speaker-0: If you love bourbon, if you love whiskey, you're going to love these conversations. So make sure you subscribe to the bourbon lens starting now. Welcome back to another episode of the Bourbon Lens with your host Jake and Scott. And you all just missed one of the funniest things as Chris was changing between glasses before we got going here. So sit back and buckle into the latest episode of the Bourbon Lens. We are excited to welcome Chris Burke, co-founder, master distiller of Cathedral Ledge here to the Bourbon Lens podcast. You might not know where that is. We didn't know where that is, but we're going to find out more together. So Chris, thanks for hanging out with Scott and I this evening.

speaker-1: Thanks for having me.

speaker-0: Yeah, really, really pumped. Not often we get to talk to distillers from the Northeast and especially New Hampshire. So really excited to hear your all story, but you you said it was warm today. you know, was it shorts weather at least in New Hampshire?

speaker-1: It was in the distillery. Yeah, it was about 10 this morning. We got up to 35, so pretty mild February day.

speaker-2: stilling weather.

speaker-0: It is good to still in weather. was, uh, we got up to 54 today, but they're calling for tornadoes tomorrow. such as this life here in the valley. Oh man. Uh, but, uh, really excited. Uh, so I've seen cathedral edge pop up a few different places. Shout out to Tyler. I'm doing a lot of leg work on your all's end to make that happen. I saw it on whiskey weather. I've seen it on a whiskey trip. So shout out to the good people that have been able to try the whiskey.

speaker-1: No, that's no good.

speaker-2: Never.

speaker-0: I've not seen the follow-up content on it, but I know I've seen the bottles. So with that being said, we always like to give our guests the opportunity to tell us a little bit about your old operation. A couple of things I would like to highlight in that is the name. How'd you all get the name? And then, you know, to, you know, a little bit about the still. I'm a nerd about that. So I just love to know those things, but you let it rip. What's your elevator pitch for cathedral edge?

speaker-1: Well, we're New Hampshire's only organic distillery. We're a true grain to glass distillery. We work with a 300 gallon pot still. ⁓ Bridgetown Brew in Oregon made it for us. ⁓ Cathedral Ledge is a rock formation and we have a beautiful view right out the back of our barn. So that's how we named it.

speaker-0: Well, that makes it super simple. And why don't you all get started distilling?

speaker-1: We started in the fall of 2020.

speaker-0: Okay. So y'all are right, right on the cusp of like everything kind of H.

speaker-1: It's just coming together, yeah. It's been... We planned for four years, we committed our life savings, and about ten minutes later that virus broke loose. And it's been a heck of a ride ever since.

speaker-0: Yeah, we all know what Verona did for everybody. And so why distillation, right? Why distillery?

speaker-1: You know, I was in finance for most of my career and I got tired of that, got tired of pushing papers around and wanted to something more tangible. My wife and I have always liked cocktail culture and I thought about a bunch of different businesses, but we always just kept coming back to this one.

speaker-0: No, that's cool. you took cocktail culture. What's your favorite cocktail?

speaker-1: You know, I really like Manhattans. It's not something fancy, but it's just a classic for a reason. And I particularly enjoy it with our rye whiskey. It's a nice cocktail.

speaker-0: That was, that was going to be my next question is, you do it with bourbon weeded? Scott's a big. ⁓

speaker-1: Always ride for me.

speaker-0: Always rock. It's a bigger espresso martini guy right now. Perfecting his, his new found love for espresso martinis.

speaker-1: You know, I've been known to have a revolver every once in a while, but not necessarily an espresso martini.

speaker-2: I learned today or yesterday why it's called a revolver. y'all know this?

speaker-0: I don't even know what a revolver is.

speaker-2: Well, apparently the first person that created it made it with bullet bourbon or bullet rise. Sorry. And they called it the revolver and I totally would have never thought that I would have thought a revolver had been around forever, but I didn't fact check it, but maybe chat GPD can, ⁓ fact check me, but yeah, I was kind of surprised. No clue.

