Inside Corning & Company: The One-Stop Shop for Craft Spirits (S3 E14)

# AI Transcript: BRC S3 E14 - please excuse any typos

Kerry:
Today's Tales from the Still is brought to you by Manscaped.com. No more juggling multiple tools or dealing with subpar results. Just efficient, effective grooming whenever he needs it. Get 20% off plus free shipping when you use code BARRELROOM at the checkout. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, whatever time it is you are catching the show today. Today on the show, I have Adam Spiegel. I ran into Adam online, and he is President and Master Distiller at Corning & Company. I wasn't quite sure what Corning & Company was when I first came across it. So I brought Adam on so he could tell the whole world what Corning & Company is. So Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam:
Thank you for having me. Yeah, so According to Company, originally actually founded sort of pre-Prohibition in Peoria, Illinois, to some historical components to our company name, related to my business partner's great, great, great grandfather. But we have sort of refounded ourselves here in Northern California. in many of the same ways that they did in Peoria. They were doing contract installation, packaging, warehousing, compliance. They were a house of brands for a long time. We're taking that similar business model and trying to inject it here and into just the north of California today and then eventually spreading it to different parts of the state and country as well.

Kerry:
That's fantastic. And you weren't always Corning & Company. You were something else before in your whiskey journey. I usually start out with, tell me about your whiskey journey. So let's back up a little bit. When you were a wee little lad, did you ever find yourself thinking that you would be working in whiskey?

Adam:
When I was little, little, no. Though I would say that my family was always one of those ones during holidays and stuff where there was definitely wine on the table. There was whiskey in the cabinet. I was a kid in – I grew up in San Francisco. My parents used to take me up to wine country all the time. So I was that kid in the tasting rooms who was sort of running around and making a bunch That was in the 80s and 90s. So I've always been exposed to Bevalk. I've really been excited to be able to sort of make my own mark in this space. But I've always loved this sort of celebratory and, you know, the excitement around trying new things and introducing sort of food pairings. And so I've always hoped to be doing something in this space. And I was really excited for the last 14 years to be able to do that.

Kerry:
Okay, so how did you start working in the industry? Is Sonoma's distilling something to do with this, I'm assuming?

Adam:
Yeah, it does. So I started sort of rewind. 2008, I was working in finance. I moved back to the Bay Area having lived in New York for a period of time. And I was working for a company that let go of 600 people in a day because it was a ooh, but tiny little financial crisis in 2008. And so me and 600 people were literally sitting in our parking lot of the company and we had no idea what we're going to do next. And I realized that I did not want to work for somebody else. And I also realized that I really, really wanted to learn how to make something because I was a salesperson. And, you know, as a good salesperson, you're just sort of a mercenary. You go in there and just, who am I going to kill today? And realistically, as a entrepreneur, as a person who wanted to do something from, you know, with my own two hands, you know, I started making beer, right? Because I thought beer is cool. You know, you got some time on my hands. My old roommate was making beer in his garage. Beer quickly turned into wine. Wine turned into grappa, because you've got leftover grape skins and twigs and berries after you do a press. And then that same still we bought, we were taking old beer and turning it into whiskey as well. And so myself and now an old business partner originally started doing that in 2008, 2009, and then started the company in 2010. It's gone through a couple of different names, but the one before Corning & Company was Sonoma Distilling Company. So Sonoma Distilling Company was not just the brand, which still exists and is out there for sale in about eight states today. 15 countries. But then it's also a, it was a brand and a facility. And then so we bifurcated those two things up. We said, Hey, listen, if we're going to get into the contract space, which we've been doing for the last three to four years, it really makes sense to have it be a sort of all encompassing, much bigger corporate entity. And so Corning & Company was brought back to life as a name, as a company name. And that's what we founded as our production packaging warehousing facility. And then Sonoma Distilling is still a brand that Corning & Company makes. And so it's a really nice way to sort of take our, you know, we like to say Corning & Company is this nice Switzerland. So we want to make sure that everyone knows that we're, we have, we have about 40 customers we work with today. All of them have the same amount of weight and care, because we're all, we're all in this together. And supporting Kraft, I think, is going to be the sort of the longevity of what Corning Company does is, you know, providing these ancillary services to continue to let people do what it is they do best and letting us sort of handle all the noisy, tactical stuff that just becomes a nuisance to some.

