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Small Lake City
Small Talk, Big City
Join host Erik Nilsson as he interviews the entrepreneurs, creators, and builders making Salt Lake City the best place it can be. Covering topics such as business, politics, art, food, and more you will get to know the amazing people behind the scenes investing their time and money to improve the place we call home.
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Small Lake City
S1, E56: High West Distillery - Isaac Winter
Unlock the secrets behind crafting some of America's most beloved spirits with our special guest, Isaac Winter, the master distiller at High West. Isaac shares his incredible journey from aspiring doctor to whiskey connoisseur, revealing the serendipity and determination that led him to distilling. Discover how Isaac's experiences in Scotland and his time with Utah's iconic breweries, like Uinta Brewing, shaped his expertise in the beverage industry. Through Isaac's story, gain insight into the power of mentorship and the role of community in fostering innovation and creativity in Utah's vibrant beverage scene.
Explore the intricate dance of whiskey and beer production as Isaac takes us through the contrasting timelines and challenges faced in the industry. From the quick hustle of brewing IPAs to the patient art of maturing whiskey, each step is a testament to craftsmanship and creativity. Isaac highlights how Utah's unique liquor landscape, with its complex regulations, has sparked a collaborative spirit among local brewers and distillers. This episode celebrates the community's resilience and the distinctive mark Utah is making on the national whiskey scene, thanks to artisans who are not just producers but passionate innovators.
In this captivating conversation, Isaac delves into the evolving responsibilities at High West, where blending artistry meets strategic innovation. He reflects on the importance of understanding both creative and business aspects, sharing lessons learned from various industry partnerships. Isaac's narrative is a compelling mix of personal growth and professional achievement, shedding light on the transformative experiences that have defined his career. Join us as we toast to the power of passion, mentorship, and the exciting future of Utah's beverage community.
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And I was always going to go to med school. That was kind of my plan. I cannot say enough good things about living in Edinburgh, so it's in like the countryside of Scotland. I think we did something like 30 new beers in 15 months or something like that. I said, yeah, let's do it. It was me saying let's join the dark side. I joined in 2017 at High West. That's like I knew you were going to ask that question. It's like choosing your favorite child, and so we're now just on the precipice of this next phase of High West, where and that we can contribute to the American whiskey landscape. Hopefully.
Speaker 2:What is up everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Small Lake City Podcast. I'm your host, eric Nilsen, and today's guest we have the head of distilling for what I would say is one of the best distilleries in Utah and was really one of the first to really put the liquor and spirit beverage on the map, both nationally and internationally. Now the organization itself is High West. If you've ever been to the Wandship Distillery to have brunch or do a tasting, or you've been to the restaurant near Main Street in Park City, you know how quality of the product is that they have and how much credit and recognition it's gotten as well. But the person in charge of distilling is a man by the name of Isaac Winter. Now, isaac's story starts long before High West and includes a lot of the familiar faces that we see along the brewery, beer and other distilleries around Salt Lake People that we've had on the podcast, like Kevin Templin. But he also has worked at a lot of other places that ring a bell, like Red Rock Brewing, uinta Brewing as well, as took him across the pond to go get his master's degree in Scotland. But great story from someone who's done a ton to put Salt Lake further on the map, who is a master in his field and a lot to learn from in my conversation with him. So enjoy, yeah, this has been a whole new world that I've been self-exposed to.
Speaker 2:People are like oh so what did you do before that you learned how to do all this? I'm like this is how I learned how to do all of this. There was no other process or learning, or it's. Uh, that's actually one thing I've been thinking a lot about is there's this sentiment around people who, let's call it gen x, and above boomers, etc. That can't teach an old dog new tricks. I've learned what I've learned, set in in the ways, thank you, whatever. And with millennials, there's kind of this lingering feeling of that. But people don't realize how easy it is in today's world to get to at least competent in most things YouTube, exactly, immediately, like the amount of YouTube I spent.
Speaker 2:I'm like, oh, how do we record video? How do we record audio? How do we record video? How do we record audio? How do we put these together? How do we launch a podcast? How do we grow, like all of these little skills that I've had to learn, to go from copy paste into the google to youtube and learn and so like, the amount of things that you can just get from I have no idea how to do this to competent is way less than you think. Granted, to get to like mastery, that's another 10 000 hours, hours. There you go, bingo, you passed the test, my guy Malcolm Gladwell, um, and so it's. It's fun to see how, like I've learned so much and now it's like almost just like this muscle memory of like okay, cool, set this up, do this, make sure these levels are this record, that edit this and this will make life easier in the future. This will make life anyway all that stuff.
Speaker 1:I mean cheers for jumping in, getting, getting after it, oh thanks.
Speaker 2:It's a very different process when there's like an internal motivation towards it, instead of someone telling you what to do and like that, like I've never worked harder on something but it's never been nearly as rewarding. Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:It's like you're a baby, right? You're like ushering this through its birth and emergence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think like somewhere in like the toddler phase, it's excited to be, like this area is so cool, like I'm a sucker for a good space and like I will always go to a restaurant and be like oh cool, like the food has to be good, but if we're in a cool place as well, like everybody wins bingo, I'm here for it. And so, being in the library up in High West, I mean I'm here for it. And so, being in the library up in high West, I mean I look at all these bottles and seeing how many I've tasted, haven't tasted so much history that I mean I'm sure it's amazing for you to look at this wall and be like oh, wow, like, look at all that I've done over the years, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean so for everybody tuning in. Uh, we're in the high West library. This is a brand new space for us at the Wanship Distillery outside of Park City and yeah, we've got a big bottle wall to the side of us. That kind of you know goes over some of our favorite releases. We've got High Country Single Mall Bottled and Bond Midwinter Night's Dram all the way back to OMG, rye and Vodka 7000. Just like a little trip down memory lane.
Speaker 2:Yeah, rye and vodka 7000, just like a little uh trip down memory lane.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's also your own like personal journal, probably some good memories, some bad memories, absolutely yeah yeah, a little hodgepodge of it all we, uh, we have fond whiskeys, or whiskeys that we're really fond of, and and ones that were really really hard fought, but, um, we're proud of every single one of them.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting too because, like this is my own ignorance in it but sitting down with like kevin and brit and talking about, I mean tf and brewing, because I mean they're primarily a um, a lager joint, but then I've had, I mean, huge success with like furta and some of their other hallmark beers, but still make I mean their craft beers. If you follow their instagram there's at least, I feel, like one a week um and now wine, and now wine exists. They're just on their instagram that they're. I mean, they just had so many tons of grapes delivered to get that process kicked off again, which is amazing that they are tackling that beast and like similar to kind of we were talking about, about like going from beer to whiskey but also going from like beer to wine, which I feel like, again my own ignorance would be a very different route.
Speaker 1:But again I think yeah, I mean it's, it's interesting. So, with moving for this is my, I guess I'm ignorant also, but from from an outsider's perspective, with beer, you want everything to be so incredibly sterile all the time. You never, things never, touch the ground. You, you know, use isopropyl alcohol on everything, making all your connections with natural wines. You want just the right amount of funk. That's what we see in whiskey too. But you know, it's like looking at the instagram of templin family wines the other day. It's like they're in, you know, their their shed, open air, crushing grapes and they want all of those microbes on this great, on the grape skin, on the stem, on the stems falling in from the air, to give that, um, that character and that sense of place to their wine.
Speaker 2:I'm stoked to see how it turns out yeah, I, I expect nothing but greatness from it, because they are who they are and that's their reputation now, whether they like it or not.
