Ep. 122 - The Art of the Bourbon Blend

Transcript

Drew | Whiskey Lore (00:01.688)

Welcome to Whiskey Lore: The Interviews

I’m Drew Hannush, the best selling author of Whiskey Lore’s Travel Guide to Experiencing Kentucky Bourbon: Second Edition, The Lost History of Tennessee Whiskey and Whiskey Lore Volume One

And with today’s episode, what started out as just a YouTube tasting video with special guests turned into a fascinating conversation about Bourbon blending, so I decided to bring it over here into the Whiskey Lore Interviews series.

My guests are Joe Beatrice and Tripp Stimson of Barrell Craft Spirits. Joe is the founder and Tripp is the chief whiskey scientist and master blender there - and to both of you, welcome to show.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (00:42.114)
Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (00:44.194)
This is, this is a brand that I was introduced to probably about three years ago. We were doing a, a tasting at a bourbon society gathering. And I, the whiskey that I got to taste back then was the Seagrass, which I was very impressed by. The other thing that impressed me about it was that for a long time, I think whiskey fans, especially in the U S mostly in the U S kind of.

look down on blending of whiskey, whereas I come out of the Scotch world where, you know, that's just, you know, they're selling more blended Scotch than they sell single malt by a large margin. it's very normal for them. and so I thought it'd be interesting actually in our conversation today to ask you, Joe, how this came about, what, what got you into thinking.

Let's do blending in a industry where blending really wasn't, anywhere around that I can think of.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (01:52.88)
Yeah, it's a really good question. also, you know, I was and I started and we are inspired by this scotch model. I mean, it's all about the blend. That's the whole magic. And so, you're right. was a dirty word. People weren't doing it. It ranged from everything from well, blended whiskey is GNS and some whiskey all the way to

Can you really do that? Those are the questions that we were dealing with for the first few years. But the genesis of it was really we wanted to produce the best quality, highest quality, best tasting product we possibly could from the whiskies that we found that were available and that we purchased. And every batch that we created, every product we create, every time we do something is

Drew | Whiskey Lore (02:24.245)
Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (02:50.552)
truly unique. Everyone is different, even within any series that we do. So we're inventing products every day. So we'll do 10 or 20 or 30 a year or 40 a year. And so that keeps us a little busy.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (03:05.741)
I think this is something that I have really tried to push people actually in my whiskey lore volume one book. talk about blending as a different craft that you have distillers who have certain skills and techniques and tools at their disposal to be able to craft a particular flavor profile or, you know, the sense that you're getting out of, out of the whiskey, and that

not enough people give credit to blenders for the craft that they're involved in, which is different from distilling. So kind of describe to me what a blender goes through in terms of trying to piece together a whiskey.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (03:49.184)
I don't know if you can hear that, but I'll just, one fine point that I wanted to make, which, it's such a subtlety. And that, it really goes to sort of what we created here, which is, which is I knew that I didn't want to build the story. I knew we, we know we didn't want to have that because, you know, it is, it really is like building a factory, not like building a factory. is building a factory. And so

thought that the value that we could create for our consumers would be in the uniqueness of the products that we created. So that art is what we focused on and have for the last 14 years. I'm going to let Tripp tell you about a day in the life of what we do all day long. So I think it's also important to have a little bit of insight into the distillery.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (04:29.611)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (04:32.941)
Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (04:42.036)
side of things because all of those things happen upstream from where we really begin our process. And so we don't have any control of all of the inputs that go into creating the initial whiskey. So we don't get to pick the yeast strain or necessarily the grains that go into that batch. We don't get to pick the initial char level of the barrel or any of those upstream components. What we do is we

pick unique characteristics on barrels that have already been distilled by other distillers and matured in different places in the US for bourbon and then across the world for all the different spirits. And one of the things that really helps us earmark the specifics that we're looking for in the whiskeys and rums and other spirits that we want to use in our blending is an understanding of

all of the things that happen upstream. Even though we can't control them, we have an understanding of what yeast is supposed to do and what it does when it's not in the proper conditions or what fermentations are supposed to create. And some of the off-notes that are created when there are other things that happen that are outside of your control. And so really it's about knowing what's not supposed to be in some of these spirits as opposed to things that we're specifically looking for.

