584 - PursuitPalooza 2026 AMA Part 2

0:00I don't think people are as excited about buying something from a craft distillery on an open market because it's untested and unproven and we've harked on this for a very long time. Like it's brand that wins at the end of the day and so do you really care about bringing in a craft distillery that's going to have this funky new flavor to it or do you care about like, hey, let's just make sure that it's good middle-the-road bourbon, but let's nail down the marketing and let's nail down this packaging to make sure that it's going to sell. This is bourbon pursuit, the official podcast of bourbon. Bringing to you the best in news, reviews and interviews with people making the bourbon whiskey industry happen and I'm one of your hosts Kenny Coleman. We're back now with part two of our pursuit pollusa, 2026 AMA session and we kick things off by tackling the business realities of getting into the

1:05RTD business because it's a boom and honestly we keep punting the idea around if we should even do one ourselves. Plus we explore why entering the can cocktail market is a completely different beast than just aging bourbon in a barrel. We also talk about some of the weirdest tasting notes that we've ever pulled like peanut butter and jelly, peach rings and grahamos candy jar. Finally we get personal about what it really takes to run an independent spirits company and we talk about managing operational pressures, our core philosophy of no problems, only solutions and some of the wild unfiltered pollusa memories that we've had from over the years. With that, enjoy this week's episode and now here's Fred Minick with a pub, the chart. I'm Fred Minick and this is above the chart. This week's idea comes from Alex Paredes who writes me on Facebook is above the chart a way of saying over the top, well well well Alex I don't think anyone on this show has ever asked me how I came up with the name above the chart. First of all,

2:06you have to go back to why I even joined Bourbon pursuit how it started. This comes in I want to say 2017. I started to see the change in media and I could kind of see that the future was in like YouTube and podcasting and things like that and I began to notice that my reviews and whiskey advocate and the articles I wrote would get more attention and people would talk about when they just put my score out in social media and I wouldn't and I was just like did anyone read the Tacey notes? Did anyone actually read the magazine and then I began to realize that nobody was actually subscribing to whiskey advocate or reading it. They were just hearing from someone that I or John Hansel or Lou Bryson had scored high west 96 points or four roses got an 89

3:09and there were people were like and I began to realize that the media landscape was changing and I didn't want to be left behind because I love the world so much I love Bourbon so much but I could very easily see myself no longer being able to make it as just a writer. So I had to change I had to change not change the information I was putting out but change how I was delivering it and I met with Kenny and Ryan we've shared this story before about I was like hey guys like I'd really love to join your podcast if I if I can't join you guys which I think you guys are the best show for me and I was like if I can't join I'll probably gonna have to start my own because like you know my world is dying and they they were like well let's bring you on and I came up with the idea of like having like this the segment before the actual show called above the char and I got

4:09the idea from Dan Patrick's above the noise like he had he used to do this segment on ESPN where Fox or whoever he was segmented on the radio and it was just a 60 second two minute clip of him giving a you know something going on in sports it was like a grind his gears kind of deal from from a family guy and I I just kind of honed in on like what are some cool buzzwords that would make sense right and we came I we came up with above the char I was like oh this is perfect above the char because char is in the is in the actual you know nomenclature of American whiskey because of the barrel and then so it's it's really just meant to be like you know in you know what's going on inside the barrel you know whiskey's getting made this so above the char is meant to be everything that is outside of the purview of whiskey getting made you know sometimes

5:13just a trauma sometimes it's history and sometimes it's actually like the nuance of the whiskey getting made but you know so maybe that's not the best description but that was my intention it was always going to be like like hot takes history things like that and it evolved into me really getting an opportunity to hear from the people who listen to the show of what they want to hear about and I've just been in this business for a long time I've studied it and I just I love it and it's been it's been incredibly exciting for me I still love the name it's funny like not long after we came up without there was a couple people who came out with similar podcasts names and I remember Kenny was like we got to go after him I was like nah so I don't care Kenny Kenny was very protective of above the char far more than I was which kind of a surprise me but that just means that Kenny loves the segment and I love Kenny all right that's going to do it for this week's above the char if you want to be like Alex hit me up on Fredra minig.com or Facebook

6:17Instagram X even Threads hit the contact button and if I like the idea I'll read on the air until next week cheers experience your next trip to Kentucky like never before with bourbon through bluegrass at the Frazier History Museum in Louisville hosted by me Bernie lovers the whiskey professor and bluegrass legend Steve Cooley for a one-of-a-kind musical bourbon experience here the stories paired with the whiskeys and live bluegrass music of Bill Monroe and others bourbon through bluegrass only in Kentucky only in Louisville only at the Frazier tickets at whiskey prof.com that's whiskey prof.com as a whiskey professor hey it's Kenny here and we think in long timelines on this show a barrel we fill this year doesn't get dumped for at least six eight or maybe even 12 years but those are the things that we plan for and we budget for it to we build a whole business around what happens in the future maybe in around like your 2036 and then most of us don't spend 10 minutes

7:17planning for the people who'd still be here if we weren't and that's the gap ethos was built for it's a hundred percent online you get a quote in seconds and you can apply in minutes and you can get the same day coverage there's no medical exam you just answer a few health questions online you can get coverage up to three million dollars and some policies as low as thirty dollars a month it helps provide financial security for the people counting on you take 10 minutes and get covered today with life insurance through ethos get your free quote at ethos.com slash pursuit that's eth.os.com slash pursuit application times my very and rates may vary bourbon lovers give two seven o presents bourbon raffle serial number zero one three seventy one premium bottles including three grand prizes happy van winkle buffalo trace antique collection and a well or rainbow vertical tickets are just one hundred dollars benefiting the hanger foundation get yours now at bourbonraffles.org before september 16th charitable gaming license or g zero zero zero two seven zero three

8:20our cadoma miss an hour bourbon was one of pursuit spirit standout releases well barrel mill took that same Japanese oak that we used and turn it into an infusion spiral so you can finish your own whiskey right at home drop these into any full size bottle and in days you'll taste sandalwood coconut soft toasted oak and just to touch a spice they also make these in American oak chart number three and a three pack variety with French oak and on barana you can get these at the barrel mill dot com for just eleven dollars and ninety nine cents plus ask your local liquor store to start carrying them as well and you can keep an eye out at total wine soon go to the barrel mill dot com for more details this episode is brought to you by chat gpt hey it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast have you guys heard about chat gpt work it's the new way to use chat gpt for bigger multi step projects and when you need more than just answers give chat gpt work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets slides

9:25and structured reports get started at chat gpt dot com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plants and and and and and everybody welcome back to another episode of bernip pursuit the official podcast of urban this is round two of the AMA of pursuit polluza twenty twenty six and i'm i'm now feeling pretty good we've had at least three pores in here yes two cocktails and a partridge and a pear tree but no we we've we're finally like moving along here now the brown water is flowing it sure is like the salmon of cap estron ah yes and this is and i'm now getting into the trowel and air bar i know i'm very biased but i still think that we have one of the best cocktail bars in the city and this that's pretty much any is is already proving it it's