Speaker 2:But I mean I've always been.
Speaker 2:So my cousin, he lives in willamette valley, outside of oregon wine country, pinot country, chard country, and it wasn't really until I visited him there and cause he's a restaurant I'm sorry, not restaurant chef and who buys all of his wine from there for his restaurant as well, and so we walk in and it's like I mean, red carpet gets rolled out, everybody knows him by name and they're pulling out the reserve bottles and it's so fun to go to um, I think which one it was, I can't remember right now, but it's interesting to have.
Speaker 2:You can be at a location like hey, this is the western facing vines, these are the east facing vines, same grape, same everything, but tell the difference in the soil and the sun. And really being able to compare and contrast all of these little minute differences, because your point of of beer making, you want everything to be sterile, you want to be able to control all of the variables that you have invite no sort of variants that could come into the process, and with that it's interesting to be like okay, here's all of the normal, let's change this variable, let's change this variable, let's change this variable.
Speaker 1:You kind of have sister products at that point.
Speaker 2:Exactly. And then you go through and taste it and it's like this moment you're like oh, I get it, like I see what they mean and a whole process behind it all. And so I again like with TF and understanding and talking to Kevin, where it's like oh well, this is why it's easier to pop out an IPA in two weeks compared to like a lager or a pilsner. It's going to take a lot more time and I'm sure, to your point of roller, coaster, to say the least.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I mean, something that I miss about the beer life cycle we'll say is the um, the R and D timeline is so much different. So with, uh, an IPA, you're maybe grain to glass and I don't know, like 15 days or something like that, or 18 days. Lager beers. You know if you're, if you're doing it right, you're maybe grain to glass and I don't know like 15 days or something like that, or 18 days lager beers. You know if you're, if you're doing it right, you're maybe four weeks or five weeks, six weeks if you, if you have a long log arrest. But, um, with whiskey, you're, you're in like the, the year timeframe, the years timeframe, and so you just you have to do your best to choose the right ingredients, to choose the right yeast to um, you know, craft your distillation protocol and choose a barrel that's going to benefit the distillate and get you to where you want to go. But then you have to cross your fingers and say I'll see you in four years, um, we'll see how it, how it turns out. And you know, I look at on our wall over here we've got Bottled and Bond rye from High West, which is a new release for us.
Speaker 1:We're in the second iteration, but all of a sudden, we now have so much whiskey that we're able to play with. That's kind of come of age, and so it's thinking back on those moments in 2018. Who was running the still? What protocols were we doing? Why do we choose those barrels? Um, and seeing all of those things come forward when we're in the blending lab looking at each one of those lots that we're going to put together, that gives you that really intimate snapshot of that time period for six months in 2018. Um, I don't know if it's a 2018. Um, it's, uh, it's. We're at a really fun time in in high West life cycle now, and and that that long R and D timeline is now, um, starting to to come to an end for some of those really fun projects, and so I think that we'll have we'll have new things coming out over the next couple of years. That, um, that I think our team's going to be really proud of and that we can contribute to the American whiskey landscape, hopefully.
Speaker 2:Perfect and we don't have to go. We can stay in Utah to do so. We don't have to go to Kentucky or other places. I guess we shouldn't, we shouldn't?
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, bourbon can be made anywhere in the U S right, and Kentucky bourbon has its, its, its place and, and you know, has that appellation. But how can high West, how can you know other Utah distillers put their stamp on it, um, and make it their own? I think that that is. That story is just starting to be told right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, especially when you think about kind of this juxtaposition we find ourselves in with Utah getting so much I mean riff or so much flack about. Oh they have terrible liquor laws. The people making the laws don't even drink.
Speaker 1:Everywhere has weird liquor laws.
Speaker 2:Right, and like people forget that. But like I've had enough of those weird ones. Other places where I'm like I'll take what we can get. Like this, it could be a lot worse. Yeah, where I'm like I'll take what we can get. Like this, it could be a lot worse. And it's interesting to see how, with all of this I mean these headwinds, these assumptions, I mean the cultural part of Utah and Salt Lake in particular but then, at the same time, have all these outstanding products that are coming to market I mean between all of the breweries, distilleries, I mean now wineries and seeing how we can still play head to head, even with all of these like assumptions, like I would. I I'm sure you have heard it both in your current role and previous roles of going to places like oh, you're from Utah. Like, can you guys even drink beer? How are you making beer?
Speaker 1:Make sense even. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, and you know, something that I come back to is, you know, I think genius loves company. So when we start to see high West coming out with things, you know we're drawing on inspiration from, uh, from TF, from Uinta, from sugar house distilling, from, you know, beehive distilling all of these really great artisans in Utah. Um, we can all, I think, you know, lift each other's boats and we can share ideas and we can, um, you know, come together to to kind of craft that Utah stamp on the landscape.
Speaker 2:And that's ironically where I was hoping you were going to go with that Cause it's it's it's been interesting Cause I mean I told you this week I released episode 52, have three or four in the backlog right now, and it's interesting now where I have enough data points to start to make these connections between all these conversations and industries and backgrounds and priorities. And the one that comes to mind the most amongst everybody is community, and we always joke about I mean the saying like Deseret in Utah and like industry and community, and I mean the LDS backgrounds that started a lot of that community, the people, even if they leave that behind, still search for and it's so collaborative. I mean, you see, I mean in your experiences of being like, oh hey, we all are inspired by each other, we all push each other to be better. If I had a question, there's probably three or four people I could call that could help me, that have gone through it, that would be willing to do so, whereas other places they might tell you to get lost. I tell you to get lost. This is our, this is our process Exactly, and I mean I've seen that in tech, I've seen that in food, I've seen that in the art community Like there is no place where there aren't people willing to help each other and collaborate, and I mean riff on how to make something better and push each other to be better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean, I'm thinking back through my own career and the people who have helped me along the way and where they are now, and so I think you know the the we'll call it like alcoholic beverage community in Utah is pretty small and it's pretty incestuous, and so I think that there's some good to that, where I've got buddies or mentors or acquaintances at a lot of these places where I can call them or I can text them and say, hey, I've got this problem or hey, what do you think about this idea? Or how would you approach this? Um and get a like a really thoughtful answer? Um, I think a great example of this is is Kevin Templin. You had Kevin and Britt on the podcast before and Kevin's been a long time mentor to me. Um, you know, he was the one who took a chance on me, um, in let's see, it was like 2011, maybe 2010.
Speaker 1:Um, I was like this, this college kid I had. I had homebrewed a couple of times of you know uh beer with my uncle in the backyard, but I had worked in a, in a tissue engineering lab. That was kind of my background and I knew that I didn't really want to work in a lab for the rest of my life. I wasn't going to go to med school. I had this chemistry degree and like, what was I going to do with that? And I I'd said, you know well, maybe I'll, I'll go work in a in a brewery. So I uh dropped my my resume and got a phone call back and um showed up to, showed up to my interview and and Kevin was there and he's like you know, it's not just all like sitting back in your flip flops talking about beers drinking. This is hard work. It's cold, it's hot, it's long hours, you have to lift heavy stuff. This is the best job I've ever had and I was like, yeah, I mean, I can get behind that. And I just never looked back.
