Oaklore Distilling Co.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (00:01.72)
So, kind of introduce me if you will, to where all of this started with, with Oak lore.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (00:27.957)
Sure, it all started here in North Carolina. Tom and I are neighbors. He lived in the subdivision for

a bit and then I moved in this bum across the street who became friends walking to the bus stop with Tom and his kids. My kids are in the same school as his and we were just walking kids to the bus stop and a couple of dads chatting it up because we were living right next door to each other and had to walk down about the same time and became friends around whiskey and our love bourbon and that kind of started us on to getting together and hanging out.

And, um, and having some, some bourbon, we like to think that we don't drink bourbon. just taste it. just taste bourbon. Because now we're mature. Yeah. Cause now we're professional, mature old people. the Tuesday nights, we would get together on Tuesday nights, called it Tuesday drinking. It was a, it was a lot of fun. We'd get together and it would start out where, uh, Tom and I both enjoy kind of nerding out on all the different things around, around whiskey and, um, and bourbon. And so Tom would bring in four different selections.

four things and he would say, right, now tell me which one, tell me what you think about it. And I would tell him what I think about it. And we try to go through it in boring taste, a number of things. We started out with trying different things like an Irish whiskey versus a Scotch versus an American bourbon or a malt or Japanese whiskey rather. It seemed if you could figure out which one was which just on taste alone. Then we kind of graduated to different types of bourbon, different match builds. And then from there we kind of graduated to

you know, age of the products, state of distillation. And so we would do these blind tastings for one another because we like to just have fun and learn about whiskeys. And so our whiskey collection grew super large. And then we started going around and checking out, you know, different things and finding bottles that we'd never tried before. We'd pick them up and we'd bring them in and blind taste them on one another. And that was our Tuesday nights. We'd get together because, you know, that's what we do on Tuesday nights. then probably late one night.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (02:29.998)
It's a-

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (02:33.301)
After one too many cocktails? It's not probably. It's definitely. probably two in the morning. It was probably two in the morning and it was because it's either 11 p.m. or two. That's how it worked. We cut it off on 11 or if you went past 11 we knew it was going to be 2 a.m. and that was just going to be the way it was.

But we would, we would try whiskeys and we had a couple of whiskeys and Tom said, you know, listen, I was in brewing for a long time. I was a brewer, a home brewed. This is just one step past making beer. It's that distillation process. We could do this. And I said, well, let's do this. And that was kind of the beginning. That was the beginning. And the next day built a distill and we started our distillation adventure. And for years after that, we would travel around the country to any distiller where that was a

to walk in the door and talk to them. And we spent years just anyone that would talk to us and share information we would go and absorb all of that. then our Tuesday night became Monday mash and Friday distillation. And we did that for a year or two. And until we got.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (03:39.567)
Wow. Yeah. It's quite a, quite a learning experience to go through all of that. And I'm sure in traveling to all these different places, you saw plenty of different techniques and different philosophies. so trying to marry those together with what you had in your head, when did it get to a point where you said, you know, we, we do need to make something. We need to take all of this knowledge and channel it into making whiskey.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (04:08.947)
Yeah, that's when that started. When we started traveling around, we were traveling around for the purpose of learning, the purpose of, I exhausted all the information on the internet. I said, Matt, need more information. He said, get in the car, we're driving to Tennessee. Get in the car, we're driving to Kentucky. I'm gonna find people to talk to and we're gonna figure it out. And that was our distillery journey.

was that big step, that travel step, we did that for years. We mashed on Mondays, we distilled on Fridays, and we did that till we kind of figured out the things that we love and the things that we didn't love. And I think distilling and distillers have a lot of parameters and distillers have to sort of figure out what makes them tick.

