1861 Distillery

Drew | Whiskey Lore (00:01.262)
Very good. So looking on a map of South Georgia and trying to figure out where you're at and to get it into people's minds where you're at. I would first think South Georgia. Okay. I 75, which after driving down I 75, you know, Tifton, Boldosta, you seem to have some director outs there, but you're actually just about as close to Tallahassee.

Brian Higgins (00:31.311)
Yeah, that's correct. We're basically 45 minutes from Valdosta. You just get off on the exit 16, take exit 84 over here. Or if you cut through town, it's about 45 minutes to Tallahassee.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (00:44.82)
Okay, so where do you find people are finding you from?

Brian Higgins (00:48.975)
Well, we have great support from our local community, but out in front of us is what they call Smith Avenue, where it's basically 84 Highway. So a lot of people that are coming kind of from the east of us or north of us, come down Smith Avenue, they end up going down Smith Avenue if they're heading down to the Kenai, down to I guess like Destin, Fort Walton Beach, that part of Florida down there.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:09.582)
Mm-hmm.

Okay, yeah, that would be a good cut through. Actually, if you got off at Tifton and you came straight down through there and then headed to Tallahassee and then you could just take 10 the rest of the way until you got to Destin.

Brian Higgins (01:25.007)
Yeah, it gives them a nice little cut through, but surprisingly a lot of people find us from our website. You know, they search distilleries in Georgia. You know, they find that we're the southernmost distillery in the state. So it just, works out well for us that way. Then believe it or not, you know, people still find us going through like ADI and American Craft Spirits Association. They find us through there and they'll actually come off of I-75 drive all the way over here to come visit the distillery and then head back to.

75 to stay on their back on their trip.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:57.155)
Very nice. So you're not originally from South Georgia though, are you?

Brian Higgins (02:00.278)
No, I'm originally from around the Kansas City area,

Drew | Whiskey Lore (02:03.55)
Okay, so how did you find South Georgia?

Brian Higgins (02:06.604)
Well, I got lucky enough to get stationed down here. was in the Air Force for over 20 years and got stationed down here twice over here at Moody Air Force Base in Valdosta. The first time was in 1993. I was in the state for a whole two days when I met my wife. And then we got lucky enough to get stationed back here again in 2007 to 2010.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (02:28.778)
OK, very nice.

Brian Higgins (02:30.058)
And we always kind of knew that when it was going to be time to retire from the Air Force, that we'd be moving back down in this area. And just kind of Thomasville had always grown on me.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (02:40.428)
Yeah. Well, how long did it take for you to get used to the heat? And you work in a distillery that creates more heat.

Brian Higgins (02:44.427)
I'm still not used to the heat.

Brian Higgins (02:50.178)
Well, that's why I have an air conditioner, that four ton air conditioning unit just on my small distilling room.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (02:55.214)
So you haven't

Brian Higgins (02:57.27)
And in the summer months, it still doesn't keep up.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (03:03.261)
We have an interesting name for your distillery. When I first saw it, the first thing that came across my mind was the Civil War, because the Civil War started in 1861. But that, is that the relationship to your name or was it something else?

Brian Higgins (03:16.928)
No, really the beginning of our name, or the name 1861, really doesn't have anything to do with the Civil War whatsoever. It just coincides with April 16th of 1861, and that's the year that what's significant for us, for the city of Thomasville, marks the first Gulf and Atlantic train that pulled into Thomasville. The train originated in the Northeastern United States. It came down the eastern seaboard. It stopped in Savannah.

That was kind of their major hub. And then it continued on to Thomasville, which Thomasville was the last stop on the train for many years. The cool thing about the train is it was instrumental in bringing northerners down. like to come down here and they actually got prescribed a fresh pine air and the temperate winter weather that we have down here. Because of that train, you know, it's literally, man, it led to the remarkable growth of Thomasville.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (03:54.786)
Hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (04:04.001)
Yeah.

Brian Higgins (04:15.35)
and the diverse community that we cherish today was all originated from that train back in 1861.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (04:22.698)
Nice. Well, I see that you do a, Georgia history podcast spirit of Georgia is that, was that kind of inspired by you learning about all of this history that people probably have no clue about.