And that's not to say that we don't like the unique characteristics specifically, but by tasting something and going, that's probably not supposed to be in there. It tastes like there's some excess buttery notes, maybe diacetyl, maybe there's some sort of bacterial contamination that happened upstream. That helps us better understand what's going on with that lot of barrels so that we can be more proactive with earmarking the flavor characteristics that we do want to put together in our.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (06:34.125)
I think one of the fun things in looking at Scotch whiskey and talking to Scotch blenders, the idea that they know different distilleries have different characteristics. If you go to a Glen Glassa up along the North Sea, it's very heavy bodied whiskey. And so it can be harder to work with in this condition or this condition, or you've got peated whiskeys that you bring in different elements and that sort of thing. Are you finding from the distilleries that you're sourcing from?

that you've now gotten to a point where you go, I'm looking for this. I know that's the distillery that's gonna give me what I'm looking for.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (07:10.442)
Absolutely. mean, distilleries absolutely have unique signature characteristics and one would expect that that would be the case because from a distiller's point of view, you're making the same thing the best way you can every single day, right? I that's really the goal is to be as absolutely consistent as you can be with your yeast, with your grain prep, with fermentation, distillation, maturation, because you want that consistent product. So it's kind of funny. We've actually gotten to a point where

we have, we're able to have some shorthand communications about certain characteristics from certain distilleries that we can actually talk about a mash bill, an age and a distillery to go after a certain flavor profile that we may need to include in what we're currently working

Drew | Whiskey Lore (07:57.772)
Have you gotten to a point where you're actually kind of asking distillers at these distilleries to maybe create special products for you or something that may work from a blending standpoint?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (08:11.158)
We've not gone that far as of yet, but on the flip side of that, we do get phone calls from where distillers will do some experimentation in-house and it might not work into their portfolio or anything that they're working on at the current time. And so they'll call us and ask us if we want to purchase this lot of barrels that was an experiment for them. Cause it's more up our alley. Or a mistake.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (08:38.797)
Now.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (08:41.432)
But also, we spend a lot of time on maturation. And so that's really where we're doing lot of enhancement.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (08:45.866)
Okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (08:50.477)
So when we're looking at whiskies that you have where it says it's been aged eight, 10, 12, 14 years, how much of the percentage of that aging is taking place at your location? A good portion of it or, I mean, are you getting the barrels in the early years or do they come to you later?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (09:11.85)
Yes.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (09:13.037)
A little of each. I asked the question and then I had a feeling it was gonna be a little all over the place.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (09:19.288)
We're in our 14th or so year and so, you know, we buy barrels ongoing at different ages all the time. you we have some that are close to 30 years old now and others that are, you know, five and six years old. But, you know, there's a, I don't know, there's probably some mean number that we've had for seven or eight, nine years. But we buy all ages.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (09:45.344)
Okay.

Yeah. Well, it's interesting because you got Canadian whiskies that you're sourcing as well as American whiskies and the idea of, can see some really long ages on those Canadian whiskies because of the climate, the way that they make the whiskey. And so it really would make a difference whether you were aging that in Kentucky or you were aging that in Canada.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (10:15.922)
Yeah, it absolutely does. And it also the the cupridge that it's in as well as the physical location make a big difference as I'm sure your audience is aware that Canadian barrels get used over and over again. So their contribution contends to be of a lower percentage in an ongoing basis. And so if you

Drew | Whiskey Lore (10:32.075)
Right.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (10:39.466)
you can move that barrel around and the atmosphere it's in is going to affect it, but you can also move the liquid between barrels. And so you begin to sort of see where this flavor matrix gets drawn across all of the different inputs that go into making the liquid what it is.

