There Are 'Oceans' Of Innovation. Which Ones Do You Fish?

25:26A little more mint? It's solid. I would drink this. Did you shake it up? Because I found it pretty minty. The other beef I have is that it's blue. It's supposed to be green, but it's coming out blue on the SIGPAC apparently. So that's a UK product that has just recently launched in Whole Foods in the US. They're bringing it over here. This is like how hard I shake you when we have a marketing meeting.

25:50And a sales meeting, too. I get shaken twice. Yeah, you just all day. I get shaken all day. Yeah. It's not one serving, is it? I mean... It says 16 ounces. I think so. I think it's one serving. Oh, okay. 20 grams of protein. I was drinking it in London. I was having it before a run and drinking half before and half after, and it's great. I mean, it looks like an amazing product. We briefly chatted about this last week. I think it would be cool to see this in the United States. It's the only thing. It's in LA. Oh, is it? Okay. It's got a US label on it. It's in LA and parts of New York. I guess my only question is.

26:1916 ounces. They don't put that on UK packages, right? Get with the program. This is true. Where it would fit on shelf, because it's a pretty wide package. Be kind of hard to make that fit into a cooler set. You should talk to Gabriel Bean, the co-founder. He's got all this info on this for it. It's a pretty fascinating story. Yeah, this is good. I mean. Super good stuff. Like a list of ingredients. Packaging definitely stands out. and it like oddly feels good in your hand too. Yeah, it's a really cool package. And I was asking Gabriel where they think it fits on shelf. They like the stacking. They like how it fits on shelf.

26:52Fun fact about his father is that he was involved in the original branding of Dishoom. What's Dishoom? Oh, Dishoom, excuse me. Dishoom, right? Yes, Dishoom. Well, since we can never have enough protein, we recently got some samples from a brand called Love & Chew, which makes a protein cookie that's baked with upcycled oats. They just introduced a new peanut butter chip flavor. And they're going from, the brand that is, from 172 to over 500 Whole Foods locations. I love cookies. I like protein. I don't eat too many protein cookies. Do you, Mike? I have eaten quite a few protein cookies. I haven't eaten them lately, but I'm always game to try one.

27:39Yeah, I like protein cookies. Like the Lenny and Larry's, is that the main one? That's the OG, yes. Am I having peanut butter chips? You're welcome to. And I just want to be clear about one thing. The peanut butter chip one is the one that's made with upcycle dough. There are other varieties are not, but they are made with clean ingredients or at least have a clean ingredient label. all right mike is having some cookie he seems to like it all right mike what's the uh what's the verdict i think it's really tasty it's not too sweet you know it's got 11 grams of sugar 10 grams of protein 15 grams of fat i'm reading the ingredients right now i don't really see too many things on here that i wouldn't wouldn't like to see in a cookie it's tasty it is the peanut butter flavor is a good a little more way to mask the kind of protein content whatnot so sure yeah tasty yeah nice yeah i need another one quick break if this episode has you thinking about what's next in food and beverage explore bevnet and nosh insider our subscription platform with deeper insights from the bevnet team visit taste radio.com insider to learn more all right it's time to get to our featured interview for this episode that's with Trey Zeller, the founder of Jefferson's Bourbon, a brand recognized by and awarded for its ocean aged at sea expression, a whiskey matured on ships that travel around the world.

29:10I met with Trey last month at the Winnetou Oceanside Resort on Martha's Vineyard, which held a three-day culinary experience called Oceans and Oysters. As you may have guessed, the event featured pairings of locally sourced oysters with Jefferson's Ocean Whiskey. Trey, who joined us for an interview on Taste Radio in 2020, talks about why the unusual combination of shellfish and spirits works, the origins of the ocean expression and why the product was initially disparaged by his industry colleagues, and how Jefferson's, which is known for its innovative approach to aging, maintains the cash-in image of being a renegade while simultaneously being a widely distributed and popular brand.

29:56Hey folks, it's Ray with Taste Radio. Right now I'm honored to be sitting down with Trey Zeller, who is the founder of Jefferson's Bourbon. Trey, great to see you. Ray, it's a pleasure. Isn't it? Yeah, it really is. Yeah, it's good to see you in person. We spoke four years ago, screen to screen, but now we're face to face. Thank God that's in the past. Indeed. Much better here in Martha's Vineyard on a beautiful day. Exactly. We are here in Martha's Vineyard at the Winnetou Resort in Edgar Town. This is a beautiful property. Have you had a chance to walk around? I have. I've been exploring it the last two days.

