Exploring the World of Whiskey Jypsi: It's Not Your Average Celebrity Whiskey Brand (S3 E19)

# Swell AI Transcript: BRC S3 E19 - Jypsi 

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Kerry:
Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever time it is you are watching the show today. Today on the show, we are talking about gypsy whiskey. And today I have Raj and Ari on the show who are working with Eric Church, of all people, to make this whiskey a reality. Gentlemen, it's so nice to have you on the show. We always start off with your whiskey journey. So let's start with Raj, since you were online first. Raj, tell me about how you started to become a man of whiskey and how did you get into this industry? And then Ari will go with you. And then before you guys talk about your collaboration with Eric, we'll make that a separate question. So go ahead. I mean, Raj.

Raj:
Sure. A little bit of background. I moved here as a kid from India. My dad came here with $1,000 in his pocket and got a job. And this is back in the early 70s when if you had a professional degree and you got a job, you got a green card automatically. It was probably the most successful generation of immigrants, I think, in this country. So I still had a lot of family back in India. And in India, the older generation drank Johnny Walker was the high, high end that they could find if they could find it. And Chivas was kind of their daily drinker. And I was probably a teenager going back and visiting. And I had an uncle who was probably the most successful person in my family at that point, who was the CEO of a company called Bombay Dyeing. It was the largest textile company in India. And he would travel the world Scotch. I would always see him drinking it. This is the guy who taught me who James Bond was about cars and things. The guy was fascinating. He basically would let me taste it. At that age, it doesn't really taste good, but I got curious. I got curious, and then I got to graduate school. For whatever reason, me and my buddies got into drinking Scotch. We really loved Lagavulin.

None:
That was

Raj:
If I tried doing that now, I wouldn't wake up. But so really learned about scotch first, and then, you know, kind of later started having bourbons. I have a friend who, Joe Magliocco, who owns Michter's, and ended up trying his, you know, American whiskey bourbons, and really, was fascinated by the complexity, the number of levers you can pull between the mash bills, the aging finishes. It really took me on a different path that I haven't come back from. I still like an occasional single malt occasionally, but to me, and the different flavor profiles you can create as a result. So I was fascinated by it, I still am. Didn't ever think I'd go into business in it, but as a enthusiast, it's still, I love trying something new and that's what's been, and we'll talk about it, but that's what's been fun about this brand is I get to tinker with all the stuff I loved as a consumer.

Kerry:
So when did you, um, what was, well, first of all, what was your former, uh, career and when did you, and how did you change into whiskey?

Raj:
Uh, I don't know if I, my former career is still kind of my career, which is, uh, investing. I used to do mergers and acquisitions. So I did a lot of, uh, very large deals, uh, in the healthcare space and the consumer space.

None:
I kind of across the board.

Raj:
Um, I actually did the merger for Abbott that created AbbVie and, brought Humira to life. Biomet and Zimmer. So I've done a lot in that category. And then I started investing on my own, own some Dunkin Donuts franchises with some friends. We started a company called Grayson Clothiers, which is probably the fastest growing golf and leisure company in the country now. So just really started getting and I did probably companies. Um, this was kind of a fortuitous luck. Uh, Eric and I met and, uh, on a golf course and became friends and had started talking about, uh, Eric church was our partner. Um, started talking about just different businesses. And, uh, I threw out some ideas and one of them was starting his own brand and didn't think anything of it. And then he, uh, He called me back and kept calling me back saying, hey, I'm really interested in this.

None:
And after beating me over the head about it for a while, I decided I would take a look at it. And that's how this whole thing kind of started.

Raj:
We can get into more detail on that later.

Kerry:
OK, great. Well, now Ari, tell me about your whiskey journey. When you were a little lad, did you ever think that you would be working with Eric Church on a whiskey?