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Drew | Whiskey Lore (10:57.527)
So we're going to jump in and do some tastings here and seagrass rye is where we're going to start. that is a combination of American and Canadian rye. think it's interesting that you also come up with, with mashbills on some of these whiskeys. So you're just kind of doing in-house calculations on that. And is it always the same, or do you find that from batch to batch, you're kind of starting to shift it a little bit?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (11:27.256)
Yes, in the recent years we've started doing what we call the derived mash bill, which is right, we do the arithmetic. We figure out the percentage of that particular whiskey in that mash bill that's in there and then we put it all together and that's how we get to our derived mash bill number. And a lot of times it's a surprise to us when we finish because we're really blending for flavor and then we see where we end.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (11:55.778)
Yeah. Your tasting notes are crazy. Cause I was like going, there's a, podcaster or YouTuber named Ralphie who lives on the aisle of man has been tasting whiskies for 15 years or so on YouTube. And he comes up with the most interesting tasting notes you could possibly imagine. like, how is he getting all of those different flavors out of these whiskies?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (11:59.512)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (12:21.025)
Do you kind of do this by committee where everybody comes in and give some, feedback or is there like one person in house who's just like this savant with, with flavors and, getting all of these. Cause some of them are, you know, I'm going, have I ever even smelled that before?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (12:39.128)
Yeah, I don't have to Google what it is. don't. Yeah, I think it's a combination. Different people will do the tasting notes and then we sort of combine and we compare and then we settle on it. It's funny you should mention that because I'm pretty sure that I read a tasting note that he have been him. It was one of the best that I've ever read, which was it was

Drew | Whiskey Lore (12:43.315)
Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (13:08.216)
It was for a Scotch and it was young hare, H-A-R-E, thrown in the North Sea.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (13:15.341)
Okay.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (13:18.296)
That was the flavor. like, okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (13:21.803)
Don't know how you taste that. It's probably a little briny. Probably. I don't know what else though. Yeah. that's kind of interesting. Gamy. Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (13:25.592)
You

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (13:30.673)
know, gamey, furry, gamey. Whatever it is, it's pretty evocative and I like it. It definitely gave me an image.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (13:36.013)
Ha ha ha

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and that's how I do my tastings. When I'm trying to figure out a whiskey, I just open it up to, let's not think about an individual element, but instead kind of, generally what does this taste like? And then kind of work my way down into the individual flavors. But, elderflower and tarragon, those are two things that I don't know that I've ever come across. So it would be hard for me to pull those,

pull those out, but you're using a wide variety of barrels in this. does it initially age in ex-Burban casks and in fresh casks, and then you're putting it in these rum and Madeira barrels?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (14:30.52)
Yeah, so it's the native spirit starts out in its native barrel as you would imagine, know, the Canadian was in a barrel, a used bourbon barrel that had been used, we don't know how many times, but it had been used over and over again. And then the American rye whiskey was used in, or was matured originally in a new American chardau.

And then we started down the path of finishing. And so each of these whiskeys and of themselves just from its construction essentially is going to hold finishes differently. And so what we wanted to do is really check off some of the simpler boxes of how does each one of these whiskeys hold each of these finishes so that we can begin to get an idea of what we're working with. And then you begin to build the flavor matrix from there.

