Fog City Social (BRC S4 E2)

00:01.15
Kerry
Hello, good evening, good morning, good afternoon, whatever time it is that you are catching the show today. Today on the show, we are gonna talk with, hold on a second.

00:08.49
Marcello Grande
Sure.

00:09.26
Kerry
um How do you pronounce here? and suppose

00:12.09
Marcello Grande
Marcello Prime.

00:14.38
Kerry
Hello, good evening, good afternoon, whatever time it is you're catching the show today, today on the show. I have the pleasure of talking to Marcello Grande, who I spoke with several times last year at the Fog City Social. We went out, we shot a bunch of stuff. It was fantastic, had a great time, met a lot of whiskeys. Unfortunately, the sound equipment failed us terribly. So we are now going to interview Marcello. And I also have some other interviews that are going to come up later in the show.

00:41.22
Kerry
And we will show you what we kind of shot before, but more to the point, I'm going to get you all excited about the Fog City Social this year in April of 2025. Welcome to the show, Marcello. How are you today?

00:53.49
Marcello Grande
I'm fantastic, thanks for having me, Kerry.

00:55.74
Kerry
Thanks for being here. Okay. So you are part of the San Francisco Whiskey Society.

01:00.39
Marcello Grande
I am.

01:01.65
Kerry
And did you start it? Are you the president? What's your role? Give me all that information.

01:06.13
Marcello Grande
um these are These are really good questions. Technically, I did help start the San Francisco Whiskey Society, which was an offshoot of San Francisco Whiskey Bourbon and Scotch Society due to some unfortunate leadership mishaps and too many letters in the name where you like to say, ah you know, we're SFWBSS minus the BS.

01:19.85
Kerry
That's a big name.

01:30.29
Marcello Grande
and Ultimately, jokes aside, we're the exact same club with the exact same members and the exact same leaders. And so that that club started, I believe, in 2017. And I joined in 2018 just as a member and pretty quickly started participating and you know providing tasting notes. And I had a ah program called Whiskey 101 where I was working with brands and other people in the community to just kind of expose our members to things that they might not have tried before or thought about and really kind of in the spirit of really just wanting everybody to feel comfortable and confident in their ability to talk about whiskey regardless of where they thought they might be on the spectrum of expert, right? Like, hey, did you just discover whiskey yesterday? What do you taste in your glass? It's okay. If you're like, it smells like old shoes. Okay, cool. Let's talk about that.

02:23.70
Kerry
Wait, I haven't smelled that one. We gotta taste that. Okay.

02:27.02
Marcello Grande
and And so, you know from there, you know building up Whiskey 101 and eventually it became something called the Quality Poor, I was asked to join our our sort of leadership team and take on marketing. One of my key initiatives was to put on a whiskey festival for our members as like the biggest member benefit that we could possibly offer. And so we we started,

02:52.63
Marcello Grande
doing that by figuring out what we were going to call it and we named it Fog City Social and it was it was really roll thank you Roland who um who is who is the president of the club um who said hey let's let's put this thing together and we we did it via volunteer army we've got incredible members who are so dedicated to the whiskey and spirits community and we hosted that first event at wingtip in san francisco which is a was a private club next to the

02:58.15
Kerry
great name

03:03.83
Kerry
Great name.

03:21.99
Marcello Grande
trans-american building.

03:23.23
Kerry
Oh no, it was.

03:23.62
Marcello Grande
And I think they changed the name of the club, so Wingtip is no longer there, but it's something else.

03:24.23
Kerry
It didn't go away.

03:30.38
Kerry
so my Okay.

03:31.97
Marcello Grande
But you know, at first that first that first event was kind of like, a can we do it? Can we get people to show up? do Will people wanna pay? And we tried to make it as, and we still are as absolutely accessible as possible because we don't do it for money, right? We we put on this event to bring the community together of like real spirits drinkers, real whiskey lovers and incredible brands and kind of just like slow things down and we did and and we had I think about 250 people in our first year which really kind of like it filled up that little space if anyone yeah your listeners has been to wingtip before you know 250 people at wingtip is like

04:06.33
Kerry
Well, that's not bad. Yeah.

04:16.18
Marcello Grande
um And then after that, everyone heard about it. And they're like, oh my God, I can't believe we didn't go. We couldn't make it or we thought it was going to be terrible. And um and and from there, we've expanded and ah found venues that allow us to bring more people from the community together. so

04:33.65
Kerry
So um how many different venues have we used? Have we used a different one each year?

04:38.56
Marcello Grande
we have out of necessity. So in year one it was actually at Wingtip. In year two it was supposed to be at Wingtip and we were really going to cram it in, but there was a massive power outage in in the financial district.

04:50.53
Kerry
I don't know.

04:51.67
Marcello Grande
And it forced us to go to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. So we did that and we hosted it outside there um up above the waterfall. And it was fun. It was it was pretty awesome and gave us more room.

05:03.69
Marcello Grande
ah But it got cold. And, you know, at just the time when people were maybe kind of ready for last call, it started getting cold. So nature helped us to kind of close out the

05:12.23
Kerry
kick everybody out

05:14.10
Marcello Grande
And then last year, Fog City Social 3, we hosted at Harborview off of Embarcadero, which is a beautiful space overlooking the very terminal plaza, and you were there with us.

05:24.56
Kerry
great space. I loved it.

05:25.96
Marcello Grande
It's a great space, but we outgrew it. you know We outgrew um the space.

05:30.15
Kerry
It was a little tight, but I mean, you had, you had, it was a, it was a big space. So I'm excited to see The place you're going to get for this year, because if it's going to be bigger how many how many ah how many whiskey brands, do you have coming this year.

