Mark: 0:11

Hello everybody and welcome. You are listening to the Restaurant Guys. I'm Mark Pascal and I'm here with Francis Shock. Together we own Stage left and Capital Lombardi restaurants in New Brunswick, New Jersey. We are here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and the finer things in life. And we

Francis: 0:26

are talking to you today from one of our wine cellars here at the restaurant. This is pretty cool, right? The bottle. It's it's little cozy. Yeah, it's cozy. It's a little chilly, cozy. It's a little chilly. It's perfect if you're a bottle of wine, but we have Jeff Duckhorn joining us in just a little bit. He is the distiller at Redwood Empire Whiskey Distillery in California. Super cool. He is. He is related to though not a direct descendant of the Duckhorn family that opened the Duckhorn Winery. Very cool thing coming up. Later on we're gonna drag him down to the cellar a little bit later. Excited to talk

Mark: 0:57

a little bit about it. Francis, you, you've already commented before we started the show that I seem to be drinking a lot of water today. You do seem to be hydrated. No, I'm dehydrated. Which is why I'm drinking a lot of water. Why? Why? Well, salt is the reason I'm drinking a lot. Oh, that restaurant. Yeah. So, you know, occasionally we'll do little Instagram videos where I talk about, you know, what I would tell you if I wasn't afraid to hurt your feelings would be, is the lead in to some of those ready for me to be pretentious? Yeah.

Francis: 1:28

Weren't afraid

Mark: 1:31

if I weren't afraid. Okay, good. Uh, I'm always ready for you to be pre Oh, good, good.

Francis: 1:37

Well, its all that training. That's all that training. Yeah.

Mark: 1:40

So I went to a restaurant.

Francis: 1:42

Yeah.

Mark: 1:42

And I know the person who owns a restaurant. Right. Uhoh. So I, I'll never mention it. Okay.

Francis: 1:48

By the way, that means you didn't have a great time because if you went to a restaurant,'cause I went to a restaurant, Nicholas for lunch today and it was great. Great job Nick. Thanks.

Mark: 1:57

Um, so I went to this restaurant. And to me, they broke the first, they broke two golden rules. Mark, you have so many golden rules. Well, they broke two golden rules. Okay. And the first one that of all of them that I think you can't break uhhuh. The food can't be under salted or over salted.

Francis: 2:21

Well, I think one's a golden rule and one's a silver rule. Okay? If it's under salted, you could salt and you fix it to some degree. You salt and you have salt on the table. You have broken a

Mark: 2:32

silver rule. Uh, we went to this restaurant and it was a group of us and. Everything we've been into was so salty that it was almost

Francis: 2:44

inedible. I always wonder about that. I wonder, is there a chef who somebody has a bad palate? Well, it's, or is it

Mark: 2:52

that they're not tasting? Is it one or the other? So one of the things that happens with salt, right? If you eat no salt on anything, everything begins to taste salty to you. And you notice salt people Correct. Right away. So, so salt is one of those things that you really get a sensitivity towards, depending on how much you have or how little you have. And I know a lot of chefs who really like to use a lot of salt. Mm-hmm. Because they, they're so used to having a lot of salt

Francis: 3:20

in their diet. Can we take us a moment and talk about salt as an ingredient? Right. Okay. So in some things, salt and vineyard, potato chips, salt is one of the things you're looking to taste right. But in most of the ways that we use salt in savory cuisine, and even in chocolate. Salt is there to pop other flavors. It's not to make the food taste particularly salty. Mm-hmm. And then individuals, like, if you never have any salt in your diet, you're Jennifer's family. And, uh, I'm sorry Jennifer, if you are, if you never have any salt in your diet, and I, I think we see that a lot. Mm-hmm. Because a lot of big food companies want to not offend people who are trying to restrict salt, and they figure you can always put it in later. Right. Um, but if you have the right amount of salt, it pops the other flavors. It's not there to make things taste salty. Uh,

Mark: 4:14

but so salt is a, is a really important ingredient in, in fine dining restaurants for two reasons. Any restaurant, right. If you don't use it. At the right moment. Sometimes you can't get salt into things right? If you don't salt the pasta water that you can't get salt into the macaroni after you've cooked it, right? Yes,

Jenifer: 4:30

yes,

Mark: 4:30

yes. It doesn't work that way. Yes, you can salt it after, you can add cheese after it all wrong. It's, it's just never gonna taste quite right. It, it doesn't pop the other flavors. Okay. And once you've added too much salt, you're finished. Yeah. It's over. It's all over milk. So literally every dish is just super, super salty. Now I'm eating very little of it because it's so salty. I'm, I came up with the way the chef could fix it at the table. There's no way that you can fix it. It's over. There's no way to fix it. So a, a, a bite of this, a bite of that. Uh, and I'll talk about the rest of the meal in a minute, but it, these, these items were so salty. So on the drive home, my lips hurt. Okay? They were, were chapping and they hurt because of all the salt in the food. And I was like. Somebody's gotta be tasting this. Somebody has to taste the food.

Francis: 5:18

remember back in the day when this used to be more popular, chefs who smoked two packs a day, uh, always used to oversalt their food.

Mark: 5:24

Yeah, that's true. Two packs a day, you oversalt your food. That's true. Alright, so the second golden rule of salt was, was untenable,

Francis: 5:31

but

Mark: 5:31

I, it

Francis: 5:31

made

Mark: 5:32

the food inedible.

Francis: 5:32

Wait, but before we leave that, I just wanna say there's two ways, there are two things that could have gone wrong. One is nobody's tasting the food. Mm-hmm. Two is, as the restaurateur, whoever the sous chef is or whoever's tasting the food, doesn't, isn't, hasn't got a great caliber for salt.

Mark: 5:47

I, I honestly, this was so salty that I think somebody just wasn't tasting it. Yeah. They just put in what they thought. Nobody was tasting it, what it looked like. Yeah. The finished product. Mm-hmm. Uh, the second thing is. If you want to take a classic, and you and I have mentioned this before, if you wanna change it, if you want your twist on it, if you want it to be all yours, you have to do something to it to make that dish better, right? And when you make Caesar salad. And it's not as good as a Caesar salad. Yeah. What are you doing? Why, why are you, you're going through all these machinations in order to create this dish that's, that's not as good as the original dish. That's not as good as the dish that I could get at a, at a thousand different restaurants within, within a hundred miles of you. Yeah. So what'd they do? What'd they do? It was, they made little hearts of, of romaine and, and added crunchiness to it and some other things to it. But it, it wasn't better than a, than a Caesar salad. I think I had a better Sunday than you.

Francis: 6:47

I really do.

Mark: 6:48

I think you did. And it's a such a shame. I went to

Francis: 6:51

Home Depot and shopped for tools. I think it had a better, it's such

Mark: 6:53

a shame because this is totally what I would tell you if I, if I didn't wanna hurt your feelings. It's totally that scenario because. It's so fixable, right? Yeah. It's such a fixable thing that you, you could do it in a heartbeat. The other thing that happened, and I complained about this recently, and I was getting frustrated in the restaurant,'cause it,'cause again, I, I, I knew these people, the owners of the restaurant. Mm-hmm. Uh, and they weren't there just frustrated in their restaurant because the server kept disappearing. We're the only table in the restaurant and the server kept disappearing. Yeah. He was. And I thought, and I thought, I know why. We're the only table in the restaurant.

Francis: 7:30

Yeah, of course.

Mark: 7:31

That's,

Francis: 7:32

well you get to that, you know, it's funny. There's that spiral that keeps happening in restaurants that we always have fought against. I'm sorry, I'm

Mark: 7:38

gonna drink a little more water.