the blends go together and sometimes the blends will hold the finishing a little bit differently. And sometimes when you, when we would blend these things after finishing, the overall flavor profile is a little bit different. And so you can use a couple of different techniques to really focus in on a finished product that allows all of these flavors to shine.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (15:52.056)
So you're doing the derived mash bill before it is going into your finishing barrels. So each of your finishing barrels is taking in the blend already.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (16:04.268)
We do it both ways.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (16:05.643)
Both ways, okay. Okay. Yeah. It's very interesting.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (16:09.164)
They just add a lot of the complexity. like, you know, if you look at all the combinations, some whiskey is finished, some of it's blended and finished, some of it's not finished and blended, and some of it's blended and not finished. Did I say that? I got them all? It's all those one-on-ones.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (16:24.045)
I think you got them all. Yeah. So now you've got different types of rye whiskey going in here. Then you're putting in Martinique rum, Madeira and apricot brandy barrels. So that's a wide variety of flavors going in there. How, as a blender, do you keep it from becoming just like noise where you're not necessarily pulling out particular notes and it just kind of overblends?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (16:53.368)
You know, I think it's a great point that you make by referencing noise because that's really the way we look at this. you know, there is a point in every blend that we create where one drop becomes too much on the lab scale. So you can have this very complex, intricate blend that we're sort of pushing the limits with by adding some of these additional flavors.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:09.399)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (17:21.75)
to see which direction it will go. And you can put one drop of whatever you're working with in the blend and all of a sudden it's all gone. You know, and so it, mean, so that, that noise, you, you know, I talk about it too in sort of as a visual spectrum. And so you have all of these flavor peaks and the goal is to get as many peaks as you can within that spectrum without having the peaks overlap.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:30.605)
Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (17:49.11)
because then you start getting a bunch of noise that doesn't really make any sense. Or cancels them out. Or cancels them

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:49.228)
Right.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (17:54.094)
Yeah, it creates a flavor that's just unidentifiable. mean, I've had, what's interesting is I think of Jack Daniel's and some of their newer whiskeys, uh, that they're making the blend of oak and, um, uh, and that, uh, rye note almost become one. And it's like, it's almost neither one now it's kind of its own thing, you know? And, um, while that's not bad, that is just, um,

I would think if you are working so many of these different flavors together, that that really could create, I mean, we're talking two flavors there versus many that you'd be working with here. So is there an element here that's more dominant to you in terms of the influence it has on the end whiskey?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (18:45.368)
Do you mean of the finishing barrels? that what you You know, this is the result of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of different blends. And the goal was to really harmonize it. So you didn't really get anything overpowering the other. So you can pull apart. You can get the apricot.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (18:46.637)
In terms of the barrels, yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (19:13.152)
You can get, know, the, the agri-coal really dries it out and gives it a nice, a beautiful base to work from. But, but you're, don't, I don't really think that in the seagrass there is a predominant flavor from the finish. I think that the initial, when you initially visit this product,

Drew | Whiskey Lore (19:32.385)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (19:39.35)
The goal is not to go, it's clearly it's, apricot brandy and rum and Madeira, right? That's not really the goal. The goal is to taste it and go, wow, that's really interesting. What is all of this? And so you revisit it. And to your point earlier in our conversation, we talked about really breaking these things down. And so as you begin to identify these flavor characteristics, you can begin to drill a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper. And so it becomes an overall experience and less about this, this linear.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (19:50.518)
Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (20:08.984)
this linear profile that is kind of a one and done type of experience.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (20:14.603)
There's a lot of fruit on this and not like their traditional either apple or I do get like pear on this a bit. You're right on the apricot definitely does come through, but it's funny when I taste it on its own without reading the tasting notes. I really do have to focus. This is not a whiskey. think that you just sip and it's like, yeah, there's a, you know, it is.

One of those whiskies that is more fun to kind of rest with and, you know, have some time and, kind of take it in. the one note from those other barrels from the barrels that I also pick up as the rum note, which seems to come in on the finish for me, it lingers kind of on the palette for me. you also mentioned, camphor. what, what.

Where does that come in for you? Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (21:15.192)
Where does it come from? I don't know. mean, it's one of those things, think, that you get, you're absolutely right. This is, our whiskeys tend to be, challenging is the wrong word, engaging is probably a better word. And so you can have as much or as little engagement as you want with our whiskeys. So if you want to spend time with them and you want to really parse and...

