Ep. 52 - George Dickel and Cascade Hollow's Nicole Austin

Transcript

Drew (00:00:09):
Welcome to Whiskey Lore, the interviews. I'm your host, Drew Hannush, the Amazon best-selling author of Whiskey Lores Travel Guide to Experiencing Kentucky Bourbon. And we're about to head deep into the beautiful countryside of rural Tennessee, and we're going to meet a distiller who's adding a creative new chapter to a 150 year old Tennessee whiskey brand. My guest is Cascade Hollow Distillery's General Manager and distiller Nicole Austin. And if you're unfamiliar with the name of that distillery, well that's where George Dickel, Tennessee Whiskey is produced. But since Nicole's arrival, there's been a lot of innovation occurring and several exciting new labels being added to the stable of whiskeys that they have. Most people will know eight and 12, but now there's Cascade Moon bottled in Bond, and the recently released George Dickel, Tennessee Bourbon. So I want to dig a little bit deeper into her thought processes on creating these new labels as well as digging into this idea of a difference between Tennessee whiskey and Tennessee Bourbon.

(00:01:19):
Plus. Nicole's had a fascinating path in getting to Dickel, including stops in Brooklyn and Ireland. So I want to document some of her experiences in getting to George Dickel, but I also want to dig into the sometimes confusing history and past of George Dickel whiskey whiskey whose namesake never actually worked at the distillery as far as we know, and the spirit that took a long road to coming back after prohibition when a large New York distilling corporation called Chinley decided to bring Tennessee whiskey back from being distilled at what is now known as the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Kentucky. So we got a lot to cover in this episode. And so let's go ahead and dive right into my conversation with Nicole Austin of George Dickel. Nicole, welcome to the show.

Nicole (00:02:13):
Thank you so much for having me.

Drew (00:02:15):
Help us understand a little bit about your background. You're originally from Brooklyn, so I understand.

Nicole (00:02:23):
So I grew up in upstate New York, actually in Syracuse, and I went to college in the city and I stayed after college to work. So I went to school at Manhattan College for Chemical Engineering, and then I started in my first job, I worked for a number of different engineering design and consulting companies in the environmental engineering space, which is basically a fancy way of saying wastewater treatment is the bulk of what I was doing.

Drew (00:02:53):
And somehow then you ended up jumping into the world of whiskey. What drew you into whiskey?

Nicole (00:03:02):
I know, it's so hard to imagine why I would've been motivated to leave working at wastewater treatment plants, right? Yeah, no, I was think obviously very looking for something different. The allure of that didn't quite live up to my very high hopes and I was just doing what everyone does in that kind of coming into adulthood process of trying to figure out what they want to be when they grow up, even though they're already trying to pay New York City rent. And I was at a whiskey bar and I was poured an amazing glass of whiskey as a total newbie. I didn't know anything about it. And in this beautiful bar that was in Cobble Hill, and the bartender was just explaining it to me with such passion and it really inspired me. And when he happened to mention how the whiskey was distilled, I just really had a eureka moment of that's literally what I went to college to learn how to do. I took entire courses and that the idea that I could take those skills and use it to make something as beautiful as whiskey which is really appealing to me. The idea of it, it's really as close as you can come. I always had hopes of being some kind of artist, but just had no talent of any kind. So

(00:04:19):
If the only thing you're good at is math then making whiskey is as close as you can come to making art. And so it just took that moment of having it occur to me that I could do that. And then after that, I just really worked hard took me a couple years to actually make my way into the industry because of course the craft spirits industry was quite nascent at that time. And so really the laws were just starting to change on the state level that allowed for that to happen. The distilling industry was very concentrated. Of course, at that time there were only a few major distilleries that were producing the bulk of the whiskey in the US and they were large scale operations that weren't going to just let a girl in off the street to come and run their distillery. And a lot of them also had this real kind of heavy family legacy component. So you know, got the sense whether it's true or not, that even if you were qualified, unless you married it and you weren't ever going to get to have a piece of it. So it really felt like it was a very closed system at that time. So I was just really knocking at the door and I think was incredibly fortunate in my timing that it was right when the door was cracking open to allow space for all these craft distilleries. And so that was 2010 was when I started actually working in this industry properly.

Drew (00:05:38):
So I heard that you started working for a New York Moon shiner. We've actually had him on the show before. Colin Spelman.

Nicole (00:05:46):
Yeah, working is maybe a loose term because typically people that work get paid. So I don't know what I was doing being young and dumb I guess is what I was doing, but certainly, so I was the master blender, and I say that in air quotes because when I put that on my business card, I think we owned five gallon barrels. But gosh, Arne, I was in charge of them and I was also doing a lot of production stuff and yeah, that was my kind of way. And I started there in August of 2010.

Drew (00:06:20):
Wow. So you got to see them in the bootstrapping phase and trying to get everything up and running. So what were you working on in those early days?

Nicole (00:06:30):
A lot of what I was working on was liquid quality. So they had a recipe, they had kind of a concept of what they wanted to produce, but really no one at that time, there was no textbook on American whiskey production. If you look at scotch whiskey, there are published texts, there are universities that offer degrees focused on that industry. They share information. There's I B D, there's like all these, there's public associations that you can join and learn at quite a technical level how to make scotch whiskey. There was no such thing in American whiskey. So my role in way in was I think they thought that my engineering background would be helpful and we were really doing a lot of problem solving ourselves when stuff didn't work or when the liquid was inconsistent or the yields were inconsistent or even just the idea that you should maybe pay attention to yield at all or liquid quality at all was what I was bringing to the table. And then of course I did all of the blending for everything mature that we ever released until I left.

Drew (00:07:42):
So it's funny you say that you really didn't have a skill as an artist, but Master Blender really takes a certain skill. What did you have to do to get your palette ready for this and to, were you tasting lots of different whiskeys and trying to catch up as quickly as you could, or were you working with what you had and trying to figure it out

Nicole (00:08:06):
At that time? What I was doing was mainly trying to do a lot of reading other people's tasting notes and even just to understand the types of markers and things that they were looking for and doing a lot of flights and seeing comparing one whiskey to another which is think a lot more useful to learn than just enjoying one on its own. So I was doing a lot of comparative flights, a lot of just research. There's actually some good writing on sensory and how to do sensory analysis. So I was reading stuff I was doing a lot of going to friendly bars and having friends pour me something and not tell me what it was. And I would try and take notes and then compare my notes because obviously assessing blind is so important. But probably the most important thing that I did was just talk to people who knew what they were doing which again, in American whiskey we're really few and far between. But I would say probably the person I learned the most from was Drew Stein at Willa and he was really patient with me to talk about his process and how he approached the whiskeys and some really silly stuff that just nobody told you and it's not written down, you should proof the whiskey down to assess it. And no one told me that or the right type of glassware to use. And he took incredible pity and kindness on me. He bought me a whole bunch of really nice three glassware early on, which was hugely helpful.

