Timer, timer. I don't have to do this anymore.
And yet you did. I know. You did it anyway. I'm
just saying, I don't have to do that anymore.
And yet you did. Especially in front of guests.
What do you mean? It's for the nostalgia. It
is. Was it much easier this round? I did nothing.
He's our token podcast. I love that. So you can
take out more now. No. I can't if I get the damn
thumbnails to work. We'll talk about that. It's
the second half. It's more of a giddy atmosphere
here on the second half of Dudes Like Us podcast.
It's Thursday, March 19th. Dudes Like Us, we
have our producer back behind the scenes making
sure everything goes well for us. Yes. Whopper
specials. Yes. With the Whopper special, that
was nice for the first half. Dudes Like Us, I'm
Sean. I'm Paul. And I'm Jeff. And I'm Robert.
And Robert is our special guest from Iron Root
Republic. He's going to be talking to us more,
less about what the first half was. The second
half is going to be a little bit more weird.
Oh, yeah. It's very weird. Very, very weird.
I don't think we warned Robert for the second
half. We're going to talk marketing. Now, check
us out. We have an outfit for you to wear. Facebook,
Instagram, YouTube, TikTok. We are on everything.
Basically, just look us up. RSS .com forward
slash dudes podcast. God bless. How you doing?
I'm still doing great. So in the first half of
the Dudes Like Us podcast. I didn't leave yet.
That's a start. We sampled the Iron Root Republic
assemblage. Which is not to the general public
yet. No. But by the time they hear this next
week, it'll be. It'll take us. It's outstanding.
Outstanding. Yeah. Excellent. Yeah. On a rate
in front of you. But I will tell you. I did.
Very high. I do, right? I said I didn't bribe
all of you for that, so that's good. It works.
It's outstanding. We typically rate things based
on type, proof, and, you know. Well, this would
rate very high for me based off of the proof.
Yes. Because when we go back, because we have
a lot of 90s, 95s out there. When we revisit
those, we're all, for the most part, very disappointed.
That's where we started, and we liked them. For
the most part, back then we liked it. Because
we keep track of our ratings. We do. And we go
back and we're kind of like, oh my gosh, we really
liked it back then. And then now we're kind of
like, it's not even a blip on the radar. There's
no flavor to it. But this would rank high for
the 96 proof range, about 95 to 100 proof. We
kind of grouped those together. This would be
right up there. Now, is this the first year this
came out? So yeah, so there is a version out
like on store shelves now that was a 92 proof.
And this is like the new and improved version.
It's a little bit older. There's also a four
grain versus the previous version was just a
high rye. Oh, this is a four grain. It's a really,
really fun blend. I didn't even know that. We're
really enjoying a lot of the four grains. That
four grain was kind of the Penelope, I think,
was one of the first four grains that we had.
And then the Heaven to Hill grain to glass was
kind of a four grain. Four grain. came at one
point was like desirable. Every time we saw four
grains, God bless me, gobbled it up. Yeah, in
1845 had a four grain. And they are much trickier
to blend to be quite honest. They are. To really
balance the wheat because wheat can be very soft
and sweet or it can be like very bitter almost
if you're not careful. We have friends like this
sitting at the table. Or butter like you're drinking.
Yeah, mostly bitter. Bitter. A little butter.
The second half is always kind of a turn. We
have to focus. Keep the focus. We're very thankful
that you came on. We stuck around, too. We have
a lot of fun doing this podcast. For listeners
out there that don't know what Dude's Like Us
is about, we're just a group of friends that
got together. Been friends for a long time. We
would go to bars and events. Estate sales. Estate
sales. And we would have so much banter between
us. And then someone, someday, someone went out
there and was like, you guys ought to do a podcast.
And, you know, I had all this gear laying around
that was aging that left over from the filtered
coffee shop in downtown McKinney. And I was like,
God bless it. Let's do this. And I remember we
set up shop in my office. Yeah, you were in your
office. We were all crammed in there. You know,
it is. Hopped up on a little coffee. You know,
I don't recall really. Were we even doing bourbon
back then? I don't know if we even did bourbon
at the first couple shows because it was more
of an experiment. Is this what we want? And then
half the time, shit didn't work. We were recording
on a thumb drive as opposed to a blown out computer.
What do you call these? The bootleg? Not the
bootleg, but the seller. The seller copies. The
bootlegs. That's what it was. I don't even know
if we have those recordings anymore, but we were
just getting blown up and having a ball. Hey.
We could say you were almost professional. Almost.
We're very experienced. We still get blown up
every now and then. Plus, editing was a lot more
difficult. Believe it or not, I know how I am
now. There's almost no editing. There was a time
where he went through a 48 -step program. It
was tough. He's better now. It was tough. I always
had the attitude I'd rather say it and we could
edit it out because sometimes if you say it,
it works out and it wasn't offensive. And even
though I think, all right, my little spotty sense
is tingling, it's going to be offensive. But
sometimes it is. We did the math. If he admitted
to the 52nd step, we'd be in a much better place.
I recommended that. But he's like a good man.
So one of the things we did was we got rid of
beer. We don't drink beer during the podcast.
That was a big help. And we had a measuring cup.
And we started utilizing the measure cupping
on filling up our drinks. So we do about two
ounces now. Not quite this. We were doing four
ounces. Yes. Per episode. Bold strategy. Very
bold strategy. We were all in. We were all in.
I mean, it was... All the way up. It was ridiculous.
What could possibly go wrong with that strategy?
No, but seriously, when you're drinking beer
and the carbonation... Tell me if I'm wrong.
But the carbonation messes with your stomach
lining. You're wrong. Can you let me finish before
you tell me I'm wrong? And so it actually prepares
the stomach lining for whatever you're going
to eat or drink after that to be absorbed faster.
True or false? False. I have no idea. You have
no idea. No idea. CO2 neutralizes acid. So what
it does is the stomach will actually sit on your
stomach longer. Okay. I thought he was going
to fact check it, but now we're looking at the
- We have the technology. We're actually looking
at the March Madness, which is, hey, this is
day one. It's more important. Hey. This is day
one, guys. UT is up, guys. Did you manage to
get your brackets in? I did. I did not, no. I
got my bracket in this morning. And A &M is winning
57 to 44. Against a higher seed. I called it,
though. A bit of an upset. Probably a two, three
point. Not really. All right, well, let's skip
to the chase. What was your final four? I would
have to look it up, but I had Arizona winning
the whole thing. Yeah, what about you? I did
not fill out a full bracket. I just bet on a
couple of random games for fun. Ooh, you were
better. It's a sweet $7 bet, so watch yourself
there. Dang. Dude, Iron Root's doing really well.
You're just throwing hundreds of thousands of
dollars on betting. I had Howard going all the
way. Howard? Really? How's that working out for
you? Bold stretch. They're down by 30 at this
point. Yeah, but they're 24 and 10. I bet $10
if they would have won. Yeah. cashed in it's
a million dollars i believe you would have won
a four dollar bet i never i never really got
into march madness i didn't get into i've never
really got into college period i used to be into
college basketball it's completely changed i
think it's probably five years to ten years in
front of the football but i was watching it back
when uh the Players would stay at a team for
four years. Yeah. So I was watching Patrick Ewing.
I was watching the Christian Leitners and all
them. So you could follow them. I remember watching
Georgetown every single year when they were good
and they had George and all of that stuff. Pat
Ewing looked like a full -grown man. He did.
It was ridiculous. You know, and you had a twin
towel. Like a 40 -year -old man. The point is
you would get excited when they were a freshman.
Correct. And you're like, dude, they're going
to develop into an amazing player. But then they'd
leave. Correct. Sorry, go ahead. No, I'm sorry.
Go ahead. Well, now the players move around and
leave more frequently. I'm afraid the football
is going to be getting there. But I think the
NFL has different rules on how many years you
have to play in college before you can join the
NFL. For now. I think the NBA has you've got
to play just one year. The NBA, I mean, you can
go from high school. Well, that's true. Cooper
Flagg is 19. He was 18. How do you feel about
that? Kobe and LeBron both went directly from
high school. There's been a handful of them.
