Laws Whiskey House: “There are no shortcuts.” Creating great American Whiskey with Casey Rizzo & Sam Poirier

Cory Comer  00:00
Music. This is whiskey wanderlust,

Ryan Hall  00:07
and we’re on an expedition to discover how Colorado is elevating craft spirits from grain to glass.

Cory Comer  00:14
We bring whiskey explorers like you an inside look at the distilled stories, colorful characters and rich flavors that make Colorado a true whiskey frontier.

Ryan Hall  00:22
So pour yourself a DRAM and

Cory Comer  00:25
join us on an unforgettable journey.

Ryan Hall  00:35
In this episode, laws whiskey house,

Cory Comer  00:38
welcome everyone to the fourth episode of whiskey, wanderlust. I’m Cory. I’m Ryan. Ryan, thanks for joining us again today. First of all, we want to thank everybody for their ongoing support. We’re now on episode four, and we’ve seen a lot of a lot of great just support throughout to get us to this point right, awesome interviews, and we’re building a little bit of a fan base, which has been great, and we really want to appreciate you guys for your involvement with that, sharing stuff on social, or sharing spreading the word. It’s been great. And be sure, if you’re not subscribed yet, be sure to like and subscribe this episode here, and be sure to drop us your rating. And we might be giving out some shirts to some of your reviewers out there. So really cool, fun shirts we’ve been making. So be sure to drop us a note and we’ll get in touch. But today’s episode is now episode four, and we are interviewing laws distillery, lost whiskey house, excuse me, up in Denver and Ryan, don’t you, uh, tell us a little bit about what we’re gonna talk about today.

Ryan Hall  01:44
Yeah. So we had the opportunity to talk to Casey Rizzo, who is the brand manager at laws whiskey house, and Sam pourier, who is the head distiller, yeah. So it was, it was really fun time going up there and talking with them, and, you know, getting a tour of the facility and just talking, talking whiskey with those 201. Of

Cory Comer  02:00
the cool things, which we will talk about in a minute. But we were able to get not only a tour their facility there, but before it was finished, their tasting room, yeah, which might as well talk about it now, right? Yeah. We were able to kind of see the new tasting room while it was still in progress. And in December, we were able to go back and actually attend the soft opening for that space there the whiskey sanctuary. And it is. It’s a beautiful, just fantastic. Yeah, you guys are in the Denver area. Look up the whiskey sanctuary. Go get a taste. Go get a tour the lounge. There is top rate, beautiful staircase. It’s now and done like a whiskey barrel. If you want to check out the more. Check out the real we put up on Instagram in December, but tell us a bit more. What else? What else stood out to

Ryan Hall  02:47
you? So the thing that I really like about laws is their whole there are no shortcuts, ethos and just so that’s, that’s something that I try to live my life by, like I, you know, personal development. And I don’t want to take any shortcuts. I want to do things the right way. I want to, you know, want to, you know, make things methodical and and do it the right way. And so I really appreciated that, that they’re, you know, not taking any shortcuts, which also led into, you know, with Al, the decision to not really open up and make other spirits early on, right? Yeah,

Cory Comer  03:19
yeah. Well, and, I mean, So Al, the founder, right from Canada, came to Denver by way of New York for a long time. And he founded the distillery, really incognito, right? Had apparently Garg oil industries. And Sam even talks about it was trying to find the place, yeah, before it was even open. And so Sam’s been there for 13 years, right? Because they just celebrated 13 years. So he’s been there a long time, but the dedication to just crafting whiskey, and then him making a certain promise to his wife, which is kind of fun, which you guys go to the tasting room see two things. First of all, that there is no shortcuts. ETHOS is in the speakeasy, speakeasy tasting room that you come into at the end of the tours, and there’s a big black wall with gold lettering. It says there are no shortcuts. And then there you can also get samplings of Mary Ann’s promise, which is the rum that they make specifically for the tasting room. So be sure to check that out as well. But the whole gargoyles thing, the whole Gothic theme runs really throughout the new taste room itself. It’s really cool, yeah, which is called the the whiskey sanctuary, right? It’s really cool. They got, they’ve got, like this, the tour starts, and they’ve, they’re in this little, kind of like a chapel, almost, yeah,

Ryan Hall  04:34
area with real to use from a Methodist Church, and then huge windows where you can see their their grain storage outside, and so it’s an awesome

Cory Comer  04:42
space well, and one of the fun things you’ll see in the episode today is behind us, there’s a drawing. It’s a chalkboard drawing. And I remember this chalkboard drawing, and there’s been some debate over which version I saw originally, but Casey drew the one that you see in the episode, and they. Carried that. It’s basically a diagram of the distilling process and their and their practices there, and it’s hand drawn. And they’ve kept some of those, those elements, in the new tasting room, so now they have chalkboard with the same kind of hand drawings in the new whiskey church there. And it’s, it’s really, really cool. And

Ryan Hall  05:16
the original chalkboard still lives on. It’s in the tasting room. You gotta, you got to look for it. You got to keep your eyes open. So if you stop in there, look

Cory Comer  05:23
for it. There’s a special place for that one. Yeah, in the hallway. Yes, it still lives on, which is cool. But talking with Casey and stuff about that and and her involvement with, she’s been with laws long time as well, and probably, you know, and kind of on the same note, right there, it takes a village ethos. Yeah, the thing stood out to me, and Casey and Sam both really talked about this a lot, was the family it takes a village methodology that they go through. And they really seem like a tight knit group. Obviously, they were their their efforts come out in their spirits. I mean, they’re, they’re producing some of the best, best bourbon coming out of Colorado today. And I think anywhere, really, that’s my personal opinion. I really love their their their work, but it comes out in anything they’re doing, including the new tasting room, including the interview. I think you guys will, you guys will see it come through, really, how they talk about everything. It’s it’s really cool. So it’s good family, family oriented project there, for sure,

Ryan Hall  06:26
yeah. And I really appreciate how, you know, with it taking the village, just how everybody kind of has some input into the final product. And Sam’s title is head distiller, but he’s not master distiller because they don’t have a master distiller because they just have a team working on on all the products they’re putting out. Yes, it’s super

Cory Comer  06:45
cool, and some of the things that you weren’t privy to, or some things that happened off, off screen, which actually speaks to this particular version of the bourbon here. This is a special release that they released only to Costco. But Sam and Al both spoke very highly of that particular release. If you have an opportunity to get their hands on a bottle of that from secondary

Ryan Hall  07:05
market somewhere, best, maybe someone can reach out to you and buy a couple of the stock, they’re gonna pay

Cory Comer  07:12
a premium price for that. For sure, I may have gotten more than one bottle.

Ryan Hall  07:16
Yeah, same here.

Cory Comer  07:20
But the other thing is, too whiskey, man, yeah, I mentioned this one of the cool things they had as a calligrapher who was etching on the glasses or the bottles for a budding so we ended up getting whiskey wanderlust etched onto one. We just got a bottle and got whiskey wanderlust etched on the bottle. So it was a special thing. So yeah, and really, this is a big thank you to Casey and Sam for inviting us out for that particular soft opening event. It was great. It was a great, great event. And yeah, just really goes back to the start, where we interviewed them and just had a great time. So thank you guys for inviting us up there and let us participate in that

Ryan Hall  07:58
for sure. Appreciate that. And then also there’ll be a bonus or bootleg episode. We’ll call it bootleg, yeah, coming out, we got to catch up with Al at the at the soft opening event, and we expected to have maybe, like, a couple minutes. He could just tell us, you know, like, Oh, it’s great to have it open now. But he sat down and had a full conversation. And so you were able to have a full interview conversation with him. And so we’ll be putting that out here in in the short time. So if you’re not subscribed, subscribe, so you can be on the lookout for that too. But it was a really cool, really cool

Cory Comer  08:31
conversation. And we had, we talked about the about the process for the building, and then the whiskey, and he really dove into it there as well. And you probably won’t see it in the final cut, but we got interrupted by a state senator, which was really cool. It’s really cool to meet her and just it. It really the moment really was like the impact that Alice had on local community there, and people walked in, they were really drawn to him, and he’s very warm and friendly guy. And so we were, we were greatly honored to have the time that he gave us like we felt really, like we’re really grateful for that. So yeah, I think you’re out for that. I mean, you had a ton of other things to do, shaking hands and, you know, but the time you gave us was great. So we really, really appreciate that. So we’ll get to that, though, and that booth thing episode. So yeah, and

Ryan Hall  09:15
so without further ado, here’s our conversation with Casey and Sam.

Cory Comer  09:21
Welcome to whiskey wanderlust, Cory and Ryan, and we’re here with Casey and Sam from laws whiskey house here in Denver, and we’re excited that they’re gonna be able to join us and talk to us about their awesome whiskies they have here. So yeah, let’s just get into it. So Casey, let’s start with you. Yeah, tell us laws, give us a background and how did, how did this? How does place come into being? And tell us a little bit more about Al and Marianne, yeah. Well, laws,

Casey Rizzo  09:47
we’ve been around for almost 13 years now. So we started distilling in 2011 we didn’t open our doors or sell any whiskey until 2013 but Al laws. Our owner, Founder, CEO, puts the laws in laws whiskey and his wife, Mary Ann. They actually come from Canada, and so he kind of developed a love of whiskey fairly early on in life. You know, I hear that up in Canada, it’s pretty much like hockey, maple syrup, whiskey. So started drinking whiskey. Early on, developed quite a love for whiskey. Early on, grew up, became an adult, moved to New York and worked on Wall Street for Merrill Lynch, so he was in the oil and gas industry. Maybe not a job that he loved, but maybe not his passion definitely paid the bills and supported his whiskey habits. So he has over 600 bottles in his own personal collection at home, all open all willing to share with family and friends. He’s the first person to tell you, if you have a good bottle of whiskey, open it, drink it, share it, enjoy it. There’s always going to be whiskey aging in a barrel somewhere. So he really was thinking about starting a distillery. He was talking with his wife, Marianne. They were actually thinking about starting it out in Brooklyn, where they were located at the time, but Merrill Lynch transferred him and his family out here to Colorado, where he realized very quickly what a lot of us transplants to Colorado, realized that it’s a great place to live, it’s a great place to raise your family, and it also happens to be a great place to make and age whiskey. So

Ryan Hall  11:38
there seems to be a lot more room out here to take that endeavor on. Yeah, absolutely.

