Lucky Guys Distillery

Drew H (00:08):
Welcome to Whiskey Lore's Whiskey Flights, your weekly Home for discovering great craft distillery experiences around the globe. I'm your travel guide, drew Hannush, the bestselling author of Experiencing Irish Whiskey and experiencing Kentucky Bourbon. And today we're going to be heading to Hudson, Wisconsin, A town that's just short of the Minnesota border, and it's the home of Lucky Guys Distillery, which is a distillery that I kind of just tossed into my itinerary not really knowing what to expect. I usually tend to look at Google reviews and see if people are talking about interesting things about a distillery. Before I choose one, I went to their website, but I was really kind of getting a sense that this was a really large tasting room with maybe some distilling equipment in the back. But then that vision of what I was expecting started to change as I was driving in From Steven's Point, I was looking around to see if there were some interviews I could listen to get some ideas of what I'd like to ask.

(01:11):
Guy Whitehead, the distilleries founder, and that's when I stumbled upon his podcast called Tology. And if that name sounds quirky, well that was likely on purpose. It is a fun little banter type podcast. And they talk about all sorts of things from distilling of spirits to the creation of flavors for cocktails and even dive into some whiskey history. And as they were doing that, I found myself wanting to interject into the conversation and say, oh, but I couldn't do it because of course it's a podcast, it's recorded, and I wasn't anywhere near when that was being done. So I thought, well, what a great opportunity for me to ask and get into that conversation with Guy during our interview. And as I arrived, the idea that this was just a small facility kind of tucked in the hallway type retail space quickly went away as I saw the outdoor deck where people can sit out and enjoy their cocktails.

(02:19):
And as I walked in the front door, it was this nice, really long facility that had a well appointed cocktail area, full bar gift shop, and even steps up that go to a event center up above. And along the entire right side is the distillery behind Glass. And when I met Guy, he showed me around the distillery and one of the first things I noticed was on the fermenters, there was a sign that said Mad Scientist at work, which told me all I needed to know about this distillery that everything I was hearing on that ology podcast was kind of the personality of what this place is like. Now, one of the things that I wanted to do in my interview and something that I heard him talk about on his podcast was the concept of bitters. Now, I've not talked a lot about cocktails on this show, but I was fascinated by his episode in where he was talking about bitters.

(03:25):
And so I thought, well, this is a perfect opportunity to dive into that part of cocktail making and the influence of flavors. But unfortunately, we ran out of time to record an interview. We got so caught up in talking about different things that I was fascinated with in terms of how they were making their spirits. So we decided that I would come back in the morning, 8:00 AM, make a pot of coffee, and we would sit down to our conversation. So I'm going to skip the area profile in this particular episode because we'll be here in this area for a little while, and I want to really just dive into this fascinating conversation with Guy Whitehead of Lucky Guy's Distillery. The first thing that happens is I contact through social media and I say, okay, I'm coming up this direction. Is there somebody I can talk to there? They gave me the email address and I looked and it went guy at Lucky. And then I said, oh, well, who do I talk to there? Asked for Guy. I'm like, oh, well that makes sense. So let's start off with the name Lucky Guys and kind of the origin of where that came from.

Guy (04:39):
In fact, lucky Guys wasn't the original name, the original name. It was always going to be lucky. A good friend of mine, Kevin Johnson, has always said that I'm the luckiest bastard in the world. And it was such a long time that I thought it would be a good name, not only because I think there's a positive aspect to it, but also it implies that there's good fortune ahead. And so it was going to be lucky brand Distillery, of course, and people aren't surprised when I tell 'em this, but they should be surprised if they know anything about Trademark Law. Lucky Brand Jean's company filed opposition,

Drew H (05:17):
Okay,

Guy (05:19):
Now the lawyer said, this is a joke. We'll win this case every time, but they might make you spend 70 to a hundred thousand dollars defending your right to use it outside of apparel. He goes, they can only protect it for apparel. No one has the trademark on the word lucky. He said, how tied do you are this? And I said, well, not 70 to a hundred thousand. And so he said, I think I can get them to pay all the refiling fees. We'll have them give us some guidelines and they'll probably allow you to do something. And then he said, why don't you call it Lucky Guy? And I said, well, he knew that was my name. And I said, well, the distillery isn't supposed to be about me. And then he said, well, you've got three sons and a wife that puts up with you. Maybe you should call it Lucky Guys. And I said, alright, if we make sure there's no apostrophe, I'm in. And so then Lucky Guys was born, and it was always, I always knew being a child of the seventies, late sixties, early seventies, rabbit's feet back then were the coolest lucky charm you could have.

