The LoCo Experience
The LoCo Experience is a long-form conversational podcast that dives deep into the journeys of business leaders, entrepreneurs, and changemakers in Northern Colorado. Hosted by Curt Bear, Founder of LoCo Think Tank, the show brings real, raw, and unfiltered conversations—where guests share their successes, struggles, and lessons learned along the way.
LoCo Think Tank is Colorado’s premier business peer advisory organization, founded in Fort Collins to help business owners gain perspective, accountability, and encouragement to grow both personally and professionally. LoCo chapters bring together business owners at all stages of the journey into professionally facilitated peer advisory chapters, led by experienced business veterans. These groups provide a trusted space to share challenges, seek advice, learn togethter, and support each other’s success.
The LoCo Experience Podcast extends this mission beyond the chapter meetings— bringing the wisdom, insights, and stories of local business leaders to a wider audience.
Our triad mission with this podcast is simple:
Inspire through real stories of resilience and success.
Educate by sharing valuable business insights.
Entertain with engaging, unfiltered conversations.
If you love “How I Built This” and the free-flowing style of Joe Rogan - but with a Northern Colorado focus - you’ll enjoy The LoCo Experience! Our closing segment, "The LoCo Experience," asks guests to share their craziest stories — and we get some doozies!
It’s a passion project with purpose, and we invite you to listen, follow, and share, and maybe consider sponsoring. Know someone with a great story? Nominate your favorite business leader for an episode!
The LoCo Experience
EXPERIENCE 245 | Talking Innovation, Integration, and LoCo Experiences with Joel Gustafson and Jess Gries, Founder and Chief Enabling Officer at Seed & Spirit Distilling
In today’s episode of The LoCo Experience podcast, I hosted Joel Gustafson and Jess Gries from Seed and Spirit Distillery. Joel, Founder and Head Distiller, and Jess, Co-Founder and Chief Enabling Officer, shared their journey and why in starting the distillery in 2022.
We discussed the concept of a vertically integrated distillery, where they oversee the process from growing their own grains to producing the final spirits. We talked through the economics of distilling, and the creation of their product lineup, including unique offerings like 'Whizcal,' a whiskey-mezcal hybrid, the Forged in Fire line honoring military service members, and future aged spirits to come. We also discussed their future plans for an expanded tasting room and oyster lounge in the former Funkwerks Brewing location.
We also delved into their shared history in event management and shared some wild stories from their time running music festivals. The segment concluded with the 'Loco Experience Challenge,' where each of us shared some of our craziest stories, and eventually crowned Joel the champion.
The episode is chock full of entrepreneurial insights, personal anecdotes, and plenty of laughs - so please enjoy, as I did, my conversation with Joel Gustafson and Jess Gries of Seed & Spirit Distilling.
The LoCo Experience Podcast is sponsored by: Purpose Driven Wealth Thrivent: Learn more
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Music By: A Brother's Fountain
In today's episode of the Low Co Experience Podcast, I hosted Joel Gustafson and Jess Grease from Seed and Spirit Distillery, Joel, founder and head distiller. And Jess, co-founder and chief enabling officer shared their journey and their why in starting the distillery in 2022. We discussed the concept of a vertically integrated distillery where they oversee the process from growing their own grains to producing the final spirits. We talked through the economics of distilling and the creation of their product lineup, including unique offerings like Wiz Cal, a whiskey mezcal hybrid, the forged in fire line, honoring military service members and future aid spirits to come. We also discussed their future plans for an expanding ta. We also discussed their future plans for an expanded tasting room and oyster bar in the former Funk Works brewing location. We also delved into their shared history and event management and shared some wild stories from their time running music festivals. The segment concluded with the Loco Experience Challenge, where each of us shared some of our craziest stories and eventually Crown Joel the champion. This episode is chock full of entrepreneurial insights, personal anecdotes, and plenty of laughs, so please enjoy as I did my conversation with Joel Gustafson and Jess grease of seed and spirit distilling.
Speaker 2:welcome back to the Loco Experience Podcast. My guests today are Joel Gustafson and Jess Grease of Seed and Spirit Distillery.
Speaker:Distilling.
Speaker 2:Distilling, I'm sorry. Uh, Joel is the founder and head distiller and Jess is co-founder and chief enabling officer. Uh, which, and he is a lawyer, so he does the lawyerly things plus other important stuff, I'm sure.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep.
Speaker 2:Um, let's describe seed and spirit just a little bit.'cause outside of Northern Colorado there's probably not a whole lot of representation, but you can tell me I haven't been around too long.
Speaker:Sure. Yeah, I would love to. Um, so we, we started in 2022. We took over, uh, the back unit of Funk Works Brewing. Okay. Uh, which is over on, uh, 1900 East Lincoln. And, um, yeah, when we started, uh, we came out with this vision of kind of. From seed to spirit, uh, creating a vertically integrated distillery where we're not only, um, distilling our own products, but also cultivating grain, having a malt house, um, using it new innovative practices. Okay. Uh, creating new spirits such as wiz cow.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:And, um, yeah. Since then
Speaker 2:we, and that notion of a, of a vertically integrated, so that's what the seed to spirit means. It's kind of that whole chain from
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, locally sourced seeds, even your own grown seeds.
Speaker:Every phase of, uh, what it takes to produce a drop of alcohol, we want to, um, kind of have our fingers on. Yeah. And it also helps us, you know, produce higher quality ingredients, therefore better, uh, finished products as well as really drives the cost of goods down.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker:Uh, keeps us involved in all, all the phases, so Very cool. We know our supply chain is, is, uh, a hundred percent met and we also are able to really integrate into the agricultural community around here.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker:Um, so we got a lot of, um. Great friends that are, uh, farmers, old family farms, um, from the Graves family up in, uh, Bellevue to the Sour Boys down in, uh, they farm between Loveland and, and um, uh, Fort Collins and Larimer County Open space.
So
Speaker 2:it's like, kind of know your food source.
Speaker:Yeah. Your seed
Speaker 2:source kind of thing.
Speaker:Hang out with the guys that are, are doing it. Um, and, and you know, we've really built a family around this business.
Speaker 2:And do you remember, um, I don't think you were quite open for business yet when you and I first met, you've been dating one of our local think tank members, Abby Stout. Uh, yep. Engaged now. Engaged now. Congratulations.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Get it punching above your, just kidding.
Speaker:No, for sure. She's way outta my league. So take a swing while you got
Speaker 2:shot. But the good news is for us that there aren't that many guys that are out of the league. Right. Like most dudes are kind of annoying these days. If it's that, uh, 40 plus year old range, you know, and we're kind of cool, you know,
Speaker:I hold my own, my own weight.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:Um. No. So yeah, we, that's a good stage. When we first met, uh, I think it was early in our beginning phases of the build out. Gotcha. So it took us about a year to get
Speaker 2:That's what I feel like. Yeah. So pre
Speaker:get all the
Speaker 2:permanent employee. So that time you were just like moonshining and stuff, uh, on the side testing, research and development. Can't talk about that justice. Just tell me when, when did you run into Joel or had you known him for a long time?
Speaker 3:We, uh, so at, as you mentioned, I'm, I'm a lawyer by trade and I've helped with a lot of startups. Uh, and just, you know, everything from entity formation to, you know, the partnership agreements and stuff like that. And back in about 2007, maybe 2008. Okay. Uh, Joel and, and another dear friend of ours, uh, uh, Jeff, Jeff Swagger, uh, and I think Danny Grant from.
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker 3:really? No, not, it was
Speaker:just, it was just Jeff and I at that time,
Speaker 3:at that point. Okay. For that deal. But, uh, anyway, they, they, uh, somehow found me and when I found them in, in, in my office and they were putting together a, uh, an event management company called Symbiotic Event Services.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And so I sat with them, helped set that up. Interesting. And, uh, I was
Speaker 2:trained theologically not that far different from the seed and spirit. There's a lot of
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Nature and symbio and
Speaker:everything. Yeah. Everything
Speaker 2:chain
Speaker:of ties into each other. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Creation
Speaker 3:at that point, I was, I was transitioning outta doing, uh, litigation and a lot of family law.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And interesting. Uh, decided I, I wanted to be in an industry that, that brought people together and brought people joy rather than, you know. Being a divorce attorney and a lot of good people, but not at the, not at the best stage of their life sometimes. No. When I, it was a difficult job, so, uh, I was, I was ready to make a change and working my way into the music industry, and
Speaker 2:that's what I, I have you labeled as my music industry lawyer guy.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep. Yeah,
Speaker 2:he's been that brand still about
Speaker:15 years or
Speaker 3:something. Yeah, 15, 20 years now. It was about, about that same time, about 2006, 2007, where I started making the, making the transition.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And how's that been? Like?
Speaker 3:It's been great. Um,
Speaker 2:I'm sure music industry is ups and downs, right? Like it's,
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah. It can certainly just like everywhere, but Yep. It's, it's cyclical. Like, but there's always
Speaker 2:divorces,
Speaker 3:so
Speaker 2:it's probably,
Speaker 3:there's a lot more in
Speaker:the music industry
Speaker 3:that, that part of it was that, that was, that was steady work. So, uh, we
Speaker:worked together for what? 10, 12 years.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker:Something like that. Yeah. So, so
Speaker 3:that's kind of part of the seed and spirit origin story. Interesting is, uh, I would, we, we got to know each other when I set up, set up the, uh, symbiotic and then over the years we found ourselves, so symbiotic would be managing an event. Joel was usually the operations director, which means, you know, when you're building a, a small city, everything weekend, so roads, electrical grids, sanitation, interesting. You know, all the, all that stuff, all the logistics. Oh, so this is quite
Speaker 2:a company.
Speaker:Yeah. Like you're talking about putting big directions. We did full events, full event. Yeah. Like a rise, sonic bloom. Sure. Pretty much anything in Colorado we had our hands on at one point. Wow. In our careers.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Very interesting.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Symbiotic is still, still going strong under, uh, Jeff and his wife, Kristen's leadership. Okay. And, and, uh, still doing bigger and bigger events. So it's, it's really
Speaker:shout out
Speaker 3:guys. Shout out to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And so,
Speaker 3:uh,
Speaker 2:go
Speaker 3:ahead. So, uh, so we would, we had this tradition, you know, Joel would, uh, you know, build the site and I typically, my role is I would represent the, the promoter through the permitting process and do a lot of the risk management and things like that.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 3:Um, which means I was
Speaker 2:keep Joel's butt out of trouble,
Speaker 3:which
Speaker 2:you're still doing kind of, it's like a big brother roll of circus.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Best friends,
Speaker 3:big Brother. Probably fair. Uh, you know, and so, uh, we would, uh, you know, I would be, we'd get the permissions and everything like that, and then I would. You know, we'd get the law enforcement and security and medical and all that up and running and you know, we got the, wow. All the, all the systems are running. That's a complex, complex thing. And the, and the, the productions going. The stages are all on. And we had the tradition when we, when we get our first night main stage headliner on
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:We would meet up in the, what we call the ops pocket, which was Joel's little world backstage. Yeah. Where all the tools and heavy equipment and all that bour that stuff is Yeah. Was stored
Speaker 2:lots of
Speaker 3:bourbon and also some, some bourbon. We had a tradition that we would, uh, we'd go back there and have a nice, uh, you know, have a, have a toast to, to the event good health being, being on way. We got the
Speaker 2:headliner up
Speaker:next and hopefully the hippie is not ruining the weekend for us.
Speaker 2:Right. Or the
Speaker:Colorado weather.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you got the headliners up, that means you pretty much got the first day done, which means it's pretty. Smooth sailing from there. Hopefully. Yeah. The,
Speaker 3:for, for us a lot, you know, there's gonna be a lot. It's not always, there's gonna be a lot, lot of troubleshooting. Yeah. 50. But the heaviest part of the lift is, is, is done. And, and we would, I don't know whether there was, at one point, Joel, Joel can tell you about it, but Joel had a, had a, uh, a run runner, a, a bootlegger in his family history and Gotcha. We were talking about that once and we, we, we talked a little bit about, you know, what, you know, what if we made our own sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, and, and that, uh, you know, and is that legal conversation
Speaker 2:like, can I make my own for me?
Speaker 3:You cannot.
Speaker 2:No,
Speaker 3:no, no. Interesting. Unlike there's,
Speaker 2:that seems like bullshit. You
Speaker:can home brew. Well, I mean, it's, it.
Speaker 3:You can't,
Speaker:it's explosive
Speaker 3:once
Speaker:you
Speaker 2:Well, that's true. It's very flammable. You blowing up your neighbor's houses and shit. There is actually some reason for regulation of it, I suppose.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:It's highly flammable
Speaker 2:and you could kill yourself probably if you do it wrong, like poison yourself or something.
Speaker 3:It seems to be, yeah. I suppose there's that, I
Speaker 2:mean, if you make it outta wood or whatever. Right.
Speaker 3:I think it's just one of the, the last,
Speaker 2:you're not using the right seeds then though.
Speaker 3:One of the last vestiges of, of prohibition. One of the, one of the still faint echoes or we can't, you can home brew, but you can't home distill. Interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we had goes, we had, we had this tradition for all these years through a lot
Speaker 2:of events. So you, you got some, some, some moonshine somewhere from the runner family or?
Speaker:No, this is like, can, this is my, my great great grandpa, so.
Speaker 2:Gotcha.
Speaker:This is Arch Benini. Pre,
Speaker 2:pre NASCAR days.
Speaker:This pre like 1800. Yeah. Yeah. Um, now Archie Benini was, um, he was a. Colorful member of our family. It was a purveyor of good times, you know?
Speaker 2:And where was this?
Speaker:This is back in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker:Northwestern pa up in Penn. Tuck part of Pennsylvania as we like to call it.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:Uh, but he had a couple inns that were covers for his, his, um, speakeasies. Oh,
Speaker 2:interesting.
Speaker:Uh, they were called, um, oh, should I The name of like
Speaker 2:a public house almost, or
Speaker:it was an inn. Archie's in, yeah. Archie Archie's Inn. Yeah. Thank you. Geez. Brain fart. But, um,
Speaker 2:anyway, so, so he would serve his own distilled spirits or more He would send people out with bottles of his
Speaker:spirits stuff. Yeah. So he would, he would bootleg and, um, did a lot of rum running. Uh, my grandpa used to tell stories of bouncing around in the backseat of their, their car with cases of, of booze underneath it.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:Taking it to the tower. When
Speaker 2:you say rum running, was it rum?
Speaker:I think it was all Spirits. Okay. I'm pretty sure he did. That's just a
Speaker 2:nickname for all spirits transportation, kind of, yeah. Think it was, it just sounds clever because rum is like sugar cane, right? Yeah. Like so that wouldn't have been up in Pennsylvania much?
Speaker:No, there was mostly beer. Um
Speaker 2:Oh really?
Speaker:Okay. Yeah. The big area of Pennsylvania where I'm from, uh, Straubs Brewing and Yingling were
Speaker 2:still,
Speaker:yeah,
Speaker 2:I
Speaker:was gonna say Yingling. Um, I think in the most speakeasy is primarily beer and whiskey.
Speaker 2:So you mentioned just that at some point, hey, we should,
Speaker 3:well, we, uh, so we're, we're, you know, doing this, but we've got lots of events are, you know, they're, my practice and his company are growing and yeah, handling more and more events. And, uh, then, uh, there was this little. Pandemic thing. Oh, I heard about it. Popped up. You heard? Yeah. Yeah. That wasn't very good for the music festival business. It was a little hard on the terrible mass gathering and the music festivals, those, those big, uh, all together,
Speaker:we were the
Speaker 3:first
Speaker:to go. Last to come back. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker:So for me, it was the best year my life personally. Like I reconnected with my farm up in the canyon and just chill. Started this business.