And so when you talk about what makes a distiller ticket, it usually represents itself in the brand. And so if you look at Oklor, Oklor's decisions were made by Matt and Tom and our distilling journey and education and what we think is important in whiskey and what we want to see in the whiskey. And every distillery and every distiller does it a little different and finds different things that are important. And so we focus on the things that we're passionate about and that the things that we want to manage and control and that represents

itself in our bourbon and our rye. And we got a chance to learn some really amazing people. mean Andy and Charlie Nelson from at the time it was Bell Mead bourbon.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (05:29.016)
So what.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (05:36.182)
Just Nelson Brothers. I think they're gonna revive the Bell meat brand, but those guys were incredibly helpful John Hargrove at the time he was at Bart's town bourbon formerly at Barton and now was he house I was a good friend we learned a ton from him and in getting a chance to be in front of those folks was was paramount to our learning process because they saved this time I remember talking with drew at will it and Him just scolding us for using a particular instrument that we're like, well, thought that was really important He's like throw it the trash can

I feel like I insulted them. I apologize. But you know that those connections were really helpful because they moved us along really quickly and especially coming into a bourbon that was into the bourbon boom as it was you know I think was in full swing kind of we got going back in 2017 it was a time when and it still is where we find distillers of that in general are really open

Drew | Whiskey Lore (06:10.007)
You

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (06:32.725)
conversation about what their craft is, how they do what they do, and why they do what they do. And I think that that's really important for us is that the why has always been important. It's not just, hey, man, go out and buy a bunch of barrels and throw them in the bottles and then market the crap out of it and then just put it out there on the shelf and hope for the best. There has to be a why. There has to be a story behind it. And that's ultimately where our name came from, was those oak states having a story that has to have a story. There has to be a why behind what we

And because we're nerds, there's a reason for those stories.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (07:04.504)
So when you got started with all of this, what was the landscape like in North Carolina for this idea of getting into the whiskey industry? Was there a buzz about something was going to develop in North Carolina or did you kind of feel like you were breaking ground on this?

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (07:22.965)
Do you think that it has changed? I think there was like when we got in there was a lot of energy in different places but it's still pretty...

pretty barren in a lot of ways. We've got some really great things happening in the state, but I think our state is primed for explosion in the bourbon world. We're lucky to be in front of that timeline, which is very exciting for us. Although North Carolina has an incredibly rich history in whiskey and bourbon, and if you look way back, it was a more popular place to distill and age even in Kentucky. It really wasn't until the mass exodus

T totalers that came through and sort of pushed that industry out that they ended up more in Kentucky than they were here in North Carolina anymore. So we're kind of part of the resurrection of the bourbon world here in this state. Yeah, I think that it is because we are in the Piedmont in North Carolina. It's this area between the coastal plains and the Rocky Mountains. And it kind of stretches up through Virginia down into South Carolina.

This is where everyone was doing a lot of distillery or a lot of distilleries and lot of distillation prior to the movement across the Rockies and into Kentucky. So this is a rich area and a rich history. And so we like to say that we're continuing that tradition. I think North Carolina is a great, a great state to do that. I think the Piedmont is even a better place within a great state to do distillation. North Carolina has a lot of distilleries. I think it has the sixth or seventh most distilleries in the

any state in the country. Which is super exciting. I think that North Carolina is prime for growth in the distillery world. I think it's just beginning. I think the distilleries that we have, the ones that are doing things right, are ready to grow and build and really strengthen their brands. We're just excited to be a part of North Carolina in the Piedmont, growing our brand.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (09:27.468)
It's interesting that as I've been chatting, cause I've been talking to a few North Carolina distillers and I had the initial impression about North Carolina having grown up 17 years in Asheville, thinking that if there was any industry there, it wasn't really an industry. was underground moonshine. But the reality being that there was just a large clump of distillers all around.

I guess Statesville was a big shipping area at that time. And so it was very easy for distillers to bring their product down there in the 1880s and 1890s to get it shipped around a different place, uh, places to really, uh, grow that up. So it's a fascinating history. It's one that I definitely want to dig into at some point, but now you've kind of got an opportunity to build out a personality on your own of, you know, what is the modern, um,

What is the modern feel of and taste and legacy that you think that you want to put your stamp on for North Carolina whiskey?