Drew (00:09:36):
So for me, I actually found that scotch was easier for me to get the flavors and scents on because a lot of those flavors and scents were very familiar to me, so I picked up on them a lot sooner than I did with bourbon. So did you have a sweet spot, something that when you first started out you went, Ooh, this, I'm getting it in this and now I can expand that out?

Nicole (00:10:03):
Honestly, it's hard to remember now. I see what you mean about it's worth recording your recollection because I think I was, if I'm being perfectly honest, I think at that stage, at that ear, those early stages, I think I was still really taken in a lot more by what I was told than what I was truly assessing on my own. And as were, I think frankly most of us there were some really strong brands and they had maybe you would absorb these certain truisms about, it was really just marketing, but it was portrayed as an essential truth. And I think I, in the early years really just absorbed a lot of that. And it wasn't until later on I had maybe a little bit more confidence to say, no, actually I see something different.

Drew (00:10:58):
So I understand that you went to or worked with Dave Pierre for a while. Was that while you were at Kings County or was that after

Nicole (00:11:07):
I did, yeah. Again because weren't paying me, <laugh> still had to figure out how to pay Brooklyn rent. So when I quit my day job it was Dave that enabled me to do that be. So I joined the industry in 2010 and I want to say it was probably 2013 I think it would've been that I went to work for him. And actually you can check me on that because it was the week of Hurricane Sandy was the, well last week that I worked my like 401K salary providing Wall Street

Drew (00:11:43):
Engineering and then disaster hits. Yeah.

Nicole (00:11:45):
And the last week I was supposed to go into work was the week that no one could get to Manhattan because Hurricane Sandy had just happened. And I spent that whole week shoveling muck out of our distillery and really kind of wondering what had I done? Is there even going to be Kings County to be a part of after all of this? We were under construction at the Navy Yard site at that time and it was a very uncertain time and I was really grateful for him just for providing me hi. His consulting company was fairly established at that time and that kind of steady paycheck is what enabled me to make the jump.

Drew (00:12:25):
Yeah, when you were talking about the fact that you were getting all these different samples and doing research, a type of research that we all really would like to be doing it got me to thinking that's the benefit to you, I guess, is that you can write it off on your taxes

Nicole (00:12:45):
Again. It's like you need to make money to pay taxes Drew. Yeah, it's like you're getting this all backwards.

Drew (00:12:53):
Yeah, yeah. Okay. So times were a little lean, but they improved. Now I understand that you ended up going off to Ireland at some point now, was that when, about what time was that?

Nicole (00:13:08):
So I moved to Ireland in 2016, so I was with Kings County from 2010 until 2016. I was with Dave from Hurricane Sandy to it was about two years I want to say that I was working with him and that was the bulk of my time. I was kind of splitting it between his company, which was called a Few Spirits and Kings County. And in that capacity I was getting new clients and supporting his existing clients, doing everything which it was. I learned so much from him. And I actually, I'm still incredibly grateful, like commissioning, business planning, permitting, TTB filing, all those things and troubleshooting. So it was hugely helpful. And then the Kings County need started to grow. There was a promise I might get paid, and so I kind of stopped working so much with Dave and did a little consulting on my own on the side and a smaller amount.

(00:14:14):
And I was through that. I did some work for William Grant and they offered me the position of commissioning engineer of Tmore do on the back of that work. And so it was an incredible opportunity. It's not anything I had ever imagined, but who would say no? It's like they're going to build a grain distillery from the ground up. How many companies are going to do that in my lifetime? So it was real quick and I made the decision to take it and move and was I believe it was August of 2016, August or September that I moved to Ireland and I was there until March of 2018.

Drew (00:14:51):
Wow. All right. So you've got two years there. And having traveled to land myself, it, there's not really I guess you find apartments around flats but everything seems so rural there, especially because I've been to Tmore before and I've walked outside that large visitor's center that they have in the middle of town.

Nicole (00:15:16):
So I lived right on the opposite end of town from that visitor's center. Did you just down that main street? Yeah.

Drew (00:15:21):
Yeah. You spent a lot of time at the pub,

Nicole (00:15:24):
A brewery tap. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.

Drew (00:15:29):
I made the mistake when I planned my trip out, I actually had planned two and a half weeks in Scotland and then I thought, well, I'm flying into Dublin, why don't I drive around Ireland? And

Nicole (00:15:39):
It's so big.

Drew (00:15:41):
It is, yeah. And I only did the bottom half of it and I did it in four days, so I was basically constantly on the road.

Nicole (00:15:48):
Oh yeah, that's no way to enjoy Ireland.

Drew (00:15:53):
So is the distillery actually in Tmore or is that south of town?

Nicole (00:15:58):
No, so it is technically in the town boundaries, but you wouldn't see it. So it is in the town of Tmore, but you wouldn't see it from standing downtown in the town. There's like a ring road and it's, it is just inside the ring road. It's a pretty big piece property.

Drew (00:16:16):
I almost had my first disaster there. I drove into that town after I'd gotten off my trans-Atlantic flight and was still trying to get used to my first day of driving on the lefthand side of the road. Yeah. And there's somebody, I stopped at a place to get fish and chips and it was a Saturday or it was a Sunday night, so the town was quiet, but I started driving out and a car was coming up behind me. I saw one off in the distance and I thought, Ooh, I better punch it. So I punched it and I was heading into a roundabout and realized I was on the wrong side of the road, <laugh>. Whoops. And so I had to figure out how to get my car. Yes,

Nicole (00:16:54):
It daisy. I mean, I'm sure there's so many American tourists there. I'm sure you may. They're all just like American.

Drew (00:17:01):
Yeah. So the other thing that throws me off is that over there, I guess you can park on either side of the road in any direction. Yes.

Nicole (00:17:09):
Oh my God, I had to explain that to my husband and came over here. I was like, no, you can't park this way. He would just cross a lane. And he like nailed that. I'm like, no, you can't do that. It's reckless. It's out of control. Yeah, that really threw me as well.

Drew (00:17:24):
Yeah. So you had your own car and were traveling around. Did you do much traveling when you were in Ireland?

Nicole (00:17:31):
I did, yeah, I did a bit of traveling. I mean, never as much as you would hope. The pace of the work was pretty high. But I did do a fair bit of traveling and I really enjoyed my time living there. It's a beautiful country. The people are so nice and so welcoming who live there and yeah, I really enjoyed it.

Drew (00:17:53):
Yeah. So what was your day-to-day like while you were there? Were you mostly nose of the grindstone trying to get things set up?

Nicole (00:18:00):
It was so, was exciting for me because it was really an opportunity to reground as an engineer. I was a very straightforward, just engineer engineering the first five, eight years out of work. So working at engineering design firms, very straight-laced. And then my work in the spirits industry had been a mix of engineering and marketing and sales and planning and mopping floors and all the things. And then this was an opportunity to really just, I had a really specific engineering role again, so it was kind of coming back around, but in the whiskey industry, just being an engineer. And so my day-to-day was a lot of meetings, but planning a lot of timeline management and what has to be done when in order to deliver the project. So hiring operators and training them was a big part of my responsibilities. And then working directly with the engineering team that was designing and delivering the project to, from a customer perspective, make sure that they were thinking about how operators would actually need to run it. So it was nice, it was refreshing to go back to just being an engineer and how Marue was marketed or the strategic planning about it. It's funny, actually people ask me still to this day about the stuff about the brand. I'm like, I have no idea. I didn't work on any of that. I have no idea.

