Whiskey Neat Ep 106 Old Forester can do no wrong. A conversation with Campbell Brown

Fifth generation, yep.

Old Forester. Oh, sorry, let's—my brother would be upset.

Well, I'm, thank you. I'm just, everything has been, I just hope the right people are listening to it.

Oh no, we can, we have. But I think, you know, it's interested in the, one of the reasons, what we were just reacting and listening pretty well, you know, because there's so many more people today that are interested in the category and bourbon and that have opinions and that have a platform, you know, to talk about it. You can interact with people today way differently than when I started in this business, you know, in like the mid-90s. And so I think, you know, I work with Jackie Zykan, who's our master taster. She's got her very well... oh yeah, and she's doing fantastic things in the realm of social media. Yeah, and she's got her ear close to the ground and she's a wonderful resource and kind of keeps us pointed in the right direction. So there's a lot of, I think, things that are influencing some of the decision-making. Ultimately though, it's like, you can, you pull the trigger. And I think one of the things that we benefit from is that while Old Forester is a fairly small brand and in the grand scheme of what Brown-Forman does, we do have Brown-Forman, and Brown-Forman allows us, enables us, and supports us in doing some things that might be considered risky, like opening a 50 million dollar distillery right in Louisville that for a brand of its size, you just wouldn't kind of put that kind of capital in there. But you know, again, you have this wonderful kind of resource in the parent company and supporting a brand that they've actually allowed us to go be a little bit more experimental and explore and be a little bit more nimble, I think, and do things. And so I think it all comes together and allows, has made some of this stuff possible for sure.

Well, and I've also said that I think we are in the age of yes. They're so long, so many distilleries were just not willing to break out of the mold to do more other than what they knew would work to make of a risk, right? Especially the scale, what it is. And what we are seeing now is probably the most fun to be in this hobby and to be in this business. Yeah, you know, a part of it is because there's so many other folks out there doing it, right? Like everybody asks about, you know, what do you think of all these emerging distilleries and these boutique distilleries and, you know, breweries and whatnot. And I, you know, I truly believe it's been a wonderful thing for the entire industry because of their ability to pivot and experiment and to push boundaries. It's opened up, you know, the possibility for more established companies to do the same. I mean, wonderful example is the, you know, as we kind of open up our By the Barrel program to include these unfiltered barrel-proof barrels, that was something that we just, you know, I think most, or at least our company, would have really, it would have been heavily debated, and it has been heavily debated because not a lot of people are familiar with what an unfiltered bourbon looks like in a bottle. Yeah. And when you're used to selling products that need to look a very particular way and make them available to a lot of consumers, the idea of having impurities in there or things that might be floating or, sure, you can actually see perceived impurities. Yeah, beautiful, perceived, they're really, they're little delicious pieces of love. And but to have these things in there, it goes against, you know, aesthetics, aesthetics, and it goes against what risk management would tell you to do. But the fact is, is that the palate of people today has evolved so dramatically and there's such interest around the most, the purest form of the products that we bottle. It's almost come full circle, you know, where people, if you could put a straw in a barrel and let somebody drink from it, they would do that. They would, yeah.

So well, let's, let's jump into this, but I want a pour of something. I will tell you this, I'm, I know, I know that I've had this, this bonded bourbon, the hundred-proof bourbon, the Old Forester line. I know I've had it in a cocktail, right? I don't know that I've ever had it straight.

All right, this is great, 'cause that, yeah, you know how long you've had tough day traveling, nice to be able to sit down and unwind with a little bit of a hundred proof. I'm in town only here just through tonight and then off down to your Austin, Texas.

