Welcome everyone to this special bootleg episode of Whiskey Wanderlust. I'm Corey and I'm Ryan and
Today we bring to you guys a special interview which was completely unplanned
But we were able to pull off in December Ryan. Do you kind of set the stage for us? Yeah, so
We were attending the laws whiskey houses soft opening or soft launch of their whiskey sanctuary
It was an invite only event. It was really cool
Everybody's really welcoming awesome drinks beautiful space hospitality was through
Yeah, and so we we talked to Casey who was in the the previous episode
If we could get a moment to get out Al on camera because we put a video together if you haven't seen it
It's on Instagram. Go check it out cool space
But we wanted to have a moment without just so we could talk about the the opening of the tasting room
We're literally looking for like two to three minutes tops, right and I end up sitting down
on the couch with him for I don't know like
Total uncut time was probably like 40 minutes like and he just opened up and you know
And just just shared everything from the construction of the new sanctuary
To some of the details that you guys will see in that
It will show in the episode as well
But if you have an opportunity to go down and visit the space there
I should say like if you guys are in Denver and looking for a really cool
Place to go have a great tasting a really cool tour and just a
A fantastic vibe in the lounge there. Just go ahead of this whiskey sanctuary spot. It is is awesome
But he he kind of talks more about the space there and what it meant to them as a project
And really I mean really back to their ethos. There are no shortcuts and
The time he gave us was just like yeah, I did not expect that
It was he was you know, he's a very gracious host an awesome welcoming guy
And so, you know, he he kind of just started running with us all over the place and just you know
Telling us all about it. Just like we got a private tour of the new space from al and then sat down and had that conversation with you
Yeah, I mean, it's really cool, you know on a special night
Like I just cannot express my gratitude to the team there and the time he gave us for a special night
He's got you know, they've got friends and family from all over
Coming in and doing this and he took the time out to chat with us, which was just
I mean just immense treasure. So thank you al for the time you gave us and
You know, we didn't have an opportunity to meet him at our first interview with him
And so this is the first time we got to meet him and it was it was killer. So yeah al is a great guy
And his and his passion really comes through in this particular view and it really comes out in their products
So and you guys will see it come through in that new tasting room. It's fantastic
Yeah, so enjoy this episode this bonus content this bootleg episode
Without Loss. Yep
So you've now been open for 13 years
Yeah, 13 and a half and so tell us what
What does this particular thing mean to you and oh man, tell us about the journey to get here
Yeah, so when we started out we wanted to be like
We wanted to be a wholesale manufacturer, right? We weren't interested in this side of
Of what this was we were very focused on the width of the space
This was we were very focused on the whiskey
So we learned pretty soon on that, you know, there's more to this than that
So there's an hospitality element to it. And so we soon had our our version of a tasting room, which is
you know pretty
Pretty low-key you've been in the one we had before. Yeah, we added some kind of interesting elements to it
but the same time we wanted it to be
You know, we still wanted to have like this authenticity
And we still today that this was not supposed to open today. It was supposed to open years ago, but
You know five years of permitting
Because I don't know why
And then two and a half years of construction and I have a lot of reasons why that took so long
But the staircase is not with any right? Yeah, like this is a really complicated staircase
It's not when you draw it on AutoCAD, right? But when you have to actually physically build it
It's very complicated. Wait and not to digress too far
But you you said that each one of these steps had to be custom
Cast and then they weigh like 250 pounds the installation must have been a nightmare
Yeah making them because originally when they come in to template them they were like, oh well
We're like, oh it's easy. And when it was like six grand or something for this. Oh, no
Oh, no, it wasn't six grand because they're like well every one of these is different like no
No, there's just three types and they're like no there isn't and I'm like, oh
Just the yeah as built. That's the that's the line like
Yeah, we had to learn a lot of this stuff along the way and it cost more and more and more every time we had to learn
So two and a half years later and you had some issues getting your final occupancy certification