Drew (00:19:41):
Yeah,

Nicole (00:19:41):
I have no idea. I could tell you about ppms of things in the distill of the grain, but technically I can't. Cause I wanted, but I knew nothing else. And that was kind of refreshing, but I found that I missed that part a little bit as well.

Drew (00:19:55):
So you got to see both sides. You went from craft distillery to large distillery, you got doing it on a shoestring budget with no pay, and then you went to being the professional managing and trying to get all that taken

Nicole (00:20:10):
Care of. It was pretty incredible. I still feel really fortunate that I got that opportunity.

Drew (00:20:16):
So how did you end up in the George Dickel position? Because I believe that's the next thing that came up, right?

Nicole (00:20:22):
They called me while I was over there. Actually a really wonderful head hunter called me and I had assumed funnily enough, so something we hadn't talked about is I did a lot of work organizing in the industry. So I was founded the New York State Distillers Guild along with some others, and I was the first president of that association. I did a lot of legislative work. I was on the first board of directors for the American Craft Spirits Association and I co-chaired that legislative committee for many years with Merck Schilling. And so I was quite intimately connected to the industry and I assumed that that's why she was calling me to get names for who could do this job. And I talked on about it for quite a while before she was really kind. She was like, stop trying to give this job to somebody else. <laugh>

(00:21:08):
Like, I'm trying to hire you. And so it was a real kind of quick turnaround thing. I wanted to see the distillery. They flew me over. I had one weekend here and then I had to go back for, we were like 24 hours. So it was real quick, but it was incredible. I mean, you've been here, so what a unicorn distillery. There was just nothing like it. It was such a perfect opportunity. I was so thrilled. And I was a little skeptical actually, frankly, at the time of to go to work for big company like Diagio. And I wish I could just go back to my 2018 self and be like, you're such an idiot. I was so skeptical, and I've been so pleasantly surprised.

Drew (00:21:58):
Well, you had worked so long in a craft distillery that I know the talk around craft distilleries. I hear it when I go to smaller distilleries where they'll say, ah, the big guys, it's so impersonal and it's no creativity there. And it's just, yeah, you're going to be locked down by shareholders and the rest. So yeah, I could see where that feeling would come in.

Nicole (00:22:24):
Absolutely.

Drew (00:22:25):
But you've have obviously proven as we'll talk about later on, that there is room for creativity even at large corporations like Diageo. So

Nicole (00:22:35):
I'm only one person, it's only one person's experience. But I can tell you I have, I'm treated more professionally, more fairly, and I work with a more diverse group of people than I've ever worked with. And I have more creative control and freedom than I've ever had in this industry in my entire career. Now,

Drew (00:22:57):
Something that doesn't shock me about that is that when I have traveled across Scotland, I've been to almost all the Diagio distilleries there that are on the trail with their little booklet that they give you to get your stamps and all of that. And the thing I remarked after I got through with that trip was that I'm so happy that they let those distilleries be those distilleries. They don't get in the way of the personality of the distillery or the history of the distillery. That is still, you feel like you're still walking into an independently owned distillery when you walk into a lot the marketing's polished.

Nicole (00:23:41):
And it's quite a delicate dance to do that.

Drew (00:23:44):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's jump into what I call one of the more confusing histories of sure. Of a distillery. Because when I did my first tour of George Dickel back in 2017, I listened to the history because I always perk up and here comes the history and I want to know it. And I heard Grosser and I heard, well, George Dickel wasn't really here. He was in Nashville. And I walked out going, okay, none of that stuck to my brain. And I think it's because your anticipation is that distilleries have a certain path that they follow. Somebody started making whiskey, their name is on the company, and that's really where it goes. And in a way that's true.

Nicole (00:24:32):
Well, and then you realize just how rare that story actually is, right?

Drew (00:24:36):
Yeah, exactly.

Nicole (00:24:38):
The person whose name's on the bottles hardly ever in history when the person who's actually making the whiskey.

Drew (00:24:46):
That is very true. So his history starts out on Market Street in Nashville, and apparently yes, he was a very successful grocer and built up a business where they had to swap buildings three times because they were getting so popular. And initially he was just getting sourced whiskey. Correct?

Nicole (00:25:11):
Yes. I'm sure you're probably more of an expert than me in this, frankly. But as was quite common practice at the time, you know, would be many small distilleries sort of scattered throughout the kind of close to the areas where the things were grown and the water sources were and the raw materials were. And then that finished whiskey would make its way to grocers and resellers who would purchase and then maybe do some blending, maybe not maybe do making some kind of very rudimentary cocktailing like macerating fruit or spices or something, sugar rock andry, and that whole maybe might do something to it and put their name on it. And that was quite commonplace at the time. And George Dickel was one of those.

Drew (00:26:04):
He had some partners that came in. I guess Victor Schwab would be the one that was, he lasted the longest. In fact, he took over the business after

Nicole (00:26:14):
He and Augusta.

Drew (00:26:15):
He and Augusta, yes. And his George's wife. The thing that confused me during the conversation was where Cascade Hollow fit into all of this because he's in Nashville, he's rectifying whiskey, and then all of a sudden we hear about Cascade Hollow wa. Was Cascade Hollow an existing distillery before he purchased it or was he part of the plan to get it built?

Nicole (00:26:41):
It was an existing distillery. And so again, I mean, I'm an asterisk to this as far as we know, and I actually really quite commonly actually refer to Mike Beach's article on the history of this. But I think something you found is it is, it's quite spotty and not nearly as well documented as a lot of this Kentucky distillery history. But so Cascaded Distillery as far as I know, did exist prior to George. And what I understand was George and Victor and their partnership essentially made an investment in and or some kind of exclusive supplier agreement so that George's whiskey would now come exclusively from this distillery. And this is where I think we start to get into that line between history and mythology. But the mythology of it is certainly that George had opinions about whiskey made in the winter months being better, and that's why we started chilling. So I think in the mythology of it, he was quite involved in what he wanted from that distillery. In the actuality of it, not sure but certainly Cascade Distillery did become the exclusive supplier of George Tickles Tennessee whiskey. And there's some interesting, in the early 19 hundreds also there were some other brands cascade Pier Whiskey is one of them. There's some really kind of quite interesting history there as well. But that also came from Cascade Hollow.

Drew (00:28:09):
Has anybody seen bottles with labels on them from these old D? Do you have an archive of some of those old bottles?

Nicole (00:28:19):
We have a very limited archive as far as I know. We don't have any of the examples from the early 19 hundreds, but we do have some later examples from the thirties, thirties and forties.

Drew (00:28:32):
And that would've been whiskey that was coming from Kentucky, which we'll get to in just a bit as well.

Nicole (00:28:39):
A lot of, well, what we have is advertising like newspaper ads and things from the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds about the whiskey.