05:43.97
Marcello Grande
It's kind of a trick question. So we had frequently portfolios come last year, right?

05:49.38
Kerry
Okay.

05:50.20
Marcello Grande
And so the way I think about a portfolio is essentially um a portfolio brand would be, ah it could be a distributor, it could be um an importer, and each of them is gonna have a bevy of different spirits that they're gonna bring to the table.

06:07.83
Marcello Grande
So we had probably well over 1,000 different whiskeys out

06:08.54
Kerry
All right.

06:12.87
Kerry
Yeah, it was a lot.

06:13.57
Marcello Grande
last year. And because we know that our crowd likes to drink more than whiskey and our brands want to share things that they have in their portfolio. We also had, we had Rums, we had Armagnac, we had Cognac, we had Gin, we had Vodka, we had Baju, we had California Brandi.

06:31.16
Kerry
The baiji was good.

06:33.50
Marcello Grande
Yeah, we've got more Baju coming this year as well.

06:34.08
Kerry
The baiji was good.

06:37.34
Kerry
Okay.

06:38.16
Marcello Grande
and we had cocktails and we had mixers and so we're a really diverse club and of course I think 99% of the people in the club enjoy drinking whiskey of all kinds but they bring friends they bring their spouses or significant others and not everybody likes whiskey as much as we do and it's awesome to be able to kind of walk around and try the other things that are just as good so

06:54.93
Kerry
Yep. Right.

07:02.48
Kerry
Yeah, that's cool. So do you think you're going to have 50 portfolios again this year.

07:07.14
Marcello Grande
I think we will have at least 50 portfolios this year, yes.

07:10.29
Kerry
Awesome.

07:11.33
Marcello Grande
Yeah, we we just went public with our announcement to brands and to San Francisco Whiskey Society two weeks ago. And we already have a ah pretty good chunk of brands who have signed up and that are on board our new venue.

07:27.35
Marcello Grande
It's got a lot of room. We could technically have thousands of people there, but we're inviting 800 guests this year.

07:30.70
Kerry
Wow.

07:33.39
Marcello Grande
Last year we had about 650, which is why it felt tight, right?

07:37.47
Kerry
Yeah, that was a little tight. I mean, coming off of COVID, I was like, oh, where's my mask? It was a little tight.

07:43.27
Marcello Grande
it Well, was it was raining last year. And so the the intention with outdoor space was going to be you know full of brands.

07:45.93
Kerry
Yeah, it was.

07:50.51
Kerry
Yeah.

07:50.70
Marcello Grande
And it was like, well, we can't you know nobody wants to be sopping wet outside, except for the people who enjoyed our our cigar lounge, which we'll have again this year.

07:54.53
Kerry
Right, exactly.

07:57.60
Kerry
Right. Which is where you and I spoke um for the interview that didn't get found.

08:03.69
Marcello Grande
Yeah, exactly. that is That's OK. We're here today.

08:07.73
Kerry
Yeah, we are. Okay, so um how many of the brands that you had last year. Do you think are coming back for a repeat visit.

08:16.88
Marcello Grande
I would imagine all of them will be back for repeat visit. And as you know, it's it's ah it's a challenging time for brands, right? it's ah it's ah It's a time where brands really need to evaluate how and where they're spending their money.

08:30.34
Marcello Grande
And one of the things that I truly believe in my heart that we are creating with Fog City Social is a space where brands really understand that this is a place where they can connect with their real consumers, where they have a pretty significant share of wallet, and that those brands that are returning are coming back because

08:42.74
Kerry
Right.

08:49.87
Marcello Grande
They saw the value um and we do something that is not very common at spirits festivals, which is we allow brands to actually sell alcohol. Now they don't actually pass a bottle over to us, but we use QR codes through our retail partner network and allow them to choose what they want to sell at the event.

09:02.68
Kerry
Right.

09:10.68
Marcello Grande
um Sometimes it's allocations. Sometimes its it's whatever they choose, right? And so you get exposed to something really interesting. You might not know where to find it. You can scan the QR code as a guest, and you can immediately pop that bottle into your shopping cart, pay for it, and then have it either shipped to you or go pick it up if you live locally you know sometime in the next week, which is awesome.

09:33.07
Kerry
That's awesome.

09:33.45
Marcello Grande
I really like that.

09:35.00
Kerry
And is it all coming from one shop in San Francisco or is there other places that they're sending it from?

09:43.12
Marcello Grande
you know It's wholly dependent on the individual ah brand portfolio and how they want to manage it. so We work with a retail partner and we always pick one.

09:54.39
Marcello Grande
We try to support like all parts of the tiered system.

09:57.78
Kerry
Yeah.

09:58.51
Marcello Grande
We're really close with you know bars, we're close with liquor stores and distributors and of course directly with brands. And then a lot of a lot of our portfolio brands have their own distribution channels, and so they'll want to run it through that.

10:11.13
Marcello Grande
But either way, it works out the same. And we try to encourage you know something like 10% below retail on on all bottles sold at at Fox City Social. And we don't take any proceeds for that.

10:21.80
Marcello Grande
that's That's all just, hey, look, you're here to connect with people. If they love what you're doing, like give them access.

10:25.46
Kerry
Yep.

10:28.45
Marcello Grande
you know

10:28.82
Kerry
Right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, ah so for this year, what is the price for a ticket?

10:36.93
Marcello Grande
So the price per ticket is about the same as it's been. I think it's $135 for San Francisco Whiskey Society members. And then I believe it's $145 for all other Whiskey Clubs on the West Coast, right? Or the say the West, right? So um that's one of the things we've done this year. We've invited Whiskey Clubs um from from the West Coast to attend, and we've given all of them a code to attend.

