Ep. 58 - Widow Jane's Lisa Wicker

Transcript

Drew (00:00:09):
Welcome to Whiskey Lore The interviews I'm Drew Hannush, the Amazon bestselling author of whiskey lores travel guide to experiencing Kentucky bourbon. And on this week's episode, honored to have on a guest whose name you've probably heard before. And you likely heard it on one of my episodes. She is no stranger to the whiskey trail. She's worked at quite a few different locations on the whiskey trail. So we're gonna catch up with her story. It's widow Jane, Lisa wick. And if you haven't heard her name before, well, you're gonna be shocked at all the projects that she's been involved in from George Washington's distillery at Mount Vernon to preservation distillery in Barts town, Huber Starlight distillery in Indiana, and the beam brothers limestone branch in Lebanon, Kentucky. She's also worked as a consultant on a whole lot of projects, and just recently her main focus has been widow Jane and that was recently acquired by heaven hill. So we'll talk a little bit about that, and we're also going to have a chance to taste. At least I will widow Jane 10 and we'll hear how Lisa moved from blending wine to blending whiskey. We'll learn a little bit more about her distilling heroes, including a woman who ran the last bourbon distillery outside of the United States. So get ready for a power packed episode. As we head to Brooklyn, have a chat with Lisa Wicker. Lisa, welcome to the show.

Lisa (00:01:46):
Thank you for the invitation. I really appreciate it. My favorite two things, whiskey and history.

Drew (00:01:52):
Nice. Nice. Well, as I was looking through, I, I was doing some research on you and I went to the American whiskey convention website and was reading your little bio there. And I, it, it was naming off all of these distilleries and all of these brands, a few brand and I was talking about your consulting with saints and monsters and was talking about preservation that in Bargetown that you'd done work with them and Starlight distillery in Southern Indiana. When do you have time to sleep?

Lisa (00:02:22):
You know I, I have three grown, grown children, right? Two of 'em in the thirties and one in their twenties. And so after you've raised three kids everything's, you know, is, it's all difficult after that. Yeah.

Drew (00:02:35):
Let's start off by diving a little bit into your background and you actually started more in the world of wine, rather the, and in the world of whiskey. And I heard something about you experimenting with your grandmother's crockpot

Lisa (00:02:52):
Sour sour CRO crock.

Drew (00:02:54):
Okay. What is a sour sour CRO?

Lisa (00:02:58):
Yeah, it's I mean, if we're gonna go like, like how this ended up, you know, in my head that this was even a possibility is someone I grew up with, right, his dad was a law professor at Indiana university and actually getting the farm farm winery laws passed so that it could be a viable business, cuz there were no alcohol sales allowed on Sundays for years until recent Lee in Indiana with the exception of farm wineries. Right. And so I was in their home when he was getting these things passed because they had a winery that was his advocat and he wanted to be able to, you know, for people to actually do that full time if they wanted to do it and they were, he was successful. He's actually with some of the, you know, like the you know, to end up talking about Ted Huber at some point, but Ted's dad was part of that original group too that had a lot of that stuff lobbied and got those laws passed. And now that winery is bill told me, I think last year they're closing it on a million gallons of wine every year and wow, Indiana, they're one of the largest wineries outside the state of California. People just, don't funny, you know, it's like, they're so regional. They make, you know, a, a lot of wine. They fund their really serious program, you know, with some of the other, you know, their trying to find a polite way to see cashflow product.

Lisa (00:04:17):
Yeah. And so it's, you know, it's just really astounding. So I, out my head around the idea that somebody could make alcohol for a living, but I got so interested in it, you know, I was tinkering with not knowing what I was doing and you know, inherited my grandmother's sour CRO crock. Right. So I didn't even put the two and two together about fermentation. Right. That that's something had already been fermented in it. So it was obviously impregnated with some indigenous yeas and things, but it I just remember my dad calling me in college and saying, you know, you need to get home and clean up this mess. Right. Cause I didn't anything about, you know, so it was trial my fire, but anyway, yeah. And so I, you know, tinkered with that, but then ended up getting, you know, married, having three kids and moving around the country, their father was in manufacturing and made due with a job wherever we were.

Lisa (00:05:02):
Right. And yeah. So anyway, we circle back around and I get back to we come back to Indiana different community and I was working in the arts world. I was founded and ran for six years, a costume company for professional com dance company and did that. And someone asked me some kind, this is crazy. This is so crazy. Some kindergarten mothers were joking with me because they were working at a winery and they couldn't find anybody to harvest. So they were saying, you know what, we're gonna, we're gonna be the part of the harvest crew because they can't, they worked in the tasting room. Right. And do you wanna join us? And they had no idea heading background at all. And I said, I'm gonna do this. And they're like, what? Okay. And so I was costuming a Nutcracker and harvesting grapes in the same fall.

Lisa (00:05:49):
It was a little crazy. Yeah. So anyway, that happened. And then somebody had bugged me for years. A gentleman I'd known that used to be the winemaker at Oliver winery in Bloomington had gone out on his own years before at brown county in brown county. And he'd asked me several times, like when I was in there and when I was gonna come to work for him kind of jokingly, but he actually called me you know, he got wind that I was working for another winery and called me and said, you know, when are you gonna come to, I want you to come in and talk to me. And I said, I'm gonna do this. I mean, I loved, I forgot how much I love being outdoors all the time. I forgot how much I like the physical labor. And as much as I love the arts, you know, you get finished with a project in February and get paid in September, you know, you're working for a, not for profit. Right. And so, you know, I loved it there, I left, but it was time for me to move on. I left it in the hands of a really talented woman with a textile degree and she's still running it. So I'm happy.

Drew (00:06:46):
Oh, wow. Nice.

Lisa (00:06:47):
Yeah. She's, I'm just happy to hear it still up and running, but yeah. So you moved out and it went to work in three days and I knew that's what I was supposed to be doing. I met a retired Purdue profess. Oh, she wasn't retired at the time Purdue professor who was working in the food science department, but in the viticulture program there. And Ellie took me under her wing and finished her career out at Walla man yeast after she retired from Purdue. But she was the man that trained me to make wine was insanely intelligent and very practical. And then she was able to help, you know, fill my head, fall, this wonderful science and looked at after me there as well. So yeah. So eight years there,

Drew (00:07:30):
When you were in school, were you did you love science and that was kind of something you were fascinated with or I was the English guy. I enjoyed English, but I was horror horrible in science.

Lisa (00:07:40):
I have a journalism degree and I should have studied chemistry. I am old enough that I, you know, high school. This is really like a sad, sad story. So there were three of us that would wait around in the morning. One woman ended up being the Val Victorian of the class and going on to Harvard and the other woman, oh gosh, I can't remember where she ended going to college, but insanely smart. I was the dumbest of the three. Right. And, but the three of us would go in, in the morning with the chemistry teacher and wait for the leftovers. He would sit down with the guys that went in, like for help in the morning and help like on tests and things like that. And we would literally wait around for him to get done with them. And then we would get the leftovers. Oh, like the guys would have, have to tell us we were never literally invited to the table. Isn't that crazy?

Drew (00:08:24):
Yeah. Times changed. Yeah. And

Lisa (00:08:28):
He went on to be my high school teacher and went on to be a college professor. And, you know, there were days that I just like, I really need to write him a note, but I don't know how to not be like, you know? Right. And yeah, so, you know, it was really interesting, but I remember that, you know, like I said, us getting together, trying to figure out, you know, the chemistry homework without really any tutoring and yeah. But I loved it. I did love it. And so I ended up right. Doing, being a technical right with the journalism. I ended up still back in a science lab at Indiana university for three years. In research doing the technical writing, I am old enough that there was not a PC yet on campus.

Drew (00:09:06):
We got the

Lisa (00:09:07):
PC cause I worked for the chairman of the department and we got the, but I did photography. I mean, old school, you know, dark room of the reproductive organ, citrus solo, Melan, Gaster.

Drew (00:09:19):
Oh man.

Lisa (00:09:20):
So I still, I still touched into science somehow, you know, even accidentally, right.

Drew (00:09:25):
Yeah. I, I, I was watching a movie the other day and I was watching and, and it was from probably 40 years ago and somebody's typing on a typewriter. And I remember those days of typing on the typewriter and that fear that you had, that you were gonna make a mistake that was going to force you to have to retype the entire page

Lisa (00:09:49):
At one 30 in the morning after you thought it was a really good idea at nine that you had this. And so you had a beer with your friends. I can count, you know, in, when you're in college. Right. And it's like, oh, I gotta have a beer and I'll get this typed. And then the next year are you typed to the end of the page? Right. And you went to a very better end of the page. I yeah. At journalism school, we, we had to know how to type and we had to have a minimum. I don't remember the numbers for the words for minute or because in journalism school, you might have a two to three hour class and you know, you have to go impose something and there was a cutoff. Right. You know, they were teaching you how to handle a deadline. And yeah. You know, if you couldn't tie fast enough, you were toast. It's never, I'm still not a good time. Right.

Drew (00:10:30):
Kids, kids don't know today. All that we went through, some

Lisa (00:10:35):
Were wasted time. And I remember, you know, that the kids that had extra money, they could hire somebody to type their term paper. Like.

Drew (00:10:42):
I just remember it one time I, I had got in trouble on the school bus and they, I was told that I had to write sentences. And I said, do you mind if I type? And they, he said, no, that's fine. You can type. So I use carbon paper that got me through a little faster. He, he didn't say anything about it. So I guess it looked clean enough that I got away with that. Oh,

Lisa (00:11:04):
That's awesome.

Drew (00:11:04):
Yeah. Yeah. But my, my typing these days is like, I don't know when I write my stories. I, I am so used to being able to go back and correct that I just write stream of thought and this idea of just typing up and you working with technical papers, you know, you gotta have everything precise and, and correct. Otherwise you're you are starting completely over again.

Lisa (00:11:28):
Remember rewording your sentences too, cuz you made a mistake, but you're like, you didn't wanna fix it. So you like, I gotta figure how to reword that so I can keep what I have or

Drew (00:11:35):
Yeah. What word can I throw in there? What led, what, what word is five letters so that I can use the little correct tape and then go back and put a new word in there. That's five, five letters. Yeah. I know what type, see, that's a history lesson in all in of itself. So so, so how did you end up because you actually, for a time worked for Steve beam down at limestone branch. So yeah,

Lisa (00:12:02):
After I got done with brown county, my youngest was graduating from high school and starting college. I knew it was a good opportunity for me to, you know, it was time for me to move on in a very good way. Right. I really respected the winemaker that taught me, but I'd been patching my education together at UC university of California Davis. I was, you know, saving up my money and going to every intensive I could on filtration and fermentation and all those sorts of things to, you know, supplement what he had taught me because like I said, he was very smart man and or is a very smart man. And but I was getting a little bit restless too. So my youngest graduated from high school and just on a, you know, a stroke of good luck. I mean, some people wouldn't call a stroke of good luck cuz it meant I had to pick up my, you know, and move.