10:28dangerously delicious a highly recommended if you want to elevate your night go get one is this should be the tagline elevate your night hey no you're got got a marketing back yeah i know so anybody that missed the the last one you got a a schooling an ag background but oh yeah you didn't realize you didn't realize that ryan's also got a little bit of a marketing kind of twist and pull to it as well jagavall trades poured a lot yes but what we're doing is doing it an AMA we're here at pursuit polluza here at pursuit and trial and error and we have some questions that have been submitted to us we have taken quite a few in the first round but we're not going to get through all of them i think there were over almost 60 questions that were submitted and so we're just gonna i'm not even a pre-screen i'm just randomly picking and choosing these ones and based on whatever i think is going to be fun to be able to talk about well ryan you're ready to to dive in and get into it here let's do it all right so what's your favorite number one through 58

11:31let's go 26 26 all right question already read actually it is not so this is coming from robber shay and this was has there any has there been any real discussion about a pursuit spirits ready to drink or ready to it says rts i mean it's rtp ready to pour if so anything in particular this is something i think about like non-stop on a daily on a daily basis because you see there's no doubt rtds have taken over consumer mind share especially younger drinkers people like the convenience of having something in a can and then you've seen penelope with their rtp old fashioned every couple weeks every two weeks they're they're taken on they're taking on what's their names all smoky all smoky yeah with the flavored shan category but yeah it's something obviously we'd love the rawrita you know the the hard part is is like okay it's a raw

12:36are people gonna necessarily tie the to rarita but definitely think about an rtp old fashion i've been working on it at home i think i'll let you try it on my birthday right that we're pre-batched them i do a lot of things in your birthday no i thank you yeah you brought it out it was good yeah it was good so it's like all right well maybe we can do this the hard part is we've been so busy with our our core skews and single-barrel picks of pursuit that we haven't had the time or finances to because what people don't understand is like the rnd that you have to go through with rtds or rtp's is you have a very expensive like front loading of capital to figure out the recipes figure out how it's shelf stable the packaging and so you're you're you're looking at about six figures to even before pre-launch of rnd roughly and you know that's a lot of capital types so in a lot of money to make back but i've challenged our bar team too i was like please just

13:38because they make such incredible cocktails and like every time i drink when i'm like because there's some that are good but it wouldn't make sense for a canned cocktail or even a ready to pour but there's some that i'm like gosh if we could just make put this in a bottle or can i think so i'm constantly thinking about because there's no doubt people like the convenience of them the ease the the price of them so yeah it's all my mind sorry long wind away to say i know and i have i have this this sort of internal battle on a weekly basis too because as much as i would love to do it there is a you said front load of costs not only just from the actual financial portion of it but as well as the time to be able to make this as shelf stable because here's the thing is that when you put whiskey in a bottle it's cool for a hundred years plus like it's not going anywhere but when you put it into a can or you put into something else you know you've got probably less than a year that it has to sell i mean this is the biggest problem that you have in beer right because beer goes into cans and you have x amount of months if it doesn't sell well then the

14:44retailer is on the hook and they've got a trash it or they go back to distributor and they make them buy it back and the distributor charges you to buy it back yep and you're already in a crowded market and so i in it's i know it and i say crowded market and it's it's hard to judge to try to figure out have we already reached peak like too many options on here or is there still room for more because i keep looking at it and i go i think at this point we've already hit the peak like do you need more any RTDs in the market but it's the same exact thing is like bourbon back in the 2000s like we don't need anymore bourbon here's reality you needed way more bourbon so how we hit the peak yet i don't know i'm a little bit of a naysayer when it comes to it and think that you know we've missed the boat already and then we also go back and forth of can versus glass is it pursuit or is this a whole new product line and then it goes into a difference yeah and then it goes into

15:49another sales motion right because you don't sell whiskey the same way that you sell RTDs yeah and then it goes into more marketing dollars and more marketing spend there because yeah we could create RTDs and sell them out of the gift shop but it wouldn't make sense with the volume that you have to do to create the RTD base so it is a hate to say it but is a it's a very difficult hundred thousand dollar decision if you're gonna do it or not yeah totally and we've you've seen you know we've gone through this before where you know in the mid to late 90s people were drinking smear off ice Mike's hard lemonade Zimas you know these ready those were like pre RTDs like kind of drinks people were drinking and then people it was like they had a great five six year run and then they completely crashed and then bourbon just exploded you also went through a flavored vodka trend and so you don't know if this is like just a trend for them you know and because we've been about the first time I had a high noon was 2020 you couldn't you couldn't stop

16:53talking I couldn't talk I'm about like Kenny I've discovered the best thing and now I can't say it's random like I can't stand them I literally can't drink one of them and so I always feel like and this is not to say like an egotistical thing but I'm always like three years ahead of well like of like the general consumer I would say and I would say most of these people in the audience are ahead of you know most general consumers and so it's like looking at the long tail of this or I do think we're kind of at that long tail at the end of like the RTD so I don't know it's it's tough to try to predict and it does become a distraction and whatnot of what everything else we got going on and we're having finally some momentum and traction with our brand and you don't want to throw in another distraction so it's tough I don't know and plus there hasn't really been a proven bourbon RTD on the market yet it's all gin or vodka based and yeah and obviously we'd have to go buy more stuff to make it happen and that's not the hard part about

17:57bourbon versus vodka or gin is like you have to the ABV is tough because a lot of the you know bourbon RTDs are in the 8 to 9 percent nobody wants to sit there in pound you have to create something that's like a high noon that people can drink five or six of these things and not get too intoxicated you're well Ryan you've always told me that from the very beginning you go what's something that we could sell by the gallon yes like the apparel spritz like that's why apparel is absolutely crushing it to this day is like I mean people are buying it by the picture you know and and every time you make an apparel spritz my wife loves them you're using two to three ounces every time and whereas bourbon you're like oh well maybe I'm gonna have two or three and so whereas apparel you can just constantly like you can just mow through those things refreshing yep at five in all day all right this one is coming from Chris Barlow and he asks with so much higher age product coming to market with wholesale and retail pricing on downward pressures

18:58what priority do you guys put on legacy barrels versus craft market purchases to work with good question I would say you really don't have much of an option because at least for us we haven't really shopped the market too much other than getting the price books but you know we already have our I guess you can quote craft in regards of finger lakes and sagamore and then our other two with TDG and barge town those are not craft right they're you would consider them probably moderate legacy just because of their sheer scale on size these days as I've been actually building on a new software program I've been looking at barrel hub and hogshead recently and trying to look at well what other things on there and they actually have quite a few things from craftestilleries that are on those sites the thing is is that I don't think people are as excited about buying