Casey Rizzo  11:43
You know, we are very much known for this big craft beer boom out here in Colorado, which has been very exciting, and now we’re kind of right in the middle of this big kind of craft spirits and whiskey boom, which is awesome. 

Sam Poirier  11:58
Got a really educated consumer base here in Colorado. So, 

Cory Comer  12:01
Yeah, well, I mean, beard, Colorado, have gone long history, right? Got a few small guys here, right? But it’s been fun to, like, you said transplants, right? I have a transplant. And I moved here from Arizona, where, I think when I left, there was like five distilleries in the state. And I like, you know, I ran across one of the trail maps here. I was like, holy smokes. And on the map of the 60 some odd distillers was, like, this place is, yeah, 

Sam Poirier  12:24
I think it’s probably upwards to 100 now, 

Cory Comer  12:26
yeah, I think you’re right. So, I mean, it’s great place to start up. So tell us more about that journey, though. Like, he didn’t just decide to open up a distillery here. Like he, he did some,

Casey Rizzo  12:36
he did some massive research for it, yeah, um, you know, he’s an analyst by trade, so he sat back and analyzed everything, read a lot of books. Him and his wife went down to Kentucky to travel the Bourbon Trail, do a little bit of research. Kind of met some people along the way, and one of those people that he met was a gentleman by the name of Bill Friel. Bill was the master distiller of Barton’s for over 35 years. He’s one of the only living members in the Kentucky bourbon Hall of Fame. He was a consultant in the whiskey world for a long time, and then very happily retired when Al was able to kind of set up this very quick, almost 30 minute meet and greet with him to pick his brain they were chatting drinking 30 minutes turned into an hour. Turned into two hours. At the end of this conversation, he had convinced bill to come out here to Denver and help him start this distillery. So Al obviously has this big passion for whiskey. Bill saw that and really wanted to cultivate that, which we all appreciate. So they came out here, we got this building, all the equipment, and then July 4, 2011 is when we distilled our our first bourbon Here.

Sam Poirier  13:51
And Bill was very much a guide in that whole process for Al, but he wasn’t necessarily teaching him exactly how to make whiskey, because when he was back here with Bill, and they’re running their first batches, you know, Al was asking every question he could. He wanted to, you know, use that time while Bill was out here. And Bill would be like, you know, I’m not going to make your whiskey for you, son. What do you think? You know, interesting? So he was, he was answering every question with a question and and guiding out through that process. But he wasn’t going to tell him how to make his whiskey Interesting. Yeah, 

Cory Comer  14:22
that’s definitely that like guide mentalities is a good thing, right? Because, 

Sam Poirier  14:26
yeah, well, Al refers to bill as his Yoda, because of that kind of cryptic response to every question, right? Yeah. 

Ryan Hall  14:34
But then it allowed, allowed al to kind of create everything his own. And so it wasn’t just a remake of something else. It was very much his own, 

Sam Poirier  14:42
absolutely, with the confidence that he had someone there who’s been doing, yeah, 40 plus years, yeah,

Casey Rizzo  14:47
yeah, yeah. He didn’t guide him or show him the way. He basically, kind of hopped on his back and whipped him into shape, yeah,

Ryan Hall  14:53
wax on, wax off.

Cory Comer  14:57
So, I mean, let’s, let’s kind of. A backup too. I mean, because sounds like Al does research, right? They’re making a huge leap coming from New York out here, you know, with the transfer, but they’re the new area, right? Obviously, doing. They’re tapped in some good talent, right? But what was the vision that he originally set out to cast for laws and tell us more about that.

Casey Rizzo  15:22
Yeah, you know, we we have our flagship for grain, bourbon, which is what started it all. And that was really Al’s vision, and still fairly unique to us, with our mash bills, 60% corn, 20% wheat, 10% rye, 10% barley. And usually in the bourbon world, you see bourbons either referred to as weeded bourbons or rye heavy bourbons. So either or is the flavor grain, because sometimes those grains don’t really play together very well. Al really liked the idea of the drinkability of a weeded bourbon, something like maker’s mark with the complexity of a rye heavy bourbon, something like four roses, was kind of some inspiration for him. So we he really wanted to be able to capture that drink ability of the wheat and the complexity of the rye in a four grain bourbon. So it is a little bit more detailed process to be able to express those grains together and get them to play well. But that was really the first thing that started it all. Yeah, I think

Sam Poirier  16:38
he saw there was kind of a gap. There was this missing piece in American whiskey. He wanted to make great, traditional American whiskey, but he wanted to have all of his favorite components from whiskeys in one drink, and to experience those flavors or aromas throughout that one one sip. So I mean, he does a good job. And one of the unique things I’ve you know, in talking to you guys too, is your history, right? Is you guys? Al set up to make whiskey, right? And that’s it. So there was a three year gap between the time that he started distilling to the time that started selling, right? Whereas a lot of other facilities go and make other, you know, other spirits, vodka or gin or whatever, Al didn’t do that at first, right? Even though I know you guys have some side projects going on, which we, hopefully we talk about here, but it’s exclusively whiskey throughout, throughout, with the laws label on it, correct? Yeah,

Casey Rizzo  17:31
yeah. And that was really important to us as well. You know, we’ve, we’ve never, ever sourced, we’ve never released, kind of a young whiskey, under three years really. So that was a big goal. Al wanted to make a straight whiskey. He always wanted to put that on the label from day one, which is at least two years old. He made some stuff, aged it for two years. Kind of was tasting through it. We were well on our way, but not, not quite there yet. So waited a whole nother year at three years, was kind of like, Yep, this is, this is a great profile. This is where we want to start, and that’s when we first bottled. So we’ve never released anything under three years. And anything that you ever have had from laws, or will have from laws has always been distilled right here in our distillery, it’s

Sam Poirier  18:21
definitely a unique position to be in, to be able to lay down product for three years and not put something out. But yeah, for sure, he’s pretty stubborn, and he loves whiskey. He doesn’t drink vodka, doesn’t drink beer or wine. This is, this is what he set out to do, is, is make great whiskey, and you have to be patient to do that. So yeah,

Ryan Hall  18:42
and I understand he had some creative methods to kind of stay afloat during that time, right as you guys were waiting for things to age, yeah, well, for one,

Sam Poirier  18:50
I mean, Al and Marin had their day jobs. It was just them when they they started this place. So I think they made the first 50 barrels or so before they brought anyone else in. But yeah, he also, you know, had some friends around that the industry he worked in and met through the corporate side of the world that he was able to sell off the first barrels that he made to bring some money back in. And those, those barrels, some of them still exist, are referred to as our origins barrels, because they’re the start of it all here in Boston, Wall Street’s no stranger to liking good whiskey. So, you know, if he probably had some deep, deep pockets to friends that would enjoy the product. So that’s good, yeah. And

Casey Rizzo  19:32
we’ve been able to buy some of those barrels back over the years. I feel, you know, maybe a few of those friends, you know, originally kind of bought those barrels. It’s like, oh, yeah, we’ll help you out. And in the first couple years, realized very quickly what they had. So we’ve been able to sell or buy a few barrels back, but some of those barrels are definitely owned by those people now. And they’re like, No, we know what we have. We’re not letting those go. 

Ryan Hall  19:56
They’re still aging here, correct? 

Sam Poirier  19:57
There’s not many back there. 

Ryan Hall  19:59
Okay, yeah. 

Cory Comer  20:00
They have their names written on the outside of the barrel studio. 

Sam Poirier  20:02
They’re painted black. They say origins in the Origin series, still to this day, is kind of our limited release. We do once a year to put up specials. 

Cory Comer  20:10
Okay, now you meant you said Al doesn’t drink vodka. But I I understand there might be an exception to that.

Sam Poirier  20:18
I don’t see al drink vodka. Perhaps there is, please, 

Cory Comer  20:23
conversation with some of your friends down the street. 

Sam Poirier  20:26
Oh, I mean, I’m sorry when, when he does, he prefers the the rye vodka from from Bear Creek. The Bear Creek vodka they make down there definitely has a soul and, yeah, has has some flavor to it, as a body to it. It’s a great vodka, but it has more complexity than something you’re buying off the show. 

Ryan Hall  20:44
Yeah, we had the pleasure of tasting that when we were down there too, and it was awesome. Yeah, I don’t like vodka really either, especially straight, but yeah, it was really good. So yeah, 

Cory Comer  20:53
now there was also kind of unique story behind because when Al first started this place, a little incognito, right, little non descript, right? And even had a certain sign that was up before it was laws, right? Well,

Casey Rizzo  21:04
yeah, you’ll, you’ll see throughout this distillery as well, quite a few gargoyles hanging around. And some of our barrels even say gargoyle enterprise, as opposed to laws whiskey house, some of those older barrels. And you know, laws whiskey houses are doing business name, but gargoyle enterprise is what we fall under. So for the first couple years, this building did say gargoyle enterprise out front. You know, whiskey is a long game. We didn’t really want people talking about what we’re doing in those parts,

Sam Poirier  21:39
knocking on the door. Hey, what are you doing in there? Yeah, like, what’s

Casey Rizzo  21:42
going on in there?