Francis: 7:39

Yeah, I'm sorry. But we've always talked about that. It's like, so it's slow, so the waiter pays less attention. Mm-hmm. So the service, isn't it good? So people are less likely to come in. So it's slower on a Sunday. Right. And then you close on Sunday'cause it's slow on Sundays. Mm-hmm. But then you close on Mondays'cause it's slow on Mondays. And then you used to be open till 10 o'clock and then you're open until nine 30 and then you're open at nine and eight and it's, it's a spiral. You've gotta like, turn up, if you are open, you've gotta turn up.

Mark: 8:06

It's the, the here's a big issue in our industry. front of house people. Well, they're generally stimulated by interaction. Yeah. Right. So they're always gonna be at their best when things are hopping. Okay. It's easy to get a, a, a pretty good waiter to do everything they need to be doing and be focused and be engaged. When you're busy, it's hard to get a less good waiter. Engaged when it's slow. Yeah,

Francis: 8:35

yeah. Well,

Mark: 8:35

because there's, it's just not as exciting. It's not as exhilarating. It's not hitting those little receptors in the brain.

Francis: 8:41

And the constant battle with great service is when you say on a slow night, you say, Hey, you know, I have three tables tonight. I'm gonna make it freaking perfect. Mm-hmm. And what, what I, we always found as bartenders and as waiters was when we did that, we. We often wound up getting really good tips from those tables. Yep. And so it made the night better and it made it more simpler. Absolutely. I love to work the slow nights. I loved it, I got to focus on the people who were there. But I love to work the busy nights because honestly, the slower nights go slower on the, on the busiest night you walk at four 30, you look at your watch again, it's midnight. You're like,

Mark: 9:13

yeah, what happened? If you have the right crowd coming in, I mean, I, I know that, you know, Francis and I shared a bartending job, so I, I would work Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. He worked Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, 1 million years ago. Exactly. And he loved the hustle and bustle. Oh yeah. But I loved that. I had a night that was super hustle and bustle, two nights that were pretty mellow. And I and regulars could come in and hang out and we could talk and tell stories. Yeah. And then another night that was kind of in between. I love that mix of the energy that

Francis: 9:42

each evening,

Mark: 9:43

evening

Francis: 9:44

brings. I'm with you. So I wanna share with you another nameless restaurant'cause I don't, I didn't share this with you. Oh, I did share this with you. Well, go ahead dad. I dunno if you shared it with them. Sunday night I went to a restaurant, which shall remain nameless. You didn't share it with me. I did. I did share it with you. You did. I did. You didn't. I did. You did. Yeah. Yeah. Check message, check your message. All right. Find so, so, so I went into this restaurant and they have one location in one town, and then they open another location in a city. And it's a casual, cool restaurant. And the. And the place is beautiful. It's it's a very interesting thing because it was obviously paid for by the person who built this ver this luxury building. Mm-hmm. And, um, oh, you did tell me. Yeah. And they put this, this rustic sort of restaurant in there. And I'm

Mark: 10:31

sorry for those of you who haven't been paying attention to the show, annoying Francis is one of the great pleasures of ai. And you

Francis: 10:37

know, you do it well. You do,

Mark: 10:39

no,

Francis: 10:39

not

Mark: 10:39

really. Luxury building. Go ahead.

Francis: 10:41

So it's a luxury building and it's a little set off from the street. So if you're walking down the street, you don't see it. It, and you walk in and, uh, it's this, this soaring ceilings beautiful bar. And I walked in this big bar, it had, I must have had 70 seats around the bar, luxurious seats. And I was like, wow, this is actually the. The place doesn't match the rustic food and beverage. Mm-hmm. They serve. And I thought, well, that's kind of a mismatch, but you never know. It can be great. And I walked in and I, and they were empty. They were open for half an hour. And I said, uh oh. I'm just gonna go sit to the bar. Like, oh, oh, wait, wait right here. We'll, we'll walk you to the bar. I'm like, you'll walk me to the bar. I can see it. I, I see a bar. It's a bar that is literally 50 60 empty stools out of 55. Mm-hmm. And they're like, no, we just like, we like to walk you there. I was like, can't I just go sit at any stool? They go, well, we'd like to walk you to a specific stool. That way we bring you a menu. And, and like, okay, lots of places, give a menu, whatever else then. And so there's this thing where I gotta stand there and wait for the host to walk me and says, which chair would you like? I'm like, this fucking one. I, I mean, it's a fucking bar. Well, to be fair, you do that with a table. True. But the bar is different. It's different. That's what they missed. Different. That's what I, that's what I, that's, that's the point,

Mark: 11:54

right.

Francis: 11:55

One maybe I'm like, no, I wanna go talk to the cute girl over there. Or that looks like senator, whoever. Get, get away from me. Let me pick my own bar stool. Anyway, you sound like

Mark: 12:03

a cranky old,

Francis: 12:04

uh, no, I'm not. Here's what, look, I didn't care. I was stopping for a tequila on a Sunday. I like these people. I like what they're doing. I like what they do in their first bar, but they had this mix of like, they took that homey really cool thing, put it in a corporate environment. They walked me into my bar stool. I sat down, I asked for a specific, very, very expensive tequila. He brought me the wrong tequila and I, and literally 40 minutes went by and nobody was super friendly to me. There was nobody. And here's what they lost. I mean, the bar was spectacular. The architecture was great. It was clean, it was beautiful. The Chandlers were right. They got two girls at the host end. They got somebody to walk you to the table. Nobody was getting me a fucking drink. Nobody was like making sure that the the core thing happened. And I called our buddy Ed and I said, ed, I have you been to this place? He's like, who is that place for? Who are they serving? So I think one of the things that's interesting is no matter how fancy or not your place is. It's about the specifics of are you having good time? It's

Mark: 13:11

about the basics. All right, so for the rest of this show, Francis and I are gonna put Waldorf and Stadler away. Okay. The two Muppets in the, in the in the balcony. Yeah. We're going away. Okay. We're gonna talk about whiskey. We're gonna have a really good time. We're gonna taste some cool stuff. We're gonna have Jeff Duckhorn with us and it's gonna be a lot of fun. I promise. I just

Francis: 13:33

need a gosh darn drink. There we go. Anyway, we'll be back in just a moment with Jeff Duckhorn. We're gonna drink some great bourbon and rye from California and it's be grand old time with the restaurant guys. So joining us in the wine cellar of our restaurant, uh, stage left steak, we have Jeff Duckhorn and Jeff is the distiller at Redwood Empire Whiskeys in California. And we are super pleased to have you here.

Jeff: 13:54

Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

Francis: 13:56

Well, it's a whiskey guy and a wine cellar. So we have to ask you, first off your last name. These are California whiskeys. That's really interesting. What we're gonna talk mostly about tonight. Correct. But your name is a big wine name. Wine lovers know the name. Duckhorn. What's your relation to the, the Duckhorns who started the winery so long ago?

Jeff: 14:14

Yeah. Believe it or not, I've been asked this question a few times and, uh, it is my aunt uncle that started Duckhorn, uh, back in the seventies about the time I was born. So it's, it, I haven't professionally been involved with the winery, but as a kid growing up and then as an adult, I've got the pleasure of watching their success over the years and it's been super inspirational for me. So.

Francis: 14:33

Well, and also, I mean, where you're from and where you were born in California, the, the wine industry is kind of like, it's part of everyone's DNA there you have. Sure, yeah. You have Lauren Pats out there, I

Jeff: 14:41

don't know if you're going for extra credit. Look at that.