11:09.10
Marcello Grande
So they can come hang out. We're all part of the same community. And $10 from their ticket gets donated back to their club or to a charity of their choice, which we think is pretty cool. um And then general admission tickets, I believe they're $155 or $165. So if you want to bring grandma, that's awesome. We want a meter.

11:28.28
Marcello Grande
um And anybody who's a member of a club is allowed to bring one non-member with the member price. So we try to make it as easy as possible.

11:39.38
Marcello Grande
And it's it's a pretty it's a pretty sick value because, first of all, for your listeners, we don't do this for profit. We do this just to put on the event.

11:47.42
Kerry
Right.

11:48.99
Marcello Grande
And it's super expensive.

11:50.95
Kerry
yeah

11:51.73
Marcello Grande
right it's It's fully catered with ah with a Michelin Bib Gourmand and James Beard award-winning restaurant.

11:58.35
Kerry
yeah

11:58.50
Marcello Grande
It's a beautiful space. We have security. It's private. But every ticket comes with a tote bag, as you would expect at a legit festival, a tasting glass, um usually some other cool things in the bag, and yes, our festival bottle.

12:14.83
Marcello Grande
something Something that is worth more than the ticket.

12:18.98
Kerry
Yeah.

12:20.16
Marcello Grande
so Yeah, this was last year's festival.

12:22.16
Kerry
We lined up. We lined up for this bad boy last year.

12:24.83
Marcello Grande
Yes.

12:25.17
Kerry
It was big and a few little Fog City social.

12:28.02
Marcello Grande
Every single ticket includes a festival bottle.

12:30.80
Kerry
Yep. It's a 2022 edition.

12:31.97
Marcello Grande
So yeah, that.

12:33.73
Kerry
I don't know how to say this, so I'm going to let you say that.

12:35.31
Marcello Grande
It says Sanuki.

12:36.81
Kerry
How is it? Senuki. Senuki Japanese with you.

12:39.25
Marcello Grande
Yeah, that means legit whiskey.

12:40.71
Kerry
Really good.

12:42.31
Marcello Grande
That bottle retails for $200 plus.

12:45.90
Kerry
Yeah.

12:46.58
Marcello Grande
ah That's the retail price. And so everybody gets a bottle of, of you know, festival bottle with their ticket. And this year we have another stunning ah festival bottle.

12:57.71
Kerry
Can you tell us what it is? Hey, can you tell me?

13:00.94
Marcello Grande
It's always a secret.

13:01.57
Kerry
Can you tell me when we get off?

13:04.28
Marcello Grande
This festival bottle is always a super secret until we usually reveal it like two, three days before the event because we don't want people to um just buy a ticket to come get the bottle, which is what some people do.

13:04.24
Kerry
He's like, no.

13:14.95
Kerry
Right.

13:16.41
Marcello Grande
They'll just buy a ticket, like they'll find out a couple of days before and they'll be like, oh, I'll buy the ticket because it's like 50 bucks less than buying the bottle.

13:22.55
Kerry
Right. in The bottle, right. Yeah.

13:24.54
Marcello Grande
are

13:24.63
Kerry
Um, do you have this bottle with you still or is yours gone?

13:28.65
Marcello Grande
um um Well, i've actually, fun fact, I buy my own ticket to the event, even though I'm the host of the event.

13:32.95
Kerry
you

13:36.31
Marcello Grande
I support the community, and I bought a ticket for myself, a ticket for my wife, and a ticket for my brother, and so I got three bottles, and I killed one of them, and I got two bottles.

13:43.17
Kerry
and Nice, nice. ah so Same. I had you know the two tickets for me and my brother-in-law. I got one, he got one. and he still He's not a whiskey guy, but he hadn't opened his because we only drank out of mine. and um His uncle is a big whiskey guy. and so Every time his uncle comes out like, hey, Kerry, Jimmy's here. You guys can go drink your whiskey. and so ah ah we We sent him the bottle and for Christmas and he was over the moon.

14:12.45
Kerry
so

14:12.68
Marcello Grande
it is It is a really, I mean, you open drawers, it's a very approachable and and beautiful whiskey.

14:16.19
Kerry
yeah

14:19.53
Marcello Grande
it's um I think it's really easy for people who might be a bit afraid of like, you know, stronger proof whiskeys. It's got beautiful wine cask finish and it's lovely.

14:30.20
Kerry
And it's a little bit peated. And then we also got these really cute Fog City social glasses, which I really love. So I was going to partake and have some of this with you if you have yours nearby. I don't know if you do.

14:43.35
Marcello Grande
Fortunately, I don't. um But I mean, I do i do have whiskey. I think we could have a pour together.

14:49.36
Kerry
Let's do, let's have a pour together.

14:50.57
Marcello Grande
All right.

14:53.95
Marcello Grande
All right. I've got one of my i've got my personal favorites that I just opened recently on on my on my desk in my office.

15:02.26
Kerry
Okay, what's that?

15:03.87
Marcello Grande
So I just picked this up. It was a pre-order from K and&L.

15:06.32
Kerry
Oh my God, look at that. That's a funny label.

15:08.41
Marcello Grande
yeah Redacted Bros, and this is a 1996 Ben Nevis cast strength refill sherry cask.

15:21.18
Marcello Grande
I'm a big collector of Ben Nevis.

15:23.31
Kerry
can Can you pour me some? Here's my glass. Just pour it right right there.

15:27.64
Marcello Grande
we'll we'll have to We'll have to have you come come by for for a little tasting. We do tastings periodically where at least I do thematic tastings.