But that's right. We had and you know, I'm not gonna blame I have a lot of blame for a lot of like inspecting agencies
And this like this and I'm not a big fan, but I'm not gonna
The fire department held this up another four or five months
But they had a legitimate reason to do that and as design issue
And when we heard like what that was really. Oh, yeah, we understand right? But why does it take five months to
extend a
Fire escape. Yeah build a little room, but that's what the model because it does
Yeah, yeah, there's no reason no it just is but we tried to build this during kovat folks. So like
Oh, man like
You know, you see the news you see supplies
You know, you see the news you see supply chain stuff. We live supply chains. Absolutely stuff that when you would look at like wall street charts of
Commodity various commodity prices going through the floor like tripling. Oh, yeah
Well that's your background right financial. Yeah, like yeah, i'm a yeah, i'm an economist by training and oil oil and gas
Equity analysts, but we're watching this and you're like no
And then it goes up more and goes up more and then all sudden
It can't possibly go any higher and then it does and then it does and then it's
Like our our wood pack. Well, a lot of wood in this building went from like sixty six thousand to
180,000
And then it came back down
But never return back to 66. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no none of this and then
Cmu blocks we had to buy it before we had a contractor because they weren't available. So we we had we're like
We're like speculating on cmu blocks
Yeah, it's this is a very painful experience
But look at it now. It's like a very happy years of construction and permitting and covid speculated by him later
How do you feel about how this came out because it's unbelievable it's better than I would ever expected
So now that it's done, what is your like, what are you looking forward to the most?
So it kind of goes to your one of your earlier questions. This is we've been looking for this to be the next
Kind of stair step for us for the laws whiskey brand
We've made really good whiskey. We've had some hospitality interaction
We have reached out of our state and done fairly well outside of our state and we're still trying to
Kind of own this state and we have a lot of great competitors and peers in the state. So
It's a tough it's this is a very competitive state for this kind of business plus now we you know
we're the sponsors of the cu athletics program and
We're making bigger steps and you had a special release for that. Oh, yeah, ralphie's reserve. It's doing great
Perfect for tailgating perfect for you know, throw it on some ice with some mixer in it
And then we also have black and i'm sorry got black and gold which is
Cu athletics director and our head blender and I we we picked the barrels and the blend
And and that's a higher end
Sippers whiskey so that one turned out fantastic as well
But yeah, these are all affinity type products that go to help, you know support feeding ralphie the buffalos
Yeah, and then also to the nil program
So to pay these athletes and absolutely she's had a great year and i'm not a cu alum
Peyton our cfo is my daughter is so we've done a lot at cu before and
we're pretty happy about this and
Coach, you know coach prime is like the best like he is just the most positive individual
he just fits our whole thing like
Being positive is really important in whiskey. It's got to be important because you know what tomorrow with green i'll tell you what
I'm a niner fan and I loved watching him win the super bowl with us. Like that was amazing
So my kids and I we've been really into watching cu I was never cu bowler fan until he got there. And so now
We've been great though, right to see that and I love the doubters the doubters and the yeah the back and forth
And there's a lot of like parallels to starting a whiskey company and like everyone's like, oh well
It's not old enough or it's this or it's that i'm like, you know, like
Take it for what it's worth. Stop trying to compare it to blantons or something like that. It's supposed to be blends
Yeah, it's supposed to be something different from that and that's what we've you know
Our whole foundation has been on that make a four grain out of the gate
We make 100% rye whiskey and make 100% wheat whiskey
And those are things that are like not done and we're using heirloom variety grains and we're supporting family farms and these
these sound like like sound bites for
For like marketing and they're not these are absolutely real and the cool part of them
No one ever has to like make up a story here. We have plenty of stories that are true
so we don't need to change our name every two years or change our label every two years like
This is who we are
And yeah, so the ticity comes through let me ask you
I mean you you mentioned you originally focused on wholesale, but then
You end up end up on the retail side like what like what prompted that leap?
Like how did you make that leap and like what led to this?