Kevin Garnett was another one that went straight
from high school. I personally think that if
– I think they need to graduate first. Do your
four years, and then you can jump on there. I
agree. I think they need to go and stay with
the school. I think the NIL has ruined – Again,
I think the basketball is farther along that
line than – Just because you can get out of the
college into the NBA in one year. I'm going to
be a little bit of a dissenter on this one. My
sister -in -law tutored a lot of college football
players at Texas Tech while she was there. And
her commentary of what those kids, even though
they graduated technically, what that ends up
actually being, what that really looks like,
is not... It's not really a degree. Yeah, no.
And not really going to help them. No, not at
the end of the day. And it's not going to be
something they can fall back on. It's a ceremonial
degree. You know, it's like, hey, you got your
honorary doctorate by going to this school. Right.
Bill Cosby got one of those. So does it really
help them or should they just go make money?
Yeah, or, I mean, is it really, if it's something
that's just for show and it's not actually meaningfully
teaching these student athletes things and they're
not actually taking classes. Right. You know,
like, do they really need the degree at the end
of the day? I mean, the reality is, so let's
say they play three years. And football is even
worse than basketball, right? Because they get
hurt. They don't play very long. You play football
for three years in the NFL, okay? And then, you
know, then what? And if you're not getting a
degree. You write a book. Right. If you're not
getting a degree. You coach. And remember, most
of the guys are not superstars. Most of them
don't make. Phenomenal crazy money. Is that why?
I mean, are you a supporter of college football
players getting paid? No. I mean, if you're going
to have video games that are making money off
of their likeness and those sorts of things,
then to me, they are taking advantage of the
players. I'm okay with the video game companies
paying them. I'm not okay with the boosters and
the colleges paying them. Because in my opinion,
if you're on a scholarship, you're getting paid
to go to school. Yes. True. That's what they're
getting paid for. Now, if you're being used in
games and all that stuff, I think those companies
should pay them. Stuff like that. If you're using
their likeness, how would that be different,
though? I mean, to me, when you start looking
at competitive advantages of going to different
schools and what you can get, the boosters actually
make a big impact of who's going to go to what
school at the end of the day. And so to me, it
takes some of the kind of like... That was one
of the things I loved about college is that how...
you could have a school that was relatively unknown
come out of nowhere. I mean, Indiana did it this
year. Yeah, 100%. There you go. And they just
stole all their old players from wherever that
coach was from. I guess, what was it? Texas Tech,
you know, they hired a bunch of kids. Hired a
bunch of kids, yeah. Well, I think what Texas
Tech is, all the other schools were doing it
at that volume. Texas Tech historically had not
done it at that volume. So now they're doing
it at that volume. And they're competing. And
they're competing now. Historically, they were
not like that. So if they continue on this trend,
they may be in the top echelon from here on out.
And it's about who can pony up the money. Yeah.
And not all colleges can. At the end of the day,
when you look at it, if the boosters, if they're
not paying the students, they're going to be
paying the coaches. And then you have situations
like A &M where they're... The booster's bought
out. $70 million. $65 million. Yeah, I can't
believe that. That was ridiculous. When I look
at A &M's estate school, and an estate school
is paying a coach this much money, that's tax
dollars from regular people going to this, essentially.
Yeah, but we got refunds. I got a refund. Did
you really? Yeah, I went to A &M. From your property
tax, you got the refund? It's called the Jimbo
Refund. Did you not get one? Yeah, I got it.
Those are a line item down there. I know. That,
to me, that's when I started looking at it. For
me, it's like, yeah, do these schools, do they
raise a bunch of money for the schools? Yes.
To me, it's one of those things like looking
at if the school's able to generate funds for
the school as a state school for the purpose
of what it is. Not recruitment, but for the school.
No, I'm saying non - athletic recruitment yes
100 i mean when you raise the profile of the
school because the athletics are exciting and
and they're doing well people want to go to that
school for other for other disciplines for other
careers and i'm and that's when i'm all there
but again one of my biggest issues like with
schools today is you know i go back and i look
and i talked to my dad when he was going to college
he would during the summers he would work and
during the summers he could earn enough money
to pay for school and pay for a living and that's
it's essentially impossible now you can't do
that i know and to me like it's schools have
developed in such a way where they have you know
the climbing gym and the and the and the lazy
rivers and all the cool stuff that it's a racket
but it costs so much money to operate that it
raised the cost of all these schools and now
you you can't you have to incur debt in order
to go and what they pay for their teachers and
not to mention the professors it's a racket dude
it's a total racket And the levels of administration.
For what you're getting. And these rec centers
at some of these colleges are just... They're
insane. Insane. And the literature that they...
Not the literature, but the curriculum that they
provide. And the teachers, how corrupt they are.
And how jaded regarding left and right politics.
You know, it's just like, what are we doing with
this school nowadays? Or if you go to a school
that has this really well -known professor, but...
The professor's not actually teaching the class.
It's the student aides. The TAs are teaching
it. That's insane. And he's making $3 million
a year. And that TA, in order to teach that class,
is incurring $30 ,000 in debt every year for
the privilege of teaching other students. I would
recommend they come up with a new strain of schools.
And maybe they'd have one. It's called community
college. But where you focus on education. I
hear you. And that's it. Collin College is like
that. There are no sports. Yeah, and I'm all
for it. I think there should be more schools
like that. Look, if you want to play sports,
I get it. Essentially, it's a league. Then you
look at Grayson College, community college with
the baseball team, a lot of MLB players came
from that team. And you start looking at community
college has a baseball team? I had no idea about
any of this. It's kind of crazy. Didn't Cam Newton
come from Blinn? Yes, he went there briefly.
So here's a reality about... junior college sports
that people don't know. There are very high quality
division one quality players in, in junior sports,
junior, but they can't get into the colleges,
right? Yeah. Their academics are so fucking horrible
that they can't even get in. But these, and so
here's the thing for somebody who's like a, a
star high school player, but you're not good
enough for Division I, you think, okay, I'm going
to go to a junior college, I'm going to prove
myself there, and then I'm going to try to work
my way into transfer, right? And then they see
the talent that they're up against in the junior
college, and they're like, I have no shot. These
guys are better than... I need to go to class
and start learning what I'm supposed to be learning.
Exactly right. Because these guys are better
than a lot of Division I schools, simply because
they don't have the academics to get into those
colleges. It's crazy. Yeah, there's a program
out. It's a reality show where they were following
one of those JUCOs. And a lot of them are problem
kids, too, where they were at these D1 schools.
They got kicked out because they were just not
good people. So they are at these JUCOs trying
to rehabilitate themselves. Like the 48 -step
program. 48, yeah. Hey, they do work. Do they
work? Yes. Do they show a lot of trouble? Well,
there's definitely an increase. He's been through
it four times. After you get past the 28th step,
chances of success increase. I've got like hundreds
of coins, you know? So it's really like 200 -step
program. Right. Okay, never mind. Sorry, Jeff,
I cut you off. Juco. Oh, no, I was just saying,
I don't think the program's out anymore, but
it was interesting because I'd watch it and these
kids were... And you'd bang your head against
the wall. You're like, you have everything in
front of you, but you're just mentally, emotionally,
you can't put it together. You know what that's
called? The frontal lobe development. A lot of
these kids didn't have it. None of our kids have
it. I mean, dude, we're being asked, we're asking
our youth, especially men, boys, boys, they really
are boys. We're asking them at 18, 19, 20, and
21 to make decisions for the rest of their lives.
And their frontal lobe developed, their frontal
lobe is not even remotely developed. It's kind
of like the military. You're sending them out
to war at that age. Right. Well, that's perfect
for war because it's like, charge over that hill.
Okay, I'll do it. Because you're not... Are you
following me here? I think you're thinking financially
is they can't think ahead of themselves. They're
like, I'm going to buy this big old house, this
car, this whatever. That's why I think it's irresponsible
for them to be getting money at that age. You
know, especially if it's going to be part of
the curriculum. You know, and at the same time,
you're like, all right, well, the schools are...