Lisa (00:12:43):
But the people we were buying grapes off of in Kentucky they came and they said, you know, we're not gonna have grapes for you next year. We are going to build our own winery and my boss said to them, Lisa's ready. You should hire her to be your consultant. And you know, I'll be forever grateful that he did that. And so I go down to Kentucky, I'd also, he'd given me the distilling bug. You know, we drank a lot of whiskey and talked whiskey a lot. You know, you make wine all day, drink whiskey. And now I make whiskey and I drink a lot of wine and nighttime.

Speaker 4 (00:13:15):
Yeah. You know, so

Lisa (00:13:16):
Yeah. But he gave me the bug about distillation and you know, there may or may not have been, you know,

Drew (00:13:24):
A little bit going on on the side

Lisa (00:13:26):
In garage, but I, you know, my daughters tended to date really smart people and you know, and see the guys are like, Hey, Hey, what you doing?

Lisa (00:13:38):
Okay, well we are gonna have to stop this project because these guys are too inquisitive about what's going on here. But but he'd given me the bug. Right. And, and so I get like, well, Kentucky's perfect. I had an offer in North Carolina and the Santa Cruz mountains. They were also too far from family that, you know, I had, my parents were getting older and, and so I take this, they I'm working as a consultant and they said something like, we're gonna have to find a wine maker. And we started talking, they're like, you're willing to move. I said, I am. And so they hired me at their kitchen table to be their wine maker. And I met Stevie briefly after that, I, they hired me like an role. I started literally the week. My daughter, I moved my daughter into college and started, I mean, I'd already worked with them all summer.

Lisa (00:14:21):
I'd already resigned my other position and was working with them long distance and packed her off to college and packed myself off to Kentucky and baptism by fire. Right. It was really hot. And it was very hot and things, grapes were coming on a lot faster. We literally didn't have equipment built yet. We were still had tanks on order. It was just crazy time. Wow. A crazy time. And I met Steve beam during that time. I mean, we were doing the crazy things like the, we had somebody that was gonna rent us a space and he was a criminal. So,

Speaker 3 (00:14:56):
Oh,

Lisa (00:14:56):
As we started getting into the project, he kept adding all these extra costs. And I told the owners, I said, if we can retrofit your barn, we'll just start making until we can get the winery built. We'll just make wine in your barn. They had a lovely barn. Right. And so we, you know, hire these contractors and they're in, are building it out the barn, but at the same time the grapes are getting right before that we're literally building tanks out in the driveway and wow. Getting them cleaned and put into place as we were pressing juice. I mean, it was intense. And so we were building, I had a tent built on the inside of the, you know, and had the air conditioner guys come out and install an air conditioner in the tent, in the, in

Speaker 3 (00:15:33):
The barn.

Lisa (00:15:35):
Three days, you know, in the heat hadn't bathed in a ball cap, my rubber, my rubber boots. And the guy that helps own the heating cool place is a Kentucky Senator. Right. And he never mentioned it while he was there. And he really helped. He did not know, he's thinking this woman is crazy. I don't know what she's doing, but you know, my friends hired her. So I'll see this project through. So I go to this like economic development thing and he is there and I, you know, I've had a bath and have a dress on and he goes, I'm sorry, we haven't met. And like, he just spent three

Speaker 3 (00:16:08):
Days

Lisa (00:16:10):
And he

Speaker 3 (00:16:10):
Goes, wow.

Lisa (00:16:11):
He goes, oh my gosh, I recognize a smile, but I sure as hell can't come up with the rest of it.

Lisa (00:16:17):
Yeah. So anyway. Yeah. So, you know, I have a lot of people to think along the way. So anyway, so we came out of the gate strong and you know, medaled right away on some, on some wines that I had, you know, hit kind of in my back pocket that I wanted to produce. Unfortunately, you know, I mean, fortunately I meet Steve beam during this time, so he's my extra set of hands. I'm his extra set of hands. We, I used to joke with him that I had a license and no building and he had a building and no license. He was waiting on his DSP. And so like I said, you know, we got to be friends and our businesses were only six miles apart and, and down the same road. And I, yeah, so the winery was coming on strong and then the owners decided to, to divorce, it's very spectacular divorce.

Lisa (00:17:04):
And I saw the writing on the wall and like, I've gonna have to resign in may so that I can book a ticket to Sonoma and I'll work a harvest in Sonoma and then come back to Kentucky and regroup and see what I can do. Right. And I reside the winery in 24 hours. Paul and Steve beam took me to dinner and hired me full time at limestone branch. And I'd already been helping them in the evenings with blending and we've already worked on product development. You know, my background was with fermentation and Steve was coming outta his landscape architect. His brother is, you know, restaurant owner. And so I was able to bring some things to the table there and spent the next almost three years baptism by fire, you know, 60, 80 hour weeks a lot of client work yeah. You know, oh my gosh, arson, fire, client work. We just, you name it. We went through it. Right. But you know, we'd pick up and go, Steve, would you decide last second, we'd drive drive all the way straight to new Orleans to, you know, to provoke product or Nashville or whatever you, you know, to, to get product placed and everything. So it was, it was just insane, but I look back on it. It's like, well, you know, I got two years of experience for every year. I was there.

Lisa (00:18:20):
Oh my gosh hours. I mean, there are days I cried all the way home at two o'clock in the morning. Cause I needed to get back on site at seven or eight o'clock the next morning. Right. And wow. There was just no one else. Right. We were producing everything that we could plus, like I said, we were doing all kinds of client work.

Drew (00:18:35):
So were you producing at that time or just doing blending or, or what were

Lisa (00:18:40):
You doing? No, we were producing two. I mean, I was at, I, this is where I learned to distill was on his 150 gallon, you know, Hoda, Pott that he hand hammered out of Spain actually spectacular weighted to still not very cost effective cuz the size of it. Right. But yeah, you had this really this vision that he wanted to ferment in wood barrels and have the still, so people could really get their heads and it did, people would go on tours and like, oh my gosh, now I really understand this process. And so we would ferment in the, these, you know, 120 gallon wood barrels that were raised by independent sta and and then be able to distill on the other hand, we had another 500 gallon pot that we you know, we, it was fairly interesting setup where we mashed in the same container that we ended up distilling out of.

Lisa (00:19:27):
So we'd mashed transfer then come back and you know, so lots of hiccups with that, with that process. But boy, talk about, you know we did do some Brandy projects. I mean, you know, I was making wine bases. In fact, we, before I had gone to limestone branch, I was making some Brandy bases at the, at the winery and then we were transferring some client work and so we were able to transfer the Brandy basis then along with the, you know, doing those at the same time we were doing match, but yeah. Oh my gosh, working with heir limbs, we we're growing Hickory king no truckers choice, truckers preference we were growing. And

Drew (00:20:05):
I was wondering with all your wine background, why you might not have had an interest in going into were Randy rather than into whiskey?

Lisa (00:20:14):
Well, I thought I was going into Brandy when I moved to Kentucky. I thought, you know, I work worked my way onto the legislative committee and so that when, you know, when they were asking, it's the first thing I volunteered for and they actually accepted me. But you know, I had my own personal agenda where I was wanted to get still at the winery because it was not allowed. Right. Yeah. It was not under Kentucky law. And, and I thought, cuz if I'm gonna be down here, you know, I already had the distilling bug. I'm gonna learn from all these guys down here. And that, you know, never came to fruition since I had to move on before that happened. But you know, yeah. So I was thought thinking that I was starting, gonna start in Brandy and I actually did start at Brandy only because I started that's what the client work that I started with with Steve was making Brandy before we made whiskey.

Drew (00:20:59):
Okay. So the difference in making Brandy into making whiskey, is there a, is there a, a real big mindset change that you go through there or are they fairly similar to each other?

Lisa (00:21:13):
They're exactly the same and completely different.

Lisa (00:21:18):
Yeah. You know, I mean, you know, when you're talking, you know there's some more emergency type, not emergency things that you have to hurry up with a little bit with, for Randy bases. You know, if you're working with grapes and things, you've got, you know, you gotta be there at harvest, you've gotta be watching the grapes. You don't know when you're going to harvest. You don't know, you know, when those fermentations are gonna happen, if you're doing you know, it's kind of common practice people don't know about too in the industry that you can actually ferment fruit, that's been frozen, right. You're gonna do a fruit Brandy. You can actually have some shelf life on that. But yeah, you know, it's, you're certainly handling a little bit differently normally with a wine fermentation to shut down the fermentation too. You use some potassium, not potassium, sulfite, but sulfites.

Lisa (00:22:03):
And they, they, you don't want that in a dis, right? You don't shut those fermentations down because that actually distills over and it's really unpleasant. So that's the reason, sometimes people will get these little home stills and they'll try to distill their bottle of wine. But if it's, if the wine hasn't been taken care of and the cell bites haven't been matched met you, you know, kind of like if they're not balanced, if they're out of balance, let's put it that way. Yeah. Outta balance it'll distill over. And it tastes, like I said, it tastes really unpleasant.

Drew (00:22:37):
So it's interesting. I was doing some research here recently. I'm a big scotch whiskey fan too. And I was reading up on worm tubs and how over there they'll spend thousands of dollar is to have these outside cooling worm tubs. And the reading I did on it suggested that you, it actually cools the, a dist distillate down causing less contact with the, the copper allowing more sulfates to come through to create a thicker. And, and more, as they say, flavorful, they'll always talk about, you know, what the positive is to your drinking experience in that. But

Lisa (00:23:18):
That's the, I'm not gonna say who this famous scotch distiller is, cuz you know, I'm not gonna say who he is, but I can't say this. I can't tell this story. I'm gonna give out who it is. Let me think about this. No, but that's the reason sometimes like with scotch too, that they actually have that ver degree colored dist distillate. Yeah.

Drew (00:23:40):
Because, Because of the leaving the sulfites in there. Yeah.