Well, the brand can only grow on its own for a certain
Time and then it needs something
That distinguishes it and we want to make this and I think you'll probably agree after seeing it
It's a destination place for denver. Absolutely
It's not the only destination place, but it is a cool destination place for denver. So if you come visit
In your downtown the hotel, they're probably going to say hey go over here and we're trying to compete with
our like
Customers at restaurants and bars and sincerely we're just trying to be another thing that allows you to experience
What you could buy at the liquor store or have one of our our great
you know
Friends at various bars and so hey you need to try this
Now you can come in here and you can at the source
You can try these whiskies
In a different form in a cocktail, but we're not going to be open at two o'clock in the morning
We're we done at ten, right? So this is a pre-dinner post-dinner come here with a business cowlick
And your location like, you know
Your neighbors on the street joked when they first opened their place that they bought a saloon, right?
Because they were you know
And it was kind of like the first time my wife and I came down we then visiting both your locations
Right both your neighbors bear creek down there and I came up here after and we saw Casey's nice big
Chalk drawing that she had on the wall. That was super cool. Right was a big one, you know, and
You know, it was a definitely different vibe just several years ago to today
So now like everything's being built up and there's some cool stuff going on
So like this now adding to that space is a huge deal. So this is an elevation of the brand
So I would tell you that um, our whiskeys we never take a knee to anyone whether it's kentucky tennessee
Absolutely. We make us good a whiskey as any any of these other places in the united states
We have a lot of peers to do as well
And then we're like, oh well, we have this tour and we have this little whiskey chapel with
Free pews that we got from a methodist church and
And like they gave them to us and we had this but but that experience while it was kind of cutesy
The whiskey was below the brand standard
Okay
Yeah
But the education that you got was well above the brand standard because you got a lot out of those things and you
Got to learn a lot about what we do and then just in general how how the whiskey is made, right?
So we we purposely did that for a long time and then we're like now we need to catch up
right and
You know being in a you know, our little bottle shop when the
You know it we had the same the same
Company nah house who built all of our bars
Built all the bars and the little tables that were in that little room
So we've been working with them for that long. They do amazing work. They built a whiskey room in my basement
Oh, well, sack and his team is fantastic said you have quite a collection that goes with that. I used to
COVID decimated that
I I can't imagine why you didn't read enough bottles about how whiskey is something to be shared with others
During kovat, there's a lot of whiskey didn't get shared with others. Yeah
Irreplaceable kind of whiskies that you'll never ever be able to get again or just want to pay
Enjoy it. I did enjoy it. There you go. When the world's ending you're like, this is a great way to end the world
so, uh
Yeah, so I got rid of a lot of it and I have not um
I guess
Maybe 10 years ago
I would have considered myself a collector of this and I would define a collector as
Somebody who buys it faster than they drink it because they were never afraid to open it
It's never going to be dusted and all this kind of stuff. So
And then we hit this point where
Now I don't buy it anymore
We make we have six thousand barrels of stuff that I think is world-class and absolutely and then I would rather buy
well, and even some of the stuff that actually was on I have a good authority was
Went into a bottle that would really wasn't intended to go in the bottle as labels such but we sam was especially proud of that
Costco release
Oh, and I bought I had to put several bottles those on reserve because those are so good. Yeah, so we have a new um
Director of sales, okay, and he had it like this week. So what is this cost go when we talk about?