Oh, that's, I'm saying, yeah, so this is like the one, right, where before we did the Whiskey Row and everything, you know, hundred proof certainly in Louisville was one that, you know, the locals kind of tipped their hat to, sure, and you find it on all the back bars. Obviously 86 proof is very widely available, but this seems to be the one that kept the whole brand on the map for its darkest times. So I'm sure nothing can be announced if it hasn't come to fruition, but I'm asking, don't ask about intention, no, no, about intention. So the, the Samuels family, the Maker's Mark family, each generation has wanted their own fingerprint on the brand. Yeah, is there something in particular that you've wanted to, that you want to do downline that you have home the wheels turning? I mean, you do have a vision.

I was next, I mean, look, I think the brand has been, you know, as we tell everybody, it's, you know, been on the shelves available for 150 years through thick and thin and for sealed bottles too, right? Yes, always in a bottle. And so, you know, I wouldn't want to influence it, you know, with a particular personal style, you know, that there's just too much history there. And sure, I think it's more, much more fun for us to go and look at the brand's history and styles and the way it's evolved and changed or the industry's evolved and changed and to try and kind of come up with a way to salute those moments. Then I don't, you know, you know, hopefully, I wouldn't be surprised if there were to be down the road potentially a Whiskey Row that would tip its hat to the Brown family.

Oh, and right, and so, great facility by the way, yeah, that opened, the atrium, yeah, what it still is, it's pretty insane. Yeah, so I think, you know, the, so I think it'll always be, you know, the little stylistic pieces of this will hopefully come from people that know more about whiskey than I do, right? Like the distillers and Sherry and stuff. And then, and then also more about kind of the time or the moment or the styles. And I think that's what we've been having so much fun with this brand is being able to lean into some of that.

Yeah, I mean, it comes in ebbs and flows, and that's why it's nice to have, you know, a good complement of people that can go do this as well. You know, Jackie's obviously brouilly under a lot of, you know, we move her around quite a bit. And most of the stuff I do, it's really popped up recently because we're getting ready to celebrate the company and the brand's hundred and fiftieth anniversary. And so there has been more, you know, opportunities to kind of get in front of some bigger audiences or talk to some folks that, like myself, important in media or in people, media guys, yes, very. And so, and it's fun and, you know, it's nice to be able to talk a little bit about, you know, the specialness of that kind of anniversary with people that, you know, have a real interesting curiosity in either American businesses or in, you know, these wonderful kind of American bourbon stories. These is a history. I mean, you said 150, you do it around nice tasting and sampling from here and there, it makes the afternoon a little bit more, a little bit easier.

Yeah, well, no, it's, this is something like, again, we're in that era, things are much more available. Yeah, Texas does really well in particular. It's, it's, this is where I talk a little, talk a little bit to you about the genius of what's going on with Brown-Forman as a whole and all of the decision, of course, Old Forester, you, you are talking about a perfect rye for both the drinker, the consumer, yeah, and of course the, one of the most historically, one of the most vitally important parts of building a brand is the bar, right? Right, yeah, right. So you've got that inferred, the bar, it's probably closer to 17 bucks a bottle or something like that, 18 bucks a bottle, but you're talking about a hundred-proof rye that's great to drink on its own as well as perfect for a cocktail. You've, it's the perfect marriage of both your focus audiences. Yeah, you know, talk to me a little bit about, so as people may not notice this because there tends to be a lot going on on an Old Forester label, right? Talk to us about what most may not have noticed and that is that there is no E in whiskey. Yeah, there is no E in whiskey. There's very few American distilled ryes, Maker's Mark, Old Forester. So, you know, the, the basically, and I don't like everybody say, why do you guys do it differently? No, that's awesome, you should. All of our regulations are without the E, right? All of them. And people like to say, one, America, it has to have an E, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't, it's stupid. That's a complete matter of preference. Yeah. And so, you know, I think it just goes back to the origins of the family and George Garvin Brown and his, you know, where he came from and they didn't spell it with an E and so it's not on our label and it seems to have stuck. Sure. Unlike the, the two R's that we had on Old Forester when it first came out, you know, where one of those fell away.

