 20 years. And it should be readily available. You know, once we get through the first 90 days of filling up the market, we should be able to find it anywhere. Oh, awesome. That was my next question. So I know we, our initial shipment was really scant, but it's going to be full steam ahead and after this. Absolutely. We got a lot of requests. Yeah? Lot of requests. Good, good. Well, good as long as you deliver. Well, we'll get it to you. First, we had to get through the collectors, I think. You have one of the most rabid fan bases for like people who, you know, when are you going to bring all the decanters back? I think a lot of people miss the never-ending stream of decanters from your, but this is cool that it's actually a different liquid too. It is, it is, you know, being at a Steeler, I focus more on the liquid side. So I'm not a huge fan of just same liquid with a different label. I think it definitely fits some markets just right, but I love just being able to alter the flavors of a different liquid. It's sipped so nicely, but I really want to try it in Greg's favorite cocktail, Manhattan. I feel like it would be really nice. For sure. That's it. And we're hoping, you know, I think this 100 proof will stand up very well in cocktails. You know, one of the cocktails that we've used it with is the Boulevardier, and it fits pretty well in that one as well. Yeah, a real spicy vermouth. The bitter style, the wormwood style that Pat likes. Boulevardier. I like to call that drink the improved Manhattan. He does call that Manhattan. I'm on record saying that on the podcast. Well, nice work. This is a great whiskey. I'm really excited. As we get into the last whiskey here, firstly, how long have you been the assistant distiller? And in that time, what are you kind of personally most excited about? It could be something you're making now or, you know, tasting this 12 year old. Yeah. What do you love the most? So I came into this role in November of 2020. And in that time, of course, you know, we were right in the center of the pandemic. So that made made things kind of hard. But it really got to learn a lot more from from Fletcher. And we were building the 10 year old release at that time. Building that was really cool. And then we came out with our Coy Hill single barrel special release. That was our high proof. And so we'd gotten our warehousing department to sample some of these barrels. And he's like, hey, just go go proof these and see kind of what we're working with. And we're going to decide what we're going to do with it. And we were seeing that some of the proofs were like 140, 145. I mean, a lot of our barrels would go in entry at 125. So to see that they've climbed that much up on the buzzards roofs right next to the roof on the warehouse was absolutely amazing. So that was something really cool because I didn't honestly I didn't think that Whiskey could climb that high just in regular 53 gallon barrels. And it was almost nine years old. So that was it was a really cool thing to work on. And then just being able to bring the bonded and triple mash to life with our entire team and now waiting on a few more things to come out later this year. It's really, really exciting. What was the angel share like in barrels with that were that high and that old? I mean, there will be a lot of Whiskey gone from that, right? There was there was there was a lot of barrels that had at least 50% loss. We actually saw a couple of barrels that reached up to 159 proof. 159. Now, y'all, there may not be an inch left in that barrel. But it's really cool just to see that happen. So we actually had to, from all the barrels that we pulled to do this series, we actually had to stop bottling at 148.3 because if it gets warm at all at 147 and it's laying on its side, it'll pop the cork out. At 150, sitting upright, it'll actually pop the cork out if it warms up. So, of course, over 140 is considered hazmat. You can't fly with it or anything like that. But we do have a little bit left of that extra high proof that we actually batch together. And we're using high compression cork, so it'll be a lot harder to pull the cork out. But hopefully that will ensure the whiskey doesn't pop it out itself. So that's what they're talking about when you check your luggage. They're like, do you have any high proof Jack in there? Got any hazmat in there? Since your family was so closely wound with Jack Daniels, did you know you were going to end up there? How young did you know you were going to end up there? I have to say growing up, I didn't think I'd work at Jack. Not because I didn't want to. It's just a really hard job to get. People retire from these jobs. I mean, we have people there that have had like 43 years of service at Jack Daniels. So you're waiting on somebody to retire or for them to expand. So in 2013, when I came to Jack, my great aunt, she called. She was a supervisor down in bottling and she said, hey, we're starting to expand a little bit. You may want to try and come get your foot in the door. So that's really what brought me to Jack Daniels. Being around there for so long, I guess my first experience with Jack Daniels, the name is we have our World Invitation Barbecue every year. Just think of the best backyard barbecue you've ever been to, and that's to me what it is where the whole world is invited. So it was, all I knew then was that