Speaker 2:Ultimately started growing some barley that you could distill someday.
Speaker 3:So Joel called me up so all, all of our, you know, all that business went away. Sure. Yeah. And uh, you know, we had some time on our hands.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And Joel called me up and he was like, do you remember when you said, you know, that we should, I like it. And uh, he's like, what do you think? And I was like,
Speaker:yeah,
Speaker 3:let's do it. Why not? So
Speaker:I love
Speaker 3:it.
Speaker:And then we started, uh, I had a lot of connections through the music industry with a lot of, um, like STEM siters, for example. Um, people that would promote or, uh, sponsor an event. Sure,
Speaker 2:yeah. Yeah. Makes sense.
Speaker:Was able to build a lot of relationships in this industry and, and when I started exploring what our business plan looked like and how we can execute it, um. Um, the owner of Stems actually, um, he was one of the guys I reached out to and he kind of mentored me a lot. Yeah. And introduced me to Brad, uh, Lincoln over at Oh yeah. Funk Works. Sure. The owner of Funk Works. Yeah. Yeah. And, um, Brad had that back building. They were kind of shrinking out of and I see. And uh, it was a great incubator for us to kind of get going on and. And then we signed a lease. And that was, that was a,
Speaker 2:that was the
Speaker:start of it. It was a hell of a day. Yeah. And then all of a sudden it was real. And, and then, then it really started to compile. And
Speaker 2:before we move on, what was that first one I drank
Speaker 3:here?
Speaker:Uh, so that was our, our for Grain bourbon.
Speaker 2:That's
Speaker:what,
Speaker 2:that's this one right here?
Speaker:Yep. So that's, uh,
Speaker 2:that's your, that's your flagship kind of?
Speaker:Yep. It's one of our, if you will, one of our flagship recipes. Um, so the way we operate is we're a house of brands. So as you can see below us, there's, right now we have three brands that are on the market. Um, we have our Seed and spirit brand, which will eventually get phased out of the market. And, um, that'll be just the,
Speaker 2:the seed and spirit is kind of the base corporation or whatever.
Speaker:Yeah, it's the, it's the distillery, not the brand.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Okay.
Speaker:It'll be available always, but it'll be in special releases at the distillery. So, um, we'll get into that a little bit more. We're gonna, we're in 2026. We're expanding. We're taking over the rest of, I heard
Speaker 2:you're taking over Funworks. Yeah.
Speaker:That's
Speaker 2:exciting.
Speaker:So this, uh, particular one is our for grain bourbon. It's, um, uh, corn that we grow up in Bellevue. Okay. Uh, right along the Poo River there. And, uh, malted barley, malted oat, and, um, wheat.
Speaker 2:Okay. When you say malted barley, malted oat, can we dig into that just a little bit? Like
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker 2:that's like the, you gotta malt those grains first. First.
Speaker:You should, first you should pour another little Dr. I'll, we, we, Dr. Um, so what, what one of the core principles of this business was, you know, being involved in all aspects of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:And malting is a, a big component in creation of, um, convertible sugars so that, um, our yeast can then chew up those sugars. Makes it, makes it turn, turn alcohol.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:And then it also creates enzymes
Speaker 2:creates a lot more surface area for those critters to chew on. In my
Speaker:imagination. It is a chemical change. So it goes from a starch into a sugar.
Speaker 2:Oh,
Speaker:I see. A carbohydrate. And
Speaker 2:the, we weed You don't malt it though.
Speaker:We, we muled everything. Oh, okay. Um, our barley. Most of our barley isn't malted, but we steamroll it so it, it, it, um, gelatinize, uh, pres. So it, it's already Okay. Kind of broken down and, and warmed up, rolled, and then we get it.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:Kinda like a flaked oat, like you get oatmeal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Um, but for us it was, um, I
Speaker 2:so made beef barley soup this weekend.
Speaker:Oh, pearled
Speaker 2:barley, right? It's kind of like that.
Speaker:Yeah. So we, we started, the first phase of the business was to build out our malthouse.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:And essentially what that does is we bring in raw, um, ingredients, whatever that is, a barley a, a rye, so on and so forth. And then we hydrate it. So we put it into big steep vessel, and that essentially soaks in water.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:And then once it's about 40% moisture, then we send it over to these big boxes. And, um,
and
Speaker 2:for something like this, the fore grain, are you doing it all together?
Speaker:No, we do it separate. Okay. And we, then we build our recipe, this case. Um, but yeah, so we, so
Speaker 2:it's got different chemistries for each thing takes longer and shorter, I reckon.
Speaker:Uh, it just. Creating of a recipe has always changed a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:So our four grains different than our. You know, obviously our rye recipe. Anyway,
Speaker 2:keep going. I'm
Speaker:interrupting. Yeah, sorry. Um, so anyways, once it's in our germ boxes, then that's when it begins to sprout. And in nature, when a seed sprouts, uh, it naturally converts those starches over to grab carbohydrates so that the first root and shoot have energy and they feed off of that first burst of sugar and, and, um, energy that this
Speaker 2:is,
Speaker:the seed provides.
Speaker 2:This is, this is like a two year bourbon or something or
Speaker:whatever? Yeah, it's about a two and a half. We're only two and a half years old, so it's, it's no more than two and a half. Right.
Speaker 2:Legally.
Speaker:Yeah. But it, it's, it's, I mean, for me it's super good. Um,
Speaker 2:yeah, it's way good for
Speaker:a young,
Speaker 2:like, I wouldn't expect a youngster to taste like, what's the secret to making a young
Speaker:good equipment and, uh,
Speaker 2:good recipes,
Speaker:good, good practices,
Speaker 2:a lot of r and d
Speaker 3:and, and to get this to the point it's at, that means we're going to be, uh, it's gonna be aging in a much smaller barrel. Oh, uh, okay. To, to reach this level of, you know, the, the wood, the interaction with the wood has a lot to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I've heard
Speaker 2:there's places that are like putting'em on boats and stuff, so they go,
Speaker 3:we, we gotta, we
Speaker:have, we have a similar system. Yeah. We have a, a, we call it a wagon wheel age, so Okay. We can get into that when we talk about expedition.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But, uh, so this, this has been aged in a smaller barrel, like a five or a 10 gallon barrel, whereas, okay. Traditionally, most everything that we've been making in the last many years, all these. Mountains of barrels that we have two, those are in 53 gallon barrels, so
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:You want to probably get at least four years of interaction with the wood when it's in a 53 gallon barrel. But if it's in a five or 10, then it's, it's, it gets to, to play with, with the wood a lot, a lot more intensely.
Speaker 2:Are, are you, you, are you both finance money people, kind of business wise
Speaker:entrepreneurs?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Enough. Well, I was just thinking to myself that like, the funny thing about whiskey is that I was just watching Tulsa King.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:You watch that show, the new season just came out. Right. And they got some 50 year whiskeys that they dug up. But like the whiskey's worth more and more the longer you sit on it, but the longer you sit on it, the more and more it costs. You, you. Well,
Speaker:also it evaporates, so the angels take the cut. If you're a whiskey, you're probably gonna get four bottles outta
it.
Speaker 2:Oh, is that right?
Speaker:Or something.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's crazy.
Speaker:We, we use, we use, so,
Speaker 2:but anyway, the notion that I wanted, wanted to explore a little bit is mm-hmm. It's always. Yeah, like with every business, the more the owner wants to take outta the business, the less the business will be able to grow because it needs that capital to grow instead of paying you for your vacations and stuff.
Speaker:We
Speaker 2:haven't gotten paid yet. Yet. Have you gotten paid yet? No,
Speaker:I haven't gotten paid yet either.
Speaker 2:Here it's like you wanna store that whiskey longer so you can make some special reserves and things like that, but that's also like sacrificing from your current day cash flow.
Speaker:Yeah. Well we're, we're. As a crew, I think, um, everyone that's involved, all of our sweat equity earners, every, all of our partners in this, this project, we're all, uh, invested into the long term success of this. Yeah. So the short term, you know, none of us have taken paychecks. Yeah. Um, we've had some employees and stuff like that that obviously we pay, but, um, yeah, we're pretty dedicated to the, to getting to the four year mark so that we're pouring our, our big barrels out and we have market penetration with a, a lineup of brands. Cool. And at that point, I think we'll have enough skews on the shelf, plus with the launch of our tasting room, uh, we should be able to get paid here. What do you think? Two years.
Speaker 2:And so fingers crossed you've got these, the, the oats in the barley and the, you said those different ingredients that goes into the recipe. Does that go into the recipe then before it gets distilled? Right? Like it gets mixed together and then it gets distilled?
Speaker:Yeah. So to finish up the, the germination process, if you will, after it, after it germinates, then it goes into a kiln, it dries up. Then it goes through a cleaner where we clean all the root and the shoot off of it. Sure. So once that's done, then it gets stored and then, then we go through a phase. So it's usually like a month to two months. All bourbon, all the same recipe. We're just producing, producing, producing. And uh, we run pretty big equipment. We have, um, a 650 gallon hybrid pot column whiskey still that
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker:Pretty much runs a lot. Wow. Throughout the winter. It's always on summertime it gets a little too hot. But, um, so when we're in that phase, we're producing the same recipe and then we move into, you know, like our sweet wheat when it's wheat season. Yeah. Or our rye when it's rye season. Interesting. So we follow the seasons of the grain so that we know we're gonna have an AM supply come bring
Speaker 2:fresh off and Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. And then, um, yeah, we, we are still Rise is go
Speaker 2:around here.
Speaker:No, they hate rye around here. I didn't think
Speaker 2:rye would
Speaker:go over, but we have to get it out, out far out east. Uh, kind of over by Nebraska border
Speaker 2:in Colorado. Still though.
Speaker:Still in Colorado. Yep.
Speaker 2:It's one of my favorite, uh, I don't even know. Must be a song out there that my. Dad used to play in the radio or something. But the rye whiskey, rye whiskey. Rye whiskey. I cry. You've heard that one just sounds
Speaker 3:like a good
Speaker 2:Irish show. If don't have rye whiskey, I surely will die. IIS Yeah, a nice singing voice. Yeah. I sing it with an Irish accent, even though I don't think like they would say Irish whiskey, right. But Irish, well they wouldn't call it Irish whiskey. I don't imagine they would just call it whiskey.
Speaker 3:Probably. Yeah. Here we'd call it Irish whiskey.
Speaker:We call it American Single Malt. So maybe they call it Irish,
Speaker 2:I guess. So I'm curious if anybody knows, I've never
Speaker:been to Ireland.
Speaker 2:Actually comment on this episode of the Local Experience podcast and tell us if they, like if you could buy a bottle of Irish whiskey in Ireland, does it say Irish whiskey or does it just say like whiskey? Duh.
Speaker 3:It just says whiskey.
Speaker 2:You've been? I
Speaker 3:have
Speaker 2:been. Okay. Okay. I'm curious. I
Speaker 3:explored this
Speaker 2:topic
Speaker 3:while there, so,
Speaker 2:so can we go to the next, uh, taste sample bef or can I get the next taste sample Yeah. Before we restart this conversation of, or do you want me to go next? Do you want go to the high rye? You want me to go to the
Speaker:Yeah, why don't you, uh, fortune Fire is our next brand.
Speaker 2:We talk about that a little bit too. Of, about, let's, let's just go there and we'll come back into the production process. People hang on with us. Why not?
Speaker:Sure. So our fire is, um, that's, uh, so Archie Benini, um, my grandfather, Archie Benin's great, great grandson, um, was uh, William Benini. And, and in his later days, um, was going through Alzheimer's and one of the few memories he could conjure up. Was his time in, in his, in the Korean War, in the Air Force.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:And, um, when I created, uh, some of our recipes, one of the recipes was called, uh, AB Rye. And he was always like, why are you making a recipe named after Archie Benini? You never even met the guy. You know, I had to deal with you my whole life.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:So I was like, all right grandpa, well what, what, what do you want to do? Like, what, what kind of branch did we make? And, and he wanted to do something that was with military focused and um, was also, you know, we both work in a non-profit sector and so we wanted to tie in, uh, non-profit with it. And we're working with, um, simplifying America's Fund, which is a, a plus rated all across all branches. Okay. Uh, veteran.
Speaker 2:I've heard a lot of product kind of things like that. Like they get 10% of sales or something, or 5% or whatever.
Speaker:Yes, we do do a, a dollar 22 per bottle. Okay. Gets donated to their organization. Um, and that part of, that's with the 22 a day movement to bring some Sure. Um, suicide awareness within the, the military sector. Um. And then we've kind of just deep dove into what does that look like for us? How do, how can we be as authentic as possible to it? And you'll see the dog tags on there. Every dog tag has a real soldier that, uh, anyone on that's listening. Uh, if you have a veteran in your life, you wanna go to our dedication page. It's forging fire spirits.com. Oh slash dedication. You can fill out a form. We'll do a thousand print runs of, uh, each service member that's, um, been submitted, submitted thousand, a thousand runs. Yeah. A thousand dog tags. And, um, is that
Speaker 2:you pay for this seems like they should. Just kidding.
Speaker:I think it's the least we can do.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah. I guess
Speaker:it's not very expensive, so.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker:Um, but, and that, so that was one key component to it. And then we also, if you feel the label, it's like a real woven patch label on it. So. Uh, pretty unique.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:Label
Speaker 2:on it. So it feels like a military jacket thing almost.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, and, and I see both of these are rye in the for and fire line. Is that gonna be your rye line? Kind of.
Speaker:Uh, one is a rye, which is a 95 5, uh, rye to, to barley. And this is a high R bourbon, actually.
Speaker 2:Oh, yes,
Speaker:you're
Speaker 2:right. Sorry.
Speaker:So, high ripe bourbon whiskey means that you, there you go. Good job. You, uh, elevate the rye grain bill and lower the corn grain bill down. So you, you kind of almost balance it. So it's 51% corn, 42% rye.
Speaker 2:This is really good,
Speaker:isn't it? Really good. And
Speaker 2:this is also young too.
Speaker:Uh, no, this is actually a collaboration project. So to get this one on the market and to kind of get rolling, uh, we worked with, um, Bardstown Distilling and Green River Distilling.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:Both outta Kentucky, um, make Great Juice, um, Jeffersons and so on, so forth. Okay. Um, they have a, a good lineup of whiskeys.
Speaker 2:And it's some of your seeds or local seeds in that, or is that's just their
Speaker:It's, it's all their juice right now. Once our stuff hits, uh, the four year minimum maturation point. Right. Then we'll start blending our juice in with it. And then, um, so we're, we're, we wanted to get on the market. We want Yeah. It's been about a year and a half that we've been working with this nonprofit and
Speaker 2:Well, in a couple of years, you're gonna have a whole bunch of bottle of barrels of whiskey to start selling.
Speaker:Yeah. And then at that point we'll blend their stuff out and it'll be all of our stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. So, Jess, um, I wanna flash to you for a moment because like, especially on the front end of creating a distillery, if you're the. Keep Joel out of jail and out of trouble. Legal background, regulation kind of guy, like for people that maybe have an imagination of, uh, doing something like this. Like what's the, what's the hoops and hurdles, uh, that are most significant? Maybe we'll dip into that process a little bit. Is that cool?
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah. It's a, uh, it's a highly regulated industry, the alcohol industry. Um, it also, uh, there, you know, we've got what. What used to be the a TF, their jurisdiction, um, which was alcohol, tobacco, firearms Sure. Is now under the jurisdiction of a new, uh, new-ish entity called the Trade and Tax Bureau. So the TTB.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Interesting. So you'll hear a lot of people talking about the TTB, so they're the ones that you get your,
Speaker 2:that seems more appropriate a little bit, kind of like the whole notion of a alcohol, tobacco, and firearm. Yeah. It's like, okay, what are these two things? Why they lumping those together? Why those three together?