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (10:37.461)
I think it's quality. I don't know how to say it so that I think

Quality has always been the most important. and I, we didn't grow up in the distillery world. We come from different industries. We decided to do this for our love and passion of whiskey. We are doing this because we wanted to do the absolute best we could, put the best juice in the bottle that we can. And that's our goal and that's our mission. And so if we want to do anything, we want to make sure that what we are doing is the absolute best we can do. And so that's what drives us to...

to produce every day. Yeah. Yeah, I echo that. got to be quality.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (11:19.704)
So talk about the, concept of the power of the stave and how that works into what you're trying to achieve with your whiskeys.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (11:29.845)
There's a couple parts to that, One is, you know, just the, just the state of itself, you know, how much those contribute around the barrel to that distillate and what kinds of things are happening in that barrel is all dependent on that organic material. And like we talk about here, you know, an oak tree could be from anywhere in the country, could have been up on a mountainside or down by the water or something like that. It's going to have a different story based on its age, how long it was dried, how, you know, all of those different things contribute. They're all different variables. And so each one of those bits of

organic material are have a story to tell. They have a history. have a background just like any one of us. And so I think that's a big part of it. The secondary part of it is the Piedmont aging process, the reason that whiskey and bourbon were made here years and years years ago as the main place they were made because this was the best aging on the planet. It spends the most time in the temperature range that works well for aging. It's not too hot. It's not too cold. doesn't stay in those temperature ranges quite as much. We still get the wide variety of temperature.

ranges and I think that that Piedmont aging process mixed with making sure that we have great staves and great barrels along with great distillate that's what brings forth a great quality product and you nothing goes through our nothing goes into one of our bottles without going through our palate make sure that it's right make sure that it's top quality we're not going to put anything out that we don't can't get behind and as a matter of fact we have our signature on the bottles because we want to make sure people know that it's signed and approved by us.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (13:00.219)
So where does the, where do you get your, woods from? you, are your barrels, brought from somewhere around the region or, or are you reaching outside?

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (13:11.049)
Yeah, I think we focus on the correct cuprages. We have some of our favorite cuprages because they're doing things the way we want them done. And traditionally, you use a company that produces a great product so that you can take that and you can make even a better product. And so we focus on maybe about three cuprages that we really, really like.

with a couple of those parameters in the coopage process that are important to us. Yeah, and charlelle is important. It's another piece for us is the, what am I? aged staves. So we dry season the staves. We like about an eight month minimum season stave. So we have those, we have a toasted head typically. We're in a char two, char three barrel.

and we are typically within an eight month season stave. We talked about entry proof. was the word I was looking for. So entry proof is really important. That's different because you want to take the right barrel and then you want to put the correct juice in it. Now it's really important on what level alcohol that

is because the difference level of alcohol really affects how it interacts with the barrel. So higher proof, lower proof, they all interact differently with the barrel. So we go in at a typically lower proof than industry standard because we think that interacts with the barrel in the right way, producing the correct type of flavors or the type of flavors that we're looking in our profile.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (14:39.694)
Right. It's been very interesting talking with different distilleries and hearing which ones are going to a lower, uh, proof entry. And it's, uh, you can taste the difference at the mickters. They actually during a tour, they will do a tasting where they let you taste one version of their rye whiskey, where it's been put into the higher 125 and another at 105. And it's like between those two, you can definitely taste,

a much more flavor impact from that lower proof.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (15:10.997)
It's all looking, it all is what you're looking for. There's so many parameters in making whiskey. There's so many parameters in the type of barrel and how it's made and what material it's made out of.

There's so many parameters in how you make your distillate, so many parameters in barrel mat maturation. You have to pick the parameters that are most important to you, because it's impossible to manage all of them. So as a distiller, and every distiller is a little different, you will have to pick what parameters are the most important. And so Matt and I have sat down and we said, well, these are the things that we are going to create the profile we want. This is what is important to us. And so we have chosen a couple of those parameters, and low entry proof is one of them.

the typical characteristics of the barrel is another. How long it sits in the barrel, course, that's an easy one, that's just a number.

All those things come together and make really play a factor in the whiskey. That's why whiskey is fun. know, whiskey is fun because there are so many parameters and getting to dial those in for what ultimately you love is important. We always said, you know, we're not going to tell anybody how to drink their whiskey because we want them to drink their whiskey how they want to drink their whiskey. Everyone's palate's different, you know, and we've heard bourbon, guess, snob say it's got to be 125 proof and you got to try it and eat and if you don't, you're not doing it right. I'm like, look, that's not my story necessarily.

palette works for that that's that's awesome but we that's why whiskey's fun all those different parameters your own palette they all they all come into play I remember we've talked about this before on other podcasts for always things a fascinating story we were looking at we were taking a class on on how to taste for faults how do you knows and tastes for faults and I remember this lady said don't even look at garlic or onions for four weeks

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (16:50.293)
prior to our because it will influence your palette and like man, I can stay away from garlic for maybe 45 minutes. No garlic or onions for the rest of your life. And what she was trying to do was make everybody's palette come in at zero. And I think that's impossible. You're going to bring in your palette. It's what makes you tick. What's reason that some people think cilantro tastes like soap? mean, it's nothing you can do to make that difference. It's just what it is. But that's what you bring into whiskey tasting.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (16:51.157)
Okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (16:58.382)
Ha ha ha ha!