Drew (00:28:48):
They had a slogan mellowed, mellow is mellow, light

Nicole (00:28:52):
Was one light.

Drew (00:28:53):
So talk about this chill filtering idea. Well, this is because I can't remember from the tour, I remember there's a certain process and you have to chill it down and you're chilling it down before it goes in the barrel. Yes. What talk through the process, you're going to know the process a lot better than I <laugh>. Yeah.

Nicole (00:29:17):
This is where you had me on the history stuff, but this is where I can sink. So there's, I think, really common and completely understandable misconception when you say chill filtering. What is conjured in most people's minds is actually really more how it came into conversation around scotch whiskey. And that was a reference to a process that happened after maturation, right? When you're filtering, you're dumping the whiskey out of a barrel and applying some filtration. So there's not floaties or hazing in the bottle. It's about from cask to finished product and whether or not you do chill filtration, which helps prevent hazing. That was a whole conversation amongst the whiskey nerds. But in reference to Tennessee whiskey. So all of that is still relevant, obviously how we handle our finished case goods and ette, but that's not what we're talking about when we talk about chill charcoal mellowing. What we are talking about is what, it's essentially a continuation of the distillation process. And this is, I think people's biggest misunderstanding about Tennessee whiskey. It's the idea that it's fully made bourbon that we then also charcoal mellow.

(00:30:29):
And then I think that leads people to some really, again, understandable misconceptions around the idea that maybe Tennessee whiskey is bland or boring or when in fact the distillation and the charcoal mellowing kind of work in tandem to create a quite balanced and complex finished product. And the reason the chilling is relevant is the charcoal mellowing. It's essentially a big charcoal filter that happens after distillation, but prior to entering the barrel. So it's still a white spirit, still unaged not finished off of the still so quite low separation in the still. And then that spirit is chilled to an even temperature. So you chill it 65 degrees before it goes in to the charcoal mellowing vats. And the impact that has there's a few things that does. One thing that's really nice is consistency. If you didn't chill it at all and you just let it go in an ambient, you would have some variation between what the character was in January versus July. So just that alone, the consistency of it is very helpful. But then the chilling also helps the charcoal that kind of work more effectively. It temperatures measure kind of how much things are vibrating. So you chill them, it slows them down, it makes things a little easier to stick together and it kind of lets the charcoal do a better job of removing what it's intended to remove. So sulfur compounds, heavy oils things like that. So it essentially enables the charcoal melling tanks to do their job better.

Drew (00:32:13):
And how much charcoal do you end up using?

Nicole (00:32:16):
It varies year on year. It's not as much as you would think that it lasts reasonably long time. We typically do one kind of big burn a year, and I'm trying to think of how to equate it. You know, get a hundred wheelbarrows worth <laugh>. Okay. The tanks are, the vats themselves it's about a 15 foot bed depth and they're like six feet wide. And we don't change those over that often. It's sensory, so maybe once a year.

Drew (00:32:51):
And so once you've done that and then you put it in to do the aging, everybody likes to point to the fact that a lot of the character comes from the barrel. And so that's why you're saying that it actually is helping create a consistent product going into the barrel and then let the barrel do its work.

Nicole (00:33:12):
That's the idea. It's hard to, how that actually plays out is obviously down to how the distillery is operating. But yeah, that's definitely the idea. And there's a lot of I wouldn't necessarily imply that most of the character comes from the barrel. It's if you ever had the Dickel white whiskey, actually, it's one of the reasons I came to take this job because I think it's one of the most beautiful white whiskeys out there on the market, which is pretty, that's this pretty high whiskey nerd level and not a lot of people have love for white whiskey. But obviously going back to my Kings County days, I always did, and Dickel is really lovely and it's quite character full. There's a heavy, there's bright fruit note obviously a big popcorn note, really luscious mouth feel. There's a lot happening. But then obviously the barrel changes that dramatically and really builds on it and has a very heavy contribution. And I think even more how those barrels are used. So the barrel contribution is not uniform across every barrel. And so again, then the blending portion, which is a part of American whiskey that I'm quite passionate about, can also then have a really huge impact on the final spirit.

Drew (00:34:27):
Was white whiskey something that you brought along or was that, I'm trying to remember whether I saw

Nicole (00:34:32):
That. No, it's been around for quite a while and I had tried known about it. I tried it and I kind of revisited it when I was considering taking the job. And I assumed if it was that good, going into the barrels is probably a pretty good chance that most of the whiskey sitting in those warehouses was something I would want to work with. So that was very comforting to me.

Drew (00:34:52):
Very nice. So as we move along in the history, we now get to a point where he passed away in 1894 and apparently he told his wife that she needed to sell her part of the distillery and yeah,

Nicole (00:35:09):
I love that story so much.

Drew (00:35:10):
Yeah. But this is funny because I, I've done a interview with the Nelson brothers over at Nelson's Greenbrier and they were surprised to hear that because they talk about Louisa Nelson taking over the distillery after Charles died. And I said, well that's interesting because the same thing happened with Augusta, although I believe Augusta actually was kind of an absent landlord. She,

Nicole (00:35:41):
She was spend spending a lot of time in Europe at that time

Drew (00:35:43):
Traveling and taking advantage of

Nicole (00:35:46):
Her freedom. You kind of respect your dad, don't you?

Drew (00:35:50):
Yeah, absolutely.

Nicole (00:35:50):
It's like I'm a business owner now and I do what I want <laugh>, just

Drew (00:35:54):
Go and see. Yeah. So I guess Victor Schwab, did he basically keep the grocery store running or did they just come down and run cast?

Nicole (00:36:04):
I have no idea.

Drew (00:36:05):
Yeah, I dunno. I know they got heavily into marketing apparently after that. Yes, that time. And really built up George Dickel right before prohibition hit in Tennessee to a pretty big standing.

Nicole (00:36:19):
Yes. That's my understanding as well. And we were yeah, I mean there's many things to lament about prohibition, but George Dickel Dickel as a brand has it is almost been great so many times and then something comes along and knocks it off. And I feel like I'm very conscious of that now, even in some of this early growth that we're seeing. It's like, are we cursed? Are we going to do it? Yeah.

Drew (00:36:51):
Well it's funny because we, when you ask people about Tennessee whiskey around the rest of the world, sure they're going to throw Jack Daniel's name out. I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina. I saw George Dickel around Sure. Just about as much because and I don't know if that was a regional thing that would've been in the eighties, and I don't know if that was more regional or what, but apparently around the turn of the century, Nelson's Greenbrier and George Dickel were both national and worldwide brands at that point.

Nicole (00:37:26):
Yeah, I mean that's my understanding as well were, we were all pretty neck and neck at that time and Tennessee was quite an established and varied whiskey producing region.