Lisa (00:23:43):
I'm trying to figure out how to tell this story without telling where the revealing hood is. Yeah.

Drew (00:23:47):
You can go beep whenever you what, what, what, what makes it difficult to

Lisa (00:23:52):
It? Was I gonna give it up? Right? I'm sorry.

Drew (00:23:55):
Okay. Yeah.

Lisa (00:23:57):
That's right. It's really interesting. I mean, you know, because hydrogen cell can get thrown. It's very common to get thrown in a a whiskey mash. Right. You know, you smell, it just, it's the same stink that they die, natural gas with. Right. And yeah. If you've got a well managed fermentation, it doesn't happen. Right. If your corn is clean and your, your fermentation tanks are clean and things like that, but that's why copper works best because copper will bind itself to hydrogen and sulfide on up the distillate. Okay. But if you don't clean your still and things you'll end up with that. You know, these little Verre blue, the same colors are bar here, you know, flex flex in the dist distillate.

Drew (00:24:36):
So talk about a little bit of how you developed your palette between these two what's interesting for me is that I was, I took a trip before I was a whiskey drinker. I took a trip to Missouri wine country and I was at a winery. They lined up five different wines from sweet to dry and I tasted them and I really wasn't used to tasting anything at that time. So it was just an experi of, of drinking this to that. And I could tell you that, you know, this was definitely drier than the first thing that I had. And then I got into whiskey and I started paying attention to whiskey. And then I went back to that same winery last year and I got those same five wines up there. And I could suddenly start of picking out, you know, where there was an Oak character in some of them and just what, you know, what, where that sweetness was coming from, you know, type of grape and that sort of thing. So I mean, how, how did you go about switching your palette from wine to whiskey and what kind of differences did you find there?

Lisa (00:25:47):
You kind of answered the question. Yeah. You already answered the

Drew (00:25:52):
Question. I hate when I do that.

Lisa (00:25:54):
Yeah. You know, when I, when I first started in wine, making the winemaker would hand me a glass of wine and it's like you know, we're gonna have to figure out what to do with this. It's got Beano MA's in it. You know, it's like, oh my gosh, how does he know? I mean, he just barely took a sip of a, he is like, well, okay, well, you know, we're gonna have to manage this and this I'm gonna teach you how to manage that. And it's like, oh my gosh, how do you know how in the world did he ever get there and it's practice first. Right. And so with the, with the whole wine thing also, like I said, he and I were both, you know he really is the one that, you know, more formally introduced me to whiskey drinking.

Lisa (00:26:27):
Right. And, and as far as dissecting the product. Right. And yeah, so we were already kinda switching on and off from that we did a, we did a barrel age port that we used to do in Woodford barrels. Right. You know? And so there was already a little bit of a crossover you know, trying to get past the heat spitting. Right. yeah. I used to have to do chemical inventory once a month for in wine making and you go through a new test, you taste test and, and then, you know, run the lab test on all the wines that are in storage and gosh, I'd get to port. And it was like, I'm beyond, I had to learn to spit. Like at first

Speaker 3 (00:27:08):
He,

Lisa (00:27:09):
You know, it was 18% alcohol and it's like, oh my gosh, I I'm having trouble. I could spit the wines out. Okay. Right. And yeah, but with the spirits in it, it's like, ah, it's just muddying my pallet. But I learned after a while, you know, how, how, how to handle it, how to approach it. So really for me transitioning into whiskey, you know, I started working with Steve beam in the evenings on at what, what I discovered about blending was quite a bit different. What I looked tasting was pretty much the same thing where, you know, your brain, you, your brain just has to catalog what you're tasting and, and, you know, be able to use that as a resource when going through things. So blending was completely different when I started blending it's cuz the winemaker was frustrated and said, I really don't like this rose, just get in there and start tinkering with it. And my world just opened up that day. Right. And I started blending several of the wines there. You know, learned things about what's the difference between what everybody's preferences on the tasting room staff and the winery itself versus what's merchantable

Drew (00:28:11):
Yeah, yeah.

Lisa (00:28:12):
You know, people's like, oh, I just drink dry wines and guess what? They leave with 11 bottles of sweet and wonder. Right. So trying to, trying to balance merchantability against, you know, what your preferences are. That was a lesson. And then when I started blending with Steve beam, it was the interesting thing is like with wine, if you wanna elevate something, you just add more of it. Okay. It's like, you know, we blend these roses. It's like, well, let's bring this, you know, this floral violet nose up on it a little bit. So we'll add a little bit more, this Shamon or whatever we're working with. And, but you, I got to, whiskey's like, oh my gosh. So I like this nose on this whiskey, but if I added more of that whiskey to that blend, sometimes it would negate the nose. Mm. And then you're trying to elevate the, you know, you're trying to elevate the palette, you're trying to elevate the nose and they would balance, they would just cancel each other out. And I was dumbfounded. It's like, oh my gosh. I even remember one night in particular. Thank goodness. I was able to walk to where I was staying, cuz I was like,

Lisa (00:29:12):
Even I still have those pictures, you know, the shot glasses were stacked up, but yeah. But I was more about that. I, this mindset is like, I gotta figure this out. Right. You know, I don't know why this is happening. I still do this day. I don't know scientifically how it happens. I just decided accept it. Right. And but learned that, you know, whiskey is can be a wild card compared to wine.

Drew (00:29:34):
Is there, this is what I've tried to figure out. Cuz of course I think even my listeners have probably played with doing infinity bottles or I, I have an easier time with scotch in terms of trying to do blends with with, with bourbon. And I took a bottle of knob Creek rye that I, it was a little too sweet for me. So I started throwing some other stuff in it to see. And it was interesting because I would add in, it was adding it and some old Forester, 100 and it was really knocking that sweetness down and making a very interesting drink. And then I thought, well maybe a little more Ry in here would be interesting. So I threw a little bit more Ry of it. That was an MGP rye in there. And just a little bit of that rye threw it back to sweet. It was like, I just went right back to the, the knob Creek that I had originally after

Lisa (00:30:26):
Wide wide world of whiskey blending. Yes.

Drew (00:30:28):
That's crazy. And yeah,

Lisa (00:30:30):
It is. It's also interesting how little, you know, I, my analogy is vanilla extract in a cake, right. It's really amazing how little, you know, in a, in a 350 gallon to whiskey that one to two to three gallons. So like with vaults and things, when I'm doing that in our, all our older stuff, I ask to go, I tinker with it. Even after we've done the blend, like I come in by myself right. And tinker with it until the end to be sure that I'm happy with it. And even going to the bottling line, I am still blending it, you know, two gallons at a time, two pounds at a time into these 55 gallon drums so that it can go to the bottoming line. I know that it's consistent. Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah, it's crazy. It's, you know, the trying to get the craft mentality out of me is gonna be a little more difficult.

Drew (00:31:18):
Well, we'll talk about a little while, but that's kind of that's, that's where you're at, right. Was in that, that blending world with, with widow Jane. So so we'll, we'll cover a little bit more of that, but let's talk about how you ended up working with Steve Beshore over at, at George Washington distillery

Lisa (00:31:35):
That just an I I've had some real, you know, amazingly wonderful dumb luck. And so Ted Huber asked me one day, cuz Ted was, you know, in, on the initial parts of the George Washington distillery project when they decided dis decided to help them actually get back into distilling. And, and Ted's like, oh my gosh, Lisa, he said, you know, he knew I loved history too. And he, I was distilling six days a week and usually distilled by myself on Saturdays. And so sometimes he'd send his dog up or his boys up. He right. So Saturdays were great. And the, and the, you know, the women in the restaurant always made sure I had something extra special or, you know, hot apple cider donuts in the fall or something, you know, it was distilling, it was great. But Ted wasn't there on his, it was a Saturday, he was gonna be away.

Lisa (00:32:21):
And he's like, the people from George Washington distillery are coming and it's like, oh my gosh, I had read about them since the beginning, my son and I, I tried to get him, I'm trying to think. Was he still in, was he outta law school? I can't remember. But anyway, I like, you gotta go stand in line for one of the first release bottles, you know, and then of course that didn't happen cuz they were sold out. Right. I was pretty cool about it. So I've watched that program since the very beginning and like, oh, this is great. And so it's one of the men that had worked there on the grounds during other things too. But he was also with the distilling program and then there was a woman from the dis office with them as well. And so I gave them a tour that day and we had lunch and you know, just, we were talking about these things and he said, we came to the he's like, you know, we ha we're having some problems with some of our fermentations.

Lisa (00:33:12):
And I'm like, well, when we were fermenting in wood, back at limestone branch, we used to have X, Y, and Z it's cuz of the wood and you need to, you know, scrub them down with soda and then you need to rinse them and then they need to be sprayed down with Citrix and cause they were liming in the inside of it. And I can't remember why they started doing that and I'm like, you don't don't put anymore lime in 'em. Right. And so they were having, they're like finally we got done talking that day and he goes, I need to ask Steve be if you can come out you know, we really like to have you, cuz we really need somebody to help us diagnose these problems. And since I had, you know, fermented and would, and distilled on a small copper pot you know, kinda lined up and so like I don't know who the Steve guy is.

Lisa (00:33:54):
Right. And so anyway, but I asked Ted Huber, I get the invitation and he's like, yeah, you come out. And I, as Ted, I said, can you cover for me for weekends? Cuz I, you know, got an invitation to come out to Mount Vernon and Ted goes, no, I'm like, okay, well and he goes, no, he goes, Lisa. He goes, you need to be out there four or five days. He goes, you're gonna get out there. You're gonna love it. And so I went out there and sure enough we still joke about it cuz I said, you know, when I come, go in as some consultant, I usually like to wait at least a day and a half before I start saying anything in the beginning of the sick dance. I'm like, I'm sorry. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We got

Lisa (00:34:30):
It. Still gimme a hard time about it. Like we got some things here cuz if, you know, if we'll go back out and take those girls outside and we'll wash them down differently, then you're doing it. You know, immediately we can start cleaning up some of these you know, issues that are happening here and sure enough. And we seemed to be a good match right. With the program and the time I was able and Ted, you know, was very proud of my work there. Right. And yeah, so we increased yields by 53% and wow. Yeah,

Drew (00:35:00):
So, so he had real kind of set up this whole and for people who haven't seen the George Washington distillery, I mean, it's basically a, a house set up with I mean it looks like a basement when you, when you walk in and then you have your five stills over there that are all fired stills and it smells of smoke air when you walk in because you are actually, you know, these fire, fire lit stills. And then over to the side, they have all these barrels and the barrels, the thing that, that really shocked me was the fact that they were cooking in the barrel and then going straight to fermentation in the same barrel. Were they? So they were doing all of that while you, the first time you came in.