Speaker 3:And really what they're there for is to protect the revenue. This is a, a re you know, a fairly, uh, sucking, fairly taxed, uh, product that we Yeah. It's, it's a monopoly effectively,
Speaker 2:and let's keep it that way.
Speaker 3:It's gonna be taxed at every, every level, uh, that they can state,
Speaker 4:federal.
Speaker 3:Yep. So we, uh, so you start with getting a, a, in our case, a distilled spirits plant permit from the, from the TTB, which is they want to know. What your equipment is, what your recipes are, that you're not gonna blind anyone that you're, you know, right. That you know what you're doing. Can you build the malthouse first? So
Speaker 2:no, that
Speaker 3:all comes together. You, you, you actually have to, well, you don't need this kind of permit for the malting. Right. Most, a a lot of places are going to, uh, buy their, their malted greens from, from a, oh, it's already dedicated malt house source. It's coming in a, in a bag or a to, or buying grape
Speaker 2:juice from
Speaker:somebody. We're actually the first distillery to do all the things that we're doing in the state of Colorado.
Speaker 2:Is that right?
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker 2:So all the fancy pans that call themselves distillers. Some of'em, most of'em just bring in juice. No,
Speaker:no, no, no, no, no. Uh, as far as like growing corn, oh, all that stuff. Uh, malting in house. Um,
Speaker 2:but I've heard that a lot of the stuff that says it's made in Fort Collins isn't. Really, really made in Fort Collins much
Speaker:legally on the back of every bottle you're supposed to. Now, whether they do or not, I don't know, but you're, you have to declare where they do. And Jess,
Speaker 2:we'll come back to you by the way. I'm sorry, I, I
Speaker 3:chase. Okay.
Speaker:You have to declare what state it was distilled in.
Speaker 2:Distilled in.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:Okay. You have to state that, uh, there's, there's you, I've had to get educated on this, but you can learn a lot from an alcohol label. It's gonna tell you a lot of things, and there's a lot of rules around, uh, what is on that label. And one of the things that we have to do with the TTB every time we do this is we design our label and then, then we send, send it to them. You go to school and then they look at it and they make sure it checks all the boxes and it meets all the requirements. Yeah. Which are numerous. And
Speaker 2:so, so bring me back to the, the permit for the distill.
Speaker 3:So the, the, the D-S-P-D-S-P distilled Spirits Plant Yep. Is Okay. Plant. We, that's our, our federal license. And, uh, and that actually you have to have all, pretty much all. Set up, designed, fully,
Speaker:built out, ready,
Speaker 3:operate fully built out so that they can inspect it before they approve your equipment. Oh, you
Speaker 2:basically build it
Speaker 3:So you're, you're like, Hey, can we use
Speaker 2:this, you guys?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Then they're like, we'll be
Speaker:there in three months.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And, and they say, okay, we, we think this looks good. Here's, here's your,
Speaker 2:then you're like, okay, we'll hide our practice rounds within those next three months.
Speaker 3:Here's your, here's your permit. No,
Speaker 5:you don't, you don't wanna do that? No,
Speaker 3:no. You, your butt
Speaker 2:outta trouble.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And then, but anything, okay. Kurt just wants to break
Speaker 5:the law.
Speaker 2:I, I've just seen just in bootlegger mode.
Speaker 3:So you think, hooray, we got our dsp. Isn't this great? We're finally get to go. No, no. Now we get to start on the state of Colorado's.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Permitting
Speaker 2:only after
Speaker 3:you get here to get our
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Federal
Speaker:first and then state.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And before you can even apply for your state, you gotta have the federal in place. Okay. So that's, you know, so we're already well over a year into the process. Sure. Yeah. And, uh, so now it's another round Dang. Of background checks and stuff. They had to dang look into dang Joel and I, and make sure we, I'm clean, shady, shady fellows. I believe you. And, uh, you
Speaker 2:super clean. You seem like a country
Speaker 3:kid. Yeah, yeah. And, uh,
Speaker 2:well, but because you've had a big brother keeping you outta trouble, like
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3:So then we're working on our, our, in our case it was a, a manufacturer's permit from the state. And, uh, and that's, you know, oh, that's another process. Not
Speaker 2:part of the alcohol prep, but just, or
Speaker 3:in, in the
Speaker:state size that we were a, a manufacturer as opposed to like a distilled, um, almost like
Speaker 2:a food manufacturer.
Speaker:There, there's like a bunch of different levels of Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You can be a lot of different, uh, there, you know, there's all, all sorts of varieties of
Speaker 2:all
Speaker 3:state liquor permits is Gotcha. Uh, a spirit manufacturers. Okay. All, so, so we work through that process and, and there's, you know, they. You know that now they're gonna come and inspect and look at everything and check all that interesting out and everything. And, uh, that was the
Speaker:building department in
Speaker 3:county. Yeah. And then you're like, okay, we got our state permit. Isn't this great? We get to fire these suckers up, you know, and everything. Let's start this stuff. No, no. Now it's, now it's time to talk to Larimer County.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And then that's all the, uh,
Speaker 2:right.
Speaker 3:You know, and, and because
Speaker 2:did you have to get a building permit on the front side or were you putting it into an existing
Speaker:structure? Yeah, we, we were, we were in, we were in the process of basically all these at the same time.
Speaker 2:Gotcha.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker 2:you're talking to'em, you're talking to planning,
Speaker:whatever, before we got,
Speaker 2:and you're in the back of Funk Works, which already has a beer license. Right.
Speaker:It was, it was actually the best place for us to possibly launch other than taking over a previous distillery. Right. Like it was
Speaker 3:Yeah. It was, it was well on its way to meeting all the many and varied requirements that are associated with, uh, yes. With this kind of operation, because we're. Making something that's flammable, at least when it's, oh yeah, rolling off the sale. Need more sprinklers for
Speaker 2:a distillery than you
Speaker 3:do with brewery. That means, yeah. So that, that differentiates a little bit from beer. So there's some additional hoops to, to jump through, around, around that. We had to build some, some firewalls and, you know, explosion, proof, light fixtures, and, you know, fair enough, that kind of stuff. Working with, uh, puter Fire. You want the lights to still be on after
Speaker 2:the explosion.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep. Okay.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 3:So, uh, that's cool. Uh, yeah. Yeah. And that's in our mill room, but, um, yeah. So then finally, eventually it was what?
Speaker:Yeah, right around my birthday, actually, it
Speaker 3:was about
Speaker:around March, March 29th or March 30th, we got our approval and then we fired the stills on April Fool's Day, just to be a little shithead about it. I
Speaker 2:like it.
Speaker:Um, and 2023 was our first Gotcha. First run April,
Speaker 2:so that's what April
Speaker:1st, 2023 is when we kicked off
Speaker 2:part of this two and a half year old stuff like that was part of the first. Blends or whatever, first product to market. Yep. That's the, and it's been out for a little while. So you brought it up to market like only a year old or something?
Speaker:Well, Wiz Cow is a little bit of, um, um, oh,
Speaker 2:maybe Wiz Cow was out first. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker:WC was the first on market. That one. Uh, that one's, uh, it's our hybrid, uh, first of its kind spirit. I think we're the only ones in the, the world to be making it at this time and the way that we make it. Um, not to say somebody doesn't blend the two together, but, um, the, yeah. The way that we produce Whiz Cow, a hundred percent in-house, um, that was our first on market. It's about a year and a half in the aging process.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:So it's a little bit quicker. And,
Speaker 2:and, and it's mezcal ish. So whiskey
Speaker:flavor. So whiskey, mescal, hybrid, hence the name.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you're, I guess importing agave, n whatever that stuff. Yeah. It is not agave. Right? It's slightly different plant than agave.
Speaker:It's an agave. So we use five different varieties of wild agave. Okay. Uh, we have it turned into a nectar. Uh, you can't. It takes about 20 hours before a, a fresh pena starts to sour and, and go bad.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:So we can't import actual agave plants.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker:So we make a nectar, we bring that in, uh, from southern Mexico, and then we cold smoke it, um, with, uh, bourbon barrel pellets. So it's a bourbon oak smoked, um, oh, okay. Agave spirit, technically or mescal. Uh, and then we blend it in with our, excuse me, our three grain whiskey. Which is barley, oat, and wheat based.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:And then after those two spirits have been blended in at, at, uh, low proof, we then run it through the stills again to get a vapor blend on the product. So essentially two spirits. Oh
Speaker 2:yeah. Merges them properly.
Speaker:Yeah. Read a still,
Speaker 2:it's not just like shake and not stirred. It's actually,
Speaker:yeah. So it becomes a whole new spirit when it gets recompensated. Um, and once it hits the barrel, it sits for about a year and a half in a once used bourbon barrel, and then comes out, uh, whiz cow, which is,
Speaker 2:which I'm gonna
Speaker:hometown, hero
Speaker 2:sample next. It's a very intriguing, I'm, I'm a pretty big, uh, mezcal fan in general. Im go to Mexico soon. Actually. You're gonna love this. I'll probably bring some whiz or some mezcal home. Had plenty
Speaker:of it.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, I think, I think you gifted me a bottle at did Yeah, one point I did. Yeah.
Speaker:I think you got,
Speaker 2:I wanted it somewhere, one of the batch
Speaker:ones or something
Speaker 2:like that. Yeah, it was early on.
Speaker:Yeah. We were approached by, um, uh, new Belgium's, uh, brewery Direct Services, so, okay. Uh, earlier in the process, before we even had bottles ready for sale, um, some of the guys over at uh, new Belgium reached out to us. Uh, Ben and AJ shout out to you guys. Um, they reached out and they heard about our, our distillery. Yeah, yeah. And our ethos and the way that we were doing stuff, and it aligned with what they were kind of looking for. And at the time, they weren't selling any spirits, so we were the first spirit company they've,
Speaker 2:for them to distribute through their
Speaker:ever
Speaker 2:distributed new dollars and trucks that you see everywhere.
Speaker:Yep. So, okay. Uh, we, we, uh, love the notion of working with, with those guys. They're a great company and, um, solid team and, uh, been doing great. And then recently we've, uh, teamed up with Eagle Rock, which is a larger distributor Yeah. Across the state of Colorado. So we've been with them for about three months or so. Um, and we're starting to get penetration into all the, the corners of Colorado. So
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker:We're doing pretty well with, with, and
Speaker 2:was that your brainchild, or like, where did that idea come from, if I may,
Speaker:working with Eagle Rock?
Speaker 2:No. Wiz Cal.
Speaker:Yeah, it's
Speaker 2:like you're like, we got all this young whiskey. It would be nice if we could sell some and make some revenues.
Speaker:Well, whisk came about that was, uh, probably, so before we started getting into the build, it was about a year of me conceptualizing the, you know, the pitch decks and the brands and the names and all these things. Like, what are we gonna do? How are we gonna do this?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:Putting all those, we
Speaker 2:gotta set ourselves apart, you know, there's
Speaker:pro proformas getting PNLs, uh, built out and just everything we need to, to launch a business. And, uh, one of the big hurdles is like. Okay, well how are we, instead of just buying juice and just being, you know, a a land house. Yeah, yeah. Uh, how are we gonna do something authentic? And, um, Jess and I used to work with, uh, positive Legacy. He's still the president, uh, which is a nonprofit, um, international nonprofit based out of, uh, is it Colorado or Miami or Florida? Florida.
Speaker 2:Positive legacy.
Speaker 3:Leaving a positive legacy,
Speaker 2:yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. So we're, uh, you know, we harness the power of music to, to support communities in the environment. So,
Speaker:so we used to travel around Mexico under this, uh, event company called Cloud Nine Adventures. Okay. Amazing company. And, and we'd raise money and
Speaker 2:it seems like we could spend like four hours here today, but keep going
Speaker:anyways. Uh. Uh, I eventually became friends. I was a grant manager for about eight years or so. Um, and I would do oversee all these international grants. And, um, so my friends down in Mexico, we all bought land in Tulum, we're hanging out at this Meca, and they were tired of listening to this gringo hate on mescal because I only like a couple drinks. I can have like one or two drinks of mezcal and I'm kind of onto the next thing.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:And then one night they were basically like, well, why don't you go home and make your own gringo mezcal? And I was like, that's not a bad idea.
Speaker 2:Hmm.
Speaker:So I sent Jess and a couple of other partners, um, a mockup of this bottle and the name Wizz Cow. And I was like, Greece, can you try to see about trademarking it? And then once we got the trademark, um, kind of moving forward, he was like, I think there's a path for us to get it. I
Speaker 2:mean, it's pretty good.
Speaker 5:It's super good,
Speaker 2:right? Yeah. For, for young whiskey. And I guess the, the, the smokiness that the. So where do you smoke it at? You smoke the, at the distillery connector itself?
Speaker:Yeah. So we have a big smoke chamber.
Speaker 2:Oh,
Speaker:okay. It's a big stainless steel vat that, um, has a, a paddle um, agitation system.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:And we cold smoke it. Uh, so it's big cold smokers that we use. Wow. Bourbon barrels and then have'em pelletized.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I mean, it, it definitely like who is not to dison your predecessors in the region or whatever, but feisty spirits just stayed too feisty for me to ever buy their stuff. Like, I mean, no offense, but it just was too feisty for me. She was too young.
Speaker 3:It
Speaker 2:was, and like, I know this is a young whiskey. I could taste that, what do they call that? White whiskey sometimes. White dog. White dog, you know, whatever. It hasn't been aged too long and stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's kind of got its own. Flare, but like that
Speaker:Well, that's a hundred proof too. Both of these. Oh, really? Decedent spirit and whiz cow at a hundred proof and they're very drinkable at a
Speaker 2:hundred a little bit already and feel it.
Speaker:I mean, but they're smooth at a hundred and
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a smooth a hundred and that, and that's that, that kind of smokey tilt to it, but it's more familiar to my palate than mezcal. Mm-hmm. Like, I'm a weirdo. I'll drink anything and enjoy it because of
Speaker:the whiskey backbone. That's why I was like, this is really,
Speaker 2:this has path. It's a whiskey backbone. Mm-hmm. Uh,
Speaker:it's
Speaker 2:a, I think even Mexicans would like this. They'd be, they path into do copper bourbons.
Speaker 3:What we were down there is we were working on, uh, building a marine hospital on a, on a sea turtle beach. Nesting beach. Okay. Car where the, uh, where the injured turtles would come to rehab and, uh. And yeah, that's, that's how we met this crew down there. And what were their thoughts on it, Joel?
Speaker:Well, I sent'em a bottle after this whole concept, and they sent me a bot, a photo back about, you know, a day later, two hours later. Yeah. The thumbs up, like 5, 5, 5 Mexican buddies empty bottle. Uh, they love it. I mean, we've taken a few bottles down to events and just kind of tested, Hey, how does this stack up with the, yeah. With that side of the borderless spirit. Um, and honestly, we, we take it to all of our events. If you, uh, it has a, it has a 90%.
Speaker 2:I'm going to Cabo on Monday, literally, if you, would you like to take
Speaker:a bottle
Speaker 2:with it? Yeah, if you have a fresh one. I can't take that half full one, but I gotta get a, a sealed one. We'll, I assume we'll link. Okay, sounds good. I'll share it around with the cool Mexican people I find.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There's a dude that's getting us lined up with a, you know, not retail, uh, excursion, fishing and snorkeling experience. Uh, WISC Scout
Speaker:does great with fishing trips.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm sure. And it, because it is, it's light like that.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Like it's a, it's a happy spirit. Kind of,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, anyway, where did we jump off? Just have you been paying attention? Oh, with my tasting impressions of Wizz Cal.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:This is
Speaker 3:Tasty. When it rolls off the still, it drinks very much like a, like a mezcal. Um. Mm-hmm. So the Blanco is, is, uh, you know, is that a future offering? More smoke forward? That one's still out there, but it's not gonna be around for long, so, okay.