Drew | Whiskey Lore (21:18.668)
Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (21:44.354)
pull it apart, and it's there for you. And over time, you're going to get different things. You're going to experience different flavors, and things will present themselves as it opens up. Caffe was one of those things that it's like, it's a really odd, it's fleeting. I can't even remember what condition that it came through, but there was a moment where it just, it was there, and it was just like for a second. And it was so specific and so different.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:08.631)
Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (22:13.024)
that it just happens. you know, it's really this is what you're describing is really for us the highest good of our products. That's what we like to do. We really want you to get different things. You know, it's what we want you be able to have different flavor, taste experiences when you're drinking it. and seagrass is one of those examples where it just it just I think it just succeeds. It's so much you can read into this into this.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (22:41.261)
Yeah, I think it's, um, moods too, when you're in different moods. That's what's fun about whiskeys like this is that that is when you're going to notice one thing over something else. Um, and I've had whiskies before that, uh, I've had friends taste and I've been like, this is an amazing whiskey. They taste it and they're like, uh, I don't know what you're getting about it, but then later on when they're alone with it and they have time to really kind of enjoy it and under, you know, have the time to.

see what it's doing in their mouth, it becomes a completely different experience. So probably less of one that you're going to throw in as a mixer, less one that you're going to be sitting with friends, having a mindless conversation, and the thing is just along with you for the ride. You could do that, but in reality, it's kind of nice to set some bottles aside for those quiet moments when you know, hey, that's the bottle I'm going to grab for this particular...

situation because I have the time.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (23:42.124)
That's really a point because we drink so much of the whiskey straight and neat, but Seagrass makes an incredible rye tie, Mai Tai. Or if you take virtually any of our batches and make a simple Manhattan, it elevates the experience just to the point where it's because there's so much going on. There's a lot that comes through, but you know.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (23:53.377)
Does it? OK. OK. I could see that, yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (24:08.589)
Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (24:12.12)
I mix it up. I can drink it either way and it's all good.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (24:17.395)
Okay. Yeah. Well, they say drink it the way you want to drink it. I'm not a cocktail guy. So that's probably why I don't lean directly into the idea of how would this fit into a cocktail? I hear complexity and I go, no, I think that's, that's good for my quiet moment when I want to just enjoy and figure it out. So now let's talk about batch 30. Well, actually, the foundation single barrel first. So we got two more whiskies to go.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (24:35.539)
You

Drew | Whiskey Lore (24:46.049)
Foundation Single Barrel. So is this a bourbon or is this a blend of whiskies? Well, it's obviously a blend of whiskies, but I mean different styles.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (24:57.026)
So Foundation, the parent brand or the parent product for Foundation is a bourbon, it's a five-year bourbon, and it is our first iteration at a product that was not cast-strength. So Foundation is offered at 100 proof. And that product was so well received that we had a lot of folks asking about single-barrel offerings within the Foundation family. And so we started talking about how we could do that

Drew | Whiskey Lore (25:10.807)
Okay.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (25:26.252)
how we could uniquely create some sort of individual style offering that would fit into the foundation family. And so we decided to take a couple of barrels from the different mash bills that we use to create foundation and blend those together and cut them down a little bit, not quite all the way to a hundred, but close. So by doing that, we're changing solubility, right? So we're gonna...

change the perception of the whiskey initially, but then also we're gonna put that back into a barrel and then we have some ricks in our rick house that are earmarked just for these projects. And so that solubility change is also gonna change the interaction between the barrel and the whiskey over some amount of time and we get to see how that plays out. And then we.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:04.524)
Okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:16.077)
So I, oh go ahead.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (26:18.604)
I was just going to say, and then we have a single barrel that we can offer at a lower proof at around a hundred, they're going to be, you know, a hundred plus a couple of points.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:29.555)
Okay, and so new actually that you don't have the bottles for it yet. So what?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (26:36.95)
I think we just got the labels in there. We're about to bottle this sometime in next couple of weeks.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:41.491)
Okay, so it should be on the, what will be the price point on this probably, do know?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (26:47.436)
Yeah, it'll be between 49 and 54.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (26:54.687)
Okay. so in terms of, the flavor profile, I get very simple on this. was, I've, I kept working it, yesterday on the, on the finish. keep getting a chocolate note, which, I'm wondering if that's coming through from, from the ride that you're using in there. a lot of familiar.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (27:17.762)
Well, these are only bourbon. So the rye is solely from the bourbon mashbill. Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (27:26.483)
Okay, you get really nice toasted caramel notes on the on the palette. But I get kind of again, I guess my attention goes to the rye. Then I get the little bit of that char and then it's almost like it turns into a dark chocolate note on the top of the palette with that.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (27:45.068)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm getting chocolate throughout this thing. It's, it is a bomb.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (27:51.778)
Yeah.

