From Ocean Waves to Whiskey Craves: The Story of Chambers Bay Distillery (BRC S3 E5)

#AI Transcript:Chambers Bay

Kerry Moynahan:
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Alan Davis:
Good for you, I'm Alan.

Kerry Moynahan:
Alan, tell me all about Chambers Bay. When did you guys start stealing here and what facility are we in right now?

Alan Davis:
We're in our brand new tasting room in University Place Town Center, just opened yesterday. This is our flagship spot, no production here, but obviously cocktails, we have food and bottle sales. will definitely be our flagship spot. Our distillery is about a mile and a half north of here, and we started there May of 2014. Myself and my business partner, Jeff Robinette, started making bourbon there in 2014, and released our first bourbon in June 2015, or wait, December 2015. It was a 17-month-old version of what is our younger, lighter bourbon, Greenhorn. And out of the gate, we got some validation. We won a gold at San Francisco World Spirits competition on a 17-month-old bourbon. So considering that, we've never entered Greenhorn in another competition. We've entered our other bourbons, but we figured we're never going to beat Gold down there with a 17-month-old version of our bourbon.

Kerry Moynahan:
So how many expressions do you have now to date?

Alan Davis:
We have three available. Greenhorn, the younger, lighter bourbon. It's a two, two-and-a-half-year-old aged in 10, 15-gallon barrels. We have our flagship, Chambers Bay Straight bourbon. It's a four-year-old now, 95 proof, aged in 25-gallon barrels. And then we have basically the blue label finished in a Madeira wine cask for six months. So a total of five years aged, the last six in a Madera wine barrel. But aging is really our story, what we're known for. All our bourbons are aged in a floating boathouse about two and a half miles from here.

Kerry Moynahan:
Wait, what now?

Alan Davis:
A floating boathouse. So kind of like Jefferson, except that ours don't go in deep sea, but they're also, unlike Jefferson, on the water their entire aging lives. Wow. So we basically converted a boat slip into a floating warehouse, like a houseboat, with houseboat floats. And so all our barrels are out there moving with the tide and the waves. In addition to that, there's pretty extreme temperature changes, summer to winter, also important for getting that whiskey in and out of the wood. And then last but not least, long term, there's a sea breeze blowing through there this entire time. Similar to perhaps a light coastal scotch, we expect our older expressions, which aren't even out yet, to have a little bit of, well, the flavor profile we're going for is salted caramel. Okay. That sounds yummy. Yeah. And so yeah, at the outset, we wanted to, there's thousands of Kentucky bourbons, we wanted to make our own, make a Northwest bourbon. So in addition to the boathouse, we don't ferment with commercial yeast. Oh, you don't? We're kind of the Four Roses route. So all our current bourbons are fermented with yeast we got off from a wild apple orchard about a mile away, the Kern Apple Orchard. Oh, wow. And so now we propagate it on a daily basis. And so, yeah, all our bourbons are aged with a wild apple orchard yeast. And then we also have a wild blackberry yeast we're probably going to use on our rye whiskey when we come out with it.

Kerry Moynahan:
Wow, that's really nice. OK, so what do you have here to show us today?

Alan Davis:
So we've got four, three bourbons and a whiskey. So starting at our left is our Younger Lighter Expression Greenhorn. And is that this one right here? And that's this one. Hold that up. And again, this is a two to two and a half year old, aged in 10 and 15 gallon barrels in our floating boathouse. It's 88 proof. And of course, being bourbon, it's got to be charred New American oak.

Kerry Moynahan:
I love these little glasses.

Alan Davis:
This little setup is part of our whiskey flight we're offering here where people can try and then perhaps buy a cocktail with the one they like or just go neat.

Kerry Moynahan:
That's lovely.

Alan Davis:
Yeah, for how young it is, we're pretty proud of that one. Again, that was our first bourbon out of the gate, obviously, as our youngest. And it's gradually gotten older as we go along.

Kerry Moynahan:
It doesn't taste as young as it is.