Lisa (00:35:48):
Yes and no. Yes. Okay. They were doing all of that. They were doing some things that, you know, we evolved to a place we are now, they weren't pitching yeast until the second day and like, okay, well that's why we got problems going on. Cuz we got exposed all night long. You know, we've worked hard to keep temperatures up because we do set, we do set in ferment in the same ones, but we did the same thing at limestone branch. Right. We set and fermented in the same, in the same barrels and yeah, but we did that process to get down to a day at first. Like we just can't get it done in a day. It's too many hours. So we started working with, you know, well, how can we cool? You know, what kind of things can we do? I thin the mash out dramatically because the mash was so thick that it would just hold the heat too, too much.

Lisa (00:36:31):
Right. And so we thin the mash out. We brought the temperature up a little bit hotter in the beginning because when you're try, you saw the open boiler, right. When you're transferring the water in wood buckets, you're immediately. Cuz I cook a little bit colder. So it actually L itself to this because immediately you're at 212 degrees, you're putting the water into wood bucket and then you're transferring it. Well, you're pouring it, you're pouring it through the air and it's cooling it off some more. Right. So, you know, we changed how people were handling the water are going in for those sets and you know, got to where we could actually cool them off stirring the thinner mash. You know, we, we just, I don't know if you got to do that while you were there, but you know, we have those paddles and we just keep turning the mash until it air cools it down to where the next temperature then it needs to be before or we continue with the matching process.

Lisa (00:37:20):
And then yeah, you know, and then, like I said, being able to pitch the yeast before the end of the day is, you know, tremendous help because they're all, they're all because what happens is that place is been there long enough. There is a lot of wild yeast in that environment. Right. And so you're gonna trigger those fermentations with yeast, you don't necess oh want and some of those have off flavors to them. I mean, you know, if you're, you know, really wonderful place, you can have a spontaneous fermentation like that, but not you know, but it's good. Right? Yeah. But when a situation like this, when you're only distilling twice a year, who the heck knows what kind of wild is, You know, decided to live in were there. And so you wanna try to inoculate that mash before it, you know, spontaneously takes off on its own because you can't get it back under control. You can pitch the next day, but sometimes you're too far down the road with the spontaneous formation.

Drew (00:38:12):
Were you surprised at how much work goes in to and could, and could you do that day after day working in, in that, that intense distillation?

Lisa (00:38:22):
Until I got here, I've been pretty hands on probably my age would forbid that now, but yeah, you know, wine making was pretty much hands on, you know, we were always you know, it was 50 pounds at a time with, with the fruit right. And same thing even with you know, then going on to Huber Ted, Ted Huber used to joke with me sometimes cuz we had a double high forklift and I had to climb that forklift. We had a little platform on the top and we have an a on the forks going into the cooker, you'd have to hook one El you know, one arm over and this was every day, right. So one arm over that and then get the paddle and then start, you know, pushing the grain and try not to fall off the, you know, the double high forklift. And so Ted used to, you know, bug me, he's like, what are other grandmothers doing right now? I can repeat the language that I said to him yeah. To make him move on and move away. But

Speaker 3 (00:39:19):
I'm

Lisa (00:39:20):
Like, I don't know. I don't know. Just get outta my way, but yeah, again, you know, I'm not hands on here. Like I'd like to be, but we got we're busy. But yeah, so, but that's the one thing about Mount Vernon. When I get to go back there, you know, people are chopping wood and you can haul little wood around and tend to fire and, and you know, stir mash for a couple hours and yeah. And you know, Steve's gracious enough to let me pick up those 50 pound bags of grain too and dump those.

Drew (00:39:50):
Do you? That's a good

Lisa (00:39:51):
Exercise. Right?

Drew (00:39:52):
I had the most interesting experience when I, while I was there. And then when I left, when, while I was there we were doing the tasting of the whiskeys upstairs and I said, this is fascinating because I taste the smoke that I smell when I'm downstairs in the dist distillate and then on my drive. And then when I drove home, that's all I smelled on myself. I decided to drive home eight hours the same day. Well, the

Lisa (00:40:24):
Whiskey there, people are always surprised to know that none of the grains are smoke there. You know, they're always like, how does this happen then? I'm like, well, because the fresh dist distillate is a sponge and it's it soaks up the wood smoke as it's coming off the still,

Drew (00:40:36):
Well, the yeast kind of and the fermentation there also pick up some of that. The

Lisa (00:40:40):
Ma is, you know, I don't detect it so much in the mash. It's a really excellent question, but you know, I'll go back again this weekend and reevaluate that, but I've never really detected it in the mash so much. It's definitely, you know, where it's coming off in the, going off the pots.

Drew (00:40:54):
Yeah. So how did you get well, let's talk about Hubers first for a little bit, cuz we kind of skipped over that as well and I've had a chance to go out there and and, and see the distillery. And I, I really enjoy heading out there and I got a tour of the whole farm, which was which was great. But how did how did you get started there? Were they already setting up a distillery at that time?

Lisa (00:41:18):
I didn't even know Ted. I, you know I had seen Ted when I was building the winery in Kentucky cuz I actually bought some old tanks off of him. Right. And they, when I got fired from limestone branch, I actually had an offer on the day that my last day there in South Carolina and I countered with consulting, I told 'em, I said, you know, I'm not gonna accept this position, but I still have way too much to learn to be down here on my own. And so they countered with consulting and that in with fully knowing that I was looking for another position, so another distillery was like dream distillery. Right. And they offered me a position. I was in shock and I was like, oh wow. Cuz I thought I might have to go back to wine making. Right. And they offered me the position and then Ted Huber called because he found out that I was on the market and he said, Lisa, you know, I wanna talk to you.

Lisa (00:42:11):
And I said, well, it's gotta be quick cuz I'm gonna accept this offer on a Friday. And I was supposed to, he's like, well, I'll talk to you Thursday, come up here. I wanna talk to you. And so there was a snowstorm and it's like, okay. And I was like, I'm gonna talk to Ted out of professional courtesy. Right. Cause I've known him for a long time. And he's like, can you just tell them? And I did, I called him. I was like, well this is risky. But I called him and said, you know, I'm gonna postpone my, you know, potential acceptance until Monday. And I met with Ted and his wife on Sunday and actually a mutual friend walks in. He goes, Lisa, I'm glad dated. I are like frozen. Like this is a job interview. Right. You know? And he like, you know, I was like, what are you doing here visiting?

Lisa (00:42:56):
You know? And so anyway, but Ted knocked the other offer out of the park, not just monetarily, but with what I was gonna be able to do. And you know, we were talking four green bourbons and three green bourbon and you know, just Ted is the ultimate experimenter and you know, there's the, the main and power on the, the square footage and everything to be able to pull all of that off. And the distillery was spectacular. This reason he wanted me to come up too, because the distillery was so beautiful. Right. And such a gorgeous and the, and limestone branch was so wonderful, but we were so cramped. Right. We were. So we literally had to move every day. So we could distill, we literally had to move to outs and things out to the driveway so that we could even get in there and distill it was just so beautiful and what his plans were.

Lisa (00:43:41):
And so I started there and it was just awesome. Right. We had a, you know, he let me run rum. We, the rum project got out you know, Jason was still doing all the brand and wine making program. Right. And so they'd added the green distillery and it was all heirlooms. Right. Red, white, blue, and yeah, you know, we had some, you know, the rum thing, like I ran some rum and then I asked Ted, I was like, you know, I ran this with this molasses. I tried the other grain of molasses. He's like, sure, just Had get a little outta hand, but it was really fun during that. And you know, the farmer said that the cows really loved that, you know, the, the byproduct sprayed all over their alfalfa, but

Lisa (00:44:22):
They were a little disappointed when we went back to mash, but it's like, okay, we gotta get back to whiskey. But yeah, you know, I had an amazing opportunity. I thought I'd stay there forever. I actually kept my house in Barts town and had an apartment closer to Starlight. And then drew Coles me the master distiller for Willett. I saw him at a family party and he said, Lisa, he goes, I'm admitting to call you somebody I've known for a long time in the industry wants to build the first craft distillery in Barts town. And I think you're the person to do this. And mm it's like, okay. And so, you know, I talked to that family and looked like that was gonna be a good decision. And you know, my oldest, daughter's like the only reason you're dragging your feet here is cuz you're gonna have to tell Ted and Dana goodbye.

Lisa (00:45:04):
And I'm like, oh my gosh, you're right. Yeah. And I mean those grounds, right? There's 700 acres of fruit trees, corn fields. And it sits on top of that Ridge, you know, and you see the sun come up and the sun go down and storms come through and it was, you know, and some days you're on property by yourself and other day, there are 20,000 people on property. Right. You know, visiting, visiting the farm and doing all their things. And yeah. You know, so it was just pretty kind of a magical place to Joel.

Drew (00:45:33):
Were, were Blake and and Christian already working there or were they still school?

Lisa (00:45:38):
They were too young, but they came up on Saturdays a lot. That's the reason it Blake, you know, I, I snuck in on a tour for bourbon women. I didn't, I I'd not, it was a Blake was Christian. I, I saw, I'd seen Ted and Dana and, and Blake already. And I was with Stephanie, she, and she, and I, I was like, we'll just catch the back end of this tour. And we did, and somebody asked Christian, like, who taught you how to distill like your dad? And he goes, no, Lisa Wicker taught me to

Drew (00:46:05):
And

Lisa (00:46:06):
You're like, yeah. You know, it's like, it's like, you're teaching your own kid to drive a car. And I didn't, you know, and he said, yeah, Lisa's the one, you know, she's always hand me stuff and tell me to smell it. Or this is, you know, and this is how, you know, how to handle this pot. And when a storm comes through, cuz when the barometric pressure, you know, we did everything manually. So when the barometric pressure started to drop, it was always a wild ride with that pot. But wow. Yeah. You know, so anyway, so that was very sweet, but they, the boys used to come up sometimes on Saturdays and hang out. Right. And or they bring their bricks, they they're golden retriever and bricks hang out with me all day.