30:29And for a Southern boy to come up here in the fall and have this beautiful view and have the wind coming off the ocean breeze, it's amazing. It really is, yeah. Katama, this area of the vineyard is spectacular. I walked up to the beach earlier this morning and the waves were pretty amazing. Yeah. Pretty amazing. And it is beautiful. It's sunny. It's barely a cloud in the sky, which we lucked out. We really did. Absolutely, we did. It is sunny, but the wind's definitely blowing. There's some white caps out there. I was out on the beach earlier as well. Yeah. Are you a surfer? I am a surfer, about as good as a Kentucky boy can be surfing.

31:05But yes, I do love to surf. Being here at the Winnetoo is fantastic because they've brought together a number of great brands, including Jefferson's and Jefferson's is being paired with in this event, oysters. This is an Oceans and Oysters event that we're celebrating and participating in. And I'm sure there are some listeners right now thinking, wait a minute, oysters and bourbon. It's not the most obvious pairing. I'm sure there are some people are a little turned off by it. I had some yesterday. They were fantastic. Why are they such a good pairing? You know, it's the brininess. It's brine on brine from our jefferson's ocean which we age in kentucky first and then we put barrels in containers and send them to 30 ports on five continents so you're crossing the pacific ocean twice you're crossing the atlantic ocean a couple times so when you're out in the middle of the ocean that salt air is really able to permeate the barrels and give it that briny taste and the brine on brine that you obviously have with the oysters is a great combination so it was actually I was in London, gosh, probably 10 years ago now.

32:13And we were introducing Jefferson's Ocean over there. And one of the restaurants that we went to, they said, this is a great pairing. Let's go ahead and do some Jefferson's Ocean oyster shooters. And that's what we started doing. Tell us about, or tell our audience about Oceans Aged at Sea and what makes it so special. So I think going back to how this originated, it's really kind of part of the story. And it's really further back than that. It's really how whiskey turned into bourbon in the first place. And when people started distilling west of the Appalachian Mountains, and they did so after the whiskey tax, they had to get that product to market.

32:55And the only way to do that was to put it into the only container they had, which was a barrel. And at the time, that barrel was used for many other things. So typically, they'd put a big flame through it to get the taste out of whatever else it was carrying, whether it's nails, soap, meat, what have you. And then they would float it down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River to New Orleans. They would offload some there, but the majority of it was put on ships, sailed around Florida and back up the East Coast to where there were people, Philadelphia, Boston, New York. and by the time that it arrived there, you'd taken a spirit, a clear spirit, kind of like vodka or gin is today, and that's how most people were drinking whiskey at the time.

33:38But after it went on that voyage, it picked up a lot of color, a lot of flavor, and took away a lot of the astringency of the alcohol. And we recreated that about 10 years ago. It actually took me a year to the date that we took off to land in New York. And when I did, again, I took off with Newfill Bourbon. We tapped into a barrel, and it was as dark as a 16-year-old barrel that I'd been double barreling for five years. So knowing that past and knowing that that's really what made bourbon proliferate in Kentucky, I happened to be on a friend's ship down in Costa Rica. We were surfing, fishing, surfing, and really drinking a lot of bourbon on the bow of the ship.

34:18And as I sat on the bow of the ship, I saw the bourbon rocking back and forth within the bottle. I thought if that would happen in a bottle, it would certainly happen in a barrel. And that would change the maturation that you get from Kentucky. And talked a friend of mine into putting barrels on his ship for three and a half years. He took off on this journey. When we tapped into him three and a half years later, that new fill bourbon was black in color. It was thick. It was delicious. It was very different than any other bourbon that I'd ever had. So that was the first voyage. And to be clear, you have barrels that are already filled with bourbon that's been aged in Kentucky?

34:58Correct. We typically age them about six years in Kentucky. Then we load them in shipping containers where we cut sunroofs into the top of them. So that salt air is able to get into the containers. But also the sun's beating down on it. It's getting rained upon, getting snowed upon. we send them down to savannah georgia where they're contracted to be on the very top of the bow of the ship so it gets as much pitch as possible it's going down passing the equator a couple times that heat caramelizes the sugars in the wood and then again you know you've got constant liquid wood contact which is just picking up more and more flavor and also acting as a filter taking away from the astringency of the alcohol so your genius was not to just have the bourbon aged in the barrels, but to increase the contact with the wood through agitation and different climates.