Cory Comer  21:45
That’s happened, though, right? Of course, it happened. We’ll get more into that later.

Casey Rizzo  21:51
So yeah, we were very incognito the first three years, just kind of making an aging whiskey, and when we were ready to bottle and sell. That is when gargoyle enterprise came down, and then law’s whiskey House came up. And so we’ve been known as laws whiskey house forevermore,

Cory Comer  22:12
and that gargoyle name lives on.

Casey Rizzo  22:14
The gargoyle name lives on. So gargoyles are here to protect the good spirits from the bad spirits, so we appreciate them being in our distillery. And we also, you mentioned, you know, we do do some side projects, and Sam gets to do some fun things, and that goes under our gargoyle name if we’re not producing whiskey. And

Cory Comer  22:38
there was one particular promise that,

Casey Rizzo  22:44
ah, yes,

Sam Poirier  22:45
internally, we refer to it as the broken promise. But yeah. So Al’s wife, Marianne, is a rum drinker, and she loves, loves rum. So yeah, I think part of the negotiation when they were coming up with the ideas to start the distillery was, well, you have to make me rum? Sure, yeah, and we have made that rum. We have never put it out, but we do have a good amount of rum, and I think it’s pretty good. Marianne likes it most importantly. So that was referred to as Marion’s promise, or Marion

Casey Rizzo  23:19
Marion’s broken promise throughout the years, you

Sam Poirier  23:22
get a label, right? Mary Ann’s promise, and you have, like a forged crack. We do have labels. It is called Marion’s promise, and you’ll see that at some point from us, maybe when we open our new tasting room that we have,

Casey Rizzo  23:34
yes, the labels done. It’s ready to go. We will launch it with the new tasting room. They’re made. Be some different things associated with time and waiting on the label as well, but it is here. So I think Mary Ann is happy,

Sam Poirier  23:53
and that’s that’s one of the things that I really appreciate about your distillery, is that your whole ethos of patience and slowing down and on the wall in there. Yeah, there’s no shortcuts. And I love can you tell us more about that, that ethos, the patience and the waiting? Yeah. I mean, we live by that. Here we do. We do everything the hard way, in the slow way. So from, you know, the traditional process we use in our whiskey production to building the company and the brand. We want to do it right and make sure that it’s everything’s up to our standards. So it’s, it’s not a fast process. It’s

Casey Rizzo  24:31
not whiskey takes time. It takes patience. You know, between that second and third year that Al decided to age that whiskey for that additional year, he went out and got a tattoo of a gargoyle just kind of sitting on a barrel waiting to just symbolize that. You know, you need to be patient. It takes time. So you know that’s that’s a big component of of whiskey, and good whiskey, for sure.

Cory Comer  24:59
Yeah, the gargoyle is such a cool icon that, I mean, you guys have it kind of more incognito in non descript as you kind of, you know, layered in things. But it’d be cool to see gargoyle bless one of your bottles eventually. Now, so tell me, and I’m a little bit of a brand nerd in talking to you now, I’m kind of realizing, is there a significance behind the design of the mark there on the logo.

Casey Rizzo  25:22
Yes, there’s significance behind every not every distillery,

Cory Comer  25:26
though, has that approach. So tell us more about like. I mean, that looks like a Celtic knot at first glance, but tell me more about it. Yeah, absolutely.

Casey Rizzo  25:33
So it is essentially kind of two knots intertwined, really, one symbolizing time and one symbolizing process and where they meet in the middle is, is where you get that great whiskey.

Cory Comer  25:48
All right? So let’s talk a lot about laws and the origins, but tell us more about your origins, right? Because you you’ve got quite a journey to get here, right and work at, uh, events and hospitality, right? Tell us how you ended up here, and your your journey to become brain manager here at laws, yeah.

Casey Rizzo  26:05
Well, I have always loved whiskey and kind of the beer scene as well. And I really started, kind of in this hospitality and events field I worked in, you know, a very service industry, hospitality focused world for a long time, 60 hours a week till four o’clock in the morning, and got kind of very burnt out on that, and pivoted at one point into kind of like an HR role that was Fine, but not in any way a passion at all. And I was introduced to laws, and I actually took my husband here on a tour, and I just instantly fell in love. And after the tour, I was like, I could, I could do that. And he was like, You really could do that. And a few years later, it was kind of by happenstance that I was even seeking anything out because I had just had a child, so I was on maternity leave, I wasn’t thinking about going back to my corporate job, and I was working at a brewery, and laws just posted that they were hiring for the tasting room for brand ambassadors in the tasting room. And at the time, I had a very small baby, like, I didn’t know if the schedule would work for me. I didn’t know, like, what the hours were, what they were offering. I was like, I have to come in and interview for this position. And I interviewed with the tasting room manager. And Sam’s wife, Julia, actually, she was in the tasting room at the time, and she was my very first interview. Um, and I got it, and it was like, I essentially dream job for from the beginning. I never miss a chance to talk about or drink whiskey. So I was just in love from the very beginning. I really like being able to kind of take information about distilling and kind of compress it down to smaller parts for, you know, people to understand, for the masses to understand, sure,

Cory Comer  28:18
well, you’ve, you’ve done a good job with this thing, right? Because I understand you drew this.

Casey Rizzo  28:22
I did draw that, yes, and that’s a big part here. You know, we’re super nerdy. We really get into education. I think all our brand ambassadors do a really, really great job at introducing whiskey to the masses. So you can come here with very little knowledge or even any sort of love for whiskey, and really experience a great tour and get you know a love for whiskey, and also you can come as an Uber whiskey nerd and find stuff for you as well. So yeah, I’ve kind of just used this opportunity to get my hands dirty wherever I can, and say yes to any opportunity that has come my way, and now I get to be more on the brand and marketing side of things, which is pretty awesome. Do you

Cory Comer  29:11
remember who did your tour when you first came in? Are they still here? They

Casey Rizzo  29:15
are not still here? No, I don’t remember who it was actually.

Cory Comer  29:19
Sam, oh,

Sam Poirier  29:20
I don’t give tours. No, I

Casey Rizzo  29:22
did. Sam did watch my first tour. So when you become a brand ambassador, one of the first things that you have to do is, like, do the tour for one of the distillers, a pretty

Cory Comer  29:33
intimidating guy. How did that go? It was intimidating.

Casey Rizzo  29:35
It was very intimidating. And I didn’t know Sam very well. So it’s like, oh, like, and Sam is obviously a wealth of knowledge. So was like, Oh yeah, here jump on your first tour, and Sam’s gonna be here with like, a notepad taking notes about how you do so that was intimidating, but I made it, and he said that I could, I passed, and I could go on to the

Cory Comer  29:59
Here you are. I. Years ago was that? Now that

Casey Rizzo  30:00
was five years ago? Yeah, okay, or five years soon, my five year anniversary is coming up. Very cool. Yeah,

Cory Comer  30:08
awesome. Well, and you so back up too, because you mentioned that you kind of have roots here in Colorado, but you’re also out from out east, right? Tell us a little more about like you had some family in both places, right? Yes,

Casey Rizzo  30:20
yeah, I kind of bounced back and forth between, like, the Four Corners area Durango and Massachusetts. So my dad’s always lived in mass. I moved out here to Durango with my mom when I was very young. So yeah, I bounced back and forth. Met my husband back east, and then we moved back out to Denver in 2007 so we’ve been out here for for quite a long time now. But

Cory Comer  30:48
reason I bring it up, we got two data points now from right, Alan Marion moving up from out east here, now from East. And I think we’ve got one more coming, right? Because that’s where you’re from. Yes, right? 

Sam Poirier  30:58
I’m from Maine originally, and I will say, alameri and are actually from Alberta, Canada. 

Cory Comer  31:04
So that’s true. That’s true. 

Sam Poirier  31:05
Not at east, but they were in New York for time

Ryan Hall  31:08
Pretty far north.

Sam Poirier  31:08
Yeah. 

Cory Comer  31:10
So tell us more about your journey than getting here. How did you, I mean, Portland to Colorado, fill us in,

Sam Poirier  31:18
Yeah. So, I mean, I grew up my my dad had a home, still at home, I think as a kid, that image, just the vessel is pretty cool in itself. You know, this kind of copper pot sitting on the stove with a long copper little coil going through the sink with ice in it and then dripping down into a bottle. I think also, there was kind of a rebellious nature to that that stuck with me. But my dad made very poor quality country wine. I don’t you know I was a kid, I didn’t consume it. I’m told it was pretty terrible, but he would distill it into some version of brandy. So that was my first introduction into distilling when I was kid. And I think that image always stuck with me. And then, growing up in Portland, I grew up around the restaurant scene and the craft beer scene, and worked for a really great spot that took me all over, all over the world, visiting these small farmhouse breweries in Belgium. And we would travel to all different places and get to experience that, meet people and and that was my introduction into the passion of why people do this. So I wanted to learn more about that, and ultimately, I dove into reading everything I could about distilling, took some courses, and eventually got an internship here in Colorado. That’s what brought me out here in 2012 Okay, which is where I met my wife at a distillery and been been making whiskey every ever since. We did a short stint back in Maine helping a friend open a distillery. But my wife is from the Denver area and wanted to come back here, so it brought it. That brought us back out here. And I was looking for work, and I was talking to the distilleries around the area, and laws was one of them, and I didn’t have an appointment or anything, I just came and I knocked on the door. There’s no one out front, but it happened to be Al, who was back here running all the equipment that day, and he was like, Oh, come on in, you know, and he showed me around. And I think that probably lasted for about an hour, and you could just feel the passion and the reason behind everything he was doing here really struck a chord with me. And yeah, you know, when I walked out the door, I called my wife, and I was like, this is, this is the spot I want to work at. I need to be here. And luckily, the cards aligned and or the stars aligned. 

