Company Distilling - Lynchburg

Drew | Whiskey Lore (00:01.262)
Well, it's great to get a chance to talk to you again, Jeff. It has been a couple of years, episode 45 of our interview series, a deep dive into your background. Welcome back to the show.

Jeff (00:12.92)
Hey, it's good to be back. I appreciate the opportunity.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (00:14.732)
Yeah. Lots of changes since then you and I were meeting in, a, were, you didn't really have a spot for us to meet necessarily because the Alcoa distillery was still in the works. Townsend hadn't quite opened up yet. And now today you've got three locations as well as a distillery going on. mean, does it seem possible? All this stuff has happened. It just.

three or four years.

Jeff (00:45.388)
Yeah, and all of it against the wind and uphill. You know, I would love to say that the last few years there's been a little bit of an industry boom going on, but you know, with the pandemic supply chain issues, those lingered for a couple of years. And now you're seeing a little bit of, you know, economic headwinds for some of the distilleries. I, you know, it's been a rewarding pathway for sure. After having left Jack Daniels, I wouldn't have changed anything as far as starting company.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (00:49.003)
You

Jeff (01:12.258)
But it would have been nice if some of it had come a little easier for us at times. yeah, it kind of wears an old man out, tell you that. But yeah, we're grateful to have three locations up and running now and potentially a fourth one that we're still trying to figure out the details for.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:18.161)
Yeah, yeah. Nice. Lots of balls in here.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (01:32.451)
Very nice. So of course you had your time as master distiller, Jack Dan, as we talk about that back in the interview and go really deep into that, that history. and then, you know, you had an opportunity there where you got to see it kind of pick up after Jimmy Bedford had worked to kind of expand the markets for you to then go in and start expanding the portfolio of whiskeys. And so in stepping out and doing this,

company distilling, what was kind of your vision for what you wanted to do in terms of the whiskies you'd produce?

Jeff (02:08.587)
You know, as much as I was able to expand the portfolio of Jack Daniels, were a few things that I wanted to explore that just didn't seem to make sense for Jack Daniels. Honestly, you know, once you're a brand of a certain size and you have growth targets, you're having to come up with ideas that are not just things that will necessarily win awards and that, you know, the market will really like, but it needs to be able to be scaled to a million cases.

You know that to me that became success, which is kind of tough. You know, I put out eight products. I took Jack Dino's portfolio from three products up to 11. Only one of those products made the million case mark and that was Tennessee Honey, which was it did great. It expanded the market. I think there were a lot of people who drank Tennessee Honey who were not necessarily Jack Dino's drinkers. But honestly, it would not be the eight things that I did there and released into the market. It was not be the one I was most proud of.

you know, taking your liquid and putting honey in it, sweetening it and cutting the fruit down. As a distiller, you don't really want to have to do that, even though sometimes that's what's necessary to be relevant in a changing consumer marketplace. the thing that I really enjoyed, I worked on a product there called the number 27 gold, and it was a double-barreled and double-mellowed product. It was in a maple barrel. I really liked how

Drew | Whiskey Lore (03:10.765)
Ha ha.

Jeff (03:36.152)
toasted maple wood, is what we did to prep the inside of the maple barrel. I like what it did to influence the flavor of Jack Daniel's. Took a standard, old number seven-like Tennessee whiskey and just elevated it in almost every regard. And it did it naturally, just using the toasted wood as the flavor element. So I really wanted to continue to explore additional wood finishes. I had, because the maple barrel leaks so much, we did quite a bit to...

explore wood finishing and how would you wood finish to replicate a double barreling. And if you can get that process down, then you can start to look at woods that you would never be able to cooper into a barrel. You know, if you can get just some adequate quantity of that wood, the amount that would be typically soaked in during a barrel maturation, and you need to find a way to introduce it onto the liquid, then you can work with woods that you would never be able to cooper on a successful deep.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (04:11.992)
Mm.

Jeff (04:33.752)
So that was the problem with maple is, you know, it looked a lot like an oak barrel when you built a maple barrel, it just wouldn't hold the liquid. I tended to believe pretty profusely actually, which was really the reason why the brand team was thinking all along that we don't need to continue to do it. It's it's not sustainable because of the leaking that came there. But, you know, when I left Jack Daniels, I was like, if we're going to start a new company, to me, I want that to be sort of what we've become known for, that we want to...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (04:40.78)
Nah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (05:02.702)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff (05:03.4)
We'll take a lot of traditional whiskey making, different types of whiskey, Tennessee whiskey, bourbons, rice, but we find non-traditional ways to finish different woods that you maybe haven't seen used before. And find a way to make complimentary flavor, what I call balances. Finding a wood that's sweet and putting it on a spicy liquid or finding a liquid that's kind of sweet and giving it little bit of spice, but doing it naturally and creating a balance and more interest as you do that.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (05:33.176)
So is this what you refer to as approachable complexity?