speaker-0: So for the uneducated people in the room, me, what is a revolver?

speaker-1: It's basically a variant of an espresso martini, but you're going to use whiskey instead of vodka.

speaker-0: ⁓ okay. Well, easy enough. Easy enough. We like whiskey more than vodka on this podcast anyway, hence the name of the podcast. Now, do you all distill only brown spirits or do you do the whole plethora, white, clear and brown?

speaker-1: Yeah, we do some clears as well. made vodka today and we have a number of infused vodkas. We have a couple of gins that have been very well received and I certainly like my gins as well as my whiskeys. So I tell people the reason I own the tallest vodka column in New Hampshire is that I like good gin. And of course you need a good base to make a good gin. So that's how we do it.

speaker-0: Scott's a gym guy. So Scott asked your gym questions while you got them.

speaker-2: feel like we're hearing that more more frequently. Like there's a lot of people coming out and saying, a big gin drinker. And it's always like the whiskey people too. So there's kind of a common thread there.

speaker-1: ⁓ I like flavor, right? and it comes from the plants, whether it's, whether it's a grain based whiskey or gin.

speaker-0: So are you all a kind of more like heavy botanical? Are you more like citrusy type of gin?

speaker-1: Yeah, it's a bit, our gins are botanical. ⁓ we try to be well balanced and whatever we do. ⁓ you're going to taste the Jennifer it's Jen, but it's not going to be like, you know, it shouldn't be like getting hit in head with a two by four. It's a, it's supposed to be far. Yeah.

speaker-2: Christmas tree.

speaker-0: If it's Christmas vacation, you might want to get hit with a Christmas tree, but that's about the only time when you're watching Chevy Chase unwrap this Christmas tree every year.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: The sap dude, every time when he's in thumbing through the catalog in bed and he's like ripping out things and smacking his wife with the magazine, that just gets me. I miss comedy like that, but anywho. ⁓ All right. So one thing that's really important, Scott and I've talked about this a lot over the years is the bottom and bond act, right? We see big guys do it, but it's really important from a craft whiskey perspective, right? Because it gives you all the credence. Like you have the. ⁓ the bill of rights when it comes to, to whiskey making at that point, right? So how did you all, you know, you said you had a plan to, kind of get this four year plan to get this going. Was it always bottomed and bond first or where's there smaller iterations before that? Walk us through kind of the timeline and the plan to get the product out in the marketplace.

speaker-1: Yeah, there were definitely releases before, but I would tell you when we built our business model and planned it out, Bottle and Bond was kind of the goal that was there from day one. Let's get to the four year. And it seemed like, you know, a lifetime away. We literally planned for four years before we put a shovel on the ground. And then to, you know, sit out the distillery and then start cooking and have four year old product that we were ready to share. It's been a long time.

speaker-0: Yeah, no, no kidding. So you also mentioned grain to glass. Are you all farming on your house property as well? Are you?

speaker-1: We're not farming. Yeah, we source as local as we can. Being organic, our supply chain is more limited than I wish it was, but we just keep working our supply chain inward. But we buy our grains regionally.

speaker-0: Hmm. And, you have a very specific type of rye whiskey or rye that you all use. Can you break down what a Donko is?

speaker-1: Yeah, Donko's a Harriett's varietal. One of our farmers introduced it to us and we like it, so we've stuck with it.

speaker-0: Okay, simple answers. I'm all for that. So let's talk a little bit about these. Scott, which one do you have in your glass right now? That's what we'll go with.

speaker-2: Well, I just started nosing the the raw because I mean, it is it is definitely a unique.

speaker-0: Well, and since it's Chris's favorite Manhattan maker, like let's start with the rye whiskey. Go backwards.

speaker-2: So I sat down with it a little bit ago and I was like, yeah, I didn't get the mash bills, but I had a sneaking suspicion that this one contains some corn in it.

