This is our eleventh episode of the Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy. We will discuss creating ideas and the craft cocktail recipe - the Cranberry Mule. This podcast episode features Whiskey Maker - Doug Hall and Whiskey Drinker - Tripp Babbitt.

Show Notes

[00:00:04] Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy - Episode 11

[00:00:26] Creating Ideas in a Distillery

[00:03:02] The Story Helps Create the Whisk(e)y

[00:11:12] Tasting Old Scotch

[00:11:41] Using Wood to Make Flavor in Whisk(e)y

[00:13:08] Using Technology to Replicate Old Scotch

[00:13:31] Telling the Story

[00:22:36] The Craft Cocktail Recipe - Cranberry Mule

[00:24:11] The Cranberry Mule Recipe - Step 1

[00:24:13] Step 2

[00:24:32] Step 3

[00:24:34] Step 4

[00:24:38] Step 5

 

 

Transcript

Tripp: [00:00:04] This is the Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy podcasts where we're going to take you behind the scenes on what it takes to build a whisk(e)y distillery business. The Eureka ranch team led by Doug Hall are creating a craft whisk(e)y Company like has never been done before.

 

Tripp: [00:00:26] Let's move to the Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy and how it's run this theme Doug of creating ideas how how does how did this play out or how does this play out in your whisk(e)y distillery.

 

Doug: [00:00:45] Ok. So what I want to do is I want talk to you about how new whiskeys are created. And because I've had the good fortune to work with some brilliant people in this field but I have to start by explaining the difference between making beer and making whisk(e)y when you make beer. The brewer is the whole thing because they the grains and how they sit together and fermentation and what they do and they craft beer and the beer is the beer. It comes out you drink it when you make whisk(e)y. The distilleries are usually run primarily by a computer. And it is what it is and what you get out is is pretty white clear spirit that doesn't have much flavor in it. I mean it makes a difference if what grain it is. But fundamentally they're all unless you do it badly. A bourbon is a bourbon Arisa awry. You can do them badly. There's not a lot of headspace to do them greatly. They are what they are. Usually it's because people feel the magic happens in the wood. That's where 70 percent of the flavor comes in the wood but the wood is so variable that when you put your whisk(e)y in barrels and summer at the top where it's warmer in a warehouse somewhere down below somewhere on the side somewhere inside this different types of woods that you're using.

 

Doug: [00:02:05] That's where the magic happens. And so while the brewer is the magic for beer the whisk(e)y maker who's the person who takes these barrels and puts them together is the real magician who makes the magical things happen. And so you follow me. Yeah. Oh yeah.

 

Doug: [00:02:26] Ok so I had an opportunity one of the most epic moments that that I have had over the last twenty five or so years working with the major spirits companies was I was it at the Macallan distillery who I've worked with I've worked with McCowan for now over 20 years with Bob Dajani. He's retired now and he had created a whisk(e)y for the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth Queen Elizabeth. Oh yeah. This was back in and in 2012. Her sixtieth anniversary to becoming the queen.

 

Doug: [00:03:02] And he this was whisk(e)y had been made and it had sold out rapidly and it was getting rave reviews. And we're sitting there in his in his place where he makes the whisk(e)y where he mixes them and he's got bottles and all kinds of barrels and stuff. And he said Have you tasted the jubilee. And I said No I haven't it's sold out. Oh he says I'll make you one. What he has already takes it by Pratt and he takes a sample from one barrel and then another sample from another barrel and another barrel and he puts them together discursive just try that and as I was before I even drank it I said Well what are you trying to do with this. And he starts to tell this incredible story as he says it's the spring the new queen is the new queen is there and it's a bright day and there's such hopes for the young lady who's taking over and he goes through this wonderful wonderful story and you sit and then you tasted it and you could literally he says that's what I put in here.

 

Doug: [00:04:13] So what he'd done is he'd created a thought piece in his head of the moment he was trying to create for people. And that was his stimulus that inspired so rather than just trying to say let me make something taste good. He had a story that he was trying to match it to. And and it was magical. I mean it just had it. There was a lightness but a significance to the taste. If that makes any sense and I mean just spirits but the power of that story of that stimulus was the same. And and you know so I've created brain brew we do the exact same thing so I mean it was with sitting with Bob.

 

Doug: [00:05:00] It was just it blew my mind that that somebody could literally create a vision and then match the tastes to make that moment come to life.