Speaker 1:There's been such a great marriage of the art and science for me. I grew up loving cooking and flavor and being interested in being in the kitchen and how things come together, the kitchen and how things come together. And when I started working at Red Rock and got exposed to fermentation science and how you can bridge those two things together, that was huge for me. It was like this big aha moment. Um, and from that relationship, from that first job that I had, I met Brendan Coyle, who helped start high West. Who's you West? Who's still a big part of my life today. Have retained a really strong relationship with Kevin and Britt, eric Dunlap from Albatross Wines, jaron Anderson from Helper Beer. All of these people all came out of that one snapshot in my life.
Speaker 1:And it's been super powerful and a great support system since.
Speaker 2:And it's such a fun point when you can find it in, because everybody finds themselves in this like career trajectory. Right, you go from this like ideation phase where you're like, okay, I'm doing this, I don't like this, I don't like where this would put me back to the drawing board. Well, here's an idea. Go meet with kevin.
Speaker 2:And then all of a sudden you go from this ideation phase to like doing it and understanding and getting this validation this is what I want to do to where then you go into this like almost like core career development phase where you are learning, you are getting that hands-on experience in a very intimate and consistent way, to then gets to the point where people like, hey, like I want to start this distillery, I want to start this brewery, I want to start this winery, and you're like, yeah, like I can now help you do that totally. And if I can't, I know the people who can. And it's fun just to see that process laying, because in the perfect world, everybody understands what it was like to be in that ideation phase, kind of being lost, and like it is sometimes frustrating because, like you want to look and be like, just do like a little bit more work before. I don't want to sit here and start at ground zero with you, but I was there once and I can understand it. I will be patient with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean you have to acknowledge that. So much of your career. I'll speak for myself. My career has been luck and serendipity. It's like I was in the right place at the right time to land that job, working with Kevin and Eric at Red Rock and learn, you know what I would consider the right way to do things. And through that job I met Brendan Coyle, which led to my later job and existing role at High West. I had joined the Utah Brewers Guild while I was at Red Rock and had met Kevin Ely from from Uinta Brewing Company and and that you know led to my my role at Uinta, and so it was just sort of these right place at the right times. And there's, I think that your ability to capitalize on that when you're in that iterative phase um is really important.
Speaker 2:Totally, and, like there's so many people I've talked to similar things like they would call it luck. I will always tell them it was hard work that paid off later, like even with um. I can't remember if it was Mark Bryant, yeah, mark Brian Taylor. Sorry, brian Mark Taylor, I always say it backwards, but very famous artists in Utah and the world Very good, I mean landscape and still life. Few people better in the country. But he eventually did some work for, uh, brandon sanderson and that was because it was like 10 years before they were at this thing, before he was someone, and they remembered each other and then fast forward to later. And so it's fun when you do put down the groundwork, be consistent about it, meet the right people, be in the right places, because you don't know that I mean five, ten years later brendan's calling you, being like, hey, we need a new distiller, right, are you interested?
Speaker 2:and you're like it's all coming happening together time to come to the dark side, exactly where a lot of people would look and be like, wow, that's lucky. But you're like, well, yes, but no, but, yes but no. Um, but isaac winter excited to sit down, talk about, um, all things whiskey, distilling, brewing, alcoholic beverages. Uh, the director of distilling at high west been here for I mean, eight years now. Um, very excited to talk about it because high west is something that has been such a staple in, I feel, like the whiskey community now, because I mean, as I told you, when we were, when I was setting up, I remember living in seattle and every bar I would go to I'd look at their whiskey and there would be a high West bottle there.
Speaker 2:And I remember the first time I was like so stoked I was like, oh, my gosh, utah, here we go. And then after I was like wait, wait, wait. This is like this is more than just like the local place showing up where I go, the history behind it. It's been a lot of hard work, blood, sweat and tears that probably more than a handful have come from you. So excited to hear more, not only about your story but the story of High West and how you've played a role in that. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:This is great. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:No, likewise. But yeah, I mean let's start from the beginning.
Speaker 1:I know you alluded to I mean, growing up you were making some beers with family and staff, but I mean what part of your childhood led towards, I mean, this dream that's come to be your now career. So I've always really liked science, math and science. I was always always good at um, but I had, uh, a kind of we'll call it like an elective class when I was in seventh grade. Um, and I was able to go into the school's kitchen and learn how to make pizza. So I had this really charismatic instructor, for you know, it was like one afternoon and my family were, we were interested in food I wouldn't say that back then we were foodies, got it. You know, we had a lot going on and so we didn't focus on it necessarily.
Speaker 1:And so getting this hands-on class, like I, I can do this me like seventh grader Isaac, I can, I can do this by myself it felt really empowering. And the guy who taught the class you know I said it before he's super charismatic. He brought a lot of like fun energy to it and so it made it fun and interesting. So I think that was sort of my introduction to flavor and cooking and and how can you, um, how can you sort of make those things that you can share with everybody and put a smile on somebody's face. So, um, I, you know, cooked all through college and and really, really enjoyed that. Um, I graduated from the university of Utah with a chemistry degree and I was always going to go to med school that was kind of my plan, my family's in medicine, um, or in like health law or just some facet of of medicine. So that was, that was my career path. But I realized, um, you know, pretty quickly that I just didn't love homework enough to make that a reality.
Speaker 2:Right, you didn't want to sign up for, like another 12 years of school?
Speaker 1:No no, no, and you know we need people like that, um, but it was. I was ready to go and and, um, and it just wasn't my path. So, um, I'm sitting in this biostatistics course, my senior year, and just hating it, and had already had my graduation date scheduled and I was like you know what, I just can't do this. I need to change pace. So I emailed every brewer in the Salt Lake area and said, hey, I've been working in this tissue engineering lab, I can do cell counting, I can work in the Salt Lake area. And said, hey, like I've been working in this tissue engineering lab, um, I can do cell counting, I can work in the lab. I'd love to to get, you know, a summer internship or something. And, um, you know, I I didn't hear back from anybody except for Red Rock, hmm. And they said, hey, come on down. You know we'd love to meet you. And so I walk in there. Um, kevin and Eric Dunlap are sitting sitting there. Um, you know, I come in like with my Oxford shirt and, you know, all like straight laced, and Kevin just looks at me. He's like you know this, this isn't just sitting back, uh, talking about beer and your flip-flops. This is, this is hard work and I just I went for it and so I started, um, putting labels on bottles one by one, by hand, and, uh, and learning the ropes. So I would go after class, before class sometimes, um, and just tried to to soak up everything that I could about, about brewing from Kevin, from you know all these guys who were working there at the time and just fell in love, and so I, you know, learned the about cellaring beer, about filtration. Eventually they let me run the sticks and I was making my own beer, um, and just trying to get, you know, every experience that I could, uh and about, we'll say like maybe 2012,.
Speaker 1:Um, this guy walks in. His name is Brendan Coyle and, um, he had worked at Red Rock a couple of years before me and everybody was like, oh yeah, he's working for high West now. He's big time. And he came into a collaboration beer with Kevin and, um, he and I totally hit it off and I learned that he had done this, um, this master's degree in Scotland where you go, you live in Scotland for a year, you come out with a master's in brewing and distilling science, and I was all about that, uh, and so we, we kept talking. I did a shadow day at high West. I just thought you know this is for me, um, but I needed to convince my parents that I wasn't running away to join the circus.
Speaker 2:Guys listen, it's not just me trying to get an excuse to drink more beer, exactly, exactly. But so during that internship so you went from, I mean at the beginning of the summer, I mean sending a resume to so many people saying I'm interested, I'm interested to being at Red Rock with, I mean now, two people that are such foundational parts of the beer makers in Utah. I mean, at what point in that process were you like, oh, like this, is it? This does validate kind of what I was looking for and what I do want to do.