Ari:
It was a surprise to me. It was a fortuitous surprise. I come from sort of a large food and culinary oriented family. We would get together very regularly, cooking, gardening. It was always part of what we did as a family. And it instilled an idea in me that food isn't just about sustenance. It's also a way of telling stories and expressing culture and expressing creativity and doing things as a community. After a brief stint working in a bureaucratic office in my early 20s and realizing that wasn't really for me, I decided to move to France and pursue a passion for winemaking. And so I spent a number of summers in France apprenticing as a winemaker. learning quite a bit about that. I would spend the summers in France for three or four months at a time, then come back to the US and work with hospitality groups, training wine directors, writing wine lists, working with bartenders and developing cocktail lists that could express the vision of whatever the restaurant or group was at the time. This was around the time that the craft distilling, the cocktail craze and the craft distilling craze were just starting to ramp up. And it seemed like there was a really interesting opportunity for someone with a background in wine and all that wine has. in maybe extending what American whiskey could be. So I linked up with a professor at Michigan State University, the late, great Dr. Chris Berglund, who is in many ways the godfather of craft distilling in this country. And he brought me in and allowed me to manage the distillery at Michigan State University for about half a decade. Yeah, when it was the only really distillery incubator and accelerator in the country. This was at a time that if you If you had a famous last name and lived in Kentucky and wanted to learn how to make bourbon, you actually had to come to Michigan to learn how to do it. And with Dr. Bergman was able to create scores or many, many commercially available spirits and got to learn from the best and got to work with companies large and small on product and process development. And so that's how I really cut my teeth and learned about spirits production, but came from a culinary background and a winemaking sensibility.

Kerry:
So what made you want to do wine when you first started with wine? Because I mean, I loved wine first before whiskey, but noticed that I would just, that sulfates and tannins would give me headaches. And I just, so I moved on.

Ari:
Yeah, no, that's common. And I've kind of gone in that direction as well. I still love wine. What I loved about wine is I loved all the micro regions and the stories and the history of the various chateaus and that different places around the world had their own winemaking traditions that seemed to evolve over centuries. It seemed like there was just a lot of passion and honoring of tradition and an interesting intergenerational handoff. So these various places, whether it's Spain or Italy or France or Argentina or Australia, it seemed like a way that various places in the world could express themselves in terms of both the agriculture and the culture. And that's what I found most compelling.

Kerry:
Okay. And so how did you and Eric and Raj all get together and how did you meet Eric or did you know Raj already or did you know Eric already? How did that all come to be?

Raj:
Well, I'll start that story. So I didn't know who Eric was when I met him. We were invited on a golf trip and a friend of mine who put it together said, there's this big rockstar coming. I said, yeah, I'm thinking Mick Jagger or somebody. And I said, who's that? He said, Eric Church. I said, who's that? I didn't listen to country music at the time. I did as a kid, and I totally spaced on it until I started talking to Eric. My dad used to play Johnny Cash and a bunch of others. We used to watch Hee Haw. So yeah, didn't really know who he was, but we just spent a lot of time talking and just clicked. And so I already talked about how we were brainstorming on businesses. So when he finally convinced me to, to, you know, to take a look at this as a because this is a complicated space to get into. I didn't realize how complicated. You know, spirits, I would argue something like a vodka or tequila is a lot simpler. But when you start talking about having to age, you have mash bills, what do you want to do? How do you want to finish? Where are you storing it? It just gets very, very complicated very fast. So The first choice was to, the first thing that we had to fill was somebody who knew more than we did about whiskey. And so I had been given some names through some folks who I knew in the space.

None:
I was surprised at how many people I knew who were actually in the space, total random coincidence.

Raj:
And so, and I also was Google searching and Ari's name, I saw through some different articles and searches and then coincidentally somebody I'll let Ari talk about how it came into him.

Kerry:
Okay.

