The Editor in Chief and The Elites (BRC S3 E13)

AI Transcript: BRC S3 E13 - Editor in Chief and Elites

Kerry:
It is 5 o'clock somewhere and you've tuned in to Season 3, Episode 13 of BRC. For those of you who'd like to watch this episode, I highly recommend it. You can view Season 3 on our website, YouTube, Spotify, WhiskeyNetwork.net, and Zencastr. I'm Kerry Moynahan, and in today's Reading on the Rocks, I speak with Mark Pruitt about his journey to becoming the editor-in-chief of Whiskey Network magazine. Then later in the show, I speak with Elites founder Michael Bosch in Club Corner. So kick off your shoes, pour yourself a dram, and join me for this episode of Barrel Room Chronicles.

Announcer: Unleashed Coffee is a farm-to-cup adventure like no other. Step into a world where exceptional flavors, tantalizing aromas, and rich mouthfeel take you on a journey from your kitchen to the picturesque coffee plantations at origin. At Unleashed Coffee, we believe in fostering connections between coffee lovers and the hardworking farmers behind each bean. Join the journey through our coffee subscription program and gain access to our exclusive online community, connecting you to fellow enthusiasts and the producers of your morning brew. To help you extract every nuance of flavor from our beans, take part in our on-demand coffee brewing courses. right in the comfort of your own home. If you are seeking B2B coffee solutions that go beyond just beans, our comprehensive wholesale packages cater to the diverse needs of mobile carts, farm stands, restaurants, cafes, retail shelves, and more. Look no further than Unleashed Coffee to quench your thirst for quality coffee. Use coupon code COFFEEBRC at the checkout to receive 10% off your first purchase at unleashedcoffee.com.

Kerry: Today's Reading on the Rocks 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. Hello, good evening, good afternoon, whatever time it is you are catching the show today on the show for Reading on the Rocks. We have Mark Purett. He is the editor at WhiskeyNetwork.net, which we're proud to be broadcasting on. And I thought it was about time to have Mark on because he's got a very interesting story of how he became the editor and what got him into whiskey in the first place. So, Mark, welcome to the show. And please tell us about your whiskey journey and how you got to where you are today.

Mark: Oh, thanks for having me, first of all. So how far back do you want me to go in sort of talking about the whiskey journey? Because I can go back a really long ways.

Kerry: Go back as far as you can. Where it began.

Mark: My father wasn't a heavy drinker, but he enjoyed Seagram 7. Okay. And I remember as a kid being curious about that and my dad Probably in his infinite wisdom decide to teach me a lesson and said do you want a sip of this? So sure I took a sip of that and you can imagine how disastrous that was probably as a kid, so I probably didn't get into a lot more trouble with that type of a thing for a very long time, but I You know, my story is something that I encounter with a lot of the guests that we have at Whiskey Network, where it's adolescent things that you do to get a hold of, you know, somehow you managed to get a hold of liquor and you have those parties where you're, you say you're at a friend's house spending the night, but you're really dying of alcohol poisoning in the field. Is that the, uh, the meme that's going around? But that, that's actually true. Um, I think fast forward to when I finally got out of college, I met a friend and we figured out that we shared a mutual love of whiskey. And it was sort of a race to the bottom from there because we both loved Jack Daniels. And we spent a lot of time, you know, exploring that culture. Over time, the arms race escalates, right? Because it's, hey, try this. Oh, try this. And I think it was a bottle of Booker's that I was gifted as a birthday gift that really turned the tide. And it made me think about, wow, you know, this is something that I really, really want to explore more. Now, the actual moment that cemented everything for me was Glenmore and GAT.

Kerry: That's a good one. That's a very good one.

Mark: And I'm talking about the older expressions. The vellum labels, you know, the off-white labels, you know, the old school ones when they had the Madeira finish and the Portwood finish. from way back in the day. Took me a long time to finish that bottle, but that's really, really, that wasn't the tipping point, but that was definitely one of the high points of my whiskey journey.

Kerry: Fantastic. And how long ago do you think that was?