Kerry:
Right. Okay. So if somebody were to say, Hey, I want to partner with you guys, what exactly could you offer them to do?

Adam:
Sure. We do a bunch of things. So simple terms, they come to us and say, I make a whiskey today. I want to continue making whiskey. I'd love to move my whiskey production to you all. We still have a 3,000 gallon Scottish still. We make lots and lots of whiskey. And so people can come to us and say, hey, either I want to make it or I want to source it. And so I can work with my sourcing partners and bring stuff in, make it, source it, blend it, put into a barrel. We've got barrel rooms here. We've got a total of about 77,000 square feet today of total capacity. Barrel room space is about a third of that. We also do fulfillment and other sorts of warehousing too. So if people come to us and they want us to do fulfillment for their cases to distributors, we can really tackle sort of the soup to nuts that people would need. And it's really about figuring out what their needs are, you know, if they already have a route to market or they need to define a route to market. And it's been really fun. I mean, I've enjoyed always sort of playing the mentor role for a lot of people, especially in the Sonoma County area, who started their distilleries up. I'm usually the first person someone would call and say, Hey, I want to start a distillery. And I'm like, you're crazy, but let's talk. So it was great to be able to figure out, okay, cool. Like, what are the things that are really the problem children, when anybody goes to start a new business, and how can we sort of help alleviate those things. And so, you know, even simple things, just in time inventory. So you're like, cool, I got a new order in, I need to take out another 2000 square feet for storing my glass, like, That's what we used to do. We just would go next door, see if there was another 2000 square foot warehouse anywhere near us, we would sign a year or two lease on it. And we'd probably have that thing half full for half the year. And so you're paying for a whole bunch of space you don't need. So why don't you use Corning and company and use our barrel room space and use our capacity to be able to help you out with that. And then I have to hire more staff to run that warehouse and do inventory management and a whole bunch of stuff. And so Corning, I think, for the customers we work with so far, are starting to find that you can just focus on the things you're good at. If you're great at sales or marketing or what have you, let us sort of empower you to do that.

Kerry:
That's really cool. So when you changed it from Sonoma Distilling, how did you launch Corning and Company to say to the world, hey, come to your one-stop shop. We're right here. What was your strategic plan?

Adam:
So it was a little bit of sort of incubator first. So we started with a handful of clients that we knew really, really well, who are already requesting some support. And then we took some time to dial in our systems to make sure that everybody was communicating correctly. And you know, all the sort of standard operating procedures, the SOP is we needed to process stuff was happening very efficiently. And then we kind of came out of what we call stealth mode, where it's like, okay, we're here. We go to ACSA and ADI and IBWSS and a handful of other conferences and say, hey, we're here. This is what we do. You know, I find myself half the time talking to people on one side of the table and then on the other as well as all the booths. I end up talking to all the suppliers because they need, you know, you know. tote storage in California, we can provide that they need barrel storage, they need to be connected with use barrels or whatever the thing is, the conversations are always so, you know, dynamic and interesting. So as part of my role, now that I have a staff of about 20, who can support all my crazy ideas, I can now focus on sort of product development, you know, business development, um, overlay in a bunch of different operational roles where I can kind of make sure that, you know, the order flow is happening appropriately. And that's been really cool and exciting for us.

Kerry:
Now, with all these clients that you have, are some of them sourcing from other places and you're just warehousing as they do their own barrel maturation? Or are you making, okay, so you're not making all the liquid?