speaker-0: So 54 % of the rye, 34 % corn, 12 % malted barley. I do like 12 % malted barley. You don't have to use enzymes if you don't want to, you're going to get all that reaction. So it makes a really fun distillation perspective. So how'd y'all land on this mash bill? Was it something you found in an old cookbook or something that you just kind of did a bunch of recipes and you found something you liked?

speaker-1: It's really ⁓ just an amalgamation of classic recipes. With the whiskeys, we did not set out to recreate a certain style. We just said, let's go with some classic rainbills, our water, our yeast, our equipment, our rick house, and we'll see what we get. Thinking was we'll adjust as needed and we've been pretty happy with it. So we haven't really done a lot of adjusting. Certainly tweaked our process and optimized yeast pitching and whatnot.

speaker-0: And so a lot of people don't know like, ⁓ when you're, when you're creating pot still whiskey, right? You have, you're cutting your own whiskey. like, when you think about that, like how long did it take you all to kind of dial in, you know, your heads, hearts and tails to be able to feel comfortable about what you were putting in the barrel.

speaker-1: You know, it took a while. It's a little bit of a, it's all a giant leap of faith, to be honest, right? And nobody has eight years to make one barrel in weight and see how it turns out. So you have to, it's always kind of a work in progress and you keep learning as you go and just hopefully get a little bit better as you go.

speaker-0: Yeah. So let's, let's talk about the raw whiskey. I've put my nose in this thing. Scott's put his nose in it. Scott, what are you getting? What'd think?

speaker-2: Yeah, so I'm getting like this like root beer candy nose on it. I don't know if it's just like herbal-y. It's like herbal and orange. or kind of like two of the big things for me. It's like the orange oils, like almost like when you're making a cocktail and you, you know, peel the rind and the orange. That, how your fingers kind of linger with that for a while.

speaker-0: get that I also get a little bit of that multiness right that that high higher are multi content leans to some of that that grain forward note which I like ⁓ it's a grain product I want to be able to smell and taste the grains as I go through myself personally and ⁓ huge fruit like tropical fruits I'm like I'm getting a little bit of like like apricot or that's not tropical, but like a little bit of pineapple or like papaya even those mango. It's really fruity to me. So I do love the nose is really approachable from that perspective. And I took a sip of it. I've not really kind of like really thought about the flavor profile, but I think the mouthfeel was, was really nice from the first sip that I took.

speaker-2: I thought actually one of my palette tasting notes was that it feels very malty. So I mean, it does, I don't get a lot of it on. Like on the nose. think the nose is, is pretty much the like root beer herbal, but then definitely for the palette, it's got like that multi-characteristic. It's very nice.

speaker-0: Yeah, it's really approachable. So Chris, like you've tasted many of your barrels and you've helped create this blend of Bollin and Bond product right here that we're tasting. Like, what do you get? What do you tell the customer to expect when they're picking up your rye whiskey?

speaker-1: Well, I usually describe it as a civil rye. You know, there's guys out there doing 90 plus percent rye in the grain bill. And if that's what you like, enjoy it. But this doesn't have as much bite as some, it's still, you know, as you, as you finish, you're going to get that, you just kind of rolled a pumpernickel and you experience the grain. But you're right. know, orange root beer up front. Absolutely.

speaker-0: Yeah. I can see why this would work in a variety of cocktails, honestly, whether it's an old fashioned, a Manhattan, it just guys are really good overall flavor profile that would work, you know, from, from that perspective. It does have a nice warming to it. Even though it's a hundred proof at the bottom, but it warms you kind of throughout as you drink it. And I think that's, that's a nice characteristic, especially as we're drinking here in February. It does that, that warming sensation is pretty nice as well. I don't know. I'm just thinking about this a lot because it's so different. It's such a unique rye like mash bill like that. You, actually know, right? I think a lot of times we see that these lower rye mash bills, you're kind of guessing, is it 51 % is it 60 % like knowing this it's like

speaker-1: It's just.