Jeff (05:36.684)
Well, know, honestly, when I was leaving Jack Daniels, it was during the pandemic and we weren't sure what the future was gonna hold. So they were shutting down bars and restaurants. We were being told that we were being reckless. We couldn't have more than five or six people at our home for Thanksgiving. I think we don't really wanna remember those times, but they were not very good. But what it did for a lot of people is if they're normal,

mode would be to meet their friends out at a bar or restaurant and there's 50 or 60 bourbons on the back wall and everybody just gets to order what they want. It put pressure on you that you had to have, know, invite company to come over to your home. And if you couldn't afford to buy those 50 or 60 bottles and you were only going to have, you know, a few in your home, what's the problem you need to solve for someone? And I called it approachable complexity. If you've got some friends who might be new to whiskey, if you've got some friends who have a fairly

mature palate and like something that has a lot to contemplate on it. Is there one bottle that you could present to those two different drinkers who are in different places, but they both nod and go, this is nice. So that's what you want. You want something that has enough flavor to create interest for somebody who has an expectation of a lot of character, but not to overwhelm that new drinker as they're trying to come in and explore whiskey maybe for the first time. So

That was a term that we were using. said, hey, if our first liquid that goes out of here is both approachable and it's complex, if that's how people describe it, we're going to be successful.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (07:13.272)
So you went with the maple staves. Did you put staves down in the barrel? Is that how you approached that?

Jeff (07:19.67)
You know, it can be done a lot of different ways, but ultimately what you want to be able to do is get the wood reduced down where you can get a good toast on it. And then you want to get it where you can get it into the opening into the oak barrel. Because instead of creating different barrels that I take the liquid into, I'm trying to introduce that wood in its original container. So it's like take something that's already fairly mature, you four or five, six years old and then get.

the wood toasted and then introduce it onto it and then do, I call it writing a different ending to that whiskey's chapter is what you're trying to do. So if something stays in oak for eight, nine or 10 years, I say that it's finished. There's so much character there and oak defines it and there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm much better off to try to find liquids that are kind of entering that maturation window where they have a good level of character already.

but you can introduce a second wood that creates a sweetness, spice, something slightly different than what oak would do, and you still don't go over the top where it gets so bitter or tannic that it's no longer enjoyable. So there's a little bit of an art to that. Different woods respond differently. When I left Jack Daniels, that was the first thing I had to kind of come to grips with. I had studied quite a few woods in my last two years with Jack Daniels, but there were woods beyond that that I wanted to get into as well.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (08:44.142)
I found it very interesting when I went over to your Townsend location and I met Kevin Smith there and we had a great conversation. He's your brewer. also helped, he's in charge of distilling at this point.

Jeff (08:57.656)
Yeah, he is the director of production. So I go way back with Kevin. I met him right when I joined Jack Daniels. He was a microbiologist, worked in quality around the distillery. Probably, I would say, one of the smartest guys in the distilling industry that a lot of people have not met or heard of because he's never been the face or voice of the brand before. But if you've not met him, I he is, I mean, he's an encyclopedia of fermentation, distillation, of yeast knowledge.

There are things that we're already doing at this company that I probably would have been reluctant to do if I had not had Kevin along because I was an engineer from college. learned the sensory sciences and coffee. So my pathway into the distillery was very different than Kevin's. He had spent time in Germany. He learned traditional German brewing techniques there. He went back and got a master's in microbiology. He had worked in the R &D area for Brown Forman who owned Jack Daniels.

But there's probably nobody better when it comes to handling yeast cultures, understanding them, conditioning them for the fermentation environment. He is an absolute pro. One best I've ever seen. And what I really began to appreciate with Kevin is that talking to people and all the different issues that they would see at their distilleries that we never had.

problems with at Jack Daniels. And the only thing I would say is this because we got Kevin, he was so on top of things there. There were things I didn't have to lose sleep over because I knew he would be on top of it. His skill set's very different than mine, but very complimentary to mine at the same time.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (10:40.738)
Yeah. Well, we were talking brewing a lot. So I felt like he was definitely in his element when he was talking about brewing for sure. And then he brought in a bottle of when I was with the, with you, you had shared with me a bottle of your maple finish. And then he shared with me the cast drink version of the maple finish. And I have to tell you, it definitely came across as subtle in the,

in the regular proof, the cast-trength, was like, wow, I mean, this is just like toasted maple, just amazing kind of flavors coming out of that. Have you?

Jeff (11:20.824)
Yeah, know, unfortunately the Castrake has only been like a distillery exclusive for us, but for the people who've come to our distilleries and have done the tasting, it is usually the bottle that they want to buy. Yeah, we submitted it for judging one time it was a platinum winner, which is the type of award that they were gonna offer. So yeah, I was pleased.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (11:31.863)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (11:41.655)
Yeah. Have you seen, because that's the interesting thing you mentioned, the gold series at Jack Daniels and that was basically 80 proof. And now you have that ability to jump up and, we're in an era where everybody seems to want to have the higher proof. So is that kind of pushing you in that direction in some ways?

Jeff (11:58.136)
proof.

Jeff (12:04.267)
You know, sometimes when you're building a product, you're building it for certain markets and they will describe that consumer to you and it puts limitations on it. So when we first consider doing the maple barrel, the 27 gold product that Jack Daniels, the U.S. was not its target market. It was going to go into the Asia Pacific only. This was a consumer. was a developing whiskey consumer. They would have described it as they have less tolerance of high proof.

than the typical American consumer. 80 proof was pretty much the ceiling of what we wanted to offer on it. When I started to look at wood finishing to replace the maple barrel to do a toasted maple wood finish, we began to test it at 90 and 100 proof and all the characteristics of the maple held up. If anything, I thought it became more flavorful, even more impressive, liquid and certainly more appropriate maybe for the U.S. if that was going to become its ultimate home.

Getting the losses of the maple barrel out of the equation with more than allow us to raise the proof and potentially lower the price So I saw it as an opportunity that it would become a more affordable But high-end drinking bottle position just above single barrel for Jack Daniels, which there's a little bit of a void there You know beyond single barrel Jack. JV is very successful brand

$25 to $50 very successful. They have struggled, if we're being honest, at establishing anything with a price point above that. And I'd always try to look at opportunities for something that was sustainable that would warrant a higher price point that people could see the value in it, whether it be age proof, finishing, whatever we would do. But to me, was about trying to stretch to that higher end. Because there were people that would trade up.