35:52Correct. You know, we go all the way down to the Tasmanian Sea underneath Australia and all the way up to the North Sea in Europe. So, you know, you're getting some really extremities in the temperature nonetheless, but, you know, that's obviously open and closing the pores of the barrel, but the rocking back and forth again, that agitation is, that's what you really want. That's what we're looking for in bourbon is that constant liquid wood contact. How long is it at sea? It's at sea for about six to eight months. Okay. And then it's brought back to Kentucky? Brought back to Savannah and then up to Kentucky where we cut it.

36:27Typically we cut it. We do have a cast strength voyage as well once a year, but we cut it with the Kentucky water when we come back. Back in 1997, I assume that if you told someone in Kentucky or a distiller, a brand owner in Kentucky that you were thinking about this process and that this would be a great whiskey if you were looking at you cross-eyed. Someone might even smack you. I mean... Well, when we did do it in 2008, they did say that. They were like, this isn't Kentucky bourbon. And again, we do age it for a number of years. That first voyage is the only one that we put in New Thill on the boat today.

37:02Again, we're aging about six, seven years before we take it out and send it on that voyage. But yes, when we first did that, we got a lot of pushback. A lot of people said, you know, this isn't Kentucky, straight bourbon whiskey. A lot of people said it was gimmicky. And almost everybody that wrote about it said the same thing. And then they tried it. So today we're again on our 33rd, we've got our 34th voyage out on the water right now. It was the number one selling$75 and above bourbon. It's now number two after plans took a price increase. And, you know, people really bought into, say, you know, a certain warehouse on a piece of property to produce better barrels.

37:44So if there's microclimate like that that people have bought into, by now they've certainly bought into the idea of taking it to different places and aging it to get different flavors coming from the environment and climate. I left the title off your role when I introduced you. That's chief strategist. You are the chief strategist for Jefferson's Bourbon in addition to being its founder. Jefferson's Bourbon is part of the Pernod Ricard portfolio. Correct. So that role of chief strategist, what does it entail? And what do you want to contribute in terms of how the brand continues to develop? At the end of the day, what it is, is I'm protecting the integrity of the brand.

38:27So I touch all facets from production, sourcing, distribution, marketing, sales. It's a little bit of everything. So I'm involved with each different group that you have when you're part of a bigger company. And I'm always advocating to try to maintain as much, you know, the highest quality. And it's great to have a partner like Pernod Ricard. I say partner, they did purchase us. So we are part of the portfolio, but they have such a great commitment to quality and excellence. And they're following that up with the investment. We're building a$200 million facility that we, it's a little bit behind schedule, but we'll be in certainly by next July.

39:15We just put in our Vendom still a few weeks ago. So it's now everything's under roofs so we don't have any more weather delays. I think we'll definitely get there. With any luck, we'll be ready by Derby. But to have that commitment from them, not only monetarily, but an emphasis in the portfolio and to quality, and this distillery will be the greenest distillery ever built. We will actually be net carbon negative as we'll be putting energy back into the grid is really exciting. I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs who have investors in this case, or in the case of Jefferson's, you have an owner in that Bruno Ricard owns the brand.

40:02But in essence, your role as a protector of the brand legacy and commitment to quality is such an important one. And I think some entrepreneurs who are building their businesses and talking to their investors about the direction of their company or business strategy can sometimes have opposing viewpoints. You know, the investor might say, hey, we need to go in this direction. And the entrepreneur is saying, no, I know my brand. I want to continue doing this. And there's a push and pull. And sometimes the entrepreneur doesn't win. Sometimes the entrepreneur gets kicked out of his own company. It's so great that you're still with Jefferson's and helping to lead it to its next stage of development.

40:43But what happens when you have a disagreement with Pernod about the direction of the brand or a particular product or marketing perhaps? What happens then? So right now I feel better about our relationship than ever. Pernod Ricard is just committed to a new office in Louisville. We'll be bringing in roughly 30 people. We've already brought people in from Paris and Australia, but mainly hiring people out of Kentucky that have a lot of bourbon knowledge. So we're putting that office together right now. Hopefully by the beginning of November, we'll have our office secured and we'll have moved in there.