Well, that was because it was Old Forester was named after a doctor in, in Kentucky, in Louisville, a friend of George's that was quite successful and had a big practice and was well regarded. And he, George felt that if he could align his bottled product with a reputable name, that he would have a better chance of selling more of his product, which he was able to do. And then when Dr. Forester passed away, they dropped the R and just went to what it is, just a singular one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, it's, uh, as I've said many times, it kind of reminds me of, there are two ryes now particularly in market that I think are really, really special that aren't talked about enough. No, no, there's three really. I think, I think Wild Turkey does great with their rye, mm-hmm, no doubt, it's just not widely available. This rye is bloody fantastic. And of course Jack Daniel's, right? I think there's this sweeter side of rye. I think we are for a while now, the, the rye market has been kind of quartered with what we expect from Canada, yeah, the WhistlePigs that are really bright and kind of hay, kind of, there's a particularly darker side of rye is such a fun, right, flexible spirit, like you said, cocktail wise, very, very happy with this. And of course, like I said, hundred, twenty bucks, yeah, I mean, what's there to complain about? Yeah. Oh, I didn't realize Jackie pioneered so much of that. Yeah, no, she did great. I mean, we've had the recipe, right? It was one of these brands that we had mothballed when we bought Early Times coming out of prohibition. And Chris discovered it. And so we used that mash bill to make the Old Forester rye. And, and then it was just kind of working through landing on the right proof. And sure, I think that was a smart call. Have you noticed, and this is just me kind of gauging, and if you can't answer, we'll cut it out, have you noticed a difference in the success of launching these products based off starting proof being a major factor? Meaning, so when the first iterations of the whiskey, Whiskey Row series came out, I didn't quite hear a lot, but then as you started going, I don't know if it was just a difference in product, the aging, of course, I think a proof made a factor, of course, in the, right, 1920, yeah. But the, this in particular, your, your, your inexpensive, very approachable rye on a proof, but I don't, this to me, and you would know what, to me this has been a massive success. Yeah, yeah, that's almost too good, I don't know. And it's super available, right? What's, what's so great, we bought quite a bit of it for the Whiskey Social, keep it, but I don't, I just was curious. I don't, 90 proof, I don't know that it would have the same splash that it had. I think it's, I think it, this really excelled exactly as is, the way that it is. Does that make sense? Right. I think if it had been different, it wouldn't have. Because, yeah, no, I think you're right. And that's, I mean, that was, you know, we really didn't have a master plan going in here that it was going to be a hundred, you know, it was gonna be this or that. It was really kind of sitting down, working with Jackie, her recognizing that hundred-proof, our 100-proof bourbon was so perfect in the way it's, it's settled into cocktails and how bartenders use it, that, you know, we would, this was kind of a, started now, they proofed it a bunch of different places, sure, landed here, without master taste out a reason, yeah. Yeah, yeah, she knows what she's doing, man. I can't wait to meet her. We're friends on Facebook, yeah, and I know she's busy, but I'll eventually meet her. So, yes, can I get enough? And for those listening that are curious, both the hundred-proof bourbon and the hundred-proof rye are quite widely available and...

Yes, yes, yeah, that is good. That surprised me.

That's good to hear. Yes, well, thank you. All right, moving on. So give us the... talk about the 1870 Original Batch.