Alan Davis:
Yeah, yeah. And that's kind of what we planned with the boathouse, all that agitation out there and movement and temperature change. And the slightly smaller barrels.

Kerry Moynahan:
What size barrels are you using?

Alan Davis:
For that one, 10 and 15. Gallon? Gallon, yes. For the straight, it's 25. We do have some 53s out there. But most of the straight and the Madeira cask started in 25s. And then the Madeira cask was finished in a 53-gallon Madeira barrel. Wow.

Kerry Moynahan:
OK, and then how big is this floating warehouse you have?

Alan Davis:
Oh, it's pretty small. We're a pretty small operation right now. Once we get this place up and running, we're probably going to raise money to expand. It's got a little over 100, 150 barrels in there. Wow.

Kerry Moynahan:
And do you have like a guard out there all day?

Alan Davis:
It's well protected, I'll say that. And you wouldn't know where it was, so we keep it pretty on the down low. But yeah, but it definitely is secure for sure.

Kerry Moynahan:
Okay, and then what's the second one you got here?

Alan Davis:
So second one's kind of our flagship bourbon. This is Chambers Bay straight bourbon. It's the blue label.

Kerry Moynahan:
That is the one that my cousin brought me, I believe.

Alan Davis:
And so now this is aged, it says three years, but we stretched it out to four years. And 95 proof, so roughly twice as old as Greenhorn, and then higher proof as well. You can see by the color for both those reasons.

Kerry Moynahan:
Great, it's much darker, yeah. Okay, it does smell a little stronger on the nose. Oh wow, that's very different. It's very different from the first one. It's very much more pungent flavor.

Alan Davis:
And we do our best to kind of differentiate the two. We chill filter the green hornigan. That's for the lighter whiskey crowd, lighter bourbon crowd. And we do not chill filter the blue.

Kerry Moynahan:
Oh yeah, that's a huge difference. This is much, um, It is much lighter, and this one is much stronger and more robust.

Alan Davis:
Because that's the fear, right? As a young craft distillery, bourbon is pretty close in age, even though it is twice as old. But try to make them as different as possible. And also that the barrel size and then selecting the right barrels for the right flavor profile plays a part in it as well.

Kerry Moynahan:
Fantastic. So then what do we have on this side?

Alan Davis:
The last bourbon we have is the Madeira cask finish. So it's basically the Blue Label product, aged for four and a half years in those 25-gallon Charter American oak barrels, then finished in a freshly dumped Madeira wine cask for six months. Is it still wet? Yep. Wow. Yep. And again with that, the fear is it either has not enough Madeira or too much, but we think this one came out pretty nice. It's got a nice little bit of that Madeira wine sweetness. That's the one.

Kerry Moynahan:
I can smell it on the nose.

Alan Davis:
And so this one we have is proofed at 92 proof kind of in between these two We consider it maybe more of a dessert bourbon Obviously a little bit. It's gonna have that sweetness to it from the cask.

Kerry Moynahan:
Oh, that is really nice And it's very it's got a really good mouthfeel very oily very soft.

Alan Davis:
Yeah, it's a good taste of Madeira that it's a nice zipper for sure and it's and it's

Kerry Moynahan:
it kind of does have a coastal tone to it and the flavor like I feel a little hint of salt water maybe.

Alan Davis:
Yeah we have a lot of people you know some as soon as we tell them they notice it but we've had a few people that without us telling that we've get a lot of either saltwater taffy or some sort of sea salt in it. We worked with Jim Rutledge a little bit starting up just because you know the Four Roses had their own five yeast strains right so and we were doing the same thing and so we contacted him and we were picked his brain on a few things and then actually got to visit him before we opened up you know eight years ago when he was still at Four Roses so that was kind of cool.

Kerry Moynahan:
Oh, great. And then, should I be scared of this last one?