Ari:
Yeah, so because of various articles and having been associated with the development of various brands, I frequently get unsolicited phone calls from people who decide that they want to launch their own whiskey brands. In general, those conversations are uninspiring in the sense that someone's interested in entering the space, but they don't really have any idea or reason for entering the space. But when I first met Raj on the phone first, it was a cold call. We had never met each other before. I did not do my research and know how successful he was in driving creative force in various industries. And he mentioned that he and Eric were looking to start a brand. I also did not know who Eric Church was at the time. I used this as an opportunity to go and explore really phenomenal repertoire and go and listen to all of his albums. But it was clear that Raj and Eric were not looking to have a Me Too company, yet another company and another celebrity spirit that wasn't of interest to them. And for me, that was a relief, because usually the phone calls you get are, hey, there's this celebrity, they want to come out with a product, they want to put their name on it, and they're gonna try to flip it in two years. And that's just, personally speaking, that's a little boring, that that's uninspiring. And that doesn't seem like the best way of spending time. So Raj let me know very early on that they were looking to explore what American whiskey can be, what world whiskeys can be, what are the paths that others are not taking. All of it needs to be quality driven, that was very clear. We're trying to make the best whiskey possible, have fun doing it, but really explore the outer reaches of what we can do with whiskey making. So the initial conversation was led left quite broad. And over the course of the next several months, and frankly, years, we were able to conceptually develop a product family that sort of serves as a template for us to continue to create and innovate and produce high quality narrative driven whiskeys. And one thing led to another, and it's like every single call that we had, whether it was the first call with Raj, the first call with Eric, or learning about the rest of the very substantial team that these gentlemen have put together, it really, it felt, continues to feel like there's a true energy behind it that's unique in the whiskey space.

Raj:
And Ari's being a little modest. When we were talking to him, I did talk to a lot of people in some very household brand names that you would know. And Ari really stood out. We kind of geeked out on our first call because I've got a little bit of a science background from way back in college, and I've done a lot of health care deals. And we were talking about chemical composition of the whiskeys and what leads to different flavor profiles. And I told him, I don't want just a name slapped on and then just try to market it. I said, and why. And so we kind of wanted to bring science to it. We had a bunch of other paths we took. I mean, it took a while to launch this product, the first product of Legacy One. I think we probably went down five or 10 rabbit holes of different products and testing things in different ways of aging and then sending it to labs to test. But Ari really stood out to us as somebody who had we wanted to do.

None:
Eric's an unbelievably creative person.

Raj:
Now that obviously we're friends and I've been listening to his music, if you listen to his music, it stands out. It's not country the way I used to think of it. Really, the lyrics, everything stands out.

None:
Ari with whiskey is the same way. He comes up with things and it really is differentiated and stands out and there's thought behind it.

Raj:
It's not just slap a label on it, which I could not live with one of my companies being a slap a label on it.

Kerry:
So, um, so let's talk about, uh, the company, the company's name is Whiskey Gypsy, Whiskey Gypsy. And then you have a, I want to point something out on that.

Raj:
It's not Gypsy Whiskey because Eric actually has a song, Never Break Heart, where he uses a line, you know, drawing cards from a Whiskey Gypsy. Um, and so, and we spelled it differently because it's kind of a new interpretation of Gypsy, but, um, it's Whiskey Gypsy, J Y P S I. Okay.

Kerry:
And then, um, So when did you initially talk to Eric about starting this and then how long between that initial call to when you talked to Ari and from when you talked to Ari to you had the distillery going and the juice?

Raj:
Well, we talked about it on a golf trip. Our mutual friend called me probably every other day for two to three weeks to convince me to call Eric about it. I finally got around to calling Eric about it. I told them I needed to do some work. It took about three months to just really get up to speed on what we needed if we were going to do this. And then I think I talked to Ari after that. And then we probably, that was, I want to say it was 2021, Ari. Is that right? Early 2021? Yeah. And then, uh, 23, we launched our first product. So it took a couple of years.

Kerry:
Okay. And where, um, where do you distill?

Raj:
We don't, well, Ari, I'll let you talk. We don't distill our own product. We kind of do actually now in Kentucky, but I'll let Ari talk about.

Kerry:
Okay.

Ari:
Yeah. Talk a little bit about, about product development procurement. We wanted to start with fully mature whiskey and we wanted to hit the market. So we have relationships with producers and folks that own whiskey and, uh, whiskey truly from around the world. We live in a really interesting time right now from a whiskey perspective. Even five years ago, the concept of world whiskey almost didn't exist outside of scotch, for the most part, and a little bit of Japanese whiskey. But we live in this sort of golden age where the whiskey production all over the world is really soaring in terms of quality. And we wanted to create a library or a portfolio of spirits uh, that were sourced from top manufacturers from around the world, fully mature spirits from top manufacturers, regardless of what country they came from. We, we, we are agnostic about borders. Um, we're, we're, we're really quality, uh, driven primarily. Um, and so we, we do work with our distilleries point something out on that.

Raj:
We didn't want to put ourselves in a box.