(06:34):
And so I always thought, I'll put a bottle on every bottle, I'll hang a rabbit's foot. And that was the lucky thing. And then they're, what are you going to do for the logo? I was like, I don't know, like a rabbit jumping through a horseshoe. And I sketched it out. And my buddy Tom Garrity, who said, who's been in the business, the marketing business his whole life, said, get someone who can draw that logo and you've got a winner. And then

Drew H (07:00):
Beautiful.

Guy (07:01):
Pretty much it's morphed into Rabbit

Drew H (07:02):
And now it's all rabbit themed all around here. I hope you like rabbits.

Guy (07:05):
Yeah. And then someone said Rabbit that had that foot and wasn't so lucky.

Drew H (07:13):
This is true. This is true. So talk about your journey into whiskey. What are your first memories of whiskey?

Guy (07:20):
Yeah, first memories is an easy one because it's probably, if there's a genesis moment for me in this business that my grandpa, Daryl, who everyone referred to as DET, which he said stood for Daryl Efficiency Thompson, we didn't know what his middle name was until I read his obit. And that is not a joke. He had passed away before I found out his real middle name. And he even said that Grandma wasn't a good enough name for Jane, his wife. And so we called her Grand Mama.

Drew H (07:53):
Oh, okay.

Guy (07:54):
And so of course, by extension, he became Grand Papa, and every day at five o'clock, he would clap his hands and say, alright, everybody, I'm having a snort who wants to have a snort with me. And the snort for him was Jack Daniels and Club Soda. And when I was eight or nine, we lived very close to them. So I was lucky enough to be in his life a lot. I remember twisting the CO2 cartridge into the seltzer bottle for making their own club soda. And it was always Jack and soda. My grandma was always cc and seven or Seagram seven and seven. And so to me, the coolest people in town drank brown whiskey. And so I always knew I'd be a brown whiskey guy. And in college when I think I told you this yesterday, you'd go into a bar and ask 'em what kind of bourbon they had, and they would say, we've got Jack Daniels, we've got Crown Royal, we've got, and they'd rattle off Canadian whiskeys or Tennessee whiskey instead of bourbon. And you ended up drinking either Wild Turkey or Jim Beam, because that was pretty much the only thing in the upper Midwest that was a standard.

(08:59):
So brown liquor has been, so I knew I wanted to, at least I thought I wanted to make whiskey, but I didn't know if I could make it.

Drew H (09:06):
Yeah, I love the story you told yesterday. Apparently your grandfather sounds like he was quite the character that he actually wrote a letter to Jack Daniels,

Guy (09:17):
And I think he wrote many letters to him, but the one that he sort of said made him famous, or the one that he laughed about that got the then president of Jack Daniels to swing by his house in Fairmount, North Dakota was he said something like, you guys have the best corn squeezing and moose droppings ever put in a bottle. My entire family knows that my grandpa probably took 80 or 90 Jack Daniels minis to the grave with him in the coffin. We were all tucking little bottles into his casket.

Drew H (09:54):
He and Frank Sinatra

Guy (09:56):
Share

Drew H (09:56):
Something in common. That's great. So yesterday I was being entertained driving down the road, listening to your podcast, which I think is a brilliant idea for people to be able to really get to know about your philosophy, about you, to get the personality of what you put together here and the people that you surround yourself with. And all of that has an interesting name.

Guy (10:24):
That name came from, it was actually a humorous night. We had people all around the bar, and there was a guy at the end that was a little bit too far into his cups, and he looked at our head bartender, mixologist, Eric, and he goes, Hey, you guys, what do they call you guys again? Ologists? And I laughed and thought, that is actually, we should put that on the back of Eric's shirt. And then it sort of morphed. And strangely enough, if you look up Tology in the podcast section, there are two people that named theirs.

Drew H (11:03):
Oh, okay.

Guy (11:04):
Now one of them was like a one and done or a two and done thing in 2017 or 2018. That doesn't, but yeah, it's a tongue in cheek. We definitely don't take ourselves too seriously here. I even tease people who call themselves mixologists because I really think it's a matter of, the best ones to me are the ones who are just willing to try many, many, many things, because subtle combinations are far more intriguing to me than bold combinations.