15:36.46
Kerry
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I you know i i have actually, ah ah many of my audience knows for season two, I went to Ireland. So we um we were doing tastings ah with all the Irish brands here in l LA and showing the episodes. And then also, for those of you out there who want to come relive that beautiful trip that I took in May,

16:00.87
Kerry
ah eight lucky people who have about five grand can do this eight day excursion where we cover all of the all of the distilleries that I went to, including ones that you cannot take tours of, but we will be able to take tours.

16:14.81
Kerry
Plus a little Game of Thrones, a little Titanic, you know, a little fun. So yeah, it's pretty good.

16:18.37
Marcello Grande
That's a good deal.

16:20.50
Kerry
It's pretty good. So ah get on that, people. what The link will be, well, the commercial will be in this anyway, so you'll find it. um Okay, so last year, I talked to people from New Rift, Bardstown's Bourbon Company,

16:33.92
Kerry
um my gosh like i haven't even drank yet bardstown bourbon company

16:37.47
Marcello Grande
here

16:37.81
Kerry
Ming River, which was, was that the baiju, the Ming River?

16:40.48
Marcello Grande
yeah mean

16:41.27
Kerry
That was really good. They gave us these cute little cups, which at the moment I don't know where mine is.

16:44.68
Marcello Grande
but They're even smaller. They're like these little beautiful mini

16:46.23
Kerry
yeah as te It's like a thimble with a little stem. It's so adorable. um my My best buds, Klondikelty, which is part of the tour for for the the tour if you take it, and we're going to make our own gin at Klondikelty.

16:59.07
Marcello Grande
fine yeah.

16:59.21
Kerry
Old Hillside, Westland, which we'll talk with um with them later in the episode. Uh, Glendronik got to talk to my buddy Rory from San Francisco. Love him. It's always good to see him. Uh, Bhakta, which I went to Bhakta last year in February, um, which y'all probably saw that episode already where I shot everything in Vermont and got to talk to the master blender. That was fun. And, uh,

17:22.18
Kerry
And I talked to Tom a little bit in that episode, but this episode, we'll talk to Tom quite a bit. And then um Fry Ranch, which is also a friend of the show, been on the show several times and about to be on the show again.

17:32.69
Kerry
um And then I also talked to West, Westward and a few others. Oh, and of course, ah one of my favorites, 10th Street. 10th Street out of San Jose.

17:41.14
Marcello Grande
Yeah.

17:42.20
Kerry
San Jose is where I was born and raised. So when I found out they had a distillery, on 10th Street, which is now on 4th Street. I love it, but I thought that was funny because my first year of college, I went to San Jose State University and one of the streets on the one side is 10th and the other side is 4th. So I was like, are you guys at the school? And then I found out, oh, no, they're up the street a little bit. but Um, yeah, so and they are great. Um, I've worked with them since then. Uh, I did some, um, uh, brand ambassador stuff at the scotch, the Pete and meet in this last summer and, uh, our season finale, which should have already happened by the time this airs. Um, not finale, sorry. The season premiere, uh, was a distillery tour, uh, with, with them, which is fantastic.

18:30.92
Kerry
So that's ah who I kind of talked to in general. There was many, many more, um many, many more brands.

18:36.19
Marcello Grande
There were many, many more, so many.

18:38.86
Kerry
um So tell me when, so last year you got to see all the brands, you worked with other brands. Who was your favorite brand to work with and who was your favorite brand to taste?

18:50.06
Marcello Grande
Oh my God, that is such a horrible question to ask me, okay.

18:52.64
Kerry
Isn't it? Isn't it?

18:54.80
Marcello Grande
One of the things I get poked for a bit is that I have a really broad, diverse whiskey palette. I truly do. um I love a lot of whiskeys. You see, I'm ah i'm a Ben Nevis collector and fan, but i'm I drink bourbon. I've got a Mictus 20 on my cabinet over here that I was drinking for my birthday recently.

19:15.36
Marcello Grande
um I like Pete. I like Sherry Cass. I like this stuff. I love this stuff that Mark Oksavich does and Charbet. I love California Brandies. So in terms of who were my favorites last year, all the brands are my favorites. And and I say that through a political lens in that.

19:36.74
Kerry
Right.

19:37.30
Marcello Grande
um First of all, i really I really do like most of the whisky that I try and I kind of grade it on the scale of, is it good or is it bad whisky? I want to understand what about this particular whisky makes it unique and makes it good.

19:54.04
Marcello Grande
um We're all part of the same the same community and just the fact that brands are coming out and working really hard to kind of like get their product from an idea to a glass, especially for the new brands that we invite because we have a program for new younger brands. um we We want them to be able to display. But in terms of my personal favorites, things that I tried last year that I remember right now,

20:18.15
Marcello Grande
um I drank some Dofemil that was really great for for those of of you out there who have had the opportunity to try Dofemil.

20:21.65
Kerry
Okay.

20:29.20
Marcello Grande
I think it's fantastic. it's It's not something that's easily obtainable. And I was surprised to even see it at our event. And I was really psyched about that. I think we had a 12-year-old Dofemil.

20:41.53
Marcello Grande
It's a beautiful so beautiful scotch. i had I want to say I had a ah glass of oak potany. It was 35 years old.

20:48.76
Kerry
Oh yes, the old Pulteney was really good. I had the old Pulteney and I'm just now noticing that my hair is standing up on end.

20:52.72
Marcello Grande
that that

20:56.01
Kerry
Sorry. Hold on. We're going to pause for just a second.

20:57.81
Marcello Grande
Okay.

20:59.27
Kerry
If I can find my There we go. Hold on.

21:03.40
Marcello Grande
We, yeah, the oak potany was really great.