speaker-0: It's interesting. It's making my mind go in like a million different directions.

speaker-1: So you mentioned you're curious about stills and we, ⁓ all of our whiskies are, we do grain and stripping runs. So we really try to lean into the grain forwardness through our process. It's a, you know, it's a commitment, right? You've got to be very careful with your heat. We're set up for 10 PSI steam plant. So it's 239 degrees to the top of the cycle. We have a very powerful agitator on it. You gotta go slow and steady or else you're gonna scorch it. Nobody wants scorched whiskey.

speaker-0: No, I think it's fun like adopting like more of a Scotch style or Irish style, like on grain, you know, first prospect. Like I think that's a really interesting thing to do too, right? They've obviously been creating good whiskey for a very long time. No, that, that, that's cool. So the other question I have, are using full format barrels or are you using small format barrels? What's that? Love that. Love that. That's big.

speaker-1: Yeah, I think so. 53 gallon barrels

speaker-0: That's a big, that's a big thing. A lot of craft will go, I got to go 15 or I got to go 30 just to be able to get all the flavor, extract it.

speaker-1: Yeah, you know, you can accelerate extraction, right? By increasing your surface area per gallon, but you can't accelerate maturation. I just, I don't believe it. I've heard every theory from, you know, heavy metal music and, know, whatever. There's some interesting theories out there. just think maturation comes from time. I do think heat cycles matter, right? You're pushing the liquor in and out of the wood, but mostly it takes time. And if you're, if you change the ratio of surface area to the gallons of liquid, your maturation and your extraction are not going to be on the classic schedule. And so one's going to outpace the other. And I'm just not a huge fan of that. We went with 53 from the get-go. And I told you, we weren't trying to recreate it. It's somebody else's whiskey. The one place we really hedged our bets. I couldn't decide whether I wanted to use char three or char four barrels. And so we were laying them down in both, because I didn't want to wait years to find out I chose the wrong one. And when we finally had some mature whiskey, you know, we, we, thieves samples and we proved them out and we did some blind tasting with friends and family employees. And about half the people chose the four and half the people chose the three. And then I did a 50 50 blend and it was unanimous. Everybody preferred the blend. So I know single barrels, all the rage and we, have some single barrel releases, but this is double barrel whiskey. 1-3, 1-4, 50-50. And that's what we really prefer.

speaker-0: But, but you know, that's, that's a fun thing, right? Because like, as long as it's the same season, know, distillation and all of that, like it doesn't matter what the barrel is as long as it's, you know, the same distillation run, right? Like if it goes into two barrels, that's a fun way to mess with like bottom and bond, right? Like to, create flavor nuances.

speaker-1: So I don't know you'll be able to pick this up, but like we really leaned into on the bottle on bond act. So we actually labeled the season that it came from. Nice. Yeah, we just, you you got to put a batch identifier on there anyway. So we might as well do one that has a nod to the classic origin of the act.

speaker-0: Yeah, no, I think that's we, love bottling bond. Scott's a huge bottle and bond fan. ⁓ He pledges allegiance to bottle and bond every morning.

speaker-2: So is this a four, five, six year? What's the age on this one?

speaker-1: This is a little over four.

speaker-2: Yeah.

speaker-0: It's nice. I mean, that's the thing. Like even though it's four years old, like it's gotten nuance to it. It's got, ⁓ but I also think that's because we're so used to everything being clean columns, still distill it. Right. I think there's the, the artistry of pot distillation creates unique flavor profiles and it can be fattier or it can be thinner depending on how you're cutting it and running it that specific day, what the baromatic pressure is and yada, yada, yada. It just creates. fun flavor profiles and it makes it feel more depth than just clean collar runs all the damn time.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, I like it. You know, I like pot still whiskey. I like to taste the grain, you know. Yeah, I say it about all our products. We like to let the plants be the stars. So we're organic. We don't use artificial flavors, colors, preservatives or sugars in any of our products. And for whiskey, that doesn't sound that crazy. Some people use artificial coloring, but not many. But we have a line of infused vodkas, but we don't just, you know, squirt in artificial flavoring. We use 80 pounds of wild blueberries in our blueberry vodka. That's just how we do it. It takes three weeks. It's okay. ⁓

speaker-0: So you're not using natural flavors or red 73.