At certain moments off of Jack Daniels because there was nothing that was suitable in their mind. It wasn't high-end enough to celebrate the moment So, you know, there was an opportunity to do that if we were successful But when they decided they were gonna kill the 27 gold product, it was a time that I had already Contemplated maybe going out on my own after 20 years there. I felt like I've learned a ton I was still young enough. I knew it wasn't gonna be something we could do overnight takes a while to build a brand

Drew | Whiskey Lore (14:20.801)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff (14:25.823)
I've had enough working years left to get it done. So it just seemed like it was right to do at that moment. And no hard feelings to Jack Daniels, they were great to me. And I have a lot of friends there and lot of respect for him.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (14:35.308)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (14:39.34)
Well, you tag team was some pretty impressive people. kind of give people who don't know the makeup of, the leadership of company distilling, where they came from and who they are.

Jeff (14:49.089)
Yeah. So, yeah. So when we originally formed Company of Selling, it was just a group of friends. So I came from Jack Daniels and whiskey was my background. Heath Clark had been one of the people that was, he was an attorney by trade, but he had been part of getting the loss changes in Tennessee. that instead of three counties being able to distill it, open it up, we're about 75 or 80 of the 95 counties would be allowed to distill. His passion was gin making, which is why we

We had the Thompson station facility, which was his law office. The Ghost Rail gin was basically originated from there. So we, it's part of our distribution set. It was a double platinum winner. won the whole category for gin at the Ascotts in 2021 for best gin. I think it's fantastic. We followed that up with a barrel-aged version of it too. That's a distillery exclusive. But Chris Tatum, they come out of Old Forge. His background was more like in the moonshine space.

East Tennessee, had a lot of local connections. He was the president of the Tennessee Distillers Guild for several years, probably three or four years. And I served as his vice president coming from Jack Daniels. So he and I got to know one another and work together to try to help get the laws of Tennessee that were written back in 1938, right after Prohibition, to have them advance, at least to progress to the point that they reflected what most people feel.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (15:47.79)
Mm-hmm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (16:14.018)
my.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:06.35)
Let's see...

Jeff (17:09.889)
Hey, I'm not sure what happened there.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:10.862)
Okay. Oh, he's, I don't know either. You just disappeared. Um, it says you have Riverside open in another tab. Do you.

Jeff (17:21.137)
Is that better?

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:23.202)
Maybe when you log back in, sometimes it'll keep the old.

Maybe it's not saying that you're still got the, well, I closed the issue thing. Maybe we're fine. Let me see. No, it looks like we're fine. Yeah, it may be something slow on your end because you're, okay, you're starting to pick up speed now. The way this records.

Jeff (17:32.605)
Okay.

Jeff (17:41.565)
Yeah, I apologize. I've got a, supposedly have one gig service here, but I don't know that I always get that. I'm not sure what's going on.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:54.133)
Okay. Yeah. Sometimes later in the afternoon, I noticed certain services tend to slack off a little bit, but,

Jeff (17:57.879)
Yeah, I'll tell you what, I've got a TV playing that's probably chewing up what little bit I've got. Let me go kill it. So I've just got this going. Hold on one second.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (18:08.894)
Okay. All right, very good.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (18:41.326)
Very good. Okay. So you were talking about you were, yeah. Oh, can you hear me? Okay. So you were talking about, you had just got, start getting into, uh, the legal side with, uh, Chris Tatum's, uh, background.

Jeff (18:41.863)
Yes.

Jeff (18:49.393)
Yeah, yeah. So, so I'll just kind of jump back in there. so, other than he, another partner was Chris Tatum. he had come out of old forge to celery in East Tennessee. His background was primarily in the moonshine space, which kind of defines a lot of what is in East Tennessee in the way of distilled spirits. he had been the president of the Tennessee distillers guild. was the vice president of the Tennessee distillers guild. And he and I worked together.

A lot of the laws, Tennessee's prohibition ran from like 1909 to 1937, 1938 period. So it started 10 years before national prohibition. It lasted about five years longer. But a lot of those laws that were written in 1938 that allowed distilling to start back up in three counties had not been looked at since 1938. So once the laws were changed, it allowed distilling in about 80 of the 95 counties. We decided to go back.

to the legislature and say, look, we want to be a pro-business state. This could be a growth industry for Tennessee, but you have some barriers that don't exist in other states and I don't think you're going to want those there. So we called it parity. We weren't really asking for anything for distilled spirits that weren't already allowed for breweries and wineries. The one thing that they didn't want distilleries to have was self-distribution rights. They wanted a three-tier system. So spirits still have to go through a distributor to the retailer.

They give you the one caveat that if you have a manufacturing site, they allow you to pay your distributor an admin fee and to directly retail to consumers. That's why, you for us, having multiple locations, retail locations is really good for us because it allows us to directly market to the consumer and to not necessarily give up all the margins that go through the traditional distribution pipeline, even though that, course, for long-term growth.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (20:22.03)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff (20:46.029)
you've got to be able to navigate through the distribution channel as well. But in the early years, the more you can generate with local retail, it helps you to kind of lay down to be able to forward the distribution path for yourself.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:06.69)
Yeah. Well then you really developed off of the tourist side. was that a lot of Chris? Cause Chris is coming from Pigeon Forge. So, you know, he's in the heart of

Jeff (21:11.101)
Yep. And I came from Jack Daniels. yeah, so he was getting, you know, there were about a million people or more going through the different distilleries in East Tennessee. Jack Daniels would get about 300,000. So they didn't, I would always say that Jack Daniels didn't get as many as like Ol' Smokey would get on the Parkway. But that consumer was different who came to Lynchburg. You know, they were counting heads who were just walking the Parkway and just stuffed their head in there, like looked in like, yeah, okay, let's go. You know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:26.413)
Yeah.