Drew (00:37:36):
I'll have to talk to Michael Veach at some point because his article is between that and trying to decipher some of the Wikipedia article on it. Really the only two sources that I could find on the history of George Dickel, and he mentions two very interesting facts. One is that after prohibition kicked in 1910, that basically Victor Schwab made an agreement with AP Stenzel Yes. In Louisville to continue to allow him to lease. Yes. The equipment when they weren't making whiskey, he could make the whiskey and that they were having to rig up these charcoal system to be able to pull that off. And so what that would've done is it would've allowed the selling of George Dickel as a medicinal whiskey. Yes. Because they had a medicinal license. Yeah. Have you seen any bottles of medicinal? Only

Nicole (00:38:46):
I have seen, so there's an interesting, there's some bottles that have RX on them and then there was actually a, where that almost became the brand, the RX medicine on it. So I have seen those. They look quite different than what you think of the George Dickel labels today.

Drew (00:39:11):
It just makes me wonder where he got his information from because if the distillery doesn't really know he's digging through archives. I know he's got access to a lot of stuff that

Nicole (00:39:20):
I think finding primary sources on this requires a lot of work. Yeah. It's a lot of everything in this industry, the mythology, and then there's the truth, and I think the truth is still quite shrouded.

Drew (00:39:35):
So 1937, apparently they were making a, still having to do it in Kentucky and mm-hmm at the George d Stag Distillery, which is Buffalo Trace. Now. They were making a Cascade bourbon, I guess, or it was a cascade whiskey.

Nicole (00:39:52):
So it was a cascade whiskey to my understanding. So from what I have seen, and this is where those cascade Pure whiskey bottles, most of the ones that we have come out of this era of production, and they're actually beautiful labels. They've got these stamps about agriculture and commerce and it's Cascade pure whiskey, and that's where all that mellow is. Moonlight taglines were coming and it was an interesting time in the brand and it became a little bit of a bought forgotten brand. I mean, obviously moving a Tennessee whiskey to Kentucky doesn't exactly set it up for massive success.

Drew (00:40:32):
Well, and I also understand they probably weren't doing charcoal mellowing there.

Nicole (00:40:36):
My understanding is that they were Well, it, oh really? Okay. So supposedly what I have been told is that there are some remnants still at that distillery of where the vats were. So they think that they were,

Drew (00:40:52):
So the one thing that I am sensitive to is the competition between your neighbor over in

Nicole (00:41:02):
Lynchburg. What's funny, I don't think of them as competition at all and not to, I mean, they're massive global brand. It's not to undersell what they've accomplished, but we're such a different whiskey than that. Yeah. I think it's a real mistake to pigeonhole Tennessee whiskey as though we are a unique and different type of spirit. And obviously with releasing Dickel bourbon, I'm making that statement pretty large, but even before that, the way I thought of and understood this whiskey was as a regional identity of bourbon. And so it doesn't make sense. We're such a different whiskey than Jack Daniels. Yeah. The idea that a consumer of Jack would then come to us is just like, it's almost silly on its face. Our whiskey made a lot more sense to me always in more of the competitive set of the higher end, more aged bourbons. And that's what we're like. And it seems it's as though separating Isla scotch from the rest of Scotland and pretending like that this is a totally different thing. Certainly it has a regional character that's identifiable, but it's still, scotch still fits in. It fits in that category. And so I think that that narrative in particular, something got a bit lost for Tennessee whiskey.

Drew (00:42:21):
Yeah. I think what I find is that there are different segments of the population. Your distillers tend to get along your certainly but your marketing departments don't always get along because they're having to kind of working against each other in a particular industry

Nicole (00:42:42):
As though I'm going to do anything to Jack Neil's marketing plans. They're like 6 million case brand. Yeah. I don't think honest to God that they are the slightest bit concerned with what I am doing in tagline I'm putting on the posters that I produce. It's just at such a different scale.

Drew (00:43:05):
Well, I bring this up because and I don't know if you you're familiar with this story or not, and actually I talked to Nelson Eddie, the historian over at Jack Daniels about this, and he gave me a story on this that after I did some checking and then I checked in with what Michael Veach had said about this I may have gotten some clarity on this. The reason that Chinley brought George Dickel back to Tennessee of this, and this could be legend, this could be true, is that when George Remus was taking all this whiskey out of the St. Louis Jack Daniels warehouse, some had had remained. And so Chinley Corporation came in Chinley being a large company with lots of distilleries, and they bought a hundred barrels of some of that Jack Daniels whiskey, and they wanted to market it as Jack Daniels old number seven. But Motlow of Jack Daniels said, no, you can't do that unless you pay me a fee for doing that, and Chinley want to pay the fee. So because he didn't have Jack Daniel trademarked. Yeah. They sold it as Jack Daniel old number eight <laugh> because it was old number seven that was trademarked.

Nicole (00:44:30):
I mean, I'd love for you to find that because, so the story I've been told, and again, this goes back to what's mythology and what's real, is that Sheley tried to buy Jack and they didn't make the deal with them. And so they kind of went down the road and were like, we'll find them. We'll buy this other distillery and that they bought George Dickel.

Drew (00:44:50):
And so this is the reason behind that Jack Daniels turned him down because they remembered the use of old number eight maybe of whiskey. So yeah, I think it's funny because it's one of those little things that you, you'd love to be a fly on the

Nicole (00:45:06):
Wall mine. We're going to go down the road and we're going to build another T whiskey. So they bought the Tennessee brand and whatever you think of Sheley funny there's maybe something to this in the big corporations get humanized, but end up doing great things because of course that we have to think for the fact that the distillery is where it is today. And they certainly at least had the foresight to understand that returning it as closely as possible to its original location and on the same water source and that all of those things would be impactful and whatever they were thinking Ralph was the big part of that. He's a big part of the history here. He seemed to really have his on head straight on what mattered to make great whiskey.

Drew (00:45:53):
So have you seen where the old distillery is? I was told yes. It was about a mile down the road. Is there any foundation or anything left of it?

Nicole (00:46:00):
Nothing you can really see. So you can certainly see the spring head. It's about a mile down the road and there's a walking path you can walk along Creek to get to the wellhead. And there's some things that could be the foundation. We haven't done a proper archeological dig to know for sure but you could see how it would be there. It makes quite good sense.

Drew (00:46:27):
Yeah. Were there ever any photos taken of that old distillery

Nicole (00:46:32):
In the 18 hundreds? No.

Drew (00:46:34):
Yeah.

Nicole (00:46:35):
Okay. Not that I know of. If you find one,

Drew (00:46:37):
Yeah, it's a history that just get lost because people don't think about back then. They're like, we're just making whiskey. We who's going to care about, yeah.

Nicole (00:46:45):
I mean, are they sort of trying to avoid scrutiny? I don't think they were <laugh> closing for photos, but you never know. I feel very lucky to have that direct connection to those origins as sort of tenuous and mythological as they might be, to know that we are still using the same spraying and not just for 10% of our water, but a hundred percent of our production water. It feels nice. It feels nice.

Drew (00:47:13):
So nobody really knows what George Dickel looked like, do they?

Nicole (00:47:19):
There's like one, so we have one sketch that had been used as a basis for the imagery you see today but not, there's not much.

Drew (00:47:30):
So it's not a photo. And it was from a newspaper article. Yeah. Wasn't it? Yeah. So yeah, talk

Nicole (00:47:38):
About, yeah, it's one source. So who's to say how accurate it is?