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (17:20.247)
your palate, you bring in your story. Don't let anybody tell you how to drink your whiskey. You drink your whiskey how you drink your whiskey and what you get from it is completely and 100 % part of your story. And again I go back to Oaklor, that's that's our name. Those stories all come together. The story of the stave, the story of the distillate, the story of you the consumer. When you bring that whiskey to your lips, what story you tell?

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:45.615)
It's interesting that you guys started out doing blind tastings and then you've kind of merged into this, uh, developing of products out of that. It's got to bring a certain amount of trust level between the two of you. you're communicating back and forth about what you're producing, what you want, what you're trying to achieve and also where each of your strengths and weaknesses are in terms of, of tasting, what you pick up, do you lean on particular.

flavors are the things that satisfy you more than another. Do you have those kinds of discussions over, over this while you're trying to determine, you know, what, spirits you're going to work with?

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (18:25.685)
Tom, before you answer that question, let me just, for the listeners, give you this. There we go.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (18:32.462)
Yeah, I heard that too when I opened. was like that cork is really interacting with that bottle.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (18:43.059)
question again? answer is I think we talk about that and more. I think whiskey is so dynamic you talk about what how it influences your palate what you're thinking about why you're thinking about it what you did yesterday what you're going to do tomorrow.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (18:44.8)
Ha ha ha ha ha

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (19:01.481)
I think that's the point of whisky.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (19:06.028)
Well, if you are, well, let's talk a little bit about the spirit itself and where it's coming from. One of the things that I was kind of, when I was researching you guys, I was like, okay, are they sourcing whiskey? Are they making whiskey on location? What's interesting is that as I've learned about your process and what you're doing, I think sometimes people will hear sourcing and they'll go,

they're just buying juice from somewhere and then they're putting it in a barrel for a little time and, and developing a variation on what everybody else is putting out. But you guys have actually actively gone out and created relationships with these, um, producers to try to get what it is that you're looking for. So how much do you control? you have over mash bill and, um, basically the processes that they go through to produce your spirits.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (20:02.633)
yeah, complete control. This has been a passion for us and we went down this road because we wanted to do it. So to answer the first part of the question was we make stuff here, we also distill stuff in other places on other stills. And in the beginning, we didn't even have a shop. We didn't have our own stills. So we made connections and we go use other people's equipment that would let us use it. And so to this day, we have great relationships with the people that we make our whiskey or where we make our whiskey and the stills we make our

whiskey on to the the extent that we will go there and and use their their equipment to be able to make I mean that's that's the kind of relationships we have with our

our distilleries that we use and that this is where we when we make the stuff and where we make it. We have the ability to go, we have the ability to make it, we have the ability to choose grains and mash bills and different yeasts. you know, we don't, we do experiments, but we've sort of gotten to the point where we know what we want.

So now we get to go have those relationships, put the work in, make our stuff on other people's stills. They can make our stuff given the parameters that we've decided. So we kind of like controlling that. That's really important to us. That's kind of why we started this. So it's a really exciting process for us to be able to do that and have those relationships.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:18.019)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:24.226)
Very nice. So talking about your products, your flagships that you have right out, you have a four grain bourbon and you also have a straight rye whiskey. Let's talk about how you came up with the formulation, and what you were looking for in creating a bourbon to, be your flagship.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (21:45.974)
Yeah, how do you make a flagship bourbon? I don't know if we got into this with that in mind. We did get into this with this one goal. And the goal was to make our house bourbon. If we went down into your cabinet.