None:
Part of the concept of gypsy is that you, you're kind of free flowing.

Raj:
You're not, There's no borders. And we didn't want to put ourselves in a box because then you limit your creativity and your ability to do it. So if we were just a Kentucky whiskey or Tennessee and again, nothing wrong with that. But for what we wanted to do, and if you look at the different tiers of whiskey we have, we have Legacy, which is a world whiskey blended products from all over the world, from America to India to Japan, potentially in some future releases. six-year-old bourbons finished in wood from around the world to another product we're coming. We didn't want to be stuck in a box. And we truly believe there's so much product out there around the world that can be blended and mixed and finished to create these very unique flavor profiles that you put yourself in a box, you're kind of stuck. And so

Kerry:
No, so you guys went all around the world getting the best wood, the best whiskeys, and then made magic happen.

Ari:
Yeah, also some of the finest woods, whether they're exotic or just of utmost quality from specific forests. But we want to make sure that everything we put in the bottle is fully mature. We are producing whiskey to our specification at multiple distilleries around the country. So we actively work with contract distilling. And we specify everything from grain varietal and yeast strain to fermentation conditions and distillation techniques. So we're intimately involved with the distillation process, but also we're intimately involved with exploring the world from a whiskey point of view and acquiring top-notch stocks of whiskey from around the world for our library. And these international whiskeys become components, like Raj said, in our Legacy series. And then our Explorer series starts with a baseline of fully mature six-year-old bourbon, and the various releases are finished with woods from very different areas. So for instance, our first Explorer, which is which is currently available, it's on our website, if anybody's interested, or we can talk about which markets we're in as well, starts with a six year old bourbon, it's actually a blend of Indiana and Kentucky bourbon, we basically took a mid rye, Kentucky bourbon and a high rye Indiana bourbon and blended them to create a mid-plus rye. It's a very unique flavor profile. And then we finished it with two different woods, French oak from the Troncet forest, which if the wine geeks will recognize the Troncet forest is the oak stands that produce barrels for Bordeaux. So it's oak that can stand up to sort of the, some of the most robust wine on earth. That's right. Yeah, yeah. A whole history. It was managed by the Duke of Bourbon, which is where the name Bourbon comes from. And it also happens to be the birthplace of the troubadour tradition, of which Eric is a part. So it's an interesting tie into the gypsy spirit. which is sort of the all-encompassing idea behind the brand. And we paired oak from Trance Forest with oak from Appalachia in the United States. So French and American oak from very specific regions. And they were paired together Number one, because these are two of the finest oak-producing regions in the world with distinct profiles. And going back to the laboratory that Raj was talking about, we can look at extraction rates and we can look at the development in whiskeys of various tannins and sugars and compounds. But we really also wanted to tell a story, at least in Explorer 1, about the history of the troubadour and part of the spirit and storytelling, which is in the DNA of this brand. So we used wood from two different areas that are very strong in the singer-songwriter tradition, from where it originated in the 12th century in France to the cradle of American troubadours, which is really in Appalachia.

Kerry:
That's really cool.

Raj:
We do have a partnership with Whiskey House, where we're I'm not sure if you're familiar with that group, but they came out of Bardstown and they built this massive, beautiful facility in Kentucky. And so they are allowing us to basically create our own product using their equipment, um, with our own corn. You know, Ari can talk about that as well. That, that product's going to be released. Uh, that'll be our next tier down and we'll, we'll use it also on Explorer as it ages. So we do that.

Kerry:
So is that where most of your stuff is being put together, produced, blended?

Raj:
We, we put, we, we blend in Tennessee. Okay. Um, but this is for future releases because obviously it has to be aged.

None:
So they just opened up this year and they're there.

Raj:
I highly recommend people look into what they've been doing. It's spectacular. The technology is unbelievable. Are we just actually went there and during the, uh, Kentucky, uh, Bardstown bourbon festival, you know, got, got a chance to try the spirit and said, it's one of the best new makes he's ever had. So they're allowing us to use our own grains and bring it in, our own yeast strains. So we're effectively creating our own new make out of their facility. So that'll take a few years to get into our products, but that's the future of some of our tiers of products.