Drew (00:47:41):
Yeah. So you show up here now at George Dickel and you're coming from New York and then you spent your time in Ireland. And so what was your first impression of the grounds and the traveling to get out there? Because it's not really close to anything.

Nicole (00:48:03):
No, it's not. I just found them stunning. I think Cascade Hollow is so beautiful and it's so unique. It actually reminded me it wasn't as jarring as you might think because actually that distillery, it reminds me a lot of the scotch whiskey distilleries and what it feels like to drive up to them. I mean, you'll know the feeling that you're driving down a road and you see nothing, nothing. And then you suddenly come around a bend and there's like a valley floor and a beautiful sparkling creek and the distillery opens up before you. And it reminded me a lot actually of what it felt like to drive around to scotch or ski distilleries. So it wasn't as jarring a transition as you might think. I was a little nervous what they would think of a Yankee coming down to

Drew (00:48:54):
<laugh>

Nicole (00:48:54):
Run their distillery. But what I found is all the folks there really, they had a lot of passion for the whiskey they were making. They really believed that it was excellent and they felt that it had been kind of passed over, that it wasn't appreciated for how beautiful this whiskey was. And I think they saw a knee that I did appreciate how beautiful it was, and that I really wanted to honor the quality of that whiskey and respect it and help it get the respect that they all felt it deserved out in the market. And so they kind of became my allies pretty quickly.

Drew (00:49:30):
Well, I think we forget our histories as well. My dad was doing history of we lived in Asheville, North Carolina, and he was doing some history of Buncombe County, the county it's in, and found that during the Civil War, it was a northern sympathizing area.

Nicole (00:49:45):
We're in Coffee County

Drew (00:49:47):
And you're in Coffee County. And that area was split between the north and the south. And was it, people don't realize how in between Tennessee was, you could go right down the road a couple of miles and have a completely different go from northern sympathizing to southern sympathizing.

Nicole (00:50:09):
I mean, I don't know how much that's impact. I still feel like an outsider here today. But I think in the distillery, when I'm in the distillery, we all share the passion for the whiskey and that I'm accepted in that space.

Drew (00:50:29):
When I moved down from Michigan originally, I only lived 10 years in my life in Michigan, but I've never was forgiven for having spent any of my time up north when I came down south. And that's what I found so ironic about the fact that I was going to a high school in an area that was a northern sympathizing area, but everybody was calling me Yankee. Yeah,

Nicole (00:50:53):
Well it's

Drew (00:50:55):
The way it

Nicole (00:50:55):
Is. It comes down to exactly what you're working to do, which is separate the truth of the history from the mythology that people have absorbed. So yeah, keep doing your good works.

Drew (00:51:06):
Well, and I assume once you get there there's, there's probably a little hesitation in your mind in terms of here is this 150 year old distillery and I'm coming in and how do I show that my passion for this and that I'm not going to mess with it?

Nicole (00:51:27):
Huge. Yeah, huge. There's a lot of pressure. I mean, that was the first brand I had worked on where you're really aware that you're just one link in a chain that has existed for 150 years before you and hopefully will continue to exist for 150 years after you and your job is to hand it to that next person intact. So yeah, it was a new weight, it was a responsibility I was very aware of, and it's part of why I came in slow to really messing with anything and tried to spend quite a bit of time just understanding what it was about before I upended the table on day one. Although certainly I had ideas things that I wanted to do, but I wanted to be respectful.

Drew (00:52:11):
Did you initially come in as general manager or did you come in as distiller first or,

Nicole (00:52:17):
That was my title from day one was it took a little while to make it real.

Drew (00:52:21):
Yeah. So you came in just after my first visit there. And it's funny because I was doing the tour and I specifically remember this, the tour guide said, we don't age our whiskey that long. Or he told us how long the standards were for eight and 12, and then he said, but we found some barrels that had been hidden. Then we found out they were like 17 years old and this was a big event and everything. And then a year later I walk into a store and I see George Dickel 13 year old bottled in bond. And I went, where, wait, this doesn't fit. How much did you find, because you have released a lot of aged whiskeys now. Was that whiskey that had been put aside with this idea of doing something with it in the future? Or were these kind of lost casks or we didn't lose

Nicole (00:53:22):
Them? Yeah, no, we did not lose them. <laugh>, our inventory, our warehouse management team is very competent. No, they were not lost but they had not been put aside with any particular, or I'm sure they were put aside with a certain intent that did not come to fruition. And so they were what I was able to do. And so actually quite some of these, quite old barrels did and still do make their way into some of our core blends. Dickel 12 especially, I mean the oldest whiskey in that blend right now is pushing 14 years old. So there are some quite old components in the core blend, especially in Dickel 12. But actually the youngest whiskey that we put in that is still pretty much started years old. So I think for the price, I always often point to Dickel 12, just incredible value for money.

(00:54:20):
But it's is a bit of a polarizing whiskey and it's big whiskey. But when I came in, I got to ask kind of a different question. The blenders previously had been working really, really hard to manage the stocks in a way that made it so that Dickel 12 and Dickel eight didn't change character year on year, which is, it's quite a complex job to do when you're whiskey stocks are all over the place and the, it's a distill that had changed hands multiple times and Ben shuttered and then turned back on. And like I said, dicks had quite a complicated history. So I got to come in and instead step back and take a more holistic view and say, okay, what's the best thing to do with these whiskeys?

(00:55:06):
What is their best use to serve the whiskey drinking public and this brand and the strategic goals that I have for it and make sure that there's jobs for these guys and that the distillery is healthy and growing and the brand is healthy and growing and that I'm delivering on what I need to do. And it's a freedom, it's a, to be able to ask that really different question. And that's when they created this role I was really kind of the first person in it. And so I got to be the first person who took that fresh look and it, it's a real privilege.

Drew (00:55:42):
So when did this idea of doing a bottled in bond come up and how did you approach that with again, you're in a corporation, there has to be a certain amount of accountability for what you're doing. So how did that process go for you?

Nicole (00:55:59):
So I came up with the idea pretty early because integrity has always been quite important to me and authenticity and sort of truth and bottled and Bond is one of the best proxies that we have for that in American Spirits where, you know, really know exactly where that whiskey came from and exactly what is in that bottle, no funny business. And so that's quite important to me then. So I knew I wanted to do a bottled in bond, but of course it doesn't have to be 13 years old. It didn't have to be quite such a big puncher. But as I was reviewing the whiskeys and as I was also getting to know the brand and getting out into market, talking to people, I really felt like we were being unappreciated or underappreciated and constantly compared more to, like you said, more to Jack Daniels than to the amazing great American bourbon distilleries that I really felt like were our more direct competitors.

(00:57:03):
And so I was really setting out to make a point as well with this whiskey around that we are a great American heritage bourbon distillery, and to put some liquid in a bottle that was indisputably among the best bourbons that you could buy and that tasted that way. So I was really specifically trying to make that point with that spirit, and so I kind of blended it quite carefully to hopefully deliver on that. I never imagined in a million years that it would go on to win Whiskey of the Year. That absolutely did not occur to me and obviously to anybody else because we made basically the exact minimum amount that you could feasibly make in a system the size of Diasio. And I still to this day think that they're maybe doing it just to humor me because I wanted to do it so badly and I never foresaw that kind of success for it. It was so gratifying because that was the point I was trying to make and I was really nice to have that be heard.