Speaker 1:I think two, two pieces. I mean I, I wanted a career and I saw Brendan at high West, I saw Kevin, you know, as master, master brewer, and just realized that you could make a career out of this and it could be fulfilling. It's something you could do forever and it will take you all over the world. That's something that Kevin talked to me a lot about is like you know, you can go to Singapore, you can go to Africa, you can go to, you know, the, to New York city or wherever you want to go. If you have this skill, you can go wherever. So so that that kind of made it real for me.
Speaker 1:Um, and then you know, I think the just the first time I I brewed a batch of beer by myself on the commercial scale brewing system, at the end of the day, hanging up your work shirt and just feeling like you actually made something tangible, that was a huge moment for me. Um, you know, working in the chemistry lab, you're working with these, like you know liquids and solids, and like you can't really see what's going on. And you know what's going on in your head, but like there's nothing you can really touch at the end of the day and sometimes you just work on the same problem over and, over and over again. But with beer you can. You know this. The like, the iterative phase of the R and D phase, um can be so short that you can do all this development and end up with something that you're really proud of. Um after a single shift sometimes, and that was powerful for me. I really, really enjoyed that. That feeling of making something tangible with my hands.
Speaker 2:I loved that it's crazy how that's such like a detail that I mean, if you were to tell yourself that, like let's go back to 10, 12 year old Isaac and say, hey, like you're going to like doing things with your hand, it's going to be part of your career of creation and be like whatever, like we're going to be an astronaut or whatever it would be, but then there's so many people, myself included, that get, I mean, corporate jobs, go do whatever it might be, but at the end of the day, find themselves gravitating towards something that they can do to create Like I've, in the past two years, started painting a lot and that's been something that I mean mentally has done a lot of great things for me, and also like the creative side has, but also just being able to say I started with this, I did this, ended up with this.
Speaker 2:I mean especially in a way where you can again have this iteration process, especially with beer it's so quick where I mean to your point of some whiskeys on the short end it would be a year, but with beer it could be like a week or two where you go. Oh, I can make 25 variations of this compared to one.
Speaker 2:Totally, absolutely, absolutely. And so to be able to say, okay, cool, I'd made this beer Like the first one you ever did, be like little hoppy, a little bittery, you know. I mean I think we might need a little bit more foam, like whatever, um that might be. And then do it and be like, oh, that, that did what I thought it was. And then people be like, oh, I do. And then to have someone else that you can put it in front of, enjoy it, right.
Speaker 1:And you know there's so many to be said for being like an educator, also the, you know taking your creation that you're super proud of and bringing that genuine passion to the table and then like talking about it like this, that's huge too. And and you know seeing somebody's eyes light up when they find it, you know, maybe not quite as interesting as you, but they, they get where you're coming from. Um, you know they, they see what you're trying to do. That is huge, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean especially going to your, your parents point of being like, well, what is he doing with this? Is he really done with college? Or cause I, when you said that you were sitting in this class, this bio um, biostatistics, biostatistics class, being like this, is not it?
Speaker 2:I am not excited about it Because when I went to college it was architecture, civil engineering, pre-pharmacy, biostatistics I have no idea business, finance and I remember the time I told my mom I was not going to be going to pharmacy school and that was no longer the plan. She was like but are you sure? Like I don't know, business is vague, you don't know what to do, like she's just always very unthoughtful about kind of career trajectory or like just doesn't want me to fall on my face. And I can't imagine what her face would have been like if I told my very active Mormon mother that I was going to go brew beer.
Speaker 2:But there's a post or something I saw recently where it's like, even if you're doing something that your parents could look at and be like, maybe if you show them that dedication, if you show that you're waking up early and doing the work and researching and essentially showing the grind or hustle towards it, whatever your dreams are, eventually they'll see it and be like okay, like I get it, I get it. You're not doing nothing, you are, you have a craft. It might be different than what I would think or start with, but I trust you, you hope so.
Speaker 1:anyway, right, you hope so. Not everybody's quite quite that lucky, but yeah, I would, I definitely was.
Speaker 2:So and part of that step was to go to Scotland, Edinburgh, to, to study all of this. I mean, tell me about that experience and all that you learned over there.
Speaker 1:I cannot say enough good things about living in Edinburgh. So the the program itself is at Harriet Watt university, which is like, uh, maybe like 10 miles outside of the heart of Edinburgh. It's like a 35 minute bus ride, we'll say, but it's um, it's in like the countryside of of Scotland, that's in. I think that, if I remember at the town, it's in the countryside of Scotland, I think. If I remember right, the town is called Clermiston, I think. But you're driving out and you go through these just flowing wavy fields of barley, you turn around and the school is beautiful also, but the drive out there is fantastic, but I lived on campus. Out there is fantastic, but, um, I lived on campus. Um, you know my, my then girlfriend and now wife and I had we hadn't been dating very long, so, um, she lived in downtown Edinburgh, I lived outside, and so we do weekends with her, and then, you know, weekdays, um, at my place.
Speaker 2:What a trooper. Like not even be with you'd be like you go out there and have fun. I'll be here See if we can make this work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I mean she's, she's a fantastic woman, absolutely, um. But, uh, you know the the this, the program itself, is divided into um four, four quarters, we'll say. So the first one is all about raw material production and use. So it's how do you make malted barley? Um, you know, you learn a little bit about like agave, a little bit about corn and stuff, but but it's pretty focused on on malt production for beer or for malt whiskey, um, and then you learn about like milling and uh conversion and you know all these things with raw materials. Then the second part is on brewing and hop, hop chemistry, which I loved filtration. The third piece is on um distillation and maturation chemistry. And then the fourth piece is your um master's project. And so this, you, you're paired up with one of um the professors, you do this, this uh project that's all summer long and um, you know, really dive deep into one aspect.
Speaker 1:And so at the time, you know, from working at Red Rock, um, I knew that I really wanted to be in sour beer production. I love that. You know, getting exposure to how we made Rev and part of bloom back in the day, um was really um like transformational for me. It, um, it was just that next step of bringing um the craftsmanship. Um, after you had done all of this, we'll say, like, after you've done all this science and numbers, for creating the recipe. But at the end of the day you're sort of like giving the, the secondary fermentation, the sour beer, you know, uh, fermentation process up to the brewing gods right, you're just having faith that these little microbes are going to make something that's palatable and you're, you know, you're blending and you're creating something that's interesting. So that's what I wanted to do. So at the time I was paired up with this guy, david Quain, who literally wrote the textbook on yeast and brewing science, and I did my master's project on trying to model Bertanomyces fermentation speeds with Excel and like statistical models to see if you could improve the speed. So a big issue with brewing beers with Britannia myosin, which is a sour beer yeast, rather than Saccharomyces, which is normal brewer's yeast, is the fermentations can last really long or they can go kind of haywire. Sometimes they ferment really really dry, meaning there's no more residual sugar. Um, but there's been some work done since this time, but at the time there wasn't a lot of research out there into how to handle these yeast and so, um, I was trying to to show how you could use Excel to to show this this fermentation is on track or off track by modeling it, and it worked pretty good. It worked okay, I think, but I got exposure to it like the whole scientific process. It was really really great.