Brian Higgins (04:36.152)
Well, that podcast that you mentioned, that's actually my wife's podcast. And she loves the historical aspects of distilling and the heritage of it. And, know, the small cities around us and the people that, you know, still live and thrive there today. And that's kind of the podcast that she started.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (04:39.967)
Okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (04:54.542)
Okay, well she had one of the things in the little write-up about it that says, uh, quirky customs like burying bourbon bottles before weddings. What, what is that all about?

Brian Higgins (05:04.758)
Well, I'm still learning about some of that myself, but what it's supposed to do is you're supposed to get one of your favorite bottles of bourbon. You go bury it in the ground where the wedding is going to take place and it's supposed to ward off the rain.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (05:19.246)
okay. And then do you dig it up after the wedding is over and consume it? Okay. So have you thought about creating a brand of bourbon specifically for this purpose?

Brian Higgins (05:24.366)
That's right. Yeah, that's part of it.

Brian Higgins (05:33.922)
We have not, but we've actually had a few customers come in and try the tradition out. So far, I believe they've not had rain.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (05:41.262)
I love it. I love all these little sort of old wives tales and ways people try to ward off evil spirits and such. So that's great.

Brian Higgins (05:54.605)
it's all the way down to how do you eat your grits and do you put your sugar in the tea when you make it or do you put it in afterwards?

Drew | Whiskey Lore (06:02.35)
Nice. Something, me growing up in the North, we didn't have to worry about whether we were putting the sugar in the tea or not. So, well, what got you into distilling?

Brian Higgins (06:14.498)
Man, I really, I tell people be very careful what you pursue as a hobby because before you know it, it's turned into a multifaceted full-time business. you know, I, while I was in the Air Force, you know, I never distilled, but after I retired, I had a lot of extra time on my hands, but I'd always kind of made some beer around the house. I'd made some batches of wine and then lo and behold, one day I said, I wonder if I can make a whiskey or bourbon.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (06:19.661)
Ha ha ha.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (06:41.91)
Mm.

Brian Higgins (06:42.21)
Growing up in Missouri, you can still legally own a still and you can make so many gallons as head of household. my uncle was known to make a little bit on the side from time to time. So I kind of developed some recipes and ran them on his little still. And we'd fill up five gallon barrels and I'd go home every April and then November and we'd open the barrels, see how they were progressing. The very first batch I made, I found out exactly what not to do.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (07:09.742)
Not so good,

Brian Higgins (07:11.298)
And it was absolutely terrible. And then I figured out what I did wrong, remade it as the same recipe. It came out absolutely delicious and that's still our shine shed recipe today.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (07:23.544)
wow. Okay. So what is that? Is that a sugar shine?

Brian Higgins (07:24.642)
That, well, no, it's a, the shine shed is our bourbon. It's one of our two bourbons. It's actually comprised of six different grains and it's gone on to win numerous awards for us.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (07:32.77)
okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (07:40.472)
Wow, okay, so what are the six grains that we're talking about?

Brian Higgins (07:44.121)
Well, we've got, you almost every, you know that over 98 % of the bourbons in the United States are made out of corn, malted barley, and either rye or wheat. So we actually use corn, malted barley. We use white wheat, red wheat. We use a specialty grain, and we actually put a little sorghum in it.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (07:52.984)
Mm-hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (08:05.044)
Okay, wow. Okay, and so it still qualifies as a whiskey and it can qualify as a bourbon?

Brian Higgins (08:12.014)
Yes, because we're over 51 % corn.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (08:15.764)
Okay, I love seeing the stretching of the rules as far as you go. So what got you interested in adding sorghum to it?

Brian Higgins (08:23.406)
Well, I made a just a small run of sorghum whiskey one time and aged it in a barrel. And I mean, the flavor profile of it just blew me away. You know, you've got a, know, rye whiskey is a big popular, you know, brand of whiskey out there or a classification of whiskey, but you'd be surprised. I'm surprised a lot more people don't make a grain sorghum or Milo whiskey. comes out absolutely amazing.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (08:50.69)
Huh. The thing I would think when you say sorghum is that I know a lot of people have tried to use sorghum to make a rum type spirit. So the first thing that I would think is that it's going to add sweetness to it. Is that what you're finding or is there kind of a...