Jeff (21:40.605)
That counted as a visit on the parkway, but you don't just show up in Lynchburg like, what's here? But most people who arrive there are pretty much singularly focused. They know why they're there. So a little bit different level of consumer for sure. But yeah, he and I were able to work together with the other distillers. created a code of ethics and conduct that we wanted all the distillers to follow.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:43.17)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:53.13)
Right.

Jeff (22:07.837)
I think I'd kind of say that we're a gentleman's industry. Hopefully we don't talk poorly of one another. I think it's important not to. You're all in a fairly small pool and when somebody starts splashing, everybody's gonna get wet. So just keep it above the belt. You could be edgy and fun without being tacky or attacking of other brands. So always try to do that.

We would laugh at Jack Daniels and say that we don't mention other brands by name because they're all SOBs, not some other brands, just to make it fun. everybody signed into it and that put 30 distilleries onto the Tennessee Whiskey Trail. So Chris and I had worked together to help get that done and then ultimately became business partners when company kicked off.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:35.64)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:47.214)
Nice.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:51.565)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (23:03.906)
Yeah. And now you're, taking up a 10th of it with three distilleries there. So yeah.

Jeff (23:05.435)
Yeah, well, I think well and I'd say there's 30 different like different brands and distilleries on it So you have some that are multi site like so smoky has multi site As well so different places that you can visit But what we what we've been vision for ourselves is that we don't try to make everything everywhere You know Thompson station because of the small size it just makes gin because you can make gin with a fairly efficiently with a fairly small footprint

Drew | Whiskey Lore (23:16.429)
Right.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (23:30.605)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff (23:33.373)
Townsend is a little bit larger facility, so we do a little bit more of a variety of things there. We do a lot of wood finishing. It's a brew celery. We always have six different beers on tap. They were all made in-house. So we do vodka there. Pretty much everything but gin will be done there, at least in small scale. And then Lynchburg is sort of, when it hit the radar that we could purchase that location, it came with a fairly good-sized production building.

It's kind of made me take pause because we were thinking about Alcoa for our main facility. One of the complications of operating a whiskey distillery is what are you going to do with your spent grains? That disposal pathway, the community infrastructure that you need to dispose of distiller's grains does not exist in Alcoa. So you're going to have to find farmer, somebody who's got

Chickens pig something or or you're have to tanker it away and haul it away to somebody Which is going to get expensive. So the great thing about Lynchburg is that already exists there for you know about a 400 farmer base That already have tanker trucks. They've got feed troughs. They've got you know cattle And if you tell them that your spent grains are free, they will be there and pick them up that afternoon So you don't really have to worry

Drew | Whiskey Lore (24:38.35)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (24:57.816)
So does this, so does this become a competition between Jack Daniels and company as to whose grains are more desired by the cattle?

Jeff (25:01.149)
Well, well, you know, I'm not gonna be able to compete on the volume of Jack Daniel's I would say that mine mine are gonna be the ones that people want because I'm not gonna charge for them You know, if you'll just come and get it and make it go away. It's gonna be a headache for me You Jack Daniel's has so much of it and there's value there You know you have you take the carbohydrates out of it, but you've got fat fiber protein left in the in the spent grains So if you mix that in with a little bit of hey, you won't

Drew | Whiskey Lore (25:10.318)
Ha ha ha.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (25:22.317)
Yeah.

Jeff (25:29.873)
You won't fatten a cow if you'll beef it up. It's like a Natkins diet for a cow because you're taking the fattening stuff out of it and putting on the stuff that we'll put on, you know, lean mass. But yeah, I'd be happy to give it away just to not have to choke on it or have to pay to have it hauled away because that's what I'm faced with in Alcoa. And I'm still, we still own land in Alcoa close to the Nassau airport. The area around us had been

Drew | Whiskey Lore (25:38.861)
Mmm.

Jeff (25:58.615)
gone through some bankruptcy issues and things in the master plan for that community has changed a little bit. So that kind of gave us a moment of pause to say, hey, we're seeing to make sure that we know what we're going to be building in over there because there's no way to do it cheaply there. So we just want to know that we're going to be investing wisely when we move forward. So we're looking at options for that right now.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:25.484)
And it is the mountain terrain and basically that's the issue with not having a lot of cattle grazing there and the rest.

Jeff (26:28.061)
Yeah, well, and there are some, you know, there are people, there are farmers there. There would be ways to dispose of it, but it's not something that they typically do now. It would be, so if you're not hauling, you know, liquid feed in your operation right now, then I'd have to convince you that it's worthwhile to go and buy a tanker truck and set up feed troughs that would hold it. And then once I do that with somebody, then I'm on the, you we're on the hook to keep making it. And then if, you know, you don't want to make

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:42.028)
Yeah.