Adam:
Oh, no, no, no, no. And that's actually been kind of cool, too. You know, I always say not being the frog in the soup is probably the best way to exist. So, you know, thinking you make the best thing all the time. For a long time, I was like, everything has to be pot distilled. And then for a long time, it was like, everything has to be direct fire pot distilled. And then as I kind of got older in this industry, and tasted through a bunch of stuff that came from columns, I'm like, no, it's it's different. It's not better or worse. It's just different. And so sourcing things from Kentucky and Tennessee, from MGP in Indiana or Kansas or wherever you need to get it from. I've got about 20 different sources of distillate I can get for people, whatever they need, imported or domestically produced. And so it really depends on what the client needs, what their story is, and on their price point, too. You know, I always tell people, like, if you're building a brand, take a bottle where you see your bottle on the shelf and work your way backwards. You know, what is that price point? Where does it live? What's the story? And then I could help you sort of identify all the other gotchas along the way to ensure that you hit that price point you need. Because ultimately, if you don't hit that, then you might find yourself in a place where depletions are not going where they need to, and then your brand suffers as a result.

Kerry:
Right. So you said you got about 40 clients. Is that 40 different brands or just different clients of sorts?

Adam:
40 different companies we work with. There's a bunch of brands inside of that as well. And they're creating new ones all the time too. So even just our own little ecosystem will come to me and be like, I want a chocolate liqueur for the holidays. And it's like, great, let's help you develop that, you know, formulate that.

Kerry:
Okay, so it's not just whiskey.

Adam:
Oh, it's not. Oh, we're doing a little bit everything now. I've been spending a lot more time focusing on gins and flavored vodkas and ready to serve cocktails and amaros. And it's been really cool. And again, I think as a cross training, granted my staff is handling a lot of the sort of tactical like, you formulation and development stuff. I get to overlay on all of that. So I get to taste things as a product develops, I can give input along the way and it helps my palate continue to evolve. I mean, I always tell people in this industry, the best way to get really good at blending whiskey is just to blend a lot more whiskey. And so the best way to develop your palate is just to blend your palate with a ton of things, like try new things all the time. You know, I used to stress to people, like go to your farmer's market and smell fruits and vegetables and see how that like, blows your mind about something like, Oh, I smelt that exact same smell when this, it was coming off the still, I couldn't articulate what it was cause I could smell it, but I couldn't really put the, this was not communicating with this. And so training these things at all times and different types of products I think is going to help not just me, but also just all the people who are working on things really begin to evolve their, their skillset.

Kerry:
Very cool. So how, how many, How many whiskeys are you actually producing from start to finish? Whiskey brands. And then within those brands, how many different expressions?

Adam:
Sure. So I mean, I don't, again, going back to my Switzerland, I try not to promote what we do for the brands. I want them to be out there sort of telling their story and doing their things. There's about a dozen people who are doing grain-to-glass production in our facility in different capacities, some that are well-known. Um, if you see the word distilled and bottled by the back of the label and it says we're going to park on it, I mean, we're, we're the only one in town. So it's, it's definitely, uh, uh, it's definitely interesting. Um, but yeah, I mean, we are definitely putting our fingerprint on some really iconic brands that have already been in existence for a long time. We're helping for a couple of our clients resurrect some brands that haven't been around for, you know, uh, handful of decades. And then in parallel, we're also sort of helping scale some brands for people too. And I think also the cool part is a little bit of some custom blending work too. So a lot of the independent bottlers out there who are like, cool, I want to take this barrel and this barrel and send them to your facility and have you blend them together. And so we're working on a little bit of that too.

Kerry:
Wow. You're keeping very busy. It's a lot going on.