Drew (00:46:37):
Nice. I

Lisa (00:46:38):
Called by myself, you know? And yeah. You know, but to be last person off the property some nights and if, you know, what, if something went wrong during the day, it might be midnight, you know, and yeah. To get up and do it all over again the next day. But it was all good. I really loved it there. It was really beautiful. And yeah, we made some good whiskey and I guess what there's, you know, whiskey's getting some attention, right?

Drew (00:46:58):
Yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Like I say, well, I do a I do a thing on Instagram called Bracketology where I post different whiskeys up against each other in a bracket and do March madness. Yeah. And you know, last year they won Bracketology you, of course they have a very RA rabbit group of, of fans. So they they, they piled in and, and made sure that they got their whiskey, the number one, but that was the Rick house ride that, that won Bracketology last year. So that's why I went, I was like, I'm going through that area. I gotta, I gotta see what this place is all about. Cuz I hadn't hadn't tried it before.

Lisa (00:47:38):
Yeah, yeah. Working, if your Ted was a wild ride, there'd be days he's like, what are you doing? I'm like, well, I'm, you know, working on this cash flow product with that cash flow product or something like that. And he is like, you know, cause we distilled every day, are you mashed distill you twice a day, every day. And, and you know, he is like, well, let's, you know, let's like figure this out and like, let's go to the wreck house. Like, all right, there's gonna be a good thing.

Drew (00:48:01):
Yeah. I like that. But

Lisa (00:48:02):
It really was all in research and development and it really was tremendously helpful because we did lay down so many different Mashables at first. Right. You know, trying to miss and trying that and yeah. The you know, so it was a pallet wise, right. To definitely expend ban your palette. You know, we were doing bloody butcher. We were doing another white that had a number on, I can't remember which white, it was specifically in a Hopi blue. There's lots of varieties of hopey blue, but we had one and, and, you know, we were doing a red, white, and blue whiskey. We were done all blue. We're done all red, we're done all white. Right. And but for pallet wise, breaking it down you know, and you know, and everything that I effed up while I was there you know, has taught me, taught me the mash bill.

Lisa (00:48:44):
I mean, not the mash bill, but the, you know, the protocol that I use now, I cook a lot cooler and longer. And it seems to work really well with the heirlooms. It doesn't throw a lot of corn oil. And when you throw a lot of corn oil, then it burns in the still, and you get these waxy notes and it's what people don't like about heirloom. Right? So you learn how by accident, you know, and day I had forgot to set my timer on my phone and hadn't checked in with the pot or like, or the cook, like I should have, and I was doing something else. And I remember I was thinking I was working on some vodka and, and it came back not just telling vodka, but doing some finishing and, and came back on, oh, no, like pull my phone out of my pocket, which I shouldn't have had in my pocket anyway, next to this stuff.

Lisa (00:49:28):
But pulling my phone out my pocket and like, oh no, the time's not on here. It's like, oh no, what time is it? Right. How long has it been in here? And then I look at it, it's like the temperature and the pots dropped. I'm like, oh, for Pete's sake. So I'm gonna go confess to Ted right away. I'm like, I really messed this up, but I decided to check the conversion on it. And it's the best conversion I've ever had really. And like, oh my gosh. And I check the again, because, you know, Ted and I being on winemakers, you are using refractometer on the, on the mass. Right. And, and I like run it up to him. Like he goes, I can't repeat what he said.

Drew (00:50:02):
It was good though. What am I

Lisa (00:50:03):
Looking at? What am I looking at? I said, this conversion is, and I said, Ted, I have to confess to, I'm like, just really messed this up. I let it go too long and it's too cold. And we start experimenting with that. Right. And holding it a little bit longer and cooler. And yeah. Had some, had some good luck with that. Right. So trans right now to, you know, we, that's the way I handle the protocol here. And the distillers that we have here use that one. And you know, when I go back to Kentucky to distill, cuz we're still laying barrels for widow Jane down at castle and key. Right. And I use that there. I've used it at another place. I don't know if I'm allowed to say here yet or not, but has even bigger firm renters than that. Right. So were from 120 gallon firm Mariners last year to close to 30,000 gallon firm. Marins last year. All the same protocol.

Drew (00:50:53):
Yeah. Wow. It's gotta be a tough job sometimes getting past all the non-disclosure agreements when you're talking to podcasters and newspaper people.

Lisa (00:51:08):
Yes. It's like barrel sourcing. So here's the thing about barrel sourcing that people dunno. We've been really transparent here at widow J when we can be, sometimes the people selling the barrels don't want you to know those distilleries. Don't want people to know that they're putting that much juice in the pipeline. Right. And so it's more about protecting our source than it is about protecting ourselves. Right. And and I understand that, you know, if it looks like you're selling all the whiskey in the world and you're putting maybe some things on allocation, it all of a sudden it's like, yeah, but you're selling off those barrels to another distill. Right. Maybe they don't, maybe they don't fit a flavor profile for them. Right. Maybe they don't hit that. Maybe they do have excess and they have shortages other, other plate. Right. You know, I'm not here to make that decision for them, but thank goodness they do. Yeah,

Drew (00:51:54):
Yeah.

Lisa (00:51:55):
Right. You know, but you'll get that odd lot. You don't get that odd phone call and not so much anymore. Right. Cuz everything's like a little tighter than it used to be. But you get that odd phone call and like, you know, I have 40 barrels of such and such and you, it may be a short lot. Right. And it may be coming straight from the distillery's like how can they have so few barrels that they're getting rid of, but they do, you know, they're managing their space. They need their workhouse space as well. You know, and if a certain product's not selling as well as another one or there's a Glu of a certain kind of whiskey, you know, they can certainly sell that off. But yeah, they don't want people to know. And I understand that.

Drew (00:52:29):
So when you arrived at widow Jane, did they already have quite a bit of whiskey in a warehouse in New York? Or were, have you been kind of sourcing along

Lisa (00:52:41):
New York, New York and Kentucky? Yeah. In fact that's how I got lured into this position, cuz my boss called me. Right. And, and you know, as an inquiry phone call right about this job and I told him no and he called me back three weeks later and he is like, I'm gonna fly up to Barton and take you to dinner. I want to talk to you. And you know, that's how, you know, he's telling me how much whiskey they have, what kinda stocks they have and what kind of whiskey they're ready, they're getting ready to buy. And you know, and maybe I have some, would some influence over buying those next plots. I'm like, okay, maybe I'm interested. I don't think I was that coin. I'm like, I think I'm coming to New York. Right? Yeah. And yeah, 10 minutes into dinner. I'm like, ah, I'm gonna go to work for this guy after all. And yeah, but I'd started my own consulting business cuz I had built preservation. Right. That was the project that drew it. I'd built preservation distillery and almost all but finished it and decided it was time for me to go out on my own. And that's when I started stains and monsters consulting.

Drew (00:53:41):
Okay. and I, so you were involved in fitting all of that distillery equipment into that, that little barn at preservation that, I mean three

Lisa (00:53:54):
Barns. Oh through, oh yeah.

Drew (00:53:56):
That thing is a, that thing is a work of art and a miracle. I don't know how you got all of that stuff into that one building the

Lisa (00:54:04):
Most, the most biggest part of that project, I'll tell you what was the drilling for water. Right. You know trying to find the water Wells was a, quite the escapade and then taking the floor out of those barn, all of the barn floors had to be taken out. They'd been poured you know, without anybody ever leveling the dirt. So some of the concrete was two inches thick. Someone was 17 inches thick. Wow. It just like, they just like leveled it, you know, so, you know, anyway, but yeah, taking all that concrete out and yeah, it was, it was quite the project, but it was fun. It was out in the country. Right. You know? Yeah. And it was, people were always stopping by the Barton guys at the time. Johnny Harve was a Barton and, and you know, Roger Henley and those guys and, and you know, they come out and somebody else would stop by or drew stop by and you know, so it was nice being the thick of things that way. But it was certainly time for me to go out on my own, you know, and not on my own for so long. Right. So I had a couple other clients when Sampson and Surry and that's the reason we agreed that I'd come on as a consultant and full time they could try me out and I could try them out. And

Drew (00:55:10):
Yeah. So I've heard you mention South Carolina before I live in Greenville, South Carolina,

Lisa (00:55:15):
Alex Anderson at Palmetto distillery. Yeah.

Drew (00:55:17):
That's, that's good. That's good to know because I, I haven't really gone down and talked to them before. And so now when I go on a tour there, they can say Lisa Wicker and I'll go there. She is again.

Lisa (00:55:29):
Yeah. And Brian and Trey are awesome. Brian and Trey, like they come to visit me at Huber when I was there, you know, and one of the women comes down and she goes, there are these two guys that are here. They'd like to see you. And they're like in a Cadillac with these big horns on the I'm like, oh Brian and Trey. Yeah. It's okay.

Drew (00:55:49):
Yeah,

Lisa (00:55:50):
Mine. Right. Yeah. No, they're great. They're great. In fact, it's a small world thing. There's a, a sandwich shop down this street here, right. In this really cool, like Airstream type trailer. And you know, our director operations here, Michelle and I were getting lunch one day and they had hand sanitizers said, Palmetto distillery on it. I'm like Palmetto distilling was like, you know, Palmetto distillery. And he goes, they're friends of mine. I'm like, well, they're friends with they're friends. They get around. Right. Yeah. They're hilarious. You're so stink and funny. Both of 'em. They're great. Yeah.

Drew (00:56:19):
I, I, I am so bad about going all over the world to go to distilleries. And I just recently went around to my first couple of South Carolina distilleries. It's just you, you're always looking out beyond and never looking in your own backyard. See what's around.

Lisa (00:56:36):
Yeah. They'll buy home that and see if they remember me or not. Yeah.

Drew (00:56:41):
Oh definitely. Yeah. That

Lisa (00:56:42):
Wasn't there long. Cause I ended up going to work for Tut, you know? So yeah. Yeah.

Drew (00:56:47):
So let's talk a little bit about widow Jane and kind of get into, first of all, the the name and the, all the branding on this was all established before you showed up, right? Yes.

Lisa (00:57:00):
Yes. I that's part of the reason too. I accepted this project cuz I inherited some absolutely fabulous things. They're not things but people yeah. Branding juice. Right. the corn had already been established. They'd already worked out the baby Jane. I just, you know, it was just hired to blow that project up a little bit. But yeah, so the bones here were so good. Ready. Right. I, we didn't have to reinvent the wheel. We just had to Polish it and move it along.