Francis: 14:44

Well, Donald Pats is an old friend of ours. I have a bunch of great stories from Donald, so I've never met Lauren, but when we saw that you guys were involved, so she is also like wine royalty in the spirits business, so For sure. And

Jeff: 14:54

she's got an even closer tie than I do. I mean, she grew up with it in the family coming home. She was involved as a kid helping out in different aspects. Mm-hmm. So both of us definitely have it in our DNA.

Francis: 15:04

Well. So we have a couple of wine, the next generation of wine people going into whiskey. I think one of the things that's really interesting, and one of the reasons we wanted to talk to you, we have a lot of tastings here, but we don't always bring people onto the restaurant guys.

Mark: 15:17

you don't see a lot of bourbons and rice coming out of outta California.

Francis: 15:20

Yeah. And what's, what's new is California. Yeah. So, so first of all, why California and is ca why is California a great place to make whiskey?

Jeff: 15:29

Yeah, man, that's, that's a great question. We get asked that a lot and I think, I think our branding is really, is kind of where we start that story. I mean, we, we want to be not just another Kentucky whiskey, we're proud of the fact that we're Northern California, but also. California whiskey isn't really a thing yet. So that's our goal to kind of put it on the map. I think for us, one of the big advantages that we have is that there isn't a, a big history behind it. There aren't a lot of expectations. It, it allows Lauren and I quite a bit of freedom to really do things a little bit differently. You know, barrel selection, maturation, process, grain, all of those things. You know, we get to, uh, we get to play a little bit more in the margins'cause there isn't, uh, expectation of what California whiskey should be.

Francis: 16:09

mark and I will say to you is that with whiskey, there's a lot of lore wi you know, our jobs are for wine and whiskey and all these spirits is to contextualize things. And when people come out with new things in whiskey, which is easier to do in wine because you're not tied to a particular vineyard and a particular growing season, uh, a lot of the stories about whiskey are just fucking bullshit. Yeah, I was just gonna say,

Mark: 16:29

not just contextualize, but to, to, to weed out. Right? Sure. Not, not wheat out to I

Francis: 16:36

good there,

Mark: 16:37

but literally, To figure out, you know, is this a real product or is this just marketing? Yeah.

Francis: 16:43

So we, before we met you, the, guy who represents us here in Jersey, Peter Kelly, said, Francis, I wanna bring these whiskeys to you. The, we're gonna have the distiller in the market and California whiskey. I'm like, who the Frick cares if was made in California? What difference does it make?'cause I get, you know, it's a VA vineyard specific or a field specific. We, and he said, listen, I think it's really good. Let me try it. And he brought this whole line of all the whiskeys, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 whiskeys to my house. Wow. And I called Mark and I was like, we, we have to do this dinner. It's great.

Mark: 17:11

And I will say a lot of times our salesman will say, uh, there's a new bourbon, there's a new whiskey in house, there's a new gin, whatever. Um, I have to it. They've required me to make you try it, but, you know, I understand. And, you know, they'll hand us the, the bottle knowing that. You know, we're not gonna love it as

Francis: 17:31

much. Or, or to be honest, they people bring us things enthusiastically and we're like, I'm sorry,

Jeff: 17:35

but you know,

Francis: 17:35

it's

Jeff: 17:36

when it's your own project, you know you're gonna have Yeah. Sometimes you're a little blind

Francis: 17:39

to it. Right. Well, and also I think that the, the hook Mark and I are very much, it all comes from what's in the glass. We have always viewed, we've been doing this for 33 years and back when there was, before the internet, there was very low information and we were the high information place. And so it's about passion, but it's also about what's real. And what I'll tell you is, and what I said to Mark, and then I brought these down, they left all the sample bottles at my house. I brought them down. I tried them with Mark the next day. Nice. And we both agreed there is something that unifies all these different whiskeys. And we think it must be the climate and the, and aging something in northern California, much cooler place, different humidity, different weather place, maybe some terroir. I don't know.

Jeff: 18:17

You tell me. Yeah, a hundred percent. I, I mean, so how, what is, is, and that is not only a wine term,

Francis: 18:22

I mean that, but is it the terroir of the, uh, base grains or is it the terroir of where of the Rick House?

Jeff: 18:30

I think it's the, the, the rick house, but also the terroir of myself and Lauren and our owner and the people around us. And, and you know, the, the philosophy behind what we're doing. So it's not just the place, it's the, the mindset around it.

Francis: 18:44

what's different about either aging or making wine? Forget the people. Sure. You're in the Russian River Valley. A cool inter Appalachian, And to me, I think it's the aging. I've never had Ryan Bourbon age in such a cool, cool in the not wearing all black on a Saturday Night Sense.

Jenifer: 19:02

Right.

Francis: 19:02

Um, place. And to me they, it gives them a round and whiny kind of mouth feel and a smoothness that. All of your different iterations of whiskey have, so I can only assume mm-hmm. That something is making that happen. At least a component

Jeff: 19:15

of it for sure. Is all aging there? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's milder climate. I mean, we do hit nineties, you know, a little bit in the summer. Uh, rarely get below freezing the rest of the year we're kind of in tween. Uh, and so we, we have definitely a milder climate, so we have more time on our hands. Mm-hmm. So we're, we're never gonna get those extremes. And we really lean into that time where we can and let things age longer and barrel. and then we're making a lot of decisions up front. where quality is first. I mean, we, we want to put our best foot forward, you know, so we're using really good quality grains, local grains where we can, using really high quality wood. Uh, you know, being in wine country, we've been sold a quote, you know, a lot of different types of barrels over the years. To be a bourbon or a rye, you have to go into a new oak barrel and it has to be charred. But beyond that, you have a lot of levers you can pull. Uh, we very early on, uh, did some, some trials with different age regimens. So kill and dried. Standard American whiskey barrel. They basically take the wood, cut it down, make the staves, let it dry a little bit, bring it into a kiln, and dry it and make that barrel.'cause they, it's all about turning, you know, and they wanna get that barrel out for the distiller's ASAP so they can make money. We'd never do that in the wine world. I mean, we talk about multiple years of age. Mm-hmm. 24 month, 36 month, you know, 48 and beyond sometimes for really high quality wines. So we started playing with that early on and found that even after a year, the, the quality difference with a 36 month aged, uh, American Oak Barrel, uh, versus, uh, kiln dried is drastic. I mean, a lot of the tannins have already been pulled out via nature. So they're, you don't have those harsh things already in the barrel.

Francis: 20:46

It, it seems to me, the wine, the whiskeys that you make, they and Mark, we didn't talk about this, but do, do they remind you at all of the early Brandes that Ansley Cole made its Germaine ban with that like roundness, it's, it, well, there's a

Mark: 20:58

certain, windiness, right? Yeah. About, yeah. About these, Whiskeys, right? Mm-hmm. And I, I kind of feel that the, they're a little more full bodied. They're a little bit more, you know, viscous in your mouth than a lot of, bourbon and rye from, from other places in the world. Is that because of where they're coming from or is

Jeff: 21:16

I think intent is a lot of that. I don't wanna be the biggest, baddest whiskey out there in the world. Mm-hmm. Plenty of people are do, are doing that. We wanna make something that's round and full and gives you a good experience. We achieve that through blending. And so a lot of what we do is the art of blending. Mm-hmm. And that's again, what you would do in the wine world. I mean that's, we've seen that all of our lives growing up. And so especially for our core range, which we're tasting right now, our pipe dream. This is a blend of bourbons made from scratch in house by us, blended with bourbons from around the country. So, I mean, in this glass you have an incredibly complex bourbon from four different states, many different ages, minimum four year, but all the way up to 14 year different varied mash bills. Some of the mash bills have weed in them, some don't. So you're just getting a lot of variety of components.