Jack Daniels Barbecue brought all of our friends and family to town. It was just something that brought people together. And now, decades later, I'm seeing almost full circle, that is what it is. That's what whiskey does. It brings people together. Because back then, I didn't know it was a whiskey. It was just Jack Daniels. Everybody there knew it. Half the family worked there. I didn't really know what they did. Well, more importantly, if you were talking to eight-year-old you, would she be stoked or would she be disappointed that you're not a brain surgeon president, Formula One race car driver? I think she'd actually be very stoked about it. Very stoked. Sweet. That's awesome. All right. Triple mash. What the hell is that? Yes. So, triple mash. This one's really cool, y'all. So, this is a blend of three straight American whiskeys, and it's also bottled in bond. So, what we did was kind of took one of the loosest regulations being a blended whiskey where you only really, technically, have to have about 20% whiskey in there, which is, blows my mind. What's the other 80%? A lot of people, grain neutral spirits or- Yeah, G&S, prohibitions faults, another bull thing that we have to thank for. Once prohibition was repealed, then it was like, oh, how do we actually produce liquor for people to buy? So, then water it down with or dilute it with grain neutral spirits. We were absolutely adamant we didn't want to do it in that way. So, that's where we tied in the bottle to bond regulation, which is one of the most strict regulations. So, the three whiskeys that make this up is 60% of our rye whisky, 20% of our Tennessee whisky, and then 20% of our malt whisky. So, this is kind of our debut. Is there a malt whisky? When are we getting that? I don't know. Hey, just keep waiting on us. This has been a well-kept secret. We've been working on our malt whisky for the better part of 10 years. Really? Yes. That was not part of the tour. Like I said, really well-kept secret. Literally, they were like, we can't go in that building. Why not? COVID. Safety, you know. Our malt whisky mash bill is 100% malted barley. So, to be, of course, a malt whisky, you've only got to have like 51% malt. But, we went ahead and went with 100% malt. And, being at the distillery, that's something, it's a different beast to mash and distill. We are going to talk about amylase. I won't go too crazy. No, I'll go high level. No, we won't, yeah. But, in mashing it, you know, it takes a lot longer to grind because it is a fluffier grain. You know, the amylase, we are not as worried about the content because we are using 100% of the malted barley. So where we use distiller's malt for the diastatic power, the enzyme process, in our regular grainbill, we are actually using a brewer's malt in this to kind of up the flavor. It's a little bit more of a plump malt and it's a little bit of a different process. Once we get through mashing, the fermentation turns out malt whiskey likes to, or malt mash likes to foam. Took us a second to learn that. We used 40,000 gallon fermenters and we were filling them all the way to the top. We learned real quick. Oh, did they foam over the top? Oh my goodness. It was like a waterfall coming out the man way. We even got some on the roof, but it was okay. They forgot that they were making a really big macaroni and cheese. So yes, so we learned real quick to only fill our fermenters about three quarter of the way full. And I mean, that extra 10,000 gallons of space, it foams all the way up. It's amazing to see. And then going through the stills, it's a thinner mash, you know, just from all the conversion that happens during fermentation. So you've got to run it a little different through our stills as well. Do you use the same stills for the rye also? We do. Same stills. And that's all gunky, right? Somebody's already used to scraping that out. Well, you know, we only run our stills. So we have six continuous flow column style stills that are all 100% copper. And we run those between 48 and 60 hours, and then we bring them down for caustic cleaning. So there's really not much buildup in there. We don't allow much time for that. And of course, we use the copper. Everything that the alcohol vapor touches is 100% copper, not only because it's traditional, but it produces a cleaner spirit. It actually interacts with that alcohol vapor and holds on to some of the undesirable things that are produced during fermentation, like the sulfurs and things like that. So yep, same stills. And while we are talking about malt, because I did miss a recap on our regular grain bill, the 12% malted barley is absolutely critical to our process because of the enzymes. We do not use any sourced enzymes other than what comes in on our malted barley. A lot of places will use commercial enzymes. You know, if they're afraid to give you their mash bill out, more than likely they're going to use, they're using less than 12% malted barley. I'd be, as a distiller, I'd be really scared to touch a grain bill with much less than 10% just because you're not going to get that conversion. And what it does is it turns into a corn jello. Damn near impossible to get out of your mash cooker. Absolutely critical to the process. So, this is different. It is, it is. I think this is absolutely amazing to me because you can taste each of the components that make it up. The Tennessee