Cory Comer  33:32
The gargoyles aligned.

Sam Poirier  33:33
Yeah, gargoyles aligned. And about a month later, he gave me a call, and they had an opening, and I’ve been here for, yeah, almost 10 years. 

Cory Comer  33:42
Okay, so had the gargoyle sign come off when you walked in the door. Any not, 

Sam Poirier  33:45
no. It’s funny is, you know, this whole space we’re sitting in now was one of our rack houses, the main rack house at the time, and all of the barrels were painted as the gargoyle that we see up here behind us. And when we did our public launch, we had to go in and re face all the barrels because we didn’t want to have some confusion. So we had to, oh yeah, sand them all down. Paint them originally. All the barrels were painted white, like this is barrel number 100 we have behind me because we were painting over that gargoyle and making sure it was all branded properly for the launch. 

Cory Comer  34:20
So you just, I mean, just go around and look at it for every gargoyle sign in the neighborhood. Knock on. Did you? Did you have a inkling that he was doing some distilling? 

Sam Poirier  34:27
Well, I had known about it when I was working at another distiller in Colorado. I had heard about him starting up. Okay, so I knew it existed here. I don’t know that there was any sign on the front of the building at the time. So kind of non descript warehouse. I think I got the the address off the internet. So, yeah, 

Cory Comer  34:47
so word had traveled you landed here. So,

Ryan Hall  34:49
so, so in that time since you’ve been here almost 10 years, how have you seen the whiskey itself kind of evolve and change? Or has it evolved and changed at all? 

Sam Poirier  34:59
So, absolutely. I mean, we haven’t moved away from any of the core kind of foundations of what we started the company on, but I would say that every little factor has changed over the years. I mean, we’re obsessed with making the best whiskey we can, and for us, that means we run the experiments constantly. If anyone proposes something, we’ll debate it, we’ll test it out, we’ll patiently wait, and then we’ll get to taste it on the back end and talk about these things we’ve seen. But we we’re not set in stone with like this is how we make whiskey. We won’t ever change. We have changed little things slowly over the years, but we like to think we’re making our best whiskey today because of the experience we’ve had during all these little test runs that we’ve done over the years. But it’s a slow process in whiskey, changing things, sure, and you have to be pretty confident to make a consistent change like that, but really, you know, core to everything we do is showcasing the beautiful grains that we grow here in Colorado and maximizing those flavors so that that’s what we’re looking at when we’re doing anything. That is the pinnacle of what we’re trying to do. 

Cory Comer  36:07
I certainly want to talk to you about, you know, sourcing locally, so Colorado, but before we get there. I mean, when I moved out Colorado, I had journeyed through Colorado a couple different times. I discovered like, kept mountains my other stories of state when we first moved to springs, though, I just found the whiskey trail map and was like starting to explore and end up down. I remember where I first tasted your whiskey because I was down at the Edelweiss restaurant in Colorado Springs. Well, German restaurants, great place, by the way. And I asked the guy, is that what local Colorado ski Colorado whiskeys? Do you have? He said, said, We have lost I said, Well, tell me about it. Like, it’s like, the best whiskey I’ve ever had. I was like, Okay, I’ll try one. And so sure enough, I tried it was like, really good. That was near six years ago, right? So you guys had been producing for a handful of years at time, but, um, obviously, I mean, you guys were doing something really good early, right? And you guys have developed a brand for yourself and reputation. So tell me more about how you help maintain the reputation from what you guys are doing while still evolving the future of the brand. And tell me about your role, specifically, your role in that. 

Sam Poirier  37:12
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, we are not reinventing how to make whiskey, you know. And Al had Bill here with him to kind of guide him through that process. But what we do here is we’re using local Colorado grains with big flavor, grains grown for their flavor, not for their big yield or how easily they are to process in in the whiskey production process, we do traditional sour mash whiskey open air fermentation. We doubled the still in copper pot stills, and then we age in full size, 53 gallon barrels. So following these traditional methods, there isn’t a desired end result that’s going to be the highest quality. And we believe that we’re using the highest quality ingredients to start with. One of the reasons I wanted to start this year in Colorado. So maintaining and building off what we already have going for us is pretty easy, because we have such a strong system here and so many people who are so passionate about what we do, that it makes it pretty easy for us and

Ryan Hall  38:16
understand with being here in Colorado, you really want the flavors of Colorado, the terroir of Colorado to come through in the glass. And so what are some of the ways that that you feel the grains are coming through on the in the end product? Yeah, I

Sam Poirier  38:30
mean, we focus on terroir a lot. That’s something that is discussed less in the whiskey industry than it is in say, wine, but it plays a huge role in what we do. And that, of course, starts with the grains that we use. When we talk about terroir, we’re talking about the varietal of grain that we’re using, the conditions it’s grown in. Of course, the production process here in Colorado is pretty unique, and that’s mostly a factor when it comes to maturation here at high elevation. But you know the grains that we’re using terroir. Most of those, the three grains, the wheat, the rye and the barley, are coming from Alamos in the San Luis Valley, where it’s it’s a very unique climate to grow grain because it’s high elevation. It’s about 7500 feet there. It’s dry, it’s hot in the daytime, it’s cold at night. And then that whole valley is an ancient lake bed, so it has a really unique soil type. So they’re growing these heirloom varietals of grain that have were brought there generations ago, and now have kind of cross bred over over the generations to become their own unique bridles of grain.

Casey Rizzo  39:38
Yeah. And we obviously focus on terroir a lot. And Sam said, you hear that word a lot in the wine world. It was actually kind of argued for a long time that, you know, grains didn’t express the same flavor terroir as wine. And one of those reasons is because farmers never really you. Grain farmers have never really had to grow for flavor, right? They typically grow these high yield commodity grains. About 85% of distilleries in the entire country still get their grains from five commodity huge farms. So a lot of the whiskey that you’re getting, good, bad, expensive, cheap. That’s still probably coming from these, you know, five commodity grain farms and a lot of distilleries won’t focus on their green at all. If you go to a lot of distillery tours, they they’ll kind of go right by that what their green is or where they source their grain from. So by being able to really dive into our regionality and have such great relationships with our farmers and know exactly what season our grains are coming from, being able to go down to our farms and discuss all those elements with our farmers, it really shines and makes a difference in our whiskey, for sure, right?

Cory Comer  41:00
On Colorado’s. I mean, Carl’s been producing these grains for a long time. So it’s not like, it’s unfamiliar to Colorado farmers that this, you know, stuff is here, right? So it’s interesting, though, that, and we’ve it’s speaking of different distillers, different people industry, right? I mean, they mentioned that, you mentioned the commodity farms, like, there was basically, was like, beer feed. That was, like, the two things that people grew up for. I don’t think beers necessarily looking for the same flavor profiles. The whiskeys are right, because you’re not getting that refined, you know, refined flavor profile. So it’s interesting though, that, you know, we’re coming around now, and the craft the craft distillery world, is driving that, right, yeah.

Casey Rizzo  41:35
And the craft distillery world and the craft beer world are is really driving the survival of a lot of these small farms too, because, you know, they can’t necessarily compete against these larger commodity farms. So we’ve had the pleasure of working with some of these farmers who have, you know, pulled back and really focused on these flavor greens too. Yeah,

Sam Poirier  41:54
it’s really nice. The relationship is totally co dependent. I mean, we can’t do what we do without these farmers, right? And for their business, selling grain to distilleries has been huge. It’s changed the entire business. So, right? 

Cory Comer  41:58
Well, and I know obviously you guys are very proud of your ry as well as your bourbon, but supposed to be rye, as I understand, Rye is, is thrives here in Colorado, in the high, high country, and the climate we have here, right? So, uh, tell us how. Tell us a little bit more about how that rye would stand out with based on the grain. So if you’re using here versus, you know, lower elevations and other places where you’re going to find that product, 

Sam Poirier  42:32
yeah, well, this rye in particular is such a big, bold flavor. It’s it’s beautiful, and that rye does is able to produce that those flavors, because it’s stressed out in that environment. They have ancient water rights down there, because the family’s been down there for 100 years, so they can give it water when it needs to. But it’s a very dry climate, and you know, those hot days and the cold nights stress the plant out, force the roots to go deeper and produce this big grain for flavor. So the San Luis Valley rye that we have here are whiskey. The rye varietal is called SLB rye because it is now recognized as being unique to that one valley. But a lot of people think with rye as being kind of one dimensional, has spice, right? And it’s kind of like a crack black pepper. This has so much complexity to it. There’s these beautiful vegetal notes. There’s some citrus notes. We get a lot of black tea in our whiskeys because of the grain we use, and it’s in the Rye, it’s in the bourbon, all of our whiskeys. It’s a it’s unique, and it it’s full body. It coats your mouth. It’s just a really fun experience sipping on that ski. And

Casey Rizzo  43:44
not only do we use this very special, you know, varietal of rye that can only be found in this one pocket of Colorado, but it is 100% of that rye. So, you know, much like bourbon has to be 51% corn, rye has to be at least 51% rye. And a lot of rise that you see on the market will still be at that, you know, 60, 70% throw a little bit of corn in it to, you know, sweeten it up, some malted barley for that conversion factor, you’ll see some 95 five rise out there now, with that 5% barley for that conversion of starch to sugar, but we do this 100% rye. It’s 50% raw rye, 50% malted rye, to still get that conversion. So not only do you have a rye with a very unique varietal of rye grain, but you’re just getting 100% expression of that guy, which is pretty unique, right?