Speaker 1:But you know, I guess, about Edinburgh in particular, uh, every, it wasn't bombed during world war two and so everything was built in like the year 1200. Oh, so you know, we'd be going out at night and, uh, we'd be walking down this uh, this really cool old, uh, the docile mountain wasps. Um, eric's getting molested by by a wasp in the in the library here, everybody. It's going to get real interesting, real quick, um, but yeah, so you'd be walking down this old alleyway that was built in the year 1200. You come around the corner and you, you know, um, happen upon this super cool, very modern cocktail bar, and so it's this really interesting juxtaposition, juxtaposition between old time um, architecture and this new emerging food and beverage scene. That's, that's really really vibrant.
Speaker 1:I absolutely love that, um, and you know the uh, the other piece that was it was really, I think, inspirational or like transformative in my career was the introduction to the student-run harriet watt malt whiskey society. So this is run by kids who are in the largely in the bachelor's program, not the master's program but, the bachelors of brewing distilling science program and, um, you'd pay five pounds, so like five bucks equivalently, right.
Speaker 1:Every other Friday you'd roll into the cafeteria and they'd have five whiskeys ready to go, and so each one of these nights would be hey, here's five Speyside whiskeys, so they're all like basically the same, from the same region, right, but they're all finished in different casks. Or here's a whiskey from the same region, but they're made using in different casks. Or here's a whiskey from the same region, but they're made using five different still types. Or, you know, here are just just things like that, and it was this really, really great way to get a a a, a kind of a targeted introduction to to whiskey. We'll say but malt, but malt, Scotch malt, whiskey in particular, and that just like it. Um, it totally turned me on to whiskey distilled spirits Honestly, we're not on my radar before that and I just developed this really deep love of spirits at that moment, which was, you know, that was that was pivotal in my decision to to take the role at high West later on.
Speaker 2:Interesting yeah, it's. It's gotta be cool to see again you're learning so much in classroom and experience there and all the way through your master's project, but then to have almost as like extracurricular activity where not only are you making friends with all these people, but it's like all right, here's these five whiskeys, here's these five specific differences, where you may have gone and being like, yeah, cool, like I, I appreciate whiskey, but I don't really, like I came here for the beer and then all of a sudden, next thing you know you're like oh, I get something I didn't even know, I didn't understand, and turns from this not mad experience, but something you didn't like. Hope to experience in that way, to then impact so much of your career moving forward.
Speaker 1:The other piece of the other like well, I like your term extracurricular, but the other extracurricular that I really liked was, um, I was the in-house brewer for a really small craft beer bar that had a half barrel brewing system, like in the back corner, and so I would go do classes all day and then just immediately get a turnaround, go to work and try out. You know these different, like hops that I'd been learning about, or different you know, um mashing procedures that I've been you know uh learning about and it made this this um.
Speaker 1:I think this really impactful um way of of learning and doing um that that really helped shape my brewing education.
Speaker 2:I think that's such a key part to it Because I'm a firm believer that lessons have to be learned. They can't really be taught and so to the point that, okay, here's this classroom experience and then go and do that only solidifies, it makes you understand more, Because so many people I know they went to school for 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12 years, whatever it might be. Then they get in the real world. They're like oh wait, this is different than this perfect place where we learn, and it's like theoretical ways totally. And so I'm glad that you had that experience to to bridge that divide between them. And so so you go to edinburgh. You have this great experience. I mean the lightning experience almost to, I mean the distilling process outside of beer that you had this experience with at Red Rock.
Speaker 2:Um, and in Kevin's words, you could take this anywhere. You could go to Singapore, you go to New York. You could go to, I mean, insert any geography you want to. You go back to Utah. I mean, was that always part of the plan? Did you feel more excited to go back after this, or what was your thoughts on returning to the home state?
Speaker 1:Um, you know my, my plan returning to the home state, um, you know my, my plan was to get a job at a really great brewery and learn something you know, learn that that next phase of of my brewing education, or get that next phase of my brewing education I think I got that with you into my plan wasn't necessarily to come back to Utah. Um, in the summer, um, my dad was diagnosed with a uh motor neuron disease. Uh did like a degenerative motor neuron disease Um, and so that changed where I was looking to uh to get um employed. And so, um, I knew Kevin Ely, who's the master brewer of Uinta at the time from working on the Utah Brewers Guild and he and I had been talking a little bit and I, you know, said how, how excited I was to to, you know, come and work at Uinta and you know, everything absolutely worked out. And you know you think about these key mentors in your life. Kevin definitely was one of them. Kevin also was one of them Lots of.
Speaker 1:Kevins, lots of Kevins. Yeah, he went on later to start Wooly Pig Farm Brewery in Ohio. You should definitely check it out.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:But he set up this sort of new role for me at Uinta, where I spent six to eight weeks in the lab in the brew house on the bottling line in the cellar and then kind of shadowing him to get this really well-rounded experience. So that was really really powerful. 14, 2013, ish, uh, 2014 to 2017, when I left to join high West um and ran their um, their R and D program, so I was in charge of coming up with all the recipes for new beers. Um, I think that in 2015,. 2016 was like this time of crazy skew proliferation at Uinta, and so I think we did something like 30 new beers and in you know, 15 months or something like that. But, um, it was like the so creative and I had a carte blanche, it was like completely blank check, and so, you know, working on things like um, you know I wrote the original recipe for lime Pilsner or Los Angeles, or, um, you know, uh, tangerine hop, nosh or you know all.
Speaker 1:I had, like this, this very distinct honor of coming up with these beers that were then on this national stage. Um, and so that was a huge, um point of pride for me and, and again, it was a big, important piece of my education.
Speaker 2:And did you like that experience of going from, I mean, school education, which is so much different than the practical part of things, and going to this place where you find yourself in this ambiguity, where I mean, like you say, carte blanche, the world is your oyster, or would you rather had a little bit more structure and be like, all right, iterate on these places? Here might be a couple of places we want to expand. I mean, what was your thoughts going through that process?
Speaker 1:I think that it was, it was, it was good for, for it definitely made me who I am now. I'll say that. So, um, I didn't have a whole lot of direction for, like some of the administrative things like um, you know, hey, when you add, you know, 10 pounds of hops per barrel in this IPA, your cost is going to go way, way up. And here's our margin after that. Right, nobody was talking to me about that, and so that's maybe a good thing.
Speaker 2:Um, for, my career, yeah right.
Speaker 1:Right. And so you know, I I wasn't like really beholden to that and so I could be endlessly creative, which I think was good, and so that sort of um long leash allowed me to just play and iterate, and so that was really helpful for how I think about new product development. Now I think you know absolutely pie in the sky, like gold standard experience. I probably would have liked a little bit more background into that and, like you know, it's great to be, it's great to be creative, it's great to play, it's great to be iterative, but at the end of the day, we're running a business and so when you make these decisions, you know, like using huge amounts of hops per barrel, whatever, um, then it's going to impact your cost here and here's what it's going to do to the business. That that piece is something that I pay attention to a lot right now, and that didn't come really until I started at high West and I got more of the exposure into finance.
Speaker 2:Got it and so you're the head brew master at Uinta. And I mean, at what point did I mean Brendan, come back into the story, or how did that conversation get started that you ended up here in Wanchip?
Speaker 1:He approached me a couple of times actually, and like never really was the right time. The first time was right before Kevin Ely was going to leave, and so I came to Kevin I said, hey, like I just got this interesting offer from High West, and he like stood up, closed the door, came back and sat down and was like you should know that I'm about to leave Uinta. And so I was like, oh my gosh, so him leaving it opened up, um, you know, this space on our senior leadership team at Uinta, so I was able to attend you know these, um, these meetings with the private equity, uh, you know, partners that you went to had at the time, which was awful, um, and a big part of why I left that was that that ownership structure, private equity it was. It was really, really tough.