Mark: Should I say? Because I'm probably giving away how old I am. It was probably 20-25 years ago that that actually happened. It was probably the mid to late 90s when I think the place is actually still there on the west side of Los Angeles. But that's where I bought that bottle. And that bottle stayed with me for a very long time. I think I finished that bottle off when my kids were teenagers, so. Oh, wow. Yeah, it stayed with me for a long time. It got to the point to where every year I would have a sip of it on my birthday because it was just it was that good. And I just wanted to to prolong it. Yeah, I wanted to I wanted to make sure it stayed with me for as long as possible.

Kerry: Well, that's some good willpower for a for a bottle you like.

Mark: Well, I drink a hell of a lot of other stuff in between, so.

Kerry: Well, there you go. So are you from Los Angeles originally?

Mark: I am. I'm a California native. I was born in West Covina, born and raised here. Went to college here. Haven't left. Much to the chagrin of my parents and probably a lot of other people.

Kerry: I'm staying. Did your parents leave? No, they're still here. Oh, to the chagrin and they're still here. Love it. So, um, when you were on your whiskey journey as a taster, as a, as a person who enjoys it, um, when did you start doing things more professionally with it? Um, or was whiskey network.net the first thing that you did? It was more.

Mark: So our resident artist at whiskey network. is the one who invited me to the Facebook group where the magazine spawned out of, and that's WBSE, Whiskey Bourbon Scotch Enthusiast, which was the brainchild of Chad Cadden and Bill Varnell. Bill Varnell is the publisher of Whiskey Network, and she knew that I liked whiskey. She knew that I posted about it quite often, so she invited me to the group, and I thought, I have found my people. And talking about whiskey and posting bottle shots in exotic places and exotic poses was something that was very alluring. And I went down that rabbit hole quite a bit. So one day, Bill posted and said, hey, we're looking for writers. And a couple of times, I had tried to go down the rabbit hole of connecting music and whiskey. And this was kind of in the days where Facebook was clamping down on music rights. You remember back in the day when you had to say on videos, I don't own the rights to this music, um, because they would strike the video. I don't know if you still have to do that or not, but music is so well integrated into.

Kerry: videos on Facebook now anyways, it probably doesn't matter much, but… I had to do that for my father's memorial video, because we used an Elvis Presley song. And I was like, come on guys, it's a memorial video.

Mark: Exactly. So originally he was sort of very reticent about my idea of, hey, you know, I want to explore whiskey and music together. So I lied through my teeth and said I wanted to join Whiskey Network Magazine and I want to write food recipes. I wrote one food recipe and I wrote one article about the ghost town of Bodie and Frontier Whiskey. And in the meantime, I was furiously working in the background to find someone to interview. And Bill kind of knew this and he threw me someone who was in the group Um, Illy Faradi, he is the bartender for, um, Fiore d'Italia up in Anchorage, Alaska, consistently ranked one of the best whiskey bars. They have a whiskey wall. Um, and it's a world famous place. People come from all over the world to see that. And he said, you know, you should interview that guy. So I interviewed him, wrote my first interview and was still working on getting another interview. And at the time. There was a program that was coming out on Apple TV, Ewan McGregor, the movie star and his best friend is a gentleman by the name of Charlie Borman. Charlie Borman is a world renowned adventure. He rides motorcycles. He climbs mountains. He does all kinds of interesting things. And he is the son of movie director, John Borman. So I sent something to his press people and said, Hey, I know you've got this thing coming out. I write for the Whiskey Network. Would you like to do an interview? And to my surprise, they said yes. And I had no idea what to do next. I was scared to death and had absolutely. Uh, no experience doing something like this. So I did what any normal person would do as I, as I just began researching how to steal stuff. So I would go look at people magazine. I would go look at entertainment weekly Rolling Stone, and I went and stole bits and pieces of the interview. And that's how I learned. And look, I think my first four interviews were pretty awful. Um, 8,000, 9,000, 12,000 words. You know, I hadn't discovered the magic of editing. Um, Mindy, I apologize, but I did learn and, you know, I worked with my editor at the time and. You know what they say, the rest is history. I think I sort of perfected it and, and built something out with it. And we've got a lot of traction over the last few years, uh, with that model. And we've had a lot of great guests come through Whiskey Network.

Kerry: That's fantastic. So when did the magazine or website start and how many, um, how many articles have you written for it? And then how many, um, interviews have you done for it?