What are you getting on the nose,

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (28:01.964)
I get the chocolate covered cherries. I'm hypersensitive to that cherry note. I like to try to find that in all the different bourbons that we make. And this one is that, I forget who makes them, I them as a kid. The chocolate covered cherries that have that custard in the case around, I can't remember what that's called.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (28:05.759)
Okay. Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (28:12.663)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (28:24.109)
Yeah. Okay. Well, what's interesting about this is that I kept saying, colon note, colon note, and then I have to deconstruct that and go vanilla and cherry is basically what I'm getting at. So I am definitely getting the cherry note on there as well. Cadbury. Okay.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (28:39.64)
Cadbury. Is it Cadbury? The chocolate eggs? It's not the chocolate eggs. These were chocolate covered cherries, but they have eggs. I know the one you mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I know exactly what mean. Also, I mean, I'm getting a little brown butter, like at the very beginning of the nose.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (28:57.291)
Yeah. I got a pine note. that's the best way I could describe it was some kind of fresh outdoor. And I could not put my, mean, sometimes I smell sawdust in whiskies. You know, it's just that fresh cut sawdust kind of a note, but this is much more of a, fragrant, not minty, but it's kind of in that, it's like it wants to head in that direction. Right. Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (29:23.48)
Like a cascade hops kind of a.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (29:26.155)
Yeah, very interesting. There you go. Yeah, that's very interesting. So how much of this are you going to produce? Is this going to be a widely available product?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (29:36.824)
Yeah, we're testing it. We're doing the first couple hundred barrels and then we listen to our market. If they love it and it gets accepted, we'll do more. We're ready for the production. So we've got a bunch of these already in the Rick House going. Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (29:55.053)
Very nice. Okay, and then we're on to the Batch 37. So this is an annual release?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (30:04.344)
Yeah, so our batch product was, that's really where we started. The concept was to do a unique blend, unique batch, and have it to be cast strength and limited release. so depending upon the volume and the demand and the market, we can do anywhere from one to four per year. We've been doing about one and a half to two a year at this point in last couple of years.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (30:29.697)
Okay.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (30:33.41)
That seems to the right frequency, the right rhythm. And so this is the youngest on this is eight, I think it is. Eight and just want to get up. I know it's hard to believe that we don't have every single one of these memorized.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (30:44.395)
Yeah, Indiana eight.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (30:53.325)
There's a lot of numbers on my page. have Indiana eight, 11 and 12 years old, Tennessee, 13, 14 and 15 years old and Kentucky 10 years old. that be one, one distillery per state?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (31:02.86)
Yeah.

Not necessarily. So that's sort why you get the deer in the headlights look on our end sometimes. Especially if somebody wants to go back to like, so I'm batch 24, I'm like... So this is 8, 11, and 12, but they're not, I don't believe that they are one distillery per year. There might be, I think there's more in there. Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:09.068)
Okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:18.829)
Yeah, there you go. Well, and it's funny because

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:34.911)
Okay. Yeah. And it's, and it's always Tennessee that gets me because it's like Tennessee. I started when I see Tennessee, I started looking for, Flintstone vitamin notes, to see if I could figure out which distillery it is. there's a lot.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (31:49.592)
It's so funny, the amount of that whiskey that we use is, people always go there and it's a chain that goes on.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (31:57.057)
Yeah.