Brian Higgins (09:05.826)
Well, if you're making the rum, you're using the stalks off of it and you're pressing those and getting the juice out of it. We're actually using the grain head off of it. And it does tend to impart a little bit of a sweetness to it.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (09:14.559)
okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (09:19.212)
Yeah, are there any kind of flavor notes that you think you're pulling from that? I mean, with six grains, that's giving you a lot of different places to pull flavor in from.

Brian Higgins (09:30.733)
Yeah, we find that we get a very complex and very robust flavor off the, because our other bourbon is also six grains. And like I said, we find we get just a really deep, rich flavor off of it. It's not just, here's a little corn on your tongue. Here's a little rye or wheat in the middle of your tongue. And then it's kind of, here's your finish. literally will, one, it just completely coats your entire tongue. Every sip, you're just picking out more flavors and more flavors and more flavors.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (09:50.7)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (10:01.1)
Wow. Now, how does this all work with the weather down there? I mean, do you find that you're having to age your barrels differently to try to keep it from overcooking?

Brian Higgins (10:13.482)
No, we actually have a, it's in the back, you know, on other side of our distilling room, we have a warehouse and we built barrel racks in there, which one thing kind of sets us apart a little bit is we age everything and they call them 10 gallon barrels, but they vary a little bit between 10 to 12 gallons. And on the barrel racks, it works really well. We're, you know, of course we get really hot during the day down here and with the humidity and the pressure, it really pushes those spirits deep into the wood.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (10:30.552)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Higgins (10:42.082)
and then it cools down enough at night that it really pulls it back out. But one thing behind us is, and we'll probably hear it during this podcast, the train comes by every hour or so, sometimes two or three times an hour, but we're still close enough that if you stand outside very still, you can actually feel a slight vibration from that train when it goes by. So that's gotta be, you know, parlaying into the barrels and the little vibrations in the barrels themselves.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (11:01.778)
no.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (11:08.504)
train train rocking. You don't see, I, they talked about putting whiskey on boats and running it down the Mississippi to add color to the whiskey. you know, you have Metallica making whiskey by having loud speakers by it. you've got train influenced whiskey.

Brian Higgins (11:29.494)
Yeah, and it's fun because the first trains that pulled into Thomasville were all steam powered. We're actually using steam off our boiler to power our hybrid steel. So we're still using, instead of using coal, we're using natural gas, but we're still using the same technology they used back in 1861.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (11:47.531)
Wow. All right. So that still is very interesting as I understand you have pieced that together yourself. How, how did you, how did you put that together?

Brian Higgins (11:58.863)
Well, the still actually came from, it was rich grain distilling out of Canton, Mississippi. He reached out to us, he knew we were looking for some equipment and he was wanting to leave the distilling world and go back to being a full-time engineer. So when I went over and looked at it, it met more than my expectations in how he'd built it, because I wanted a hybrid pot still. I wanted to have the ability to be able to run multiple different spirits off of it, but...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (12:04.034)
you

Drew | Whiskey Lore (12:21.016)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Higgins (12:27.15)
on the columns, so it's a big pot still, 350 gallons, and then it's got two columns that are about four foot tall that it runs through. Well, we kind of cleaned those out and replumbed them a little bit. So I run them more kind of like a high proof kind of thump cake. And if they've got precondensers on top of them, so I can increase the water to the precondensers and actually get a higher proof alcohol, or I can lower that water and of course lower the proof coming off.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (12:44.012)
Hmm, okay.

Brian Higgins (12:57.454)
So what it gives me is the ability of, if you take a traditional still, it's gonna come off somewhere 160, 170 proof that it's gonna keep dropping the entire time. We actually, when we start coming off the still, we adjust our water level and we can keep our proof at the same proof the entire run. So for example, our whiskeys and bourbons, we bring them off the still somewhere between 132 and 136 proof. We find that carries over the most amount of flavor for us. If we're doing...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (13:14.958)
Mm.

Brian Higgins (13:25.998)
You know, like our vodka, we can actually have came off the still as high as 194.5 in one run.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (13:31.692)
Wow. Okay. Yeah.

Brian Higgins (13:33.514)
And I mean, if you turn the water, don't put any water in whatsoever, it'll actually come off somewhere in the mid 90s. Just like you're running your traditional old steel that you have to do the stripping runs and then go back and do the spirits run. But we don't have to do that. So we can do one distillation and leave all that flavor in there.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (13:51.617)
Okay. That's really interesting. I it's fascinating to figure out how people figure out these kinds of different ways to work with the equipment. Was that something that you just experimented with and came up with that arrangement or were you inspired by somebody?