Ryan Hall  44:41
And you had mentioned you’re doing a sour mash process, yeah, for that to do sour mash for all of our whiskeys here. Yeah. Okay. And then, so, like, how, I guess going back, how far is that? Is that mash still from?

Sam Poirier  44:56
Like, so it’s fresh back set. So what we do is, when we are run. A strip and run when that waste product, which is the grain, the water, dead yeast, whatever other trace alcohols may be in there that gets separated off. So the solids go out for cattle feed, and that sour liquid back set is separated off. And we’ll add a little bit of that back set from the last distillation to the next Cook, and that’s going to acidify the strike water to get us in those the ranges we like to be for the brewing process. But it also adds a substantial amount of flavor and character to your whiskey. There’s been times where we don’t have back set available, and we’ve we’ve used some other kind of acid to acidify the strike water. It just doesn’t have the same character to it, right, as as sour mash whiskey does, sure. 

Cory Comer  45:45
So, I mean, the seasonality here in Colorado is wild, right? I mean, if you’ve never spent a spring time in Colorado, uh, come prepared for everything, right, from, you know, shorts weather to scourging cold, right? So and, but that and fall can be very same, similar, right? And that’s harvest time, right? So even summers vary a lot, right? So tell us how, especially when you’re making whiskey, right? You’re trying to make a more consistent product every year. But your grains can vary every year. The harvest time can be cut dramatically short, like all that stuff, right? How in the world do you manage that? 

Sam Poirier  46:23
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that’s huge for us, because we’re buying grains from just two small family farms, and the conditions of each growing season change the grain pretty drastically. Now, our head blender, James Coons, um, strives for consistency, but we know that we’re at the mercy of the grains we’re using, because we’re just buying them from from two farms. So season to season, the flavors are going to change a little bit. It’s been most evident. There was one year in particular that is burned into our memories because the rye was very heavy and certain protein that made it very difficult and challenging to process in our plant. We couldn’t keep it in fermenters. It would just blow up. And so every morning, you’d come in and you hear it just dripping over the fermenters as you come in, and got to get the pressure washer around, clean everything out, the first thing you do, oh, man, but it’s a factor in flavor, for sure, but we lean into that, right? You know, I think our whiskey year to year is very similar, but there’s going to be nuanced flavor differences, right? So, and you know, some of the grains, like you said, the rye, is actually planted in the fall. It goes dormant over the winter, and then it sprouts in the spring they bring in, they have it grazed down by sheep and goats, so it produces a viable crop for them get fertilized too at same time. Is Yeah, good, absolutely. The wheat and the barley are spring crop so and corn so,

Casey Rizzo  47:53
and it’s fun to see kind of some of that seasonality as well. You know, Sam mentioned our head blender, James, and he does a wonderful job of our kind of flagship bourbon and rye. Those will be bashed in 100 barrels. So there are about 100 barrels that come together, and he chooses those barrels and blends them together to get that consistency. But in some of our bonded products. You know, we release a bottled and bond we were actually the first distiller in Colorado to ever produce a bottled and bond bourbon, and now this year’s release, we have a seven year bonded bourbon, a seven year bonded rye and a seven year bonded wheat. So they’re all at seven years this year. But one of the big things about bonded is that it has to be, you know, made in one distillery, in one distilling season, which is just six months out of the year. So for us, that also, you know, means one harvest season. So it you do see some, some really cool grain variation from year to year, and even season to season. So last year we we produced and put out an eight year bonded bourbon, and we did two of them. And so if you see those on the shelf, you’ll see it either says F or S on it. So that’s the spring or fall distilling season. And even though they were produced, you know, in the same year, in this exact same process, same facility, aged for the exact same amount of time. They do have really cool nuances to them. So that’s that’s really fun, too, because, again, we are a grain for distillery. We want to highlight those grains and highlight kind of the personality and what the grain flavor actually brings to the whiskey, for sure,

Ryan Hall  49:48
and so being that these releases are, they’re all small batch that you have people who drink your whiskey specifically for that, because they’re not looking necessarily for consistency, but because of the uniqueness of. Of your product experience, yeah,

Casey Rizzo  50:03
yeah.

Sam Poirier  50:04
So tell me. I mean, we talked about, why aren’t we? Your wife works here, Al and Mary And, I mean, you guys have mentioned this before, but local sourcing like it takes a village, right? That’s really the mantra that ours is one of our, yeah, many mantras we have here for sure. I mean, it sounds like you’re building a village. I mean, you got your farm, you got whiskey. It’s like everything in family involved. Tell us more about that, how that impacts not only, not only the product, which love to hear that, too, but the working culture and like you guys. And, you know, it sounds like you guys are very more of a family than you are, but I think we’re very lucky to work in this industry. It’s a great industry to work in, and you know, we don’t want anyone here who doesn’t want to be here. You know, this isn’t it’s a job at the end of the day, of course, but it’s not a job to a lot of us. I mean, we’re all very passionate about whiskey and about what we do and proud of what we do, because we’re all so involved in the decisions made for our product. You know, we don’t have a master distiller here. It’s not my title. I’m the head distiller. I manage the production of spirits. But everyone on our team over here and on James’s side at the barrel house, they have an input. And if they want to try something, they want to learn something, we’ll bring something in. We’ll do it different. So we create a culture that everyone has committed something to the product. And it means a little bit more for sure to us because of that.

Casey Rizzo  51:32
Yeah. I mean, Al is, you know, a self described whiskey nerd, and he has a, I think, great habit of seeing and seeking out and kind of collecting other whiskey nerds. So I think our village is just a collection of whiskey nerds right now. And yeah, it’s one of those things that everybody does has have input. And when you, no matter where your what your position is in the company, when you come in, one of the first things that you do is, you know, work alongs with the distillers on the production floor. So you really get a sense to understand it from from the ground up. And then we do have such great relationships with our farmers as well. So, you know, I think it’s it, it’s, it’s a great sense of pride to be able to say that when you drink our whiskey, you know, the grain in our whiskey has only ever been two places, you know, on the farm, where it’s grown and malted, and then in our in our distillery. And you know, if I someone asked me a question that I can’t answer about grains, I can text any one of our farmers, and they will get back to me right away. So it’s great to have that relationship and understanding, because you can really wrap your head around the whole process and and everybody in our company in this village

Sam Poirier  52:58
has that, that knowledge and understanding, which is really cool. Well, it’s, it’s clear to me that, I mean, for all we talked about today and Al’s original approach to this, there’s a lot of heart in these products, and I taste that coming through the bottle. And it’s definitely laws is one of my favorites, that I enjoy routinely, right? And it’s, it’s a great product that comes through like that. So Sam, let’s circle back just a little bit and tell us more about some unique stuff that you’re excited about coming up. And you know, any new techniques you’re using, or any new experiments that are coming out, tell us more about what’s coming up? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we probably make 99% whiskey here, and most of that production time is spent between our two flagship products, the bourbon and the rye. But, you know, with Al’s approach, he always wanted to make four grain bourbon, but he also wanted to showcase each one of those mother grains. So we, we do make some 100% wheat whiskey, 100% rye whiskey. We make some, some fun corn whiskey. You know, most people don’t think of corn as contributing too much flavor, but it definitely does, and it’s fun to be able to taste those whiskeys, as well as 100% malt whiskey, and see what they’re contributing to our whiskeys. But beyond whiskey, like I kind of just said about the community and about people wanting to learn something. If we want to make something else, then we’ll bring it in, and we’ll run a short run towards the end of the year, usually. So we’ve made some agave recently, agave spirit. We’ve made a good amount of fruit brandies here. We’ve made apple brandy, a plum brandy, and then all different grape varietals. And then, because we’re opening this new tasting room, we want to have a full, vibrant cocktail menu, right? So we have to make some of these things that contribute to those great cocktails. So we’ve made a Curacao, which is based on the age brandy that we have, which is now about seven years, been aging in French oak. There. Is Amara, which this one is more like an apertee, so it’s a little lighter, sweeter, floral and fun, but we’ve put out some of the brandies. We’ll have Mary Ann’s promise, the rum that we’ve made. We made it quite a long time ago, and it has been agent will be showing its label here soon. Missing anything?

Casey Rizzo  55:22
I don’t What are you wearing? Aren’t you doing some

Sam Poirier  55:24
vermouth? Are you? Oh, yeah. So we’re going to be working on a sweet vermouth for a cocktail program over there, working with a local winery, which I’m very excited about. I think it’s coming along nicely. I love a Manhattan. So, oh yeah. On James’s side, he has a lot of flexibility with specialty aging, especially finishing and in casts that he source sources from all over the place. So that’s a big product line in our experiential series, he does a really great job with that. One of them being the cognac finished bourbon whiskey that we put out, which is mature bourbon that rolls into first fill cognac casts, French oak castes from the cognac region, and then they’re aged for another year or beyond in those first fill casts, before they’re rolled into a giant cognac fooder, which is a large scale oak vessel. Interesting, fits about 32 barrels, I think of bourbon, and that cognac fooder was used as a blending vessel for cognac for 50 years or so before we got it. Oh, wow. So James does somewhat of a Celera process over there, where he now has this thing full and been aging for years. He’ll deplete it by 1/3 every year and have those first fill cognac, cast bourbon agent and ready to top it back off. So it’s almost like an affinity barrel. Just keep it, yeah, yeah. James has a lot of really cool projects under the bourbon or whiskey line, at least.