41:23So it's kind of a reinforcement of what we're doing in Kentucky and being true to the bourbon category. That being said, there are a lot of legal is my biggest. The legal department and I have lots of conversation. Okay. I don't know if I'm going to be allowed to share this recording with them beforehand, just so you know. You know, it's something that they're very conscious of just protecting, making sure that the bigger brand is always protected. And the bigger brand being? Bernal Ricard. Okay. So what might not always seem obvious to me, there's a bigger thought process and a bigger picture that we have to worry about as well.

42:13So I'm reminded of that on occasion. As I say, I've got all the influence in the world, but no final decision capabilities. And we've been pretty parallel in our thought process and sight lines. I think the biggest thing that we've kind of butted heads over is I want an ever-expanding portfolio. We've bottled over 35 different expressions to date. Much more if you dig into like our presidential select line or our ocean line where there's, you know, six or seven different reiterations of those. And, you know, that's a lot for their sales team to put their arm around when they have so many other products to sell.

42:57So a lot of products that we've had a lot of success with, we can't continue to put out. And that's a little frustrating to me. But for the most part, everything from quality to some marketing things, we have different viewpoints on, but we work pretty well together. The marketing I want to touch on for a sec. I think sometimes marketing for innovative products can be kitschy and can be detrimental to a premium product. I think with ocean, you can go in a lot of different directions. With tropics, you can go in a lot of different directions. And let's just talk quickly about tropics. What is that product?

43:37So tropics is, for the last probably nine years, I've kind of spread some barrels out in different properties around the U.S., different climates, different environments. and go back each year and taste how they've evolved over the year, how they've matured. And they're drastically different. Kentucky, you know, we say is the end-all be-all, the great place to age. But it's really, that's what became practical. After that journey that we talked about earlier was made obsolete by first the steamboat and then the railroad where you could take whiskey and get it to New York in two weeks, that journey became obsolete.

44:17So how did they catch up to what that product tastes like after the maturation of the journey was practical? Building a warehouse right next to the distillery, building it high rather than wide because it's cheaper, and aging it year over year over year trying to catch up with that. And Kentucky is a great play stage. We've got a fluctuation of temperatures, but different environments really do different things to the whiskey and to the wood. and I found that some places in very hot, humid areas really accentuate, you know, kind of the sappiness of the wood, not the woodiness of the wood, and bring out some wonderful flavors.

44:59So after the success of those products, aging in some places that are very hot and humid, say eight months out of the year, I decided if we could take it someplace that was always hot and humid, Singapore in this case, where it's 80 miles from the equator, then it's really going to age in a different manner. And what really happened, and we aged bourbon for five years in Kentucky and put it on ships in Savannah and sent it through the Panama Canal across the Pacific to Singapore and aged it. We had 10 containers, half of which we aged outside, half of which went into a non-climate controlled warehouse and aged the two of them there or the two sets there for 18 months.

45:43What really happened is that wood slow cooked, the sugars in the wood slow cooked over 18 months, sent it back to Kentucky and then cut it down to proof with Kentucky limestone water, which is super important because most hot, humid areas, the water's pretty much undrinkable. I lived in Louisiana, lived in New Orleans, I've lived in Florida. You don't want to drink the water. So you've got the great combination of your being able to distill with Great Kentucky Limestone water, age it there to its mature, and then finish it in a place that has that influence. And it really brings in, to me, that's where terroir really comes from when you're aging.

46:23If 65 to 80 % of what bourbon is comes from the maturation process, if you change where you're maturing it, that makes more of a difference than where you're growing the grains because when you distill it at 160 proof, those nuances are distilled out. But when you mature it in a different place and that environment brings different flavors, then that really comes through in the bottling. So the last two and a half, say three minutes, that was a beautiful, very well detailed explanation of what Tropics is and also included some context about how the maturation process is really important to making bourbon, making whiskey.

47:05But in marketing or on shelf, you don't have a lot of time. You might have a few seconds, even if somebody reads a magazine and sees an article about tropics, that's helpful and getting them to learn and understand more about it. But I can see some kitschy marketing being like, try the hottest new product, you know, from Jefferson's tropics, something like that, something that's just awful. Obviously you guys aren't doing that, but who knows, you know, Maybe there's something in the marketing department at Pernod is like, this is the direction we're going. And you're like, oh, my gosh, why would we ever do that?