Kerry:
Okay. And then most of your blending is then done in Tennessee? Yeah. Okay. Are you allowed to say where you're blending in Tennessee? Or is it, it's a,

Ari:
We've actually partnered with a number of facilities. Different facilities have different capabilities. So we have barrel storage at places in Nashville, and then south of Nashville, there's some larger bottling facilities. So it is a little bit dispersed. Kind of all over, okay. It's kind of all over. And for each of our projects, whether it's barrel warehousing or blending at various scales, we have different partners that we work with. But even going back to Whiskey House, I mean, they've really created something special, which was perfect for us. It's difficult. in this industry, if you have a vision that's a little bit off the normal path, there's a lot of commodity, we would call commodity whiskey being produced, which which can have undifferentiated grains, or kind of all the different brands that work with a distillery kind of get the same product. And then it's their marketing department's job to try to differentiate it from a consumer point of view. But it was really important for us that we had full control over the production process and everything from grain varietal, which is an important concept, important idea for our company. We know that, you know, In general, in the whiskey industry, people talk about corn and they talk about rye and they talk about barley. However, within each of those categories, there is large variability. Different types of corn produce different types of character, just like different types of wine, just like Chardonnay is very different than Cabernet. Yellow dent number two is very different than Cherokee white corn. Just vastly different aromas, mouthfeels, the oil profile or viscosity profiles can be really different. And then what kind of yeast you choose to do the fermentation will also create a whole secondary level of characteristics in that recipe. So we've been all over the country talking to all kinds of distilleries and landed at Whiskey House because their capabilities and their QAQC laboratories are really second to none.

Kerry:
Okay, so right now on the market, how many different expressions do you have?

Ari:
Right now we have three products on the market. We have two versions, our two first releases of the Legacy series, and we have the first release of our Explorer series. In our lab, in our blending lab, we have many prototypes, over a dozen prototypes of additional Explorer series. So we're aging bourbons with all kinds of exotic and full flavored woods from around the world to explore. new expressions in whiskey, new types, whether it's oak, non-conventional oak varietals from all over the world, and they're all quite different, to resinous woods, which have historically been used primarily in perfumery, but absolutely have a place in whiskey making as well. We're really kind of pushing the boundaries there. You know, we look at our sister industries like winemaking and perfumery, which have developed all kinds of ingredients and techniques that we believe can be applied to whiskey making.

Kerry:
That's awesome. And then where is your lab located? Is that, are you in Michigan where you are? To play in Pinker?

Ari:
So we have access to a laboratory at Michigan State University, a food science and chemical engineering laboratory. Whiskey House also has a phenomenal laboratory. There's a laboratory in Lexington that we use as well. So there's various laboratories.

Kerry:
You are all over the place.

Ari:
It's the World Whiskey Gypsies.

Kerry:
Yeah. Yeah. I love it. Um, and then, uh, before you guys make your final decision on the bottles, do you have Eric come and taste it to see if he gets the final approval or how does that work?

Raj:
Not sure anyone has a final approval. I think Eric and I both kind of probably have veto, but, uh, it's been an interesting process. Everybody on the team pretty much gets involved and get samples. And then we do calls and we do back and forth feedback and, um, We've had some where most of the people say, yeah, this is what we're doing. And then a couple of us say, I really don't like X, Y, or Z. And we go back to the drawing board. And it's worked out really well because the product ends up satisfying a fairly decent, broad number of palettes as a result.

Kerry:
Cool. And do you guys have any idea?

Ari:
I'll follow up on that for one second. Sorry. We have internal tasting panels as well as external tasting panels. So within our own group, everyone has experience in whiskey and prerogatives, and we take it all to heart. each, each, each product that we work on, oftentimes we'll have various versions of it. So, you know, three versions, which one do you prefer? And we do that internally. But we also work with some of the finest palettes in the entire industry, top notch writers and reviewers, and they're part of our external tasting panel. So we take all of that information to heart before scaling up and putting a product into a bottle.

Kerry:
That's awesome. You guys seem to do a ton of, ton of research and, um, R and D on all of your products, which is fantastic, especially for such a young company. So, um, if I were a consumer in America, uh, where could I, well, first of all, how many States are you available in readily? And then, um, is there shipping components of where would people be able to find you?