 

Tripp: [00:05:13] And so that that's in essence you know as I as I hear this and I'm going to just restate what you just said to some degree but is this this concept of the story that there is whether it's a drink. There is there's that you made basically from scratch or you know something new that's out there and the story associated with what's driving the production of something.

 

Doug: [00:05:51] The concept. Yeah yeah. You know there's a synergy between the marketing and the moment and the product. There's a system that works together.

 

Tripp: [00:06:06] That creates the story. Yes that's okay. All right. I'm following that.

 

Doug: [00:06:11] It creates the whole thing so that it's a whole it's not just let me get you technically the best tasting whisk(e)y in the world. There's many whiskies but this makes that moment come to life and so now you're seeing a sense of crafting. That's part of the reason why he's got it in all of his products as part of the reason why my accounts the most expensive whisk(e)y in the world. It's one of most successful it's growing sixteen hundred percent over last 20 years is because there is that level of craftsmanship. Even in a big company an intense craftsmanship that's going on with folks like Bob and and now the others that lead it.

 

Tripp: [00:06:46] You know it's funny that you say that and you know you're probably going to laugh.

 

Tripp: [00:06:52] My family does regularly. There is a drink at the Polynesian Resort at Disney World and it's called the Lapu Lapu. I don't know if you've had a Doug or not but it's in a pineapple and I'm not sure everything that's in it. I know rums in it and pineapple obviously. But I love the Lapu Lapu when you're only allowed to have two if they get any idea. Right.

 

Tripp: [00:07:18] So say I always go to the Polynesian and I order the Lapu Lapu. Well interesting enough I started to get curious about what what the hell is a Lapu Lapu. You know what. What does a lap do. So I whipped back and you know of course the Internet is available to you. And I looked up LA who LA poo. Well there was a king Loch who lop who in the Philippines. I'm one of the islands and he is the one responsible for killing Magellan story. And so every time this last time that we went we go always go for the Food and Wine festival in the fall.

 

Tripp: [00:07:59] And you know one of the big things that that we like to do is obviously go over the Polynesia we have this and I'll not forget this. And hopefully someday these girls I'll listen and my my daughter or it's about is about their age about 20 21 years old and what they had to be 21 because they were drinking but they you know they said hey do you have a drink that you would suggest here.

 

Tripp: [00:08:18] My wife. Yeah. You could see your roller eyes you've asked the wrong guy you know. So I went on to tell him Oh yeah you got to have the Lapu Lapu and here's the story and I told the story and everything. And these girls got to got to got a huge kick out of it.

 

Doug: [00:08:32] But let's see let's see the neat thing is this so this is integrity there's a story there's a drink there's a connection Yeah.

 

Tripp: [00:08:39] Absolutely. Yeah.

 

Doug: [00:08:40] And so these are not you know what I hate is sometimes you know you get this marketing story and you get the product. The two are not connected. Right. You like what the hell is this. You know enemy since they've just like thrown it at the wall because one department did one thing and one to the other. The key is to get when you're crafting. Spirit is to make it come together which is what you've got there. Disney's it's all coming together as one.

 

Tripp: [00:09:05] Right yeah. Now it's something very very unique.

 

Doug: [00:09:10] So have you applied this then this story to your whisk(e)y distillery so Brain Brew of course we make custom whisk(e)y so people we say you know everybody deserves their own whisk(e)y and so but we have some examples of ones that we do that are whiskeys but we encourage people to come in and they go through a tasting experience and they craft their own whisk(e)y with their story and their thing and that's what we encourage them to do. We teach people how to do this. You can come and you can literally come to our distillery at Eureka ranch on Saturday night and we will teach you and you'll go through the process tasting 12 different whiskeys wheat corn Ryan barley old world new welding craft and you'll make your own.

 

Doug: [00:09:51] But one of the ways we do this we show our story to it and it's not Bob story of the Queen but it's our story of Cincinnati which as I mentioned is was the you know the king of whisk(e)y. This is where all the whisk(e)y came out of Cincinnati and when it got on the riverboats. And so we've created a riverboat series honoring Cincinnati and its role in the history of American whisk(e)y and create a different products and so we've got them and they're named keel boat and paddle wheel and tall stacks and etc. of different boats. But for our paddle wheel we really wanted to do something magical. We wanted to really create. How could we go back to the time before prohibition which is. Because prohibition costs all of this to blow up. But before prohibition that pre prohibition time could we give take people back to what whisk(e)y would have been like back then.