19:58something from a craftestillery on an open market because it's untested and unproven and we've harked on this for a very long time like it's brand that wins at the end of the day and so do you really care about bringing in a craftestillery that's gonna have this funky new flavor to it or do you care about like hey let's just make sure that it's good middle-the-road bourbon but let's nail down the marketing and let's nail down this packaging to make sure that it's gonna sell yeah I mean there's yeah it's it like these big distillers and the stuff that you see on the bulk market is like try and true proven flavor profiles that the general consumer loves and so it's like do you want to be that brand that like just explores like even a craftestillery from Kentucky but you but it it's got you know likely pot still it has some twang it has like interesting flavors but the the general consumer is gonna be like you know you know this is not because that's not what

21:01people are used to exactly they're not what they're used to they're they know they know what makers market taste like they drink bourbon because it's caramel vanilla sweet you know very basic and if you start throwing in all these wild funky off-profile weird flavors they're gonna be like this is not what I was expecting and so that that makes it tough now don't get me wrong you can have a brand like law slantorn that does a great job of partnering and sourcing from craftestories all across the US but you're if you want to be like a really tight niche product you could go that route but if you're trying to scale your brand and me you know mass consumer you're you can't take a chance on a craftestillery no you can't and that's that's the tough part all right this is from Jackson Schaefer so I like this one what is the weirdest flavor memory that you've ever pulled from a glass well we're this flavor memory well you mean you're pretty well known for your cereals yeah I think

22:02every once in a while we pull out band-aids right I had that experience a few days ago reviewing a single malt from somewhere yes I actually just had a fun one last night during VIP poloza when I was given a bottle of bender stash and they said hey what do you get on this one I was like there's almost jelly but it it kind of reminds me because my daughter is she has a very basic food group on her pyramid and at the top of the pyramid is uncrustables and so it kind of had this sort of like oh it's like a peanut butter jelly sandwich a little of that weedy bread in there and yeah I was like actually kind of works out so I have that's probably one of the weirder ones that I pulled out but I mean every once in a while you'll it's thing is like you're you have the roll decks of a flavor so I ended up just going like yeah that sounds great big league chew yeah I mean I was doing some tasting notes for pursuit series barrel let's go into like Texas and it reminded me of I end up

23:03calling the show notes grand malls candy jar because like it's like you show up to grand mall she has that candy jar of like you know those old strawberry candies I don't say that has like the liquid in the middle you like the suck on it for like three or four minutes so you can bite onto it and it starts oozing out yep and then had like the lemon heads and had some of those flavors and then like the peach ring candy and and they only see that at gas stations these days I know but I've also had some not so great whiskeys are mind me at being like on my family's hay ride in the fall where it's like you get this aroma of wet hay and manure and you know cow pies and I cow pies that's that's when you know you're from barstown that's right we talk about the haulers and everything like that too I like it when you bring in some of those you know we actually had a good talk last night I was talking with Ben who's with five time polluzier here and he goes Kenny we're here and there's there's no banana croquettes I haven't had one since the first

24:04polluzier and I go you know what then neither have I first in last time I had banana croquettes for Easter they're amazing like anybody talks crap about them can go F themselves okay one of the best desserts out there now my wife goes every Easter and she won't eat them she won't touch them she's like a fight Ryan then yep all right so this one is from a Danny Sclanekka and he says our labeling standards to loose with calling bourbon being finished in other barrels or products still being predominantly labeled as a bourbon yeah our label's to to loose I don't think so I think the labels are still the same I think it becomes how people play the loopholes and trying to get around them good example this Sakura right we came out with the Sakura we were very fortunate that ours got approved through T.T.B and that's because as a part of pursuit united we are a blend of strait

25:10bourbon whiskeys as a part of being a blend of strait bourbon whiskeys you do have a little bit more leniency as a part of the T.T.B when it comes to exotic woods or finishes or anything like that that it still becomes considered a strait bourbon whisky when we started talking to our friends at well I'm not going to say names but when they were trying to release it they kept getting denied and getting pushed back from the T.T.B and one of the reasons or one of the ones that we saw recently was Starlight who got theirs approved and I started looking at it because a lot of people got theirs kicked back and that's because Sakura is not a FDA regulated type of oak and so they just had issues but then I started looking at the one from Starlight and I go aha here's what they did they removed the word strait it's just says whiskey I don't even know if it said bourbon anymore but that just goes to show you that when people kind of remove those legal barriers it opens up a lot more gray area and consumers don't look at it as close as that we look at as whiskey geeks all

26:15they care about is the name brand and like what's the flavor underneath of it yeah beyond that they they're not paying attention to that those those minute details yeah strait bourbon whiskey is very strict and like you know that there's no wiggle room in those and so if you're looking if that's what you want as a consumer you want just a strait bourbon whiskey if you see that on the label you know that that's is what it is now if it doesn't have that then you can if you're not a purist you know you can look at it and say well it's not strait bourbon that's not my thing but then I think you're missing out on some really interesting and unique flavor profiles that can be done through wood finishing and whatnot so but I get it and kind of follows on to one of the last conversations we had in the last episode talking about like the consumer and do they actually care anymore or is it just becoming so grayed out I don't know the same thing with just so much stuff that you're just like

27:17okay cool like whatever we'll we'll try anything I'll argue most of them don't know or understand that all the rules and like all these what strait bourbon means versus bourbon or a whiskey finished in this and like we've had the argument about raw whiskey it's like let's stop calling a rye let's just call it American whiskey because it's technically American whiskey and more people would probably buy it because they just see rye they're like oh I don't like rye whiskey but if you call it American whiskey which you rightfully can I think it would maybe sell more there's there it is a good experiment I cannot wait to do that yes all right so this is a there's actually six different questions loaded in this one so we're gonna break it up we'll do one here and then one of the last one I probably should have done the first one but it's a a Mary F kill break down here and so here's the first one Scotch Japanese whiskey and Indian whiskey what are you gonna do I'm gonna so I either have to marry them yeah kill yeah but FM could be multiple things

28:25like like yeah it's you know you know what it means well I know but okay never mind because FM and kill them could be the same thing no it's not you know what I'm talking oh like it's it's like it's the more romantic yeah there you go all right thank you I was like I'm trying I'm trying to tip toe around keeping this sold the PG 13ish area gosh this is a tough one because I would definitely kill number one Scotch Scotch and Indian whiskey I'm not a huge fan of Japanese whiskey though I do like so I'd kill the first two and I would date the middle one it's not how this game I know I'm sorry but okay so on my side Japanese whiskey Mary I have had a few things from the Japanese side we've talked about it before like I'm becoming a huge fan of sake and I think it's fun it's interesting you know the whole rice wine side of things so that's great I would say kill Scotch don't be wrong I know there's a lot of people that love Scotch and it is the largest category that's