Speaker 2:I've heard very few people that have said otherwise similar situations, but a really important lesson for me.
Speaker 1:But. But so I stayed at that point and then, um, you know, it was a couple of years later, 2017. Um, I think that we, you know, we we spoke for like six months before I actually left Um, but he said you know, we've, we've got a production manager position that's going to open up here pretty soon, um, and I'd love for you to come in and take the role. And at that point all the stars sort of aligned and I felt like I had sort of got the experiences that I wanted um at Uinta and in my time there had run its course and it was uh, it was time to leave. So said, yeah, let's do it. I joke that it was me saying let's join the dark side, because I had never wanted to do distilled spirits. I wouldn't say I never wanted to do it. Distilled spirits never really was on my career radar until I got the opportunity. And then it was like, all right, yeah, that's interesting, I can do that. And then, yeah, just have never looked back.
Speaker 2:Awesome and it's fun to see how I mean there's these similar faces throughout the story that come and go and come and go, and that I mean I've helped you. I mean not only just learn over there, but also have been such crucial parts of your career where if you didn't meet I mean Brandon Beck in the past before then, who knows what would have happened then. But then I mean you, I mean crush you until you're crushing. I mean cranking out all of these beers and this ski proliferation. But then there's like, yeah, like need you, and you're like well, I did find that I do really like whiskey in Edinburgh. So, yeah, let's make it happen, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, um you know, I joined in 2017 at high West Um and we had just become part of the constellation family. Um, they've been really, really great partners since the acquisition in 2016.
Speaker 2:And I'm actually curious about this cause I was digging into it a little bit more, but I like the of these two experiences. You have this experience that you went to a private equity comes in purchases and then you have this experience where it's more. But I like that you have these two experiences. You have this experience at Uinta private equity comes in purchases and then you have this experience where it's more. I mean a strategic buyer, not necessarily 100% financially motivated, but with CE, like in Constellation. I mean, how would you talk about those two different experiences of having these two different entities in the room and how they played a role in you getting your job done?
Speaker 1:That's a great question. I think that they were dramatically different With the private. Then we can grow Uinta from X to Y and it just wasn't really the case. And so, just for scale, I think at the time the US craft beer industry was growing between like 6% and 10% a year and Uinta was growing at 20% a year, but it never was enough. It never, you know, hit the tech um like growth numbers, and so that was pretty demoralizing and so never. It was always like that parent that you'll never be good enough for a hundred percent. That's a great comparison. And so it never was about the craft, or it never was about um. How can we, you know, realize wins and celebrate wins with the team? It was always like what can we do to to take 20% to 50%? And that was like that's the name of the game with private equity and like that. That, that's, that's a thing, um, but I think, turning now to constellation and like the strategic partner, like, uh, an industry member, it's very, very different. Um, I think at like the, the most broad level, they speak the same language as you, so they understand. Yeah, you know they're. They're paying attention to the um, they're paying attention to the industry. They understand that, if you know the industry is growing at six to 10%, that you know growing at 50 or 75%, depending on where you are in your in your life cycle, of course, but maybe those aren't that's not super realistic for growth expectations. So that's, that's really big.
Speaker 1:At the time, constellation was really building their spirits portfolio and so they saw high West success and they said, you know, um, they've really got something special here.
Speaker 1:We're going to give them some sales and distribution muscle and get out of the way. And I really have felt that that mentality has stuck around to date. I mean, they have been really, really supportive. They've obviously got big sales and distribution muscle, but they've really listened to us for how, as we've acquired new, you know, craft Spirits members, they've really listened to high West, to how can we set ourselves up for success and put the whole spirits organization on a on track for success and growth in the future? Long-term success, long-term like growth, because with private equity there like event horizon was three years, you know, or like less than five years, but with consolation, we're talking, you know, five, 10, 15 years down the road, and so that's a really refreshing take is, you know, we want to make the right decisions now so that in 2030, we're four times as big as we are, or you know, whatever. Um, that's been really great.
Speaker 2:No, I love that you say that, because I feel like there's so many people who, I mean, are entrepreneurs and business owners that get to a point and we hear about it the most in tech where it goes to like getting becoming a venture-backed software startup. And I mean talking with blake and scott I mean blake motorzyski and scott, paul and um, like rochelle morris and other people I've had on the podcast, talk about it. I mean, and especially in the economic landscape we find ourselves in, like that doesn't make sense for a lot of things. Not everything can grow 100% year over year. And to have that other person now have a seat at the table, have control over you, it doesn't make a lot of sense. And I've seen, I mean friends start these businesses that honestly, like would be great just to have this company, the softwares that will do I mean $50,000 a month in your pocket, like prints, cash every day. You don't really have to work every month, you don't really have to work that much. Like that's a great place to be. It doesn't need to go to 5 billion where you get your exit multiple, whatever that might be. But and you could, I mean, again, go to private equity and they might write the biggest check, but they are going to be the biggest problem at the end of the day, whereas when you have the right partner, that again like they're like hey, we're going to get out of your way. We know you guys know how to make great whiskey. There's no issues on that side. Let us CC you in some emails, get you introduced to the right people and let's get this to where we need to.
Speaker 2:Because, again, like in, coming from like my finance background and I would do investment banking when any company is growing faster than the market is, you're taking market share, yeah, and so to say, cool. Like the industry is growing at five percent, we're growing at ten. Cool again, we don't need anything in the three to five year horizon. We'd like it to be, and there's going to be metrics we need to get to, to get to those um 15 year, um time horizons.
Speaker 2:But having that patience, having that understanding that industry knowledge is huge and only frees you up to do what you need to do instead of worrying about all the things you don't need to do Absolutely and so okay, so you land at high West, this whole different process which, thankfully, you have this experience from Edinburgh that you fell in love with. You've been at Uinta, having a hell of a time with R and D and and and doing a lot of these new experiences there. Uh, I mean, what was that like? I mean, did you love getting into whiskey? Was there a lot of like a learning process outside of what you had?
Speaker 1:learned, or, yeah, I mean big, big learning curve for sure. So Harriet Watt is a wonderful brewing and distilling education program, like full stop. However, it's not super hands-on. So I was very fortunate because I had worked at Red Rock and had I knew what chocolate malt tasted like, I knew what it looked like, I knew what, you know, lenticular filter was, whereas a lot of my classmates didn't know what that was. They didn't have any, like you know, real reference for what a lot of that was, and so I didn't necessarily feel like I needed to be in the brew house, um, but, um, you know it, it. The same thing goes for distilling, where I learned a huge amount of distilling theory, maturation, chemistry, theory, but I spent two days in a whole year in the in the still house and that was it.
Speaker 1:So, coming to high West, I had had, you know, a huge amount of brew house experience and, um, you know sensory, and you know, at one point that you went to, I was in charge of the lab, um, and so I had these pieces, but the actual, like hands-on, practical distilling piece, I I was lacking, um, and so that was probably the biggest learning curve is like, what are the nuts and bolts of actually making spirit come off, the still Um and it's it. You know there's a learning curve, but like it's that's doable and I think that if you have the background in in the theory then it like comes pretty quickly in, like oh, okay, so this is what, this is what that tastes like when your cut points are different, or like this is what they're talking about with separation and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that was a big thing. The other piece that had a little bit of a learning curve with it was learning how to blend. You know, brendan is a really, really good whiskey blender and he has taught me a huge amount about blending and how do you bolt on different whiskeys to create something with a lot of texture and dimension to it.