I thought you were talking about soldiers. I
was like, well, I think they should get paid.
I'm on with that. They should get paid more than
other people. Yeah, for sure. In my opinion.
I think that, well, whatever. I don't want to
talk about military, but, you know, what is the...
Do they have the WNBA? Is there, like, the sport
of the Olympics now? You know what? The Olympics
are done. What's crazy is the NIL has allowed
a lot of the, like, secondary sports. Start making
a lot of money through things like Nellie, who
works for us, she has a niece who actually, she
was a gymnast at one of the major colleges. And
through TikTok, and because of the NIL, was able
to make a living and actually develop a whole
career. Love it. Just off of that. Her niece
is Livvy Dunn. That's amazing. Friends with Livvy
Dunn, actually, which is the ironic part of it.
LSU, really? Yeah. She went to the wedding, Olivia
Dunn and Paul Skeens. Are you serious? No. That's
awesome. He was in Deadpool, I do believe. Paul
Skeens? Yes. What? Isn't that his name? Isn't
he an actor? Ryan Reynolds? No, he's a baseball
player. Paul Skeens? Oh, well, I mean, Deadpool.
Paul Skeens, the Pittsburgh Pirate. Oh, I don't
know. Yeah, he's a baseball player. There's an
actor with the last name Skeen as well. Oh, I
thought you'd be a smartass. Okay. Okay, so here's
what's crazy about this story. She was massive
before anybody knew who he was. Yeah. Right?
Kind of like Bonnie Blue? So here she is as the
LSU gymnast, but she became a TikTok... Sensation,
yeah. Yeah, sensation. Perfect word. And then
they're talking about how she's not available,
she's dating this guy, and who's this guy? He's
a baseball player for LSU, right? But was she...
I mean, was it kind of nefarious TikTok style?
No, no, no. Not at all. It was based on gymnastics.
Oh, okay. But she's hot and she's like, you know.
Anyway, he's kind of dorky with his mustache.
He turns out to be like a fucking stud in the
Major League Baseball. He's one of the top pitchers
in the league. Unbelievable. As a second year
player this year. Talk about a power couple.
Yeah. It's insane. Insane. So I mentioned a moment
ago about Caitlin Clark joining the Olympics.
And it says, as of March 2026, Clark is actively
participating in the U .S. Women's National Team
events. I just thought that was interesting.
So it's not the Olympics. It's not. Right. So
they just had a tournament in San Juan. Yes.
And, of course, they crushed everybody. But the
whole story was Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark
are on the same. Team USA. And are they playing
well together? Well, they are, but it's like
they won. I mean, she went to the end of the
line and Reese held out her hand and Caitlin
turned away from her. Oh, come on. Every single
story I read is how they're feeding into this
Reese and Caitlin Clark hating each other. If
I was the two of them, though, I would feed into
it because it creates a storyline and builds
up the WNBA. I'm wondering if they're doing it
on purpose. I literally, because it's ridiculous.
My heart hopes that they are because it would
be genius. It would be. You need to have a good
guy and bad guy colliding to build. A little
yin and yang. Yeah. You need that to make. Yes.
To make the WNBA raise its profile. And they
need that because the WNBA needs it. They need
some help. I mean, it's getting better. And frankly,
Kate and Clark's put a big spark in that program.
Is that season kicked off yet? No, it's been
delayed because they were haggling over their
player, you know, owners and players. But they
verbally came to an agreement yesterday. Good.
But the problem is they've never made a penny,
right? I mean, it's like, don't get crazy. It's
all subsidized by the NBA. Yes, and don't, I
mean, they are on the precipice of actually doing
something real. I think with Caitlyn and Angel
Reese. And now Paige. Beckers or whatever. She's
a stud. I think when you have the personalities,
that raises the profile of the entire league.
I mean, look at even the NBA when it was struggling.
When you started having the big stars, it really
started... Larry Bird, Magic Johnson. Yeah, going
back and forth. Michael Jordan. Everybody starts
watching, becomes must -watch TV, and again,
what happened? You had that occur, you had Michael
Jordan, and that started happening. Yeah, Larry
Bird was a huge asshole on the ball, while he
played ball. When you hear him mic'd up, oh my
goodness gracious. He would talk shit. But he
could back it up, is the thing. I was watching
this montage of... games during those days and
the fights during those days, it was brutal.
Like the Celtics and the Pistons, they were like.
Oh, yeah. I mean, they were clotheslining each
other in, like, brawls. I mean, I was like, holy
shit. I don't remember that stuff. They don't
play like that anymore. And I watched it. I watched
all of that. It was normal back then. The cameras
are a little bit different now. I mean, they're
excellent. Fucking Bill Lambert, Mr. Cheap Shot.
Remember him? Oh, yeah, Bill Lambert. Oh, my
God. If you breathe on LeBron right now, he flops
to the ground. So, you know, what are you going
to do? That's why I don't watch it. When you
see how the NBA is now, it's more popular than
baseball, but baseball, they had the fight where
they had the lockout season, and that's when
the NBA with Michael Jordan and everything just
skyrocketed. Without those personalities, the
NBA never would have done that. MLB did the dumbest
thing they ever did. I don't think they've ever
recovered truly from that. Once you get a group
of folks like that that strike, It doesn't sit
well with me. I know you said before that you
lost baseball when that happened. Yeah, when
that happened, I dropped them. It's because you
guys are making a ridiculous amount of money.
There are people out there that are just struggling.
They're struggling, and here you are. You play
a game. Every sport's done it. Hockey did the
lockout. And even the NFL in 1987, they played
the scrub games. Never works out. Remember the
scrub games? Although that did give us the movie,
the... Replacements? The Replacements. Was that
not a great movie, by the way? That was Keanu
Reeves, right? Yeah, it was. He's a stud, by
the way. Was he doing matrix moves? The guy that
was smoking, that was the kicker. I love that
movie so much, but yeah. No, to me, that's the
best thing that came out of that lockout was
like, hey, what if it happened today? Well, I
think I heard that there's a chance that there
may be another baseball lockout here in the next
year or two years. It never ends. These guys
make $300 million a year. I mean, not a year,
but. I mean, Shohei, what's his contract? 700
million, isn't it? Are you kidding me? Yes, but
no. To be fair. I don't think there's ever been
a baseball player like him. A pitcher that can
hit home runs. Right, since Babe Ruth, right?
Yeah, essentially. Unbelievable. And he can actually
steal bases, unlike Babe Ruth. But the way they're
getting around it is he's getting paid like a
million dollars a year. He's going to play for
700 years? No, he's going to play, and then he's
going to retire, and then they're going to pay
his ass. So it's all back and loaded. And they're
very carefully saving the money. But the Dodgers
are looking at the money they're going to make
from the TV rights in Asia. Off of Showtime.
It's unbelievable. It's a hell of an investment
and confidence to do it, but they can pull it
off. Is this the guy whose translator stole his
money? That guy, right? Fortunately for him,
he has a contract that doesn't really matter.
You guys know what I'm talking about, right?
No, I didn't hear that story. His translator
stole his money like how much? Like tens of millions
of dollars. Oh my gosh. Am I wrong? It was like
10 or 15 million, something like that. And he's
rotting in jail. How much money? 17 million.
17, yeah. Oh, and he got caught. Yeah, he's rotting
in jail for 57 months in federal prison. Did
he get his money back? No, he was allowed to
keep it. Yeah, they're like, you're fine. You're
good. Don't worry about it. I mean, if you can
do the time, I might as well just keep the money.
Are you going to pay the taxes on it? Can I shop
with some gold bullion? No, I'm sure he didn't
get to keep it. Crazy. That's crazy. Well, when
you're talking that much money, people get crazy
greedy and stupid. I mean, how many times do
you hear Hollywood actors? Losing all their money?
Yeah, their managers. Their parents will do it.