29:30out there but I in my opinion there's more bad Scotch and there is good Scotch and most of the good Scotch that I like is just heavily sherry it's not worth keeping the get rid of everything else so and so that leaves me with the F which is Indian whiskey which is like hey it's good every once in a while so yeah we considered what you call dip in the well sure all right so let's let's uh those are always tricky ones that to kind of go around here all right so we got a couple more left as we start going down this path right here so we'll go I'm gonna just kind of randomly click one and there's another one from Jackson Shafer and he says so looking back what barrel pick or pursuit release surprised you the most after it hit consumers uh barrel pick I was trying to think because we had so many barrel picks we did for pursuit that were so good that didn't sell because it didn't have the brand uh-huh behind it I mean I think we like rum ham from java jammerson

30:36that was a great one was really good we had a triflest clin pick that we picked and I still think there's bottles for sale they're not like randomly a month ago just when tasting I was like oh my god this thing's awesome the one that they only pick I think our regret is the balkones it wasn't I think we were probably stretching ourselves a little bit when it came to that point we had doing so many barrel picks and I think we did two or two two balkone picks one was really good and then one was like it's okay yeah but we we chose it anyway and but it was not we it was a collective we because at that time that was a everybody from the patreon community was a part of it as well too yeah 63 surprised me which was our tdg episode 63 tdg agents segwemaro don't get me wrong I think it's one of the best whiskeys that's ever been released and but I just thought coming from

31:38Tennessee I just thought it would just not like land and but man it we didn't promote it we didn't promote it Tyler from the Louisville bourbon bus was like tasted it and was like this is the best thing ever you know my bourbon the year or whatever and it just exploded that was that was cool the one that surprised me in the other direction were these two wooden bills 80 and 81 because I thought those two were incredible it absolutely stellar and they've just they we ended up selling them out on p-club but they were really hard sell for just average consumers coming in here and you're like we got this eight year old ride and a 10 year old wooden bill bourbon and people like don't care and but those are two like like when we were released like what five oh man a 20 year dickle the will at barrel and then the two wooden bills in a barstown I think at the same time and I thought the two wooden bills were like my favorites out of all of them and they just well I think it just goes to show you the difference between what is a hardcore bourbon nerd people

32:44that are following us that don't get access versus the people that are just coming off the street yeah that are just visitors and they are here to go and experience a bourbon trail but they just don't have the they don't have the knowledge that probably a lot of our other folks do because I mean that the story alone of coming across those barrels I mean you've we've heard it talk about time time again on the show but being able to get access to those barrels was its own kind of like fun thing but being able to sell it much more difficult than we actually imagined yeah it's but I think it's I don't know like we're having this discussion with Brian and Blake yesterday and he was like he's like it's cool to see like pursued no matter what you all put out these like we get so many emails about like it doesn't matter what they put out it's always really good and like you're becoming known as the brand that doesn't miss and so I think we're slowly building trust with obviously everyone here trust us but other consumers that aren't necessarily tied into

33:48our brand are starting to realize that we know what we're doing we're picking great putting great products and barrels you feel good about yourself products models yeah you feel good yourself after the not do I feel great yeah the sale was like they only took a couple of old fashions and nothing like a little pat me on the back here and yeah you know 423 in the afternoon to make yourself feel good about it that's right proud of bar does to me I know I feel confident yeah I would say on that there was a few I'd say the the one that probably surprised me the most was episode 18 oh yeah the bluberry and lemon custard one that became sort of an underground hit within side of the discord community I think that one was a really good release from us that most people probably had never gotten a chance to be able to try the barrel pick side probably doesn't surprise me to the point where I'm like yeah of course people liked it was those early will it barrels that we picked yeah and I go back to it I'm just like oh these are hot they're really hot

34:54they're good but I think it just has that you know people were like oh well it's will it you gotta have it but you know overall it was still one of the ones that I was like it's probably not my favorite of the barrels that we picked not not just say from will it but like overall all the barrels we picked over time it just wasn't one of my ultimate favorites versus something that I really enjoyed that was again kind of an underground favorite was smooth curveball was so big that was one of my absolute favorites that that things killer yes so if you still have one of those sitting around I'd be I might be tempted to buy it from you all right so we'll do I think one or two more here this is a long one so this is from John lapelato or lapelito sorry if I get missed that one up it says when sourcing your whiskey do you taste the distillate off the still to select what you're going to agent barrels on your own or do you select whiskey already aged in barrels well that's a pretty easy we already it's after it's done we we actually get the

35:58the the the clean distillate we get we get samples the clean new make distillate comes to us after it's already in the barrel for us to I guess we give a QC like sign off I don't think we've ever looked at it or tasted it me like oh we got we got to send these four or five hundred barrels back like that's never happened yeah I mean yeah we're just tasting it to make sure there's no like flaws or anything but for the most part it's good clean distillate and 80% of your flavor is going to come from your barrel and two you don't know what type of you know staves are making it up that barrel like there there's so many variables we talked about this earlier that there's so many variables you can't like taste distillate and be like well you're going to be this you have to wait till at least it's so we taste everything that's four years and older there are in our inventory and then we're the guidance counselors and say like okay you're ready to come Kentucky to be part of our products this year and so yeah we we we kind of taste we do allocate like so many barrels

37:03to char one char two char three char four but yeah you just kind of let mother nature determine its outcome yeah and there's we I'm sorry go saying there's a lot of follow on collections about like if you do get straight distillate how hard is it to discern what's good or bad for your purposes I think that's the reason why we don't distill on our own exactly is because we want to lean on other people who have been doing this for decades and be like and that's the reason why I can't tell you how many times as a non-distilling producer of having this place and have people come in here and they always ask us when you're going to start to steal in your own stuff and I go if I can like put my fist down and be like absolutely never right other than the the minimum of 10 barrels a year that we have to do I don't want to they why rely on us to figure out five years that we make whiskey like shit just to know that hey there's people with tens of millions of dollars and decades of experience that we can lean on let's make them do the hard part let's make sure

38:06there's good product going in and we'll make sure on the back end on the maturation side we can focus on that part yeah on the maturation and blending and all the the people that we work with have their quality control processes and they they they do a great job and so we've never had a batch that I'm like oh this tastes moldy or funky or you know too much whatever compound what this glycoqual or what one of us so any yeah yeah all right last question Ronnie ready for it all right if you could go back and have one bourbon related conversation with anyone in history who would it be and I guess it's a bourbon related question so maybe you could have it with somebody in the bourbon industry or maybe not in the bourbon industry man that's tough because we've had so many great conversations with like like are they is the question like someone we haven't talked to or anyone in history it could be Gandhi you just have to have a bourbon related