No, I wish. I mean, I'm just not that organized and I'm not that disciplined. So if it gets in my house, it's gonna get consumed. Yeah. For what I've started to do is like, Jackie gives me, you know, when we do the President's Choice stuff, Jackie will kind of dumb it down a little bit so that we've got a... I can't make a bad decision when I'm selecting these barrels, the President's Choice barrels. And so we'll get about... she'll narrow it down to maybe 15 or so, 20 barrels at two different proofs and make it super easy for... well, just, you know, like she's the pro. And so you really want... you don't want to dismiss that just to create... you know, I want her really getting the best barrels so that at least I know that we're gonna... I'm not gonna make an ass out of myself. Sure, sure. Oh, so she's... people are gonna like whatever's picked. I mean, it's great. And so but I get these... I guess she gives me this great little box of samples and 375 things to take home. And I spent a few days sampling those and stop giving them back every year. Like, here are the numbers, you're the ones that I really liked. And then, you know, we'll talk a little bit about them and what proofs. And then I was obsessed to keep those. When I first got into bourbon, I was obsessed with saving the samples. Yeah. You get a barrel selection and or Knob Creek sends you those little... right, a couple hundred milliliter bottles. Or if I would be somewhere and let's just say someone else, you know, there were many things you'd get invited to and you'd go to and somebody would have just a little hundred milliliter. And so I've got this archive of samples I've saved over the years that is in no particular order or everything's labeled, but it was my favorite part about this hobby when I first got into it was just the idea of these little special moments in time. Like, I mean, the look on your friend's face when you pull something out and you're like, 'Hey, do you want to try this?' Yeah. Like, 'What is it?' I was like, 'Sure.' No, but it really... it'll be something, you know, pretty special. And like, 'Yeah, what is it?' I'm like, 'Well, this is the batch from two years ago we were trying to select President's Choice.' Like, 'I do want to try.' Yeah, yeah. It was the origin of that, right? So they're not getting a retail bottle. Oh no. They're getting what? Yeah, yeah, it's been... you know, yeah, it's usually between 125 and 115 proof. Yeah. God, I'm jealous.

Bottled-in-Bond 1897. This was the first 100 proof. So this, you can imagine, like the Bottled-in-Bond Act comes out and like George is already like well ahead of the curve. You know, he's like, 'Look guys, let's be honest. I mean, I'm doing all this plus, you know, all my stuff's bottled, it's only now... same place, it's, you know, you gonna make me change... top it all to 90 proof? I gotta go for my 100 proof too.' I mean, I got a 90 proof up to a 100 proof. And so I don't think he was thrilled with the Bottled-in-Bond. I mean, most people weren't. But you know, here was a guy that was already kind of going the extra mile trying to make sure that the product that he was selling to consumers wasn't going to kill them or make them sick. And now he's got to kind of move all this stuff to... no, get away from that. Sure. So but I mean, good thing for us because the Old Forester Bottled-in-Bond became kind of the flagship brand for many, many years. And it made its way all over Asia and everywhere else. You see it everywhere today. And it's a fun... yeah, even last year I found some old dusty Old Forester from the 90s in a liquor store. They're still out there. You see every once in a while. There's two that are probably the most common, that's the Old Charter ones, you know, with the duck and that, you know. Yeah. But every once in a while I would still find an old bottling of Old Forester. He's funny. My neighbor, we were over at their house before Christmas and they usually get some stuff for my kids and little knickknacks. And she came in one day and she's like, 'I found this in my attic.' Oh Lord. And she pulls... she opens up this box and in the box is a... whatever, like a 500 ml of Old Forester with a prescription on it in the paper box that it came in. That was a prohibition medicinal pint of Old Forester. And you could see the person's name on it. Like, more than five ounces? That seems like a lot. Yeah, funny. So we found a beautiful bottle of ginger brandy from 1914 and opened it at the Whisky Social. It was strictly medicinal. Yeah. Everything on the label was the cure. Reopened. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was to cure diarrhea, to cure colic. Right. And so many diarrhea... probably. Yeah. And the prescription on the glass... the bottle, the label says a wine glass full. Oh yeah. Good. Six to eight ounces of ginger brandy. It was... remember what proof that was? So I don't... I don't. And I'll tell you what, regardless of what the label... I got a picture of it. Yeah. Regardless what the label said, the proof, you know, drops over time. But the liquid was still clear. Really? So the cork immediately just dissolves into nothing. But I did find... I do have a great image of it. Did you taste it? It was delicious. And really delicious. Yeah, I drank it. I served it to a bunch of people too and they didn't get sick, so thank God. Here it is. Yeah. So it's Hartman's, it's hyphenated. Ginger... ena. Scientific compound. Oh. And it's a wine glass full. Let me turn the mic here. See. Oh, there it is. 37% is what the proof is on it. 37... yeah. Back then, I don't think that was their strong suit. No. See, it was delicious. Tastes like Christmas in a glass. That's great. Ginger... ginger was real spicy. Wow. Came through pretty strong. That's cool as hell. But yeah, that's like looks like a bottle that somebody would be selling out the back of their stagecoach. Sure. I'm sure. Oh yeah. But just the dosages for prescription booze back... yeah.