But also, what a sweet gig. You were probably
making hundreds of thousands of dollars just
being the translator for the best baseball player
ever. That should have been enough. How the hell
was he given the authority to be able to get
that money, to gain access to that? No idea.
Okay, so I just think the book rights that guy
could have gotten, like, hey, I was the translator
for Shohei. Like, the movie or TV, whatever.
Like, the guy was set for life and... And blew
it. Blew it. If you think about it, 57 months
isn't that long. Actually. I mean, well, you
can't keep the money. Well, how do you know?
I don't know. He kept some of it. Well, he said,
in order to pay back the $17 million plus 1 .1
to the IRS. Damn it. See? Well, it says that
he... Crime doesn't pay. He keistered it. He
imitated Ohtani, so he would log into their accounts
and make changes, posing as Ohtani. That takes
balls. That takes balls. Again, as we say, bold
strategy. Bold strategy. Didn't work out for
Ohtani. And I just read a story. I just read
a story. Sports Illustrated supermodel. Kathy
Ireland. Kathy Ireland. And she went on to have
her own brand and I don't know if it was makeup
or clothes or whatever. She just filed a lawsuit.
You're talking about Kathy Ireland, the 80s kind
of model? Swimsuit model, yeah. Oh, dude, I had
her posters for Budweiser. Literally this week
came out with a massive lawsuit against her management
team. They bilked her for hundreds of millions
of dollars. Like, almost all of it. Almost all
of it. She's bankrupt. Like, I don't think she's
bankrupt, but crazy. Did she have, like, a mom
that was her manager? Yeah. Long -term business
managers alleging they swindled her and her husband
$100 million. Good Lord. It alleges the defendants
took out loans in Ireland's name, drained savings,
and misled her regarding her financial health.
Decades. And they kept asking them, hey, how
are we doing? Oh, your great -great -grandkids
will never have to worry. And they were like,
okay, thanks. Don't worry. We gave it all to
Bernie Madoff. You're set. You're great. It's
amazing. Can you imagine having that kind of
trust in somebody, and then you have nothing
when you look in your bank account? Well, when
you hand over your funds to a financial planner,
you're doing that. I've got one, and you're just
like, is he a Madoff? You hope not. Wow. If you
give your money to somebody named Made Off, you
get what you deserve. That's a good point. Yeah,
she was spoken on. She is still actually very,
very pretty. Yes. What a horrible story. Yeah.
So our management team for the Dudes Like Us
podcast, are they? Do we cheat them and how?
Yeah, they're great. What was that from? It's
the Three Stooges. Okay. Anyway, wow, we're all
over the place. This is how this podcast goes.
We haven't even looked at the board. We started
with the NCAA tournament. Oh, we did with the
tournament, yeah. And look where we are. That's
all right. You know, look, we're excited. You
brought in several selections, and the first
half, we've already discussed that, and we ranked
it very high. The second half is a seller reserve.
Typically, we wait towards the end of the podcast.
Let's go ahead and just dive into this now. I
noticed this one's in the older style bottle.
Come on. Yeah, the old shit. What's going on
here? So old school. He's tearing it out. I brought
you a November, December release. I apologize.
It's okay. Hey, you gave it your best effort,
man. I tried. I tried. So this is the second
edition of this, it says. Is that what that means?
Technically, it is the second batch. The first
batch, the initial one we did was only 200 cases
of it, just because we wanted to see. how people
responded and it sold out within about four days.
And so we were like, Oh God, we got to make more.
So we made, we had a, we made a second batch
of it. How often does that happen where you undershoot
where the demand completely overshoots what you
thought? Typically we undershoot cause I'm a
very pessimistic person when it comes to the
stuff. Uh, normal, a lot of times we don't have
the ability to make a second batch that quickly,
but we had, enough aging of this because there's
certain like the finishing cast we use for this
like they're some of my favorite barrels so i
always make my brother stuff those barrels full
so nice um so we were able to make another batch
um more quickly than we would normally but do
you ever have to age it no it was aging alongside
so this is actually this actually was in barrel
the same length or actually longer than what
the first one i got you i got you So you convinced
him to not age it longer and release it. I was
like, it's already really good. Do you ever refill
some of these barrels? Oh, yeah. You know, about
20 % of our barrels were refilled. Well, I meant
like you have a barrel. It's been sitting there
six years, and you've lost 20 % of it. Do you
ever cap it off back off? Oh, good question.
No. Typically, the government gets really finicky
if you try to do that. That messes with things.
The only way that you would do that is if you're
building like a Solera system of where you're
pulling off some and then you're filtering down,
like filling down. I don't understand that. So
this was really developed with like fortified
wines originally, but you'll see occasionally
done with whiskey. Occasionally what they do
is they take like the, let's say you start out
with your oldest whiskey. You had like 10 barrels
of it. And then you had 10 barrels of a year
younger whiskey and 10 barrels of a year younger
than that. Okay. And you'd build four or five
years worth or six years worth of casks of these
ages. Okay. So the first batch, you'd just pull
off half of the bottom barrels. Essentially,
it's like, hey, I have 10 -year -old whiskey.
We bottled this 10 -year -old whiskey. Half of
it? Yeah, half of what was in those barrels.
And then what you do is you take half of the
barrels that were a year younger and you fill
it into those barrels and it fills the barrels
back up. So now you have half of it's the older
whiskey and half of it's a year younger. Sure.
That's going to age another year. And then when
the time comes, you pull half of those barrels
out again, that mixture. And you just keep doing
it. And you keep filtering down. And you can
have it, you know, some of the Soleras that are
on the port side could be 10, 20, 30 years of
their aging. You're just slowly filtering it
down into the barrels that you're going to pull
out of. for bottling so ultimately you have a
little bit of like super old stuff in there right
you'll see somebody like hey this has some 100
year old you know 100 year old port in there
and there is theoretically a small yes there's
a small portion but what you do is you end up
doing because one it helps create consistency
with product because it's you're blending down
into what was previously released so you have
okay some of what was already there and blending
the new in And also it is adding a little bit
of age to that final product every single time
you do it because the stuff's been in barrels
slightly longer. So it's kind of a combination
of things that you'll see done on that end. So
that's what a Solaris system is. But like with
bourbon, the moment you pull it out of a barrel,
you can't put it into a barrel that's already
had product in it because then it's not bourbon
anymore. Because of the rules. Yeah, you'd have
to put it in another brand new barrel. Oh, I
see. That makes sense. You have to double oak
it. Was it there? Is it Castle and Key? There's
one, or is it Blade and Bow? There's one that
does a Solera. It's the old Stitzel Weller, isn't
it? Yeah, Blade and Bow. They said, well, there's
still some original of the old Stitzel Weller
in there because we use a Solera, right? Kind
of a Hunter Stew. And you're thinking, well,
how much is that? Whatever Diageo does on that
end, I don't know. But you can do it. That's
what they say. You can do it. You just can't
call it a bourbon. It's not technically bourbon
anymore. Right, you call it whiskey. If someone
calls it bourbon, I have a lot of questions.
I've seen it where they've called it bourbon
and the argument has been, well, the barrel wasn't
completely empty, so technically it was still
a new barrel because we didn't reuse it. So there's
some ambiguity in the rule? Even within whiskey,
there's a lot of ambiguity within the rules.
Interesting. Now, and not that people take advantage
of some of these things that are ambiguities,
but there are some that exist that theoretically
you could look at doing if you wanted to. Like
one of the ones... that exists is so, like bourbon,
especially a bourbon that's over 80 % corn, is
technically corn whiskey. The moment it stills,
it's corn whiskey. Yeah. But if you put it into
a new barrel, it becomes bourbon. Right. So if
you took corn whiskey and put it into a - At
least two years, yeah. No. No, there's no age
requirement for bourbon. To be a straight. A
straight. Straight whiskey has to be at least
two years. My bad. That's one of my pet peeves.