Drew H (11:38):
It makes me, after listening to that podcast, it makes me think about the conversations that go on around this place over every little thing, because you started off talking about Alexander Hamilton and we devolved into is Jack Daniels bourbon, which of course I say Jack Daniels is not bourbon, it's Tennessee whiskey. But of course, I've gotten into arguments and apparently you have with

Guy (12:03):
The same guy gun

Drew H (12:04):
Down that trail. Amazing. Yeah.

Guy (12:06):
And so I think when it comes to the spirit world, people who take things ultra, literally, I think your box is going to be small

Speaker 3 (12:19):
If

Guy (12:20):
You're willing to truly step outside the box. I think some of the best things we've made here were mistakes or where we thought, I mean all the time I get people say, Hey, I've got some extra X, do you want it? And my answer is always yes.

Drew H (12:39):
Yeah. So you're like the farmer of the past who used whatever he had on hand and kind of figure out what can you make out of it?

Guy (12:48):
And I mean, there've been times where we've made something and I've gotten, dang it, I can't make more of this because we don't have, and I mean, one of our most beloved Bloody Mary's here, we literally buy kimchi, cover it in vodka, and then strain the kimchi back off. And we use this kimchi infused vodka to make a bloody Mary, and we put five spice on the rim rather than a spicy salt. We use soy sauce rather than Worcester sauce. And so you sort of embrace this Asian culture, but who else is doing that? No one. And it's all Eric, that's Eric's mind at work. He's like, I love kimchi. I'm going to make a kimchi infused vodka. I'm like, okay. But to me, those are the wonderful things you stumble into.

Drew H (13:42):
Well, one thing that I definitely got a feel for yesterday was we tried, you sent me through a large variety of different liqueurs and different whiskeys that you were creating, other spirits you were making. Where did your nose and palette develop? Have you always kind of had that sense or is it something that you had to build up?

Guy (14:06):
Yeah, I think it's developed. Growing up in North Dakota, my dad thought black pepper was spicy. They call, you've probably heard the joke, ketchup is Norwegian hot sauce because the Lutherans from Scandinavia, they can eat Luta Fisk, but they don't want hot sauce. Whereas my wife, who grew up in the metro area here in Minneapolis, St. Paul Burnsville, actually Michelle, I remember one of the first things she made when we were dating was she made her own party, Chex Mix. And she used an entire bottle of Tabasco sauce making this Chex mix. And I love spicy stuff. And then going into the military and sitting in the mess hall the first morning and picking up a bottle of Louisiana hot sauce and saying, now what's this? And this kid from Louisiana sitting across from the table from me says, what the hell are you talking about? I'm like, I don't know what this is. Well, I guess there's no way to describe it other than saying it's Louisiana hot sauce, but you put it on your eggs. And I went home from basic training in love with grits, in love, with black eyed peas, in love with hot sauce,

(15:23):
In love with southern soul food that I had never, you'd never even crossed my path before growing up in North Dakota. And so yeah, from 20 to 30, I developed a brand new palette for things that intrigue me. And laurs are one of our taglines as we make better spirits. So you can make better cocktails, but there are so many people that don't know what Uzo is,

Speaker 4 (15:53):
And

Guy (15:53):
The minute they taste it, they say they hate black licorice. They won't. But people who are willing, that's the one that I sell at the liquor store because people can't believe they've never had it before. And there's a lot of 'em. I think we'll probably end up being better known for our La Coors than we are for our whiskey, but hopefully I'm wrong.

Drew H (16:17):
Yeah, well, it definitely helps in the cocktail world. But I think it's funny, my first introduction to Uzo was I went over to a friend's house and they were from England and they had a fully stocked bar in their basement. And basically my friend's father said, pick a flavor, I'll find you a lur or something that will match it. And I said, I'd love black licorice. And Uzo is what he pulled off the shelf.

Guy (16:45):
Oh, he's smart.

Drew H (16:45):
I can't believe that there's something in spirits that tastes like this. So one of the things that you focus on, which I think is interesting, a subject I've never covered before as a concept of bitters, and you actually produce bidders here. So first, what are bidders and then how do you go about producing them?