Speaker:Yeah, we're kind of getting rid of that. We think that the repo and njo are more what we were imagining when we started.
Speaker 3:Gotcha. So then this has been rested. This is the Reposado. So this has been rested about, you know, or aged about a year and a half. Yep. And, uh,
Speaker 2:and there's Anjo coming,
Speaker 3:there's an Anejo coming. The Anejo takes time About a year. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's, that's we've. Kind of like, and is
Speaker 2:these, those little, little barrels again is why
Speaker 3:it so fast? These, these are in bigger ones, so'cause we want to be able to release it and, you know
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Give it a proper release and
Speaker 2:then down the road you can have a super in Aho or whatever.
Speaker 3:But we've had, uh, we have done some 10 10, yeah. Some test ones and, and some small, uh, small barrels. And
man,
Speaker 3:man, that's good. It's so good,
Speaker 2:man.'cause I love a good, like I'm from the land of whiskey sours. Mm-hmm. Kind of. Um, and so that flavor of whiskey with acidic lemony kind of thing, but just shifting a little bit to a, a, a whiz cow margarita even
Speaker:it's great.
Speaker 2:Or not even call it a margarita. It's basically just a, a whiz cal lime.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker 2:it was, uh, I, I,
Speaker:I usually, I like it a lot in Palomas. I, I tend to lean into the Paloma a lot of, yeah,
Speaker 2:the
grapefruit
Speaker 2:too.
Speaker:Um, but also, I mean, the Lincoln Center, for example, they have some barrel age. We gave'em some of our small spent barrels Yeah.
Speaker 2:That
Speaker:we did like prototyping on. Um, and they did a, uh, whiskey or whiz, uh, old fashioned barrel age old fashioned.
Speaker 2:Very interesting.
Speaker:And yeah, they do. It's, I guess it's doing great. I've had numerous people come up to me and be like, I tried this at the Lincoln Center. It was incredible.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna call a timeout because we've got some spin drifts in the fridge and I want to do a quick little, uh,
Speaker:let's make a cocktail.
Speaker 2:One of'em is a grapefruit, for example, and the other one's I
Speaker:use spins. If you've got a little pineapple that's gonna
Speaker 2:set it up. Oh, I don't have actual pineapple, but I've got spins. Pineapple
Speaker:juice.
Speaker 2:No, I ain't got no juice, man.
Speaker:Ah, you know,
Speaker 2:can't win
Speaker:em all.
Speaker 2:But I think it could still be good. Um, and I kinda go potty, so let's just take a quick break. Yep. We'll come back and we might have a, a cocktail sampler too. Uh, I love that taste test on too.
Speaker 5:Let's do it.
Speaker 2:And we're back.
Speaker 3:We all,
Speaker 2:that was a very enjoyable bathroom break conversation rep. Yeah, a little reprieve from the pressures of the microphone and the cameras.
Speaker:You're the one that feels pressure right now. You're the one that's sweating so
Speaker 2:well. I was, it was too hot. I cracked the door. Got a fan on.
Speaker 3:Maybe it's those lights you have.
Speaker 2:Maybe. I think it's just like drinking. You're
Speaker 4:intimidated by this side of the room,
Speaker 2:just drinking hot spirits, like not hot, hot, but just uh, hundred proof. Yeah. Spirits back to back to back to back. It's kind of like eating hot sauce. Um, not really way different. I was gonna say, it's a
Speaker:totally different
Speaker 2:experience for me. It's gone now. Like I'm not sweaty Betty anymore, but I'm glad of that. Um, when we left off, um, we were kind of talking about like the. Both the business model, but also what you've, we've talked a lot about what you've done so far, and you've got like, apparently a big old cooker and you're cooking a lot of stuff and you're putting it in the back of the Quonset or wherever you're storing those barrels. Yeah. Um, and like what's the, what's the next step? Do you have other brands, other elements Sure. Other varietals. Like what's the
Speaker:Yeah. So, uh,
Speaker 2:near future,
Speaker:to get back on the, one of the initial points was, you know, we're a house of brands.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:As opposed
Speaker 2:to a
Speaker:branded house.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Seed and Spirit will have this brand. Exactly. But that's what it is as far as its house brand.
Speaker:And that'll only be available at the distillery, like I said. But it's a web forg and fire. We have Wiz Cow that are currently on the market. Um, in the future when we start pouring out our barrels, usually around four and a half, depending on flavor. Um. We'll have expedition, uh, the Uncharted Journey Whiskey, which is a, um, single barrel pole select. So the best of the best that we have in our Rick house.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:Um, that'll be, um, one barrel, one bottle run. And how
Speaker 2:do you know it's the best of the best?
Because
Speaker:usually because you taste it, we say so. We taste it. Yeah. We taste every barrel. Yes.
Speaker 5:It's
Speaker:subjective. We, we taste all the barrels and, and we'll line'em up and, and there's certain barrels just naturally, whether it was the run or where it was located at the Rick House, how the elements Yeah. Helped, uh, maturate it, whether it was the woods, so on and so forth. Um, but we have. You know, we will pull the best that we feel. Um, and we will put that all into one, one bottle and run. And that'll be our expedition. And, uh, we'll feature the 1820 Expeditions.
Speaker 2:So, so that's a new brand. Now we're talking about
Speaker:Future Brand Yep. Yep.
Speaker 2:Future.
Speaker:We haven't rolled that out. Yep. Yep. Um, and that'll be our, the best of our best. And, um, uh, 1820 release, we'll feature major Thomas Long's journey across, uh, the United States.
Speaker 2:So long
Speaker:states Long's Peak, I guess, or something for Long Peak. Yep. Okay. So we'll tie it back into Colorado and that'll be the first expedition that we feature.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:And over the course of, of time, we will, um, continue to bring in expeditions that, uh, we'll feature on the bottle in the packaging.
Speaker 2:Oh,
that's
Speaker:cool. And, uh, elaborate on that story. Oh,
Speaker 2:that's an intriguing experiential element. Um,
Speaker:mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:What, uh, Wilbur's Matt from Wilbur's was on a couple years ago, and he brought me a Blanton's bottle.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And I didn't know about the whole Little Pony thing on the top of the bottle thing and all that old drama and stuff. And if they can do that with just a little plastic pony. Like, what can you do with actually teaching people about cool historical elements and stuff like that? Cool.
Speaker:Yeah. We'll also have like a cool little, um, cork on it and yeah, we'll tie in as much. Um,
Speaker 2:will you do a pony?'cause they had ponies on expeditions too.
Speaker:We were thinking a covered wagon.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I like the covered wagon. That's better.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. It fits
Speaker 2:better with the name.
Speaker:We can't really do something that somebody's already done, especially Blands. They might,
Speaker 3:LANs has got the, uh, little,
Speaker:the right horse,
Speaker 3:uh, trade dress loft
Speaker:on. We're trying to be original with everything. Um, so that'll be the, that'll be the, the premier barrels. And then, um, the next barrels below that, we'll go into a cast finish, uh, secondary cast finish. So like a sherry, a cognac. Mm-hmm. Yep. Yep. So on and so forth.
Speaker 2:Yep. Yep.
Speaker:And that'll be our queen's cut whiskey.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:Uh, Colorado Royalty. We're, we're tagging it as interesting. Um, and that'll be also a high-end, uh, branding, high-end packaging.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But just that,
Speaker:that,
Speaker 2:that. Second.
Speaker:Second finish.
Speaker 2:Second
Speaker:finish. So if, if you go to Queen Cut, it's only gonna be a cast finish product. Yeah. You want, and if you want something like just a bourbon without a port finish or whatever, um, you can go to any number of our other spirits.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker:And then we're in, we're in the process right now of trying to figure out what the fourth, uh, whiskey brand is gonna be to kind of pair with, with Forg and Fire.'cause Forg and Fire is a, a low price point. Whiskey it's um, about 30 to$35 Okay. Average on the shelf.
Speaker 2:Alright,
Speaker:so more affordable. Um, yeah. Volume based, um, brand. And we're looking for like an opposing brand on that. So
Speaker 2:once you get some of that six year whiskey or something like that, then you'll have that kind of pre top shelf brand.
Speaker:Yep. Uh, that'll be the Expedit yet Expedition in Queens. And then the midrange bar end will be our blend. So anything that didn't make the top tier or the second tier will all go to a blend
Speaker 2:will be, well it is Forge and Fire mid range.
Speaker:Yep. So this is$35 on a
Speaker 2:shelf. Yeah. And then that other, like what you said, your, the fourth one you're looking for is also a midrange. Yep. Okay. Just not, doesn't happen to be the forge and fire element.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean this is a very, um, target demographic. Yeah, for sure. You know, and that's
Speaker 2:really an interesting model to like try to have multiple brands under one element. And I guess it's kind of recognizing the segmentation in demographics of consumers
Speaker:price points, uh, uh, abundance of skews. Yeah. Like no liquor store is gonna carry 30 skews of ours. Yeah. 30 products.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, but if we span it out over multiple brands, then we can get more penetration into the shelf
Speaker 2:space. Yeah. If you've got a military veteran liquor store owner, they probably will choose the forage and fire, for example, maybe, but they might not put your top shelf and, you know, in a high-end neighborhood, they might carry your top shelf brands, your queen and your whatever. But. Some of the other stuff.
Speaker:Yeah. And in reality it's the, the volume. We we're a volume based distillery, so we set out to be
Speaker 2:Gotcha.
Speaker:Uh, large scale production.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker:Uh, large, um, quantities of barrels and finished juice. Yep. And, and in order to get rid of that
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker:You really need to have a, a plethora brands. We took the model of like either
Speaker 2:that be wholesale producer or something like that for somebody else. But you don't wanna do that. That's a production guy.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Interesting.
Speaker:Uh, like a Heaven Hill or a rack, or, you know, these big distillery models. Um, yeah, that's kind of the, the model we took for our future, um, plans as, as a distillery.
Speaker 2:So then you just add more of the same kind of cookers you have now if you need to ramp production up even more down the road.
Speaker:Um, essentially we're, it's just, um, turning it on more often.
Speaker 2:Fair.
Speaker:So our, our, our still produce about 75 to 80, 80 gallons of finished alcohol every day. Every day we turn it. It's about a barrel and a half every day that we run our stills.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker 2:yeah,
Speaker:we're producing, which is a large volume for
Speaker 2:Right, right.
Speaker:For our startup scale.
Speaker 2:And if you get like crushing demand, then you might need to crank it up, but, or first we'll,
Speaker:or build a campus out.
Speaker 2:We're about that. Yeah. Like you mentioned that in the break a little bit. What's a campus like?
Speaker 3:Well, I ideally, as you know, my
Speaker 2:imagination,
Speaker 3:mind, my, my, what I'm trying to enable here is Joel's dream of, uh, of having a, a, you know, a destination, you know, a a, a campus that's akin to, you know, what you like Sierra Nevada, or, or big wineries or that, that kind of model. So, or
Speaker:a Kentucky model. Like a
Speaker 3:Kentucky style. Yes. Yeah. Too, like a Heaven
Speaker:Hill or a Maker's Mark.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So it would have a, you know, a, a larger distillery, but there'd also be a restaurant and an an event space. Mm. Some recreation opportunities and maybe lodging and so
Speaker 2:Oh, a Touro part of the farm or something like in the future there would be like a,
Speaker 3:yeah, surrounded by, by our, uh,
Speaker 2:like right there just
Speaker 3:by our fields,
Speaker 2:just below. Um, like when you go over Bingham Hill,
Speaker:that would be a beautiful spot.
Speaker 2:That farm right there,
Speaker:we don't, we don't have the spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:So
Speaker 2:we're, but that would, for that, you know, if that, if would be perfect. If that person is listening to this podcast, that little farm right there with all the hay barns and stuff, like they make a good deal, good price. You could be a, you get a little equity, a
Speaker:good
Speaker 2:spot. You can probably get a little equity, even if you trade that farmer at a
Speaker:gladly
Speaker 2:price,
Speaker:we'll gladly get equity on that. We're also
Speaker 2:better than debt.
Speaker:We're, we're aspiring a little bit, um, outside of the campus we're, it's really an estate distillery, so Yeah. What an estate, there's very,
Speaker 2:it wouldn't have to be that huge and that luxurious.
Speaker:No, it probably would.
Speaker 2:But a
Speaker:but um, uh, in a state distillery is kind of, um, something. Has, yeah. Where you farm your, your grains
Speaker 2:rogue,
Speaker:where you malt your grains. Where
Speaker 2:you rogue did that. Right. Because they had the rogue malting and distilling and stuff up in Oregon.
Speaker:Um, I'm not familiar with that. Oh, like Fray Ranch? Uh,
Speaker 2:yeah, check that out. Because like years ago, rogue was actually one of the first whiskeys that my wife actually enjoyed.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:And it was like, I learned later.'cause they had a, maybe I don't have they faded since then. It feels like that brand is not even really, they haven't seen it. Yeah. But it used to be like a brewery and then a distillery and they produce some awesome whiskeys. Oh, I know. And right when Black Bottle first opened, they had their rogue whiskeys and stuff and it was solid. Um. And like, that's what you could do. Right? Like you, you could even brew beer.
Speaker:There, there, there is a brew, a small brewery there to support all the vertical integration right. That we're trying to do there. Yeah. We have a, we have a pretty, a pretty good vision.
Speaker 2:A grand master plan.
Speaker:Yeah. And right now we're just, um, we're really, um, just build momentum. You know, we're recently, uh, we're about to take over the funk work space. Yeah. So we're in year two half. Yeah. Yeah. This
Speaker 2:might be a five year, 10 year plan or something. Like, it takes a while to, it's
Speaker:definitely a five or 10 year plan. Yeah. Um, right now we're, we're, we're taking over Funk works. Yeah. Uh, recently they, they announced that they're gonna be closing doors, um,
Speaker 2:is
Speaker:acquiring
Speaker 2:Love You Funk Works.
Speaker:Yeah. Those
Speaker 2:guys are
Speaker:great.
Speaker 2:You were, you were responsible for my first and only, um, what do they call it when you make too much noise?
Speaker:I was gonna say blackout, but,
Speaker 2:um, no. Would you? Excessive noise violations. Oh,
Speaker 3:at home,
Speaker 2:at, at my house. Disorderly house. You know where I live? Disorderly house. Yes. You live right around the corner from me. Yeah. And we were bopping tunes on my Sir Vega with my exchange tune and the neighbors and stuff. And, but it was because, well, not because, but the bank had had a party. They, with Tropic King as the beer ke honestly.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I, I inherited a half of a keg of Tropic King, so me and all my neighbors were sitting around drinking bopping tos and then all of a sudden the cops were like. Hey, here's a thousand dollars ticket.
Speaker 3:I know that's an expensive one. Right off the bat. I got all those two. Yes.
Speaker 4:Those fuckers
Speaker 3:no warning. They
Speaker 2:didn't. That's what I said. I was like, you mean you're gonna write me a warning for excessive noise violation? Yeah. Here
Speaker 3:to,
Speaker 2:she's like, no, there's no, yeah. You didn't register your party so you get no warnings. I was like, I, they probably sat outside
for
Speaker:like 10 minutes and just eaves dropped for
Speaker 2:a while. I don't even know.
Speaker:We're just gonna give,
Speaker 2:if you're one of my neighbors out there and you're the one that called the cops on me, like, seriously screw you. Just come and fucking knock on my door. Tell me to turn it down, asshole. Anyway, I know who you are, Gary. Probably. Fucker Kurt
Speaker:Digresses.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I digress. I've been drinking it for a while now. This is, uh, so we covered the, the true shall
Speaker:set you free
Speaker 2:the brands and the what's next in the business model. I really, I, I'm gonna give you, uh, a backhanded compliment, Joel, if you'd like one.