I mean, you talk about what grinds my gears is
straight bourbon. And you go to the store and
you look at some of these bottles that are up
there and they got a tiny hint of yellow. And
you're like, what? Did they not use an actual
barrel? Did they just pour the distillate onto
a bunch of oak chips and let it fall into the
bottle? It's just ridiculous. No taste. Theoretically,
you could take a barrel, a brand new barrel,
cut a hole in one end. And if you had a still
that just continuously ran and it went directly
into the barrel and it just ran through the barrel
and out the other side, you could... It's a bourbon.
It's bourbon. As long as it never stops filling,
it technically is still a new barrel because
you've never... Did anybody do that? No. Pabst.
Something like that. Pabst had a 32nd age whiskey.
They didn't call it bourbon because they were
smarter than that. They would have gotten a lot
of crap. It was Pabst, yep. A subsidiary of Pabst
Blue Ribbon? Yep. Yes. Oh, yeah. They had a whiskey
that was 30 seconds aged. Oh. That's also Blanton's,
isn't it? Oh, jeez. Whoa. Shock. Shots fired.
Lobbing bombs. Everybody get down. Get down.
Lobbing bombs. Have you had the privilege of
tasting the Pabst? Paul's on the 50 -step program.
Oh, I have had the privilege, and it is a privilege,
let me tell you. Oh, goodness. Oh, shit. 30 seconds.
Theoretically, if something is corn whiskey,
it could always technically become bourbon. At
least that's the argument. Now, I've never seen
anyone age corn whiskey for 10 years in a used
barrel and then move it to a new barrel and then
call it bourbon. Why would you do that? It's
a gray area of whether you could do that. But
that's not the point. I could see you guys doing
it as an experiment. I could see anybody doing
it as an experiment. But not calling it bourbon.
Personally, I wouldn't call it bourbon. I may
put bourbon in parentheses, but no, I would never
do that. I mean, most people in this business
are all about making the best product they are
totally invested in. It's an artistic thing to
some degree. You know what I'm saying? There's
not a lot of people that just want to pump out
shit that's crap. Whoa, maybe not. I don't know.
I mean, look, when you become these larger conglomerates,
I think they lose sight of some of the quality.
Fair enough. I mean, I wouldn't know. I would
have thought that everybody that's in this business
wants to do a good thing. There's a lot of NDPs
that have developed over the years that their
goal is just to make money. They don't care what
the product is, how it's made. They don't care
anything else. And they have celebrities endorsing
it. Sometimes. And the stuff is shit. We've experienced
that multiple times. That's my grind, my gears,
as Sean mentioned earlier, these NDPs who use
MGP and... They don't really call it out, and
they're just throwing stuff against the wall
to see who stays. Yeah, there's Aikman and whatever.
Novacek. Is it Novacek? Yeah, Novacek, 84. Aikman
had a beer. Everybody's got their own. Also,
we have Hell House out there. Actually, we scored
that pretty. Oh, no, we did not. That's innovative.
No, it's terrible. Well, they do flash. I don't
think I've heard this one. Okay, hold on. It's
terrible. We had Tres Hombres two weeks ago.
Yeah, ZZ Top. That's from ZZ Top. That's actually
good. And it's also a product of Balcones. Yeah,
I'm talking about Hell House. Oh, that's horrible.
They do flash aging. They've somehow developed
this technique to age it within two weeks or
something like that. And it's absolutely disgusting.
It's horrible. Horrible. Yeah, Hell House right
there. And it's endorsed by Leonard Skinner.
Oh, my God. That was a mistake. Oh, we tasted
the Dallas Whiskey event. They left all of their
bottles there. They did. Anytime you see Flash
aged, I know. What do they say on this website
about how they age it? Are they bragging about
their? It's like a teabag style. Well, I don't
know. It's always ended up with the best things.
Hold on. Go back up. Oak -driven finish. What
does that mean? They pressurize it. It's oak
-driven. I don't know. They could. It's like
a pressure cooker. It's like making a diamond.
With whiskey, you have this process called esterification.
It exists in a lot of different industries. When
we're talking about some of the stuff in the
tails, it takes time to break down, to really
form into the really good -tasting stuff. I'll
tell you right now, if someone discovered a way
to really fast forward esterification. That's
great. There's so many applications beyond whiskey
for like medical and everything else. You would
make billions of dollars if you figured out actually
how to speed that process up. Sean, write that
down. I'm already on it. So when someone says
that they developed a way to flash age whiskey
and in two weeks they can make a whiskey taste
like it's 10 or 20 years. They would be doing
something else. I'm also very skeptical because
this is the worst application for making money
doing that process. I've heard if you've taken
whiskey and you keister it into a cow, it ferments
faster. It could be. Yes, the methane is. But
we have that out there. If you want to partake,
we do have that. Which part? Oh, the hell house?
Well, maybe we should bring it out here and just
see how it stacks up. Now, that being said, if
someone does figure out a way. I am all aboard.
I would think it would be amazing if you found
it. There have been some processes, I will say,
that I've seen and tasted that are better than
others, that have been better replications of
it. There's been some interesting centrifuge
pressure things I've seen that have done better
jobs of doing it. Would atmospheric pressure
increase? Extraction rates, it's very easy to
increase extraction. We know how to do that.
You increase pressure, you increase heat, reduce
heat, increase heat, reduce heat. It's going
to force things in and out of the oak. The problem
is that there's certain elements of the oak that
it takes time for those things to properly break
down and soften. Otherwise, you're just pulling
raw oak into the whiskey, which we can go in
the warehouse and I can taste you on some six
-month -old whiskey where you get... raw oak
character. I see. It's like a bread rising. You
can't force that. Yeah. We haven't figured out,
is there a way theoretically probably to do it?
Probably. And as soon as someone figures it out,
it'd be super cool. And it'd be fascinating to
me and I'll tingle all my nerd things. You need
to introduce enriched uranium, I think is what.
Yeah, that's true. Or ruin the business. There's
no... There's no way I've seen that's really
a true 100 % replication of it. Even when people
say we took it and we put it in a mass spec and
we compared, the reality is a mass spec will
show you what's in the product, but how it presents
on palate and how people taste is a very different
thing than that. This artistry is 100 % about
time. I think AI is going to figure it out. Oh.
I don't think so. Because Paul's had great luck
with AI. I do. I have tremendous luck. Let me
get on chat GPT, and I'll tell you how you can
get your product out, Robert, in an eighth of
the time. Would you like me to look it up or
no? We can call it eight fingers whiskey because
there's eight fingers on the hand of the picture
that you generated. Well, there's actually two
arms with 30 fingers. My bad. My bad. So go back
to the cellar reserve. I noticed this down at
the bottom, this little image here. What significance
is that? So that's the Trinity symbol. You have
it used with Celtic heritage. Historically, it's
meant a number of different things, but also
like the Trinity and Christianity. And so for
us, what this is, is actually there's three different
finishes for this whiskey. And it's how those
finishes interact that makes them really enjoyable.
There's some that are good by themselves, but...
When the three actually come together, they're
significantly better than when they're just by
themselves. Gotcha. All right. So that's what
that represents. Well, good. Another outstanding
whiskey, in my opinion. It also has very small
print. Would you like to try to read that? I'm
out. My family notoriously has 2010 vision, so
we don't have these issues that you normal folk
have. Nice. You know what? You've got readers.
Very nice. Very nice. I just recently started
wearing glasses, and they come in handy. So did
my brother. I give him such a hard time now that
he's got ones that he hangs on the bottom of
his nose. It's really great as a little brother.
I can tell you, man, it must be awesome working
with your brother. Having family members around,
as long as it's copacetic. Most days. Some days,
brotherly love gets in there a little bit. I'll
be honest, I don't think my brother and I would
have the relationship we do today if it wasn't
for the distillery. And the same thing with my
mom and my dad. One of the things that we talk
about all the time, like when I was growing up,
I saw my grandparents maybe a week or two a year.
You'd see them at Christmas, you'd see them maybe
Easter or maybe during the summer or something
like that. My niece and nephew spend, they see
my parents every week. They get that sort of
relationship with them. That's awesome. Parents
only saw their parents every, you know, two weeks
a year. And I get to see mine every day. And
it's a huge blessing. It's a huge something.