Mark: 21:58

So where are you getting, so obviously some of this is in Indiana. Yep. Where, where else are you getting uh, uh. You're bourbon

Jeff: 22:05

from. So I mean, you say Tennessee and there's only really one supplier. You know, we all know that's coming from Dickel, you know, uh, and uh, for the Kentucky side, we started partnering with Bart Sound Bourbon Company in 18. Love what they do. Uh, and then we, we brought in a number of other Kentucky whiskeys over the years. Some of them have NDAs, so we can't specifically call them out, but we're probably up to about eight different, uh, distilleries in this blend at this point.

Mark: 22:25

So you're making basically a blended scotch in blended, blended. Hundred percent. Yeah. No, but like a blended scotch. It's coming from eight different distilleries and we're, we're putting it all together and making a, making a bourbon in that, in with

Jeff: 22:37

always a component of our in-house. So I think that's something that makes us different from a blending house. Mm-hmm. We're not a blending house. We're not a hundred percent grand glass distillery. We're this hybrid of the two. And so the majority of what we have on the table is, is probably, well, probably about 50. 50 is a hundred percent from us. Versus a blend. Mm-hmm. And, and we love both of those things that we do and they bring different things to the table.

Francis: 22:59

Well, you know, and they, and they say that so much more because, I mean, let's face it, whiskey is a much more manufactured product than wine is. Right. So a lot more of the making whiskey isn't, I would question you on. Oh, really? Alright. Well, the, just the distillation is one extra process.

Jeff: 23:12

This is something I've found over the last, you know, being out in the market now for a decade, I think that on, on the wine side, the consumer doesn't really want to know where it came from. Mm. On the whiskey side, more and more what I see is, is they want all of the information. See, I think on the best of the wine side, people wanna know. Yeah. I think exactly where it came from. Yeah. I think, I think that both things, but, but most the average consumer I'm talking about, I'm not talking about people buying Screaming Eagle or whatever. I'm talking about the, you know, the. The, the average consumer that's going in to buy a$15 bottle of wine,$20 bottle of wine.

Francis: 23:43

Like Yeah. But the guys who come into our little wine shop are like, I know Bernard LaVey and I want his coat routine and I'll take his coat er own.

Jenifer: 23:51

Right.

Francis: 23:51

Because this is, I know where this came from, but you are right. The majority. But I think in the majority of either way, they don't care where he came from. Yeah. They care about the label on the bottle.

Jeff: 23:59

But we're seeing, I mean the, the whiskey thing, I mean, from 10 years ago it was cute. You know, labels that had, that were interesting. And now it's information, information, information. Oh, a hundred. Yeah. That's what we, we, we get a lot, we get feedback every day. And that's something we continue to drive more on our, on our products, is we want more information and now more information on the front label.

Francis: 24:16

Well, mark and I love that because as merchants and as as bartenders, we were always the guys who were like, we need to know everything. And I think, and Mark, I'm really curious what you think, I think the, among the guys who really know. There's always a, like, I'm a collector and I'm investing in whiskey, and I, I find that person less interesting to talk to. Sure. Right. But really, I really love whiskey and I wanna know all the details. And a lot of that I'm gonna ask every question is comes from a lot of people were, were smoke screening there whiskey. There were mm-hmm. There were, oh, well my grandfather was, uh, the, the South Carolina bootlegger and this is his recipe that we brought it back. I'm like, yeah, where'd you get those juice? He's, I got, I bought it from MGD and they Yeah. Distilled in Indiana on the back label at grandpa. Bought a picture on the back. Sure. So, and I, and Mark and I got fooled by one distillery in particular, where we got behind a certain skiing distillery that showed us that the distiller came and showed us the pictures of the, all the, the, the stills and everything. And we had told our customers that, and it was a good whiskey. There was no reason for him to lie that he was buying all this stuff from, from mm-hmm. From MTT. Right. But. Then we find out two years later that he was lying to us and we were giving misinformation to our customers because those stills are operational once a year to make the white dog and everything else is bought from MGD. And I think there was a backlash of, okay, now we want the good information and we're not taking the bullshit. And now we have the internet. And I think that's kind of cool, actually. Yeah. You know that people really wanna know and they wanna buy your whiskey that you make. You are upfront about what you buy from other places and that you age it there. I, I think that's a very cool thing about whiskey heads.

Jeff: 25:51

For me, transparency is, is the number one most important thing for us. And we're in a, we're in an age of information right now where I personally feel that if you're not transparent, it just takes one person to find it. It takes one person and then everybody's gonna know. And so you better be transparent if you hope to be successful.

Mark: 26:06

All right. So for those of you listening to the show, Francis was said he was gonna ask me a question. I'm still waiting for that question.

Francis: 26:12

I don't remember what it was. The whiskey must be working. No, I was gonna ask what your, your recollection, what you think about the whiskey geeks who want to know everything. Does it come from a backlash, from fooling one's shame on

Mark: 26:23

you. No, I think it comes from, well I think it comes from all the, the bad information that was out there forever. But you have a new whiskey geek. Mm-hmm. Okay. And that whiskey geek is where the wine geek was 15 years ago they want to dig in and dig in and dig in. And I, here's where I'll disagree with you because I think that both. Categories have a person who really wants to know everything.

Jenifer: 26:48

Mm-hmm.

Mark: 26:48

Um, but to be frank, I think. There's less to know about Bourbon and Rye than there is to know about the difference between Coat Roti and Australian Shiraz. I just think there's, you can geek out a little bit more in, in Bourbon and Rye. I

Francis: 27:06

don't know.

Mark: 27:06

What do you think

Jeff: 27:07

you are the expert? You? Yeah, I think they're just very different. I mean, I, I I, I, I do many of these where I can geek out all night long on, on whiskey, but yeah, I mean, wine people, same thing. I mean, it's the, the, one of the big differences we have is that we get, we have, uh, the ability to make whiskey every day. Mm-hmm. You know, for, for, for wine. I mean, you're talking about grapes, that's a natural product. You got one shot a year and it's never gonna be the same year to year. Right. Whereas we're able to drive a little bit more consistency with our product, and so that really shapes a lot of what we're doing. So we, we get a lot of do overs,

Mark: 27:37

but the, but the only problem with whiskey is. You don't know you well, you want to h for eight years. What's it gonna look like in eight years? Yeah.

Jeff: 27:43

That's,

Mark: 27:43

that's, that's the variables.

Jeff: 27:44

That's,

Mark: 27:44

that's a huge

Jeff: 27:45

variable. We have, we have a, we have now a 10 year running experiment in the distillery with up to 24,000 whiskey barrels, of which probably about 14,000 is stuff we distill ourselves. And you don't know, you don't know what the finish line looks like. I mean, it's, it's just a grand experiment. We've made so many tweaks during the year,

Mark: 28:02

so you hold on. You also don't know what the public is gonna want 10 years from now. Yeah, sure. Okay. Maybe that, that luscious style of, of bourbon and rye is gonna be out of fashion and everybody's gonna be looking for, you know, super high rye content, spice crazy. You just, you have no idea.

Jeff: 28:21

We're, we're, we're three quarters bourbon right now. But what happens in 10 years if the market shifts? And I don't think it will. I mean, bourbon's been king for, you know, a hundred years, but who knows?