21:03.60
Kerry
Yes, I i had that old Pulteney. It was really good. Yeah.

21:08.51
Marcello Grande
um I was introduced to, from one of the brands who was their Pocono, which is it a New Zealand city.

21:19.86
Kerry
Yes. New Zealand, yes.

21:24.68
Marcello Grande
And i'm I'm probably going to get this slightly incorrect, but there's a there's an there's an influence of Manuka wood on the Pocono. And I just found it to be fantastic. It's you know it's hot in New Zealand. you know I was told that there are some sort of parallels in terms of how aging works with Taiwanese whiskey. out ah on But I think the um The influence of Manuka, which is, you know, Manuka honey, this the same kind of wood, really added a floral sweetness and bouquet to this whiskey that was ah four years old, but tasted like it was somewhere around eight to 10 years old.

22:00.78
Kerry
Yeah.

22:04.53
Marcello Grande
It was really lovely. I went out and bought a couple of bottles. um

22:08.88
Kerry
Did you use the scanner, the little QR code?

22:11.81
Marcello Grande
I did. yeah

22:12.91
Kerry
um good ah

22:13.72
Marcello Grande
convict um yeah you know um And then I have like a couple of geeky favorites that were that were there.

22:20.86
Kerry
OK.

22:22.50
Marcello Grande
um you know i'm I'm a big fan of California brandy as well. And so it was sort of like the idea that Argonaut and Jaman Robin were there um is something that's just personally special to me.

22:35.17
Marcello Grande
And they brought a couple of older, ah dusty, impossible to find bottles that they made available for sale, which I thought was super awesome. awesome and not you know at at regular retail prices from like 10 years ago, which is incredible.

22:51.70
Kerry
That's really cool.

22:52.15
Marcello Grande
Compass Box was there. They're phenomenal. And then something we did last year, Kerry, that we've never done before that was really cool was we brought out our San Francisco Whiskey Society barrel picks.

23:04.98
Kerry
Oh, yeah.

23:05.03
Marcello Grande
And I brought about 20 different bottles from the archives.

23:05.22
Kerry
yeah

23:09.50
Marcello Grande
um And so I spent a good hour and a half just pouring ah with with Jamie from from our leadership team. And people were like, oh my god, I've seen pictures of that.

23:20.89
Marcello Grande
That was before my time. Or oh, I never got to try that. Or I didn't buy that one. I didn't think it was going to be good. I'm such a dummy. like I should have gotten it.

23:28.77
Kerry
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

23:30.79
Marcello Grande
So that was super cool, because it was great to just kind of engage in dialogue and pretend to be a brand ambassador for a bit. So I like that.

23:38.46
Kerry
That's fun. So this year, um what, if anything, is going to be different or more exciting besides the fact that you've invited these other ah clubs to come in?

23:48.39
Marcello Grande
Sure. Well, ah this year we're adding a little more time, all right? So we're giving people just a little more time. um For those of your listeners and and folks in your club who were there last year, we had some challenges with registration.

24:04.40
Marcello Grande
We have an entirely new registration system we want to get people in quickly and so that should be pretty easy.

24:08.18
Kerry
Great.

24:10.83
Marcello Grande
We've just got much more space and we've got much more food and I think we're going to have many more brands and we're working really hard to bring some big names in bourbon to the table this year and we've got some surprises up our sleeves but um we've heard from members that Hey, look, like we want more bourbon.

24:28.54
Marcello Grande
We know that that we have kind of some big American whiskey fans. they want They want more of the big name rise. And I would say that if you come to Fox City Social 2025, you're probably going to be pretty excited if that's your jam.

24:44.07
Kerry
Okay.

24:44.55
Marcello Grande
So yeah.

24:45.15
Kerry
What about ah the newly minted American single malt? Are you guys going to have any American single malts there to celebrate the fact that we have a new category officially?

24:51.49
Marcello Grande
Oh my god.

24:55.34
Marcello Grande
we We've been ahead of the curve on the American single malt category. I mean, we did we did club picks of American single malt. We've got, you know, yes, absolutely yes. I think you're going to see lots of American single malt.

25:07.95
Marcello Grande
I think you're going to see some really interesting single malts that are also not just from Scotland that are going to be on the table that aren't American.

25:15.26
Kerry
Great.

25:16.84
Marcello Grande
um You're going to see some really interesting finishes. You're going to see some really interesting long-term aging You're going to see whiskies from all over the world. You're going to see whiskies from Taiwan, from Japan, from New Zealand, from um Taiwan actually. we've got We've got something very interesting coming.

25:38.28
Marcello Grande
um It's the only thing like it in the out outside of Taiwan. and It's the first time it's coming to the United States and then premiering at Fog City Social. I'm extremely excited about this brand.

25:49.56
Marcello Grande
It's unique. I've never even heard of this, but it sounds incredible.

25:53.37
Kerry
OK.

25:54.51
Marcello Grande
And all I can say is it has a direct connection to agriculture and to tea. and And it's been around for a long time, but we're just not exposed to it.

26:01.03
Kerry
so and and

26:04.20
Marcello Grande
So I'm psyched about that. We have we have whiskey coming from Israel. We have whiskey coming from everywhere. And we have people coming along with the whiskey to come join us at Fox City Socials.

26:15.16
Marcello Grande
It's not just whiskey coming.

26:15.75
Kerry
fantastic.

26:16.98
Marcello Grande
It's people. We get brand ambassadors. We get distillers. We get blenders. I think the most incredible thing about Fog City Social, truly, and it's the reason why we do it, is that it's an opportunity to go to a place where there's no such thing as VIP.

26:33.31
Marcello Grande
There's no VIP ticket.

26:33.72
Kerry
No, no, everybody's VIP.

