Taking a Creative, Culinary Approach to Craft Distilling with Scott Blackwell of High Wire Distilling Co (Part 2)

Hello, everyone. Thanks so much for tuning in today. This is Chris spear and you're listening to Chefs Without Restaurants. The show where I speak with culinary entrepreneurs and people working in the food and beverage industry outside of a traditional restaurant setting. I have 31 years of working in kitchens, but not restaurants and currently operate a personal chef service throwing dinner parties in the Washington DC area. This week is part two of my conversation with Scott Blackwell owner and distiller of high wire distilling company in Charleston, South Carolina, which he runs with his wife and Marshall. I've known Scott for a while now. So when we sat down to talk, we talked for about two hours. He's done so much besides distilling, and I'm not gonna recap it all here because that's what last week's episode was. When we started talking, I didn't even realize that he had done everything from being a Ben and Jerry's ice cream distributor to having a bakery and a coffee roaster and so many other things. So because it wasn't directly related to the distilling and what he's doing now, I thought it was a good idea to kind of separate it out into two parts. But if you love entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial journey, I think it's a great listen, and it's less than half an hour. So I will link that up in the show notes. So this week's episode, when you get to it, it sounds like we kind of just jumped right in because it is taken from that longer conversation. I've often said that high wire is my favorite distillery in the country. I stand by that statement. I love their gin. I love their whiskey. I love their Amaro, and I think they're doing some really interesting stuff. And we're going to talk about that, you know, one of the things God talks about is the pursuit of flavor and having it be a really ingredient based product. You know, he's constantly looking for better ingredients and better ways to do things. We talk a lot about Jimmy redcorn. And the conversation he had with Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills about it, and how that kind of started and the transition into using more Jimmy redcorn. And they're whiskey making. And something that I've been talking about a lot lately is I kind of love learning more about and digging into the creative process and collaboration. I mean, we've talked about that a lot on the show over the years. And I think this is something you see at high wire, you know, without spoiling the whole story and everything. They did a collaboration with Alan Benton, I think a lot of people probably know about, you know, Benton's country hams and bacon and all that delicious stuff. And so you're gonna hear about how he had a partnership there. Here's Scott talking about having a conversation with John T edge about sorghum and what would it be like to make a sorghum whiskey, or a conversation that he had with David shields, and maybe how that turned into making a Bradford watermelon brandy. So there's a lot I could say here in the intro, but I really just want to throw it to the episode because we already talked for a while. I think there's some really great stories in here. If you love liquor, if you love distilleries, if you love Southern food heritage ingredients, I think this is gonna be a really enjoyable episode for you. And because you know, this is a business based podcast, if you will. I think there's some really great business lessons that you can take from this story. So I think it'd be really beneficial if you went and checked out part one if you haven't heard that yet. But again, if you're really just interested in the high wire distilling story, and hearing about the southern ingredients that they use and making their products, then obviously feel free to jump in here. And if there's one thing you could do for me this week, it would be if you could leave me a rating and review, hopefully positive on Apple podcasts or Spotify, or if there's a platform that you listen to that allows reviews. I also know that if you found this through my pod page, you can leave a review on there. As always, thanks so much for tuning in. This week's show will be coming right up after a brief word from our sponsors. Are you a personal chef looking for support and growth opportunities? Look no further than the United States personal chef association with 1000 members across the US and Canada. USPCA provides liability insurance certification lead generation and more. Consumers can trust that their meal experience is insured and supported by USPCA. Apply now for USPCA membership and save$75 on premier provisional preparatory and corporate memberships, as well as $25 on student memberships by using code "happynewyear2024" at uspca.com/join. Plus Hire a Chef subscriptions are available to list your personal chef business at hireachef.com. To learn more about membership, advertising or partnership opportunities, call Angela at 1-800-995-2138 extension 705 or email aprather@uspca.com I feel like there's a little gap of like, when did you start getting interested in distilling? Like, obviously you didn't just sell the business started a distillery, first of all, like, were you big spirit person? Were you drinking spirits, cocktails, all of that? And why a distillery?