Guy (17:08):
Great question, and I should do a podcast on this myself. I haven't bidders. Whenever you're making a cocktail, balance is extremely important, and the balance needs to be acid bitter and sweet, and then a spirit that's every cocktail. I'm a big, don't yuck anybody's yums, whatever you like to drink. Don't ever apologize for liking it, but be willing to expand out. And bitters is an excellent way to add complexity to a drink for little to no cost. I mean, when you talk about a standard old fashioned that might have one or two shakes of in it, and one of the modern ones is Angu doa, most people know about Angus doa, and if you were willing to taste the Angus DOA bitters on their own taste a wild range within there, there's orange, which comes literally from orange peels. There's very bitter in there, which typically comes from gentian root, but it will be a root of some kind. And then there's a complexity of things that go in there to add either spice or heat or floral. And so bitters, they just need, they're used to make a drink more complex, more complete, more enjoyable. So far, we've probably made a dozen, but I would say maybe four of them are worthy of production.

(18:40):
The one that's on our shelf currently is our cherry bidders. And you're literally taking high proof alcohol and you're soaking all of these ingredients in it. And I can tell you that while a lot of things make it more complex, it also makes it sort of muddy.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
And

Guy (18:59):
So I've tried to reduce it to maybe 12 to 15 ingredients. I know we talked a little bit about, for instance, our version of chartreuse, the monks that make chartreuse. Apparently it's every botanical that is native to France. It's 180 to 200 things. Wow.

Drew H (19:19):
Yeah.

Guy (19:20):
So of course it's complex, but it's

Drew H (19:22):
Also can be very muddled because what flavor can you pick out from unless one really stands out. It's like with gin, usually Juniper is very strong, so you're always going to get that kind of pinesol note somewhere in

Guy (19:36):
There. And we actually have chosen to step away. So this goes back to that thing when I was talking earlier about if you want to be trapped in the box, you might say, all the Coors are sugared. I don't subscribe to that. In fact, I had to fight with the federal government when they said, my Uzo, the representative at the TTB said, how much sugar are you putting in here? And I said, none.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
And

Guy (20:03):
He goes, that's not Uzo. And I said, show me where it says that. He says, all the Coors have sugar. I said, no, show me where it says Uzo has sugar in it. And he couldn't. And so then they acquiesced and they said, oh, okay. I guess it's in the lour category because it's Uzo, but it does not say it's required. And so we put no sugar in ours, and we use less sugar in all of our stuff. And for me, it's more about I want the flavor to come through. If you want to add Sprite or simple syrup to that recipe to bring the sweetness up, do

Speaker 3 (20:39):
It.

Guy (20:40):
But I want you to be able to taste and bitters. So I mentioned the cherry bitters, the cherry, very cherry. There's like, I want to say we put five pounds of Michigan cherries in one gallon. I mean, it's first and foremost, it's

Drew H (20:58):
Cherry. Cherry.

Guy (20:59):
Yeah. Yeah. But the bitter notes are there. There's a tiny bit of cinnamon in that one. I think as well, we make an orange one that is going to be our Angus Dura. Of course, it's not like Angus Dora, but it's very much orange forward. First we make a floral one, and then we make one that is juniper lemon. And so those are the wait. And then I guess we've got five because we have an Aztec chocolate.

Drew H (21:25):
Okay. Oh, wow.

Guy (21:27):
Yeah. We make a smoked chocolate old fashioned here. And that is a key in that cocktail.

Drew H (21:33):
Yeah. This is funny because I always tell people that I'm not necessarily a cocktail person, but when I walked in here and we started talking and we start going through things, it's like, and listening to your podcast, it just gets the curiosity up and makes me very interested in what you're doing because it's another layer. It's kind of like we talk about whiskey, the distilling process. You're looking for things to create flavor and how you create blenders, that's another art where you're trying to take two different spirits and make them blend together to make another whole. And that this whole world of cocktails and all of these different flavors that you're working with, you have your little sign in there that says, mad scientists that work. I really get that sense that you are sometimes just set free in that back room to try to find something new.