speaker-1: Nope, I'm using. So I love New Hampshire, but everybody knows Maine has the best blueberries. So we got those tiny little suckers and it takes about 6 million of them to make it. I'm guessing it's a number. It takes 80 pounds. wow.

speaker-0: That's crazy. I'm not a vodka drinker, but that's just interesting to, ⁓ to think through of just like these dumping that distillate over the berries and just letting them infuse and soak. That's, you do that in a steel steel container? How do you do that?

speaker-1: Stainless steel, we never put spirits on plastic. Yeah. We just never do it.

speaker-0: Yep. I'm with you on that. Um, all right. So I'm to change gears here where we've talked a little bit about the ride, but I think I've found my favorite of the three and I drank the weeded bourbon next. And I have to say that is delightful. I don't know, Scott, if you've had a chance to nose that and try it, but the weeded bourbon with the 69 % corn, 19 % wheat, 12 % multi-barley fruity on the nose, fruity on the pallet. fruity all around with corn sweetness. It's really kind of balanced. ⁓ this is a very nice weeded bourbon. And the one thing I like about it, I'm so used to like that rich, creamy note that a lot of people get like that cream of wheat cereal note on, on, on weeded bourbons. That's not here. So it's unique and different. And I'm, all for unique and different, like be a weeded bourbon, but be your own weeded bourbon. Like you don't need to recreate old Fitzgerald. Like there's enough of that in the world. Like be uniquely New Hampshire, right?

speaker-1: Uh-huh.

speaker-2: He said fruit, but really the only fruit I'm getting and that's it's just on the nose. It's like. What do you get? Like when you get a sundae, it's got like that straw. Yeah, like it's like almost like strawberry preserves. Like where you can kind of put that on like banana split.

speaker-0: strawberry comp You're really reaching into like your mental Rolodex because I don't feel like you're going to Dairy Queen and getting a banana split very often my man

speaker-2: Maybe it's just open in a jar of strawberry jam. ⁓

speaker-0: It's like that balance of graham cracker and, ⁓ Like I think of like New York cheesecake. That's kind of what I'm getting. Like it's a little bit of that creaminess that you get from that with like a preserve or a jam that gives a really strong fruity vibe. And then that graham cracker underneath is the nose for me. And then the, the palette, think matches it kind of one for one.

speaker-2: So, has like a nice little like maple vanilla, like kind of finish, kind of lingers.

speaker-0: Be honest to have not drank a bad one. So like that, congratulations. You made good whiskey.

speaker-1: Thanks, S-

speaker-2: We talk about pot still, and I think it's got some of the characteristics of the pot still, but it doesn't have that pot still like funkiness that we always talk about. think Jake and I know what it means when we talk, but like it doesn't have that. It just has like more body for a whiskey that you wouldn't expect, you know, four or five, six year old whiskey. wouldn't expect it to have a lot of body, but this does. It's like viscous mouthfeel. I think that's where it really benefits from the pot still.

speaker-0: That's like crème brûlée, you said like maple and vanilla? Like crème brûlée on the back end of that, on that. ⁓ So, so having this right. do you do the three and four with this as well? Or is this all three? Okay. So you're kind of consistent.

speaker-1: Our whiskey is, we have some, we do barrel strength, single barrel releases, but all of our other products are two barrel blends.

speaker-2: That's very unique. That's very unique. Obviously, it's probably very time consuming trying to match up those pairs and, you know, have them balance each other. But I don't think I've really heard much of that. Like, yeah, we're going with. going with X and Y. We're adding X and Y and making Z which are, you know, A plus whiskey.