Whiskey hits you right on the tip of the tongue. That malt whiskey gives you almost a creamy mouth feel and it's almost like a browned biscuit or maybe a little bit of a toast in there. And then that rye and barrel really just pops on the back of the palate. Some of that rye spice, definitely some of a soft oak. I think the finish on this just rounds it out completely with a little bit more of the honey, some of that malted grain, almost a cereal grain character. And huge, huge fan of the Triple Mash because of how much really goes into it. The fruit even leans a little toward cherry where it didn't on any of the others. And I pick up a little bit of a cocoa powder dusting toward the finish too. I assume that's the barley. Yeah. Yeah, I'd say so. Yeah, the honeyed element is beautiful. So integrated. Wow. This is really interesting. When you mentioned the barley component, what was it like selecting? So if it was brewers, I know with barleys essentially you can get all these different variations of roasting and or toasting, you know. So what color would you describe it as as far as like how dark was what you ended up going with? It was not a very dark one. It was kind of the same color as our normal malt. So more of the pale. Yeah. So do you think, are there plans to, with the malt component, make other whiskeys with it in different percentages, release it completely as a malt whisky? There will be. So you will see a standalone malt whisky that a little bit later this year. We're working on what we're going to do with it. So that will be our single barrel special release later this year. And I'm super excited for people to try that. Because, you know, traditionally, you know, we've never put out any malt whiskeys and, you know, it is a different flavor for people who are bourbon, just die hard whisky lovers that haven't had malt whisky before. But people tasting it around in Lynchburg, around the distillery, people are absolutely loving what we're coming out with later this year. So I'm very excited to share that with you and give you a little more details a little closer to time. Do the Binny's Barrel to Bottle stop first on the press junket? We can have you on a Zoom call as long as you can have somebody keyster the spirit to us in advance. I wanted to circle back now that we've tried everything. You started November 2020 in your current position, and during that time, the height of COVID, it was kind of a pause in the world. We all basically shut down. Did you guys use that time to kind of reset anything, like any processes that you guys do? Is there a result that we're seeing today that's like, we decided to do this differently now that we have this pause in life? Well, not really, because even though we did shut down tours for a couple of months, we never stopped making whiskey. There was a couple months, a few months there that we swapped over to make an hand sanitizer, which I think most distilleries do, which very thankful we could bring that to the world and help out, do our part, but I think that's one of the reasons Cool. But yeah, to see the hand sanitizer being made, that was really cool because that was something to all of our knowledge, we've never done before. And that was at that point, you're just trying to get it as high proof as possible. Turns out our stills can only get up to about 150 before you start getting the base loss of alcohol coming out the bottom. And also our hand sanitizer is probably one of the only ones in the world that was charcoal mellowed. And that is a real thing because the two companies that we were working with that was buying it to actually make hand sanitizer out of it, they didn't like the grainy smell that came with it. They're like, it smells like whiskey. A few that smelled just like tequila, those were pretty bad ones too. What a wild time to be alive. Exactly. So yeah, charcoal mellowed that just to remove some of the corn and grainy character. I thought I noticed at one point you had like a line of kind of experimental things that were in 375s. Is that something that you still do at all or? We do. So that was our Tennessee Tasters line. Of course, thank you to COVID. They are bottle supplier decided to stop making that bottle because it was just a stock bottle. So we had to pivot a little bit and we kind of wanted to do a redesign because we were hearing from some folks that people didn't get what Tennessee Tasters were. And it be in our experimental line, we've changed that to, I believe, it's the Distillery Series and we're going to release more of that later this summer. So very excited that mine will be the next one to be released. Oh, super cool. Yes. So it will be a version of the rye. Do a little finishing process on it. And so we're going to release two at a time. So it'll be me and my husband releasing two versions of the rye whiskey. Oh, nice. Super excited. That's great. Are you guys going to compete to see who does better in sales? I'm pretty curious to see. Yes. I mean, you have to, right? Exactly. But that one, that one's really fun because we've done a few barrel reunions where we fully aged our Jack in a barrel, sent a barrel to the empty barrel to a winery. They aged some wine in it and then it came home and we finished some whiskey in there. We've done the same thing with a beer, did a High Angel Share Barrels, some other finishing of Hickory Wood, Jamaican