Yeah. So I'll back up and say, the last couple of years of owning the bakery, we had grown so much and gotten investment. And, you know, we were just on a path to be sold, because private equity was involved. And, you know, they have a timeline and all that. And, you know, people are always like, why would you sell on, like, you go from, you know, 3 million to you know, where you're doing 4 million a month, in three and a half years. And it sounds really cool, but it's bloody, you know, and the grocery business is a tough, tough business. Not that any business isn't. It's just, uh, you know, it's a very tough business. So, while we were doing that, though, we were we were brewing beer at the house, we both loved, you know, like craft beer. And this would have been in the 2009 10 era, we started brewing beer on a bigger scale. So we were doing kegs and stuff like, you know, five gallon kegs and stuff like that. So most of our system was based around five gallon batches. And, you know, I was really big on Koelsch. And what I would call like, you know, more like pilsners, and stuff like that, and lower ABV beers. And at that point, everybody was like all about hops. And I was like, I just get tired of that kind of beer, I want something that's more Belgian style, I love belt, you know, Saison. DuPont is one of my favorite beers. And so I said, I want to do something more like that. And at that point, we came to Charleston to look around, because we knew we wanted to move here. And I think there were three breweries at that point. And I think there were maybe a total of less than 10 in the state, maybe eight. So it wasn't a wild idea to open up the northeast, Mid Atlantic, the West Coast, of course, was covered up Colorado, Asheville was starting to become a scene. But you know, Charleston was still sort of open. And in that period, though, multiple other breweries opened, and we would go to these beer stores. And more and more beers are popping up on the shelves. And I would go in and I was just like, googoo eyed over look at this beard, look at that. And I was telling the animal about these. And I was just, you know, obsessively consuming, not, you know, as much information on all these little breweries that I could I could find or get and, and would sort of look at me and go, Yeah, and I could tell she was sort of like, hesitant. And eventually, she popped him said, I hate to break your heart here. But beer kind of scares me. You know, and why don't we look at spirits? And I said, What do we know about that? And she said, What did you know about coffee roasting? Or what did you know about running a package? New, refrigerated dough company? And I'm like, Okay, well, I guess you're right. I didn't know a whole lot. But I felt like distilling was boring. You know, when you watch them come out of the still, and they're clear, and they're just trickling out. And I was like, that's like watching water boil, you know, and also was like, how much flavor comes through the still, you know, it's just alcohol, right? And here in South Carolina, you know, there was sort of this moonshine thing, and that this was like, I don't want to be cliche, Southern hillbilly type business, you know, nothing against the moonshine guys, I just, you know, just felt like that, that was not my personality or Ann's personality. And then we didn't have our grandpappy his recipe or family name or anything like that. So I thought, well, you know, we should go check it out. Let's go to a place where there's a lot of these little distilleries. And at this point, there were like, maybe 200 in the country. There weren't really any in this area, maybe some moonshine guys. And so we flew out to Portland, Oregon, and they had like 12 or 15 in the city. And the first couple we visited were, you know, very Mom and Pop. But the third one we visited was a company called House spirits. And he was making a product called aviation gin. And, and he was starting to make single malt whiskey and he had been in the wine business and he had been in the beer business. And he looked at me and he said, listen to your wife, you should do spirits. This guy's name is Christian crocs. Dad, he could reIated aviation gin which eventually, you know, sold to Ryan Reynolds huge, right. And then westward whiskey, which is a single malt company out of Portland. And at this point, it was probably less than 4000 square feet, his, you know, the place that we were in, so I'm looking around and going, you know, okay, well, maybe you know what you're talking about, you know, so really, you know, and I tasted stuff coming off the stills, but you know, there again, and it was like, wow, okay, there is a lot of flavor there. But I didn't know enough about the back end process. We just in and was looking at data, and looking at, you know, the interest in craft spirits. And there were a few businesses like St. George, and strana, Hans and Hudson, and, you know, people like that, that, you know, were out there, but there weren't really, you know, any crazy success stories. So, you know, I just thought, well, you know, maybe if we get into a, we can make a living, you know, we're not gonna make a ton of money doing this, probably, but you know, it'll be something fun and interesting. And it's probably, you know, got as much chance as a brewery does, but we ended up taking the plunge basically, based on that. And our friend owned a brewery up in Asheville called Highland brewing, and I used to do a radio show with him baking, brewing, show beer and cookies, basically, in we'd sit around drink beer and talk, you know, it was just silly. But anyway, we, we would talk about stuff afterwards. And I went up to see him one day. And, and I did, and he said, You should walk next door. There's a distillery next door, you should check this out. And I walked over there. And I'm like, man, there's something speaking from somewhere. People need to continue to say spirits, spirits, spirits. And we had met with a beer distributor friend of ours. And he said, Listen, I'll distribute your beer. But have you ever thought about spirits? And I was like, God, what is it about, you know, the spirit business, maybe we should do this. So long story short, we bought a steal, you know, didn't know anything about distilling and lease this building on King Street. And we hired a guy named Dave pickrell, who, you know, used to be at Makers and then started Whistlepig. And he came in to consult and basically sat with us in our house, because the building was under construction. And we went through grain bills, and you know, sort of proofing and barrels and all that, you know, just drilled him for four days, and we made a couple of batches of whiskey. And we made some heirloom white corn whiskey, which was interesting. It was, you know, it's like your first cake or whatever you make, and you're like, you know, how I, you know, it actually didn't suck, you know, it was decent enough. So

I did some home brewing. That's how my first like batch of beer, I was like, Oh, this is pretty good. Like, maybe that's brewing things. Not too bad. Right?

Right. So same kind of thing. So it wasn't, it was a pretty fast paced learning curve. For us. We went from that June, where we distilled that first, this would have been in 2013, that first couple of batches, we thought rum was going to be a big thing like molasses based rum, being in a port city, and you know, all that historic, and we made rum, it did not really sell. And then we decided we would make a gin in the meantime, to you know, because we both loved gin. And we thought, let's make a gin and that'll help pay bills while we learn about this whiskey business. So it was that fall of 13 will reopen in September. And we made our first batches in the building under, you know, with with the lights on and everything. But we had a gluten free line with the bakery. So I'd worked with sorghum and you know, John T. And we were at the Johnson one of food and we're walking across the field during wine and food and he said distilling calm. And I was like, yeah, and he goes, What do you think maybe what about sorghum? And I'm like, Well, you know, maybe maybe that, you know, it is going to be kind of like find your weird little niche in this business. Because you know, you got these guys in Kentucky that kind of have the bourbon thing done, you know, and so we were so we thought, you know, let's let's try it. And that was really where the light bulb went off, where we made something it fermented, and it smelled exotic and amazing. And then when we distilled it, it tasted completely different than the white corn that we had distilled. And it's like, wow, a lot of flavor does make it across if anything. distilling kind of shows the warts Have a flavor, you know, it'll pull it, it pulls out everything. And so it's the opposite of what you think, or what I thought was going to be this clear kind of flavor, Lois, just alcohol, there's a lot of character there. And then I got excited and thought this might be, you know better than I thought, you know, we might be, we might have a chance to, you know, basically making a place for ourselves with, you know, this ingredient based thinking. But I also knew, you know, from the bakery world, where we are number one seller of cookie dough is chocolate chunk. You know, it's like 10 to one. So, in other words, people aren't buying a lot of sorghum, whiskey, you know, they're buying bourbon or they're buying, right. And they may buy some single malt, American single malt, but keen wah and millet. And, you know, all these obscure grains are cool. But you know, you know, every day day in day out, most people are buying, you know, what's been bought here for generations and