Well, because of that, yeah, cause they flooded the market there for a while with long-aged whiskey. So, you know, that was being used by a lot of different people. And so that's the assumption. What I love though, is that the Tennessee market now is so filled with distilleries. so, and that a lot of them have been around for, uh, you know, eight to 10 years now. So you got plenty to choose from there.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (32:24.16)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (32:26.027)
Very nice. So this is a 78 % corn, 18 % rye, 4 % malted barley. And are you, you're not doing any kind of finishing barrels on this. So again, we're kind of straight back into the bourbon concept here.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (32:42.84)
Yeah, our batch series are there are no finishes on the batch. We have another series called our cask finish series. And that's where we do finish bourbon in different casks. And so recently we've done the Muzinara, we've done an ice wine finish. Ambarana. So we do one or two of those a year as well.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (32:48.524)
Okay.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (33:10.616)
And so that's where we're exploring, you know, straight bourbon whiskey that is finished in one of those finishing casks.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (33:22.209)
Yeah. You get so many people nowadays who are chasing, I mean, I just saw the Eagle Rayars coming out with a 12 year and immediately the internet blows up with 12 year, 12 year, got to go after it. And so I wonder if people realize that these batches that you're producing right now are coming out in those longer age statements.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (33:43.254)
That's always been the way that we've always approached it, which is by layering the different age whiskeys, think about all the variables we have there. We have state, have distillery, have data distillation, the season, have mash bill, and we have all of these variables to play with.

It gives us just this incredible spice cabinet to pick from.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (34:15.041)
Yeah. Yeah. So I would almost, I just did a video actually on long aged whiskeys and how I said that, you know, sometimes they become very oaky. And so it, there's really not much to look for, but I mean, in here, you know, I'm, pulling out a lot of, Apple notes, the, again, the rye I always will pop towards rye in, in Bourbons. but there's,

There's some citrus notes on this, on the palette as well. Big time. got, I got raspberry on the sides of my tongue. The first time I sip this.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (34:55.5)
You know, it's, we find it really interesting, you know, age, since there's only one factor, personally, I tend to gravitate to a slightly younger bourbon, because you get way more of the grain flavor. And so with our bourbons, we're going to balance out some of that oakiness from the older ones. And that's how we get to, that's how you're getting those notes that you're hearing.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (35:23.777)
Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (35:24.418)
mean, the flavor spectrum is pretty big, right? And so the longer it stays in the barrel, the more focused it becomes on the barrel. And I think there is a place for all of these different flavors if you can figure out a way to put them all in the same glass. And that's really what our goal is, is to take the different flavors that we like across these different age groups and try to put them all in the same glass.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (35:32.448)
Right.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (35:50.572)
so that you get those characteristics that everyone's after in the 15 plus class category of bourbon. But there's still things down in the six, eight and 10 year old range that are very good quality flavor characteristics that balance out that longer aged bourbon. And so part of our craft, let's say, is figuring out how to balance both of those in the same glass.

so that you get to experience them both at the same time.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (36:23.849)
Is oak one of those things that we talked about before that just a bit too much of it kind of takes over the whiskey or do you find that you can kind of blend it out if there's too much oakiness in something that you're putting together?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (36:41.228)
Both of those is true. mean, the oak really will take over if you would allow it to. But in those situations, there are ways you can counteract that and blend other characteristics in that begin to sort of tip the seesaw the other direction.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (36:42.795)
Yeah.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (36:58.081)
This is so much the advantage of the blender over the distiller because you can take a barrel and you can use just a little bit of it. You don't have to use the whole thing. If a distiller is going to try to release a whiskey, you know, they can, they're blending in house too. In a lot of cases when they're doing small batch or large batch whiskeys and can probably, you know, keep that down to a minimum. But, when you start doing the single barrels and the rest,

There's really no controlling that once it gets to a certain point. So, and I think that's the other thing that people need to remember about blending is that blending is done everywhere. It's, it's to say that it's a, a dirty word in one way or another. They're blending inside of distilleries. It's kind of like in Scotland with single malt. mean, the difference between a blended malt and the single malt is that it just came from different distilleries, but it's still a, you know, at its heart, a single malt. It's just.