Raj:
Um, so currently I'm going to try to rattle this off cause we're getting new States as we speak, but, We're in Florida, Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio, we'll be launching in Ohio soon, North Carolina, Colorado. I think we're trying to get into one or two others.

None:
Did I forget any area? I think that's it. That's good.

Raj:
And then we can ship to the vast majority of states through our online, through our partner in Washington, D.C. on the shipping costs and bundling. So you can pretty much get anywhere. Right now, we only have the two price ranges. So we started a premium product. I call it ultra premium because it gave us more ability to play with the ingredients and really have premium products in a premium product because it's a blend. And so our legacy is a limited release $199 bottle. one sold out. We're on to now. And then we've got Explorer, which is a 60s mid 60s to $69 product. That's the one that's finished in the in the woods around the world. And then we have another product that's going to be coming out. We haven't discussed it yet, but that's going to be in the 40 ish range. Okay. And I think that's going to really be a nice entry point for people. But and so the goal is different people have accessibility to it. Unfortunately, the 200, not everybody can afford that. So we've been trying to move down the tiers and make sure that we still produce a very high quality product. But, you know, now the next one will be much more attainable.

Kerry:
Okay. And do you guys have any idea what was being shipped to me that hopefully will arrive here before we're off this call?

Raj:
Ari, was it Explorer or was it Legacy? I don't know.

Ari:
I think it may have been samples of each.

Kerry:
Oh, nice. Great. Perfect. That would be great because I would love to play with that with Chef Louise when she gets back from Italy. Okay. And then so what is the five-year plan for the company?

Raj:
It's funny, I don't know if I really think fully five years out because we're so new, but I try to think one, three, and five. Five being harder to predict, but if I had to say where do I want to be in five years, it would be to have a company that has a full breadth of products that allow almost everyone to be able to afford it and enjoy it. We have a platform. And he said, I want to do this. And I said, well, I'll do it, but I want a charitable angle to it. And he totally agreed. So we're going to be starting this. We're calling it the band of gypsies. And we'll be talking about it beginning of next year, probably end of this year, where we're going to be elevating people's inspirational stories. And that'll be a really important part of this story is because we really want to show how it's an inclusive brand. And these are going to be very diverse voices that you probably have never seen before, but are really inspirational. So I'm hoping that that, that message, that, that concept of this brand, which is an, you know, no borders, not in a box inclusive of everybody in five years, everybody like says, looks at it and says, wow, this is a, we, we love this brand.

None:
We love the story. We love the people involved.

Raj:
That's, that's my goal in five years, no monetary goals, no volume goals. It's, it's more about where the brand sits in people's minds.

Kerry:
Got it. And Ari, what do you think? What do you want to do? What do you want to bring to the table in these next five years?

Ari:
I agree with everything Raj just said. We're all aligned on that point. I look forward to Legacy is an annual release right now, our Legacy series. Explore is a series of releases featuring these various woods. So I can imagine five years from now, we have a library of a dozen or more products that together express what we're trying to achieve here. And that each product in and of itself It tells a story about why we created it. It extends the conversation about each of the categories that we're dealing with. I look forward to our portfolio of international whiskeys continuing to increase as new whiskeys become available. We're able to procure them and experiment with them in blends. I love the idea that While a lot of folks see whiskey or a particular distillate as a product in and of itself, we also think about how it can play and work with other whiskeys, and how they can be blended together in order to achieve something new and better, greater than the sum of their parts. And I think having the product guide rails for each of our, for the legacy and the Explorer and the other products that we're releasing gives us a lot of latitude to explore and to do things that haven't really happened in the whiskey industry before.

Kerry:
Nice. Well, I can't wait to taste it with Chef Louise and see what she comes up with. Gentlemen, thank you so much for taking time out today to talk to us about the company. I'm really excited to taste it. I'm really excited to see where you guys go. And if Eric wants to create a song about it, we'll be happy to play it on the show. So let me know if that comes out. And where can we follow you if people want to follow social media and all that? Where can they go?

Raj:
They can go to whiskeygypsy.com, J-Y-P-S-I.

Kerry:
Okay. All right. Well, thanks guys.

Raj:
Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate the time.