47:33How do you address that problem? Or how would you address it? I'm calling it a problem, but how would you address that? No, we have lots of conversations, lots of meetings. And I have come across things, not that bad, but things that just don't align with the brand. And you got to keep that in check. So that's one reason I'm very hands-on. People ask me how hands-on are you, and I say probably too much, but it's my baby. I can't separate. So I do want to be involved with kind of all aspects without dominating it, letting these people do their jobs and they're experts in their different fields.

48:18So, you know, it's a balance. And we've had some very intense conversations of why I don't align with something. And typically we either meet in the middle or their eyes are a little bit more open than they were previously. I don't know much, but I do know our bourbon consumer. I've been to every state in the country. I think I've been to every city, over 500 ,000 people going out and peddling Jeffersons. So I know our consumer pretty well. I've been around the world with it as well. I know what they're looking for. And I'm a big believer in not looking at the data so much because that's looking in the past.

49:07And let's look in the future. Anytime you're looking at what people's trends have been, that's what they've done up till now. Where do we go in the future? And that's, I think, very important. You know the Jefferson's consumer, but you know the future of Jefferson's consumer. How do you get them interested, especially at a time when people are drinking less? Gen Z, it's out there. We've been talking about this on the podcast a lot. But Gen Z consumers just don't drink as much as previous generations. So I'm sure the Perneau marketing team, the Perneau just hierarchy is looking at this and saying, okay, how do we make this attractive?

49:45How do we get those consumers interested in Jeffersons so that we can start them off with training wheels and eventually get them to a point where they're buying ocean and tropics and other expressions? Well, it's certainly on our radar. And that's, you know, each generation is unique and different. And this one is certainly unique and different. And I've got twins that are 19 years old. And so I look at their habits and what they're doing as well as their friends and just their network. Be careful. The legal team is listening to this. I'm not saying they're drinking at all. I'm just saying I'm looking at what their habits are.

50:20Sure. Yeah. They don't watch TV. I don't think they've ever turned on the TV except for a game. Our next innovation, which I can't release what that is exactly, is an innovation that is very affordable,$35 to$40 range. So I think that is something that will resonate with them, but it's going to be also something that's affordable. There's been a lot of innovations for years, and I think this is something that we've done very well. We've kept our price points for a long time. We launched Jefferson's Reserve in 1997 for$50 a bottle. We're not much above that right now. Our innovations have typically been under the$100 mark, right around, you know, it depends on what our costs are for that specific product.

51:08I always want to have a product that's affordable. I want people to be able to put their hands on it. And, you know, certainly as people are coming of age and getting into bourbon, they need to get something that's affordable that they can go ahead and purchase. And it's not just something that they hope to get someday. We'll still have that in the portfolio. I think that's important. But equally important is the marketing side where they can identify. It makes them feel a certain way when they order a Jefferson's product. And to me, I think that's a little bit of exploration and adventure. And, you know, we all might be trapped in a cubicle at some point or in our house doing work, but we aspire to get out and experience things.

51:57And I think that's a lot what Jefferson's is all about. Our Jefferson's ocean, our Jefferson's tropics, that's being on the move. If you look at where all of our different products source from, from either finishing barrels or where we're agitating or we're sourcing water to cut down to proof like we've done with New York water, it's all over the map. It's not just in Kentucky. So I think there's a spirit of adventure that people can resonate to and everybody who wants to get out and see the world. And I think you can do that through the lens of Jefferson's. Oh, there you go. There's your tagline right there.

52:40There you go. I didn't even know we did that. Everyone wants to see the world and you can do it through Jefferson's bourbon. Well done. You continue to innovate. You continue to work on new products and new product development. I'd love to hear your definition of innovation, but there's a caveat. You can't use the word whiskey or any industry terms associated with your answer. With innovation as a whole, I think for me, it's taking a tried and true industry, whether it's bourbon or anything else and looking at it through a different lens. Actually, I did something with Barbara Cochran from Shark Tank last year.

53:19And as we were talking, she said, are you dyslexic? And I said, yeah, yeah. She said, I am as well. How'd she know? She was able to pick up on it. And she said, she's written books about it. And she said, you know, it's something like 33 % of the world's billionaires are dyslexic. I forgot the stat exactly. But it's because we see things differently. We learn differently and we look at things differently. And I think innovation is just doing just that, taking things and looking at it through a different lens and applying it and seeing if it improves upon it. It's not accepting what has been done previously just for the fact that it's been done that way.