And we saw all these whiskies at night. I got a whole closet full of bourbon. That's got a whole three floors full of bourbon. And so if you went to your cabin in a bourbon, which bourbon are you going to pull? We wanted to be able to make the whiskey that we would go to every night. That's, that's, that was our goal. Our goal was we wanted to make our own house bourbon. Whatever it is, that's what we wanted. And so when we started, we, that was our goal. And so we started with

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:13.549)
You

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (22:35.084)
Which grain are we going to use? How are we going to do this? going to make it a weeded bourbon? Are we going to make a rye bourbon? We love our corn, so everything was high corn.

We would make, uh, I'd come up with a mash bill, say, Matt, what do you, what do you want to make? And he's a weeded bourbon guy. you're well, I want wheat. And I said, okay, well, we can make a weeded bourbon. That's super fun. What kind of weeded bourbon do you want? He's like, I 85 % wheat. It's not how, but, but I was kind of a high, a mid high rye bourbon guy. So I'd always throw 5 % rye in this weeded higher wheat, um, high corn bourbon that we wanted to make. We always use malt as the conversion.

for the conversion grain and when we got down to it and we were doing that for years and we finally opened up our shop and we had to come up with our products. What are you guys making? And we had people asking us, well what are you gonna make? And we kind of had to sit and think about it and go, well I think we'll probably make what we've been making. And it happened to be four grain burger, which...

wasn't our goal in the beginning, because our goal was to make the best bourbon on the shelf. When we went down to the shelf, that's the we grabbed. But it happened to be a four grain bourbon. And we fell in love with it. We love high corn. We love what the wheat does. We love what rye does early in the barrel. We always used the malt in there for conversion. it was sort of... It kind of naturally happened. And when we fell in love with the product over and over again, we kept...

just trying to refine that recipe, making sure that we changed out this grain for that grain in terms of percentage and or the grain itself, what did it do? And all those variables did something a little bit different and then that's what we got into. All right, so if we can kind of refine the kind of distillate that we really love, what happens when it interacts with the states? You know, toast at the char level, all of those kind of things. And we knew from the beginning because we had tried a number of people's products around the country that were in small barrels that we did not want to do that.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (24:32.457)
We wanted to go with the more traditional 53 gallon barrels. even if that meant we had to wait longer, it meant that we were going to have a higher quality product we felt. so we started that way. So we've never done anything in small barrels. We've done some fun little finishing projects, experiments in them, but nothing like that's going out in bottles for people. Because it's important to get that quality. So when we were creating our flagship bourbon, was not trying to create a flagship bourbon. It really was. What do we want?

enjoy and all that time we spent doing all those blind tastings we we were nerding out and we're just having fun but we're also training our palate of what really makes a good whiskey when you're trying 70 80 150 different kinds of whiskies and the top you know five to three to five percent fully resonate with your palate well then that's what you're trying to replicate and find what makes sense I think you asked earlier kind of how how we do our processes together and and Tom is a nose and finish

I'm a palette guy. And so when we get together and evaluate barrels, evaluate our products, those are some of the things that we can kind of bring to the table. His nose is much more refined than mine. I smell it. like, that smells good. I'm just kidding. That's some good description. It needs to be good. It's got to be good. It's good way. This is not a good way. If it's not good, then we know where to go. But then I dive deep in palette and...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (25:34.595)
No.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (25:49.998)
Yeah

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (26:00.918)
Tom is looking for that finish. And when we get together, we put together, we feel like a complete product because of that. That's some of the characteristics that we look for, although both of us appreciate all of the parts of our drinking whiskey, nose, palate, and finish. Appreciate it. We celebrate its entire catalog. Michael Bolton.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:16.974)
Do you like a sweet note a bit on the,

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:25.932)
Nice. Little office space flashback. So, so is on the nose. is there, I detect a sweetness on both of these, whiskies. And so is that kind of a, a passion for you to have a nice kind of sweet note to it.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (26:30.229)
You're welcome.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (26:45.013)
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why you get you get, you know, a higher corn.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:47.096)
Yeah.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (26:50.821)
You know, our mash bill 70, 10, 10, 10 leans in that direction, right? We love a high corn and our rye whiskey, which we'll talk about too, I think at some point in this conversation is 70, 20, 10, instead of being like a 95, 5 rye, 70 rye, 20 corn. We love to dial out that corn. love that sweetness. And I think that's what resonates with a lot of our, you know, lot of folks that drink our product. They really kind of like a little bit different depth and character. They want something more than just a, you

a giant six foot column still product that's, you know, while consistent, can come across somewhat sterile on occasion. And it needs that extra depth. so, but that's best part of our process is it to have depth, but it's gotta be sweet. Because, you know, we're sweet guys. We're sweet guys. Commonly, often. Is it better for me to say we're guys, versus us being corny guys?