Mark: Whiskey Network has probably gone through three different iterations, probably getting close to a decade because WBSC has been around since 2009, maybe. So a couple of times they've taken a swing at making something happen. At first it was a review site, and then they tried to tap into writing some other editorial. And each time they got a little more experience, they got a little more smarter. And the third iteration is when I came around and. That's when we really started to lean heavily into the idea that we were tapping into the lifestyle of whiskey. So it's not just whiskey proper. It's not just tasting whiskey. It's the idea that whiskey is connected to many different things. It's connected to cigars. It's connected to food. Um, whiskey has a great culture of cocktails and That just caught a ton of momentum and we had a great group of writers that original group of writers was very very strong and You know, we we just kind of took off the last time I checked I've got well over 40 interviews and in the can, and probably 40 is probably a great number to throw in some of the editorial articles that I did. In the beginning, I did a lot more of the editorials and maybe a little bit of the satire. We've done some tongue-in-cheek things around the Valentine's holiday or some other things, just sort of picking fun at sort of the tater culture and things like that. So for over three years on a monthly basis, I have basically delivered an interview a month. And it has ranged, you know, it's it's actors, it's athletes, a whole hell of a lot of musicians. I have had a ton of great whiskey people come through. I wrote Jim McEwen's last public interview. I have the email that his wife wrote back to me. I wrote to them and I said, so what did you think? And they wrote me this amazing email. Oh, that's fantastic. We really love this and we're going to show this to his grandchildren. And this is a great sort of glimpse into who he was. And I'm like, oh, I'm pretty bad at having that, you know, available for me to show at parties and things like that, because that's a pretty cool thing. But that is pretty cool. Dr. Rachel Berry, Elizabeth McCall, you know, Murphy Quint, on down the line, Jackie's ICANN, just a ton of great people that I'm very proud to have worked with. Me, personally, I have always believed and sought to really highlight the connection between music and whiskey. And, hey, I'm a I'm an old school metalhead, and it's always great because I've been able to sort of point at the bands that I always loved and go, hey, you know, any of you guys drink whiskey? And people keep saying yes. So I keep writing those interviews and Um, it has been an amazing journey and it has been very rewarding for me.

Kerry: As you know, I was in the, in the Facebook group for a while and then apparently I got kicked out cause I, um, posted some, you know, please watch my podcast.

Mark: And it was a misunderstanding. I thought we, I thought we, I thought we made amends for that.

Kerry: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, no, so I'm back in, I'm back in now. Um, which is great. Um, so out of all the interviews you've done, what was the most surprising guest that you were able to get that you thought I'm never going to get this person?

Mark: Well, since I actually just saw a social media video of her, Alicia Witt, who was in the original dune as, um, Paula Trady's little sister. Okay. She's an actress and she's been around Hollywood for a very long time. She's really great friends with the folks at Angels Envy. And somebody said, hey, Mark, she posts pictures about whiskey. And I knew that she had a book coming out. And like, she's never going to agree to this. And they came back and said, sure. There's always a part of me that gets nervous when I'm scheduled to talk to someone, doesn't matter who it is, because it's, it's a daunting thing, right? You know, you and I are having a conversation and this is easy. I'm not, I'm not scared of this unless, unless you're going to go Oprah and make me cry about something, but.

Kerry: Well, maybe, but I'm not going to give you a car, so don't worry about that.

Mark: Damn it. The whole interview is over. That's it. I'm done. I was promised a car. Um, so. You know, that was one of those where I was more than a little nervous because it was a little outside of my element. It wasn't, it wasn't a heavy metal person that, you know, where it's like, yeah, whiskey, you know, that, that kind of a thing. Um, so it was very different. And on top of it, we had a technical difficulty.

Kerry: I don't know.

Mark: My internet connection dropped in the middle of the interview and I'm panicking at this point. Right. Cause I'm like, Oh my God, this is terrible. Very, very gracious. A couple of days later, we got the interview pre-scheduled and I was able to finish out my questions. And the interview turned out great. But to me, that was one of those where it was… kind of like the Charlie Borman thing, like, okay, great. I got him to say, yes, what the hell do I do now? How do I figure this out? So, you know, this just goes into me refining the formula. You know, we have the Whiskey Network interview where we kind of have like a basic structure. And as we've brought new writers on or the writers that we have, I've tried to teach them the method and try to sort of give them the freedom to make it their own. And You know, we've had other writers now sort of take that on and go out and interview other folks with that particular style and with that particular process.