Alan Davis:
Last but not least, if you're a spice lover, no. If you're a zero-star Thai person, then maybe yes. This is an unaged corn whiskey called Ghost Dog. The color comes, obviously not from the barrel, it's unaged. It comes from what we infuse it with. And the two main things are a touch of honey and smoked ghost pepper. Boy, so it's good neat, but this one really excels in cocktails and we've got some fun ones on the menu we do a chupacabra, which is kind of like a margarita Yeah, it's got kind of a tequila esque scent to it But great and bloody Mary's mules the margarita, which is the chupacabra and a host of other drinks Okay, I'm going in yeah, wish me luck. Oh You'll get honey-smokey sweetness up front, and then that peppery heat on the finish. Woo! It'll put some hair on your chest, for sure. But in a cocktail, it's quite tasty. And it mixes in more cocktails than we thought when we made it.

Kerry Moynahan:
It actually has a little bit of cinnamon flavor on it. You getting cinnamon? Well, maybe that's because I had the other one before, but I'm only going to do it again.

Alan Davis:
There are a few other botanicals in there besides the two I mentioned, but not cinnamon, but yeah. Some are associated, the ingredients associated with tea, the other ingredients are associated with kind of barbecue, so if you can... Yeah, I'm getting a little bit of like a tad bit of Christmas spice on it. But yeah, that one, the base is just a 100% corn whiskey, 80 proof.

Kerry Moynahan:
That's nice. I can totally see that mixing well with many things. That's our fun one. It is fun. Well, they're all fun. So tell me, when did you come up with the idea for this and how long did it take from your idea to fruition? We got an audience out here.

Alan Davis:
Oh yeah, we were talking back and forth for a couple years, kind of both looking for something to do, you know, created kind of the idea and we saw it wasn't even I think it was Buffalo Trace who was experimenting putting them on ships and having, it wasn't Jefferson, having a part of their experiments having great success with that so we don't have a ship.

Kerry Moynahan:
It's kind of the same idea as Blackened with the music that vibrates.

Alan Davis:
Yeah, yeah, anything to create more interaction of the spirit in the wood I think is, but we like our, kind of our idea because I think with a lot of the technologies being used to try to do the same thing, you lose the romance, the story. We still have the story of using the motion of the ocean, if you will, to create that interaction of spirit and wood. And then with our maritime theme, we didn't taste it today, but we have what we call the mineral water of vodkas, which is just a local sea salt from Friday Harbor, up in the San Juans, and just a mineral water amount, though, in our wheat vodka. it just rounds off the edges. So we kind of stick with this whole maritime theme.

Kerry Moynahan:
Very nice. Now did you start with the vodka while you were getting things going?

Alan Davis:
We did it backwards.

Kerry Moynahan:
That seems to be a theme in this state. This is the second place I've been this week that said they did it backwards.

Alan Davis:
We didn't want to do just a plain vodka and we didn't want to do gin because at the time the market was overcrowded with craft gins. So as we released the Ghost Dog first because it's unaged. So that was our unaged product out at the gate. The Greenhorn came later, six months later, again December 2015.

Kerry Moynahan:
And that's just a whiskey because it's not three years aged.

Alan Davis:
Oh no, bourbon has no age requirement. Straight bourbon has 2 years. Bottle and Bond is 4 years and 100 proof. When we have a Bottle and Bond product, it's a single barrel we do once a year but we don't have it right now. It's always going to be good but always different because it's a single barrel. We call it Captain's Reserve and it's a 5 year old 100 proof. And you would never know it's 100 proof, and although we've done three batches versions of it over the years, always very smooth. But yeah, so we kind of came up with the idea of the boathouse aging. Jeff Robinette was able to harvest the yeast from the apple orchard. Again, which we have frozen out of the lab in case, because yeast can mutate. But on a daily basis, we just propagate it with fresh mass like you would a sourdough starter. Okay. And again, the goal was to make it as Northwest as possible, to steal the wine term, have more Northwest terroir than any other whiskey, which we think we do because of the yeast. Obviously, the grains are from Washington, the Grand County of Washington, which if you know the state, Moses Lake area. And corn, wheat, and malted barley, I did not mention that. This is a weeded bourbon. Okay. Mash bill is 70% corn, 20% wheat, 10% malted barley.