Like you don't know about it. He's like no i'm like we had our our um, our prior
Sales director our west she was awesome and she set this all up. She's here tonight. That's who I hugged as we walked by
Okay
Um in the in the buffalo, uh buffalo bowls. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. And that was her husband in the detroit. Okay, so um, yeah
She changed industries um back in the summer
But with this new she set that up and when she said well, can we make because we don't want cost go to ha
We didn't want them to have
Because they take lower margin
We didn't want this to be we already had a rough time because of the wine and grocery our heart is with the independents for the most
Part we'll sell to anybody we're agnostic for that
Right, we gotta sell to everybody absolutely, but we were like the way that happened was really kind of bad
So we wanted to okay. Well, we want to do this you guys want to do this with us
But now we want say 300 cases. I'm like, okay, we'll build it but i'm gonna build you 600 cases like no
Oh, tell i've been thinking about this
For two years what I wanted to do here and you get to be the gimme pig on this
Okay, and it's not really being again to be because this stuff is going to be awesome
Yeah, so we blended four-year-old bourbon about five and a half years old
with um
four-grain bourbon
with
Eight-year-old two-grain bourbon, which is essentially corn whiskey, but in a new barrel and that
Is not good until it hits about five years and then it starts to fill in you get more oak quality
And but it is kind of one-dimensional or maybe not one dimension probably two
but it has a huge amount of like
Crème brûlée caramel and that's kind of it. There's no no wood depth to it even at eight years
And I thought well it fills in various gaps in the four grains
And it's like easy drinking phenomenally sweet. Yes, and i'm like, this is what we're going to sell them
This is pretty good. I'm like, it's not pretty good. This is amazing
Absolutely, we're going to use up all this stuff that i've been looking at for again two years
Like who would buy this because we wanted to do it all at once we didn't want to
You know
Peacemail it more more barrels in the batch always makes things better. Right? So that was our uh,
Yeah, that's what you got to have. I'll tell you what it's really good. Right sam like when he put his badges like
Pride on that. Yes
I was like, okay
Because I I thought it was great because I bought a bottle right and then
I bought another one and then we ended up having a conversation sam and I I told my wife said
He told me that you guys released a couple more pallets to costco
That's why I said I said beggin you gotta you gotta go look and if they have it buy me a few bottles
So we ended up buying four more bottles. So they're sitting on our shelves at home because it was so good
I have one in my office
And I gave it to to fit and then he goes well, I got this in my office
It was open. I'm like, give me mine back
It was really good and so but it was like it's
It was an idea
And then supported by our head blender and sam made it and so it was like really cool to kind of all come together on this
Like this is what we're doing guys, and we hadn't done that before and it was sort of the start of us
I guess marrying our own
Our own stuff like so everything we ever put out was like, oh, this is an eight year
So it's all like very tight and then um, then we had like
Um, then we were like, oh well, we just did this we just blended basically across different
Types of whiskey that we made plus age statements and then that brought to us this idea of our origin stuff
We did we're doing origins were basically a set of barrels that I had made
When nobody else worked here and then I'd sold them to my friends and then they in a usury fashion sold them back to me
Or to a point like I can't pay that much for that guys like we need to right and then we bottled it all at 12
And those were our first origin stuff
And then we're like, well, we need to continue this on and well
Well, why don't we vertically integrate?
Um or do a vertical of
Our foreground and that was our very first
It's our first time really blending our own stuff. Yeah, and it's it's complicated like it really is and
We have a lot of respect for those that do blending. It's really tough to do. We're slowly learning it. We would be
I think we were
Then we did a really good job of the bourbon. The hardest one was the next one with cornerstone was rye
Because rye we don't make as much
And rye is very distinctive year to year because we're using
Um only grain of that year, right?
and so one year it might be really wet and so the rye grains really plump and has lots of like
Extra proteins
And so it doesn't attenuate well and it gives off different esters and it does all these sort of so to blend that
Say you say that's five year
And then you had some seven and then you have some ten. You're like, oh, this is gonna be easy
We'll just like we did with the bourbon, which was a lot easier. You couldn't do it
We're like took five iterations or so like right this doesn't taste right. Like why is it?