Jeff (26:57.275)
Whiskey, if you don't need whiskey, you're not gonna make it just to create spent stillage for a farmer, but the farmer will get upset. I saw these things at Jack Daniel's, is that there was a month long shutdown every year, and the farmers who were dependent upon the stillage for feed have to plan for that month where there is nothing available to them. They have to kind of build up stores, have to have a plan B that will bridge them through those weeks, because you can't just let them stand out there and not feed them.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (27:06.892)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (27:30.242)
Yeah. So, Townsend would have the same kind of a situation. Would it not? So, so is brewing really the only thing that you'll be doing there or will there be some distilling going on?

Jeff (27:31.687)
Yep. Yep.

Jeff (27:38.289)
We have a still there as well, but we've done a lot of brewing there, which actually has the separator gets the grain solids out, which is preferable when you're going to use a pot still. If you look at what they do in Scotland, they don't use, they don't do grains in distillations. They'd create a wash or a warp. then because you're stationary inside the pot while you're boiling it, trying to vaporize it and collect it as a distillate. And when the solids sit inside of

a pot still they tend to scorch and they'll create some off flavors off notes. You know, I actually never much had that trouble at Jack Daniel's. It was a continuous column still until we went to like a 100 % malt grain bill where you have those tender husks that are part of malt. And just the time that they would spend inside the still you would get a little bit of a scorched husk type note, grassy, I called it a wet hay or a grassy note would come off of it.

When it was only 12 % of the grain bill, the corn and the rye would offset it, you didn't really catch it. But when that's all that was coming through the still, it's like, okay, you really need to get the solids out if you want to get a clean base. So having a pot still over there, we have a hybrid pot. So it has a rectifying column on it, it has a gin basket. So we can make vodka, gin, whiskey in small quantities at that location.

Jeff (29:05.149)
It would be, I would say better with that little small still, even though it would be a challenge to make a lot of it, you know, make probably a barrel a week on a system of that size. with Jack Daniels, yeah, the system just wasn't very well set up to do a 100 % malt grain. It was a very capable system, but it just wasn't really set up for a single malt.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (29:05.422)
does seem like an American single malt might actually be good for that location.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (29:17.698)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (29:32.962)
Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about the personalities of each of these distilleries. First of all, Thompson station, you say is making gin now at, at, when I went there, they had that beautiful onion still the Portuguese still, is that still there or has that moved down to, okay.

Jeff (29:43.207)
Yep. Yep. It is. Yeah, we have a hundred gallon, a hundred gallon copper, Alemic steel direct fired at that location. We are looking at that's not the most intrinsically safe way to heat and distill. So we are looking at modifying that to put a heating element set up having like that open flame under the bottom to heat it. Most likely to put a heating element submerged inside the pot, which would be much safer. So we're

We're still making gin on it right now, four days, last four days, I gin on it. So I had thought about that still, ultimately ending up in Lynchburg. It's beautiful to look at. And if we were going to give the gin a home, a long-term home, it's probably more meaningful to have that be Lynchburg and Thompson Station. Thompson Station is great community. It just doesn't mean much to a drinker.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (30:34.755)
Yeah.

Jeff (30:42.747)
Nothing like what having a bottling address that is coming out of Lynchburg, Tennessee. Most people, whether they drink Chacrinas or not, at least know what Lynchburg is famous for.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (30:47.331)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (30:55.928)
Yeah. But you've got a lot of company there now. Anybody that's going south of Nashville, you had Leapers Fork already. Now they got a second location and there's another distillery in, Franklin now, in south of you get, you got 10 south big machine. re really, if somebody wanted to, you know, kind of do a path towards Lynchburg coming from Nashville, they got plenty of options that way, or even going down towards the Chattanooga direction.

Jeff (30:57.831)
Yep. Yep.

Jeff (31:19.655)
Yeah, we've actually, you know, still, it's still in the works for it. But, you know, feel like each of these locations has different history, potentially attracts different types of customers. You know, Thompson station for people who don't know where it is being just out the Franklin, just north of Spring Hill. It's in Williamson County, which is, the most affluent County and the state of Tennessee and one of the top in ample counties in the country. So fairly well to do people. A lot of them like whiskey.

They like high end whiskeys there, but we've not done anything really at that location. I think speaks to that local market. So the building that we're in there belongs to the city of Thompson station. So it's right in the old historic district. They have not shown any interest in selling the building to us, but we've got at least for at least a few more years with us making a decision not to make whiskey there any longer and only make gin. gives us the opportunity to reallocate the space that's under roof. I if we can add onto it.

where it can be much more consumer friendly, more space in the bar, more merch and things of that nature. Still leave that still in there, still beautiful to look at, still very capable. But I'm thinking about offering a couple of things that are really what I call Williamson County centric, Franklin centric things that would be there. Really nice, you know, multiple grain, really cool with finishes and things of that nature that I think would speak to them. So we're

We're working with the city right now that we would like to remodel the interior. If they prove that we're most likely gonna do a, we'll do that and we'll have a grand reopening. We'll have some really nice bottles for people. That's part of it.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (32:58.348)
Yeah. No, when I think of towns and I think about the grains and grits festival that goes on out there, was that, was that kind of a draw for you putting the distillery in that spot?

Jeff (33:04.797)
It was, it was how I got introduced to Townsend. know, a lot of people said, you why did you build in Townsend? I said, well, it would have probably been on my radar, except that when I was still with Jack Daniels, was going there one time a year, the first Saturday of November to this whiskey festival. And I would take my wife and kids along and we all agreed it was, it was a wonderful time of the year to be there. The mountains were beautiful. The leaves were changing colors. Um, that it was a of times your job would be very stressful.