Kerry: So how many have you guys ever thought about actually making into a physical paper magazine to send it out with a subscription and all of that?

Mark: I generously accept your proposal to finance all of that, and I will look forward to the check in the mail. Um, that is something that I would really love to do. And it's always something that's sort of lurking in the back of my mind that what does that look like? Um, the last four years in particular have probably devastated all forms of physical media, um, for obvious reasons. And some probably that have been lurking for quite some time. Um, Would I love to go and follow the model of some of the other publications and maybe have, you know, something, a quarterly glossy, uh, I'd love to do that. And I consider that to be running and I'm still learning to crawl as the editor of Whiskey Network. I think we've built a thriving online community. Our traffic is way up from what it was before. So, you know, mission accomplished from that perspective, but you can always, you can always go up and you can always get sort of more eyeballs, um, to look at your content. So you ask a great question. Um, the answer is yes. Uh, but I will qualify the answer in that maybe that's on my 10 year plan.

Kerry: OK, so when you guys put out your monthly issue online, how many different articles do you usually have and how many people have turned in stuff?

Mark: So on average, we turn anywhere between 15 to 20 pieces of content a month. Um, sometimes it's upwards of that, you know, here in the summer, um, there's not a lot going on from a press perspective. So, um, we don't get as many new stories, uh, but from a perspective of, you know, true, unique editorial that is bespoke to the whiskey network, as well as us offering coverage of. Our partners in the whiskey world that send us press releases. Um, you know, it's, it's anywhere from 20 and above.

Kerry: That's pretty good. So if you, ideally you would like to do a quarterly issue in paper.

Mark: In terms of a physical thing, sure. We follow the format of a monthly digital publication. But the truth of the matter is, is that we're evergreen. We're always publishing. It used to be that we would publish on the first of the month and that would be the whole enchilada. And we decided to change things because it made the calendar sort of putting everything together. It made us a lot more nimble to grab content and to be flexible. You know, now we have a lot of great things. We have cigars. We have a cocktail. We've been averaging two, three cocktails a month. some great food recipes. We recently relaunched the Women in Whiskey segment. We prepared that, or I'm sorry, we premiered that with Dr. Rachel Berry. We thought that that would be a great first guest and the one two punch ended up being Dr. Rachel Berry, Elizabeth McCall, number three sneak peek for coming up here in a couple of days. Jackie Thompson from Aardvark is going to appear. Nice. So I'm extremely happy with our opening salvo in reviving that particular segment. So, you know, it's this is very much been a labor of love. You know, we're all enthusiasts who love whiskey on many different levels. We all put in a lot of our own time outside of our day jobs to make this happen. So Bill and I have been very adamant about a slow and steady growth pace. So, you know, moving into a year on the WordPress platform, and moving into about probably 15, 16, maybe 18 months of me being the actual editor behind the scenes, we've far exceeded our expectations in terms of growth and change and the things that we wanted to see as a part of what Whiskey Network was to become.

Kerry: That's great. So on your way to becoming the editor, did you have any Were you working on any other magazines or anything in your in your day job previously? Or was this a whole new experience from the get go?

Mark: So I am a homegrown talent with Whiskey Network. Whiskey Network has been. You know, my one sort of true love in terms of whiskey media. Bill, if you're listening, please turn it off and I'll tell you when to come back. I did try and knocked on a lot of doors to freelance for a lot of other whiskey publications. zero interest. And, you know, I say that somewhat tongue in cheek, but it's a tough business to get into that, right? And, you know, why not play where Whiskey Network wants me to continue doing what I'm doing? And quite honestly, I've built a great framework for myself and You know, we have publicist contacts that are now sort of coming to us and saying, hey, would you write about this? And so why stop? I think it's a great process. I am a contributor to a couple of music only publications. So I dabble a little bit here and there in that particular space. Music was always sort of my first love, and whiskey is a close number two. And they fit together very nicely at Whiskey Network, but I find it very enriching to write about music.

Kerry: That's great. And do you know how many, what your average views are online, or is that proprietary and you can't disclose?