speaker-0: Like it's fun, right? Like this is, ⁓ this is making whiskey fun, right? It's not the same thing over and over again. It's just something unique and different. And I enjoy that. feel like it's so easy to pick up a bottle right in front of me to the left of me, wherever. it's similar. This is fun because it's different. So we'll get to the bourbon in a second, but just a question for you, like from a consumer perspective, how many states are you in? What's your primary sales driver? How are people getting the word out about Cathedral Edge?

speaker-1: So we're mostly in New Hampshire. Technically, we just got distribution in Massachusetts and we're just starting to get placements. So that's very new. We are online and we do direct to consumer to 45 states and really our marketing strategy. I'm not a marketing guy. ⁓ We bought a nice piece of land out of the main strip in a tourist town and we put up a traditional timber frame barn and People just come in because some of them are just curious about the barn. We have people come on the tour and say, I don't drink, but I want to see this timber frame from the inside. And they're very welcome because I'll talk about the timber frame as much as anybody wants. The other thing we do is we do a lot of farmers markets. ⁓ We actually changed the legislation. It wasn't legal for distilleries to go to them when we started. But when we want to meet people who care about local and organic, they're in the park at the farmers market. We do hundreds of them a year. We'll roll six, seven crews on a Saturday. And you know, it sips the lips. I don't want to talk people into buying my stuff. I want to give them a sample and have them choose what they like.

speaker-0: I mean, amen to that. ⁓

speaker-2: to go to a farmers market and pick up some booze?

speaker-0: No kidding. It'll make it'll make buying my like USDA organic prime cut beef a lot easier to palette.

speaker-1: And we're out there with the people selling beef and fresh eggs and produce and bread they bake that morning. You're surrounded with good people and it's a great way to start your day.

speaker-0: Yeah, I, ⁓ I'm in my farmer's market era. Like I do enjoy a good farmer's market. And then I get suckered in cause then I'm like, ⁓ I need to like subscribe to this guy's thing or egg release or what vegetables are, you know, in season. And then I'm like potentially buying like 50 pounds of Brussels sprouts that I don't know if I'm going to eat in time before they go out.

speaker-1: Like everything, it's all about moderation. Pace yourself.

speaker-0: Correct. Yeah. But you know, Scott, how many times have we heard like a craft distillery? The first thing they do is they have to change the legislation like to fit their unique market. We saw that in Indiana. We've seen it in Ohio. Uh, they continue to change the legislation here in Kentucky even. Right. Um, so it's so cool that like people who are passionate about what they're passionate about can go in and make those plays to be able to get their story out because ultimately You're an entrepreneur, right? And you want people to hear your story and try your product. And it's great that people are kind of getting out of your way to be able to do that.

speaker-1: Yeah, you know, I've never written a law before. And we worked with the guild and they, you know, got it introduced. But we went and testified before the Senate and the House at the Capitol. We sent letters to our legislators and we entertained the blue team and the red team. We had them in separately. It turns out one of the few things they agree on is they both like to drink. So we just had to explain to them that, you know, breweries and wineries could go to the markets, but distilleries couldn't. You put it in context, it was pretty well supported.

speaker-0: I just love, I mean, it's such an American like dream type situation, right? Just kind of hearing you, it's like, this is what I wanted to do. This is what I was doing. I got tired of doing that. I pivoted. I'm bet on that. We bet on ourselves and here we are. And it's coming to fruition, right? Like I'm sure it's not an easy grind cause

speaker-1: No, it's There's some long days.

speaker-0: But it's, you know, from a consumer standpoint, trying this, it's like, okay, I know if someone's like looking for something unique and different, I'm like, okay, this is what you need to do. You can go cathedraledge.com or whatever the website is. And you need to go buy one of their bottles because you're going to enjoy something unique and different. Cause I think that's what the consumer is looking for now. It's not always just like chasing the same thing over and over again. It's like, how can I do. something different that's unique that I'm going to like, that's going to fit my palette, but also like support the economy and blah, blah, blah, blah. I think that's kind of the era we're moving into. So I think this could be, you know, a really good opportunity for us to, you know, share your story, which we're doing.

speaker-1: We appreciate that.

speaker-2: What's the price point on your whiskeys?