pays the bills, right? Yes. So we,

we, we, we were we said, you know, we need to be an American whiskey company. And that means we need to make a bourbon. And what is our how do we compete in that, and I looked at, and, you know, we basically came up with the idea of like, the number one ingredient in bourbon is corn. So let's learn more about corn. And that's what led to that sort of fateful meeting with Glenn Roberts from Anson Mills, in January of 2014, where we went down to the Clemson Research Center, and he had a table full of corn seeds. And so he went through and educated and talked through all these different varieties. And he kept skipping over this one in the middle. And I finally said, What's that one in the middle? And he goes, Oh, that's Jimmy, read James Allen read. Yeah, that's the one you want. That's going to be a great, that's an A whiskey corn, that's going to be awesome. So I was like, you know, well, cool. I'd love to make some, and he said, Well, you know, how much do you need, you know, and I said, 800 to 1000 pounds, and he was like, God, that's a lot of corn to waste. You know, and, you know, because he's used to dealing with chefs, and they need, you know, 10 pounds, maybe five pounds. And he's sitting there thinking, you know, you're going to do a test batch and use that much of this special stuff. And I was like, Yeah, you know, and he's like, Well, it doesn't exist, you're gonna have to grow it. And you know, you're gonna have to, you know, work with, and you guys are gonna have to write a check, to Clemson a big check to make this happen. And I was like, what does he mean by big, you know, and we, you know, because we were over budget and sort of, in moving into our building late, the last thing we needed to be doing was spending, you know, a lot of money, you know, on a dirt, dirt road. And so, but I also knew that, you know, this was kind of, you know, the chant, these are the things that make you different, you know, is to take that chance. So, we we worked with Clemson planted that first two acres of Jimmy read and the rest is history. In that fall, we made our two batches and, and saw the movie, we could immediately see the difference, because at that point, we had distilled several other varieties of heirloom corns from around the area. And I distilled it at 100%. Jimmy read, because I thought I didn't really want to taste wheat or rye and have it adulterated. And it was exotic and had all this stuff going on, that the white and yellow corn didn't have going on. And Wayne Curtis, the writer, a friend of ours, happened to be in town and he tasted sushi thinking. He tried it. He's like, wow, that's really promising. That's really cool. I said, Do you think we ought to put wheat or rye in there? And he was like, I wouldn't. He's like, I think it's really good the way it is. He goes, I don't think I would mess it up. And we continue to ask, folks, you know, tastes this what do you think, you know, chef friends and stuff? And they're like, Nah, man, I would leave it the way it is. It's really cool. Just like it is. So ultimately, that's what we did. And you know, that's what we do today. But that's really ultimately, you know, it was really sort of like, if you, you know, hear that backstory of, you know, sort of that pursuit of flavor and ingredient based thinking kind of like a chef would think, you know, I want a mushroom dish. You don't use white, boring mushrooms in there. You're You're gonna, you know, you're gonna use an exotic, you know, him, you know, the wood or something like that, you know,

usually as you're reducing it down and concentrating it more, right? Because the mushroom analogy is perfect for that, because you got all these mushrooms that have so much water in them. And when you cook them down, if you have this kind of plain mushroom, you're just intensifying this nothingness as opposed to like a maya Toki when you reduce it all down, right, exactly.

So that's really how we got to where we, you know, that's, that's ultimately the set the path for us. And from there, it's just been one experiment after another sort of based on that same thinking.

You run with an interesting circle of folks. One of the things that strikes me is it wasn't the last time I was down there. But I think the year before I went in, and David shields is just like sitting at the bar, right? Like, and I'm having drinks with Emily. And I'm like, is that like David shields just like chillin down the end of the bar, like having spirits. And we talked and he was telling me about like, all these, oh, where are you from? Oh, you should grow this. Let it I have my phone out. And I'm like, he's like, this is the lettuce you should grow. And these are the cucumbers us grow like, but it seems like you have associated with some people who really know kind of southern food and southern foodways, which I think is cool. And it's one of the things that makes you stand out. I had your was it like the Bradford watermelon brandy. I think maybe the first year that you had made. I don't even think that it was commercially available. Like I feel like you had made it for a party or an event or something that was like a special something that you just pulled out. And I had tried that very first year. Maybe we didn't