Guy (22:27):
Yeah, that's a hundred percent true. And they put that sign up because the number of times both good and bad. I recall one of the first couple weeks of using the new equipment and the tasting room was open, and I love my equipment manufacturer, but it's a brew tank and brewers don't use corn. And so the system doesn't, was not fond of having corn in the pot. And when you did it a certain way, there was a false floor in there because most brewers take the grain off and the corn would go through and it would basically make a eight by eight foot wide, eight foot round by two and a half inch thick Johnny cake trapped under the floor. Oh, wow. And I had to take the floor apart, and I was back there digging these Johnny cakes out of this or this Bruton when all these people were watching. And I mean, I was covered head to toe in cooked mash. It was a very, very ugly evening one where my wife said, don't ever cook on a Friday night again. But yeah, I mean, we're back there winging it. I mean, I told you about our FAFO Thursdays Ffo fool around and find out for the gentle ears of your younger listeners. But yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's the best stuff.

(23:59):
Experimentation.

Drew H (24:01):
I think, too, it's interesting to hear your philosophy when people come in for cocktails that if there's four people, four people should order four different things so that they can kind of play around it. Because I think we get into a comfort zone and we always, I do this, I find a restaurant, I order something good, and it's like I just keep ordering that every time I go in. I don't want to be disappointed by spending money on something. I may not necessarily like a hundred percent. I

Guy (24:28):
Absolutely tell people, Hey, if you don't know what you want, be bold. Go for something that you think you might like, but you have no idea. I said, I'm going to make you happy somehow. But I always tell people, we're not a vodka soda bar. I mean, of course you can have one if that's the only thing you're going to drink, but you will be so much happier if you take a chance.

Drew H (24:51):
Yeah. Well, you talked about a vodka drinker's gin. Now, I love making a vesper martini, but I've never really liked gin. I'll tell you what got me into gin though, was the Vesper martini because you take three parts gin, one part vodka, so you're actually diluting down the gin a bit. Is that kind of the concept

Guy (25:15):
Here? Well, let's start by saying that I think 90% of the world doesn't realize that gin and bogar are so close relatives a good, for instance, Bombay Sapphires probably one of the top two. Did you know that Bombay doesn't make alcohol? Do they not? They don't

Drew H (25:40):
Bring it in.

Guy (25:41):
They bring in neutral, and then they make gin out of it. And so for those of you listening that don't already know, and I know that this is a knowledgeable podcast, but neutral is just high proof vodka. When you take something over one 90, technically you can classify it as neutral. You don't have to, but technically, once you're over one 90, you can classify it as neutral. But gin is just infused vodka. And so when you take that and you put the juniper back in, by law, it needs to be the primary botanical. But I've, after that, they leave it to you. You don't have to get a recipe approved by the federal government to make gin, which is crazy. But it's true. All it needs to be is you need to agree that it's the primary botanical. So if you have 27 botanicals in there, and I think Bombay is 19, that means that you could be 6% juniper as long as the rest were

Drew H (26:35):
Five.

Guy (26:36):
Right.

(26:37):
And everybody who loves gin, and I'm a gin lover, knows that Bombay is a much more approachable gin than say, tanker ray, which is extremely juniper, heavy juniper. And some even might say that you either love juniper or you're pretending to like gin. Well, I just like to make people happy. So our London dry has the most juniper in it, but our citrus flavored gin straight line is really light on the juniper. And so we're able to encourage people to find and try. There are probably a half a dozen drinks in our menu that will, I don't want to say lie to, but people will say, I don't like gin. Well, what do you like? And when they tell us the flavors that are in a Havana, for instance, we'll make it. And then when they taste it and say, oh my God, I love this. We'll say, that's gin. There is no way this is gin. It's gin. You try and make sure they're not allergic to. So to me, it's about the level of juniper that you put in. I think our citrus gin is closer to Citron vodka than it is to gin

(27:53):
Because it's so heavily infused with fruit peel. And then there's also juniper in there so that it can be gin.

Drew H (28:00):
Yeah. I feel like I could talk to you about cocktails all day, but you also make whiskey. Yeah.

Guy (28:05):
Well, and that's the reason I got into it.

Drew H (28:07):
Yes. And so talk about, first of all, the one that drew my attention was the white whiskey, because you don't see it everywhere, but it is out there, but people will take it in different directions. What's your philosophy behind it?

Guy (28:23):
Yeah, so Willow River, white Whiskey, I actually have to hat tip a friend, Nate Alders, who worked for another distillery in St. Paul at the time, I think it's changed hands now, but it was called 11 Wells. And he came in here one day and we had met on a tasting excursion. And when he left 11 wells, he came to see me, gave me some pointers, gave me some tips, and we happened to be running whiskey. And he said, how much do you sell your white whiskey for? And I said, come again.