Mark: Oh, millions. No, we keep numbers pretty close to the vest. I will tell you this. We started here and we've grown to here. I'd certainly like to get us bigger. At the moment, for me, I am comfortable with the traffic that we've generated. I think a very critical piece of the puzzle is continuing to build credibility in the industry. Yeah. I'm not going to be able to generate eyeballs and I'm not going to be able to put an audience in front of stuff unless I build that machine to where I'm putting a great content together. Right. We've got a writer, Coulter Stevenson, who's one of my favorite writers of the new group that we have. And he came up with something that's called Dice and Drams. He talks about board games, RPGs, and he pairs it up with the whiskey.

Kerry: Have you guys done the board game Distilled?

Mark: I don't think he's done that. Um, I think it's a fantastic segment. It's very unique and it's, it's one of the things that I'm really thrilled about because. It's why we're different. It's why we do what it is that we do, because that's the lifestyle. You play board games with your buddies and and you have a drink. And it's something that so many people can relate to, because people have messaged me and they're like, Mark, this is brilliant. Where has this been? Because we do this. We do this every week.

Kerry: So what is the five year plan for the magazine and for you?

Mark: I am really comfortable with my ability and the body of work that I have put together. And something that has been very rewarding for me is I manage teams in my day job. So, so managing a group of folks who write for a whiskey online whiskey publication is a little different. but I find some of the same stripes to be just as fulfilling. And I'll tell you that the midterm, I think for the next two years, we've got some content migration that we need to do, but it's continuing to develop writers. Not that we have bad writers, but I think it's continuing to breathe life into the identity of what Whiskey Network is. I'll give you an example. We have a core group of individuals that are very instrumental in making the magazine operate. Thank you, Genevieve. Thank you, Brian. And without them, we don't get off the ground. We have this eternal battle. Mark, I found a typo. Okay, go and fix it. You know, Mark, this photograph isn't a hundred percent on point. Judgment call. Leave it as it is or go and change it. I think that there is something that's very essential to the identity of Whiskey Network, that number one, we are an underdog. Number two, the very lifestyle of whiskey, bourbon, American bourbon. Why do you drink American bourbon? Because it has that rough edge, right? You feel the burn. Why do you drink Jack Daniels? Why do you shoot Jack Daniels or, you know, whatever, whatever it is, right? That's, that's the hallmark of American bourbon. There's a rough edge to it. And I think that that's appropriate for Whiskey Network. I believe, look, I'm not making mistakes on purpose. I'm not put, I don't wanna put crap out there. I'm not loosey goosey with it. But I think some of those things contribute to what our identity is. I think it makes us real and it makes us relatable. Coulter Stevenson, Dyson Drams, his His work is brilliant. It's a brilliant connection, but it's very real. It's very down to earth. It's something that you can relate to when Genevieve, or when someone else is submitting a food recipe, or Jim wrote cocktails for us for a very long time, or Vicky has come on recently when they make cocktails. We're very conscientious about the materials. You know, don't go get this, don't put like ultra rare bidders in that you have to go, you know, drive 200 miles to the store to go and find this thing. Make it so you can have something that you can just go and grab off the shelf and you can make this in it and you can make it very interesting. You know, there's also been a little bit of a genesis there because Whiskey Network isn't just whiskey anymore. I interviewed the bass player from Taking Back Sunday, the band, and he's a tequila guy, tequila and mezcal guy. So we've branched out into that. Recently, we worked with SJ Jones, who is a member of a new metal band and is associated with also the new metal band Kitty, all female, female lead. They have a non-alcoholic beer and it's meant to go to festival crowds. So Whiskey Network is going headlong into the idea that we're celebrating everything and we're doing it in our own way. We're not going to be crass and make mistakes on purpose or be, you know, be sloppy. But we recognize that in this labor of love, there's some rough edges to it. And we're willing to fix what we need to fix from that perspective. But I'm betting big on the idea that that makes us appealing to more of the masses. I don't want to be Whiskey Magazine because that already exists. And that's sort of the refined kind of pinkies out, um, thing, which is great. You know, I love, I love a good single malt that I love. I'll put my pinky out for the best of them. And, and that's wonderful. It's, it's a part of the whiskey culture and I am truly not making fun of it. Um, but that's not who we are because that seat is taken. So I'm making my own seat.

Kerry: Sounds like me, but in the podcast world, I want to be like video world.

Mark: Absolutely.