Casey Rizzo  56:51
Yeah, the cognac was kind of a insider and fan favorite that we released in the tasting room. And now this is 2024 we’ll release it again in or, I guess, 2025 we’ll release it in the fall, and it will be our fourth year, our fourth iteration of this now kind of wider release. So every year, because we’re like layering that bourbon into the food or and only harvesting, you know, about 25% for every single release, and then immediately topping it back up with bourbon aged and those cognac barrels, it has a personality. And we’re like, sounds

Ryan Hall  57:33
really complex. We’ll

Cory Comer  57:35
always have a couple of these bottles offerings on the shelf in our tasting room if people want to try them, but soon you’ll be able to sit down and have them in a cocktail. And for our listeners, don’t expect to find any stuff on shelves. You have to come to the tasting room to try this stuff, so be sure to stop by again. You guys have a new tasting room, which by the time this episode launches, it’ll probably hopefully be open, right, because

Casey Rizzo  57:58
it’s knock on wood. But tell us a little

Cory Comer  58:01
bit more about tasting room and kind of what you guys are excited about

Casey Rizzo  58:04
there. Yeah, well, I mean, this has been a long time coming. I’ve been here for five years, and we’ve been talking about it enthusiastically for the five years that I’ve been here. And yeah, right now we have a small little tasting room that is very loved, and we obviously offer these tours, and we can do neat pours and, you know, flights of whiskey. And we’re just really excited to kind of launch this brand new tasting room right next to our current distillery that’s really going to be, you know, more of a visitor experience. You know, Al was really intentional about getting the whiskey right first, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of distilleries out there that have these kind of big, grand tasting rooms, and like, the whiskey is kind of like the secondary part to the experience. And we focused on our product, and now we’re excited to unveil this new tasting room that is at the quality level of what we think, you know, we’re pouring into your glass. So this will be the first time we will be able to have cocktails and a cocktail lounge and really express the whiskey in that type of way as well. So we’re really excited to have this as as like a staple and really an educational space for for our whiskey. Circling

Ryan Hall  59:33
back to something you said, Al, wanted to make sure that the whiskey was right first and understand that you’ve received a few accolades recently for that whiskey. And can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah,

Casey Rizzo  59:45
I mean, we, we’ve received a few accolades throughout the years that we’re very proud of, that we can really hang our hat on. This year though we received through the world of whiskey awards. Um. I’m the honor of Best Small batch bourbon in the world. So that’s something that we’re really excited about and hanging our hat on. You know, people always talk about Kentucky bourbon, you know, compete with some big

Cory Comer  1:00:14
names for that, right? Yeah, Kentucky

Casey Rizzo  1:00:17
bourbon is great. We are not trying to be Kentucky bourbon. We are a Colorado bourbon. But the way kind of this competition does break down is it’s the best small batch Kentucky bourbon, and then non Kentucky bourbon, but then it goes for world’s best. So this year, not only did we get best non Kentucky bourbon, but then we did be out four roses to be the world’s best small batch bourbon. So definitely something.

Cory Comer  1:00:46
I don’t think they’re too worried

Speaker 1  1:00:51
about us. Nice to be

Cory Comer  1:00:55
recognized. I mean, we there’s so much work into this, and of course, we believe we’re producing world class whiskeys here. So sure. I mean four roses. I mean the name carries, right? And it’s, I love, yeah, it’s great, right? And they’re, they do great product, and they’re well known. And it’s cool to see Colorado, you know. So you’re not the only distillery. Recently, it’s been no Colorado is recognized in that in space. So to me, that’s exciting, right? Because it’s, and we, I think we talked a little bit more about, you know, Colorado and it’s, and it’s where it’s going with in the craft world and name it’s making for itself, but, but, you know, tell us more about, like, how you guys, how you guys are playing a role in that, yeah.

Casey Rizzo  1:01:35
I mean, I think that, you know, going back to Kentucky bourbon that’s kind of recognized as as something in in the United States, as quality bourbon. But I think we are seeing kind of a new wave of bourbon as well. So I think really in the next 10 to 20 years, as more distilleries across the country are able to pull back and embrace their regionality, and use those grains from their region and those resources, we’re going to see a very different American whiskey map develop, where you see very much in Scotland, with the different regions of scotch, where you will start to see kind of, you know, like those, and recognize those New York whiskeys, and you Know, they have that big empire rye program and Texas whiskeys and Colorado whiskeys and so I think now people are really starting to perk up and pay attention to kind of that regionality, and I that’s really important to us, and be able to say that we are, You know, from the beginning, you know, grown distilled, aged and bottled in Colorado, and proof down with Colorado water. We’re just really excited to, kind of, at the, at the beginning of all of this, really plant our flag in the ground and be a Colorado whiskey and really represent those Colorado flavors and whiskey, yeah. And

Cory Comer  1:03:00
at the same time, then I think we’re, we’re very fond of our peers here in Colorado, too. I think there’s some really great stuff coming out now. We’ve been making whiskey here for, you know what, 15 plus years, and there’s some mature, really well made whiskeys on the market from So, yeah, I mean, the, you know, other folks we’ve interviewed, I mean, great people making great products, and it’s it’s exciting to see that come around. But I mean, for you guys, the it doesn’t end here in distillery, right? Like it goes beyond that to the not only where you’re sourcing stuff, but you’re making whiskey, but you guys are also giving back the community. So we’d like to spend a few minutes talking about our angel share segment, which is where Ryan and I, we met through a fostering program for fostering kids. And so it’s a part that is near and dear to heart to give back to community and stuff. And so, you know, heavily involved in our Faith Based program, stuff in Colorado Springs there. And we love highlighting the opportunities that you guys have had give back community and understand you’ve been a part of a number, right? And I think one that you shared with a distillery down the way here, tell us a little bit about that one. And then you spoke about waters too. Why don’t you give a segue into that? Yeah,

Casey Rizzo  1:04:10
so one that we released last year that we’re really proud of, and it goes along with what Sam was saying about just the Colorado distilling community as a whole. We did a collaboration wheat whiskey that we released last year with six other distilleries. So it was seven Colorado distilleries total, and that was really great, because you to really first highlight the camaraderie within the Colorado distilling industry. You see a lot of collaborations in the beer industry, but you don’t really see a lot of collaborations in the spirits or just our whiskey industry. And so a we wanted to highlight that, to show that you know, we are all friends. We all appreciate each other and learn from each other and talk. So this was almost nine years. In the making, but quite a long time ago, all of these seven distilleries got together, chose a mash bill, took the same wheat from the Cody family farm down in the San Luis Valley, and distilled wheat whiskey at all of our distilleries, and then we brought them back and married them together, and then aged them in barrels in our distillery, and then released that as a collaboration wheat whiskey. And from the beginning, we got every aspect of that donated. So the Cody farm donated those grains. We got the bottles donated. We got the labels donated. Every distillery donated their time and resources. So we were able to when we sold that 100% of the proceeds from those bottles went to Colorado causes that we cared about. So each distillery was able to pick a cause, and us and Bear Creek teamed up, and we did do the same cause, which is actually a building right down the street that is going to help and house homeless and unhoused youth of Colorado, which was, yeah, something that’s really close.

Sam Poirier  1:06:18
We had an opportunity to talk to Jay about the project. That sounds like a really good project. Should be opening that building soon. So yeah, and it’s, and it’s hyper local, it’s here in your neighborhood, and so it’s a really beautiful thing to be able to, yeah, they always had a youth center down there, but now it’s gonna have a lot more resources and housing for for these kids too. So yeah, so

Casey Rizzo  1:06:36
just to be able for everyone to get together, and then it was aged for was it seven years? I’m thinking seven distilleries, and it was aged for seven years as well. So just for everyone to see that so long ago and donate to that, and really it’s, it’s quite a feat to be able to give 100% of proceeds, that’s a lot.

Cory Comer  1:06:59
That’s a big commitment, right? Because you’re, you’re talking about production volume, yes, but then you’re talking about storage for seven years, right? And that’s, I mean, yes, there was a financial contribution given, but to me, it sounds like you guys gave a lot more than just even what maybe came out in the financial, you know, the big check that went to the program, which totally worthy. Cause there’s a lot of unhoused kids and stuff. And unfortunately, like, we were privy to watching some of the dissolution of, like, the big group homes, right? And where do those kids go? You know, a lot of men about the street. So we, I mean, we’re, we fully back that project. It was really great project to do. But, I mean, you probably more than just, you know, whiskey behind that. So that’s you guys put time, which is a much bigger investment. We’re all happy to do it. Yeah,

Casey Rizzo  1:07:44
and we’re, we are lucky to be able to have, you know, quite a few releases that we’re able to do something with, like that. You know, last year we did our first woman of laws barrel, single barrel pick, where we kind of organize all the women within our organization, and we got to do this really cool barrel pick from, you know, we all got together, talked about the tasting notes. Picked this barrel. We worked on the label together. It was a very collaborative label design. And then who we were going to donate some of these proceeds to and for the woman of laws barrel, last year, we were able to donate to frontline farming, which is a, you know, bipoc and woman led farming advocacy program within within Denver. So that was really exciting. Our Origin series that that Sam mentioned every year we donate a portion of the origins on Colorado gives Day, which allows our donation to be matched. And then each villager employee within our village is able to pick their their own organization that they donate to. So that’s another thing where, you know, we focus on a lot of philanthropy, but we also allow everyone to kind of focus on something that they personally care about as well. So the origins release is really close to our heart, and every teammates heart as well, right?