I don't think I would have any other way. And
it's something that's really cool to have that
sort of family relationship. Now, I would say,
would you, when I was in high school, would you
have asked me, you think I could spend every
day with my parents and my brother? I told you,
absolutely not. You find ways to love, and you
find ways to work with each other. Well, and
you grow, and you mature, and your frontal lobe
develops. I guess. And you start to think that
family's important. And as long as you keep your
dad off of the forklifts. That's true. Unless
the glass gets broken, and you're good to go.
Your mom's a great person, too. Oh, she's great.
She's a significant part of the whole tour experience.
Oh, my gosh. The place wouldn't run without her.
That is 100 % the truth. She's awesome. She just
spent the last two weeks in Japan for her first
vacation in 10 years. She was her sister. So
she left my dad and my brother and myself at
the distillery. And God help us, we didn't burn
it down, but hey, I'm glad she's back. Did she
drop off any local samples to some of the Japanese
distilleries out there? Maybe a little bit. She
brought some bottles back, too. There was an
exchange, huh? It's cultural exchange. Honestly,
sincerely, I'm asking, did she go out there and
talk to some of those folks to see if we can't
finagle a relationship somehow? She didn't want
to. She was out there on this trip. She did buy
quite a bit of whiskey to bring back. And that
was more to do with the trip that her and her
sister went on. It wasn't... It wasn't a distillery
trip, if that makes sense. So if it's like my
brother, myself, and my mom, if we go to a place
together and it's not other people, then that's
exactly what we do. We go in, again, like we
did with the folks in France or Mexico. Yeah,
but that's also work. I mean, it's a vacation,
yes, but that's work. She's not working. Yeah,
so she went on a cruise. That's what I'm saying.
So it was very much not that focus on that trip.
Does she get the drink package? She brings it
with her. I don't know what you're talking about.
Smuggles it in? Wow. You know it. So let's talk
about you and your brother. You have very different
aspects. You both do different parts of the business.
Yes. He's the mad scientist in the lab doing
a lot of the tinkering with everything we talked
about in the first half. You are the face. of
of the of the company are you also quality and
control well i'm the better looking brother so
that's where we had to establish that from the
beginning that helps but no you seriously you're
talking to the operational side of it the distributors
and so talk to the different aspects of what
you guys do my brother is he first of all my
brother's an engineer he he's very technical
minded he's very thorough he's he's ocd as well
so the way that he documents i'm way more add
i'm way more like so uh when it comes to the
production and the processes and everything like
that he's way better at documenting and maintaining
again just the way things go and then you know
from when it comes to like hey how are we going
to do the steam how much cooling do we need how
do we want to run the chilling rooms like he's
the person unbelievable that comes in and understands
and and runs that and he also has A really great
guy that works with him. That's Jeff, who's kind
of head of maintenance for us, but also he does
a lot on the production side as well. No, it's
not Jeff. It's not you. But Jeff's another engineer.
So Jeff and Jeff actually rebuilt our entire
bottling line that used to fill the old bottles,
but rebuilt it and reconfigured it. So now it
fills the new bottles, new corks, like rebuilt
the whole thing so that it now the cork feeder.
Doesn't do the smaller quirks. It does the bigger
quirks and having to rebuild and reconstruct.
That's not insignificant. And reprogram the machine,
which was a, you know, Chinese Italian combination
of equipment that he was able to reprogram. No
shit. So when it comes to like that type of mindset,
that's, that's just not me. That's not what my
strength is. I'm, I'm much more of a bullshitter.
I like going out, hanging out with people and
doing things. And, uh, so that's, that's more
of the, while I do, help out with the production
side and obviously like i have a pretty good
understanding because initially it was just me
and my brother doing stuff so um i handle a lot
more the more i would say the face forward stuff
uh a lot more of the time how about your spouses
do they participate in some of the aspects of
the business uh so my my sister -in -law she
does not she's a teacher up in up in denison
um and potsboro so she she she doesn't do as
much with the business directly other than supporting
my brother, which is, you know, that's a full
-time job on its own. Right. It's a little brother
saying that. Being a teacher is probably a harder
job anyway, to be honest. That's the truth on
that. My wife's a teacher, and we have multiple
teachers. Jeff's wife's a teacher, so we know.
My wife, she does actually support, she does
a lot of our social media. Nice. Because my wife
had a... back in 2018 had a catastrophic injury
and spent many months in the hospital and part
of that time in the hospital she was you know
just scrolling through social media and her comment
to me was like your social media is god -awful
um let me do it let me just like just give it
to me so handed it over to her and so she does
that uh i mean she has a full -time job that
she does as well but she she'll do all of our
social media Her favorite thing in the world
is to reply to people's comments with different
GIFs and memes and all sorts of stuff. If someone's
responding to you and there's a goofy photo GIF
that's being responded to, that's my wife doing
it. That's it. Okay, good to know. She's much
funnier than I am. I'll say that. The most recent
video that we put out there, she's the one who...
It helped come up with the concept and did all
the music and fun stuff to it. Very nice. That's
super cool. Look at you. I'm super cool. You
act like you know what you're talking about on
that video right there. I did not on this one.
See if we can't pull up the YouTuber that you
were on. The Bruisel? How do you spell that name?
That's on YouTube, yeah. Did you already find
that, Chuck? No, I don't even know how to spell
it. It's B -R -E -W -Z -L -E, I think. Yeah.
Yeah, there you go. Top one. Yeah, and then you
can do Iron Root with that, and it'll show up.
I've watched a few of his things, and he's a
character. Is he a big guy? Yeah, when he's talking
about thumbnails, you can see the thumbnail in
this video is pretty ridiculous. Yeah, that's
exactly it. You're like, what is this thing about?
That's where I'm trying to do it. When we made
whiskey using beaver nuggets from Buc -ee's and
Doritos. Interesting. That's not Iron Root right
there, no? Yeah, sure it is. Oh, yeah, it is.
Okay. Let's see if we can give it a little bit
of audio there. Yeah, you can see. right now
i am in denison texas and iron root republic
and we are going to do a little bit of a tour
learn a little bit about how they make whiskey
we're going to get into some of the weird things
that they've produced over the last 12 years
what's interesting about iron root is they actually
have the still that we have we bought wheat state
distilling out of kansas and they have an identical
still here i think we're probably going to end
this video on some really really weird whiskeys
hi i'm jonathan and he was right yeah he was
right i think uh i don't know what he did i don't
know if this is what he does full time anymore
but uh i don't know what he did previously but
i know he goes around just buying up like barrels
and barrels of whiskey. No kidding. He said 846
,000 subscribers. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's something
to be said about that. Doing pretty well. He's
got the gift of the gab. He's got a good voice,
and he puts out a good product. I mean, I've
seen a lot of his videos. Yeah. Seems like a
funny guy. Yeah. Where is he based out of? He
is Mississippi. Yeah, he's Georgia, Mississippi,
somewhere down in that way. Very nice. Yeah,
well, maybe he can come on our podcast. There
we go. Next time. Next time I'll tell him. Yeah,
he should. He comes through this way. I know
he does videos here. I've seen that. We would
appreciate the camaraderie and the discussion.
Yeah, I'd appreciate the exposure. Let's be real.
God bless. Yeah, that too. Let's do it. No, seriously,
we could use it. Yeah. Well, tip for tat, you
know what? That's a cellar reserve that we're
sampling. And I went ahead and jumped onto the
second bottle here, the Saints Alley Portconey.
I got to be honest, it's weird seeing the bottle
with Saints Alley now because it's not what I
normally see with the Saints Alley. It's a completely
different logo. You know, I'm digging it. What's
going on, Paul? Well, I mean... You're panicking.
I'm panicking. We went to a third bottle and
I'm trying to... And you weren't even notified,
right? No. No one tells me shit around here.
Well, geez. Damn. Well, I have to say all three
of these are grand slams in my opinion. Thank
you. And you look, we're not kissing your ass.
Look, we've had tons of garbage because we're
obviously... We have a lot. We've also had a
lot of good shit too. Yes. So we know good stuff.