Francis: 30:16

what do you do at the distillery? you are the distiller and. She's the blender. What? Yes. How does that

Jeff: 30:22

work? And that a lot of that's just titles, like Yeah. Yeah. So has work. What, what? You can't have two master distillers, right? We we're really both codes. We both do a lot of both. Uh, but she technically reports to me. She manages our, our team of four distillers. So she's really in charge mainly of the day-to-day operations. And so she sets the tone on the production side. And then, then I'm, I'm living at, at, you know, a different level, more of a planning level. We both travel, we both represent the brands. We get together and we build the blends together. She does a lot of that work now on her, on her own as well. I mean, she's been distilling as long as I have Lauren Pats, uh, as who we're talking about. But, uh, she's, you know, she's a, she's a master distiller in her own right. Anywhere else she would be a master distiller. It's just hard to have two. So when you, when

Francis: 31:02

you're distilling and what you're doing and what I think this is really fascinating. I first learned about bourbon. the year after we started the restaurant, we went down and Colonel Ert Lee came here to do a bourbon dinner. Mm. And then he made the terrible mistake of saying, Francis, if you're ever in Kentucky, if you're like stopping by, let me know. And by the way, just be careful if you say that. I will turn up okay. All

Jeff: 31:21

Thursday through

Francis: 31:22

Sunday. I'm only there Thursday and Friday. Well, I turned, I turned up on a motorcycle in Kentucky that summer and he is like, oh,

Mark: 31:28

it was a super interesting time. So we opened in 92 and it was such an interesting time for whiskey in this country because the small batch thing had just started. Right. The single barrel thing had just had just kind of evolved and we were starting to put the, you know, Elmer t Lee and Rock Hill and, Blanton's and all these things were, were created, you know, within a short period of time around there. And there was so much more available than there had been just five or six years earlier.

Jeff: 31:59

Yeah. And when was this? This, so 9 2 92. Oh, wow. Yeah. That was, that would've been really interesting to, it

Mark: 32:05

was interesting. We were there.

Francis: 32:06

Nobody gave shit about bourbon till 95. Unfortunately. We were ahead, ahead of the game at that point. But what I remember. Is I went down to ancient age and I went and, and Colonel Lee talked to me about what he does every day and the man is tasting whiskey all day. And what he used to do is used to proof everything down to about. 40 proof with water taste. Sure. 20% alcohol. We do that a lot. And you, so how do you, I mean, how many barrels are, is someone tasting a day? How are you joking about keeping track of that many barrels? A computer keeps track of where they are. Sure. But who's, how many people are tasting them? What goes on in being the master blender or the master distiller? I mean, so

Jeff: 32:40

when we're building our bottle and bond series, you know, there's, it's over a hundred barrels that go into the finished product. We're probably tasting, you know, 250 barrels. Uh, we'll do that over the course of weeks. So Lauren and I will typically, I mean for me. You know, 30 is a lot. Yeah. If we're gonna do it, and, and it's pretty hard. This, we're ending up, we're, we're releasing'em at a hundred proof, so 50% alcohol. So we'll mostly just taste from the barrel. We might, if I'm gonna have things set aside for me, then I'll have our team actually, they might proof those down for, for something else we're doing. But for us, when we're really tasting some of these higher end projects, we just sit in the rick house and we, we will go through, you know, several lots, you know, three to four lots, and we're u usually it's around 30, and then one of us is, is like, okay, I, I think I'm, I'm, I'm done. Gotta tell you something, I, I think I have a

Francis: 33:24

pretty good job. I, I, I'm like, particular part of yours. I have to ask the most

Mark: 33:29

important question. That so far, what did you support for me?

Francis: 33:33

Yeah. Before you, so we went from, we need to let you explain this, Jeff. We, we poured, um, the pipe dream. Yes. And then we poured the pipe. Dream 1 0 1. So talk

Jeff: 33:40

to us about the difference. So, so the pipe dream, that's our core offering. It's probably about 50% of our overall sales. It's like, it's like our gateway drug. It's our, it's our core bourbon 90 proof, you know, easy, everyday drinker.

Mark: 33:51

It's very friendly,

Jeff: 33:52

very friendly. Luscious. Not a lot of burn, not a lot of, you know, it's not super aggressive. It's just a lot of Christmas spice. But, but, but, but, but smooth, not like, yeah, it's about 20% rye, so you're getting some spice off of that. Yeah. So that, that's part of our, our core series of which there's a rye and an American whiskey. And then, uh, we were looking for a place to trade customers up. We have, you know, we have pretty drastic jump where we go from these, you know, early, you know, low thirties, uh, retail price to the majority of other stuff is like 60, 70,$80. And so we came up with this pipe Dream 1 0 1, uh, at the end of last year as a really nice trade up for people. It was kinda the five year anniversary of our pipe dream, and we wanted to be able to offer something that was just a really nice, uh, you know, just a gradual, you know, gentle trade up from the core pipe dream. So yes, it is 101 proof, but that's not the only difference. It's, uh, older stocks. So on average it's probably six, seven year. The, the minimum age is five year. It's a lot more of our in-house grain in a glass. So we basically just took all the things that we loved about pipe dream and we're giving you more of all of those. So a little more alcohol.

Mark: 34:52

Well, the alcohol definitely makes a little spicier, for sure.

Jeff: 34:56

But it's just richer, right? You get your, you with the, the pipe dream the core is, is crushable. It's very easy drinking. This is a little bit more challenging. It's got a little bit more weight on it, but it's, uh, you know, it's, it's nice. And this retails for, uh, you know, 45, 50 bucks.

Francis: 35:10

And I'm always gonna, when I go for a cocktail, I'm always gonna go for the, I like the bonded bourbons when they're not too harsh. but one of the things about. Having a bourbon in a cocktail as just a straight sipping bourbon. I like that first bourbon a lot. Sure. As kind of a generic ingredient in a cocktail. It's very, very good. But I like that extra bit of proof, especially if I'm using bourbon in a cocktail.

Jeff: 35:30

Yeah. Just a hundred percent agree. I rarely use bourbon in a cocktail.

Francis: 35:34

Well, I was gonna go, what do you have over there, mark? I have a,

Jeff: 35:36

I think let's go with the grizzly next. Yeah. I want it to go

Mark: 35:38

with the grizzly nexts.

Jeff: 35:39

We're gonna do a nice little bourbon flag. No,

Mark: 35:41

seriously. I did. I just grabbed the wrong bottle. Oh yeah.

Francis: 35:42

Oh, I think you're fine. Yeah. So this is Redwood Empire. It's Grizzly Beast. Great. Um, it's straight bourbon whiskey uhhuh. So this is the, this is our launching point for the next part of this. Right, right, right. We talked about this.

Jeff: 35:54

So this is part of our bottom bond series. For me, this is a super fun thing. It actually coincided also with, right when Lauren joined us was, was just about five years ago. It was January of 21. And you know, as a distillery we make stuff every day, but for the longest time we had just a, a series of products that were blends. And people always said like, these are great, but I would love to taste a hundred percent what you're making from the distillery. Yes, for sure. So this is our state, this is our estate juice. So, uh, you know, we could have just done just a straight bourbon, but then you look at all the different things out there and there's this really fun classification of bottled and bond. And for us, that was really an interesting thing to lean into. It's an act that goes all the way back to 1897. So it's been around a minute. Uh, it, it was really important back then to help protect the consumer from what was at the time a lot of shitty shit out in the marketplace. Fraud. It was

Mark: 36:43

Fraud is fraud Exactly. Is the work you're looking for.