I always felt like going into that community, felt like my blood pressure was just dropping. You just kind of decompress when you go there. Like going back in time, it's like you just don't have a care in the world at times over there. And I liked that feeling and I felt like it suited the brand. think when we all started discussing it, it's like we could find some property here that's suitable. There are no distilleries over here. Blount County, who was hosting Grange and Grits, was very interested in having a distillery or two, if they could get it. So in talking with them, that's how Townsend.

came to be. we're able to find a property that was kind of, it was already a commercial property, grandfathered in, we just needed to tear it down and rebuild on that footprint to make it into a distillery. you know, from the time we launched company, took us another year or so to do a tear down and a rebuild. So Townsend was our first facility that we built from scratch. Small but mighty, I call it. Not a big place, but pretty capable considering there's no

Drew | Whiskey Lore (34:28.814)
It's a nice... Yeah.

Jeff (34:30.877)
There's no natural gas and there's no municipal sewer in Townsend, which is kind of strategic on their part that they don't want to be Pigeon Forge or Gatlinburg. They want to remain the peaceful side of the Smokies. They want to have green space. They really want to be a camping destination where people come to float the river, hike. So, but it's nice to have the distillery there so you don't have to go into Pigeon Forge or back to Marable to buy a bottle, to get a decent nice cocktail.

think we do a really good job of meeting that need for the people who are looking for something like that.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (35:09.678)
Yeah. Nice little winding road to get down from Gatlinburg. Nice getaway. If you want to just take a break from traffic and the rest, obviously. Um, uh, how far is it from, Gatlinburg?

Jeff (35:19.109)
It probably takes about 45 minutes. if you, if you come out of Gatlinburg and kind of take the back road that connects over to Townsend, well, you can come through the park if you want to come out of Gatlinburg and go through the Sugarlands entrance into the national park. And then if you head towards Cades Cove, Townsend is an exit out of the park. so a lot of people who are trying to go to Cades Cove find that coming to Townsend first and then entering the park there is the shortest way.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (35:26.338)
Okay.

Yeah.

Jeff (35:46.694)
to get to Cades Cove. If you're trying to seek wildlife, catch them in their native habitat, black bears and cubs and deer and elk and all the things that are in the park, we're one of the more strategic ways to get in to Cades Cove.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (36:07.554)
Then we have Lynchburg, which is really interesting that that distillery has a history. So kind of let us know a little bit. What was it before? and what got you really interested in picking that location?

Jeff (36:18.193)
you know, I think the interest in the location comes from having spent 20 years there and understanding what Lynchburg means to a lot of people who love Tennessee whiskey or when they think of Tennessee and spirits that it is the sort of the the origin of it all is Lynchburg. But when I was leaving Jack Daniels, I wasn't really thinking about having a location in Lynchburg, but there was a winery, small distillery on the square there. actually knew I wanted the owners pretty well.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (36:26.83)
Ha

Jeff (36:46.493)
He and his wife both, their daughter had babysat my kid. So I didn't just know him casually. I knew him pretty well. And unfortunately, one of the, were two guys that were partners in it and one of them had a, ended up passing away in a car crash. And I just reached out in sympathy and said, look, I've heard that, you know, what happened there. I just, you know, you're in my thoughts and prayers. And he said, well, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do this on my own. You know, I may need to find, you know, a partner.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (37:06.348)
Mm.

Jeff (37:15.229)
or somebody who will buy this. So I said, you know, I'd have to, you know, I'm in a partnership myself and, uh, know, we're corporations. I said, you know, I'm not, I wouldn't be able to do it on my own. If we were going to do it, I'd have to go back to our board and discuss it. So it began, you know, over a year long conversation with him that he was trying to make a go of it. Um, I told him it would, you know, instead of just talking to me about buying it, he, he owed it to himself to know what the thing would be worked that he sold it on the open market. So he,

entertained, had some people come and take look at it. I think including even Jack Daniels sent a proxy over, walked through it, talked to him about a purchase price on it. So they didn't make him an offer or they didn't counter. So that kind of let the door open for us to make him an offer and allow him to move on with his life, which I think is what he was wanting to do. But it had, like I said, it been a winery and a distillery. So we're not a wine company. We do have the wine license and the equipment we have contemplated.

The same way we do beer in towns and it gives us one more thing. Not everybody drinks spirits, so it's nice to have beer, especially on a hot summer day right there on the little river that's made in house. So it is definitely a lure to get people in. So the wines might be as well, but we haven't made a long-term decision about it. But we do have an operable still there. We're still working on the facility. We've got, you know, two thirds of it is open and running, but just chipping away at it because it was a fairly large property.

over hundred year old buildings. You never know what you're getting into when you take on buildings like that, but we definitely wanted it to be ready for the next 100 years. So we did not do band-aid repairs on it. We stripped it down to concrete walls, every mechanical electrical plumbing thing in it as new, all new studs, all new roof joists, all new roofing, everything. So we just used the shell of the building and then rebuilt it inside.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (38:50.734)
Hmm.

Jeff (39:11.619)
about beautiful facility right on the corner of the square doing the one thing that Jack Daniels really has the right to do but I don't think wants to do and that is allow people to sit down talk and drink a cocktail and and if they enjoy the cocktail we have the bottles there for them to take home if we're not sold in their state it gives us an opportunity to start a conversation with them that they get to know the brand a little bit we're in we are in nine states of distribution currently but Jack Daniels gets a lot of tourism outside of

Drew | Whiskey Lore (39:26.775)
Nah.