Adam:
It is fun. And it definitely gets overwhelming at times, too. But I think what helps sort of organize all of that chaos is just having really good systems in place. We have some of the, I think, the biggest and brightest folks working here that have ever worked in this facility before. I mean, as I said, I've been running for 14 years. I started a little 800 square foot facility. So to see the progression from there to now, you know, working with some people here. And I've had some folks working with me for over a decade now. And then I have some that are, you know, half a decade, quarter of a decade. And that I think is a testament to them, but also to the type of environment we're trying to create here, where it's, you know, everyone can has their own seat at the table, they're able to give some input. We go through and do tasting evaluations with a whole bunch of people from different departments. It keeps us grounded. And I think that's been really, really exciting. And I think really eye opening for me as a entrepreneur.

Kerry:
Cool. And then do you also have a bottling line there that you help get everything bottled? Totally. And then are you in charge of getting all the glass, or is each company in charge of getting their own bottle designs and all to you?

Adam:
It depends. We are really, really good at procurement. And we do that as a result of just making sure that materials arrive on time so that we can do the bottling on time. Admittedly, we have some clients who want to have a bit of a heavier hand in the procurement items. it can be a challenge depending on who the client is. But we are oftentimes at least just logistically putting the okay, hey, you've told us who the supplier is, let's go back to that supplier and make sure we have the right bottles in time. You know, here's an invoice for our administrative time. And our goal is never to nickel and dime any of our, our clients, you know, we oftentimes will just charge them what is the labor for us to do things. And of course, we're in Northern California. So labor is a bit more expensive here than it is in other areas. But we are just trying to be a good partner. It is a partnership. Oftentimes, we're talking with people who are like one or two, you know, men or women at the helm. And so they, they need support. And that's where I think they can come to our corning, keep their team super, super small, and allow us to sort of tackle these little projects as they come up. And as long as we just scope it correctly, we're ready to rock and roll.

Kerry:
And are all of these clients California-based or you've got them from all over the country or the world?

Adam:
All over the country, a couple all over the world, but most of them are California-based or at least West Coast-based. Proximity, I think, is a big one, which is why I think the regional approach to Corning & Company, as we begin to expand this thing in time, it's going to be really, really big for us to be able to be supportive for craft brands all over the country. Because at one point, there was almost 3,000 distilleries in the United States. When I first started, there was less than 200. So to see all of it grow and to see the systems that were put in place, I think some of the failure of the craft industry was just not building enough infrastructure to really support it. Early people like American Distilling Institute, eventually ACSA, they provided educational forums for people to learn things. But structurally, you need somebody along the way to sort of help incubate a whole bunch of these brands or distilleries in some cases. We can provide services to distilleries just as easily. It is important for us all to sort of figure out how to help it all come together. And I think we're learning very, very quickly that our message is working and we want to continue to help. And even in this environment where I think no one is really achieving all of the goals they wish they had achieved. And I think in Spirits, I think Spirits is a tough space right now. We can provide, I think, a little bit of like, OK, we're here to help, like use our services or not. you know, our, our, our prices are now a cart. It's not like you can kind of like, you got to spend a minimum of this much with us or else I'll never talk to you. Like we tell people all the time, like our minimum runs on our bottling line is nothing. It's more expensive to do a handful of bottles than to do 1500 cases. But that's, you know, we're here to help. And I think, ideally, if we can grow that brand and grow our footprint, I think the better we can help, you know, support people around the country.

Kerry:
So how did you decide to go from Sonoma Distilling, where you were your own distilling company, to this big helper of brand building?