Allspice. So it's really just kind of a fun way to play around as we were talking earlier on the different ways you can push different flavors. Jamaican Allspice. Jamaican Allspice, you say. Jim just set the ham horn off. It goes, because it's like it's like Roger's third favorite thing. Really? Yeah, behind jackfruit and pomeranian. Yeah. I always talk about Pimento Dram, Allspice Dram. I like to say it's like that's the true bartender's catch up. Everyone says it's like the elderflower liqueur, but yeah, it makes like almost everything better. It's like a cheat code. It's a cheat code for this. Yeah. I love it. I know because me and Fletcher were talking about it and he was like, we can't call it pimento. People around here in the south, we're going to think they're going to think pimento cheese. Yeah. They're going to think it's a cheese spread. Yeah. Which I mean, I have to say that's where my mind would go first too. So I don't blame them. Totally understandable. Sounds much more finished. I think the time is right for those smaller bottles. I think some brands tried it a little bit and it didn't necessarily take off. We had the Jim Beam once for a while, but I think there's such a curiosity and thirst for all this creative. If you could get it to more people, maybe get some our way. I think that people would be willing to look at the kind of, it sits out on the shelf, it looks different, but I think it really is in ties in with what everyone is so curious to try new things right now. They really are, and like I keep saying, it's such a fun part of it is just experimenting with different flavors. Right now, it is offered just in Tennessee. Jack Daniel's, we are such a big company, it's kind of hard to stay small on some of our experimental things, but we're trying to keep it around 30 to 60 barrels-ish, and right now go into Tennessee, but maybe in the future that will change. Or y'all will just have to come down to Tennessee. Fingers crossed. Yeah, exactly. When's that barbecue? Let's plug that again. That's it. Come on down in October. One last thing I wanted to ask when we were talking about bonded and being really cocktail-friendly, what are some of the ways you like to enjoy these products? I'm sure each one you have different ways, but as far as whether it be just as is, Neat on the Rocks, any cocktails you particularly like? I'm a big fan of Neat. Sometimes we will add, I say we, me and my husband both are big whiskey drinkers. Sometimes we will add a couple cubes of ice. There's really a couple cocktails, the Bonded, as we talked about going in the Boulevardier. I'm a big fan of also Old Fashioned's, as long as they're not too sweet. And I make, in the summertime, I don't think this is a real cocktail, but I add just some Jack with water and a squeeze of lemon. And I absolutely love that to me, it's very refreshing. And any of the Jacks work well with that, but we get a free bottle of Jack every month working at the distillery of old number seven. So that's normally what I mix in that. Nice. How about, I feel Pat's, it would be remiss, Pat's not here, but he's a huge Gold Rush fan. Do you ever drink Gold Rush cocktails? I'm not really sure what that one is. Ginger and lemon? It's just lemon. It's like a really thick honey syrup. So basically, you're just hydrating honey enough so that you can mix it and it won't just stick to your shaker. Okay. Ice and then fresh lemon juice. It's a super simple cocktail, but I think it could be really nice with... I'm Pat actually with Tennessee Whiskey. I don't know why I'm phrasing it that way. It's a really good whiskey cocktail that I think we're trying to get more people excited about because it's relatively easy to make. Right. I think it would work nicely, especially with the new bonded. Yeah. I think that sounds great. I love the honey flavors. Garnish it with candy ginger. Yeah, you could do that. Thanks for working us through this. The portfolio is really fun. Again, I think this is an opportunity. I think a lot of people should try to, whether it's a local bar doing it or put it together yourself, I think it's really cool to try the different expressions next to each other. You get a much better sense of what you have to offer that way. Yeah. I think so. Hopefully, in the not too distant future, we can offer the malt stand alone, because it's really cool to be able to taste the Rye Whiskey, Tennessee Whiskey, Malt Whiskey, and then go to the Triple Mash. I mean, it's absolutely amazing to taste in that order, so hopefully soon we can offer that. I am stoked that these are going to be available all the time. Yes. That's terrific. Yeah. All right. Cool. Well, thanks a ton for coming today. Yes. Thank you. It was a pleasure. This was fun talking to y'all, so thank y'all for having me. All right. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. If you are excited about this podcast as much as Roger is about the triple mash, then you should leave a review on iTunes. It's not, it's Apple podcasts or Spotify with the stars, or wherever you leave reviews. Hit us up on social media, at Binny's Bev on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. And TikTok. And TikTok. We'll be back in your feed next week. Thanks for listening to another episode of Barrel to Bottle, The Binny's Podcast. I'm Greg. I'm Jenna. I'm Roger. I'm Alicia. I'm Lexie. Keep tasting.