Jeff (39:40.839)
where we're currently distributed. We see international guests at that location where we didn't necessarily see that in Townsend. the facilities are about three hours apart, but a very different consumer going through Lynchburg and going through Townsend.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (39:49.357)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (39:59.79)
Yeah.

Jeff (40:02.941)
Well, there's one there's a flashing light, you know, it's still a one It's still a one stoplight town, but you do have a flashing light They got added in Lynchburg where the crosswalk is from the welcome center that comes to the visitor center Jack Daniel,

Drew | Whiskey Lore (40:03.704)
So I'm wondering how long is it going to be before we have two stoplights in Lynchburg? Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (40:23.01)
Yeah. But the town has really, progressed over the time since you started working there because, you know, back then the idea of having cocktails in any kind of thing in Lynchburg was, was a no go.

Jeff (40:32.231)
Well, when the laws were changed, were only three counties that were allowed to distill from 1938 until about 2012, and that was when the laws began to change. And then those distilleries went back and were starting to try to update the codes and the restrictions of what was allowed, what was not allowed. As a manufacturer, you're allowed to do tastings, to serve cocktails, and to have bottle sales. you actually operate under a different...

code than what like a licensed retail account would. So that's why it's important that we manufacture. The laws in Tennessee don't require us to make everything at every site. We base up into the amount that you produce at each site you're allowed to do transfers between them. So I call that on small scale we can create houses of expertise. units of. Tom's of Station's committed its gin.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (41:10.339)
Mm.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (41:24.494)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff (41:29.653)
what we've been doing up in, know, the vodka, we do it just as an in-store brand that the nothing vodka probably doesn't come to Lynchburg. I was continued to do it there. We've got it figured out on that still. We're happy with how the product is. but once part gives me much more, as I was saying, community infrastructure to think about brains handling, as we start to scale up the whiskey side of our operation. it's more conceivable and easier to think about it being there than it is any of our other locations simply because.

the farmers, the tanker trucks, the feed trucks, all the things that are required to get rid of grain already exists there.

Jeff (42:07.805)
What we have over there right now is a hybrid steel. It's a large hybrid similar to what we have in Townsend. So it gives you some of the benefits of each. It has a rectifying column on it, so not everything that comes of apron heads up the neck of the steel has to come off. You can kind of use a precondenser, a deflator, and you can force that to reflux until you get the proof and the character that you're looking for from it and then decide what you're going to pass off of it.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (42:09.538)
So is it gonna be column still or pot still whiskey?

Jeff (42:35.847)
So doesn't have 19 plates in it, it's not 40 feet tall like what they have at Jack Daniel's, but it gives you many of the benefits of what a column still would do. But to feed a column still, you've got to have a lot of liquid to get that feed going. And on the scale that we operate, it's much more manageable to start with a charge and a pot still, but we want some of the controls that come from a column at the same time.

Jeff (43:03.581)
Yeah, already, well, pretty much the facility is, you can see everything that's there, but the steel that we're using right now is in the back of the building because the one area that we needed to finish up, the front wall of the facility in Lynchburg was rocking about three or four inches back and forth, the concrete wall. So we had to, when we put the awning on the front of the building, to big six by six posts, to tear up the sidewall, drive those into the ground, pour footers on it, and then attach the front wall to the awning.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (43:04.448)
Okay. Are you going to be doing tours there?

Jeff (43:33.565)
just to stabilize it. all these things where it was expense and was delays on in time to get that facility but we wanted that wall to be stable and when we flashed the roof to it that it wasn't going to be moving around and create a leak spot behind the front wall. But we're actually about to bring in the beer making equipment into Lynchburg that will be on display and so there's three compartmentalized rooms there. So when first walk in it's more of a merch area, bottle sales, you go into the middle room, it's a large cocktail bar, got a nice horse

Drew | Whiskey Lore (43:38.296)
Mm.

Jeff (44:03.197)
horseshoe shape, nice comfortable seating in there. And then the last room, you'll be able to see Mass Cooker, you know, beer making. So we will actually have beer making capabilities as well, because you got to make a distiller's beer to make whiskey. So the question is how far do you want to go in that direction? But we've considered bringing that Olympic still out of Thompson Station and then back. We have three stills in Lynchburg right now. Thinking about taking one of those back to Thompson Station.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (44:21.805)
Yeah.

Jeff (44:31.773)
So because we'll need to distill that location as well.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (44:35.809)
Okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (44:39.554)
Yeah. So Lynchburg actually has become kind of a great starting point now with two distilleries and also the Tennessee trailhead is there. The whiskey trailhead is there.

Jeff (44:47.769)
It is. So besides the 300,000 people that come to Lynchburg pretty predictably every year, it varies a little bit based on gas prices and how the economy is doing, but almost predictably they'll get about 300,000 people who'll tour the distillery. About a hundred thousand of them last year, I went by the Welcome Center in Lynchburg, which they consider to be the whiskey trailhead or the starting point of taking the Tennessee Whiskey Trail. And they picked up passports there.

which is great for us because if you can get two stamps in your passport while you're in Lynchburg, you I know that you're there to get the one from Jack Daniels. That's probably what brought you to town, but you can get another stamp if you want to come over and hopefully what you'll find at what we do at Jack Daniels, or company, the ceiling is different than what they do at Jack Daniels. We're not, know, world-class tour, great tasting rooms, you know, the ideal, you know, tour day, I think in Lynchburg is you show up a little bit early.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (45:24.706)
Ha ha.