And then what's wrong with these barrels? There's nothing wrong these barrels. They're just in a weird spot
Yeah
Well and what you guys have done like with the finishing like the saturn dry that you guys did like that was really good
and I think doing those kind of special releases with the rye is
especially good strategy because you can
You can add a different dimension to each expression as it comes out and then you're able to maximize
Different so none of those none of those things is random
So in order to to for us to execute any of these ideas
Whoever's idea it is has to come with like here's the null hypothesis
What are we trying for? We're going to put this in this barrel. Well, why well
I'm going to pick up on the notes of this
I think it'll add different mouth feel because these what barrels are wet or these like that's how it all goes and then we're okay
Is everyone going to vote everyone's? Yeah, we're going to do this and then
Get enough of the barrels together and we do it and it's awesome
and then we
So we make that exist and then we're going to next time we do it
We're going to make it better and that's where the cognac finish series the mini modified solera. Maybe sure
That's where that came from. It's like at some point you're like, oh i'm finishing this in cognac barrels. That's great. Like well
We should pay homage to cognac, which is a whole different thing
It's a type of brandy. That's that's made excellent through blending
Blend it blend it blend it blend it to excellence. Arminia different very little blending a lot of like
Vintage year a little rougher things that like whiskey people would like more right and so
We're like, oh we have army of querels. Those have done really well
But the cognac thing was like well, how could we elevate this? I'm like, wow
We could just do more and more of them put them in tank and then keep slayer. I'm like or
We could go get one of those blending tanks from france
And that's what we did and it took two years to fill it
And then since that time, this is our our fourth release
And so every year we take 20 25 percent of it off and then we immediately refill it with
Three-year-old bourbon that was aged an additional year to two years in cognac acid
So it's it's kind of a three steps and then it gets to marry and gets to integrate in a breathing living breathing vessel
Yeah, and it keeps changing and it's gets richer and now it's
I think the oldest and it's probably almost nine years and the youngest is five
But it just keeps evolving right and that to us is really cool
It's so cool. I tell you I mean I could sit here and talk to you about whiskey all night long
But i'm pretty sure you have other folks that you want to you want to meet and greet
So tell us before before we let you go. Yeah
You came to colorado from canada by way of new york
Yes, and you have a lot of influences here a lot of gothic influences. Yeah gargoyles some other stuff. So tell us about
the original vision and
We talked about the construction right but tell us like yeah like what's it means to you now even before that you find gargoyles all over
The place in the distillery some people would give them gift them to us. They had the sign up
Before you went laws right it was gargoyle industry
Is um is our holding company, okay, and then gargoyle holdings is the company that owns all the real estate
okay, and gargoyles are real important to me and I don't know where it started but
It had more to do with
I like the the imagery of it, but it's also if you know what they are
It's the inside thing like oh they're scary or they're satan or they're they're not they're neither of those things
You know what gargoyles are for right? They scare away evil spirits. Yeah, so we talked about salmon and casey a little bit about it
Yes, drink no evil there. There you go. So and then I've like I have all kinds of gargoyles
I was gonna ask you about your tattoo. This is the first gargoyle one and this is when
This is me being patient
Sitting on the barrel because I came from wall street
Hey something happens five minutes. You gotta be 99 percent, right?
No, no, you're always jacked up in this and then so when we first started laying barrels down
My wife would get so mad at me. I'm like, hey barrel sevens developing
She goes you just made it three weeks ago. Would you stop opening the barrels? I'm like, well, but she's like slow this down
So that was my first uh, like hey
Stop, right
Style goes way back. Yeah, and then yeah, you have to wait
This is a generational thing and I started to think about it in terms of like hey my son seven
And this barrel we harvest it. He'll be 14 like those kind of things that were
Interesting in in trying to think about what these things were. Yeah, because they're living they're breathing. They're they're there they're
Individuals you put them in a batch to become a community
There's all these like cool aspects to it right that I had to like learn
right
Yeah
But the gargoyle stuff is like yeah, it's all tied to that right drink. No evil
and
yeah, and all like
the egyptian like our forests and
Yeah, i providence all these things you'll find those around here. We don't know if we put them up yet
They'll be around they won't be necessarily as obvious as that one. We'll just be subtle. All right. So yeah a little
A little bit of the oh man. Tell you what this place is beautiful. The staircase came together
Your now what are you calling this now? You call this the barrel now or what? Yeah, it's just like it's our yeah