Drew (00:57:29):
Was there, what, what kind of things, cuz like if you said, when you went to George Washington distillery it was sort of the processes that had to be changed to improve the product. How much would you say the widow Jane whiskey has changed since you've gotten there?

Lisa (00:57:49):
Oh I don't know how to word this appropriately. Like less crafty you know, we're craft story, so we're more

Drew (00:57:58):
Polished

Lisa (00:57:59):
Craft distillery. Yeah. And, and that, some of that comes with the natural progression of craft distilling, you know, I, I'm a judge for ACSA American craft spirits association and the whiskey has come so far. Oh my gosh. You know, I've been doing that for nine years now. I think I got lucky and was accepted to do that early on because you know, cuz my wine background and my wine blending background. And so I, it was actually a snowstorm and they were short people bull and Steve beams, like I just told them that you could judge and I've been a judge ever since. But yeah. And so in the beginning there was just so many things that were so wrong and so many places. So this is just a general umbrella of craft distilling. Right. And I know there was some issues here that people didn't have the expertise that they needed for fermentation and, and understanding, you know, what, what was going on with mashes and those sorts of things, other things, you know, craft distilling, you put so much money into it at first.

Lisa (00:58:57):
You can also the man that train me make wine gave me the best advice ever. He's like, don't just drink your own juice. You're gonna start to like it. And you start to get at house palette and he thinks things are acceptable. Right? Yeah. And so then, you know, then there were, we went through the whole thing about small barrels versus large barrels and small barrels can be terrific. They can just be really great, but they take a lot of management, you know, if you just let them go, they go crazy. And then you've got this over this poor fermentation. People would distill it anyway. They wouldn't, you know, that was one of the hardest things as a consultant was like, you need to throw this smash out because it's not gonna make good whiskey. And they're like, but I've spent all this money on this smash, like yeah, but you don't wanna keep, spend the money on the distillation.

Lisa (00:59:38):
And then the barrel only to have, it's not gonna be good coming out the, you know, right. Sherick Dave, Sherick my mentor that put Woodford reserve together. He's always like bad in, bad out, you know? And, and you know, so trying to convince people, you gotta have clean, healthy fermentations and then, you know, appropriate distillations and appropriate cooperage and appropriate storage and all those things because whiskey is a sponge. Right. And you know, I'm a big believer in towar and whiskey and you know, but towar lends itself to being very romantic and sexy and fun, but towar can awesome mean

Lisa (01:00:13):
You can't store barrels in a place that had petroleum products in it before or something, you know you'll have all those off flavors. And so, you know, what are Jane followed natural progression of craft distilling, you know, they, they were this, you know, just in there with everybody else. Right. And so as people were learning and, you know, polishing things and, and getting a little bit more professional about you know, handling how, how to handle everything we've come along with the ride, you know, when Jane not been on the same wild ride.

Drew (01:00:41):
So how much of the distillate that is in there or whiskey that's in there is actually produced by widow Jane versus what is sourced?

Lisa (01:00:51):
I tell people that we have a split personality right now. We'll see if that every like, you know, comes back together, but you know, a major part, part of our program right now is sourcing and blending. Okay. For fortunately for us, we were at the right place at the right time with the recognition for American blended whiskeys. And people understanding that that's actually more than batting. Yeah. Right. Just rather than dumping and dumping. Right. That there's actually some, some work that goes into it. Also because our, our widow Jane water, then the other part of our personalities is the fact that, you know, we grow own corn. I inherited that as well. They'd already established the baby Jane it's across between WY valley and bloody butcher. They you know, so we're laying those barrels down. Originally we were thinking, you know, we're trying to get some age on them.

Lisa (01:01:37):
So some of those barrels I laid down in Kentucky, one of these days will repatriate everything to New York. Right. We're growing it to New York, that corn comes here and we distill that corn here. So it's all, you know, all Kentucky or all New York product here. But in the meantime environmentally, everything else, we needed to grow the corn closer to the source where laying barrels down till we can get our new to distill built. And that I used to say three years to repatriate everything and then COVID hit. Mm we'll see, we're back up and running the surveyors we're at again today. So we'll, you know, we're actually like that project is back off, you know, we're back on with that project again. And, but people even asking, what's the timeline I like, you know, as well as I do just, you know, there's, there's really no way to plan anymore.

Lisa (01:02:23):
You just move forward. Right. And yeah, so we put that part of the project too. So those barrels in Kentucky are getting some age on 'em. I'm, you know, there's some stuff that's pretty tasty in there and you know, but right now we're planning on getting a little bit more age on it. I don't know, you know, originally some of the thought was that we would you know, replace some of our tenure, but with the growth we've had and the success we've had with blending, I don't see us giving that up. Right. I don't, I mean, we may, I guess, but yeah, I don't think

Drew (01:02:54):
So. You think whatever you make in house will likely become a, another label?

Lisa (01:03:00):
Yeah. You know, I don't know. Quite frankly, I don't know the, this, even since the time that I've started so much has evolved and shifted, cuz you kind of respond to the juice rather than laying out the plan and making the juice force, forcing the juice into that plan. We're kinda let the juice guide us. Right. Yeah. It's how some of the product develop that happened here. Right. It's like, okay, we've got these, you know, we've got this, we have a really wonderful luxury of having some really old barrels. Some of the barrels are turning 19 years old this year. And so we've got all this spectacular whiskey. Right. And so out of that, it's like, okay, well we've got a little bit more here. You know, we've got some older whiskey going in our tenure. Right. And then now we have the lucky third, which is a blend of 13 and 14 year old juice and then vaults 14 and up. Right. And we did a 14 at first. Then we did a couple fifteens. I'm actually gonna pull it back to 14 again, because I need to balance some of those older barrels out. You know, so same thing, we're letting the whiskey dictate to us rather than us dictate the whiskey by looking at what we have and how we can continue to put the best use together.

Drew (01:04:05):
Yeah. So, no. Yeah. So with your 10, you trying to stay fairly close to the 10 year ages in what you're putting into it or do you end up with some older whiskey? Oh,

Lisa (01:04:14):
I trying to, but it keeps turning, turning, you know, it keeps getting older,

Drew (01:04:19):
You know, I was gonna say, I was gonna say, cuz I did a little nosing and tasting on this last night. And I said, I there's some maturity, definitely some maturity to this that I pick up those, those Oak characteristics in there. And it, as when we were talking about you know, going from a craft distiller to having a more polished presentation, this is to me, this has that kind of refined presentation to it that it tastes like a whiskey that has had time to age and, and find itself.

Lisa (01:04:54):
Yeah. One of the joys of this job is I've actually been able to work with my mentor. Right. there's a whole story behind that where he and I were on the payroll and didn't, I, he was on the payroll already. I was not. And we were both really good about keeping our sources, but we'd had lunch a couple times and he is like, yeah, I'm working on this project. And he didn't gimme all the details on it. And then I'm like, I got this phone call and I didn't give him, you know, like the names or anything, but I'm like, you know, this is what they're thinking and you know, anyway, and then one day he calls me and goes, I think we're working on the same project.

Drew (01:05:24):
Wow.

Lisa (01:05:25):
He said, somebody dropped your name today. My boss had dropped my name and he is like yeah, I know Lisa, you know, I'm her mentor. Right. And, and so anyway, so the good news out of that, as we got to work together, some in including buying some barrel lots, you know? And so one of the largest lots that we purchased was drinking younger than its age statement. And, you know, we moved those barrels. We experimented it a couple rec houses and put them in like north. So east, west positions, right. And people got busier and busier and had, didn't have time to accommodate, you know, all that sort of stuff anymore. So we move, moved them to a lower profile warehouse and they took off. And so what you're tasting that richness of age is the fact that the barrels actually caught up to their age statements and it makes a little more difficult to blend them.

Lisa (01:06:08):
You know, when they were a blank canvas and you could add some really mature barrels to some that were just clean, good whiskey. But now they're, you know, they all expressing their per personalities. And so it's a little bit getting a little bit crazier actually the last few weeks, I've had some 10 batches where I have to go back and please ask the warehouse group, please pull more samples for me cuz I can't get all these to balance. You know, getting, yeah, they're all getting some age on 'em. Right. And so yeah, it's fun. No, it's good.

Drew (01:06:37):
So are, are you buying them when they're like 6, 7, 8 years old and then finding your own way to eight them the rest of the way.

Lisa (01:06:45):
Yeah. Right. Really? You know, you just have to take what you can, you know, what's on the market these days. Not, I mean, I'm not saying when you, you know, compromise, we yeah, yeah. Anyway.

Drew (01:06:53):
Yeah. Well, I mean, there's,

Lisa (01:06:55):
I can't tell you the rest of it.

Drew (01:06:56):
Yeah. There's to, there's just tons of quality stuff there. So even, even with the exceptional amount of whiskey that's being sold these days, so, and so many,

Lisa (01:07:06):
No, I'm surprised too. The names that are popping up on the list. I can't, you know, I can't tell you who they are. Yeah. But you know, cuz we all sign those, you know,

Drew (01:07:14):
Ndas

Lisa (01:07:15):
A verbal NDA before we read a list when a broker sends it to you. But you know, it's, it's pretty, pretty amazing. What's what's out there in the pipeline. Yeah.

Drew (01:07:26):
Yeah. So when I, when I'm reading the label here I'm reading pure limestone parcel. What's that?

Lisa (01:07:35):
Did you pour any? Oh,

Drew (01:07:36):
I have it right here. Yes. It's I'm I'm letting it, it breathe. I, my, my scotch friends say you should let it breathe one minute. For every year. It was in the cast.

Lisa (01:07:47):
That is interesting. Cuz that's I have never, you know what, I've never heard that before. That is. I'm probably embarrassing myself to say that I've never heard it before, but that makes total sense. I tell people the way it let our 15 year old volts rest for at least 15 minutes.

Drew (01:08:00):
Well, I mean, that's what I love about talking about scotch and talking about bourbon and you know, American spirits versus because each of them can learn from each other. There's things that I hear on tours over there, then I'm like, oh, I've never heard that in the us. And then I get the same thing here that I'm like, you know they, they don't really pay attention to this or that because when you think of American age spirits, yeah. We all know that you know, most of this Kentucky bourbon for years was aged for 6, 8, 10 years, but they never put eight statements on the bottle. So you really didn't have to think in terms of years when you were looking at a whiskey like that.

Lisa (01:08:46):
Right.

Drew (01:08:46):
Yeah. So, all right. So you, you have some here as, as well.

Lisa (01:08:50):
I already drank mine.