 

Doug: [00:10:46] And in this case here what we did is and this is this is nuts but this is going even further is I.

 

Doug: [00:10:54] I've been very blessed incredibly blessed to be able to taste a lot of whisk(e)y over the years having worked with Macallan and others for many years. And one of the things I've gotten to taste is a lot of very old whisk(e)y. I was at Ken Greer's house once and I had 1920 1930. I mean whisk(e)y is from way back in time.

 

Doug: [00:11:12] Okay. And over in Scotland and his house. And when you taste those old whiskies there's a very unique character to it. There's a I'm going to say darkness and I don't mean darkness in a bad way. It's like a depth to it. That that you get when you taste them. And so I said How could I recreate that taste which would have been whisk(e)y back at the time of the riverboats approximately.

 

Doug: [00:11:41] And sure enough what we found is somebody said well what about the wood. If if 70 percent of the flavor comes from the wood. What if we used old wood. I said wow you know there aren't any old barrels like that old. No no no no. I know where there's a barn that fell down and that barn. The wood there's probably 200 years old it was probably a hundred years when they cut the trees and it's been there over 100 maybe 150 or so could be 250 years since the trees grew but conservatively call it 200 you would that would have been the wood they would've used to make barrels. So that's pretty cool. And so we turned around we got some of the wood we cut off the outside we ran chemical tests and amazingly what we found was that wood is cleaner than the wood from trees today because there's less pollutants in the air. It was actually wood in the wood today which is now with today's fine but there was I mean it was just very clean wood. So this was Virgin American wood and we cut into pieces we chart and we put it into the time compression machine that we have here which mimics seasons of aging. And sure enough the taste blows you away.

 

Doug: [00:12:49] It is that same taste I'd had it Ken Greer's house which is that very old and I had one of the guys who's one of the big auction houses or which sets the prices. And we sat with him and Edinburgh and I I gave him a taste as he tried to see what you think he says Okay now I'm really mad at you.

 

Doug: [00:13:08] He says well your whiskeys have always been okay but now you're replicating very old very very expensive whisk(e)y.

 

Doug: [00:13:17] Is there no end to what you're gonna do. I said Well of course there's no end to it. I'm just going to keep doing. He says that is truly amazing that Finish that is truly amazing. And so here what we've done is we're literally.

 

Doug: [00:13:31] So when you come to the bar the Eureka! Ranch and you come in and you ask one I just say I'd like to take you back to the time of the riverboats when Cincinnati was the Queen City of the West when all the whisk(e)y 70 distilleries in town and if you ordered an upper deck whisk(e)y one of the finest whiskeys this is paddle wheel is the taste that you would have had back then and you can notice the depth and the richness of the taste as this bourbon which they weren't called bourbons at the time but they were using high amounts of corn bourbon didn't come into vogue until later. I believe I've got my timing right.

 

Doug: [00:14:05] I think it came a little later but it was the same type of grain. This is the kind of ultra premium spirits that you would have had and it's no different than what Bob did. Talking about the young queen.

 

Tripp: [00:14:19] Interesting that that's that that's a great story. Let me. You did say something in there that really got my brain wrapped around this. You know you're talking about the pollutants in the in the wood that exist today that weren't there before. Was that is that something that you can chemically actually remove the pollutants or is that.

 

Doug: [00:14:43] I don't know that you can remove them but can measure them. OK.

 

Doug: [00:14:48] Yeah. Because if you remove them you're probably going to remove and we're talking trace levels. I mean when I'm talking anything that's even close to a safety issue. OK. But but you can see traces in it that you can't see in the older wood. It was different. I mean the trees grew closer together. They weren't on tree farms and so the the rings are much denser. I mean it just visual it's just different wood. But if you remove them you'd also remove the good linens and the things that give us all the flavor that goes into the whisk(e)y which comes from the wood.

 

Tripp: [00:15:18] So as part of the key to a good whisk(e)y then finding now wood that's not polluted. I mean is that part of your.