Paul picks some really bad ones in the beginning.
Old Williamsburg is a lot better than you guys.
I think they stopped making that, by the way.
No, they didn't. I heard an article that they
were going out of business. He's just like, I
still buy it. They're wrong. So when we were
first starting, you know, six, seven years ago.
There's no fault because it was all luck at the
time. We were just buying shit, but it just turned
out that Paul kept buying stuff that just wasn't
good. Totally not true. Their shit sucked too.
Just not as bad. It was all terrible. It was
a lot of fun. It was growth is what it was. To
be honest, that's one of the best ways to build
your palates is by tasting things you're like,
oh, I hate that. Let me figure out why I don't
like that. We started out at the $30 bottle of
everything. And then we got to $40, $50, $60,
$70, $80, and then started splitting, right?
We went to $100 bottles and $140 bottles. We
have different palettes, though, now. And so,
I mean, there are stuff that Jeff will like and
that we won't really get into. And Jeff doesn't
really like a lot of the smoky stuff, and I enjoy
the smoky stuff. So we're starting to get our
own little niche, and we can kind of anticipate
certain things. And I think it's a lot of fun.
It's fun. In fact, we'll bring something. We'll
introduce it. We'll kind of like, I want to see
their reaction. And secretly, I'll know it's
smoky. And I'll want Jeff to taste it just so
I can get a look at his face. Right. Okay, so
what's new about this St. Sally? The new bottle
we're talking about here. Other than the bottle
is new. So one of the big things was a lot of
people didn't realize that we made St. Sally.
And so that was one of the things we wanted to
like. Hey, we know we are proud of this. This
isn't just like a side brand that we're not proud
of. Right. And, you know, it's one of those things
that a lot of the feedback we kept getting from
people was like, this whiskey is really good,
but your packaging's terrible. And I don't think
it was terrible. I don't think it was bad. No.
But it's not Iron Root. How is it terrible? Like,
what did they say specifically? What was wrong
with it? It was really kind of plain, I guess,
the best way to describe it. And old Englishly?
Yeah, that it just wasn't. It's like a St. Abby.
It didn't feel premium. I guess that's what all
the commentary we got from a lot of people, which
is fun. I mean, if that's the way you feel about
it, it is what you feel. Hey, perception is huge,
dude. Huge. So for us, we were like, okay, if
we want to bring St. Sally and Iron Root back
together and make it one cohesive thing rather
than two separate things, because that's really
what it was, two separate things we were doing.
Yeah. And so we're like, all right, let's...
let's find a way to bring it back in that makes
sense and that really, so people know where this
product comes from. Under the same emblem. And
bottle. Same type of bottle. We had to have two
websites, two different names, and that's just
tough to deal with. Why did it start that way?
It started that way because of, so St. Sally,
it's actually a collaboration. Your pessimism
attitude? Yeah. You weren't sure one was going
to fail? Initially, when it came to Iron Root,
there was nothing we did under the Iron Root
brand originally that had any sort of source
liquid whatsoever. When we first were releasing
in 2020, we were really concerned that if we
did do something on the Iron Root brand, then
people would be really... We got the Nobleman
ride. That was so good. That people would be
aghast that we did anything with sourcing. So
we started at... because it had sourcing. It
all has our liquid in it, but there was sourcing
with it. And so then, you know, as I think...
Was it the distillate? What would you source?
Oh, the liquid. Yeah, so some of the... The aged
stuff. Yeah, the St. Sally actually has some
MGP, has some Kentucky bourbon in it. And so
then it's blended with our whiskey. So it was...
And again, it was initially in 2020 when we came
out with it, the reason why we wanted to explore
a lot of cask finishing, because we had just
spent a lot of time in France, especially with
Chris, who's our kind of partner, and he's one
of the blenders on the St. Sally's side. We'd
just spent a lot of time in France, and we wanted
to explore some of these cool, really fun casks
that we'd kind of come across and had made friends
with the people who were making the Cognacs and
the Armagnacs and stuff. And we wanted to explore
that. we just didn't have the liquid to do it
because Harbinger and Promethean had blown up
so much. Like I just didn't have any spare liquid.
Um, and so for us, we were like, okay, well,
all right, we don't have any spare liquid. Well,
what can we do about that? And so that's when
like, we started talking with Chris of like,
Hey Chris, in your, your experience, cause he's
the liquor hound on YouTube. He's been doing
it for 20 years now. So collecting whiskey in
like 94. Oh wow. So. He's got some really nutso
stuff. He's got bottles of bourbon from 1914.
Oh, wow. Crazy, crazy stuff in his collection.
It's nuts. Sealed? No, he's open and drinking
it. He'll pour you samples of it. That is awesome.
Some of the weirdest shit I've ever had in my
life. When you open up a bottle like that, I
know with wine, they'll add argon or some gas
like that. Is that appropriate to do with some
of these whiskeys? He does. He does. I mean,
the reality is liquor is far more stable than
wine. like liquor for the most part, unless it's
like just down to a little bit, it's going to
stay fairly stable. Now, will it change a little
bit as you off gas and as you do things? Yeah,
it does change a little bit. And some older spirits
can be a little bit more brittle in that, that
aspect. So he, he will argon gases stuff. Um,
especially stuff like that, that he knows that
he's only going to go to every very rare once
in a while. Did you try some of the 1914 stuff?
Oh, yeah. He'll let you try it. So what was that
like? Man. What was that like? Is it a standard
whiskey, or was it just completely natural? It
was bourbon. It was called Black Gold, and it
tasted like sweet pine salt is the best way to
describe it. Really? That's not good. It wasn't
the best thing I've ever tasted in my life, but
it was extraordinarily interesting, I'll tell
you that. Oh, for sure. Well, a lot of the whiskeys
back then, they made in a bathtub almost. And
they're not, they weren't. Older whiskey. I think
that's a really fun misnomer for me for a lot
of people. A lot of people thought, oh, well,
back in the day, they were making these really
old whiskeys and bourbon. Bourbon, even when
it came to Jimmy Russell back in the day, he
would tell you that after it got over six -ish
years old, it got too old. Right. And he didn't
like bourbon over the age of six. So it was never
aged that long. No. It just sat in a bottle for
100 years. It wasn't intentionally. And when
they ran into the big glut in the 80s, What happened
was they started doing all those crazy decanters.
And you'll notice that a lot of the decanters
will actually have the age labeled in months.
It'll be like 120 months or something like that
on there. Okay. Because they were trying to obfuscate
how old the whiskey is because the perception.
That it wasn't that great. Yeah. The perception
was if they had let it age that long, it was
because it wasn't that good of a barrel. Oh,
my God. And how different that perception is
now. And then a lot of the times they blend it
a little bit younger. with older bourbon so they
could use the younger age statement. Those rookies.
Because that was more desirable. Right. And that's
one of the crazy things that just kind of blows
my mind today that it's very much the opposite
now. But when you start looking at all those
dusty bourbon characteristics and stuff like
that, there's a lot of reasons why those certain
flavors appeared. And some of it was they were...
They weren't aged very long. Some of them weren't
aged very long. And then some of them had older
whiskey that they blended this young whiskey
into to try to bring it back down. Like I said,
they just sat in a bottle for 150 years. It doesn't
mean they're good. And it doesn't mean they're
aged super long. So when did the Bottle and Bond
Act come around? That's funny. Was that after
1914? It's actually your first... That was the
first... Food Safety Act. You can probably Google
the exact date. The reason I'm asking is that
1914, who knows what was really in that if the
bottle and bond act. I don't think the bottle
and bond existed. It was after Prohibition. 1897.