Speaker 3 (28:54):
Yeah.

Guy (28:55):
And he says, let your white dog, you sell it. You have, oh my God, do you not sell your white whiskey? And I said, I don't. Why would someone buy a white whiskey? And we eventually ended up back and he ran his fingers through the stream and he tasted it and he says, oh my God, bottle this and sell this. Yours is better than ours was. You can sell this to people. And I was like, for what? And so we sell an aging kit where you can buy a little one gallon barrel that four bottles of white whiskey will go into, and you're making your own bourbon

Drew H (29:28):
Nice.

Guy (29:28):
Or you can use it in cocktails. And we probably have four or five cocktails on our menu where we use white whiskey. And obviously it's just moonshine. It's unaged corn whiskey. And there are some, I think we talked about this yesterday, but in order to be classified as a white whiskey in the United States, it needs to be at least 85% corn. So we make three different aged whiskeys, regular irregular bourbon, our Fighting Sisters, bourbon and R Rye, the Fighting Sisters bourbon is a mimic of the Buffalo Trace, 85 corn, 15 wheat.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
It's

Guy (30:06):
A weed bourbon.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
And

Guy (30:07):
So that one we redis distill one more time just actually to proof it a little bit higher. Then we run it through charcoal for any sort of fusel oils that might've been left over in the run, and then we cut it to a hundred proof. And why a hundred proof? Well, a hundred proof is better if you're infusing it yourself. If you're making a lemon drop moonshine or if you're making a peach moonshine, you'll be able to keep the proof higher even after you add some ingredients. But yeah, I mean, it's corn whiskey, and you can taste the corn. I actually, I know we talked on this yesterday, but I consider white whiskey to really be American sake or American tequila or American rum because it's an unaged, a example of what we're making our spirit out of.

Drew H (30:59):
Yeah. Yeah. You said you did an experiment with charcoal filtering.

Guy (31:05):
Yeah.

Drew H (31:06):
I think that's fascinating, and something that'd be interesting for you to talk about in terms of the effect of that and really what the makeup of, because we hear about charcoal filtering, but I mean, this is really the first time it's been explained to me.

Guy (31:22):
It was astonishing to me, and it led me down the path that a gram of activated carbon, which you could hold in your hand easily, I don't even know if it would be the size of a quarter, has over 1500 square meters of surface area in it. That's how porous carbon is, and that's why you can use it as a filter. My activated carbon filter is an eight foot one and a half inch pipe, and it'll hold three pounds of dry carbon granules, and we pump the liquid through it from the bottom up. That's a shout out to Tyson, who's up at s Skull and Distillery. He told me that if you put it through the bottom up, then you're touching every particle of carbon. If you come from the top, it'll find the path the it'll through.

Drew H (32:12):
Okay. Yeah.

Guy (32:12):
So you pump it up and there's filter screens on both end to keep the carbon in there, but the time that you're referring to, I made my first rye. This would've been in 2018, and it was a disaster. I hated it. And I don't even know, I was probably just not good

Speaker 3 (32:33):
Yet.

Guy (32:34):
I mean, I turned the stills on first time ever March of 2018, so I probably just hadn't figured it out. And so I put it in a little barrel. And anyway, I'll just tell you that when it came out, it looked lovely,

Speaker 3 (32:47):
But

Guy (32:48):
It tasted horrendous. And so I thought, I'm going to throw this way, but I thought what I should do first is I should run it through carbon and see what happens and see if it makes it a little more palatable. That carbon took all of the color out of the rye.

Drew H (33:05):
That's amazing.

Guy (33:05):
I mean, does that mean this color floating around in there?

Drew H (33:09):
Yeah. Well, and I think one of the things that happens in Tennessee is that they just keep using the same charcoal over and over and over again. So you would imagine that after a while it's getting clogged up. It's not necessarily doing that intensive of a job. Yeah, we

Guy (33:23):
Definitely change ours out.

Drew H (33:25):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I know some distilleries that say, oh, we keep it in there for six months or whatever, and they're running through thousands and thousands and thousands of gallons.