 

Doug: [00:15:27] Well I wouldn't say polluted so much as really great wood. Okay. You know we're very firm. We've run some experiments. We've got some more going on there's that. When the bourbon boom happened. Sadly a whole lot of companies they used to kill air dry the wood you'd leave it out for a couple of years to air dry it to get the water down. Then you finish it up make the barrow everybody moved to kiln dried wood. And sadly most distillers don't even know if they're getting well they're getting kilnright. I know they are because the air dry is so much more expensive and one of the key secrets to our success is that we can use air dried wood and because of the way we do it and we're so much more efficient that we can give you back the taste that you used to get in. In Rye or bourbon or whisk(e)y whatever whatever form you're making because kiln dried it's literally dead wood and we've got more experiments to run on it but we've not we only use air dried wood in our whisk(e)y and so and it's expensive and you know you've got a lot of people who can't even afford the barrels. The barrels can get ridiculous. And so instead they're using used barrels which are basically dead barrels. I mean that's what they use in Scotland but they leave it for a long time and they're using barley which is just a whole different animal. And so the wood is the whole thing it the whole thing is the wood and then putting that whisky together by mixing and matching. But if you've only made 30 barrels you've got no chance. So with our technology not only can we use oak which is the you know the classic but we use maple and we use chestnut we use cherry and we use old ones and new ones and you know there's all kinds of woods that you can use and they all create different taste and some people are finishing with different ones. We just happen to do it very very quickly and very very high precision.

 

Tripp: [00:17:24] That's interesting. So this is this is how create really gets into the whisk(e)y business than is just experimenting with these different woods which you say is makes up 70 percent of the taste.

 

Tripp: [00:17:37] So that's that's a I think incredible story. I and I like I like the idea of the story behind the whisk(e)y and as that develops I'm curious to see how this goes on especially with your riverboat you know story that you've started this as well it's a journey.

 

Doug: [00:18:00] Yeah. And interestingly it goes both ways. OK. So in this case here the story came and then the product came but successful whiskeys are a system of interconnected parts with the parts all worked together the price the package the product the positioning.

 

Tripp: [00:18:17] Got it.

 

Doug: [00:18:18] We've also got a line that started from and this is crass but it started from. Ok our riverboat line sells for thirty five dollars for a 750 m l bottle classic sized bottle. We wanted to come up with a luxury edition that would be we haven't set the price yet but it would be in the sixty seventy five dollar range. Now thirty five drinks like a sixty dollar and a sixty dollar should drink like one hundred twenty dollars. That's what we tried to do as a craft guy we want to have more value for the money. I mean even at sixty dollars and so I started with challenging the team to say OK how do we make a hundred and twenty dollar tasting whisky and there's no story to it and we started and started and started to play and we started to play with technologies and and started to work with different things and get more precise on different things and different woods and different combinations of goods.

 

Doug: [00:19:13] In this case taking OK from different countries and different places and really taking the science in deeper until And so we would drink the 35 dollar version and then we would taste the next one and say does that seem like a wow. And there was beating ourselves for playing king of the hill with ourselves.

 

Doug: [00:19:31] There was no story. It was just called we as a business we need to get this product now let's see if we can get a product then we got the product and the product is now inspiring the story. So we're doing it in the reverse direction as we're doing this. And we haven't settled on yet so I don't want to say it yet but there's some really cool elegance coming to this. And another story's developed that is an authentic story about what we're doing combined with this amazing product that the team have made. And so you can start from price you can start from a package you can start from a bottle I relativity product if you look at relatively whisky dot.com you go see it it's an early Myer flask type looking thing I mean the package inspired the relativity brand okay. And and so you can start from anywhere. The key is is that serves as stimulus to help you create the rest of the story yeah yeah yeah yeah.

 

Tripp: [00:20:34] Well there's a whole. You got my. This is stimulus mining at its best. I got it. Yep. A whole series of things running through my brain about how the stories develop. It could be the product first but also it could be the story of the wood from Germany and the wood from Australia. And you've got the bride and the groom and the woods come together. I just my brain just starts going off on. Hard to put together things like that.

 

Tripp: [00:21:04] Or for Archwave in Cincinnati Cincinnati Music Hall famous grand music venues Symphony and pops. We have. We're working with arts wave the nonprofit that raises money for the Arts in Cincinnati and we have when they renovated music hall there was a bunch of wood around the organ when it was rebuilt and so we've got those beams and we're about to craft a whisk(e)y. That would be it's gonna be one of those very old style whiskeys of the history of music hall and the arts. And so you know it's just writing itself the music the theme the elegance to it. I mean it's just it's just writing. It's gonna be classical and it's just gonna be magnificent whisk(e)y I you know by the time we're done. It's a lot of craftsmanship to build it. It's a lot of craftsmanship to build these things and do them right. And the sad thing is this most craft people you know you go like hell and you don't have the time to do this thinking. But it's this thinking that's gonna make the difference. For you over the long term I mean talk to everybody go buy your stuff because your local guy. If you really want to create something significant in this business having you know there's the voice of experience from a long long time you try something quickie and it never seems to work it's gimmicky but you've got to have that depth and authenticity to really make it work.