Speaker:I went on, uh, give it to Jess and I'll just, uh, no, go ahead. I Go ahead. Think it's good for you. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Okay. So I'll give it to Jess. I'll give to I tell Jess story, give late on
Speaker:me.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not really a, it's a story more a Well, you've increasingly made a positive impression on me every time I've interacted with you.
Speaker:Oh, good.
Speaker 2:But our first interaction, I was like, oh man, this guy Abby, really? That's your choice. Whatever. Um, bless, bless your heart, ed. Like now that I've kind of spent more intentional time, I appreciate that. And even including the, the 10 year party for Loco. And thanks for the ride home, by the way. That was
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:In, in a blizzard. In a blizzard. Yes. Um, which is the whole story. That's what I wanna wanna tell him. And his wife. I mean, you made a lot of points there. You were already on the fast track. Like, okay, I trust Abby quite a bit, and so even by the second time I interact with you, I was like, actually that guy's pretty cool, you know? Um, but this, uh. Yeah. This whole big vision stuff, I couldn't really see that mm-hmm. As well in our initial interactions.'cause you can't Right. Yeah. Like, it takes a little while to soak in to people. I
Speaker:mean, we still are trying to see it. Right. Entertaining. Yeah. You know, we, we don't know how the
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:Future is gonna unfold for us. We just know that this is the goal.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:And whatever, you know, avenue. Yeah. If you
Speaker 2:shoot for the stars and land on the moon, that's cool
Speaker:too. You better
have
Speaker 2:a big
Speaker:gun.
Speaker 2:Yeah. To shoot the martians.
Speaker:If you're gonna shoot for the stars, you better have a big gun. Oh
Speaker 2:yeah. That,
Speaker:that one of my grandpa's quotes.
Speaker 2:I like it.
Speaker:Bless his heart.
Speaker 2:Bless his heart. Godspeed grandpa. Um, so we covered, oh, farming.
Speaker:Let's,
Speaker 2:let's
Speaker:talk about fun corks for a little bit because I
Speaker 2:do wanna, I think
Speaker:this is interesting for
Speaker 2:our
Speaker:local, local, um,
Speaker 2:and maybe Jess, do you wanna talk for a little while?'cause we've been kind of talking to Joel a lot. Do you like,
Speaker 3:Hey man, this is,
Speaker 2:what's the point
Speaker 3:we're talking
Speaker 2:about spirit
Speaker 3:today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it doesn't matter. You're happy to just chill over there and drink whiskey.
Speaker 3:Yep. Yep. It's working
Speaker 2:out. I want more high R. Is that okay?
Speaker:Take whatever you want. All these are yours.
Speaker 2:Oh wait, we were gonna do taste comparisons on these cocktails. Okay. A disclaimer for the audience. We only had spindrift, basil mint and raspberry lime,
Speaker:which is not good.
Speaker 2:And neither of them are any good with Whiz Cal and neither is the combination of the two.
Speaker:It's drink. I wouldn't say it's,
Speaker 2:it's not, not any good.
Speaker 3:Yeah,
Speaker:it's not the best.
Speaker 3:I don't think those particular spin drifts are designed to,
Speaker 2:I think a straight whiz hell. With a spindrift, like four ounces of spindrift lime only, not basil, lime, lime only. And then like, I didn't
Speaker:realize it was basil lime.
Speaker 2:A good squeeze of a ha. I thought I had regular limes. Yeah, I didn't,
Speaker:no, I can, I can totally. It didn't work. That was the off over. I was like, this is not, if
Speaker 2:you're curious out there, if we left you hanging on the, on the
Speaker:break, but if you, if you do want to get a bottle of whiz cow and you want a real cocktail, go to wiz cow.com. We have about 30 cocktails on the website that are,
Speaker 2:that are much better,
Speaker:way better designed by our, our,
Speaker 3:our, our amazing, uh, mixologist collaborator, Mike. He runs a looking glass and has some new ventures that are gonna be,
Speaker:that's funny. He just took over, uh, uh, well, I think I'm gonna say it. Yeah. He took over Jay's bistro, so he is gonna be launching his dream project. He's fallen following his dream. Um, Oso Underground. Shout out to Mike. Oh, that's crazy. Best of luck. Who's
Speaker 2:this?
Speaker:Um, Mike is, uh, yeah, just
Speaker 2:let him come out there later. Yeah. But somebody's doing something with Jay's face.
Speaker:Yep. Um, that's awesome. So I don't know if I'm breaking news for him or not. We don't have, we love, we love you Mike, and we want you to be, be super successful. He is. He is a young cat that we met, um, early in this endeavor. He tasted Wiz co at a party when it was just a concept and an idea, not even like, what we really are producing. And, um, he was like, whatever you guys are doing, I wanna be a part of. And he's kind of been with us for the whole journey. Uh,
Speaker 2:and you guys have investors and stuff too?
Speaker:We do, yep.
Speaker 2:Because I assume, like it's big, like it's a lot to carry all those bottles of whiskey in the back of your cabin or whatever.
Speaker 3:Right? It is. They had to arrive, you know, in a shipping container, you know, so it's, it's, uh, yeah, no, there's, there's, uh, certainly.
Speaker 2:Yeah,
Speaker 3:those investors. Yeah. We, we have a big manufacturing plan. It's, you know,
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah. There's deciders, there's some capital, but ultimately you guys are responsible to, to those folks. And I don't know, from my perspective, you've done a pretty good job of building a brand and a vision and a
Speaker:Thanks. Appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Excellent product.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker 2:Um, like every time I try something new, I'm like, oh, that's pretty good. You know, even this high rise.
Speaker:Yeah. We wouldn't put it out if, if I were, if, if I were at all skeptical of it. Like, we produced a rum, we produced a gin, and I was like, Nope, nope. Not
gonna
Speaker 2:do it.
Speaker:That's not gonna see the light of day in the, in the consumer market. Um, what
Speaker 2:do you do with it?
Speaker:Abby loves gin, so she drinks a lot of it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have to,
Speaker:well, we're, we're about to launch our tasting room, so when we launch our tasting rooms, oh,
Speaker 3:we're gonna have to,
Speaker:then you
Speaker 2:can blend that stuff off and
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, do some gin, do a gin cocktail special with some,
Speaker:yeah, well we, it's
Speaker 2:not,
Speaker:it's just not,
Speaker 2:not quite what I, where you want it to be. That's
Speaker 3:not
Speaker:what you,
Speaker 3:that's,
Speaker:I'm not a gen, I'm not a gin guy. I'm not a gin guy, so I'm like, this is terrible. But most people that try it are like, this is pretty good, but I just don't like making it so I don't wanna make something I don't like, you know?
Speaker 2:I think that's your privilege.
Speaker:Yeah. You know, that's cool. If Jess wants to come in and run the stills more than,
Speaker 2:well, they bought gin. If you wanna do gin day once every month. Hey,
Speaker 3:if I can pick what goes into that gin basket. Yeah. So gotta pick all the herbs and all the,
Speaker:I try
Speaker 3:mechanicals that go in there. That's fun. That'd be fun.
Speaker:Yeah, no. So we are, we're taking over funk works and with that we're gonna, we're gonna be launching a, um, an oyster cocktail lounge and we have a wood fired, uh, oven. Um. Menu like a
Speaker 2:pizza
Speaker:pizzas, but also Rockefellers and Sure. Uh, wood-fired mussels and crab legs and stuff like that. Oh, interesting. Elevated, uh, working with, um, for you locals, um, uh, bistro Natis head chef. Okay. And, uh, one of the owners, uh, Ryan. Chef Ryan.
Speaker 2:Alright.
Speaker:Um, he is, uh, coming in to help us curate our menu and just kind of be our, um, you know,
Speaker 2:kind of menu
Speaker:director, be quality control and quality control manager. Right.
Speaker 2:Get, order the food from the right place.'cause you dumb asses, don't know where to get good oysters and stuff like that.
Speaker:Well, actually I went, Abby and I went on a, on a trip to California and we made some pretty good contacts out there. We, we had a couple hundred oysters out there in a couple days. Wow.
Speaker 2:I like it.
Speaker:Um, but no, we're excited about that.
Speaker 2:So that'll be like, like describe the experience just a little bit. Like, is it. Is it the existing funk work space or will it be bigger space, outdoor space? Any changes to the physical?
Speaker:A lot of changes.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:We're gonna completely reimagine what could be there. Um, the outdoor patio will be, uh, redesigned. So there'll still be music on the patio, um, and then, but it'll be like more enclosed. So we wanna close off the road a little bit.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yep.
Speaker:And then when you walk into the current tasting room, it'll be more of a lounge feel. Okay. So, um, cocktail oyster lounge vibe.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker:Um, and then in the back area, we want to kind of bring in more of a. Loose, uh, sports bar, you know, come and watch the football game. Uh, play shuffleboard. Okay. Eat some pizzas and wings as opposed to sitting down, having oysters and Yeah. More elevated menu.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. Um, and then you'll also be able to do, you know, just, uh, experience the distillery. See all the phases of it. We'll detours, and we'll open up the doors. We're gonna do a, a launch party in June, early June.
Speaker 2:Okay?
Speaker:Um, it'll be our grand opening. We'll have a, a soft launch before that, but, um, June will be our grand opening to the community. It'll be a free festival in the parking lot. Okay? Uh, everyone's invited and we will open up all the doors, uh, have some special barrels lined out. We'll do samples straight outta the barrel for everybody, and let, let people see what we're all about and, and then come party with us.
Speaker 2:Exciting.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker 2:we're excited. But, uh, that's, uh, like I, when I think about oysters, I can only think about Jacks, right? Like, um,
Speaker:uh, bistro has oysters too.
Speaker 2:One bistro, we
Speaker:just went there for Jess's. Jess's birthday was last night. Regional.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:We had
a
Speaker 3:big Oyster night at
Speaker:Abby's birthday was on two days before that, on the 20th. So we had a like combined, uh, oyster off.
Speaker 2:Agreed. And I, and I love Bistro Teal and, and Jack, who's the gal that, she's four 15 too, right? The same,
Speaker:uh,
Speaker 2:chef? No. Different.
Speaker 3:Uh, Kat is who
Speaker 2:you thinking of?
Speaker:So it's Ryan, Kat, and Mike, that own, own bistro.
Speaker 2:Bistro O Teal. Mm-hmm. And I go there and stuff and it's cool. I like that restaurant a lot actually. Um, but Jack says kind of that more of the speakeasy vibe Yeah. Almost that you're gonna be looking for. Right. So it's like spirits and. Yeah. Delicious seafood kind of is the theme.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Theme a bit.
Speaker:Yep. Um, high, high quality. High quality farm, uh, raised. Yeah. Not Seattle Sea, not Seattle Fish Company or something like that. Yeah. Oysters. We're gonna go directly to, to the farms that produce'em. So fly'em in every week when they're there, they're there. When they're gone, they're gone.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:And, um, and then just have a real high quality. Um, I went to culinary school and by the way, high school,
Speaker 2:so I didn't want to insult Bistro a teal by that at all because when I think about Bistro a Teal, I think like Ocean Front Fish restaurant.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, which is totally different than the
Speaker:Well, they have a different vibe. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's a totally
Speaker:different
Speaker 2:vibe.
Speaker:Every, every restaurant has a different vibe. Yeah. And they have, to me, I think Bistro is more of a, it's my like go-to, uh, it's like I walk in, I know all the people. I know Kat and Ryan Cool. And so on and so forth. And, um, it has more of the sit down have a meal.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Jack is more like, I'm gonna go for happy hour, slam some oysters, and then. Go move on a bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Kind of.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:That's kind of,
Speaker 2:but it is a gathering, you know, in a different way than Beast Store is. Makes,
Speaker:yeah. I don't think I've ever sat at Jack's. I think I've always sat at the bar.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Kinda. And
Speaker:kind a happy hour.
Speaker 2:That's kind. Or, or around the bar,
Speaker 3:the high tops by the kitchen
Speaker 2:there. Right. Like I don't go there for dinner really? I go for the The happy hour experience. Yeah. With delicious food.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Whereas Bistro OAL is like the dinner, sit down, dance. Yeah. With your people that are right around you in some ways. Yeah. Yeah. Intriguing difference. And everything's, what, what you're talking about is, I hate to say it, but it's a little bit like the Funk Works vibe as far as like. The, the, the, the demographic, the chill, who's gonna be attracted to that kind of setting? There isn't like, there's Funk Works plus more, right? With Yeah. Food stuff. We,
Speaker:we wanna keep all the funworks local, like over the course of three years. I'm friends with all the, the regulars, so we hope, we hope to keep the
Speaker 2:track. Yeah. And there's stuff cute, they're little winky glasses and stuff. Yeah. And long lived funk works.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And, and, and just so everybody knows Funk Works is not disappearing. Oh. They're not gonna have the tasting room. They're
Speaker 2:just losing the tasting
Speaker 3:room. Yeah. They've, they've partnered with I think Denver Beer Company and STEM Ciders and they're all, they from
Speaker:Wildling Wildling beverages.
Speaker 3:Wild. Okay.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker 3:Yep. So they're gonna all produce together in one facility. Oh, okay.
Speaker:They're just going to the channel.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. And they may, they may, they may make a comeback at some point. Yeah. I don't know what, so I don't know. They
Speaker 3:it's just in this space. In this, yeah. Well, and they've, in that particular location, some
Speaker 2:brands that
Speaker 3:are
Speaker 2:have brand value still, right. Like that Raspberry Vincia, like people love that or whatever that, I don't know how to say that word.
Speaker 3:Tropic King.
Speaker 2:Yeah. All that. Um, Ava time check. Uh, it's 5 32. Five 30. Oh, we're doing all right. We got some time.
Speaker:Yeah. We're
Speaker 2:chilling. I'm glad. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:Um, yeah, so we're really excited about that endeavor. We,
Speaker 2:that is exciting.
Speaker:You know, it's been, we've been exploring the option of a tasting.
Speaker 2:My wife loves oysters so much. You're gonna see me more than like, you need to have a oyster.
Speaker:I
Speaker 2:see you like a, like a, like a normal middle class income, price point, oyster night.
Speaker 3:That's what we're going for.
Speaker:Well, so what? Yeah. Our model is gonna be, uh,
Speaker 2:because I got
Speaker:reasonable priced oysters all the time. Okay. Uh, basically from
Speaker 2:no
Speaker:three to eight we're open Thursday through Sunday.
Speaker 2:Raise'em sometimes and sometimes special. Like raise your regular price a little bit and then sometimes have'em even special because people want sales. I'm just saying Monday nights, Tuesday nights. Well, we
Speaker:also, we wanna do specials like where if you're a member or you're on our, our newsletter member
Speaker 2:buy enough booze from us.
Speaker:Yeah. Or you buy a bottle, you get a 10% off. I like it. You know, things like that,
Speaker 2:that. All right. I like,
Speaker:we're not, we're not not looking at oyster affordable oysters. I'm not looking at oysters as like how we're going to make money on this. Um, it's
Speaker 2:more how you're gonna get people here.'cause people love oysters, people love whiskey, people love oyster. I love people that love oysters. They try it.
Speaker:I love oysters and I want, I wanna be surrounded by people that love oysters.
Speaker 2:Joel does love oysters.
Speaker:These are two, two of my dream come trues right now. It was like an oyster joint and an oyster joint
Speaker 2:Love
Speaker:distillery.
Speaker 2:It. Well, we'll see how many people like come along for the ride, but I'm right. So I'm going to Cabo this weekend and Jill and I went to Cabo like 15 years ago, the one time we've been there
Speaker:Uhhuh.