Jeff (45:43.389)
for lunch, you get the tour in, you can get a tasting in. If you can get in at Miss Mary Bobo's, you go eat lunch over there, family style, get to meet some people from all over, different states, different countries, it'll set your table with you. If you can't get in there, there's other great places to eat around the square. And then shop some of the shops there. And then come to, come to Company Distilling, sit down, talk about what a great day you've had, enjoy a cocktail.

If you enjoy the cocktail and want to take a bottle home, we'll give you the recipe, you can take the bottle and make it at home. So, you we just want to be a part of what I would consider to be the complete whiskey lovers day in Lynchburg and do that one thing that Jack Danos historically has not done, which is allow you to sit, talk, drink a cocktail.

Jeff (46:32.977)
Yeah, yeah, we call that yellow label now people were so disappointed they would get to the end of the tour and they couldn't believe that they didn't get a chance to try the product but But yeah, that was one of the good things though the time that Chris and I were heading the Tennessee Distillers Guild is that we were going and addressing things like that that you know for this small I mean project Daniels a lot of people showed up there they'd already tried the product before For the small distilleries people were coming to their facilities if they weren't going to taste the product it's like why would I buy it and

Drew | Whiskey Lore (46:34.05)
Beautiful. They used to let you drink lemonade.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (46:45.454)
Yeah, but it was a

Jeff (47:02.567)
can't even try it. So I think they understood that, that, you know, this trial before you buy and making an informed purchase that you, that's what your tasting is about. I feel like all of our whiskeys are good. You know, some of them may be based on what you like or are great. And so often when people ask me, which is the best one, I'm like, tell me what you normally drink or what you're looking for. And I'll tell you what's best for that. Ours are very different. We do an applewood Tennessee whiskey. We do a maplewood finished bourbon. We do a cherrywood finished rye.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (47:16.194)
Yeah.

Jeff (47:31.847)
They'll speak to maybe different flavor profiles that people are looking for, but they're all really nice. They've all won awards. So, you know, I think that's validated. But just tell me, if you tell me one is better than the other, I'm not going to argue that. I'm just glad you like one of them.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (47:42.275)
Yeah.

Jeff (47:50.877)
No, yeah, that's not I don't think that's the model that we're going for here I can't rule out that we wouldn't you know, we're already on the alcoa property as that develops around us And we can kind of be a little bit clearer plan about what the city of Alcoa is going to do with the rest of the land north of us I think we would like to do the question is are we gonna do a massive big facility there? We do something smaller like what we have out Townsend That is it is a really good high visibility

Drew | Whiskey Lore (47:50.966)
Yeah. Well, if we talk three years from now, are you going to have six locations? Is this the way it's going?

Yeah.

Jeff (48:20.839)
high visibility location. It's a lot of traffic already in that area. But I think anytime something comes up that it's like there's a small footprint location would work. Why not? Old Smokey has shown that there's power in it. They've done a multi-site. They've got the place in Nashville. They've got one in Gatlinburg. They've got one over Pigeon Forge.

Some people only go to one of them, some people go to all of them. But everyone of is a little bit different, but it gives you a chance to experience their brand, try their products. It's been an excellent marketing tool for both of them.

Jeff (49:05.949)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're fortunate because I mean, like I said, the industry has had some headwinds. think economically that you're seeing some of that right now. Maybe people have burned up all their COVID money that they were spending whiskey on and they're having to make some harder choices now. So they're kind of tightening up the budget, not spending as much on it. But, you know, we've actually been able to grow over the last year. You know, we grew double digits as far as distribution growth for our brand, but

Drew | Whiskey Lore (49:06.338)
Well, it's nice to see that you're expanding outside of Tennessee too, in terms of your distribution. So people will know who you are.

Jeff (49:36.185)
That's not to say every market that we're in grew, but we're still expanding markets. So because we haven't, you know, if we were in all 50 states and the economy drops, it's kind of hard to hide from that. think that's what I've heard from Jack Daniels. think their sales are down pretty significantly, but there's no new geographies for them to break to kind of offset what a global slowdown might look like because they're in every country, every bar. know, most people would, most people would envy that, but

If you're trying to grow and the economy is slowing down, it makes it very, very tough for you to find a way around it. But if you're a small brand like me, as long as I can expand new markets each year beyond what any other market that we currently have would shrink, you can still grow. you know, we still have a lot of upside, a lot of growth potential ahead of us. We just need to be smart. We're still a small company. Not every state is as good as the other based on whether it's a controlled state, how they're structured.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (50:06.519)
Right.

Jeff (50:33.137)
So you want to make sure that you're going into the markets that are right, that give you the best opportunity to profitably sell your product. So we're kind of being very thoughtful. That's why we're not, certainly haven't outkicked our coverage and web distribution. But we're at that point now where we've got our new make, that's matured in. We're old enough as a company now that we have our own liquid to offer, which is, I call it higher quality and more cost competitive, which is good.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (51:06.694)
Yeah. Well, congratulations on your success to this point. And, it's going to be fun watching you grow and develop. next time I go to Lynchburg, I've got two places to visit, which is, which is really great.

Jeff (51:15.025)
Yeah, just definitely reach out to me. I'm trying to split time between Middle Tennessee and East Tennessee, which is fun for me because my family's in Middle Tennessee. It always gives me an opportunity to see family when I'm over there, but I live in East Tennessee. But if you're coming to come to Lynchburg, just let me know. I'd love to host you there. I'll walk you through everything that we already have done and even show you behind the scenes what is to come as well. So still have some planning and finishing left to do there, but excited about the future for it.

Yeah, cheers.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (51:46.623)
Awesome. Well, cheers.