 

Tripp: [00:22:36] Interesting. Very good. Well let's move on to your craft cocktail recipe which the Cranberry Mule is now going to be known as the create drink because it's with what you had when you well did the story. Now it's got a story.

 

Doug: [00:22:56] So this concept here of this cocktail the concept of this cocktail was it. It is Christmas morning and and and this is going to be just a very I think of gingerbread and elves and magical mystical whether it's Christmas morning or Christmas Eve. It's really evoking the spirit with a sense of whimsy to it and bringing that to life.

 

Doug: [00:23:30] And so we're bringing together the flavors of ginger and cranberry and some gin for the spice to it and just giving you this unique a little bit orange zest and giving you this sense of that holiday so that if you're if Santa was going to have one this is what Santa would have had. OK. OK. That that's that's what we're talking. And so it plays off the meal classic drink that uses ginger beer but Phillip created this one as well it's called the cranberry mule.

 

Doug: [00:24:02] And the recipes in the notes so if you drive and you don't have to write it down you can look it up or just go to the newsletter. It's in the newsletter at Doug Hall dot com.

 

Doug: [00:24:11] It's an ounce and a half of gin.

 

Doug: [00:24:13] One and a half tablespoons of cranberry syrup and the cranberries serve the recipes there. You take some fresh cranberries water sugar ginger and some orange zest you kind of cook them together to make this basically cranberry simple syrup so an ounce and a half of gin. And a half tablespoons of cranberry syrup.

 

Doug: [00:24:32] Four dashes of cranberry bitters.

 

Doug: [00:24:34] Top it with some ginger beer.

 

Doug: [00:24:38] And an orange garnish.

 

Doug: [00:24:41] And so that's what we're talking just a wonderful. I mean it's just going to take you to Christmas Eve or Christmas morning after the presence you just sitting and chilling and you're just having this thing as an aperitif before you have the turkey and the cranberry sauce and the whole the rest of it OK.

 

Tripp: [00:25:01] All right. And so does it have a strong cranberry taste. Is that kind of the overriding taste of it.

 

Doug: [00:25:10] So when you make a cocktail we really try to create what's called an accord a balance attention.

 

Doug: [00:25:16] So what you've got is you've got the gin the cranberry and the ginger and the orange soda and an accord that kind of comes together. So you've got elements of them but they the sum of the parts is greater than the individual pieces.

 

Tripp: [00:25:31] Ok. They play well together.

 

Doug: [00:25:34] They do. That's the whole. That's what you're trying to do with the cocktail is to take these pieces in income make them into something magical. And this one is magical.

 

Tripp: [00:25:43] Very good. All right. Well this concludes the Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy and talking about how to create in the whisk(e)y space.

 

Doug: [00:25:58] And this this episode as I'm thinking about it if you're creating a craft distillery you've got to listen to this episode man because this is this is the real deal. This is how it really happens. The epic the huge ones around the world. I've been in the rooms with the people. This. This is how it really creates and it's I mean we're just selling ethanol OK. And it just happens to be uniquely flavored because it's a magical wood. But you got to get into it and that's why I love the craft business because the craft business as opposed to just a straight commercial business. There is a love and a care and big companies some have it some dough Macallan is one that has it a lot. I mean that's the success. That's why they're successful. Other companies don't. And craft companies that win that's what they have whether it's craft whisk(e)y or whatever your business might be very good.

 

Tripp: [00:26:56] All right. Well this was this has been an interesting episode. Thank you Doug. Thank you Tripp.

 

Tripp: [00:27:04] Have you ever thought about owning your own craft whisk(e)y business. Well subscribed to the Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy because

 

Tripp: [00:27:12] In early 2019 we'll be offering opportunities to start your own business whether you are an aspiring entrepreneur curious about innovation or just like a good story. The Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy podcast will take you behind the scenes to learn the good the bad. And the ugly. About what it takes to create whisk(e)y. In the craft space. Which is growing at a crazy rate. Lessons learned can be applied. Broadly.