26:37.00
Marcello Grande
Everybody's VIP.

26:37.04
Kerry
Everybody's VIP.

26:38.79
Marcello Grande
There's no VIP hour.

26:38.94
Kerry
And you, and you feel, you feel like you're a VIP.

26:40.38
Marcello Grande
There's no here with VIP.

26:42.92
Kerry
I mean, I felt like walking in, I felt like a VIP and not just because I was walking around with camera.

26:43.13
Marcello Grande
Yeah.

26:48.43
Kerry
I felt like I was VIP because that's the way everybody was being treated and I loved it. That was great.

26:53.34
Marcello Grande
that everything that's there is for everybody. So, you you know, you spent time with Bhakta, they were breaking out their 1928 Armin Yaks for everybody, right?

27:01.19
Kerry
Yeah.

27:02.84
Marcello Grande
Like, the whiskies that we had, the scotches that we tried, the stuff that was old and dusty and musty and the stuff that was, you know, just being released, um it's one of the things that we ask brands to carefully consider as part of coming to Fog City Social.

27:03.05
Kerry
Yep.

27:20.63
Marcello Grande
Say, listen, We understand that as part of business, you you need to sell those bottles that we call shelfies, as the taters and in town, the bottles that we know are gonna be at Bevmo and Total Wine, and that's cool.

27:32.89
Marcello Grande
like We want exposure for you. And people can buy them, but we also wanna remind you that you've got a very unique audience here yeah that buys your whiskey.

27:34.91
Kerry
Right.

27:42.05
Marcello Grande
They probably already have all that. So give them something special.

27:45.88
Kerry
Right.

27:46.10
Marcello Grande
And we ask them to tell us in advance what they think they might be able to bring, right? Just to kind of want at least one or two commitments to say, hey, what can you commit to that will be special?

27:54.47
Kerry
Right.

27:57.24
Marcello Grande
We don't tell anybody it's coming. It's really just more as part of that dialogue to say like, hey, this isn't this isn't the other festivals like this is very special.

28:01.83
Kerry
Yep.

28:06.20
Marcello Grande
um And, you know, I'm happy to say that we have actually told brands, hey, look, like, If that's not something you're comfortable with, I don't think we can have you at this year's event because we're full and it's just, it's not that, it's not that kind of thing. Um, but hopefully this year, what we're going to see is we're going to see brands who know, yeah, Foxy social has been good for us. It's a brand. It's exposed us to a lot of people. We've got more people coming. Um,

28:35.32
Marcello Grande
yeah um I'm truly excited. and The space is like, you're not going to be rubbing you know shoulder to shoulder with people. You're going to have plenty of room to just kind of like chill out and move and move about.

28:45.41
Marcello Grande
I don't know how big it is, but I think it's 75,000 square feet on the floor.

28:49.98
Kerry
Wow.

28:51.37
Marcello Grande
so

28:51.63
Kerry
Okay.

28:53.10
Marcello Grande
Last year, I want to say that we were at like 18,000 square feet. So that's, yeah.

28:58.17
Kerry
and Okay.

29:00.63
Marcello Grande
And it's got like a beautiful, you know, glass skylight and windows.

29:04.72
Kerry
whoo

29:05.52
Marcello Grande
It's a historic, it's a historic monument, right? It's it's it's registered with the national historic site, the the post office that people enter in. It's this gorgeous art deco space that's been totally mural.

29:17.08
Kerry
wow

29:17.79
Marcello Grande
That's fun.

29:19.28
Kerry
And how close is it to the place you had last year?

29:21.65
Marcello Grande
It's like two blocks away. It's one right off Embarcadero.

29:23.18
Kerry
Oh, great.

29:25.42
Marcello Grande
We've got deals with hotels. You can take the ferry in. You can take Bardin. You can Uber in. You can have someone drop you off. And if you live down the street, good for you. You can walk, right?

29:36.55
Marcello Grande
so Yeah, you probably can.

29:38.14
Kerry
Great. Well, good. then i and Then I could probably get the same hotel I got last year. That'd be fantastic. All right. So let's talk about last year's bottle real quick.

29:48.14
Marcello Grande
OK.

29:48.55
Kerry
um How did you guys come across, I mean, how did you pick this one? And how did like did they, did people offer say, Hey, I want to be your bottle. Or did you guys go after specific things? And were you specifically wanting to go with Japanese or with peated or tell me about that?

30:03.85
Kerry
What goes into picking that?

30:04.19
Marcello Grande
Yeah, so I'll tell you as much as I can because really Roland is responsible for our our our picks every year. is is just ah He's a fantastic leader of the club and an amazing member of the community and and he's an an industry insider too, right?

30:24.22
Marcello Grande
We do get approached by brands every year that want to be the you know in the festival ball, which is fantastic. And we and we try it to always say yes, right one way or another. like we want to support We want to support the brands. We were approached by...

30:41.05
Marcello Grande
by the distributor and they said hey we have something really special that we think that you would like and so they talked to us about it and we tried it and we're like wow and this is amazing but we can't afford it you know you realize that our tickets are only you know 135 dollars right like it's just barely enough to to like you know cover the cost of this thing and they sponsored the bottles and

30:54.20
Kerry
Yeah.

31:08.16
Marcello Grande
We have a budget for what it costs per ticket price to kind of pay for the the cost of these bottles. And ah the brands have always been really generous with us and in giving us bottles at their cost.

31:19.55
Marcello Grande
So that's not wholesale, right?

31:19.52
Kerry
That's great.