Speaker 2:And on that trip we like went somewhere and found some guy and he like sold us some oysters that he shucked himself and put a couple of drops of Tabasco sauce on or in Mexico, something big ones and Mexico. Oh yeah. They were nice fatties. Yeah. And you know, charged us.$25, which was probably full price. I probably could've got out for 10, you know, and we, but you're
Speaker:eating me Mexican oysters.
Speaker 2:So, you know, he was beautiful. And we had, and he was just like, he was probably like, I don't know if he was 60 or 95, but he, he was probably 85 or something. Sure. Like way older than he looked. But he went and dived for these oysters and got'em. And he, he was like, Hey, do you guys wanna buy these oysters from us and eat them from me and eat'em? And he took us up there and he shucked them himself and he set us up with a little paper plate and some hot sauce. And we sat by this rock. And
Speaker:I'm more of a cold oyster, small, petite guy than like the big, you know, two biter.
Speaker 2:The only time I had
Speaker 3:oysters,
Speaker 2:they were one biters. They were one biters.
Speaker:I didn't, okay.
Speaker 2:But I have had, actually, I'm gonna tell you my most, can I tell you my most disturbing oyster story
Speaker:is Yeah, sure. As long as it doesn't gross everybody out.
Speaker 2:I don't think it will. Okay. Ava's got a pretty strong tolerance.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker 2:Um, so in Quim, you know where Quim is in Washington? Uh, it's on the Olympic Peninsula.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker 2:There's an animal park there where they have like retired Hollywood bears and stuff, and they're like, wave at you. And like, I literally fed bread to a buffalo who's circus, circus circus Park inside my van, which was probably super dangerous and stupid. Um,
Speaker:it's not advisable in a Yellowstone,
Speaker 2:but they had, uh, there was a, a fish restaurant we stopped at and I bought the fried oysters lunch special. And these fried oysters were like that big, like the size of a fried egg except for half an inch to, yeah. Half an inch thick.
Speaker:I know, I know where this story's going,
Speaker 3:I think.
Speaker 2:And I ate two of them and, uh, they were delicious with fries and tartar sauce and stuff. Anything fried is
Speaker 4:delicious.
Speaker 2:And we, we went to, um, this, this wild animal park and like. While we're driving there, like I start to get a little gassy and like, I don't know how many farts I let, and I don't know, like, but they smelled so much like oysters that the whole car was like, Kurt, get your oyster farts out of here. They're disgusting. Um, so anyway, that, that's the story of about oysters.
Speaker 3:I thought you were
Speaker 5:Oh, I thought it was going downhill quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no,
Speaker 3:I thought based on
Speaker 2:the size, I thought oyster farts are bad enough. No, I didn't get sick. I thought they were rock down
Speaker 3:oyster oysters of the rocky mountain.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't too. Yeah. None of that. No. It was real.
Speaker 5:Or, or I have to get outta the car and run to the woods real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Regular oysters, but just it was. Probably the most like flavorful farts
Speaker 3:flavor
Speaker 2:that I've ever delivered. You got a reaction from, it was a car full of people. Um, and my brother-in-law's, we were, no, he wasn't even yet my brother-in-law, my wife was still my fiance at the time. I'm driving his truck around with all these people and I'm letting these oyster farts out. One of my college buddies lived in Seattle. He came down to visit us and we were on this trip. And anyway,
Speaker 4:all
Speaker 2:right, moving on. I was ripping oyster farts. Um, but raw oysters are way better. I haven't experienced this. Same, yeah, so there's my story
Speaker:kind of Sounds like a fart. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, not mine. Not the oyster farts.
Speaker:Anyways, okay, we're moving on.
Speaker 2:Okay, so that's the funk works. Expansion, farming. Can we talk about farming?
Speaker:Yeah. I love farming.
Speaker 2:Um, like. Like you have a, an actual farm where you growing some of these seeds, like how are you, do you have farm equipment? You have a tractor, you've got like mills and stuff. And
Speaker:so
Speaker 2:you ask the neighbors to put seeds in whatever.
Speaker:No, long, so long ago. Um, wanting fresh dairy, um, fresh, um, staple of the community up
Speaker 2:in Yes. Uh, shout out to, uh,
Speaker:Rob Graves and the Graves family. Love
Speaker 2:you guys. Yeah. Shout to Sarah who donated milk to us for the recent Hot Nug series. I don't know if you saw the hot nug series. I
Speaker 3:did.
Speaker:Did you
Speaker 3:mayor Oral, uh,
Speaker 2:all the mayoral candidates. Candidates, yeah.
Speaker:Oh yeah, we watched that. Yep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so they donated milk. We, we enjoyed. Like clean milk.
Speaker:I met Rob.
Speaker 3:The candidates have to drink milk. We gotta drink whiskey. Like
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah's
Speaker 3:good.
Speaker 2:We can drink some hot sauce. If you wanna drink some hot sauce, we can do that, but No,
Speaker:no,
Speaker 2:please.
Speaker:I be,
Speaker 3:Scottie would've drank some
Speaker:about, uh, probably 10 years ago now, I was driving by the, the dairy one day and I saw all these like, you know, stainless tanks out there, and this was long before we ever even imagined starting a distillery. And I popped in and, and met this guy Jack, and, um, Rob's right hand, you know, head of okay, head of operations, basically. Gotcha. And I was like, Hey, are those tanks for sale? And he is like, well, everything's for sale. And so I ended up, you know, uh, getting to know those guys. I bought the tanks, which now we use. Okay. And, um, moved'em up into the mountains and kept'em on my land until we finally launched
Speaker 2:the
Speaker:story. And
Speaker 2:where's your, your land's, like up canyon somewhere? West Canyon? Yeah. Up Putter Canyon. West Canyon.
Speaker:Yeah. Okay. Yep. So we have a little, little homestead property up there that
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker:I just stashed him on. All my neighbors were like, what are you doing, dude?
Speaker 2:Like, right. But there's no HOA so I'm gonna put him there if I want to. Bitches.
Speaker:Yeah. And I was like, I'm gonna launch a distillery someday, don't worry. And they're like, okay, you know, you're gonna leave all these. But, um, anyways, so we got, got to know Rob and, and, uh, his whole crew. And they're just all his family. They're great, great, great family. And, um,
Speaker 2:I love getting ice cream sandwiches out there
Speaker:at the
Speaker 2:Howling
Speaker:Cow. Uh, Amber's new project, um, ice cream. Shout out to Amber
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:For kind of pursuing that. It's amazing. Ice cream. Go check it out.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:Anyways. Um, so we, we got into kinda like the, okay, we're actually gonna do this. We're bringing all this equipment down, it's for
Speaker 2:reals.
Speaker:And I reached out to those guys and was like, Hey, you know, we'd love to, to grow some corn. Um, is there any, you know, can I rent some of your, your acreage from you or something? And Rob was, he's like, oh, I got this, you know, piece of land in the back of the, behind his office. And it's about six acres. Uh, they open it up for us. And, um, we've been farming there. This is our third year coming up. Actually, next week we'll be out with our combine. Um, with your
Speaker 2:actual, you have a combine?
Speaker:Yeah. Well, we're, we're a, we're a clever bunch of characters over here, and we found this combine for$2,500 down in southern Colorado that, uh, drove down there.
Speaker 2:Like a 6,600 John Deere
Speaker:or something. Exactly. It's a
Speaker 3:7,700
Speaker 2:actually. Oh, no,
Speaker:no. That was my dad's first combine. It's a 76. 6,600.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker:So it's 1976 combine.
Speaker 2:But in 77 they turned into the 7,700 I believe.
Speaker:So it's the last, last
Speaker 2:is the last
Speaker:iteration
Speaker 2:of the 76 hundreds?
Speaker:Um, no, it's a 1976. 6,600 series. Yes. John Deere.
Speaker 2:But I mean, like the next year almost. I think they would've turned into the 7,700. That's right. Or a few years later.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker 2:Well, um,'cause I'm a north, that was my dad's first comment was a 7,700.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I'm a Nebraska kid. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:So Rob, Rob was like, yeah, you know, I'll, I'll open up the ground for you. You can use our, our planter.'cause obviously we're not gonna get so deeply involved in farming on, on year one.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:And, uh, I was like, all right, cool. And he's like, but you gotta take care of harvest. Like, I'm hands off. We, we chop everything we have, we silage it. All
Speaker 5:right.
Speaker:I was like, all right, no problem. So it, you know, we waited till the last minute. We finally find this guy. I make a deal, I go down there new, it starts, it's this old boy farmer. Like, he's like, you know, retired farmer and Totally it runs. He's, you know, we fired up and, um. I was like, all right here, 2,500 bucks done. And brought the thing up here. And I show up and rob's like, what the hell is this dude? Like, how many acres do you think you have? It could take you like 45 minutes to harvest your, your corn field. And you know, it's like, oh, well someday I'll need it, you know? But, um, so we're out there. Well,
Speaker 2:plus it was only 2,500 bucks.
Speaker:Exactly. And he was like, wow, you got this for, and it runs, it's crazy. It runs great, honestly. Um, we, we have do a little bit little mechanics on it, but
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:Uh, we're coming up on our third year harvesting and, and we do about 50,000 pounds. Okay. Or so grain, uh, of corn
Speaker 2:on that. Six acres
Speaker:I six acres. Wow. So
Speaker 2:that's probably enough, right? That's
Speaker:that's a lot. It's, it's a lot. That's like a hundred and over a hundred barrels, like 105 barrels worth of bourbon. So that's plenty. I dig it. You know. Um, anyways, we're out there the first year and, and we've,
Speaker 3:so I guess we should talk about where this is right at the mouth of the Puter Canyon.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Right. So right up against the, the Colorado front range. And we need, we're not gonna, actually until this week we didn't have the ability to dry the corn in the silo. That's a new piece of year that we just got. Sweet. But, uh, um, that's important anyway, at the time, which
Speaker:is also re refurbished and we had to get it working. It was free. This was free though.
Speaker 3:But, uh, we have
Speaker:dryers
Speaker 2:now. Do you guys have investors, but they're not like Amazon level investors? No, no, no.
Speaker 4:Friends and family.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we're, uh, you know, so we didn't have the ability to dry the grain in the silo, so we needed it to, to dry in the field, which meant that we had. Probably the last field standing in that area. And if you know that area, there's some black bear there. And uh, so we became like, the Turkey
Speaker 4:deer
Speaker 3:became like, for, for all you're like a plot, all the wildlife, you're like a
Speaker 2:food plot
Speaker 3:basically was, this was like the pre hibernation, any bear score
Speaker 2:score.
Speaker 3:So we get out there to start, uh, we get out there to start harvesting or I went, I went out there to check, uh, check moisture levels and let the dog out. And you know, we're walking into the field and all of a sudden bear, bear, bear bears, you know, everything. And when we went out to harvest, it was, it was just that, you know, fire up the combine and disturbed them. They had built a whole
Speaker:nest. They were haing in the corn.
Speaker 2:It probably harvested it very quickly too.'cause a lot of it had been taken already.
Speaker:Yeah, right.
Speaker 3:I I bet we lost 10% of our yield at
Speaker:least.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I don't doubt it. So
Speaker:this seems a little bit better though. It seems like the, the bear aren't out there this year as much. Uh, maybe we spooked him off with the combine. It might
Speaker 2:have happened. It might have happened
Speaker:actually last year when we were out, uh, harvesting. We were all, um, we like to have all the families come out and the kids love it. You know, we have a bunch of young kids in, in this distillery crew and, um, they bring our kids out and I let'em ride in the combine with me and stuff. And, and our, our, uh, our Paul, our, our mom takes
Speaker 2:me back to my youth. Really?
Speaker:Paul Fran. And, and, and, uh, Bree are Paul's our Malthouse manager, and him and b Brie were like walking with their two boys and all of a sudden I see'em run back and there's these a mom bear and her two cubs come running out the same, we're out here. It's like everyone's staying this side of the field, you know, like, but yeah, so we like to keep it local and, and honestly, it's, it's. It's being connected with the,
Speaker 2:the real people, with the real region, the local community
Speaker:that and, and your grain like, you know Yeah. The finished product. When you taste this, I can taste, you know, the, the hard work, the effort that we put in the terroir, this region. Yeah. And, you know, it's really a, a skill. Terrible. It's like,
Speaker 3:yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. Oh, wait, and that, that bottle that you're holding, that's the one thing I really love about what producing is. The fact that we're growing, growing, growing grains, then we're malting'em ourselves, then we're, you know, we've got our, our hands on all the levers. Yeah. And, and the end product is something unique. It's, it's, uh, it doesn't taste like Yeah.
Speaker 2:Worthy of valuing for sure. Yeah. And, and the entrepreneur, you know, is that you need to move booze a lot faster than the seed and spirit brand. Fore grain bourbon is gonna do
Speaker:it. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Um, and so I appreciate that a lot. Um. We're gonna skip a couple things right now. I'm going to invite both of you back individually on the local experience,
Speaker 3:okay? Okay.
Speaker 2:Um, because we haven't gone in the time machine. You're a Nebraska farm kid that turned into a music industry lawyer and did a bunch of other crazy shit. You're, I don't even know. Where'd you grow up?
Speaker:Mount jwt. Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:Pennsylvania, yeah.
Speaker:Population
Speaker 2:700. The Kentucky part of Pennsylvania is what? I remember
Speaker:it. Kentucky Deep in it.
Speaker 2:Right. And so I don't know anything about that, but we just don't have time. And so we're gonna close this one out with the Loco Experience Challenge.
Speaker:Well, it's been a hell of a whatever, two
Speaker 2:hours, hours. No, we're not done yet.
Speaker:Oh shit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. This is, we're just going into the final segment. Ire closing it up. No, but we're skipping a bunch of stuff that we normally do. We get to know, ah, where you came from, how you became entrepreneurial, why you wanted to
Speaker:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Become a lawyer, become a distiller or an event guy or
Speaker:culinary industry
Speaker 2:before that. Yeah. Culinary industry. Went to
Speaker:culinary. Went to culinary school.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:Outta high school.
Speaker 2:You probably think you're a better cook than I'm, and you're probably right.
Speaker:Abby would agree.
Speaker 2:Really?
Speaker:Yeah. 100%.
Speaker 2:Whatever.
Speaker:She hasn't cooked since she met me.
Speaker 2:Well, dinner with my wife, but like Let's do a Cookoff. Let's have a Cookoff. We can have a Cookoff. Yeah, let's do
Speaker:it.
Speaker 2:Alright. Well the ladies will, after I beat you in the local experience off. Then, you know, you can get some cred back on the, on the Cookoff. The Cookoff.
Speaker 5:I'm just gonna serve oyster,
Speaker 2:so that's cheating. Like I'll just serve filet mignon with, you know, bacon. Um, but now because we've been drinking and it's gonna be fun, um, we're going to do the, the Loco Experience Challenge. So the Loco experience is the podcast name, obviously. And so the craziest experience you're willing to share. There's three of us. It's a nice little one-on-one, OnOne on Challenge, and a Ava will be our judge of who tells the craziest story. And I will be the last story. Yeah, because it's my podcast. You ain't do what I want. I can do what I want. Bitches. Yeah, bitches. I wish you could there. Um, yeah. Oh damn. You're a good
Speaker:snacker. I know. I got some sass in me.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Um, and uh, and yeah, we'll just close it with that and then like. See you next time.'cause like, I wanna totally spend two hours with Jess learning about like the actual, like the posers and who's not a poser in the music industry over the last 25 years and stuff. He knows all that shit.
Speaker 3:I'm not much of a gossip. You're not gonna get a Yeah,
Speaker 2:he's
Speaker 5:a lawyer.