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: So the bottle on bond retail for $65.

speaker-0: That's, I feel like that's right in line for craft like bottom bond. Like, cause you're six years old, right? this point.

speaker-1: Not even, yeah. Five and a half.

speaker-0: So when's your birthday?

speaker-1: At December is when we opened the doors. started cooking in the fall of 2020.

speaker-0: So let's take, take us back there for a second. Right? Like you lay down this plan, you're thinking about it. You say, here's our life savings. We're going to build this out. And then COVID like just walk us through that a little bit. Cause I feel like that's, that's got.

speaker-1: It was challenging. You know, we had commitment letters from our lenders. We signed a contract with a local builder and they started. And then the SBA got sent home and they were told to do their jobs from home while teaching their kids algebra. And so everything got delayed. I take my commitments very seriously. I went to my builder and I said, look, nobody's saying no. They're just saying not yet. And I said, well, this is what I have in the bank. You know, we obviously have to put equity into it. said, I can pay you for this long, but if you got to stop working, I understand. And he said, no, I'll go a couple more months. And the money finally came through before he stopped working. So they were great. They kept the project on schedule. It was tricky because I, you know, I wanted to be right there watching over everything. And we stayed away. They'd work five days a week. We'd come in on Saturdays and check it out. sent them our notes, and they just made it work and they kept it on schedule. And then we opened, but with half the seating we thought and everybody had masks, it was not the grand open we had long envisioned. And immediately we got challenged with the supply chain. Just, you know, you couldn't get a trucker. You wanted to buy a pallet of something, you had to rent the truck and the driver for a week.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: So instead of getting a pallet of glass, we got an 18 wheeler of glass. And then the next day we did the same thing with grain. We had completely filled the barn before we were our first cook. Fortunately, we had, had pre-permitted a second building thinking in five years we'll need a rick house. you know, in February of 21, we started building the second barn and we just did it ourselves. There was no money left. So it's not a nice timber frame. It's a, it's a... a stick built building. We would literally come in and get the boiler going and say, okay, we got 40 minutes till it's up to town. Let's go put up two two by sixes and run back in and you know, let's put in the barley. Okay, let's run back out. We'll put one more sheet of plywood up. And that's how we built it. But we needed the space because we had to take all our, if we didn't take our supplies, let me back up and say it properly. If we started paying $5,000 to get one pallet delivered, our bottle price would be ridiculous. And we didn't want to do that. We wanted to have products that people can share and enjoy. We're not trying to build trophies that don't get touched or only come out on an anniversary that ends in a zero. It's just that we want it to be something people can enjoy, the common man can enjoy. And so we have to work really hard to keep our costs down. You know, we've got some really large players in this industry with, you know, 100 plus years head start on us and they have tremendous economies of scale, but that's not an excuse. We just have to really pay attention to those details and try to keep things reasonable.

speaker-0: It does, it does give you a little bit of a leg up being a finance guy. So, you know, you're, you're, you're watching the dollars probably pretty smartly.

speaker-1: I certainly had to watch him and... yeah.

speaker-0: Because you got to balance the dream, right? And like, what's reality? I feel like that's got to be the hard part because you're trying to drive to the everyday consumer, like reality says, hey, we got to be price competitive in market, but also, you know, it's a business, right? It's your livelihood at this point too, right? You got to make a little money.