54:03So that's to me is looking at it differently. In the case of Jefferson's, what I've really done, and I've benefited from my dad being a Berman historian, is seeing how, you know, when I started, everybody said the same thing. We do it this way because my daddy did it and his daddy did it. Okay, why? And I was able to look at it through my dad's writings and say, well, it was done because of practicality. Okay, well, what if we throw practicality out the door and say, what would enhance it? What would make it better? And as I said, we've got 35 different expressions of Jefferson's. You know, you can't really say one's better than the other in all of these.

54:45But as I say, Baskin-Robbins has got 31 flavors. Not everybody likes the same flavor and not everybody wants to eat the same flavor all the time. You know, you want to kind of pop around and taste different things at different times. and people always ask me, which one's the best? I don't know. I don't know what your taste buds are like. I don't know what you think is good. So if I do a tasting with five of our expressions, and again, I use Jefferson's Reserve as our most quintessential right up the middle. At the end of the tasting, I ask everybody to raise their hand, which one did they like the most?

55:23And it's typically spread out almost evenly 20 % across the board. What I love about that is 20 % like Jefferson's Reserve. That's what most bourbons taste like. So if that's the case, 80 % liked what we've done to push it outside of the traditional means. So it's just a matter of exposing people to these different flavors and let them find the ones that they like. So that's the proof point, is whether or not a consumer likes this. Improvement means results, right? If you think it tastes better, that's one thing. But if it succeeds on the market, that's the real proof point. Correct. Okay. Correct, yeah.

56:05You know, I've been doing this 27 years. My taste buds have evolved. Everybody's evolved all the time. And so what I liked 27 years ago isn't necessarily what I like today. And it shouldn't. and what I like and you like, you know, everybody's on a different path. Any whiskey drinker, nobody has neat cast drink bourbon for the first time and say, where the hell has that been my whole life? You don't do a double flip off the high dive the first time you get into a pool. You got to evolve to it. So where are you on that journey? And what do different flavors mean to you based on your experiences of what you've tasted across the board, you know, food, drinks, what have you.

56:51We're all different. Now, there are some things that we can universally say, well, that's better than that one, but there are nuances within that. You and I chatted briefly about this yesterday. In my experience over the last few years of following the industry, I've found that a lot of distilleries are employing folks who have their master's in chemistry or their PhD in chemistry, particularly when it comes to blending, you're not necessarily the biggest fan of that, if I'm not mistaken. They're great for proof points and they can break down and molecularly tell you exactly what's going on and they're great for consistency as well.

57:33But having that degree doesn't necessarily mean you've got a great palate. And that might be coming just for me because I don't have that training whatsoever and I don't have that background. To me, it's repetition is how I've honed my palate. So I think there can be a good marriage of the two. Again, I think you've got to be intuitive. What are you trying to get to? You might be able to direct somebody, okay, this is what we're looking for. Okay, start bringing these together, I do it by trial and error. And that's how I've always done it. And if I like a little bit, you know, I put a little bit, change the percentages, change the age, change different mash bill.

58:21There's a lot of different components that you can bring together. And I think it's like making any other recipe. You play around with it until you find what you think is the best. Yeah, I think that's true innovation is, you know, being in your own personal lab and working on things until you get to something that you feel is different and you want to bring to the market. I think right now I'm hearing also a bit about AI, artificial intelligence as being a way to not only create consistency and quality, but perhaps to create new products that would fit in the market. Where's your stance on AI at this point?

59:02Well, I used it moments before you walked in here to send a letter. And I actually said, with the help of ChatGPT, they were asking for kind of a summary of what was going on on something. And so I just put the facts in there and sent it. And, you know, it eloquently put something together for us. I don't know enough about the future of AI to know where it's going to go with creating new products. That being said, as it gets smarter and smarter and it's able to really think for itself, I don't see why it couldn't. Again, is it data in, data, you know, can I have quality data in to get that? I don't know.