Jeff: 36:45

So, but then it fell off and nobody was really doing it. And then, uh, you've seen it come back because it's a really fun way for craft distilleries to show off what they're doing. And by definition you say bottle and bond, and there's these tenets that you have to achieve. So you're a hundred percent one distiller, one distillery, one distilling season. Love it. It's pretty much the opposite of the first two we tasted that are, that are complex blends from different places, different times. This is a hundred percent from us in a season, which is a six month window. So I just wanna point that

Francis: 37:12

out to the consumer. That is a huge difference. When, and so when you see something is bonded, any spirit that says bonded, that is a legal definition. That's not like the distillery saying, this is my reserve modeling. Right. That is a legal definition. A hundred. Yeah. Meaning that's it. Yes. And, and it, so it has to be 50% alcohol, right? Yep. And then also it has to be aged in a bonded warehouse. Right? Tell us what that means.

Jeff: 37:35

Yeah. So it has to live the life of the, of the product at the distillery. So you can't move it around, you know, there, you can't move it to another location. Historically, that was more meant for the government'cause they actually came in and did checks on it to tax it, to tax it, to do all that stuff.'cause

Francis: 37:48

they would defer the tax until you opened the, until you went to sell it. Yeah. Yeah. That was one of the advantages that historically distillers got, is you, you would lock it in a warehouse. The, you have a key and the government tax agent has a key. Correct. And you can't get to your own whiskey unless the government tax agent is there to make sure you're not skimming it off and selling it tax free. And if you did that, you could defer paying tax until you went to sell it, which was a way to help distillers age and to help consumers get older whiskeys. It's actually a, a very cool policy we see bonded. It's a very cool

Jeff: 38:18

thing. I love it. You also have to be a minimum of four years old. Yes. So for a straight bourbon whiskey, you only have to be two years old, which for me and most people is not. You would, you would really, a, a 2-year-old bourbon is not pleasant. It's very young. It's very hot. So it, it's not, the good work hasn't really happened in the middle. So tell me what straight means. That's also a legal definition. Yeah. So straight, so, so in order to be called bourbon, you,

Mark: 38:39

I don't know if you can ask that question in 2000

Jeff: 38:41

only with regard to, right? Yeah. Only in regard to, thank you. Only it's not subjective with regard to whiskey. So in, in regards to whiskey, uh, in order, in order to be called bourbon, just bourbon, you have to touch new American oak first. It doesn't need to actually necessarily be American, but it has to be new oak and it has to be charred. That's touching. So you can, and it has been done, you could put the, the, the, the bourbon through a, an oak barrel for a second, pull it back out and then chip it or do something else on it and call it bourbon whiskey. Okay. In order to call it straight bourbon, it has to live in that barrel for two years. But only two years. So again, not very long. You get to bottle and bond. Now we're talking about four years. What we have in our glass is actually five years because, you know, as we were talking about our climate early on, our climate's pretty temperate. We tasted our whiskeys at four years. They were nice, they were pleasant, but I really wanted that extra year of aging to make them exceptional. so we launched this series in 2021 with a five year grain, the glass product. We did both a bourbon and a rye. We've got the bourbon in front of us, and then each sub subsequent year we've done a release. And so this is batch four, it's on the neck. Um, and, and it's, for me, it's super fun as we get to show off this moment in time of how we're growing as a distillery. So it's by being this estate project, we can do vertical flights with it. Lauren actually did one at the distillery three weeks ago. She did batches three through five and did line them up and did a vertical test.

Mark: 40:02

And literally what you create is a vintage yes in wine terms, this would be a vintage. And this is vintage for,

Francis: 40:08

I'll speak for myself, but I think I'll tell me if I speak for both of us. Mark, when I say that you, you're not sometimes only in regards of beverage. Um, when a distillery hits four and five years old and they have enough of their own juice, that they can make some whiskeys that are entirely of their own juice, whether or not they continue to make some entry level stuff with other people's juice, to me, the winery becomes most interesting. Distillery. The distillery becomes most, we'll, we'll get you, we'll get that down by the end. Yeah. The distillery becomes most interesting at. When I can buy a bottle of Whiskey one is made at that decision. 100%. It's

Jeff: 40:41

a, it's a watershed moment,

Francis: 40:42

right? It's

Mark: 40:42

when, it's when you, you get to really show your personality, right? You get to show, well, here this is us, and

Jeff: 40:47

it, it legitimizes us. It legitimizes us up out in the marketplaces

Francis: 40:51

and there are a lot of good whiskey merchants and there's a long, long tradition back in Scotland and Ireland of whiskey merchants who buy whiskey from different distilleries and blend it and barrel it and sell it. we need to pay special attention and give special rewards to the people who built a, a, a distillery, put a still in, distill their own stuff, waited all those years, and it's just, it's a different thing and it deserves a mark of respect. A little bit above the person who says we could go out tomorrow, buy five barrels of whiskey from Indiana and release it. Six months later. Sure. Um, and it'd be delicious. And it might be delicious, but it's a different thing. Yeah. It might suck your own, hold on. It might

Mark: 41:30

suck. Exactly.

Francis: 41:31

Yeah.

Jeff: 41:31

No, I, I, I'm, I'm glad that, that you two understand that, you know, but for us it was very important. Also, what I love about these is that the back white panel is different every year, and it's gonna tell you when it went into barrel. When it went into bottle, the number of barrels in this bottling. And then the most important thing for me is it actually tells you the blended mash bills so you know exactly what you're drinking. Yeah, I like that. And, and I have some math skills in the background, so we're able to do some math because these are different lots during a six month window. So there might be a high ride bourbon, there might be some weed bourbon in there, there might be something experimental. The last couple years we did some experimental grains that made it into our bottom bonds. And so it, but it shows the consumer exactly what they're

Francis: 42:07

doing. And not everybody who listens is a whiskey head. So what a mash bill means is that they, that would be the bill that you got that showed every grain that went in there. So it's this percent corn, this percent rye, this percent wheat if you use wheat. so the mashville is, is an interesting component to, to, to now. Yes.

Mark: 42:22

Can we move on to rye?

Francis: 42:23

You know, I wanna go to the high rye bourbon. Fuck you. And we're moving to rye. Hi. Ride Bourbon. We have, this

Jeff: 42:29

is a great transition.

Francis: 42:30

Yeah. Where are we?

Jeff: 42:31

It's never, it's that one right there. A great transition. Yeah.

Francis: 42:34

Is this the high ride B? All

Mark: 42:35

high ride bourbon. That's high ride Bourbon gets me where I want to go. You're terrific. Yeah.

Francis: 42:39

I'm transitioning you. Mark Devil Tower. Thank you. This is the Devil's Tower. Yeah.

Jeff: 42:43

Appropriate name.

Francis: 42:44

I saw Close Encounters of the third time. It's

Jeff: 42:46

you. That's me. Third

Francis: 42:47

con. Third con. I saw close encounters of the third, fourth time. Where are we? Yeah. Yeah. Here we go. Alright, so to be a bourbon it has to be 51% corn. Hey, look at you. Alright, so the

Mark: 42:56

beauty of this tasting Yeah. Is that we're gonna do a consumer tasting right after that. Yeah. So that'll be, we'll be a little loosened up by then.

Francis: 43:05

And

Mark: 43:05

then we're gonna do the

Francis: 43:06

senior citizens tasting at nine.

Jeff: 43:09

Is there a water tasting somewhere in between there? Yeah, exactly. Alright, so this is Devil's Tower High Rye Bourbon. There

Mark: 43:14

might be a meatball tasting somewhere between here.