It's gotta be named something different. But you have the advantage that you can pull from many different sources instead of just one source.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (38:03.068)
In fact, in a production area, have hundreds of containers, of things that we call ingredients. And it's anything from a barrel to a couple of barrels to micro blends to the different combinations of things that we know what the profile is. And we know that putting that together with something else will give you the different result so that we really do look at the world that way. I just noticed something with this one. I caught my eye on the

Drew | Whiskey Lore (38:26.199)
Yeah.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (38:31.606)
the orange cream sickle, I forgot about that. And if you really like just get a very, very, they're very far away from it. There's that orange cream, I love orange cream sickles, it's right there.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (38:41.419)
Yeah.

yeah, it's, it's funny how you can, sometimes I will record my videos and I'll get to the end of the video. I'll turn the video off and then all of a sudden on my palette, there's a flavor and I'm like, that's so obvious. Why didn't I catch that while I was doing the tasting? But it's just like, either you relax and suddenly you find things or as you say, kind of step away from something and then, things, things will hunt you down in a way.

So.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (39:15.224)
A lot of it is just letting you, like clearing your mind, letting your mind wander a bit. Cause that's really weird when, that's when I start getting real, identifying some real flavors.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (39:24.365)
Yeah. So are you guys available nationwide? Okay. All right. Very good. So, and any of these on a limited supply, batch 37, would it be in all 50 states?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (39:28.78)
Yes.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (39:39.606)
These Seagrass is available everywhere, batch 37 will be in every state. The single barrels will be available whether they make it in there. It'll be a little bit slower, but they'll be in the larger markets first, and then it will sort of roll out. we break our products. Most of our products we do make available nationally, but there are some that we do in limited releases. We have a couple coming up that will be

Drew | Whiskey Lore (39:55.905)
Okay.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (40:06.4)
Okay.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (40:08.834)
that are online and in certain markets because it's just not that large a production run.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (40:17.345)
Very good. One of the things I have to ask this before we go barrel. You see it, you look at it. Sometimes you just don't realize that there's a second L in the name. You have a marketing background and helping brands, Joe. So what is the second L? How did that come about?

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (40:35.522)
There's two L's?

Drew | Whiskey Lore (40:36.973)
In barrel yet. You just discovered that.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (40:43.17)
What? Is that misspelled? Well, part of it was to differentiate. Another one is there's a visual element that just looks a lot better. And it was really, it was that simple. The name Barrel came from wanted to come up with a name that expressed

had the highest expression of what it is we do. And we were all about the barrels. And then adding the other Ls, like gave it a little bit more differentiation and, you know, like the way, I mean, it's pleasing.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (41:22.763)
Yeah. It's evenly, evenly spaced out there. I just, it catches my attention, mainly because coming from Michigan and having that influence of Canada and how, basically Noah Webster took the English language and shortened all the words so they don't have double letters and the rest. Then I see double letters in barrel and I'm like, okay, wait a second. You could get creative and say, well, this is, this is looking back on,

the Scotch heritage or something like that. If you wanted to.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (41:56.088)
Wow, I never even thought of that. We just call it ye old barrel.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (41:59.495)
Ye old barrel. Yeah, there you go. There you go. Well, Joe and Tripp, thank you so much for joining me for supplying me with some whiskey to do some tastings on and giving the background on it and understanding a little bit more about blending whiskies.

Joe Beatrice Tripp Stimson (42:15.864)
Thank you so much. Thanks, George. It's been great. We'll have to do it again.

Drew | Whiskey Lore (42:18.285)
Yes. Thank you so much. Cheers.

"Thank you for hanging out with me, Joe and Tripp! And don’t forget—for ad-free extended Whiskey Lore interviews and flights, along with chance to vote for and support your favorite craft distilleries, join me at Patreon.com/WhiskeyLore. You’ll also get access to all my whiskey history stories and direct access to me and my latest content. I’m your host, Drew Hannush. Have an amazing weekend!"

, and until next time, cheers. And SL JVA

For show notes and transcripts, head to whiskey-lore.com/interviews. Whiskey Lore is a production of Travel Fuels Life, LLC.