31:21.41
Marcello Grande
It's like, hey, this is what it costs us to produce. We're sponsoring the event and giving back to the community. But for anybody who's who's into the brand, who who knows, you know, Sanuki, who's familiar with that aging process and and Mars, like,

31:36.58
Marcello Grande
It's kind of unheard of. So when I when i found out that they were going to sponsor us, and this was what we were getting, it was it was kind of a head scratcher for me.

31:47.37
Marcello Grande
I was like, seriously? Like, OK. That's like, you know, Japanese Pappy Van Winkle. Like, come on.

31:53.82
Kerry
Right. Well, I'm going to try it right now because I haven't had it since, uh, since last year when we were, um, you know, oh and it's got some good legs on it too, by the way.

32:02.82
Marcello Grande
really

32:02.78
Kerry
And it's got a ah light peat on the nose. All right. And then you tell me what, what you're drinking and what you're tasting and smelling over there.

32:11.61
Marcello Grande
Yeah, so so this is the 1996 Ben Nevis. Gonna refill, Sherry.

32:18.55
Kerry
I'll see what's nice. It's not as, as most people know, I'm not a big Pete lover. So if it's got Pete, I like it just to be a kiss of Pete.

32:25.39
Marcello Grande
Mm-hmm.

32:26.20
Kerry
And this is just a nice kiss of Pete. It's not like a Pete bomb, which is great. And it's got, it's really nice. It's a great color. Tell me, tell me about your Ben Nevis after you, after you stopped chewing it.

32:35.57
Marcello Grande
Mm.

32:37.93
Kerry
Cause I'm interested in, you know, maybe you should bring a sample of that when I see you in April for me to try.

32:43.15
Marcello Grande
That sounds like a good deal. I would be happy to. Well, um the 90s for Ben Nevis for me are like kind of a sweet spot. I don't know why.

32:53.48
Marcello Grande
They just taste a little different. I found this out by accident, um picking up you know a bottle of Ben Nevis for the 90s.

32:58.08
Kerry
As you do.

33:01.26
Marcello Grande
It's not easy to get in the US. And I was like, wow, this stuff is really unique.

33:03.23
Kerry
Right.

33:06.56
Marcello Grande
I would say the the closest whiskey to it from for my palate is like a glen rathers um and and a spring bank now they're not the same by any means but they possess some of this they possess similar qualities where there's a little salinity

33:13.75
Kerry
Okay. No. Mm hmm.

33:25.77
Marcello Grande
there's There's warmth, especially with spring banks that may have been cask aged or finished, especially their wine and sherry casks. Glenrellis is the same, right? They do they do some sherry cask aging, but they're not sherry bombs. There's an oiliness to them, and there there are these terpenes that come out that have sort of a ah funk that is just a touch um I would equate it to like, tars and oils, tires.

33:57.09
Marcello Grande
And it's just, it's not overpowering. ah It can be, but it's not overpowering, but it's there.

34:01.69
Kerry
Tires? I don't want to drink tires.

34:04.02
Marcello Grande
it it yeah There's like a, no, there's no, there's no peat here.

34:05.17
Kerry
Is it a smoke you want? Is there a smoke on that?

34:09.60
Kerry
Nope, it's tires.

34:09.71
Marcello Grande
There's smoke, but you get, you get, you get the, you get the rubber and you get sort of some of those, some of those minerals. um And it balances the sweetness so that it doesn't attack you and it's really rich and it's luscious and yeah, I'm just really into it.

34:27.31
Kerry
Um, I think you should be a whiskey writer if you're not already, because you can, uh, give some severe notes. I need, I need help with my, with my notes.

34:37.67
Marcello Grande
i used to I used to do these really elaborate notes and then I saw a meme one time that I thought was hysterical. It's like in the beginning when you first start you know with whiskey, it's like, it's smooth. And then and and and everything tastes, everything taste um everything is is vanilla and caramel.

34:54.06
Kerry
Right.

34:55.06
Marcello Grande
And then you become romantic about it. You're like, oh, I taste this, sex I taste the honeysuckle, I taste the night air. And then you're just like, yeah, it's good.

35:02.44
Kerry
Yeah.

35:05.05
Kerry
Yeah, exactly.

35:05.23
Marcello Grande
thinking you know

35:06.90
Kerry
Exactly. When I, when I first started on my whiskey journey, I i had a, you know, little a little book, a whiskey book. Uh, and then I would write down stuff, but then I noticed, first of all, I have a terrible handwriting, but as the night would go on.

35:20.08
Kerry
my handwriting would get worse. So when I went back to read it, I was like, okay, three tastes in. I don't know what I'm saying here. So then I got an app and then I was like, all right. So then I'm typing in all the stuff and clicking all the things. And then after a while I was like, this is too much effort. I just want to enjoy drinking it. And if, and just remember, and you know, I can make a note. I liked it. I didn't like it. I liked it. I didn't like it. That's it.

35:43.85
Marcello Grande
Well, I don't i don't um write about all the whiskey I drink, but for the ones that I'm either really excited about or that I think I might want to think more about later, I have a little book. And it kind of does some of the work for me because it has charts and stuff.

35:57.14
Kerry
Right, right.

35:58.56
Marcello Grande
And my rule is I will always revisit a whiskey three times before I kind of like make my mind up about it. And so I'll put the notes in when it's a fresh crack. And you know usually those fresh cracks, that's where you get all those like really like intense polarizing flavors that can come out of a bottle, whether you love it or hate it at the beginning. And then maybe two weeks later, it's like a completely different animal.

36:21.29
Marcello Grande
and then a few months later the same and so that's usually how I do and I'll take notes and I'll say do I am I still tasting that like am I still like do I still like it like what was I thinking and um and usually if like across the three tastings I'm I'm still like feeling it I'm like okay great like circle that one and if it's still available if I only bought one it's like maybe I should maybe I should go get another one

36:21.27
Kerry
Yeah.