Adam:
Yeah. So the other person who's not sitting next to me, my business partner, his name is Sam Long. He's our CEO and chairman of the board. He comes from a different world than I did. So he came from sort of the private equity venture world. He provided a really, really nice structure, both sort of operationally here, like putting a lot of, you know, a lot of SOPs in place, like, here's how we need to communicate. And here's how this department tells this department what's going on. That has been really, really big for us internally. And so he and I started working together, and it became just very clear, not just through his own family history with Corning & Company, but just because it made a lot of sense to us to figure out, OK, well, how do we, how do we do this? How do we grow this? How do we support these things? Where is the opportunity for us to do this? And, you know, It's a role I've often enjoyed. I do it for free, and in a lot of cases, or in my early days, just fielding phone calls. I got the same support when I first started. I just had to call people around the country. I'll tell you a funny story. When I first started, I got some really good mentorship from Gable Lorenzo, who is Ralph Lorenzo's son over at Tuttletown. Unfortunately, he passed a handful of years ago. But when I first started in the industry, I called Ralph, and Ralph kicked me over to his son, and his son spent hours with me on the phone. Just like, here's how you do it, here's how you build a route to market, here's some cool tricks I learned along the way. Like, you got this, like, go, go, go. Don't stop. Keep on going. And years later, I never actually met him in person. I only talked to him on the phone. This was, you know, 14 years ago, 15 years ago. And I finally met him in person, you know, a decade plus, a decade ago. And I was like, you just were so helpful. And we forged this really great relationship and friendship. And so it's stuff, it's people like that, who were sort of the early pioneers in this space, who really, really helped build the craft market as we know today. And if I could help continue that legacy and do that work, I think it'd be really good for them, for the entrepreneur, the brand entrepreneur, as well as for Corning and company.

Kerry:
Very cool. And then do you guys offer any tours? And if you do offer tours, do you say, and this is where we have this customer and this is where we have this customer?

Adam:
Yeah. So we don't currently do any tours. Um, it's a personal hope that at some point, you know, all the brands that we work with, we can showcase and really in a very tasteful way, let somebody come in and try a whole bunch of stuff. The state of California, uh, has a whole bunch of rules and regulations as to why and how that can be really difficult. Um, There's a craft distillers license, which we don't have, which allows for direct sales. We have the traditional distilling license, which allows for tastings, but they're limited to an ounce and a half per person per day. So there's a whole bunch of reasons why not just monetarily, it's difficult to do, but just sort of logistically can become a challenge. So I would hope in the future we could have a welcome center where all the brands we work with get the opportunity to do it. If you like it, you can go buy a bottle online. We help people set up their DTC online, so you can buy it and ship it to 40, 44 states. So yeah, it's a plan for the future, I think. Unfortunately, we're just not very forward facing, so we're closed to the public today.

Kerry:
Okay. So if somebody wanted to start their own brand and they watched this podcast and they said, this is the guy to do it, how would they get in touch? What would they do?

Adam:
Good. Um, they can send us an email. Uh, so we have a contact form on courting and company.com. Um, they can connect with us there. Um, they can meet us at, I'll be at the American Distilling Institute show in Baltimore in a couple of weeks. I'll be speaking on a, on a panel about how to work with a co-packer. So it's kind of interesting to, to now be on that side of the space. Um, but it's what I've been doing for, three to four years now. So contact us form. We get you in touch with our business development team. Most likely I jump on the calls to sort of help assess what's going on. And if people come to us with like a half-baked idea. Oftentimes we can give them some tutelage and sort of direction on who to go to and who to talk to. I'll give you a good example. Some people come to us recently being like, we want to start up a Nomaro brand. And I'm like, that sounds great. What do you want in it? They're like, we don't really know. We want it to taste like maybe these three things. And so what I'll do is I'll go ahead and say, love to help you. Here's the name of a formulator. Go talk to that person. That person will help build you an Amaro. You come back to me with a game plan. Here's my formula and we can make the heck out of your Amaro as fast and as easy as you need us to. But if you come to us with like a more full fledged idea, then we can also help internally with our own internal formulators, build you some of the rest of the formula needed to round it up. And so, again, we can try and support everybody. We oftentimes do a lot of consultation, at least the initial one for free. Really, really happy to do that. And it's just, again, trying to give back to the industry.

Kerry:
That's great. And do you have any socials or anything that you would like to share for people to follow you guys?