Drew (01:08:51):
Did you? Okay. Yeah. So

Lisa (01:08:55):
You were talking, I was gonna cheers, but you were talking.

Drew (01:08:58):
Yeah. Okay. Sometimes the mouth just keeps, keeps on flapping. The thing I was gonna mention was about cuz what you do is you get these barrels and then you you use pure limestone mineral water. I'm a mineral water fan. When I go to when I go to restaurants, I like my sand Pellegrin or my Perea or, or whatever. And I know people who are like, oh, I can't drink that stuff that, that taste. And I get that, but I actually have grown to really like that taste yet. I think about when you're trying to proof down a whiskey, are you adding, is this mineral water? Does it have that minerally kind of flavor to it? And is that something that you planned for when you're picking your barrels?

Lisa (01:09:50):
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You know, when I was first told that they were proofing with mineral and I'm like, okay,

Drew (01:09:56):
Okay.

Lisa (01:09:57):
And, but you know, the first thing I did was test all the water. I tested the domestic water that was, you know, they were mashing with, I tested the mine water, I tested all the water. And the thing that surprised me the most is that it came back with a recipe that's almost identical to that, very famous French, mine, water that's or our mineral water that's in a green bottle. Okay. And almost identical. Right. The minerality on it is almost almost exactly the same. So yeah. I love mineral water. I don't understand the people who don't like it. Right. You know, but I, I, you know, we all have our, our different things, but it definitely the thing that surprised me the most is it triggers some paper notes that are very widow Jane. And it doesn't matter whether it's discipline, we've made ourselves or whether it's some of our sourced and blended whiskey.

Lisa (01:10:47):
It definitely makes it, you know, people like this is definitely widow Jane. Right. And you know, it's all towar, right. Where, where the neighborhood is and all that. But I know most it's the water and it, it like, especially with our sore stuff, it pops the cherry notes that are kind of in there anyway. Yeah. But it pops the cherry notes. It, you know smooths out the baking spice. And after that, you know, after I find those notes in a Whis, one of our blends, then, you know, everything, anything else goes after that. But yeah. Yeah, so it's certainly, and I tell people this all the time when I'm speaking, I'm like take a casting whiskey. We don't have one, we'll never have one because we have to put our water in it. Right. Or it doesn't turn into widow Jane. But take a cat, somebody else's casting whiskey and let some of that front is French mineral water go flat. Yeah. And proof that whiskey down with some not, not bottled water. Cause sometimes those bottled waters have been enhanced with minerals. Right. Make sure you've got some distilled water yeah. And something that's completely pure. And then cut your whiskey with that and then cut your whiskey with the flat French mineral water and see what the difference is. You'll be some surprised.

Drew (01:11:54):
Interesting. Yeah. I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna have to play around with that a little bit.

Lisa (01:11:57):
Yeah. And for me, my, for my palette too, you know, was a, it was a pleasant surprise cause I love, you know, minerality and wine. Right. You know? Yeah.

Drew (01:12:03):
And yeah, power of suggestion with this because when I noticed it last night, I wasn't picking any cherry up, but I'm picking cherry up today. The thing that really stood out to me was kind of that Oak little bit of tobacco E with, with some baking spice in there was really nice and then caramel and, and, and vanilla on top of that. Yeah.

Lisa (01:12:26):
We're definitely, you know, we're definitely a leather tobacco baking spice. You know, we have our, our list because, you know, we have those notes over in the necessarily in every single whiskey outside of the dark stone fruit. But you know, they certainly you know, have their patterns, right? Yeah.

Drew (01:12:43):
Oh, the cherry comes through on the pallet.

Lisa (01:12:45):
Yeah. Yeah. It's all my favorite players too, which is lucky, you know, it's the vanilla and the, and you know, it's all of it. Tobacco of the leather. Yeah. It's

Drew (01:12:54):
Got a little night a peppery, you get the Kentucky hug. There's nice little hug there on the finish. And So, so the main things that you look for when you're doing a blend, there's just like, if it doesn't have this, this or this

Lisa (01:13:10):
Mostly balance balance is first. Yeah. Right. We don't be too heavy on one note or another. Right. you know, some states present lovely, beautiful things. And they also present their own set of baseline challenges. Right. And so we're trying to blend that challenge out and enhance the everything else. Yeah.

Drew (01:13:33):
I heard you in a well let's before we do that let's talk about widow Jane, the brand where the name comes from and where you're getting your, your mineral water from.

Lisa (01:13:47):
Yes. The name comes from the widow Jane mine. We do not get our water from the widow. Jane mine, the widow Jane mine is part of the Snyder estate is part of the whole widow Jane's story. The century house historic property is up in Rosendale. We, you know, support them financially and, you know, with some man hours as well. The widow Jane mine, people can go visit, you can go up there, you can just walk into it, the acoustics, you know, they do concerts and things. Acoustics are great. And it's fun because it's a manmade cave. Right. They, they mind limestone out of it. Used it for the hardening age that comes out of limestone to harden cement. Yeah. And and eventually went outta business when Porter cement was invented because it was cheaper and it dried a lot faster. So, you know, kind of put the rose and Dale minds up our mind backs up on the same on the, on the widow Jane mine, because they're manmade. They don't, they don't cross over, you know, we hire the water engineers and like the widow Jane mine comes in here and the Rosendale mines come in here. Our mine is obviously under lock and key.

Drew (01:14:55):
Yeah. Yeah. You don't want people wandering around, messing with the water supply.

Lisa (01:15:00):
Yes, exactly. You know, we hold one of the only permits of it's kind in the state of New York for withdrawing a food grade product, you know, from from a cave.

Drew (01:15:08):
Wow. Because

Lisa (01:15:09):
If you're in the mushroom business, maybe you have one too, but yeah. You know, so of course for quality and everything, we have to, you know, have to guard that one a little bit, but yeah. So it's fascinating, you know, you see the, like I said, the one Cape comes in here, but cuz they were manmade, you know, they kind of overlap a little bit, but they don't share the space.

Drew (01:15:29):
Do, do we know why it was called the widow Jane mine?

Lisa (01:15:33):
No it's folklore. So we all know folklore, you know, from our college folklore classes based on truth, you know, it's just the retelling of the story. Snyder apparently was a terrible human being. He was the owner of the mine and Michelle's here and she could probably correct me if she has the, you know, the most updated, but it was definitely a woman that was in his life. Right. there's there was a little bit of

Speaker 5 (01:16:00):
They're all named

Lisa (01:16:01):
Jane Michelle's over here. Like they're a lot of women and they're all named Jane. Oh

Drew (01:16:08):
Yeah. Had a Jane fetish of some form.

Lisa (01:16:11):
Yeah. So it's yeah, definitely. Like I said, Folker is always based on truth, you know, but

Drew (01:16:16):
He wasn't dumping, he wasn't dumping bodies there or anything like that.

Lisa (01:16:20):
Yeah. But the retelling of the story, you know, it's it's but yeah, yeah. She, she haunts all of us in the very best way.

Drew (01:16:30):
Well, she got her, she got her name, she got her name all across the United States. So yes. That's, that's pretty good. Yeah.

Lisa (01:16:37):
And Michelle's still here. Michelle's been here for 10 years, you know, so she's, you know, she's like the keeper of the you know, the history and the

Drew (01:16:44):
Secret,

Lisa (01:16:45):
Everything she's laughing in the background, cuz it's been inventory day,

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
I

Lisa (01:16:50):
Sitting here talking to you and she's doing inventory. So yeah. You know but yeah, you know, the, the progression of the brand is it's got its own, you know, it's not that it's, it, it's just lovely. It really is. You know, there's been some ups and downs with the brand, but you know, it's always good to be a little bit notorious. Right. Right. And then then transparency and honesty is the next step. Right?

Drew (01:17:15):
Right. Exactly. Well, I know one of the, the sticky things was there was the, the lawsuit over the over the name or over the source where it was coming from, but it was one of those kind of things that we all go, you know, the guy gets burned at Starbucks drinking coffee, and you're like, come on, you gotta know that, you know? But, but you guys ended up winning that, that case, which which I think was, was great because people are getting so nitpicky the, these days about every little, the word on this and that, that it's kind of a win for sanity, I think.

Lisa (01:17:56):
Yes. And not, not to like be critical of the TTB either, but sometimes what we are required to put on the label, you know, we, we write everything as is it's supposed to be, but then trying to put it into our, the, our class and type and everything, you know, then there's some translations issues that go on. I've had this everywhere I've been. Yeah. Right. There's you know, the wins and the frustrations over labeling and what you wanna put on the label to tell the story and what the TTB will allow you to put on the

Speaker 3 (01:18:27):
Label.

Lisa (01:18:28):
Yeah. That is a universal true. I don't think any of my former bosses would mind me saying that, but you know, there were there, there were some days. Yeah. So there was a day. Well, I, can I tell you, I tell that story either cuz without his permission, but anyway, yeah. There was a day, a, a previous story where, you know, my boss is like, I do not wanna see you until we had have label approval. Right. And it was the person that was the designer and myself, you know, it's like, oh my gosh, you know, we're sitting there and holding our tongues cuz like, But we're looking at the same labels for different brands that have been approved. And they're like, well, you know, we're not gonna comment on previously approved labels like

Speaker 3 (01:19:10):
Mm,

Lisa (01:19:12):
Okay. All right. We know what we're working with, but yeah. And like I said, the people there are really good. They're just overwhelmed. You know, when I started craft distilling, there were 250 distillers in, in the United States and they're 25 in 11 years, 2,500 or so. Right. Yeah. And so trying to keep up with that, you know, and they're not, self-funded, you know, they have to be appointed by, I mean, Congress is that does their budget and things. So they are, you know, they definitely have some constraints that probably need to be reorganized. Yeah. That are not the fault of anybody that's working in those offices. It's just the way the system is

Drew (01:19:44):
Constructed. They, they probably see the name of a new craft politically. They see the name of a new craft distillery across their desk. And they're like not another one.

Lisa (01:19:55):
Oh, you know what, if I'm gonna throw anybody under the bus, let's talk brewers right. In all the breweries.

Drew (01:20:00):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So again, listening to one of your other interviews, we I heard you mention, I recently had Tom Rippy on as a guest. Oh yeah. And he, he is so fun to talk to. And of course they do the bourbon sessions over there and, and at the Rippy man, I,

Lisa (01:20:23):
I spoke there last, I spoke there last year, a year and a half.