That's what I call it. So as you explained to me you had so many screw holes and nail holes on the on the you couldn't
Paint it with like regular paint and make it smooth and it didn't look right
Like well and then this is even our contractors like yeah
What if it's like char like that's exactly right tom would be like the inside of the barrel. Yeah, and he's like
Whoa, would you do that? Well the architects like it I go I guarantee the architects are gonna like it
Yeah, and let's see if uh, if the plaster guy could do it and the guy was like, yes
And then it's like because it saved him and trying to argue about oh absolutely and it looks great
And we have we actually have it something that hasn't been put up yet. You go over there with this big round
um
It's like a barrel head, but bigger. It's gonna look like a bung in the side of the wall
And independent staves making it for us. Oh, that's where we'll get our get our barrels from
Yeah, well eventually you're gonna have to cut out another hole to make room for the next level stair staircase, right? Yeah, so
I don't give us two years and then we'll move towards getting the roof deck done, but we can do most of the roof deck
Because we now have this glorious
Extended staircase to the roof we can get a lot of that done without interfering with the business
But what interferes what we'd have to shut down for is as you can see here
That's where the stairs would continue and they would go all the way up and they would um exit out onto the roof another whole batch of
individual cast steps and oh same as this but I think there's been some learning we would probably use the same
Joan of Arc is contractor. We probably use them because they
they
Definitely ground their way through this they did it's hard. So yeah, we we came up with
People like oh, it's just the laws whiskey house tasting room. Like well, that's bland. Yeah, and then we have the church
This is you know, the two-story gothic window and all it's like it needs to have
Some kind of vibe like that to it some gothic vibe to it
And then so we did a internal contest really like okay. Well, let's come up with a whole bunch of things
Some of the names are we have a bunch of dudes on the
The packaging line that like metal so we had a lot of really heavy metal ones and
You know, you've seen our barrel of the beast stuff and we have another one coming out with true in february. Okay
Um, so it came down to this contest. So we came up with the whiskey sanctuary
This kind of fits to the church thing plus it gives it a little bit of dark or anything at laws whiskey house
So it gives it that fancy, you know, like a fancy hotel
So so uh last thing before we go right you have right over this room
You have you have the whiskey church, correct? And then
Is and that's where your tours are starting now? That's right
So they're gonna start in the whiskey church
They're gonna learn about it and then they're gonna walk through your facility and they're gonna end in your very your favorite room
My favorite room tell us tell us about that little tasting center or like it's more like a speed easy like it has that feel but
If you have to be close in there, right?
so everyone has to stand a lot closer together and and then our you know, our amazing like
Brand ambassadors have this cool lighting around them
It kind of makes them look larger than life. Yeah, and then the bottles are lit behind and it becomes another place to tell stories
Like around a campfire kind of thing. It has a very cool vibe when the doors are closed, especially
Yeah, and then yeah, you come out of there
And then you can either you know, look for merchandise or like get bottles or you try most of them in there
And then go upstairs to experience the whiskey that made here
But at the same time in a different way we can talk to you about how
We can talk to you about how the like rye is mostly drank in a cocktail
So well, you should have them cut look right and I can talk to you about that all day long doesn't really matter
Right. It's now I can show you right and the wheat whiskey
We're very i'm a big fan of the wheat whiskey this summer because I think it tastes good on ice and has these cool orange notes
That come out and kind of like a creamsicle
But we can do a lot with these whiskies in a cocktail that we get to decide
Most of the things we've got right now are like classic cocktail
That will evolve will move to you know, have some pretty crazy names for things too. I'm sure you will
We have some really great bartenders and mixologists and
And we're gonna let them
We're not gonna keep on a leash like go do this like create something great with what we make
We even make some of the modifiers make our own Curacao make our own Amaro
You can have Antica or you can have ours like there's some other element of like this is made here, right? And it's different
It's different. Um
Let's experience what?
These grains grown in Colorado by family farms in a specific place in the state what they taste in the foreign whiskey
All right, so fun. Yeah flavor experiences al thank you so much for your time
I know you've got a lot of other hands are shaped
So if you're in town in denver come check out the whiskey sanctuary here at laws check out al's new digs the barrel
Everything else goes in this place this place is fantastic. So thanks for your time
And honestly, I don't have a whiskey but I would cheers you right now because let's go get one. All right, let's go do it
Thanks, man
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