Brian Higgins (14:08.77)
Well, this is kind of what he had. We, I looked at several different steel configurations before we ever bought something. And, know, the little steel that I used to run was just a regular old pot still with a thump keg and a condenser. And, you know, I really liked that setup of having either the column or a thump keg in the middle to give me that kind of second distillation, know, to kind of refine and clean up the spirits a

Drew | Whiskey Lore (14:33.602)
Yeah. Well, it's funny. I have a bottle of rich grain, believe it or not. And what's interesting about it was it was given to me and it sat in my cupboard for a long time. And then I pulled it out because it's a half size bottle and I opened it up and I tasted it and I went, wow, this is really good. If I go to Mississippi, I want to go check this place out and see what it's all about. And by the time I tasted it, they were already out of business.

Brian Higgins (14:38.817)
No kidding.

Brian Higgins (14:50.574)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Higgins (15:03.256)
Mm-hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (15:03.34)
So it's kind of, kind of nice to know where the still ended up. Cause I know that still makes some good whiskey. Cause that's something I've tasted already.

Brian Higgins (15:11.66)
Well, it's worked out really well for us. Like I said, I'm 100 % self-taught when it comes to the distilling world. And then we've been in business for just over four years now and we've won right at 50 medals. Last year we were named the number one distillery in the state of Georgia. We were also under the distilling category of the best of in the state of Georgia. We won that category. Both of our bourbons this year won the best bourbon in the state of Georgia. And then our amaretto that we make actually went on to be

be named the best Likur in the United States.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (15:42.755)
wow. Okay. Well, the reason why I wanted to have you on the podcast is because I've been trying to reach out. My goal is to reach out to every distillery in the U S that makes whiskey and has some kind of a tour or tasting and, know, get to know a little bit more about each distillery. but this has actually turned out to be a great way to sort of find really good distilleries to have on the whiskey flights podcast as well.

because there are certain ones that just kind of jump off the page when you're sitting there chatting and you're like, okay, they're doing something very different from what everybody else is doing. And we had some really interesting conversations. And one of the things that I thought was interesting was our talk about limestone filtered water. You have a limestone aquifer and people may not think of South Georgia.

You know, as probably being in that same context as the inner bluegrass region of Kentucky. but what I found interesting is when I was traveling around Kentucky, I would ask a lot of the distilleries about, you know, are you actually using that limestone filtered water or are you running it through reverse osmosis before you distill with it? And every distillery I talked to said that they were running it through reverse osmosis.

before doing that, which of course strips out all that calcium and magnesium that everybody's bragging about with, Kentucky limestone filtered water. Now, I don't know that that means I'm sure there are probably some smaller distilleries that, maybe using limestone filtered water and not necessarily, cause I have bumped into a couple since then, but that's one of the things we talked about. So are you reverse osmosis, treating your water before you

run it through your stills.

Brian Higgins (17:37.653)
No, actually we drilled a well out behind the distillery because we're sitting on top of what they call the Upper Florida Aquifer. It's some of the actual purest water in the United States. When we drilled down, you go to the first 80 feet of layers of limestone and clay, which act like filters for us, and then the next 250 feet was just solid limestone, and then you hit the water. And when we sent it off for testing, it came back.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:45.251)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Higgins (18:05.706)
absolutely perfect for distilling and brewing. It's got a 7.8 pH, it's got non-measurable amounts of iron, the calcium levels are high, it has all the trace minerals in it. We literally take the water and I wish if you, well you may be able to see it behind me since we're on the video, but there's just a one inch copper pipe behind us and that's what the water comes from the well straight in and we use that right out of that copper pipe to proof down, it's for, we use it for the entire distillation.

process.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (18:36.3)
Okay, so you're cooking, before you're cooking, when you're mixing your grains and doing all of that as well.