Kerry Moynahan:
It's very good. Yeah. How much do you have that's maturing that you haven't put out yet, and how many things do you have on the market?

Alan Davis:
When we have Captain's Reserve, we have four products on the market, four bourbons. Plus the Ghost. Plus the Ghost, yeah, and then we add in the vodka. It's Ron Vodka, named after the Norse goddess of the sea. Again, that's the sea salt-touched vodka. Nice. And then we finally are going to come out with a gin early next year. And our twist on that one, given our maritime theme, it's traditional gin, botanicals, and then A hint of sea botanicals to add a little umami twist to it. It's lighter, easy drinking, very tasty.

Kerry Moynahan:
Are you going to use seaweed or?

Alan Davis:
We're going to leave it to your imagination for now. Okay. But it is subtle and it's just an umami twist to it and it's going to be light and easy drinking, very tasty. Okay. But that comes out, that's Dead Eye Gin, kind of a double entendre and that should be out in January.

Kerry Moynahan:
OK, so you guys have the distillery not too far from here, about a mile and a half. This tasting room is right here on the main drag.

Alan Davis:
Yep. University Place Town Center, which is right across the street, including police and fire and good foot traffic, obviously. We're in between a Whole Foods and a Trader Joe's. And yeah, the town center is right across the street. So the spot really made a lot of sense for a lot of reasons.

Kerry Moynahan:
When we were driving up, I said, it says distillery outside. It can't possibly actually be the distillery because there's apartments upstairs. Exactly. I was like there's I mean I I mean I am from California but I thought there's no way Washington's gonna allow that either so it makes a lot more sense that it's the distilleries tasting room.

Alan Davis:
Yep yep this is just the flagship bar and retail spot and Michelle Robinette who I didn't mention is the one who did this design which is amazing. It's a beautiful design. And bought these couches which are amazing.

Kerry Moynahan:
They are, they're perfect.

Alan Davis:
Yeah.

Kerry Moynahan:
They're very whiskey feel. I love it.

Alan Davis:
Yeah.

Kerry Moynahan:
So how long has it been this spot how long has it taken you to get from saying okay that's where we want it to here it's done and ready to go. A year.

Alan Davis:
Oh wow. I think longer than I thought we thought maybe even over a year from negotiation of the lease to the build out between permitting and little construction things but we're done now so it's great.

Kerry Moynahan:
Okay and at your other facility where you do the distilling is that also where you do the bottling?

Alan Davis:
Yep, that's where we do the bottling, and it's a tiny little tasting room there. It seats about eight, and so that's why we built this place, or built out this place. And yeah, we bottle there. It's a, I think, production per square footage, we're probably number one in the state, and you will see that when you come over on Sunday and join our bottling party.

Kerry Moynahan:
Okay, now I pulled the menu from the counter. So you have cocktails and you have food.

Alan Davis:
Yes, we have food.

Kerry Moynahan:
So you can do the whole thing.

Alan Davis:
The whole deal. And our cocktail menu is limited as we're training staff. We had a brilliant mixologist help with the design of the drinks and train the staff, Rose Peterson. who now owns New Frontier Lounge, and then our chef, formerly of Asado, which is one of the best restaurants in town, Hudson Slater, did our food menu and helped train us on the flatbreads, baked brie, charcuterie board, and we do a pulled pork sandwich. You can choose a bourbon barbecue sauce or the ghost dog barbecue sauce if you want spice. The same with our nut mix, you can have sweet or spicy.

Kerry Moynahan:
And do you guys have pairings and flights? I'm assuming you have flights, because you have the little flight stage.