Kerry: So. Well, Mark, it's been a pleasure having you on the show. It was great to hear your journey and to hear, you know, kind of the overall roundabout of the Whiskey Network. And I'm proud to be airing on the Whiskey Network. I just can't wait to see how things grow for both of us in the next few years. I think it's going to be great.

Mark: You are an amazing partner. And you have pushed us into some different directions that we hadn't considered before. And from me to you, for our developing relationship and for us becoming better acquainted, hats off to you for really pushing. I know that we didn't understand what to do with you at first.

Kerry: My parents said that. No, I'm just kidding.

Mark: Uh, we don't know what to do with anything. Right. And, and, you know, we absolutely see the potential. And like I said, you've been a great partner for us. And it's, it's just one of those things where it's been wonderful to, to round out the profile. So I really appreciate you, you having me on today and for me to be able to tell that story and to talk about Whiskey Network, because if you don't stop me, I'm going to talk all weekend.

Kerry: All right, well, then I'm going to stop you because we have we have another guest coming up here shortly. But Mark, as I said, it's been fantastic talking with you and we should get together for that game and drink night soon.

Mark: It's on.

Kerry: Club Corner is up next. Stay with us. 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 La Noire 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. Today on the show, I have Michael Bosch straight out of Vegas. I met him online in one of my many groups that I participate in and learned about his club, the elites, which we will talk about here shortly. And also some more background about Michael and his entrepreneurship, we'll say. And so welcome to Club Corner. And Michael, thanks for coming on the show and welcome.

Michael: Thank you for inviting me.

Kerry: Yes. So as you probably know, we always start out asking our guests about their whiskey journey. So when you were a wee little lad, did you ever think that you were going to be this involved with whiskey? And how did you start with your love for whiskey? And how did you get to where you are today?

Michael: Well, I kind of did. I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania, home of the Whiskey Rebellion, though not much is made there anymore. In the last few years, there's been a resurgence. But My grandfather, when I was little, used to give me little sips of beer out of a beer cap and little sips of whiskey. It's kind of when it started at like two years old. Then in about 2001, I joined the hospitality industry and human resources. For some reason, the food and beverage guys were always inviting the HR guy down to tastings. I've been in it for a while.

Kerry: Very nice. Okay. So, um, let's talk about the elites. Like this is a club that you formed. How did it come to be and what happens in this club?

Michael: Well, I do fundraising for scholarships that are handed out in the name of my stepdad who passed away in 2020. He was a fire chief, and the elites were another group that I ran. In another group that I ran, the people who donated a lot of money to those fundraisers. We split off into another group where we could kind of be closer together and not get like drowned out by the, uh, all the other posts and in a former group I managed. And, um, that kind of turned into, okay, Hey, I want to start a whiskey brand. Um, I want to do something other than an HR during the pandemic and, So that group kind of began to become a place where I can test stuff, continue to raise money, provide them access to various barrel picks that I wanted to do. And I kind of used it as a way to give back to the community still, and then practice and hone in on my blending in single barrel pick skills.

Kerry: Okay. So when did you decide, uh, well, it sounds like anyway, that you want to start your own distillery or whiskey brand. Um, so tell me when did that idea come into play and where are you in that process?

Michael: You know, it probably came in to play during the pandemic. My stepdad died in 2020. Um, not due to COVID, uh, he died of liver cancer. And thank you. So that left me with just a small inheritance that I decided to use to pay myself, focus on starting a brand, get out to the community and go and grow. Most of the people in the elites, there's about 800 members now. I'll probably kick it off and cut it off at a thousand, no more, because it's industry people. It's people who are very charitable.

Kerry: It's elite. So it's elite. You can't be elite if there's 50,000 people. It's my friends.

Michael: And I hate to use the term elite, but that's just where we fail. Because we're not, we're not elitist, but we like whiskey. We're, we're, we're in the industry. There's a bunch of brand owners in there. I'd like them to be more active, but they're a little bit quiet. They, they kind of watch.

Kerry: So tell me a little bit more about your brand. So what's first up, what's the process you're in right now? Like what stage are you in?

Michael: I'm trying to launch this without funding from other people. I decided that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. My real father was an entrepreneur, and he did very well for himself. So I'm like, OK, maybe it's in the genes. Maybe I can replicate this. Maybe not. Southwestern Pennsylvania was the home of rye whiskey in the United States. That's where it started. So in the town that I grew up in.