39:10conversation with them I would love to talk to George Garvin Brown because if you look at the history of George Garvin Brown his his start is very identical to what we're doing like because he now he wasn't sourcing from different states different distilleries I mean he was sourcing from different distilleries but he was buying barrels from multiple distilleries including melwood including melwood and blending them together to create old forester before they even thought about distilling and they were doing that for decades and so you know that that's I would love to just sit down with George Garvin Brown and just talk about what he was doing and what they were trying to create and build and now you know 200 years later they still have one of the biggest brands you know out there with brown format and whatnot so yeah I like that that's a great answer I'll give you mine president William Howard Taft okay I think it would be interesting you know he was the one that put into law what is bourbon and to know the lobbying and what went into it and who was pushing for it

40:16and what what actually accredited to some of the decisions that they made because we already know that you know new American or sort of say new oak is still what has to be for bourbon it's like all right well who pushed that agenda on you versus having to do use and all so they're kind of stuff so I think there would be a lot of cloud and cool conversations you could have with him and trying to figure out well hey how much did he really love bourbon right that's that'd be one I think that if we're able to get a part who was paying in that too but if we have a president United States on the podcast he would be the one only because you know he's the one to ratify it and made it there but he got to help form and shape and figure out what actually makes bourbon bourbon this episode is brought to you by Sip and Bourbon the app built for bourbon drinkers discover new bottles explore curated recommendations and connect with fellow whiskey fans just like

41:19yourself all in one place there's no gimmicks just great bourbon and a smarter way to sip you can download the sip and bourbon app today or you can visit at sip and bourbon.com that's s-i-p-n bourbon.com or just grab it on the app store nobody skips life insurance because they don't care about their family they skip it because they think it means things like a blood test a physical three phone calls with an agent and a stack of paperwork that just sits on the counter for a month so it stays on the list almost forever eat those took that whole excuse away it's a hundred percent online there's no agent no office visits and you get your quote in seconds and plus you can apply minutes with same-day coverage there's no medical exam you just answer a few health questions online and you can get up to three million dollars in coverage plus some policies run as low as thirty dollars a month that's not a project that's less time than it takes to finish a poor and decide whether you'd buy the bottle again and it helps provide real financial security for the people who needed around you the most take ten minutes and get covered today with life insurance through

42:22ethos get your free quote at ethos.com slash pursuit that's ethos.com slash pursuit application ties may vary and rates may vary if you're planning a trip to Kentucky bourbon country here's an experience you need to put on your list bourbon through bluegrass at the phrasier history museum right here in Louisville Kentucky hosted by bourbon industry veteran and multi-time bourbon pursuit guest Bernie lovers also known as the whiskey professor and bluegrass legend Steve Cooley and this isn't just another tasting its bourbon history told through stories carefully selected Kentucky whiskeys and live bluegrass music it's like a private Kentucky concert history lesson and bourbon tasting all rolled into one get your tickets now at whiskey prof.com that's whiskey PR OF dot com Yamabah resort and casino at San Manuel is bringing the biggest laughs to the stage break taboos with Ali Wang on August 28th and 29th enjoy Ralph Barbosa's dry humor on September 18th and 19th and don't miss nicky glazers on a apologetic comedy November 19th tickets on sale now

43:27at Yamabah theater dot com only at Yamabah resort and casino celebrating its 40th anniversary you in must be 21 to enter this episode is brought to you by chat gpt hey it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast have you guys heard about chat gpt work it's the new way to use chat gpt for bigger multi-step projects and when you need more than just answers you have chat gpt work access to your apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets slides and structured reports get started at chat gpt dot com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plants hey everybody we're back with the final countdown of our paloza a m a group number four I like to say we saved all the best questions for last but they're all at random so

44:30how's everybody feeling in the backroom going a good time let me hear it we'll wait for the delay it'll hit it well as we wait for that uh there it is there we can hear that old Carter just rolling through the veins sure is isn't it old sport in that what is old sport has a bottled old sport they got all right well let's go ahead we're going to hit it off with random one Ryan between one and 58 what is your favorite number well I already gave you 26 so we'll go 28 28 this time so 28 or unfortunately we're gonna go ahead and go 27 since it's already done it says oh this is it says to me here Kenny you are typically calm cool and collective I like to think that uh so can you talk about a time where you flip your shit during maybe the downtown location instruction or dealing with the distributor or dealing with us it digins uh this is from Robert Shay as well uh y'all don't spend much time with Kenny yeah I was gonna say

45:36once a day the the persona I do put in front of people is that I am kind of cool calm and collective but on the inside I am definitely raging roll to the point also very anal and particular about a lot of things and it as Ryan likes to say he goes quit micromanaging me and that's because I do have a way of being and here's the thing is like most people would say like Kenny you have such a acute attention to detail where I I actually don't I picture myself as more of a big picture guy but my wife is very attention to detail and I tend to just go and like hey if it's good let's go ahead and get it through but if I had to think of a time where I flip my shit it definitely happened during construction a few times and I can tell you one every Thursday every Thursday it's Goddractor meeting but we definitely had one in Paloza of last year when we thought we're gonna have Paloza in this building and we're going hey Paloza is in two months and

46:41this doesn't look like it's gonna ready to happen and can their can our GC looked around he's like I I think we can make it happen and maybe we can push this and it didn't get done until six months after that conversation so there was no way it was gonna happen and and I think part of it is I come from a world of like set expectation to reality and don't over promise that you can't and that hits me all the time and but you're right I do get I flip out time and time again when things aren't done to the degree that I expect and I have to also remember that I hold myself to a very high standard yeah but most part you are cool calm collected you don't let that's what I respect about you like because sometimes I'll get overwhelmed by stuff and like I won't express it externally but internally in my head I'm just like things are crazy like this to that and I'll look at you and you're just like what's the next step and I think that's you have a good linear

47:42mindset like you always like in linear is the best way I can explain your brain is like you can go from all right things are crazy but what's the next step to calm the crazy down and so I respect that about you but you do lose your shit from time to time and I'm like all right Kenny just let it go move on well and I think that probably just goes back into one of the court principles that we have here at pursuit and we don't really talk about too much on the show but we have them hung up at the distillery we have them hung up here within sight of where the employees see it inside of our break rooms and stuff and one of them is there's no problems only solutions and that's the one thing that I kind of really hold near and dear is because you're going to be thrown problems every single day and if you require outside help to go and figure it out like that's a problem like I want to empower you to make decisions and make the best decision possible but you're going to get problems all the time and you're not just going to be like well throw up our hands we got to wait and stop and have Kenny or Ryan or whoever fixed this and figured out like no go go be part of the solution

48:46yeah go figure it out right and so I want to make sure that you know just stop in your tracks that everything can keep on going whether we're here or not and that's the only thing is you just have to empower people to make the best decisions 100% yep all right so there's one from Danny Sklinika here and it is are there too many fad or celebrity backed bourbons out there and do you think they dilute or wash out the traditional high aged and quality bourbons I mean I do like I have a love hate relationship with celebrity bourbons because yes there are a lot of celebrities that put out a bourbon and don't necessarily understand like even if you put a bottle on the shelf doesn't mean it's going to sell and so the celebrity bourbons that I do like celebrity bourbons because they do help the category appeal to a broader audience that necessarily might not be interested in it otherwise and so the brands that do really well you know with brothers bond