Jeff: 43:16

Yeah. Oh yes. That, that's are important. They'll soak up a lot of those whiskey. So

Francis: 43:18

this is Devil's Tower, high R Bourbon. We know that bourbon has to be at least 51% corn, correct? But it can have 49% rye or

Jeff: 43:25

it can have no rye. Correct. And think about that statement as as, as the person that gets to make the whiskey. I mean, think if you could do that with a wine. I mean wine, you get what, 10%, maybe a little bit more if you're playing some games or you're really large Appalachian. But to get 49%. To do other grains with. Yeah, that gives us an enormous playground. And that's one of the things that Lauren and I love leaning into. And so we do, we do high rye bourbons, we do weed bourbon, we do a Tri Kali bourbon. We'll do spelt, wait, wait, wait. We'll do all sorts of fun. What's that last thing? Tri Kali. What is Tri Kali? Tri Kali is this hybrid grain of rye and wheat. They figured out, you know, how to hybridize like a little over a hundred years ago and how to rye grows in northern climates. Poor soils, but it's tars, right? And you don't get the, the, the starch content out of it. Wheat grows, you know, it needs a little bit more temperate climate to, to grow. But you know, we all love wheat wheats in everything. Wheat ate. Think how many things you ate today that had weed in it, you know, so if you can figure out how to hybridize the two, get the best of both worlds. Grow this hybrid grain in northern climates, but get all the goodness out of it. They figured that out through, uh, you know, natural selection and, and hybrid. And so what do you

Mark: 44:31

put, yeah, what do you put on the back of the bottle then?

Jeff: 44:33

Tri.

Mark: 44:34

Okay. Yeah,

Jeff: 44:35

so we, we have a hundred percent Tridian Barrel. We also have some, I think some of

Mark: 44:38

that's in my shampoo, some

Jeff: 44:39

bourbon. I had tri, I read the back of the bottle. No, I'm almost bottle. It's wild. I had tri once, but it got better. It's wild. It's a, it's a food grain. If you're a Star Trek fan of the OG original Star Trek, the trouble with triple Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is tr Tri Kali number six or whatever is the grain that all of the Tribbles ate

Mark: 45:00

that. Oh my goodness. There you go. That is super drop stuff. I know.

Francis: 45:04

Knowledge dropped. Absolutely. I wanna go out to our geekiest of listeners. Both of you understood what just happened there. I'm with you.

Jeff: 45:14

We appreciate

Francis: 45:14

your, all

Jeff: 45:15

of you. So anyway, so we're drinking high rye bourbon. It is legally bourbon'cause it is over 51% corn. You gotta look at the front of the bottle. His batch to batch were a little bit different. But on the front and the bottom, if you've got eyes that work, which might

Francis: 45:29

44% rye, 2.5% malt, 51% corn, and 2.5% wheat.

Jeff: 45:35

Yeah. So we're legally, we're legally bourbon at 51%. But then a really high dose of Ryan ear and then a touch of wheat. Touch of barley. I love this whiskey. I don't, I love, I love what this whiskey does as an educational tool.'cause this is technically a bourbon, but not like most bourbons that people have had. No, I see. I like a high

Francis: 45:52

rye bourbon. I, I, I really like, so this is not, it's funny, I like a high corn rye. Right. You like a corny rye. It's the same thing. Well, no, but it's, I like the spice of the rye. Not that round Christmas bourbons of, you know. But, uh, like the old foresters, I like for a different reason. You know, those old forester, like the 19 20, 19 20 rounding corn. Um, but anyway, I think,

Jeff: 46:13

I think this is, uh, delicious. It's some really nice juicy notes. Yeah, I get it. Like a, just, it's just, it, you know, it's a little bit of stringent. That's the, you know, the rye tannins drying it out, but then the juiciness just kinda helps round out your palate. So I think this is a really fun whiskey.

Francis: 46:26

Alright, well I think we should end with a rye.

Jeff: 46:28

if we're gonna do one more, we gotta do the van doen and, and I'm not gonna tell you what's in it. Okay. And then, and then that'll be a, a fun adventure. Alright, one more. Let's see. The Van Doen So the one in front of you is technically a rye whiskey. Okay. It's also the one whiskey we have in our portfolio that is not named after a living old growth redwood tree. Okay. Everything else in our portfolio, everything we've tasted today is named after very old, very large redwood trees in Northern California.

Mark: 46:53

So Grizzly Beast is a, is a Redwood tree.

Jeff: 46:55

Grizzly Beast is two trees.'cause our owner is involved in our labeling conventions and there was Grizzly Giant. We already had a giant, okay. There was Matley Beast, which didn't really roll off the tongue. And he was like, what if we do Grizzly Beast? Can you imagine the label? There'd be this bear coming off funny. And we're like, but, but that's two names. That'd be very confusing for the customer. He's like, well I don't often care. Like imagine the bear on the label and he's not wrong. Grizzly Beast is one of our best labels. We have shirts of it, it's very cool. But the Van Dusen is a tributary of the Eel River that runs through Northern California. So the river technically runs through the redwoods and helps feed the redwoods, but it is a river.

Francis: 47:30

Uh, I have to tell you that this is the most singular whiskey of all the ones we've tried. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I'm not saying it's necessarily my favorite. Right. I love it. But there, I've never had a whiskey like this. I'm getting a little like. Th that's not in the people. This is

Jeff: 47:44

love and hate it. One in 10 people are like, no thanks.

Francis: 47:47

I can see why people would hate it. Yeah.'cause it's very aggressive. Right. Um, and it's very like, um, almost medicinal in a way, but not in a scotch. Kind of a mad that sets the wrong word to use.

Jeff: 47:58

Well, only because that has a negative context. Well, in the wine world that's got a negative context, I think in the whiskey world, medicinal is okay though. I mean, I think like brides are, I agree

Francis: 48:05

you a Pete Scotch. Yeah, that's a Yeah. It's, but I, I would say there's a, like a, uh, almost like a, a jasmine kind of, kind of like Mm. Floral herbacious that I've never encountered for, I don't quite know what to call it. Do you mark? What do you, what do you think

Mark: 48:17

I, I'm getting this, this dark hazelnut in the finish. This, this like roasty roasty hazelnut as what? What, what

Jeff: 48:25

about Mexican hot chocolate?

Mark: 48:26

Okay.

Francis: 48:27

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Like the cinnamon hard tasting thing. Yeah. I'm getting like sumac.

Mark: 48:32

I'm not getting any sumac.

Francis: 48:33

Well, you're wrong. Think. Go back in again.

Jeff: 48:35

Go back again.

Francis: 48:36

Try.

Mark: 48:37

Nope.

Jeff: 48:38

Oh, so technically a rye whiskey, right? Isn't that wild? That's cool. Yeah. Yeah. What else you got in here? So, uh, 30% malted barley.

Jenifer: 48:45

Mm. Oh,

Jeff: 48:46

and I, I'm a malted, definitely the malt. I came to this project as a recovering home brewer. Mm-hmm. I love, I love beer. I love beer my whole life. And so to give back to malt, we have what, we have both a a hundred percent single malt, and we have this project that have a healthy dose of malt in it. But I'm, I'm more of the, let the malt speak in the beer. I'm not a big hops guy. I'm not a big, IPA guy. Yeah. I like a, I like an amber ale or a dark, darker, like a chocolate, you know, porter or stout. So this has some chocolates and some caramels and some, some of your darker malts in it. Yeah. That I think are really nice. Counterpoint to the rye. I mean, r all spice and up front. And this, the malt kind of hits you on the back end. This in a, in a espresso martini is killer. I know it sounds weird, but it, it, it sounds weird. It works.