Well, we couldn't. That was... well, actually, 19... we removed... prohibition... 1920... up because we were, you know, it should have been after 1910. Sure. Agree. Right. Agree. But we just moved it up because everybody wanted the high proof things. So... and possibly hot. And we had a good one. And plus we were doing a bunch of repeal day promotions and events that it wouldn't... it'd be nice if we gave some folks something. Sure. Nice product story behind that. So yeah, my initial thought, my initial instinct was like, 'Oh, Statesman should have come before.' But the movie didn't come till after, so it was the whole thing. But yeah, but when this came out and... what I thought... I thought this label was scrapped or something because I did... the cola had been online for a while. He wouldn't talk. Oh yeah, that's right. Dude, I'm telling you, this is... this is the era of information and there's so much you have to protect as a big brand. But still, what is out there, people are like with their mouths open and paying attention. You know, I was like, 'Okay, 1910, let's see what this is about.' This was such a difference... like it almost like a different product altogether. Tell us about 1910 for those who aren't familiar with it. So I... I feel like, you know, everyone's like, 'So what's your favorite? Gamble? Who do you think?' It's like children, you know, you can't have a favorite. But I know I have a favorite. Switches all the time. I tell people all the time, I have three beautiful, awesome, intelligent girls and a son. Yeah. So I would say... so this is to be the most different. It's not my... you know, it is... it certainly got my attention the most these days. Statesman's right up there with... sure, sure. But um, so the... you know, this is another one where back in 1910 we had a fire at the distillery we operate out of today. And they were getting ready to bottle this stuff and they had to whip it off the bottling line, put it back in barrels and get it out of the building. Which it was George and his brother... I was easy at the time, I'm sure. Number four. The power of those two got you guys... aren't even that sure. That... that's... it was in their era. They moved these barrels out. You know, they basically... you know, months pass and they finally get these barrels and they go to bottle it and they... they drink it. It was like, 'This doesn't even taste like Old Forester. We can't call it Old Forester. We're gonna call it Old Fine Whiskey.' Sure. And so there... I've got a picture of that. Some of my... because of the fire, didn't flow... they totally... and plus he put it in a second barrel where it sat for months. Sure. Isn't that double charred? Just had... well, I don't know if there was anything different with the barrel fire, but nonetheless there was something that struck them as it being different enough that they couldn't call it Old Forester. They put it under a second label. And I've got... we've got, you know, my cousin Mac has a bunch of these bottles. He loaned us one for the distillery, so we have one on display there. And so this was our, again, our kind of look back into history. And we've had some success with double barrels at Brown-Forman recently. And so the difference with ours versus a Woodford's is that ours is lightly toasted but charred within an inch of its life. So it's the most heavily charred barrel that was also the most heavily smoky. Yeah. This to me... so that's what was so great about it is my initial instinct was like, 'Well, 1910 should have come first. It's weird that it came second.' But then you taste it and you realize it's a completely different product, a completely different path chosen. I mean, we did an annual gathering... there's the guy that kind of pioneered the buy-the-barrel thing in the early 2000s for the consumer. So for years, restaurants, bars, they had been doing them. But a guy named Randy Blank talked Julian Van Winkle into a barrel of Pappy Van Winkle. Been a good talker. Yeah, yeah. Well, back in 2002, and he wanted stuff that still had Stitzel-Weller in it. So he opted for a lot... they bought the whole barrel. And then you get Doug and... you know, it just kind of grew from that. The most iconic barrels you think of in the collecting world all originally started with this online group, StraightBourbon.com. So anyways, we got together and he pulled out a Willett 17-year that was originally distilled at Brown-Forman. And but it didn't quite taste... it was like that off-profile experiment. And so they sold it to whoever they sold to, a broker, and then got to Willett or whatever the case might be. But it showcases how for so long, for so, so long, everyone had to be safe. We didn't want to... if it's too off-profile, a little nervous. I mean, anybody... was anybody nervous about 1910? Did they think it was too different than Old Forester? And when they thought it was a great... not at all. I mean, I think... yeah, none of that never cropped. I mean, honestly, you wanted it to be different enough because we know how different double-barrel should taste. So the main thing was like, you know, you want to make sure you don't get impatient and pull it out of the second barrel like at six months. Sure. No, you gotta let it sit there until it's good and different. And this has its... I think a nine-month second barrel. Then we, you know, then you proof it down from... I think we go into the second barrel at 100 proof, we proof it down to 93. And so imagine what this