release it for a while. It was it was we made it you know, one thing we learned we you know, I mentioned that we made rum and stopped. We really didn't stop. We just went deeper, probably. And Megan made an agricole style rum. So we you know, have these guys around here that grow little patches of cane juice or cane and juice it down and make syrup and stuff. And so a lot of them though, were like, Hey, you should make some rum out of this, you know, and so I was like, Yeah, we should make some rum out of that. Because I would love to make an agricole style rum because it's, you know, that, to me is like, it's got some rules around it. And it's also a little more directly connected to the plant. And that flavor is going to be more exotic. And I would really think of it more as a brandy that as opposed to a rum. And, you know, it's it's French. So that's the way they thought about it, I think. And so, we had made an agricole style rum that first year in business. And David had heard about us doing some of these, you know, he he called and he said, Hey, you do a lot of weird things. Maybe you would be interested in what do you think about doing a watermelon brandy, there's history of that around here. I have old ads, where it was commercially available. And I said really cruel. Wonder what that would taste like like nothing, you know, like water and and we got the Bradfords and they are real squashy and funky. And one thing you you know, if you taste a storebought melon, like one of those round, you know, bowling ball style melons, compared to a low B big, you know, old school, long watermelon. Side by side, you'll, you'll see you know, in there in your area there you'll see there's a lot of like squash genus, to those low B ones. And around here, because we have a lot of salt in the soil that almost have a salinity to them, you know, so it's this pre salted watermelon almost. So it's it's very interesting. So that first year when we made that Bradford, it was real soul furry and briny and had a funk to it. And we just sort of did, like we had done with the agricole. Which you know, you have to rest it for about six months before you release it just clear. It just has to sort of settle out. And we slow proofed it and all that stuff. And it was the same thing we just said, Let's just take that same path with this watermelon brandy and, you know, wait, you know, because it kind of was real stinky and funky at first and then you know, just and then you know, we have a lot of winemaker friends that that absolutely absolutely love it. I think it's the coolest thing we've ever done. Because of that little weird funkiness. And you know it that you know, it was sort of positive reinforcement for us. Because of folks like you that got interested in what we're doing and you know, we release something that was 200 bottles or 150 bottles we could sell that you know there were enough people like us out there to buy that those weird things. And what it really what we were doing through all of that was sort of learning direct, you know, impact of ingredient to in flavor and sort of, you know, what if you start with this one What if you start with that one What if you start with this, you know what, let's change the watermelon variety. Let's change the disk What you know where it's coming off at a lower proof, let's change the yeast, let's change the fermentation temperature, you know, we got to do all these things on small on a small scale with low consequence. And thankfully, there was somebody there to buy it whenever we put it in a bottle. And so it was it really fed it. And you you back it up, you mentioned, you know, people like Glenn Robertson, David shields and Sean Brock and Mike Lata, who, you know, has the fig in the ordinary, and we were just surrounded by this great culinary scene here in Charleston, and it was just a resource for us. So we there again, being more food, people were immediately sort of fell in with this food world, more than we did the bar world. And because, you know, we approach it from that direction. And so we immediately became fast friends with a lot of chefs and the southern foodways. Alliance, we were part of that and had been a part of that for a long time. And there again, you know, it was full of right food writers, chefs enthusiast, and and are both Southern, you know, it's not, you know, it wasn't, didn't didn't take a whole lot of thought to, to get to where we got to really, you know, sort of innate, if you will, we see

this in all creative circles, whether it be art, you know, I always think of like the Andy Warhol and those days in New York, or music scenes, and you know, like, a rap scene in like Atlanta or something like that, like, there's just, you build a community around these things, especially these kinds of creative endeavors. So I mean, Charleston, when I think of great food, scenes, Charleston comes to mind, like, it seems like a no brainer that all you guys were kind of building off each other.

We watched the Sheryl Crow documentary, and, you know, you just think of Sheryl Crow is, you know, like any other, you know, she had an album come out, it was a big success. And, you know, next thing, you know, she had another one another one, and, you know, it was hanging out hanging out with celebrities, and, you know, eventually, whatever. But, you know, if you watch that story, you know, she realized she was a backup singer for Michael Jackson, and she, you know, she like war. And it was like, really, sort of didn't get to that place by dumb luck. It wasn't like, Oh, I just fell into this. And now I gotta hit record or whatever. And like, you say, you got a lot of listeners that are aspiring to, you know, start their own business, or they have their own business. And you know, this is not going to be foreign to them, you know, you kind of make your luck, it is be about being in the right place at the right time. But also, you know, having the wherewithal to capitalize on that, you know, so

I was just on a podcast today as a guest. And we were talking about that, because things like me doing food writing, you know, and from the outside people say, like, wow, how did you end up, you know, writing for this magazine, or being in that like, because I've been networking, like, I've been in the food world for 30 years, right. Like, I've been going in startups conference for a decade. And I talked to all these people, and I, you know, reach out to these people when I come to town. And, you know, Jed Portman put one of my cocktails, garden and gun, right. But it's like, I had known Jed at that point for five or six years. And we had talked on a semi regular basis. Before that happened. It wasn't like, I just reached out to a stranger and said, Hey, I've got this thing can, like, Can this be in garden and gun, right. But seemingly from the outside? That's how those things always seem to people who don't kind of think about it.