49:49recently seen rolly green with his duck club bourbon he's doing like bottle signings and Jim Gaffigan's been really good about his brand but then you have other ones that just kind of bottle it put it on a shelf and expect it to sell because of their name and that's not how the liquor space works and so while you roll your eyes that celebrity bourbons it is a good thing for the category because you are getting because people are I don't want to say shallow but they have these celebrities that that like they love and adore and just because they get behind some they'll get behind it and they not necessarily might like bourbon but because this certain celebrities behind it they'll go and out and buy and that's good for the category as a whole yeah I think it is good for the category and you made great examples of stuff that's already out there and you know everybody knows that we have a very close relationship with the folks over a father time and Jim Gaffigan but if it wasn't for somebody like that you're not going to get bourbon on the

50:53tonight show on a regular basis or the day of the show or whatever today's show or a whole comedy hour that's based off of bourbon that speaks to somebody like us so yeah I think it isn't necessary for the category to have it does it dilute or wash out to traditional high age quality bourbon I think that's a it's a differentiation between what is the target market and what is the the consumer that you're reaching for because if you're listening to this and you're here for pollusa you're probably not getting duped by a celebrity bourbon coming out right they're going to be wrong we get sent a bunch of stuff we do some stuff behind the scenes but for the most part you're not getting duped by anything the people that are buying these they buy it for the celebrity they don't buy it because like oh I'm a huge fan of bourbon and I'm a huge fan of this if they're a huge fan of bourbon and there is deep as you are and you know how to read the back of labels you're probably you don't care about another 95 proofer yeah right and you care about

51:54somebody like Jim Gaffigan great example coming out with some cash strength very one off releases yes it has a high price tag but it is something that is unique and different that doesn't necessarily fit into the the category of just like the the washed out yeah celebrity stuff that what does suck is when a celebrity brand comes out with a very mediocre product and you know you finally get these people like introduce them to bourbon and then the products not great and then they ultimately think well I just think bourbon sucks and that's what you don't want and so yeah we've seen that with a few brands I don't want to name them but they're fresh in my mind but I'm not gonna call them out okay all right here's another one from Robert Chey we're gonna do a Mary F kill okay all right back to this okay I'm gonna take I'm gonna take like the craziest one out of all this okay so they sense he sent six of them but we're gonna choose this one all right so Mary F kill

52:59my lemon green release notes an NDP master to still our discussion about whiskey production or uncle nearest news so the the my lemon green gonna marry because they're so funny and interesting and out there I still enjoy those and and just laugh at them so I'm gonna marry those because I need the humor in my life the second one was NDP's talking about what repeat that said NDP master to stiller discussions about whiskey production basically like somebody who's an NDP talking about being a master to stiller yeah I would definitely kill that one because no NDP understands the art of dissolution or the science of it in myself included even though I do have a master to stiller certification from a moonshine you but nowhere no in no world do I think I'm a master to stiller and then the last one uncle nearest news I'm gonna marry it I want

54:04it to keep going I mean I know it's it's the gift that keeps giving it's such a fascinating story of like delusion and corruptness but also like hope and it's like can we save the brand yeah it's it's doomed forever it's it's a great it's like yeah it's just a movie you can't stop watching yeah I actually I'm gonna go right alongside you because of the same exact reasons marry the uncle nearest news only because it's like you know you want to you want to get home you want to read more yeah you don't want it to stop you don't want to you want to keep this going on as long as you possibly can and then yes the f of the myelon green release news because you can't do it every week but man when you get it you're just like wow this was that was fun yeah you know and then the kill I think is obviously because it's just it's just BS at the end of the day right yep oh another another good one there from from Robert Shaye all right so Ben Dodds

55:08what is your favorite or craziest polusa memory oh gosh I talked about one already with our greenhouse zepos that was a good and a bad one but what do you think is your your craziest polusa memory so far oh probably last year I don't know if I share all the details but well be be oh you mean with you and me yes oh so you can you can share the the high level notes I guess or should I share it because I was the one that was coherent enough that put you to bed yeah you can share it okay so this was you had to understand into polusa you're on the way back from somewhere in the the middle of the state and Ryan has been habitchly known as having the party bus and people love to peer pressure him to keep drinking until he can't drink anymore so which I'm usually good at by by the time midnight hits Ryan is stumbling around and he can't keep it

56:10together and his wife has already left him and she's like well he's your problem now I was like okay cool thanks and so and and you're like I forget what you said you're like I've got I've got got to go meet and I got to do this and whatever I was like no you're not you've come with me so I go and I take you to my bedroom and I have the video of you and and you were you were in the hallway and you're like trying to get out and try to go back downtown I was like Ryan no like we have a business and if for some reason it gets out that like you're you're like two and coherent or like you're found on the side of road like we we got to protect everything and you go okay fine and then so I open up the room to the my room and like I don't even think you you walked I did a six steps I did zigzag and then all of a sudden face plants on the bed and he is diagonal across the entire thing and he was he was out out like a light and so I closed the door and I come back a couple hours later and he's still there and you wake up it I wake up at 3am

57:15and Kenny's next to me I'm like why am I here why is Kenny next to me I'm not supposed to be even staying in this hotel so I had told it out there and walked across street to the right hotel and slipped in the bed and yeah yeah it was it was a panic moment home man I would say one of my my other kind of crazy moments so we're also known of being able to go to this EDM club it seems like an annual pilgrimage out or space every single year and I remember the year that Tony Conja from keggin bottle was here and I think we've got a video of him either up dancing on tables or something like that and he's sitting there holding bottles up and so yeah that was one of my other kind of faith crazy kind of fun moments of police always crazy at our space it sure is it sure is all right let's see if we go back to something more industry related here so let's see I'm gonna go choose one from Dennis here let's see so Dennis says how can green river still call

58:18their honey added to the barrel product honey finished bourbon whiskey aren't they just adding flavor to the barrel by pouring honey into an existing barrel or of bourbon as opposed as finishing it or using staves or something like that because if you just pour a bottle of port wine of the barrel is a bourbon do you just call it port finished bourbon that's a great question and lots of gray areas lots of gray areas so like with honey hog we did add honey to the barrel we would rotate the barrels every couple weeks to kind of get in then dumped all the honey out and so if there's no way to get all the honey out of the barrel and so you're gonna have that's where you're getting that honey flavor is what's left over and so green river is like well instead of going through the process of let's skip all that honey honey in rotating it and then getting honey out what if we just add what you would think would be equivalent which is you know fair they said they added roughly like a half gallon of honey to each barrel and I would say that's probably fair