Kerry: Everyone keeps saying, oh, bourbon is the American. Yeah, but rye was the first American whiskey.

Michael: Yep. George Washington didn't have bourbon. He had rye. In the town that I grew up in, like in the same zip code, but in a different township was, um, a distillery like four miles from my house, but in our township was a distillery called Moss. And then one day – Is that what you're wearing right there, reborn old Moss?

Kerry: Yeah.

Michael: Yep. So Moss Distillery was the original one. And Moss Rye Distillery or just Moss Distillery, it's had a couple of names in the 1800s and the early 1900s. So when I started looking at Trademark, there is a moss distillery in Europe. I don't remember if England or Scotland or Ireland or whatever. So just before I was going to file for trademark, they, they filed for trademark with moss. So I haven't filed for trademark on this one, but that's where reborn the rebirth of the old moth distillery is going to come from. So my goals are to launch some funding brands and then hopefully one day go back to Pennsylvania and open up a micro distillery in an industrial park a mile from where this one used to be. You can't even see it anymore. All you can see is the dip where the foundation used to be. It's all gone. And it was a huge distillery.

Kerry: So you want to basically rebuild this moss decillery?

Michael: I would, yep. And they produce a Pennsylvania Monongahela rye, which BEAM just finally released one called the A. overholt, after Abraham overholt, if I'm correctly in my memory, which my memory is not that great. And it's so good, but it's something that most whiskey and rye drinkers and bourbon drinkers would be like, this tastes different. And it's because there's a very high malted component to it. So a traditional Pennsylvania rye has a 20% malted barley in it. So I started doing some research. I met a gentleman named Sam Kamlenek, who grew up in the same township that I grew up in and the same township that Moss was. And Sam's like the foremost Pennsylvania historian on Pennsylvania rye. So he just opened a huge collection at the Overholt Museum in, um, Scottsdale, Pennsylvania. I think Scottsdale. Scottsdale, Mount Pleasant area. And Sam was able to find me a bottle of moss from 1916. Wow. Yeah, so. I have to get to Pennsylvania and pick that up from him. And I found, I found some like artifacts on eBay. Friends are looking for artifacts and auctions for me. So I got to, I think I'm going to send it for testing so we can confirm what was in it. And I don't know if we're going to open it. I know three bottles. My brother-in-law has one. Sam was able to find me one. And then I lost out on an auction for one last month. And I think it went up to like $1,900 on auction. And I just didn't have it because that's pure cash. So my goals are to launch a small brand. My first thing coming out will be called Bosch Reserve. Use that to fund a shelf brand called Devil's Angel. And that shelf brand, I'm planning on it being like a blend of a high rye and a high bourbon to give that opposite to Devil's Cut, Angel's Share, a little play on words, sweet and spice. And then hopefully, before I pass away, Open a open a distillery so that we can produce our own stuff. And that can travel down the line of, you know, family and whoever, just keep it going. So I'm not looking to become a billionaire. But it would be cool. Yes, it would be nice. But I do believe in slow, sustained growth. When people ask me, well, why don't you just take investors? It's like, have you ever heard of Krispy Kreme donuts? They used to be on every corner. Now there's one in each state. So you take investors. I don't want to work for them. I want to work for myself and have fun with this.

Kerry: Yeah. Okay. Well, Michael, it's great. It was great having you on the show. Thank you so much for giving us all of your whiskey experience and talking about the elites and your upcoming distillery, which I'm very excited to taste. I'm excited for the, for the reserve to come out. Thank you. You have the label now, the labels going through the TTV process. Is that right?

Michael: Labels going through the TTV process. So we're going with a, we're probably going with a felt label. So a little bit of luxury there. And it will hopefully launch within two months or so.

Kerry: Great. I appreciate you. Thank you for bringing me on. Oh, yeah. Good luck with all of your ventures, and I hope everything turns out. And for those out there who are not part of the elite group on Facebook, if you are an elite person into whiskey, not a scammer, feel free to look it up and apply to be on the group.

Michael: Correct. Just reach out to me. We'll put you through an interview process, a grinding interview process. So thanks, Kerry

Kerry: All right. Thank you, Michael.

Michael: All right. Have a good one.

Kerry: 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.