I feel like sweets better. Sweet and corny? Sweet and corny. Corny sweet. This is probably the part of the podcast that you just delete and you cut out.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (27:57.199)
I just let you go. just let you go. I can tell you guys work together a lot. what's interesting to me is that you go from that sweet nose to once you're on the palette, there is this, it's surrounded by this sweetness, but there's like tobacco notes and herbaliness that comes out in it. Even I get chocolate notes in it as well. So it's got a lot of development going on, on the palette.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (28:01.046)
Hmm.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (28:18.645)
Yes.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (28:22.261)
It's very complex. Yeah, a four grain is what we learned is it can be kind of difficult because it can be too complex or it doesn't make sense. So you have to be very careful with four grains because some of the problems I think with the four grain bourbon is that it's too complex. kind of, doesn't, it's not.

It just isn't a unified kind of together whiskey. And so that's something that we have to make sure is right so that all the grains complement each other instead of fight and contradict each other. Yeah. It can't be, it can't be single grain dominant. No, it can. And with the exception of the corn. Well, but it's not dominant as much as it is just kind of the cake. No, it's a hell. a, it carries through, it helps carry these other grains to your palate. And that's, and that's the thing is it's really complex. It's a

Drew | Whiskey Lore (29:07.544)
Yeah.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (29:15.255)
complex drink and it's really, really great. But that is indicative of a really good for you.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (29:22.69)
Well, I got to say that the ride to me was the one, if you look at the two bottles behind me, the ride got a little bit more of a workout. I'm a ride fan, but what's interesting about this ride to me is that I would almost consider it a bourbon drinkers ride. The idea that it has that sweetness. Also, I was sitting there watching a baseball game and I took a sip and I just, my.

brain went to my breakfast cereal or my oatmeal in the morning when I put brown sugar on it. And it was like, I feel like that's kind of what I was tasting at that moment, that it had that rye spice, had some barrel influence to it, but really the brown sugar stuck out on that to me.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (30:04.181)
Well, you know our phrase is, is opal or rye whiskey turning bourbon drinkers into rye drinkers from 2017.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (30:12.418)
Very nice. Well, there you are. Yeah, it is a nice.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (30:13.725)
Yeah, we love our rye whiskey. We love our rye whiskeys because we have a little bit higher corn content in there than most other rye whiskies. We got 20 % corn in there.

That gives it a sweetness. It's another vehicle for that rye to really present its flavor to you and anyone else who has it. It's great sweetness, great, great caramel. We really are proud of our rye. We are North Carolina guys, not born and raised here, but my family is. My kids were born here and my wife's family is from North Carolina. I went to school here, went to University Chapel Hill. So we're North Carolina guys. And so we're really proud of our North Carolina rye whiskey.

Yeah, as you know, your time in Nashville spent a lot of time, my time growing up here. My dad lived in Charlotte and ended up...

walking around the Arboretum back in the early 90s, know, in this little town here in Charlotte. It's now this, you know, mega metropolis. North Carolina guys, but, you know, again, this was also one of the things that we got into early was sorting out how we wanted our rye whiskey to taste. And so, you know, here we are eight years into our company, our rye is seven years old now. And I think six to seven years is really a great sweet spot. So what you've got there on your shelf and what people can order online, what they can order here in North Carolina,

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:15.0)
Ha ha ha.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (31:36.316)
I think brings a fantastic rye grain sweetness. Like you said, brown sugar is a lot of fun. And to get a rye that doesn't smack you in the face with an open palm, I think is kind of what we're shooting for. Find a rye that just crushes it. And so we were excited about the development of this rye, especially the matchbell. We locked that in right away from the beginning. It's not changed at all.