59:23that what remains inside of a barrel and so they just skipped all that step and because it you know from a definition standpoint it doesn't matter if there's two drops of honey or five gallons of honey in a barrel it's still a finished whiskey and so it doesn't matter if the honey's been soaked into the barrel taking up those characteristics or if you're just adding it directly in and so that's for why years I was a traditionalist and was you know if you'd listen to our podcast four or five years I was so annoyed with this finished category because I'm like you are just drinking flavored whiskey and it and it doesn't matter if you're buying port export barrels there's gonna be some port left in the wood or you can add it directly in it's the same thing and that's why but I have grown to understand and appreciate finishing and rights and wrong ways to do it appreciate or just come

1:00:23and I got to do it dilute yourself how about that I've succumbed to market forces and you know yeah that's yeah there's just no good way around it you're you're adding flavor you're adding flavor one way or the other yeah I kind of with you on that one it's it's kind of just skipping a few steps and you know you can call it whatever you want but at the end of the day it's a DSS right it's a distilled spirit specialty whether you add honey before or after or in the bottle like I don't really think it matters right and well use a consumer can sod what's you know what's right what's not I don't know and more often than not the consumer doesn't care there's like does it taste good yeah and hence the reason in the very beginning like most of us when you try angels envy you're just like oh wow this is amazing all this different kind of flavors and out of it and then as you start getting really into bourbon you're just kind of like oh well port and when you do this that's not actually bourbon this is a whole different category but as the general consumer they

1:01:27they don't care they don't really know they just they look at as a flavor profile and a pretty bottle so again fact of what we said four times already this show brand wins yep every single time all right so this one comes from our own Joe Gallia here oh boy you must pick or E or himself you must pick a favorite and cannot provide any context legacy the celery master the seller or a b-tack expression you must pick a favorite and cannot provide any context oh so from a legacy the stillery and a master the stiller or a b-tack expression and it says generally not a specific year so out of any of those do you have that you would be like this is it this is the one it's either gonna be the person the stillery or an expression man I'm gonna go I'm gonna go with man that's a tough one oh because like I'm gonna go master the stiller because I think when

1:02:32Parker and not to take you away Conor's doing an awesome job diny Potter did a great job at heaven hill but the stuff that Parker made at heaven hill is to me some of the best whiskey ever made so because of that I'm gonna have to go to master the stiller okay well I'll make it easy b-tack expression George D stack all day long I don't think it gets any better it's it's always a no fail for me so that's that's my no context answer for you because I gave context in a prior episode and whatnot there too all right you ready for another one here run yep all right so this is from Andrew metman do you view working for an owning pursuit spirit the United Brands is something you will pass on your family or would you think it's gonna be something of a side project well it's definitely not a side project it's a full time project it's a full time plus project but uh yeah I mean you know it's tough like you're I think I'd mention we talked about George Garvin

1:03:38Brown and how I'd love to talk to him and it's very cool to me that he started with a concept and the brand still is around and exist in his family you know it's gone through probably what four or five generations from now and that's very cool so like that would be awesome but there is a lot of financial pressure stress you know with this business and too it's hard to scale you can get to so much scale point with the limited financial resources you have and so that that's where it's tough that's why I've respected drew and will it so much they've been offered multiple times to be bought out but they really want to keep it in the family and you know so that's ideally in a romantic world it would be great if we can build this thing and pass it on for generations but who knows what who knows what the future is gonna hold you don't you don't know you gotta do what's the best thing for the brand for it to keep going I think I just had this

1:04:39conversation earlier between the the two groups and I was talking to somebody about exit strategies and saying like you always have to have an exit strategy and we necessarily don't have one just yet but we are not gonna say no if the knock comes on from Proxima or Diagio or whatever and they're wanting to talk to us obviously we'll have the conversation but it is not the primary exit strategy the other exit strategy is you just keep going and we figured out later yeah it's my our strategy is to be a profitable sustainable business and you know you that's our goal and create delicious products make money pay our bills and have a decent life and so that's the goal right now who knows what the future holds all I know is my strategy is that I don't know if I want to be still managing the podcast when I'm 50 that's that's the only thing that we got what seven more years yeah yeah it's like it's like I'll show up and I'll record but everything that also goes into me and Rogan's almost 60 and he's still humming well that's different he has a whole

1:05:43team behind and he probably shows up to record like I just want to show up and record and then at some point it's if it's somebody else that owns and takes care of it cool but at some point there probably will be new blood that has to come in and take over the burden pursuit reign yep I mean at three episodes every single week I mean we'll we want to take a backseat at some point but it's not happening today or tomorrow but we'll figure out when that's going to happen all right so this one is from Josh Macias and I'm going between two and I think I'm going to take one that's probably a little more racy here what trend in bourbon do you think is overhyped and we'll start that which bourbon trend do you think is overhyped hmm well I think the one that's already overhyped that we I'm going to say we didn't help I think the industry helped it was getting rid of on the rana right so that one yeah but I don't think the hype exists on that I think the hazmat thing is just so overhyped like because I think it's if

1:06:46it's bourbon in its hazmat I think it's a different lane than it is with light whiskey because light whiskey already starts at hazmat so it's not hard to it's not hard to get there I just feel that and do you think this because of hazmat in general you're over it and you're just like hey I'd rather have something that's not going to knock my socks off at 140 plus proof I just want to have a couple yeah I mean and you're getting old yeah I always grew up not grew up but you know very early on high-proved bourbon that was that over 130 typically wasn't used in like premium expressions is always dumped in the lower tier and then I think the novelty I mean don't get me wrong nurse some great hazmat's out there but the light whiskey thing drives me absolutely bonkers that people are like oh my god I got this 19 year hazmat light whiskey and I'm like well no shit it actually dropped in proof you dummy it went in the barrel at 160 and it's now 13 proof points

1:07:51lower like you buying that is the dumbest thing I've ever heard but whatever the consumer loves it and they they they like the novelty of it I think it's overhyped I think there's so many more flavorful expressions that are in the you know 100 to 110 and proof points are even lower than that and just buying something because it's high proof is the dumbest thing ever and I can't wait for it to die oh man that is that is great yeah let's see any trends that I wish I would see die I think that people overpaying for the same product from a different brand oh yeah I think that's that's the I mean obviously I'm not gonna name names because brand does win at the end of the day but it just goes to show you that people are not paying attention and it's like oh well I can go get this 10 year MGP from five different sources and you're gonna pay anywhere from $50 to $250 and you're going well what what makes this one better than the next and people get caught up

1:08:58in brand and it but that is but that is like the it's that is a pet peeve but I mean that is the reality that is set goad and has taught us that's any consumer good yeah I mean that but that's that's what it's taught us is that you know you have something and people affiliate themselves with a brand and that brand equals status and so if you want to have a particular brand in the shelf and you want to exude the status that is like hey I can afford this or I can have this and this is what this brand says about me like that is a different conversation and that's a more of a mental thing rather than is it the whiskey because it's not the whiskey the whiskey is going to be good no matter where you're getting it from it is the status that you're searching for that people are are trying to get and whether that's a a dig or whether that's like a hey this is the reality of what it is that's that's a different thing there too yeah I think I think it's jealousy it's maybe it's jealousy I know we we didn't I know for the the we kind of grew up in a time when our $10 a year