Guy (33:37):
I did have a scientist tell me once that I could keep using the carbon until it was done, but I didn't determine there was, no one told me how you could determine that it was done. And since I primarily use carbon for, or when we finish our neutral, our vodka, I run it through there twice before I start using it for something else. And so I'll do two batches and they're a hundred gallon batches. I just feel like that's enough. I mean, it's probably I $3 worth of carbon. I just feel like I might as well be on the front end of changing it rather than, oops,

(34:16):
A hundred gallons didn't taste very well. But the other astonishing part, not only did it remove the color, it literally tasted more like vodka than rye after I ran it through that vodka once, and that was back when I was just using gravity fed. So if I'd have pumped it through, it probably would've even been more clarified. But yeah, I mean, carbon filtering is real. I don't know that we talked about this, but I tend to tell people this whole two times, four times, five times, and I actually have it on our labels. I am going to remove it if we ever rebrand, because I just think that the number of times you distill it mostly is misleading. So if someone says it's 10 times distilled, what they're saying is, we have a 70 foot column. They didn't run an even twice. It didn't go through there twice. It went through once, but since it's a 70 foot column, they can say 10 times distilled. I always tell people, don't worry about that. If it tastes good, who cares? If it doesn't taste good, don't buy it. Again,

Drew H (35:18):
This was one of the things you were talking about in the podcast that I was wanting to be in on the conversation, because I have this thing about Jamison is famous for being triple distilled, but it doesn't all go through pot stills, doesn't it? There's grain whiskey in there. Oh, yeah. Blend. Yeah. So if it's got whiskey in there, how are you calling that triple distill?

Guy (35:39):
Yeah. So for instance, since you're talking about this and your knowledge base is so much deeper than mine, but American blended whiskey can have neutral in it. So you can take something and proof it up with one 90 and then sell it as 112 proof whiskey. What are you doing putting neutral and whiskey? That to me is blasphemy.

Drew H (36:13):
See, this is something that comes from the Scots. Basically the idea is they're looking at it from the opposite direction. They're taking their grain spirit and they're flavoring it.

Guy (36:27):
Oh, sure.

Drew H (36:27):
So they're adding single malt in to create a flavor. So they call that a base,

Guy (36:33):
And they're actually taking something that might have an unbelievable amount of flavor and

Drew H (36:40):
Diluting it in a way.

Guy (36:42):
Yes.

Drew H (36:43):
So it's

Guy (36:43):
Okay. So see, that's good perspective.

Drew H (36:45):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and that's what you learn jumping around to this is what's fun about hearing of people's experiences and going to different distilleries around. Like I don't understand, and I've said this before, how somebody can go through Moonshine University in Louisville, come out and feel like they are a distiller right off the bat. Because I mean, every distillery I go to, I learn something new. And no, you don't need all of that information. But what I love is that when I go in and I talk to Distillers always I'll have something for them. They're giving me something, I'll give them something back because I'll hear something and they'll go, oh, I know somebody else that has been thinking that same way and actually did something with it. And just sharing that knowledge. And that's again, part of the reason why I think you doing a podcast is brilliant, because if more Distillers did that, it would be a knowledge dump where others would be able to learn.

Guy (37:46):
Yeah. Everybody who knows me knows that I'm unabashedly willing to be just dead wrong about something or wear my foibles on my sleeve because it's all making mistakes. And I think by admitting them, we get better faster. You tell someone something you're bad at, and if they're good at it, they will help you. But if you imply to them that you're great at it, then there's no need for them to give you any advice.

Drew H (38:22):
Yeah. Yeah. That's why when I started out my YouTube channel and I really didn't know how to taste, I was honest about it right up front, I'm learning along with you, and it's amazing that if you take that humble approach, people will be forgiving along the way. True. And it kind of helps you develop and build.

Guy (38:39):
I mean, if you listen, so the one podcast that I did with Brian Nation from O'Shaughnessy, I asked him, I don't know what the hell I'm doing when it comes to blending. How does one become a master blender? And so it was so great. He was like, well mix a couple things together. Nice. Just get in there and do it. Just do it. It is true that some people have, we have one of our jackalopes, that's what we call our member society, and I don't hype it that much. They're really more like friends than anything. But Alison Erkart is her name, Allie. When she sits down and takes a sip of whiskey, she'll find 15 things. And I'll be standing there listening, going, I got vanilla. My palate has definitely progressed, but it's like some people definitely have a knack for it.

Drew H (39:40):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So when people are coming here, obviously they can come in and they don't have to schedule to have a cocktail, but if they want come in and do a tour, what days are you running tours?