Kerry:
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, good afternoon. We are here for another edition of World of Wheezy, and with me, of course, is Chef Louise, fresh back from Italy. Hi.

Louise:
Buongiorno! Hello! Although it might be too late for buongiorno, we maybe have moved into buonasera. Oh, maybe. But either way, hello.

Kerry:
How are you? I'm good. So, good afternoon from from LA instead of from from Italy. We desperately missed you. I had several people saying, hey, so is Louise gonna be able to taste our whiskey for this episode? I said, well, if you want to ship it to Italy. And they're like, what? Yeah. Yeah, she's there. She's making some money, working the shows, doing the thing, making the food. That's right. You know, all this stuff.

Louise:
The hustle is real, my friend. The hustle is real.

Kerry:
OK, so we have Eric Church has gone into partnership with the gentleman that we spoke with earlier on the show. And they have come up with Gypsy. And I have not tasted this yet. I let you taste it before I. And then this is the other one they sent me. which you have also tasted, and I have not. But you found something interesting about this one that you thought would be good. So let's pour us a little dram.

Louise:
I did. I did. I was drawn to this as it is called Explorer. I'm very much feeling that these days.

Kerry:
Right with all of the, I mean, after your work, you went around the country for like two weeks, right?

Louise:
Sure did. Yes. I mean, I'm by nature and Explorer. So so cheers. Cheers.

Kerry:
Oh, that's got a beautiful nose. Very interesting. All right, let's see.

Louise:
And delicious.

Kerry:
Wow, that's surprisingly smooth at 103 proof, I believe.

Louise:
I know. I mean, I think that's what was so shocking to me, because it's very, very surprisingly smooth. I in fact, thought that I mean, I don't know what I thought. I was shocked to know that it was 51.5%. And it's actually really light going in.

Kerry:
Usually, even if it's this hot, you can feel a little bit going in.

Louise:
No, not at all. It actually scares me a little bit because it's quite drinkable.

Kerry:
And it does have some amazing legs.

Louise:
Yeah, you can see it. I, well, you know, upon tasting this, the one thing I started thinking about, and of course, I was started thinking about this because it's my mom grew up in Johnson City, Tennessee, which I feel like I've mentioned this numerous times on this podcast. So the Appalachian like people are near and dear to my heart. And so I, I know that sometimes I pair whiskeys with more chefier type dishes and more composed dishes but this one I just felt like the only thing I really want to have with this or make with this is just some good old-fashioned cornbread.

Kerry:
Cornbread you say?

Louise:
I just happen to have cornbread. It appears.

Kerry:
Okay I'm gonna try this with it because you got me very curious about this so let's see.

Louise:
Well it's it's kind of a no-brainer but like It's very on the nose cornbread. Oh my God. And this whiskey. I mean, everyone has had at this point in time, probably whiskey in a dish in which cornbread was on the side, right? Like barbecue or whatever. But it

Kerry:
You nailed it with this. I mean, I could just snack on this all day. Since Halloween is upon us, I was able to find probably one of the last available bottles of Samhain from Dingle, which is the one that we, A, won the award for the episode, but that's the one that we highlighted in season two premiere. And I was having that, and I found these pita chips that were cinnamon sugar from Costco, and I was eating them first, and I was like, ooh, I'm gonna have a little tipple of my Samhain. And I, oh my God. I was like, this is the most random pairing, but like, it was so good. And then a friend came over and I said, you have to try this. And she's like, okay. So I had her take a sip and she's like, oh, that's hot. She's not a whiskey person. And then I said, now eat this chip. And she goes, oh my God. And then she had another sip. She goes, oh, that totally changes everything. And she's like, I was.

Louise:
That's kind of a really awesome example of like, highbrow lowbrow pairings where you're like i've got this bad 165 dollar bottle of this and i'm putting it with some cosco chips that none that nonetheless are pita chips with cinnamon and sugar on them but hey listen so if it works it works if it works it works that's all that matters okay so i know that you were telling me how um people in tennessee they kind of make their

Kerry:
Cornbread a little bit different than I would probably have it here in California. So let's talk about that a little bit.