1:10:01was normal and we're like yeah let's make bourbon affordable again and let's not create something that every single release we have is over $100 because that's not sustainable we wanted to create something that was very affordable and it was accessible and now we also get comments conversation well yeah now we created the successful thing but great example we just had a retailer in here that texted me this past week and he's like hey I'm going to select a barrel for you guys but I need it to be $120 at least SRP and we go we don't really have anything to be able to hit that now we can sell it to you for more but that just goes to show you that like we need to expand that category we need to find different things that reach those there's a different consumer basis yep all right so here's another one on just the bourbon side here so this is coming from Chris Menophe regarding the hunt for limited and allocated releases from major distilleries why should we continue to pursue bottles like B-TAC or Pappy or Jack Dino's 1012 and 14 because for most of

1:11:06his mere mortals that don't live in Kentucky or Tennessee it's nearly impossible to find these releases without paying several times over SRP so they're asking why should they stop or no why should we continue to pursue bottles like B-TAC Pappy and Jack Dino's 1012 and 14 well here's the thing I will tell you for you know mere mortals who live outside of Kentucky or Tennessee it doesn't get any better when you live inside of Kentucky it's actually worse yeah so it's not anything better and I can tell you this because of my old past you know I used to go and buy a bunch of stuff at way over MSRP and it was part of a an annual game that I would play but why should you continue to pursue it I honestly think it just goes back into what I said it is a it is a hunt for status and it is a hunt to be able to show like I have these on my shelf and you don't yep it's like are you pursuing it because you actually like the product or do you want your shelf to look cool when your buddies come over and you're like oh I got this latest

1:12:06XYZ and that's Y Pappy Y Antiques or Jack 1012 whatever they mentioned it's like you want to be able to host someone at your house and be like look what I got look at what you don't got and that's why those products work and why they work so well there's that tension and then if you have it you have a higher status in your head and two with your friends that they they put you on a status like oh he's got this and so that's why you'll probably continue to pursue yeah and as a whiskey we want them anyway go and and don't you're wrong they're all right they're really good products but we did have an episode we did a long time ago remember we did highly allocated versus their shelf yeah right so we did like egor 17 just there's like egor 12 I think we did a wild turkey limited release versus just a Russell's and whatnot I think it became like a 50 50 if I'm not mistaken on what was actually better as an LTO versus a regular release so it's not to say that your mind's

1:13:10going to be blown every single time it's a it's a limited release because it is a marketing thing at the end of the day they do put best barrels aside for these things and to be fair like that's what they're trying to make you feel the FOMO and you're gonna get it don't be wrong but it is always coming back to trying to figure out like do I have this and can I impress my friends with it and I fall trapped at that all the time oh we still fall trapped yeah all the time yeah and that's what's fun about it but that's why we want to come out with special things like this occur in the Mizzanar and those things because it's a limited thing or in the honey hog like it's a limited thing you get it and you're one of only a couple thousand people that are gonna have it and nobody else will and that is the the status that you look for yep all right one last one as we kind of talk looking back on Paloza and the fun that we have and this is from Joe Hale and he says how do you continue to keep Paloza fun that's a great question because every year we you know we complete a

1:14:14Paloza and are like how can we talk it next year and it's tough I mean because we do want to offer like really cool unique experiences and it's like and we're running out of distilleries and places and especially in the state or in the city of Louisville in the city of Louisville and so it becomes a challenge every year and so what keeps it fun is I don't you know I've always heard this saying it doesn't matter where you are it's who you're with and I think that's what keeps it fun is that we have such a great community and a great group of folks that come back every year it doesn't necessarily matter where we go we we're gonna have a good time no matter where we go and that's what keeps it's fun is like the people that come and enjoy this it's such a really cool tight knit community and that's what makes it the fun it's not necessarily what we offer yeah and to be fair it's like the amount of people that are repeat Paloza versus new Paloza is becoming smaller and smaller and smaller it's mostly repeat people that are here and they're either have some from a few first

1:15:19timers here but it just goes to show you that if you create something that is fun and exciting and it continues to engage people then they want to continue being engaged for us as a part of bourbon pursuit and pursuit spirits we always looked at and we're like okay can't can we do another year is this is it becoming too much to help by you're like we need to do two of these things I was like no way not a chance we did tour the idea of having two of them and having a fall in a spring one or a summer but yeah we we kind of said all right let's let's just keep it at one but to keep Paloza fun one is we have to continue to outdo ourselves we have to continue to find new distilleries to work with new adventures new experiences this is the first year they were actually having it at pursuit I mean we've had it at the warehouse the past few times but this is the first time we've actually had it downtown so being able to bring into a new space was great and when we start planning for next year what to figure out okay well we did the single

1:16:21barrel thing we did some cocktails in here we did an AMA like what can we do different next year and it just kind of goes back into the brainstorming session and that's probably one of the very few times where we actually get to sit down and start thinking well what can be fresher unique and different and we'll start going through our rola decks of people that we've met inside the industry and and new things and what are the places that we've been that we can try to show a different insider experience that you just don't get to do as a as a war in jiu would say a geek off the street so we got to make sure that we can try to find interesting things and the good thing is we can pull some strings and make that happen for you all too yep that's what keeps poloosa fun for us well that's gonna do it we had a great time this is gonna be the end of the AMA for poloosa 2020 my wife picked showed up watch out everyone yeah the espresso martini's will be flowing that's right well that's it cheers everybody thank you again and happy poloosa can't wait to see it back again here next year but i want to put card before the horse we still got another whole

1:17:26big day ahead of us but if anybody that's listening to this now you can kind of have a little bit of an inside sneak peek of what pursuit poloosa's all about with that cheers everybody see next time doodles Yamabah resort and casino at San Manuel is bringing the biggest laughs to the stage break taboos with Ali Wang on August 28th and 29th enjoy Ralph Barbosa's dry humor on September 18th and don't miss nicky glaciers on apologetic comedy November 19th tickets on sale now at Yamabah theater dot com only at Yamabah resort and casino celebrating its 40th anniversary you in must be 21 to enter this episode is brought to you by chat gpt hey it's Bill Simmons from the Bill Simmons podcast have you guys heard about chat gpt work it's the new way to use chat gpt for bigger multi-step projects and when you need more than just answers give chat gpt work access to your

1:18:30apps and files and it can create real work documents like spreadsheets slides and structured reports get started at chat gpt dot com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plans i'm not giving up i am showing the building the final season of fx is the bear restaurant is flooded everything's either gonna be okay or not we are outgun and we are outmaned but we have each other fx is the bear the final season all episodes now streaming on Disney Plus