Brian Higgins (18:41.58)
Yeah, the mashing process, everything is used, we use that water specifically.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (18:46.958)
Okay. Very good. Yeah. And I think that's just something that a lot of people take for granted because they always kind of sell that on the tours up there. And it's like, boy, when you find out it's not actually true, it's, it's kind of disappointing because you're like, well, are you just wasting that opportunity? And it got me thinking that it was a great advantage for old Crow back in the 1850s when, you know, James Crow was actually pulling the water up from a

a natural spring, but there's a lot less of that going on, especially the large distilleries just don't have the ability to do that because they want their quality control.

Brian Higgins (19:27.382)
And that's what's fun. We actually have some purists come by and instead of knocking on the door now, they just have access. They go around and they'll fill up a couple bottles of water right out of the well. And because they don't want the fluoride or the chlorine or anything in the water, when they make their ice cubes or they add it straight to their whiskey or bourbon that they have at home.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (19:47.917)
Yeah. Well, that's interesting. Cause I mean, when I go to Kentucky, I always, if I'm in a hotel, I just drink out of the tap. I don't worry about getting bottled water, but you're right. There's still some treatment that's going on in that water versus what you're getting up through a well. So there's, there's your noises.

Brian Higgins (20:04.398)
Yeah.

And it's fun to show that on the tours, we've got some little bottles of the millings gathered up as they were drilling the well. And if you kind of roll the bottles around and look at the limestone, you'll see some little tiny shells in there from, yeah, that used to be millions of years ago on the bottom of the ocean. It's just a fun time. We do our tours on Saturdays at four o'clock. We realize, you know, that's, it's a tour in tasting. Marty normally does our tours for us.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (20:30.68)
Uh-huh.

Brian Higgins (20:37.518)
Uh, great feedback from everybody that comes in and does the tours. If somebody's from out of town and they come by and stop by for lunch, you know, if they catch me on the way through, you know, I'm happy to bring them back here and show them around and show them what I do every day. It's, fun to share, uh, what we do every day because it smells different back here in this room every day, whether we're mashing in, distilling, bottling, uh, especially, you know, when you're back here bottling bourbon, it smells amazing. you're bottling the gin, it's completely different smell.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (20:57.838)
Ha

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:07.406)
Mmm.

Brian Higgins (21:07.854)
Kind of an immersive experience depending on what the day holds in store.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:12.526)
Yeah, well now you have made some other types of whiskey. I see, quinoa whiskey.

Brian Higgins (21:20.494)
Yeah, a couple years ago we made a quinoa whiskey. Man, it is very earthy, it's nutty, it's dirty, it's mushroomy, and then you get a little hint of sweetness on the front end from a little bit of corn we put in it. It's unique to say the least, but we have a lot of customers that really enjoy it.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:24.674)
What was that like?

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:29.1)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:41.74)
Huh. So is it would be something that they probably are using in cocktails or people want to drink that those kinds of flavors neat.

Brian Higgins (21:49.487)
Well, we use some of it in cocktails, but a lot of people buy it and just put an ice cube in it. enjoy the, it doesn't have the sweetness like a whiskey or a bourbon, and it's more along that kind of nutty, earthy side. And they like to just put an ice cube in it sip on it.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:57.681)
huh.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:03.99)
Wow. Is it a hundred percent quinoa or quinoa and Malta barley or.

Brian Higgins (22:08.288)
It's, I think, 70%.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:11.242)
Okay, all right. And then you do a sorghum whiskey also.

Brian Higgins (22:15.564)
We do the sorghum whiskey, we do a rye whiskey. Like I said, all, we do 15 different spirits. You know, we do a three grain moonshine, we do the amaretto. We have three different gins that we produce here on site. They're unique because they're colored. We do the old style of making gin, the cold compounded style of gin, so it still has all the color in it. It takes 10 days to make the gin versus your traditional.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:31.886)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Higgins (22:43.33)
Here's your base spirit, throw some botanicals in it or hang the basket, distill it, and it's gonna have that very strong juniper taste. Or we take our spirit after we distill it, put it in a tank, add the botanicals, and let it steep in there for about 10 days. And it's pulling out all that flavor and all the essential oils and everything out of all the different botanicals. And we sent those off to the World Gym Competition last year, and we won two gold medals and a silver medal.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:49.859)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:58.05)
Mm.