Alan Davis:
Yeah, we have flights with this, and then we're just basically pairing as the guest asks. We're pretty, you know, it's not the biggest menu, but the foods and staff is trained on what goes with what. And I think also, we haven't added desserts yet. We'll have a few of those. Oh, yeah. And those will more directly pair with the bourbon, like an apple tart or a lemon tart, perhaps, with the vodka cocktail or the ghost dog, things like that.

Kerry Moynahan:
Okay, so this, and you started all of this project, what year? The whole... This thing? The whole thing.

Alan Davis:
From the distillery from inception to... Oh, yes. We moved into our current distillery and we started producing in May of 2014. Okay. And conveniently, that's when the ADI had their conference in Seattle. So we got to go to that conference. Oh, great. Learn a lot, meet a lot of people, and then a month and a half later start up Start off our distillery. We're doing a couple of hot cocktails tonight. We're doing both with ghost dog. One is a hot chocolate with ghost dog and it's got an angostura whipped cream on it. And then we're doing an apple cider with ghost dog with the same ango whipped cream. Yeah, just a little bit of whipped cream, angostura bitters and a touch of simple syrup. Put it in your little whipped cream canister and off you go. It's a nice little touch.

Kerry Moynahan:
So what do you see for the company in the next five years? What are your plans?

Alan Davis:
Plan is to get this place up and running profitable generating cash And then start raising money for a bigger distillery because as you'll see Sunday, we're pretty tiny So we need more bourbon. We're mostly just Washington State right now. We're dipping our toe in California a little bit at a couple different spots and so The goal is to increase production and then increase distribution and

Kerry Moynahan:
Sounds good. And then if somebody were to say come to visit Washington and they're in University Place, what's the best place to find your stuff? To buy and take home?

Alan Davis:
To buy? Well, here, of course. But if for whatever reason we're close, Total Wine has the range of our products. And there's one in Tacoma. So that would be the place statewide to find all of our spirits, except for the stuff that we only offer here, which would be the Madeira cask and the Captain's Reserve when we have it.

Kerry Moynahan:
Now, are these the only size bottles you have, or do you have smaller bottles?

Alan Davis:
We have smaller bottles of the bourbon, although we're running low. Again, the supplier ran out, so we'll restock those. So we'll have 375 milliliters of the bourbons. Just the one, 750 of the Ghost Dog, though.

Kerry Moynahan:
Okay, and then how much is the Madera actually, if you were to buy it here?

Alan Davis:
Yeah, the Madera is $74 and that's the most expensive bourbon we have right now. And then the straight is $65 and the green horn is in the mid $45 I believe, right in the mid $40s. Okay, great. Plus the Washington State sales tax, which not proudly I say it's the highest in the country. For spirits? Yes, for spirits.

Kerry Moynahan:
It's so crazy. I didn't know it was different for spirits than everything else.

Alan Davis:
Yeah, I know. When they privatized the spirit market, meaning they closed the state liquor stores and called out a safe way to sell it, I don't know, 15 years ago, whenever that was, they did lop in a bunch of pretty extreme taxes.

Kerry Moynahan:
That's too bad. When you sell them, do you do the price with the tax or without the tax?

Alan Davis:
We do both. You've got to let them know. And then we have the tax listed on our little price sheets of what it is, just in general, so they know. That was the issue when they first switched over. People didn't do that, and there was a little bit of sticker shock at the register. But yeah.

Kerry Moynahan:
They're like, how did $20 turn into $50? Yeah. Oh, no. Really not. Not at all. Well, that's fantastic. Well, I look forward to coming by on Sunday and seeing the bottling and getting a peek at the distillery. And you've done a wonderful job with this tasting room. I think it's gorgeous.

Alan Davis:
Yeah, thanks for stopping by.

Kerry Moynahan:
Glad you could make it in. And I appreciate you letting us come by. Absolutely. You know, we'll be happy to share the knowledge.

Alan Davis:
Share the love.

Kerry Moynahan:
About your beautiful distillery and your wonderful products.

Alan Davis:
Awesome. Thank you. Good to meet you. Yeah, we'll see you Sunday.