You know, I've been lucky in that. I'll be doing something and someone will come along and help. And it's like, well, you know, people see you doing the work, they tend to want to help you. Whereas if you're just sort of sitting on the sidelines, calling them people and going, Hey, I'd love to pick your brain and love to get started in this. It's like, why don't you go do something in this and show me that you're interested and then come back and talk to me. And then I might, you know, give you some some time or whatever. But, you know, it really, you know, there is that, you know, sort of, you do have to think, you know, like you said it wasn't like we were sitting in cubicles, and all of a sudden decided to start a distillery. It was a very organic path and you know, interest in in those varietals of coffee beans, also interested me in, you know, turned into an interest in varieties of corn or rye or wheat or melons or peaches or whatever. And understanding that different flavors come from different varieties, but also, different growing conditions change that flavor, and different seasons change that flavor. It makes it a lot more interesting. And it really is. We're just scratching the surface with really, I think the next chapter we moved into a new building. We just realized we were coming on a scratch and scratch and, you know, kind of scratch out a living in the old building. And we had a lot of problems with the building where we didn't have loading dock. And we didn't have any outside area and things of that nature. So we ended up moving up the road to new building, which we have about four times the square footage. And super tall ceilings, the building has got lots of character, we have a loading dock, we have outdoor space. But we were also able to increase our production, quintuple it. And with that, we also got the farmers attention to work with us, because we were really starting to all of a sudden talk a little bit about more real money. And one thing I realized years ago, through sort of social consciousness, and you know, my business is I'd always done like fundraisers for, you know, the women's shelter or, you know, foster kids or, you know, some sort of something in all my businesses, they've always always kind of had that slant, because I just, you know, felt like, I don't know, it felt like, you know, there was a responsibility there to be part of the community beyond just taking money. So, but one of the things that dawned on me through the bakery, especially was the biggest place to make an impact is in your buying power. And, and we, you know, are now growing, this last year, we grew 350 acres of Jimmy read, and we paid five times more per acre, or the profit was five times greater than commodity, even with high commodity pricing. So when commodities come back down, which they will, it'll be more like seven to eight times, and now our farmers look at us and go, I wish there were five more of you. And, and it's like, it just really shows you the power even a small business can make. So that was, you know, really a critical what I call the beginning of our, I would say 2.5. And then the the now we're about to roll into the, what I call high wire 3.0, where we're starting to harvest, I think some of our best stuff we've ever made, we've kind of had a hidden away. And we've been diligently through COVID Just kept our head down and making continuing to make whiskey and refine our processes and stuff like that, and just sort of quietly doing our thing, and basically trying to improve using the time instead of you know, whining about you know, we had the clothes or whatever, you know, it was like no, no, let's, you know, let's use the time to, to, you know, just it's kind of like January, I always look forward to January because that's when we can kind of catch up clean the place really well. It's not you know, yes, it's slow in sales, but there's plenty to do. And that was COVID was a long January. It

sure was Yeah, well it sounds like you're setting the bar high because I already feel like you have a really top notch premier product like again, your gin the barrel, the barrel rested, especially as my favorite gin to have on hand. I like to have one of your whiskies. I love your amaro your southern Amara, which I think is a really interesting product. Any thoughts on doing anything like that, again, like something like different like in the kind of amaro space or like a core space, something that's not one of the main gin, whiskey rum kind of things? Yeah,

we've we've, you know, Brad Parsons, who wrote bitters and Amaro, that's really who inspired the whole amaro direction. So we we were at tales of the cocktail and had dinner with Brad. And I was telling them, You know, I made bitters out of his book, and, you know, I really he's like, don't get get don't get in the bitters business. There's, there's already enough bitters people. And I said, No, no, I'm not getting to the bitters business. I just enjoy making them you know, it's fun. But he's like, Have you ever thought about making tomorrow? And I'm like, not really. But, you know, why should we? And he said, Well, you know, you know, Ann and I are not Italian or southern. What business do we have making tomorrow? And he said, you know, but you've got ingredients from your area that are unique. And in Italy, that's what they do. They sort of make these Omari by their region, you know, so the southern ones are more citrusy and northern humans are more Alpine II and, you know, I love I tend to love the Alpine styles. So I said, Well, you know, let's, let's mess around with that. So we did multiple mass iterations of different things, from sorghum to black tea, from our tea farm down here to yo Pong, which is, you know, the only indigenous Cafe Did plant in North America?

I've never even heard of that. Yeah.

So it's it's spelled y au P O N and it's for my Catawba word meaning drink. Yope means drink and black drink. And so it grows. And we have we had a bush tree thing in our yard. They're kind of scrubby looking. But you know, you take the leaves and dry them out and you can make tea out of them. And it's kind of like a green tea, you know, kind of earthy greens. So, yeah, so we ended up creating this really cool. I think fun Amaro, that's sort of his high proof. You know, for tomorrow. It's 60 proof, but I like Underberg a lot. So I was like, you know, I wanted something more in that style, more of a more of a calm medium. Omari not super bitter, but not super sweet or cloying or syrupy. So it's not very viscous. It's more you know, liquid because because of the higher alcohol, so you know, it was fine to Brad put us in his book. There's a little chat a little paragraph on our Amaro, and you know, but ya know, we have I played around with a more bitter version, for sure, because I like real bitter stuff. I

do. Emily says, I like alcohol that tastes like poison or cough syrup. Although I don't like I'm super syrupy. But yes, I definitely like the herbals and the bitters and all that.

I mean, probably my favorite one off the shelf, just a and dad on his daily air barista. And it's in that bottle with the Grolsch type top, you know, and it's super funky with that honey, and smoky rhubarb root and crazy bitter. And but I love it, you know, it's a true digest Eve, I think, you know, so it does what it's supposed to do. But yeah, so we've we played around with an apertivo I've probably would go more that direction, because I was thinking, you know, it's hot in Charleston. So I liked the idea of something that would go in club soda. You know, like, yeah, I can totally see that. Yeah. So it'd be just something a little bit in and not super sweet. But just with some club soda over some crushed ice, some, you know, Sonic ice or something like

that. Like, what's your version of like an Aperol Spritz, right, like Charleston? Aperol spreads kind of thing. Maybe. Right?