It's way before Prohibition. It predates your
food, like the Water Safety Act and stuff like
that. Wow. Who knows what they were putting in
their barrels? They were mixing all sorts of
crap. And they were killing people. Yeah. Because
they were putting tobacco juice and turpentine
and all sorts of stuff in there. And so it was
a really important act. That's how they sounded
too. No, they didn't. But what's crazy is you
also had things that are bottle and bond back
then that wouldn't allow to be bottle and bond
today. Right. We found records of Denison back
in the day. They were making a bourbon cream.
bottle and bond and denison a hundred proof bourbon
cream wow oh right and it was nuts and i it's
and again we have all the records of all that
and i'm just like i want to redo that yeah that
sounds awesome to me and most people like most
bourbon creams are like 60 proof right how would
you yeah how would you even do that just add
in don't add as much water to it let it be higher
proof you don't have to The cream you're adding
to it, you're not dropping the proof. If the
barrel is 120 proof, drop it down to 100. We've
actually never talked about creams on this podcast.
That's the first time, actually. Ever. Does the
alcohol content do anything to the dairy product
in there at that higher proof? It doesn't cause
it to curdle. No? Some of you would think now
the way that they treat the cream and stuff like
that, it helps with preventing some of that.
But no, at that higher proof, they were making
a legit... One of the really cool products from
Texas historically was a Bottle & Bond 100 proof
bourbon cream. I wonder why no one has done that
yet. Yeah, why did that not catch on? Because
Bottle & Bond now, I don't know if you could
label a bourbon cream as Bottle & Bond anymore.
Well, even just a 100 proof cream product. Yeah,
most of that stuff is like lower proof and it's
like whoopee kind of like. I'm not going to have
that. It's very deserty. I have to drink a gallon
of that to get to us. Have you guys ever talked
about an iron root cream? Yeah, and I'll tell
you that it's one of the desires we have, and
at some point it will come, and it will be 100
proof, and I will tell you that that's exactly
what we're going to do. That's awesome. How does
that even work? Walk us really quick. I know
we're running out of time, but walk us through
making a bourbon cream. So you take like a...
Historically, they would take fresh cream and
use to make it. Now, today, there's companies
that come in and they stabilize the cream because
bourbon cream back in the day, you'd have to
keep it in the refrigerator and it would only
last for so long. For us, you would get a stable
cream and it's trying to figure out what the
right stable cream is that we want to use, has
the right sweetness level, has all those things.
And then you blend it with the bourbon that you
want for the right flavor profile. How do you
stabilize a cream? Make it a powder? I mean,
through pasteurization, there's a number of processes
you can do to stabilize cream. And these are
not hydrogenated oils? No, no. It's basically
cream with alcohol added to it to stabilize it
to 20 % alcohol. Nice. So just like where you
stabilize fortified wines, you can stabilize
anything at that proof. It's like one of the
finishes we use for the Cellular Reserve is called
Pinot de Charent. And Pinot de Charent, well,
Pinot is actually spelled P -I -N -E -A -U. Oh.
Not P -I -N -O -T, you'd expect. Right. And so
Pinot de Charent, what it actually is, they take
fresh, fresh grape juice and cognac. They ferment
it maybe to about 1%, so they barely ferment
it. And then they take cognac and they add it
to it and they fortify it to 20 % alcohol. So
it's like... grape juice that's been fortified
to 20 % alcohol, and then they barrel -aged that
for years. I would love that. It's amazing, and
they drink it before and after dinner. What is
it called? It's called Pinot de Charente. Is
it kind of like a port? Can I buy that? It's
kind of wine? You can. I'd say the ones you're
going to buy here in the United States are typically
fairly young. They're like two or three years
old, which there's still some pretty good ones,
but when it starts getting crazy and really fun
is when it starts getting 10, 12. 13 years old.
So it's basically grape juice that is totally
loaded with alcohol. Exactly. I would love that.
It's batshit. It's amazing, and I absolutely
love it. And they joke in cognac that they make
terrible table wine, so they just drink Pinot
instead, which is the Pinot de Charente. I got
to tell you, I want to encourage you to keep
up the exploring attitude that you and your brother
have. And the cream. Make the cream. Keep going
with this stuff. Keep reintroducing new products.
We're going to support you guys 100%. 99 % of
the products that you put out there, we are 100
% on board. I say 99 % because no one can be
100%. We got some weird stuff. We all love weird
stuff. We're so thankful that you took the opportunity
to come out here and visit with us. And we're
huge supporters. We've always been huge supporters.
It's only two and a half years in the making.
It's true. That's all right. You jumped on it.
Right on top of it. But you know what? This is
the perfect timing because we probably needed
that two and a half years to mature a little
bit enough to be able to receive you like this.
And we've done a lot of work in our podcast room
to make it what it is and where we're at right
now. And I think this is the perfect timing.
I just want to say thank you. Yeah. Sincerely
and genuinely for coming out here. I am totally
jazzed by the conversations we've had. Seriously.
This has been so insightful. It'll take me two
years to edit this and put it out. Oh, for sure.
For sure. I mean, everything Sean said. He's
going to be a silent movie. Yeah. You just won't
hear him on the podcast. I'm Charlie Chapman.
I'll be animation. That's all I'll be. No, but
we're looking forward to going back out to the
distillery. It's weird because you can't go out
there. Every time we go out there, it's the same
song and dance. But we want to jump on some of
the newer products you have going on. We want
to chat about it. So I'm going to stay in touch
with you and kind of poke you a little bit. And
you don't check emails, do you? No, you got to
text and call me. Anything coming up that you
want to plug? I mean, obviously, the release
of the new bottles, the cast strength assemblage
coming here in a few months is going to be phenomenal.
So get ready for that. Any events? Basically,
our events are only just bottle releases, so
come out and hang out and drink with us. We're
going to be doing a collaboration with ICC here
in Frisco. We're going to be doing - What is
ICC? It's an industrial cigar company. Okay.
That's just up by the soccer stadium. Okay. You're
going to introduce your cigar blend? It's going
to be - We're doing not our typical cigar blends.
They're actually doing a custom version of Cilla
Reserve. We teamed up with a cigar company. to
do it um it's gonna be really fun not the not
the herald 10 year cigar blend no that we will
be doing that again later this year that one's
a pretty epic release so you guys definitely
need to come up whenever we release it because
it's so good but seriously when you guys get
a wild hair let me know we'll just do a barrel
tasting come on up we'll dive in I'd love to
taste the cup. Then we'll get a hotel room. There
you go. Whatever we have to do. Is this a brothel?
What's going on? Did I miss something? You never
know how the night ends. You're talking about
the second story balcony thing you were talking
about? Exactly. I'm in. I'm in. Is that the –
Sean's going to have his whole CPAP mask on.
Yeah. I got a battery -powered CPAP machine.
Meanwhile, Robert's writing in his notes, dudes
like us, no. Never again. That's a not invite.
That's a no invite. That's a no go. We enjoyed
you coming on here. Thank you very much for taking
the time to come on here. Very much so. All right,
well, look, guys, it's the second half conclusion
of our March 19th Thursday night Suits Like Us
podcast. Happy spring break. It is. Oh, my gosh.
Spring is tomorrow. God bless, man. I am enjoying
the weather. It's up and down, up and down, up
and down. God bless. What did you say? What's
tomorrow? Spring. The official first day of spring
is tomorrow. The reason I know that is my sister's
birthday is March 20th, and it's always the first
day of spring. March Madness. Hey, we need some
updates. Texas won. Texas A &M won. Take a ticker.
We're good to go. Good to go. Okay. Texas team.
Moving on. They're doing well. What about Texas
Tech? Do they play today? They suck. Nobody cares.
Some people do. God bless. Don't tell my brother
that. Hey, we're all in on Texas team. My son
graduated from Lubbock as well. And TCU won.
We're on board with that. Texas teams. Here we
go. They did beat Ohio State. I'm a little upset
about that. They play tomorrow. They play tomorrow
at 11. Is that what's going on? Tech. Okay. All
right. All right. Well, thanks, guys, for listening
tonight. Dudes Like Us. Check us out on everything.
Facebook, Instagram, et cetera, et cetera. All
right. We're Republic. Mr. Robert, you're the
man. Good stuff. Thank you, Chuck, again, for
staying on top of shit. Dudes Like Us. I'm Sean.
I'm Paul. I'm Jeff. And I'm Robert.