Drew (01:20:25):
Did you? Okay. You, yeah, I did. You were, I did. You were you were telling the story or telling a story about one of the people that you find most interesting in in history who's from Lawrence

Lisa (01:20:39):
Telling.

Drew (01:20:40):
Yeah. So, so tell a little bit about my spirit

Lisa (01:20:43):
Animal.

Drew (01:20:44):
Is she okay?

Lisa (01:20:46):
Yeah. I also quick to correct people and be like, oh my gosh, you know, you're like on the cutting edge of women and distilling like, no, I'm not

Lisa (01:20:56):
Like, yeah, you look back at people, you look back at history and how many women ran their distillers after their husbands passed away or disappeared or whatever, you know? And Mary dolling is one of those people. And I remember Steve beam telling me the originally right. Cause I can't remember. I Steve's related to everyone. Right. Cause his mother was a dad. His dad was a beam, so he is related to everyone. But there was some family tie there, but you know, he is telling this, oh, I know it was one of his relatives was her distiller. And you know, she picked up during prohibition and moved to Mexico and then boot lagged back into the United States. Yeah. And I love the fact that she loved distilling so much, you know, whether it was running the company or whether it was the money or whether it was the whiskey or whatever about it, something appealed to her that she would instead of just staying put in Kentucky that she would everything up and go. And yeah. You know, and because people ask me about that, it's like, don't you miss Kentucky? Like of course I miss Kentucky. Right. But this project, there's not another project like this. Yeah. You know? And yeah. You know, and I love, I just love that whole story. Like I would've, you know, if there's somebody I could go back in history and meet, you know, like she must have been feisty as hell. Well,

Drew (01:22:09):
And she kept that distillery running and that distillery ran into the 1960s. And I think was part of the reason that they made bur that they codified bourbon as an American spirit because they wanted to stop having Mexican bourbon

Drew (01:22:27):
Yeah. Coming across the border. And so I think that was pretty much the end for I don't know I was doing some research into into country music's history too. And it would've been an interesting place to be because at the same time there was a radio station down there where the Carter family would they lived down there and they would do broadcasts from there. And they were your channel across the United States. You could hear them all the way from California to the east coast. Oh, interesting. And it was because in Mexico, right on the border, you're right in the middle and they didn't have any laws to say that you couldn't blast your power as strong as you wanted to. And so that's how the Carter family kept their popularity because they were broadcasting outta here. But they would say, and, and this would be interesting to know if, while Mary dialing was there, if if her still were humming country music, because they said everything was rattling down there, anything that was had a, it was pushing out so much power as a radio station that, that people were hearing country music coming out of all sorts of things that were just vibrating.

Lisa (01:23:44):
So that's interesting. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. I love that

Drew (01:23:49):
Fun, fun stories there. So but yeah, I mean, it's it's really interesting to see when you're talking about women in distilling. As I do my research, I hear stories of of course doing 10 sea whiskey. We can look at George Dickel was passed from when he, when he died, it went to his wife and he specifically had told his wife to sell the business, but she didn't. And same with Nelson's Greenbrier. Nelson's Greenbrier when oh, I didn't

Lisa (01:24:22):
Know that about Nelson's.

Drew (01:24:23):
Yeah. When Charles Nelson died, it went to Louisiana and we ran it. She he didn't tell her as far as we know to stop and she just kept running it all the way up to prohibition. So you got stories like that, which are more modern, but you go back to like scotch whiskey. I can go back and, and talk about car whiskey. And they were the, she had put the she would put the red flag out to let all the moon shiners around in the area, know that the tax man was coming up to her to her property. So she was like the signal and she had a, still that she ran in her kitchen, but when she found out that the excise man was coming, she would hide it and then run the red flag up. So if you look at the branding on the, the bottle, it has a picture of her with her flag. Oh, that's

Lisa (01:25:17):
Yeah. That's awesome.

Drew (01:25:18):
Yeah. So, well,

Lisa (01:25:19):
You know, distilling was a hearth tour, right. It was a cooking tour. So, you know, and people didn't keep a lot of written records, but there was, you know, there's out there to know that women did a lot of the distilling. I sat on a panel at Mount Vernon with like there were 11 or 13 distillers. It was great. It was a distilling reunion that Steve put together and Becky Harrison and I were sitting together on the panel. Right. You know, and, and she, we were talking about it cause, you know, people are like, oh, you know, Becky and Lisa. Right. And, and she's like, you know what? She said, you know, women were already doing the distilling. And then when the toys started getting bigger, you know, she said, if laundry was artisanal, men would do it too.

Lisa (01:26:00):
And I tell her, I said, I'm gonna use that line, but I'm gonna always give you credit for it. Cause she brought down the house S dying left. Right. You just like, you know, it's just like, yeah. And you know, but there was no cash, you know, United States didn't have a lot to, you know, you could barter with it, right. It could either be medicine or you could barter with it for goods or you could keep your grain from going bad. You know, there was so many different re reasons, you know, if the water wasn't fit to drink, right. Mostly beer, but beer goes bad. Yeah. You know, so you can, it's a way to keep wine from going bad beer from going bad grain from going bad. Right. And, and, and fruit. Right. You know, all the fruit brandies and everything, it's a, the ultimate way to preserve something. Right. And then have something of value of some kind of, you know, like now call it value, added culture. Right. But you know, it kept you from losing your entire, you know, crop or whatever, if you cut to the tail end of it and needed to distill some of it. But yeah, it's

Drew (01:26:54):
Good. Yeah. It's it, it is interesting to look back on history and the hard part about writing the history of whiskey is, is that the women's role, enslaved people's role, all that stuff will never be really uncovered because it's because nobody felt it was important to write about back then. It's hard enough to find about men distillers back then, because it was just, it was something you did to you save your your crops. And so nobody was seeing themselves as some kind of a historical figure.

Lisa (01:27:31):
Steve had some evidence, oh gosh, he's gonna kill me. If this isn't a hundred percent accurate. He had some evidence that Miller's wives were the first ones to start writing down mash bills. You know, cause they'd end up with all the extra grain like here, honey, here's all the screen, figure out what to do with it. Right. And

Drew (01:27:46):
Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me.

Lisa (01:27:48):
I should probably mention that. Cause I can't remember off the top of my head where he found that

Drew (01:27:51):
Information. I forget I'm so bad with names and I should be good with historical names cuz I talk about history all the time. But the woman, I think her last name was carpenter that was doing sour mash had written down her husband's formula for making sour Ash whiskey after he passed away. And she ran her business for her farm for years after that. And this was all pre Dr. James C Crow, so. Right, right. You know? Right. So yeah. I mean, again, we can find little bits of that, but it's just gonna be people digging through family records and maybe if somebody wrote something down, you'd be able to find it so. Right. Yeah. We'll talk, we'll wrap up here and, and talk a little bit about your association with with heaven hill. So this is this is brand new, right? You are you're part of a bigger family, a Bardstown family. You pretty bigger

Lisa (01:28:43):
Family. Yeah. It's very exciting. Right. they're, you know, we're keeping everything as is for now. Right. I still have my same bosses in the Samson and story organization. In fact, there was a nice article today in the industry news, you know, about with Robert and won Robert ERO and Juan Rivera you know, staying at the helm of Sampson and Sury and keeping our brands intact and our people intact and seeing what we can do together, you know, it's I think we, it floored some people because having held my brands and labels, not distilleries. Right. And but for personally, I couldn't have picked a better, you know, out of a whole pile of people that could possibly have purchased us. I couldn't have picked a better partner for our team. I, you know, I look forward to get every, everyone I was able to take my production team.

Lisa (01:29:34):
A couple months ago with ACSA American crafters association was in Louisville and, you know, and because doesn't mean Kentucky does everything right. But it's like, if you're doing wine, you go to Napa, right. Or you go to France or whatever, and it's more about the culture than it is really even, you know? And so I was, you know, we were able to expose them to some of the history and culture there and now we'll be able to do the whole, you know, the whole team will be able to experience some of that, you know, and be able to bring back the best parts of that here, you know, and, and, or make some different decisions based on what we've learned from there. You know? And so I'm looking really looking forward to it. It you know, we'll just kind of see what happens is, you know, the two organizations navigate this partnership, but I couldn't be more excited.

Lisa (01:30:19):
You know, I had so many coincidence is like coming up to it after I knew, you know, I wasn't able to share it with anyone and yeah. You know, and even, you know, even sat, sat on the plane on the way back at Christmas, a really delightful woman. I, we have this great conversation and I find out that she's childhood friends with one, you know, pure children and, and, and you, you know, so anyway, I kept having these things happen, right. It's like, oh my gosh, this is an O right. And yeah, it just, it, it couldn't have worked out any better.

Drew (01:30:54):
Well Lisa, thank you so much for coming out. Thank you for sharing some some window Jane with me and, and letting me

Lisa (01:31:01):
Yeah. You got Christine to thank for that.

Drew (01:31:03):
Very good. Yeah. She's been great to be

Lisa (01:31:05):
Honest and straight on this, all this stuff. So

Drew (01:31:07):
We, we all needed Christine in our lives. She we

Lisa (01:31:10):
All need Christine. I've been blessed, been grateful,

Drew (01:31:13):
Staying on top of stuff. Fantastic. But it sounds like if we meet face to face that I have lots of little back stories that I, I can pick up from you from the, the points where we're like, I don't know if I can talk about that. Yeah.

Lisa (01:31:28):
And I don't mean, I don't mean to do that. I just get chatty and then

Drew (01:31:31):
Just like, oh, you're not sitting. It's good to protect others as well. So yeah. Fantastic. Well, I I wish you much success and and thanks again for, for coming on the show and, and telling is your story.

Lisa (01:31:45):
Thank you for the invitation. Yeah. I hope we crossed paths soon.

Drew (01:31:48):
Yeah, absolutely. And if you wanna learn more about Lisa and widow Jane, just head to widow jane.com. And if you wanna learn how to become a better whiskey taster, and maybe even try your hand at blending, then head to whiskey-lo.com/members and sign up for my free weekly newsletter. Not only will you get links to my latest youtube.com/whiskey lore tasting videos. If you'll also receive a free printable flavor wheel along with printable tasting notes. So you can up your palette and keep track of your own growth on your own whiskey tasting journey. That's at whiskey-lore.com/members. I'm Drew Hannush. And until next time, cheers and SL Giva whiskey Lords of production of travel fuels life, LLC.