Adam:
Totally. I mean, Corning Company is on Instagram, Facebook and all of the above. Feel free to like those. We're actually actively trying to build up our messaging and marketing around those sites just to let people know we exist. And then from there, I would say there are a handful of other ways that some of the brands that we work with rather be the Sonoma Stilling brand, which I mentioned still out there. I have a personal page, Whiskey Adam, which I'm out there letting people know. And I take cool photos when I do tastings in unique places. And I'll try and build that messaging, too.

Kerry:
Great. So I usually ask everybody, what is their five-year plan? And yours sounds like just getting bigger and bigger. But yeah, what is your five-year plan for the company?

Adam:
Yeah, so 5-Year Plan for Corning & Company, I'm speaking from my own perspective, I imagine my business partner would say the same thing. Our plan is to, is to continue to support the craft industry, grow the pods, as I call them, the nodes around the country, you know, most likely in different parts of California, and then moving our way out East. And Offering really good services, ideally in five years, it'd be great if we were in, you know, a dozen states by then. Offering different services in different areas, it may not be all the same thing. It might be bottling or warehousing in some or bottling and production in some. So it really depends on what the right fit is for what that area is. But the cool part about it is as you get these nodes everywhere, then they all can work together. So if you are scaling a brand and you need a warehouse in New York or you need a warehouse in Ohio or you need one in Florida, if there's a Corning company in those areas, we just ship products to those areas and they can be distributed to distributors in those areas. We live in the supplier tier, so we can do that. So yeah, that's our five-year plan. I think it's just continued to grow. continue to evolve as a company, make some cool new things. You never know what will come out of this place, either stuff that I have my fingerprint on or stuff that I'm just advising. So that'll be really fun for us is just keep on making new and fun things.

Kerry:
Okay. And is there anything that you make right now whether it's your own stuff for Sonoma or if it's, you know, a contract, is there a favorite expression of anything, doesn't have to be whiskey, that you just find really fascinating that you guys are in charge of?

Adam:
I like all my stuff, but I mean, I think there, there are certain items like we just did. Um, there's a client that exists out there, uh, who makes a really delicious way spirit. Uh, we just began to start doing production for them. Um, that is a really cool product. You know, we're literally talking, you know, milk way coming into the facility and fermenting and distilling that project. That was really, really cool. Tasted that the previous release tasted the new release that they're going to be making. Um, like stuff like that was really, really cool to evolve it, see how it tastes a little different coming from our facility than the previous. Um, I think moving the chains, moving the, moving the ball to the rock of the hill, whatever analogy you want. Um, so that's been really cool. Um, and so, yeah, I think that, that one in particular has been really exciting to see. Um, And then obviously any of the blends that we're working on right now, the couple of, uh, we have a one brand that hasn't been around for a while. It's called old Quaker coming out again soon. Um, that brand, as soon as it's released, I think will be really exciting for people to try. It's going to have an American whiskey and a rye whiskey and a bourbon. And, uh, it has a little bit of some Sonoma distilled stuff and it has some source material and how it all comes together. And he got pot stills talking to column stills inside of a barrel. It's like a really cool. thing that I've been working on for almost a decade now.

Kerry:
And is the Quaker, are they based out of East Coast or are they actually California?

Adam:
No, so yeah, it's actually based here in California. It's being relaunched again. That brand, Old Quaker, used to exist a long time ago and actually sort of ceased to exist. And it used to be made at a corning company for a period of time in Illinois. So it's kind of being re-brought back out in the same corporate identity as kind of a cool premise. And then having tried through some of the early 1900s and mid-1900s Old Quaker releases was really great. tune my palate and my brain to what I want it to taste like and how I want to evolve it moving forward.

Kerry:
That's awesome. Do you have access to their original recipes and that's what you're working with?

Adam:
No, they didn't have access to original recipes had access to original bottles. And so we were able to work with other blenders and distillers to get some really pointed feedback on most likely what it was. But even then, it's like, let's just make it in the 2024 context. You know, it's like, it's a new it's a new decade is a new millennium. Let's do it. Let's try new things. And so that's been really, really cool.