Speaker 1:Enter Tara Lindley, who she is currently our director of blend and and um and sensory. And so she she had a job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1:And she, she's also like a really tremendous blender, um but um. She and she came. She comes from the wine industry, I came from the beer industry, brendan spent a huge amount of time in the spirits industry, so the three of us, um, yeah, we, we created the, the um, the core sensory and blend team for high West um until um, until Brendan, you know, has has since rotated out of of our direct team. Um but um, but that was, that was a big thing because you know, I had done lots of beer sensory but it's at, you know, 7% ABV or something, and so to come in and and like, go into the smelling whiskey at at 46% ABV, it's just a much different and sometimes like, really, um, uh, like like aggressive at times, you know, just like so much ethanol. That took a little bit of time getting used to Um, but it, you know, it's all, it's all part of the growth process and I had people like Brendan, tara, um, along the way to get me up to speed really, really fast. So it's very lucky in that way.
Speaker 2:And when you joined, did you have a vision of where you wanted to take, uh, I mean the portfolio of whiskeys for high West, or mostly just I mean along for the ride and see where it took you?
Speaker 1:That my my role was come along for the ride and we'll see where it goes.
Speaker 1:So, um, you know, brendan was master distiller, um, he was he, you know, really he was the shot caller for, for he had the deciding vote for all of our blends. And so we would get into um, you know, I'm looking at midwinters, that's a great um, that's a great example. So we would get into midwinters. We'd look at all the lots of Ruby port finished barrels. We'd look at all the lots with um Tawny port finish. We'd look at all the lots with Tawny Port finish. We'd blend them together.
Speaker 1:Tara and Brendan and I would all have our own sort of personal preference with hey, I'd really like to put a little bit more Tawny Port influence into there to bring some more unctuous, dark, sticky fruit character. And then somebody else would be like you know, I'm really digging the bright, spicy notes that Ruby's bringing. So there's a little bit of horse trading, a little bit of push and pull in that process. And you know, brendan would say I think that it makes sense to do it this way because of X, y, z, and so he was great at allowing us to voice our opinions and to come up with our own opinions, and then he would sort of provide this guiding force to get us on the right track.
Speaker 2:So that was yeah, that was it was great and that's like such a nice I mean leader and mentor to have in that process. Cause it's one thing for him to come and be like. I have the vote, this is my vote. I don't really care what you people say. I have the vote, this is my vote. I don't really care what you people say. Have a good one Blending with an iron fist, exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:And so in the less communist way of doing it, I mean, even if he just like listen, I internally he might say this is how we're doing it, I know best. But to be like and here's how I got here to make it an educational experience for both you and Tara, cause, again, you're coming from beer, she's coming from wine, you guys both have the background and the nose and the knowledge to do it. But to have someone guide you in in a way to be like here's how I got there, because again, I mean, at some point in this process he's planning his exit to go right off into the sunset and come wherever he needs to to help and still have some sort of hand in the pot, but to make sure that it's off in the right hands, instead of having this iron fist and then let go of the iron fist and see where that goes to really be a kind of like a teacher in the process.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I think that you know, when you think about building the most high performance team like that, if you have people on the team that um have some potential to to grow and to to be really, really competent in X, y, z, whatever it is, if you can, if you can um sort of foster that growth, your team just becomes that much stronger. Because now each one of those people are thinking about the process a little bit differently. They're bringing their own opinions that are that are rooted in um, in good, like sound technical backing or, like you know, in experiential backing. Um, I think that together you're just are so much stronger.
Speaker 1:And so Tara and I still work in lockstep now and our roles have expanded to include all of consolation spirits, and so, as we're looking at blending tequila for Casanova or, you know, working on the Nelson's Greenbrier portfolio, or still, you know, a huge amount of time is spent on high west we're able to take all of that experience from you know, our time at high west and now apply it in a little bit different way. But she and I have tasted together for so long that I know what she's thinking before she says it, um, and I'm sure she feels the same way. But we can totally play off of each other and be like, oh, you know what this, you know what this batch of campfire needs. You remember in 2019, when we did X, y, z, that's what we should do again. And so, um, it's been great to have to have her. You know, her and I be able to work so closely and to be able to speak the same language, and that development back in the day with Brendan, I think was so influential.
Speaker 2:Totally, and so walk me through that process of going from. So you go from like beer to like okay, I can figure out whiskey, like I don't have a ton of hands-on, but I, at least in theory, know it To then being like hey, we want you to be now the director of distilling for all of these spirits. I mean, how was that? I mean scope, expansion, responsibility, change in your career.
Speaker 1:It's been great, honestly. Uh, brendan was was great about, you know, working with me to um on the blending side of things. Um, I've always had a knack for like process design, I think. And so, um, as we've bolted on new craft spirits members, there was always an element of him pushing me to say what do we need to do at that site to get them to max capacity at site? Like, how much? What do we need to invest in order to get them to be able to produce as much whiskey on site as they can? Um, and so thinking about process in that way was really helpful. And um, but then again, like having that mentor all along the way to be like, oh, that's an interesting way of thinking about. I wouldn't have done it that way, here's how I would have done it. Um really helped me, um, to, to to shape how I think about whiskey distilling process, blending process, things like that. And so, just, you know, project after project and being involved with blending, and you know, coming up with my own opinions on how some of these blends should come together, how they should taste, um, it sort of was inevitable, I think.
Speaker 1:Um and um, you know he, he has started Dendrick Estates, which is a estate style um cidery in Camas Valley, um, and they'll open up their tasting room, I think next summer, um, but at one, you know, at some point he was ready to transition out and sort of hand over the reins, and so he started stepping back in some of those blending conversations or in some of those um investment conversations and letting Tara and I really take front and center stage. And so when it was time for him to exit, we had sort of already stepped into those roles in some ways, um, and so it was, uh, it's. It's been different having all of the responsibility, I think, um, but the the skill sets there, and it's it's learning how to, how to manage your time a little bit differently across a portfolio rather than across just high West, but it's. I have loved, loved, every minute of working at high West and now you know this new role has been really engaging.
Speaker 2:That's awesome to see how, how far it's come from realizing you don't want to go to med school to now I mean having all of these experiences and growing so much and learning so much, not just in I mean the creation process, but to your point, like you're, like, oh, when I was at uinta, I had this experience of, I mean, make whatever you want to financials you're not directly responsible for yet, and then you get this experience. You know where you are and you get, I mean in a site, into the financial metrics and how the business is run. And then you come here and see that to another extent but then also see, like, oh, we'll look at this portfolio of brands and say, how do we think about adding a new brand to our portfolio and why? Why would we choose this, this, this I mean tequila distillery compared to this?
Speaker 1:one, yeah, Like what's the network utilization that you know you can with that merger and acquisition target right, Like that's been?
Speaker 2:really interesting Totally, and it's, I mean, it's stressful. They're like should we invest X million dollars into this? We need your opinion? You're like I thought it was good. But then having that experience of things and then all the way through where they come to you and be like, all right, well, how do we utilize all of this? What is our max capacity, which correlates to how much can we do in the next I mean three, five, 10 years at current capacity? How much do we invest to get to next tier of capacity so that we can keep growing, I mean as I mean any business wants to. I mean not like the tech, multiple sort of growth, but something reasonable and get to do that. So that's, I mean, amazing. And so, thinking about, I mean your career now with High West and Constellation, what have been some of your favorite labels or bottles that you've done over the years?