Speaker 3:Like it's a tight, most of the things I know are privileged. I'm trying. I'll try and come up with something for you though, so.
Speaker 2:Well, we'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll have you and Abby back and Jess is just gonna have to like, sit on the sidelines and be cool.
Speaker:Well, we have a, we have a really fun, uh, project coming up. Oh yeah. In Fort Collins, a new farm that, uh, we just purchased. Uh, we bought the, the old Hope Farms for locals, uh, um, hope Farms. Well, it was, uh, cultivating hope out on North Shields, uh, big, beautiful property just over the river heading north.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. So is that a future, is that potentially your dream location or is
Speaker:that just We, we live there right now. It is our dream. Oh. But we are launching a, um, we have a couple farms. She has a, um. Uh, flower, uh, uh, rough cut flower coat. You
Speaker 2:guys moved down from the canyon?
Speaker:We are no longer Canyon boys. What? Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't even, I,
Speaker:in May, may, we moved in. So we're excited about that project. Okay. So that's something that's really great for us. And, and, um, yeah, we'd love to sit down and chat with you about all the things. We
Speaker 2:have a
Speaker:lot, a lot
Speaker 2:going on. Well, Abby's got a lot going on. She's doing a whole life change thing too that we'll talk about soon. Exactly. Um, and that's not the point. The point is
Speaker:I was trying to divert from the crazy story.
Speaker 2:The point is, I'm trying
to
Speaker:think of one real quick.
Speaker 2:Well, the point is I don't
Speaker:think mine's crazy enough.
Speaker 2:You don't think so? Well, let's
Speaker 3:find out.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, we see it's a challenge and Ava's our judge. But before we do that, I'm gonna pour from the infinity bottle.
Speaker:Ooh, I like that.
Speaker 2:Um, is your, yeah. You wanna I'll finish. Finish your glass. You two, Jess. We're all walking home from here.
Speaker:This. So the infinity glass is, um, what I assume is every single person that's come through here with a bottle of whiskey, uh, puts it into this, the canter. And we've done four of ours. So
Speaker 2:there's a lot of tequila, there's a lot of rye whiskey. There's a lot of bourbon. I think that's all.
Speaker:And a little bit of whi cow.
Speaker 2:And a little bit of whi cow. Yep. Ooh, that's a lot.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like you, some of that.
Speaker:Yeah, please. You don't need all that. All right.
Speaker 2:The splash. All
Speaker:right. No, this has been fun. Thanks for having us on. We're, we're grateful to, to get our voice out and tell the story, and it's been a lot of fun. This is, uh, the third podcast I've been on. I don't know how many, how many you been on, Jess?
Speaker 2:This is the Drunkest. I've been on a podcast in a while. Really Sure. For sure. You're
Speaker:holding it together so
Speaker 2:long. No, I, I've, well, I'm good at it. Um, but yeah, I've been, I've been slurry before and I do need to go meet my friends for dinner, which I'm walking to, just so you know, John Law. Um, so who wants to start the Loco experience? So this is the craziest, exper, craziest experience that you're willing to share. First. First,
Speaker:let's cheer you
Speaker 2:Infinity. First, let's Cheers. Yes. The infin to the Infinity bottle and tasting notes. So. I'll do that too.
Speaker:On the nose it smells complex.
Speaker 3:It smells,
Speaker:it's like a danger hole. What do they call the thing at the bar when they dump like the empty beers in and then,
Speaker 2:but that's disgusting. Like this is a bunch of like mid shelf and high shelf. The bar mat stuff.
Speaker:Yeah,
Speaker 3:yeah.
Speaker:What is that?
Speaker 2:You're comparing this to a Barba shot? I haven't even
Speaker 3:tried it yet.
Speaker:I didn't drink it. I'm just saying it's kind of like that, but like classy version of that.
Speaker 2:It is a classy version of that basically. It's not bad.
Speaker 3:No, it's not bad at all.
Speaker:There's gin in it, right?
Speaker 2:There's a little bit of gin. Yeah. I
Speaker 3:can tell
Speaker 2:there's just one weed ram of gin. One from Mob Mountain Distillery.'cause I like their whiskey a lot, so I put a little gin in there. Yeah,
Speaker:shout out to those guys.
Speaker 2:That's funny. It literally, probably. 6% gin. And you found it.
Speaker:I found it right away. Ah. You
Speaker 3:know, and now that you mention that it's mob, I can taste the mob gin. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. All right, well
Speaker 3:I'll
Speaker:kick us off with the story.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:Alright.
Speaker:All right. So this was 10 years ago, 2014, I believe. We're in Las Vegas.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:And, uh, it's for a fish concert. It's a Halloween run.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker:And, um, we fly in and, uh, Justin and some of our friends have a place right above the MGM, which is where the concert was at.
Speaker 2:Yeah,
Speaker:yeah, yeah. And, um, so we, you know, get settled in, get in some costumes and, you know, pregame a little bit and head up to their room and we're all chilling. And Jess comes outta the ba, he's like in the bathroom for a while. Putting on his makeup or something, you know, he comes out and he is like, in this double costume, you know, I'm like, what? What the fuck's going on here? You
Speaker 2:know? Oh, I like it.
Speaker:So, um, I can already tell this isn't gonna be like a crazy story, but it's, it's just a fun recap of like what we're doing. Anyways, GREs Grease comes out and he's like, Hey, you know, I'm, I'm Lucifer, and I'm, I have these, uh, covenants, uh, these legal documents that'll sell your soul to the devil. Oh,
Speaker 3:shit.
Speaker:Lucifer's lawyer
Speaker 3:was, yeah, I was Lucifer's lawyer. Lucifer's lawyer. Oh, devil's lawyer. I was like, devil's advocate. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I hate to say it,
Speaker 3:but, and people want to make a deal with the devil. I was there to the
Speaker 2:Yes. Well, and like all the, the Hollywood people, go ahead.
Speaker:No, no. All the Hollywood
Speaker 2:people, well, Hollywood, Hollywood people are like, oh, do you wanna. Fuck this famous person here, sign this non-disclosure agreement. That's not where I was going with this, this person. But I mean, that's a crazy thing, but it's like Lucifer's lawyer, almost like those people.
Speaker:So it was a blank document where I could just, I could put in whatever I want, you know? So of course we were, you know, this is what, seven years before we decided to launch the distillery. So I was like, I want to, you know, the biggest, the best, the highest grossing or whatever producing the best juice, uh, distillery in the world. You were
Speaker 2:dreaming already?
Speaker:Yeah, for like 15 years I've been on this project. Um, so anyways, Greece is like, and draws up the document, signs it or I sign it. You
Speaker 2:sold your soul to the devil.
Speaker:Yeah, the Jess, which is a good, I think I, it was a
Speaker 3:Halloween costume. I don't
Speaker:actually
Speaker 2:represen. I know you know the devil,
Speaker 3:so
Speaker:maybe I could be,
Speaker 2:but you were willing to do so.
Speaker:I was totally willing to, to do so.
Speaker 2:I was, this was before Abby came into your life, I assume, because if you would sell your soul to the devil,
Speaker:she would probably still be like, Hey, Joel, what are you, what are you even thinking?
Speaker 2:So do you think your soul is sold?
Speaker:No. I feel pretty. I'm, I'm not baptized anyways, so currently I, my, my, I'm going to hell anyway. It's under
Speaker 2:question. You're
a
Speaker:free, well do you, what do I, what do I have to worry about?
Speaker 2:Do you think baptism is what saves you?
Speaker:Obviously not. At least not in my, and my parents didn't either, but I won't, I don't wanna get into religion, but
Speaker 2:we don't need to right
Speaker:now. I wasn't worried about my soul because we can a
Speaker 2:one-on one,
Speaker:you know? Yeah. As, as it as it may be. Um, my soul Abby's on project already going to hell.
Speaker 2:Abby's on my project list for converting to a Christian person anyway, just so you know.
Speaker:I think she's already Christian.
Speaker 2:You think
Speaker:so? Or no? No, I don't
Speaker 2:wanna get into
Speaker:that anyway.
Speaker 2:But she was gonna send her kids to a Christian school to be like. Fuck you guys. I'm not vaccinating my kids. Yeah, I'll send her to a Christian school instead.
Speaker:We're getting off topic.
Speaker 2:I digress. But, and not to tell Abby's stories, but she wouldn't mind. She went way over that. Let's
Speaker 3:leave the Christian school and getting
Speaker:back to Las Vegas. So we got it framed to distillery, back to Las
Speaker 2:Vegas
Speaker:next. This is what happens when you to business. Uh, doc documents is our, our covet with the Lucifer's lawyer. And, um, I guess that's my story, which isn't a great story. I don't, I guess that's a better one. I don't wanna get too, I don't, I'm like kinda scared to tell some, like, real stories because I, you know what I mean? Like, I got some real somebody. I got some real crazy shit. Shit. Yeah. Well, not Jar,
Speaker 2:like do you kill any animals or anything or?
Speaker:I've been a hunter.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker:Hunter.
Speaker 2:But not like your family pets or your neighbor's family, pets or anything?
Speaker:Haven't I haven't, like
Speaker 2:nothing weird
Speaker:like that demonically, like, I know I haven't like killed, you know, squirrels for the sake of killing them and
Speaker 2:pulling their tail off. Maybe ask you a quick question like. Are you willing to share the thing that you're most ashamed of having done?
Speaker:Um, I'd have to think about it. Come back to me on, uh, after Grease and you go,
Speaker 2:okay.
Speaker:And I'll share it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Maybe you're
Speaker:pretty
Speaker 2:open.
Speaker:I'm an open book, but I just don't want, like, we're, we're not a podcast. So like
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker:There's something you don't wanna, some things that are between Grease and I. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Understood. Are you guys lovers
Speaker:before you As lawyer? As my lawyer, he
Speaker 2:would saying, Joel, you're not Joel. Don't
Speaker:talk
Speaker 2:about that. Joel. Some weird like that.
Speaker 3:I've never been a couple.
Speaker:He's got a beautiful, uh, soon to be wife, uh, Steph. Shout step. Really? What's up?
Speaker 2:Are you, have you been a bachelor most of your life?
Speaker 3:I've been a, I've been a, a pretty much lifelong bachelor. I, so in, in
Speaker 2:Bachelor?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Or
Speaker 3:yeah. I dunno. I dunno. Bachelor, I guess. Yeah. I dunno. Yeah. Uh. There was, uh, there was one that got away in college. Okay. And I kind of kept
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:Kept waiting to find someone that made me, and you just never really
Speaker 2:found the right,
Speaker 3:made me person for one time feel the way that she made me feel. And,
Speaker 2:which is, what
Speaker 3:can I ask? As it
Speaker 2:turns out, like for the women out there listening, what, what is that made you feel? Things that for a, I mean, you're over 40. She,
Speaker 3:yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, like, was it
Speaker 3:as of yesterday? Well, over 40, so,
Speaker 2:okay. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm 51. I'm the same age, basically. So, what was it, can I ask just outta curiosity?
Speaker 3:Uh, uh, I, for, for, uh, one, she's, she's amazing. She's, uh, she is amazing.
Speaker:I can attest
Speaker 3:to that. Yeah. She is. Uh, you wanna give
Speaker 2:her her name?
Speaker 3:Her name's Stephanie.
Speaker 2:Hey Stephanie.
Speaker 3:And she's, she's, uh, Jess thinks you're cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, enough to marry,
Speaker 3:she's. Clever. She's funny. She's beautiful. Uh,
Speaker:way out of his league.
Speaker 3:She's Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker:I haven't outta my league. He has way outta his league. More
Speaker 3:outta his league. We're both
Speaker:humble in our
Speaker 3:relationship to some extent. Part of it is too, we, we just, um, you know, you
Speaker 2:just jive.
Speaker 3:We just jive. Yeah.
Speaker 2:There
Speaker 3:isn't like a, we, uh, isn't like a point
Speaker 2:scale.
Speaker 3:It's like a who
Speaker 2:do I fit with?
Speaker 3:Yeah. She lights me up. I feel, you know,
Speaker 2:10
Speaker 3:years younger. Yeah. I feel well. I feel. I feel smarter. I feel, you know, when I'm around her. Yeah. Feel I I just feel like this is
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:This is you. It elevates, I mean,
Speaker 2:that's the way you should feel
Speaker 3:It honestly, like elevates everything when I'm around her. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 2:and you didn't find it before now, and so,
Speaker 3:well, and, and it, it, it took, you
Speaker:found it in college and then they came back
Speaker 3:college, but Oh, same person. I, I wasn't ready for it. And, uh, no. In the same person in the interim. Mm-hmm. She became, she, she, uh, was widowed and we got another, I don't know, we reconnected. She lives in Arizona and so she
Speaker 2:was like your crush from college that Well,
Speaker 3:we,
Speaker 2:she's the
Speaker:reason every other relationship
Speaker 2:she didn't quite seal the deal on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:And then she got married, maybe even had kids and stuff. Yeah. Three. But she always remembered Jess three. Three boys. Yep.
Speaker:Awesome.
Speaker 2:Awesome kids. Crazy.
Speaker 3:Sam and Alex.
Speaker 2:Good for you. Dude. Like my, my, actually my dad divorced my, from my mom when I was like, shit like 35. Mm-hmm. Like way after I was a grown up. Adult and stuff. And my mom had a lot of mental challenges and it was, you know, she's awesome and she's way better now and stuff, but, and then dad remarried and his new wife had three kids that are now my step siblings.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And they're so cool. Yeah. And my dad got a chance to help raise three kids.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And like
Speaker:in this day and age, it's kind of like, I mean, Abby and I, I don't like, she has two boys and I'm helping her raise and it's like, um, you know, it's a different time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker:Know and embrace change and, and really get into,
Speaker 2:you could still have the ideal being a person be to be like a 50 year married person with a bunch of kids and way more grandkids. But that doesn't mean that everybody has to travel that route,
Speaker:you
Speaker 2:know?
Speaker:Yeah. I don't have any kids and I'm, I'm grateful that I've met Abby. Yeah. I don't have any kids
Speaker 2:either,
Speaker:and I'm helping, helping her as I know.
Speaker 2:Pretty sure. I'm sure they would call me by now.
Speaker:All right. Your story
Speaker 2:story.
Speaker 3:All right. So we were, uh, the early, earlier in the pod here, we were talking about how Joel and I worked on, uh, on, on events together.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And, uh, so I'm gonna tell a,
Speaker 2:we need to get into some of
Speaker 3:those. I'm gonna tell, tell a quick. Uh, this is, this is from, uh, an event. I'm
Speaker 2:choosing The Wiz Cal for my final.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:This is an event called Sonic Bloom, and uh, and we were, uh, this was one of the earlier, are
Speaker:you supposed to name the event
Speaker 3:years? I think I can. It's fine. So we, we were in the, you know, the fest, the festival's ongoing. It's maybe like the second day. And this, um, this gal comes into the, to the office. She had, uh, made a report to our security that her tent had, had been, had been robbed, and they took. Electronics and different stuff. But, but, uh, mostly what she was most distraught over, and this was legitimate is, is, uh, her, she was, she was there because her brother had been to multiple Sonic Blooms in the past, was a big fan. And he had, uh, I can't remember what the affliction was, but he had died. And one of his wishes, one of his dying wishes to his sister was, can you spread my ashes at, at Sonic, A Sonic Bloom show at Sonic, at Sonic Bloom at the festival,
Speaker 2:legally?
Speaker 3:No. Loved it. So, I mean, well,
Speaker 2:yeah,
Speaker 3:so she, uh, but anyway, somebody had broken into her tent. Somebody went in there and they took, took things. And among the things that they, among the things that they stole were, were her brothers, Ashleys. And so I was
Speaker 4:a part of this whole story too, like,
Speaker 3:and so watching obviously were, I was
Speaker 4:the obstacle.