59:48You know, let's go back to me being dyslexic. Maybe I see it differently than an AI would because I'm dyslexic. So I don't know. I wouldn't discount it. I know that. I'm not going to discount it in anything else in any other aspect of life. Well, I'll say this. I would be shocked if an AI program thought of the idea or considered the idea of putting barrels on a boat and having them float out to sea. I mean, that's to me where I think innovation and AI would not connect, would not meet. That's 2024. Yeah. 2028. Who knows? That might be like, well, of course they would have thought of that. Sure.

1:00:33Who knows? I can't look into the future and things are moving so fast right now. You never know what's going to happen with that. Well, brass tacks, are you excited about the future of AI in this industry? This is such an old industry. And I think this industry is all about connections. To me, that's what spirits are about. I'm not one of these people that pour a drink when I'm at home by myself. but as soon as I have people over, I want to pour them a drink and tell them a story about it. So at the end of the day, that will not be eradicated, but I think there will be innovations that are marketing or, you know, there'll certainly be efficiencies that come through AI.

1:01:24I don't have that crystal ball. That's for a younger generation to figure out, I think, than me. But don't discount yourself. I think you're pretty young yourself and you've got a long way to go with this brand and with the future of the industry. So thank you for your contributions. I almost forgot, but I'm not going to forget now, or I didn't forget at this point in the conversation. conversation. Yesterday, you had mentioned a city in Kentucky, and that city begins with an L and ends with Ville. And how you pronounce it as? I pronounced it as Louisville. Louisville. Okay. So I was in Louisville.

1:02:04I'm pronouncing it the way you're pronouncing it. I was in Louisville about three, four weeks ago. Came back and I told people, oh yeah, I was just in Kentucky. I was in Louisville. And audible gasps. People being like, what did you say? Where were you? Apparently, everyone pronounces it Louisville, not Louisville. And I was so relieved when someone from Kentucky calls it Louisville. Who's right here? So recently I thought about this because for whatever reason, that conversation always just bothers me. You know, I don't know why people in Louisville want to say Louisville so badly, but they do.

1:02:39That being said, I lived in New Orleans. And when people say New Orleans, that kind of... Cringe? Yeah, it kind of makes me cringe. So I don't know if I'm being too critical on, you know, the hometown-ness of Louisville. I think I say Louisville because I do travel quite a bit. And when I say Louisville, people probably where. So maybe I've adopted that over time. I'm not really sure, but I'm going to continue to say Louisville. All right. I'm so happy. Now I don't feel so bad because I got it bad when I came, I came home to Boston. People were like, what do you, you must've been, you know, some people were looking at you with crazy eyes when you were down there for saying Louisville, but now I feel, I feel good about it.

1:03:28You know, we're a juxtaposition. Louisville is the northernmost southern city. So sometimes I go places and people think I've got the biggest southern accent in the world. Other times people say I've got no accent. So who knows? Louisville. Louisville. Edgar Town, Massachusetts. Martha's Vineyard. You don't have to say Martha's Vineyard. You can just say Martha's Vineyard. Martha's Vineyard works? Okay. Yeah, Martha's Vineyard works. I know this is your second time to this beautiful island. I hope you can come back. I hope we can do this again maybe next year at the Winnetou, because this is a spectacular place.

1:04:01Oh, it's beautiful. Being able to share some bourbon, some Jefferson's bourbon with its founder is just, on a beautiful day in particular, is, I don't know, this is a dream come true for me. So thank you so much, Trey. Really appreciate the time. I know our audience is going to love this conversation. Well, Ray, I hope this is the first of many annual trips up to the one and two, and we'll continue to have this Ocean and Oyster weekend, and hopefully you'll come and join us. I am so in for this. Thank you so much. Right on. You got it. Thanks so much. That brings us to the end of this episode of Taste Radio.

1:04:36Thank you so much for listening. Taste Radio is a production of BevNet.com Incorporated. Our audio engineer for Taste Radio is Joe Cratchy. Our technical director is Joshua Pratt. And our video editor is Ryan Galang. Our social marketing manager is Amanda Smirlinski. And our designer is Amanda Huang. Just a reminder, if you like what you hear on Taste Radio, please share the podcast with friends and colleagues. and of course we would love it if you could review us on the apple podcast app or your listening platform of choice check us out on instagram our handle is bevnet taste radio as always for questions comments ideas for future podcasts please send us an email to ask at taste radio.com on behalf of the entire taste radio team thank you for listening and we'll talk to you next time

1:05:30Thank you.