Speaker 1:I knew you were going to ask that question. It's like choosing your favorite child. Let's take a look over here at the wall. So some of the most recent ones we've come out with we talked about Bottle them Bond. That is really near and dear to my heart and our team's heart, because that's our own spirit.
Speaker 1:So bottle than bond is a designation that comes from the government, so it has to adhere to a set of really really strict rules. And it came, it came about like in. So so it's the bottle and bond act of 1897. The government, um, was going to put some regulations around whiskey because people were putting like turpentine and tobacco spit and all kinds of nasty stuff in their whiskey that were making people sick or killing them or just making their whiskey you know, gross, yeah, we'll say. And so bottled and bond has to be aged at least four years. It can't have anything in it except for water, so you can't add artificial coloring, which nothing at high west does. But just just another fact it has to be bottled at 100 proof.
Speaker 1:And then the thing that I love about it so much is that all the spirit has to come from within one production year and then apart from that, or I guess, in addition to that, it has to come from within one six month distilling season, so January through June, july through December, and so I'm not honestly not sure where that came from, but it creates this really um, fun, challenging box to blend within. Because, you know, take rendezvous rye, for example. Um, rendezvous is a blend of uh, six year column still rye with our four to nine year old high West pot still rye blended in. And so, um, we so that's kind of like the two big chunks However, we blend rye whiskey that's as old as like 12 years old, and to give it a little bit of depth. And so those are some of the tricks that you can do to give a core product like that continuity and consistency over the time. Like, you can vary the 12-year-old, you can vary the 6-year-old, you can vary the pot still, because each one of those pieces is this like living breathing organism. So you have to be a little bit dynamic. But with bottled and bond, you get one six month window to work within. And so, if you know somebody was running the, still a little bit weird, or you know just, there's just nothing to hide behind, and so it really is a feather in the distiller's cap.
Speaker 1:I think to come out with a product like that that is um, well-balanced, that's delicious, um, and it's it's something that I'm really proud of. I think another one to talk about is um is Burai. Burai is one of my absolute favorites. It comes out in the spring every year. It's uh, kind of our celebration of old chewy whiskeys. So it's a bourbon, of, it's a blend of bourbon and rye, boo rye, and everything in the blend is at least 10 years old. So typically it's a big, uh, you know, chewy, beautiful bourbon base, yeah, and then we add in some older rise, call it like you know, between 12 and 14 years. Sometimes we added some older rye in for spice, and so, again, by varying the levels of each one of those components in that blend, we can.
Speaker 1:We can retain the same soul of the whiskey, but with each iteration, with each year, we're able to bring a little bit of personality into the mix. Same thing with bottle and bond. You know, you're the, the, the iteration that we're on right now, that you can get at the at the bottle shop, is from fall of 2018. Okay, but next year we'll do whiskey from 2020. And then the year after it might be, you know, 2019 or 2021, and so it's sort of like the spirits version of the um of the wine vintage, where we want to create a big, bold, impactful pot, still whiskey that's bottled and bond. But we like to celebrate those little vintages and the little personalities along the way.
Speaker 2:I mean that's one thing I love too. I get going back to my cousin in portland like it was fun because I went, cause I used to go every other year. It's been like two years since I've gotten out, but I would know, after so many tours, be like, oh yeah, 2016 was a wet year, 2017 was a dry year, and like, understand how that correlates to flavor. Yeah, and in the same way, because you can't hide behind anything with the bottled and bond it and bond it's like yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna feel a lot of that because there's it is so pure and so specific.
Speaker 1:You know, even like things, um, we will see a shift in in our bottle than bond in like with the next iteration. Because in 2018 we um had a big expansion project. We put on some new bells and whistles on the still that made it function a little bit differently. And so pre-2018, or we'll say pre-2019, we didn't have quite as good of control with separation. We made beautiful whiskey. It just comes across as like, has a really distinct cereal note, and it's bigger, it's badder, has a really distinct cereal note and it's um, it's bigger, it's batter, it's uh. And then after 2019, we add what's called a defamator onto the still, where we're able to to um, to control the separation, to to, you know, um purify the spirit a little bit more. And so we've seen um whiskey that's like, really spicy and like um has a little bit more. And so we've seen um whiskey that's like, really spicy and like um has a little bit more focus to it.
Speaker 1:The, the serial character, is dialed back a little bit. But it's those things. It's those things where you know you're really able to, to track down to the date. You know, oh, this is definitely pre 2019 high West. Oh, this is definitely pre, you know, post post 2019 high west. That's. I really like those little hidden um stories behind all the products yeah, no, that's so fun.
Speaker 2:And thinking about. I mean the future, for I mean high west specifically, but also constellation. I mean what does that look like?
Speaker 1:for I mean consumers I think you know um high west mo has always been um blending and that's not going to change.
Speaker 1:We will always go out into the market and source whiskeys that are beautiful, that are distinct, that will create those fun accents on our blends or create a really impactful base to blend on top of Um.
Speaker 1:We now have a lot of distilling capacity at our sites and we now have some of our own whiskey inventory that's coming of age, and so I think that you'll start to see I know that you'll start to see more high west products or more high west whiskey coming into the products, like bottle and bond, like um, like high west bourbon coming into um high with the high west bourbon coming into the High West bourbon blend, things like that.
Speaker 1:And so we're now just on the precipice of this next phase of High West, where for so long the focus was exclusively on source blends, and now we've got a lot of levers to play with, and so it will still be blended, it'll still be a good chunk of source whiskey, but we'll be able to create and feature and celebrate some of those custom mash bills that we've made ourselves that help to fill some of those holes that are, like you know flavor holes in our inventory that we couldn't source and help to add some of those impactful accents on the blend, um. So I, I, just I can't say any more than that. I'm so excited for what we've gotten the hopper, um, but absolutely stay tuned.
Speaker 2:No, I'm excited to cause I've I mean, I always love whenever I go out or go to liquor store and I'm like, well, this is new or I haven't seen this one before before, so I know there's only going to be more fun, surprises and excitement to come. Isaac, I want to end with the two questions I always ask every guest at the end of every episode One. If you could have someone on the Small Lake City podcast and hear more about what they're up to, who would you want to hear from?
Speaker 1:That's a great question have you interviewed Matt Caputo?
Speaker 2:No, that's when he mentioned that I'm actually texting and emailing and instagram dming him about it, because the caputo sandwich is one of my favorite sandwiches and it's iconic. That's a.
Speaker 2:That's a salt lake staple yes, yeah like I used to live a half mile away from 15th and 15th and so that would be like my midday break, like I need to walk somewhere. I'd be like I can use a sandwich and so I'd go get a sandwich and come back. And then now I live in Marmalade District, so close to the one downtown, so right now I'd be like I need a coffee.
Speaker 1:We can probably get a sandwich too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I do want to sit down with Matt because I'm curious enough about love their product and everything that they still do with all their classes and tastings and do so much for the community, so I think that would be a great person to have, um, and then, secondly, if people want to find out more about, I mean, high West, uh way to keep up with any of the new whiskeys coming out, or the best way to find more information.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Check out uh high westcom, uh Instagram, uh drink high West and Isaac winter at Isaac Winter. So I think those are the best ways Deal.
Speaker 2:We'll deal Well, isaac. Thank you so much. It's been so fun to learn more about any High West. Everybody go buy a bottle, come up to the Wandship Distillery and have brunch. It's one of my favorite places to get away from the city. Lots of great things to come. I'm excited to see it. Thanks so much. No, thank you.