would be at full-blown cask strength. That'd be crazy. Isn't that a good idea? Yes. Somebody should do that. Well, I mean, if I don't know that... as it is right now, it tastes... yeah, older. It tastes like the double-barrel influence is crazy. I don't even... can't even imagine what it would taste like at 150. Yeah, you'll wonder though, right? Because like these are blended better, you know, a bunch of barrels. And so there's some art to that, and that in itself can bring around some fullness and character. And you're right, sometimes maybe as a single barrel version of something, that's just like you're setting yourself up for something that's just gonna let you down. I don't know. We... I haven't tried one that's, you know, on its own. But I do want... that's actually, I wouldn't mind kind of digging into that. Yeah, yeah. Because that reminds me... yeah, before we get to our next one, I know we've got a few minutes left. I tell you what, why don't we do this while we are pouring the next one? Yeah. And I'm gonna actually finish this one. I don't want to... okay, I don't want to dump it. This is... so I really, truly love the 1910. I think it's a tremendous offering. But while I'm pouring the 1920, which I think is still one of the best... so everyone's path in life is like, I start off drinking Jack and Coke or some sort of... and right, like an old-fashioned or... then you start drinking with maybe an ice cube. Yeah. Then you start drinking with a little bit of water, a couple drops. Then you move to straight. Then you move up in proof. It's like this path of... of your bourbon journey. This bottle... yes, such a crown jewel in your portfolio. The Old Forester Prohibition is just so good. While I'm pouring, yeah, and answer what you can. Okay. But you guys did a charity pick of this, a single-barrel charity, right? By a bunch of master distillers. That was good fun. It sounded so fun. Yeah. And yeah, when can we expect a single-barrel 1920? Yeah. Well, I... I mean, I don't... you don't know? It's okay. Okay. I'll bet all that... like, this is what... because I do... I want to... I want to like... I'm the pleaser, you know. I want to make... yeah, we should do that. And so... and then I get myself in trouble. And but I don't... I mean, it's certainly all these, you know, we've had various ideas. Share all of these things. You know, there's... well, I think we're even still just scratching at the surface a little bit on some of these iterations. And you can do some fun things. Well, I would say that I think you're... you guys are making consistently fantastic decisions. And it sounds like Jackie has had a hand in that. I would... I would love to see... this is what I would love to see. Yeah. As a bourbon fan, take a note, write it down. I would love to see the 115 added to the... because here's the thing. Okay. As a whiskey club or as a store, I would want to hit the trifecta. I would want the standard single barrel, I'd want the 115 pick, and I'd want... okay, so you're saying you go... you go for a three single buy? I would love it. All right. So right, the genius idea of sales is that why sell it by the bar? The genius idea behind bars is they're selling it by the glass, but they're selling it by so many people so fast. The genius idea for stores, we're selling it by the bottle. Mm-hmm. Distillers have caught up and thought, why don't we sell it by the barrel? Right. Right. So you're selling it by the case. I, as a consumer, would want the standard Old Forester single barrel program. I would love a 115 single barrel program. And of course, I don't know how limited this new one that Jackie announced is, but it would... the cask strength. Oh yeah, yeah, the cask strength, the blue label. I would... I would want... I would want the trifecta. Yeah. To see it at different stages. There's a distillery in Denison called Ironroot. I... I don't know where this idea came from, but they had an idea. And it's something that would be too much of a headache for the bigger guys, but their idea was to sell it... sell half the barrel, bottle half the barrel, right, then wait six months and bottle the other half. So people could taste the different... the same liquid, right, they just had six more months aged. Yeah. So in my mind, I'm thinking, yeah, I would rather have more options of single barrel offering programs so that people... I mean, us personally, this past year, I know we're running out of time, I bought a standard proof Jack Daniel's barrel and two barrel-proof barrels and a rye barrel. Wow. So when that... when that next one comes out, if you got... if Brown-Forman does a barrel-proof rye, I want all four. Right. You know, I mean, yeah. So talk to us about the 1920. I know we're running out of time. And I mean, that's basically the prohibition style. So this would have been kind of the barrel proof, I think, of that era if you're able to get your hands on one. And so this has been the most highly reviewed of the Whiskey Row products. Probably the most well-known. As certainly... I mean, it's the... it's the one that's put this on the map. And so it, you know, it's delicious. It's very smooth for 115 proof. And you know, I think it's just some of the... it's got all its... the best complexities of Old Forester kind of in that... in that addition. Sure. I'd say sure. I don't think... I'm curious if when something goes as well as 1910 has gone or as 1920 has gone, and when things go this well, how it influences future ideas. I'm curious.