Drew (00:58:06):
Well, initially I got to say it was a great value aged bourbon because when I bought it, I think I bought it for 35, 30 $7 and then it won Whiskey of the Year, and then all of a sudden retailers were selling it for 45, 50 that I

Nicole (00:58:23):
Don't control them, unfortunately.

Drew (00:58:26):
Yeah,

Nicole (00:58:27):
I mean honestly, even at that price though, I think it frankly still is. Find me another 13 year old bourbon. Yeah, sub 70 bucks. Good luck.

Drew (00:58:34):
Yeah, absolutely. So was that kind of a door opener for you then at that point? Yes. It helped you push a little bit more and try because you've come up with some very interesting whiskeys. The Cascade Moon is one that now when I look online and I see, because I'm guessing that that's not really available anymore.

Nicole (00:58:56):
Each release is quite limited. So yeah, it's, I make them and then they're gone. So there's sure there's some dusty on shelves. There always are if you go whiskey hunting. But yeah, once we make it, we ship it no more.

Drew (00:59:12):
I was seeing on Google, I did a search and I was finding $400, $600. Yeah. Did you ever think when you were making whiskey that all of a sudden there was going to be this market that was just going crazy for older bottles?

Nicole (00:59:29):
I mean, I never imagined. So pretty exciting. Obviously folks always ask me how I feel about that, and I honestly just feel really complimented that people respect and appreciate and seek out the whiskey in that way. Yeah, I think that's a great compliment.

Drew (00:59:45):
So when I was there, you had the eighth 12 and a Tabasco finish. Yes. And I think that was about it. I think there was a barrel barrel I think or something like that,

Nicole (00:59:59):
A single barrel.

Drew (01:00:00):
That was it. So you've added quite a few skews to the collection.

Nicole (01:00:04):
Yes. My poor innovation team.

Drew (01:00:08):
I think one of the most interesting ones, and I've heard some buzz about it, so definitely want to talk to you about it, is the Tennessee Bourbon, the eight year. Yes. Tennessee Bourbon. Yes. And I've heard everything from this is a kind of pushback against that idea that Tennessee whiskey isn't really bourbon. Was that kind of the impetus behind doing a bourbon? Because you could classify this as Tennessee whiskey, so I understand. Sure,

Nicole (01:00:38):
I could yeah, I think it was, there were multiple factors, so certainly that was one of them. Once and for all it's bourbon. It's bourbon. If you love bourbon, you'll love the whiskey. It is bourbon. Can we just once and for all make up

Drew (01:00:58):
Dispense with the Yes.

Nicole (01:00:59):
Yeah. So certainly that was a part of it, but the bigger thing for me was going back to what I was telling you about, being able to ask that different question around what is the best thing to do with all of these liquids and the blending team. I think we're quite fortunate that they're talented as they are because that Dickel character, that really distinct house style, that vitamin, it's a big I waxy complex tannic drying whiskey drinkers, whiskey Dickel 12 is really embraces the full complexity of what you can get when you really leverage that Lincoln County process to do super low separation, still access some of those funky characters, but it's a bit polarizing. Either kind of love it or, which is really fair. And when I was assessing our whiskey stocks, I realized that while we certainly had whiskeys that had that strong, big, bold character, we also had a lot of whiskey that expressed to me, what I described in my notes is a lot more of a classic bourbon character, the vanilla forward stone fruit, a little bit of baking, spice the oak a little bit softer, everything in balance. We had a lot more whiskeys that just reminded me more of classic bourbons. And that word just kept showing up in my notes and showing up my notes and finally was like, we should just call it bourbon guys.

(01:02:33):
I got to use it because, and the reason I really stuck up for taking this path is I felt that it was the best descriptor for what's in the bottle if all you do is pick this up off the shelf and nothing else, which most people know nothing about Dick. I've seen the research, like most of the world has no idea who we are. And so if they just pick this bottle up and say, okay, eight years old from a heritage distillery established 1870 bourbon, what would I expect it to taste like? And I think it delivers on that. So it's the authentic descriptor of what's in the bottle. And that's why I felt really justified in doing it.

Drew (01:03:17):
So basically it was a choice of barrels that is the difference between that and yeah.

Nicole (01:03:24):
Okay. It's all down to blending. And blending is if there's one thing that I hope is maybe a big part of my legacy and the American whiskey industry and certainly I would probably point to Drew cosine as well as really the originator of this but is the idea of growing the concept that blending is important and relevant in American spirits just as much as it is in scotch. And that's the difference I think, between a good and a great American whiskey. And you can really play tunes with flavors, especially coming out of new casks. And I think it's even more important for us to be mindful of that. And I think you can see that in the Dickel lineup, how distinct and different some of these whiskeys can be. And so yeah, it was all done to blending. It's just me selecting the barrels that had that style and showcasing them on their own. And of course, choosing to put an age statement on it as well, which was quite important to me because as much as those old numbers were a part of our heritage, they've annoyed me from day one <laugh>, because so many people thought they were an age statement and they're not.

(01:04:37):
But you can't offend 50 years of history. Do

Drew (01:04:40):
We know where the eight and the 12 came from?

Nicole (01:04:45):
Yes. Marketing.

Drew (01:04:47):
That's it wasn't the conversion of Jack Daniels old number eight?

Nicole (01:04:53):
No, I have seen a memo that was basically, I'm paraphrasing it here, but you should put these numbers on your bottle. Yeah, they will. It'll sell more.

Drew (01:05:06):
I've seen that too. That eight is a popular number for Yes. Yeah. I don't know where I

Nicole (01:05:11):
Read that there's some other American brands that have had these numbers pop up over time and it was around just having it be an indicator of quality to people. Right? Yeah. I would never say that someone was trying to misrepresent what they're doing, but I think certainly many people assume it's an age, even though it's not. So we've been since my tenure unit, since I've got here, we've been really working to minimize that. And we've already taken the number off of the classic recipe. But for me, it was important that the number on the bourbon label is an age statement.

Drew (01:05:49):
So I lived in Tennessee for a little while, and as you get more out in the country, you find a lot more people into sundrop and moon pies. Absolutely. Have you gotten absolutely sun sundrop and moon pies since you've been there?

Nicole (01:06:02):
Absolutely many. Those are some fun discoveries.

Drew (01:06:09):
And in fact, while I was sitting in your visitors center, I was being regaled with stories about how wonderful Sundrop and George Dickel work together.

Nicole (01:06:19):
Oh, it's excellent actually. And there's an amazing place on a lake not far from us that does dickel and sundrop slushies that are genuinely excellent. I challenge the snobbish of drinkers not to enjoy that. Cause it's delightful.