Yeah. So I've played around, and I've got some some pretty good ideas. We've, we played around with it like five years ago, four years ago. And you know, we just got really busy. You know, one of our guys that came to work with us had all these ideas. And he was like, Oh, what if we made this? What if we made that whatever you did this did that. And I said, Listen, I hear Yeah, I love the shiny objects. I love playing around. I'm a tinkerer. But what if we took all that energy and put it into making better? Bourbon? Better, right? Better gin, what the things we already make. Let's make those the best we can make them. Let's use that energy and focus and I was talking to one of our chef friends Jason stanhope from from fig. And he said chi Zhan you know, it's you know, it's this Japanese theory. You know, we're basically you're constantly looking to improve. And in my tennis coach, at one point, I played college tennis and my tennis coach, I was out there hitting forehands, you know, down the line, whatever. And he goes, next go cross court, but looking really good. I said, Yeah, practice makes perfect coach wherever he goes. Actually, perfect. Practice makes perfect. Yeah. And I was like, what, you know, whatever. And I ignored it, you know, whatever. But then years later dawned on me that was like, I get what he means is doing things with intent. And trying to, you know, it's like knife skills, you know, if you're trying to get your knife skills, so your, you know, whatever it is, you're doing, dicing, etc. And you're constantly trying to get to that perfect dice, or perfect chop, or, you know, whatever. Or filleting fish or you know, whatever it is butchering whatever it is, you know, you're not going to get you're not going to be really great at it probably for the first 100 times. Yeah, you know, it's doing that over and over and over. And, you know,

and it's the mundane stuff that, you know, it's like, is it more interesting for me to take a dish I've made 100 times and try and make it a little better? Or is it more interesting to create new dishes? Well, it's more interesting to create more dishes. But I already have this arsenal of like hundreds of dishes, maybe I should go back to like what I already do and do them better kind of to your point or, you know, it's like the guy who does one thing at 100% is going to be better than the guy who does two things that 50% Right.

Yeah, I mean, it is really what separates great chefs from good chefs, or bad chefs. I mean, it you know, it really, you know, You during during COVID, I signed up for masterclass. And I watched all of Gordon Ramsay both seasons or whatever, me too. And then I did Thomas Keller's all three. And Thomas Keller's, for me was really impactful. Because, you know, it was really fundamentals and that sort of like, methodical, and I'm like, This guy knows this stuff backwards and forwards

just watching him like dry the salmon skin with a tie, like he's in there with the knife. Like, I've never dried my skin that well, and he's got this like side towel. And it's things like that. And you're like, oh, wow, like, you're really gonna get that crispy skin because he likes spends the time like, I don't know, anyone who does anything like that. I watched those as well live masterclass.

I'm not that fascinated, I think the molecular gastronomy thing is fun and cool. It was a cool thing. But I look at somebody who can cook a piece of fish perfectly. I actually admire that more or even better vegetables, you know, and being able, I mean, I don't know, if you watched his short rib, where he cooks that short rib, and he goes to this, like, oh my god, I would never do that takes like three days. short rib, you know, or making, you know, a demi gloss or whatever it is. And, you know, these are the stocks. I mean, hell, I'm too lazy to even make chicken stock, you know, at my own house, you know? So it really, it really, you know, I do, we have lots of ideas. And I'll tell you something exciting. Next time you're down this way that we're doing that I think is going to be really cool is we have we're going to be creating a sensory lab. So we we worked with Glenn Roberts from Anson mills and have a 50 gallon still that's made, it was custom built for us that mimics what are bigger stills. How they perform. And the idea really came from in the early days, I was making tomato brandy or I got very interested in corn like I say, so I distilled all these different varieties of corn that I've learned about to Cinti, which is the grass that corn was originated from. So Glen got me some to cinta and I distilled that. So then that ended up on a trip to Mexico. So we went to a corn amazing wheat research center. And then down to the haka, and alert, we went to the Mago cinema ease the magician's of maize and learned all about these varieties of ancient corns. And I was like, shit, you know, we need to distill all this stuff. And so, but distilling 800 to 1000 pounds, and getting that out of these little farms out of haka, or, you know, whatever you want to grow half an acre of something, and distill it, you're going to create a lot of alcohol that maybe isn't really going to have a home, per se. So a lot of storage and a lot of you know, not maybe not enough, you put it in barrels, and kind of what's to come of that. And maybe some of it isn't that good, to be honest. So now we can create 50 gallon batches, and put it in flasks and create a library, so that you can come in and you can taste, you know, we got 10 Different rise or 20 Different rise and you know, maybe even rise season to season or different yeast strains with these rise, or we different wheats or different corns or different fruits, we you know, I love blackberries, that's one of my favorite fruits, I want to do a blackberry brandy, it takes a lot of fruit to make a small batch of brandy, and then you know, I hate, you know, wasting good fruit and not having our process. Right. So a 50 gallon still is going to let us do that. So to that point, you know, we're going to have an approachable way to experiment that's going to be more accurate. And I'm really excited about that the thing is still sitting in a crate in the back room right now, we haven't even had time. But the idea is to build a room that will literally be like a library with flasks, you know, in doubt, by category and eventually, you know, the room will be just full of hundreds of bottles of all these cool things.