Speaker 3:And then,
Speaker 4:right. So we were,
Speaker 3:and then we. We got a few other reports and it became clear that we had a, we had a, a, a bad apple that was, uh, that was nefarious for people to go
Speaker 2:Among your
Speaker 3:employees or somehow No, no festival brainer. It was just somebody else that, you know, was, was there camping with everyone else, but it was not there to, to,
Speaker 2:by the way, a food truck debt arise in 20 14, 20 15.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um,
Speaker 3:we were both working that, so
Speaker 2:yes, that was crazy. We've done every arise, we had to be available from like 7:00 AM until two 3:00 AM. Or something like that. Sounds about right. Like we were supposed to, we were slave
Speaker 5:drivers back then.
Speaker 2:Oh. For business for those hours. And it was, or maybe it was 9:00 AM until 3:00 AM or something. It was silly. Um, but anyway, keep going.
Speaker 3:So we, uh, and, and we got a few other reports, security, you know, so there was somebody that was out there like going, they were, they were, they came
Speaker 2:there to steal,
Speaker 3:not to seize music. Yep. Yep. Not to,
Speaker:was it the same guy that was like doing angel dust too?
Speaker 3:I don't know about that part of it,
Speaker:no.
Speaker 3:Okay. So, uh, we
Speaker:have another, I don't think so. We have an angel dust story, but, but same weekend.
Speaker 3:Uh, maybe a
Speaker:different guy.
Speaker 3:So, you know, we've got security on the lookout and. And they got, had gotten a report, somebody came to'em and said, Hey, we just caught this person, uh, in our tent. And we were like, Hey, what are you? Oh, you know, we, we, we were coming back to our campsite. We saw a person in our tent, we're like, what are you doing? And then we followed him and he went to this car and got in this car and started, you know, moving his car in the parking lot. And they gave us a de descrip description of the car. So we were, uh, we were able to, to kind of, security's really good at this stuff. They, uh, you know, figured out they found him. And then there was a little bit of a chase.
Speaker:Yeah. You, you give, you give the security team a, a, a mission and they're like, hounds ready to pounds. Like they're on it. Like that's what they wait for. Now I'm just like, checking wristbands, but they're like, whoa.
Speaker 3:Something real. Oh, cool.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So, um, anyway, they, they end up finding the guy, uh, there's a bit of a chase, but we, we get him, get him, get him cornered. You're
Speaker 2:like there with them.
Speaker 3:Get him out the, yeah, yeah. No. Okay.
Speaker 2:So you're there on site?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Just this is on site
Speaker 2:is the enabler part. Goes all the way to like the ground.
Speaker:This is the whole thing. This is like high level festival. Like we're all involved. Yeah. All the partners are
Speaker 2:there
Speaker:and
Speaker 2:the
Speaker:Yeah. It's
Speaker 2:like, yeah, we're executing this thing.
Speaker:Yeah. It's, this is like, oh shit, there's something serious going on.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 3:And, and you know, I, I'm also the liaison with the local sheriff's office. Sure. And so they're with us too. They're part of this operation. And so we get'em there and they, they, uh, you know, they, they, the, the sheriffs detain him and then we're doing a, an inventory of, uh, of, of what he's got in his car, what he had been,
Speaker 2:which is quite a bit,
Speaker 3:quite a bit of different stuff, you know, so we can get it. Yeah, get it back to get it back to lots of random shit tools. Lot get back to its rightful owners in, in one of the, uh,
Speaker 2:how do you fight these people? Right? Like who
Speaker 3:does Well a lot of'em have come to us and said, Hey, somebody stole, stole
Speaker:this festival. Goes report more often than us figuring it out.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We make, we make, make a report community, we take it seriously. So.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And you probably did announcements on the stage even like
Speaker:No, we definitely did not announce
Speaker 2:this. Hey, somebody will steal your shit if you come to this festival next year. Just kidding.
Speaker:No,
Speaker 3:but in this one thing we couldn't find were this, this girl's dead brother's ashes.
Speaker 2:Oh shit. Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we, we finally though, we came across the fanny pack that had a bunch of, of small bills, you know, like tens and fives and twenties, and then a bunch of little tiny dime bags. Little, you know, little little bags, little baggie.
Speaker:Like powder baggies,
Speaker 3:like, and as it burned out, what this guy had done is he thought those ashes were drugs or didn't care or whatever, something. And he, but it was
Speaker 2:worth putting
in
Speaker 3:a little baggies if it was worth putting in that he broke, he broke up the brother's ashes.
Speaker 2:Oh, shit.
Speaker 3:And was selling them off. People were snoring them as, as what? As whatever. I don't know what he was saying. There were like mushrooms, like cocaine, some type of powder. I would say Molly or something that's powdered, I guess. I guess, you know. Yeah. Guess everything. It's gotta be pretty
Speaker 2:gray though, right? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like,
Speaker 4:it was not
Speaker 3:okay. So, I mean, it was a bummer, but
Speaker 2:I mean, when I die, I want my ashes to be sniffed mixed with mushrooms and cocaine.
Speaker 3:So it was a bummer that, that, that the ashes were stolen. But no comment to the extent that, uh, this guy's dying. Wish that was to have his ashes, ashes spread at son bloom. Wish totally were Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:It happened. Yeah. It's actually funny, this story. This story. We, we were at, uh, what was it? Uh, slice, um, um, uh, sliced
Speaker 3:pizza there. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, their underground
Speaker:space. Their undergrad. Yeah. What is the, or whatever. I don't
Speaker 2:know. We, we
Speaker:can
Speaker 2:figure it out.
Speaker:Anyways. Uh, the slice, um, slice, uh, the
Speaker 2:cool spot.
Speaker:Next slice Easy, or something like that. Makes it speak easy.
Speaker 2:So you shared
Speaker:this story. Speak cheesy. Speak cheesy what? Cheesy. That's a pretty good story. Shout out to the slicer. Jess got up on stage and there was a comedy, like an open comedy mic, and he told this story and everyone's like, what the fuck is this guy getting to? And then finally it landed the punch. It landed.
Speaker 3:Yeah. They're like, okay, that
Speaker:you did a good job. That's a
Speaker 2:pretty good story. That's
Speaker:a pretty good story. So it goes from an extreme story into a comedy story. Well, was she, it depends on how you landed. It was
Speaker 2:like satisfied with that answer.
Speaker 3:No. Uh, I'm
Speaker 2:sure not really.
Speaker 3:I don't think it's what she had envisioned.
Speaker 2:Did you get a few of those baggie of ashes for her?
Speaker 3:We did, yes. Yeah. So now we returned everything we could together, you know,
Speaker 2:I mean, she could just go,
Speaker 3:it was a weird conversation. But take
Speaker 2:those days
Speaker:out. Don't buy drugs from strangers at festivals.
Speaker 3:Kids take your own drugs.
Speaker:Don't do drugs. But if you're going do drugs, take your own drugs.
Speaker 3:Well, if you're gonna drugs, yeah.
Speaker 2:Test them for fentanyl. Yes. Like get, there's test kits. Like that's the easiest thing in the world is get some fentanyl test kits so you don't die. Well, those strips. And because that takes the recreation out of recreational drugs real fast. Fast.
Speaker:We should come up with like a bone test kit to make sure it's not a ashes.
Speaker 3:Uh,
Speaker 2:I don't know. Hopefully
Speaker 3:this is kind of a,
Speaker 2:I don't know, talk about that necessarily, but it
Speaker 3:was super common, but,
Speaker:all right. Your story. What's up?
Speaker 2:So I'm gonna go music, I guess.'cause it feels like we're in that space. Ava, I haven't told the three 11 concert story. Have I?
Speaker 3:Ooh, three 11. Good Nebraska band?
Speaker 2:What's that? I don't think so. Okay. So Jill and I went to a three 11 concert with, uh, with Lane Everett and his,
Speaker:how do I know that
Speaker 2:name? Wife at the time? He's one of the Everett family. Like Everett Family of real estate. He was my realtor. Um, was it his wife? Maybe it was a buddy. Was it him? I don't even know. I drink whiskey all night. Anyway, we went to the three 11 concert. I think it was late. It doesn't matter. So at this show it's at at Red Rocks.
Speaker 4:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:And at this show, um, so I'm noticing this like physical interaction developing above us, but I don't really notice it. And then it happens and stuff. Long story short, this like crazy person attacks another person that was probably like talking to his girlfriend or something stupid. We're on the side, on the edges, you know, when what people that show up late get to be at Red Rocks and ultimately this, the, the aggressor. We'll just say the aggressor and the victim in this circumstance. And me, I'm the hero. So the aggressor names, we'll call you Superman. Story names. Yeah, probably, um, the aggressor. Pushes the victim off of this eight foot wall onto Oh, one of like
Speaker:the sidewalls with the
trees?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah,
Speaker:yeah, yeah. Okay. Exactly. Okay. Not just on the stairs?
Speaker 2:No, not just on the stairs. All, he pushes them right off that wall and he falls on these two girls.'cause Jill and I are in the front of it, like we got the good spot.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker 2:But these two girls are behind us, or three girls. And this dude like literally falls on top of these girls and this young black gal is like hurt kind of and stuff. And so I like help her up and stuff and whatever, and I, and I go down to the security right away and I tell him like, Hey, there's this dude up there that's like totally not safe.
Speaker 5:Sure
Speaker 2:you need to send somebody up. And they, they're like, okay, whatever. We don't care. We're red rocks, you know? So I go back upstairs. And on my way back up, I see the aggressor dude, that he's on this level and, and the, the, the victim, maybe he was a, maybe he was the asshole, I don't know. But the victim is down here and the aggressor runs down the stairs with a cocked fist and punches the victim and knocks him down a whole flight of stairs.
Speaker 4:Oh, shit.
Speaker 2:Um, and in doing so, the aggressor like falls down on the, the platform area on the side stairs where, where I'm going. Mm-hmm. Like me and Jill are right there, my wife and these other two people. And so I'm, I'm like, this guy is a fucking terrible person. I need to stop him. And so I like, like he, oh, and in the, in the punching and whatever act of knocking this guy on the stairs, he falls down onto all fours. So I jump on top of him and, and ride him like he's a Buck Bull. Mm-hmm. And he's trying to stand up, but he's big. He's like,
Speaker:and you're big too. So I'm,
Speaker 2:well, I'm six.
Speaker:No one's gonna like really stand with
Speaker 2:you on him. I'm 6 2, 180.
Speaker:I'm small. I could not stand up with you on me.
Speaker 2:No. But he's 6 3 2 40. He's way bigger.
Speaker:Big mow
Speaker 2:and way ba way fatter and way bigger. And just way bigger.
Speaker:And probably like angry drunk at that point.
Speaker 2:Yes. I don't know what was wrong with him, but he did not like me being on top of him.
Speaker:I
Speaker 2:wouldn't either. And like when he would like lift his arm up, I would like push his arm out from a, and I'm drunk too, you know, but I'm like stopping him from getting up. Sure. And like when I knocked his arm out, he would like, his face would plunge into the ground and stuff. And he's trying to get up. He's so angry. And like eventually I like jump off and the security's there and they like take him out and then send him away. Like, you're not welcome at this concert. And I was like, you need to arrest him. He like tried to kill somebody and he might've killed me, except for I'm just lucky enough, it's stupid enough to keep him from actually getting up and beating me up before the cops got there.
Speaker:Well, you also jumped into the fight though,
Speaker 2:right? That's what my wife argues. She's like, why would you get into that? Like, what
Speaker:was the purpose? Would, I would get into that too. I'm u I'm usually the kind of guy to jump in on something like that, you know,
Speaker 3:as you describe it vividly and I'm picturing it, I wanna put a soundtrack to it. Do you happen to remember what three 11 song was being played while this was happening?
Speaker 2:I think you should pick one,
Speaker 3:like Freak Out.
Speaker 4:Do you remember? What are name 3, 3 11 songs other than the, the popular one?
Speaker 2:I don't even know.
Speaker 3:Oh,
Speaker 2:I like their music. Like they're actually pretty cool.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I don't,
Speaker 3:well, music is one of their, that's the name of one of their earliest
Speaker 2:album. Lay that in here. They're still in
Speaker 3:Nebraska.
Speaker 2:If we had like a really like. If Ava didn't have like a 18 load credit and plus a job at iHeart, well you have to go to dinner too. Then she could find like that thing and lay that music in on the end of this podcast and it would be like a perfect close,
Speaker 3:I think. But what was the song though? I think it would be Freak Out. That's what it,
Speaker 2:I have no idea.
Speaker:Freak Out.
Speaker 2:I don't know that song
Speaker 3:Freak.
Speaker 2:I was focused, dude, it's
Speaker 3:off the record
Speaker 2:music. I was like focused on not getting beat up by this fucking crazy asshole like, but I couldn't. That's, I couldn't let him do that.
Speaker:Okay. So now how
Speaker 2:do we
Speaker:decide on who's the craziest story?
Speaker 2:Ava votes. Ava votes. It's your vote. Ava.
Speaker:All right. We got Ava voting. She's, I like, I like the sell you soul a say too,
Speaker 2:Joel, you won.
Speaker 3:Alright. This worked.
Speaker:I didn't think I would win.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, that's pretty crazy. I dunno. I couldn't, I couldn't, it, I couldn't sign that document.
Speaker 3:A lot of people turned me down if,'cause I, I've
Speaker:seen what, I was
Speaker 3:the only
Speaker:person to sign it.
Speaker 3:Right. I had good, I had good moulage, good horns. Good Make, it
Speaker:was like a full
Speaker 3:lawyer. I was. I I, okay, so I have a question for you. I I did, we were writing it in blood.
Speaker:Yeah. I feel like one of the, and he had like a, he had like a feather.
Speaker 2:I feel
Speaker 3:like pen,
Speaker:like a real feather.
Speaker 3:Will
Speaker 2:Jess, I feel like one of the times I've seen you out and about in the last. 12 years since we first got acquainted. Yeah. Was as maybe that character.
Speaker 3:That's possible. I've got a comes out every once in a while,
Speaker 2:so
Speaker 3:I've got business cards. I've got,
Speaker:it was a whole thing. And like Yeah, there's a, this is like before, like, literally, like I was saying, he came outta the bathroom and was like, oh, hey Joel, you want to? And I was like, absolutely. Let's do this. Hey Joel. All right. And then the rest of the night, like it was the best Phish show too. Holy shit. Do you think we should like Phish show,
Speaker 2:try
Speaker:to sign a deal to get
Speaker 2:local, think tank to be more popular? Or
Speaker:covo
Speaker 2:the podcast?
Speaker:No.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah,
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I don't think you're, I don't think you're an anti antichrist or anything like that.
Speaker:No. He is not an antichrist. He's just the, it's just a devil's,
Speaker 2:it's a lawyer for the devil.
Speaker:It's Halloween. Anything goes devil.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude. I mean it, you might be right, you might be coming out right before Halloween actually.
Speaker:Yeah. I mean, it's fun. If, if, woo. Are
Speaker 2:we done? Might as well be. Are we done? I
Speaker:think we're done.
Speaker 2:Alright. Thanks
Speaker:everybody. Until phase two.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker:Uh, episode two. Thank you so much for having us on
Speaker 2:solos though.
Speaker:We appreciate you guys for listening and I
Speaker 2:promise
Speaker:we'll get drunk
Speaker 2:anyway
Speaker:for,
Speaker 2:it'll be fine.
Speaker:Um,
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. At least Kurt's not sweating anymore. Be safe.
Speaker 2:I'm not sweating anymore. That's nice. Guys's speed.
Speaker:Thank you. Thanks everybody. Yeah. Cheers.