Francis: 49:26

Right. 31% malted barley and we, and no corn. So I, I don't think I've ever had, we, we

Jeff: 49:31

don't do corn in our r There's enough rice out there that have that. I almost no problem with that, you know? But for us, we really, I, I love to have the rye be the singular focus, you know? And in this case, malts, just, it's weird. We do a thousand cases a year. It's a love hate thing. If you flip the bottle over, it's kind of fun too. It's one of those worst at things. Look at the bottle first and see if you can see what's on the front of it.

Francis: 49:53

Somebody in a canoe, rowing into a pine forest.

Jeff: 49:56

Yep. Okay. What else? Could you see something else in there? The moon, the mountain. What is that? Un unfazed your eyes. And now flip the bottle over. Don't worry, it won't leak. I, I've tested this before. Do you see it? Is that,

Francis: 50:07

is that a, is that

Jeff: 50:07

a

Francis: 50:08

See an owl? You

Jeff: 50:08

see an

Francis: 50:09

owl? An owl.

Jeff: 50:10

Owl. There it is. Boom. All right, everybody. So it takes, it takes a couple pores to get to the owl. This is, I,

Mark: 50:15

now, I gotta tell you, I'm not at the Salvador Ali part of my evening yet. Yeah. This, so I definitely You

Francis: 50:22

got, my goodness, right now you can't unsee it. Okay. Unsee it. So this is the Redwood Empire, Venus and Straight Rye. I wish I could take credit for that. I can't now. Now you can buy this in any wine store in America. If you're near New Brunswick, we hope you'll come to Stage Left Wine Shop or go stage left wine shop.com. He just said he made 1,006 packs. Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. Into a very, any, any really fine wine so you can come to our wine shop. But whenever you see it out. I suggest you buy it because it's not inexpensive, but it's a wonderful whiskey. But if you can't afford to buy it, just take it off the shelf, turn it upside down, and look for the eagle. For the, for the owl. Owl. Yeah. And then, and then you have a cool thing. That's a very, yeah. Right. That's the

Jeff: 51:02

coolest label I've ever seen. I know. Like who, whoever came up with that genius. Like, I, I love it. Yeah. Makes my job so much easier.

Francis: 51:08

Okay. Well thanks for taking us through your whiskeys. Here's a question for you. Yeah. You were an accountant, now you distill whiskey. Do you love your life? What's going on?

Jeff: 51:14

I do. A little bit of accounting goes into everything we just tasted, but man, it's a lot more fun to go home with this at night than a spreadsheet.

Francis: 51:20

Yeah. how many people are at Redwood

Jeff: 51:22

Empire overall? Um, so Redwood is, we're part of a wine and spirits company, so we have probably about 50 employees overall on the whiskey side, you know, full-time, eh, dozen people in the, in the production of it, you know.

Francis: 51:35

is this a new institution in California?

Jeff: 51:38

I hope so. I mean, the, right now California whiskey is not really a thing. There's a lot of small distilleries making some pretty good fun stuff. Our goal is to plant the flag and become the California whiskey. And I think we're well on our way. We own 24,000 whiskey barrels. Our branding screams California. So that's our goal over the next 10 years. We're, we're a decade into this. We're still here. We made it through the hardest part of being a distillery. Yeah. So that's our goal. Well,

Mark: 52:01

so I just have to, to tell you a little story about Francis and Mark circa 19 92, 19 93, 94 Duckhorn. your uncle's vineyard. Yep. Made for us. Oh. One of the coolest things that I've ever had. And night, to my knowledge, it's not being made anymore. No. They stopped ing it. Made of vermouth.

Jeff: 52:22

Oh yeah.

Mark: 52:23

Was king Eider king. Eider king. Eider vermouth. That's so good. Was so freaking good. I know. And so, and this is when there

Francis: 52:31

was no good vermouth

Jeff: 52:32

available in the United States.

Mark: 52:33

Right. So somebody has to bring King Ider vermouth back and return it. That

Jeff: 52:37

is an amazing call out. Yeah. Do you remember that Drew? A hundred percent. Yeah.

Mark: 52:41

It was so freak because they had it for years

Jeff: 52:43

afterwards. My uncle always had it at the house. Mm-hmm. It was so good. You could just, he always had it chilled in the fridge and you could just have it neat. And it was, I had it for years afterwards at my

Francis: 52:51

house.'cause they're like, it's going outta production. I'm like, buy older have it because, Because Souvignon blanc's a little bit aggressive. Right. You could still get the Souvignon Blanc. It wasn't a classic French mout. It was not a

Mark: 53:00

classic

Francis: 53:01

Mout.

Mark: 53:01

That's what I loved about it. It was like an Amer. I realized also at that time. Most vermouth in the United States sucked. And whenever you got vermouth in the United States, it was probably had been open two or three years earlier.

Jeff: 53:12

and been on somebody's shelf outside. It was more of an Americano style too, right? I mean, it was. It was a little bit, it wasn't sweet, it wasn't dry, it was somewhere in between. It had a lot of ness going on. But you

Francis: 53:22

had French vermouth and you had stock vermouth that were, but they weren't very good. You didn't have the great vermouth. They didn't come in until the mid two thousands. But King Ida vermouth, we made martinis with King Ida vermouth, and they were the best. And people said, wow. Yeah. But the problem is that they didn't sell very much and they never really took off in the market. And that's'cause. They were ahead of their time. Well that's

Mark: 53:41

cause that was a time when everyone was like, Dry martini. No vermouth at all. Sure. This tastes too much like vermouth. But, but sir, I, all I did was open the bottle next to it, right? And we close it back out. that was, that was the, that was that

Francis: 53:53

era. Yeah. So please carry, good wishes from us to your aunt and uncle for King Ider vermouth. Yes. Some of us still remember. Love it. Love it. So I have a suggestion, I'm gonna suggest we take this upstairs where we have about 30 people waiting for us. We're gonna taste all these whiskeys again. Yes. That's just'cause I wanna have another glass of whiskey. you think? I

Mark: 54:32

just have one last story that I want to tell that is not related to your whiskeys, other than your, grizzly beast story where you took two different things and put them together. Yeah.'cause, you thought that that would be better. Francis and I went to a distillery he picked his favorite bourbon. Mmm. Okay. And I picked my favorite bourbon

the-restaurant-guys_2_10-22-2025_174111: 54:53

we both liked the other one's barrel, but we liked our own barrel a little bit better.

Mark: 54:57

so we're arguing about which barrel we're gonna buy. So of course we buy two barrels of bourbon

Francis: 55:01

because that's our way.

the-restaurant-guys_2_10-22-2025_174111: 55:02

So we named Francis' Barrel. Fancy hoe. We all know why we named it fancy Hoe, even. I agree to that. We named my Barrel Sexy Beast. For obvious reasons. I don't know about that. But anyway, when we brought the barrels back to the restaurant and started playing around, you know, Francis liked all these high notes in, in his bourbon. I liked the creme brulee kind of, more roundish, version of the bourbon. And when we brought them back, we blended them together and we realized that together they were way better than they were alone. And so we make our house Manhattan. Is the two whiskeys together, and you can also get each of the whiskeys separately and then blend them together yourself. It kind of lets the, the guests take part in that whole blending thing to see what it's all about. So we call it, fancy beast. We call it the Fancy Beast Manhattan. Fancy Beast Manhattan. Come here and have a fancy beast. Manhattan.

Francis (2): 55:51

You've had the porn star martini, you've never had the fancy beast Manhattan at stage Left steak. You gotta try it out. I'm Francis Shot. I'm Mark Pascal. We are the restaurant guys and you can always find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com. You can also find out about Redwood Empire there and come in and have some at our bar. We'll see you soon.