That sounds like an amazing place to visit. I'm already I'm already looking forward to it. So you better get on that. Yeah. Well, and I guess you know, we talked a lot about collaboration, but I think there's a big one that we haven't talked about, which is your recent one with smoke master Alan Benton because I think that's really cool. When I was down there last time you had just distilled the first batch but you hadn't aged it yet. And you let me try some which was friggin hot. I mean it was like hot off the still so I just got to try like a little bit to kind of taste What it was, like, enraged and not cut down yet. So how did that come about? And like, what was that, like working with him? And what's been the reception to the product?

Yeah, so it was it was, it was, it's always fun when things like that makes sense. And we and nor I are big smoked whiskey drinkers, you know, we don't have, you know, a bunch of scotches or we don't have a lot of Mezcal here, you know, that kind of thing. But we, you know, we were interested of course, and you know, the, it sounds cool. We of course, love barbecue and things like that, and smoked hams and bacon and things. So it was always sort of like a back of the mind. Like, you know, maybe there's a place in time where that makes sense. And we went to Wahaca in 2019, with Glenn, and some geneticists and on this maze, research trip, and some food folks, and we went to a village. And we went around and tasted tortilla tea is in these family homes, where they had all these ancestral corns by family. And you could taste each variety by house of a, you know, through the tortilla. And during that time, one of the geneticists says, You shouldn't have you. Have you been to any of the Plink A's? And I'm like, No, you know, she's like, well, you should go to a blink a, and I'm like, I really would love to, but I don't want to go to a cheesy one, I want to go to a good one. And she goes, I know of a place so she set up this tour with a woman, grassy Ella, and I forget her last name, but at this point, it's rial, Mineiro. And, and outside of Wahaca city. So it's about an hour, hour and a half drive. And we had a translator with us because, and Nora, I speak, really any Spanish. And we go over and they go through the whole process. And we finally go down to the Oreos, and they have the different Agave that they had just smoked, and she's got a knife and she's cutting. The fiber is outside and we're tasting it, it's kind of like pineapple, you know, the texture of it is super stringy and tough. And then she cuts the heart, which is more like a, you know, a palm heart almost. And we're eating that. And I'm like, God, no surprise, chefs aren't serving this, you know what I mean? It'd be kind of cool in a dish, you know, like some smoked agave. And different varieties had different flavors, of course, and all that. And I just thought, you know, maybe this is, you know, maybe this is more of the approach, we ought to have to a whiskey is more like this. And so I saw Allen at the SFA symposium in Mississippi that September in 19, and said, Hey, would you ever consider smoking some of our Jimmy read corn in your ham house? And he said, send it on, you know, totally, you know, and I said, Well, it's gonna be like, 5000 pounds. And he's like, yeah, that's not problem. And I said, Well, maybe you ought to take just, I don't want it to be a bunch of trouble. Just take the whole tote, which is about 2500 pounds, and just stick the whole tote in there. He's like, Scott, that's not going to work. And I said, he goes, Why don't you worry about making whiskey and I'll worry about the smoking part. And I said, All right, fair enough. So he bagged up these bags in these net bags that they hang their hands in and home is all wooden racks. They hang their bacon hands on. and hung it is in there with bacon for about a week. And it just smelled when the when the corn came back to us. The whole place smelled like bins. I mean, it had that very distinctive Benton smell.

Oh yeah. When you buy his stuff like it smells through the plastic, right, like when you get the bacon your hands just from touching the pack smelled like smoke.

Yeah. So we we just we mashed it, distilled it and it had a you know, it was it's not hot in that room at all. It's a cold smoke. But it's almost the stuff was almost yellowy. You know, the, the corn had turned a color, you know, the especially where the germ is, you know, up on the tip there. And and we mashed it smelled like Benton's in the building. And then when we when it came off the still, to me it had a very Mezcal tight flavor, almost fruit like notes, and really worked well and like a Paloma or Margarita, of course in a Bloody Mary. And then we might put 99% of it in barrels and and then our Far person said, you know, came to us later and she said, I tried the we had two bottles of the white dog left that we didn't put in barrels. And she said, I tried that. And that's really good. We should release some of that. And I'm like, really? We've never released any white whiskey before. But she's like, No, it's really interesting. So we we did that first year, and the bins came down. And we did a big breakfast buffet with, you know, the ham and sack sausage and Sharon's biscuits and had a great time, we got to letterpress, an old school letterpress poster, this guy that used to work at hatch show print made and it ended up being a total fun thing. And the Benton's, you know, were great. We had a nice article with Gordon gun written about it. And, and you know, it's sold really well. It's still white whiskey. So you know, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't flying off the shelf, but it did really well. And then then we just released the bourbon this year, last month. And we sold out of the first two barrels almost immediately, and then moved into the third barrel. And we're almost sold out of that. So it then I don't know, when the next release, we quickly, of course, got some more corn up there and smoked some more. And then we've continued sending corn up there. So now he's on I think, Ron, five or six for us.

That's awesome. Just keep keep making that stuff.