Drew (01:06:38):
See, so what you'll have to do back when I was into beer, I went up to Boston and went to the Sam Adams tour, and they take a group of people from the distillery over to this place called Doyles, and it's a little ride over and then they bring you back. But it's an old bar where John F. Kennedy used to hang out, and all the big political figures, sports figures would all go there. You'll have to work it out to where you can take a van full of people over to the festival and get their sundrop slushies.

Nicole (01:07:15):
I should know if I want everyone exactly to know where it is. But yeah, it's an amazing place. It's a real Tennessee destination.

Drew (01:07:27):
So your own spirits have got to be close to being mature at this point? Yes. What's it? What's that like knowing that, I mean, because you've been working with somebody else's Scary. Yeah,

Nicole (01:07:40):
Really frightening. Yep, yep, yep. Pretty. I feel very confident and comfortable in blending. It's something, I worked on it for years with Kings County I really got crash course and how important blending is working with small barrels. So I felt pretty confident in doing that work. Even with these larger barrels. I mean, thankfully it's pretty linear. If it tastes good and you're cylinder on the bench scale, I have a high degree of confidence that it's going to taste good when we dump it later. But when you put four years, five years, 10 years of time from when you're nosing it off the stilts when it comes out of the barrel, that just adds a little bit of uncertainty. That's always a little nerve wracking. So yeah, I'm a little nervous but excited. I think I'm excited for people to see the depth and breadth of what this distillery is capable of. And I really feel like that's a part of our heritage as well, that I want to restore. We didn't Cascade, distillery didn't always just make George Dickel. There was Cascade Pure Whiskey, and I think this distillery has, it can do more. And I'm excited for people to see that.

Drew (01:09:00):
I thought it was interesting that your Cascade Moon actually was under a different web address, so they branded it completely separate and the bottles don't look anything like a orange Stickle bottle.

Nicole (01:09:10):
That was important to me because first of all, it cascade when you go, and it's an homage to that old Cascade Pure whiskey. A lot of the, it's very inspired by that as a jumping off point. But George Dickel has got an incredible heritage, you know, alluded to how does it feel to take over 150 year old brand, this is all of responsibility and Cascade Moon. I really was quite intentional about really separating that from George Dickel because I wanted to have a little more freedom to think about the future of whiskey exclusively and do just pursue things that I'm passionate about and interested in that wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for George Tickle the

Drew (01:09:57):
Brand. So is it the 84 88 mash bill?

Nicole (01:10:02):
Oh, it varies. So Cascade Moon is a series of releases so they've all been different and they're all one-offs. And I wouldn't even want to speculate what weird idea I might want to pursue over the coming years so far. The first release was actually a really intriguing blend of whiskey, the Tennessee Whiskey Mash bill and the Tennessee Whiskey distillate, but aged in refill casks. So not a Tennessee whiskey, not a bourbon. It would just be a whiskey. And it was blended with a little bit of Tennessee whiskey to kind of create that balanced flavor that it has. So that's the first release. The second one was an 84 88 Mash Bill Tennessee whiskey technically, and it was 17 years old, and it was a blend that I created built around the first cask that had been refilled when the distillery started back up in 2003 after its shut down. So it was an anniversary edition, it was a celebration of the hundred 50th anniversary of George Dickel. And that, I think what I wanted to celebrate was that we were still here. Yeah. And so it felt really appropriate to use that barrel which had been signed by all the folks who were working there at the time. And actually a number of them were still working here when we got to dump it. And that was really special. That whiskey's quite unique. So that was just a really small kind of barrel by barrel custom blend. And then the more to come,

Drew (01:11:35):
Yeah, that's more to

Nicole (01:11:36):
Come. That's fun. I was about to start telling you at the next, you almost got me,

Drew (01:11:41):
And you'll be doing more bottled in bonds, I assume? Yes,

Nicole (01:11:44):
Yes. I'm working on the fourth. Just finished the blend, actually.

Drew (01:11:49):
Very nice. Very nice. Well, this is great. I appreciate you spending time and talking through all of this and introducing people who don't know about George Iel to it, but I think winning Whiskey Advocates whiskey of the year got you on a lot of people's radar.

Nicole (01:12:06):
I hope so. I mean, know, it certainly opened doors for me both inside and outside the company. I think people started to have a little more faith in some of these crazy ideas that I was

Drew (01:12:18):
<laugh>

Nicole (01:12:19):
Proposing. And I hope that that's what I was hoping that it would do was cause people to kind of reappraise our whiskey. And then as exciting as it was, funnily enough I think actually being named Top five, number five for the bourbon is mm-hmm. Almost even more exciting for me because I have more of that, something that people can enjoy, hopefully for a long time to come. So I hope that will almost even be more meaningful. Yeah.

Drew (01:12:53):
What would you say, I have the 12 here. What would you say the difference is in the bourbon to somebody who, because yeah, people who eight or 12 I found are very passionate about what is the number they're into?

Nicole (01:13:09):
The bourbon's not for you then if you're a 12 drinker today, stay a 12 drinker. It's y. And I've heard this actually, so they do. People go and try the bourbon cause they're curious and they're like, I don't like that. I'm like, no kidding. It's very different. Yeah, no kidding. I didn't just take the same liquid and put it in a different bottle and charge you more for it. That would be terrible thing to do. I hope. Much more integrity than that. No, I think the bourbon is for that. People who are loyal drinkers of Dickel 12, it has quite a distinct character and I like it. If you like it, that's where to find it. Yeah, you're going to find that in no other bottle on the shelf. Every once in a while it comes up in our single barrels that are quite similar to that but's, quite a complicated blend to create Dickel 12. Yeah, bourbon is different. It's much more, I think if you appreciate fine bourbon whiskeys. This one is number five in the world for all whiskeys. So yeah, if you like bourbon, I think you would be ridiculous to not have this on your bar right now.

Drew (01:14:18):
Very nice. Well, Nicole, thank you very much for taking the time today and talking through. It's

Nicole (01:14:23):
Been a pleasure jumping

Drew (01:14:25):
In,

Nicole (01:14:25):
Jumping

Drew (01:14:26):
Into history, which is yeah, like I say, it's after, see now people can learn it because they can just go back and rewind. And

Nicole (01:14:35):
I appreciate you taking the time to pay attention to this history and your reminder of even the incredible history that we've experienced just in the last 10, 15 years in American whiskey. So much change has happened in this time period, and I'm glad that someone's working to document it. So thank you.

Drew (01:14:55):
Thank you.

Nicole (01:14:56):
Cheers. Cheers.

Drew (01:14:58):
And if you want to learn more about George Dickel and Cascade Hollow, head to george dickel.com. And if you enjoy today's interview, make sure to check out some of my other interviews with Great Tennessee Distillers, along with distillers and founders from around the world. And make sure you're subscribed wherever you're listening to this podcast so you don't miss anything else coming up in the future. And find show notes, transcripts, social media, links, books, and more@whiskeylord.com or support this independent podcast by joining the Whiskey Lord Society at patreon.com/whiskey. I'm your host, Hanish. And until next time, cheers and SL of a whiskey lores, a production of Travel fuel's life, L L C.