Brian Higgins (23:11.182)
highest awarded distillery in the United States at that competition. So it's, we really like to take the low and slow approach to everything. We can force a run through the still in about six hours, but it's gonna taste like that. It's usually a nine to 10 hour day for us to do a 300 gallon run.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (23:14.412)
Wow, very nice.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (23:30.12)
Okay. Well, that's what the old timers would tell you to run in it slow. So it's the best way to get the flavor out. So, one of things that you do that's really interesting is actually allowing people to design their own whiskey. Talk about that.

Brian Higgins (23:48.079)
Yeah, that came out of, know, I always like to take things and take it to the next level if it's possible. you know, after doing a lot of tours around, you know, Kentucky and Tennessee, we realized that, you know, you can go to just about any distillery and do a barrel pick. And that's a wonderful program. Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful. But what we do now is we're, you since we're small enough and we're aging in these 10 gallon barrels, our maturation time is really about

15 to 18 months. So it's a lot faster process than waiting six to eight to 10 years with a 53 gallon barrel. So we came up with the idea, we're like, hey, why don't we do private distillations for individuals or companies? And what we do is we'll bring that person that's person or that company and that's interested in it. We'll do kind of a tasting, you know, basically experiment with them to see kind of where their palate takes them with some of the, with some of the expressions we currently have.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (24:42.926)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Higgins (24:46.318)
You know, are they kind of on the weeded side? Are they on the bourbon side? Or they want to do something unique? Or they want a barrel-aged rum? So we'll kind of work with them and we'll develop that flavor palette or that flavor profile. And then I actually sit down and develop a grain bill specifically for them. And then once we kind of get everything approved, they get to come in and go through the entire process if they want to. They get to come help grind the grains. They get to go through the mashing process, the distillation process.

They get to fill their own barrels. They get to write on the barrels. You we still have to our TTB requirements on it, but they can write notes on the barrels to family members and stuff. Then when that's halfway through, they get to come in, you know, they'll take a bottle of white dog home with them. Halfway through, they'll come in, we'll pull a sample out of it so they can see how it's maturing. And then towards the end, they get to come in and they decide when it's ready. You know, I let them make that decision.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (25:39.437)
Hmm.

Brian Higgins (25:42.563)
And then we do a tasting experiment on where they want to proof down at. Do they want it, you know, barrel strength? Do they want it 80 proof, 86 proof? And then once we hit that magic number, they help us bottle it and then they put their label that they designed on it. And on the back end, we take their label they've designed, we send it off, make sure it gets federally approved. And then they label it and they get to take it home. And when they're finished, I sign the grain bill, put it in a frame and give it to them. And I give them the rights to that exclusive grain bill for 25 years.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (25:56.461)
Wow.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:11.98)
Wow. Very nice. So, I mean, is this something individuals can, can afford to do, or is this something that is much more for probably a larger amount of whiskey or.

Brian Higgins (26:13.804)
Yeah.

Brian Higgins (26:23.732)
No, we've actually had, we just had a family down here in Monticello, Florida just finished theirs up. We've got an individual here in Thomasville that's, they just finished their third run, their third batch. Each batch yields about a hundred bottles for them. And we're actually in the talks with a resort right now that's wanting to do their own. It's got this phenomenal history tied to it. So I hope this one works out. But no, we've done several of them to date and it's fun to get.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:38.177)
OK.

Brian Higgins (26:53.08)
Cuz we even let them bring their, if they wanna bring guests in, halfway through the tasting period, they can bring them back, introduce them to their barrels and their spirits that they're making. And it just becomes a really fun family event.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (27:05.09)
Very nice. Yeah, it's a great idea. And I don't know why anybody else has really thought of doing that. Maybe there's some, I'll bump into a distillery somewhere that's doing that, but that's, that's very unique. And I'm sure the whiskey geeks really would, they're hearing that and going, okay, when can I get the South Georgia?

Brian Higgins (27:22.958)
And you know, we've had a plantation that said, hey, I don't care anything about making it. Just make me a signature bourbon that when people come to hunt here, this is the only place in the world that they'll ever have that bourbon. And it's that exclusive since we use the different grains. You know, I've got hundreds of recipes I can pull from by swapping in and out. Really, I could use eight to 10 different grains to build these flavor profiles.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (27:50.242)
Yeah.