Cory Comer  1:09:17
That’s good. Well, then you have a new one coming up, correct? We

Casey Rizzo  1:09:21
do have a new one coming up, which is super exciting. It’s going to be the first in a series release. There it is. There it is. And it’s our headwater series. So a lot of our focus is around kind of water conservation and water rights. And, you know, we’ve done a lot within the distillery. Sam can talk to that about, you know, how, how we’re trying to, you know, save and recycle and reuse water. So we will have, this is the first headwater series that’s focused on the Colorado River. But, you know. So Colorado is, is the headwater state. There’s a lot of rivers that that are very important to a lot of different states that kind of start in Colorado. So we want to focus on those and focus on the the water rights and water conservation of each of those rivers. So this one is a special four grain bourbon that is also proof down with a little bit of water from the Colorado River as well, and then proceeds. A percentage of proceeds from this will go to an organization that is focused on protecting and conserving, specifically the Colorado River.

Cory Comer  1:10:41
That’s a that’s a huge topic, right? Because, I mean, the Colorado River, for those who don’t know, is pretty much the main water source for the southwest region, including Nevada, Utah, Arizona, obviously Colorado and California and even Mexico, right? So it’s a huge river, right? There’s been concerns about water levels of the reservoirs along the Cory River all the way down into Arizona and further. So this is a really, I know this type of effort is going to have multi generational impacts if we do it right, right? So

Casey Rizzo  1:11:17
absolutely, and you know, we recognize that whiskey alone. Can’t, you know, do all for for any of this, but it is something that we it’s important to us. You know, water is a huge component of whiskey, from our productions to growing the grains. So we really just want to highlight that. And really, you know, kind of one drop at a time help, help with this project.

Sam Poirier  1:11:42
So Sam, tell me about what went into this and tell us what makes this particular product special. Yeah. So this is a small batch blended by James and the team over there. So when James is picking out barrels for the batch or flagship product, he’s gonna pull down a couple 100 barrels and and taste through them all. Kind of categorize them in flavor profiles. But he’s also going to go through and pick out some outliers that he thinks are special as well. So those those barrels are always something that he can go back and use to create a small blend or something special. We’re putting out first impressions drinking this whiskey. It’s going to hit all of our classic notes that we get with our four grain bourbon from the grain so black tea, or PICO tea, that we talk about a lot because it has that nice orange citrus nose to it, honeysuckle, even honey. But you’re going to get to taste all the all the great greens that we have in it too. Peyton, our CFO, actually got some some water from the head waters of the Colorado River, right where it starts. And a very small amount was added to proof this whiskey back as well. So it’s a just a little fun thing to tie it all back together

Casey Rizzo  1:12:52
more to our right, exactly, exactly. And the label is a topo design. We worked with a local company kind design on that. So on that front label that bend in the river is actually a part of the Colorado River, right? Kind of in the Grand Junction area, I believe it’s called knee Canyon. Kind of that, that horse thief canyon down there. So that is part of the Colorado River that you see on the label as well.

Cory Comer  1:13:22
So you guys are obviously producing the whiskey, and sounds like sounds like it’s gonna be great, but that would not be without people buying this thing, right? So how do people get involved with this particular initiative, and how can they help support the cause here?

Casey Rizzo  1:13:35
Yeah, this is going to be available both in our tasting room and then online to ship to your door from laws whiskey house.com.

Cory Comer  1:13:43
Well, I think right now we’re gonna move into the tasting segment, but for now, we’ll close off here. Sam Casey, thank you guys for joining us today. This has been a great conversation, and we’re looking forward to seeing the impact this does when. And we’d maybe circle back and and cap off what what contributions you guys are able to get for that. So that’ll be exciting. So that’ll

Ryan Hall  1:14:03
be exciting. So anything else? No, thank you guys very much. Yeah, thank you. Yes, awesome.

Cory Comer  1:14:09
We’re gonna do our tasting segment now with Sam and Casey here at at laws whiskey house, and we’re gonna be, they’re gonna be featuring special release that they’re releasing this year, Sam or Casey, why don’t you guys kick it off? Yeah, the

Casey Rizzo  1:14:22
fun part. The fun part is the whiskey drinking part. So we are going to do, I’m gonna walk you guys through kind of our three step tasting process. This is the way we really like to introduce kind of whiskey to everybody. So we are going to take three sips out of this total. So every time I do say, you know, like cheers or SIP or not, you know, chugging it all back, we want to save some good start before we do anything. Do not put this up to your nose until I tell you to, you know, that’s the most important thing. Important part, you just have to listen to me for a little bit, because that’s the first mistake that lots of people make when they’re nosing and tasting whiskey. You know, I pour whiskey, and the first thing people want to do is kind of dig their nose right into it. That’s what I do, yeah? And you can actually kind of ruin your tasting experience with that. You

Sam Poirier  1:15:19
want to get your your poking stick so you can slap it.

Casey Rizzo  1:15:24
My, my teacher can’t

Cory Comer  1:15:26
see this is Casey’s awesome design here, and she has her poking stick to

Casey Rizzo  1:15:32
whip anybody. But it’s not like, you know, whiskey is a high proof spirit. It’s not like a fine wine. We don’t want to dig our nose too far into it, because it can actually singe or burn our olfactory nerves in our nose. And the olfactory nerves are what help us smell and evaluate whiskey. And when you actually sing your olfactory nerves, it takes your body about 30 to 40 minutes to regenerate those nerves. So when you dig your nose too far into a glass of whiskey, you can really almost ruin a huge, huge part of that experience. So I really like to nose my whiskey. Kind of chin to chest area is a good area to kind of walk the whiskey around, the glass around. I even like to roll it along my chin. That almost forces you to open your mouth, because that’s how you want to nose your whiskey. You want to breathe in your nose and then out your open mouth. So you’re just gonna get a lot more nosy. Notes, don’t believe me, open your mouth. Close your mouth. I’m telling you the truth. It’s science, I don’t know. So yeah, let’s just kind of nose that first. And this is what we like to call, kind of just our acclimation nose and sip. So, you know, this may be your first, I think, first whiskey of the day.

Cory Comer  1:16:54
Let’s say it’s five o’clock. You don’t know me, bro, yeah, it’s my first whiskey of the day, for sure. For the record, it is five o’clock in the evening.

Casey Rizzo  1:17:05
It’s not 45 now, yeah, but you know, if I not to put any pressure on you, but like, what? What do you smell in this?

Cory Comer  1:17:14
I certainly smell sweetness, obviously, yes, particularly

Sam Poirier  1:17:18
with this, the sweetness is really present. I mean, honey or honey suckle, yeah, I can get some of that black tea. I think is, yeah, one thing that was described. So I get, I get some, some barrel flavors too. So caramel, some of those, those barrel notes, are coming through nicely. And

Casey Rizzo  1:17:33
again, this is our acclimation smell. So you get a lot of people that say, like, I smell whiskey, I smell alcohol. Hahaha. Like, yes, absolutely. If you smell whiskey, alcohol, college regret, like, those are okay. This is what you’re smelling. We’re acclimating so now we’re gonna do our first sip, and this sip, we’re not really trying to taste the whiskey or pick up any tasty meals. We’re really just coding our palate and getting our whole mouth ready. So we’re going to take a little sip, we’re going to chew on it, swish it around like mouthwash, and then swallow it. So

Sam Poirier  1:18:10
cheers, cheers.

Cory Comer  1:18:19
But I had an opportunity to meet a sommelier in Wisconsin at a distillery up there, one called J Henry, Oh, yeah. And the term wet your whistle comes from this process of initially wetting your but he told me, anyways, I don’t know. Maybe there’s

Ryan Hall  1:18:34
probably out there, but some someone will comment and say, so. The term

Cory Comer  1:18:38
what your whistle came from this process of doing right now, or wedding whistle, getting the first part off, acclimating it, yeah.

Casey Rizzo  1:18:46
And you know, if you have someone in your life that does not like whiskey, so sad, I know, but sit them down and do this process with them, because you can turn a lot of people. We lose a lot of potential whiskey drinkers on that first sip, right? People? You know, you’re at a bar in college the first time, someone’s like, take this. Here’s a shot. You do it. You’re like, Oh, what was that? Thank you. No, thank you. Because it’s this type of spirit we do kind of want to acclimate and prepare our palate. So now we’re going to go in for just that second smell. And you guys did a really great job at picking some of that.

Sam Poirier  1:19:24
I get more more floral notes for me. I mean, there’s some, yeah, I can’t pin down the the flower scent perfectly right now, like an herbal, I’m getting a

Ryan Hall  1:19:33
little bit of, like, toffee, I think, yeah,

Casey Rizzo  1:19:35
I get a lot more of that herbaceous. So you where you might have gotten, like, whiskey or alcohol on that first maybe you can get some of those sweet notes. You guys got really great sweet notes on that first one. Yeah, I think for us, sometimes

Speaker 2  1:19:47
it’s easy to overlook the the standout flavors and aromas, because because we’re so used to our whiskey, we’re sometimes looking deeper and looking what’s different, or what nuance flavors are in this batch. In particular, yeah. I mean, you get, I mean, I’m, I’m picking up a little bit, like, a hint of citrus too, a little bit, it’s not, yeah, not heavy, but, you know, there’s getting that herbal stuff too. But other than it’s, like, smells a bit orange peel or something, that’s, yeah, like, that, almost like, like, orange, yeah, peel, like, slight, like, clove, yeah, yeah, totally, usually comes from the rye,

Casey Rizzo  1:20:24
and then the second sip is our evaluation sip. So we’ve acclimated now we can kind of sip and appreciate and taste this whiskey, this bourbon. So cheers, cheers.