So that's that's something we're really proud of and like we said, we're proud that it's North Carolina

Drew | Whiskey Lore (32:08.632)
Yeah, it'll be interesting. You, you bring up the, way that Matthew's in that area has grown up. This will tell you how long it's been since I've been to that area. When I used to visit my friend who lived off of album, RL road, that was pretty much where independence Boulevard ended. And there wasn't much beyond that. And now I'm sure it's just like all the way down to Matthew's. probably have,

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (32:27.719)
Yeah, that's right.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (32:36.76)
traffic instead of just up through there.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (32:39.047)
It's down all the way to the next city below Charlotte, down in Monroe. I mean, it is a great city. It is a wonderful city. It allows us to do the things that we love. And so this city really is, it has a great community and a great feel and wonderful people and a great place to have distillery in the Piedmont here. And we're really excited about being here.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (32:43.64)
Wow.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (33:01.922)
We'll talk about the visitor's experience when they come down. What, what happens? do you, are you, you are distilling on site and, but you are necessarily, you distilling, clear spirits or are you distilling some whiskey in there?

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (33:19.219)
Yeah.

Vodka and Rome that we have here in our shop. We're distilling that not during the summer months as much because it's just too hot for the distillation process. makes it difficult to control those temperatures. We do that here on site and you can see that process when you come in to our shop. The distillery space that we started in is still where our still lives and it's a small but mighty manufacturing space. We have since expanded next door into a building to have instead of about 250 square feet for our

processing we have about 6,000 square feet for our process that was kind of step two. Step three is an expansion for us into Charlotte we've got about 50,000 square feet up in Charlotte that will be continuing to store barrels and eventually move our processing there as a distribution center so it's an exciting time for us. When people come to our spot here there is a there is an opportunity for you to try through our five products that

that we sell on the shelf in there. sell our bourbon, we sell our rye, and then we sell gin vodka and rum, amongst other special releases that we have.

distillery space. Heading into the fall months, September, October, November and December, we'll have special releases coming out all fall. And there are some really, really fun things that we'll be releasing in a shop only environment. We'll also have a sherry finish that will be coming out that you can find in our e-comm sites probably in the next month, 30 to 45 days from now. I'm not sure when the podcast airs, but you know, here mid-August you should see that in about the next 45 days.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (34:58.167)
And so it's exciting. People can come in, they can buy bottles. That is a new thing. North Carolina at one point had it set up to where you could only buy one bottle per person per year and they put you on a list. And if you came back before the 365 days, the answer was no, they couldn't. Now that is not limited and you can buy bottles here. We have a space outside where you can gather and grab a cocktail with some friends around the fire pit this fall where you can try any number of our products. And one of my favorite things here on site for the visitor experience is our

Drew | Whiskey Lore (35:11.214)
Ha

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (35:28.097)
owners keep cabinet.

Throughout our history, we have kept a number of our releases that you can come in and buy a poro. So early releases that we just had put out, you can try even, you can put them all in a line and try the different things that you want to try. And then we have some things in that cabinet that did not ever go into mass production. We kept two or three cases of a product that we thought was excellent and people can come and try some fun things that were part of our experimentation.

There's a single barrels in there that will really blow your mind. A couple different barrels that we thought were really fun. So it is a really fun cabinet. It's really fun to work yourself through and have it forward and drink and sit down and relax and enjoy that wonderful North Carolina weather and wonderful North Carolina people and wonderful North Carolina oaklor staff.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (36:22.83)
Fantastic. Well, I think you got everybody prime to come down and check it out and they'll know what that Oak lore bottle on the shelf is all about now. And hopefully, uh, we'll get some people traveling your way and getting to know North Carolina spirits. So thank you, Tom and Matt for being on the show. I wish you the best of luck. And hopefully one of these days I will make it down to independence Boulevard again, and I get to see what you guys are doing.

Oaklore Founders Tom & Matt (36:48.883)
You're welcome anytime. Yeah, we appreciate it. And for those that are listening to the podcast, the best way to follow our story right now is to jump on Instagram.

the story there. I know that seems like just one of the thousand ways you can follow us and be a part of what we're doing. if you've got questions or things that you want to interact with us on, reach out to us. We would love to answer your questions. If you have further questions from this that you didn't get answered, reach out to us. We're a couple of guys. We're not some industrial conglomerate that bought into this industry and is trying to flip it for millions of dollars. We're a couple of guys, a couple of dads. We love bourbon. We love talking bourbon. Come into the shop and love to hear your story.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (37:28.75)
Fantastic. Best of luck to you. Cheers.