Kerry Moynahan:
Don't touch that device because we'll be right back on location at Chambers Bay Distillery.

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Kerry Moynahan:
So, Alan, I'm here at the distillery today, and I'm getting to witness the bottling of your great, which one are we bottling today?

Alan Davis:
Today we're bottling the straight, here's a little bottle of it, our straight bourbon whiskey. Fantastic. It's our four-year-old flagship product, aged in our floating boathouse, and fermented with, excuse me, local wild yeast from the Kern Apple Orchard.

Kerry Moynahan:
Okay, that's the regular, the straight bourbon, okay. Well, the reason I found out about you was because I'm doing this, I'm working on this chariot event with the Festival of Trees, and I heard that you donated some things to that. What did you donate to that?

Alan Davis:
Yeah, so for Mary Bridge Children's Hospital's Festival of Trees auction to support their hospital, we donated a foursome of golf at our Social 6 event. So every spring through summer into fall, we do an event called Social Sick, six holes of golf and cocktails. We have a whiskey wagon we bring out. We serve them a couple of cocktails, one at the range and one to go. And they play six holes at Chambers Bay, world-class golf course, host of the 2015 US Open. So a great course, beautiful, right on the Salish Sea, so beautiful setting. And it's about two hours to play the six holes. And then they get a discount at the grill, Chambers Bay Grill afterwards. So we're going to bring, we auctioned off four people for a round of golfing cocktails.

Kerry Moynahan:
That's fantastic. That was part of the prize package. And then you said the wagon. Is that the wagon I see outside here?

Alan Davis:
Yep. This is a black trailer that we built out. And then one side of it flips up kind of like a food truck. We have a bar in there. And we serve cocktails at Social 6 at the golf course. So it's turned out to be a great little event for us. Good publicity. It sells out every time, because it is a great deal. And so it's been a great way to connect with both the golf course that has the same name as us, Chambers Bay, and a lot of our, I guess, customers.

Kerry Moynahan:
And then why did you decide that you wanted to help out with the charity auction this year?

Alan Davis:
Oh, it's a no-brainer. Mary Bridge Children's Hospital. I mean, it's hard to say no to that, right? You have to do your best at whatever you can donate to help out their mission in helping children.

Kerry Moynahan:
That's true, that's true. Well, Alan, thank you so much. I love what you guys are doing here. I love all the beautiful products you got going on. Oh, you got some chips too. And I appreciate you taking time and letting me butt in here. Our pleasure. It's been a great time and I love seeing how, I mean, you guys are really down to the nitty gritty with your bottling. I love it.

Alan Davis:
Oh yeah, absolutely. We're not a big operation, but we think we do things right and we got a good team of helpers. So yeah, we do a pretty good product for how small we are.

Kerry Moynahan:
You do. Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. And hopefully we'll see you again soon. Yeah. All right. All right. Thank you. Bye bye. World of Wheezy is up next. Stay with us. Like what you've seen on BRC? Want to see more? Experience more? And maybe even taste more? Then head over to our Ko-fi site and become a member of the Barrel Room Parlor. By choosing the Copper Level Membership, you'll have exclusive access to videos related to topics discussed on the podcast and blog posts for members only. As an Amber member level, you'll enjoy everything from our Copper level as well as various spin-off series including The Cutting Room Floor and Kindred Spirits. In addition, the Amber membership includes exclusive discounts to live in-person events. To join, visit www.barrelroomchronicles.com and click on Become a Member in the navigation bar. Or go straight to our Ko-fi site at ko-fi.com and click on the membership link. Once you've joined, you'll have access to everything your chosen level has to offer. You'll even be able to participate with the show by commenting on videos and other posts. Don't wait! Sign up today for exclusive content and event discounts in the Barrel Room Parlor. Well, Louise, we are here again, here in the studio, I like to call it, with the copper pot behind us. And today we're going to try Chambers Bay, which I had when I went up to Washington to visit my cousin over the Thanksgiving holiday. As you can see, I've made a big dent in this already. But I got to go to the distillery. And while I was there, they had just opened up their tasting room, which was a few blocks away from the distillery. It's really cool. Can't wait to share that with everybody. Talked to the distiller. the owner and had a good time. So what I like about these guys is they have all of their stuff on a big barge and they have it all sloshing around in the water so that the barrels are constantly like getting switched around with yeah like they're basically turning the ocean is turning what's inside yeah

Chef Louise Leonard:
Also keeping it at a specific temperature. Right.