Sam Poirier  1:20:42
I get a lot of citrus. Kind of hits me in the right up front. But also there’s a fun playfulness between, I think, wheat and rye. Initially you get you get some of the spice, you get some of the herbal notes from rye. But I think the wheat has that really nice sweetness, but it has a kind of, this feisty, peppery note. Yeah, our wheat in particular, it’s a fun kind of spice, and the finish lingers, like in a very pleasant, like, it’s hanging out with you, but, yeah, it’s like, I’m still experiencing and kind of, you know, and you’re getting that, that white warmth from the rye, right, the peppery warmth that comes in, right? And you get on that finish, you you get those oak notes coming in. I think this has quite a bit of mature barrel notes in it that come towards the backside. But for someone who might be afraid of a rye finish, because it has a high intensity, peppery finish, this is not, this is very subdued, but still nice. You

Ryan Hall  1:21:38
know, it kind of hits you on the back end, like the first when you first taste it, it’s sweeter, and then that pepper note kind of comes through in the finish.

Sam Poirier  1:21:45
Yeah, we seek out that mint note in our rye. We really love it. And some barrels, it’s a little more subdued, but when we get that kind of bright mint note, we definitely want to include those barrels, because that’s something we really like with the rye. You get anise, you get herbaceous notes, but the men is something we seek out. Yeah, and

Casey Rizzo  1:22:05
when I’m kind of picking out tasty notes, sometimes I get really dorky and I close my eyes, and I have to kind of sit in the dark with it for a little bit. But a lot of times I’m really pulling from my memories. So a lot of my notes will will be like, Oh, this one camping trip or, oh, like sitting in the kitchen cooking at this one time before I really am able to narrow it down to what that tasting note is, yeah, and you know, there is no right or wrong answers when you’re talking about tasting that’s one of the coolest parts about Whiskey is it’s so subjective, and everybody evaluates whiskey differently. So I always tell like people you know, don’t get hung up on these hoity, toity, tasty notes. Absolutely go with what you know. You know, the reason that I told you not to dig your nose too far into this glass and your olfactory nerves are so important is because the olfactory nerves are the only nerve in your entire body that have, like a straight shot to the limbic system in your brain, which is the part of your brain that stores memories. So usually the first thing you get is a memory. So, you know, one tasting note that I always joke about, that personally I don’t like is marzipan. You know, you hear it everywhere you see it in big tasting notes, in write ups and magazines on the little tasty notes in the liquor store, marzipan is everywhere. I don’t know how often you all eat marzipan, but I can say I have only had marzipan like twice in my life. So marzipan will never be a tasting note for me. I don’t know

Ryan Hall  1:23:44
if I’ve ever had marzipan. I’ve had mazapon. That’s like, more peanut butter, yeah.

Casey Rizzo  1:23:51
So yeah, you really want to go with what you know. You could really throw out any tasting note and I’d be like, Oh, yeah. Absolutely great palette, wow. And that’s why you know whiskey is so fun there. I truly believe there is a whiskey for everybody, because people pick out different notes and people evaluate whiskey differently.

Sam Poirier  1:24:14
Yeah, to your point, I have a tendency to smell a lot of trees, because I grew up camping, and yeah, I love to smell the trees so but I try to stay away from trees, because not a tasting note most people. And when we’re talking about the four grain and wanting to taste all of the grains, what we’re looking for it corn, you know, people don’t associate it with a ton of flavor, but it does have flavor. And I think it has a corn silk kind of note. It sometimes comes off kind of nutty. And you can, you can look for that in there. Of course, sweetness comes from corn whiskey as well, but the barley presents as kind of a toasted bread or biscuity note, oftentimes nutty as well. Yeah.

Casey Rizzo  1:25:01
You get, obviously, kind of that spiciness, that herbaceous from the rye wheat actually tends to surprise people. You can get a lot of, you know, cinnamon and baking spices from the wheat as well. So I always describe wheat as like a warm hug. We talk about a lot about nosing and tasting, but there’s another nerve in your body, in your face, that’s really affected by whiskey drinking as well. It’s your trigeminal nerve that’s kind of throughout your face right here, I’m doing kind of a whiskey trigeminal nerve. You know, there’s always, like, a nurse or doctor that knows more about the trigeminal nerve than me and is like, well, actually, the trigeminal nerve does all of these things. One of my best friends is a reconstructive facial surgeon. I asked him if I was saying this correctly, and he told me I was, yeah, um, but the trigeminal nerve, when you’re drinking whiskey, specifically tells you a feeling which is heating or cooling. So when you drink a whiskey, and you can’t really pinpoint that flavor, but you get that heat or that cooling, that’s really just your trigeminal nerve telling you that we have those 100% expressions as well. And I can very much tell the difference between the wheat and the rye. The wheat does hit me kind of in my cheeks, and flushes my cheeks, and I get those warming notes. The rye hits me right along my jaw line and gives me more of like that, mint, beer. Mint, yeah, cool. What’s

Cory Comer  1:26:31
the same effect you get, like, when you eat some sour right? It’s that same nerve, right? That same tingle, right? Yeah,

Casey Rizzo  1:26:37
yeah. So, you know, you focus on smell, you focus on taste. But then when you kind of recognize also what that trigeminal nerve does as well, it kind of adds another element of being able to pick out notes in there. And then finally, the last part is we like to add just a little bit of water so we have this El Dorado springs water that we proof our whiskey down with Sam. I told I

Sam Poirier  1:26:59
don’t, I don’t have any left. Yeah, yeah. So I’ll

Casey Rizzo  1:27:06
let you guys do this however you prefer. I like to do just start with a little tiny squirt and see how it’s going to open up your glass. Everybody again, whiskey, subjective. So everybody likes a different amount of water. I will say it’s like a haircut like once you cut it all off, you can’t go back. Once you add too much water, you can’t take it out. So start a little at a time. We like

Sam Poirier  1:27:27
to also let it sit for a second, because as you’re adding water, that whiskey is interacting with the water, and it gets a little feisty. So 30 seconds or so, it’s gonna mellow out.

Casey Rizzo  1:27:35
Yeah, some people are kind of snobby about water. I would never be. Also, there is no wrong way to drink whiskey. If you’re drinking whiskey, you are drinking it right. So don’t ever let anyone tell you. Otherwise,

Sam Poirier  1:27:48
I would say maybe don’t put Coca Cola. We won’t judge you

Casey Rizzo  1:27:53
to your face in that we might, you know, if you’re drinking whiskey, we applaud.

Sam Poirier  1:28:01
And there’s that one guy from Kentucky, listen, I like a bunch of ice and a big pour whiskey end of the day.

Casey Rizzo  1:28:08
Yeah, you know, just even adding just a little bit of water changes everything about that whiskey. So, you know, you hear about it opening up, and it really does. So even just a little bit of water is just going to change your change your whiskey drinking experience completely.

Sam Poirier  1:28:26
So yours, you know, back

Cory Comer  1:28:36
to one of our friends, little north of us, that just, that’s just fantastic and delicious in there. That’s, I mean, water, not that’s,

Ryan Hall  1:28:43
that’s really good, maybe a little softer now, yeah, I think I can taste a lot more of the corn. I think once we added the water, totally getting more of that mint, yeah, too. So some of those more subtle flavors are starting to kind of come

Casey Rizzo  1:28:54
through. Yeah, and this is at 100 proof. So we don’t do anything under 95 proof. We are a high proof distillery. Sorry, not sorry. So we kind of start at 95 and go up from there. But one of the things about, you know, having a higher proof is being able to express all those flavors, but also allow you, you know, as a consumer yourself, to, like, add water and proof it down in your glass and get that whiskey expression that you

Speaker 3  1:29:24
and like we said, We cater to the whiskey nerds. So if there’s something you’re looking for, we probably have it. We have cast strength. There’s some big whiskeys down there, bonded. And then our flagship products, yeah, we have, we have something for everyone, single barrels, well, for our audience too. You know, water is cheaper than whiskey, right? So when when distillers are proofing down, it’s nothing wrong, right? 80 proof is common, right? But when you do see higher proof whiskeys, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s burns, and especially a craft distillery like laws, right? You guys, I’ve never experienced the burn that you might get from. Higher proof whiskey, even if you’re going all the way up to cast drink, there’s, there’s a certain craft that’s put in that that comes from blending and all those other practices you guys put in before you guys put in the bottle. So I’ve never been off put by the higher proof that you guys put in the bottle. So you guys do a good job. Yeah, some of them can get pretty high proof in this unique dry climate that we age whiskey. Absolutely, it’s not uncommon for us to see something coming out of the barrel at north of 140 proof. Yeah, yeah, on weed. And there’s some neighboring facilities that are right now the modeling 130 137

Ryan Hall  1:30:32
I think whatever. 291 they

Sam Poirier  1:30:35
you know, I like it

Cory Comer  1:30:35
with little lower proof personally. But yeah, okay, yeah. I mean, you’re seeing it go to the bottle like that, and it’s a lot of fun. So yeah,

Casey Rizzo  1:30:42
our cast strength rye, especially, it’s, it’s good at a higher proof, and it is surprisingly dangerously drinkable. You would be surprised taking a sip and

Cory Comer  1:30:56
yeah, realizing Yeah. Well, as a as a closing note, cheers, cheers, cheers, this is great. Thanks guys for guidance through this. And look for the headwater series release on their website. Right? You get a website and or better yet, come down their tasting room and check out their new digs here and enjoy it. Enjoy that drink here. So thanks guys. Appreciate it very much.

Ryan Hall  1:31:23
Thank you for joining us on whiskey wonderlust. Subscribe to the show on YouTube, Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music and all other major podcast platforms, and be sure to leave us a rating and review. Follow us on social media and visit us online at Whiskey wonderlust.co. You.