36:31.01
Kerry
Yeah.

36:44.34
Kerry
ah go back another So when I was at Bardtown Bourbon Festival this year, I got this great book by the forbidden folks, Love Forbidden, um you know, female run and all that.

36:45.85
Marcello Grande
it's

36:51.11
Marcello Grande
Yeah.

36:55.61
Kerry
And it's got a great ah taste chart, nose chart, but then, um you know, it's got all the fun stuff, but then on top of that, and this is what makes it really different.

37:03.09
Marcello Grande
Yes.

37:09.22
Kerry
it has a page with a sleeve so you can put a label so if it's your bottle you can you know peel the label off and stick it in here so which to me is great because sometimes i'll go back and go i really liked it which one was it was it the one with the which lip you know and then you or or you can't remember what it's called but you remember what the label looked like and then you know so i this is i love it um i found it the other day when i was

37:18.09
Marcello Grande
Oh, I love that. that's so cool absolutely

37:37.11
Marcello Grande
I do this game, I try to take the labels off, especially on the special bottles, you know, mementos and such. I found a cigar, when I was younger, um I used to smoke more cigars and I had a little cigar tasting book and I went back into it recently over the holidays um because I had purchased some cigars to smoke with a friend and I was like, oh, I got that book. I wonder if there was anything in there that that I loved and I found a few things and sure enough, like,

38:03.06
Marcello Grande
They don't exist anymore, because I'm old.

38:04.27
Kerry
ah Yeah, i've I've been keeping all my empty bottles and it's getting a little out of hand.

38:05.83
Marcello Grande
But still, the memory of looking at like my notes and the and the little cigar bands and and and did some drawings, that's always fun.

38:19.51
Marcello Grande
which

38:19.86
Kerry
I i decorated the kitchen on the top of the cabinets, I put all these bottles and ah And it's funny because I've done some shooting here and like I did um a sizzle reel here for something and we had to come back later and do a pickup. And I was like, oh no, I've added like 20 bottles. Hold on, I gotta to go take, which ones did I? So and so I had that. And then i now I have a glass cabinet.

38:42.29
Kerry
and that's getting filled And I was like, I just need to take the labels off. And now that I have this, I was like, I just need to take the labels off because I'm keeping the bottles. I mean, there's a couple of bottles that I really like, the actual bottle, but most of it's like, Oh, I really liked, enjoyed this, or I really enjoyed the, you know, the people that I interviewed and I just want to remember, you know, that's what it looks like. So I think I'm going to start. And I actually, before I was into whiskey, I was into wine and I had gotten this, like,

39:06.55
Kerry
label remover like through the wine enthusiasts store or something so it was like this yeah it was like you usually stick it on and then you rub on it and then you just peel it off um yeah it's pretty cool and now i gotta see if i so i think i still have it in my bar downstairs and i just don't know how many sheets i have left so i gotta see if i can find more because i've i've got to start recycling a little bit more of the bottles

39:09.87
Marcello Grande
Oh, okay. Does it work?

39:18.08
Marcello Grande
Okay, I've got a little better.

39:26.85
Marcello Grande
Okay.

39:31.40
Marcello Grande
i can't keep I can't keep the empties, it's just there's not enough space, you know.

39:34.84
Kerry
Exactly. It's, it's getting like I'm closing in on myself in the house because I'm, oh, I literally added two cabinets and some of it's got full whiskey. Some of us got glasses, but there's a lot of empty bottles that just need to.

39:48.64
Marcello Grande
I bet you and I are the only people who have this problem, right? yeah

39:53.68
Kerry
Maybe, maybe not.

39:55.27
Marcello Grande
but

39:56.28
Kerry
I don't know. Um, okay. So I'm really excited about this year's show. Uh, I'm going to call it a show cause it's, it's fun and exciting. Um, and I'm looking forward to seeing some of the repeats, but also some of the, the new, the new people.

40:10.20
Kerry
Um, so you said you're going to give out a code for our BRC listeners out there so that everybody can get a discount.

40:16.60
Marcello Grande
Yeah.

40:17.05
Kerry
Is that what we're doing?

40:18.27
Marcello Grande
Yes.

40:18.38
Kerry
So we'll get a.

40:18.55
Marcello Grande
I don't have it in my head. It's going to be like a complicated, you know, little code, but I will give it to you so that you can, you can share it.

40:22.40
Kerry
Great. great

40:25.23
Marcello Grande
We'll give you a QR code and we'll give you a discount code and and, and, and, and, you know, make the same offer to you too, that, you know, for all the folks who, who listen, um, you know, $10 of their ticket price will go to either a charity of your choice or, or back to the club.

40:28.73
Kerry
Fantastic.

40:42.25
Marcello Grande
Um, but you know, that's the whole idea is about giving back to our community.

40:46.32
Kerry
That is fantastic. I love it. I enjoy it. Thank you so much. So guys, if, if you're looking right now, it'll probably have the QR code right here on the page. If it doesn't definitely look on the show notes on the website.

40:58.31
Kerry
Uh, Marcello, thank you so much for taking your time out and telling us about the Fog City Social and your whiskey club. I think what you guys are doing up there is fantastic. And if I still lived in the Bay area, I would be at every event you do.

41:10.41
Kerry
So, no, it's going to be fun.

41:10.82
Marcello Grande
thank you so much keen yeah can't wait to see you again at fox city so i

41:19.27
Kerry
Where's my mouse? There it is, okay.

41:35.87
Marcello Grande
Thank you so much, Kerry. Yeah, I can't wait to see you again at Fog city.