Kerry Moynahan:
So is it a good temperature? And then I just I think that it really connects with the wood a lot differently. I don't know if it's better or worse or but definitely differently than most.

Chef Louise Leonard:
So the wood barrel is in contact with the saltwater?

Kerry Moynahan:
No, it's in a barge. but the barge.

Chef Louise Leonard:
Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I'm like, wait, what? Okay. Yes. Yes.

Kerry Moynahan:
But then, you know, the, the wood is getting different saturation within the barrel. Yeah. So I think that's pretty interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Very cool. This one is their boathouse aged, which is, you know, the barge I'm talking about, uh, for a minimum of three years, three years straight bourbon. And let's, uh, go ahead and have a, have a taste of that.

Chef Louise Leonard:
Well, The nose that I got is completely like maple syrup, but I think it's because it's the corn that it's like a very distinct sweetness. But it's like at first I was like, oh, is this brown sugary? No, it's more like very maple-y smell to me. It smells like specifically maple syrup to me. I don't know why, but it doesn't taste that way. Just smells that way. And it's delicious. It is delicious. And I already know what I would use it for. Which is?

Kerry Moynahan:
Well, as it as this says, it harnesses the power of the sea.

Chef Louise Leonard:
Okay, well, I'm harnessing the power of the sea with salt. Okay. In which I feel like I want a salted maple caramel, mmm, drizzled well a salted maple caramel infused infused with this bourbon drizzled over an apple fritter. Oh that sounds amazing. I mean it's a little crazy because a fritter... That's a very sweet retreat, sweet treat. Yeah, but if you made an apple fritter with Washington state apples, you made like a really awesome donut dough, folded your apples in there, fried it, and instead of glazing, they're normally glazed, just like a sugar syrup, you did a salted caramel syrup infused with this instead, I think would be next level.

Kerry Moynahan:
Do you think there'd be a little whipped cream and a cherry on top of that or no?

Chef Louise Leonard:
I mean, it depends on like, if I were just making it for you to eat in the morning with your coffee, the way a donut right now, but if I was gonna do it as a dessert, maybe I'd make it a little smaller, there might be a couple in the dish, there might be some ice cream or a little Yeah, I mean, ice cream. Yeah, would be good. Yeah, but but for sure, a salted maple caramel is the starting point. with this and then however you want to pair that, even if you just poured that over some cooked fruit. Oh, over apples. Yeah, that would be good. Yeah. Bananas even. Or in a pie or yeah.

Kerry Moynahan:
Yeah. Oh, I could see it on top of an apple pie too. Correct. All those things. That's fantastic. Louise, thank you so much. You're welcome. I can't wait till next week when we have you back on for another great pairing and creation. I'll be here. That does it for today's show. To read notes on this episode or learn more about our guests, please visit barrelroomchronicles.com. Want to interact with the show or have questions for our guests? Then ask them on our socials or send us an email. Or better yet, leave us a voicemail on our website. If you like what you heard, please rate and subscribe to the podcast. If you really liked it and you want to show your support, buy us a whiskey through our Ko-fi site at ko-fi.com slash BRC, or become an exclusive member of the Barrel Room Parlor. If you work in the whiskey or spirits industry or just have a deep passion for whiskey and want to share your spirits journey, register to be a guest through our website. Last but not least, please enjoy your spirits responsibly. Thanks for joining me. Until next time, so long.

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