Guy (39:53):
So really with tours, if it's a big group, it's important that, in my opinion, that I have machines running. It's way more interesting to see a column full and running or to see the Copper Pot or even just to be able to, I always have people put their hands on the door to feel how warm the mash is compared to room temp. Those are the things that make a tour more interactive and enjoyable. And so if it's a large group, I want it to be during the week, Tuesday through Friday, because those are the days that I'm certain I'm running a machine. We do them on Saturdays and Sundays as well. And really just email me. He said, it's guy@tracelucky.com and the TRES is French for very, so that's where that came

Drew H (40:44):
From. Very lucky. Nice.

Guy (40:45):
And so if you send me an email or go to the website and submit a form, I will respond. It's me that's checking the email, and I'll let you know a good date for whatever your group is. We've had everyone from a anniversary couple where we walked through to 50. And the other thing is people think when they hear about a distillery that you're going to come in and you're going to taste a flight of five different spirits. Of course you can do that, and we offer that, and a lot of people do that, but we also have 150 plus drinks, beer and wine for those. So don't be afraid of whatever you want. We will have.

Drew H (41:29):
Yeah. Well, guy, thank you for making us the lucky guys to come in and taste all the little experiments that you're doing and all the rest. Thank you to my BRCA people for nominating you because I wouldn't have probably even known you were here if it hadn't have been for

Guy (41:47):
That. I was surprised.

Drew H (41:48):
Yeah. But thank you so much for sharing your time today and sharing the drinks yesterday. It was fun going through and tasting.

Guy (41:55):
Appreciate it, drew. Appreciate meeting you as

Drew H (41:56):
Well. Cheers. Well, I hope you enjoyed this virtual flight at Lucky Guys Distillery. And if I piqued your interest in traveling to the distillery to make sure to head to whiskey lord.com/flights where you could view the profile of Lucky Guys Distillery with a growing list of worldwide distilleries that are featured here on the show. Dig deeper into the whiskey lore online distillery travel guide. Use the heart feature to show your love for a particular distillery, or log in with a free membership and bookmark your favorite distilleries to add them to your very own whiskey lore wishlist. The site features, planning tools, maps, tour dates, and booking links for over 300 distilleries worldwide. Start your journey@whiskeylore.com slash flights. This is where we prepare to leave the lucky guys distillery and make our way to our next distillery destination. I'm going to give you a couple of side trips that you might consider adding into your plans.

(42:54):
The first is a trip to BMOs Park, a must for Nature lovers. You'll be perched on a bluff overlooking the St. Croix River. The park offers stunning panoramic views of the River Valley is a great spot for a picnic or quiet walk. If you're around in the winter months, you might want to check out Bad Land Snow Park, known for Snow Tubing Hills. It's a family friendly spot where you can partake in, tubing yourself, or watch the kids glide down the slopes while you enjoy a hot drink. And as we close out our trip to Lucky Guy's Distillery, if you're still on the fence about a visit, lemme give you my three reasons why I think you should have this distillery on your whiskey lore wishlist. The first is the passion for experimentation. Guy and his team are constantly testing out new techniques and recipes, and the results speak for themselves.

(43:46):
After doing my tasting, I walked out with a bottle of Monkey Joe, which is a coffee liqueur. But what really caught me about it was how much it reminded me of a Tootsie Roll. I think you'll find that the variety of flavors in this one single distillery are quite remarkable, and Guy is being very modest about his palette. Second, if they've got all these flavors, well, this is a great place to check out the cocktail bar. Whether you're into classic cocktails or want something a little bit more adventurous, the bartenders know how to bring out the best in their house, house-made spirits, and where else are you going to find house-made spirits that include Laurs and bitters. And third is the commitment to getting quality into every single bottle. As lucky guys takes great care in sourcing their ingredients and perfecting their distillation process during a top notch product, well, it's time to hit the back roads of Wisconsin, and we're off to a distillery that was on the forefront of distilling in Wisconsin. Join me next time as the Wisconsin leg of the Midwest Great Lakes Tour 2024 rolls on. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss our next episode. I'm your travel guy, drew Hanish. Thanks for listening, and until next time, cheers and SL for transcripts and travel information, including maps, distillery planning information and more. Head to whiskey lo.com/flights. Whiskey lore is a production of Travel Fuels Life, LLC.