Louise:
Oh, so well, okay, we'll start with I can't speak for all the people of Tennessee, right? I can only speak for how my mom makes cornbread and how her family made cornbread. They are from East Tennessee. I can't speak for the entirety of Tennessee, of course. No one thinks I'm a spokesperson for that state. I can only tell you how my mom made cornbread. She doesn't make it so much anymore. She old, so that's fine. But how I had it growing up was very much how my mom would make it and all my relatives that are from eastern Tennessee, right? And they actually made cornbread that was savory. In fact, I'm not sure there was even a stitch of sugar in their cornbread at all. It was more of like this very dense, corn cake that would be cooked in an iron skillet. Nice. And it was generally eaten, how we ate it was as a base for beans. So a common dinner would be a pot of beans, could be pinto beans, any different type of bean, but generally it was pinto beans with a ham hock. And then you would eat it poured over the top of cornbread and some coleslaw on the side. And that's dinner done. That's it. I have some coleslaw too actually. So, I know of it as a very savory, dry thing. Now, this style of cornbread, if you just hand it to somebody, hey, taste this cornbread, and they are used to eating the cornbread of pretty much the rest of the country where it's mixed with regular flour, it's got some sugar in it, it's like what is referred to as like a northern cornbread, a northern style cornbread, which is what we also get out here in California. That is what most people, I would say, that are not from very specific areas of the South are used to eating. So the other one doesn't quite translate to them.

Kerry:
So there's never any like dipping it in the honey butter.

Louise:
No, it's actually kind of too dry and crumbly to even do that. It's meant to be either, I mean, so much so that the day after, like day old cornbread in our house, now this is a crazy one. My mom and dad. Chicken feed? No, no, no. My mom and dad would take the old cornbread and crumble it into a glass and pour buttermilk over it. And my dad would add a few cracks of black pepper and maybe a little bit of salt and eat it with a spoon. This is so old school. And by the way, when I was growing up, every time they would do this, I was like, that is disgusting. Because imagine a kid looking at this and it's like sludge in a glass that your dad is eating. There's nothing more disgusting than that.

Kerry:
however as an adult i'm like you know what haven't had it haven't had it since i was a child but i probably would like it that reminds me of a dish that um my grandfather used to have that my mom also had and it was sour cream bananas and then added sugar and i And as a child, sour cream, gross, because it was not good. And I'm like, why are you doing that? And then my mom's like, you just have to taste it. I said, Well, that's just gross. And she goes, No, taste it. And then when you add the sugar and the bananas, all of a sudden sour cream is this beautiful little dessert, but it was like a breakfast meal that they would have.

Louise:
Well, this is what these were the things that came out of like depression era babies and stuff like that. I mean, it's like you didn't have access to all sorts of stuff and you certainly weren't going to throw anything away so even that rock hard cornbread wasn't going anywhere you know. I love it. So anyway but I think with this whiskey I mean if I was making cornbread I'd splash some into the batter for sure I think you could easily make like if you wanted to have some butter and some honey or whatever you could make a whiskey honey or a a whiskey maple or something like that.

Kerry:
So this has, uh, this comes with, it's from French oak, uh, from the Troncaille, I can't know if I'm saying that right, forest, uh, with the sweetness of Appalachian oak. Um, and it's got a little, like it tells you all the flavor notes on the back. or what they think the flavor notes are because you know, but it's a 66 corn, 30 rye and 4% malted barley, which is probably why I like it because it's a relatively high rye, which of course, we love, love the high rye. But yeah, no, this is great. And these Appalachian oak staves, I think, really help that explore thing. Well, Louise, I think this is a great pairing, obviously, because I just chowed down on my, my muffin is gone. And yeah, so the next time we have you, I can't guarantee that I will happen to have what you want to pair it with it. I can't believe I actually had this in house while you I know that that kind of never happened.

Louise:
No, but I also don't ever know what I'm going to pair until I'm sitting right here tasting it.

Kerry:
And then I'm like, and when you said cornbread, I was like, whoa, I actually have cornbread right now. It's crazy.

Louise:
Yeah, my moments of genius sometimes only happen in the moment. Because talk to me 10 minutes from now and I will probably have forgotten what I've even talked about. Well, I don't even need 10 minutes. I will need about five seconds.

Kerry:
In podcast form. Yes, exactly. Louise, thank you.

Louise:
We will see you next time. You got it. See you next time.