Yeah, it's it's unique, it's different. It's cool. And, you know, really, I think, fits who we are. You know, is there again, I think it's that David shields. Glen. Robert, it's that, you know, like you said earlier, you can call up these folks, you know, and there's authenticity there. They know that you're not like, you know, some body trying to capitalize on their, you know, name or

whatever, there's always going to be a place for like these generic mass marketed products. I'm talking to a lot of chefs about this right now, you know, the struggle of how much are like, if you're a personal chef, like, how much are you buying local? Are you supporting local? Like, there's a cost associated with that, right? Like, not everyone's gonna pay that cost, but like, where do you feel your places in the industry? Like, shouldn't you be supporting these people? And the struggle, and finding the balance of that, and definitely more and more people that I keep talking to are saying, like, I'm just gonna dig in, buy the products that I want, support the people I want? And, you know, it is what it is, and people will find me. Right, right. Yeah, no, there's,

it's easy to say that you're going to, you know, only by local or only, you know, do this or that it's hard to do. I mean, it really is hard. And, you know, we're not, by any means perfect. I mean, we're not really where we want to be yet. But, you know, I was I was part of this case study years ago with the bakery. And was this group called Social Venture network that we were part of, and I Harvard professor, I was in a room full of all these social entrepreneurs. And, you know, it's like a bunch of giants in the business. And I'm sitting in there with these guys. And he gets he said, Scott, get up and tell your story, don't tell him about this. And I was telling him and sort of kicking my kicking rocks with my feet, you know, whatever. And he is like, no, no, no, stop. Don't beat yourself up, you're doing good things. And he goes, it's hard to walk the walk. But the thing you want to always do is walk towards that walk. And as long as you're doing that, I think people will continue to support you and help you and, you know, it doesn't, it's not the easy path, you know, and you know, this, I mean, it's it's a, it's not your selling to the 1%.

You definitely are. Yeah,

I mean, it's not you're not it's, you know, it's much easier, you know, what is it they say, sell to the classes eat with the masses sell to the masses eat with the classes or so.

Anytime you have your own business, you have to make those decisions in their heart, and it changes over time. And you know, right now, we're going into uncertain economic times. And there's been a lot of discussions, you know, about costs and pricing and everything and kind of looking at your model and what's going to make sense for you, if you want to keep your business going. You know,

when I say that 3.0 We've got whiskey in barrels, and we've been quietly sort of tucking it away. So we actually have some of the best whiskey we've ever made. That has never been released. Because, you know, we finally several years ago, got to a place that we were happy and started making enough that we could put it back and hold it. And so we've got several 1000 Barrels now of whiskey. And this year, it's gonna be the oldest stuff that we've ever released. And, you know, we're graduating to that next level, which I'm pleased with, you know, what we've put out. And, you know, sometimes I'll drink our stuff, you know, take a flask or something, you know, sneak it into a play or something like that and drink off of it. And I'm like, wow, that's, that's actually pretty good. You know? I'm sort of like, I'm surprised, but you know, I don't you know, I'm not that happy with things I make. Usually.

Have you always been like that? Are you just a tough critic on yourself?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I always compare myself to the best. So it's, uh, you know, it's one of the I took one of those tests when I was in college, you know, the, you go to the psychologists, and they take the test on what are you going to be good at in life or whatever. And they said, you know, you'll be good at this, you'll be good at that, whatever. And it was actually pretty spot on. But they said, you have a tendency to compare yourself with the best. Don't look around town and go, alright, we're the best, you know, whatever, you know, it's like, no, no, I'm thinking about somebody in San Francisco or somebody in Colorado, or somebody in New York or whatever, and thinking about what they're doing, you know, and it's not not competitive, it's more of a, you know, just, we still have a ways to go. We still need to work hard, we still need to make a better product. You know, we're not there yet. And I don't think that ever ends. But, you know, I don't think it's a bad thing.

Well, as a consumer, I totally appreciate that. So just keep grinding doing your thing. I look forward to 3.0. And whatever that's gonna bring, yeah, we could talk whiskey spirits and stuff all night. But I think we're going to tie this up.

I appreciate you having me on. And it's been great to catch up.

Yeah, it was definitely great to catch up. And I would recommend to our listeners to check out your stuff. And, you know, obviously, it varies from state to state and county to county. But if your stuff isn't available, you know, just talk to your local liquor store. Because that's what I did here. I wasn't seeing anything on shelves, but I knew you were distributing here in Maryland, and I just said, Hey, can you find this stuff, and they didn't, they were able to bottle wood, they were able to buy some bottles, and now I can get it here in town without having to drive like previously I was driving into DC. And I can get it here in Frederick, if you want to try stuff people like reach out.

We're solidifying our distribution this year. We're gonna you know, we're doing more and more online stuff with you know, when DC is a great state to ship out of because they have great laws. But we have a couple of shippers out of DC that ship. So you know, it's pretty available if you're willing to go that extra length and get it shipped to you. And then New York also asked for wine and spirits. They ship our products and Potomac and Astra and seal box all carry a lot of what we make, like even the weird stuff like the watermelon when we make it or the peach brandy that we just released, which was a milestone for sure. So

well, everyone should try your stuff for sure they're gonna love it. And to all of our listeners. Thanks so much for tuning in. This has it been Chris with Chefs Without Restaurants. You're still here, the podcast is over. If you are indeed still here, thanks for taking the time to listen to the show. I'd love to direct you to one place and that's chefs without restaurants.org. From there, you'll be able to join our email newsletter. Get connected in our free Facebook group, and join our personal chef catering and food truck database so I can help get you more job leads. And you'll also find a link to our sponsor page where you'll find products and services I love. You pay nothing additional to use these links, but I may get a small commission which helps keep the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast and organization running. You might even get a discount for using some of these links. As always, you can reach out to me on Instagram at Chefs Without Restaurants or send me an email at chefs without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much.