Well, I think... I think you've already struck on it, right? Like, there's... you know, we look at proof a little bit more with interest. You know, I think this idea of allowing people to experiment on their own is a real thing. And so you'll tend to see more higher proof offerings for a period of time. I think, you know, breaking down the complexities of blended products through single barrel offerings is a fun way for people to explore a brand. And so, you know, you've touched on that. And doing that with some single barrels is something that I think is of interest. And that's why we're doing that unfiltered and the barrel-proof version. We've had a 90 proof, we'll have a 100 proof now. So it's just again, like trying to listen intently on what people are looking for and what's motivating them about the category and about Old Forester in particular. And seeing if we can do a version of that that we can do well and make it available. And hopefully it's something that people will, you know, warm to. And we've been very successful with the Whiskey Row. And so that's given us some confidence, I think, to play around. Now we got this distillery and what can we do out of there? And so I think we'll continue to kind of have fun with the trademark and stay around the traditions of the brand and the traditions of the category.

No, it's... it's only been in there a couple of years. 15? Yeah. The oldest barrel that's been produced there is... it's just over, a little over, almost coming on two years now. And so it's not gonna be for, I'd say, at least another four years. I think we want that to really rest. I think the conditions in which those barrels are sitting are different from what they sit in Shively, where these are not heat-cycled warehouses. This is a constant temperature and it's an... and heating temperature, which is unlike what you would find in Shively, where, you know, it can be very, very cold or very, very warm and we can manipulate that. We can't do that here. So, you know, there's some other things that are, you know, that are going to allow us to play around with the product that's in those barrels. And so, you know, right now we're really pleased where it is, but it's so early. You know, I think we tasted... I tasted it about four months ago and, you know, I'll get a chance to sit down with those folks again and taste it in probably another six or seven months and see how it's done. But we're in no rush really until it's ready. Sure. And when it's ready, it's ready. Yeah, yeah.