Brian Higgins (27:50.968)
So there will not be any two like each other.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (27:53.903)
Very nice. Well, let's, let's talk a little bit about what visitors can expect when they come to the distillery. You have a, I think one of the things I want to try to figure out, uh, and that I want to put in my Experiencing American Whiskey book is kind of a guide to the rules in each state, which is going to get thick. after dealing with North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia over the last week, it's like, okay, everybody's got really strange rules.

between you you can have a tasting room or you can do tastings or you can't do tastings or you have to have this or you have to have that. So you have a restaurant actually that's attached to your business, correct?

Brian Higgins (28:37.486)
Yes, we sure do. have an open, like an open air kitchen or restaurant. You can actually watch Amber in there cooking. And really, I wanted that out of, I won't say necessity. We were not required to have it by law whatsoever, but I just felt like if I was going to be serving cocktails and doing tastings and stuff, that it would be responsible for me to have food available for people. And it's actually turned into a nice little place to come in for lunch or grab a sandwich at night. You know, we sell a lot of the...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (28:44.855)
Yeah.

Brian Higgins (29:07.182)
pretzels, we make our own beer cheese here on site from the beer that we produce on site. I mean, the food is great. If you look at our reviews online, we pretty much have five-star reviews across any platform out there. when people walk in the door, they see the kitchen over on one side of the room. On the other side, it's a full tasting room. We've got all the spirits in there for sale. We've got merchandise. And then on any given day, about 60 to 70 different cocktails that they can try.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (29:37.903)
Very nice. So, so one of the things that I realized after I was doing, cause I'm thinking, you know, what is going to draw people to the area? And maybe you've got a couple of suggestions of some things that they could do in the area. But I was also, you know, what drove me to South Georgia at one point was going to the, uh, national POW museum, which is up in Andersonville.

which wouldn't put me far from 13th colony, which is in Americus. And then not far from there is Stillpond, which is a winery and distillery. And then you guys, I mean, you can really kind of make a nice Saturday out of going to some of these distilleries around the area.

Brian Higgins (30:24.012)
Yeah, and you can always look online and see what Thomasville has to offer. We have a very robust downtown. It is, I mean, every shop is full. It's constantly growing downtown. It's very vibrant. We have a lot of festivals here in Thomasville. If you're more of a fall person, we have Victorian Christmas in December. We've got the Rose Show, which is really big for us here in April. We've always got little festivals and stuff going on. We've also got what they call the Big Oak.

tree. If you've never seen it, you have to look it up. called the big oak. It's somewhere around six, seven hundred years old. In fact, been told it takes 10 fourth graders to hold hands to reach around the base of it. And it's just this massive live oak tree that survived you ever being cut down. But there's a lot of people don't realize Thomasville is considered

Drew | Whiskey Lore (30:57.9)
Mm-hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:08.445)
okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:16.226)
Nice.

Brian Higgins (31:22.366)
classified, everybody calls it the Quail Hunting Capital of the World. So we're a little town of 20,000 people, but you'd be very surprised by who you, the celebrities and the people that you run into downtown.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:26.221)
Huh.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:35.02)
Yeah, so where does the train go to now? Do you have any passenger trains coming through there? That's progress, I guess, right?

Brian Higgins (31:40.236)
That's all cargo trains now.

Brian Higgins (31:46.252)
Yeah, I believe it's CSX and I'm surprised you haven't heard it. It usually comes by. About every time I try get on the phone or a phone call, it's coming by.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:57.341)
Yeah. Well, Brian, thank you so much for spending some time with us and introducing everybody to 1861. It's one of those things that, you can look online and you can try to figure out, you know, through reviews and everything else. But it's really nice to actually meet people and get a chance to hear from your lips exactly, you know, what inspired all of this and what you're making and the thoughts behind what you're doing. So I appreciate you sharing all that.

Brian Higgins (32:23.758)
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I know a lot of people will be listening to this if they want to learn more about us. Yeah, we've got a lot of TikTok videos. We're on Facebook, we're on Instagram, but if you go on our website now, as of just a couple of weeks ago, we've got five of our spirits that's available that you can purchase and have shipped to your house. Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (32:42.978)
Very nice. All right. Well, hopefully people are doing that. may, they'll give you, they'll give your spirit of Georgia podcast. Listen as well.

Brian Higgins (32:54.712)
Appreciate it and thank you so much for your time today.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (32:57.218)
Thank you, cheers.

Brian Higgins (32:59.266)
Thank you, Drew.