Kerry:
Awesome. Well, Adam, it has been a pleasure having you on the show today. I really appreciate you taking the time out to talk to us and teach us all about corning a company. And it's a fascinating story. And I love watching companies like yours that are so innovative. I'm looking forward to watching you guys grow in the next few years. Maybe I'll get to come by and try some stuff sometime soon.

Adam:
We'd love to have you. Again, thank you for having me. Also, thank you for the work you're doing too, telling these stories and letting people know about different craft distilleries around the country and what we're all up to. I think it's really good. Thank you for your support.

Kerry:
We will catch up with you at a later time and see what's going on with you later. But again, thank you so much for being on the show.

Adam:
You too. Have a good one. Bye.

Kerry:
Sizzle alert. This summer, let the only thing smoking at your barbecue be the grill and not your man's grooming game. Get ready for the ultimate cookout season with Manscaped.com. Whether he's flipping burgers or cannonballing into the pool, make sure he looks neat with the Performance Package 5.0 Ultra. The star of the show is the LaNour 5.0 Below the Waist Trimmer. It's got wireless charging, it's waterproof, and thanks to their advanced SkinSafe technology, it's really smooth. The kit also includes the Crop Preserver deodorant and the Crop Reviver toner spray. Another popular item is the Weed Whacker Hair Trimmer. Gentlemen, keep your ears and nose hairs in check, and the women will love you for it. Whether you need grooming tools for your face or body, or just need the best in men's body care products, Manscaped.com has everything you need. Go to Manscaped.com and use code BARRELROOM to get 20% off your order today. That's B-A-R-R-E-L-R-O-O-M for 20% off. All right, so here we are. We're going to taste the Armagnac barrel. And how long have you had this one going?

Jesse Parker:
Yeah, so these ones have been going since basically the end of spring this year. And these Armagnac casks were originally used to age Armagnacs for up towards 40 years. So they're quite old casks, as you can see.

Kerry:
They're like my age.

Jesse Parker:
I love it. Now, the bourbon in them started at six years old. So we're somewhere in that like six, six and a half, a little bit over. And these are all individual mash bills. of our MGP base. Gosh, this is already so aromatic. The thing I love about Armagnac is it just, it's a whole other level that you can actually experience, like the farm on it, right? You can actually get to the vineyard in it. And you just get these gorgeous profiles of fruit and leather.

Kerry:
Never put any back.

Jesse Parker:
No, look how it's laying out. Oh, wow. Look at all the excess.

Kerry:
That has a beautiful nose.

Jesse Parker:
Isn't that gorgeous? Yeah, this is a proper cast ring. So the barrels that got dumped together to make the blend that went into these, right, is about 114 proof or so. So that's currently what's in the glass.

Kerry:
All right, let's check it out.

Jesse Parker:
These are the first Armagnacs I've ever got my hands on.

Kerry:
It is so good. I mean, I don't know. I was all about that port a minute ago. Now I think I want this one.

Jesse Parker:
I wouldn't blame you.

Kerry:
For a barrel pick, I think this is very unique and it's very different from anything that I've seen, especially from anything I've seen from you.

Jesse Parker:
I've never done an Armagnac pick before.

Kerry:
So I think we have a winner, but this This is our cask, folks, so stay tuned on see how you can get one of the bottles from this barrel pick here at Barrel Room Chronicles. Jesse, as always, it's a pleasure.

Jesse Parker:
Thank you. Appreciate it. Cheers.

Kerry:
To pre-order your Doc Swenson's Mad Vines Single Barrel Straight Bourbon Whiskey finished in Armagnac casks from BRC, visit BarrelRoomChronicles.com and click on the Doc Swenson's bottle on the homepage. 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.

Announcer:
Barrel Room Chronicles is a production of First Reel Entertainment and is available on Spotify, Apple, Google, iHeart Radio, Amazon, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.