speaker-1: You got to balance it all. And, you know, we have employees, so we have to first and foremost take care of them. That's always, you know, something I'm very aware of that there's always got to be several pay cycles in the checking account at all times, because I'm not going to surprise people by not making payroll. And there's always something else to invest in. A new piece of equipment or a new marketing idea, but you have to be disciplined and allocate your resources brutally. Mm-hmm.

speaker-0: So speaking of prudence, we waited four years. We waited till the last pour of the night. We're going to talk about the bourbon because you know, we are the bourbon lens. I've had two of my Wee Glenn Karens of the bourbon. I have enjoyed it quite a bit. Scott, you're nosing it. What do you think?

speaker-2: It's almost like oatmeal raisin cookies to me.

speaker-0: Scott loves that note.

speaker-2: warm, warm oatmeal. This is probably my favorite. Probably my favorite.

speaker-0: ⁓ It does have that oatmeal raisin. Like now that you say that, like, I was kind of trying to like put it together in my head. Like I knew I liked it. One of our Patreon members would say that oatmeal raisins are the best cookies in the world. I would have to really disagree with that comment, but we have one person who firmly believes that oatmeal raisin is the one. And he is also the person that causes us the most grief in our Patreon. out to Brad. But That is, it's a really enjoyable nose and there's a little bit of sweetness on the, on there, like a citrus note, like, ⁓ if you've got oatmeal cream pie, like, there's like that sweet tangy note too, that kind of goes with it.

speaker-2: Yeah, this one's nice. This one's really nice. It does have like a little lingering touch of raw at the end, like the finish, like it kind of has like a little bite at the end. just kind of sticks with you for being so sweet, like and rich upfront.

speaker-0: And I would say it's a medium rye. Some people would say it's a high rye. I'll say it's a medium rye because we see.

speaker-1: It's more of a medium. 19. 19. 19. 19. 19.

speaker-2: What was the percentage? 30? 19?

speaker-0: So, right, I'm never going to tell you to pick your favorite baby because they're all your babies. But like, is there one that you lean towards most?

speaker-1: It really, changes a lot. Yeah. I like them all. ⁓ I really like our rye. I just, ⁓ have trouble. Like if I go out to restaurants, I basically won't order a Manhattan anymore unless they have our rye. But if I'm just sitting, you know, drinking neat, I like that bourbon. It's I guess if we're going to go with desserts, I would say apple crisp with a very slight caramel drizzle. Cause those are the notes I get. ⁓ There's definitely graham cracker, this red apple. And we do have some caramel in there, which I really enjoy.

speaker-0: All of this to be said that y'all are making me hungry and there will be food in my future as I finish watching whatever is happening during the Kentucky game. I've not looked at the score. I'm very proud of myself. Hopefully they're beating the Bulldogs right now because we're playing Georgia, but anywho. Okay. So I guess at the website earlier is the website cathedraledge.com or is it something a little bit harder? Okay. So you can go to cathedraledge.com. You can follow you on Instagram and all that stuff as well. Correct?

speaker-1: Yep, Instagram and Facebook.

speaker-0: So there we are. We're able to connect you all pretty quick. So make sure you check the links below. You heard it here. I like the wheat. Scott likes the bourbon. Chris likes the rye in Manhattan. It's a trifecta. We like them all. So if you're picking up a bottle of Cathedral Edge, Bottling and Bond specifically, you can't go wrong with any of them. So Chris, thank you so much for joining us. Tyler, thank you for connecting us. And we'll catch everybody next time on the next episode of the Bourbon Lens. Cheers.

speaker-1: Cheers, thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah.

speaker-2: Thanks, Krista.

speaker-0: Thank you for listening to this episode of the bourbon lens. If you want more exclusive content, go over to patreon.com backslash bourbon lens and join our growing community. If you just want to stay friendly with us, you can go over to Instagram X and Facebook and follow us there. Also our YouTube page is growing and we're producing more content there like Thursday thoughts and five minute Fridays. So don't forget to smash the subscribe button and catch all the content that we are producing every week until next time. Cheers.